It may not look like it...

but this is one of the best parts of being a parent...

Back-up Childcare

One thing about having little kids, is the need for someone to have a flexible work schedule. Thankfully JT and i both can usually adapt our work schedule depending on what arises. This flexibility was put into practice today while our daycare provider had to be unexpectedly closed. I guess they found a gas leak at the house next door yesterday and the gas had to be shut off to houses on both sides of the house with the leak. No gas means no heat and no heat means no kids. So, JT stayed home this morning while i worked and then i took over until they (thankfully) both went down for a nap 2 hours ago. I'm expecting them to wake-up anytime, but JT should be home in another 1/2 hour or so which means i will easily get a full day's work in.

It doesn't always happen, but Silas often takes an afternoon nap that at least partially overlaps with Henry's. I think that we're moving more and more to Silas taking naps by the clock which should mean a solid chunk of naptime for both of them in the afternoon. Henry fights his nap a little more now, and can often be heard singing and chattering to himself long after he's in bed, but once he's asleep he generally sleeps the full two hours, so i don't think we're going to be phasing out the afternoon nap anytime soon.

This past week Henry seemed to really be struggling with falling asleep at night. He'd often call out to us after having been in bed an hour or more only to tell us that he didn't know how to fall asleep. Last night that didn't happen so i'm hoping it was either a very short phase, or that it coincided with old Ralph being gone for the weekend. That's right folks. We left old Ralph at Brenda's over the long holiday weekend. On accident for sure, but we didn't know what to expect the first night. Henry wasn't really too phased by it once we explained that his job was to keep Ms. Brenda warm for the weekend and that Mr. Frog was staying in bed with Henry to keep *him* warm. He didn't make a fuss really but he did take 1+ hours to fall asleep each night Ralph was gone. We'll see over the next few weeks if this is a new development or Ralph-related.

Speaking of new developments, right now we're planning to move Silas downstairs this weekend into Henry's room. It was always the plan to have them share a room, but we've been waiting until Silas' sleep habits improved and he wasn't breastfeeding anymore. I think we've by and large taken care of both of those issues so we're going to bite the bullet this weekend.

9 Mos, 3 weeks/ 2 Years, 9 Months

I think we made full-use of our three-day weekend, even though the temperature is about as cold as it generally gets here. Saturday Kerala's Nanny, Ellen, watched Kerala, Silas and Henry over at our house while we went to a party. Splitting the babysitter was certainly economical, and you know you have a keeper when the babysitter is disappointed that one of the kiddos (that would be Silas) was already asleep by the time we left.

Henry did some painting this weekend at his easel-- although we had to temporarily relocate it upstairs because the basement is absolutely freezing at this point. He's getting in to making his little masterpieces, and we realized we needed some new painting supplies-- i bought his paints before he was born and the brushes he uses are all cast-offs from my past crafts projects.

Although Henry had fun grocery shopping with his dad, i think the highlight of the weekend was a trip to the children's museum on Monday with Silas and Kerala and all the parents. Henry got to drive a boo-boo truck, a bus, go grocery shopping and pay for his purchases, catch salamanders in a stream, dig for dinosaur bones, and use the public potty four times while we were out. He had a blast. My only concern is that he now associates pretend play with "museums." I'm planning on taking him on Saturday to an exhibit on maps at the Field museum. He loves maps and he sounded excited about going but the Field museum is a little quieter and more hands-off than the children's museum, so we'll see how it goes.

Silas is having a monumental week. He's continuing to hone his sleeping through the night skills and he stopped breast-feeding. We had been winding down since the New Year, but this week he stopped completely. I'm a little sad, but like with Henry, it's been a pretty gradual process so it wasn't too emotional. Of course, now that we're on formula full-time i have to make it to costco at some point today or else that's going to be our "date-night" outing.

9 Months, 2 Weeks/ 2 Years, 8 Months

Henry has been asking a lot about the weather (why is it cold, why can't you see the weather, where does the snow come from) and i've been talking about wind and weather coming down from the arctic where it's very cold. He wants to go there (preferably right now or at the very least after nap tomorrow) but instead i persuaded him that it might be a good idea to read some books about the arctic first to see what it's really like. So, we're off to the library after i pick the boys up from school to see if we can find some good children's books on the North Pole.

