Kid Update

It is now officially fall at the Janssen household. We went apple picking last weekend, and drove upstate to see the leaves and fantasize about buying a "country home" this weekend. Things have been pretty great lately. I'm loving my new job, Ryan's startup is going well, and the kids are a joy 75% of the time (if we took more car trips this number would go down substantially).

Today we went upstate for a pretty great day of looking at houses, watching an air show and having lunch at a great little kid-friendly cafe. Two out of three of those things were enjoyable. If I threw in the car ride, we'd be about at 50/50 enjoyment. Just when you think getting out of the house is a relief, you realize you are stuck in traffic on a Sunday evening with screaming kids and you are out of water and milk. "Please, I will never leave the house again, if I can just get home without my brain exploding" I'll spare you the details.

Rexie is increasingly easy on the eyes and very charming. He is soooo social. He wants to meet everyone and play with them, and wave to them. Adorable. This is a good thing because he is increasingly a pain in the butt as well. I say that in a completely loving way. He is absolutely stubborn, and LOUD about it. Part of this I attribute to be being a little brother (fighting for what he wants) and part is being a boy. He also has found out that he can communicate what he wants pretty effectively and if he doesn't' get what he wants after communicating it, he gets frustrated and angry.

For example, If he looks up at me with his little arms outstretched (pick me up!), and I do not cooperate, he will immediately cry. Even more dramatic......if we are in a restaurant and he does not want to sit in the high chair he will scream at the top of his lungs until he is removed. (That happened today).

Rex seems to be maturing way too fast. Yesterday morning when I came to get him out of the crib in the morning, he looked so incredibly tall to me. I don't know how much longer a crib will keep him. That same morning, I caught him successfully feeding himself with a spoon.....



And, as I said above, he is communicating so much. None of his words are super articulate, but he has a way of saying the following:

*blanket
*bottle
*water
*mama
*dada
*fay ("day")
*dog
*ball
*bubbles ("buba")
*thank you (this one is hilarious -- he repeats is if you say it to him)
*Oh Ohhhh (for dropping something)

Amazing. And one of the cutest things is when I showed him a picture of a lion a couple weeks ago and did a "roar" sound, he IMMEDIATELY starting roaring. He also does an elephant sound while putting his arm up for the trunk (this is what mommy did for elephant). it is the cutest thing and now every animal he sees on the street is a "rawr".

Fay is also maturing into a beautiful smart little girl. She can be really funny. Sometimes she knows why she is funny and sometimes it is an accident. But if she makes you laugh, she is soooo proud of herself and then will dorkify herself by trying to repeat the trick over and over.

Fay is sponging up words and information every day. I no longer have to tiptoe around anything with her. We talk about what it means to die. And she wants to share her dreams every morning. It seems she has mostly sad or scary dreams. She will dream that her blanket has been taken, or that one of her toys has been accidentally broken by daddy. So neat to see what is stressing her out.

A cute moment with Fay recently involved her upcoming birthday. We are planning to have a slumber party with her friends in nyc a week before her birthday and then fly to FL to visit Ryan's family for her actual birthday weekend. We've talked about both of these events a lot and then one day she mentioned something about Granny being at her birthday party. I clarified to her that Granny would be in FL, but not at her NYC slumber party. She stopped me and said "no, my birthday party is in FL". I explained that we were going there for her birthday but that the slumber party was here. She got really disappointed and said she thought ALL of her friends were flying to FL to have a slumber party with her. I felt like such a downer! No, her friends could not come with us to FL, that would be too hard and they couldn't' come without all the parents, etc. So then she asked if JUST ONE of her friends could come to FL, PLEASE. So sweet.