Ruthie is 18 months

On May 15th, Ruthie was officially 18 months old. This little girl seriously AMAZES me. When you ask her, "How old are you?" She quickly responds, "Two." Most days, I believe it. I tell people she is 18 months going on 3 years. Here are a few of the amazing things Ruthie can do:

(I wish I had pictures of everything. Perhaps I'll take some and retroactively add them).

• At the park, she can climb from the ground to the top of the big slides and go down in a sitting positions - all by herself.

• She can run - and she and brother love to play chase every day.

• Every morning, she feeds herself a bowl of cereal and get 80% of it in her mouth. (I've gotten accustomed to the daily clean up of the other 20% ).

• When we put on the "Oo and Ah" song in the car, Ruthie sings along. "Oo Oo, Oo Oo, Oo Oo, Ah Ah." It is so stinkin' cute.

• To this day she's still not really a night-time cuddle-bug. If she'd let me, I'd hold her and sing to her for much longer stretches, but when reading time is done, she starts to cry and wriggle. Maybe I just haven't mastered the bed-time routine the way Anthony super-dad has.

• That said, Ruthie is (and has always been) the easiest kid to put to bed. She actually asks for naps. No joke!

• She has her routine. Every morning she greets me with, "I cererereal now." Immediately following breakfast she announces, "T B" (for tv). She and Austin watch one or two PBS kids shows while I get some things done. Then we're out of the house and playing. We come home in time for lunch about noon, at which point she announces, "nap." It's a tough life.

• Ruthie is a very happy, pleasant girl. She's super easy and often does her own thing quite happily. The things that upset her, though, are 1) brother trying to bend her to his will with pushing, pulling, or sitting on her; 2) her morning routine thrown off; 3) waking up from naps early; 4) diaper changes.
  

• She is definitely a girly-girl. When I let the kids wander through the toy aisles at the store, Austin heads toward the Toy Story, Batman, Leggos kind of stuff, while Ruthie heads for the babies, strollers and purses. I have not pushed this at all and her supply of girl toys is still severely under par. But it's amazing to me to see the natural gender differences in these two.

• Ruthie definitely talks like a 2-year-old. She uses over a hundred words (I can't count them all) and frequently uses 2-word, sometimes 3-word sentences! Nursery leaders, the gym daycare workers and many other adults often comment on how well and how much she speaks. We never bothered teaching this little girl sign language because she's been communicating her needs since she was 1.

• Some of my favorite funny words are:
• "bank-bank" = blanket
• "cuppy" = drink
• "bop-bop" = grandpa
• "ma-ma" = grandma (and I'm "mommy")
• "cerleerreeal" = cereal
• "weee" = swing
• "tank oo" = thank you
  

• Some of her clearest words are:
• "Debbie"
• "Tyce"
• "shoes"
• "socks"
• "nap"
• "car"
• "hungry"
• "ta-da"
• "doggie"
• "alright" (this was one of her earliest words too and it cracked us up every time!)
  

• Some of her best word combinations are:
• "play car"
• "stop it"
• "I did it"
• "No, I do"
• "Daddy, are you?" (where are you?)
• "Daddy work"
• "I oo oo mommy" (I love you mommy)
  

My precious daughter is a blond-haired, deep-brown-eyed, cherub. I'm so so glad she's in my family. What would life be without having both a boy and a girl to enjoy? Ruthie, your mommy and daddy love you fiercely - never forget that.

Gardening 102

Year 2 of gardening is underway! My gardening efforts actually began in February with a technique I learned 2 years ago called "winter sewing". Cut open a milk jug, fill it with dirt, plant your seeds, tape the jug shut, water well, leave the cap off, toss it out in the snow, and don't bother with it until May! The first 2 pictures below are our February gardening efforts. The next is the result in May: beets, onions/carrots, peppers, squash. Here's what I learned about winter sewing this year: 1) don't start until St. Patricks day - all my plants out grew their containers a month before planting time. 2) plant peppers indoors and start them in January - they just don't grow in the cold and they grow slow. 3) plant only one type of seed per jug - when they get big they're hard to separate. 4) for big items, like squash, only plant 1 or 2 per jug so they have plenty of room to grow. Winter sewing is a blast though. It's like having your own nursery starts for super cheap and very little effort.


