costumed

Costumed at the nature center:

interview with AB

One word to describe you would be:
A Poop Pumpkin Seed - is that one word? Mom: No. Pick one. Aiden: Ok, I pick poop...bwahh haaa ha!

Why do you like being a kid?
One reason and one reason only because it IS SO MUCH fun to play!

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why?
I would be a crocodile because my last favorite color is green.

Tell about a funny time in your life.
The time when the Mischief Man was around, but I was just pretending.

What is your favorite thing to do? Why?
Play with my toy story cars that pull back and vroom forward and keep going, because it is so much fun to do that!

What do you love most about your sibling?
Because he is so tiny!

What was the nicest thing you did for someone?
Making the card for my old school friend Alyssa

What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now?
Trying to not to pee in my pants!

What is the grossest thing you can think of?
Poop

What is your happiest memory?
That memory game where you look for the matches and you find out where they are!

5 months

Hi Babeh KC,

Wowsers five months of the cuddliest days are already behind us! I can feel the start of your squirmy days and archy back boy has appeared here and there. Your coos and babbles are more talky now. There is some serious intention in your tiny voice.

You dad likes to call you the tiny baby, although you're getting so big that you are most comfy when he holds you like a giant sack of taters. Your chubby legs sorta drape off his arms and you lay your chubby cheek against the side of his arm...sweet baby sleepy faces immediately set in when you are in this crook in his arm. We saw an older brother at Aiden's school carrying his toddler brother like a wet noodle, but he loved being toted around. Your days are numbered before you are the noodle guy getting transported around the room by your big bro.

You were dubbed an unofficial class mascot for your brother's new class along with all the other younger siblings. You came with me to the dessert reception and hung out in your wrap twisting your turtle head back and forth to smile at strangers. You've always been a chill guy but now you are a truly friendly chill guy.  You try to instigate the smiles now.  You were asleep in my arms once the meeting started, but you popped awake and sat nicely in my lap for the next hour playing with your owl booties.

You are a foot nabber. You love playing with your toes and reaching over to lift up your whole foot. Then you press your dimple cheek into it and giggle.  It's a classic move for the Brennan brothers.  You can giggle together already.  Just a few minutes ago before you konked out for nap, you were trying to munch on your brother.  He giggled and you tried harder to slobber his ear.

You store most of your chub in your thighs instead of your cheeks. Those chubsters are getting solid and I already recognize the chub and stretch routine (that your brother followed) developing for you.   You needed another car seat adjustment, and I have to say I don't know how long that chair is going to last since your daddy long legs are already sticking out.  You sure do like to keep your legs stretched out and rotate your ankles like you're getting ready to workout.

You aren't much of a screamer, accept when you are in the car and some cruddy bubble trouble in the tummy. Lately you will talk out of the side of your mouth with a very serious voice before the bubble bursts. You also having that terrible teething itch to wrangle.  We've solved most of the car trouble by having me squeeze in between you and your brother, where I get my arm hugged by your brother on one side while I hold your giraffe or spin your wheel for you.

We've started uber slow solid food with a one time a day oatmeal feeding with a tiny bit of fresh pumped milk.  You seem to love it.  Once the reflection in the windows or your loud brother in the bathtub down the hall stops distracting you, you will gobble it right up.  You usually eat in just a diaper otherwise you try to gobble your bib.  You also think that paper towel is mighty tasty.

Your brother dubbed himself "Mr. Not the Mischief Man" and you are itching to be his accomplice.  You will lunge forward to get in on the action when he's showing off some mischief he's caused.  It is usually things like switching up the letters in the fun new name puzzle stool you got as a gift, because the Misichief Man likes to spell your name Koaten.  We are in big trouble when baby proofing is necessary because the legos I find between my toes will not be good in your little paws or worse in your chompers.

This month you really took your time studying your toes, your music keys, and your spoon... You watched so many other big kids at the play dates and intently watched all the action around you, almost always insisting on standing on your strong legs bouncing up and down.  You looked up at me with a reassuring smile as the earthquake shook the ground and your brother tucked between my legs and under you bum.  I am not sure what my expression was but I'm glad you must have sensed some sort of calm.  Your ability to remain calm is just part of your personality.