Potty-training continues apace. I should say, that we're both doing a good job which means that Henry hasn't had an accident in quite awhile and JT and i have been keeping him in underwear and "reminding" him to visit the bathroom every 30 minutes. Personally this has been the hardest part. I guess i didn't realize that beyond any "training" Henry was initiating, that I had to be ready to rally Henry to use the bathroom every time i turned around. I actually think that now that he's in kind of a rhythm, we might be able to relax our time frame to every 45 minutes-- don't want to get brazen of course. He's been in underwear all day since the holidays though (we've even tackled outings and public toilets) and we seem to be going strong. I know lots of people who describe potty training as something that occurs in a span of a few days-- i personally witnessed friends' kids that did just that. Henry however, has taken a more gradual approach. At no point did he resist potty training, it just wasn't front of mind unless you reminded him.

Silas Sleep Bulletin

I've spared you some of the gory details, but after being on a wild sleep roller coaster with Silas over the past 6 months, we finally knuckled down and "sleep trained" little Silas. If you've been glancing at "Silas Wake-Ups" box you might have noticed a recent string of un-interrupted nights of sleep. After we got past possibly the very worst night of my life, Silas has just slept well.

His night wakings were increasing in frequency and duration and he was proving averse to going back to sleep. It was like dealing with a drug-resistant strain of baby sleep virus. We knew that after the New Year we were going to work on sleep training but had purposefully put it off until we were back home from our New Year's trip to Michigan. While in Michigan we were all sleeping in one room and we were away from home which were not ideal conditions under which to begin the process.

Unfortunately it was also really hard for anyone to get to sleep if Silas was getting up 4-5 times a night and not going back to sleep. So, start the training we did. The first night wasn't too bad-- i think he cried off and on for about 45 minutes and then slept through the rest of the night. The second night however, was potentially the worst night truly of my life.* He cried off and on for 3 hours (until 2 in the morning) at which point i finally picked him up and held him and got him to calm down enough to go to sleep.

Henry's worst night clocked in at 1 hour 40 minutes, but he was all scream from the first second you laid him down. Silas is more fuss, whine, cry a little, quiet down and just sound mad (ba, ba, ba, ba) then start fussing and crying so more, a little screaming, quiet down, repeat. It's like because he's more mild-mannered he has more energy to extend his stubbornness. So, i figured that this sleep training was actually going to be worse with Silas than it was with Henry.

But thankfully we made it through the horrible night and since then it's been almost all smooth sailing. Last weekend he woke up both nights for about 10-20 minutes and then went back to sleep on his own. All this sleeping has us thinking that before too much longer Silas will be moving downstairs into the room with Henry. The only thing holding me back is that Silas still nurses in the morning and it's a lot easier to take care of that upstairs than downstairs will Henry will then be guaranteed to wake up shouting "i want to help you make coffee!"

*i'm thinking the only other contender would be the time JT and i got lost in the woods at night trying to re-find our tent (without a source of light). After JT almost stumbled off a cliff we decided to lay down and sleep right there on the ground. It was fall in the Shenandoah so we had on light cotton sweaters and shorts, which even with the newspapers we were using as a blanket, was still the coldest, most horrible night i've ever had. I guess at least with sleep training i was warm.

New features and focus for 2008

I'm trying out a few new items on the blog for 2008. Although most readers are primarily interested in Henry and Silas' schenanigans, i get some benefit out of reporting on our family et al. Dovetailing with resolutions for the new year, i've posted two new features-- the "over budget" and "workout goals" items.

JT and i are generally regarded as smart managers of our money. And, i generally like to think we're prudent fiscal managers that live below our means. That said, things got a little out of control this year as we made less and less time to discuss and manage our finances.

One new thing we're testing is a regular (we're starting with bi-weekly)financial check-in where we discuss our budget vs. actual report, make joint decisions about bigger purchases, and decide on necesarry budget revisions. I think that by staying in closer contact with our spending habits we'll be more aware of our money and spend less on stuff that's forgettable-- at least that's the hope.

Anytime we go over budget (primarily on stuff that we could do something about, i.e. housewares, clothing, eating out, etc.) i'll log it. I've put this and my next item fairly far down in the list so that if you just want to concentrate on Henry and Silas' cute pictures you don't have to be offended by money woes.

