Preschool cancelled for nonexistent snow

I'm better than you!
No you're not!
I'm better than you!
But you're not 4 or 5!
But I'm 3! And you are not 3!
But you're not 4 or 5 and that's better and you're not 4!
Weeeeep. Waaaaaaaail. MOOOOoooooooooooooan.
Hit! I'm gonna hit you!

Guys. Cut it out.

EVERYTHING EVERYONE SAYS IS HURTING MY FEELINGS!!! I DON'T LIKE ANYONE SAYING ANYTHING!

Fin.

Simon got a haircut!

His very first one, ever. He's going to be 3 in a couple weeks, and I guess I could have waited until then for hyperbolic effect, but it was driving me nuts, and we had a free hour this morning. Isn't it cute? I am very particular about male hair- I absolutely cannot stand facial hair or guys with long hair. It looks awful to me, no idea why. Distractingly bad. So now Simon is all clean cut and boyish.

He's dropping his nap, though, and really not able to handle it. He's started waking up at night again, having night terrors. I know it's because he's tired. He should go to bed earlier, but he can't, not if Claire Helen is still up. She goes and wakes him up to play/boss him around. Don't feel too bad for him. The other day Mat caught him doing the same thing to Penny. Round and round it goes. Hopefully it will work out soon. It's only been a couple weeks.

But hey, Penny is three months old! She rolled over for the first time today.

Go, Penny, go. Poor thing looks exhausted in that picture, doesn't she? She is. She fell asleep about 25 seconds after I finished taking pictures. I always forget to do these things until she is long overdue for a nap, so she is mostly photographed looking like this:

When she is more of a this kind of baby:

You know, happy, kicky, coo-y. She is a very contented child, I think. Not super ecstatic, not very sensitive. I think she's going to be another slow to warm kind of kid, but she doesn't show quite the same disdain for people trying to make her smile Claire Helen did. She'll do it, play along, but it's clear she finds the whole rigamarole a bit ridiculous. "Are you serious? You are going to talk to me like you are on crack, and I am supposed to smile? Ok, but this is pretty weird, dude." So far I've been pretty dead on in my 3 month guesstimates of their personalities, so I may be a bit cocky. We'll see, won't we?

She's just finally started to look more like her own person:

Very basically Claire Helenish, but with some of her own stuff too.

She's a big baby:

But not quite so Baby Of Unusual Size as Claire Helen was

Don't make fun of my sister, mama. But it's true! You have never seen such a big baby as Claire Helen was. An off the charts, extraordinarily, stupendously, voluminously chubby baby. Penny is just big. 90th percentile, and I get a feeling at her next appointment she'll be on Simon's track- 95th percentile for height, 75th or so for weight.

I worry that I am not feeding her enough. I know she's big, but she is acting hungry. She gets one bottle a night as supplement, but Mat is absolutely loathe to give her any more than that until I'm working. We tend to go with the more conservative opinion when we have a difference, so I'm trying to stick it out. I nurse her as often as I can, in an effort to get my supply up. She is super fussy at the boob, and is very likely going to yank it off one of these times. I was with a friend yesterday, who just has one kid, but had a heck of a time getting things started in the nursing department with him. She witnessed Penny's crazy thrashing, and as I was (as usual) whining about nursing, she said in almost a whisper (so the Seattle nursing police don't hear us?) "You don't have to do this, you know. I had such an awful time, and made myself keep going. If I had it to do over again, I would have just quit." But I am not sure I have it in me to quit. I can't quite suck it up and go at it stoically, so I'm going to whine, but I can't yet make the decision to quit. Probably by 6 months. Oh, I hate it so. Well, 3 months down. Even if we go a whole year, we're halfway until we can give her solids, and that should help a lot.

Claire Helen was at preschool, so she doesn't get a pictoral update. But this morning in the car, she said "Mommy, we've been going to a lot of playdates after preschool lately. I think we should try something else." Well ok then. Thanks for being direct. So I'm going to go get some candy boxes (boohoo, so sad, please do not tell me that raisin boxes would work just as well) and do the itty bitty city project from this website: http://lapazfarm.homeschooljournal.net/ Oh she will looooooove it.

