Sunday Best

As any of you with more than one kid knows, getting out the door these days is a major production. Our church services start at 1 p.m., and to get there on time, we need to start getting ready at about 10:30 a.m.

Luckily, yesterday I had Joseph to help me bathe Audrey. While he was washing her toes (the task dad delegated to him), Joseph declared that he was "having a good time."





The finished product was worth it -- Audrey was a hit in the dress I bought for her the day I found out I was having a little girl.




All the primping wore her out, though.

Brotherly Love

This post is about how Joseph shows love to his sister.

Here's a video of Joseph holding his sister during her first week home:

I especially appreciate how "helping her" morphs into "helping her hit herself" as warning voices and rescuing hands coming flying in from all directions.

Sometimes his love is just too intense for a tiny newborn. Here's Joseph giving his sister a hug:

Notice the bulging eyeball?

Fortunately Joseph noticed that too:


So he pushed it back into place.



Caring=Sharing

Joseph is really good at sharing with anyone who lets him take stuff away without a fight, and Audrey is no exception to this rule.

Pretty much daily, we come across scenes like the following:

Audrey & Bulldozer


Audrey & Snakes & Lizards (& Diapers)

(And, yes, we've had many talks about how we never put things on baby Audrey's face)

Audrey & Aquatic Life


Audrey talking on the cell phone after good strong drink

March Madness

This year, our family decided to take part in the grand old American pastime of making our picks for the NCAA Men's basketball tournament.

Each of us employed our own special form of divination to fill out our brackets, and you can view the status of our family's competition by clicking here.

Audrey
Because Audrey has only been on earth for 4 weeks, we gave her a bye for this year. But she's on notice: if you're old enough to eat solid food, you're mature enough to predict the outcome of sporting events.


The Toddster
Realizing that he again forgot to watch any college basketball this year, The Toddster tried to project an image of self-assured confidence by not picking Kansas to win it all.


Erin
Relying on a complex blend of logic, statistical analyses, and regression models Erin ended up with an all-Beehive-State final.

Highlights of her picks include:

• Wisconsin advancing to the final four "because Sam's from Wisconsin";
• #1-seeded Duke cruising to the elite eight before running into the buzzsaw that is the Utah State Aggies (sorry, Nancy); and
  
• My personal favorite moment: BYU taking down Georgetown in the semi-finals (even though it means Crystal will have one less Christmas card to send out this year).

Joseph
When we found out President Obama was filling out a bracket, we figured Joseph ought to as well.


ESPN filled out the President's first round picks for him, so we put Joseph on equal footing by filling in the first round for him before letting him call the shots on all of the remaining matchups.

Joseph labored through his first NCAA bracket with a multi-hour process that involved painstakingly looking up each matchup's mascots and logos and then answering which one he liked better or, alternatively, which one would be better at basketball.


Although no one will believe me, the only time I coached him was when he tried to eliminate the Hoyas right off the bat. I told him that mommy had gone to the gray bulldog school when she was younger, and he wisely agreed to switch his pick, even though the other team had an orange dog.



Market researchers looking to capture that elusive toddler/pre-school demographic would be well-advised to note that:

1. animal mascots always beat out human/"character" mascots; and
2. mascots resembling muppets tested strongly among this sample of two-and-a-half year olds.

Accordingly, a showdown between the Syracuse Orangeman and Xavier's Blue Blob was inevitable:


Ultimately, however, Joseph proved--once again--that he is a miniature version of his father by picking Kentucky (aka "the other Wildcats--with yellow") to win it all:



Again, I promise, I didn't coach him on his responses (other than his first Georgetown match)--but if he wins the whole thing, I did teach him everything he knows.

Wrap Up
Once more, here's the link to our brackets.

For comparison's sake, we've also included the President's brackets and an entry that shows what would happen if you just picked the higher seed to win every time ("chalk").

With a year's worth of bragging rights at stake, the next few weeks are going to be intense around here.

One Month

Audrey turned one month old yesterday. We celebrated by having a photo session and picnicking in the park.




Audrey enjoyed her birthday milk and birthday nap and Joseph enjoyed showing Audrey his golfing skills and digging in the sand.



She is one gorgeous little girl and is becoming more and more awake and alert. She has even given us some real smiles -- she likes smiling at her daddy. We can't wait to see more of her personality.





As an early birthday present, Joseph drew Audrey a picture. Here she is checking it out.



She weighed in today at 9 pounds, 8 ounces. We're glad she's healthy and growing. Mostly I'm glad she's fitting into 3-month clothing now; the wardrobe possibilities are very exciting.

First Day at Church

Audrey went to church for the first time last week. She was a vision in her navy blue dress and everyone was very excited to meet her.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of her in her pink polka-dot Sunday dress today -- we were in a hurry to leave (as always), and she needed to eat right when we got home, so I changed her before we could snap a shot.

Natural Nurturer

Todd and I wanted to bring Joseph a present home with us when we brought Audrey home from the hospital. I had been pushing to get Joseph a baby doll for some time -- I thought that he would like "taking care" of his doll as we took care of Audrey. Todd was a little reluctant but finally caved.

Joseph did enjoy the doll at first -- he dubbed her "Marjorie," fed her, changed her diaper (and took it to the dumpster to pretend to throw it away), and gave her a pacifier the first night. He even utilized the boppy to aid his nurturing:


By the next day, however, he had basically lost interest in Marjorie and went back to his trains, cars, and the awesome stretchy snakes/lizards/frogs that his grandma brought him from Utah. But I'm happy to report that he's still manifesting his nurturing skills in caring for his lizards -- he brings them blankets when they are cold, makes sure they are fed, and even attempted to breastfeed one of them the other day:


(You can see Todd's mortification in the background.)

I'm grateful for my two nurturing boys. I love the below picture because they are both looking at Audrey with such love:

Although sometimes I get a little stressed that Audrey will not survive Joseph's "love" (and, at rare times, jealousy) unscathed, she is so lucky to be growing up with such a sweet big brother who loves telling her "I love you so much," giving her hugs, and "being gentle to her."

The Score

Today, after he had been up all night with a sick toddler and I'd been up all night with an insatiable newborn, Todd declared: "The kids are winning."

So true. And we aren't even outnumbered.

Audrey thinks it's pretty funny:


(I know this picture isn't great quality -- I took it with my blackberry -- but I love her face.)

Audrey the Corythosaurus

Joseph has been really into dinosaurs for some time now -- I would estimate that he knows the names and dietary preferences of between 20 - 30. One of his favorite dinosaurs is the crested Corythosaurus:



So, you can imagine his delight when I gave Audrey a "crest" after her bath the other day -- and he declared her to be "Corythosaurus Audrey" and pointed out and talked about her "crest" all day long: