New Baby Tricks

Thomas is now crawling quite quickly, even when he's in footed jammies. Thomas and George play together with their new tunnel. George will sometimes crawl across the floor with Thomas. The biggest thing that has happened in the last couple days is that Thomas is pulling up! He is 10 months old and pulls up to standing on stools, chair spokes, and even rocking chairs. He still has no idea how to sit back down, though. After a while, he will cry out, I'll go over and ask him if he wants to sit, and he looks at me like "and just how do I do THAT!" I'll take his little hands, tell him to sit while slowly pushing his hands back past his shoulders. When his bottom finally plops, he grins at me and his whole body relaxes. Then, he'll crawl off quickly to where ever he wanted to go.

Hubby asked me if I had photographic evidence of this newest feat and I had to admit that, no, I didn't. I hadn't thought of it. So I'll have to get some good standing shots tomorrow.

Baby Thomas is still speaking his own language, but if you pretend you know the language, you can usually figure it out. So I'm probably the only one who can understand him. Here are some things that he seems to have communicated with more than just body language: light (of course), up, out, down, brother (bubba), "here brother" while handing over a toy, ball, what, get out, and probably some others.

One day, he was pointing to a door knob and said "uh-t". I said, "what's this?" He said, "uh-t" with bright eyes. I said, "door knob." He said, "oor ob." I further said, "this is a door." He said, "oor."

So I've started my thing of naming all the objects around me and narrating all my actions. I've got a new sponge in the house and he's learning English! Or at least American.

New Tricks

Ok, so I've only been meaning to write this blog since Tuesday, and here it is Friday.

Baby Hank continues to delight and charm (as long as I'm within three feet of him). He sprouted a new tooth, right next to the first on the bottom front row. He said "light" again in reference to a light. Quint was playing with light switches, as usual, and as he turned on a light, Hank looked up, pointed to the light and said, "light". He also has said Papa and Mamama. He communicates on a regular basis if I'm tuned in enough to notice. For instance, if you combine this cry with this particular cuddle, it always means that he's tired. If you combine this cry with this wiggle, he needs to burp.

For breakfast, he will eat about 12 ounces of applesauce and oatmeal. For lunch, he usually has about 6 ounces of veggies with meat. For supper, he has about 8 ounces of veggies and 4 ounces of fruit.

I finally figured out a great way to have a toddler paint!!! I've got two clip boards with lots of paper on each. I used a paper plate for a pallet. I put him in his high chair, took off his shirt, and put a clip board in front of him. I held the pallet. I gave him a paint brush this time, instead of just finger painting. After he'd painted for a while, I asked him if he wanted another page. when he said yes, I traded clip boards, moved the wet paint onto the table, leaving a fresh clip board ready to go. In this way, he painted about 12 pictures on Tuesday. And none of them went for so long that they were just solid brown paint. I had fun later looking at the blobs and trying to find pictures there.

A friend commented on facebook that it was funny how I called my cousin Larry, Cousin Larry, and not just Larry. That goes way back to quoting the show Perfect Strangers. Here's the fantastic Dance of Joy!!



And the Bibbi Babka song:


Fantastic show with ridiculous physical comedy.

Sitting up!

Here's the latest shots of my boys! Little Hank sat up for the first time yesterday!! As in, I pose him and he can maintain it for one to two minutes. When he first realized what he was doing, the look of joy and astonishment on his face was priceless!! And because I get to stay home with him, I got to see that face and not just hear about it. For me, that's huge! Here he is sitting up!



Here are both of my boys.
Quint being silly in the tub.
Quint holding Hank's hand.
Quint flying down the stairs with his teddy and blanket.
This hat is just too cute!!
My little leprechaun!
Silly face...

Smiley bubbles.

These pictures are in reverse order so the first one is the most recent and the last one is about a month old.

Computer time

I'm trying to spend more time on the computer working on my accounting class. The real result is more blog entries, facebook time, email checkage, and weather checkage. I've gotta do better.

