Family Update. September 20, 2006
It’s been a while since I posted an update about my beautiful family so this is a long one. You’ll see phrases like “a couple weeks ago” or “last week sometime” a lot.
Onward!
Jessie is doing super. At her 1 month check, now 3 weeks ago she went from a birth weight of 6lb 5oz to 8lb 11oz. We can tell that her little body is filling out by the way she sits in her car seat. She’s still so dang tiny. It’s fun. Also fun is that she’s staying awake more and is very curious about her surroundings. She doesn’t cry (knock on wood) when someone new cuddles her.
Trish got to see Jessie’s first smile a couple of weeks ago. Rightfully so dontcha think? I’ve gotten a couple and Nana Hotze has too. We’re anxious to find this little things that make her smile. For Porter, calling him Porter Poopy Pants would elicit a grin. It may end up being something simple. Today Trish said, “Hi,” when she picked her up and got a smile.
She’s eating well and after some difficulty figured out breast feeding just in time for Trish to go back to work. Logistically and financially (and emotionally for Trish) a better deal all around. Night time feedings still hover around the 3-4 hour mark. Every few hours is a nice break from having to feed her every 1 1/2 to 2 hours like at the beginning. That stretches a bit every week and before we know it a full night’s sleep will be ours.
In general Jessie is doing everything a baby should be doing: eating, sleeping, pooping, and being unbearably cute and cuddly.
Here are a couple of current pics. Here is a shot from yesterday, here’s one with her sleeping a week or so ago.
I was able to find a shot of Porter when he was about 6 hours old and a shot of Jessie about 12 hours old. It’s fun to compare pictures of a very new Porter with a very new Jessie. If you haven’t already clicked, they open in seperate windows to enable easy side by side exams.
Now for a bunch of stuff about Porter. I thought about doing a seperate post but while I’ve got you here….
Porter is within eyesight of being officially potty trained. During the day anyhow. Trish called me a bit before I left work Monday to tell me that Stinkerpotamus felt the urge, took off his shorts and diaper, and went wee wee without any help at all! He simply appeared in the living room to inform her that he had done so. Porter can hold it pretty well at night and really has only had a few accidents while wearing big boy underwear. He wore big boy underwear outside of the house for the first time Labor Day weekend.
That day Porter and I headed over to Gateway Motor Speedway to show support to our friend Jeff ‘Cleezmo’ Follis in his first local motorcycle race in 3 years. Porter had been looking forward to it (when he sees a motorcycle in a book he says ,”Ceezmo ride momocycle?”) and he had a blast. It was a track day (meaning no races, think of it as practicing at a hundred something miles an hour) so Porter got some good hang time in. By the middle of the second run he was describing the lay out of the turns and could follow Cleezmo’s bike when it sped mightily past us. He loved it.
Sleeping in his big boy bed is still going swimmingly. He’s very proud of his new room. I think that it’s given him something to be proud of along with his sister, and maybe has even served to help that transition. It gives him some attention that’s just for him. But, he’s almost as excited about that as he is about Jessie, maybe more. Still some things we need to do, and that will probably take time since neither Trish or I are decorators.
He’s got a few imaginary friends that he interacts with too. The first is the Incredible Hulk, which he took from one of his diapers. The other is Popsicle Guy, from popsicle commercials, whom he greets politely. Popsicle Guy is a middle aged man in a staple 70′s superhero costume helping children use different flavors of popsicles to defeat enemies. It rocks. The Increhcuggle Hulk (as he pronounces it) and Popsicle Guy typically appear together and if we play along he’ll inform us that we’re silly and they he’s just pretending. It’s a complete riot.
Another interesting thing that’s starting to develop is a very boyish approach to good guys and bad guys. The ‘guys’ in question are these. I bought these Lego man style mock ups of Marvel superhero for 75% off at Walgreens and we used them as potty prizes in the days after Jessie was born. As you can see, he quickly figured out that every body part is detachable. They became a bath toy, and lately he’s been making a clear delineation between who’s good and who’s bad. Typically the bad guy goes to the soapdish, er, um, I mean, “jail”. What threw me a bit earlier this week is that the good guys did things like knock down the bad guys or throw them into the water.
He doesn’t watch much TV. When he does it’s Sesame Street, Sponge Bob, Jimmy Neutron, or the occasional Tom & Jerry. After all, he’s a couple of decades from an all night Tarantino film festival with Daddy. The first weeks after Jessie was born he watched a little more TV than usual and a short while later the jail goes away and the bad guys get thunked. Kind of interesting isn’t it? A small amount of cartoon violence had that much of an effect on his perceptions. That is, unless Bert is trying to drown Ernie these days and I’m missing it. The cartoons he watches are less violent than old Bugs Bunny shows. I just confirm that bad guys sometimes do get knocked down and sometimes that is necessary. He also has assigned the role of ‘Daddy’ to a different toy and staged a funeral. Luckily the two instances were seperate.
His interest in music is becoming varied also, which makes especially me happy. I’m not really a yankee doodle jingleheimerschmidt sort of guy so Porter doesn’t get a lot of those songs from me. Trish has an impressive knowledge children’s songs though so he gets his fill. I’m learning as I go.
We started noticing his ear for music when we watched the episode of The Muppet Show hosted by Elton John. Entertainment for kids seldom is more wholesome or fun as the Muppet Show is it? And We’ve got a ton of them on VHS. Porter really took to it. Now he thinks every person singing and playing piano is Elton John. To the point where in the car he asks, “Dis Elton John?” “No buddy this is (whoever),” “I want listen to Elton John peeeez.” So he’s gotten a heavy dose of Take Me To The Pilot, the only Elton song I have at all times. When he and I head out for errands or whatever I’ll go to my cd racks (currently residing in the air hockey room) and he’ll say, “don forget Elton John Daddy.” When I forget to bring some he doesn’t hesitate to admonish me for it. Along that same line, we had the following conversation in the car a short bit back.
“Volume of dis song is good for me.”
“I’m glad Porter”
“Who sing dis Daddy”
“David Gray, it’s called ‘As I’m Leaving’”
“David Bowie?”
“No David Gray, different David.”
“I want hear David Bowie sing.”
“You make me proud little man.”
I’ve been looking forward to sharing this part, the last part, call it a finale perhaps, for a couple of weeks.
Porter likes to hear a song when he goes to bed. Who doesn’t? A time back he asked for something new. So I started singing a chopped up bedtime version of the U2 song ‘If God Will Send His Angels’, though we call it ‘Angel Song’ to make it simple. After a couple of weeks he started to fill in a lyric here and there and last week he sang almost the whole dang thing by himself. So, long story short, in an effort to stall bedtime he climbed up into my lap, I plugged in my recording gear and he sang it 2 times (jump back, kiss myself) with very little help. It came out really extremely awesomely so here are both songs for you to enjoy (the U2 song is awesome in itself).
U2 – If God Will Send His Angels (Click here to read what lyrics I forgot)
Porter’s version
If you’re unfamiliar with downloading simply: A:) right click on one of the above files, B:) click ‘save as’, c:) pick a place to save it, and D:) when it’s done double click the file and it will play for you (assuming you have speakers or headphones).
We hope you’ve enjoyed this update, verbose though it was.