The Lindenbergs

We had a great snow on Saturday. Why great? It came down overnight, was perfect sledding and snowball snow, and melted by Saturday evening. Pierce and I went out and sledded in the backyard when a good portion of the snow had already melted (Pierce didn't want to go out in it in the morning). We built a snowman that was about 4 feet tall and literally "used up" all the snow in the backyard -by-the-way, making a 4' snowman when you're 37 is a lot harder than making one when you're <15 years old (oh, my aching back). By the end of the day the only snow left in the yard was the snowman.

Nora's Mom was kind enough to watch the kids for us so Nora and I could visit several pet adoption sites and start looking for a dog. Nora and I had both agreed that this was only an exploratory visit; we had no intentions of bringing a dog home yet. Easily said -Nora and I both melted for a couple of the dogs. We'll look again next week. We're both starting to get pretty excited about adding a dog to the household and we know Pierce and Anna will love it (we haven't told them we're looking, so make sure you keep our secret).

We had a great playdate with our friends the Deavers Saturday evening. The kids were terrific with no (memorable) meltdowns. Suzzane made an excellent pork roast that Pierce gobbled up and asked for seconds -a true first for him. I think we'll have to get the recipe. We finished up by making Sundaes (sp?) and we all staggered around for the rest of the evening with full bellies.

Anna doesn't take a pacifier or suck her thumb. Instead she uses a bottle. She's very resistant to drinking from a regular or sippee cup and insists on going to bed with a bottle. Anna is very headstrong and has proven our match in terms of trying to "pursuade" her to our way of thinking. This weekend we moved to the incremental step of giving her a 4-oz bottle with only about an ounce of water in it for bedtime. Anna both begged and demanded a "big" bottle and more water but actually settled for what we gave her and slept well through the night. Put a tick mark in the small victories category for Nora and me.

Some notable quotes from the past few days:

I asked Pierce a question to which he responded with a rambling non-answer. I asked, "Pierce, did that make any sense?". Pierce's response, "No, that made no sense at all".

Pierce (from out of the blue): "I have an extrordinary thought...". Extrordinary!? What 4-year old uses "extrordinary" in a sentence?

While playing cards with the Deavers Anna came over to keep me company. She read off the cards in my hand, "there's a 10, and a 3, and 5, and 6...". She was right about every single card. I think Suzzanne and Brook's jaws hit the floor.

We took Pierce and Anna to the gym with us Sunday morning. When we pulled into the parking lot Anna started to cry and demanding that we go "bye bye". We dropped them both in the kid's center and worked out for about an hour. When we picked them up Anna told us "that was fun!"

-Eric (Dad)

A very fun, fairly low-stress weekend. Saturday morning we took the kids to Wonderscope, a children's museaum, for about an hour. We've been there many times before, but now Anna's old enough to start enjoying it herself. We had to leave so that I could make a tennis match (I played ok, but my partner and I weren't up to the challenge and lost in two sets).

Saturday night we had our good friends the Deavers over for "Sandwich Night". The Deavers have two children, Ryan and Jonathan, that are very close to Pierce and Anna's ages (respectively). They spent the evening running around and screaming -same as every visit. Interestingly, Pierce and Ryan have gotten over the "hump" of sharing and play spendidly together. Of course, now Anna gets upset when someone other than Pierce picks up one of "her" toys. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Nora and I have started going to the gym together a couple of times a week. Pierce and Anna come with us and stay in the Bally's Kid's Center. Sunday we went and as we dropped them off Anna went into major protest mode. We extracted ourselves and worked out, but constantly checked on her via the club's closed circuit television -she seemed to have calmed down. When we picked them up afterwards Pierce told us they had put the Wiggles on TV (both kids are fans). Anna liked it so much then when it was time to leave she declared "That was fun!" -which is good, since we'll be going back Wednesday ;)

-Eric (Dad)

When the kids were younger Nora and I used to go the gym about twice a week. Bally's has a kid center where we can drop them off while we workout. As Anna got older she started to protest the whole process. She would cry virtually the entire time we worked out. The nice folks who watched her were very kind, but Nora and I both thought this was a little too hard for all involved and stopped going.

This week we've resumed our visits. Anna's turned into quite the trooper and last night at dinner when we said we we're going Anna ran over to the door and declared, "Come on Dad, we're going to the gym". Both kids did great.

-Eric (Dad)

At our house we don't usually use the word "butt". Generally its a tushy, rearend, or bottom. Yesterday when I was changing her diaper Anna said, "That hurt my butt" (I'm assuming the wet diaper bothered her).

I said, "Anna, do you mean your tushy? This is your tushy." and give it a little pinch.

Anna's reply, "Dad, this is my BUTT".

