Baby Durso

Anorexia + breastfeeding = major weight loss

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

I've gotten lots of comments from friends and family about how good I look these days and how I seem to have lost all of my pregnancy weight. Well, I have. But it's because I'm practically anorexic.

Okay, I'm not really anorexic. Promise. I just forget to eat. One of the things about having two kids that I expected was being ridiculously busy. Well, these days I'm so busy that I completely forget to give myself food. The mornings from this past week went like this:

6:30am: Hank wakes up. Breastfeed, dress and carry him into the bathroom.

6:45am: Shower and get dressed.

7am: Johnny's up. Put on some YouTube while I finish putting on deodorant and brush my teeth.

7:15am: Make Johnny's breakfast while the coffee perks and my English muffin toasts.

7:20am: Bring Johnny's breakfast to the playroom. Hang out for awhile playing.

7:30am: Bring Hank downstairs and plop him in the exersaucer while I put away dishes from the dishwasher, get a load of laundry started and clean up the kitchen counter.

7:45am: Remember English muffin in the kitchen. Return to kitchen to get English muffin, but Hank is crying because he's ready for breakfast.

7:50am: Pick up Hank and get his breakfast ready.

7:55am: Return to play room to hang out and read stories with Johnny while I feed Hank in the Bumbo.

8:15am: Wipe Hank up and take Johnny's plate downstairs to load up with more food. Remember English muffins. Get muffin out of toaster and put it on a plate. Johnny calls downstairs for more milk.

8:25am: Johnny's milk has been refilled, the washed laundry has been put into the dryer and I need to put more food on Johnny's plate to take it upstairs.

8:40am: Try to get Johnny into a new diaper and clothes for the day.

8:50am: Still trying.

9am: Success! Johnny is in a new diaper and clean clothes, but I can't find his shoes.

9:15am: Found Johnny's shoes under the bed and put them on his feet. Managed to bribe him into the car with my iPhone.

9:20am: Go back in and get Hank from wherever I left him and grab my (now cold) coffee to bring in the car.

9:30am: On our way to our 9:30am playdate drinking my cold coffee.

10:15am: Wonder why I'm shaking so badly and realize that my English muffin is still on the counter, uneaten.

Rest of day: Repeat for every meal.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother of two (even more so than being a mom of one) and I definitely love being smaller than my pre-pregnancy size, but this whole not eating thing? It's unhealthy. And stupid. What a stupid thing to complain about.

Hugs all around

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

Despite the sibling fights that sometimes go on around here, there are moments that make my heart melt. Johnny has been really into giving hugs lately, which I'm am just LOVING! He'll say, "Mommy hug!" and give me a big hug around the legs. Or he'll go to his friend and say, "Hug Blake!" and give Blake a hug, whether Blake wanted it or not. My personal favorite is when he says, "Hug Hank!" and then this magic happens:

I dare you to tell me that the cuteness streaming out of these pictures didn't melt your face off.

Yeah, I thought so.

P.S. Hank's holding of the H was totally coincidental. These shots weren't posed at all.

Hank's food

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

I keep forgetting to post about Hank and his experience with solids! This is pretty old news by now, but I figured I'd share for the sake of keeping history.

So we started with homemade brown rice cereal on the day of his 6 month birthday. I probably made it thicker than I should have, but he did fine with it.

After a few days, we tried avocado:

Yeah, not a fan of avocado. But, we've found all kinds of foods he likes:
banana
mango
sweet potato
kale (I'm serious)
broccoli
pear
butternut squash
plain yogurt
steel cut oats

Sometimes he'll balk at a food we try for the first time, but after the three-day trial period he comes to like it.

I remember that I hated this stage of eating with Johnny. It was such a hassle to make his food and store it and then get it ready for him when he was ready. This time around? I've got it nailed. I try to make a batch of food every morning and then freeze it in an ice cube tray so that I always have a stash of food cubes ready when it's meal time. Now I'm actually enjoying it!

Fighting siblings

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

My mom used to have this newspaper clipping on the refrigerator of the "Toddler Mantra" that went something like this:

If it's mine, it's mine.

If it's yours, it's actually mine.

If it's yours, but it looks like mine, it's mine.

If it's mine, but you want it, it's mine.

If you don't want it, it's mine.

If I don't want it, it's mine.

These boys are already at it. The sibling struggles have begun. Hank always wants whatever Johnny has and Johnny always wants whatever Hank has. The trouble is that Johnny is much more able than Hank is and always wins... whether it's his toy or not. We've been trying to work on what is Hank's Johnny can't have (unless Hank is done with it), but what is Johnny's Johnny can have. It's a tough concept for a 2 year old.

"Hey Hank! That's mine! Let go!"

"Johnny, I had that first! Give it back!"

"Mom, did you see what Johnny did?!"

Back to normal with more age appropriate toys.

We have a tooth!!!

2012-01-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

Finally, after weeks of teething, Hank has cut his first tooth:

Just in case you can't see it... because it's kinda hard to see.

This teething experience has been yet another piece of evidence toward how different kids (even brothers) can be. I remember Johnny being a little fussy when he was cutting teeth, but then a tooth would come out and I'd say, "Oh wow, look, a tooth. I guess you've been teething for awhile, huh?" With Hank? Totally different. About four weeks ago he started screaming when he got tired (and therefore, unable to be distracted from pain) and shoving his hands in his mouth while sobbing uncontrollably. Then he started chewing on EVERYTHING. His hands, my hands, wooden spoons, plastic toys... my nipples... everything. The poor little guy was absolutely miserable. But now at least we have some progress. Only 19 more teeth to go. In the first set, of course.

And now more photos since I rarely get my camera out anymore and whenever I do it's a party!

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes...

One of my favorite Hank faces

Forever a Mama's boy... well, at least for the foreseeable future.

Hank's first word.

2012-01-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, Hank's only 7 months old and certainly not old enough to talk, but I'm going to take this one and run with it because it took Johnny about a year and a half before he would say this:

Yeah, he's a Mama's boy for sure.

I'm 7 months old!

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today I turn 7 months old!

In the last month, I have learned one life-changing thing: SITTING! I can sit all by myself and it. is. awesome! Mommy especially loves it because it means I can hang out on my own for longer periods of time. She just sits me down, puts a bunch of interesting objects within reach and I'm set to go. I want to crawl really, really badly, so I've been leaning forward to practice... and always fall on my face. Literally. I can almost push up to my hands and knees though, so perhaps I'm getting there.

Mommy pulled out the walker this month because while I do enjoy sitting, I LOVE to stand. I haven't figured out how to move around in my desired direction yet, but the buttons on the walker are entertaining enough for now.

I'm still taking naps on Mommy in the new woven wrap she got for Christmas (thanks Grandpa and Grams!), but she's been talking about working on getting me to nap in my crib soon... yeah, we'll see about that Mom!

I've been teething for the last few weeks and my teeth are FINALLY about to break through! It's been pretty painful and I'm looking forward to being done with it. Oh wait, you mean I have 18 more teeth after I get these bottom two? Hmmm. Mommy neglected to mention that to me. Bummer.

The time I had a bad idea.

2012-01-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

As many of you are well aware, the boys aren't sleeping too well these days. Johnny's still going to bed around 9pm and getting up about 5am. Now, by adult standards, 8 hours is a lot. But by toddler and Johnny standards? Not enough. Especially considering that he would sleep for 11 - 12 hours a night in his crib.

So at the end of last week, I thought we should try the Walk In/Walk Out technique (from the Baby Whisperer) to get Johnny to fall asleep without needing one of us to rub his back for two hours. The first night? No problem. I did the bedtime routine, got Johnny into bed by 7:40 and was out of his room by 7:50. He started crying for me to rub his back, so I went in, put my hand on his back, gave him a kiss, said "good night" and walked out. He cried again, so I did the same thing. This went on for about fifteen minutes and then he conked out! Yes, the child that seemed to need Daddy to rub his back for hours on end in order to fall asleep actually fell asleep at a reasonable hour without parental intervention. VICTORY! The next night, however, didn't go so well. He kept getting out of bed, turning on his light, turning off his fan, anything but staying in bed. After quite awhile, John ended up going in there to rub Johnny's back again until they both fell asleep. *sigh*

On Saturday, I suggested we let him decide when to fall asleep. John's parents said that they never had set nap times or bed times, they just let their kids fall asleep wherever and whenever and it worked well for them. What could it hurt? Let's give it a try.

Um... wow. It certainly didn't work for us. Instead of slowing down as the hour got later, Johnny just got more and more worked up. I finally went to bed around 10:30 because I still get up with Hank every two and a half hours. So John stayed up. Until 1 in the morning. ONE AM!! The only reason Johnny fell asleep at 1am is because John finally coaxed him into bed and rubbed his back for a little while. He could well have been

So John was rather irritable the next day after getting about four hours of sleep since he still woke up at 5am. Johnny slept in until 7am, but after getting six hours of sleep, he was pretty difficult to deal with all day. At least he went to bed at 7:30 that night with minimal fuss.

The silver lining here? Now we know that Johnny isn't the kind of kid who falls asleep even though he's tired. It's good to know your kids, right?

25 months!

2012-01-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

I'm 25 months today!

I know, I know, it's kind of hard to beat 2 years old as far as milestones go, but in an attempt to keep a record of my life, I decided to keep up my monthly posts... for now.

The picture I posted is one of my new "tricks". I'll say "eyes close!" and close my eyes like in the picture. Then I'll say "eyes op-EN!" and open my eyes. Mommy always laughs when I close my eyes, so I like to do it a lot.

I'm stringing words together into longer and longer sentences. My longest sentence thus far is, "Read Aunt Nea book 'GAIN!" I know that the word is A-gain, not, just "gain" but that extra syllable requires more time than I'm willing to devote to talking.

I'm still in love with books and my current favorites are Pajama Time from my Aunt Nea (Mommy's best friend) and Ten Tiny Babies from Uncle Glen and Aunt Margie. I have both of these books pretty well memorized since I have Mommy and Daddy read them over and over and over.

The bath has also become part of my bedtime routine again after having a bout of terror over the drain. It required Mommy to get some foam letters and numbers for the bath in order for me to agree to get in there again. Now I'm mostly content to sit in the bath for twenty minutes at a time playing with the numbers and letters and washing them while I get washed. I'm obsessed with numbers and now know my numbers from 0 to 29. I can recognize them, but I'm still not into counting. I also know the ABC song, though I add an extra little "shoop-shoo-waa" which I learned from watching Sesame Street. Yep, I impress pretty much everyone I meet with my knowledge of the alphabet and numbers, because, let's face it, I'm rather impressive.

Early in the morning/Risin' to the street

2012-01-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

Days around here? They're long. Really long. Hank has been getting up at 4am and Johnny has been refusing to go to bed until 9pm. Plus I've been up all night with Hank ever since our trip to NM... but he's also teething AND sick, so all that together = an uncomfortable and therefore, pissed, baby. Both boys are sleep deprived and way touchier than normal, plus my patience is about the length of an eyelash at this point.

To be completely honest, it's been pretty miserable around here with everyone sick and refusing to sleep. However, in an attempt to look at the bright side through my weary bloodshot eyes, we do get an awful lot of family time now. What used to be the ungodly hour of 5am has now turned into a kind of nice family get-together.

Photo evidence:

This sharing-of-the-cereal happened for the first time this morning and may not happen again considering the amount of milk that ended up on John's pants... but at least I got some pictures of it.

Airport - pants = Johnny

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

On our trip to Albuquerque, I was terrified of being THAT parent with two screaming babies. I think most parents don't want to be that parent, right? I knew Hank would be easy since I could just nurse him on take off and landing and he'd be set.

Johnny though... how was I going to keep his little ears from hurting?

The answer? Juice. Lots and lots of juice.

However, lots and lots of juice leads to lots and lots of pee. So much pee that one diaper can't handle it all. Which is how we ended up with a two-year-old soaked in pee when we landed in Albuquerque. We decided that John would take the diaper bag and Johnny off the plane to get him changed while Dylan and I handled the other bags, Hank and the car seat. Did I mention that Dylan is the only reason the airplane trips went so smoothly? My brother saved us quite a bit of stress, that's for sure.

Anyway. Dylan, Hank and I lug all of our stuff of the plane after everyone else has left and go to wait in front of the nearest bathroom where we assumed John and Johnny would be.

Two minutes later a half-naked Johnny runs out the door, takes one look at me, and takes off in the other direction laughing hysterically. This is were you could spot the non-parents from the parents. The parents in the traveling crowd just laughed as Johnny ran by, while the non-parents were shocked and horrified. I guess when you're not used to seeing a little boy's genitals, it could be shocking.

John runs out eventually and then goes after Johnny to try and coax him into a diaper and pants. He was only successful in wrangling Johnny into a diaper.

Pantsless in the ABQ airport

2011 Christmas Celebration

2012-01-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

2011's Christmas was spent in Albuquerque, NM, with my dad and stepmom... coincidentally named John and Gayle, just like my in-laws... John and Gail. Random, right? I was really excited to go because it had been four years since I visited my dad's house and they had done so many new things to it, plus it was going to be cold!!! A cold Christmas! And maybe even a white one!

I wasn't disappointed. It actually snowed the morning we arrived. Or so the weather app on my iPhone said, because when we arrived it was sunny and crisp outside. Desert weather is weird for sure.

The whole four-day, five-night stay was filled with delicious food, even better wine, phenomenal fudge (I know it classifies as food, but I though it deserved it's own shout out considering I consumed about a pound of it) and delightful Christmas ambiance. Since I took so many pictures, I figured I'd just let them do the talking instead of boring you with text.

Thanks again for your hospitality, Dad and Gayle!

Johnny running around the airport without any pants. It's a good story. I'll tell it later.

Johnny and Uncle Dylan

Grandpa and Hank

Dinner on Christmas Eve

Johnny exploring the Christmas tree

Hank entranced by his new toy.

Johnny entranced by Hank's new toy

Dad carving the bird

Boy pile!!

Playing at a local park

Johnny's 2nd year

2012-01-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

December is OVER!!!! Part of me is sad to see the Christmas decorations go and all of our family time put behind us, but another part of me is relieved to have such a busy month finished with (most) of my sanity intact.

Anyway. There are lots of pictures from Christmas and our trip, and they will be posted eventually. Promise. For now, however, my mother-in-law mentioned that my father-in-law hadn't seen the slideshow of Johnny's 2nd year that I made for his birthday party. I had meant to post it here and then completely forgot. So here it is. :)

Click here to watch on YouTube.

