Since last week, it seems my little boy’s second favourite thing to do is to smile. He’s even started laughing out loud. He’s never given me any trouble. He just eats, sleeps, poops, and laughs. Pretty much the perfect baby … except for being so heavy that some nights I can’t stand upright ’cause my back hurts so much from lugging him around all day. The last couple of days he’s been sleeping so much that I haven’t had to carry him at all.

Rinah has started singing along Handel’s Messiah in the car. It’s so cute. She also likes to dance to Dave Ramsey’s intro music when I’m listening to his podcasts while I cook.

Shakespeare hasn’t been a hit, though. She has started pointing at the TV and asking me to turn it on (“Tay-bee … on?) so I decided it was time for Henry V. She was terrified by the opening credits, cried when Derek Jacobi came on as the chorus, ran away from the tennis ball scene, and cried again when she saw Falstaff, so maybe she’s not quite ready for Henry V. I think I’ll try getting Hamlet or Much Ado About Nothing.

Over the past couple weeks, her verbals skills have been growing by leaps and bounds. She speaks in sentences sometimes. They all start with “I want” or “I don’t want” or “I don’t like” … LOL. And they’re always exclamatory. She’s really excited about communicating.

- I wan moosit! (I want music.)
- I wan det desst! (I want to get dressed.)
- I wan weed a boot! (I want to read a book.)
- I don wan dis!
- I don wike dis!

Another thing she likes to say sometimes … I have no idea where she picked it up but she’s been saying it for months now.

- NO WAY!

Sometimes it’s not a full sentence but she strings a bunch of words together. I’ve noticed she always seems to use Latin word order: noun, adjective, verb.

- Hans! Dah-ee! Wash!
- Hi-cha! Sit!
- Dah-ee woot! (Daddy work.)
- Ball. Boo. Dop. (Ball blue drop. I dropped the blue ball.)

Sometimes it’s totally wrong. When Ben or I ask her, “Do you want me to hold you?” She answers, “Hoh-joo.” And when she asks to be held, she says “Wan hoh joo.”

And this morning, she was dancing around singing, “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Knife. Habbit. Habbit.” She wanted me to cut a peach with a knife and give it to her. LOL.

She is still in love with her brother. She is the first to respond to him when he wakes up or cries. If I’m on the computer, or doing laundry, cooking, I usually think he can wait a couple minutes while I finish up whatever I’m doing but she won’t let me. She pulls on my hands or pants saying, “Baby! Ty! Noose!” (Baby! Cry! Nurse!) until I go pick him up and nurse him. She gets angry at me if I make him cry by cleaning his nose and tries to pull me away from him yelling, “No, nooooo. Baby tyyy.”

PEOPLE
- Dah-ee (Daddy)
- Mama
- Eesa (Lisa)
- Indy
- Jessa (Jessica)
- Tami (Cami)
- Sheh-bee (Shelby)
- Wices (Rices)
- Taite

FASHION (She picks her own clothes to wear now.)
- eye-shah-oh (eye shadow)
- may-tut (makeup)
- bay-set (bracelet)
- net-ess (necklace)
- ee-ing (earring)
- watch
- dasses (glasses)
- hat
- pai-dah (diaper)
- pee-foht (pre-fold)
- pants
- shoyt (shirt)
- shoes
- san-ahs (sandals)
- toot (cute)
- mee-ya (mirror)
- fit (It fits!)

FOOD/EATING
- chits (chips)
- toffee (coffee … I don’t give her any)
- wice (rice)
- hundy (hungry)
- moy (more)
- bitch (peach)
- ba-ah (banana)
- pee-oh (peel)
- pee-bah (peanut butter)
- teeya (tortilla)
- no-ee (nori, Japanese for “dried seaweed”)
- bet (bread)
- tay-bo (table)
- hi-cha (high chair)
- wa-tee (water)
- new-ohs (noodles)
- ma-oosh (marshmallow)
- tee-ya (tortilla)
- pizza (tortilla or pizza)
- toh-tee (turkey)
- beef
- titten (chicken)
- ice
- tup (cup)
- poon (spoon)
- fot (fork)

COLOURS
- wet (red)
- boo (blue)
- dee (green)
- weh-oh (yellow)
- popo (purple)
- oh-ej (orange)

STUDY/TOYS
- ah-fet (alphabet)
- ball
- bots (blocks)
- dutty (ducky)
- toys
- boot (book)
- weed (read)
- moo-sit (music)
- wee-so (weasel)

MACHINES/DEVICES
- fee-tah (refrigerator)
- tay-bee (TV)
- tam-ah (camera)
- sell-fo (cell phone)
- doo toos heh set (blue tooth head set)
- baddy (battery)
- i-top (iPod)
- tee-bot (keyboard)
- mouse

MISCELLANEOUS
- ma-yoh (mail)
- heh-bee (heavy)
- I fyoo (I love you.)
- hudge (hug)
- seeping (sleeping)
- ty (cry)
- woot (work)
- I so sah-ee (I’m so sorry)
- tay-too (thank you)
- tats (thanks)
- dopt (dropped)
- tah
- tah-see (car seat)
- fat
- dose (gross)
- boo-jee (booger)
- dayn-us (dangerous)
- pen-sit (expensive)
- joo juh (good girl)
- pah-ee (potty)
- wipe
- dah-ee (dirty)
- wash
- bush tees (brush teeth)
- mouf (mouth)
- fin-dahs (fingers)
- face
- tee-ee (sticky)
- ah-dah (all done)
- I nee heh-oop (I need help.)
- fah-dah (fall down)
- habbit (have it; trans. “Give it to me.”)
- hoht (hurt)
- wet
- poop
- poo poo
- pee pee

I know there’s more because I hear her say things and think “I need to add it to the list” but I can’t remember them right now.

