Chris rides a bike

Chris rides a bike a video by mandy&john on Flickr.

At Christmas, Chris got a no-pedals bike from my mom. He got so good at balancing and cruising on it that he's moved on to riding a regular bike!

(Alex still attracts the older girls like flies on honey)

Eggs!

This Easter (actually, the Saturday before when we were dying eggs) we let Chris try an egg. We'd been letting him have things with eggs baked in, but we hadn't been brave enough to try egg by itself. He ate the whole thing and had no reaction. After a few more tries we were pretty convinced he's over the allergy.

Since then we've re-introduced eggs into our regular breakfasts. Chris is still tentative (since he was fully aware that he couldn't eat them before). Given a choice he'll opt for the non egg breakfast, but his curiosity usually gets the best of him and he almost always tries the eggs.

Alex, meanwhile, is loving it. This morning, he had three hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Yesterday he had two scrambled eggs. We may have to get our own hens soon...

Udates!

Chris dropped off his Christmas presents for his teachers, including the soap for Miss Lynn, on Thursday. She put him back in the car at pickup and said that she, in fact, did need the soap and that was her favorite brand. She wasn't clear on how Chris knew that.

Not long after I posted Wednesday about the boys in their new beds, Alex was up and inconsolable. He ended up spending the night in our bed. I think the problem was that he was congested and couldn't breathe with his pacifier in his mouth. His nose was clearer last night and he made it through the night in the big bed. He still sleeps with the pacifier though. I'm not going to pick both those fights at once.

First night in their new beds

newBeds
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

The new bunk bed was delivered today. Chris is still too young, so we've set them up as twins for now. The boys spent most of the afternoon wrestling and playing on the beds. One was Santa's sleigh, the other was the science museum. This is a picture of them asleep in their beds. You can't actually see them, but they are in there somewhere.

Soap

soap
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We've been trying to figure out what to give Chris's teacher for Christmas. We couldn't come up with anything, so we asked him. He said, "Soap, to dip things in." This didn't help us at all, so we let him pick it out.

Potty break!

WhenYouGottaGo
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Here is another good video of Chris. With the rare string of sunny days, we spent as much time outside as possible this weekend. Since Chris is learning to go without diapers, we brought a potty seat outside to help his chances.

We started about a week and a half ago. He was most of the way there by the middle of last week, but we keep pushing our luck and he'd have an accident every couple of days. But he's on a pretty good run lately.

He's still in an overnight diaper, but they've been dry most nights. We're just chicken.

Videos galore

BoysInTheFunHouse
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

I went through a back log of photos and videos last night and uploaded them this morning. The videos go back to May. Here is one from Sunday when the cousins were over. The four boys played really well together all day.

Alex and Liam went down for naps first, and when Chris finally did, he asked if Kevin was going to be playing with his toys.
"Will Kevin play with my Legos?"
"Maybe."
"Will Kevin watch George?"
"Probably."

Finally, he came to:
"Will Kevin be here when I wake up?"
"Yes."
"OK."
With that, he went right to sleep.

Even more videos

Sit n sit n stand

After work Thursday, I met Mandy and the boys in Arlington and we walked from playgroup to Mr. Sushi with Oliver and his mom. The boys enjoyed themselves.





On the way out, everyone wanted to ride in the stroller.

Excitement at the Ecotarium

We went to the Ecotarium a little while back. If you don't know, this is a cross between a zoo and a children's museum in Worcester. It also has one of those little trains that drives you around the perimeter. On this particular trip, we took the train ride. We saw the red fox, caught a glimpse of the polar bear, and headed through the tunnel before broad-siding a red Tercel.

She must have had some music blaring and the lady in the gate house should have warned her. She slowly drove right into our path as the engineer was leaning on the whistle. At the last second she saw us and stopped. We knocker her front end off the road, but in the end she drove away (to the parking lot) with not much more than a flat tire.

Later that day, back at home, Chris was playing with his Legos and crashed his Lego train into his Lego car.

Things that came out of Chris's mouth this morning

"Whee! What fun!"

"There goes Chris."

"What the heck!"

Anecdotes

Happy Song

Chris got a CD for Christmas with a song called "Snow Day". Nowhere in the song does the word happy appear, but he insists on calling it "Happy Song."

Diaper Swap

Alex is getting big. He's 23 pounds these days. Chris has almost made it to 30. The "little" one is so big around these days that the size 5 diapers we have for his big brother fit him better than his 4's. Chris, meanwhile, keeps getting skinnier, so Alex's 4's fit him better. So they've traded. Alex now wears a bigger diaper than Chris.

