tons of photos

So today I took a friends' advice and dug a grand hole in the yard with my son. Our yard has limited toddler fun resources, but lots of space. It was about 50 degrees - warm for lately. It took about 15 minutes of me digging and playing before he really got it, but then he didn't want to stop. We had sweetgum-tree-stickerball-people, shelters made from tree bark, flags made from leaves, and lots and lots of sticks in the damp earth. All eventually got whacked with a plastic shovel, but who cares. AND we got really dirty. Which is tricky to accomplish in the winter.

Here's Hank in his hanging outside ewok uniform.

Cutie pie

And here's your Where's Waldo quiz for the day. Can you find where Sir Topham Hat is hiding?

Getting warmer

There he is! Quint moves these wall stickers around most days.

And here's what the boy's room looks like at the moment. It is forever a work in progress.

My boys

Ok, I've gotten a lot done on my class, so I'm rewarding myself with a blog entry. But it's mostly pictures, so ENJOY!

So I got silly with the shampoo process...
Quint had an odd reaction to seeing Hank in his exersaucer type thingy for the first time. Hank loved it!
Quint: Mama! Get him outta there!
Hank: Ladidida...Cool, check out that baby in the mirror!
We lent this to a friend for a few months and she returned it cleaner than I've ever seen it. Check out that clear plastic thing on the right. I had no idea you could get it actually CLEAR!!
Quint entering the pool in his unique way...
Quint dressed as a Little House on the Prairie
character. Despite this face, he really did
like the overalls.




Papa and HankHank and Papa


Papa: Quint, Don't punch your brother!
Quint: My life was PERFECT before you came!
Hank: Just try it wise-guy. One day I'll be taller than you.

All my boys!
Quint the little angel....maybe devilish angel...

Random thoughts

Wow, 11 days since I last posted! In short, here's the events that have happened that have not really been covered in the blog: (they are not in order)

Mom visited for 10 days. Hubby was out of town for 7 days of that. Cousin 4 has moved in and seems to have fit seamlessly into our lives. Mom, the boys and I went to the zoo, and to see the train display at a local botanical gardens. Mom went on a motorcycle ride with Cousin 4. The boys, Nina, Nina's granddaughter and I went to a bouncy house indoor playground, had a blast, and managed not to paralyze ourselves due to overexertion . The heat wave has driven us indoors, for the most part. I realized today that Quint hasn't gotten really dirty in 4 days - a crime for a boy of nearly 2! Hank had his 2 month checkup and is a healthy, normal little boy.

Super Hank!!

The boys together.

Mom (AKA Nannie) is taken for a ride!

Hank looking more like Hank than
like a startled frog.

Quint and Nannie at the train display.

Nannie and Quint on the zoo carousel.
We rode it a total of 8 times.

Nannie and Hank.

Give us a wave, Hank.

Hank now weighs 11 pounds! He is fully within regular standards, but is taller and slimmer than Quint was. I had noticed this on some of my favorite baby outfits. Hank is outgrowing them vertically, while they are still baggy around the middle. He smiles a lot while he's on the changing table. He coos a lot. He has what his doctor is calling colic several nights a week. I thought it was due to virtually any strong spice. But last night, I had some wonderfully spicy chili (garlic included!) with no ill effects for little Hank. So maybe I can stop eating only the blandest of foods.

My quest for bland yet yummy foods has prompted me to try cooking some simple yet delicious meals. I've recently roasted a whole chicken and served it with green beans, flaky biscuits, hominy, and a berry-yogurt dessert. The three men I fed this to raved and raved about the meal. Cousin 4 made us all french toast for supper recently and it was the first time I'd loved it.

Quint has, just today, been really verbal and has strung together several words to make near sentences. "Chocolate milk yummy!" was the cutest. He probably used 20 new words today. These are words that I knew he knew what they meant, but he had never actually said them. He talked of coupling rail cars, which he calls rail trucks due to Thomas the Train. I also think he was saying "shunt" while playing with his little train today. He would say this while shunting a couple of cars to the side. He LOVES his little plastic train set. Yet when the little cars derail and lay on their side, he seems to panic! It's as if he thinks someone is hurt or hurting. Perhaps the over-personification of Thomas and friends has its' downside.

Really random and detached thoughts - one sentence has nothing to do with the next. I have to do a load of baby laundry every other day. We've managed to clean out the dryer vent (an annual cuss-fest) without any actual cussing! I try to only go to the grocery store twice a week now - not that I need that many groceries, it just seems harder to put off a cheeto deficiency. I bought 376 diapers the other day for $50.45 - that's about 16 cents a diaper!! I've cooked several meals lately for the four of us with plates for about $4-5.00 per meal. That's for the whole meal, not per person. ($3 chicken, 35 cent hominy, 70 cent green beans, $1.30 flaky biscuits.) I am awesome!! Yet I've had some trouble with depression due to my lack of exercise due to the heatwave.

Sis's Visit

My wonderful sister came to visit last Sunday and just left a few minutes ago. She came for vacation and to meet my new baby Hank.

