Catchup post III: Into the spring... (January 1 - March 13)

January brought a visit from Noni. We celebrated a second little Christmas; Toby got a ride-on fire truck and Nora got a ball track that rings a bell when the balls finish. Both of these gifts have gotten tons of love. Toby did a lot of dancing with Noni to his new favorite album, the zydeco “Choo Choo Boogaloo.” Somehow I managed to get very few pictures of the visit. But toward the end, we took Toby to the local children’s museum, where Mom and I had fun watching him play with another little boy who happened to be there. Both of them clearly love buttons, vehicles, and urgency.

Other than that, we experienced a return to the regular rhythms of life. Toby went back to school on January 5^th, and both of his teachers said he was visibly taller. He outgrew his few remaining 2T clothes over the break. He’s been making great strides in drawing, with all kinds of media (the second one is a pancake with a chocolate chip face).

Toby started putting together his first puzzles early this year, too!

He’s also gotten very excited about Star Wars. This was initiated by a Lego sticker book from Aunt Becky, but there’s obviously something magical about the stories, because he immediately started acting them out and embellishing. Daddy got him some Storm Troopers for Valentine’s Day, because he couldn’t stop talking about them. 

(Nora and I celebrated Valentine’s Day by dressing up to go to a Mama-baby party – the pictures is at the top of this post). Anyway, usually we use our light “saver” straws to battle Sith, but sometimes Toby enjoys being a “bad guy” too.

He’s generally been relishing his increasing independence. We love seeing his pleasure in learning how to do new things.

 

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is one of our new favorite places to explore doing new things. I’m looking forward to taking him back again soon, but here he was in March, innovating at the water tables.

His mastery of language and storytelling continues to be a pleasure. He got interested in spelling, working out "volcano" and "lava" in mid March (his classroom has a vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano, which has been one of his favorite things for months). He started singing and rhyming a lot. He entertains us with constant chatter. Much of it has a natural history bent, e.g. “"We have razors in our mouths so we can eat pointy sharp things, like bushy-tailed rats." But of course, fiction is also ripe territory: "Once Darth Vader got trapped in the dark side and he dropped his Light Saver and couldn't find it. But he didn't mind b/c he had his mask on." When Noni was visiting, he ran into the kitchen one day and commanded: "Take off your clothes!" "Why?" "We're having a naked clothesline dance party!!" And just one more: "My body is sore. My body is sore 'cause I had EXTERCISE, yeah.” I could happily listen to this sort of thing forever, providing only minimal leading questions.

Nora learned in January how much she loves taking things out of things. There are so many things full of things in our house! Baskets, drawers, cabinets, boxes, cookie tins… this favorite game gets so much mileage. (It still hasn’t gotten old, actually). When it comes to bookshelves, I like to pretend she loves the books, but let’s be honest. She mostly likes taking them out.

 

Oh, you’re wondering if she’s cute? I’m glad you asked. Yes, yes she is.

And brilliant? As a matter of fact, that too! Once we figured out the magic of naked tummy time, she rolled both ways consistently in January. 

Growling continued to be a major feature of her vocalizations, although they diversified charmingly. By mid-January, Nora learned to sit up quite well, and enjoyed her new perspective very much.

 

She got to sit outside on the ground for the first time on January 23^rd, much earlier than Toby did (thanks, Oregon!). She liked it, of course.

By February, she was standing with support…

… and by mid-March, she made her first grumpy ooches of crawling! (Really, she yelled while crawling for probably the first week, until she sped up. This girl knows what she wants, and she knows she deserves it YESTERDAY.)

 

Sometimes she stops moving. Briefly.

Teething was a big theme during this period, too.

 There was lots of drooling and chewing on things. Wooden toys, fingers, and me if she finished eating and I didn’t remove her quickly enough. At long last, the first tooth made its appearance in mid-February – this picture was taken on the 20^th, when she was finally willing let me get a good look.

And although she had been eating some solid food for a while, it really took off in the first few months of this year. (Brassicas from our CSA were a surprisingly big hit.)