Today we had our last postpartum checkup. Mr. Big Baby was 13 pounds and 25 inches, which places him in the 95th percentile for height and 90th percentile for weight. At his age, Rinah was 22 inches and 9 pounds.

Here’s Valor with Garrett, Jessica‘s baby boy who is 4 weeks younger. They are the same size. LOL.

And for comparison, here was Rinah at 9 weeks. See how baggy the sleeper is on her? He grew out of that size over 3 weeks ago. She was wearing 0-3 month size till she was almost a year old. He is now wearing 3-6 month size, which she just grew out of when she was almost 16 months old.

Ben gave me an engagement ring today. I’ve been waiting for this for a LONG time. It’s so pretty I can’t stop looking at it. It sparkles so much that it’s dangerous to drive. Have you ever tried driving with your left hand out in front of your face? I bet some of you have. Hehe.

Sometimes, it’s really hard being married to a nerd *cough* geek *cough* programmer.

Sometimes, it’s absolutely lovely ’cause he’s so cool.

(Like when my site got hacked in March. I was going to blog about that but I didn’t get around to it. Poop, you know. Food and poop get in the way of a lot of things around here. My life is all about stuffing food in one end and cleaning what comes out the other end. It’s really fun when there’s not too much screaming involved. Anyway, to get back to the coolness of marriage.)

Ben just installed VectorLinux 5.9 on an ancient laptop that Jessica gave me, an IBM ThinkPad 390E, Pentium II, 333Mhz. I’ve been wanting to use Linux for years and now, in between nursing and feeding and potty training both kids and shopping and cooking, we’ll see how much I’ll learn. I can’t wait!

And even though this laptop is so old, it looks brand new because it’s been so well taken care of. I love ThinkPads and am still upset about the whole Lenovo thing. So far, I’ve only owned ThinkPads and I had planned to keep doing that till the day I died. My ThinkPad gave up the ghost last year after many years of faithful service and I’m looking elsewhere for its replacement. The MacBook Air is looking very appealing right now, since I can have OS X, Windows, and Linux all on one small, beautiful, super-portable machine. Now, all I need is showers of money. Hahaha. *tries not to think about bills, and more bills, and house payments, and car payments, and … mumbles*

- “Huuuuudge.” (Hug.)
- “Oh! Boojee!” (Booger.)
- “Bracelet! Give it!”
- “I don’t want to lie down.”
- “Tude. Good girl.” (Promising to have a good attitude and be a good girl.)
- “Aa-ight. Otay.” (Comforting her baby brother when he was starting to cry.)
- “Ooooh! Sooooft!” (Digging her toes into Daddy’s manly chest.)

Mr. Baby is growing so fast. He is almost 9 weeks old and is growing into clothes it took his sister a whole year to grow into. He pretty much just eats and sleeps and never gives any trouble except for fussing a bit before he falls asleep at night. It kills my back to do housework like this but there is nothing so comforting as a sleeping baby.

I am very sorry to hear that anxieties again assail you. (By the way, don’t “weep inwardly” and get a sore throat. If you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! I suspect we — and especially, my sex — don’t cry enough now-a-days. Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf, Roland and Lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn’t we?) … Though we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round — we get afraid because we struggle. – C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength. (Isaiah 26:3-4)

What’s your road, man? – holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. – Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“… children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Shilowe took this picture yesterday at Jessica‘s house. I love how blue his eyes are. I hope they stay that way!

Shilowe took this one, too. Rinah’s eyes are most definitely hazel … and she likes grilled cheese sandwiches.

Surprise, surprise. With two kids, I have less time to read than when I had one! In the last month, I’ve had 2 bouts of mastitis on top of all four of us falling prey to fevers that forcibly expelled bodily fluids from various orifices. It was endless fun all around the clock which involved sheet and blanket washing. Despite everything, I’ve been able to read some fascinating stuff in the last three or four months.

The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child
by Robert Sears

Aloe Vera
by Julia Lawless

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Aromatherapy
by Julia Lawless
I’ve been away from aromatherapy for too long.

Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin
by Ashley Montagu

Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
by Marsden Wagner

Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
by Jennifer Block

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born
by Tina Cassidy

Shiatsu Therapy for Pregnancy
by Bronwyn Whitlocke

Shiatsu for Midwives
by Suzanne Yates

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
by Ina May Gaskin

Spiritual Midwifery
by Ina May Gaskin

Heart & Hands: A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy & Birth
by Elizabeth Davis