Okay, this is probably not the best time to write this but if I don't do it now, it probably won't get done for awhile. The past few days have been a little crazy around here as we're replacing the windows in our house and at the same time packing to go away for a week to visit the fam in NJ.
However, we did just enjoy a family picnic at Idlewild Park in Ligonier, PA over the weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the park, it's a smallish amusement parks that is really great for families. They have StoryBook Forest, a great kiddie land and even a nice-sized water park. I've been going there for as long as I can remember and worked there as an artist when I was in college. I realized coming into the park, this was the first time I can remember ever paying myself and driving myself into the main entrance of the park (when I worked there, we went through a special employee entrance). It was very weird.
We went there Sunday morning with my mom and step-dad and lots of other family from her side. We got a pavilion near a little playground area so that Caleb could play and set up tons of food. Then Andy and I took the kids to walk through StoryBook Forest. This was fun but a little overwhelming for Caleb. It seems that while he loves people dressed up in Elmo suits and Wildcat suits, he does not like people dressed up in more realistic costumes- raggedy Ann, Goldilocks, even the Little Old Lady in the Shoe. He was very shy around all of them. Everything else, he seemed to like. His favorite spot was Gipetto's Workshop from Pinnochio. It was just a little one-room cottage, that had a workbench set up with toys, but Caleb kept going back to look inside. It was fun to walk through and neat to scope out the artist stand that I used to work at.
After that we went back to eat lunch before venturing out to ride rides. Caleb enjoyed tiring out Andy and "uncle" Chris (Jackie's boyfriend) at the playground and getting filthy in the process. Sadie was the little doll baby who was passed around from aunt to cousin to aunt and she was so happy but so sleepy. There wasn't really a place for napping but Andy managed to get her to sleep for a little while in her stroller while we enjoyed some really delicious picnic food.
When the eating was done, we saw that we had a very tired toddler on our hands but no place for him to rest so we decided to just plow through and get him on rides to see if he would get a second wind. I should probably mention that he was running on little sleep after being up a good bit of Saturday night (we're not really sure why). Caleb went off with Jackie and Chris and Andy and the rest of the family followed shortly behind. I stayed and fed Sadie before taking her over to the kiddie rides. Caleb loved the rides and was even very patient standing in line waiting for his turn. He rode on motorcycles, cars, dinosaurs and boats. He rode special hand-crank carts with Andy. His favorite ride of all was the Doodlebug- a little bus that goes round in a circle. We didn't get to make it through the Mr. Rogers trolley because the line was too long for our tired little boy so we walked back over to the main park. Sadie enjoyed ice cream with Aunt Jackie- she tried pulling herself out of her seat to get bites. Caleb rode the carousel with G'ma Susie. Later I took Sadie on the carousel and she seemed to like that a lot. Kept trying to eat the reins though. The carousel had very strange music, if you ask me. I'm not used to hearing Johnny Cash songs being played on the carousel organ but that's just me :-)
After all of this, Caleb was fading fast so we decided to head back to the picnic area and pack up but not before one more stop so Caleb could have some ice cream. We got back and had time for some quick family pictures before heading back home.
The kids passed out and slept almost the whole ways into Pittsburgh and even after we got home, they were very happy to go to bed. Not a bad day for our first family trip to Idlewild.
I just thought I would take some time to update you all on how Caleb and Sadie are doing...
Sadie
Sadie is 8 and 1/2 months and is very mobile. She belly crawls where she wants to go (usually wherever Caleb is). She loves pulling up to standing and is getting the hang of that quickly. She's starting to cruise a little but seems more cautious about that. It's funny...it's almost like she watched us all standing and thought "hey, I want to do that." So she did it and now she doesn't quite know what to do next.
She has also started clapping her hands and will do that if you clap and say "yeah" to her. She never tried patting her knees like Caleb used to do. Guess we'll never know where he picked that up.
Sadie loves blowing raspberries and that's often the response we get when we try talking to her. She also has been enjoying squealing a lot. It can get pretty noisy in the house with Caleb shrieking and Sadie squealing.
We'll be visiting the doctors in a couple of weeks for her 9 mos checkup. I'm curious to see how much weight she's gained. We think she's around 15 lbs and all the chub has gone to her legs.
