Schuyler Sayings

Schuyler is talking so much, we thought we would record some quotes for posterity:

"I want Trystan to buy my underwear"

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Sky: "Do you want to go outside? Yes or no."

Trystan: "No."

Sky: "Do you want to go outside? Yes or yes."

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"At Kindermusik see the big baby in the office makes me boobs cry on Wednesday. "

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Papa: "Je suis fiere de toi, Schuyler." [I'm proud of you]

Sky: "Non, Mama's proud of me."

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"Lucy, I'm a woman and I'm delicate."

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To Trystan: "You have a tiny penis."

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"No, Mummy, those are not for you! Those are for adults."

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"Daddy, don't turn on the light. It scares my eyes."

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manhandling

one of those fun family times when everyone's just piling on in a big, fun, family pig pile and everyone's having a great time...

...and then Schuyler decides that maybe Charlie's having too good a time and clamps around his throat...

...until mama peels the steel grip from the young lad's throat...

...and Schuyler responds with a full headlock.

blue hole hill

Life with two small children is just a walk in the park.

like riding a bike

Charlie starts his training for riding a bike on Bermuda's rather tricky roads. If you ask me, Schuyler looks like she'd like to send that bike for a long ride off a short dock...

the little one

the big one

happy mornings

No, Charlie isn't quite ready yet for a big kid bed. He just likes a quick rest in mum and dad's big comfy bed before dressing for a rigourous day at baby jail.

the horse

Schuyler's imagination is turbo charged at the moment which really cracks us up. It is not just the malapropisms or the crazy verbal gymnastics, It's just watching her mind work. These photos are of...um... Horses. Yup. Ok. So they are horses because she rides them like those old fashioned childrens horses that are just a head on kind of a broom handle (although she has no reference for this). The odd thing is that these horses were clearly underdressed and required a full outfit. So Schuyler dressed the horses complete with underwear and socks.

a "spirited" child

Schuyler is adjusting to the new regime. She's stopped (for the most part) deliberately trying to wake up her brother and/or cause him bodily harm. She definitely trying to find her place in the new family order and does a lot of boundary pushing and trying her luck at certain things. I keep thinking of Cesar Milan's dog whisperer: in the show, whenever there is a dog acting out, it tends to be because the parent doesn't let the dog know the rules and who's in charge. In the show, the dog always reacts well to the discipline and begins behaving. We will let you know when that happens to us with our pup.

babies r us

Charlie plays Lilliputian to Schuyler's Gulliver.

Spot the live ones.

Schuyler with her "baby bjorn"

Charlie puts the moves on Dee Dee who is clearly non-plussed by his charming grin.

@4 months

So after several questions about pigment deficiency, Dr. West said "face it, you have a pale baby". He forgot to mention a "very cute" pale baby.

Does this scale make me look fat?

Mama's boy

Weight: 15lb 1oz

Length: 25.5"

baby care

Schuyler shows off her tender and gentle handling of infants...

and her generous blanket usage on her own child.

hi ho, hi ho...

...it's off to work we go. in round 2, there's a lot of deja vu. all the little things you have to do to keep these kids alive come back to you - everything's the same but a little bit different. breast feeding is working this time around which is lovely and i think both parties enjoy the experience more than at least one of them thought. papa feels a little less necessary than he did when he was The Milk Man but now that mama is back to work, we both have returned to the duties that come with expressing. the little sacks of dated milk popsicles have returned to our freezer, slowing taking over the space from less life-sustaining items like Haagen Dazs and frozen yoghurt bars. watching all that liz does to make this kid stay alive and happy, makes me pretty glad my mammory glands have been switched off. she's a trooper. when the kids are teenagers and pulling their melodramatic nonsense, i'm going to be the cliched father reminding them of all this work that went into making them. i'm sure they will weigh this knowledge and reason through it and accept that perhaps they were hasty in their behaviour and apologise.

on another note, i missed being home with Charlie the way i was home with Schuyler. this new job has many advantages (like being home in the evenings with the kids and being able to attend all doc appointments but i don't get the summers off to be with my kids either - cry me a river, eh?). i feel like i haven't been enough of his dad yet. i'm working on making this up to him over his lifetime. i may even learn a sport or something.

our little people

Schuyler takes a break from the stresses of Toddlerdom in the morning.

Our happy but Casper-like son trains in his Neglectomatic.

bye bye pink beach

Pink Beach was our second home here. When Kim and Wardy Baby were upside down in Australia we could always come over to Pink Beach and hang out and it was kind of like we were hanging out with them for a bit. Now, it is been rented out for two years, it will be sad not to have that part of them here. Fortunately, Kim and Wardy Baby themselves will be back soon in enough in April so life is good.

anywhere & everywhere

In her continual effort to take parenting to the next level, Schuyler invents the bookshelf bed.

And she has also learned to use tools effectively... Namely to reach forbidden items.

bermy bouncers

Although the parental humiliation level is extremely high in the above clip, it did result in Charlie's first laugh being captured in one's and zero's forever.

Our more alert readers may recall the original:

waking up is hard to do

that's my boy

So tonight we decided to break Charlie. He'd been mainly sleeping on the couch with me for the first sleep of the night and then in the bed with us and feeding through the rest of the night. We were just trying to get by so we let sleeping babies lie. Tonight was the night we would change all that. We read up on all the sleep methods (meaning I listened to Liz summarise the volumes she had read on the subject) and then put him to sleep in his room at the same time as Schuyler went down. And he screamed. I mean really screamed in a way that makes you feel like (a) the worst parent that has ever, ever lived ever and (b) that information could be extracted from terrorists in a matter of seconds if subjected to this sound. Every 3 mins or so i'd go in and remind him that he wasn't completely abandoned in what appeared to be a nicely painted jail cell and that we loved him still (although the screaming doesn't help your case there, buddy). After a half hour, liz fed him and we put him down again. And he screamed. And then cried. And then sobbed. And then... mysteriously and magically, he went to sleep. And liz and i spent our first evening alone together in months both recovering from the emotional erosion and feeling oversized pride in our little boy. And he slept a good 6 hours before his next feed. Got up a couple of more times but after a feed went right back to sleep. That's m'boy!