As is most of America, i'm currently working on weight-loss goals. In my defense i re-committed to losing the last 10 lbs. of this pregnancy weight before the holidays and i've managed to lose 5 of it already-- thank you very much. I'm mostly attacking my weight through consistent and intensified exercise, so i'll be logging my workouts on the site. For anyone looking for additional weight-loss tactics, here are my "rules:"
-no alchohol on weeknights
-only coffe and water to drink
-using a salad plate for all meals
-if i indulge it's a drink or dessert, not both
-must eat breakfast with protein, before 10 am

To tide you over for more child-related news-- here's a video clip to gnosh on...

Temporary Thaw

I know it won't last but boy have we enjoyed the past two days of 50 degree temperatures. Yesterday JT bbqd, Henry got to play with his bubble machine and go for a bike ride-- all without being bundled completely up. I like being warm, but more than that i like not having to stuff little squirmy bodies into coats, snowsuits, hats, mittens and boots. I hate, hate to say it, but i can't wait for spring!

Henry had a super fun return to gym class tonight. You could tell that no one had been in two weeks and there were a lot of normally well-behaved kids that were going haywire. Henry did really, really well at listening while we were at gym and i was super proud of him. Especially because Silas was in my arms most of the time we were there. Typically Silas stays home with JT on gym nights, but tonight JT had a late meeting so off to class Silas went. He had a pretty good time but he was getting tired and the little ones are so active that i couldn't just put him down very much.

He is really mobile now. I think i've said that before but because he's still not crawling in the true sense of the word i still have this idea that he's not really getting around. That would definitely be false impression. On the wood floors he scoots on his bottom all over and is even exploring different rooms now. On carpet, he drags his entire body with his arms-- seemingly forgetting that he even has legs.

Kerla and Corey and Troy came over Sunday for pulled pork and Kerala and Silas were having tons of fun crawling everywhere and exploring all the toys and action. Henry got Troy to play basketball with him and Henry is getting pretty good and making some slam dunks-- especially since the goal is about as high as his head!

9 Months, 1 Week/ 2 Years, 8 Months

Now that i'm back and getting into my renewed groove i've had some time to remember the details of Henry and Silas over our Christmas and New Year Break. They actually both have some cool new developments so i'll try to catch you up on what is top of mind tonight.

In addition to inchworming all over the place (more and more quickly by the day), Silas has been babbling up a storm lately. He's very partial to ba ba ba. With just that one syllable, it's amazing what he can communicate using different tones and cadences. He's also working on his sign language skills. He's been doing the sign for milk for quite awhile now and in the past week has added "more" and waving "hello" or "good-bye" to his repertoire. Henry didn't really start signing back to us beyond a simple wave until closer to 15 months so this is awesome and really encouraging!

For some reason Silas was on a liquid fast over the break. The day most of my family arrived he barely took 4 ounces all day of either breast milk or formula. He got better from there but in general he was just not feeling his liquid intake. He would scarf down solids (even cereal made with the leftover formula) no problem, but spend more time playing with the bottle than eating. I was a little concerned, because but at his 9 month check-up he was 18 lbs. 4 oz. which is growing right along his 10-25% percentile curve. The Doctor seemed very pleased, especially with what she called "his advanced social skills." I of course am relieved that he was a good weight and not far enough behind in the crawling department to warrant physical therapy.

As a postscript, now that he's back at Brenda's, he's been taking three 8 oz. bottles a day and eating the same amount of solids. Go figure.

In addition to the wonderful visits with family, we all got some pretty amazing gifts. One of Henry's favorites is his new race track. I was able to capture a quick clip of Silas and Henry both loving it with my new toy-- a video camera. Keep an eye on Silas' feet.


Well, i now have accounts with tons of free video share sites but google video seems to be working for now. Please leave a comment if you visit and this video won't load so i can keep trouble-shooting!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful couple weeks of holidays and has enjoyed some time to rest and relax with the family. I know it's been quite awhile since i let you know what we were up to, so i'll try to hit the high points...