Caleb
Caleb has almost mastered going up the stairs standing up all by himself and does that quite a bit. He loves the freedom we've given him of letting him go up and play in his room on his own. This morning, for the first time, he even went down the stairs, standing up, carrying a book, by himself. I didn't want to stop him because he's so cautious I figured that he wouldn't attempt it if he thought he couldn't do it.
Caleb's very good at puzzles and enjoys figuring them out and even making new challenges for himself. The other day, he was putting together his shape puzzle and decided that he would make it more interesting by trying out the pieces in the other spots, saying "no" when they don't fit and saying "yeah" and clapping when they do fit. He knew where the pieces went, just wanted to make it more interesting.
He loves his cars and trains and trucks and loves driving them all over, upstairs and downstairs. We also started a new coloring game. Caleb hasn't been to interested in drawing and seems to like just making dots when we do get out the crayons. This morning, I got out his big drawing tablet and he started handing me crayons. So I started drawing different things (animals, buses, cars). He loved it, so I started asking him to hand me specific colors. He was pretty good at that- He seems to know red, blue, green and was able to find black.
Talking-
We're still not saying a lot but there are new words and phrases and sounds that appear. Here's the latest list of things he can say.
eow- meow, cat (says for the sound and when he sees cats) wwf- woof, dog (same for dogs) da- quack, duck mmm- moo, cow - also when eating, yum nay- horse baa- sheep maa- goat who- owl sss- spider, sleeping or snake nnn- pig (that's the closest he can get to oink)
down uh-oh- any kind of accidents uh-oh boom- when someone/thing falls who is that?- who is that, what is that ahs a wff- that's a dog (he says this a lot when the neighbors puppy is outside)
that's all I can think of right now. He still does a lot of babbling and he understands so much. He seems to get more frustrated when you try to get him to imitate sounds almost like you're reminding him that he can't do it so we haven't been pushing him too much. He hears us and understands us and most of the time, listens to us when we ask him to do things so I'm sure the talking will come in his own time.
**************************************************************************************************************** Now- as for Andy and I, Andy has fully recovered from his back surgery and is doing fine researching important things at CMU. I have recently been diagnosed as having celiac (like my brother) so we're adjusting to a new diet absent of gluten for me. Fortunately we're used to making the adjustments for my brother so it hasn't been that difficult of a transition. However, I am missing pierogies, Jioio's pizza and gnocchi but at least it's not a chocolate allergy.
This weekend we were up at camp to celebrate Claire's 1st birthday party. The party was at a park in Lock Haven, PA on Saturday. Andy and I packed up the kids and drove up to camp Friday night. This trip up was better than the last trip over Memorial Day. There were no incidents of motion sickness and no road kill and no rain. We had the rainstorm just before leaving on Friday. We had just got the car packed up and were going to round up the kids when it started pouring buckets and then there was the hail. Andy thought it was something to see ice falling from the sky in mid-July.
It was late when we got to camp (just after 9) and Sadie was ready for bed. Her second front tooth on the bottom seems to be coming in and causing her some pain. Caleb on the other hand was ready to go after being cooped up in the car for so long. He was awake the entire trip! He would get quiet and we would think that he was asleep, then you would hear "whoa, da-da, oooh, whoa" (that's the best translation that I can come up with) We have no idea what he was saying but he was happy.
Since it was so late, we just decided to get the kids into bed and then wait for Jason and Lindsay to get there. Both of the munchkins went down fairly easy and slept good through the night.
We got up around 7:30 Saturday morning and worked on getting ready to go to the party. Most of the time was spent trying to convince Caleb to wear pants. I don't know where this all came from but he was not happy with the idea of wearing any pants Saturday or Sunday. We did get him dressed and got Sadie dressed and they were able to play a bit before we had to get into the car to drive to the party.
The party was at a nice little park in Lock Haven. There was plenty of room to run around and a playground nearby. There was also a lake or river (not sure which it was) with lots of boats and jet skis to watch. That became the distraction when Caleb would get upset with anything at the party. There were two other little kids there that were friends of Sean and Emily...2 1/2 yr old Olivia and 4 yr old Gavin (I think). They spent a lot of time kicking the soccer ball around with Jason. Olivia seemed to really like Caleb and kept trying to give him hugs. He, of course, would try and run away from her. Sadie had fun being passed around to all the different people who wanted to hold her. She didn't even get strange since there were many people that she didn't know.
