A trying week....

Julia is still felling tired and nauseous with the twins. She has also been fighting the remaining elements of the bronchitis she had a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, my flu-like symptoms have turned into whooping cough.  Needless to say, neither of us have had enough sleep n the past week.  On top of that Samuel has had a few bad nights this week where he did not sleep through the night.  We can't complain as he sleeps through the night almost all the time.  I just wish he had slightly more compassionate timing.  One night I was up with him until 2 Am and finally had to go wake up Julia to take over as Samuel was unable to fall asleep with me sitting in his room with whooping cough

Samuel has also been ill.  He has had a discharge from his eyes and a slight cough for a week.  Julia was able to drop him at the HG this morning but they called just after noon saying that they thought his eye discharge was conjunctivitis and that he was contagious and that he could not stay at the HG  I went to pick him up and Julia came home from work and took him to the doctor and  he officially has conjunctivitis.

On the other hand.  Samuel is very cute when I wake him up in the morning and from his naps.  He very forcefully takes his pacifier from his mouth and throws it into this crib as if to say "I'm a big boy, Ii don't need you."

Samuel's progress with solid food has been sporadic at best.  He loves his petite suisse and fruit pots.  He is very much hit and miss with the meat/veggie purees.  At the HG today he ate a full jar.  For his snack today he took half a jar of puree.  While yesterday I succumbed to his intransigence and tried giving him one spoon of puree followed by 2 spoons of petite suisse in order to get him to eat the puree.

Tomorrow is a big day as a twins association of Paris is having a sale and there should be bouncy seats,  multiple strollers and other items for twins available.

-Dave

Samuel is growing up...

A few days ago we prepared a rotisserie chicken for dinner and I made some chicken stock the next morning.  After the stock was complete I poured it into tupperware containers and left them on the counter top to cool.  About an hour later thee was a plop and a scream from Samuel.  He had managed to grab one of the tubs and proceeded to pull it off the counter so that the stock covered the left side of his shirt and most of the kitchen floor.  I thought I had placed the tubs out of his reach but he is growing every day.  Soon nowhere will be safe from Samuel's reach.

Samuel has also recently discovered the toilet paper roll.  He enjoys joining us when we use the loo, which all the experts say is something he should do, but he recently found the loo paper holder on the wall and that if he pulls really hard that the paper comes flying off the roll.  Big smile and a big mess.

Samuel now enjoys bringing our dish towels from the kitchen to us when we are sitting on the couch in the living room.  Very cute but not really helpful.

-Dave

Samuel and up

As we have noted in other posts Samuel is lagging in language skills for the average 18 month old.  We joke that this is because he is in a trilingual(French, English english and American english) environment.

Because of this we take every opportunity to try and teach him new words.  A word we are currently emphasizing is up.  Samuel constantly is walking up to us with his arms outstretched wanting to be picked up.  When he does this we ask him "Do you want to be picked up?".  His usual response is to continue to stare at us and then he places his feet on top of our toes and stretches his arms even higher into the air.  Is it glaringly obvious that neither of us should be teachers as our 18 month old thinks that up means stand on our toes.

Pray for Julia

The twins official due date is May 15th.  They are expected to arrive around the end of April.  This will mean that Julia will be in a house with four Tauruses.

Samuel is already enough of a challenge.  As we found with the food situation, Samuel will do what he wants to do when he wants to do it.  He is now eating regularly and with enthusiasm.  If we take more than 2 seconds to fill the spoon and move it toward his mouth, he is opening his mouth wide and leaning far forward in his chair trying to get the food into his mouth a nanosecond earlier.

We have created a monster.....

Samuel loves helping with the laundry so much that he gets upset if he sees me walking out of the laundry room with laundry in my arms and I did not ask him to help me.  If I leave the laundry room door open, he goes into the room and stands and laughs and claps while the washer and dryer are working.  He needs a better masculine role model!

Sunday night bed time

We are doing our best to try and keep Samuel on a schedule.  Currently we are trying to start his bath,book and bed process at 2100.  Last night we started at 2100 by carrying Samuel upstairs to the bathroom where we lay out his towels and toys and turn on the space heater.  We then go into Samuel's room where we turn on the space heater, ready the humidifier and get out Samuel's bedclothes.  Normally I will also get out a book to read to Samuel after his bath and place it on his table which is next to the rocking chair in which we read his bedtime story.  Well, last night as I was doing everything else Samuel walked over to his bookcase and took out Richard Scarry's bedtime stories and walked over to the table and placed the book in the space between his stuffed animals that is where we usually keep the book we plan on reading to him.  Very sweet.