We spent most of November being sick. I think both of the kids went through a couple of bugs, because their stuffy noses were just clearing up when they started getting stuffy and coughing again, Sam had a bit of a temperature one day, and Ari had a high fever for three days. I seemed to have a sore throat and cough for over a month. But, finally, by the end of the month, we were healthy! A. and I did manage to go out to dinner for our anniversary in the middle of the month and we drove up to Olympia to celebrate Thanksgiving with my side of the family.

Shortly after my last post, there was one day I wondered whether Ari had been listening to our new President-elect because he was grumpy and said to me, “Go away you nasty Mommy!” followed by, “Go away you stupid Mommy.” I think he was just sort of trying it on, because then he grinned and I told him we don’t talk to people like that, and it hasn’t happened again.

His language development is still interesting. It’s funny how there are things that kids will say correctly up until they start figuring out the rules of language, then they start saying things the wrong way. For example, they’ll correctly say “mice” for the plural of “mouse” until they start figuring out plurals based on general rules rather than individual words, at which point it becomes “mouses.” Ari has started using “he,” “she,” and “I” instead of “him,” “her,” and “me” sometimes. He’ll say, “I want you to tell he that…” or “Now I want I to hide.” He must be working out some rules. Also, a couple of times he’s played with a hammer or something he was pretending was a hammer and he’d say, “ham, ham, ham” while he pounded, or “I’m going to ham the ball,” because he’s learning the general rule that what a “runner” does is “run,” a digger digs, etc. It’s amazing to witness!

Another funny/strange thing he’s been saying is that he wants to “die” or that he wants all of us to die, so that we can see dinosaurs. I guess he was told that the dinosaurs all died!

Then there was this powerhouse of a sentence, after he was watching the paleontologist talk at the end of his Dinosaur Train cartoon: “Mommy, I want to be a paleontologist so I can dig up dinosaurs because I love dinosaurs!”

One day, he asked me if another baby is growing in my tummy. I asked if he wants another baby, and he said yes! He said he wants to name the baby Noam, the other name we were considering for Sam, that Ari pretty much vetoed. Then he asked if another baby will grow in Daddy’s tummy!

Sam and Andrew:

Ari playing with a new present:

Sam entertaining himself while Ari and I made gingerbread muffins:

The muffins, from this recipe with slight modifications, like using whole wheat pastry flour and less sugar:

Sam eating some kind of purée:

I found this book and really liked the breastfeeding image – it makes me feel like my life of trying to breastfeed while I’m running around doing other things at the same time isn’t so bad or wrong:

Sam playing on the floor:

The day before Ari came down with his fever, we took Andrew out to an off leash area with a friend of A.’s and his dog. Ari ran around pretending to be Andrew the whole time!

While he was sick, Ari entertained Sam, making him laugh by pretending to be a dinosaur:

During the month, I went to the doctor’s office twice for my cough and sore throat, and Ari went once, in between my visits. He watched pretty quietly during my first visit, but then was very resistant to going himself, saying it was too scary! Here’s a picture of him there:

When I had my second doctor visit, Ari watched closely while my vitals were taken, commenting on everything that he has or doesn’t have in his doctor kit at home. At one point, he rubbed and patted my leg and said, “You’re doing a good job, Mommy!” Then, when I was talking to the doctor about my sore throat, he reached up and rubbed my throat and said, “Awwww! I’m sorry, Mommy!”

Anyway, poor Ari got pretty dehydrated while he was sick, and he complained that his mouth hurt, so we made lemon ice pops that he enjoyed:

Here is Ari reading to Sam, later the same day:

Another day, Ari wanted to put Sam in this basket:

One weekend day when we were all healthier, I was at work and A. brought the boys to visit me. I found a french fry on top of Sam (in the stroller) and made a joke about A. feeding him fries, and A. made a joke about how he hadn’t been planning to tell me that he’d fed Ari fries, but I’d found him out. Ari said, “We got you fries, too, Mommy!” A. told him that no, actually, they hadn’t brought me fries. Ari studied me, looking like he was trying to stay calm but was panicking inside, watching to see if I would lie down on the floor and have a tantrum or something. I said, “Oh, that’s okay!” But Ari was still concerned, and said, “Well, you can have some of my fries, Mommy!” Then A. said that unfortunately, the fries were down in the car in the parking garage. Ari said, “Oh. They’re in the car. [Pause.] Daddy, can we go down to the car?” Eventually he was reassured that I didn’t need any fries, but he looked so worried! Although now it occurs to me that he may have just wanted some more for himself!

Another cute story is that we got a little potty monkey toy for Ari. It’s a timer in the guise of a monkey doll that says, every 30 minutes or 90 minutes depending on the setting, “I have to go potty.” The child is then supposed to put him on the tiny toilet and the monkey then says something about feeling much better, and the child is supposed to use his own potty at the same time. If you don’t take the monkey to the potty, he gets more and more insistent, saying things like, “Hurry! I really have to go! I’m going to have an accident!” If you wait too long, he says something like, “Uh oh, I had an accident. Please take me to the potty next time.” Well, Ari loved his new monkey until the first or second time he was interrupted in another activity by the monkey asking to go potty. When he went to bed at night, he wanted to take his new monkey with him, but then changed his mind, saying, “No! He’s going to say he has to go potty!” Clearly, he wasn’t ready for that level of responsibility. 🙂 The next day, after A. and I had both taken the monkey to the potty ourselves because we couldn’t bear his pitiful cries, and Ari was saying, “You take him!” we shut it off! It was like a third child!

For A.’s birthday, Ari and I wrote and drew in this card. I wrote down what Ari dictated and I love it!

More of Sam. His eyes are looking really green!

I’m out of time, so I’ll have to catch up later on the past week, with a visit from my parents and aunt, some fun holiday activities, and Sam turning six months old!