Claire was very cute in her little party dressed and was fun to watch eating her birthday cake. She definitely ate more cake than Caleb did at his first party. Then we watched the presents. Caleb and Olivia were both interested in testing out the new toys for her. Caleb got frustrated though, when her new puppy (same as one he has) wouldn't play the songs just right because it was set on demo mode. We had to hide the puppy and later he got very upset when he saw it being packed away in the car to go home to Claire's house.
Andy and I left the party while everyone else helped to clean up. Both Sadie and Caleb were exhausted and we thought we might be able to get them to nap a little before my parents got home. They each slept on the way home but were both awake when we got back to camp and weren't interested in napping. They had lots of fun playing with g'ma and g'pa Mattock when they got back to camp and Andy and I were able to throw the frisbee around for a bit ourselves.
Saturday night was a bit more difficult. Caleb came down with a really bad stomach ache and there didn't seem to be anything that we could do to comfort him. He refused to drink anything and seemed to want to sleep but just couldn't go down. We thought he was asleep around 10 but then he woke up crying again. G'ma took him out on the porch for a bit and rocked him to sleep. Andy and I got ready for bed thinking that one of us was going to have to stay up all night with him. He woke up when we carried him back into the house so I thought we might try having him sleep in bed with us- mostly to keep him from keeping everyone else awake all night. We settled down to sleep at about 11. Caleb laid down between Andy and I and seemed happy to relax and suck his thumb. That lasted all off about 10 minutes. Then he was unhappy with the blankets, so we had to take the comforter off and just have the sheet. Then he didn't like Andy's pillow, so Andy had to move that away from him. Things settled down again. Then he started talking, just babbling away like nothing was ever wrong. Finally, he sat up to talk to us- and I said, that's it and took him up to his bed. He went down without any fuss and slept 'til morning. When I got back into bed, Andy and I just laughed at the whole thing.
Sunday morning, we got up and played some more. G'pa, Andy and I took Caleb to a nearby playground to play a bit. Caleb liked getting to ride in G'pa's new big truck. The playground was tough though. The jungle gym was hard for him to walk on and he was a little afraid of the slide but he still had fun walking and watching the campers and people fishing in the creek. After that, we came back and waited for Sadie to wake up from her nap so that we could pack up and get on the road.
It was a little after 1 when we left and Caleb quickly fell asleep and slept almost the entire way home. The boy was thoroughly worn out from the weekend but we all had lots of fun.
We had a really great time on the 4th of July. We spent the day out in Latrobe starting first thing in the morning with the parade through downtown. G'ma and G'pa Bush helped us get great seats up front so we could see all the trucks and bands and floats. We also happened to be sitting next to one of the local firetrucks parked on the street. Caleb loved that. He kept pointing to it, saying "ooh, wow." We spread out our blankets and set up our chairs and waited for the parade to start. Sadie had a nice little nap on the way out so she was very happy and excited to see everything. Caleb read stories with G'ma and I was able to look around at all the people. I always find it weird being back in Latrobe, I'm curious to see if I recognize anyone from growing up but at the same time there really aren't that many people from growing up that I would want to see. Anyways, the fire whistle blew letting us know that the parade was about to begin. Caleb quickly put the books away and watched up the street. Then came the police cars and then the veterans marching. Then a band and more firetrucks. Caleb pointed and clapped and watched it all go by. Sadie squealed and bounced for much of the parade. After 2 hours, I really couldn't have asked for the kids to be happier or more content. They were both very tired but still had a good time. Caleb loved the firetrucks, the marching bands (even though there weren't many of them) and the puppy dogs and ponies that were in the parade. He saw cousin Heather marching with Derry's band and he caught some candy that was thrown to him but didn't really know what to do with it. He just did it because he saw the other kids doing it. He also got a hug from the Latrobe Wildcat mascot and shook a clown's hand. Sadie liked the marching bands and the majorettes and practiced clapping for all of them. She also seemed to make friends with another little baby girl sitting next to us.