Simon and I were walking around in the mall yesterday getting a birthday present for cousin Ella, when we came across some Halloween costumes on super deep discount. Who on earth would wait until this late to think of Halloween costumes?

Me! My craftier friends have been felting and feathering for weeks now, but we are not a crafty people. We do, however, know a bargain when we see it.

Penny is going as: another mouth to feed at the start of a global financial crisis! Booga booga! Scary!

I think they like them, yes?

Penny had apples on her pants, so the kids think she is "Apple," an overly self consciously named celebrity baby. She does not think that is very funny.

Land shark!

I love these next two pictures of Claire Helen:

Simon was instructed to "show us your tough shark face." Ooooh! Scary!

We went to a Halloween party at the community center, and I felt bad about the dearth of Penny pictures.

Unfortunately I felt bad about it under fluorescent lights. She's not really green. Sorry kiddo.

The party was manned by college students, and I think the college students came up with the games. One of the stations was "manicure."

If Claire Helen gets her nails painted, Simon gets his nails painted. Pink, to match his crocs. My son has now had one more manicure than his mother has in her entire life.

The end.

Penny is one month!

And one day, but yesterday we were hiking and barbecuing, so she'll excuse our lateness.

She was not into the whole baby model thing, so these aren't especially good pictures.

Even pissed off she's pretty cute, though, right?

At one month she is very mellow (though starting to get a little bit of a witching hour at night- gearing up for the 6 week fussies), eats well, sleeps well. Can smile at you, but does not bestow that honor on just anyone for any old thing. Another Skeptical Harrington Baby.

We have more grandparents coming in tomorrow, and we mean to try to get her to meet the extended Seattle cousins, maybe this weekend, but we sort of forgot to mention that to any of them. Are any of you reading? Up for pizza this weekend?

We have a sleeper!
Let us all commence the Serbian Trumpet Dance of Joy. They have one, you know. And a whole festival devoted to trumpets. It's on Youtube. It's Simon's favorite show.
Penny sleeps! I've never experienced having a newborn around who sleeps. Gee, they are cute when you are not hallucinating bugs crawling on your skin from the sleep deprivation. I doubt it will last, but for now it's made the transition from 2 to 3 so much smoother than I could have imagined. I was thinking it would be pretty easy, too, so that's saying something. But sleep and the fact that the age gap is so much bigger means that despite
1) Simon flooding the upstairs bathroom the night we got home from the hospital, raining water and plaster down on the downstairs bathroom and ruining the upstairs one(Oh well, we meant to remodel that one anyway)
2) Mat getting a stomach virus 5 days in
3) Claire Helen getting that same stomach virus 3 days later
4) a not super fast physical recovery
5) Penny having trouble with the whole weight gain concept
6) Mat returning to work instantaneously
this is still a whole heck of a lot easier than the transition from 1 to 2. Hour to hour I'd say it's at least easier than when I was pregnant and we were a man down, and quite a bit more fun for me personally. Yay! I remember Simon as an infant very fondly, but I do not remember that time period with a lot of fondness.


Penny, doing what she does best. She also smiles and laughs in her sleep, and looks about somewhat skeptically when awake. She is transfixed by the slats on our bed and the baby on the side of the wipes box, whenever either of those are in view. She doesn't really cry, so far. We were at a thrift store looking for school supplies yesterday, and she let out a yell while Mat was holding her. I had to look around and ask if that was ours, because I don't really recognize that sound coming from her.

Looks just like Claire Helen, only blonde. Well, blonde shortly after a bath. A few days later I tend to second guess myself, but then we bathe her again, and under the preschooler-head-touching-grime the hair is, indeed blonde.

Oh, it's so tiring being a baby model.

Also, we have other children.

Donut shop run after our first successful venture out (the pediatrician's office).

At the donut shop, Penny...slept.



We like Penny!

Preschool starts up again next week. Claire Helen is just really excited to get back to her friends and the fun stuff they do there. Simon is maybe a little more nervous; let's all wish him luck.

Penny, days 2 through 4