It was a rough week in our household what with Dylan getting sick and Cameron continuing to recuperate from pink eye while trying to pop a couple of molars and a couple of teeth through (the teething is still in-progress!). It started on Monday! Tom and I carpooled to work and were abruptly called back to Santa Cruz early because of Dylan’s fever.
It was Valentine’s Day and Dylan wanted pho for dinner, so we ordered Thai House for pick-up and dined in, surrounded by beautiful Valentines Day flowers (mine) and roses (Tom’s)–luckily, earlier in the day, Tom and I had a chance to meet up for a mid-work-day lunch together (kind of a nice VDay celebration in the midst of madness).
For the rest of the week, I got to take care of the kids (excepting Wednesday when I worked from home and Tom brought the kids over to Harbor Beach for lunch where we had a lovely view of waves crashing mightily amidst heavy rain showers! We’re so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Even in bad weather, the beach is amazing).
Since both kids were feeling a bit under the weather and we could not go anywhere (partly weather-related and partly because we didn’t want to spread germs), it was a challenging week! There’s nothing like spending an entire week with kids at their fussiest to remind one of how rewarding (and exhausting) full-time parenting can be!
I loved making batches of home-made playdoh with them and playing restaurant, letting them spend time in our jacuzzi bath making tons of foam (a new favorite word for Cameron) and giving the kids some “steam therapy” for their congestion, eating lunch together and, most especially, seeing them grow and develop.
Cameron is talking and singing up a storm. Her new favorite songs to sing include “Tumbalalaika” and “Wheels on the Bus.” Cameron now loves reading the Humpty Dumpty rhyme (requested by “humdumpty humdumpty”) and her Babybug magazines, and she can even recite parts of Green Eggs and Ham (“not like them Sam I am”). She also requests to see Ba-bow (“Blues Clues”) and “Cat Hat.”
It was especially gratifying to spend so much time with her because her speech is, obviously, not always clear. So much of what she says is contextual, one really has to be with her, reading books with her, singing songs together, playing and drawing, etc. to really get what she’s talking about.
Then, there’s Dylan….he is starting to read. It seems the “Bonnie and Chester” stories from his Big Backyard magazine are very interesting to him as are the Dr. Seuss books. He’s more reluctant to “read” when he’s tired (and we don’t force the issue), but when he’s awake, he has moments where he actively wants to search a page for the words he knows and he is eager to read together–it was great to be able to spend “unfatigued” day time hours doing this with him. And he has a tireless imagination. We spent hours building grand structures out of blocks and “the coolest” Tinkertoy trains accompanied by (seriously) non-stop chatter and commentary and direction (yes, he bossed me around!).
Common topics these days are ghosts (they have a sleep schedule, you know; bad ones are asleep during the day); vampires (?!??); and writing Chinese characters in Mexico (an amalgam of his best buddies–Taliana is learning to write Chinese characters and Finley spends a lot of vacation time in Mexico!).
The tougher moments were when both kids wanted to be cuddled and held and were in competition for the lap spot (pretty constant throughout the week, actually) and heading out to the store (tonight) to relieve some serious cabin fever (Cameron’s more than Dylan’s) and having Cameron tear down the aisle at top speed while poor Dylan was anxious he’d lose sight of us and I was anxious I’d lose sight of one or the other! Thank goodness Tom came to the rescue! Cameron also likes throwing things around — pens, food, what have you. The minute you take your eyes off her to attend to Dylan, a big mess ensues! When she’s full, she dumps her bowl upside down. In the meantime, meal negotiations are unavoidable with Dylan!
Then, of course, Dylan always needs to take a poop when Cameron is nursing!!
Both kids (and Tom) are now all asleep after ending this drippy week (rainy and snotty!) with a nice dinner with Lola and Grandpa who are in town(!) for the night for a Todd Snider show! I am hoping both kids will be back to 100% by Sunday but, if not, I’ll be glad Monday is a holiday and we’ll have an extra day to give them some TLC.