Email

Chris walked into the other room this evening declaring: "Chris go check daddy's email." I must have been tired, because it took almost 30 seconds for my brain to kick in and think, "maybe I should go check on that..."

Walking with Joey

walking with joey
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

The weather warmed up above 20 degrees this morning, so we picked up Joey and took her for a walk. It's supposed to be 40 and raining this afternoon, so this was our best chance. All had fun, but I didn't put warm enough pants on Chris and he got a little chilled and cranky by the end. I made it up to him with some hot cocoa later. I think he forgave me.

Junior Baker

Chris and I baked bread this afternoon. Well, he helped me dump ingredients into the breadmaker. The last thing to go in was the yeast, but I need one more thing. When I turned back to the counter, Chris was holding the bag of yeast over the pan. He looked up and said of his handiwork, "Good dumping".

"Chris, how much yeast did you put in?"

"One!"

Stacker

cart stacker.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Chris likes sticking things.

Stories from the big bed

bedtime
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We put Chris into a twin bed about a month ago. It's been a little rough as he is waking up more frequently now than he used to. I'm not convinced that it's not a coincidence, though. His sleep troubles could have something to do with the new molars that are appearing in his mouth.

Last night, when I put him to bed, we found Joey curled up on his pillow. Chris happily snuggled up next to her. When she came down to join us in the kitchen a few minutes later, he cried for a bit. I gave him the giant stuffed dog uncle Mike gave him last year, and he used it as a pillow all night. We didn't hear another peep from him.

It's cold

swinging in the cold
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

The lakes are already starting to freeze, yet Chris still insists on going to the playground. I think it was about 30 degrees when I took this picture.

Moss Hunter

MossHunter
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

While exploring the woods across the street with the boys and Joey, I carelessly poked at a mossy mound that was probably once a tree stump. Alex, Joey, and I were waiting for Chris, who had stopped to try to pick up a log half his size. With Alex in the Snugli, I had to kneel to reach the ground since bending over would result in a screaming baby and a week of back pain. When Chris finally caught up, I stood to continue, and he promptly knelt right where I had been and started poking the mound. I told him he was playing with moss and wandered a few steps farther down the trail. Before I knew it, Chris was pointing out every clump of moss he could find.

PS: Sorry about the format. I apparently had iMovie set in widescreen mode.

Videos

monkey
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

I just posted a few videos of Chris we took yesterday.

A-B-P-nut

A-B-P-nut.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

This weekend, after a morning at the Boston Children's Museum, we gathered for lunch at the attached Au Bon Pain with the Portland cousins and Nicole and her family. Mandy and Chris split the Mediterranean Wrap as they did the last time we had lunch there. It's hard to go wrong, as far as Chris is concerned, with hummus.

When she split it in half, Mandy asked me what I thought the dark sauce was. I figured it was just the sun-dried tomato salsa and brushed off the question. A little way into lunch, Chris starts coughing a little. We assumed it was nothing at first, but it just got worse and he was reaching into his mouth.

Afraid he was going to vomit, I rushed him to the bathroom where I realized he was breaking out in hives around his mouth and starting to rub his eyes. I washed his face and hands as best I could and he seemed to be more comfortable pretty quickly.

When we got back to the table, he asked for more of his lunch. Given that he was reacting to something, we gave him some benadryl. It was apparent that his eye was starting to swell up. Mandy took him this time to clean up some more and get some fresh air.

While they were gone I was nervously nibbling on the remaining food at the table including their wrap. I immediately figured out that I was wrong about the dark sauce. It was clearly peanut flavored. Apparently, someone behind the counter didn't bother to read the sauces or thought the Thai peanut sauce would compliment feta and hummus nicely.

The manager was only moderately apologetic and offered to make us the proper wrap or get us something else. We went with the banana he's eating in he picture. After saying something about how similar the sauces look in the squeeze bottles, the manager refunded the cost of the wrap, but not without subtracting the banana first. Apparently, he was offering to sell, not give, us something else.

Although this manager was not too concerned to see one of his young patrons getting puffy around the eyes, the company responded a bit better. We sent them an email that night and got a call form the regional VP on Sunday morning.

Chris seems fine now and there's no real harm done, I'm just upset that Chris might have to deal with being allergic to lots of things. I've been telling myself that he's just going to outgrow the egg thing. Now I'm not so sure. I'm picking up an epi pen from the pharmacy on the way home from work.

Videos

interview
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

I just put up some new videos on flickr. Most are from this weekend, but there is one from this summer (embedded here).