Annie Is 6 Months Old

My sweet baby is six months old. It is hard to believe it's been six whole months since she was born, and it's equally hard to believe she hasn't always been a part of our family.

In case you don't see her often enough, here are some things to know about Annie at this age:

• Still not a cuddler. Annie prefers to be held (though not always by Rachelle), but doesn't like to be snuggled or cuddled closely.
• Definitely an introvert. When she's happy, she's the quietest happy baby I ever saw. I could count the number of times she has laughed even I were a t-rex, and it's been over a month since the last time. She does have a big cute precious grin that lights up my world, but she is no giggler. Not yet, anyway. I think she's saving it up. Annie watches everything closely, but doesn't seem to want to engage actively. She's probably afraid of being trampled by her brother and sister; she's probably right to be worried.
• Knows the score. Though she doesn't say much, she tells me with her eyes that she gets everything going on around her. She still likes to hang back with me and appreciate the peaceful moments in life. She is pretty sure that she'll get everything she needs even if she never learns to crawl or even roll over (neither of which seem to interest her at all).
• Loves her mommy. Loves her daddy more. Her whole being glows when Daddy pops into view. But there are still times when only Mama will be able to calm her. And I love her for that.

Here are some photos of my beloved Annie. Warning: overexposure to cuteness has been known to cause certain grandparent types to request prints from their nearest drugstore.

Dunkin!

Dunkin Donuts has finally come to Fort Walton Beach. We braved the super long line to pick us up some donuts, and then headed to the Oak Tree Nature Park to enjoy them. After we indulged, we went for a hike along the trail. Here are some photos of us in action:

A Computer Chair Built For Three

A Really Really Long Time

An actual conversation between Stellan and I:

Stellan: [proudly] I just had my third bowl of macaroni and cheese, Mom!
Me: Stellan, that's great. You are so cool. I want to be just like you when I grow up.
Stellan: [rolls eyes] You're already grown up.
Me: Dang it. I guess I've missed my chance to be like you.
Stellan: You can be like me when...when you grow up into a grandma.
Me: Oh, sounds good. When will that be?
Stellan: Not for a really, really, REALLY long time. [Pause.] Like 2 years or something.

RaRa's Big Week

Rachelle is potty training. Should I even put this information onto the Intertubes? Someday a college admissions officer will find this and roll her eyes. Or maybe she'll be impressed that RaRa is a potty-training champion at only 2 years and 3 months old. (Note to admissions officer: even at this early age, Rachelle is remarkably bright with a keen sense of humor and a selfless nature that defies her developmental age bracket. She has a strong sense of adventure and an innate curiosity that has no doubt transformed her into the perfect candidate for your institution of higher learning in subsequent years.)
Anyway, it's going very well. I won't post photos, but she's having the time of her life running around naked and eating M&Ms as a reward for her accomplishments. Her grandmothers observed that she has a feral quality about her. They are right. She's gone wild, while I've gone a little crazy confined to our house until she's ready to face the wide world as a big no-diapers yes-underpants girl. Here's hoping it's soon; 8 loads of laundry in a week seems like overkill, but I shouldn't complain because, housebound as I am, what else do I have to do?

Annie Eats!

Poor little #3 kid. Most of her major milestones will go undocumented. She is photographically underrepresented compared to her siblings. And she never gets a moment's peace to contemplate these injustices.
However, in honor of her first bite of solid food, I busted out the camera. Here's a still photo of the grand event, and I've included a video also. The video is mostly for the grandparents and other overly interested parties, but also to prove that I was right - I was so sure she was ready for solids that I started her a couple weeks before 6 months (a firm marker for the other two kids). As you can clearly see, she took her first bite as confidently as if she'd been doing it for months. That's my girl!

Annie's First Solid Food from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.

Greeting Isaac

I took the girls to the beach today to watch the storm move in. Don't worry, we left long before the real trouble started.

Stellan's First Day of Kindergarten

My little boy is all grown up. OK, he's now in kindergarten. Nothing makes me think of him more as a little boy than watching him get on the bus full of big kids (the other kids at our stop are all middleschoolers). He was very excited for his first day and didn't let minor distractions like the bus missing him get him down. Yep, the bus missed his stop, so we had to drop him off at the school. I didn't even take him in to his class, because by the time we realized the bus wasn't just 25 minutes late, it was just flat-out never coming, we had to go straight there without having prepped the girls with semi-important things like shoes, strollers or an umbrella (it was pouring rain). As he was preparing to jump out of the car in front of the school, he said, "Mom, I don't know where my classroom is." I replied, "You can ask any grown-up you see for help. You know your teacher's name, and your room number is 307." As he exited, he muttered to himself over and over, "307, 307, 307, 307, 307..." And with that, he was gone. My sweet boy was swallowed up into a dozen+ years of formal education.

