Hello all- I have been meaning to write for a while now because the terrible two’s phase was mostly just temporary. Seriously, it was. After a couple of weeks, our sweet little guy has turned back into his sweet little self. And in retrospect I realized that this phase coincided with a huge increase in appetite and a growth spurt of about an inch. So maybe he was just surly because he was hungry and growing. I don’t know. Aside from him suddenly growing out of all of his pants, he is getting bigger in other ways. He is a jokester for one, always telling me things just to get a laugh out of me. One of his recent best happened when we took the rail off of his crib (OooAaah, a big boy bed!). He has done amazingly well with it- he only needed to be put back into bed 3 times the first night and has been doing great ever since- but the first day that I put him down for nap I knew he was going to be trouble. He was all riled up from being cooped up in the house due to never-ending rain but I did my best to put him down like usual anyway. We read two stories, did his ‘rock the baby game’, 2 binkies, and tucked him in and I reminded him that if he came out of his room I would just go put him right back in bed. And then I went down to wash the dishes. I could hear him kind of giggling at the rush of freedom he now had and I would hear these little footsteps run back and forth from his room to ours and back again. I just ignored it, thinking that if I paid attention to him it would just turn it into a fun game for him and I would spend hours running back up the stairs to put him back in his bed. Eventually he started yelling for me but again I decided to just ignore it and hope that he would get bored and stop. He was at the top of the stairs yelling “Mama! Mama!” as loud as he could. After a while it turned into “Maamaaa! Where aaaaare yooooou?” pause, then finally “Mamaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaa!” as loud as he his little voice would let him. So finally, I gave in and was thinking this was going to be a really really long naptime today so I walked to the bottom of the stairs resigned that I was going to get nothing done during my supposed time off- “Yes, Rinat what is it?” and he informed me “NatNat COCO LOCO FRUITCAKE!” And he ran off to his room giggling all the way. All I could do was walk around the corner so he couldn’t hear me and laugh my head off. He’s so friggin cute! And he is just so amazingly vocal. I can have a conversation with him on the phone and understand exactly what he is saying without any help or translation from Peter at all. I can’t believe he’s already old enough to do that. He is really into emotions lately and will tell me “NatNat frustrated/mad/sad/goodboy/having trouble/soexcited” and, my favorite one, “Natnat lucky boy Mama!” when I bought him a soccer ball at the zoo. And he wants to figure out how everyone else feels too. He will ask about people on TV and want to know how they are feeling but I really cracks me up because I tell him all the time that if he does something that I don’t want him to that Mommy is ‘not happy’. The little manipulator that he is, he will go and pretend to make me cupcakes or play the drums and sing for me and then ask “Mommy happy now? YOU (with an emphatic finger point), YOU happy now?” How could I not smile at that? He has so much darn personality and I see a lot of my facial expressions come out in him. The other day he was telling me that milk came from cows and I explained to him that while that was true, there actually are different kinds of milk and that in his country some people even drink milk from horses. From the look on his face you would have thought that I had said the sky was green or something. It was absolutely hilarious. He squinted his little eyes up and furrowed his brow and gave me a look so like my own that I felt like I could have been looking into a mirror. So this week we have been trying cheeses made from different kinds of milk and he really likes them- especially the goat cheese from Whole Foods. I sure hope he keeps that adventurous spirit as he grows up. Especially when we go to Kaz and eat all kind of things with gristle and bones and unidentifiable bits. It was not my favorite country I’ve been to food-wise but it was certainly the most worthwhile place I’ve ever been. We celebrated Easter here at the house and Rin was just so excited about the whole thing that it was unbelievable. It’s the first holiday we have celebrated at home so for a week or so before, Rinat kept asking “Easter Bunny coming to Reenat’s house?” (he’s starting to drop the NatNat and call himself Rinat now) over and over again like he just couldn’t believe how lucky he was that the EB would grace us with his presence. And on the morning of, he came creeping into our room at 6:05 (way before our usual 7:00 wakeup) but I made him wait until ‘the Easter Bunny was all finished’ and then we followed the trail to his basket and he went completely bonkers. He got new golf clubs and candy and puzzles and books. He wasn’t actually all that interested in the backyard egg hunt though. He found about 5 of them and declared he was ‘all done’ as he stuffed about 30 jelly beans in his mouth so I had to go and hunt down the other 23 before the ants got to them. But we did have a ton of fun dyeing some real ones the day before. And he watched the old timey Easter Bunny movie with Fred Astaire over and over and over again. A good time was had by all. Other than that, we’ve just been living life and looking forward to going to Kazapalooza to see all of our Kaz friends in June- can’t wait! Love to all. -m Oh and I will leave you to ponder something. Rin is doing a great job talking but sometimes the things he says sound like something else entirely. The other day he said a word and I actually stopped in my tracks and had to think “Did he really say what it sounded like he said?” But no, he was trying to tell me about the new ‘asphalt’ being laid down on the street by some workers. So go ahead and try to figure out what it sounded like :-)
