Quick Update

Here are some pics Naomi took with her phone this week (below). Unfortunately she had to give her notice yesterday. I didn't realize she lived in Bentonville and has been driving an hour here and back every day. She has been offered a job closer to home, but will stay until April 3rd (next Friday).

After that, I've decided to be a stay-at-home, work-from-home Mom. I will get up and work a couple of hours in the morning before the kids wake up, and then a few hours at night after they go to bed. If I can get in an hour during the day when they are both asleep, so much the better.









Benjamin is getting better and better at describing things, asking questions, etc. He will watch his shows on TV and say things like "Did it go up Mom? Did it go up?" or "Is he crying Mom?" Also, when he is expecting someone to come to the house he will say something like "Is Naomi home?"

I took him to a dinosaur event at the Springdale Public Library last Saturday. He listened to a couple of the books they read and then that was about it for his attention span. He was hungry and kept saying "Some mac cheese mom? Some pea'butter jelly?" Plus it started at 11:00 and noon is his naptime, so we had to leave before the craft and singing and dancing. It was still fun though. When we got back out to the car, there was a black mini-SUV parked beside us and he pointed to it and said "That Mimama's car?" ("Mimama" is Rob's Mom who has a black Mercedes SUV).

He is also still learning new words, but is stubborn and won't tell you what they say if you hold the word cards up for him. Although, he did get "dog" last night (it was the first card I held up) but then he was being goofy and saying every card I held up was "dog".

He is also starting to be able to sing parts of songs. I'll ask him what he wants to sing, then I'll sing part and then stop and he'll fill in. It's really cute.

Speaking of cute, I found him in his room last night with the baby wipes cleaning up the "poop" from his doll (my old Cabage Patch Kid). I got some video. I'll see if I can get Rob to clip it so I can post. Just for the record, there really wasn't any poop. He is getting good at pretending. He also pretends to "fix" everything with his tools and still plays with his toolbench almost every day.

Jack is doing fantastic. He is getting better at sitting up by himself for longer periods of time. He is babbling more (dada dadada da da) and screeching less and continues to sleep well and eat LOTS. He is now on 3 babyfood meals/day. We put him down about 6pm and he wakes up usually just once between then and 6 or 7am.

I started giving both kids a bath at the same time. Jack seems to really like the infant seat and kicks and splashes. Ben likes to "wash baby" by pouring water on Jack with his cup.

Guess that's all for now. Best get back to work!

Kiddo Update

Jack's 6 month shots visit was February 26th. Here are his "stats" as of that date:
Weight: 18.79 lbs (!!!!)
Height: 27.01 inches
Head Circumference: 17.8 inches

He is now in the 75 percentile. At his 2 week he was in the 25%, and at his 3 month he was in the 50%, so the Pediatrician was pleased. He is also proportional, so he is not in the 75% in weight, but only 50% in height, etc.

He is also now in Ben's 12 - 18 month clothes already! I don't think the hand-me-downs will work for long before I have to buy 2 sets of clothes for them. Ben wasn't 18 pounds until he was 8 months old. Jack already has him beat by 2 months.

Jack also has been sleeping great again. 2 nights this week he slept from 6:30 or 7pm until 5 or 6am without waking once and after breaking out of his swaddle - and no paci! What a great kid!

Here are a couple of pics of Jack - you can see how big he is getting. He's starting to be able to sit up by himself, although he's still pretty active and so will fall over.

(Pic 1) With his favorite giraffe toy.

(Pic 2) With Emily this week during our warm weather days (in an 18 month onesie and 12 month jeans).


Ben is getting just smarter and smarter. He is using complete sentences now and will say things like "Is it broken Mommy?" or "Do 'itsy spider' Mommy?" So cute! He is also watching Mary Poppins a lot now and seems to like the "Chim Chiminey" song and dance. Sometimes he will get up and start dancing and say "I'm dancin' Mommy. I'm dancin'." He has started identifying colors more lately too and the other day counted the buttons on Jack's shirt.

Our latest fun activity after Jack goes to bed at night is to build a "fort" by putting the couch cusions on the coffee table and resting the other end on the couch, then covering the ends with blankets. He can crawl under there and still see the TV from under the coffee table. So.. "Build fort Mommy?" is another new phrase.