The school called in the afternoon to ask how he was getting home and then put in him on the bus, as requested. I waited for the bus very anxiously (as my mom, who was on the phone with me, can testify). It was late, but arrived - with Stellan on it. However, Stellan didn't know he was supposed to get off there, and didn't say anything. I had anticipated this and was walking from the car to the stop to intercept him when the bus pulled away. I chased the bus down, trying not to slip and die while wearing flip flops in the rain, banging on the side of the bus while the kids all pointed and laughed, until the driver noticed and stopped. I extracted Stellan, casually mentioned to the driver than I missed seeing him earlier that morning and that I hoped he would be there the next day, and gave my Stellan a big big hug.

He was very proud of himself, but a little dazed, and it became clear that the whole day was a little overwhelming for him. He got lost trying to find his classroom, but got some help from a grown-up. He didn't remember that I had packed him a lunch and then when lunch time came, told his teacher he didn't know what to do. He ended up getting a hot lunch, for which I'm sure the school will be sending me a bill, and possibly a scolding, at some point. As mentioned, he didn't remember the conversation we had in the car about how he was getting home. And he probably thought the bus driver was abducting him when he saw me chasing it down after school. Luckily, the next day was better. And by the third day, I think he has the system down. In fact, I'd say he's doing better than I am at home with the girls, who are having a harder time creating a new schedule. With 3 naps between them while Stellan's gone, the girls and I are struggling a bit to get anything productive done, but we'll get it worked out. We just need to follow Stellan's example.

I Could Have Told You That

Stellan has had a love-hate relationship with swimming, and especially swim lessons. He can swim perfectly fine when he wants to, but has still struggled to do it on command. With our upcoming trip to the Great Barrier Reef, it was time to get this taken care of. (Plus, Kevin wanted to try out his new underwater camera and needed a big target.)

Fortunately, Stellan's dad is Kevin. Kev decided to teach Stellan how to snorkle, in hopes that he would eventually be ready to snorkel relatively independently by November. Stellan exceeded all expectations. Once he had that mask on, he didn't want to take it off. Ever. Now he swims like he was born in the water and never left it. I guess it wasn't that he couldn't swim - it was just too boring to only be swimming. Now that swimming is a means to an end, problem solved. I suppose I should have known that any kid of Kevin's could be an expert snorkeler by age 5.

Since snorkeling is now on his top 5 things to do, we've gone several times. We've taken friends, we've gone to lakes as well as the ocean, we're all over this snorkeling thing. Rachelle is very happy to stick in the water with Stellan and keep him company. Annie is less excited, but will grow to like it, I hope.

Hello From Annie

Poor Annie. She has grown and changed so much in the last couple of months, and it has gone largely ignored on the blog. Here is a post all her own. I know there's only one photo, but she is so stinking cute in this photo that is truly worth way more than a thousand words. Happy 5 months, Anniecakes!

There's A Body In The Bushes

If you want the Reader's Digest Condensed version of this story, just skip ahead to the movie. But you'll really get more out of it if you give me the time to paint a picture for you before viewing the dramatic reenactment of how Kevin found a dead body.

I want you to picture a windy foothill road with a lot between two houses. The lot looks like the jungle took it over years ago. Huge shrubs, a tangle of ivy and vines and oak and who knows what else. Then you notice a small opening. You approach and discover a path through the bushes, which you follow. 10 yards or so down the path, you encounter the Tiki Hut. The 15-feet-tall bird of paradise plants hang over a rickety wooden porch. If you go up all 4 steps of the stairs onto the porch and into the house you'll see windows on 3 walls, and bamboo on the ceiling and the 4th wall. This place gives a certainty that building codes were not consulted or even considered in its design.

If you spent any time there, you might come to love its quiet charms. Plenty of wild life, views of bushes, flowering vines and plants on all sides, the wind through a canopy of tall oak trees. I still long for the sound of the rare rain storm as the drops pound the windows and the thin ceiling. You might observe that the sinks and shower drain directly out the side of the house onto the ground, helping maintain this jungle-like environment, and also contributing to the sinking foundation that makes you feel a little seasick as you traverse the uneven wooden floors.