But here's the daily update on Hank's rash. Since it started leaking clear stuff late last night, we went to the doctor today. He said it wasn't ringworm, but just eczema. OH! So that's why the anti-fungal hasn't been working. Good to know. Hydrocortizone, neosporin, or eucerin are the cures.

Other Hank news is that we had an extended neck sighting the other day! Perhaps 60 seconds straight of both sides of the neck being visible! Right now, he's propped up in the high chair trying to make a rattle do what he wants. We'll see how Quint reacts to him using the chair when they get back from the jump place.

God bless the jump place when I need to study accounting, Papa is home, and it's 105 freakin' degrees outside.

In the TMI category - the planets aligned and sex happened!! EEEEVVVERYone is happier in life now.

In unrelated news, I fell on a rusty screw the other day and cut my thigh pretty bad. But Dammit that spider DIED!!!! So now I need a tetnis shot. Apparently a tetnis shot is good for 10 years unless you cut yourself with something rusty. So why is it supposedly good for 10 years? Not looking forward to that.... The sweet part was that Quint was playing in his pool nearby and asked me several times, "OK?" as in "are you alright?" Finally I said no, I'm not alright. He got out of the pool, stopped what he was doing, came to me and patted things. He had no idea what to do, but thought that concerned patting would help. And it did! It made me smile and quelled the urge to cuss really really loudly.

OK, I gotta get back to studying. Hubby is still at the jump place, but I gotta use my time better.

Things Got Better

I remember when Quint was about 4 months old that suddenly, things seemed easier. I couldn't define how, exactly, but things were just better. I've always thought it was odd in Dick Francis books when he would say simply that "things got better". I get it now.

Monday, I had that feeling for the first time since Hank was born. It suddenly occurred to me that this has suddenly gotten easier. I have no idea if the situation has changed or if I've just gotten used to it. Hank doesn't have to be fed every 2 hours any more. He can go 4 or 6 hours pretty easily. Quint has cut down on needing something done RIGHT NOW simply because I'm nursing Hank.

On the other hand, Quint has turned into the no-monster. He'll just shout no instead of using his words to tell you what he really wants. On the other hand, when I raise my eyebrows and firmly say "NO" he stops asking for whatever.

The irony of my revelation that things are better is that very night Hubby was left home with both babies for nearly 6 hours. Hank got upset and wouldn't take a bottle. Hank cried for so long and so hard that Quint got upset that Hank was upset and so they were both howling when I came in. Hubby was a little wild eyed, very frustrated, and said he had a new found respect for me. I cuddled Quint and asked Hubby to hand me Hank so I could nurse him. With both babies on board, things got quiet. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Earlier, I had asked Cousin 4 how the night was going. He very politely said, "well, things were ok for a few minutes...a couple hours ago."

Hank is 3.5 months old, so this revelation of "easier" has come 2 weeks earlier than I expected. I knew I would need the most help this summer while Hank was the tiniest, and Cousin 4 has filled in that gap quite well. He was here and unemployed for 6 weeks to help me out during the day. Primarily, he picked up toys (restoring my sanity) and bounced the bouncy seat (allowing me to nap). Those two baby related things were a HUGE help, not to mention all the dishes, sweeping, trash taking, and cooking he did.

The other day, Hubby got on my case for how trashy my car was on the inside. Junk and trash accumulate at an astonishing rate and very occasionally, I shovel it all out. During the summer here, me cleaning out my car usually means having my two babies sit in the car in 95 degree heat while I clean out my car. Not happening. And once I bring them all in, I never think about it again. Ever. It's one of those chores that when it goes undone, it only inconveniences me. So it gets skipped. Always.

A while later, Hubby returned from getting my car inspected to find me supervising coloring "try to stay on the paper, honey. Please don't step on the crayons..." folding laundry, listening to the clothes washer and dryer, and listening to Hank be exceptionally frustrated that he couldn't roll over. He took all this in, and apologized. It was very sweet and did wonders for us both. Again, things got better. Better is good.

Oh yeah, and Hank rolled back to front for the first time! That's our new baby trick for this week.