P.S. The song is the theme to the Cars movie.

Backlog: Doctor's visit

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

I think this is the last of the backlog posts. This will (mostly) catch everyone up on the goings-on the Durso household.

Johnny and Hank were both due for their doctor's appointments around the same time; Johnny for his 2 year (I know, it's weird that I have to a two-year-old now) and Hank for his 6 month. So the receptionist managed to schedule them for the same day within 20 minutes of each other. Perfect! Only one trip to the doctor! It certainly couldn't have worked out any better.

I must have been high on crack the day I made those appointments.

It started off well enough. Johnny was distracted by my iPhone and Hank was sleeping in the Ergo. Then Hank had to be taken out for measuring and weighing. Then Johnny had to be weighed (on a real big-boy scale!) and have his height measured. Then we waited twenty more minutes for the doctor to come in... and then it was fall out juggling. Put Hank on the table, hold Hank's chest and keep Johnny from leaving the room. Put Hank in the Ergo and pick Johnny up. Put Hank down and hold Johnny on the table. Put leg out to keep Johnny from bolting out of the office. Even then, it wasn't too bad. What I forgot about were the shots. Oh, the shots!! Both boys needed immunizations, thus both had to be stuck in the arm or leg with a needle and then both needed to comforted. Johnny went first and was MAJORLY upset. Then Hank needed a bazillion shots, so I was left with a screaming baby and a crying clingy toddler.

I'll never do that again.

Anyway! Here are the boys' stats for your perusal:
Johnny:
Height: 36 inches - 87th percentile
Weight: 31 pounds - 82nd percentile

Hank:
Height: 28 inches - 93rd percentile
Weight: 19 pounds - 77th percentile

You better watch out, Johnny, Hank is bigger than you were at the same age! He's not called Hank the Tank for nothing!

Backlog: Hank is 6 months old!

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm 6 months (and 6 days) old now!

Mommy's been so busy trying to get me to sleep that I haven't had a chance to blog about my 6 month birthday! Sheesh, Mom, give it a rest for a second, okay?!

Anyway. I've spent the last month quitting the whole sleeping thing. Life is just too interesting to miss, you know? I've also spent the last month growing some pretty long hair. I get lots of comments on how long and wispy it is. Some have even compared to Einstein's coif, though I don't think it's quite that extreme. Maybe one day... if Daddy doesn't insist on getting me a buzz cut.

I'm SO close to being able to sit on my own. For some reason I'm more motivated to sit by myself in the bath tub than anywhere else. Maybe because if I fall over I'll whack my head on a hard surface? Or because if I fall over in the tub I could inhale water? I don't know, I'm just able to sit unassisted in the tub and that's it.

I also started eating solid foods this month and I'm getting pretty good at eating. At first I enjoyed blowing bubbles in the food Mommy tried to give me, but now I have discovered how great solid foods can taste and always have my mouth open like a baby bird when it's food time.

My eyes continue to get bluer by the day and may actually be as light as Johnny's eventually... it's certainly something to strive for. You know, other than being big enough to rough house with him at some point.

Backlog: Johnny's birthday gifts

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Johnny got TONS of gifts for his birthday. Our friends and family were quite generous, that's for sure. During the party, we tried to entice Johnny to open a few gifts thinking he would love to rip some wrapping paper to shreds, but no dice. So I decided to just leave them wrapped for awhile for whenever he showed interest.

Five days later the presents were still wrapped. This child of mine? Not into stuff, apparently.

John and I ended up opening all of them ourselves. So anticlimactic. But here's a picture of Johnny with one of the many gifts he got:

Yes, that's a Mater pillow. With a tow cable and everything.

Backlog: Johnny's "Cars" birthday party

2011-12-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I haven't been here. Sorry about that. I've been attempting to sleep train Hank for naps and nighttime using the Baby Whisperer method for the last eight days which means I spend a majority of each day and night bent over Hank's crib patting and shushing him to get him to learn to fall asleep independently. It's hell.

Anyway. So Johnny turned two last week and we held his birthday party the week before that. Friends and family were invited to celebrate with us and we all had a delightful time... even if I burned my first garlic bread in the oven and Johnny refused to open presents. The cake was pretty kick-ace if I may say so myself. :)

Yes, I did design and make the cake myself.

My friend Carly and little girl Lina.

Looking like the Joker after having birthday cake

Overall, fun was had by all... even Johnny who spent most of the party outside by the pool where there weren't any guests. Thanks for coming, all!

Dear Johnny

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Johnny,

On Tuesday you turned two. Two whole years old. Why does that sound so old to me? You've only been here on this planet for two years and yet, I feel like it's been so much longer. I have fit more smiles, laughs, tears, hugs and kisses into the last two years than I did in the previous ten all because of you, Johnny.

You make me laugh so hard with your constantly developing vocabulary and grammar skills. You're stringing funny words into sentences that makes me think, "Where did you learn that?" Just yesterday I asked if you wanted to take a bath or a shower and you responded, "No bath. And no shower either." Just like that. Perhaps when you are old enough to read this post, that little response will seem so trivial, but I can tell you that it's huge, considering this time last year you weren't uttering a single intelligible syllable.

You make me want to hug and kiss you (almost) all the time. The way you come out of your room after your nap with sheet marks on one cheek, a dazed smile on your face and Blankee in hand makes me want to swoop you up and kiss you until you giggle uncontrollably. How you say, "Mommy come play you!" when you want me to come upstairs and hang out with you makes my heart melt. And the way you hold my hand when we're in a parking lot or crossing the street makes me feel all gooey inside.

You make me want to cry sometimes, too. Those times when you choose Daddy or Grandma or Grandpa over me makes my heart break a little, but I've been trying really hard not to let you see it; I certainly don't want to guilt you into choosing me. The rare times when you're trying so hard to get me to understand something and your frustration at me bubbles over into tears makes me feel like an awful mommy. Those times when it's obvious how fast you are growing up and will one day leave me behind to start your own family. Such a sad thought, and yet so happy as well.

Even though I think a lot about your future, it's the present that really matters to me. There are so many things you do that I want to remember, but it's like trying to hold water in your hands as it runs out of a faucet. You do so many new things every day that I forget what you did this morning to make room in my brain for everything you've done this afternoon.

In ten years I want to remember that you have a penchant for whole grain bagels smeared with cream cheese and how you need to have a napkin nearby when you eat them because you hate having wet stuff on your hands.

In ten years I want to remember how you walked like Frankenstein for a few days when I finally got you to wear a pair of shoes with a hard sole on them.

In ten years I want to remember how you enjoyed holding Hank for a couple of seconds and then would push him away from you saying, "Nuff!" after you were over it.

In ten years I want to remember your curiosity when it comes to letters and numbers and how you love this particular part of the "Elmo" DVD where there's a countdown from 10 to 1.

There are all of these little things that make up our days together that are so everyday and normal now, but will eventually become precious if I can manage to hold onto those memories. All I can hope for in the next year is that our days together will be just as full as the last 365 have been.

Johnny, you have made my life so much fuller by being a part of it and I wouldn't trade a single minute from the last two years for anything in the world.

Thank you for being my son, Johnny. Happy 2nd birthday.

Love,
Mommy

Thanksgiving... two weeks later.

2011-12-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

Remember that time Hank stopped taking naps and sleeping at night? And then Johnny decided that 8:30pm is an appropriate bedtime and 5:00am is the perfect time to wake up? No? I guess I didn't tell you that because I have no free time in which to blog about it. Sorry for being MIA.

Anyway. I really don't have the motivation to do a full post, so I will merely post pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend.

Hank hanging with Uncle Scott at my Mom's for Thanksgiving Day

Hank with my cousin Carole

My mom with all of the boys!

Hank with my mom's friend Sue.

My mom and me... can you tell we're related?

Then Friday we spent at John's parents' cabin with John's family.

John and Hank with their cousin Jack.

Playing with Aunt Margie

Gail's always taking pictures and is never in the pictures herself... so here she is doing her thing

Happy Turkey Day, all!

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

We're celebrating with my mom and brothers (and associated non-relatives) today and I'm sure I will take pictures. Okay, well, moderately sure I'll take pictures. And I'll share them with you someday soon. Promise.

In the meantime, check out the pictures I've been taking on my brand new iPhone!

This post brought to you by...

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

While many people are familiar with caffeine, many don't trouble to recognize it's molecular structure. You're welcome.

Seriously, it's the only way I get through the day with a semblance of a smile on my face. Funny, considering I used to proclaim that I would NEVER get addicted to coffee.

See, growing up, my mom used to work the night shift at the local hospital; she was (and still is) an RN. She'd work two to three 12-hour shifts (from 7pm to 7am) a week and would pick up an extra here and there when we needed to pay for something, like a vacation or Christmas gifts or what not. The woman LOVED her coffee. It was common knowledge to everyone who knew her, which means that her birthday and Christmas gifts were coffee-related. Thus, when we moved out to San Diego, she had to part with more than 20 coffee cups.

Anyway, returning from the tangent. She used to talk to me about how she would get headaches at certain times in the day if she didn't have enough coffee and that sounded horrible to me. Headaches? From withdrawal? Well, then I'll NEVER drink that much coffee!!!

Fast forward to two kids later: I'm addicted. I don't even work night shifts (or any shifts for that matter) and I can't make it through the day without at least one cup. Most days I require two. Sometimes more if Johnny's being particularly difficult... I'm serious, it helps. My mood mysteriously elevates after I down a cup of caffeine-filled goodness, which brings me to a statement one of my mommy friends made recently: "The only reason I am the mom I am is coffee."

At least I know I'm not the only one who is "using".

Mark it.

2011-11-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

We went to Target yesterday. Normally, this would not be all that out of the ordinary because I go to Target a lot (especially now that they have groceries!!!), except that this trip wasn't punctuated by Hank's screams and cries. We made it to and from Target without any crying in the car! Whoo-hoo! Granted, the trip is maybe 10 minutes long, but that's 20 minutes of car time. Rather substantial for Hank. He started to get a little antsy as we turned on to our street, but other than that he was an angel.

5 months!

2011-11-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

I'm five months old tod- oops... yesterday!

Man, oh man did Mommy drop the ball on this one! She completely forgot to tell me the date, otherwise I would have posted on my actual five-month birthday. It seems she has trouble remembering that I'm a baby and can't read a calendar... though I can blog with the best of them. :)

Even though I'm five months old now, I still enjoy grabbing my feet. I haven't yet pulled them into my mouth, but I'm just not that interested in the taste of toe jam yet. I really enjoy sucking on my fingers, though. So much so that I no longer require a swaddle because I like to have access to my fingers at will. I still put myself to sleep most nights with the help of my hands, but I nap in the ring sling like I have since the day I was born. Mommy did attempt a little sleep training Baby Whisperer-style, but stopped after two naps because I kept waking myself up with coughing fits. There hasn't been another chance to try sleep training because I keep getting sick. Mommy thinks that napping in the ring sling is also pretty convenient, especially since we'll be visiting family throughout the holiday season. It just makes me more mobile.

I'm still happy as can be! Smiles all the time, except when I'm tired, and I'm laughing a lot more easily now. I like to play peek-a-boo and I love it when Mommy makes silly noises right next to my ear. Makes me laugh every time! I'm also fascinated by my big brother and love to watch him play with his toys or hang out in a wrap on Mommy while she plays chase with Johnny. Baths can get a little difficult though because I'm so tall that I get in Johnny's way when he's playing. Hopefully I'll start sitting up soon and bathing together won't be such a problem anymore.

I had the ultrasound on my hip done this week and the tech insinuated that my hips look great, but a doctor has to look at the pictures before any official ruling can be made. However, I'm perfectly happy with that diagnosis and am sure my pediatrician will draw the same conclusion. I'm sure Mommy will let you know when that happens!

Why I know I'll have more babies...

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Because of expressions like this:

As you can see, Hank is still fascinated by the camera, but he's gotten better at performing for said piece of technology. Thanks, Hank!

23 months!

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm 23 months old today!

Wow. Only one month away from the big 2!

This past month has brought lots of changes, especially in my communication skills. I have finally figured out how to put the end on some of my words. For instance, I used to say "mou!" for mouse, but now I say "mou..sssssse". I said my first three-syllable word this month: fireplace. I also know the entire alphabet along with the sound each letter makes. I can even tell you a word that starts with that letter, for most of the alphabet, that is. My favorite is the letter N, which says NNNNNNNN as in newt! Mom likes it when I say newt, so I say it a lot to get her to laugh.

I have most of my favorite books memorized now and Mom will test me sometimes by saying "Five little pumpkins sitting on a ....." and then I say "gate!"

Mom: "The first one said, 'Oh my it's getting....' "

Me: "Late!"

And so on and so forth. I have memorized The Five Little Pumpkins (a Halloween gift from Aunt Renea), Can You See What I See? and Goodnight Moon. Thank you, by the way, to Cousin Alison for telling Mom about finding the mouse in Goodnight Moon. We read that book almost every night before bed and I look for the mouse all over the place even though I know exactly where he is on each page.

I didn't enjoy going outside as much this month and have become even more of a Cars fanatic than last month. When I get up in the morning, I want to watch Cars. When I'm eating breakfast, I want to watch Cars. When I'm getting ready for a nap, I want to watch Cars. When I get from a nap, I want to watch Cars. Etc, etc, etc. Unfortunately, Mom only lets me watch Cars a little bit each day. I can watch it in the morning when I get up and then for a little bit with Daddy at bed time.

I am in a big Daddy phase right now and he is the only person I want to see all day every day. The nice thing about the time change is that when I wake up at 5:30am, instead of 6:30am like I used to, Daddy is still home! So I've been taking advantage of that. I don't like to go to bed and have been putting up some incredible battles when Daddy gets it in his head that it is bedtime. I was sleeping in my big boy bed pretty well until Daylight Savings ended and now I get up repeatedly before I finally fall asleep. What do they expect? They let me sleep in a bed without bars and think I'm going to stay there and sleep? Yeah right!!! I want to see what Mom and Daddy are up to! Silly parents.

I'm really looking forward to next month when I will be TWO MONTHS OLD! Hope to see everyone at my Cars -what else?- themed party!

Oh yeah, and Mom's birthday is today! Happy birthday, Mom!

The time I got Johnny to wear pants.