The last photo (above) is the zucchini plant Austin started from a seed in preschool. When it got big enough, he planted it himself in our backyard. Today, it's got a few little zucchini's starting to grow (picture 4 below).

Here's how our garden looks today: Our new honey crisp apple tree, our new garden plot, our new lemon Elberta peach tree, Austin's zucchini, last year's expanding raspberries. This year our garden contains: watermelon, zucchini, rosemary, raspberries, winter squash, summer squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, carrots, onions, beets, tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. We've harvested all 10 of our miserable strawberry crop already (here's hoping I can do better next year). Everything else is just starting to bloom and I can't wait to start eating it!

First Preschool

This past year Austin was part of a little neighborhood playgroup/preschool. We met once a week, rotating turns between the moms. This was sooo great for Austin - to make good friends, and to be exposed to other "teachers" and "lessons". It was good for me too - to enjoy teaching and to see Austin in comparison to his peers. (Which is probably important to me because he's my first to go through everything).

Our adorable group of kids (L to R): David, Inza, Nate, Austin.

Austin writes

My little man is growing up in so many ways. In the past few months, his art work has changed drastically. He now draws recognizable faces and bodies and will tell me who is who in his art work.

He's also started writing his name! How do kids pick this stuff up? I never taught him how to write a single letter. Yet somehow, one day, he stumbled onto making an 'A'. A few months later, the other letters started to appear then suddenly - bam! - he was writing his whole name.

Supper Nanny to the Rescue!

Boys will be boys. Right? No way! Back in April I stumbled across an episode of Supernanny that changed our family. If you're a fan, this was the episode about The Johnson Family (fitting, eh?). In that family's 3 rowdy boys, I saw a reflection of my own adorable son. So after that show, I made Anthony watch it online, bought the book and cracked down on time-outs. It's helped A LOT. On the one hand, it has reduced Austin's physical lash-outs, which typically land on Ruthie or his cousins, by half or maybe even in fourth. The other big thing it has given me is a way to react to him calmly. I used to get so frazzled when he just wouldn't stop and wouldn't listen to me. But he responds to time-outs (if I use the Supernanny technique). It has cut my "loosing it" by a good 98% - and that is heaven sent! Thank you Supernanny!

Easter

So Easter was, what.... 3 months ago? Ni yah. Just a few fun photos from our celebrations. We got sooooo much candy, that we actually only just finished it off about 2 weeks ago! Go Easter Bunny!

Rex Lee and Susan G

Another Rex Lee in the books (end of March). Debbie was my buddy this go round. We had a great time - and I actually won something in the raffle for the first time in 8 years! I got $10 to Hogi Yogi - after donating $240 over the years. Remember kids - gambling is dumb.

Debbie and I walked the race this year (5K in just under 1 hour) because I'm still nursing a bum knee from an injury over a year ago.

A month later (May), Heather, Debbie and I all walked the Susan G. Komen "race" in SLC. That was some experience! It was curb-to-curb people for a solid mile. We couldn't have run, or even speed-walked, if we'd wanted to!

A Conversation Between Father and Son

Austin struck up the following conversation with me while lying in bed before bedtime.

Austin: Honey, wanna hear a joke?
Anthony: Sure.
Austin: What did the pineapples say before eating themselves and eating themselves again and then they go to bed?
Anthony: What did they say?
Austin (in a high-pitched three-year-old this-is-the-punch-line voice): We are going to eat ourselves and eat ourselves again and then go to bed.
Anthony: {Laughing to himself}
Austin: Honey, what's the funny part of that joke?
Anthony: {Laughing to himself some more}
Austin: Honey, what's the funny part of that joke?
Anthony: I don't know, you're the one who told it, what's the funny part?
Austin: I don't know... Wanna hear another joke...

Goodbye Thumb... NOT

On Sunday March 7, we wrapped Ruthie's thumb, told her her thumb-sucking days were over and cried with her. She stayed up late that night watching Baby Einstein because she couldn't fall asleep without her thumb. We did this same technique with Austin at the exact same age. He gave up the thumb after only 2 days. I thought Ruthie would be easier. For 2 solid weeks we wrapped her thumb. Every nap and bedtime she wailed for 20-60 minutes. This was extra hard to take since Ruthie has been soooo easy to put to bed her whole life. Chuck her in the crib with her thumb and her favorite blanket (in the picture) and she basically goes right to sleep. Without her thumb, she soon learned to suck on her finger, or fingers, or her hand or arm or other hand. What were we to do? Put her in an upper body cast?

