Last Little While, Part 2

Yep. It's the same day as part 1, but I seem to have the big mo- on my side, so here's some more highlights.


After the trip to Amelia Island, we enjoyed some time at home, but wanderlust caught up on Memorial day. Jack took in the simple pleasures and we also got to experiment (for one night) with having *four* kids. We babysat for our friends Julie and Brian after they had done the same for us the weekend before. So Ruby and I squeezed in a night out.


Jack also discovered the wonders of legos. In supervised play, we rigged up a fascimile of the tractor and pick up set our neighbor, Mike Birch, uses in his landscaping business.

Ruby also discovered a new passion. She is now making and marketing (with the help of Full Bloom Mother's Center (http://fullbloomparent.com/), wet bags -- these cool little bags for wet cloth diapers. She's having some real success and I'm very proud of her.

Freeman and Jack also had some good times in the Thomas the Train tent Uncle Tony gave jack a while ago.When we did decide to hit the road again, for my day off on Memorial Day, we went to Washington, GA, east of Athens, had a nice lunch in the historic Washington Square, and then visited the Robert Toombs House, a Georgia State Park. Ruby and the kids were *very* good sports about this one, especially since they spent most of the time in the yard (Ruby and Freeman watching -- Jack running off pent up energy) while I heard the historic lecture.

And finally, I just had to put in some more of the great pictures Ruby took at Amelia.

Last Little While, Part 1

Dad writing here. So, it's been a while since we last posted. A lot has happened, as most of you know, and things have been pretty hard, with a lot of ups and downs. But I thought I'd take this chance to highlight the ups and put up some pictures that capture our good times together, as we are grateful to have them. Included are trips to the beach, trips to the mountains, and a trip to a boring old Civil War-era historic site (also, there was some sittin' around at home). Is there a theme? Well, not so much, except that we roam around a lot and seem find joy in doing so!

This will probably take a few days, so I'll do it installments. In addition, I should also note that we've found the picture uploading features on Facebook pretty nifty and easy to use. So if you aren't Facebook Friends with Ruby and I, you might consider giving it a whirl.


In May, we went down to Amelia Island. It was our first trip since Papaw passed away, but we made the most of it. All in all, a good start at healing. Jack particularly enjoyed the water slide down by the beach and could scarcely be torn away from it to do, well, much of anything else. Maemae managed to lure him with quite a few options, though, including a sleepover! Recently, he's made mention of wanting to go have lunch on Club at the Ritz. This is not a good sign, as far as Dad is concerned (tho' Maemae is delighted).




In the beginning, Freeman was not at all sure about the ocean. He was cool as long as he was hanging out with Maemae or Mama, but eventually.....

He was a little worn out by all the excitement.


Whatever his misgivings about the ocean, however, Freeman was pretty fond of the beach and, among all of us, was the least insensible to sand in his pants (good thing, too).


At the end, I don't think anyone was completely ready to come home and we were (and are) so grateful to Mamae for having set up the trip. Even so, we were on the road again soon after, as I'll mention in my next installment.

A lesson learned

I am ever so proud of Jack for overcoming his social anxieties and jumping right into the childcare at the local YMCA. He has been having a great time playing ball in a walled off area of the childcare area where he and the other kids are allowed to let things ricochet to their hearts' delight. Meanwhile, I've been training for a 10K in July.

Today Jack was having so much fun that he neglected to eat the animal crackers I had sent with him. On the way home I figured he had to be starving from all the play, so I handed him the whole bag (which held about 3 days worth of snackitude) so he could eat some in the car. I figured that he'd only have time to eat a few by the time we got home. I even congratulated myself for a moment because it feels so nice to be able to hand a bigger kid a baggy of snacks rather than the snack traps you schlepp for younger ones.

I did not account for traffic. It took us about 25 to 30 minutes to get home rather than the normal 10 to 15. After about 20 minutes it occurred to me that I wasn't getting the running commentary on what cars could be seen from the back seat. Still driving, I awkwardly reached from the driver's seat towards the back and asked Jack to hand me the bag of animal crackers. As crumbs audibly fell from his mouth, he barely managed to say, "I caaayunt!" Imagine Scarlett O'Hara saying "I can't!" with about 15 animal crackers jammed in her mouth. Then imagine the victory in Scarlett's voice as she sputters "I haaayuv to haaayuv the animal crackers!" -- knowing full well that you have no power to wrest them from her. You get the idea.

I am such a good mom.

Various and Sundry Things

Things around here have settled into something pretty manageable (on most days anyway).

Jack is spending most of his afternoons naked from the waist down. I spend a lot of time spot cleaning. Stickers and M&Ms are instruments of bribery.

Freeman is a wonderfully giggly boy, given to taking mere catnaps during the day. At least he's not usually very crabby about the daily sleep deprivation. Jack just won't leave me and Freeman along long enough for me to get the baby down for a decent nap. As soon the little one nods off, the big one comes tearing through to announce loudly that the baby is not asleep. "Really?" I respond, through gritted teeth.

