She's a baby

Lucy has entered a funny new phase—
Playing an infant is her latest craze.
Ted is her daddy; her mommy is Suzy.
Big girl prefers the name "Baby Lucy."

She wants to be cradled; she likes to be swaddled.

She drinks from a cup, but she calls it a bottle.

More than two years since we brought her home,

The pacis are gone, but she wants a chupón.

When she goes potty, I'm happy to wipe her—

But she better not ask to go back to diapers!

Baby Lucy then (3 weeks old) and Baby Lucy now (2.5 years old)

Party crasher

With pacifiers, the Fab Four used to go to sleep pretty much as soon as we put them to bed. Now that their pacifiers are gone, however, the kids like to kick off their nap in a slightly more boisterous fashion. I tried to join in the fun today, but apparently whooping, hollering, and jumping in your crib is not as much fun when Mommy is in the room:

Chau, chupones!

How to wean four highly addicted 22-month-olds from their chupones (Spanish for "pacifiers") from one day to the next—with absolutely no planning ahead!

1. Wait until you find a pacifier that looks like this (if you're "lucky" like us, you'll find it just before bedtime and have to scramble for a game plan):


2. Identify the pacifier chewer (Jude) and put him to bed sans choking hazard. Thank the Lord when he falls right to sleep, and then call the abuelitos for advice.

3. Before turning in for the night, cut the ends off of all the pacifiers you can find so that there's no longer any suction when the kids try to use them:


4. In the morning (after the no-paci kid surprises you by sleeping all night without a problem), wait for someone to ask you for a chupón. Show the kids the mutilated pacifiers and explain that the pacifiers have ouchies; let the kids test them out so that they can see that they don't work anymore. Then have the kids toss their broken chupones into the trash:


5. Throughout the day, if anyone asks for a chupón, remind everybody that we threw them away because they had ouchies and didn't work anymore. Be thankful when the kids accept this explanation!

6. After a surprisingly quiet morning, endure a very loud nap. Stay strong. No matter how much they party or scream, do not give anyone a pacifier. Eventually, everyone will wear themselves out and SLEEP.

7. After an even quieter afternoon, put all of the kids to bed without pacifiers. Marvel when they all fall asleep right away and sleep all night!

We're currently on day 2 with no chupones and the girls have only asked for them once or twice (the boys seemingly could not care less). Dahlia still had a hard time falling asleep at nap time today (took her about an hour, as opposed to 2 hours yesterday), but everyone else seems to have already adjusted to the change. I can't believe it was that easy!

Pacifier chic

Sucking on a plain pacifier is sooo last year. The toddler of today must accessorize, accessorize, accessorize! For this season, a monochromatic palette is all the rage:


Copying this look is easy—all you need is a toy link and a coordinating pacifier. Dahlia shows you how to pull it all together:

Two-armed and not dangerous

The crime rate is on the rise around our house. The suspect is a female, nearly 9 months old and about 27 inches tall. Her assigned pacifier color is pink. Recently she has been spotted pilfering other babies' pacifiers in various locations around the playard. On occasion, the pacifier has reportedly been snatched directly from the owner's mouth.

The brazen thefts occur in broad daylight, and the greedy perpetrator is not always content with taking just one pacifier at a time:

Suspect sighted with two of Isaac's orange pacifiers

The suspect makes her getaway by crawling. She should be easy to spot since she prefers to place pacifiers in her mouth upside-down:

Suspect seen using one of Jude's blue pacifiers

In fact, she also has been known to experiment with using pacifiers backwards:

Suspect spotted misusing Lucia's purple pacifier

If you come across this suspect, do not attempt to remove the pacifier from her mouth. Her parents are just happy that she's learned how to soothe herself without their help!

It's normal to us

A week ago, my cousin Glenda moved in to help take care of the babies over the summer. She's been helping us every Friday since January, so she knows a lot of the ins and outs of how we run things around here. She had yet to see me prepare formula, though, so her expression was priceless when she walked into the kitchen on her first night here and saw me mixing this:

A gallon a day keeps the doctor away!

Being first-time parents, Ted and I sometimes forget that we're "different." We just don't know any better until someone points out the freakish amount of [insert baby item here] that we own/use. More examples:

Bibs for 1 day (if it's not a messy one)

A basketful of burp cloths (enough for 2 days)

These diapers will be landfill in about 5 days

A day's worth of bottles, bottles, bottles!

You mean other people don't keep four dozen pacifiers on the coffee table?