Crafting

I've been talking about how i'm working to infuse more crafts into our lives and i have a few pictures and some stories to relate on our efforts. I was reminded of something the other day by Henry's preschool teacher "I like the kids to focus on the process, not the product," and have been trying to emphasize the same in our efforts.


We installed a new display line in our kitchen for all of the boys' artwork. It's primarily filled with Henry's creations but Silas is bursting with pride over the one piece of his that is tacked up there.


In anticipation of Halloween we've been making pumpkins and ghosts for almost a month now. Here are ghosts hung up in Henry and Silas' room. Once Halloween is over we'll use this line to display more works of art as well.


I made this little guy for Henry after he repeatedly requested a soft doll like Silas'. He seemed happy and genuinely thankful and (using his big words) told me he was "very appreciative."

We've got more projects, big and small, in the works for Christmas!

Babys and babas and george, oh my!

Very, very busy lately. That delicate balance between work and home was pretty much obliterated this past week. I traveled to DC Wed afternoon for a two day training. The days leading up to the training were frantic work days with many extra hours logged in the evening. I was stressed, i didn't get to work out, and in general it was not how i like to spend my days. We're still busy but i'm really hoping that things will be back to normally busy this week. I've got another training (and another trip) in two weeks, but it's one we do each year to there isn't as much prep for it.

The boys seem to be doing just fine. Brenda was closed Mon-Wed so they spent two days at another home daycare run by a woman i've met through the parent support group for our elementary school. All reports were that they were very happy. She's said to let her know if we ever need back-up care which is a great resource to have indeed.

Henry has thrown out a few funny sayings lately. Last weekend a few minutes into quiet time he knocked on his door. When i went to see what the problem was he said-- "what's that noise?" I told him it was the Cuisinart and he said "well i was curious about that noise." Later that day he came in from sitting on the porch with JT as i was drawing his bath and said something like "Mom, the point is, that i need to watch George after i take a bath." I assumed JT has used the expression but said Henry worked it into his dialogue all himself. He's a talker that one.

Silas is great; funnier and sillier than ever. But also really not liking going to sleep nowadays. I must take a picture of his crib. The "usual" includes his two life-size baby dolls, a small stuffed baby, his original lovey bunny and backup bunny, a small curious george doll, an oversize george book, 2 (of the same) kitty books, a small george notebook, and two other normal sized george books-- as well as the cat book he got for his birthday. Plus, on any given night he picks something else he *has* to have in bed with him. Last night we fought a major battle because he wanted to sleep with his school bag (!?) JT and i felt with it's handles it was just too much of a safety threat but the poor thing was crying and sobbing hysterically as if his comfort hinged on the school bag (something he's never, not once, mentioned at any other point in his life.) And don't forget, he has to be covered-up with two special "ba-bas" (blankets). Problem is he says "two" for everything and now he's up to 3-4 blankets for him to be satisfied. I'm worried he's going to be a hoarder later in life. Anyone think this is normal?

Conversation Topics

A love of vaccuming now runs in the family.

So i'm leaving the heading alone for now because Silas is still just engaging in the most preliminary of "expressions," but Henry has mostly moved beyond me being able to capture his amusing sentences to raising topics of conversation that are alternately amazing, difficult to answer, or relentless. So, you'll continue to see the funny things i can't help remember, but you'll also see the types of things he's turning over and over in his head. I'm hoping this will help me capture the kinds of thinking he's doing now more than just the speech aspect of things.

Silas seems to be holding steady in the speech department- he's got several two-syllable utterances; wa-wa, c-car, tr-truck, sh-shirt, as well as a handful of signs; where, water, bye-bye, milk, train, plane, etc. I think this is good enough for his 18 month visit (which btw i need to schedule!) and i'm assuming he'll make more progress in good time.

16 Months

I wanted to do a bit of an update on Silas as he's changing pretty rapidly and i really like having these inventory-type posts to look back on. Silas turned 16 months old two days ago and we've recently moved-out of a few phases that i'm not particularly sad to see go.

He no longer spends 98% of his bath time standing up or trying to climb up the walls. While it helped that he found it hysterical when he slid down into the water on his face, it made bath time terrifying (for me) and frustrating because no amount of no, or distraction, or ending the bath made him sit-down; at least not for more than a minute. The best success we had was when he made a game of plopping down into the water and giggling as the water sloshed out from under him.