So yeah, Ruthie won the battle. The wrappings ceased. The thumb returned. Sleep returned. And everyone lived happily ever after.

(We figure that when she's 3 or 4 we'll try to help her give up the thumb using sticker charts and all that good stuff).

Bits and Pieces

Some old old updates (super quick):

1. Austin has a cat. It doesn't belong to us. I don't have to change it's litter box. But he loves it like it was his very own (aka - sporadically). It belongs to our backyard neighbors and comes to visit every so often. Austin has named him "Filbert". It's either after Calliou's cat Gilbert, or Sid's dog Filbert - or both.
2. We went to Thanksgiving Point's Cornbellies in October (ancient news, yes). The kids loved it and I am totally planning on getting a membership for it this year.


3. I came in to my kitchen one day to discovery this.... Austin used the step stool to climb up the wall, to the fridge, to the cupboards, and eventually made his way in to the pantry. Hopefully he got in enough trouble to never do it again (but not before I could get a picture to remember how secretly proud I was of his bravery and skills).

4. We carpeted our living room in December. Love it! It has cut down on the echos in the house 10 fold. We roll around and wrestle on it pretty much daily. It has made our home so family friendly.

5. A month ago we wrapped up our singing group. We went every Wednesday for 6 months to Brie Frank's "Cherubs" group where we sang kids songs, played instruments, danced with puppets, and had fun. Pictured below is our Valentine's Day party.

Germany

Ah, the perfect vacation. It will be a long time before we can do something like this again. Anthony has been wanting to take me to his old mission for a while, but between finances, pregnancy and nursing babies, it's never been a good time. This year, he had a work conference in England in January, so we thought, "why not?" My parents heroically accepted to watch our kids for 10 days. So we met in Germany after his conference - Jan 18-27 (counting air travel days).

Day 1 (Tuesday) - Stuttgart

Anthony wanted to see a little of south Germany, but still be close enough to get to Berlin. So Stuttgart became our starting point. Turns out it's not really a tourist site, but it was a great place to catch up on jet lag, see a busy modern German shopping district, buy a fun new game, and get some insanely delicious doners and gelato (I'd return to Stuttgart just for those)!



Riding the Rails

One of the big treats of Europe is experiencing superb public transit. We used the U-bahn, S-bahn and Strassen-bahn (did I forget one Anthony?) to get around. (Anthony informs me I forgot the Regional-bahn). I loved traveling by train from city to city. We talked, ate, read and slept without any driving stress. It was also fun to see the countryside of Germany - even if it was covered under feet of cold January snow. I got a kick out of seeing the rented gardens along the rail. People in cities who want to try their green thumb can rent a 50-square-foot garden in the country to tend. Clever idea. And it makes me grateful for all my free backyard dirt!



Our travels took us from Stuttgart, to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, to Dresden and finally Berlin.



Day 2&3 (Wednesday-Thursday) - Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Recommended by the Duffin clan, we were so delighted by our stop here. Rothenburg over the Tauber river is a well-preserved medieval city. The houses, streets and protecting wall all stand much as they did 500 years ago. We stayed in the atmospheric Gasthof Goldener Greifen (the mayors old house). I discovered one of my most favorite German meals here too - Spaetzle.

We spent Thursday visiting the church and two famous museums in town. I learned some crazy things about old-time laws and punishments. In some ways it sounded barbaric, in other ways it kind of made sense. I mean, if you were caught quarrelling with a neighbor, you both had to stand in the town square locked to each other for a day. How many poor sport soccer parents would we have with punishments like that? It kind of makes me wonder how people 500 years from now will view our system of lawyers and courtrooms to "prove" (or artfully convince) one's innocence. The big claim to fame of the city is the original well, which brought life-giving, fire-stopping, water in from the river. It's underground canal was kept top secret so enemies couldn't destroy it.


The most unique feature of Rothenburg is the fortress wall surrounding the entire city. Significantly bombarded in WWII it has since been restored. It's a blast to walk along the ramparts of the wall looking down into 500 year old history and out the loopholes (windows) at modern day Germany.


