On the Verge...

No.  Let's just call it what it is: catch up.  I haven't posted in awhile.  I am beginning to realize that unless this blog becomes something kind of "official" in a way, there is no urgent motivation to make the time to do frequent posts.  I would love to have documented Selah's first few years as well as I did with Abram, but one more kid makes things quite a bit harder.  Also only having one computer, which is the one that Quinn uses for work makes it exponentially harder.  We are talking about getting a new one for me soon, as he will be starting to go away to the church office everyday and my only access to a computer at all will be very late and night and on the weekends.  So, maybe that will be like our anniversary present.  We will have been married for five years on the 15th of this month! It feels like so much longer than that (in a very, very good way).  But we are already starting to make plans for what we want to do to celebrate...

Abram will officially be two and half tomorrow!  What a big kid!  Selah got quite a lot of blog time this last  year with her monthly posts, I thought I needed to do one for Abram at this special milestone.  I'll even use the same survey format.  Here goes: Date: May 16th, 2013 Weight: Just went to the doctor two days ago.  He was around 12 kg (or about 26.5 lbs).  I think that's somewhere around the 5-10th percentile?  That's almost exactly where he's been his whole life. Just sticking to that growth curve! Clothing size:  He has a few 6-12 month shorts, a few 12 month, a few 18 month, and a few 2T.  The elastic in the 2Ts are cinched as tight as they will go.  He definitely fits best in 18 month.  Shirts are pretty much the same.  18 month is best, but he's not swimming in 2T anymore.   Feedings per day:  He's like a real person.  So three.  And a snack (sometimes). Naps...

My vocabulary did not include the word "latrophobia" five seconds ago, but I googled "fear of doctors" and now it does.   We took the kids to the American Hospital of Dubai yesterday for well checks and immunizations.  Selah is quite far behind and Abram never had his two year check.  In Austin we went to the doctor all of the time.  Like, too much, probably.  80% of the time it was necessary.  The other 20% happened mainly in the first few months of Abram's life when I was a paranoid new mother.  He had bronchitis quite a few times and has even been to the doctor here twice before yesterday.  But it's been about five months (praise God!) since the last visit and both kids were not happy about the outing.  I tried to prepare Abram by telling him that we were going to the doctor before we left so that he wouldn't be surprised.  He kept telling me that he didn't want to go to the doctor, he wanted to go to the grocery store.  ...

I will now attempt to communicate the happenings of our birthday party last night in only pictures.  You see if you can tell what happened without any words. That's right!  You got it!  Balloon pit, food, cupcakes, more balloon pit.  How did you know?!   Oh yeah.  The pictures.  That's right.  

Literally and figuratively. I thought I would share some videos that give a little peek into our pretty awesome little guy's personality and how his mind works.   However, it's going to require some subtitles.  We understand what he's saying, oh, 90% of the time.  When I don't know what he's saying, I often say, "What are you talking about, Abram?"  He's turned that back on me a few times at perfectly hilarious moments.  "What is Mommy talking about?!"  It's hard to convey what his little voice sounds like now when he asks a question.  He's figured out that we make our voices higher at the end of a question and he's been doing some very exaggerated and adorable question asking the last few days.   So here's a few Abramoments from the last few days. You might have read the potty training m&m s post.  He's been better, actually.  I mean, he still uses the potty sporadically.  Maybe for 50% of his #1 trip...

I now definitely have what the children have. Stuffy, gross nose and sore throat (they haven't been able to communicate that symptom to us, but now that I have one, I'm pretty sure they must be suffering from it as well). Abram had a rough night and now two good ones, sleeping all the way through in his tent which we moved to our living room. We did this because Selah is a day behind him and she's a baby. So when she wakes up unable to breathe, a dramatically loud process of booger sucking and consequent screaming ensues that would wake the dead, not to mention her sleeping brother. Her rough night was two nights ago. Last night was better, once we actually got her to go to sleep in spite of her stuffiness. I'm hoping tonight will be even better.  Poor little girl. I have realized recently that while there are some pretty awesome things about being a baby (like getting to be pushed around in a stroller everywhere, being held and snuggled constantly by people you ...

No one had to tell me after we had Selah that the most important rule to follow in our new multiple child household was not to compare my children.  That's totally common sense, and a good one to follow for many reasons.  Topping this list would probably be for their self esteem.  There is nothing worse than being compared to your sibling and coming out as the one in want.  But that becomes more important later.  As babies, this rule is important mainly for one's own sanity.  All kids do things at different times and it just tends to cause anxiety and doubt when you realize that one kid is behind where the other one was at that age. However, despite being well aware of the benefits of following this unspoken rule, I find myself struggling not to break it.  My children are very very very different from each other in many ways, of course they would be different developmentally, right?! Abram was a more emotional, vocal, hands on baby and he was crawl...