You can pinch with your little strong hands stronger than you'd expect and I love when you squeeze my finger when you get excited.  You typically have a big handful of my hair in your little sticky paw.  One of my favorite faces of yours is when the hairs tickle your nose and you scrunch your little nose and widen your eyes.  You have this super adorable surge of happy expressions that I've dubbed the "warm fuzzy."  You will ball up your arms and scrunch your neck and your smile will widen and stretch... and the squeals are the type that I will never forget.  I look forward to many more warm fuzzies.

Love ya, Maaaamaaaa

Wegman's smiles

Sent from my iPhone

smiley

Here is a smiley guy that seems to like his feetsies as much as his brother did: 

http://ababybrennan.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-feet.html

no power party

Here are some snips of me burning batteries in my video camera during the power outage - My favorite is when Aiden is excited it came back on and yells, "That's what we call power!":

No Power Party from LB on Vimeo.

good list

After the summer we've had, I'm afraid that an earthquake and hurricanes/tornados aren't getting too much hype around the Brennan house.  We're still on a defense approach to life, so we did the best we can to be prepared by bringing in potential "projectiles" (aka. the grill and patio furniture), charging up everything, and buying some jugs of water.  We seemed to be doing ok as the storm started and we went to bed.  We had quite the raucous tree party going on in this dense wooded area and our roof sounded like we were hosting an animal party... I wasn't sleeping much and a bit before 1am our power went out... and stayed out for the next 15 hours or so.  Not too cool (literally and figuratively), and our internet and landline went with it.  The only radio that would pick up a signal was our handy dandy windup radio flashlight - We heard that over a million people were without power - That is a big club of stuffy hot people! So this trusty guy kept us company and makes the top of the good list:

  

Top of Aiden's good list is playing with the Mac Photobooth, which I'm not sure if it's made the list?  I bet it has!  He knows exactly how to use it and plans his own shots.  By far his favorite is pretending we are riding the rollercoaster (lotsa movement so you can see hair mixed with track)

Some very sweet thoughtful friends have gotten us a few DC with kids type books. I am sold that picking a card from the stack and going out on an adventure for the day is the way to go.

Fresh-squeezed pure WEGMAN'S OJ is a treat a good friend introduced us to and spoiled us with a batch.  So, so good and smooth!  The only ingredient is oranges!

My new iPhone (birthday present) is ridiculously awesome.  The case I ended up with makes it even more fun.  It looks like a Leica M9 which is etched out of walnut.

The apps on the iPhone are my favorite part.  I was already addicted to Pinterest in the slow moments around here.  It was such a great visual distraction from all the stressful stuff this summer.  It's essentially a huge online pinboard of cool photos, design ideas, craft links, etc from all over the internet.

My favorite part of this new house is my craft room (and J claims it is his too because it keeps my stuff contained).  It's not completely settled yet, but I've unpacked everything and started hanging up some fun stuff... like this new scissors rack with KC's cute mug on it...

Saxoflute was an addition to the toy collection from our fun friends that joined us for a "hurricane brunch" the morning the storm hit.  Thanks McM's! This jazzy toy (when not played too loudly) filled up a bunch of the stormy weekend fun.

smiling

My smiley guys... We're staying dry and cozy inside while this hurricane stirs outside. We've kept our power so far (partly due to the generator fix when it did go out for a short bit this afternoon). Keep smiling and good luck New England friends!

fav song

We've been meeting up with fun people, hitting the library program circuit, and generally chillaxin around here.  One of Aiden's favorite things is to turn on the stereo himself and pump his favorite track, disc 3, track 1!

"Get your feet up off the ground!  Swing your arms up in the air!"

quake

Aiden's firsts are slower to get checked off lately, but today he danced around a little after I tried to calmly explain to him that we just had an earthquake.   He wasn't scared and cheered, "Yay, my first earthquake!"  Um, and let's hope your last...  The 5.9 earthquake lasted around a minute.  The rumble built up slowly and I had enough time to say to my brand new mom friend's TWICE that I thought we were having an earthquake.  Then the rattling got intense, and we all jumped under the door frame in the basement room where we were playing at my neighbor's house.  It felt like heavy turbulence on a stormy plane flight.  The piano in the room rattled off some notes and frames shook around on the wall.  I think my adrenaline was pumping with a calm KC in my arms and Aiden tucked between my legs.  I can imagine that our large group of six other moms and their kids all huddled together was probably a bit funny, but I was grateful for the company.  J was at Georgetown where they quickly evacuated the building and he hopped in his car just as they were shutting down his parking garage.  He made it home in about triple the normal time, but at least he made it home.  There were still people emailing our community listserv looking for rides at dinner time a few hours later.  The only effects as far as we can tell were a few shaken frames and my new craft shelf had a few things tumble.  Some where still in limbo from being shaken like the black case in the top left of that photo...  So grateful we are safe and sound, if just a bit rattled... I do confess that Aiden stomp running through our living room had me thinking another rumble had started...  

