Friday: Happy Halloween!

To start with, I moved Joshua's room around a bit so that the swing could fit in it.  I'm hoping it will be a bit quieter and darker and will let him take a few longer naps during the day.  (It sort of worked today.  Joshua thought he should wake up after 30 minutes into nap time, we debated for 30 minutes, and then he went to sleep.)

Isaac rounded up most of our pacifiers for Joshua.  He really feels as though in the swing is the best place for them.

Here is Isaac's new daily picture "of all of us."

For Halloween Joshua was a monster.

Isaac was Mickey Mouse.  We went to Betsy's church and that worked out very nicely.  Isaac quickly caught on to the fact that he got to take something from each bowl.  (He probably knew it was candy, but hasn't tried most of them yet.)  The church was great too because it was just the right amount of candy...quite a bit but not oodles.  It was also great because it was inside - it snowed today and was rather cold.

He got to eat one piece of candy at the church and then on the way home he really wanted to eat his animal crackers.  I asked him for one more picture with his bag.  I was thinking bag of candy, but he had a one track mind and pulled out his bag of animal crackers.  He is saying cheese here...it's just a rather funny face.

At home we only got one set of surprise trick-or-treaters.  I was giving Joshua a bath and had the under cabinet lights on.  And there was a light on in the living room.  But apparently that was enough for a group of kids to come over.  I was a little surprised...it was after 8 and still thought we were pretty dark.  But maybe there weren't any other houses that they could see with lights on and they "got away" from the parents?  Anyway, I gave Ben a short heads up, he scrambled for candy, and they all got caramel kisses.  I wouldn't have cared except it was annoying to scramble for candy.  Needless to say, Joshua's bath was cut short.

Thursday: 34 months

Isaac is ...um...34 months today!

Sleeping - he has been sleeping in many mornings lately, until 7:45 or 8.  He takes a nap probably 2/3 of the time.  He's fighting a little cold, so that might be part of why he's sleeping so much.  When he doesn't nap I can tell at the very end of the day.

Playing - he still loves Duplos and "baby marbles".  His screen time of choice has been Wall-E for the last week.  We just loop it over and over in the hour that he's allowed.  It's actually a pretty good movie for him...it has robots and really isn't that scary.  He also still really likes puzzles, especially when I let him play them on the Ipad.  He likes taking pictures with the camera.


Learning - I've heard him say the numbers 1-10 in order (and they're all there now).  The alphabet gets up through P and then usually starts over with H.  We just started working on his (and our) full names, although if he got lost I'm not sure anyone could understand him.  Speaking of speaking, he often puts an extra -es on the plural of things.  So giraffes are giraffe-es.  It's cute.


Listening - we've been working on listening to his parents, although really he does a pretty good job most days.  So he listens when I ask him not to run through puddles on the way into church, knowing that he usually will get to run through them afterwards.

Pretend - He's still great at pretending, with traps being the latest and greatest thing.  Everything gets trapped and he unlocks several traps every day.

Eating - he's a pretty good eater, although he has his own ideas sometimes about what he's willing to eat.  Lately he's wanted to drink his yogurt, so it now goes in a cup.  Whatever makes it go down.

Praying - when asked what he wants to pray for, he usually thanks God for Jesus, thunder and lightning, and anything he can see.

Potty training - ugg.  October was less than successful after a great September.  We only had a handful of days without accidents.  That being said, the end of October has been getting better again and if there are accidents it's usually only one per day.  He will often run to the toilet to poop, but can't quite get there for pee.  We've been wearing pull-ups more often because I keep my temper better.  But he can pull up his underwear better, which is a definite bonus.

Family - he is a great big brother.  He will often get a pacifier or rattle for Joshua "in case he cries."  I can ask him to watch Joshua for short amounts of time and know that he will.  (This has the added benefit of keeping Isaac in one spot.)  Isaac loves Grandma and Other Grandma.  I think that Grandma is Pat and Other Grandma is Cheryl, but it seems to change sometimes.  It's rather confusing.

In other news, we visited Ben's Grandma today and had a great time.

Wednesday: monitors

So we've been having some baby monitor problems.  Isaac's contact with the power cord is super twitchy and likes to disconnect if you breathe incorrectly.  Joshua's monitor has to be rather close (i.e., just outside our bedroom door) so that it doesn't randomly unlink.  So while both are working, it was rather annoying.  I'm already waking up for children, I don't need to wake up for monitors too.

So Ben did used his superpower of searching for electronics (that aren't crazy expensive) and found some cameras that would work and have computer/phone apps.  So now we have two monitors that we can control from our phones.  (There is a computer interface too, but it isn't quite as nice.)  We've only used them for one night, but I like them.  (I will warn you that Ben said he had to do quite a bit of fiddling to make everything connect correctly.)