Watching the children and the garden grow....

OK, so we don't have a garden. But I've always liked that line in a song.

It always amazes me when you notice a child's growth from one day to the next. When Quint was a baby, there were some days that you'd pick him up and think, "wow, you weigh more than you did yesterday". Once I heard three people say that about him on the same day, and they hadn't heard each other say it.

Now, Quint is a barrel chested little boy and there are some days I can tell that his barrel has expanded from the previous day. His chest will be deeper from sternum to spine. And usually, within a day or two, a bunch of his shirts don't fit.

Yesterday, Hank had an obvious chest growth. All of a sudden the barrel of his chest is thicker, and at the same time he chunked up a bit. He was wearing a white onesie and when I put him to bed, I swear that thing was looser than when at 10am the next morning. He filled out his onesie overnight. And no, it wasn't a diaper that needed changing. There's more meat on his little arms. So maybe Hank is going to turn into a little chunk like Quint was. I'd really like that. I like fat babies.


Quint had a large first today! He wanted to wear his underpants for the first time. He wore them for about an hour, which ended with an accident, but he stopped the accident, went to the potty and finished up. For 22 months old, I count that as a great success. Here he is showing off his Thomas the Train underpants.

Nannie arrives tomorrow which will be a fun week of trips to the zoo, the train show, the park, the library, all those places that I can't take Quint by myself. Once Hank is content sitting in a stroller, then maybe things like the zoo can work with just one adult. Maybe.... but for now, we have to wait for Aunt D or Nannie or Nina to come to town.

And here's a video for Aunt J and chids. I call it confession time.

Laughing baby

Little Hank is about 7 weeks old and is giving us reactionary smiles quite a bit now. Especially at 4am when they are needed the most. The really cute part is that we've caught him laughing some! I'll hear a funny little noise and look down at the bouncy seat to find him smiling. Then he will belly laugh again and smile again. Priceless! It will be very hard to catch on video though. The whole thing usually lasts about 15 seconds.

I hope this is an indicator that he will have a positive outlook on life in general.

First smile?!

Last night, I think that Hank smiled at me for the first time!

It was somewhere between 1am and 5am, who the hell knows when. He had just finished nursing and burping and I held him close to my face, said Hi and smiled really big. He looked at me like I was nuts, and then gave a little grin! I sat there for a minute thinking, "am I just imagining that? Isn't this way too early?" So I waited a couple minutes and did that again. Once again, he looked at me like I was nuts, and then gave the same little grin!

Now begins the circus type antics to try to get more smiles out of my four week old baby!

I looked it up, and first smiles can be expected between 4 and 6 weeks old. So maybe it was the real thing! I'm counting it! SO THERE!!

In other news, I had the (non-female) annual physical today including an EKG. Yes, I'm 33 and had an EKG. That's because my blood pressure is being managed. Everything turned out fine, but have you ever tried to get a comprehensive exam from a doctor while you've got a 21 month old and a 4 week old?! I took a friend with me to help with the kids and she brought her son with her - who was a big help too! But that made 6 people in a room the size of a walk in closet. And of course the infant had a blow out diaper and needed a whole outfit change. Quint was great if a bit all over the place with his toy trucks. Thankfully, my doctor has 4 girls, including a set of twins and was able to block all that stuff out and concentrate on me. My friend handled dressing the infant and was the proud recipient of vomit on both of her shirts.

I've managed to fill out the birth announcements today and they only lack postage.

34 weeks and a boy in the dirt

This blog could easily be named "way too many pictures" but you'll just have to deal with it.

Here's me today at 34 weeks pregnant with Quint, as always, really wanting to poke in the belly button. It kind of hurts to poke my belly button in, so the game is that Quint dives for it and I cover it up. I'm feeling about a thousand times better now that I can always get at least 4 or 5 hours of continuous sleep per night. It lets me handle various....pains..... better which makes me a better mom and wife in the evenings. It's always more fun to have a mom and wife who isn't impatient and snappy because she'd rather be soaking in a tub or laying down. Life is better with Ambien!


