Odd bird

Sometimes, Simon can be an odd little toddler. Three quick examples:

1. He loves to play with HIS ears, which can complicate things if, say, there’s a suspected ear infection (not yet, knock on wood). He also loves to play with MY ears. Many a night, while rocking him, I’ve had to make my ears fully accessible so that he could play with them until he fell asleep.

2. He is the most ticklish baby I’ve ever come in contact with. ANY part of his chubby little body will produce a healthy squeal when tickled!

3. Every time he coughs, he will follow it up with a sneeze. This “skill” comes in handy when he’s eating. Sadly, it’s how we can tell he’s just coughing instead of choking. If a sneeze happens, he’s all good.

14-month update

OK, Dec. 25 to Jan. 25 is a pretty boring time of year. After Christmas is over and your football team doesn't go to a bowl game, there's not much keeping you going. It's the doldrums of winter when you're stuck inside places like Jungle Java and, God forbid, Chuck E. Cheese!

But, for Simon, this month was the month he pretty much decided being upright was the new and cool way to go! Although he has been standing and cruising a lot, his primary way around was still crawling. Well, he now is standing on his own - for the first time at my parents' hardwood floor on Saturday, Jan. 9 - and I can tell he's thinking about taking steps. We're in trouble!

Also, this month, I made wear the hell out of this hat!

The beginning?

Harmon began what we hope to be a long and successful athletic career on Saturday, Jan. 16 when he attended his first soccer practice. While soccer quite frankly BORES ME TO TEARS (to be fair, Kevin likes it), there weren’t a lot of sports options around town for 4 year olds. There was floor hockey (um, NO), gymnastics (come ON, the kid is huge) and swimming (we would have gone with this one but there were scheduling issues). Anyway, upon arriving, he was a little hesitant to get out there with the other kids but, eventually, he ventured out into the chaos with Kevin. He did a great job listening to the British Elite Soccer (oooooooooooo) instructors and doing what he was told and it looked like he was having fun. I think the next practice will be even better, especially when he a) can go out there WITHOUT Kevin and he b) won’t feel the need to come visit me and Simon all the time. We all went to the first practice but I think it will be best for future practices if just one of us goes. It’s just fewer distractions. This first class is only five weeks long and then we’ll see what else is out there. I am DYING for t-ball and, eventually, Little League but he needs to be in kindergarten for those. In due time!

Got milk?

At Simon’s one-year appointment back on Dec. 4, we spoke with the doctor about his transition to milk. For the life of me, I couldn't remember doing this with Harmon so I was interested to hear what he would say (side note: we had a different doctor for Harmon). So, he suggested we just give him some Vitamin D milk in a sippy cup and see how it goes. If he was hesitant, we would have to wean him off formula slowly with all kinds of ¼, ½, ¾ mixtures. Thankfully, Simon said to hell with that mixture business as he happily chugged down his milk. Before that appointment, he had pretty much lost all interest in bottles throughout the day. He would have one at school and maybe one while my Mom and Dad were watching him on Wednesdays but nothing more. With the big move to milk, we thought we should just do away with ALL daytime bottles and it went very well.

The only remaining issue was the nighttime bottle, which the doctor said he would like to go bye-bye by the time he was 14 months old. Ah, what to do? We were dead set against putting milk in a bottle (since he was already getting used to it in his sippy cup) and we simply did not want to buy anymore damn Enfamil. So, we agreed that once that last can of formula was gone, we would just maybe give him a drink of milk from his sippy cup before bed. Well, we used the last of the can for his bottle on Friday, Jan. 15 so Saturday, Jan. 16 was the first night in his 13+ months that he didn’t have a nighttime bottle. Kevin has Simon duty on Saturdays so I didn’t think much about it until it was MY turn to rock him to sleep on Sunday night. I guess on Saturday, Kevin said he gave him a look like “what the hell is going on, where’s my damn bottle?” Understandable! Sunday night with me, though, he was sad and he cried. I felt terrible but it didn’t last long. Within a few minutes, he was drooling on me and snoring. We thought we were in for a few rough nights but he handled it just fine. He’s such an easy baby, a good baby, and always so adaptable to whatever is going on. Sorry about those bottles, little guy!