Day 4&5 (Friday-Saturday) - Dresden

Moving further north, Dresden gave us a taste of German art culture as well as WWII destruction.

A few fun pictures from Dresden I took to show my kids.

Home of the famous Saxon king Augustus the Great, this is where he commissioned and collected hundreds of amazing vessels and sculptures in all different forms. The vault consisted of 10 rooms each with a different theme - such as bronze, silver, amber, crystal, etc. This was perhaps my favorite art collection I've yet seen. We also visited the famous "Old Masters" painting museum, where I discovered that I'm not a big fan of looking at the same 5 Biblical stories painted over and over again in various forms of nudity. Sculptures rock. Paintings bore. And so we moved on to...



Day 6-7 (Sunday-Tuesday) - Berlin

The city where Anthony served his mission. Anthony planned to be in Berlin on Sunday so we could attend the East Berlin ward he served in. (I nearly froze to death in my nylons walking to the church on the coldest January day Germany has seen in 100 years!) Anthony had a great time being back and reminiscing with familiar people. We were invited to the home of Werner Riedel for dinner (authentic German cooking!). He spoke fair English, his wife spoke none, but still I hardly felt the language barrier as we enjoyed talking about their many travels. On the way home we snagged pictures of Anthony's first mission apartment and the familiar street he walked everyday.


On Monday we explored the city. We started with a freezing morning walking tour (which we almost skipped because of the cold and we're both glad we didn't). We stopped in the U-bahn to see pictures of the burning Reichstag, visited the Jewish memorial, the Bradenburg Tor and of course, the Berlin Wall. We spent the afternoon at Checkpoint Charlie and then swung by the Reichstag that night (next collage). That picture of my feet - that's me standing on the Berlin Wall! Red bricks mark the original path of the ripped-down wall throughout the city.


With all the build up of 14th century Rothenburg, 17th century Dresden, it was at the Berlin Wall that the great panorama of history gelled and came alive for me for the first time. On Tuesday we visited the German history museum where I saw for the first time the great cycles of history. Peace, war, new maps. Over and over again. The world I once imagined was stable and flat is actually volatile, cyclical and round. Amazing. Unsettling. It made me anxious to want to learn more of the story. What will happen in the next 50 years? 1000? It's exciting. Too bad I won't know (except in the afterlife), but cool that I get to see so much of that history now.

A few more fun pictures: Alexanderplatz and the TV Tower (think Bourne Supremacy), the top of the Reichstag, old school pinball and "cannons" at the German History museum. Washing our clothes, German "art" (aka graffiti), the famous home of the missionaries' favorite doner spot, rotegrutze (raspberry gelatin in vanilla sauce).


One of the best bonuses of the trip was that we came home with new friends. Irene and Oliver Luedtke and Irene's sister Tine. Irene and Tine grew up in the ward where Anthony served and Anthony helped teach Oliver the first missionary discussions. Anthony was surprised to discover that Oliver is now the ward clerk and that Oliver and Irene had gotten married. They graciously hosted us at the German History Museum and then took us out to an authentic DDR (old Communist) restaurant. All three spoke excellent English. I had a blast getting to know them, hearing their perspective of the fall of The Wall (when they were about 10) and learning all about German vs American culture. Hanging out with them made me want to learn German because I think it is awesome to be able to make friends half a world away.


Of course, while we were away, we missed our kids terribly. We talked with them online most nights - the only way to go with kids so young. They wiped my parents out, but they also bonded like never before. Thanks Mom, Dad, Austin and Ruthie for letting us have this magical trip to Germany!

Tenessee Christmas

Christmas season officially begins with the decorating of the tree. Shortly after, we blockaded the tree with the couch to prevent little miss curiosity from pulling it over. Every morning, Austin hurdled the couch to plug in the Christmas lights for the day.

Another important family tradition is the annual grandma picture with Santa Claus. Ruthie did not dig this tradition too much. Austin got into the spirit of it, informing Santa he wanted train tracks for Christmas.

We started (hopefully) a new tradition this year - a Christmas mailbox, where elves and mommy can deliver Christmas surprises all month long. This included Christmas stories, crafts, movies, decorations and treats. I didn't bother taking a picture of the mailbox because it was just a diaper box with one end pulled out (you can see it the picture below by Ruthie's table). In the future I hope we'll have a fun day decorating the new mailbox each year and anticipating the fun deliveries.