2011-11-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

I know the title of this post makes it sound like Johnny never wears pants, but what I really mean is that he usually only wears shorts. I've tried to put long pants on him on a few occasions, but he just ends up standing there looking me while crying, "OFF!! Pants off!!" and squirming as he tries to remove them on his own. Up until now I've always given in and then put him in shorts. Now that's getting colder, it's much more practical for him to be in pants. So I tried it this past week.

Turns out that all I had to do was put them on while he was watching Cars. The best part? He didn't complain about them at all. Not once during the entire day. I must say, they make him look an awful lot older, don't you think?

This is where I need to rave about Oshkosh jeans and their designers: PURE GENIUS! See, Johnny has a big belly and very narrow hips, thus, jeans do not stay on him unless they have elastic in the waistband. Well, when I went to Oshkosh to get Johnny some new clothes, I was dumbfounded that they do not have elastic waistbands... what they have instead is adjustable elastic! Even though they're a little stretchy, I can make the waist even smaller if I need to, like when he's going through a growth spurt and gets all skinny. Then when he's eating a lot and getting chubby, I can make the waist bigger so it doesn't bother him as much. Those baby clothes people sure know what they're doing!

Beating the Catch-22

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

I felt that this event deserved to be immortalized with a post all its own.

See, Hank hates the car. Hates it. H to the A to the T to the E to the S. HATES it. I've tried using car seat toys to occupy him. I've tried covering the whole seat with a blanket to avoid overstimulation. I've tried putting him in after being fed. I've tried putting him in after he's taken a nap. I've tried putting him in when he's sleepy. I've tried lots of things. After all of these experiments, there are three things I've discovered:
1. Opening the window will keep him from crying for at least 5 minutes.
2. Turning on 90s rock helps him settle (a kid after my own heart... he likes Live!)
3. Hank hates the car.

Now, the funny thing about 1 and 2: whenever I open the windows, Johnny DEMANDS that they be closed (he's always hated having the windows open) and if I'm playing anything other than Johnny's CD, he DEMANDS that I turn his "songs" on... but Hank hates Johnny's songs.

Basically, I can't win in the car. If Johnny's songs are on/the windows are closed, Hank is upset and Johnny can't sleep. If Johnny's songs aren't on/the windows are open, Hank is quiet and Johnny is upset. Catch-22.

Until last Saturday, when this happened:

Oh yeah, they BOTH fell asleep after visiting Aunt Jackie, Uncle Josh and his family. They were asleep for 20 minutes... it was the quietest car ride I've had in five months and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Daylight Savings Time + Two babies = Seventh circle of hell

2011-11-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

I used to look forward to the whole "fall back" thing. An extra hour of sleep? HELL YES! I'd go to sleep at the usual time only to wake up the next morning feeling more refreshed than I had in ages.

If you're a parent, you know that shiz is totally over.

Normally, Hank and Johnny wake up around 6:30am or so. After the time change? 5:30am. Except that Hank decided THAT WASN'T EARLY ENOUGH and woke up at 5am on Sunday. Granted, he was being sweet and adorable, so I didn't mind too much.

After that, it's all been downhill. Since Hank woke up so early that morning, he wanted to go to bed for the night at 4:30pm. Normally he's in bed between 6:30pm and 7:00pm. I wasn't about to let him go to bed that early only to wake up at 3:30am. So I kept him up and tried to get him to take an extra nap... which resulted in 20 minutes of extra sleep and two hours of extra screaming and crying. Now, Hank is an angel baby, so imagine my shock when he begins screaming at the top of his lungs around 5:30pm on Sunday... I thought he had Ebola or something. But no. No hemorrhagic fever, just overtiredness. He eventually went to sleep, but it was fitful at best, resulting in me getting up to soothe him every hour or so in the night. The next day he was grumpy, out-of-sorts and all around fussy from being so tired... and I was too. Johnny also hasn't been sleeping as much (also because the recent transition to his big boy bed) so his fuse was short.

I think we hit rock bottom yesterday afternoon when I took the humidifier away from Johnny and he had a meltdown from frustration and exhaustion. Johnny's cries woke up Hank, who then proceeded to scream and cry from frustration and exhaustion. And there I was, in the middle of it and feeling helpless, so I cried from frustration and exhaustion.

However, I think we're on the upswing. Hank has napped normally today and at his usual times while Johnny went down relatively easily for his nap and has been a good boy all day. Hopefully this means that Hank will sleep longer than 45 minute segments and go back to his normal happy self.

Daylight Savings Time: Suck it.

And finally....

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

... Halloween pictures!

Having two kids means that I get to do coordinating costumes!! However, since they're so little, and thus don't care much about Halloween, I chose to do something easy and cheap: The Super Mario Brothers! I made their hats using this tutorial and the rest (overalls and shirts) I either had already or got for cheap.

Johnny didn't dig his hat (he removed it after the first picture), but he LOATHED his mustache. So I drew one one him instead.

Sad Mario.

Hank, however, LOVED the mustache. But we had to take it off because he started eating it. So I drew one on his face, too.

I know, they have little Frenchie mustaches and not the big, bushy Italian plumber mustaches like they're supposed to have, but do you know how difficult it is to draw a mustache on a baby's face?? It's like trying "to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse" as Scotty from Star Trek would say. [NERD ALERT!]

Off with the hat!!!

Off with HANK'S hat!

Empty??

Aw, a picture of the brothers!

Scratch that. No picture of the brothers.

Halloween is fun!

The crew walking home from a wearying candy expedition.

My in-laws, John and Gail, joined us for the Trick-or-Treating event (which stopped at approximately three houses and then involved Johnny running down the street and toward the supermarket) and Gail took all of the pictures for us. Thank you!

Now... what do I do next year that doesn't involve hats? Or mustaches, for that matter.

Hank's 4 month doctor visit

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm just now putting up the stats from Hank's doctor visit ten days ago... oh well. Part of my promise to myself in blogging again is to only put up a post when I feel like it. So here we are.

Anyway. Here are the stats:
Height: 27 inches - 99th percentile
Weight: 17 lbs 4 oz. - 88th percentile
Head circ: 17 inches - 86th percentile

So I guess he's growing fine. :) This was about the time that Johnny stopped growing though, so I'm wondering if Hank will stop growing for a couple of months and then pick back up after that, like Johnny. We shall see.

In other health news, Hank's ear is still blocked with fluid, so the doctor told me to wait on the hearing test. There's no point in doing another test if the ear drum looks unchanged, he says. And I'm inclined to agree. The doctor is a little concerned, however, about Hank's hips. It seems that one hip doesn't have the range of motion of the other and there are some subtle signs pointing to hip dysplasia. So we have an appointment for a hip ultrasound in a couple of weeks. I was worried that all of his time in the ring sling may have caused this dysplasia, but the doctor assured me that having his legs spread across my stomach is a good thing and may help out his little hips. Poor Hank. He's deaf in one ear and has a bad hip... you'd think he was 100 years old!!! But he's happy, so at least there's that.

He handled his shots like a champ and smiled at everyone at the office on the way out, prompting exclamations of, "He's so happy!" "What a cutie!" and "Look at that big smile!"

Gratuitous Bathtime Cuteness

2011-10-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween everyone! What's more appropriate for a blog post on Halloween than naked children without costumes? Yeah, I can't think of anything either. Hopefully I'll manage to post some cute pics of the boys in their costumes tomorrow... Key word is "hopefully".

---NEWSFLASH---

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

JOHNNY'S SLEEPING IN A BIG BOY BED!!!

It all started on Tuesday, when he kept climbing out of his crib at naptime. He was all out refusing to take a nap, despite being so tired that he was laughing and crying at the same time. So, I'd put him in his crib and leave. He'd climb out, run to the door and open it to find me standing there. I'd calmly pick him up, walk him over to the crib and put him in without saying a word, then I'd walk out. Then he'd climb out, open the door, etc. etc. etc. We did this... oh, maybe 15 times? Luckily, Hank was awake and happily cooing in the hallway, so I could spend time doing this. Finally, he gave up and I rubbed his back for awhile and left him to fall asleep.

That's when I told John it was time to upgrade.

So Tuesday night we went out to Target so Johnny could pick out some bedding. Unsurprisingly, he picked out Cars bedding, as you can see in the pictures above. John set up a twin-size mattress in the corner of Johnny's room and backed the crib up next to it for a side rail. Johnny took to it immediately. It took him awhile to wind down for actual sleeping, but once he got in bed for the night, it was pretty easy. I rubbed his back for a little longer than usual while I laid next to him, but then I told him that I was leaving, he said "Night" and I walked out. He didn't even cry.

I went downstairs where John was cleaning up (I know, I have an awesome husband) and told him he should be ready for a rather sleepless night since Johnny would be taking advantage of his new-found freedom and getting up a few times... hopefully only a few. I turned on the monitor in our room and waited for him to cry out at night when he woke up and was afraid because he didn't know where he was.

It never happened.

He slept the whole night in his bed (well, in his own room, at least), got up the next morning, walked out of his room carrying his Blankie and Scout and said, "Mom? Play?" like nothing had changed. Granted, I'm expecting him to explore his new freedom at some point, but it was nice that it wasn't his first night in the big boy bed otherwise, I'd have to rethink the whole new bed thing.

My little boy is starting to show me that he's not-so-little anymore.

The "coming out" post.

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

It turns out I just needed a week-long break. A mere seven days to make me realize how much I enjoy getting on the Internet and telling the world about how wonderful my family is. Though while I was on my short sabbatical, I analyzed where my stress was coming from. I think my stress stemmed from the fact that I didn't feel like I was doing this for me. I was doing it for family and friends and strangers alike, which has some value and does create joy for others, but it caused some strife for me because I was censoring myself. There are things I wanted to put out there, but felt I couldn't for fear of being judged by the people I knew in real life. (Ahem. See Parenting Hypocrisy.)

If I want to continue this blogging thing for me, I thought to myself, then what do I want to do differently? I do enjoy putting up cute pictures of my boys because they are the center of my world (all three of them) and I like having a way to document their days and lives... but I could just as easily do that in a baby book. In one of the many I already have that are blank because why would I do a blog AND a baby book? There isn't enough time in the day for both.

Do I want to practice my writing composition skills? Negative. I never really had any of these "skills" to practice in the first place.

Do I want a place to hone my comedic edge? If you know me, then you just laughed at that statement... how ironic. Anyway, no. I'm happy with my corny one-liner jokes.

And I decided that if I'm going to continue doing this, I'm going to be honest about who I am. Sure, I'll still put up funny pictures and stories about the boys, but I'm interested in making this more introspective as well. I enjoyed writing that Parenting Hypocrisy post and I want to do more of it. It's a nice way for me to think through this parenting (and life) thing and get honest feedback from other people. So you think I'm crazy for not pretending Santa is real? Well, then tell me. Just know that I'm not going to be shamed into doing something I think is wrong. Regardless, it'd be nice to know how you feel about the topic, since I think people are a little too afraid to say judge-y things in real life.

So. Here we are. Hi. My name is Kelly. And I'm an anarchist.

Boom.

Taking a break

2011-10-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hi folks! I'm going to take a break from the blog for a while. It has turned into a chore that I don't look forward to anymore, so I'm going to stop and come back to it when I feel like I it. It will be nice to spend my one hour break (1.5 hours if I stay up especially late, or not at all if the boys don't want to sleep) marking things off my to do list. See you in a week. Or a month. Or a year. Who knows?

SeaWorld with G-ma

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since my mom's friend, Lorraine, was town this week, they did all sorts of San Diego-esque things. Johnny, Hank and I came along with them to SeaWorld where we spent the day looking at exhibits and checking out the Bay of Play for kids. Oh, and I took lots of awesome pictures.

Johnny counting out ficus berries while we wait for G-ma

Watching the Wild Arctic movie

Looking for the beluga whales

Watching the penguins "fly" underwater

At the Sea lion and Otter Show

New sea turtle exhibit

Watching Shamu and getting sleepy

Getting really sleepy

PLAY TIME!

It was the perfect day for a trip to SeaWorld: hot. We had lots of fun hanging out with G-ma and her friend Lorraine, but not enough fun (or maybe too fun) for Johnny to go down for a nap that afternoon, making it a pretty long day for Mommy. We'll definitely be coming back soon!

Hank is 4 months old!

2011-10-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Please excuse Hank for not publishing this post early this morning like he was supposed to. He's new to this whole blogging thing.

I'm 4 months old today!

I swear I was smiling for this picture. Mom's just too slow with the camera.

I think I'm finally done with that whole "newborn" thing. When you're three months old, you can usually pass as a newborn. Four months, though, it's a whole new stage. I've gone through the whole sleep regression thing and while Mommy tells me I'm not sleeping as poorly as Johnny did at the same age, I'm still not back to where I was. Granted, now that I'm no longer a newborn, I don't sleep as soundly anymore and sleep more like an adult with REM cycles and such... or at least that's what the books say. Who knows if they even know what they're talking about, right? All I know is that sleeping with Mommy is not something I'm interested in anymore. I'm all about sleeping in my own crib.

In other news, I'm slowly getting over the whole spit-up thing. My drawer of burp cloths rarely runs out, which means Mommy doesn't have to do my laundry nearly as often... but I do have some pretty incredible poop-splosions that result in quite a bit of laundry. Luckily, I only poop every five days or so, making those explosions few and far between. (My older brother went through the same thing, I'm told.)

I'm currently wearing 6 month clothes, but they're all getting pretty tight in the torso, which means Mommy needs to bust out the 9 month stuff. The only problem is that most of the 9 month stuff from Johnny is summer-wear, which isn't really appropriate for October. That's the trouble with Johnny and I being born in completely opposite seasons, I guess.

Other than that, I'm still Mommy's bucket of smiles and love to look at faces and watch Johnny play with his toys. I suck on my fingers occasionally and still enjoy grabbing my right foot. If I'm feeling especially adventurous, I'll grab the left foot, but it's certainly not my favorite.

Old toys

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Now that Hank is big enough, I have started pulling out old toys of Johnny's for him to play with. Like this exersaucer, for instance:

It's kind of weird to see Hank playing with toys that I associate with Johnny. I know that Johnny hasn't played with this exersaucer in over a year, but I still feel like Johnny should be the one playing with it. It's the same with Johnny's clothes that Hank is now fitting in; I have tons of pictures of Johnny wearing those clothes, and now Hank is in them. I know it probably doesn't sound all that weird to you, but seeing Hank in Johnny's old overalls just seems crazy to me.