Quint absolutely loves the hammock. Anything that swings or rocks is an "eeee-awww" as in "yea-haw! Ride the pony!"

Here's Quint's latest photo-op in the yard with his tiny mower.

Putting sticks in the fire pit.

Lately, when I say, "smile for the camera," I get this for some reason.

Pouring dirt is fun!

What does it taste like?

I got a bunch of dirt in my shoe!

I promise, as a 100% boy, to always love playing in the dirt.

Quint is 19 months old, is gaining new words by the day, is amazingly cute, and got a head to toe scrubbing right after these pictures were taken.

Speaking of new words, today I finally figured out that "is-shoes" are TISSUES!! Considering he's had a runny nose for 2 weeks, you'd think I have figured that out quicker! But "tissues" are also napkins or paper towels, so give me a little credit. He also recently correctly identified my best friend's picture from the collection on the walls. Since she lives 800 miles away, this is impressive! When I put some bigger shoes on him the other day, he said "oooooo! New shoes!" He was also very impressed and excited by the wall of yogurt at Walmart the other day. He loves to be swept off his feet, tickled and tossed on some soft surface. Sometimes he will even lay down on the floor and say, "tickle, tickle" in order to get you to tickle him.

29 weeks pregnant & 18 months old

Who's that dark side bad guy with the shriveled face in the third prequel of Star Wars? Here's my son as him. Here's my son as the adorable wizard from Middle Earth.And here he is as the adorable baby Rocky Balboa. (Cue the Rocky theme music.)
Here's the funniest shot of my belly button.

I'm 29 weeks pregnant and little Rastus has learned how to use his heels! He seems to be trying to expand all his edges at once to take over the world in there. He'll be tapping on my left hip bone, and a millisecond later, tapping on my right ribs. Two minutes later, he punches my left ribs and kicks straight down into my guts. More than once a day, he gives me an "ooff" worthy shove. He also seems to just vibrate sometimes. But as with Quint, when his daddy tells him to calm down and let me sleep, he DOES!

Here's the best shot of my hair.

The last two days, I've been more comfortable and happier, but then again, I've refilled my Zoloft and haven't been actively nesting as much and therefore being too active. Also, Hubby and I went ahead and had the very un-fun conversation about our finances, so I'm no longer dreading that. Also, the doctor said my blood pressure was still looking good yesterday.

Quint was 18 months old yesterday! And I even thought to mark his height on the door frame and date it. He's learning more day by day and is saying more and more as well. Our current frustrating word seems to be "hot" which he also calls my hat. He will point to hot food and say hot. He will pat the end table surface and say hot. He will point to cold food and say hot. So I'm sure we'll have a breakthrough in the next few days, but it's a little frustrating right now. The last time we were at an impass like this, he seemed to be pointing to everything and saying "kitty" including the cat. Finally, it dawned on me that he was saying "get it" and he looked so relieved when I finally got it for him.

The other day, I was putting lotion on his legs and saying, "lotion feels gooooood" and he said quite clearly, "yes it does."

Last Thursday, I went to daycare with him to learn things from Priscilla. If we have to give her up, I'd like to mine her for all the advice possible before we have to part with her. I wanted to see how she did messy things like paint and play-doh and keep her carpet clean. I wanted to see how she got the kids to eat broccoli and fresh spinach and other unlikely pre-school kid foods. I learned a great deal, but the process was rather traumatic for little Quint.

He was incredibly jealous and just sobbed for a lot of the day. Priscilla finally told me around lunch time that, while she appreciated me voluntering help at the daycare, she said I couldn't come back until Quint was at least 3 years old. Even if I had Quint on one leg and another child on my other leg, reading them a book, Quint did not look comfortable. And when I fed the 4 month old a bottle! OMG! His little lip poked out and he cried big fat tears the whole time. Let me tell you - this summer is going to be FUN!

We went home after lunch and before naptime and it was nearly bedtime before he was acting like himself again. I told him several times once we were home that the next day he was going to Priscilla's and I was not going to stay with him. He was fine the next morning when I dropped him off.