After the parade, we went back to G'ma and G'pa's for a little picnic and some swimming but the little ones were worn out so they went down for naps. We were hoping to get into the pool but it just wasn't quite warm enough and kept threatening rain so we played with some new trucks that G'pa had got for Caleb.
Later that evening, G'ma agreed to watch Sadie so that Andy and I could take Caleb down into town for the fireworks. We left at about 7 and managed to get a great parking spot down in Legion Keener. We walked around the midway and then Caleb saw the rides set up. He rode on the dragons and these little rocket ships and had a blast. I couldn't believe it, this kid who won't go with anyone he doesn't know and gets shy around people he doesn't know well, went right to the ride operator without even a second look at Andy or I. We finished up at the midway at about 8 and decided to kill time by walking up into town to get some ice cream. Then we were ready to set up to wait for the fireworks to begin. We sat on a nearby softball field with a great view of where the fireworks would be and plenty of room for Caleb to run around. Caleb and Andy played games around the backstop and had lots of fun. When the fireworks started, Caleb came over and sat on my lap. The booms didn't frighten him at all. He just settled back with his thumb and his hair and watched the sky light up. Every now and then he would ooh or babble something and point at the sky. After the show we packed up and quickly made it back to the house. We stayed there that evening and drove back to Pittsburgh the next morning. We all had a really great time.
Andy and I each had a frazzled parent moment this morning that could have been a really big mess.
Andy got Caleb this morning when he woke up and as usual, changed his diaper and brought him downstairs for breakfast. We all had breakfast and after getting my shower, I thought it would be fun to walk Andy to work and take them to the park. I grabbed clothes for each of them and I dressed Caleb while Andy dressed Sadie. We got ready and headed out the door to the park. Caleb played while Sadie rested (she was wanting to nap but there's too much to see at the park). After about 45 minutes, Caleb came over to the stroller and seemed to want to go home so I put him in and we walked home. Sadie fell asleep on the way so I brought her into the house and put her in bed. Caleb got out of his stroller and into the Cozy Coupe and started to ride down the sidewalk. At the end of our walk, he stopped and as I watched him, I noticed water dripping out of the car. I went to see and it looked like his diaper hadn't been fastened right. I picked him up and carried him upstairs to the changing table, took off his pants and discovered no diaper at all.
Yes, it seems that this morning Andy forgot to to put a new diaper on him and then when I dressed him, I didn't notice the missing diaper because I had put on a long shirt that had covered his rear end. Then, I wasn't really paying attention when we pulled up his shorts either because I knew he had just gotten a new diaper. What's crazier is that when Andy got him off the changing table this morning, he fussed like he didn't want to go downstairs and kept pointing to the side of the table where the wipes and powder are but Andy couldn't figure out what he wanted. After a minute or so, Andy was able to get him to go downstairs and didn't think any more about it. Now we're convinced that he new the diaper was missing and just didn't have the words to tell us "silly people, I need a diaper".
The Visit
Grandma Walsh has gone home and it's back to normal- well, as normal as it can be considering the 4th of July is this week. We had lots of fun but it would seem that Caleb started the terrible two's towards the end of the visit. He really had a hard time listening and behaving himself. I had never seen him act the that as much. We're not sure if it was having the extra attention from Grandma or if his molars are still bugging him or what... Yesterday we started joking that it wasn't Caleb misbehaving, it was CJ. CJ was the one biting Daddy in church. CJ was the one throwing tantrums when told it was time to come inside and CJ was the one refusing to eat any of his meals. Then we started joking that Grandma needed to take CJ home with her and leave Caleb with us.
It looks like it has worked. He played nicely at the playground and voluntarily climbed into the stroller when he was ready to go home. At home, he played nicely with the cars and trucks and didn't need any time outs for throwing toys. He very sweetly picked up Sadie's juice cup and put it on her tray after she had thrown it on the floor. And we read 3 stories before going down for nap time and no fussing.
The only problem we've had today has been throwing his cup and dishes on the floor when he's finished with them. If anyone has any suggestions for that one, I would appreciate them. Andy and I have tried a bunch of things and I can't figure out why he does it.
Sadie is getting another tooth on the bottom and has started growling at us. It's so funny- she clenches her fists and growls with this silly grin on her face. Guess she already knows about girl power.