Similarly the thrill has worn off going up the stairs at any available opportunity. This was particularly fun while on vacation because no one had gates. Gates are very important when you have a willful toddler hell-bent on climbing the stairs and without them we had a two-week long episode of "catch me before i get up the stairs!"

Silas definitely has walking down-- he doesn't lose his balance often, he walks with his hands at his sides and he's getting more adept at trying to climb onto things. He can get on and off his little push bike on his own and he started pushing his bike forward by himself just a week or two ago.

As i inserted with my late breaking news last night, i think that Silas is starting to round the speech corner. He's definitely trying to imitate words now and while his pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired, he's trying and that's a really big step to have taken-- especially before we have to report back to the Dr at 18 months.

The biggest challenge with Silas is discipline. My feeling is that there aren't that many strategies to play with at this age. The thing about Silas is that none of them seem to have any effect. I've tried getting down on his level and making eye contact while saying no, squeezing his hand while saying no, taking the toy/food/weapon away, putting him in his crib for a minute, and at times yelling. Not only do none of these curtail the behavior (which isn't entirely surprising) they don't get ANY reaction.

Silas is a different type of boy than Henry, and it's not surprising to me that his favorite trick is to stick his fingers into the mucky hole left in our front sidewalk from an old sawed off fence pole. No matter how you approach telling him not to he keeps on jamming his fingers in the hold and doesn't raise an eyebrow while you wave your arms and stomp. In fact now he makes the sound for "yucky" *while* he sticks his fingers in the goo.

I was discussing this with a friend while she watched Silas and i battle over taking bunny for a swim in the wading pool. She commented that it will probably take him a little longer for him to actually respond to our tactics, but she guessed he would always have a defiant streak. Don't i know it...

Working on Words

Similar to Henry, Silas is giving us a run for our money in the late-speech department. I need to go back and read my posts from when Henry was 16-17 months but i think we're about at the same place-- behind. At this point he has a few signs (milk, bye bye, fan, please, sometimes light) and fewer words (hot, hat, and buhbuhbuh for his bunny). Really, that's it. Frustratingly he'll seem to get a new word (past ones included, yes, kitty and cheese) and then stop using it after a couple days. I'm not sure if i'm allowed to "count" that in the number of words he should have at this age or if i'm supposed to restrict my list to only those that make it into regular use.

...

I started this post this morning and while we were at the pool today he started saying truck. The neat thing about it was that he was doing his normal point and grunt and whimper and get worked up routine and i said truck. He clearly was trying to imitate me and i kept saying truck and he kept practicing and now he has a word that at least to a parent clearly sounds like truck.

So maybe we won't panic after all.

Summer is Here

I know i have a lot of catching up to do. I was away on business last week for a brutal training-- about 6:00 until 10:30/11 every night. It made for a short week and lots of quick prep for a big bbq we had Saturday. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate much and we wound up with a houseful of humid guests and 6 or 7 kids running around. A tad more intense than planned, but fun nonetheless. A few friends that hadn't been to our house before made the comment on the way out that we had a "fun house." That actually made my weekend.


Quite a few developments with Henry and Silas. Silas has been taking more frequent steps-- not like he's walking across the room by himself, but he's moving from one object to another with no hand-holds in between on his own initiation. He has just about mastered the slide- the only thing that gives him occasional trouble is getting his legs over the top before sliding down. I've also figured out that he has some words i hadn't clearly understood before-- yes, kitty, and i could have sworn he said cheese today. He's definitely been saying yes and kitty for awhile, but i guess i wanted to be really sure before "documenting" it.


Henry has made pretty good progress pedaling his bike. He's also jumping now, although we're still working on jumping with both feet--forward. He had so much fun playing in the pool with his friends and has been having a blast with Silas at the water table. We're looking forward to a summer of fun outdoors.

Stream of consciousness

At this point we don't really notice it, but Henry keeps up a pretty animated level of banter anytime he's around people with whom he's comfortable. Today Henry and Silas and I headed for our monthly visit to the chiropractor. JT was already there (he's going for stuff related to his arm injury) and once Henry saw JT he just launched into run-on after run-on that paid no heed to linear thought. I believe it went something like-- Oh, dad! Hi, i need to go potty-- but i want to wait and read this dinosaur book. You read the dinosaur book to me, what's his name? why can't we play the dinosaur game? You make sure baby doesn't get my water-- i want some water, i have to go to the potty with daddy...etc.

