Cold Spaghetti

Abeona House passed it latest round of inspections and it looks like we may have an open school sometime in September (!)

The website is also up; just finished by a parent who is about 10 months pregnant. Paul and Will are each in a picture on the front page (I was behind the camera for several of the shots). You can also read an article about Abeona in “Parents Action” linked from the home page. Being a part of this effort — driven by such inspirational and dedicated people — has made me so happy to live in New Orleans.

Will on hunger: “Mommy, my tummy very empty. Nothing in it at all.”
Will on Baby Kate: “She’s our super-pooper.”
Will on why the breastpump isn’t filling when he uses it: “I putting it in the wrong place.”
Will on going to the bathroom, announced during dinner at the Dew Drop Inn: “I tinkling.”
You can see these pictures and more — some incredibly funny as I encouraged Will to “smile” — at our Shutterfly Collection (www.coldspaghetti.shutterfly.com). Registration required for purchases only.

Last Friday was another date for Will and Aya (and tag-a-long Baby Kate) at the Louisiana Children’s Museum. Part of the Dr. Seuss exhibit: hanging on a beam with Circus McGurkus. A camera captures your pose and displays it on a screen above where you appear as if you’re really hanging in air.
Will drives the streetcar.
More Circus McGurkus.
Would you, could you, on a train?

Will teaches Aya pinball. He showed her how to work the flipper — he worked the right side, she the left.

Bob the Builder legos!

Snack time: watermelon, goldfish, blueberries!

And where was Kate? Watching them with rapt attention. All in all, it was not particularly difficult watching 2 2-year olds plus an infant… although it is definitely much, much easier when all the kids are the same age. Two words: “Constant Alert!”

Pirate Captain Will, complete with skeleton band-aids.

My kids wear things with phrases like, “Little Angel,” “Sweet Boy,” and “Cutie Pie.” While those may be based on truth, so are phrases like “Up All Night.”

With that in mind, I’m thinking of a craft project for truth in kid advertising. T-shirts that display all aspects of having kids. Some examples:
“Driving Mom to Drink”
“Pulls poop from diaper”
“Spits like a champ”
“10 dirty diapers daily”
“Not ‘using my words'”
“Sleep all day, party all night”
“Bites while nursing”
“Eats bogeys”

Where: Wherever Kate happens to be
When: 11pm-4am
What: Dance, dance, dance, sing, and dance some more!

Kate turned into ultra rock star last night. Perfectly happy, unwilling to sleep, and ready to wake up everyone in her presence to join in on the fun. Paul moved to the couch, lucky guy. I got her to zonk in her cradle swing but couldn’t fall asleep to the creaking of the chair — it was a long night for Mom. She is completely zonked now. I’m pretty certain that I could blow a bullhorn beside her head and she would simply roll to her side.

Caffeine, anyone?

New obsession: foam stickers. We found some on clearance ($2.39!) and Will has been having a blast with them… one set is flowers and the other… dinosaurs! He has a very slight lisp when he says “dinosaurs” (“dinosaurthsss!!”) which makes it even more fun to do these crafts with him. He gives each dino a name and roars while placing them on the page. Quite the man. Although for me, it’s the Superman shades that make it.

She rolled over, back to front, on purpose. I put her face up on her playmat while making Will lunch. Moments later, Paul came in to find her happily talking away to the girafe on the mat, bobbing away on her belly. Go Kate!

Two new and exciting events have been unfolding in our household.

1. Kate is taking showers.
2. Kate is sleeping in her crib.

Yes, I bring our 15 week old baby into the shower. Showering is getting to be a full group experience: me, Will, Kate, and Butch, the 3-inch tall driver of Will’s dump truck. The four of us just rock out in the little hall bath. Will plays at my feet and generally tries to be helpful as I lather Kate into a slippery noodle and then hand her off to Paul for dressing. Scared yet? It’s not a big deal in our book. Of course, we also put her to sleep on the soft bedding of our bed, have stuffed toys in her crib, allow her to sleep on her tummy, and give her matches for teething.

Kate is not sleeping in her crib through the night; I don’t imagine that this will happen until she’s over a year old. We’ve been trying to introduce the concept of sleeping in the crib over the past few weeks and now she is starting the night there, going to bed around the same time as Will. She joins us by 1am. Last night she announced her readiness to get in the big bed by pooping all over her crib. I guess we deserved this by sticking with the size 2 Baby Dry diapers; we really should switch if we want to be leak-free.

An informal survey of some Abeona families shows that everyone is using the real words. In fact, I have yet to find anyone who isn’t.

We are all now regularly using “penis” when Will uses the potty. (He is “tinkling” in the potty a few times a day.) There has been no real opportunity to discuss how Mommy is different from Daddy. The closest we’ve come to discussing genitals, babies, or anything else of that nature is when he checks out my Cesarean scar and I explain that he and Baby Kate came out of me in that spot. Future goals: figuring out how and when to work in the issues relating to privacy and good-touch/bad-touch.