huuuugg

Cutest thing. Coen's latest is to come up to me and say "hhuuuuugg!" - just 'cause. I can always stop what I'm doing for a hug, Littlest Man.

All Teased Up

Coen had his first American haircut this past week. I'll be honest, his hair has had me a bit freaked out. Even before he came home, I was online in different forums asking about hair products and routines. I settled with Carol's Daughter and have been conditioning his hair after every bath. When he first came home, I was combing out his hair every night as well. Then, as it grew, this became impossible. His hair has the tightest little spiral curls and he has my sensitive head. I vividly remember the pain and the screaming when my poor mother would brush my hair. So... I just didn't. brush it.

Fast forward and we decide it is time to get it trimmed up a bit. I looked online for a salon/barber shop that specialized in African hair and decided on All Teased Up in North Portland (or No.Po. as we call it). We spoke with the female barber who told us that we needed to comb out his hair before it could be cut so, after about 20 minutes of crying, we were off. As we stepped inside, I knew we had found just the right place. It was a tiny little shop full of African American women doing hair and getting their hair done. The one exception was our barber who was a thin white gal with blue hair.

There was a small sign that said something to the effect of "No waiting inside. Come when it is time for your appointment 'cause this place is too small" and another sign with some rules about children not being allowed and if they had to be there, they needed to be watched and well-behaved. Apparently my children's charm was no match for this place. All the ladies were gushing over them and pulling up chairs for us to sit down. One even brought over a laptop for Carter to play a kid's game while we waited.

When it was Coen's turn, he sat on Daddy's lap with his little cape on. She buzzed the top with a 2 and the sides with a 1 and he did VERY well until the last 2 minutes or so. Now that we've seen him "cleaned up" I think we'll definitely be keeping it short for a while. He just looks so handsome! Sorry to not post an "after". I'll get one on here soon.

Do you want some pants

More Carter says

After telling Carter i would get him something to eat at home, he pointed and said, "Mommy's I want to eat there!"

Where the heck was he pointing?! I didn't see any restaurants anywhere. Oh...wait....

My 2 year old babysitter

The videos can mostly speak for themselves, but I thought it was too cute that Carter went up and started to "read" to Coen. Carter has memorized one of the books that we read and you can hear him reciting it to Coen as he was likely showing him the pages.

Say what?

So, we're driving along and I look back and Carter has his hands in the air.

Me: Carter baby, why are you holding your hands up?
Carter: The song, mommy.

Chris and I look at each other and turn up the radio. Katy Perry is on singing "California". I start racking my brain. Does it say anything about hands?

Click to hear the song

Yes! VERY quickly at the end of the chorus - she says "now put your hands up." Chris and I barely caught it. Oh, dear. If can catch that in a song..... time to switch to KLOVE.

A few days later we were in a restaurant and this song came on. I didn't even notice it in the background until Carter started singing right along "Take me down, take me down.."

This kid...

Carter update

Carter woke up perfectly fine today! I don't know what that was last night, but I'm so happy he is healthy again!

The view from my bed

My poor, sweet little guy has caught something nasty. He was fine all day, went to bed and 2 hours later we heard a scream followed by crying and "Mommy! I made a mess!"

I cleaned up the bed while Chris cleaned up Carter. I love having an awesome husband! When I had gotten everything into the washer I went back to Carter. His cheeks were red and he felt hot, but he smiled and said he felt fine.

I broke the news to him that tonight he would have to sleep without his pillow (which I just washed today), his blanket, and his Monkey because mommy needed to wash them. I prepared for the fussing or crying, but instead got, "thank you, Mommy."

Really?! How many 2 year olds thank their mommy for cleaning up puke?

I then told him that we needed him to sleep in the other bed in his room (no more sheets) and he was a champ "ok, mommy." We tucked him in and got ready for bed. About 20 minutes later, we repeated the entire thing.

So, now he is on the floor next to my side of the bed, happy as can be in his cool sleeping-bag-like-situation. I hope he can get some rest now. Poor guy.

Sleeping

I just love little baby bottoms up in the air. It has to be the cutest sleeping position.

My boys

Just a cute photo that I had to share. The boys and I went for a walk to gather leaves for a project. They both love their rain boots! It takes photos like this for me to remember and realize how small Coen is. He is such a little man already - going on the potty, speaking full sentences - that I forget that he is just my little baby man.

He's lucky he's adorable

I'll admit right here, right now. I sing in the car. For the right song, the radio gets turned up and I could almost swear that I sound JUST as good as Jason Mraz. Chris has seen this side of me, but only a handful of times for AMAZING songs. I usually reserve this for times when I'm completely alone in the car.

Then, I had a baby. They say that you should talk to your baby right from the start - tell them what you're doing as you put laundry away or make dinner. I think it has something to do with their development. At any rate, within a month of having Carter, I found myself talking away. The talking turned to singing. The poor thing. He was too little to talk back or ask me to stop. He just had to put up with it. Now, here we are almost 3 years later.

Me: singing some song in the car
Carter: (from the back seat) Mommy! Don't sing, just listen.

You'd think I would be offended, but he is too stinkin' cute. It takes a whole lot of adorable to get someone to smile when you tell them to stop singing.

