Cavan's Critters: Fred, Charlie, and friends

Cavan has made some interesting friends as of late—critters from the animal kingdom. She has always liked creatures—last year she carried around a dead cicada for a month, as a pet. I finally had to throw it away after its wings and legs all fell off. About a month ago after a rain, she found a giant slug outside on our deck. The slug was about four inches long—brown with black spots. My sister was in town visiting, and she encouraged Cavan to name the slug, which earned the moniker Charlie. They started a silly conversation discussing why slugs don't need to sleep with blankets. The answer: because they are slimy and because they have spots. Duh! Doesn't everyone know that?

Then a week or so ago, I went into Cavan's bedroom to wake her up from her nap. As I was sitting on her bed, I saw a piece of black yarn curled on the floor. When I approached the yarn, it started to slither away! It was a baby snake—black with a white ring around its neck. I had no idea what kind it was, but it was only about four inches long and the diameter of, yes, a piece of yarn, so there was no need to panic. I called Hubby and he came down with a cup and scooped it up. Cavan was so excited. Upon research, we found out it was a Northern Ringneck, a completely harmless and beneficial snake to have around, so Cavan carried the cup out to the garden so Fred, as she named him, could "find his family" amongst the marigolds.

Some people, I'm sure, would have flipped out finding a snake in their bedroom, but a) I am not scared of snakes, especially ones smaller than the earthworms in my garden, and b) Cavan will react as I react, so I didn't want to instill fear in her. She is so curious about everything—I want to encourage that, not squash it, as some people would have done to the snake.

Finally, Cavan now has three butterflies as pets. She got a butterfly garden from a friend—a kit that includes baby caterpillars, caterpillar food, and a butterfly habitat. You watch the caterpillars grow, build their chrysalis, and then hatch as butterflies. Then you feed them for however long you want to keep them and then release them outside. The whole process takes about three weeks, and Cavan's caterpillars hatched a few days ago. We have been feeding them watermelon. The only problem with keeping butterflies is that our cat occasionally swats at them, causing the habitat to take a tumble. I have a feeling that the butterflies will earn their freedom very soon.

Funny mispronunciations

Cavan has a few funny mispronunciations.

Sculpture = sculp-scur
Weasel (as in Pop Goes the Weasel) = Pop Goes the Weeze-gulls
Knife = Ife
Easter (as in Easter bunny) = Beaster bunny
Acorn = Air-corn

Half the time I don't want to correct her because it is too cute.

Emma—One month update + pictures

Well, without our power being out for four days, I was unable to post in a timely manner. So without further delay, here is Emma's one-month update.

How did my baby get to be one month old so quickly? When Cavan was a newborn, the first several weeks crept by. I just prayed I’d get through the day, to the next day, in my majorly sleep-deprived state. Hubby was spending 15 hours a day trying to finish the construction on our new house and I was stuck in a 200-square-foot temporary apartment by myself. I was going batty.

But the craziness eventually ended and my newborn started sleeping, and after about a six weeks, I finally started to enjoy life again.

This first month with Emma, however, has been lovely. I dare say easy. Hubby has been on summer vacation, so he has gotten up every morning with Cavan so that I can get a few more minutes (or hours) of sleep, depending on Emma’s schedule. This month, Cavan has turned into a Daddy’s girl, but because Daddy has given her a ton of attention, she hasn’t felt left out in Emma’s presence. And she is the best helper and big sister I could have asked for. She loves being involved in Emma's care.

So here is an update on my growing girl.

**At her two-week checkup, she weighed eight pounds, gaining one full pound since leaving the hospital.  Her next appointment is next week.

**She sleeps two to three hours consecutively at night, but after getting her diaper changed and having a snack, she goes right back to sleep (and so do I!)

**When she pees, she cries out a single, “Waaaa!” Other than that—please don’t hate me—she rarely (and briefly) cries.

**Her newest monikers are: Froggy (or Froglet)—because her favorite position is sleeping like a tree frog on my chest; Little One—Cavan called her this one day and it stuck; and Glow Worm—because that’s what she looks like when she is all swaddled up, especially in her green swaddler.

**Emma was born with an “elf ear.” Her left ear came to a point when she was born, but now it has almost rounded out completely. I miss her little elf ear—it was so cute.

**She has so much hair. Cavan was born with a little strawberry blonde hair, but it mostly fell out and grew back in white-blonde. Emma has a whole mop of light brown hair—we can even style it into a baby-hawk! I think it will be curly as well—when I was her hair it waves and fluffs.

**Her umbilical stump fell off in only four days and her new belly button looks like a smiley face.

**She will sleep all day as long as she is held. And yes, I am spoiling this baby by carrying her around nearly every minute. I’m getting a lot of use out of the Baby Bjorn already.

