Wow, it’s already well into March, and all I’ve posted so far this year is a cornbread recipe. Sheesh, you’d think I was busy or something…

So, just in the last two months, Lori has made some amazing developmental leaps. When I visited my sister just before New Year’s, Lori was sitting up well and playing with toys. Now, she crawls around (using one knee and one foot), pulls up on things, claps, waves, tries to talk (she says “Dada” reliably), and is generally more like a little kid every day. Just the other day, she was playing with something in the middle of the living room floor, and she pushed up and stood up all on her own. She still had the toy in her hand, so I guess she thought she was holding onto something. It only lasted a few seconds, and then she plopped back down on her butt. Then she laughed and tried it again and again and again. I’m trying to discourage the walking for as long as I can, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold her off! If I set her down on the floor, she bee-lines it straight for something to pull up on, usually my leg. Today she stood at the kid-sized table in the dining room and “typed” on the unplugged keyboard for 15 minutes.

The only thing that’s weird about Lori’s development is her complete lack of interest in putting anything in her mouth. Normal children of this age put everything in their mouths. She very rarely mouths on toys. She won’t even put a Cheerio in her mouth. She can pick them up. She will happily eat them if you put them in her mouth for her. But she will not pick one up and put it in her mouth. I don’t get it. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have any teeth yet, but Cara didn’t get her first tooth until the day before her first birthday, and I remember her feeding herself well before that. Who knows what’s going on in that little head of hers, but perhaps she knows if she fed herself, she’d get much less personal attention at mealtimes. We’ll just have to give her time and wait and see…

Everybody who has eaten my cornbread wants to know what I do, so here it is:

Start with a box of Trader Joe’s cornbread mix. The box calls for 1 egg, 1/2 cup oil, and 3/4 cup milk. I change this to 1/4 cup egg whites (you could also use vegan egg substitute), 1/4 cup oil (I use organic canola), and 1 can cream style corn. This eliminates the cholesterol and the dairy, and cuts down the fat significantly. The result is sweet and moist and really… well, corny.

We’re riding along in the car on the way home from the nature center yesterday, and Liam asks me one of his questions that means he’s been mulling something over:

“Mom, what comes after ‘quintillion’?”

In the second that I paused to consider whether ’sextillion’ is a word (it is), Evan piped up with a much more accurate answer:

“Quintillion-one.”

Brian and I were playing Cranium WOW this evening with friends. To win the game we drew a card in the Word Worm category which read:

“To win the Mindmeld, two or more players on your team must match at least one answer with a teammate. Each player on your team secretly writes down three words that come to mind when thinking of the topic below: Saturday Morning Cartoons”

After about ten seconds, Brian and I revealed our tablets, which both read:

SMURFS, TRANSFORMERS, GI JOE

Children of the 80s indeed.

Cara was playing peek-a-boo with Lori and proceeded to try and make Lori cover her own eyes with her hands.

Mommy: “Cara, please be gentle. Remember, Lori’s not a toy. She’s a person.”

Cara, giggling as if I had made a joke: “No she’s not.”

Mommy: “Yes. She is a person. Just like you are a person.”

Cara, indignantly: “No I am not. I’m a skunk.”

Well, then. What do you say to that?

Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. Get it. Read it. I need a discussion/support group!

Quote of the year (so far):

Evan: “I want to be a policeman when I grow up. But I’m going to drive a red mustang to trick people.”

Liam: “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up… But I think I’m going to invent a solar-electric powered car and sell it for under $300.”

Ten years ago today Carolee and I were married.  Insanity!

Happy anniversary, hon!

Now my favorite parenting expert is available to everyone! Dr. Rene Hackney, of Parenting Playgroups (commonly referred to as Cara’s “art class”), has videotaped bits of her parenting lectures for MonkeySee.com. My favorite set of clips so far is about “contribution,” which we value highly in our household. Do a search for “Rene Hackney” to see her other topics, such as potty training, separation anxiety, and types of praise. More are coming shortly, I’m told. I don’t know what I would have done without her parenting advice over the years, so I’m so glad to be able to share it with everyone else!

Apologies for the delay in getting November photos up. We were experiencing some software interface problems that have now been corrected. There are two new albums up full of great pix of the kids. There’s a new album of the first half of December coming soon, but I’ll let everyone catch up first…

Enjoy!