The Tiki Hut is just one of four units on the property. The elderly land lady, Virginia, lives in the big house out back. The other house is split into three "apartments". Virginia will probably tell you about her poetry the first time you meet her. She writes cat poetry; not poetry about cats, but poetry written from the perspective of the cats. She will recite it to you in a singsong voice if you ask. And maybe even if you don't ask.

Living in the adjacent "apartment" are Dave and his infirm mother. Contrary to the reenactment video, Dave is neither a fuzzy woodland creature nor an Indian chief. Instead, I want you to picture what Jesus would have been if he'd fallen in with the stoners during high school and never left. This is Dave. He has huge wild bushy hair and a full beard. He has a slightly crazed look on his face all the time and is easily excitable. He and Virginia do not get along, but their individual crazies seem to have found a coexistent balance.

We lived in the Tiki Hut for 3 years and had many adventures, but this one takes the cake. This is a fairly accurate reenactment of that fateful night, as well as a follow-up phone call from Virginia the next day.


Body In The Bushes from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.

Half a Decade

Stellan is 5 years old. I am having a hard time processing this. I mean, when I think about where I was and what I was doing around the time he was born, that seems like a really long time ago. But he himself can't possibly have been here for that long!
In an effort to convince myself that it really has been 5 years, I made Stellan a little movie, tracking him through each and every one of those 5 years. I've posted it here in case you, devoted reader, might also be interested in watching 5 trips around the sun condensed into less than 2 minutes. It's a fast 100 seconds; in fact, it might fly by almost as fast as the last 5 years.


Happy 5th Birthday, Stellan! from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.

5,256,000 Minutes

Let's do the math:

           3 coasts
           7 homes
           4 cars
           3 kids
           3 college degrees
           5 jobs (that pay money)
         23 states visited
           4 computers
           8 cell phones
           1 well-intentioned but ill-fated hot dog diet (we did save money, though!)
           5 hand-me-down couches, futons and recliners
           1 backyard fire
           2 crazy people invading during floods
           1 dead body in the bushes
           6 supportive parents
         15 fantastic siblings
+       10.96 cutest nieces and nephews in the world
10 years of marriage to my best friend

Happy 4th of July!

Gift of Tongues

Living with a two-year-old is a unique time in life. Rachelle is an excellent communicator, letting us know what she needs and wants. To the untrained ear, her language seems like gibberish; to the fluent listener, however, her words are rich in meaning. Here is a sample of some of our recent exchanges:

Hungee
Literal translation: hungry
Situational translation: It's 5:05 AM on a Saturday morning and I think it's high time you were out of bed, Dad. Please get up and fetch me Breakfast #1 and then snuggle on the couch with me until Stellan gets up and usurps my spot on your lap.

Deekeen Mulk
Literal translation: Annie is nursing
Situational translation: I'm going to sit here in your lap and try to snuggle Annie out of your arms. When my cutest tricks aren't successful, I will disappear to the other side of the house. Soon you won't hear me at all. And you will worry. Rightly so, Mom.

Fwoggy
Literal translation: froggy potty (training toilet)
Situational translation: I am so excited to potty train, Mommy! I am pretty clear on the concept, but a little fuzzy on the chronology. I have already pooped in my diaper, and I stripped it off 3 rooms ago. It may or may not have dripped a bit on the carpet, you can probably follow a trail back to the diaper. I'm now going to sit on this potty and coat it in the worst kind of filthiness until you catch up with all the rest of the mess and finally clean me up. And fwoggy too. Just as soon as Baby Annie's done deekeen mulk.

Mon
Literal translation: come on
Situational translation: You are busy with something that doesn't involve me. Please stop it now; I am going to literally drag you away for something very specific that I urgently need. I'm not sure what it is, but I'll know it when I see it.

Butt Kee
Literal translation: butt cream (diaper rash ointment)
Situational translation: No, those aren't Mickey Mouse gloves. My hands are completely coated in butt cream. As are my legs, my arms and, inexplicably, my lips. Oh, and you may want to check for butt cream in big chunks on my bedroom carpet, a few doors, your dresser, and your bed. Maybe a few other spots, too. Basically everywhere but my butt.

Mine
Literal translation: mine
Situational translation: 1. Stellan just took something from me. 2. I just took something from Stellan. 3. I'm bored and neither of us is holding anything, but it sure is fun to fight about it.

Night Night
Literal translation: good night
Situational translation: Good night. Thanks for tucking me in, I'm actually going to stay here now. All night. On the first tuck in. Because I really am a very good girl almost all the time. I'll see you tomorrow when I'm hungee.