Kai?

Audrey's FAVORITE show is "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan". Right now we have 14 episodes on our DVR, a doll, two books, a coloring book, and a lego style play set. She gets to watch an episode whenever mommy needs a break. Lately she's been watching it a bit too much :-)

It's actually a pretty good kid's show on Nick Jr.. Chris started her on it because of his interest in Asian cultures. Kai-Lan teaches a few words in Mandarin in each episode. The title, "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" means "Hi, Kai-Lan". Now it's the only cartoon she wants to watch and she gets so excited when she gets to see it. She waves and says "ni hao" back to Kai-Lan when the show starts, roars with Rintoo the tiger, helps tickle Mr. Sun, repeats the words in Mandarin when Kai-Lan instructs her to do so, and does a special dance and says "bye" during the closing credits. She even kisses Kai-Lan in her coloring book.

This evening I just turned on one of my shows and she came running up asking to watch Kai-Lan. I haven't been watching much TV with her around lately because I know that she's going to be bugging me the whole time. But today was different...

Audrey: Kai?

Me: No, honey. No Kai.

Audrey: Kai?

Me: I'm sorry, baby. Kai went night night.

Audrey: Kai?

Me: Kai's sleepy. She went to bed. Night night, Kai.

Audrey: Lulu? (another character on the show)

Me: No, she went night night too.

Audrey: Tolee?

Me: No, he went to bed too.

Audrey: Hoho?

Me: He went night night too. They're all tired.

Audrey: Oh.

Meltdown averted! Score: Mommy-1, Audrey-387
Let's see if it works again tomorrow...

PS: If you're wondering about if Audrey's learning any words in Mandarin, Chris likes to say her Mandarin is about as good as her English.

Get it? That's Chris's humor for you. Hardy har har.

LEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Audrey really packs the food away. For breakfast today she had 8oz of milk, a packet of instant oatmeal, a sausage patty, 2 whole clementine oranges, and she still wanted more to eat! For a late lunch she had a whole corn dog, peas, carrots, grapes, and apple juice. Then she helped daddy eat his Lucky Charms. Afterwards she put her bib back on and chanted "more?, more?, more?". I haven't even thought about dinner yet. Who knows what that will be.

Her favorite thing to eat is fruit. She likes all fruit except apples. I think they're too crunchy for her. I recently got a fruit bowl that has a hook to hang bananas above it. She climbs up on her little tower, points at the bowl, and screams "LEE!". She actually gets hysterical about it. I finally figured out what she was talking about. This is how the conversation went...

Audrey: LEE!
Me: What's a lee?
Audrey: LEEEEEEEEE!
Me: Orange?
Audrey: no. LEE!
Me: Pear?
Audrey: no. LEE!
Me: banana?
Audrey: yeah
Me: Really? Banana?
Audrey: yeah. LEEEEEEEE!
(I give her the lee, she eats the whole thing and asks for more.)

Days later after repeatedly trying to get her to say the word banana, I found out why she calls a banana a "lee". We were reading one of her picture books to practice words. It has a picture on each page. We get to the page with the banana and she says "lee". The opposite page has a leaf and again she says "lee". Mystery solved! For some crazy reason she thinks bananas and leaves are both called "lee". But in another book she calls the leaf a flower. Go figure.

Now that I'm reading this it doesn't sound very newsworthy, but it really was funny!

Paternity Leave is Over

Today marks the start of my 3rd full week back at work (boo!). I thought I'd post a wrap-up of what I did during my 4-week paternity leave, besides lament it's end.

As expected, I ended up spending most of my paternity leave with Audrey rather than Ethan. Getting Audrey out of the house was nice because it left Amber to deal with only one kid (easy street!!). It turns out that "divide and conquer" applies as well to parenting as it does to military strategy. Since Amber is nursing, deciding which kid went with which parent was a no brainer. This arrangement was nice because it also let me bond with Audrey doing the things I usually don't get to see, since I'm at work all day. I think this also helped Audrey adjust to having competition around the house.

During the leave, Audrey and I:

• went to Gymboree fairly regularly. Audrey likes climbing on the equipment, but totally ignores the teacher and participates in group play only on a whim. Nevertheless she seems to have a good time.
  
  
• went to the library for toddler story time. We also caught two "guest speakers"--a class of Kindermusic, and a puppeteer.
  
  
• went to the Austin Children's Museum with Grandma Wood. Here she is playing drums:
  
  
  
  Audrey liked the fish tank. I'm not sure if she'd ever seen one before. Maybe she had, but didn't pay attention the first time :)
  
  
  
  
• went shopping a lot. Sometimes it's nice just to get out of the house. Audrey helped pick out some collectable 2010-edition baseball cards for Ethan. Audrey enjoys the personal pan pizzas they have at the cafe inside Target. That's a nice segue into the next item:
  
  
• started jogging together in the evenings. I bought a jogging stroller so Audrey comes with me. She's only had a meltdown while jogging once, and man it sure was a long jog home :)
  
  
• played outside a bit. That is, before the mosquitos got bad. Lately the backyard is off-limits. Daddy would play his trumpet while Audrey plays with her pirate ship water table.
  