All and all, she is the easiest baby I know. I thought Cavan was easy, but it looks like Emma is even more laid back. We are so blessed. I am in love. I would never go back to life without children.

Cavan: Random Stuff

**To follow up my post about Cavan-frowning-botox, Cavan was sitting on the couch the other day while I was feeding Emma. Emma was trying to rid herself of gas, and her face scrunched up in deep concentration. Cavan leans over and whispers to Emma, "Don't frown little one." Too cute.

**When "So you think you can dance" was on, Cavan started doing cooky dances in our living room. These have now graduated to daily occurrences, which include a variety of fast and slow moves, jumping moves, floor moves, yoga moves, and modern, interpretive arm motions. The videos we've taken are hilarious. She is so creative and uninhibited. Words cannot truly describe it (especially when she throws in a few hip thrusts!)

**About a year ago, my mom bought Hubby a classic John Deere shirt—bright yellow with the green deer logo. It quickly became Cavan's favorite shirt for Daddy. She asked him to wear it all the time. So, this summer, Grandpa came to visit and gave Cavan her very own deer shirt, which she wears whenever Daddy wears his. (She actually wore the shirt for three days in a row when she first got it.) After Emma was born, Grandma came to visit with two more deer shirts—one for Mommy and one for Emma, though Emma's is pink with the green deer.) Now, whenever I am putting away laundry, Cavan finds all the deer shirts so we can keep them together. Even though we live in New York, I guess we're just country folks at heart.

Punishment for frowning

After Emma was born, Cavan started throwing tantrums. She would get upset at the drop of a hat and then scowl at us. I told her not to frown, but that just caused her to wrinkle her forehead even more. And that's when I told her about botox.

"Cavan, if you keep frowning, you are going to need botox."
Continued scowl.
"Do you know what botox is?"
More frowning.
"Botox is when the doctor takes a big needle and gives you shots in your forehead. Do you want shots in your forehead."
She's thinking about it.

Then, Cavan stops frowning and remembers the baby that was crying in the doctor's office just days before.
"The baby at the doctor's office was getting botox?"
"Maybe. I don't think you want botox, so you better stop frowning."
"Okay."

She hasn't given us that pissed off scowl since then!

Cavan's new favorite toy

Cavan loves to turn "real" tools into toys. She would much rather talk on the real phone rather than her pretend phone. And she would rather wash real dishes in the sink with the real dish brush rather than pretend to wash her play dishes in her play kitchen (though that play kitchen has probably been the best investment as far as Cavan's continued interest, imagination, and time spent playing on a daily basis!)

So when Daddy was building shelves for the new baby's nursery and the stud finder came out, well, we might as well buy Daddy a new one, because he is never getting his back!

Cavan calls it the "checker" because it is a tool to check things. And when she checks things, she pushes the button and it beeps with a little red light. Anything can be checked. Pillows. Food. The cat. Pieces of paper. And if the stud finder beeps, the item in question is "okay." If it doesn't beep, then it is "bad" and needs to be thrown away or hidden. This has kept her occupied for long stretches of time.

But since the baby has been born, the checker has also doubled as a thermometer. I wouldn't let Cavan use the real thermometer with her baby dolls, so the next best subsitute—the stud finder. It is hysterical watching her flip over her baby dolls and put the stud finder on their butts to take their temperature.

Another job of the checker? To be the grocery store scanner. Cavan loads up her grocery cart with food from the fridge and brings it to me. I proceed to scan each item with the stud finder and then Cavan delivers the ingredients to Daddy to make dinner.

Babies-R-Us take note: start carrying a line of stud finders. Way more useful than those toddler-safe toys you sell!

Behind the name—Emma Bernadette

Throughout my pregnancy, people would constantly ask, "What names are you thinking about?" And even just weeks before baby was born, we had no idea. Hubby and I wanted a name that had meaning and one that didn't already belong to someone we know.

Finally, for a girl, I had picked out Caitlyn. Hubby wasn't sold, but we didn't have any other ideas. But as it turned out, we didn't pick our baby's name at all. Cavan did.

We constantly asked Cavan whether she thought the baby was a little boy or a little girl. She almost always answered little boy. So then we started asking her what she wanted to name him. And one day she said Emma.

We had no intention of naming a little boy Emma, but from the moment Cavan suggested it, we knew that if we had a girl, Emma she would be. Such a sweet, simple name, and special because it came from the heart of her big sister.

First name Emma, middle name Bernadette.

Bernadette is my mom's name. Bernadette is my middle name. And also my sister's middle name. I knew I wanted to use it as the middle name for a little girl, but it is a hard name to "sound right" following most first names. But with Emma, wow, it fit! So now the name travels to the third generation.