It didn't strike me as unusual-- that's just the level of chatter to which we're acclimated. But, the receptionist was laughing about how Henry went from quietly looking at books to an uninterrupted stream of thoughts as soon as JT walked in the door.

Speaking of books-- i've mentioned several times that Henry is big into reading. He's also very interested in just about everything-- but lately a lot about the natural world. We got on the topic of the seasons and the role the sun plays in determining how long and warm, or short and cold are days are. I gave a simple explanation and then said-- i bet you'll get to learn all about the planets at school. To which Henry replied-- i don't want to wait to learn about planets at school, i want to learn about planets myself. So-- we made sure to fit in a trip to the library today and found several cool books about the sun, moon, and all the planets.

I've heard a lot of mothers with similarly aged kids mention how the younger one wants to do everything the older one does. We see that some with Henry and Silas-- if Henry has a toy Silas wants it, although about the time Henry starts to complain about how Silas isn't sharing-- Silas usually crawls off to something else that's caught his eye.

Silas does however have to have a book to look at in the car just like Henry. Lately he's taken to holding it up in front of himself-- usually upside down and babbling along as if he's reading the story.

Adapting

You know i'm not a morning person. Becoming a mom did nothing to change that fact. I managed to last three days after JT BROKE HIS WRIST of getting up with him when the kids woke up. After that each day i would stay in bed just a little longer until i was summoned. The other day the summons was particularly memorable. I had dreamily fallen back to sleep after JT got up and went downstairs to the boys. I was awoken by Henry standing, naked, next to my bed saying "Wake up Mommy, Silas has monkey-rita!" He was naked i was trying to make sense of monkey-rita and then it clicked-- of course, Silas had been struggling with a lower-GI thing and must have a terrible diaper, which JT can not take care of one-armed. I set the naked thing aside and focused on getting Silas taken care of. Thankfully Silas' affliction is gone because in addition to calling it "monkey-rita" Henry also referred to it as "margarita" and i could just imagine the conversations at daycare when he was telling Brenda that Silas has margaritas.

Henry has been potty-trained during the day for quite awhile now (a couple months i guess) and he has been pretty consistent about keeping his pull-up dry at night. So, this past Friday, we started putting him in underwear at night and so far so good. I expect to have some wet sheets at some point but i've been impressed that since last Friday he's been dry everynight. He does however wake up and have to go to the bathroom and on Monday after getting his pajamas off to go to the bathroom he just wasn't ready to get dressed yet. Rather than fight him-- JT sent him up to wake me up and tell me about Silas-- even though he was in his birthday suit.

JT and i are doing pretty well. On Tuesday we had our babysitter come over and while she helped out with the boys we made several nights worth of dinners. I think we've almost gone normal house stuff back on track. My toe seems to be healing faster than the Dr. predicted (i'm almost not limping anymore) and JT is getting very inventive at doing things with one-arm. We still have some challenges on the horizon but i think we'll survive-- a more optimistic feeling than when this all happened last weekend.

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.

Why?

My Father talks frequently about how i was constantly asking why as a child. I remember this actually but associate it with being a little older-- at least old enough to have memories. Perhaps i started my career even earlier which is what young Henry is doing. As are most things, it's much harder to deal with his incessant requests now that we're living it rather than hearing a tale about our distant childhood.

The issue is that i want to give Henry answers that attempt to quell his original question. I don't want to speak down to him but i don't want to give too much more information than he's able to comprehend. I want to be reflective about my answers instead of just saying "because that's how things are." At root i want to encourage this questioning and not squelch his curiosity or have him just accept everything as presented. The problem is that Henry doesn't always follow-along in this same congenial spirit.

A recent exchange:

H: I want to play outside in the snow.
T: It's too cold tonight Henry. We'll play outside later when it's warmer.
H: Why?
T: Because now that it's winter it can get very cold and if you're out in the cold too much you can get sick.
H: Why?
T: (attempts to explain how while germs make you sick being cold can lower your resistance)
H: Why?
T: We don't know why, but we know it happens.
H: Why?
T: Because Doctors study these things and tell us the answers.
H: Why?
T: Let's sing a song.
H: I want to play outside in the snow...

