Lucas Charles Crouse » November 2005 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

< > November 2005

Wed, Nov 30, 2005 9:35 AM
Time seems to have sped up lately... I can't believe Thanksgiving is already gone.
Lucas had a great time visiting Grandma and Grandpa Crouse for a few days last week. He went to visit the Firefighters and got to ride the carousel at South Coast Plaza. We joined them on Wednesday evening and Thursday Grandpa cooked a most excellent turkey. Lucas decided he didn't want to try any and there was a little battle there, but we've moved on.
We're starting to get a bit more strict with his dinner time habits. He must eat the dinner he is served and no climbing around or yelling at the table. This is difficult for him, but we are working hard to be consistent so that it will eventually become no big deal.

Amanda is eating very well and sleeping OK. She still wakes up occasionally, but she usually goes down rather quickly. She and Lucas are starting to have little battles over toys now. It is a funny dynamic and if I weren't their parent, I would just sit back and smile at the bickering.

Lucas still doesn't want to go near Santa Claus, so we wrote him a letter instead. We saw the tree at the Westlake Promenade and both kids were in awe of the lights.

Amanda is crawling a bit now, but she still prefers to be walked around. Oh, I really hope she takes some more steps on her own soon. She has taken one or two solo steps here and there, but it is more that she already has momentum and then I let go of her hands... so it doesn't really count.

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates
Tue, Nov 15, 2005 7:19 AM
Up all night!

Phil and I are pretty tired because we were up most of the night with an unhappy Amanda. And just when she seemed to get comfortable (4:30 a.m.) and we had gotten into a nice, deep sleep, Lucas woke up for the day (5:30 a.m.).
I tried to convince him to rest a bit longer, but nothing worked. When we got up and I poured a bowl of cereal for Lucas at 5:45, he asked, "Mommy, why is it still dark out?"
Phil seems to be hit harder than I am today, I was up a bit more, but he really, really needs at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I just pray that the antibiotics kick in for Amanda by tonight.

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates
Mon, Nov 14, 2005 8:14 PM
Double ear-infection. Actually each child has one ear infection but it sounds more dramatic when you say double ear infection and things around here have been pretty dramatic.
I knew something was up, but neither kid had any real symptoms besides being cranky and Luc having a bit of a cough. But there is cranky and then there is "CRANKY". Amanda has been the latter for 2 days so I made an appt. with the doc and sure enough both kids have an ear infection. At least I was right and my kids aren't possessed.

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates
Fri, Nov 11, 2005 2:55 PM
The kids have finally made peace with the time change. Both were up by 5:30 a.m. until Thursday morning. On Wednesday night we had a chat with Lucas and told him that if he woke up and it was still dark outside he should talk softly to his doggie and just stay in his nice, warm bed. That seemed to do the trick. But when I went to get him this morning at about 6:40, he was wide awake and pretty upset because it was cloudy and he couldn't see the sun -- he thought he would have to stay in bed until the sun came out:)

Phil is still trying to shake his cold, but Lucas seems to be on the mend. Lucas is on a kick now where he wants me to pretend I am "Blue" from Blue's Clues. I am only supposed to speak by barking -- real fun! I really do not like this Blue's Clues show, though. Someone recently gave us the video and I hadn't ever seen it before. It is so inane and annoying. I know that many programs are, but this takes the cake as far as I'm concerned. I can make it through Sesame Street, Barney and Thomas, but this one just gets to me. Hopefully he'll be over it soon and I can put the video "away".

Amanda is still trying to "walk" everywhere. She can get around by holding onto one of my hands so I think she'll be walking solo pretty soon. She still doesn't crawl, but is quick when she scoots on her behind. But her favorite thing by far is for me to be hunched over so I can hold her hand while she walks around the house over and over and over. I'm going to look like a 90-year-old before she's through with me:) She knows the words "book" and "duck". Of course they sound the same to an outsider, but she'll point and she knows what she means when she makes her baby sounds.

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates
Wed, Nov 2, 2005 9:35 AM
I just have to add a funny thing that happened the other day.
Lucas was playing with Amanda and said what sounded to be "crack!". Amanda laughed and Lucas said "Mommy, Amanda likes crack!"
Great!
He said that a few times the other day. Then yesterday at lunch he kept saying "crack" and Amanda would laugh and he would say, "Mommy, Amanda likes crack!" I thought this was strangely funny, but I wasn't sure how it would sound if we were out at the grocery store. So I finally
asked, "Lucas, why are you saying that?"
He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Like a duck, Mommy."
Oh!!! He meant "Quack".

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates
Tue, Nov 1, 2005 9:20 AM
Trick or Treat!!!

Last night we had so much fun taking Lucas out to trick or treat. He just kept saying, "this is fun, I'm excited!" He only got scared at one house where a guy was wearing a spooky mask. We bumped into some neighbors and Lucas insisted that we hang with their group.
We only took Amanda out for about 1/2 a block and then we took turns handing out candy. We had fun the last week or so painting and carving pumpkins. Lucas is quite a little artist.

It was a nice conclusion to this holiday that has a 2-month buildup. It has gotten quite out of hand. It used to be that Christmas had about 6-8 weeks of preparation by the retailers. Now I see the Christmas stuff is already about to come out. Halloween stuff popped up in our stores right after Labor Day -- right after the back to school stuff was over. Our lives have become one big preparation for another holiday. After Christmas will be Valentine's Day, then Easter, then Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Halloween again! It's no wonder we have such a difficult time saving these days. We are inundated with ads to "buy, buy, buy" so much crap.... Oh, wait, I was talking about the kids. How did I end up on that tangent?
Well, I just know it is going to be more difficult to raise our kids as people who don't put too much emphasis on "things". I know Phil and I have a difficult time with it ourselves and we are just trying to change our behavior so we can set good examples.

The kids are good, but Luc's got a little sniffle.
They still haven't adjusted to the time change and they are waking us up at about 5:45 every morning. Hopefully their internal clocks will reset before too long.

Comments:

Add a comment:

Name: Email:
Comment:

Notify me of scrapbook updates