Sometimes I call her "The Vivs" and Rafe has started doing it too. I think The Vivs is a fitting nickname for a girl who poses like this for pictures without prompting.
It was quite a birthday. She woke up in the morning to the Birthday Doll House, which I had set up the night before. I was going to save it for the evening, but we have a good two hours in the morning before school to fill, so I thought it would be fun for her to kick off her birthday early. Also, it's easier for me to pack lunches and backpacks and take care of the baby when they can entertain themselves.
This they did quite well, until Rafe tried to take one of Brother and Sister Rabbit's toys out of the house and make a run for it. Vivi was swift and merciless in her retribution. We had to have a chat about being the Birthday Queen, not the Birthday Tyrant.
I never remember to trim their nails until they scratch each other and draw blood . . .
On the way to the bus stop that morning we had a Lawn Care Ninja sighting, which is always a treat. Sometimes I wonder how the Japanese would've reacted to me edging the lawn in soccer shorts and bare feet as a teenager . . .
Once the kids were safely away, it was time to get ready for the party! I had been asking what kind of party Vivi wanted every few days for the last month or so, but she had a different answer every time, with the exception of the location for the party, which was always the community room of our building. I took that to mean we could pretty much do whatever we wanted and it would be alright. Vivien really likes to roll up pieces of paper and carry them around as scrolls or maps, etc. so I had her help me roll up some proclamations of Her Royal Highness' Birthday (which I had typed up on the computer with stuffy language and swirly fonts) and hand deliver them to a few select friends.
Vivien really likes Sleeping Beauty (she will often sing the fanfare from the movie for herself when she enters rooms) so I spent most of the day making a Princess Aurora cake. Barbies are ridiculously tall. So. Much. Cake. And frosting really, but I never complain about too much frosting! I would've gone with the blue dress, but I used all my blue food coloring staining Vivi's bed, so Flora got her way in the end. And I'm sure the cake would've looked nicer and my house wouldn't have been such a disaster if I had broken out my wand, but I swore off magic for a reason, so hidden it shall remain!
Princess Aurora is impossibly shaped. Even Barbie looks a little chunky in her dress.
The party started half an hour after the kids got home from youchien. I had a brief scare when the first party guest arrived with his dad and 4 siblings, as I had only prepared to throw a party for 6 children, but they were just getting him settled before going to do something else. Once everyone had arrived, we started the party by making pipe cleaner crowns. It was a little too ambitious a craft for 3-4 year olds, but there were enough parents/older siblings who stuck around to help that it turned out fine.
Then we played Pin the Tail on Samson (Prince Phillip's horse). It was fun because everyone is so little that no one had ever played it before. Vivien almost threw a fit when it was her turn because she did not want to be blindfolded or spun around . . . but I was able to talk her into it, as those are the key elements of the game.
Here is Samson. I took a screenshot of a scene from the movie on my iPad, transferred it to the computer, blew it up, printed it out, re-colored it with markers, cut it out, and mounted it on scrapbook paper stuck on diaper box cardboard. Then I cut out a tail for each child and drew on a fancy first letter of each of their names with a silver paint pen. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Except I cut off too much of Phillip's charming nose, so he's not quite as handsome as he ought to be.
Our community room is a perfect place for a party with this age group. When one activity was finished, the kids would go play while I set up the next one. No one was ever bored, and I was not ever frantic!
After games we had the cake. It was delicious.
And then we opened presents. The Elsa dress pictured several times above was probably the favorite present, but she got some fun toys and books as well. She was very polite and looked each gifter in the eye to thank them after opening their present.
I had made royal cloaks for each invited prince and princess that they could take home with them. I cut up an old fitted sheet that had a busted corner, borrowed my upstairs neighbor's sewing machine to sew the cape piece to the cloak piece, then put in another seam to hold a ribbon. Then I painted the edges of the cloaks with sparkly nail polish so they would be fancy and not fray. Rafe did NOT want to model his.