dc treats

It's pretty amazing that we can hop in the car and about 15 minutes later we are cruising the streets of DC to find a parking spot.  I think it usually takes longer to find a parking spot than it does to drive there ;) But we've been pretty lucky and usually end up finding a spot in a perfect place.  We tempted the stormy weather this particular day.  We were parked near the sculpture garden and the Hirshhorn museum (which is modern art and the installation of photos scotch taped to the wall I was unsure about)... KC loves staring at lines so it was right up his alley ;) A 4 month old's taste...  We will have to go back for more sculpture garden exploring.  We headed back to the car just as the rain was picking up and it felt like we were swimming (there were even pockets of cold air).

The Old Smithsonian original building, dubbed the castle, is really just a quick montage of the other museums, but fun to jet through quickly.  There was a bird eating spider there!  It was bigger than KC's head!

brick trip

Here are some flashback snips from the Lego Brick Fair - take a trip through the highlights:

brick fair from LB on Vimeo.

castle!

zoom

Here are some video snips from the fast zooming train at Burke Lake - I read online that it goes 25 miles per hour!  I was holding onto Aiden during those spots ;)

train ride from LB on Vimeo.

Mr Skip

Mr. Skip had Aiden laughing before he even started singing.  We were the first eager beavers to arrive, and for a minute I thought it might be the first not so crowded program... but everyone trickled in for this after dinner show (we had hopped over from the yummy Corner Bakery).  Aiden really caught the groove bug and KC thought it was pretty funny!

mr skip! from LB on Vimeo.

sittin around

These were taken about three weeks ago when this little kiddo first decided to start sitting up. He had a forward lean at the time, and still leans a little bit. He prefers to push up on his legs like his brother did. But here is the little smirker sitting around...

sitting around... from LB on Vimeo.

bday grooves

I have a hot box baby who isn't liking all the shots he got yesterday, so I'm trying out all these new video apps on my new iPhone - bday present! - while holding KC and cuddling away his fever. Aiden and J are off having fun at the library... Here's some snips from our fun in Alexandria:

birthday groove from LB on Vimeo.

first bites

Here are some video tidbits of KC's first nibbles:
http://youtu.be/_R_pFabjGLY

first bites from LB on Vimeo.

sand land

"mom! Do you like our sand castles? That one has a window clamshell!"
My boys made this at the beach down the street today...

hey doc

We waited quite a chunk of time for KC's four month appointment since we just got into the new insurance system here at Georgetown.  At four months plus two weeks he weighed in at 17 pounds 3 ounces and 26.5 inches which are both around 79th percentile. Our new doc said he must have "read the textbook" and everything was proportionate and on track.  She commented on how he was a pretty mellow little one and that is so true.  He had three shots and a drink to take, and he hardly seemed to notice the first shot... then had a wince for the second... and as I just kept talking to him...his fourth shot he squealed (much less than he would for just being peeved he had to be in his car seat) like he was mad, but that was the end of it.  No crying really... That chill little guy does surprise me sometimes...

The doctor said that he seemed ready to go for some "playful" solids... This is just the time to get them used to the sensations and the swallowing, etc.  So we headed straight for the grocery for some oats... The doctor also suggested skipping the rice since it constipates.  I dug out my hand pump and as he nursed I collected some milk to mix with the oats (I can handle pumping with that little hand pump, but I'm still aiming to avoid that electric pump if at all possible this time around!  We'll see since I have 7 more months until whole milk is on the horizon)

The milky oats really seemed to go over well. He was his calm smiley self most of the time and thought we were pretty funny for making lip smacks at him.  He sorta got the hang of munching at the spoon and probably gobbled more than half... the other half was all over his puppy bib that Aiden had found for him to use.

He made Aiden laugh by trying to devour his hands whenever the spoon wasn't available.  Most of the time he just wanted to lean over and grab his little toes.  I think the bumbo was the perfect seat for a first bite.