Bike!

Jack finally got to try his new bike out last weekend and he loved it!  He did great for the first time!  

 

He wasn't at all scared and never fell off.  Of course, Kenny was never more than a few inches away, so he didn't have much chance to fall, and he has training wheels too of course.  I only freaked out once as we were going down a big hill to the lake, but of course, it turned out fine. 

 

Max and I followed behind and watched in awe of our perfect little life.  Watching your husband so lovingly explain how to ride a bike to your child is really pretty amazing.

Here's a short video clip of the very first attempts.  So maybe I freaked out twice...what can I say?

Beauty School Dropout

So most kids take the scissors to their hair at some point and I guess we could still see that happen in the future...but if so, there won't be much I can say about it since I am completely to blame for butchering Jack's hair, just before his big 3rd birthday party. :(

 

I'm still upset about it.  I always cut his hair and it's always been fine...until this week.  I'm sorry Jack - at least it's not in the front!  I'm hopeful it'll grow back quickly.  It's not completely scalped, just really short! :(

SIX months old!

Where is that pause button??  Six months?  Is that really possible?  I can't believe it. But look...just look at that precious smile! 

This month brought more smiles, more sounds and less sleep!  He definitely found his voice (or the volume knob) and started to make sounds just for fun, or just to be heard. He loves blowing raspberries and squealing!

This was also the month when we started to explore food a bit.  We're doing things a bit different with Max than we did with Jack, mostly because Jack wasn't still nursing at this point.  But also because Jack is a very picky eater and while I know most toddlers are, I think some of the choices we made with exposing him to food probably played into that a little bit as well.  In short I'd say we're letting Max lead the way a bit more than we did with Jack.  We have tried cereal and some fruit and veggie purees but we're also letting him feed himself real food, which we didn't do with Jack until much much later.  Anyway, it's going well, and we're all having fun with it I think!  Here he is licking the bowl...

 

trying rice crackers...

and a giant grin after feeding himself a big hunk of avocado! YUM!

His 6 month stats:

     weight: 17lbs 5 ounces (50th %)

     length: 26" (50th %)

     head: 18" (90th % ) - still on the chart!

Interestingly he's almost exactly the same size as Jack was at 6 months!  He eats so much better than Jack ever did that I can't really believe they are the same size.

Sleep, or the lack thereof, was probably our biggest issue.  It's a good thing he's so cute and smiley, let me tell you.  He's still up 1-4 times a night.  It's very inconsistent and seems to have no pattern.  The pediatrician suggested we let him cry it out at this point, but I'm no fan, so I'll stop whining.  But Max, whenever you're ready, Momma would sure love a good night's sleep.  Daddy would too.  Whenever you're ready!  We're working on a solid nap/eating schedule, but until he's sleeping well at night, it's kind of hard to control.  He's taking 2-3 naps and eating 5-6 times a day for the most part, but can't go much longer than 3 hours at a time during the day between nursing or a bottle. We'll get there though, and until we do, we'll be a little loopy, but that's ok! :)!

Max had his first playdate with Henry this month, which was a lot of fun.  These guys are just a couple of weeks apart and I hope they will be good buddies!

I know it looks like he spends all of his time in the exersaucer, and he does love being in there, but mostly that's the easiest place for me to get good pictures of him!  He's sitting on his own pretty well, but not quite well enough for me to walk away and get the camera.  In the next few weeks I think he'll be there.  He gets stronger every day!

We're definitely getting the hang of this family of 4 thing and some days I'm not sure how we lived so long without Max!  He's so sweet and keeps us all smiling.  Especially Jack.  I really never expected Jack and Max to like each other until they were old enough to play together.  But they both just light up when they see each other.  It's so neat to see and I'm just so thankful.  I'm sure it won't always be like that, but for now, I love watching them interact and am head over heels in love with these two red-headed cutie pies!  How'd I get so lucky?

 

THREE on 3/3

Three was a big deal in our house this week.  Jack turned THREE on the 3rd day of the 3rd month!

