Back Online!

Well, it is Mar. 23 and I am connected to the internet at home and ready to begin blogging again. This will mostly be updates on the kids. It will be good for me to keep a record of the fun things that happen around here.
A quick overview would be good, I think, since it has been so long. JJ is 6 (7 in May) and in first grade. He loves school, is reading great now, and is still an energetic boy. He even chooses to go to bed early some nights to wake up early and go into the computer lab to play math games. He had a Knowledge-A-Thon last week. It is a fundraiser for school where the kids get asked 100 questions of things they should have learned this year in school. They collect pledges for the number of questions they answer correctly. JJ got all his questions correct for the second year in a row! We are so proud of him. He starts swimming lessons again tomorrow.
Elise is 5 1/2 and is in preschool. She is pretty much ahead of the game at school with an older brother at home teaching her everything he learns. Elise continues to be an even-keeled kid, who likes to use lots of big words, correctly most of the time. The other day she was eating cucumbers and I remembered how last year we had zucchini in the garden and she kept making me promise that she wouldn't have to eat the "zucumbers." She loves cucumbers, hates zucchini. Elise lost her first tooth last Thursday after her violin recital. She got a dollar from Jonathan and I under her pillow, and Aunt Judy gave her a dollar also. She used it toward buying the book Purplicious at the school book fair today. Puppies continue to be her favorite thing. She has many stuffed animal puppies that she plays with every day at home. She has leashes and such, and also uses all her baby doll stuff with them. Let's see if I can remember all of them - Skippy, Julie, Sargie, Stella, Bumpy, Hearts, Jack. Elise starts swimming on Friday.
Seth is now 11 months. He did so many new things in the last month when he was 10 months. He learned to crawl. His style looks like a kind of inchworm movement, or reminiscent of the butterfly swim stroke. He also butt-scoots, much faster than his crawl. He learned to say "uh-oh" all on his own. One Saturday he just started saying it and says it all the time. He also started whistling about the same time. He would have his lips in an O from saying uh-oh, and then would blow in and out and get a real whistle out of it. JJ and Elise were amazed! They both have been trying to learn to whistle. Unfortunately, he whistles no longer. Must have been a phase. Seth is 18 pounds now, as far as I can figure with my scale. That means he gained 1 1/2 pounds in 2 months. That is pretty on-target for him. He is a little guy, but seems just right. We just put him into his crib last week. He had been sleeping in a large cradle, and after the first night in the crib, he rolled over from back to front and has been doing it ever since. I guess he just needed more room to maneuver.
Seth can eat all sorts of things now. He doesn't gag on chunks of food anymore, so it is really easy to feed him. He can pretty much eat whatever the family is eating. He loves tomato-y things, like pizza, chili and spaghetti. I can't wait until next month when he can have peanut butter. It just seems so much easier to me when they can have a pb and j for lunch. He also just started eating graham crackers, and holding them himself. He does pretty good at not biting off too much. Just gotta keep the sippy cup handy! Seth continues to avoid bananas like the plague. This took me by surprise since the other two liked bananas. I have tried chunks, puree, mooshed and jarred babyfood. No go! One bite gets a shudder and a gag, and two gets me a big mess to clean up! No kidding. Two bites! So his fruit of choice right now is chunks of peach.
I guess I can update on the adults in this house, too! Jonathan continues to like his job at the tribe, working with his brothers and sister-in-law. He travels some for his WTCTC, and various trainings/meetings. It is a lot less travel than his job in Ashland, but lately it seems like a lot to Megan! Next week he will be gone all week to Phoenix. This weekend he took JJ and Elise ice fishing for the last time this year. Now that ice fishing is over, the turkeys and beavers better watch out! Jonathan put beaver traps out yesterday and hopes to bag a few over the next few days. There is good money to be had with those guys. Turkey season starts soon, and Jonathan's friend Karl is going to hunt with him. Sounds like they're pretty excited. Turkey season means donut season for Megan and the kids! Turkeys have to be hunted in the early morning or at dusk, so when Jonathan goes out early on a Saturday, Megan and the kids walk to the donut shop downtown for a morning treat. The rule is if you walk there and back, you can enjoy the donut with no guilt!
I am still staying home with Seth for the remainder of this school year/summer. I will probably start subbing part time again in the fall. Seth and I keep busy with storytime at the library now, and a playgroup that some of our friends just started. I've been involved with PTA, fundraising and teacher appreciation. I like being in the school when I can and helping out. I used to go into JJ's class for an hour on Tuesdays and help kids catch up on math, when Seth was very little and would just sleep in his car seat. Now that he's older, he won't do that, so I help Miss Stuber out by doing things at home that she needs help with. I still love my monthly book club, and monthly stamping workshop.
I will try to blog when interesting things happen. Maybe not every day, but hopefully several times a week.

1 month!