13-month update

The last month of Simon's life occurred during the busiest time of the year so it's impressive that I remember ANY of it! I do remember that the tooth to the right of his top front tooth finally busted through on Nov. 30 after his gums there were black and blue for weeks. I thought maybe he had fallen and injured that tooth but the little pearly white finally came through and put my mind at ease. This month also brought a ton of multi-syllable babbling complete with pointing at everything. He was like an Elmo doll that just got turned on!

On the heels of his first hot dog on Dec. 9 (my Mom let him have one when she was watching him), he also started camping out in front of the open refridgerator door to get a drink of his water. And, speaking of drinks, he made the transition to from formula to milk but that deserves a post all its own (bye, bye, Enfamil)!

Christmas vacation

Each year, I really look forward to Christmas vacation because we get so much uninterrupted time with the boys. This year, Kevin and I took off two full weeks and it was awesome! While we did the usual things like sleeping in, taking naps, decorating the tree AND baking way too many treats, we did some different things too. We finished up our shopping, I took Harmon to see Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and we made our first family trip to the Henry Ford Museum. We planned to go because of the Lego exhibit, but we barely spent any time there once we arrived. Harmon was way more excited to see all the cars and trains so we spent most of our time doing that. On our way out, we also had a Bergquist boy hot dog!

We spent with my immediate family where - among other things - Simon got Elmo and Harmon got a very cool Lightning McQueen remote control car. We got them in their jammies before leaving Waterford so we could just put them to bed when we got home. Then we collected all the presents and put them under the tree.

Christmas morning was spent at home and we were stunned that Harmon slept until 8:30 a.m. He was patient for a little bit, but once it got around 9 a.m. we had to wake Simon and get the festivities underway. They opened presents for a while in their matching reindeer jammies.

Later in the day, we headed to my Uncle Max's house to celebrate with my extended family. The highlight, of course, was the Thanksgiving-style turkey dinner, which Simon took full advantage of! We didn't stay long, though, because the next morning we had to hit the road to Peoria to celebrate with Kevin's family.

I've been making that trip 2-3 times each year since 2000 and it was never as bad as it was this year. We should have known it would be bad when it took us ONE HOUR to get from the east side to the west side of Ann Arbor! It snowed almost the entire way and it took us about nine hours to get there (it's usually 6-7 hours). The last two hours, I had to sit in the back seat with the boys because they were so sick of being in the car. We got there late on Dec. 26 and spent the next three days just hanging out. Kevin's brother, sister-in-law, sister and nieces came over every day to play with the boys, which was very sweet! They got LOTS of attention and way too many gifts, as is the norm! We headed back on Dec. 30 and made it home in record time, which was great because Harmon was itching to play with all his new toys.

As has been tradition since the year before Harmon was born, we went to Pizza House for dinner on New Year's Eve. It wasn't the best trip as both boys were nuts! I think they were pissed about just being with me and Kevin after almost a week of attention from so many other cool people. New Year's Day was ... well ... a bummer. No bowl game will do that to you. The rest of the weekend, we took our time getting ready for the week and wondering why Christmas vacation has to go by so damn fast! It was back to the grind on Monday, Jan. 4 - ugh!

ONE

Simon turned one today, how did that happen? I feel like my water just broke and I was in the bathroom with Harmon at my side, both of us calling for Kevin to come upstairs and help.

He's one. He's crawling (on all fours for the first time on Nov. 10) and pulling up and cruising and saying Mama and busting out teeth left and right (seventh tooth - top and to the left of his front tooth - poked through on Oct. 29) and even getting haircuts.

He's one. He's still snuggly ... but not for long. He has too much to explore.

He's one. He's almost done with Enfamil and bottles forever, which, despite the cost of formula, makes me a little sad.

He's one. He pretty much eats what we eat now and, as Kevin always says, he'll be eating a whole steak next week. I guess that's why he never liked that baby food much!

He's one, even though he looks way bigger. Official stats - 24 1/2 pounds and 32 1/2 inches long. For comparison, Harmon was a little over 28 pounds and was about 33 inches long. So, while he's a little lighter, he's almost as tall. In short, big boys.

He's one and his first birthday falls during the Thanksgiving rush, which is bad and good. Bad because it gets lost in the shuffle. Good because it's an even bigger reminder of how thankful we are for him.