In my graduate studies, I read woefully little about child language. Jack's big thing now is messing with voiced/voiceless distinctions. He loves to switch voiced/voiceless sounds for their voiced/voiceless counterparts (e.g. [d] for [t], [b] for [p], [g] for [k] and vice versa). It's so cool to watch phonology happening right in front of my eyes.

Both boys are sweet to each other. They are not always sweet to their very tired parents, but the good outweighs the bad (I write as Jack crowds into the desk chair and screams at the top of his lungs in my ear, "I'm not talking loudly!"

Here are some recent pics:

Jack with his 'hummus beard'.

Freeman sporting some super cute flipper slippers.

A couple of very typical Freeman faces (he's now a little over 5 months old)...

Happy Birthday Again Jack!

We are all finally over the various ailments that assailed us, so Papaw and Mae Mae came over to more officially celebrate Jack's Big 3 point 0. Mama's addiction to Food Network shows in Jack's birthday cake, a tribute to his LOVE of monster trucks. The boy was well pleased, but hesitant to let us eat it. Eventually, though, he was happy to pull off a tire (in reality a Hostess DingDong) and chow down.

Happy Birthday, Big Jack! We love you, Kiddo!

Freeman Gives Jack a Run for his Money

I just saw a Christmas Pic that Aunt Katie snapped of Freeman. I'm not so sure that Jack retains the title of Cutest Basham Chamblee Boy in a Christmas Pic. What do you think?

Happy Birthday Jack!

Jack's actual birthday (January 6 or 'Janjuary 6' according to him) was a pretty low key affair. Everybody but him was at least a little sick (Mama and Lola were a lot sick, Papaw just got out of the hospital, plus it was the middle of the week), so we couldn't do much more than a few hurriedly wrapped matchbox cars and a recipe for "Emergency Chocolate Cake" from America's Test Kitchen. I thought the recipe name was pretty apt given our recent run of bad luck on the health front. Interestingly, it has mayonaise in it rather than butter and eggs.

We hope to have a bit more of a festive occasion this weekend, but Jack seemed to really appreciate what little we did do to celebrate his birthday so far.

Best Christmas Pic

The award goes to Jack, at least based on the few pics that were actually taken by our camera. We were insanely busy with travel and kid juggling and baking baking baking and then Jack got pneumonia and then the rest of us got sick too. Unfortunately, we kept forgetting to take pictures. I know that Uncle Tony and Aunt Katie snapped a few so maybe they'll submit another nomination. After finally reviewing the Christmas time pics on our camera Mama votes for this one of Jack helping us decorate the Christmas tree before the craziness of the holidays really began. I love the look on his face. Almost every night since the tree went up he has spent at least a few minutes on the couch with Mama and/or Daddy just gazing at the tree. It was a real sanity-saver when he was so needy with the pneumonia and restless with the prednisone.


This is my favorite recent pic of Freeman. With the shirt from Maemae, the leggings from Aunt Kathy, and Jack's old sock rattles, he looks like a lot of his toys. This shot reminds me of the Where's Waldo books.

Holiday Haiku

Honey Optional
Nonfat dry milk and
Peanut butter. Mix and roll.
Save me from myself.

Oh, Prednisone
You help heal my poor
boy's pneumonia but how mean
he is now. 'Roid rage

Fried Rice
Pretty good made from
leftover turkey, ham, eggs,
garlic, celery.

The Plague
Jack is well, Freeman
dodges the worst of it but
head colds rule my house.

Three Months Old

I'll say it again: Time does fly.

Check out kiddo in the traditional overalls gifted by Big Dad.


At the mothers group I attend, I think I've become that lady whose kid always wears leggings. I hear a siren song emanate from the women's sock department at Target every time I'm on that side of town.

Little Bit loves to laugh and coo at faces. His laughs aren't sustained giggles yet, but they're getting there. He's about 14 pounds worth of silly baby.



He's also starting to unclench those tiny fists and hold on to toys and stroke the boobs as he nurses.

See the Brothers!

That's what we say (ever so brightly) when Jack loves on Freeman.
Of course, it's not all sunshine between the brothers all the time. There's a reason none of you will be receiving holiday cards that show the two boys smiling at the same time.

Or looking at the camera at the same time for that matter. I might have used this one anyway if someone had said, "Hey, Lady. Lose the burp rag." At least it was free.

Jackisms

We are frequently driving home when NPR's News and Notes is on the radio. Yesterday Jack heard talk about Barack Obama. He has no idea who (or what) that is. His contribution to the political discussion: "I like Barack-oli."

Sometimes Jack can be difficult with his toddler mood swings, but sometimes he completely cracks us up. This picture is from this morning. He kept saying, "This is a very nice hat I'm wearing me." His 'hat' is one of the Lincoln Logs tubs from his daddy's youth. He was pretty unconcerned about not being able to see where he was going.

Two Months Old

Big Bit continues to chunkify. He's become quick to grin, though I didn't get that in these pics.

Favorite pastimes include boobs, pushing himself to a standing position in our laps, and laughing when Mama yawns (which is quite frequently). He also finds the mobile over his crib pretty entertaining.

Building and Growing

...Or 'If I had a hammer'.

Daddy took Jack to one of those little Saturday kids workshops at Lowe's.

