e-Lew Weekly: 2/22/12

Ten Weeks Old

Thursday

Friday = Bath day

Saturday– Slept from 11-5! Will he ever do it again?

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday- Tummy Time!

RioTokyo!

A secret goal of mine was to transfer my RioTokyo blog over to WordPress while I was on maternity leave. This is the blog I wrote as an ongoing/final assignment during my semester in Japan during business school. It’s also what gave me the blogging bug.

http://riotokyo.wordpress.com/

Now I don’t need to worry about losing it to that fickle blogging program that used to be its home. RioTokyo, safe and sound on Wordpress. Ahhhh.

Splash!

Couldn’t resist posting a few of these pictures from Hiram’s latest photo shoot.

Hike’s Dictionary: Long Sleeves

Long Sleeves - (noun) The part of a shirt that covers only the upper half of the arm.

The mild weather we’ve been having makes Hiram more particular about what kind of t-shirt he will wear. Which is fine, now that I’ve figured out that he classifies sleeves by how much of his arm is showing. Therefore:

Short sleeves = Long arms = Long sleeves

Long sleeves = Short arms = Short sleeves

Got that?

Be Mine, Valentine x 2

When I lived in Japan, I learned about the Japanese Valentine’s Day tradition, which I totally heart.

On Feb. 14, all the girls who like a boy give him chocolate. But it’s not as simple as that. The trick is to give your heart throb some very nice chocolate because then, on March 14 (a.k.a. White Day) the boy picks the girl who gave him the best chocolate and gives her chocolate in return. Then they’re officially in love.

A dialogue in the sweet language of cocoa. Yum!

Brad and I adopted this tradition, which I think is fun because we get chocolate twice. Unless, of course, he gives chocolate to someone else on March 14. (This is not allowed, Bradly.) Plus, Brad makes it super easy on me by preferring a homemade chocolate bark recipe I learned in a Community Ed truffle making class. Here’s the recipe in case you want to try it. It’s very easy and a fun thing to do with kids too.

Ingredients:

• Chocolate (chips, disks, bars, whatever you like best)
• Toppings (nuts, dried fruit, candy cane pieces, etc. I always go to the snack section at Target and buy something super extravagant like Dark Chocolate Espresso trail mix)

Put the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and melt it. Zap it for 30 seconds at a time and stir after each session. It usually takes 3 or 4 times to get it all smooth.

Smear the chocolate on wax paper and have your toddler sprinkle on the toppings.

Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Give it to your husband. He will totally pick you.

e-Lew Weekly: 2/16/12

9 Weeks Old!

Thursday: Graduated to size 2 diapers

Friday

Saturday

Sunday: First hockey game, go daddy!

Monday

Tuesday: 2 month check up! 13 lbs, 9 ozs and 23.5 inches long

Wednesday

Eldyn: 2 Months

Month 2! Eldyn’s growing like a weed and we’re learning more about each other every day.

Licking Colic: We’re making progress on the colic front, thanks to the passage of time and my discovery that cow’s milk spells trouble. Foregoing ice cream has been tough, but is actually a small price to pay for the chance to see Eldyn’s real personality start to shine.  He loves to watch his big brother and tell me important things like ”goo” and “gah.”

Smile? OK! And the first smile goes to…Hiram of course. After a week of only smiling for big brother, Eldyn’s started to get a bit more generous and will now smile for mama, giki or anyone else with a funny face.

There’s the panda! There’s the puppy! There’s the duck! There’s the panda! Eldyn LOVES his wind-up mobile and is happy to watch it until I start to feel guilty for leaving him in his crib too long. This means I’ve been getting a little more housework done– in 60 second intervals. Sweep, sweep, sweep! Wind up the mobile! Sweep, sweep, sweep! Wind up the mobile.

Burps, Sighs and Grunts

Quick! Guess which of the Barrows clan is responsible for the majority of grunts, burps and sighs going on lately…

Apparently, the answer is– me. I didn’t realize how many sounds I made until Hiram started factoring them into his “why” line of questioning.

“Mama, why do you say buuuurp?”

“Mama, why do you say *sigh*?”

“Mama, why do you say grunt, grunt?”

Good questions, little one.

5 Parenting Questions

OK. Two months at home with a newborn and I’m starting to interview myself for entertainment.

1) What’s the best parenting advice you’ve ever received? Don’t change your baby’s diaper at night, unless you really, really have to.

2) What’s the most annoying parenting advice you’ve ever heard? Don’t do laundry.

3) What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your kids, so far? Less is more.

4) What is your favorite age, so far? 2

5) If your newborn could talk, what would they say? Or, if your kid could have talked as a newborn, what would they have said?

• Hiram: OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG.
• E-Lew: I hate to poop.

OK, mamas, papas, and other people with important kids in their lives. Now you answer these questions too. If you don’t have kids, you can revise the questions to make them relevant to you and answer however you want. Eldyn and I will draw a name from all the responders and one lucky person will win my very last 2012 Commemorate the Date calendar!

Say What: Growing Up

Apparently, the phase where you start wishing you were older begins around 2 years + 8 months. Hiram’s got the growing up itch, big time.

Almost every night at dinner, Hiram tells us this:

“I’m going to grow big, big, big and touch the ceiling.”

And then the other day while Hiram and I were enjoying breakfast, Hiram said this:

“I am going to get tall, tall, tall and then I will sit in the car on the driver’s side and you will sit on the other side and daddy and Eldyn sit in back. And I will drive the car!”