Another beloved birthday dress from Grandma Paula. When she tried it on, I said, "I love the pockets!" and she said, "I love the polka dots."
Then AFTER the party, we opened MORE presents. I have not had to buy Vivien very many clothes thus far in her life because we've had hand-me-downs from friends, but we have not inherited any size 4 clothes, and all her 3T shirts are staring to look like cropped tops. So she got new shirts, new shorts, new Hawaii jammies, new socks, and new underwear.
I think she had a good day!
Baby Annie is also 4 this week, on a different time scale. She is coming to life more and more every day. She squeals like the AC unit out by the soccer field at Lone Peak, and sometimes makes noises like a baby Pegasus.
She likes to be swaddled, bounced on the exercise ball, and sung to.
She also likes chilling out on the changing table of the pack and play. Both of our other babies liked this too. Something about the edge of the bowl is just really fascinating to them.
She has made herself scream several times now by grabbing a fistful of her own hair and pulling with all her tiny might. So little control!
And she does pretty well being worn, which is especially nice in the evenings when I'm trying to feed people and straighten up the house. But because the only part of her I can see is her head on my chest when she's in the wrap, sometimes I feel like I'm wearing an absurdly large baby-head necklace, which is a little creepy . . .
It is fun to see glimpses of Vivi and Rafe in her face. They are definitely siblings.
One month down. Woohoo!
And my eyes are only mostly red . . .
We are definitely starting to encounter some turbulence after our smooth takeoff. Probably most frustrating of all for EVERYONE is that both older kids have at least one accident every day. The baby's laundry is nothing compared to theirs. Vivien got 10 pairs of new underwear for her birthday on Tuesday, and by Thursday we'd gone through them all! My carpet cleaner hardly ever gets put away. I hope, someday, they will get control of their sphincters. I hope it happens before I pull all my hair out.
"Hello! I'm Rafe, and I'm incontinent of bowel and bladder 30% of the time."
We've also had sickies. Vivi had a fever this last week and had to miss school for a couple days. I made the mistake of giving her Tylenol, and then she felt well enough to be a pill. I had asked her to try to not touch the baby while she was sick, but once she felt well enough to move around she started taking out her boredom on me by touching the baby on purpose.
I didn't give her Tylenol again. So, then she slept. She's such an easy sick person if she's not medicated!
Sick Rafe is not quite so easy. He picked up a nasty cough this week, probably from me, and has been having a hard time sleeping at night (just what we need!!). The other night he was doing his high pitched, whiny cry that sounds like a wolf howl, and when I went in there he kept asking over and over again for his "hammer." He's grown fond of this toy reflex hammer from the dress up doctor set; he's like a little Baby Thor.
We are all having our fair share of meltdowns too. Let's see if I can remember why Vivien's crying in this picture. She started combining all the green and red play dough, and I told her to stop or we wouldn't be able to get them apart and the whole thing would turn brown. She said that's what she wanted, so I gave her two tiny pieces to mix together to try it out. She started mixing them, then started crying because they wouldn't come apart and were turning brown, which she hated. She threw it across the room. I gave it to Rafe to play with. Then suddenly she loves brown play dough and wants it more than any other play dough. I just . . . can't keep up. Luckily she still says stuff like, "We used to make lollipops with soil and cookies," when she's playing by herself, which make me laugh and remind me that I like her.
In an effort to decrease general crankiness, we have been trying to help everyone get better sleep whenever they can. We moved Rafe into the baby's room (and put the baby in the family room; she doesn't mind). They still wake up at the crack of dawn, but they go to sleep about an hour earlier, so that's something.
I also go to the youchien every day at 1:15 to pick up Rafe so he can take as long a nap as he wants at home. He didn't take a nap at all the first week I did this, but now he's sleeping 1.5-3 hours every day, and I get a chance to do some nice one-on-one snuggling with my little boy when I put him down, because Annie usually falls asleep in her car seat on the way home. Here's how the picking up goes. I park and walk 200 yards to the school on a skinny path lined with shrubs that are full of spiders (this is worth mentioning because I am usually carrying the baby car seat and have to make sure I don't knock the spiders off onto her). By the time I get to the edge of the new playground (pictured below; doesn't it look fun?), I can usually hear the sensei's calling for Rafe ("Raaaaay-foo!") so he can start getting his shoes on. Once he has all his stuff, we say sayonara to all his nice teachers.