It's amazing that I thought I couldn't love another child as much as I love Harmon. I worried about that a lot while I was pregnant and Kevin would always tell me I was crazy. I guess I WAS crazy because all it took was one look at Simon and I was in love again, and, one year later, I love him even more!

Happy birthday, Simon!

Bergquist boy birthday party

Since the boys' birthdays are less than two weeks apart, we foresee many joint parties in the future and 2009 was the first. We had their party at our house on Saturday, Nov. 14. It was just family, but it was fun! Nana and Papa and Aunt Erin were in attendance but Aunt Stacey was sick so she and Uncle Marc kept their germs in Chicago. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Angela made the drive from Peoria. Because Simon is too little to understand birthday themes, we let Harmon pick and, surprise, he picked Cars. We decorated with Cars stuff everywhere and got yummy Cars cakes from Just Baked in Twelve Oaks Mall. While we weren't in love with the Lightning McQueen cake (it looked like the decorator kept messing up and then just adding MORE frosting to cover the mistakes), we loved the two smaller cakes we got - Luigi for Harmon and Guido for Simon.

Before we cut the cakes, we downed pizza, salad and breadsticks (regular and Harmon's favorite, cinnamon) from Pizza House and then headed to the basement to open all the gifts. It was like Christmas down there - these boys are so spoiled! Both boys got so many nice things - thanks to our all-too-generous families. Harmon opened all his gifts and then started in on Simon's, too. Simon got tired so we stopped with the presents and put him down for a quick nap. He actually ended up opening the rest of his gifts later in the week. After he woke up, we sang happy birthday and they both looked so sweet sitting together taking it all in (at top). I hope we can catch a photo like that every year!

Happy birthday, boys!

Comfy Pants

One of the first questions Harmon asks me when it’s time to get dressed each day is “Mommy, did you pick out comfy pants for me?” If the answer is yes, all is right in the world. If, however, the answer happens to be “No, I picked out corduroys or jeans,” we’ll there’s going to be a problem. Sometimes, that problem is resolved by reminding him he can change when he gets home OR he can get wear comfy pants the next day. Other times, though, he’ll put up a decent fight and do his fair share of whining about the injustice of making a 4-year-old wear denim. I hope he gets over this because Catholic Schools and most workplaces don’t embrace a comfy pants policy!

Harmon’s special day

On Harmon’s 4th birthday, we thought we should spend a special day with just him. So, we sent Simon to school and celebrated our day o’ Harmon. We began by dropping off cookies Harmon had made for his classmates. They thanked him by singing happy birthday and quizzing him on what he was going to do the rest of the day. It was very sweet to see them all interacting together in that classroom setting – something we normally don’t get to see.

After cookies, we headed to Kerrytown for a trip to a very cool toy store called Mudpuddles. There he played for a long time with everything that was on display, including a wooden marble run. While I thought he might one (we didn’t – marbles and one-year-olds don’t mix), he chose a very cool floor puzzle with emergency and construction vehicles as his special gift. It was then about lunch time so we drove over to Pizza House for pizza and Harmon’s favorite – cinnamon bread sticks.

Lunch then was followed by his first trip to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. We’ve meant to go 1,000 times before but it just never worked out. I’m glad, though, that we chose to go on a special occasion so he will always remember it. The special exhibit when we visited was Bob the Builder and he had a great time with it! We then made it through the rest of the museum and he loved every part of that too. The ambulance, the bubble machines and the very cool ball popper were probably his favorite things!

After a great afternoon at the museum, we scooped up Simon and headed home. Again, we knew his official party was coming over the weekend but we did get cupcakes to close out the day. I think he liked his special day and I hope we can continue to do that for both boys as they get older. It’s nice for them, at least one day out of the year, to have our undivided attention and have everything be about them!

4!

I Wonder If I'm Growing

I wonder if I'm growing
I wonder if I'm growing
My mom says 'yes, I'm growing'
But it's hard for me to see

My mom says 'eat your sandwich
It will make you grow up tall'
But when I eat my sandwich
I'm hardly bigger at all

I wonder if I'm growing
I wonder if I'm growing
My mom says 'yes, I'm growing'
But it's hard for me to see

My mom says 'Wash your hands now
Then you can go and play'
Hey, I can reach the tap now
For the very first time today

And I think I must be growing
Oh I know I'm really growing
My mom says 'yes, I'm growing'
And now I know it's true

Harmon, today you are 4! I don't know how many times I have to say it or write it before I actually believe it to be true.

