Heartbreaker

Peter is two months old now and isn't he gorgeous? He smiles, bats his eyes, and coos now. His favorite place to "talk" to us is on the changing table. He'll often do something really disgusting while we're changing him and then give us a lopsided grin as a reward for cleaning him up. So cute. Just this week Peter started tolerating about 15 minutes of play in his bouncy seat or his Barnyard Gym. After 8 weeks of carrying him, it is great to be able to put him down and see him play happily!

Peter sleeps from 8:00-11:00PM, then is up at 3:30AM to eat, and up again at 6:30AM for the day. It's not too bad, but we don't usually sleep ourselves during the first leg because he spits up so much that we're still folding laundry at 11:00 when we put him back to bed. Last night, though, he slept from 10:00PM-4:30AM. It was awesome to get six hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Taking care of these two kids is a roller coaster ride. One day Jill's easy and Peter is hard. The next is the opposite. Honestly, Peter's high maintenance days are a lot easier than Jill's because at just two and a half she can push my buttons! Whiny days are particularly tough. Her whiny days I mean, not mine. Jill just started getting jealous of Peter. She wants to sit in his bouncy seat and bat at the toys and she asks to do tummy time in his Barnyard Gym. She says, "Mummy. I need tummy time!", "Mummy, come. Put Peter down.", and "It's Peter, not Petah." That's a sure sign we're raising a New Englander.

Though Jill has always been a great napper, her napping habits have been a little shaky lately. I don't know if her interest in potty training is messing her up (she won't sleep if she thinks she has to go number two), but recently Jill has only been napping about 4 times a week. And her bedtime routine now rivals Garciaparra's at bat ritual in terms of its length and intricacy. We read two stories and then The Hungry Caterpillar, she puts the books back on the bookshelf, takes two high speed laps around her crib, we put on her sleepsack, she says night-night to the birdies on her curtains, night-night to all of her posters, we cover her and her "guys" (Carebear, Dora, and Elmo) with her blanket and do three tuck tucks... and just added this week is straightening her giraffe picture and asking for a tissue. It's crazy! Hopefully we can pare things down to more of an Ortiz "spit-clap" level once we're less sleep deprived and ready to take a stand.

Some other funny things going on with Jill... Her teacher at Montessori mentioned that we should work on pronouns so that instead of saying for example, "That's Jill's coat!" she'll say, "That's my coat." The problem is, Bryan and I need to work on our pronouns! We refer to ourselves in the third person all the time. "Let Mummy help you." "That's Daddy's coffee." Now that we are aware of it, we know we sound crazy but we just can't stop ourselves.

Jill loves to cook for us. She pours all of her multi-colored rubberbands in a pot and mixes them up. She then serves us "spaghetti", "sushi" or "green beans" in small bowls. She'll run back and forth across the living room for 30 minutes getting the imaginary ingredients for the meals we suggest.

Here are two pictures of Jill dressed and ready for school.

Peter with a ponytail in his hair. I did it, and Jill laughed her head off.

Finally, a wild ride in the swing.