The Meixner/Krasovic Family

A quote from one of Efram's bedtime books:  "It's time for bed, little goose, little goose.  The stars are out and on the loose."

 

Efram's question: "What's a loose?"

After the doom and gloom of the last few posts, I'm happy to report that Efram seems to be adjusting quickly to his new non-paci world.  At daycare, in particular, he's been a real trooper.  He loves his new room (he's now in "Toddler C"!) and when his new teacher told him he couldn't have the paci any more, he promptly laid down and took an hour and a half nap.  We were astonished and incredibly thankful.

 

This weekend we're going to attempt to move Efram into his new room and big-boy bed (Mark put up the door gate this morning), so we're steeling ourselves for some more rough nights ahead.  Hopefully, he'll adapt quickly and we'll all sleep a little longer and better. 

 

By the way, did I mention that Efram loves fake bacon?  He does.

 

Oh, pacifier.  Last week, Mark and I decided that the time had come to wean Efram off of his pacifier.  Seeing as how he was waking several times a night anyway and refusing to fall asleep until we came into his bedroom to give it back to him, we figured it had outlived its usefulness.  Bolstered by Beth and Rob's success using the snip method with Ally, we decided to try it.  The first night, Efram was golden.  We gave it to him, he pronounced it "broken," and after crying for a little, went to bed easily without it and slept soundly for 11 unbroken glorious hours.  AMAZING, we thought.  We finally caught a break! Then came naptime the next day.  Efram screamed bloody murder when I put him in his crib and when I went to check on him 5 minutes later, I found him straddling the crib rail like he was riding a horse.  In what has proven to be teriffically terrible timing, he's figured out how to get out of his crib.  Thinking it might be a fluke, Mark and I put him in bed that night and kept our fingers crossed.  Not even five minutes later, we heard a THUD and ran into Efram's room to find him crouching on the floor -- sort of like this.   Let's just say this new trick has complicated the pacifier-weaning and made for a very exhausting Labor Day weekend.   So, what to do.  Mark and I are now frantically trying to get Efram's big boy room ready: bed rail, door gate, baby-proofing.  We're praying that when we move him up there, he'll stay in bed, but we're doubtful. But at least he won't have as far to fall.

 

One of our last non-broken paci pictures.  Efram's "pretending" to take a nap.  If only he'd do that now.

 

Don't buy a house with a mold problem.  If, however, you find that you can't avoid it, here's what you do.

 

Cut through the drywall and locate the mold.    Keep going -- find all of it.                                  

 

 

Pull out and bag up all of the moldy insulation.  Treat (kill) the mold with a smelly biocide.

 

 

Then, wait for the waterproofers to come and fix the source of your problem: a poorly installed and leaky window.

It says something about where we are in our lives that we now rely on Sesame Street to learn about cool Canadian indy rockers. This is Efram's newest favorite video from the Sesame Workshop video website (but via YouTube here):

 

  

 

Efram offered up his first cultural-historical analysis the other day when I showed him the cover of Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom. Efram said, "He has a lot of hair!" Though I don't know anything about the cultural politics of nineteenth-century hairstyling, I do know that Douglass was very aware of his portraits as public performance, once criticizing one such image for making him look too kindly. So who knows? Maybe Efram is on to something.

 

 

For the past two weeks, Mark and I have been obsessively watching the Olympics.  The final moments of the women's marathon: truly gripping.  If only we were inspired enough to get up off the couch and get some exercise ourselves!  While I prefer the standard "prime time" sports (swimming, gymnastics, diving, volleyball), Mark can't get enough of the smaller events like water polo, handball, fencing, and badminton.  Efram -- his game is soccer.  Here he is celebrating the goal that resulted in gold for the US women's soccer team. 

 

A Home Improvement mini-lesson from Mark and Emily:

 

Just in case anyone else has a main drainage pipe that looks like the first picture: apparently this is not good.  See those little rust stalactites?  If you have those, your pipe is in pretty bad shape.  Time to call in the plumber and replace it with the lovely new pipe in photo two. 

 

 

 

The latest "suggestion" from our waterproofer: "When you cut down this tree, you should bring in a backhoe to take care of these roots."

Remember this picture?       Here's one I took today.

 

 

 

CRAZY!!  Every time I look at them I crack up.  How on earth did he get that big??

Anyway, Efram's new carseats arrived yesterday and he is VERY excited about them.