But since I went to Priscilla's and read countless books to Jacob, Quint has been really interested in his books and I bet we read 5 books a day now! Or rather, three books, with some twice through. Also in the last week, he can sit and pay attention through a whole lot of flash cards. Upstairs, we have the colors and shapes cards and downstairs we have the animal alphabet cards. Usually, we can get through 2/3 of the 52 animal alphabet cards before he looses interest or has more fun scattering them. With the colors and shapes cards, I can get through all of them, and then re-present some of them by collecting all the reds together, and all the greens together, etc. We know he knows yellow and green, so far. With his new found attention span, if anyone would like to buy him some new books or flash cards, you can click here to go to amazon.com and have them shipped to the house!

He loves to be outside and walk circles around our cars. He's very good about coming back closer when we tell him he's gone too far. He knows that to go outside, he must have shoes and THEN a coat. So sometimes, he will bring us his shoes or his coat to try to get the process started. Or just repeat "shoes?" until we address the issue.

My little guy is growing up and seems less like a baby each day, which is kinda sad. On the other hand, it will be weird to have a completely helpless infant again this summer.

Things are better!

Have I mentioned that things in general are a tiny bit better? My class still sucks and I have a pitiful teacher BUT I have contact with a wonderful teacher who has taught me enough to hope that I might pass the class with her help.

Also, I had amazing nausea that would take over half of my day and keep me from getting little chores (or big chores) done in the morning. But now I have a wonder-drug that stops the nausea in it's tracks! It doesn't make me sleepy or anything else weird, it just STOPS THE NAUSEA!!! It's amazing!! I might start to gain some weight now.

So between those two things, there's been a lightening of the weight off my shoulders. I have hope that I can pass this class, and I don't have to spend so much time each morning holding down the floor, waiting for my stomach to stop rolling.

Quint started doing a new trick this weekend! He started stacking blocks! Usually, the playing with blocks goes like this: I build something tallish and he knocks it down gleefully. But this weekend, both with the big rubbery blocks and with the smaller wood blocks, he stacked them. Once even, he stacked a tall skinny one on top of a small skinny one, making a really tall, skinny thing. That's a level of co-ordination that he hasn't had before. When he put the tall skinny on top of the short skinny, he was amazed that it stayed up. His eyes lit up and he smiled and clapped!

Also, now that he can hear better (tubes put in his ears) he can say a few more things and understands a whole lot more. He can actually say "cat" now instead of "dat". Now, when we ask him if he's hungry, he can say something that only Hubby and I understand as "hungry". He understands when we ask him if he would like a nap, a diaper change, a drink, or to go upstairs/downstairs. It's warmer upstairs and there are different toys.

Because he is walking so much now, we'll find parts of toys all over the place. And occasionally, we'll find non-trash in the trash. I finally found the purple ball to the ball-popper in a drawer in the kitchen. Perhaps we need a lid for the kitchen trashcan. A sippy cup was in the trash in his bedroom. Lots of things get put in the top of the diaper champ. I've bought him some new containers for him to put things into. This weekend while I was holding down the futon with my lovely cold, he brought me, one a a time, all the tubes of desetin, lotion, and whatnot from the upstairs changing table. Stupid me, I told him to go put the desetin back but didn't check to see if it got back. Hubby found it under our bed later. The most alarming aspect of this new trend is that Hubby's State Guard beret is missing. He only needs it once a month, but we can't find it. Usually, where ever he takes it off when he first comes home, it sits right there for a month and we know where it is when he needs it again. This month, it went missing. Wonder where Quint put it.

I'll have to start finding all the parts to the toys each night so things can't get too lost. That ought to be fun! Maybe just the critical toys. Like the stool we have with his name carved into the top. The wooden letters can be taken out. I need to find his whole name each night. We can buy more balls for the ball popper. Does it really matter if a few blocks go missing? He's not really playing with the puzzles yet. We certainly don't have 26 refrigerator letters any more.

We've got to start working on teaching him to go down stairs, soon.