We thoroughly enjoyed hosting both JT and I's families for Christmas. Both boys were thoroughly spoiled with loads of wonderful Christmas gifts and more importantly, time and attention. Henry was excited to leave cookies for Santa and got into opening Christmas gifts pretty quickly. We're still sorting out all the toys and trying to figure out where to put everything, but Henry was so excited to get back to his "Christmas toys" when we got home today.

After all of our guests left last Thursday, we headed out ourselves the next morning to Michigan for a New Year's getaway. Corey and Troy have organized a group of about 16 people for the last several years to spend New Year's at a little "beach" town near Michigan City Indiana (except it's in Michigan). Three of us had kids so we were in the "quiet" house. The house next door was the communal "loud house." During nap time, the "quiet" house was aptly named, but the 2- two year olds and three 9-month olds kept things lively at all other times. It was a great way to spend the last few days of 2007. JT had fun cooking with another guy that's serious about cooking and BBQ, we played numerous games of hearts, and i even relearned boggle after a shaky start.

Henry and Rollie were fast friends as long as Rollie's new train set didn't come out. There were group baths aplenty and three babies with very different ways of motoring around. Silas started army crawling right around Christmas. I think army crawling is the "technical" term, but in actuality he looks more like he's an inchworm. Over New Year's he focused on scooting around on his bottom which is hysterical to watch-- especially because he's getting quick and always has a huge smile on his face when he's closing in on his target.

9 Months, 4 Weeks

This will be short. The cold that Jt's had twice in the last month and Henry has had on and off finally caught up with me. I took the day off and spent it sleeping or laying on the couch so hopefully laying low will help it run its course quicker.

Henry had a good day at Brenda's although he only took one mid-day nap. Even still he wasn't just falling asleep right away this evening. I just put him to bed at 7:30 and hopefully tonight he'll stay asleep. Last night as soon as i finished my post Henry woke up and was up about 45 minutes before finally going to sleep at 8. During this time he cried, i tried to soothe him, he cried, i tried to give him medicine for his stuffy nose, he cried, i tried to nurse him, he cried and finally he just went to sleep. Since i'm hoping to get to bed really early tonight i'm hoping we don't go through that again tonight.

9 Months, 3 Weeks 6 Days

I had to tutor Brenda in the new cloth diapering approach (luckily we don't use diaper pins anymore) but other than that she seems ready to go. She even offered to keep the diapers there and wash them. I told her she could see how it went but that i just wanted to do what was easiest for her.

When i went to pick Henry up i was standing outside the door and i heard her announce that it was circle time. I could hear the older kids assembling and one of them said, "we don't have enough, we need Henry too." When i went in Henry was in his own little area on his stomach just playing around. He wasn't quite joining circle time but was quite content and working on pushing forward. We still haven't seen this phenomenon, but Brenda said he was really working on digging his toes in and moving forward to get toys.

I forgot to ask about naps, but i'm guessing they weren't particularly long because he got tired early and went to sleep easily* right at 7.

The picture today isn't H at his most photogenic, but you can see his front two bottom teeth if you look closely. His teeth are coming in enough that now we actually catch glimpses of them-- it's a strange sight that i am not used to yet!

*fingers crossed

9 Months, 3 Weeks, 5 Days

Hope many of you have made good progress digging out from all the snow. Here in Chicago we've had flurries for a few days but nothing accumulated so it looks like a school day for us tomorrow.

Here is a picture of Henry striking his favorite pose. He makes this face which we call "fish lips" all the time now along with a noise that sounds exactly like "no, no, no." After about a day of repeating that back to him (because i swear it sounds pretty clear) we've started repeating any number of other words when he makes the noise, "go, go, go" or "whoah, whoah, whoah." We figure we shouldn't go out of our way to reinforce "no." maybe i'll be able to get a recording of it in the next few days...

Henry had a good pretty non-eventful weekend. He did sleep quite a bit and it seems to have knocked his bedtime back from 7 to closer to 8. In general he fights taking a nap again. Of course as long as we're trying to pay attention to his sleep routine it's nothing like "fighting" it used to be. Now it usually means putting him down and having him fuss and then cry out when he sees you exiting his room. Within 3 minutes, and sometimes closer to 45 seconds he's quiet and then asleep. It took some trial and error though last night because we proceeded as usual with his 7 pm bedtime and after much crying, some additional nursing, and finally an additional play periods, Henry went to sleep just before 9. We'll see what happens when he goes back to daycare tomorrow-- he tends to sleep less then so we might need to recur to 7 pm.