It was a school day, and his party wasn't for a few weeks, but he woke up with a smile on his face when he found Kenny and I dancing in his room to the birthday song!  There were a few presents set aside for him to open early that morning but the biggest excitement came from finding a bouquet of balloons on the doorstep from Eddie and Audrey!  And what a perfect bunch of balloons it was - a 3, a lion and a T-REX! 

 

Eventually it was time to go to school and share cupcakes with the other Orange Birds! Dinosaur cupcakes of course! 

 

I think he had a pretty good day at school being the birthday boy.  After school we all went to Galaxy Diner for dinner before coming home to open more presents.  French toast with powdered sugar on top for dinner - what more could a 3 year old ask for?

We gave him a bike and he was SO excited.  The next morning he asked if he could ride it to school!  He actually hasn't ridden it yet since the helmet we got to go with it was too small for his giant head.  The new one came this week so we're hoping to get outside today and test it out.

 

His party is next weekend and I'm sure he'll be just as excited all over again!  

Three so far has been pretty good.   Jack's such a curious child.  Always wanting to know when and where and why.  And a very sweet child (most of the time).  

He still needs hugs and snuggles and still gets so excited to see us at the end of the day. 

He loves his little brother like no other.  It's so wonderful to watch.  Though when asked if he wants another sibling, the answer is always "not yet" or "one at a time Momma!" Fair enough.  I'd agree with both of those statements.  

He still needs his blankie and his monkey and is still very much a little boy.  

He doesn't like to be woken up and likes to have a few minutes to wake up before he can talk to anyone.  

He's really into dinosaurs, of course, but also coloring and cutting and trains.  

He needs THREE (this changed when he turned 3) books with Daddy before bed each night and then some snuggles to fall asleep.  

He hates taking a bath, until he's in the bath and then he never wants to get out.  

He learned to love swings at school this year after 2 years of trying to convince him swings were fun.  

He loves walking places instead of taking the car! He knows where things are and how to get there.  It's kind of odd I think, but he pays attention I guess.  

He shows some interest in the potty from time to time but still isn't all too keen on it.

Eating is still low on his priority list, but he's doing a little better with it I think.  He's still too small in the waist for 2Ts but has to have 3Ts for length.   His stats were 28.25 lbs (25th %) and 37" tall (50th%).  That's an improvement over his 2.5 year appt where he was barely above the 5th percentile for weight.  YAY!

He talks nonstop.  We sometimes wonder how we (not the chattiest of folks) gave birth to someone who never stops talking.  Ever.  Most of it's cute at least. 

I hope that three will bring more of those good things and fewer tantrums and meltdowns, but I guess only time will tell.   

Happy birthday to my sweet Jack - I  love you buddy!

5 months old

I'm a little late again, but last week, Max turned 5 months old!  And an interesting month it was!  Pneumonia, a stomach bug, and another cold kept him pretty under the weather for a few weeks of it. For the most part, he smiled right on through it though...

 

Being sick seemed to reset something in him though and the amazing sleeper he'd been since birth pretty much disappeared.  He has gotten up once a night pretty much since they told us to stop waking him up at night and all of a sudden he was up every couple of hours.  I wish I could say that went away with the sickness, but it didn't.  He's still up anywhere from 1 to 4 times a night, usually 3.  Yes, we've very tired!  It's a really good thing he's so cute!

In the same vein, instead of dropping a bottle like most babies do as they get older, he added one.  Instead of making it 4 hours between bottles, he seems to only make it 3 now. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep nursing as I couldn't keep up with the volume he was drinking, but after drinking more nursing tea than I ever wanted and eating lots of oatmeal and pumping a lot more often, I was able to get my supply to meet his demand!  He's drinking 18 ounces at school during the day and still nursing 3 other times during the day and then however many times at night.  He's one hungry monkey!  We tried cereal in hopes of satiating him a bit, but it didn't really change anything.

