"Lookit my eyes..."

There may be a "quick tip" post coming after this one about being careful what you say in front of kids...

A couple days ago, I was getting Mikey ready for bed, as I am wont to do every night, and while getting his diaper changed, he started scratching his leg near his bum. The kid has very sensitive skin and was on the tail end (pun intended) of getting over some bad diaper rash. I told him again to stop scratching, and when he didn't stop, I moved his hand away from his bum to make him stop scratching. Not an uncommon occurrence.  But then, he piped up in his own defense. This was a couple days ago so this is my best recollection, but our conversation went something like this:

Mikey: No! Dadda, no touch my hand
Me: (offhandedly) Ok
Mikey: No touch my hand, Dadda, that's naughty
Me: (with a smile at the irony) Ok, buddy
Mikey: Dada, lookit, my eyes
Me (smiling still, but trying to give him the amount of seriousness he's asking for, I get in real close, so we're locked eye to eye) Yes, Mikey?
Mikey: Dadda, no hit my hand. No hit it. That's naughty, ok? Lookit my eyes.
Me: Ok, Mikey. I just don't want you to scratch and hurt your bum
Mikey: Ok Dadda

Then we went on with the nighttime routine. Kids listen to the stuff you say. When I'm being serious and want him to really listen, I tell him to look at my eyes. He not only understands the words and instruction to physically look at my eyes, he understands the context, and how to use the same context himself. This kid.

And don't worry everyone. I'm doing better at swatting his hand away from scratching, and trying to use my words more. He taught me my lesson.

Baby announcements and parodies

So here's our birth announcement thinger for Henry:

Pretty cute, huh? Well, he has an uncle who likes to give nicknames to nieces and nephews (and really anyone else), and since we've got a baby Henry whose mom's maiden name is Jones, Henry's nickname from Jared so far has been Indiana. 

Jared just sent us this new and improved version of Henry's birth announcement.

I think he looks pretty sharp in the hat.

Two babies!

Welcome to the world, baby Henry! Most of you probably already follow Hayley's blog (or the family blog). I'll do a more in depth post with more pics, but I just put this one together for fun. Can you tell which baby is Mikey and which is Henry? I can. I think most will be able to. But the comparison is fun! We're so excited to now be a family of 4!

Christmas

This Christmas was awesome, but a bit different than others we've had. First, I've been really busy with work. That threatened early on to invade on my vacation time a little, but then I had a final call on my last "half day" (in quotes because I worked 8 hours) that made me basically turn off my work cell, and just be with my family.

Once we got going, it was a good time. Pretty quickly, poor Mikey got croup worse than he ever has, and we had many sleepless nights with that. He then got strep throat and the flu at the same time immediately after the croup, so he was also exhausted on Christmas. We took 3 hours in the morning to open 4 presents, then Mikey took a nap. When he woke up, he was more interested in opening stuff and getting all the paper ripped up, but it was a very low key day. Jared and Liz visited to see Mikey's toys (their blogs are linked, but they don't blog anymore, and Jared's is private, so I can't even see it myself anymore), and he loved playing with cousins up to the point where he decided to just lay flat out on the floor, hands tucked under his tummy, and watch Bradley play with cars and trains. It was cute.

My mom and dad visited, too, and brought McKay and Sindi along. We had a nice visit and a tasty meal with them. Earlier, a 4-pack of Martinelli's fell out of the back of our car and only two bottles survived, so we only had the two to share. The steaks made up for that, I think.

During the two weeks I was off work, we stayed inside mostly, but Mikey and I played in the snow all bundled up (see my last post), and made snow angels and a snowman. Once Mikey got sick, going out wasn't really an option, but we went driving to see Christmas lights around the neighborhood and he LOVED it. We even found a house that had a whole thing going with music. Here's a little clip of that:



You can hear the music (they had the radio station to tune into shown on their lawn), and you start to hear the camera noise when Hayley started taking pictures. Mikey hears that, and starts saying, "Cheese!!" Man, is he cute.

We also had to make sure we kept Hayley resting and off of salt. I think it was a little rough for her, but we will probably make up for it in January when the baby is here.

During Christmas is when it really started to become a real thing that Henry was going to actually be here. We looked at old pictures of Mikey, talked about all the stuff he did as a tiny baby, and even about what next Christmas might be like with him here. How crazy will that be!

Anyway, hope you had a great Christmas, too!