In the meantime, I pumped extra milk at work and donated over 140 ounces to our regional milk bank. I think it belongs here because I couldn’t have done it without Nora! We ended up composting a lot of frozen milk when we left Michigan, and I’m determined not do that again.

Individual milestones are great, but there are more and more things we enjoy doing together as a family. Legos, for example. Both kids can play together with the big ones (as long as Nora isn’t in the mood for destruction. We call her “Nora the Destroyer,” a witty – if I say so myself – reference to the TV character “Dora the Explorer). 

Although Nora isn’t allowed to play with the little Legos yet, Daddy and Toby are. They spend hours a week at it. The first shipment of the Schultz stash (Matt and Rachael’s childhood collection) arrived in January, and was unpacked with great ceremony. Since then there’s been a steady trickle, each box greeted with joy.

I’ve even gained some confidence – I finally learned how to follow instructions, and helped Toby build this windmill. Watch for some of the amazing things Toby’s been making in future posts.

All this self-entertaining means that sometimes I have quiet moments while the kiddos play. This is amazing. I don’t think it happened with Toby until he was 2 ½, at least. 

Toby and Nora together is alternately the most wonderful and most frustrating part of our lives. I don’t have any pictures of the frustrating bits, because my hands are too busy keeping them apart, attempting to distract one or both of them, or – worst case – removing Nora to safety. Luckily, the happy moments are many! They include Nora giving Toby what he deserves:

 Toby dressing both of them up:

And, of course, heart-meltingly cute snuggles.

But playing isn’t the only thing we do together – we also get sick! In the first few months of this year, I think Nora went a solid two months without ever being completely well. At one point she had an ear infection, and another week she was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis. 

And she’s not only cute when she coughs – sneezes are good, too. (Photo credit to Nanny Elizabeth, who makes my day when she sends me stuff like this.)

 Luckily Nora and I both love her doctor, Emma Germann, and Nora loves the exam table paper. Even Toby eventually developed an ear infection that kept recurring, and got his first-ever round of antibiotics. It’s amazing being well again, I’m not sure I believed it would ever happen.

 

Of course, we still make pancakes together – nearly every other day, lately. Toby’s developed an aversion to flipping, but he loves placing chocolate chips or blueberries, and is enthusiastic about buttering the pan and pouring batter, too. Nora is a great pancake eater already, which Toby initially found fascinating. "When I was little I could eat pancakes because I had little hands and little feet and little ears and little eyes... and a BIG HEAD." So true, my son. SO true.

If you made it all the way to the end of this post, you’ve probably already forgotten what happened at the beginning. Take home message: life is good.

Catchup post II: The holidays! November 1st- January 1st

 

Halloween was just the first taste. After that, we joyfully plunged into the winter holiday season. It started with Nora’s first plane ride and my first conference since her birth. My postdoc advisor Chris and I flew to Manhattan, Kansas for an Ecological Genomics conference. Aunts Becky and Rachael met us there to watch Nora Bean while I gave a talk, read posters, and schmoozed to the best of my ability. Nora even got to meet Scott Edwards, the famous Harvard bird geneticist. I was so thankful the aunties came to help out. The meeting was fun, but seeing the great pictures they took while I was busy was by far the most joyful part of the weekend.

After that, we had a few quiet weeks (well, as quiet as our weeks get anymore), followed by the excitement of our first flight as a family of four.

 

We’d planned to fly to the Midwest to spend Thanksgiving with my family, but ended up tacking on an extra trip at the beginning. Instead of driving east from Chicago, we headed west to the quad cities for my first interview! (Good friends Rachel and Colin sent cookies and stickers to help us celebrate this achievement – joy in small things!)

 

 Augustana College in Rock Island, IL was hiring a professor to teach botany. Luckily, we have family in Davenport (one of the four cities) – Matt’s Aunt Barb and cousin Kelly, with her son Russ. Toby and Russ are about a year apart, and are fantastic cousins. While I prepped and interviewed, the boys got to play in the snow, go to the John Deere museum (!) and chase each other around the house.