22 months!

2011-10-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm 22 months old today!

This is the face I give Mom when she tells me to look at her and smile.

The past month has brought a huge explosion of communication as I start to string words together into phrases and even some rudimentary sentences. While I've always been a decent communicator, I've gotten even better as of late. I can tell Mom to rub my back for a little bit by saying "Mom rub back lil' bit." Mom and Dad seem to be pretty excited about how many words I know and how I'm putting them together, but I think I'm WAY more excited than they are!

I've even started liking Mom more these days. I ask her to stay with me at night and rub my back, which was Daddy's job for a long time. And I really like her to come play with me. When we go to a park or an indoor playplace, I always want Mom to come with me to play. I give kisses now; instead of just offering a cheek when someone asks me for a kiss, I will physically kiss them! It's not really that big of a deal, but Mom and Dad seem to love it.

Hank has become more interesting to me lately, probably because he's awake more now and not in the ring sling as often. I love to hold my little brother, but for some reason Mom will never let me pick Hank up or hold him by myself. Maybe it's because when I'm done holding him I push him to the ground. Nah. It's probably because Mom just doesn't like to let go of Hank.

I'm really excited to be only two months away from my 2nd birthday!! Terrible 2's, I'm on my way!

Typical Conversation with Johnny

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that Johnny and I have full conversations. Here's an example:

You may have noticed that in the beginning of the video, he's saying "sit" but it sounds an awful lot like a swear word... the word "skunk" is also a tricky one. The first time he said it I was sure he was saying the C-word. Ah, children are so funny. Even when they don't mean to be.

Why, hello, 4 month sleep regression!

2011-10-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Remember that time I said that Hank was sleeping pretty well at night? Waking up at 1am and 5am and then up for the day at 7am? Well, that's over and done with.

Now he's going down at 7PM, waking at 11PM and then every 45 minutes to an hour after that. It's been a pretty brutal couple of weeks. You'd think it would be harder to deal with since I have a toddler to chase, but Johnny actually kind of makes things easier.

For one thing, I'm not bored and therefore miserable during the day thinking about how tired I am; it's go-go-go all the time. For another, since Johnny did the same non-sleeping thing at the same age and now sleeps awesome at night and takes a good afternoon nap, I know that Hank's lack of sleep will end eventually. Tomorrow? Probably not. A month from now? Not likely. In six months? Now we're talking.

It just goes to show that no matter what I do, I'm effed in the sleep department. I can follow what the sleep experts say to do (like I did with Johnny) and end up with a non-sleeper. I can do what my instincts tell me to do (like I've done with Hank) and end up with a non-sleeper. Oh well.

Link Award

2011-10-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law, Lisa, tagged me in this Link Award (I know, an award!!) and I'm supposed to choose one blog entry for each of the seven categories and then tag seven other bloggers to do the same... so here we go!

Most beautiful - I gave the birth stories a hard look, as well as my letter to one-year-old Johnny, but I think the one I like the best is this post about finally accepting motherhood.

Most popular - Well, the post itself is not the most popular, but the video has lots of hits on YouTube, so I figure that makes it popular.

Most controversial - I know, I just wrote it a couple of days ago, but I know everyone who reads it goes, "Whaaaaaat?"

Most helpful - Again, it's a recent one, but I'd say it's pretty darn helpful.

Most surprisingly successful - I find it surprising how many people find my blog by searching "baby butts" on Google.

Most under-rated - Apparently Flava Flav is no longer relevant to the blogosphere... otherwise I think more people would have laughed at this.

Most pride-worthy - Hank's birth story, hands down. I am so proud of myself for going the whole natural birth route and ignoring the nay-sayers (who know who you are!) to have the birth I wanted.

Now I'm supposed to pass this on to seven other bloggers... but Lisa is already taken and she tagged another blog I read religiously... which leaves about three bloggers that might actually read my blog and do this link award:

Leslie Sarna (these can be applied to food, right??)
Rocky Mountain Mama
365degrees

Parenting hypocrisy

2011-10-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

John and I talk often about parenting philosophies and have decided that we want to have parenting principles that will apply across the board. For one thing, it's less confusing for children when you're consistent and for another it makes application of rules easier when there isn't as much grey area to deal with.

For instance, we don't want to lie to our kids (and most parents don't, right?). So, we aren't doing the Santa thing or the Easter bunny thing, because when it comes down to it, we'd be lying to them about the existence of these fantastical creatures. I know it's not a popular thing to do, but we feel like it's the right thing.

Anyway, another principle we've been trying to figure out how to apply is the "sharing" thing. See, when you go to a park and you get out snacks or toys, you're expected to share, right? So, when we've gone places and another kid wants the toy that Johnny is playing with, my first reaction is to tell him to share. Well, this bites me squarely in the butt when Johnny manages to grab something I don't particularly want him to have, like my phone or a kitchen knife (yes, he has grabbed a kitchen knife off the counter before). When I go to take it from him, he'll jerk it away from my and say, "Share?" That always made me stop. How can I expect my child to share his things with others when I won't share certain things with him? Quite the pickle.

Finally, John and I came to the conclusion that he doesn't have to share if he doesn't want to. The flip side of this is that the kid at the park with the cool truck doesn't have share either. I know this is going to be a difficult thing to enforce with a toddler (toddlers say, "What is yours is mine and what is mine is mine", right?), but at least it'll be consistent, which is worth it to me.

Look what I found!!

2011-10-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

IT'S A FOOT!

Hank just discovered his foot and has a great time holding it and looking at it. Whenever he is lying down, in his infant seat or his swing, he curls over, grabs his right foot and marvels at it. I love babies that are easily entertained.

O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny has an obsession with Cars, as I may have mentioned previously. Multiple times. So when I saw Lightning McQueen and Mater toys at Target, I didn't hesitate to purchase them. Just as I thought, they have become his favorite things in the world.

He has them while drinking his morning milk.

He has them while watching the Cars movie.

He has them while going places in the car.

He takes them shopping with us.

These little cars have gone EVERYWHERE with us. I used to be really nervous about him dropping one and consequently losing it, until he dropped one in the grocery store and lost. his. mind. "DROP! MAAAAAY!!! DROP!!!! MOM!!!!" (Maaay = Mater, the brown truck) I have to admit, it's really cute that he has an attachment to these toys. Sometimes it's a little obnoxious, like when I'm by myself trying to get both boys to bed and Johnny won't settle down until I get him Mater and Lightning McQueen, but I can't find them and run around the house repeatedly until I find them in his toy barn... true story. But most of the time, it's adorable.

More evidence as to Johnny's obsession: he has six Cars shirts. I counted. SIX. He had one that I got at Target on clearance:

Yeah, my kid's eating an Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie... judge my parenting skills accordingly.

It was a double whammy: his favorite color, red, and it had Mater on it. But then he wanted to wear it all the time. And I mean every day and every night. After a couple of days and nights I had to put my foot down and put it in the hamper... only to have him take it out again and give it to an unknowing Daddy to put it on him. He's sneaky, that kid. There have been other instances where Daddy will tell him that he can't wear his Mater shirt because it's dirty. So Johnny will say, "Wash!" and put it in the bathtub and run water over it. Or he'll give to me and insist I wash it right then and there. So, I had to invest in a few more shirts. Oh, and a couple sets of pajamas.

Mater and Lightning McQueen making yet another appearance.

I know, you've seen this picture, but he's wearing his black Cars shirt in this one.

Thank you, Walmart.com for your uber-cheap character shirts and even cheaper shipping!

Talkin' up a storm

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny's vocabulary has consisted of one-syllable words since he started talking. When he added "Daddy" and "Johnny" to his repertoire, I thought that more two-syllable words would begin to tumble from that little mouth of his shortly thereafter.

Well, I was wrong.

After months of saying "Maaay!" for "Mater" from the movie Cars, he has finally started stringing words together to be more specific. Now he says "Wat Maaay!" which, of course, means "Watch Mater!" Duh.

He also says "both WAYS" (with the emphasis on the second word) when we cross the street since John and I are constantly telling him to look both ways before crossing the street. When he wakes up in the morning, he says, "Find nine?" meaning he wants to go in the play room and have me quiz him on his numbers.

This communication thing? Is FREAKING AWESOME!!!!! I can't even begin to explain how cool it is to have your child talk to you. We have conversations. For reals. Yeah, he only says two or three words at a time, but I totally get it. Other people may look at me quizzically when he says, "red torrrr?", but I know that he is talking about Vons, which has a red sign. That's one of the best things about being a stay-at-home-mom is that I understand 99% of what Johnny talks about since it's all in context. Being around him all day everyday seeing everything that he is experiencing makes it way easier to understand him.

From Aunt Lisa

2011-10-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Oh yes I'm blogging this.

Thanks for the onesie, Aunt Lisa! I'm sorry it took so long to get a picture of it... without poop or spit up all over it.

Matchy-matchy

2011-09-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Adorable, right? I think this is the best shot I took, even though Johnny isn't smiling... but it beats the ones where he was climbing:

or making funny faces:

But I guess those are cute, too.

WE'RE ALIVE!

2011-09-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

After a lovely week of snot, phlegm, and nasal congestion, we've finally come out the other side. Johnny is still sporting a booger-crusted nose, Hank still has to have his mattress inclined to sleep at night, and I'm still a little congested, but at least we're all well enough to leave the house. Yay!

I'm not proud of it, but most of last week was spent like this:

I felt so sick and was so sleep deprived (from Hank being sick, too) that I didn't have the energy to entertain Johnny the whole day like I usually do. Plus many of our usual options were cut off since we were sick; no parks with other children, no indoor playplaces, no playdates, no walks, etc. Yeah, it was a tough week.

I remember one of the expectant (first time) moms in our birth class talking about how she saw a two-year-old with an iPhone and how well he could use it. She was appalled that a child so young had spent enough time with a smart phone to be able to manipulate it so expertly. She would NEVER let her child spend so much time with technology. I think she'd be horror-struck at our list of activities from last week, don't you agree?

Still brothers

2011-09-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

They still look pretty similar, but I can now tell them apart a little easier... I mean, in pictures of course. Here are pictures of the boys at 3 months old:

Their eyes are about the same color and so is their hair... though Johnny seems to have more of it than Hank. Unfortunately, Hank is losing hair in weird spots. He's not going bald anywhere (other than the back of his head, of course), but his darker newborn hair is definitely falling out. If Johnny's hair is any indication of how Hank's will turn out, I think I can expect some light blond hair to grow in.

Sick time

2011-09-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hi! No blog today. We're all sick with a cold and Hank and I were up for a good portion of last night. If you've never dealt with a 3-month-old with a cold, just picture an organism that only breathes through his nose... and that nose is stuffed up. Yeah. That was our night. Hopefully today will be better!

Gift buying guide for a 1-year-old

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Before I had a child of my own, I never had any clue what to give a child for a special occasion. I would Google "children gifts" and would be bombarded with products that I had never seen before. So I thought I'd put together a little guide for anyone who needs help... like I did.

First thing to know: it doesn't have to be something they will use right away. The second year of life is full of changes; if they don't play with it at 12 months, they may be all over it at 18 months. So keep that in mind.

Second thing to think about: How well do you know the parents? Some parents don't give their kids toys with batteries. Some parents prefer not to have loud toys in the house. Some parents only want to give their children educational toys. Take these things into consideration, but don't stress too much. Most parents are like John and me, so any toy you give will be played with and enjoyed. But if you're not sure, go with a best bet, as I have indicated with a (*) below.

Third thing to know: AVOID SMALL PARTS! Kids stop compulsively putting things in their mouths in the second year of life (ish), but that doesn't mean they won't see a small game piece and attempt to choke on it. If the toy has a small piece that has you second guessing, play it safe and find something else.

Fourth thing to remember: Gift receipts. I've gotten a few gifts for Johnny and Hank that we already had and couldn't return because I didn't have a receipt for them. I re-gifted them to others or donated, but I hated to do it since I know how much effort goes into choosing a present for someone. Be a kind gift-giver, include a receipt.

Last thing: It doesn't have to be a really complex toy for them to like it. One of Johnny's favorite toys is a wooden truck that has wooden animals that go with it. It's very simple, but Johnny loves to push it around, put the animals in and take the animals out. Children generally have simple tastes.

Gift ideas:

*1. Books - Always a winner, but make sure they're the board kind - toddlers are still pretty rough on things. Johnny has really enjoyed the Matthew Van Fleet books that we have, but anything that has texture and/or rhyming is a good choice.

*2. Simple puzzles - Kids this age are working with matching shapes and motor function, both of which are addressed by puzzles. However, they need to be pretty simple and have knobs for easy pick up. Melissa and Doug has a great selection of wooden knob puzzles that would be great for a one-year-old.

3. Imaginative play toys - Kids love to mimic their parents, so if you can provide something age-appropriate that looks like something their parents use, you've probably got a winner. Some toy examples: phones, remote controls, cameras, kitchen utensils, shopping cart, dolls, etc.

4. Trucks - This is definitely something that boys like, though I'm not sure about girls. I know that Johnny has all kind of trucks to play with: cement trucks, tow trucks, tractors, fire trucks, etc. Some are battery-operated and play music, others are wooden and come with wooden accessories. Again, complexity isn't going to matter here.

*5. Blocks - Johnny still loves blocks. Big Lego-type blocks, cardboard blocks, squishy blocks, and wooden blocks still keep his attention. One-year-olds are still working on motor function (as mentioned earlier), so stacking blocks is a great way to build those motor skills. Plus what is more fun than having Mom build a tower so you can destroy it? Nothing, I tell you. Toddlers love destruction.

The bottom line: A gift that you have put some thought into will surely loved by a one-year-old, but try not to over-analyze it... despite all of the instructions I just threw out there. :)

Anyone else have other things to add to my list? I'd love to have more ideas up here!

Pinterest = Awesome

2011-09-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are not on Pinterest... I'm almost a little jealous because you probably have more free time than I do. But I pity you as well. Why, you ask? Because Pinterest has changed my life in many small ways.

Just in case you don't know what Pinterest is, it's a site that is set up like a bulletin board on which you can "pin" favorite things you find the Internet. So instead of finding a great article and then bookmarking it and never looking at it again, you can make a bulletin board on Pinterest called "Articles" and save the location for later perusal. The best part is you can see what other people are "pinning" to their boards and you can find some majorly cool stuff.