We celebrated this year in Tennessee. Thankfully, I wasn't pregnant this time, so we could all fully enjoy the trip. Before we left, we had a mini Christmas at home, opening a few family gifts that were too large to travel.
We arrived late on the 23rd, so before we knew it, it was Christmas! The kids lined up on the stairs Christmas morning ready to go. (Christmas PJs were supplied by Grandma Duffin). Some family members were still sleeping in (the thrill is lost in adulthood), but Oma, Opa and Hilary joined my little early risers. One of Anthony's gifts was Jazz tickets (really a gift to me too - we enjoyed watching them win that game against the Nuggets by the way). Everyone's stockings included some traditional items - fruit, m&ms (which I devoured), mini Baby Ruth's, and a bag of Cheetos (which Austin devoured).

Santa did his job well - Austin got his train tracks and Ruthie got a new puppy.

Later, when the rest of the family woke up (poor Amber had a stomach virus!), we opened family gifts. Tia Claire got the kids adorable Disney PJs, and Buzz Lightyear gear, plus a membership to the Childrens' Discovery Museum in Salt Lake! Ruthie got toys and books, Austin got an airport (one of his favorite toys still), I got a cash card which I am using to get a couple much needed massages and Anthony received some stylish new business apparel.
Other notable events included the traditional Christmas candlelight ceremony, a game night at the Barnes (bottom right above), the Gatlinburg aquarium (thanks Amber for planning that!), a lively religion discussion, a trip to the park, lots and lots of fun with cousins Olivia, Sophie, Rosie (Kerry's kids) and Henry (Amber's boy). Ruthie also became a savvy little traveler this trip.

Ruthie learned her first distinguishable word - "Henry"!
(Of course, 3 months later, she now has several good words)

It Starts With P and That Rhymes with T and That Stands for Trouble

Yep, I'm talking potty training. I was intending to wait until after our Christmas trip to TN to tackle this, but it suddenly hit me that we had another big trip in January and that I'd really be waiting until almost February! So we plunged in.

Look at that cute little underwear boy helping to decorate the Christmas tree! There is nothing cuter than a 3-year-old in underwear.

So how did we work it? We started on a Sunday afternoon after church (the day of the picture taken above). I told him he was done with diapers and he was going to wear underwear now. He gave no argument. The first 2 days I gave him 3 M&Ms for every time he sat on the potty. I set my timer to go off every 30 minutes and had him sit on the potty and try. After 2 days he was getting tired of that routine and so was I. Plus, I could tell that he had fully accepting this potty thing, he just needed to "own" it and figure out for himself when to go.

So I introduced this sticker chart. He got a sticker every time he went potty and kept his underwear dry. I thought he'd fill the chart in 3 days, but it ended up taking 5. Five rip-my-hair-out days. It seemed like Austin announced his need to go potty 1 second before it came out of his body. We changed a lot of underwear and spot cleaned a lot of carpet. Obviously, we didn't go anywhere that week. I suppose I could have used pull-ups, but I wanted to get this over with, no handicaps. Finally, on day 7, I had a heart-to-heart with him and asked him if he was trying or if it was just hard. He sincerely told me that he was trying and that it was hard. He was cute. And I decided to have more patience. But, joyously, we woke up the next morning and bang! he'd figured it out. He went dry that day and many a day since!

This was Austin's prize for filling up the sticker chart. For the first 3 days he asked every time he went potty if he could play with his "surprise" now. It was so hard for me to hold out and not give it to him but I wanted him to have a reason to keep trying. It turned out to be just right actually. When he finally earned this, he was so happy! He played with this toy for a solid straight week.

Looking back, the potty training actually went fast, but that one week was excruciatingly frustrating. He only had one poop on the floor incident (phew) which I made him clean up - and I'm pretty sure that convinced him to never do that again. Now he's doing great. We still get wet underwear about once every other day, but he knows how to get himself cleaned up so I'm feeling patient with it. Last week we did another sticker chart to practice wiping himself (that's so nice!). The only big thing left is night-time training and I'm not sure when I'm going to tackle that.

I'm so happy the hardest part is over. He seems so much older and more responsible now. It's definitely changed the way I perceive him and what I expect of him. My little man is truly growing up. And he's at that magical age where he couldn't be prouder.