Save it for the dinner table

Growing up, my brother, sister and I tended to save our inappropriate-for-all-occassions-talk for the dinner table (at least that is what Grandma always tells us). If you don't want to hear more about Coen going potty, you can stop reading now.

For the rest of you sickos :)

Coen is really kicking butt on this potty thing. I'm not pushing it, I just ask when he gets up if he needs to potty and if he says "Da" which is his version of "ya", I sit him on the toilet. No little potty for this guy. No potty seat either. He just holds himself up on the toilet with his bottom hanging in there. I've tried to get him to use the potty seat, but it really freaks him out. Immediate tears.

Multiple times now, we've been running errands and he has told me he needed to potty so, we head to the bathroom and ta da! He goes! He holds it until I have him on the potty and he goes. I'm not sure why I am so blown away by this. According to my mom, my sister and I were potty trained by 22 months, but it was so far off the radar this time last year with Carter that I am just BLOWN AWAY by this little man. It is weird to me to see someone to tiny be so verbal and so "big boy" as to go on the potty.

Ok. Just had to get it out there for record-keeping.

2 months

That doesn't seem right. 2 months?! It honestly feels like Coen has been with us 2 years and he isn't even that old. I can vaguely remember the quiet life we had before he came to us. I remember our first homestudy visit when our social worker as us something like, "how long do you think it will take to love him?" and I replied, without hesitation, "I think we'll love him instantly."

Of course, I then had to backtrack - I couldn't have the social worker think that we were unprepared and living in a fantasy world - "I mean, we'll have his photo to look at for so long before we bring him home, that I think by the time we finally have him home, we will feel completely attached to him. We realize that he will need time."

What I didn't know then was that we would also get to spend time with him in Ghana in addition to seeing his photo everyday. And, I can say it now, I DID love him immediately. I know this is not the case for all adoptions and I count us as the most blessed people for how quickly we have bonded as a family. It almost brings me to tears how much my two little men love each other. They act like they have always been brothers (yes, even hitting and tattling when someone takes the other's toy).

As I was putting on Coen's PJs tonight, he was pointing up to his framed map and repeating as I said, "Africa" to him. Carter was playing behind me, waiting his turn for pajamas.

Me: "Carter, do you know where Coen was born?"
Carter: He kept playing and said, "Ghana".
Me: (surprised at his specific answer) "That's right! Do you know where Ghana is?"
Carter: "A long long long far away!"

Wow. It is crazy to me how they retain everything we say even when they don't appear to be listening or can't respond. It is like he has an encyclopedia in his head of things I've told him and he can just pull it out when he needs it. You would think that knowing exactly where Coen came from, he would be confused about where babies come from and be asking when we will go to the airport for another child. Nope. He gets that babies grow inside mommies and that he grew inside me. After asking repeatedly, he does understand that mommy does NOT currently have a baby growing. He was a bit bummed by that.

I do wonder, if he knows where he came from and he knows where Coen came from, how does he put that all together? He never questions the difference of their origins. This is one of the sweetest things. He doesn't question it. Coen is his brother from Ghana. His "baby". His "kiki". They just ARE brothers. He just IS my son.

I can't believe it has only been 2 months.

Coen and Cars

Ahhhh.. The quiet that is life with 1 awake and 1 asleep! Some won't believe it because this is the only version they have seen of Coen, but he is my crazy/wild/loud child. He LOVES anything that resembles a car. If it doesn't resemble a car, say he bit of pizza at dinner, he'll go ahead and make car noises and "drive" it around his plate.

Potty update

I guess yesterday wasn't a fluke. This morning, Coen got up and went poo poo on the potty! He was very proud of himself. A bit later, we were out and about and he told me "pee pee", I took him to the potty and again, he went pee pee for me. AMAZING!

The john, the loo, the -you get it

Two items of note today:

1) I never thought that I would ever think it was cute that a boy would want to hold my hand as he sat on the toilet trying to poop. Turns out, it is pretty darn cute when it is your 2 year old who just wants your company while he waits to be "ready."

2) Coen Kwasi, at just 22 months, WENT ON THE POTTY! He has been asking constantly to go on the potty, but when I put him up there, he sits for about 2-5 minutes and then says "I did it!" Apparently, he thinks that is what it is all about, just sitting. Tonight, as Chris got him out of the bathtub, something clicked. He told Chris he needed to "pee pee". Chris put him up there and viola! He is NO where near ready for potty training, but he is starting to get the concept and really wants to do EVERYTHING that Carter does so, I'm sure he'll be insisting on doing more sitting.

Justification for being a stay-at-home-mom

I love that I get to catch these moments

They're not perfect

There. I typed it. My children are NOT perfect. Pretty close, but no cigar. Top annoying habits they have right now are:

Carter: We've hit the "why?" stage. You know what I'm talking about. No matter what I say, he follows with "why?" followed by my answer followed by "why?". It is driving me up the wall.

Coen: When he gets in trouble and I tell him "no" he lets out this horrible whine as if to say "But I wanna!!!!!!!" I think it's ridiculous that he does something wrong and then punishes me more by whining when I tell him no. It's a no win.

Coen #2 (yep, he has 2 right now): No matter what Carter has, he HAS to have it right now. Toy. Banana. You name it. When I tell him no - refer to the above habit.