 

Nora got photographed on the hotel bed again, which somehow brings out the cutest in her, and Toby enjoyed the Christmas decorations.

Interviewing was a great experience, and I even got the offer! We liked the Quad Cities and loved the idea of living near the Kuhl-Rettig-Firsching relatives, but I decided I’d rather aim for a job at a somewhat more research-oriented college. Since I still have two years of funding in Oregon, it feels safe to be picky for now. Fingers crossed for the perfect job opening next year.

After the long drive across Illinois and Indiana, we had a lovely long holiday visiting with they Royer side of the family and introducing everyone to Nora. Until then, only her grandparents and Uncle Jacob had gotten to see her in person. She was remarkably unfussy, mostly enjoying being passed around. She especially liked chewing on Uncle Chris’s fingers and falling asleep on Aunt Ragan.

We had our traditional Thanksgiving at Aunt Cathy and Uncle Kenny’s house, where the boy cousins all ran around like wild things and Toby completely overcame his fear of dogs with the help of the sweet German Shepherd Marian (who ran around like a well-controlled wild thing). Nora got to meet her Nana while the boys romped.

We also got to spend some low-key time at the Royer-Miller’s new(ish) Garden House, where they’ve been gradually settling in. Toby had been looking forward to Uncle Dan’s banjo for weeks, and the cousins seem to have more fun every time they get together.

In Trotwood, we had the incredible treat of a visit with the Zarate-Kolp family; Christina and Martin came down for a couple of days over Thanksgiving to meet Eva and hang out. After a year in a new place, I can’t overemphasize how amazing it was to spend time with an old friend. They get tons of props for making the drive. Naturally, Eva fit right in with the cousins and loved on Nora.

After that, we headed over to Richmond in the penultimate leg of our epic holiday migration. Of course more cousin fun ensued, including a nearly endless game of “chase me with a plastic sword” courtesy of Uncle Jacob’s truly impressive sword collection. Toby made friends with the trombone and the Albert the hairless cat. Uncle Dan snuggled Nora some more. It doesn’t sound like it, but it was actually restful!

Nora even got to meet Aunt Jean and squeeze in an extra visit with Nana, and then we headed back home to Oregon.

Getting ready for Christmas was fun, since Toby is old enough now to be a whole-hearted participant. We went out to a muddy farm to pick out a tree, and got the extra bonus of using the apple slingshot. There was even a deer there, eating the apples, more or less ignoring us!

And another milestone, Toby’s first school “play.” His class sang a few Christmas songs, with hand gestures. The sound system got confused, so we didn’t get to see Toby’s rumored world-class air guitar, but we did get confirmation that he is THE CUTEST, especially in a Santa hat. I’ll be honest, I was overcome with the (irrational?) conviction that my child is the charmingest, smartest person to ever walk the earth, and I nearly gave in to the urge to jump up and block every other parent’s view so I could get the best pictures. It was extra overwhelming because the room was full of at least 150 other people who felt THE EXACT SAME WAY. (About their child.) Crazy energy.

 

For the Christmas holidays, we stayed quietly at home and received visitors – the Schultzes! Aunt Becky started off the festivities making cookies with Toby, which was one of my top holiday goals. Including making their own icing and spilling the sprinkles. Toby was in charge of the spilling. I checked with other preschooler-mom friends, and it turns out that spilling the sprinkles is universal, and genuinely impossible to clean up. It’s May, and just yesterday Toby found a $%@!! sprinkle and offered it to Nora. (Luckily, her pincer grasp isn’t that good. So she doesn’t eat sugar off the floor, just stickers and leaves. What a relief!)

We revived our annual caroling tradition with the help of Becky and a few of my work friends. Santa Chris brought Toby a MONSTER COMBINE!!! And he scared Nora with his weird beard and the ho-ho-ho’s. But that’s what Santa is for, right?

 

Nanny Elizabeth gave us a Christmas hat that I’m pretty sure is going to be central to our family celebrations for decades to come. She also gave Toby a fire chief hat which he loves. (I had to cut one side to fit his fun-sized head in, but he’s fine with that).