Also, I talked to Brenda and she used cloth diapers on her kids and was completely open to using them on Henry. So i'm bringing supplies and we'll see how it goes there.

9 Months, 3 Weeks 2, Days

Thanks to Tabitha's comment, i signed up for the free add-on feature to Blogger that allows you to phone in audio and have it posted on the site. You'll see i tried this with Henry tonight so that you could hear him. The problem is that you dial the number, put in your code, and then after the tone it just starts recording. Henry doesn't exactly comply with the tone so tonight after a few false starts we at least got Henry laughing. I'll try again a little later, but hopefully this will tide you over.

Henry did something else for the first time today-- he pushed himself forward. Brenda said he had backed himself into a wall and was really upset. She left him to sort himself out and he managed to push against the wall and propel himself forward. Then he got excited and dug his toes in and managed to do it again. He didn't repeat it there later or at home but hopefully these things will start accumulating and he'll find a way to crawl forward! We can't wait to cheer him on.

Today's picture is what he looks like now when he gets excited-- he just kicks his legs and shakes his arms!

9 Months, 3 Weeks, 1 Day

We didn't see any evidence of it, but Brenda said that Henry got up on his hands and knees today. He did use an inchworm-type motion again to move towards his toys, but we didn't catch any knee rocking action.

He was babbling basically non-stop today from the time i picked him up until he started nursing right before bed. As i've mentioned, it sounds more and more like talking. I think this is due to the mix of vowels and consonants that he's exploring.

Otherwise we had an non-eventful evening and hopefully a quiet night ahead.

9 Months, 3 Weeks

We went to the Dr. today and verified that indeed Henry is still gaining weight, albeit a bit more slowly than he was. We talked about some different foods to be trying with him and how important it is to get him to eat protein at every meal. Dr. K said that as he gets sick or gets more teeth he'll be pickier with food and we can't stress out. We need to maximize his good days which i believe we've been doing recently.

Tonight while i was nursing Henry before bed he was playing with my braces. As soon as i would close my mouth he would pry it back open to play with my teeth some more. He got some new toys and had a ball with them-- picture above!

9 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days

Henry had a good day with Brenda and came home talking up a storm. I can’t really describe the sounds he’s making but today they suddenly sounded more conversational than they had in the past. He was also clearly experimenting with his volume control—quite a few squeals in there.

Once we all got home we had a little birthday celebration for JT. Henry got in on the action and enjoyed the tissue paper and wrapping very much. We had to watch him really closely because instead of just sticking the paper in his mouth and gumming it he sticks it in there and then rips it with his teeth like he’s tearing into a juicy steak. He wasn’t very interested in being our pawn tonight so we let him have a few veggie puffs without too much work.

I wanted to mention that yesterday’s picture of Henry on his back did show off one of his new cloth diapers. It’s one of the “AIOs” or all-in-ones. I did experiment with the actual cloth diapers and the wool covers that I made him over the weekend but I’m still waiting on the bulk of my diaper order and in particular the snappi fastener that holds the cloth diapers together. Once we really start using them I promise to have more pictures.

9 Months, 2 Weeks, 5 Days

We found something new to entice H into movement-- his veggie puffs. Tonight he needed a snack before dinner and he was already down playing on the rug on his stomach. I put the puffs canister just out of reach and then held my hands against his feet. Not only did he push against my feel to propel himself forward, he pulled himself a bit with his arms too. We've also noticed a little bit of 'butt in the air' inching in recent days. The developmental progress around here is about like watching grass grow-- but we'd stare at all day long if we could.

He's also taken to making almost leaps to standing for his play table. When he realizes you're really encouraging him to stand though he essentially balks and whines-- which we give into quite a bit. If however, you just sit him down for the first time in front of the table he'll just put his hands up and pull straight up. I'm planning to call our therapy coordinator tomorrow to see how quickly we can get his physical therapy appointments set up.

We had a nice weekend with a good balance of time spent at home and some outings-- including one for JT and i to Korean BBQ with 5 other couples. Henry did just fine with a new babysitter. This is helpful because we're starting to expand our babysitter rotation.

