mathmom's blog

I have already mentioned that I don't really like Halloween. I had vowed not to take Eleanor and Amanda trick-or-treating this year, but Michael managed to get me to do it anyway by arranging a gas leak... I got back from picking up Amanda, and I wanted to let her watch a little TV while I nursed Luke in peace and quiet (because if she is in the room, Luke has no interest in eating and wants to eat all night instead). I went downstairs and caught a whiff of what I thought was gas. I really couldn't tell where it was coming from, it didn't seem to be stronger near the furnace room, so I didn't trust myself. You must understand that at the previous house I thought I smelled gas all the time, but no one else could smell it. Also, I had been sure about a year ago that we had a gas leak, and I eventually traced the smell to a very stinky dishrag. I turned on the gas in the stove to see if it smelled the same---it was very similar, but not quite the same. We had to go t...

Luke has been sick the last few days. Not quite enough to obviously go to the doctor: he had a low grade fever, was a bit sad, but wasn't throwing up or pulling his ear or dehydrated. Also, he always seems to get more sad at about 4:30, just the time when it's not practical to go to the pediatrician. Yesterday he was so tired that he glommed on to my chest and wouldn't let me put him down all afternoon---on the other hand, he didn't want to go to sleep in his crib. He has been much much better in the mornings. He was, however, sick enough at night that I've gotten 5 or fewer hours of sleep the last three nights. This makes me not want to take the time to write blog entries. It makes me not want to clean the kitchen, which is much more necessary (although less fun) in our home life. I have been falling prey to the problem that led me to start a blog in the first place: spending too much time reading random blogs and not enough time writing my own. Hopefully ...

Today we carved pumpkins. Michael pointed out that we hadn't done this since we've been married (15 Halloweens so far) and I pointed out that this is because I don't really like Halloween (maybe someday I'll blog about that, but not tonight). Eleanor loves Halloween, she's been bugging me to get pumpkins and lots of scary decorations, which is funny since she is so easily scared in general. Amanda loved carving the pumpkins. We put candles in them to dry out the insides a bit, and put hers in front of her at the table. She covered her eyes: "Where's Amanda? Here I am, pumpkin!" "My pumpkin and I are playing a game!". Michael very kindly roasted the pumpkin seeds. They were delicious---Amanda liked them, Eleanor didn't, Luke thought he probably should eat some too. Michael pointed out that lighting pumpkin candles is much easier now that we have those long nosed butane lighters. I remember debating whether one should light the can...

Well, the "keep Luke alive" program is going fairly well. Yesterday he was particularly interested in chewing on things (more teething, possibly?) and so I spent the day looking for appropriate teethers and taking away the inappropriate. Appropriate in this case means anything that would not hurt him and that he would not hurt. The problem is that his sisters are not cooperating with the program. They leave all sorts of things on the floor (bits of sidewalk chalk, for example, or little pieces of paper), they leave doors open (come back inside, Luke!), they leave the toilet seat lid up, they distract me when Luke is doing something he shouldn't. He has only fallen down the short flight of stairs once, and he does seem to have learned something from that (it was more like a gentle roll, but still scary). Yesterday as I was washing Eleanor's hair and Luke thought he'd like to eat the toilet paper from off the roll. I successfully distracted him from that a...

For dinner, Luke ate: 1 baby food jar of sweet potatoes about 5 baby carrots (on the larger side) from our beef stew about 1/3 cup cheerios I think he would have eaten more, if he could have. I was hesitant about feeding him the carrots from the stew: he's not supposed to have meat until later. Amanda is allergic to wheat, dairy, egg, soy, peanut, treenut , barley, and possibly rye, and I really don't want to create any problems for Luke by feeding him something too early. I washed off the carrots, but I think that they still tasted like meat, and he loved them. One of his favorite "snacks" is my leather purse strap---I'm not raising a vegetarian here. He definitely ate more than Eleanor, and tonight he ate more than Amanda (although sometimes Amanda really chows down on the stew). Definitely a growing boy!

...that when a baby is sad, his cry sounds like "Maaaaa maaaaa maaaa!" and when he is happy, it sounds like "Da da da da da"? Michael suggests that this is a survival mechanism. I think it is something the dads worked out ages ago when they were figuring out what to call themselves. Luke, however, doesn't care.

Today we got done swimming at about 5, so we needed dinner faster than driving home and cooking something on the grill (we usually eat between 5 and 5:30). We went to XIOS , the best local Greek restaurant, because Amanda can eat the gyros (and will eat lots and lots). However, I discovered when we got there that I hadn't brought any food for poor Luke! I am not used to having to provide actual food for him---one of the many benefits/pitfalls of nursing, I suppose. I went to the grocery store next door and picked up some baby food for him (peas and rice, mmmm ...) but he finished that and seemed to be still hungry! Eating everything in sight is apparently a boy thing: neither of the girls ever finished a jar of baby food in one sitting. The most appropriate finger food we had available was (drum roll please...) a french fry. Michael broke off the crunchy bits and gave him the soft middles in small bites that he could gum to pieces. He loved them! For a while we gave him too ...