For instance, these bad boys:

These are Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. And they are everything a cookie with that kind of name should be. I made them this week just for the heck of it and I was not disappointed. Just the sheer size of these cookies made them worthwhile:

Yes, they are (okay, okay, were) amazing. And I would never have found them without Pinterest. Other cool things I have found and have done:

Felt flowers
Power cord labels
Andes Mint Cupcakes
Ruler growth chart
Meal Plan dry erase board

Admittedly, only a few of things I have pinned have actually been realized, but it's fun to take a look at things that other people find. I've found a couple of awesome blogs through Pinterest and have found some of what I consider my style... which is a big deal considering I've had NO style for a while now.

Bottom line: If you're not pinning, you should be. It's awesome.

Hank is 3 months old!

2011-09-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm 3 months old today!

This month has brought a few changes for me. Not only can I roll over from tummy to back, but now I can roll over from back to tummy! Of course, there isn't any evidence because I get distracted by the camera, but Mommy has seen it happen a few times. I have yet to use these new-found skills to do any kind of traveling though. Maybe next month.

I am still very smiley and laugh at the faces Mommy makes. My sleeping schedule is pretty much the same from day to day, which is nice because there's a routine to my day. This has probably helped with my nighttime sleeping; on an average night, I go to bed around 7pm, get dreamfed at 9:30pm and then wake up around 2am for another feeding and wake up for the day at 6:30am. Not too bad, right?

I still hate the car seat and will only tolerate it under very special circumstances. Otherwise, I scream my head off. Not that it does any good, Mommy just does what she needs to do regardless of my discomfort. That's what happens when you're the second child, I guess.

The many faces of Hank

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

One evening Hank was being especially smiley and sweet, so I told John to grab the camera. My idea was since Hank refuses to smile for the camera, maybe I could get him to smile at me and then John could capture it over my shoulder. Well, this resulted in an awful lot of pictures of Hank staring at the camera and a few where he is kind of smirking. None of them actually captured the full wattage of Hank's smile... but they were still adorable.

P.S. Thank you, Aunt Lisa, for the awesome onesie. Unfortunately, none of the pictures capture the writing that says "My mommy is blogging this. :)", but maybe one day I'll remember to take a picture of it when it's somewhat clean and not covered in either spit up or poop.

TRAIN!?!

2011-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm part of a local mom's group that does a zoo meetup every month through a mommy meetup program at the zoo. We meet two or three zoo representatives at 8:45am (before the zoo is even open!!) and they walk us through a special program they have set up for us. Each month's program has a different theme and includes an exhibit, zoo keeper talk and a story. Last week the theme was "The three R's and the train". Not sure how the train relates to the whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing, but hey, the kids were stoked.

Well, Johnny had never been on a train before and TOTALLY dug it. It was the only thing he could talk about the rest of the day. Here's a conversation I would have with Johnny:

Johnny: "Train?"

Me: "Yeah, we went on the train today."

Johnny: "Fun!"

Me: "It was fun, wasn't it?"

Johnny: "Train? Zoo?"

Me: "We won't be going there for awhile, honey."

Johnny: "Train?! TRAIN!!"

Me: "We're not going the train again today, but you can tell Daddy all about when he gets home."

Johnny: "Daddy? Train!!"

And over and over.

So, I decided that we would go on the train this past weekend so Daddy could see the look of exhilaration on Johnny's face.

TRAIN!

Waiting in line with Daddy

Choosing a seat

Squirming around waiting to get going

Unhappy toddler face

The second John gets off the train, he looks at me and says, "You lied to me. He HATED the train." Oops. I guess Johnny was squirming when they sat down and he kept saying, "Down! Off! Down! DOWN!", but I told John to just ignore it and he'd get over it when the train started moving, because that's what happened last time.

Well, he didn't get over it. Apparently he cried the whole time and embarrassed the heck out of John.

So then we get Johnny some food and put him on his bike to leave when he says, "Train? Fun!"

Toddlers are so weird.

21 months

2011-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm 21 months old today!

This month hasn't brought too many more changes, but my parents have finally noticed how smart I am. I know all of my colors, I can count to ten (though I often skip 7 and 8) and I can spell my name... without the n's though because I don't pronounce them when I say my name. I'm getting better at using smart phones and have taken Daddy's out of airplane mode repeatedly. This has resulted in Daddy keeping his phone away from me, which is something I don't particularly like, so I complain about it often.

I'm now completely obsessed with the movie Cars, though I call it "Mater" because he's my favorite character. I have a red Cars 2 shirt that Mom got on clearance and if I were allowed, I'd wear it every single day. I have been known to wear it during the day, then keep it on that night and wear it again the next day. I can't wait until Cars 2 comes out on DVD so I can change things up a little... not that the first Cars is losing it's appeal, I'd just like some variety. Maybe.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather coming our way so that we can go outside more often. Mom has been a spoilsport lately because she says it's too hot to go outside. Well, if she would just leave Hank in the house, I'm sure she wouldn't feel nearly as hot. But she won't do it for some reason. He's just a baby, it's not like he's going to go anywhere. Sheesh.

In the Bjorn

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

One evening a week ago, I put Hank in the Baby Bjorn facing out to see what he would think.

Our efforts to get Johnny in the picture resulted in Hank losing his hat.

Well, he dug it while we walked around, but the second he got tired, he lost his mind. Poor little guy was really overstimulated considering that he is usually snuggled up to me when we go for walks or out for errands. Taking a look at the big wide world when all you've known is your mom's chest is probably a pretty freaky experience. The overstimulation session led to a rather wakeful night, wherein I did most of my sleeping in the glider with Hank in my arms nursing.

Yeah, the Bjorn has been packed up and put away for a later date. Or maybe for the next child.

Hair dude!

2011-09-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny and Hank both have a little cowlick on the back of their heads where the hair grows in a circle. Well, Johnny's would grow in a circle if it were long enough, but it's not. Hank, on the other hand, has this adorable curl on the back of his head:

Freaking adorable, right?

Breaking up is hard to do

2011-09-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Hank has lived in the ring sling these last (almost) 12 weeks. It's been great because it definitely allows more ventilation than any other carrier I own and Hank can curl up just the way he likes in it. The biggest (and only) downside is that it kills my back and shoulder. I normally wear the ring side, which is the load-bearing part, on my right shoulder to keep my right arm free while my left arm hits Hank's butt (he loves it, I promise). But now that he's heavier, that's a lot of weight to hang on my shoulder. So I decided to try out the Ergo, so named because it is ERGO-nomic. I figured it'd make my back feel a lot better.

15 minutes later...

The Ergo lasted a grand total of twenty minutes. Hank did fall asleep in it, but his little feet lost circulation because he likes to sleep with his feet together and his knees spread, which means his feet were caught in the waist belt... tightly. So he woke up.

A couple days ago, however, I tried out the Moby out of sheer desperation for some back pain relief.

And that worked out really well, except for the ridiculous amount of sweating I did. Even Hank was hotter than usual. Can you see the sheen of perspiration on his little brow in the picture above? So even though my back and shoulders felt a lot better, Hank and I were way hotter than usual. Which prompted a return to the ring sling. Oh well. Sooner or later he'll start spreading his legs more and the Ergo will serve. If not, the temperature is sure to dip below 90 degrees in a couple of months and I can rock the Moby. Or maybe he'll take naps in his crib. *gasp!*

Clothes!!

2011-09-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hank hardly ever wears clothes because it's summer and it's hot. And he's always swaddled. And in the ring sling. All of those things together make Hank rather warm all the time. Therefore, we skip the clothing.

The other day, we had some of John's friends over so I dressed Hank up for the occasion.

He looks pretty cute dressed, doesn't it? Granted, it lasted for about an hour and then it was saturated in spit up. Delicious.

And since I have to include pictures of Johnny, here we go:

Big shoes to fill

2011-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny loves shoes. One of his first words was "shoe". Well, actually, he said "fouf" but that's what he called shoes. It's a real word.

Anyway. He's been picking out shoes for me and John for a long time. There have been many days when I don some neon pink flip flops because those are what he picked out for me... and he flat out refuses to let me wear any other pair of shoes. So, I wear the flip flops. He knows the difference between my shoes and John's shoes, so when we ask for our own shoes, he will actually get Mommy's or Daddy's shoes. Amazing really.

While he will still get our shoes for us, he's now become interested in putting them on:

He may have big feet for his age, but at least they don't fit in John's shoes yet.

Just wait.

2011-09-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of hearing those two little words: Just wait.

When I was pregnant with Johnny and complaining about being tired since my pregnant body wouldn't let me get into a comfortable position, people said, "Just wait until that baby comes, THEN you'll be tired!"

When I managed to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight after only four months of having Johnny people said, "Just wait until you have your second baby! THEN we'll see how easy the weight comes off."

When I was talking about how mobile Johnny was when he learned to crawl and how fun it was, people said, "Just wait until he can walk! THEN we'll see how great you think it is."

When I was pregnant with Hank and complaining about being able to just sit down while taking care of Johnny (because he was a Nazi about people resting at all) people said, "Just wait until you have TWO babies! THEN we'll see how tired you are."

When I would tell people about how I wanted to go without pain meds for Hank's birth people said, "Just wait until you feel those labor pains! Then we'll see how fast you ask for those pain medications."

And a couple of days ago, while talking to another mother of two about how the first two months with two babies haven't been as bad as I was expecting, she said, "Oh, just wait! It'll get worse, I promise you."

I admit that I have said those two little words on occasion, but after that mother made her comment a couple of days ago, the negativity of them has finally clicked.

The people around me, strangers and friends alike, that I have talked to about anxieties, fears, complaints or even what I'm proud of have downplayed my emotions by telling me that my future is a black abyss of exhaustion and frustration. That the only good thing I have going for me is that this moment doesn't suck nearly as much is the next moment will.

I refuse to believe that.

So when the pregnant mom with her 15-month-old girl asked me what it is like to have two babies so close together, because she'll be there in two short months, I told her that it hasn't been as bad as everyone told me it would be. Yes, I'm tired, but it's not worse than the exhaustion I felt with the first one and it's outweighed by how much less your second baby cries because you know what you're doing. She walked away with a smile.

The next time you're about to tell someone, "just wait [insert snarky comment here]"... just don't. Say something positive, you'll feel better about it.

Has anyone else had that "just wait" thing thrown in their face?

And just like that...

2011-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

... he's that much closer to being a big kid.

The past weekend, John and I switched our kitchen and dining room tables. Our kitchen table was counter-height and difficult for Johnny to sit in a chair safely and eat with us. Our dining room table, however, was normal height. Thus, we decided to just switch our tables instead of buying a new one for the kitchen and selling the counter-height one.

Why did we need a lower table? Doesn't Johnny have a high chair? Well, he has been growing increasingly interested in sitting in regular chairs like John and I do. Last weekend we had lunch at Rubio's and since there weren't any high chairs available, he sat in a real chair. He actually did pretty well. So now, he sits at the table in a real chair with a real plate (that he has yet to throw off the table, though I'm expecting that any day).

Cheating with the fork

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

I apologize for all of the videos lately, but I have this bad habit of taking lots of video and then leaving it on the camera. I don't know why I never get around to downloading video to my computer. It's not like it's hard, I just never do it. For some reason I can download pictures like a madwoman, but video? Forget it.

Anyway.

For the most part, Johnny still picks up food with his hands when he's eating. Yes, I know I should be pushing eating utensils, but I don't care. I let him use a fork when he's interested in one and I don't push it when he's not. Honestly, it's WAY less clean up for me if I just let him use his hands. Hands generally don't become accidental food catapults... generally. That being said, this particular day Johnny wanted to use MY fork. Not his little fork, my large adult fork. So I let him try it.

His use of eating utensils a bit unconventional and kind of defeats the purpose of using said utensil, but at least it's cute.

Wanna wrestle?

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is how Daddy and Johnny play:

Cute, right? What's even more adorable is that after Johnny was done playing this game, John turns to me and says, "This is what I always imagined being a parent would be like. Wrestling and rough housing with my little boy is the best."

::heart melts::

Mimicry

2011-08-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny has always been indifferent to what it is I'm doing. Unless what I'm doing is ignoring him. Then he's all over me. Well, recently I've caught him doing things that I do on a nearly daily basis. Like this:

Yeah, he's trying to use the can opener on that can of cream of mushroom soup (which actually has a tab to peel off the top, but I wasn't going to point that out). It took me awhile to figure out what he was trying to do. After he got a hold of the opener, he kept pointing to the pantry door asking me to open it. When I did he got out a can and then attempted to put the opener and can together saying, "Turn. Turn! TURN!!!" Hilarious.

Here is another of his recent antics in the kitchen:

Luckily he can't open the oven... yet. But once he is able to, at least he knows how to put on oven mitts.

A picture of me and Hank

2011-08-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was looking through pictures from 2010 a couple of days ago and realized that I'm hardly in a single one. John makes a cameo every 500 pictures or so, but most of them are just of Johnny. So I promised myself to make more of an effort to take pictures of myself with my kids because I know I LOVED looking at photos of my mom and me from when I was little. It's just fun to see your parents when they were your age, you know? So here we go:

It took about five tries to get this one taken and I still had to crop out all of the extra stuff. Perhaps one day I will take awesome cell phone pictures like my sister-in-law, Lisa. Seriously, she has awesome pictures of herself and Jack that I think she takes with her iPhone. My Droid Eris doesn't have a fast enough shutter speed to catch a good picture of a moving baby. Alas. For now, I try to take decent shots of myself and my kids with my rather large Canon Rebel, but hey, at least the quality rocks!

It's 8:45am...

2011-08-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

where is Johnny? Sleeping. The kid who hates to sleep is sleeping. As my husband says, "He's sleeping in like a drunken teenager!" This situation reminds me of a joke:

In the US they say, "It's 10 o'clock, do you know where your children are?"
In France, they say, "It's 10 o'clock, do you know where your wife is?"
But in Poland, they say, "It's 10 o'clock...

....do you know what time it is?"

Ha! I love dumb Polish jokes.

Disclaimer: I may or may not be a little punchy from waking up so much last night.

My kid hates cameras

2011-08-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've said a few times that Hank is all smiles all the time until the camera comes out. This is evidence:

 He's all 

He's all adorable and happy and then he sees the camera... cue personality shut down. I suppose he won't be quite the ham that Johnny is... at least for now.