9 Months, 2 Weeks, 2 Days

Henry's evaluation went well this morning. He did qualify to receive services through the early intervention program, and they recommended that he meet weekly with a physical therapist. His meeting consisted of a lot of questions from the nutritionist, and many "tests" disguised as games from the developmental and physical therapist.

Their consensus was that he has a scattered level of development. In some areas he's quite strong (like small motor, stationary, and congnitive related development). In movement, especially related to his shoulders he's behind. They pointed out how he holds his arms stiff against his side unless he really needs to use them (especially his right arm) and seems to have a hard time interacting with objects. They noted that his particular area of weakness seems to be his shoulders and that he seems downright uncomfortable trying to really extend and raise his arms. He does do these things but he appears to really think about his motions before executing them and he comes back to a braced stiff position afterwards.

They said that because he is quite motivated to engage with his world, toys and people, and manages to do so fairly effectively, they think he'll really benefit from physical therapy to strengthen his shoulder and arm muscles. They also recommended developmental therapy once a month which will be focused on teaching us infant massage and then checking back with him to see if he's any more able to tolerate us manipulating his body. We'll be checking in with the nutritionist once a month as well, to get new ideas for getting his weight up and to make sure that he continues to gain well.

It was a lot of information all at once and Henry seemed pretty overwhelmed at first (as i'm sure i did). He settled in by the end of the visit though and i think gave a pretty good idea of his real "skill level" by the end of the visit. I'm sure it will take a few weeks to get everything set up and running, but we were pleased with the visit and look forward to seeing the individual therapists work with him.

Here's a picture i took this evening of Henry getting ready to eat a snack JT has (Trader Joe's Fig Bars, Henry's new fave!) Henry is holding his arm braced at his side in the picture like the therapists noticed right off the bat.

9 Months, 2 Weeks

I know Henry looks like the little match boy in the picture but he was just helping mom with a sewing project. I'm in the process of making some wool diaper covers out of wool sweater sleeves (you just had to ask) and i have all these sleeve tops that i'm not using-- Henry was helping me measure and was happy to model my sewing cast-offs.

After our upside down evening last night Henry slept just fine and then TOOK NO NAPS today. Umhmm, that's right not one. When i picked Henry up i asked Brenda what happens when she puts him down. She said that he'll just talk to himself and babble for an hour or so but won't go to sleep. He seemed just fine at home and went to bed at his usual 7 o'clock. We even got a bath in. I wouldn't have known he didn't take a nap if she hadn't told me, so maybe he's been storing his naps up like a chipmunk.

Tomorrow he'll be home with me as we have his developmental assessment in the morning. One of the therapists called to confirm today and i talked to her for a few minutes. She said that they would give me feedback as the assessment was taking place and that i could ask questions or ask for more information at any point. I was really glad to hear that because i figured i would just get scraps of information tomorrow and would have to wait for a full report before really getting details.

So, we'll just have to see what tomorrow brings. Oh, i have a 10 am conference call scheduled which i kept based on his usual nap schedule. We'll see how that works out!

9 Months, 1 Week, 6 Days

We had an interesting night in our house. Henry is a pretty routine kind of kid. He is asleep by 7 pm every night. Generally we follow a dinner, bath, bed routine from about 6-7. Tonight when i picked him up from Brenda's he had taken a negligible afternoon nap-- something he's been doing for about a week. We got home a little before 5 and after just a few minutes on his stomach he was unhappy-- then quickly inconsolable.

I was trying to figure out what was wrong and decided to try dinner. That wasn't the problem today-- he did some damage to peas and rice, hummus, and applesauce. However, by the end of the mail he was crying big tears in between his eager bites of applesauce. I figured this meant he was exhausted. I decided to skip the bath and head straight back to his room to begin nursing him and our soothing routine. He struggled. I put him in the crib and he fussed and cried off and on for about 30 minutes. Then, he went into hysterics. When i went back to get him he quieted down immediately. At first i was just walking our hallway but he seemed wide awake so we decided to come out and play. He was all smiles and even getting his knees up underneath him a bit as he stretched for some of his books.

Then, he seemed to get tired so i put him down and he went effortlessly asleep at 8:30. I'm not sure i'll repeat the late afternoon nap again.