  
• ate donuts. Occasionally after Gymboree or the library we'd stop by our neighborhood Thai Donuts. Audrey likes ham-and-cheese kolaches and loves donut holes. Audrey also helped me deliver 2 dozen donuts to the Hospital after Ethan was discharged.

Some other stuff we did over the vacation:

• did a newborn photo shoot with Ethan and Audrey. Aunt Naomi really went the distance with this one and it seems like we spent all day at her studio taking pictures. I don't know how she got such great shots with Audrey being uncooperative and Ethan having constant 'accidents' :)
  
  
• made casts of Ethan. This was a production this time :) We did two hands, two feet, and a butt. Mommy loves the butt. Daddy feels guilty.
  
  
  
  
  
• bought a new laptop. Audrey and Mommy teamed up to break the DVD drive in the old laptop. Since it was getting old and cantankerous anyway, we decided to buy a new one. We ended up with a Toshiba Satellite.
  
  
• did some spring cleaning. Momma and Papa both dug through their closets and got rid of a bunch of old clothes. Papa threw out 4 garbage bags just by himself.

I think that's about it.

Ethan's first 7 weeks

Ethan's first bath

Audrey loves to hold her baby brother

Whenever someone goes into the bathroom she has to spy on them!

If Audrey is ever bored, all I have to do is lay Ethan down on a blanket. She loves to lay next to him, get as close as possible, and laugh her head off.

Our king size bed is Audrey's favorite place to be. It's my fault...when I was pregnant and exhausted I would bring her into bed with me in the morning. She would watch cartoons and I'd snooze a little (or a lot!) longer.

The Wonder Pets!

Chris's coworker, Mary, crocheted this blanket for Ethan. A week later she made a little matching one for Audrey too!

4th of July

Chris decided to experiment and get real sushi (rice with something on it, not always raw) and sashimi (straight up raw fish) one day when we ordered takeout. I stuck with the "americanized" dishes, but also got a couple pieces of raw sushi. It was better than I thought it would be, but not something I'm likely to get again. I'll stick with the rolls...yummmmm.

This is a block we ordered for Ethan from Personal Creations. Audrey has one too.

Audrey and her Baby Doll

This is the baby doll I got Audrey for her first birthday, knowing that she was going to be a big sister. In the last few months she's grown really attached to her, even more so since Ethan was born.

Always support the neck!

The Learning Tower

We got this thing called the Learning Tower last week and we looooovvvveeee it. Audrey can climb in and out of it by herself so she can get up high and the platform is adjustable. It's a nice safe way for kids to be a part of the action. We've only had it for a few days, but she spends a few hours every day in it.
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Partners-Learning-Tower-Natural/dp/B001ECHXVC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1278879854&sr=8-1

Here she is holding a pencil. She likes to climb up there and color. I like it because she's far from walls and other things she thinks need a little color on them.

Helping mama make muffins.

Audrey says...Muffins are boring!

Eating breakfast

Helping mama give Ethan a bath. She was supposed to wash his feet, but kept going to the you-know-what instead.

I've also liked having it because while she's up there messing around I can unload the dishwasher and open a hot oven door without having her in the way. And for the last few months she's been flipping out whenever I would go in there and cook or do something on the counters. She wanted to be picked up so she could see. That was a game I did not want to play and having this has fixed that little tantrum. Yay!

Visitors

My mom came and stayed with us for a week when Ethan was born. It was a huge help having her to take care of Audrey while we were in the hospital and even after we got back home. This little guy took up all of our time those first few days.

Then Chris's mom came for a week and was also invaluable. She and Chris got a chance to get out and do some fun stuff with Audrey while I stayed with Ethan. It was a good transition for us as we learned how to handle both kids.

Then my brother, Eric, and sister-in-law, Lauren, came for a visit. Little did they know they would be stuck reading the same story over and over again.

Chris's parents came back out a few weeks later since Grandpa didn't make it the first time.

The Wood men

While they were here we went out on a date. Woo hoo! Margarita for the mama! I used a Milkscreen test that night and found out my alcohol level was too high and had to dump some milk. (ok, I also had a Mexican Martini). It's a pretty cool little test. http://www.amazon.com/Milkscreen-Home-Detect-Alcohol-Breast/dp/B0018LRDIM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1278879536&sr=8-1

Ethan's homecoming

Finally updating the blog!

This is us coming home from the hospital. We really liked the new hospital. It's only 5 minutes from the house so we get to drive by and reminisce all the time. The staff there was fantastic. It was nice being in a slow hospital where you get so much personal attention.

Ethan's first car ride.

Audrey meeting her baby brother for the first time.

What a stinker! 7 weeks later she still gets regular whoopins for stealing his blanket, but it doesn't slow her down one bit!