When we walk out the gate, Rafe has to identify all the bugs on the gate twice, from right to left, and point out that the lady bug has eyes. This happens every day.
Random side note about bugs: Vivien came into our room the other morning and announced dramatically, "There's a bug on my wall! And I saw it . . . on my wall!" It's a little jumping spider who started in the kitchen and worked his way back to the bedrooms. I think they're cute, so I don't mind him.
We also have to pet all the soft grass. Then he runs the rest of the way to the car and has to get in on the opposite side of his car seat so he can crawl under the baby's car seat. If we do this differently, there is crying.
Vivi's doing well at youchien. She's not speaking much real Japanese that I can tell, but she is a master at speaking English with a Japanese accent. We had this conversation the other day:
"Want to hear the new kids in my class?"
"Yes."
"Emi, Zoe, and Maia."
"Are there any new Japanese kids in your class?"
"No. They're normal. English."
Hmmm. Maybe this "cultural experience" is having the opposite effect than the one I desired . . .
We've added LDS Gospel Videos to our nightly scripture study. There are stories from The Friend, clips from conference, and music videos of primary songs. They love it.
A few weeks ago the kids were in the bath and I heard them laughing uproariously. I went in to see what was so funny and Vivien shouted, "We are playing the funniest game! It's called touch my penis!" Oh boy. We have had to have several talks since about the sacred parts of our bodies and how we need to treat them respectfully. Rafe has started remarking to me at odd times, "We don't touch a penis. They're special parts." Parenting is hard . . . So is avoiding sunburn. Drew went out to Target Island with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team this week to do some "noise dosimetry." Thanks to his cover, he looks like Neapolitan Ice Cream!
And, to close, here is a field full of cranes I drove by the other day. Yay Japan!
When we had Vivien, American Fork had a photographer in the hospital to take pictures of the baby, so you couldn't really escape pictures if you tried. It was kind of a stressful experience for us because we were brand new parents and Vivien was crying and having a hard time nursing so we didn't want to give her a pacifier and I think Drew might have wanted to hit the photographer a little bit for bugging our baby for so long . . . so when we had Rafe we didn't have newborn pictures taken at all. This was a mistake, because he was a beautiful baby, and the best pictures I have of him just don't do him justice. So, I made sure we got newborn pictures taken of Andelynn. It took 3 hours in the studio that was 80 degrees (on purpose, so the babies are comfortable in their . . . costumes . . .), and it was still stressful, but I won't feel like a terrible parent now!
These first ones she is wearing a sleepy sack I designed and knitted. I wanted to have a picture that had something Japanese-ish since she was born here, and I really like the koi wind socks they use for Children's Day, so I tried to make it look like koi scales.
In hindsight, I should've gone over to Ashley's studio and looked at her backdrops because the craft store had a really pretty purple yarn that would've looked awesome with this cherry blossom background. But, I didn't. So, oh well. These are my favorite of her little face.
Then there are these:
I love this backdrop, but . . .
. . . the pose kind of reminds me of this:
Ashley likes her babies to be asleep for pictures because they look more "calm and peaceful," but Andelynn was VERY interested in looking around the studio. So, we got some with her eyes open.
Then we fed her and she was milk drunk for the rest.
We have made it through two weeks with three children! It is still a little bit mind blowing for me to see them all together. And there's nothing like a brand new baby to make your other kids look HUGE. I look at Rafe's arms and legs now in wonder. They are so thick! And squishy!
Whenever Rafe interacts with the baby, he gives me a report of everything he is doing. "I am being nice to him! I touch his pajamas!" We are kind of struggling with pronouns lately.