There are more infrared lights, so we get a very good picture.  We can change the squelch threshold to be "just right".  We can move the camera (not that I foresee doing that much.)  We can take pictures and video.  (I was hoping Isaac would be funny tonight, but he wasn't.  I'm sure a video will come shortly.)  We can still talk through the cameras.  The downside is that my phone can only go about three hours while monitoring without being plugged in, but that really isn't too bad.  And I'll still keep the old monitors around for vacations.

So far, two thumbs up!

Tuesday: 3 months (13 weeks)

Joshua is now 3 months old!

He eats about every three hours (except at night, when it is closer to seven).  He is a really fast eater, which is really rather handy.

Sleeping is only ok.  He often sleeps well from 8pm until about 3am.  He's usually up a bit around that time.  He eats again around 6am and sleeps in the swing for another two hours.  He has really short naps (30 min) throughout the rest of the day, although the nap around 1:30pm will sometimes last two hours.

He's full of smiles.  For everyone.  He's becoming more aware of his surroundings, which has been fun to see.  He also has much better neck control this past month.

He loves eating his fists recently.  Sometimes he likes being held, but he also likes wiggling on the floor or in his bouncy seat...I feel as though overall he's a very easy going kid.

Monday: a few pictures

Joshua in the bouncy seat.  Joshua seems to enjoy this significantly more than Isaac did...which is rather nice.  He can watch what we're doing.

Isaac learned about the timer on the camera today and we took several group shots.  I really like how this one turned out.

Isaac also finished a 24 piece puzzle all by himself!  He did the outer border while I was out of the room and I watched him do the inside, but I didn't help or even talk him through it.  (Please keep in mind that we have done this puzzle many times.  He's quite familiar with it.)

Sunday: What?

Isaac's new thing is to say, "What?" or "What Mom?"

Except that he says it when I haven't said anything or have said something that he obviously understands what I just said.

It is super annoying.

Saturday: clothes

I started putting away Joshua's 3m clothes and pulling out the 6m clothes.  The 6m clothes are a bit long in the arms and legs, but they aren't pulling the neck down so much.  I was a little sad about it yesterday at nap time and started thinking that I should save my favorites.  As I was thinking about my favorites, about half of the clothes suddenly were saved and that isn't very productive.  So I think I'll save the baptism outfits and hopefully find a good home for the rest.

Joshua has been sleeping most of this week in the Woombie.  Yup, it is purple with flowers.  It is probably the only purple with flowers thing I'll ever use for my boys, but I bought it from a friend who only has girls.  I like it.  Joshua is still waking up in the night, but I feel fine just letting him cry for several minutes before getting up.  I think he's getting better at going back to sleep and there's been a few times I haven't needed to get up.

We went through several shirts today before I finally put a bib on him.  His fists are just so delicious!

Friday: tummy time

Today's photos were all snapped within a minute of each other, but I realized I had something to say about all of them...

"Look at how well I can hold up my head!"

Isaac doing exercises while Joshua watched.

Look at the cute polar bear on Joshua's pants. :)

Time to be done...Joshua rolled over.  (To be fair, I did put his arms up like that so it isn't a real by-himself roll over.)

Thursday: around the house

Here's what was going on around the house at about 4pm today.

Isaac drew me.  "I drew Mom."

I think it looks like he wrote MOM.  Today is the first time he actually said he was drawing things and not just lines.  It might also be the his first word.  (He drew me again on the other side of the paper and it looked like an M.  But really, more repetitions are needed.)

I had been feeding Joshua earlier and Isaac was entertaining himself.  In an almost too quiet way.  When I came out, four water bottles had been filled and put on coaster by the TV.

We have a plethera of stools around the house.  The laundry room has a big one for Isaac to help with laundry and a small one for the toilet/sink.

The kitchen has a black one that is a bit bigger than the blue one.  It is a little annoying, but it is handy in letting Isaac see what is going on.  It gets moved all the time.

 The last stool goes between Joshua and Isaac's room.  It is either used to watch Joshua get his diaper changed, put "baby marbles" in a high-to-reach funnel, or, most recently, to help him get in bed.

Isaac wanted his picture taken.

Joshua was happily playing.  We think he has a bit of arm control in that he can choose to flail his arms in an approximate direction.  Sometimes the flailing makes toys move.

I was drawing wood grain in practicing for the next quilt.

Wednesday: assorted things

Well, we still have colds so we just stayed home all day.  They aren't too bad, but a little extra down time is good for us I think.

Joshua got a bib for the first time.  I'm not a fan of the bib stage, so I took it off later.  He only needs it once in a while, but when he gets to drooling he really goes for it.