Hello all- I have been meaning to write for a while now because the terrible two’s phase was mostly just temporary. Seriously, it was. After a couple of weeks, our sweet little guy has turned back into his sweet little self. And in retrospect I realized that this phase coincided with a huge increase in appetite and a growth spurt of about an inch. So maybe he was just surly because he was hungry and growing. I don’t know. Aside from him suddenly growing out of all of his pants, he is getting bigger in other ways. He is a jokester for one, always telling me things just to get a laugh out of me. One of his recent best happened when we took the rail off of his crib (OooAaah, a big boy bed!). He has done amazingly well with it- he only needed to be put back into bed 3 times the first night and has been doing great ever since- but the first day that I put him down for nap I knew he was going to be trouble. He was all riled up from being cooped up in the house due to never-ending rain but I did my best to put him down like usual anyway. We read two stories, did his ‘rock the baby game’, 2 binkies, and tucked him in and I reminded him that if he came out of his room I would just go put him right back in bed. And then I went down to wash the dishes. I could hear him kind of giggling at the rush of freedom he now had and I would hear these little footsteps run back and forth from his room to ours and back again. I just ignored it, thinking that if I paid attention to him it would just turn it into a fun game for him and I would spend hours running back up the stairs to put him back in his bed. Eventually he started yelling for me but again I decided to just ignore it and hope that he would get bored and stop. He was at the top of the stairs yelling “Mama! Mama!” as loud as he could. After a while it turned into “Maamaaa! Where aaaaare yooooou?” pause, then finally “Mamaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaa!” as loud as he his little voice would let him. So finally, I gave in and was thinking this was going to be a really really long naptime today so I walked to the bottom of the stairs resigned that I was going to get nothing done during my supposed time off- “Yes, Rinat what is it?” and he informed me “NatNat COCO LOCO FRUITCAKE!” And he ran off to his room giggling all the way. All I could do was walk around the corner so he couldn’t hear me and laugh my head off. He’s so friggin cute! And he is just so amazingly vocal. I can have a conversation with him on the phone and understand exactly what he is saying without any help or translation from Peter at all. I can’t believe he’s already old enough to do that. He is really into emotions lately and will tell me “NatNat frustrated/mad/sad/goodboy/having trouble/soexcited” and, my favorite one, “Natnat lucky boy Mama!” when I bought him a soccer ball at the zoo. And he wants to figure out how everyone else feels too. He will ask about people on TV and want to know how they are feeling but I really cracks me up because I tell him all the time that if he does something that I don’t want him to that Mommy is ‘not happy’. The little manipulator that he is, he will go and pretend to make me cupcakes or play the drums and sing for me and then ask “Mommy happy now? YOU (with an emphatic finger point), YOU happy now?” How could I not smile at that? He has so much darn personality and I see a lot of my facial expressions come out in him. The other day he was telling me that milk came from cows and I explained to him that while that was true, there actually are different kinds of milk and that in his country some people even drink milk from horses. From the look on his face you would have thought that I had said the sky was green or something. It was absolutely hilarious. He squinted his little eyes up and furrowed his brow and gave me a look so like my own that I felt like I could have been looking into a mirror. So this week we have been trying cheeses made from different kinds of milk and he really likes them- especially the goat cheese from Whole Foods. I sure hope he keeps that adventurous spirit as he grows up. Especially when we go to Kaz and eat all kind of things with gristle and bones and unidentifiable bits. It was not my favorite country I’ve been to food-wise but it was certainly the most worthwhile place I’ve ever been. We celebrated Easter here at the house and Rin was just so excited about the whole thing that it was unbelievable. It’s the first holiday we have celebrated at home so for a week or so before, Rinat kept asking “Easter Bunny coming to Reenat’s house?” (he’s starting to drop the NatNat and call himself Rinat now) over and over again like he just couldn’t believe how lucky he was that the EB would grace us with his presence. And on the morning of, he came creeping into our room at 6:05 (way before our usual 7:00 wakeup) but I made him wait until ‘the Easter Bunny was all finished’ and then we followed the trail to his basket and he went completely bonkers. He got new golf clubs and candy and puzzles and books. He wasn’t actually all that interested in the backyard egg hunt though. He found about 5 of them and declared he was ‘all done’ as he stuffed about 30 jelly beans in his mouth so I had to go and hunt down the other 23 before the ants got to them. But we did have a ton of fun dyeing some real ones the day before. And he watched the old timey Easter Bunny movie with Fred Astaire over and over and over again. A good time was had by all. Other than that, we’ve just been living life and looking forward to going to Kazapalooza to see all of our Kaz friends in June- can’t wait! Love to all. -m Oh and I will leave you to ponder something. Rin is doing a great job talking but sometimes the things he says sound like something else entirely. The other day he said a word and I actually stopped in my tracks and had to think “Did he really say what it sounded like he said?” But no, he was trying to tell me about the new ‘asphalt’ being laid down on the street by some workers. So go ahead and try to figure out what it sounded like :-)