Could i be...

getting better? Heaven forbid i write that because i'll probably be in the ER overnight, but for now i feel like the congestion clouds are clearing. If you call and i answer, you'll still think you're talking to our butler, because my voice sounds that bad, but my sinuses are pretty much clear and i'm not constantly cycling between chills and sweats.

Summer colds are no good not only because your sick when you just shouldn't be, but also because summer is a precious commodity and being laid up when the summer days are ticking by is nothing short of frustrating. One low key thing i've been able to do even when sick is make batches of granita. Henry was digging on his "cold treat" last night and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested, so i'm including my *recipes* here. Unless you can deal with some mess i would stick to the berry one-- it just couldn't be easier.

Berries
1 1/2 cups fresh fruit or 1 12-ounce bag frozen
1/3-1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1 TBSP lemon juice
Puree berries in food processor with water, freeze

Cherries
1 1/2 cups pitted fruit
3/4 cup sugar
water
Simmer cherries in sugar syrup 5 minutes
Puree with syrup
Strain out skins, freeze

Henry is going through a renewed "no" phase. It's a bit trying, but also slightly humorous because he says it very matter of factly: Henry, come put your shoes on so we can go to school. "no." He doesn't say it emphatically or dramatically or with a question mark at that end--it's just an even "no." I think he's discovered that he can say no and that it starts to drive people crazy. Mainly we deal with it by reminding him of the fun things that will happen if he does said task, i.e. "let's put your shoes on so we can go see all your friends at school." If that doesn't work than we usually resort to tickling him or picking him up and "flying" him around or something physical and fun to divert the power struggle.

Silas, my little darling, slept for 11 hours last night. We've been making pretty steady progress with his night-time wakings and had gotten to where he didn't start stirring until around 4:30 or 5. Last night however, he went to sleep around 6:30 and didn't make a peep until 6:04 when he woke-up ready to eat and tackle the day.

irreconcilable globule

You know those spam messages you get with the really random subject lines? This was the title of one i received recently that i've been saving for just such a time as tonight-- i'm not near my calendar to tell you how old everyone is and i can't think of anything topical-- so irreconcilable globule it is.

I'm still dragging around this stuffy nose and hacking cough, but dangnabit, tonight was babysitter night so we went out anyway. Not only is having a regular babysitter gig good for JT and i-- it's fun for me because i get to dress up on a semi-regular basis. What with working at home and having two small children, i don't exactly have fashion on the top of my list. At least once every few weeks i put some thought into what i'm wearing and how i look. On that front, i have an achievement to document, although i'm befuddled about how it happened.

By the scale's account i haven't lost any weight since six weeks post-partum. I'm still carrying around about a baker's dozen of extra pounds. Tonight, i decided just to see if one of my pre-pregnancy skirts fit and voila! it does! I'm not talking stretchy waist-band skirt either. It's full, but the waist fit and that's nothing to sniff at. So i'm hoping that with my ramp-up in exercise and trying to be sensible about eating, i'll start to make more progress.

Silas is doing spectacular. He's so happy and animated and getting really into his toys-- at least the little toys on his bouncer. He grabs and swats at them so forcefully they wind up wound around the toy-bar like the swings at a derelict park. At night he likes to eat and get ready for bed pretty promptly at 6. By 6:30 he's in his crib and maybe fussing a little but quickly soothes himself to sleep. Last night he didn't wake up at all until 4:30 am, although most mornings by about 5:30 he's up and the last 30 minutes until breakfast at 6 can be tough.

Henry is seriously working on potty-training now. He's wearing underwear during the day and getting better about telling us before he actually needs to go. I downloaded a sticker chart to use with him and he was definitely psyched to start seeing those stickers marching along the path. He's still omitting articles and doesn't use many pronouns, but he's in the process of learning about plurality. He'll talk about one bird and two birds over and over again. He's also getting to where he's trying to speak in longer story-like sentences. He doesn't have all the words yet, but a typical exchange was yesterday night at dinner when he was telling me about his morning with Daddy: WEEK-Up, No Open, Close-- Daddy!, No, Daddy!, close, Daddy- WEEK-Up, eat! Translation, I woke up and my door was closed, i called Daddy, but nothing. I called Daddy again but my door was still closed. I called Daddy really loudly and told him to wake-up that i wanted to eat!

