Underwears!

Mac decided he loves underwear.

We bought some for him a few weeks ago, and he refused to go near them. 

Finally, Mark pinned him down and put on some magic Superman underwear. 

Mac threw a fit.

He kicked and thrashed and sobbed his eyes out.  I was convinced that Mark had just permanently ruined him ... but then his shrieks turned to giggles. 

Mark inched his way close to Mac's flailing legs, and then flew backward on contact.  "Wow," he kept saying, "Those underwears make you super strong!" 

Welcome to: The Gun(n) Show

Mark and Mac spent the rest of the day wrestling and racing and sitting on the toilet, and the all went perfectly.

But the next day, it was just Mommy and Mac.  Mommy is not a good wrestler, nor does she make going to the bathroom as exciting. 

After two accidents, it's back to diapers. 

I don't know if it's Mac or me who's not ready to potty train, but one of us is definitely not quite on board yet.

We'll get there.

But for now, it's fun to put on super-hero undies and suddenly take on super-human abilities.

Miss Bel at Two Months

Look at this sweet little thing.

She's now officially two months old.  Wow ... the time flies so much faster with her than it ever did with Mac.  I have very mixed feelings about that.  She has already outgrown several outfits (including Jamie's ... boo!), and size one diapers are getting a little snug. 

At the doctor's today, she weighed a solid 12 pounds and is 22 inches.  She is in the 75th percentile for everything.  It's fun to have such a proportionate baby!  Mac's head has always been in the 90th percentile, his weight around the 20th, and his height somewhere in the middle.  I guess she does have a few more of my genes than her brother ever did. 

Her hair is still dark and now touching her shoulders, her eyes are definitely brown, and her thighs are scrumptious.  She is ridiculously strong.  Mark feels that she will be the one beating up on Mac in a couple years.  She won't have much to get back at him for, but there have been a couple of incidences with the bat and Mac's desire to do his "stance" on top of her.

She has finally, finally decided that she can be awake and not hate the world.  In fact, rather than being snuggled and shaken into serenity, she'd much rather you sit back and talk to her.  Unless she is hungry, simply grabbing both hands and talking to her works like a charm.  She'll be cooing in seconds. 

What a girl.

For Mac, the trick was physical love.  For her, it's verbal. The few times that whispering sweet nothings fails, we hop on the exercise ball ... and she immediately transforms back into a smiling, sweet little thing.  Twice she has even giggled. 

Although it's been quite a trip to figure out this girl's wants and needs during the day, at night she is pure gold.  Far easier than her brother.  She sleeps from 8 am to 8 pm, and then wakes at 3 and 5:30 to nurse and go right back to sleep. 

Oh I love this girl.

Mark's Mini Me

Nobody can argue the fact that Mark and Mac look alike.  A lot.

Same hair color, nose, same body shape, similar personalities and that same love of baseball.  And Angry Birds.

Hey both have hair growing in a circle on their necks.

They even have the same focus face.

I'm still trying to capture Mark's focus face ... the slight pucker of the lips and furrowing of the brows ... but the camera's orange light keeps bringing him out of his focus.  Sigh.  And Heaven knows he won't pose for me.

And they both like to match up their fingers when they're bored.

They enjoy watching each other hit it and go "super fast".

MacAlister has always adored his father, but ever since baby Belen came around, he has become Mark's little shadow.  He asks for him all day long.  He wants me to spell "Dad" on his "chocolate" board.  He wants Daddoo to put him to bed, not Mommees.  He wants Mommees to hold the baby, and not Daddoo.

The other day sister finally decided to take a decent nap, and so Mac and I busied ourselves with tower building.  Mac would look at my towers, shake his head and say, "Not cool, Mom."

Sigh.

I guess he'll just have to wait for Dad to come home and make everything cool again, because my abilities are lacking these days.

On His Own.

Remember when it used to be just the two of us all day?

Then this little sweetheart came to the party.  She takes up a good amount of the day.

How has this guy handled big-brotherhood? 

Very well.

The guy took the change like a champ.  Granted, there are moments when he wants me to be "all done baby," because of course it is "Macky's turn."  But most of the time he is quite willing to share.  He shows her his favorite ipod games.  He brings her binkies (that she still refuses to take ... sigh).  He likes to "help" her get used to them.  "Oh hard.  Muscles.  Try again, baby Belen."  He tells me when I've done a good job dressing her.  "Ooo cute baby!"  He bounces her when she's lying on the bed, and he enjoys taking both of their socks off.  "Big macky toes, small baby toes!"  He's taken a real liking to whispering.  In fact, he does it a lot.  I find myself constantly telling him to speak up, especially if she's sqwaking and he's whispering for help with something.

And he plays by himself.

 This is something he has not done much of in his two years of life.  I suppose I have coddled him a bit ... I have been pretty surprised by some of the things he really can do himself.  Perhaps this baby has been great for the both of us.