Blog Hop: A Typical Day

2011-08-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

I did one of these "day in the life" posts a few months ago when I was pregnant with Hank and, obviously, our routine has changed quite a bit since Hank was born. I tried to take a few pictures here and there to illustrate and then got sick of it... therefore there are only pictures of the first half of our day. Oh well.

6:30am: Hank wakes up, so I get up and we play for a few minutes before I hit the shower. Hank chills out on the floor of the bathroom while I get clean.

7:00am: Hank and I go downstairs to get some coffee and breakfast. I usually listen to my morning show (DSC, if you don't listen, you should) while eating and playing with Hank in his infant seat.

My favorite coffee cup. I used to feel guilty about drinking caffeine and breastfeeding, but this cup made a convincing argument for coffee. I now have a caffeinated drink almost every day.

7:15am: Unload the dishwasher. I swear, with only three people eating real food around here, we go through a ridiculous amount of dishes. There are dishes to put away nearly every. single. day. But at least I can put them away while Johnny is still in bed, otherwise it'd be putting away dishes while trying to keep Johnny from smashing said dishes on the floor.

7:30am(ish): Johnny is ready to get up and makes it known by yelling as loud as possible.

7:35am: Johnny picks out his shirt for the day... this is a trial because he always wants his "Mater" shirt, which is usually dirty because he has worn it to bed a few times and also during the day a few times. There just comes a point where a T-shirt has to be washed. So he usually goes a little crazy when I tell him his Mater shirt is dirty and then finally picks a different shirt. Then I'm allowed to pick out his shorts. He couldn't care less about the bottom half of his wardrobe.

7:45am: Hank is ready for a nap, so he gets swaddled and stuffed in the ring sling.

7:47am: Johnny pulls me by the hand into the play room, where he drinks some milk and plays with trucks.

9am: This is when we usually do our leave-the-house activities like running errands, going to playdates, going for a walk, etc. This day, however, was a cleaning day. So I dusted and vacuumed the upstairs rooms while Johnny chased me around asking if I was "done" and Hank slept in the ring sling.

10:30am: Hank is awake, so I feed him, change his diaper, and put him down for some naked tummy time to give his little bottom a chance to air out.

11am: I finally get Johnny to eat something. He's never been one to sit down after waking up and have breakfast. Some days it happens, but this day it did not. So, Johnny sits down to eat an egg and blueberries while I sit down and eat some lunch.

11:20am: Brush those teeth! The brushing of the teeth is a variable in our day. It does happen every morning, but the when changes. Sometimes Johnny eats a real breakfast when he wakes up, so we brush teeth after that; other times he won't eat until some time closer to lunch, so we brush teeth then. I'm just proud that I'm able to brush AND floss his teeth every day. I'm an oral surgeon's daughter. Dental hygiene is important.

Normally I brush and floss Johnny's teeth while he's lying down on the changing table. That way I can hold his head with one hand and brush with the other... but it's hard to get a picture like that. So we posed in the bathroom.

11:30am: We have some more play time. Usually involving the car, like this day. Sometime while we're playing, Hank is ready to sleep again, so I stuff him back in the ring sling.

12:30pm: This is about when Johnny takes his nap and our routine varies a little bit here. If Hank is really passed out, then I leave him in the ring sling while I get Johnny down for his nap. If he's kind of wakeful, then I take him out and put him in his crib where he usually cries for the duration of Johnny's nap time routine. Oh well, it sucks being the second child.

12:45pm: While Johnny naps, I usually do a combination of things. Play with Hank when he's awake, leave him in the ring sling when he's sleeping, blog, upload pictures/videos, clean up after our morning, make phone calls, or just lounge and read my book. However, I hardly ever sit down. Sitting down means Hank will most likely wake up... so I all of the above things while standing or walking around for two hours.

2:30pm: Johnny wakes up, usually crabby.

2:35pm: More playing in the play room, while I chase him around with a banana or some other form of food. Hank generally hangs out and watches Johnny and I play.

3:15pm: This is when I start to just kill time until John comes home. Johnny is usually tired of being inside, so we'll go out and run more errands or play out in the front yard. On this particular day we took a walk to the grocery store because Johnny kept saying "shop" and then led me to Vons. I thought we were headed to the local park, but Johnny knew where he wanted to go. Weird.

4pm: I start making dinner while Johnny plays by himself or tries vainly to get my attention by pulling out cooking utensils and pans and opening the refrigerator. Hank sleeps in the ring sling.

5:15pm: John comes home and I get dinner on the table... kind of. This is always a production because I'm trying to finish cooking, John is trying to get the table set and Johnny is trying to bodily and verbally force John outside so they can play in John's car. The five o' clock hour is a noisy and busy one in the Durso household.

5:30pm: Dinner is served! Hank watches us eat from his infant seat or is nursing. Johnny is trying to grab at our eating utensils and demanding more of this or that. John is trying to keep Johnny happy while attempted to eat himself and I am either nursing Hank, fetching different food for Johnny to eat, or eating myself. After dinner, I clean up while Hank chills and John and Johnny go play by the pool; Johnny is usually naked by this point.

6:15pm: I start getting Hank ready for bed by bathing him, giving him some time to air out, swaddling and then nursing him. John is attempting to get Johnny inside in an non-violent fashion with a few tears as possible.

7pm: Hank is down. John is reading stories to Johnny while Johnny runs around his room, pulls shirts of hangers, opens drawers and plays with the fan.

7:30pm: John exits Johnny's room whether he's asleep or not. If Johnny isn't asleep, he cries for a little and then settles down to play with Scout or to go to sleep. John and I then get to relax, which consists of cleaning up the kitchen, picking up Johnny's toys, then maybe watching a movie or surfing the Internet.

9:30pm: I dreamfeed Hank and then go to bed. Of course, my night consists of getting up to feed Hank every now and then, but for the most part, my day is done.

Obviously, there are an awful lot of breastfeeding sessions and diaper changes that go on during the day, but I felt it was overkill to include all of those. Not to mention even more boring than the things I chose to include.

Bumbo time!

2011-08-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hank's head control, while pretty good for his age, continues to get better and better. I decided to challenge him by putting him in the Bumbo. He was pretty indifferent, just being smiley and sweet as usual. Or maybe that means he liked it. Whatever. He was happy while he was in it (but he's also happy while sitting in a pool of his own poop so his standards aren't exactly high).

And then, in the way of toddlers, Johnny was suddenly interested in the Bumbo after Hank sat in it.

I guess all of that tummy time is paying off.

Johnny's "big boy" room

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

John and I set up Johnny's big boy room at the end of May and I promised pictures... so here they are! Finally!

We managed to get the exact same crib as the one in the nursery on clearance at Babies R Us.

I know this one is dark, but you can see the window with the blackout curtains and the dark blue valence.

This is a ruler growth chart that John made. I saw it on Pinterest and asked John to recreate it, so he did!

Truck wall decal.

The theme of the room was "construction" so I got him bedding (just a crib sheet) with trucks all over it and the wall decals are all construction-related. The green truck with the pile of black dots? Took FOREVER to get on the wall. Worth it, though.

We don't spend a lot of time in Johnny's room because it gets really really hot, but the whole thing is child-proofed nonetheless. That way if Johnny ever climbs out of his crib while we're still sleeping we don't have to worry about him pulling the dresser over on himself. Because John bolted it to the wall. Genius.

Ode to the second child

2011-08-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone always jokes about how the first child has thousands of pictures and albums devoted to just them, while the second child has fewer pictures and albums and each subsequent child has even fewer than the second. When I was pregnant with Hank, I told myself that I would do my best to keep that from happening.

Fail.

A couple of weeks ago, Hank rolled over for the first time. And I missed it. Hank was doing some tummy time while I was trying to keep Johnny occupied so he wouldn't keep pulling on Hank's head trying to get him "up". The next thing I know, Hank is lying on his back, watching Johnny and me wrestle. At first I felt a little guilty, especially as I remembered how stoked I was when Johnny finally rolled over. There were facebook posts, videos captured and pictures taken to memorialize the event. For Hank? Nada. Sure, I've tried to catch him rolling on camera, but he just won't do it.

This isn't the only thing he won't do when someone is watching... I swear he crawls when I'm not around. I (I mean, Hank) mentioned this is the 2 months old post and while he's not moving around with his belly raised and hands and knees moving in a coordinated fashion, he seems to be moving. Though I'm not sure how.

Here is the story.

I left Hank doing tummy time naked on his towel in the nursery. He was safely away from any potentially dangerous items, like furniture. As seen here:

I went into Johnny's room to get him up and dressed for the day. While putting on Johnny's shorts, I heard some crying from Hank's room. Not the I'm-sick-of-tummy-time-dammit crying, but the Oh-my-God-something-is-really-wrong-save-me! crying. So I go in there, and this is what I see:

Reenactment

Somehow, he had pushed himself off the towel and crammed his head under the ottoman. He was 8 weeks old when this happened, much too early to be this mobile. I was counting on him not walking until he was AT LEAST 9 months... looks like I'll be needed leashes much sooner than anticipated.

Note: No babies were harmed in the publishing of this blog.

Bedtime

2011-08-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Our family routine has changed quite a bit since Hank was born. One of the big things to change was John taking over Johnny's bedtime ritual... and boy is it fun to listen to the whole thing go down while I'm putting Hank to sleep. John has WAY more patience than I do, which is why it takes a good hour for John to put Johnny down.

And now, my husband's very first blog post!

Since right before Hank was born I took over the duty of putting Johnny down for bed, at first so Kelly could rest her very pregnant back, then so she could focus on putting Hank to bed. Albeit sometimes frustrating, I really enjoy closing my evenings with some quality Daddy/Johnny time. At first things were pretty easy; Kelly had a well established bedtime routine with a bath, bottle and blankee, but once we traded the bottle for a sippy cup full of milk, things got a little sideways...

You see, when Johnny was going to bed with a bottle we would do the bath, a little nakee time, get dressed, read a few stories, turn on Scout, turn off the light and sit down with the bottle. By the time his bottle was dry Johnny was either asleep or in a sleepy, milk-drunk state in which he could be gently picked up and put to bed with little or no back rubbing.

Now that's all out the window.

I don't know if I can blame it on the sippy cup or Johnny's ever-changing toddler personality, but he is just all over the place at bedtime these days. He's recently discovered the mirrored closet doors in his room; boy is it ever adorable! He runs around naked, sticking out/sucking in his belly, making funny faces and giving himself high fives in the mirror. The toughest part is convincing him to put on a diaper before he pees all over the place. A few months ago Johnny was such a good deal maker: "Johnny, if you sit down and put on a diaper I'll read you a book." These days I spend about fifteen minutes watching him jamming stuffed animals into his crotch and running around with a big smile on his face saying "nooo, noooo!". In the end he always comes and sits on his diaper, sometimes after faking me out a few times, saying, "Psych!" It can sometimes be frustrating and I would get mad, but he's just so damn cute!

Hank's 2 month doctor visit

2011-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hank visited the doctor on Wednesday and did quite well, despite the FIVE (count 'em: FIVE) shots and one oral vaccination he got. He was pretty pissed about being pricked so many times, but after nursing for a short while, I swaddled him and stuck him in the ring sling where he promptly passed out. Passed out so hard, in fact, that he actually STAYED asleep in the car seat. Poor guy. He must have been pretty traumatized. That's why babies have such short memories though. Thank goodness.

So here are the stats:
Height: 25" - 97%
Weight: 13lbs 5oz - 86%
Head circumference: 16.2" - 82%

This is all pretty similar to Johnny at the same age, though strangely, Johnny weighed more than Hank even though he started out two pounds less... must have been all those nighttime feedings that Hank feels he doesn't need. The doctor also took a look at the ear that failed the hearing test (Hank's right) and said that it looks like there is fluid behind the ear drum still, so not to fret too much.

All in all, Hank is healthy, happy, and thriving.

Brothers?

2011-08-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the pictures I have of Hank (the number of which is pitifully small compared to the number of Johnny I had taken by the same age) and I found this picture:

Which looks an awful lot like this picture:

Yes? Except that the second picture is of Johnny at about the same age as the one of Hank. 7 weeks-ish.

Some friends of ours that met Hank this past weekend proclaimed, "He looks EXACTLY like Johnny! It's like a replay!" Which prompted me to go back and look at pictures and videos of Johnny at this age and well, the evidence is above. They are definitely brothers. Looking back at all of the documentation of Johnny was a little weird because I barely remember him being that small and uncoordinated. It blows my mind that he was ever as helpless and tiny as Hank is now... so much happens in the first year and a half, it's hard to keep track of it all and commit everything to memory. Thank goodness for technology! If only I had been as good about blogging back then as I am now... but I suppose that's why Johnny has two almost completely filled-out baby books and Hank doesn't. Oh well!

Hank is 2 months old!

2011-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm 2 months old today!

As you can see by the evidence above, Mommy finally snapped a picture of me smiling. See, I'm a bucket of smiles whenever I'm awake (and not eating, of course), but the minute Mommy brings out that camera, I have to put on my model face. Which looks more like this:

I was going for "Blue Steel", but I think it looks more like "WTF, Mom?" I suppose I have to work on this facial control thing if I actually want to model someday.

Anyway. I'm cooing up a storm these days and I have no problem hanging out on the floor while Mommy gets a quick shower in whenever she can. I still take all of my naps in the ring sling, though sometimes I'll fall asleep in the car seat... but only rarely. I still sleep a decent amount at night and even have a relatively consistent bedtime and morning wake up time. Even my feedings are pretty consistent from day to day. I attended my first wedding this month (Congratulations, JJ and Paul!) and had a blast dancing to the Black Eyed Peas from the sling. Other firsts include rolling over from tummy to back a couple of weeks ago and crawling!!! (<---kind of. Mom will fill everyone in on that later.) Yeah, I rocked my second month of life, what can I say?

Look who discovered his reflection!

2011-08-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hey, is that... me?!

Damn, I AM cute, huh?

The Little Lamb swing we have has a little mobile with lambs and stars on it, but what Hank is most enthralled with is the mirror that is at the center of all the lambs and stars. He'll sit there for a good ten minutes and just stare at himself... then again, I shouldn't be too impressed because he sat and watched me fold laundry for about half an hour yesterday. I'd say he's a pretty mellow kid.