Childcare Fall-Out

So Brenda is great, Silas is settling in wonderfully and Henry is as excited as ever to go to daycare. The only downside is the onslaught of immune-system busting colds that Silas is now getting and passing on to me. Before any one posts a comment or calls and says something like "wow, you're ALWAYS sick!," let me mention that this is akin to insulting someone's spouse. Of course they do annoying things and of course you personally are free to pontificate at length on these issues. It's not okay for someone else to talk trash about your significant others. Same thing applies here. Yes, i have the immune system of a Victorian invalid-- but don't you go rubbing it in my face.

So this all means that i'm sick with a relatively bad cold. Unfortunately it meant cancelling most of our weekend fun plans and having to really try to lay low while i get better. I had a doctor appointment today (unrelated to the cold) where the Doctor verified that mothers of small children are essentially always sick. He said the good thing was that my immune system would be stronger for it and in the long-run i wouldn't get sick as often as time goes on. That's great, but i'm dreading winter already and searching out a Chinese herbalist closer to home, as the one i had good luck with before is a tad far away.

The weekend wasn't all sneezes and misery though, Saturday we babysat Kerala for a few hours and attended the annual block-party for our street. Henry missed the bounce-o-line (naptime called) but did get WAY excited for the fire truck that came to visit. He got to sit in the drivers seat but was a bit freaked out, so no pictures of that. He was excited to examine the big tires at length, and i'll try to post pictures of that soon. They opened the fire hydrant for a bit and now Henry finally associates firetrucks with water as opposed to referring to all emergency vehicles as boo-boo trucks. (Actually he will call a police car a boo-boo truck and when you correct him he'll say "no, no, no, no" doing the tsking motion with his finger. At some point i think we mentioned that policemen tell you when you're doing something wrong.)

Silas' sleep continue to boomerang wildly. He no longer eats at night, but is still waking most nights off and on.

16 Weeks, 2 Days/ 2Y, 3M, 2 Days

We're moving right along here at little-boy Central. Sharp eyes may have noticed that Silas slept for 11 hours (read truly through the night!) a few nights ago. Unfortunately he developed a little cough that kept him up the next night, so now we're working on a) getting him totally better and b) getting him to where 11-12 hours is routine. The fact that we made progress so quickly without too many tears (on either side) is encouraging and really makes me think i'll have a full night's sleep before you know it. Of course when he slept 11 hours i was up wondering if he was still alive and in general not sleeping myself.

I've changed the sidebar to reflect Henry's continuing language development. It's less about new words and more about new phrases and how he's learning to put words together. He's very much into directional concepts right now; front, back, above and under are things he's constantly doing with his toys, utensils, Ralphs, you name it. He likes to talk through what he's doing as well which is super cute. I've noticed him doing more pretend play lately and making noises to go along with what he's doing.

He was playing in his play room the other day and he didn't hear me coming down the stairs. I paused and watched him pretending to heat water and pour a cup of tea and he was quite precise with all the different noises involved. He's also taken to toting a plastic iron with him to Brenda's after he saw me ironing clothes for one of the first times in his existence. It was like a light bulb turned on in his head when he realized he had his own version of the very same thing. Of course he makes his iron fly around and hides it behind the window shade, but still it's the toy of the moment.

15 Weeks/ 2 Years, 2 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

Today was my first day back at work and Silas' first day with Brenda. I think we both did pretty well. It definitely helps knowing that Silas is with his big brother at a place he loves and that we know provides good care. I still missed being with him all day, but it was definitely nice when i was getting Silas and Henry into the car and Silas turned and flashed me a huge grin. I guess he did just fine with naps, but he resisted taking his bottle for a little while. We haven't had any problems giving him a bottle so that surprised me. He got hungry enough eventually and hopefully won't give her any more trouble.

We made some good progress with Silas and his sleep last night. He fell asleep by about 7:15 and slept until 12:45. I'm following a plan where you keep moving their sleep and eating forward, but don't let them fall back. For example, Silas had his first nighttime feeding at 2 am the night before, so even though he woke up at 12:45 he couldn't eat until 2 or after. It took a little doing, but he went back to sleep after i gave him the pacifier and he slept until 4. That was great, but it also really ups the ante. Tonight he fell asleep by 8 but i can't feed him until 4 regardless of when he wakes-- i'll let you know how tired i am tomorrow!