I'm pretty sure we can thank Nora's dad for the vocabulary assistance... ;)

-Eric (Dad)

A friend of mine from work is in town this week and we had him over for dinner last night. Curtis (or Mr. Mooman -its a long story) is one of Pierce's favorite people. When Curtis and I stopped off at the grandparents on the way home from work to pick up the kids Pierce runs outside, in the 10 degree weather, to give Curtis a hug. Subsequently he tells me, "oh, hi Daddy".

Over the course of the evening Pierce showed Curtis all his new toys from the holidays, sat next to him at dinner (and told him it was ok for him to be excused from the table to play), explained an episode of Blue's Clues to him, and watched part of Mary Poppins with him on TV (that was Anna's idea).

We all had a blast. Curtis is a great sport with both the kids. After Anna got through her requisite period of shyness she treated him like he just another member of the family.

-Eric (Dad)

Pierce and Anna have diametrically oppossing view points about brushing their teeth.

Pierce hates toothpaste (regardless of flavor). He's happy to brush with just a wet toothbrush (which we're told by our dentist friends is fine). We make him use two molecules of toothpaste every other night or if he's eatten candy or sweets during the day. You would not believe the amount of protest the kid generates.

Anna, on the other hand, loves to brush her teeth. She's been known to try and take her toothbrush to bed with her. She carries it around the house. She'll "steal" Pierce's toothbrush and carry it around too. And toothpaste, man-oh-man, she loves it. Its "yummy".

Honest to god, I just don't get it.

-Eric (Dad)

Part of our regular bedtime routine with Pierce is to ask him what his favorite part of the day was. For a long time he insisted he didn't have a favorite part of the day "this year". Usually with a little prompting we could get a real answer from him (interstingly, sometimes his favorite part of the day took place a week prior).

Now Pierce has mastered the whole routine and crafts his answers based on whose asking the question. If I ask him, his favorite part of the day is "playing with you Dad". If Nora asks him its, "playing with you Mom".

I see a big future for this kid...

On a different front, Anna recently found a small blue apron that I think was part of one of the cooking playsets we have. She loves to wear it, we have to put it on her as soon as we get home. Interestingly, it comes low enough on her body it makes her look as if her legs are 2 inches long. When we were going through old "stuff" we wanted to give to charity before the end of this year Nora discovered a hideous red and white checked apron in the kitchen. Rather than give it away I suggested we give it to the kids to play with. Oops, now everynight Anna insists I wear it. Lets just say I only do it because I love my daughter -its ugly and hot (and I think it makes me look fat...)

-Eric (Dad)

Sometimes its embarrassing to see how much time elapses in between posts. We've had quite a few adventures since I last updated our blog.

The kids made out like bandits during Hannuka and Christmas. We are literally swimming in toys. My big gift to Pierce for Hannuka was a real electric train set. He likes it a great deal, but is a little afraid of it. When the train goes too fast it has a tendency to flip cars off the track (and off the table) which upsets him greatly. He's not able to control the train with great precision, so this has been a persistent problem. Pierce's favorite Christmas gift was actually a small stocking stuffer: a Thomas the Train rail car with a jet engine loaded on it. The engine lights up and "spins up/whines" when the top of the car is pressed. Pierce told me that if I, or Anna, have bad dreams he'll bring the jet car over to make us feel better.

Anna's still a little hard to shop for; so her gifts ranged all over the map. She got an electric keyboard (her "big" gift), Barbie dolls, clothes, matchbox cars and stuffed animals. She seems to like the keyboard a lot and is warming up to the dolls, but mostly she likes to play with Pierce's toys. Lately she's been doing a lot of pretend cooking on a child-size kitchen set she's had for awhile.

On December 30 we flew out to Va. Beach for 10 days to see my family. My Mom and one brother live out there and my brother in South Carolina came up during the same time. All us boys have families, so my Mom got to dote over all her kids and grandkids at once. Very fun. While we were there we hit several museums including the Va. Beach Air and Space Museum (lots of rockets), a Children's museum, and an aquarium (lots of sharks and giant turtles in very big tanks).

Both kids are great travelers and love to ride on airplanes, so our trip was pretty painless. The only kink in the visit was that we all came down with colds (it always seems to happen that way).

On a final note, Pierce has mastered the art of using the potty. He's in underwear during the day and we're just running out the supply of pullups at night before he transitions to pajamas only at bedtime. We promised Pierce (and Anna) that we'd get a dog once Pierce mastered this challenge, so Nora and I will beginning the dog hunt soon. We're going to go with an older dog that's already housebroken and has a known disposition. Hopefully we'll rescue a wonderful dog from the pound or some other charitable organization. If you have any suggestions for finding the perfect dog please drop us an email.

I should have lots of pics from our vacation on the blog shortly, so come back soon for another visit.

-Eric (Dad)