I'm An Auntie Again!

He's here, he's here! 

We just returned from Chicago, where we celebrated the arrival and baptism of Nathaniel Augustine, our newest nephew. What a little peanut! He has some of the biggest, most beautiful eyes I've ever seen on a newborn, and his facial expressions are to die for. The minute we walked in the door, Audrey suddenly looked monstrous in comparison to her less-than-one-month-old cousin. She though he was pretty interesting for awhile, but soon she had many other things to think about. Thankfully there were lots of arms to hold her so I could spend some quality time holding Baby Nathaniel!

The boys stayed with my parents in MN for the weekend so that we could insure a quieter visit to the brand-new family of three. While I nearly broke Grandma's heart when she found out they wouldn't be there, I think it worked out for the best. 

The Baptism was officiated by a dear, sweet, long-winded, retired Irish priest. He didn't just follow the Baptismal rite, he took it upon himself to catechize the lot of us on Christian theology and salvation history. And through it all, Nathaniel made not a peep! Future theologian do we have?

Other than the baptism itself, the womenfolk rarely left the house. We had so much to talk about (and so many hungry babies...) that we spent most of the weekend at the dining room table catching up. Glenn led the men on a tour of parts of downtown Chicago, and they also managed to smoke cigars on the beach... cold as it was. While they were gone, we did make a trip to a tasty cake shop down the street from their house, Nathaniel in the Moby and Audrey in a borrowed stroller. If you live in the Chicago area, check it out! It was delicious.

Monica looked absolutely amazing for having just had a baby three weeks ago, even though she was soldiering through some tough sleepless nights. Glenn has taken to fatherhood like a fish to water, even volunteering to change diapers!! (I know, what???) That little boy himself is as cute as a button, and gosh are we excited to finally have cousins on both sides of the family!

Opinionated

Lucian is a kid who knows what he wants.

Actually, the only thing he really knows he wants is an opinion. As in, "I want the blue plate. I don't like green." on Monday and "Green is my favorite color, I want the green spoon" on Tuesday. And these are not just opinions, these are hardcore opinions. These are meltdown opinions. These are "scream-at-the-top-of-my-lungs-until-Mom-throws-me-in-my-room-and-then-scream-some-more" opinions. Who knew stirring the grape nuts into his yogurt instead of leaving them on top was cause for total implosion? Not I ... until about 1.3 seconds too late.

The thing I can't figure out is that, even though it never works, he still goes bat-crazy on me every morning. I pour his milk into the "wrong" cup and suddenly the world collapses around him. I have perfected a wrestling hold to keep his limbs from flailing at my face on the way up the stairs.

Right about now, most of you are saying to yourselves, "Lucian?? Is that the Lucian I know? But he's so sweet/quiet/compliant/fill-in-the-blank!" Ha! His plot is working. He's got you all wrapped around his finger. But I know the truth. Right around 7:08 every morning, I am living through the truth of a kid who wants what he wants, when he wants it, how he wants it.

But I get it. He has so little control over what happens in his life, as most 3-year-olds can attest. If we need to leave the house, we leave the house whether he wants to or not. If it's bedtime, it's bedtime. No matter how many choices I try to give him when I can, I think he just likes to lay it on thick when he thinks he can control the situation. Poor guy, he's kind of a slow learner. Every morning he thinks, "This is the day I'll get exactly what I want!" and every day his dreams are crushed by mean old Mom. How do I sleep at night?

Yeah, Mom, how do you sleep at night?

Mix It Up

My little scientist came up with his own experiment last week. We were sitting on the couch, having just finished reading a book when he told me he wanted to mix some colors. He needed glasses with water and dye, so I provided. I helped him choose the colors to start with and gave him a quick little crash course in the scientific method.

First we chose two colors to mix together, then we made a hypothesis about what the result would be. We poured both into one glass, stirred them up and evaluated the result. Max is a little bit too much like me- he hates being wrong. If he tries to spell a word and writes the wrong letter, he will decide to write another word rather than admit he spelled it wrong! I try so hard to provide an environment in which it is OK to guess and OK to be wrong sometimes, but apparently my genes are pretty strong.

It turns out that this experiment was great practice for Max in being wrong! I made him guess the color that each combination of dyed water would make, and then I wrote it down. No backing out, mister! But I explained that the greatest scientists are wrong a lot! What matters is that they are discovering new things.

So we picked yellow and red. Max guessed that the resulting color would be brown, but when he mixed them together they made orange. And you know what? He was fine! He simply reminded me that we were making discoveries, and then he moved on to the next combination.

After mixing every possible combination, we decided to dump all of the water together into one big bowl. His hypothesis this time was the same as his first: the water will be brown. And time his hypothesis was correct! He was very proud of himself and asked if we could do the whole experiment again some time. I'm sure we will.