Henry has been getting "tougher" the past month or so. He's still a sensitive kid, but he doesn't get scared when he hears the dogs barking next door, just talks about the "big rain" when he hears thunder, and laughs off minor falls. I think it helps that he's able to communicate so much more because he can talk through things and we understand what he's saying. In fact it's less about new words at this point and more about how he's combining them into little sentences.

Attire

Henry has been more and more psyched about his clothes lately, and also more specific about what he wants to wear. I pulled out two bathing suits we had kicking around from last year to see if they still fit, in anticipation on our beach trip later this month. Henry was so excited to try them on but after putting the first one on he would have no part of taking it off in order to try the next one on. It can't have been very comfortable, but he wore these for several hours and only reluctantly agreed to change into pajamas for bed.

One thing i wanted to mention so that it's recorded for posterity is his current pronunciation of out. He says it like he's from the far reaches of Canada so it's something like Ow-UT! He just learned that it means you've finished something, i.e. "run out of milk," in addition to going outside, so he's been walking around yelling it emphatically for the past few days. His newest word-- is above, which he learned this afternoon on the way home from Brenda's. His newest obsession is with all the bridges and overpasses around the city. Several are for the elevated trains, some for the highway, and some that are out of use but used to be for trains. I was explaining that the train tracks are "above us" on the bridge so now he calls the bridges, "a-buh-buh" which is his interpretation of "above us." It's extremely cute.

Silas had a content and slow day so i'll regale you with another Henry tale. We went to the bookstore this evening so that Henry could pick out a book for his friend Helen to take to her birthday party on Saturday. When i told him we were going to the book store he started saying "shh" and holding his finger to his mouth, indicating that we had to be quiet in the book store. When we got there he was so excited that he kept saying "MOMMY!" and then very quietly, "shh." He's got more personality that i sometimes think is possible given his small size.

10 Weeks/ 2 Years, 1 Month, 2 Weeks, 5 Days

Not to wax poetic, but it's interesting how the little things often drive home larger realities. I was shopping at Target yesterday and picked up some Bactine because Henry has had a few scraped knees in the past couple of weeks. Right there in the first aid aisle i had this realization that i'm the mom of a little boy-- and before long, two little boys! Henry is not your stereotypical rambunctious toddler boy which is why i think this hasn't really hit me until recently. What with all the daily walks and the hotter weather necessitating shorts, he's had a series of minor falls resulting in skinned knees-- he's really not my baby anymore!

Henry has also shown a little bit of jealousy towards Silas lately. Silas has a new bumbo chair that lets him sit up unassisted. Henry loves this little chair as well and whenever Silas is in it he wants baby "OUT" so that he can sit in it instead. Sometimes when he wants my undivided attention he'll say "baby night night" to indicate that baby should sleep so that i can focus on Henry. It's pretty mild stuff, but i have a feeling once Silas gets more active we'll have more of these feelings to work through. Should be a learning experience for me as well since i have no personal sibling knowledge to draw upon.

Silas is doing well but not sleeping all that great lately. He's in an evening routine where i get him changed and swaddled and down in his bouncy seat with his pacifier by about 7:30. He'll usually fall asleep and take a little nap and then go to sleep for good anywhere between 9:30 and 11:00. Unfortunately, regardless of what time he goes to sleep, he seems like he's in a habit of waking up at 3 am to eat. The upside is that he's been going right back to sleep after eating, i.e i lay him down and head back to bed-- but i'm missing those really long sleep stretches we were having.

8 Weeks, 2 Days/ 1 Year, 1 Month, 1 Week

Henry had his 2 yr. checkup yesterday and the Dr. thinks he looks great. He's around 50% percentile for weight at 27 lbs. and 75% percentile for height at 35.5 in. We talked to her at length about his physical "delays" and about the appeal that's still pending with the insurance company. She said that she thought his walking gait looked fine and that not jumping at 2 years old is not really a problem-- she said it's the low end of normal, but that if he's not jumping by 3 years then we'll worry. She said the encourage him to jump and bounce and use a trampoline if possible-- she also recommended getting him into a gymnastics-type class if at all possible. I had planned to do that in the fall, so now i'll just see if there are any available later in the summer.

Speech-wise she said he was doing great-- especially since he was low on the speech curve at his 18-month appointment (he had about 5 words at that point.) We've counted around 80 words at this point that he uses spontaneously and she said he was doing a great job of putting words together-- i think he was talking about "new Ralph" and "blue shoes" when she came in the room. He had to get a Hep-A shot and a finger prick to test for lead (which was negative) but he did really great with both. He talked the rest of the day about his "boo-boo" but i think it was mostly because of the sparkly bandage he had on.