While she was in town, we did three big things that I can't do my myself right now: Go to the park, go to the zoo, and see the train exhibit at a local botanical gardens. It's really hard to chase a nearly 2 year old while holding a newborn. Once Hank can hold up his head and therefore be strapped to my chest, this will change (some). So for all these events, one of us would chase Quint and the other keep Hank happy.

So here's our photo collection from the last week. Please note the placement of the raisins.

Baby Hank

Uncle Sam wants YOU!

At the park. Aunt D hates to have
her picture taken so I'm relying on

my super zoom here.

Cedar chips are really cool!

Aunt D and Hank

Hank's standard look right now.
Kind of like a startled frog.
I'm confident that he'll grow out of it.
A little smile!

A little more smile!
At the zoo!
On the zoo train.
Elephants!
Giraffes! This is where I finally relaxed and
tried to let Quint run free without me completely
freaking out. There were fewer people near this
exhibit and Quint was running slower. The combo
let me let him wander free.
At the train exhibit the next day, my
"where is my kid!" panic had returned because
it seemed that Quint and I stayed on opposite
sides of the exhibit for a while. I finally chilled a little.

I finally got this picture of Quint after about 90 minutes.

The first good hour of this exhibit, Quint was running around shouting "TRAINS! TRAINS!" or "CHOO CHOOS!! CHOO CHOOS!!" about ever three seconds. By the time I could get a still shot of him, he was sitting where he knew the train would come right by him about ever 60 seconds. Then he would softly say, "train, train" every time it rolled by. Very worth it.

THANKS SIS!!

Quint and Hank

Long overdue, I know, but I've been a bit busy. Here's the video of Quint first seeing his little brother. I think I'm going to call the new baby Hank on my blog here.



Quint kept touching his hands to see if he was real. Soooo cute!

Quint is handling being a big brother pretty well. Sometimes he also whimpers when Hank is crying, and sometimes he looks disappointed when I'm nursing Hank, but that's all.

I know I haven't talked too much about Hank yet, but Quint does more interesting stuff than Hank right now. Hank sleeps a lot, cries when he's hungry or wet, and then goes back to sleep. That's about it. He's getting cuter by the day. He likes a pacifier and the bouncy seat. He still has his froggy legs.

And he's crying now so my blog time is up!

Pop Quiz!

Alright, here's your pop quiz for the day! The next two pictures show Nannie holding a grandson. But which grandson is which?!
And here are two of the better family portraits from our most recent attempt.


Things are going well here! I feel great, Quint's nose finally stopped running, little Hank is still a relatively easy baby, and Hubby's work schedule has seriously improved.

The cicadas are still deafening outside our house and the little bodies are piling up in our driveway. There are enough of them in the front yard that it stinks a bit. They should all die sometime before the end of June

We've been on either two or three walks as a whole family. I was so dreading the 6 weeks of recovery from birth - that's how long it took for me to enjoy a walk with Quint. But at just under 2 weeks, this time, I'm enjoying our standard 2 mile walks. So far, Papa has been doing the hard pushing up the hills, but I'll get stronger. Having not exercised at all for about 4 or 5 months, I thought I wouldn't be able to do a 2 mile walk right off the bat. I lack some strength for pushing that heavy double stroller uphill, and I have to stop to catch my breath, but I'm easily able to do the walk.

Hubby took Quint to work with him yesterday and I got to have several hours with just me and little Hank. Wow is one baby easy! I got a lot of things done despite my 2 hour conversation with my sister (actually possible without a toddler present) and the two pieces of cake I ate as soon as Quint and Papa left.

Due to Hank's perpetual dirty diaper, he has a bit of diaper rash which I think might have been what kept us all up last night. It hurts when that rash gets wet! It also could have been that he didn't want to be alone. I've been trying to return to my own bed and (shocker!) actually sharing a bed with my husband. For these first two weeks, I've slept in the same room as Hank to make night feedings easier on me. The last several nights, I've started out in our bed, and for one reason or another, I return to the bed in Hank's room.

Quint continues to be a voracious reader! Not that he can read, of course, but he really loves books. I need to figure out a coordinated way to nurse one baby while reading a book to Quint. He can identify lots of animals (where's the giraffe) and can name a few. The same with shapes and colors. He has recently put together that the sound of an airplane goes with the visual of an airplane, and also that his Fisher Price Little People plane is an airplane. So for the first time yesterday, he pretended to fly the Little People plane around the room instead of just rolling it on the floor. For a while there, any vehicle with wheels was a choo-choo, but now he's starting to understand that this is a bus, that is a truck, etc.

Oh, and there he is awake, so my blog time is up!

(time passes)

OK, both boys are down for a nap and oddly, I don't need one.

Hank and I went to the doctor today to get his weight checked. He was
7 lbs. 11oz at birth,
7 lbs. 2 oz when he went home
7 lbs. 4 oz on day 4 and (drum roll please...)
8 lbs. 3 oz on day 16! No wonder those Newborn onesies seemed kind of small! So despite everyone around him being sick, he has gained quite well!