I love Mondays

2011-08-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

When I was a teacher, I hated Mondays. Never in my life did I think that I would actually LIKE that dreaded day that meant a return to work with five classrooms full of kids who were just as disgruntled about it being Monday as I was.

Now? I LOVE them.

Yeah, it's great having John around on the weekends because he helps out so much, but the return to routine on Monday is just awesome. Especially because I feel well-rested since John does help me out so much on Saturday and Sunday. Johnny also welcomes the return to a routine and is always really well-behaved and a lot of fun on Mondays. Not that he doesn't miss his daddy, as evidenced by the fact that the first he thing he says when I walk into his room on Monday morning is "Daddy?"

For whatever reason, everything seems to work out better on Mondays. Johnny asks to eat when he's hungry and will sit in his high chair for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hank stays asleep while I put Johnny down for his nap. Johnny actually goes down for a nap. I almost always manage to get the laundry done and put away.

Yes, Mondays are magical. But that doesn't mean I'm not jonesin' for the weekend by the time Friday rolls around. Monday is definitely the highlight, then it's downhill from there... don't ask me why. I have no clue myself.

20 months

2011-08-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm 20 months old today!

I have completely left those teen months behind and am barreling headfirst into my '20s. Before I know it I'll be 2! Holy moly!

Well, the last month has been full of talking since I know lots and lots of words. Most of these words are one syllable, but I can say "Johnny" and "Daddy". Any other multisyllabic words or phrases get turned into monosyllabic words (like "tank" = "thank you"). Some adults may not understand what it is I'm saying, but luckily Mom totally gets it. Someday I might put these words together to make sentences!! So far the only phrase I can say is "Hey you!" which would get me in trouble in places like restaurants if I wasn't so darn cute.

As you can see from the photo above, I eat all kinds of foods now. I have enough teeth to take bites out of larger foods or eat things like ribs off the bone. I use a fork or a spoon occasionally, though I tend to get over it pretty quickly and eat with my hands. More evidence of my carnivory:

I take a nap almost every day now at about the same time and have even given Mommy a break by not fighting it too hard. Bedtime, however, is a completely different story. Go big or go home, right, Daddy?

Hank's SSN

2011-08-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

For the first eight weeks of his life, Hank has been pretty much off the grid. As in, he doesn't have a social security number. While John and I are kind of tempted to keep it that way, we know it'll just be more of a hassle to get him one later in life when we sign him up for things like, oh, public school. So I'm doomed to play the government's game.

Unlike the hospital, at the birth center there isn't a person who does Social Security (SS from here on out, despite the fact that those initials have been taken previously by the Third Reich... I kind of think that's fitting considering what the Social Security Administration does, which is assign you a number so others can keep tabs on you) paperwork. Therefore, you have to go to the SS office yourself and apply for a number for your newborn after you get the birth certificate.

Last week, I picked up Hank's birth certificate and called the SS office to find out what I had to do to get a SSN for Hank. The automated message thing that I called was useless. It just said to bring a form of ID to the office and apply in person. So I packed up Johnny and Hank and headed to the closest SS office. I drove up and actually found a parking space in the teeny-tiny lot and got all excited because the parking lot fits, oh, maybe seven cars. "If there are only 7 people are here, I'll be in and out in a jiffy!" I said to myself.

I should have known better. This is a government office we're talking about.

I strapped Johnny into the stroller and put Hank in the ring sling, walked into the office. . . and looked around in dismay at the number of people waiting. All of the seats were taken and a good number of people were standing. However, I wasn't about to go through the rigamarole of putting kids back in the car without a SSN for Hank. So I got my number and then waited in line to check in.

And I waited. And waited. . . with my fussy newborn and irritated toddler. Finally I got to "check in". Mind you, this wasn't to actually get the SS number, it was to make sure that I was at the office for the correct reason.

This is my conversation at the check in window:

Me (handing over my numbered ticket and Hank's birth certificate): "I'm here to get a SSN for my newborn."

SS woman: "Okay. I need two forms of ID."

Me: "I have my driver's license and passport, will that work?"

SS woman: "Oh no, not for you. For your baby."

[shocked pause]

Me: "Really? He's only seven weeks old... what other ID does he have other than a birth certificate?"

SS woman: "Well, a shot record would work."

Me (frantically searching through all of the medical paperwork given to me at the birth center): "I don't have his shot record."

SS woman: "A certificate of live birth would work too. Or any kind of document with his name and birth date on it from the birth center will work."

Me: "None of these have his full name on them. They are just records of my labor and his birth written by the midwife, but none of them has his full name."

SS woman: "Then I can't help you. You need to bring a signed testimonial of live birth from your midwife. It can't be a copy, it has to be an original where you can see the pen marks."

Me: "So these 20 or so pages of records of birth and my labor along with the birth certificate aren't going to be enough?"

SS woman: "No."

Me: "[Insert choice swear word here]."

Really?!?!? TWO forms of ID for a NEWBORN?!?!?! He's been on this earth for seven weeks and he should, what? Have a driver's license? MAYBE you should put that in your automated phone service; you know, the one I called to make sure I had everything I needed? So irritating. Especially when SS is a joke anyway. Why do we need to jump through so many hoops so you can assign a number to my child to make sure that he'll be paying taxes? It seems that YOU should be jumping through the hoops for ME to make sure he gets a number. And don't you EVEN give me any crap about how it will pay off when he's 65 and gets his SS benefits because we all know that's a load of toddler poo. (Why toddler poo? Because I imagine that it stinks way more than bull poo.)

Rant over.

Summary: Social Security Administration? It blows.

Cutting of the hairs

2011-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

I hate cutting Johnny's hair. Hate. it. He's super squirmy, so it takes about 30 minutes to buzz it and then afterward, his hair floats in the air since it's so fine and gets EVERYWHERE. In my eyes, in Johnny's eyes, in Johnny's mouth, all over the place. Then Johnny gets irritated because his eyes hurt with all of the hair pieces in them. And then there's hair all over the floor and furniture that takes forever to get cleaned up.

Basically, cutting Johnny's hair is not a pleasurable experience.

So, while I was getting a haircut last weekend, John and my dad took Johnny to get a haircut at the barber shop in the shopping center by our house.

Before:

After:

Yeah, it's a little shorter than I usually cut it, but he looks SO cute with a little crew cut. And really? $9 every 6 to 8 weeks is a small price to pay to have someone else cut Johnny's hair.

IB's Sandcastle competition

2011-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, Johnny, Hank and I went to the Sandcastle competition in Imperial Beach with my mom, aunt and uncle. The weather was beautiful and the sand creations were pretty unbelievable! When we got there, it was around Johnny's nap time, so he took a nap in the stroller while we walked from our parking spot to the beach (about a mile) and then perused the festival.

We snagged some lunch from a restaurant and then folded up the stroller and put Johnny on my mom's shoulders so that we could walk around the beach and look at all of the sand art. I'm not exactly sure how it all works, since this was my first time going to the competition, but as far as I could figure, there were categories for the sand art and then in each category there were amateur and master teams doing their thing. It was pretty obvious which ones were done by amateurs and which were done by masters. Most were pretty impressive, considering I have issues getting sand to do anything I'd like it to do.

This is the sand creation that won the competition. It was a tribute to the troops and very impressive.

We saw about three-fourths of the projects when the tide started coming in, making the walking area much smaller. There were an awful lot of people there and the decreased walking area made it much more difficult to get around while carrying a stroller and a newborn. By that point Johnny was pretty done with sitting on my mom's shoulders and my uncle was done dealing with the crowd so we headed back to the boardwalk and walked back to the car. It was a really neat event despite the ridiculous amount of people. I think it would be even more fun with kids old enough to enjoy the sand creations.

If you want to see more pictures, check out this website: http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/kswb-ib-sandcastle-competition-2011,0,7437982.story

Tres años.

2011-08-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Three years ago today I married the greatest man I have ever known. He is my best friend, my partner in crime, my calm eye in the storm of life. Happy 3rd anniversary, John. I love you and the family we've made together!

The Daytime Sleep Situation

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

The nighttime sleep situation is still about the same as it was when I blogged about it last week. Except that now I put Hank down at the same time John is putting Johnny down... and I put Hank down drowsy, but awake. See, when the pediatrician told me to do this with Johnny, I looked at her like she was crazy. Johnny would never put himself to sleep even when drowsy. And if he fell asleep on the boob, I wasn't about to wake him up again. "ARE YOU MAD WOMAN?!?!" I wanted to ask, but I merely smiled and nodded. This time? I'm doing it and Hank actually falls asleep by himself in his crib around 7:30PM and stays there until midnight-ish. Yeah, it's awesome.

Daytime, though? It's a pickle. Hank's a snuggler, there's no denying that, so his favorite place to sleep is next to me. Therefore, I've been packing him up in the ring sling and letting sleep there. He actually has some nicely formed naps; one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening, like the books say babies should sleep. The only issue is that he won't go anywhere else. The swing? For a ten minutes, tops, and that's after crying for a good fifteen minutes (usually when I'm putting Johnny down for a nap or doing something else Johnny-related... I'm not having Hank cry it out at 7 weeks old). The bed/crib? He'll sleep there for a little while in the morning.

For now, this arrangement doesn't bother me for a few reasons.
1- He's still pretty light.
2- He's still a newborn and trying to get through the "fourth trimester" as coined by Dr. Karp.
3- It means that Johnny and I can go places without being tied to the house by Hank's sleeping schedule. I can't even imagine how pissed Johnny would be if we had to stay inside all morning while Hank was napping? Melt down doesn't even cover the degree of tantrum that would be going on.

And really? As a second-time parent I know that any bad habits I start now can most likely be broken later so I shouldn't sweat it.

Hi everyone!

2011-08-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hank just wanted to drop in and say "Hi!"

The eyes are still blue!

I was trying to catch him smiling, but instead caught him...I don't know... grimacing?

So now that he's said his hellos, it's time for an update.

Last week Hank had his newborn hearing test. I know, I know, he's hardly a newborn anymore, so why is he getting a hearing test so late? Long story short: birth center could do it, but with our insurance it was easier to get it done with the pediatrician. The first available appointment was in August... and I called in June. Apparently they're pretty busy.

Anyway. This test is supposed to be done while the baby is asleep, so he just chilled in the ring sling while the lady attached the electrodes to his head and put the speakers in his ears. She conducted the test and the good news is he stayed asleep the entire time. The bad news is that his right ear failed the test. His left ear is totally fine, but his right ear didn't respond, which means we'll be back for more testing. The tester said that many things could be the culprit for the lack of a response: too much ear wax, fluid behind the inner ear, etc.

I'm not too worried. I know he can hear because every time he's sleeping somewhere other than me, Johnny will get close to him and yell "HANK!!!!" and he jumps and wakes up. Yeah, I think he'll be fine.

Breaking the fast

2011-08-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johnny is bad at eating breakfast. The problem is that he's on the go the moment he wakes up and the last thing he wants to do is stop and eat. I guess I should be grateful that he'd rather play all day than eat all day, but sometimes I go a little crazy when I KNOW he's hungry and he just won't eat (that's what happened here). Therefore, when I find a food that he looks forward to eating in the morning, or even better asking for in the morning, I know I've struck pay dirt.

This is Johnny's new favorite breakfast:

Mini whole grain whole wheat bagel with vegetable cream cheese spread. I made the spread myself from a recipe in this gem of a book:

My friend Jackie, who works for an organic foods certifying agency, gave us this cookbook along with some other gifts for Johnny and Hank when we saw her a few weeks ago. So far? The recipes have been a hit. There are some really delicious-sounding ones in there like pumpkin polenta, which I think Johnny will like. And some puree recipes that I'm looking forward to making for Hank when he gets there. The author has all kinds of great recipes that have vegetables in them (like the cream cheese spread Johnny is eating) as well as healthy versions of junk food, like baked French fries, which I'll be making this weekend.

I'm really digging this cookbook and so is Johnny... obviously:

2x Bathtime fun

2011-08-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, Johnny and Hank took their first bath together. Please view the pictures below and soak up the cuteness.

Johnny giving Hank a hug

My little boys holding hands. Adorbs.

Hank smiling!

"Okay, Hank, you can stop touching me."

At first Johnny was a little upset that Hank was taking a bath without him. So he tried to get in fully clothed, which is unusual for him considering how much he enjoys being naked these days. After Johnny got in, he kept telling Hank to get up; I think he's confused by Hank's inability to do everything he can. I suppose he's never really interacted with a baby before and, thus, has no clue what they are (well, mostly aren't) capable of doing.

Anyway. The bath was pretty cute with Johnny loving up on Hank for a good five minutes. Then he was over it and was ready for Hank to get out so he could play with the bath toys.

Oil Change

2011-08-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

When I was newly pregnant with Johnny, John and I bought a new car; a new Nissan Murano, to be exact. One of the bummers of buying a new car is that you are at their mercy in terms of warranty. In order for our warranty to be valid, I have to take the Murano in to the dealership for all maintenance and make sure that I get their special stamp in my little maintenance book. Now, this shouldn't be a big deal. Except that when you have to wait for two hours with two little ones just to get an oil change, it's a big deal. I HATE going to get scheduled maintenance on my car. Keeping Johnny entertained in a car dealership is hell. You know why? Because of all the pretty cars they have on display in the building. Remember how much Johnny likes cars? Yeah, all he wanted to do the entire time we were there was get in these shiny new cars and push all of the buttons... except that they were locked. So we played this conversation over and over again:

Johnny: "Car?"

Me: "Yes, that's a car."

Johnny: "In?"

Me: "No, we can't get in."

Johnny: pulling on the handle "Locked."

Me: "Yes, it's locked. They don't want people getting in their cars and messing with them."

Johnny: "Keys?"

Me: "No, I don't have the keys."

Johnny: "Keys?!"

Me: "I don't have the keys for this car, Johnny. I just have the keys for my car."

Johnny (beginning to melt down): "KEYS?!?!"

Me: I'm sorry Johnny, I don't have keys for that car. Let's go look at a different car."

Johnny: "Car?"

Over and over and over again.

Then one of the salesmen took pity on me after about an hour of this and helped me out:

This is Johnny in his new green Nissan XTerra... getting drool all over it.

I was so appreciative I wrote a thank you card for the salesmen and dropped it off later in the week. Thank you, Nissan salesman, for taking a few minutes to make my waiting so much easier. And F--- you Nissan service department for being so ridiculously slow!