Being on his own, the two requests I hear all day long involve either the ipod or "Incredibles" on t.v.  Both of which I try to limit ... but he definitely gets his share.  Otherwise he plays outside, puts together puzzles, builds towers, and most recently:

He loves this awesome fort created by Daddoo.  Trains, blocks, "colors", "shoot it", and "bouncing" can all be done inside.  He loves to try to spell "Dad", "Mac", and "Mom" on the chalkboard ... and then usually asks me to finish it off for him.  He then shouts out the letters as I spell out his favorite words.

Some days I think he's handling the change better than Mark and I are.

The Name

I'm sure you're curious about her name.

Hopefully you've learned how to say it by now.  (beh-LEHN or buh-LEHN are acceptable.)  And if not, you are welcome to call her Bel.  (Or Belle?  Still debating how to spell it.  Should we keep the spelling foreign, since the full name is foreign?  Or should the spelling be shorter, as the whole point of nick names is simplicity?)

Well, Belen is Spanish.  It means Bethlehem.  There are a couple of people from church who have nicknamed her Beth.  Mark served an LDS mission in Argentina, where he knew a family with a little dark haired four-year-old named Belen.  She captured his heart apparently, and the name stuck with him.

When we were newly married and I still drilled Mark for conversation on a nightly basis, I asked him what we would name our future kids.  There was only one boy name we could agree on ... so Mac, if you have any  brothers .... you might just share the same name and get different nick names.  We moved on to girl names.  Mark then told me about this little Argentinian beauty, and the name stuck with me.  I doubted myself, however.  I had been told that my dad tried to get my mom to agree to his favorite mission name when they found out I was a girl, but the Fijian name didn't do much for her.  As a child I wished they had named me Aquosita, but now I am so grateful that my mom's common sense won out.  Would our daughter feel the same?

Fast forward four years ... here comes our little girl.  The debate is long and hard.  We still love Belen, but want to give some other names a try.  I love Elsa.  Mark loves Riley.  I like Sadie. Mark likes Josie.  The closer she came, the longer our list.  We still loved Belen, but worried that she would hate us for naming her something nobody could pronounce or remember; we would be dooming her to forever correct the world.  (Well the Caucasian portion at least ... so far most of the Californians have pronounced her name better than I do.)  Grandma couldn't say it.  Nana wanted her to have it.  Aunts and uncles and cousins were all divided.  Uncle Jake is currently serving an LDS mission in Spain, where he has met all sorts of Belens.  "And they're all hott.  So either name her Belen, or Trogdor," he advised.

And then there she was, in our arms.  Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin.  She looked like a Belen to me.  The morning after she was born, I called Mark from the hospital.  "They're wanting the birth certificate paperwork," I told him.  "Do we want Belen?"

"Do it," was his reply.  Simple as that.

Uh oh ... "What about a middle name?"  I asked.  Drat.  We knew we wanted it to be family name, so that limited our options a bit.  We quickly ticked through the list till one sounded right.  It didn't take long.

Belen Christine Gunn. 

Oh beautiful little girl ... we hope you like the name we've given you to be known by during your ride through this life.  We really did give it a lot of thought.  We love you.

The Many Faces of Belle

Can you believe she is only five weeks old?

Mmm she is delicious.

I love how expressive she is.

I love how all that dark hair sticks to my face when we snuggle ... and often gets stuck in my mouth.

I love how she'll eat my face if I get close enough.

I love how intently she watches her brother, especially when he's trying to show her something he blew up on "Pocket Tanks" or how he just fit all the caps from his markers on all of his fingers.

I love that she sleeps so well at night ... usually one 4-5 hour stretch followed by a 2-3 hour stretch ... and no crying in between.  All she needs is a full belly and she is back at it.  (Now I just need to get better at sleeping when she's sleeping instead of working on things ... like this blog.)

I love that she nurses in 10 minutes flat, and has from that first week we brought her home.

I love that she needs me.

Oh I am so very glad that she came to us.

A Break

Going back to Utah for Christmas allowed Mark and I to experience something incredible and impossible to come by:

A break.

As in, Mark and I took naps every day.

Mark read two books.

I saw lots of friends.

 Mac bounced from person to person.  He got a whole lot of love from everyone, including more from Mommy and Daddoo, as we were not quite so sleepy.

 We got to go to my cousin's wedding.  It was beautiful.  He scored one incredible gal.  We fell in love with her a little that day as well.

 As we moved on to the Gunn household for New Years, we got so very many tips from so very many baby experts.  We learned the head jiggle from Danika, extreme bouncing from Ben and Katie, and the magic of multi-tasking from Heidi and her little expert:

 This beautiful neice of ours runs a household of eight children as well as her mother does.  I need her to come stay with me for a while.

Mac loved all his "friends".  Particularly the ones that were bigger than him.  And Eva.  Though he doesn't play much with her, he sure can't stop talking about her.

 These two lovelies met each other for the first time. Hello best cousins.  We need to live closer to these cousins ... I'm foreseeing all sorts of slumber parties, tea parties, shopping, and giggling in the years to come.

What a wonderful trip ...

We gained sleep and confidence.

Alright world, we're ready to face you again.