One upon a time when Melanie Glover and I were chemistry lab partners, we would pass the time making each other laugh by saying "I'm crazy goggle head...Give me some candy!" You really had to be there.

But you didn't have to be there to appreciate how cute Jack looks...

Halloween

I still have to take good daylight pics of the boys in their costumes, but for now I'll hurriedly post the pics we did get. (Is there anything I don't do hurriedly now?)

Jack wore the clown outfit that Daddy wore when he was about that age. Mae Mae sewed that one and a new one for little Freeman. They sure were a cute pair!

Freeman pretty much slept through Halloween, but Jack had a lot of fun. We went to a nearby carnival where Jack didn't much get into the games. Instead, he ran himself silly in great circles. Also, he refused to trick-o-treat at other houses, insisting instead that he'd rather trick-or-treat at his own house.

Freeman wants to PUMP you up!

So how long do you think he'll be able to pull off this kind of look??

Funny how awfully this outfit would probably go over if he were fifteen or twenty.

The shirt -- compliments of Aunt Lucinda

The leggings -- Mama's crafty stab at the pricey BabyLegs that are so popular now. These are made from a pair of socks that cost a buck. I don't always fall for the latest fad, but I must say that leggings beat the pants off of pants when you have to change as many diapers as we do.

Notice that Little Bit is starting to model with a smile.




In other news...I made John take a picture of me doing something that I hope is part of an extraordinary moment in history. He voted early to dodge super long lines. I went for absentee so that I wouldn't have to worry about Freeman.

Out, damn'd Desitin! out, I say!

I'm paraphrasing Lady Macbeth to tell my faithful reader(s?) about that which occupies about 60 percent of my mind...diapers and diaper rash. Freeman has the phenomenally sensitive butt that his brother had at this age. Moreover, his little pooper soils his diapers with at least a dozen itty bitty squirts a day rather than a few substantial ones. Since we're using cloth, we also change quite a few extra peepee diapers. To keep his bottom shiny and happy, we use gobs of Desitin. Gobs. We put it on and then make an even thicker masque by adding in some cornstarch powder.

For the time being, Freeman's butt is beautiful, but the little grooves on my right index finger seem to be permanently stained white with Desitin...a parental twist on the yellow fingers characteristic of some smokers. I wash my hands dozens of times a day to no avail -- with a scrub brush even. Ah well...at least Sweetpea's butt is smooth as...well...a baby's butt. And seemingly more Desitin-stain resistant than my finger.

If cloth diapers bore you, read no further. Here's a review. We use a mix of disposable and cloth, but on the cloth front, I just gotta say that I am LOVE LOVE LOVING the bumGenius all-in-one cloth diapers. The materials in them don't take kindly to ointments, so I've actually been using them on Jack (who outgrew his tendency to rash). It is soooo cool that they adjust to fit both him and Freeman. Plus, the material really does wick moisture away almost as well as Huggies and Pampers. It's shocking to pull the inserts out after a heavy wetting night. They are soaked and super-heavy, but the moisture in the material against Jack's skin is barely perceptible. They seem like the perfect diaper for people who don't relish the idea of poopy diaper laundry, but whose kids have predictable poops. You could keep those types of kids in disposables around poop time, and cloth the rest of the time without your life changing that much. What a money saver. And they are super cute to boot. Jack thinks of them as his 'underwear', which I hope is a step towards the potty training against which he had been completely rebelling.

On Freeman we're using Kissaluvs, my favorite fitted, not-all-in-one cloth diaper. I use disposable diaper liners (which look much like a dryer sheet) to minimize their exposure to Desitin and to make for less poopy laundry. I don't trust the liners enough to keep the Desitin away from my more pricey bumGenius diapers, but they do a fine job with the Kissaluvs, which aren't as finicky about ointments in the first place. The Kissaluvs don't have a moisture wicking material, so that means changing with almost every pee, but with Freeman you pretty much get a poop with most pees anyway. What with my initial investment with Jack, some eBay and consignment finds over the last couple of years, and the kindness of family, I accumulated quite a stash of Kissaluvs. That means I don't have to do diaper laundry every day, which sure makes all the difference compared to our early days of doing cloth with Jack.

Back to Jack and underwear...a favorite game lately is dancing around in his 'yellow square underwears'. He pulls the zero and eight foam squares up around his waist and twirls around the house.

'One Month Years Old' ...

...is Freeman's age if you ask Jack. I'm late in posting these recent pics of Little Bit. I'm late in everything these days. The light reflecting off the blue blanket makes him look a little smurfy. He's really a lovely shade of considerably-paler-than-Mama.

Touch a Truck Day

So, if you know Jack, you know he has a thing for vehicles. A couple of weekends back the county sponsored a Touch a Truck day at a nearby park that featured emergency, law enforcement, construction, and other county vehicles . Jack was terribly excited before we even got there. At first, he took 'Touch a Truck' quite literally. He'd walk up to each vehicle (index finger extended) and give it a good poke. He acted distressed every time we suggested that he could actually climb into the trucks. After about an hour, though, he announced that he was ready to drive the fire truck. Once he conquered that, he got brave enough to try out a number of vehicles.