The Night Sleeping Situation

2011-08-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

When Johnny was 5 weeks old, I moved him into his own crib because he outgrew the nest he was sleeping in. I didn't want him to get used to sleeping in our bed and start a bad habit.

This time around? Forget it. Hank sleeps in bed with me and John so that I can nurse him whenever he needs it. I nurse him on my side until we both fall asleep. Then he wakes up a few hours later, I roll over, feed him on my other side and fall asleep. Rinse and repeat. Yes, I may be forming a bad habit with him nursing to sleep and needing to be next to me all night, but you know what? I sleep a good seven to eight hours a night (if not more) and actually feel somewhat rested the next day. Plus, Hank is pretty good at sleeping at night and has been for some time; more than I can say for Johnny at the same age!

Cosleeping definitely isn't for everyone, but it's working for us... remind of that when I'm complaining about how Hank won't sleep in his crib a couple of months from now.

Hank's 6 week photo

2011-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

So he's actually 6 weeks and 1 day, but I figure that's close enough.

It's not the most flattering picture of him since he's making a funny face, but it's a close-up and he's actually wearing clothes!! Since he's usually in the ring sling and it's usually pretty hot outside, I rarely put clothes on the little guy. I figured I'd document this rare clothes-wearing event.

Johnny's 18-month doctor visit

2011-07-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be Johnny's 18 month checkup, but our new pediatrician is quite popular, so we didn't get in to see him until one and a half months after Johnny's 18 month mark. It's worth it, though, because I really like this doctor.

Overall, Johnny is very healthy and doesn't have autism, according to the form I filled out. He took his shot like a champ and then was mystified by the sucker he was given afterward. He kept trying to put the stick part of the sucker into his mouth instead of the candy part. I guess that's a good thing though. The only bad part was the doctor's disappointment over Johnny still being on a bottle. Remember when I tried to take him off of it? Yeah, that didn't happen. My tired pregnant self couldn't handle not getting a nap since Johnny would scream the entire time he should have been napping... so I just kept him on it. Now it looks like we have to get rid of it for real. *sigh* He's gone to bed without a bottle successfully the last couple of nights, and I'll stop the bottle at nap time after today. Definitely not looking forward to that.

So here are the stats:
Height: 34" - 86th percentile
Weight: 28 lbs 8 oz - 75th percentile
Head circumference: 19.76" - 94th percentile

Since he's doing so well weight and height-wise, the doctor said to start him on 2% milk instead of whole milk. Yay Johnny!

Hank is 6 weeks old!

2011-07-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

I definitely can't keep up weekly updates on Hank (so don't expect any more) but this one felt like a milestone. By the time Johnny was born, I had read every baby book known to man. (<-- That's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like it.) One thing these books all said is that fussiness and crying will peak at 6 weeks and then get better. So if you can make it through the first six weeks, you'll be fine.

I spent the first six weeks of Johnny's life willing them to go faster and wanting to attack people's throats Roadhouse-style when they would say "Cherish every moment because it goes so fast!!"

I don't think Johnny was particularly difficult (well, he did hate sleeping), but he cried all the time; probably because I had NO clue what I was doing. Plus I was exhausted from Johnny's lack of sleep and all of the holiday festivities surrounding Johnny's birthday (Christmas and New Years... two biggies). Plus I was BORED. No one tells you how absolutely boring newborns are. When they are awake, they are crying or eating. You can't do too much with them for fear they will be overstimulated and then will sleep even less than they already do.

Hank, on the other hand, has been so much easier than Johnny. Is he any different? Not really. He is a finicky sleeper already and can't handle being on his back to sleep, but this time I know what I'm doing and I have a pretty awesome toddler to keep me occupied so I'm never bored. The first six weeks have actually gone by pretty quickly... however you won't find me telling any other sleep-deprived first-time moms to "cherish every moment."

By this point, Hank is starting to smile when I do and sleeps great at night... the night sleep thing is a whole other post... I'm working on it. He weighed in at 12lbs 4oz at my postpartum appointment yesterday, which means he is doing just fine. Obviously no trouble eating, that's for sure. He is so strong that I can't use a regular receiving blanket to swaddle him, he's been in the Miracle Blanket from the beginning. Hank the Tank indeed.

Yes, I know I should put up a picture... but I'm way too lazy to find the camera and upload one. Maybe later.

At the Wild Anim- Wait, no, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park

2011-07-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law and I took Johnny and Hank to the newly-renamed San Diego Zoo Safari Park last week since it's actually pretty close and I had a free guest pass that had to be used by the end of this month. So we packed up the boys and took them out for a few hours.

When we walked in, there was a zookeeper giving a talk about a wallaroo (I can only assume this is a hybrid between a kangaroo and wallaby, but we missed the beginning of the keeper talk) and Johnny enjoyed watching it bounce around the exhibit. Later that day, he kept jumping in his crib saying "Roo! Roo!" Epic cuteness.

Johnny checking out the wallaroo

The wallaroo


Hank just chillin' while we watched the wallaroo

The last time Johnny and I went to the Safari Park, he was fascinated by the lorikeets. There's a small aviary housing these really bright birds and you can purchase nectar to feed them. When you walk in with the nectar, they flock to you and climb all over your arms and head to drink out of the cup you're holding. Well, this time I wanted Johnny to get an up-close look at the lorikeets, you know, since he dug them so much last time. So Grandma purchased some nectar and we watched to see what Johnny would do.... well, he didn't dig them so much this time. He was WAY more fascinated with the water that the birds were bathing in. Go figure.

Grandma trying to interest Johnny in the lorikeets.

Johnny standing a safe distance away from the lorikeets.

Grandma holding tight to Johnny's hand so I can get at least ONE picture of Johnny and a bird.

Me and my boys. Hank's in the orange wrap.

The Safari Park has a cute little splash pad that I thought Johnny would get a kick out of, considering how much he enjoys the garden hose. So, I planned ahead and dressed Johnny in some swim trunks and packed an extra set of clothes for after he got soaked.

At the splash pad.

This is actually a lion, but Johnny kept calling it a dog.

He was mildly interested, but then after about six minutes he ran into the grass and had much more fun there rolling down the hills and having Grandma chase him.

Overall, it was a lovely day at the Safari Park. Johnny showed a little interest in some of the animals (namely the ones that were really close to us for viewing) and Hank slept the entire time.

Johnny and sadism

2011-07-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

Johnny has always laughed at me whenever I stub my toe or hit my head on something. He thinks it's hilarious when I make a sad face. And he erupts into fits of giggles when he's the one doing the hurting:

http://youtu.be/PzF3Xqm5Xmc

At least he's cute when he's trying to make your spleen explode.

My 5 Items for the first month

2011-07-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

I know I've only been a mom of 2 for one month, but I wanted to document the things that helped me get through the first five weeks unscathed.

5. Coffee. I don't like coffee brewed straight up. Maybe given enough time I could handle it, but for now I like my little frou-frou Starbucksy drinks. I was going to Bad Ass Coffee on mornings when I needed a hit, but this recipe has cured me of that money drain.

4. My car and the Car Songs CD from the Schmidts - These two go hand-in-hand, so I'm classifying them as one. Johnny LOVES the music on this CD, but I tell him that we can only listen to it if we're driving (if we just turn on the car and listen to it, the car battery dies... story for another time). So, sometimes I'll pack the boys up and we'll drive around listening to kids' songs. Granted, I'm SO OVER "Zippity Do Da" but I'm not over my older son being totally happy and adorable and my other one asleep in the car. The car is also an excellent place for Johnny to play (with the car off) while I nurse Hank in the passenger seat. Gotta love how multi-functional cars are.

3. Sam the Cooking Guy's book - I am not a gifted cook. I can't just look at random ingredients and make something delicious like my sister-in-law Leslie (have you been to her website, by the way?), therefore, cookbooks are my friends. Especially Sam's cookbook, which uses ingredients I know and has recipes for foods that are delicious and very quick to make. Making dinner with Johnny running around and Hank strapped to my chest is an awful lot easier when I only have to spend fifteen minutes making it.

2. Maya Wrap Ring Sling - I LOVE this thing! I have every baby carrier known to man and while Hank doesn't seem to have a preference for any of them, I like this one the best because I don't overheat in it. The Ergo and Moby, while distributing Hank's weight better, are just way too hot to wear while chasing Johnny in 85 degree weather. I'm thinking of making another one just to have on hand; they have instructions on their website!

1. Help from others. With Johnny, I felt like I had something to prove and thus, didn't accept help when it was offered. Granted, I learned a lot and probably felt more confident after braving it alone than if I had someone helping me every step of the way, but it probably would have been WAY less stressful for myself and John if I had just put away my pride and asked for help. This time around, the help is what got me through. From in-house helpers to friends who dropped by with dinner, every little bit helped. My advice to moms: You may want to do it alone and you can, but your life will be so much easier if you just accept even a little help here and there, especially because people want to do it! If your uncle calls and asks if you need anything tell him to pick something up for you! If your mom calls and wants to hang out with your baby for a few hours so you can get a nap, take her up on it. I promise, you're going to be a mom forever and accepting help from a willing helper can make the difference between sanity and insanity.

Sharing

2011-07-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, John set up our trusty Little Lamb swing downstairs and it hasn't been all that useful. The main problem is that every time I put Hank in it, Johnny messes with him. He pokes Hank's eye, holds his nose shut, tries to give him jelly beans or a sip from his sippy cup or just stands there and yells, "Hank! Hank! Hank!"... especially if Hank is sleeping.

I suppose I should think that Johnny's interaction with his little brother is cute, but mostly it's just obnoxious because I have to stop whatever I'm doing to pull Johnny's finger out of Hank's eye socket. So most of the time Hank doesn't go in the swing because I just end up annoyed... until this happened:

Yep, that's Johnny putting his phone (non-working of course) up to Hank's ear and saying "Pa?" "Call?" So cute.

But not cute enough to risk Hank's eyesight and overall well-being on a daily basis.

The Case of the Exploding Diaper

2011-07-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

The title sounds like a Nancy Drew book, does it not? Okay, maybe Nancy Drew: the Mom Years.

For whatever reason, Johnny's nighttime diaper has been exploding. I don't mean that when I pick him up, there's a cascade of urine escaping his diaper, I mean there's an explosion that occurs sometime in the wee hours of the morning and leaves this lovely mess:

In case you can't see the mess clearly in the picture above, it is composed of large quantities of urine-bloated crystals. Not just in that one spot, oh no! That would be much too easy to clean up. These wet crystals stick to EVERYTHING. Johnny's sheets, his stuffed animal Scout, Blankie, the crib, the wall behind the crib, Johnny's extremities, Johnny's hair, my clothing, etc, etc. And then for days afterward I feel them on my feet when I walk into Johnny's room... which means I walk around with urine on my feet for a few days. Now, I know I'm a mom and I'm supposed to be into that, but it's so not my cup of tea.

Anyway. Johnny's already in the largest size overnight diapers and they have been fine up until now. He is drinking more water because it's rather hot these days, but you would think he would also be sweating some of that out... weird. I'm not exactly sure what I should do about the nighttime diaper situation, so if y'all have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

That time I forgot about the 4th of July

2011-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was just looking over my July posts when I realized that I never posted about our amazing 4th of July weekend!! (What is it that makes me write "4th" instead of Fourth? It just doesn't look right when it's all written out like that.) We had a big weekend planned with my dad and stepmom coming out for a nice long visit to meet baby Hank and hang with Johnny.

That Sunday, John, Lisa and Jack came down and stopped by to say hello. So of course we took the opportunity to dress Jack and Johnny in matching clothes and take lots of pictures. I don't think Jack or Johnny really cared a lick about each other and Hank was oblivious, but hey, whatever. They have their entire lifetimes to start caring about each other as cousins.

Johnny giving Hank a hug.

Johnny giving Hank a hug = bonking his head on Hank's chest.

Independence Day itself was spent at our neighbor's house at her pool party. You would think that meant swimming in the pool, but it was more about keeping Johnny from stealing other kids' toys, walking out the front door or trying to throw inner tubes into the lower yard by tempting him with Cheetos. But the food was delicious, the weather was gorgeous and the people were fun. What more could you ask for... besides a child not bent on self-destruction?

Johnny is not stoked about the swimming pool.

Still not stoked... even with floaties. Or maybe not stoked BECAUSE of the floaties.

Holy crap! A picture of me! How did that happen?!

Our neighbor, and excellent hostess.


Johnny and his friend Kai Lee... yeah, Johnny's a pro at the "thigh grab".

My first week as a mother of 2

2011-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Last week was my first *real* week as a mother of two. Up until last week, I had lots of help. John stayed home from work for a week, his mother stayed with us for a little over a week, my dad and stepmom came for a really long weekend and my mom has been in and out for the last three weeks helping here and there.

This week, it was just me. I have to admit, I was rather intimidated by the whole thing on Sunday night.

But it all went relatively well... surprisingly. Juggling Hank and Johnny hasn't been difficult because Hank is still pretty sleepy and a snuggler to boot. I pack him up in my ring sling (my savior) and we just follow Johnny around all day. Luckily, Johnny doesn't seem to mind playing independently while I nurse Hank. I just have to make sure I pick an appropriate place to nurse... a childproof place is best, like our playroom with the bookcases bolted to the walls and the television secured to the wall with high tension wire in studs. When I pick an inappropriate place, Johnny ends up pulling a barstool on himself and making me wonder if he has a concussion... but that's another story for another day. I believe I was talking about how well this week went...

I noticed that everything comes down to timing, as life does in many cases. Knowing that Johnny goes down for a nap at 1, I would try to get Hank sleeping around 12:30 so I could focus my attention on Johnny for a good half hour. Did that work every day? Nope, not even close. Hank had to cry by himself for a good fifteen minutes on Friday while I put Johnny down... and guess what? He lived through the experience. I would NEVER have done that with Johnny, so this is whole I-can't-pay-attention-to-you-because-I-have-more-important-things-to-attend-to thing is entirely new to me. In the morning, I leave Hank all alone in his bassinet (sometimes sleeping, sometimes just chilling) while I get Johnny up and dressed for the day. I think I can count on one hand how many times I left Johnny alone in his first month of life. Oh, how things change with the second one.

So let me give myself a shout out for surviving the week: You go mama! You rock that double offspring lifestyle!

In the ring sling

The Maya Wrap ring sling. So awesome.

Johnny providing moral support for Hank's tummy time.

Silly face during our photo shoot.