Seth is now 5 weeks old! He is still doing really well. He is awake much more now, and really likes to be entertained and looking around, so I got out the bumper jumper today. He seemed to like sitting in it. He hasn't been enjoying the bouncy seat so much because it makes him look up, rather than around. He had a check up at 4 weeks and now weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces and is 19 inches long. He moved up from the 10th to the 25th percentile.
He smiles now, mostly at me and the lamp in the living room where I feed him. I'm not sure if Dad has seen a smile yet. He smiled at me on Mother's Day morning (his second smile ever), so that was the best gift I received! His hair is definitely red now, but it is pretty light. His eyes are back to being blue again, after a few days of blue, then brown, then blue. We'll probably have to wait a few years to see what color they'll be for sure, because JJ's turned green when he was 4 years old.

Seth is Here!

Seth Timothy Alfred Pyatskowit was born Monday, April 21 at 7:22 p.m. He weighs 6 pounds 8 ounces and is 17 inches long. He has strawberry blond hair and his eyes are still an in-between blueish brown. His middles names are his two grandpas' first names. He was born after a very quick labor (for you moms out there I went from 4-10 in 45 minutes and he was born after 3 pushes). He is practically a perfect baby. He sleeps 8 hours at night with one feeding in the middle. Can't ask for more. He rarely cries and nurses really well. He must have gained weight already with all he eats. JJ and Elise are really enjoying having a brother! They are so helpful, and so excited! I'll give more details later. Time is an expensive commodity right now:)!

Waiting, Waiting

Only a week or two until this baby comes! We are all just waiting for it, and getting a few last-minute things done. My due dates are Apr. 14 (ultrasound) and 23. So anytime in the next couple of weeks we should meet baby Pyatskowit #3! Last night Jonathan moved a bunch of boxes back up to the attic for me (I had been rooting around in them for baby stuff), I found my favorite diaper bag my sister-in-law made for me, and we rearranged our bedroom. With the pack-and-play in our room for the baby to sleep in, it was cramped and blocked Jonathan's closet and the full-length mirror. So all we had to do was move the bed to be centered under the bay window (some of you know what I'm talking about) and our bedside tables. Everything else stayed where it was. Then the pack-and-play can be next to my side of the bed and I can still get around it. The bed actually looks really cool in the middle of the windows. And I really got rid of some dust from where the bed had been.
Jonathan has been working on painting the cradle. We got this large wooden cradle from his mom that he and all his brothers used as babies. Neat! It is really beautiful, but had been painted many times, and the last coat was dark brown. Not my choice. So JonD has two coats of Kilz on it, and now needs to put on the final coat of a dark cream color (not quite tan). Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating. It has been in the 30s all week. We even had 3 inches of snow yesterday. Yuck! I'm having some sheets made special for the cradle (it is an odd size as it was handmade by someone they went to church with back then). Hopefully next week it can get done.
I have my bag packed and I'm ready to go!

Boy?

Another baby update. Just for fun, I thought I'd let you all know that I think the baby is a boy. Of course, we'll see for sure when it "pops out" as my kids say. But there are a lot of reasons that I feel pretty sure it is a boy. My belly sticks right out in the front. I actually still have hips. I was similar with Elise, but more pregnant all around. My belly is just like when I had JJ. Also, my hair has not grown any longer, just thicker, like with JJ. With Elise, my hair grew 5-6 inches longer - drastically noticeable change. I'm also a lot nicer than when I was pregnant with Elise. I was just mean sometimes, ok a lot of the time, when I was pregnant with her, and knew it but really felt like I had no control over it. I know people tried to stay out of my way, notably my husband! With JJ I don't remember having that problem. A lot of these things could be attributed to being less stressed this time around, and having a baby close to the same time as when I had JJ (he was born in May), but we'll see. It is just fun to think it is a boy, and then wait to find out for sure. I told Jonathan yesterday that I actually will be shocked if it is a girl; I just think of the baby as a boy.

Baby Update

Just a little baby update for all of you. I am doing really well in general. It is about 6 weeks to my due date (April 23). Not long! And we're really busy all through March so it will come quickly. I sure am ready to not be pregnant anymore. I feel really pretty healthy. Still don't know the baby's gender (yeah!) and names are settled. I just need to unpack a few boxes left in the den from moving (yes, a year ago) and hang things up on the walls in there. Then all of our inside big jobs are done, and I can let myself get baby stuff out. I'm getting a little anxious. The baby still moves a lot, but it is getting less wild in there as the baby gets bigger and has less room to move around. I'm also starting to get a little apprehensive about labor. I'm a little worried it will be long and of course painful, or too quick, like Elise's birth. I think that once I know I'm in labor I'll be racing for the hospital doors. Let us not forget that Elise almost could have been born in McDonald's drive through! In about 7 weeks it will all be over and we'll have a precious baby!

Did YOU see the "lunar" eclipse?

Well, there was a lunar eclipse a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday night. We forgot to go out and look at it. The next day when I picked JJ up from school, he indignantly asked me "Why didn't I get to see the MOONER ECLIPSE?" I had to really try not to laugh out loud. They still say cute stuff even at 5! Just had to share that - it was classic.