He was also much happier today.  I think I've noticed a correlation between when I eat extra dairy and how happy he is at night.  I'm still investigating.

We finally took care of our last Christmas present; how embarrassing is that?  It was workout clothes for me, and with being pregnant there was no way I'd fit in them.  So I ignored them.  Because obviously that's the best plan.

Isaac's job today was to bring up a pile of stuff from the basement.  He slowly worked on it all day, and near the end we decided that his reward would be to wear his Mickey Mouse costume.  It's rather small, but he loved it.

Tuesday: audio books

I've listen to two random audio books in the last month (and two non-random ones), and they each referenced a city in which I've lived.  How weird is that?

Monday: 12 weeks

 Joshua is 12 weeks!

He has a cold. :(  So he's been a bit grumpier, but we've still gotten some smiles.

He also got the next size of diaper today.  It was badly needed.

Isaac was doing Joshua's puzzle and put the S in upside-down (i.e. rotated 180).  It is very stuck.  So it's being returned to Grandpa's Garage to get unstuck and sanded.

Isaac wanted his puzzle to be stuck too.  His "I" sticks a little bit when put in upside-down, but I can get it out.  Nevertheless, his puzzle is next to Joshua's, ready for pick up.

Changing subjects, Isaac also played catch with a tree today.  He threw the ball at the truck and the tree threw it back.

Sunday: Happy Baptism!

Joshua was baptized today!  Our pastor always does a little talking about the name of the baby immediately after the baptism.  I was expecting something about the character of the Biblical Joshua, but he went a completely different way.  How Joshua is a version of the name Jesus, how it means savior.  How our prayer is that Joshua will come to know Jesus as his Savior.  There was more too but I've forgotten...luckily we get a DVD again.  I'll try to upload the portion.

There were three families in our small group that all had children baptized today, so we had a party.  It was a slightly crazy party, but fun.  Way too much food.  But lots of people were there and I didn't have to plan it alone or have it in my house. :)

Before the party...we completely filled the tables.  We had estimated 100 people and I'm not sure that many showed up, but there were at least 70-80.

The cake.  Most of the cakes were eaten. :)

Family picture.  Too bad Joshua had spit up and so has a very wet portion on his shirt.

The three couples with their babies.

Saturday: ducks

Joshua and I both wore ducks on our feet today.

Friday: wipes

Isaac's comfort objects are currently his "wipes". (They're burp cloths. But when Isaac we sick we separated Isaac's wipes from Joshua's and it quickly stuck.)

He was crying this evening and I suggested a song...Isaac knows it sometimes works for Joshua. The first song didn't help. Isaac asked for the wipe song and I thought, "great. Like I know a song about burp cloths." So instead I sang, "the WIPErs on the bus go swish, swish, swish." It snapped him out of his bad mood. Phew.

Thursday: sick

Urg.  I'm sick again...this time with a bad cold.  Yesterday I had a sore throat and a little bit of a runny nose.  At 9pm that's still where it was.  At 11pm I had lost my voice.  At 12am I couldn't sleep and was cold.  Throughout the night it felt like I would finally fall asleep, just to be awakened by Joshua: more my fault than his.

So Ben stayed home.  I probably could have handled it by myself, but it sure was nice to have extra help.  I took a morning nap.  Isaac loved getting extra Dad time.  We all also took really good afternoon naps, going down by 1:30 and sleeping at least two hours.

And now...I feel like it has morphed into just a normal bad cold.  Annoying and draining, but I can still function.

Someone really needs to invent a cold remedy that can be taken while nursing/pregnant.  Not being able to take the good medicine is super annoying.

Wednesday: brothers and napping

We borrowed a Baby Brother shirt for a picture.  You can't tell, but they were both wearing monkey socks too.

Then at nap/rest time I took a look in the monitor before getting in bed and didn't see Isaac.  We have two rules for this time: 1)stay in bed and 2)play with duplos, read a book, or take a nap.  I came to his room to chastise him and get him in bed and found this.

To be fair, he was in bed and he was playing with duplos.  I found it hilarious and left him to it.  Probably a mistake since he then didn't take a nap and feel asleep with Ben just before dinner.  We woke him up this time, but it was a hard choice.

Tuesday: 11 weeks

 Joshua was 11 weeks old yesterday.  (Remember I said that I didn't get anything done yesterday??  I didn't even take his pictures.  Which takes about one minute.)

We're starting to get drool and bubbles.  He's been holding his head up much better.

He's often happy to play on the floor or in the bouncy seat watching Isaac and me.  This afternoon I put him in the infant thing we have in the basement but finally put the dangly things on it.  He loved it!  I was actually rather surprised.  He really wanted the keys and I saw a few smiles from him.  Sometimes I wonder if I put him down and leave him too much, but today I definitely wasn't feeling that.