Real Sleep! 5 Weeks

Last night, when Silas turned 5 weeks, he slept for 7 hours! Holy sleep batman! In a rare cosmic alignment, i was also able to sleep about 6.5 hours of that. Silas went to sleep at around 10:30 and i woke up at 5:30 a little freaked out. I'm not much for checking on him when he's sleeping (subscribing to the "let sleeping babies lie" philosophy) but this time i did get up to check that he was breathing and shortly thereafter he woke up on his own. I'm feeling quite decent, and perhaps last night will start to make a dent in the dark circles under my eyes. The one thing i know not to expect, is an instant repeat tonight. Hopefully we're on an upward trend, but in general it seems like as soon as you get a taste of the good sleep, babies pull the rug out from under you. In that vein Silas has been fussier than ever today with some actual crying jags that aren't soothed immediately by picking him up.

Oh, in addition to the sleep, which is clearly the most important first in my book, Silas also smiled his first social smiles last evening. He did it when JT was around as well so i have a witness that he was actually smiling at us-- or at least the light. It's not like he's been smiling non-stop, but boy does his face light up when he does crack a smile. We're definitely looking forward to more of these in the coming weeks.

Henry is as energetic as ever and is going through a renewed book phase. He often tells us "bye-bye" so that we'll leave his room and let him read his books in peace. He has to have them in the car while we go to daycare and often tells you he doesn't want to eat or get changed or whatever chore because he wants to "read book." He's also talking more than ever. I've been trying to keep a running list and i think i'm doing a passable job, but it's definitely harder has his vocabulary expands. He's finally putting two words together more frequently (other than "no kitty!") which is a nice development. He seems to be making real progress with his colors as well. For a long time he was very accurate with blue and yellow but now he's added red, white and occasionally green to his stable of correct answers.

By the way, i put up new pictures-- a folder called 23 months from before Silas was born and then one under the new labelling system called "April 07."

4 Weeks, 1 Day/ 2 Years 1 Week, 1 Day

Last night was a good baby night. Silas went to sleep by 10 and slept in two four-hour chunks. It's no 6 hours or anything, but usually after the first sleep chunk, the subsequent ones are never longer than 3 hours. What was even better was that after I took Henry to Brenda's, Silas ate and we both went back to sleep for another solid hour and a half. The past two days, Silas wasn't really sleeping soundly after we got home from taking Henry, so my amount of sleep was pretty negligible. Last night helped me get back ahead of the sleep curve.

Silas is definitely making his way towards the six-week fussy peak that supposedly occurs in all babies (except colicky ones which might not peak until 3-4 months.) He's still a very easy baby in that if he's fussy he just needs to be held, but he does want to be held more and is having a harder time going to sleep on his own. I just keep trying to help soothe him and get him drowsy and then put him down so he doesn't forget how to go to sleep on his own entirely. He is really good about sleeping whenever we're on the go, which definitely helps because i know he'll get solid naps in when we're out on walks or in the car.

It's been so nice this time around to have a close friend within walking distance home with a new baby at the same time i'm on maternity leave. We've been getting together several times a week and going for walks, out for lunch, to the park, etc. It definitely helps lessen the isolation that having a new baby can bring, and between meeting with her and sleeping late, the day is almost over before i even realize it.

Henry is getting more and more active in the last few weeks. From the time he wakes up until he goes to bed (thankfully with a break for a nap) he's rearing to go and in a good, excited mood. He's talking more and learning new words everyday. Right now his favorite word is "new." He's really excited when he gets "new" milk or puts on a "new" shirt. Another thing we realized while JT's parents were here is that he knows the letter "B." I had heard him saying "b" for awhile but couldn't figure out what he meant. Sheree showed me that he could pick out "b" from all his bathtub letters. Now he looks for "b's" when we're reading books.

I asked Brenda yesterday if Henry was still sleeping in the crib at daycare and she said that he's on a cot now with the bigger kids and that actually he's been sleeping better on the cot than in the crib. We haven't really had any sleep issues in his crib, so i don't think we'll be converting his bed to a toddler-bed anytime soon, but it's nice to know the transition has gone so well at daycare.