This song, by Raffi, is special to the both of us but for different reasons. You like it because you're a kid and you like Raffi music. I like it because, even though it makes me a little sad, it reminds me of times when you couldn't "reach the tap" or of the times I told you to eat so you would "grow up tall."

I love you, little man, no matter how much growing you do! Happy birthday, buddy!

First haircut

After Simon needed a little Photoshop trim in his official one-year photo, we thought it was about time for a haircut. We were trying to wait until after his first birthday but his hair wasn't in on that plan. So, on Sunday, Nov. 8, we took him to a place in Northville called Snip-Its and it went great! He was a good boy but he looked so grown up when he was all done. To deal with the emotions of the day, we headed straight to the Franklin Cider Mill for some donut therapy!

Official photos

On Sunday, Nov. 1, we met up with the great Martin Vloet for the boys’ official yearly photos. The original plan was to take them outside somewhere on campus but it was too cold so we figured the Michigan Union would be a great spot. We started in the hallway behind the café on the first floor where they were some nice couches. Martin, and his great eye and speedy, flashy, professional camera, was able to catch the boys like this:

Harmon - official four-year photo


Simon – official one-year photo


Since we weren’t in love with any of the boys together in this location, we decided to head upstairs in hopes that the Ballroom – where Kevin and I had our wedding reception – would be open. It wasn’t so we simply settled for the hallway and we think it worked out just fine:

First official photo as brothers


We love this photo for the obvious reasons but also because it reminds us where we started back on the evening of Dec. 2, 2000:


Many thanks to Martin for his time and effort and, side note, wardrobe provided by Baby Gap!

Halloween 2009

Simon's last "first" holiday was a cold Halloween night in Ann Arbor. Luckily, he had on a layer or two under his frog costume:


The cold did not bother Harmon, our little certified organic banana:


He was a little shy to start but, near the end of night, he was walking up to doors all by himself. He also for the first time really enjoyed his candy! Simon, on the other hand, had no idea what he was looking at:


In due time, little man!

11 months

Simon turned 11 months old today and a few of the highlights from the past month were, of course, food-related. Shocker! As Kevin was picking him up from school earlier this month, he witnessed Simon at the table YELLING for more Cheerios! He tends to just yell when he’s hungry. He also had his first donut just a few days after the Cheerios incident as Kevin took him and Harmon to Erwin Orchard.

This month was also big at school as Simon moved into a new room. He’s no longer a ladybug at Annie’s, he’s now a big bad dragonfly! This move really spurred a lot of new activities, especially pulling up on any and every thing AND cruising.

Who knows what the next month will bring!

Let's go Krogering

Harmon doesn't always like to eat his dinner, or go to bed, or, for that matter, get out of bed on school mornings. But, one thing he does, without fail, is accompany me to Kroger. It may seem simple, but one of our special times together is when we have father-son time at the grocery store.

There was a time when he would tell me which Kroger to go to (the one "by the stadium" is actually Westside, while the one "by our house" is actually just that -- nearby on Carpenter Road). Once there, we are a machine. Now, just ask Aimee, I love me some lists. I write lists on everything, so, of course, I bring my list to Kroger. But, Harmon seems to always know what we need.

First, no matter what entrance we go through, he insists on running to get this yogurt. Then, it varies from pretzels to Pop-tarts to bread to fruit. But, one thing he loves to do is to carry the next item we pick up. It never fails: he could be walking down the aisle with a bag of "chester" (Chessman) cookies, and if I stop and get more applesauce, he has to carry that. Heck, I could pick out a 40-pound bag of charcoal and Harmon would strap it to his back if it meant he could carry it around the store for a while.

When we head to the checkout, Harmon will take the last item that has now become his best friend and hand it to the checkout clerk. But, they must scan it right then and there and hand it back to him in its own bag. If not, he will let them know.