Since the time change, Ben has been sleeping from 8pm to 6:30 or 7am, so that's much better for Mom and Dad!
Still no progress on the potty training thing. We keep asking him if he wants to use the "big potty" or "his potty" which I moved into his room thinking the privacy might help, but he just shakes his head and says "no".

Here are some recent pics of Ben:




Eating a grilled ham and cheese today.

Today is Emily's last day and our new Nanny, Naomi, starts on Monday. She just found out she is pregnant, so we'll be looking for a new Nanny again before we know it, but I'm looking forward to Naomi starting. I also found out that her middle name is Katherine (mine is Catherine with a C) and her birthday is November 2nd (mine is the 4th) so that's kinda neat. Her first doctor's appointment is on the 24th, so she'll find out the due date and all that jazz then. Everyone cross your fingers that she is one of the lucky ones who does not get any morning sickness at all. =-)

Sorry for the long delay between posts. It's been getting pretty busy around here!

Latest updates

I think Jack has hit a growth spurt. He has been waking up around 2:30-3:00am to eat, then up again between 5 and 6 to eat, then is already hungry again at 8. I have started him on oatmeal with fruit baby food mixed in for the 8ish feeding, then he'll drink 6oz every 3 hours and get a veggie in the afternoon around 3. He has started in with the "buh" sound now and is doing lots of what can only be called screeching. heh. He is also a droolin' fool. I don't think the teeth are quite ready to come through yet though. We're still trying to swaddle him for sleeping 'cause otherwise he gets his hands all up in his face and wakes himself up. He is a little Hoodini though and often gets an arm out within seconds of falling asleep. He's got his 6 month appointment on the 26th of this month (which is next Thursday).

Ben started on the probiotic chocolate several days ago and is doing great. I'm hoping within' a couple of weeks we can ween him off the Miralax and he'll just be a normal kid (fingers crossed and all good thoughts appreciated). Today he also ate a whole container of Danactive probiotic yoghurt. He never begs for cookies or candy anymore because he can have the healthy chocolate any time he wants. Now if we can just get him to sleep past 6am...

Ben's favorite words right now are "broken" and "stuck". Anything that doesn't behave normally is, of course, "broken" (including arms, lights that are turned off, etc.) and anything that isn't moving is "stuck". He has been jabbering away with lots of sentances - lots of which I can't understand, but it's neat that he is enjoying discribing things and talking about them. He seems to have lost interest in the reading this past week, but I'm sure he will pick it back up shortly. He is one of those kids who will do things on his own time table, not anyone else's and probably knows a lot more than he is saying. We'll just let it all sink in for awhile and then next month I expect we will find out that he can read quite a few new words. I've been working on colors with him more now that I know he actually knows what color blue is. I think he knows yellow/orange too but they are sometimes so close that he gets them confused.

Both the boys are just the sweetest kids, happy and laughing most of the time. I'll have to post the video Rob took of Ben the other day doing DDR.

More pics of the boys from today

The week in review

Finally we have power and internet/cable again!

The latest on the boys...

Ben's favorite phrase is now "You okay?" He also loves giving big hugs and saying "I you, Mommy" and "I you, Daddy" (I love you) - oh and kisses too. One day I even got my eyes and eyebrows and hair kissed. =-) He also loves jumping and doing somersaults (you have to help him though). The other day when it was warm I took him with me to the park to walk. He walked beside the stroller holding onto the side and saying "Faster Mommy, faster!"

Jack has been blowing raspberries lots and making all kinds of new sounds and squeals. He loves his walker and is able to move around in it, although it's probably all accidental. He is a fantastic sleeper too. He goes to bed between 5 and 6 and wakes up around 4am to eat, then back to sleep until 6ish. At this age, Ben was still waking every 2 hours or so.

Speaking of which, Ben does still wake up at night fairly often - like last night - up at 1am and 2am for no apparent reason other than to yell "Mommy!" and then go back to sleep after I went in there and tucked him back in.

I'm sure there is a lot more that I'm leaving out. Now that we have power and internet again I can post more often.

Video Attempt

Ring-around-the-rosey

I'm working on getting the video, but here are a few pictures. Unfortunately the best ones are out of focus (but I'm posting them anyway). So this is Ben and his cousin Havyn who is 2 months younger than him.










And one of Jack playing in his swing...