He really started talking a lot this month too.  He coos constantly if he's playing or when he wakes in the night.  I'll just hear these sweet little coos over the monitor and sometimes he'll just chat a bit and then go on back to sleep.  He's so very curious about everything and he's definitely in the phase where he puts everything in his mouth.  He is great at holding on to things and getting those very things in his mouth or wherever he wants them to go.  His brain and his hands seem to finally be working together.  Sometimes he can even get his pacifier in his mouth all alone. 

He moved to the crib and did well, but then had to go back to his sleeper because he got so congested that he needed to be upright again.  He pretty much only likes being upright when he's awake too.  He loves being in the exersaucer or just sitting in your lap.  In the bathtub he'll even try to pull himself up from the inclined part of the tub so he's sitting upright.

For all of the changes that month 5 brought, Max really seems very happy.  Everywhere we go, he just smiles and people always ask if he's always that happy.  He really is, unless he's hungry!  He's a complete joy and I just keep telling myself,  when I'm so tired I can barely think straight, that one day pretty soon he won't want anything to do with me and I'd better cherish these moments while I can.  He's getting so big so fast...I wish I could slow it down a little.  But he gets cuter and sweeter every day and we just can't get enough of him.  We love you Super Max!

The Lions take DC

So the snow after Christmas foiled our plans to go see the Lions in Manassas, and then Max got pneumonia, so we had to delay it again, but eventually we got up there a bit later in January. It was so good to see everyone and to introduce Max to his family!  Car rides are not Jack's idea of fun.  He gets very sick if we go more than about 10 miles...I think that's because we live in the city and never really drive much farther than that, but who knows.  It seems to be a pretty common thing for toddlers.  His pediatrician suggested that we give him a small dose of Benadryl (which is closely related to Dramamine) to help and it worked perfectly!  He took a little nap and wasn't sick at all.  Amazing!  

Max got lots of snuggles from everyone and showed off his great smile!

 

 

Jack was pretty excited about more Christmas presents...even the ones for everyone else.

 

 The next morning we got up bright and early and made the trip into DC to go to the Natural History Museum and see the dinosaurs.  Jack calls it the "zeum" and I think it's way too cute to correct.  We'd been talking about it for a long time and day was finally here!  We even got to take the Metro, which might have been more exciting to Jack than the actual museum...

Max took it all in.

Once we got to the museum, they were both really in awe.  We started in the ocean room and Max couldn't get enough of it all.  He just smiled and smiled and looked at everything he could.  Jack was ready to see the dinosaurs, so off we went.  His expression when we got into that room was priceless!  He was so amazed.  Here's a shot just a few seconds too late...

He was all smiles.  It was really neat to see him take it all in.

 

 There are few things I love to see more than Jack listening to his Daddy teach him something new.  Kenny gave Jack just enough info to figure out these were Rhino bones!

After the dinos and animal exhibits we wandered around through some other exhibits too.  The rainforest made a good backdrop for pics...

By the end of the day Jack was over taking pictures.  I tried to get him to pose like a bear but despite my best efforts...he wouldn't and you'll have to settle for me! :)

 

It was a great trip!  I think Jack was at a great age for it but also think he'll love going back in a few years and seeing it all on another level.  We're hopeful to make it to the zoo this Spring and fit in our visit with the Dunhams when everyone is well!

Cereal

Tonight Max had his first taste of cereal.  We had planned to wait until Max was 6 months old before starting any sort of solids, but he has had quite the appetite lately and we felt like he needed a little something that would stay in his tummy a little longer than breastmilk seems to.  He's been up every 3 hours at night to eat for the past few weeks and just this weekend, he grabbed my pancake from my hand and almost got it in his mouth!  

He seemed to know exactly what to do with the cereal...

 

 

Looking back at Jack's first taste of cereal (at 4 months), I think Max was a bit more receptive to it.  We can hope that bodes well for Max to be more interested in food than Jack is. It won't take much for that to be the case though...did you hear him begging to be let down from the table in the video?