Lately, he has loved taking quarters and buying things out of the gumball machines at the entrances to the stores. Hard to believe most of those things are $1 now. But, I did feed Donkey Kong and Crazy Climber machines when I was younger, so I am happy to give him quarters.

Overall, we have fun together and it makes the chore of grocery shopping more fun. I tell him I always enjoy my trips to Kroger with my buddy!

Simon's 10-month update

Simon has spent most of the last month getting after it at the dinner table. While we had let him try a few things – Cheerios, banana and those Gerber puffs – it wound up as a total finger food fail. So, we waited until Thursday, Sept. 17 to try it again and then IT WAS ON. He had some cheese and bread that night with us at dinner and loved it. He has not looked back since. He’s devouring Cheerios, several kinds of bread (biscuits, crescent rolls, garlic bread, etc.), pasta, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, apple, raisins, zucchini, peas, carrots, squash, applesauce, puffs, oatmeal, yogurt and tortilla. We also are adding things by the day and DUDE LOVES ALL OF IT. He loves to eat and there is no way possible you can feed him fast enough. If you take one split second longer than he wants, he will let you know about it. In short, he’s a great eater and we're happy about that!

Because of all the finger foods, he is way less interested in his bottle. He still has it but not nearly as often. I hope he weans himself at Christmas like Harmon did.

To work off all that food, he is army crawling like nobody’s business and just starting to pull himself up. While he loves his toys, his favorite activity as of late (well, besides eating) is giving his big brother a heart attack by getting into his toys. We’re working on sharing – it’s going OK.

Lots of new words and sounds but STILL NO MAMA! Damn it, kid.

And, lastly, yes, at 10 months, the eyes are still blue. I’m starting to believe.

Ring my bell

Last night, when we all were playing in the basement, Simon busted out his fastest army crawl toward the exercise room/playroom. Of course, as evidenced here, Harmon can’t handle this. So, in an effort to prevent Simon from touching his precious toys, he stormed by him and crashed right into one of the exposed basement poles. The impact knocked him to the ground and the sound was that of a dinner bell ringing (I still can hear it). By the time Kevin got to him, he was up on his feet but we quickly had to wrestle him back to the ground to put some ice on the already-developing bump (oh and he HATES ice). I think we caught it in time because the welting and the bruising, fortunately, weren’t bad at all.

All this bell ringing, though, got us to thinking that we’re REALLY going to have to do something about those poles as Simon learns to walk. The basement wasn’t finished when Harmon first started walking so we never had to worry about it then. Now, though, we need to come up with a plan – quickly – or we’ll have to wrestle two kids to the ground for ice treatments.

Please, stop, noooooooo!

Now that Simon is mobile, Harmon can't stomach the thought of his baby brother putting all his precious cars – with or without faces – in his mouth. So, the minute Simon is on the loose, Harmon totally loses his damn mind.

Harmon will be playing in the living room and the minute he sees Simon peek his head out of his bedroom AT THE OTHER END OF THE HALL, this is pretty much his reaction:



I’m hoping he’ll grow out of this!

Becoming a Bookworm

On Thursday, Sept. 10, Kevin and I dropped off Harmon in his new classroom for the first time. He’s transformed from a Lightning Bug to a Bookworm now at Annie’s Children’s Center and being a Bookworm is serious business. When we went to orientation in August, his teacher busted out the workbooks and we were like WTF! Neither of us (or our siblings) ever went to daycare or preschool so this whole thing is foreign to us. But, we’re all in so we got him some workbooks for home too.

We’re not exactly sure when we’ll start him in kindergarten (his birthday is JUST before the cut-off date so it’s up to us) but we’re determined that he be at least academically ready (if you can use the word “academically” when referring to kindergarten).

All this workbook talk is a bit of a change for him after his summer of hot lunches, field trips (Mill Pond Park, Timber Town Park, Kerrytown Bell Tower, etc.) and being the big man on the playground (he was the oldest in his class this summer as the handful of kids older than him made the move to the Bookworm room in June). He was fine his first day and was excited about it beforehand, noting with excitement that his NEW room has computers. It also helps that he “visited” a few times over the summer months. I’m sure he’ll be fine as he usually adapts pretty well to new situations. And, we’re excited about all that he’ll learn in this new environment, even if it does put him one step closer to “real” school.