Vivien is being a great big sister. She will talk to Baby Annie when she is sad (when Annie is REALLY sad and does her shaky cry, Vivi says "she sounds like a sheep") and make sure she is warm and can breathe. She is especially attentive to her when she is trying to avoid cleaning up or eating food she doesn't like.
While we're on Vivi, the other day her friend Norah came to the door and said "Do you want to come to my house and play?" and Vivi paused a long time before saying "I'm confusing," and walking away. Oh, how awkward . . . She did eventually decide to go play at Norah's a few minutes later after they conversed from their respective balconies.
Making nests of dinosaur eggs out of play dough that used to be yellow, blue, and white.
A few days later I accidentally kicked the stairs of her loft bed and broke one of my toes. When I cried out she asked what was wrong, and I told her. Then she said, "I can sing a song for your broken toes and then they will feel better. 'When you have broken toes, I can fix them . . .'" I think I might have the chorus for my next Mormon pop ballad. This selfie will be the cover of the album:
All in all, they seem to be adjusting pretty well. Most of the time they just ignore the baby and do a fairly good job of entertaining themselves, even though it is nigh unto torture for them to remain indoors all day long with their mom who never makes it out of her pajamas. Happily, their forced incarceration has prompted them to escape through literature. We've started reading the Magic Tree House books at night. Vivien likes to review what we've read with Rafe during the day.
This morning Rafe brought a book to Vivien and said "Read this!" and she said, "I can't read this one. I don't know how it goes."
And there's always the balcony when one needs a little fresh air. It is especially nice for picnic lunches.
Our flowers are tempting some exciting insects up for our study.
I think if/when we ever stop moving and own a house, we will need a porch so I can continue taking pictures of these two side by side in their lawn chairs. It is one of my favorite views. I will feel a little better when our porch isn't quite so high off the ground though. Drew and I both confessed to an overpowering phobia of accidentally dropping the baby off the balcony. I can't stand out there for long with her; my mind starts playing it out and it makes me feel sick. We prefer to stay safely inside on the couch.
One of Rafe's new favorite forms of entertainment while I am being a milk cow is dialing numbers on my phone using the Emergency feature. It's one of the few things he can access on it because my phone is password protected. He dials lots of "angels" (asterisks). He also changes clothes at least 4 times a day (stubbornly refusing to do it by himself. I've started making him run around naked until he at least tries to put his own clothes on). Usually one of the outfits is a selection from the dress-up closet.
Thankfully Drew helped me figure out a way to make the dress-up clothes a little easier for the littles to put away themselves.
And now they are going back to school. I will miss the funny things Vivien says to herself while she is playing ("If I was painting, it was your pleasure."), I will miss Rafe bouncing up and down impossibly on his little spring legs and growling at me while he insists that he is "Ice Tiger" (which I think is a pretty fitting alter ego for him). But, I am getting to that state of sleep deprivation where I can hardly register what they're doing anyway, I am longing for my bed so much, so I think this will be a good thing for us right now. Especially since I am picking Rafe up from school right before his class takes a nap so he can sleep at home for as long as he wants.
Baby Annie is a wonderful baby. She likes very much to be held.
And to eat. That first day in the hospital I forgot that just because I knew how to breastfeed a baby didn't mean that SHE knew how to do it, so I didn't watch her eat as closely as I should have and she'd lost about 9% of her body weight by the time we discharged. But, at her 2 week appointment, she'd gained that back, plus another full pound! She's getting squishier.
"I will suck on anything fleshy that holds still long enough. But don't you dare try to gag me with that binky."
I feel like she is exceptionally responsive for a newborn. We spend a lot of time like this.
When she's not doing this, that is:
Or this.
Can you imagine how enormous your head would look if your arm could only reach around to your opposite eyebrow?
Drew took her to get her passport picture taken. Baby passport pictures are so funny . . .
And her picture made it up on the wall in Dr. Shoji's office with all the other August babies. I didn't realize just how blond she is until I saw her next to all her Japanese peers.