 

The rest of the Schultzes arrived a couple of days before Christmas, with enough time for a day of overlap before Becky had to head home. It was delightful to have everybody together. Nora spent a great deal of time establishing her cuteness…

….including on Christmas Eve….

 

... and, of course, Christmas Day.

 

Toby loved having extra people to play with, and this was the first year he understood Christmas well enough to feel real anticipation. So opening presents was faster than when he was 2.5, but still extremely sweet.

 

He started playing with tiny Legos at the Montessori school, and Aunt Rachael got him his first big box of his very own. This has been a source of joy ever since. We love how creative and absorbed he is with the wee blocks.

 

Toberman took a fun walk with MommaSue and Grandpa Fred for Christmas afternoon. (I’m pretty sure I took a nap. One of my favorite parts of visits.)

 

Right before departing, Toby got to go ice skating with Daddy and Aunt Rachael. Quintessential Schultz.

 

We followed the hockey theme by spending New Year’s Eve with our Red Wings fans friends, the Andrades. They have a daughter Toby’s age and were expecting #2 (who arrived happily in April), so they’re just our speed. The friendship even managed to survive an unexpected (and therefore, for us, even more delightful) Penguins victory. Hurrah!

Of course, it wasn’t all holidays. We had lots of run-of-the mill family happiness and mind-blowing developmental leaps.

 

By early November, Nora was enjoying sitting up with support. It was fun to watch her discover what she could do with toys from this new angle. 

The newfound autonomy seemed to contribute to her cheeriness. She started smiling more and finding her voice. Mostly vowels and screams of joy, but sometimes “goo” and “ma” as well.

 Annoyingly, she outgrew my favorite dress. This sort of thing should not be allowed. I squeezed her into it one last time for the end-of-semester lab party.

 

And there was her first time in a swing! She said it was okay. For a few minutes.

 

She also started eating. Her enthusiasm didn’t match her brother’s at the same age, and some of the things she liked the most didn’t end up agreeing with her (cauliflower and potato soup!), but steady progress was made. (And we all like the new additional of the “lobster seat”, which is both smaller and more secure than the old highchair – perfect for Nora’s “throw-myself-headfirst-out-of-whatever” personality.)

 

Toby was quite excited about Nora eating too, and continues to enjoy helping feed her. He volunteered a spoonful of squash from his plate in early December. (More and more of these turn-Mama-into-a-sentimental-puddle moments seem to happen every week.)

Of course, her favorite thing to do is feed herself…

 … but the two of them just get cuter and cuter together.

Toby seemed to hit peak 3 around December. Lots of frustration, but also lots of interesting logic and quick accumulation of new skills. For example, getting dressed! There was a memorable moment combining many of these things that started with putting clothes back on after a trip to the potty (which involves stripping EVERYTHING below the waist, of course – and sometimes everything above the waist, too!) J

Here’s how it shook out. Toby wanted to put his shoes on before his pants, but then couldn’t get his pants on. Frustration. I suggested he take his shoes off and do the pants first. He tried for just undies. I recommended pants too. "Why?" Because it's cold. Why? Because it's winter. Why? Because we're in the northern hemisphere, and it's further from the sun right now. Why? Because the axis of the earth is tilted as it goes around the sun. Earth doesn't go around the sun! Yes, it does. Why? And then I explained gravity. That finished him off. We do have a lot of fun together (here he is with one of our CSA rutabagas, the size of his head, exerting its own substantial gravity).

 

Other favorite Toby quotes from this period: “I’m going to go to the store and get a symphony and then I'll PLAY it!" Also, when we lost half of the toilet paper dispenser and I asked him while we were making pancakes if he’d seen it around, he looked around thoughtfully and made "mmmm...." noises. "Maybe under the hot pans?!?" With that exaggerated question-exclamation tone of voice of a 3-year-old. Delicious.

 

He continues to be enthusiastic about cooking, and is capable of being both more helpful and less helpful than ever before. Just depends on the mood! Stay tuned for the next update. It may not SEEM like I’m catching up, but really, I am.