Monday: 4 weeks

Joshua is four weeks old!

I turned him over for some tummy time and he happily stayed like that. :)

We saw Nathan and Liz downtown for a bit this morning.  We walked around Hope, but then it got hot.  We also stopped at the bookstore, but the line was super crazy long, so we didn't get anything.  We took naps (well, the kids at least took naps at my house) and then we went to Dad and Pat's for dinner.

Saturday/Sunday: visits!

Nathan, Liz, and Evelyn are in the area, so they've come over for dinner (along with Dad and Pat).  It's been nice to see them...and see how big Evelyn has grown!

Isaac did great with Evelyn and even remembered her and her name this morning.  I have a feeling that once Joshua gets to the exersaucer we're going to have so many toys out.

Addendum: trapped

It's 5am, I just started feeding Joshua and I'm out of mindless things to do. So I'll talk about one of the things on my to-blog-about list.

Since Isaac has been out of his crib, it's easier to give him good night hugs after he's in bed. It started out with him saying, "do this thing?" with his arms extended to me for a big hug. And a long hug. I loved it.

But then it morphed. To being trapped. To being trapped twice and it being a struggle to have him let me go. I don't like it.

I did manage to escape being trapped last night though because he had a train book that he wanted to read. The book is luckily from the library because the story makes no sense. They're based on the Thomas videos and use pictures from the videos, but seem to leave out key details in the text.

Friday: nice day

Today was a nice day.  Joshua slept excellently last night.  Aunt C came and played with Isaac in the morning.  Dinner was provided to us by a friend.  So I was able to take a good nap and get some of the chores done that required two hands and no little bodies.

Joshua still only does ok in the swing.  Sometimes the best thing for him is to not have it swing but just put the birds on.

Flurry has started to appear more again.  I think she's resigned herself to another loud child being around.

Thursday: feeling better

I love feeling better!  I woke up with a different headache this morning.  (Lack of sleep?  Joshua fidgeted and cried with both arms in the swaddle.  And with one arm in the swaddle.  And with zero arms in the swaddle.  And in the backup sleeping location.  Turning the light on for a few minutes finally calmed him down once.)  But it left within a few hours and then I had more patience.

Isaac and I started a big puzzle (500 pieces).  My challenge is finding pieces that go together fast enough so he has something to put together.  Tomorrow he wants to work on the trees. :p

Isaac also learned the excellent skill of putting the pacifier back in Joshua's mouth.  Of course, it was often accompanied by "Open up, Baby" in the sweetest little voice.  (We're still working on calling him Joshua instead of Baby.  Guess that's what we get for calling him Baby for so many months.)

Wednesday: sick

I was sick today.  I had a low grade fever and headache for most of the day.  (Tylenol did help at the end of the day though.)

Luckily, Joshua took some good naps, Isaac was willing to watch some extra TV, and Ben was working from home.  So I was able to take two naps and now I'm feeling much better.

We also got our pictures back...here are some of my favorites

Tuesday: happy birthday

Isaac slept in today.  I actually tried to wake him up and it didnt work.

These tears came from the following: "I need to get my hair wet to go downstairs."  "No."

We went to the park with some friends.  We almost went to the inside playground because we knew rain was on the way.  We ended up going to the outside playground and Isaac was enjoying playing in the rain so we stayed after the others left.  We ran in puddles for about another 15 minutes and got soaking wet.  But it was worth it.

Isaac gave me some marbles for my birthday.  He's been into birthdays lately and has also given me assorted puzzle pieces (but not a whole puzzle).

Ben brought dinner home.  I was having a hormonal afternoon and if he asked me what I wanted to do for dinner I was going to cry.  (I cried anyway.)  I told him that for my birthday I wanted him to just figure it out.

Monday: 3 weeks

Joshua is 3 weeks old today!

With much regret, I'm getting ready to put away the newborn clothes.  Although I really like them, so I might try to keep them around for a little bit longer.  (The cloth diapers just add so much bulk.)  Joshua has helped the past few days by getting several outfits dirty so that he could make sure to wear them all at least one more time.  And here is Joshua with Frog...I got it so he and Isaac could have something in common.

The standard three week picture.

He fell asleep.  He is still sleeping a ton, but it does make the transition to two children much easier.

Isaac covered his Duplo table in Duplos.  I helped...and he kept telling me that I was a good helper. :D  It made me feel useful.

Although it looks like Isaac is squishing Joshua here, he's actually giving him a very gentle hug.  (Although I took it with burst mode and the last picture made it look like Joshua was punching Isaac.)

And lastly, Isaac wanted to take a picture of the wall.  Rather boring, but he accomplished his goal well.

I also got a ton of things checked off my to do list today!  A lot of them were very small things (under five minutes), but Dad and Pat came over this afternoon to help out and so the house looks very clean too!

Sunday: sleeping

Joshua slept very well last night...so much so that we took out a feeding.  (To be fair though, you don't have to sleep much longer in every stretch when you're eating every 2.5 hours to cut one out.)

Was it his first real bath right before bed?
Was it the "Evelyn swaddle"?

Was it getting him on a 2 hour stretch between feedings during the day?
Or...was I just lucky?

Saturday: tickle monster

Yesterday I talked about Isaac's longest game; today I;ll talk about his newest.  It's tickle monster.  Tickle monster is an imaginary monster that isn't too scary, but when it's getting Isaac he clenches his whole body and makes a scared face.  So we've been practicing ways to get the tickle monster to leave us alone, which mainly mans saying, "Tickle monster, go away.  Go far, far away!"  It usually doesn't work, but I figure it might be good practice for real life.



Isaac's been drinking the bottom of my spice tea lately, so today, as a treat, he got his own small cup.

Joshua slept a lot today. He also rolled over, but I expect it's the "I have muscles?" roll and will stop in a few weeks.

Friday: eating

Isaac:
One of Isaac's longest lasting games has been Nummies.  It's basically a game where he gets something to eat from someplace (any place, really), and eats it.  Or gives it to you to eat.  Sometimes it keeps him well occupied, sometimes it's super annoying, and sometimes it just is.  But in a given day, we probably talk about nummies 10-20 times.

Lately he's also been getting yucky nummies.  He'll eat them, but won't let anyone else eat them.

So nap time rolls around today.  He has been doing a lot of fake crying in bed since Joshua came home; we don't know if it is a 2.5 year thing or a Joshua thing.  Anyway, he starts crying because I only gave him one big hug instead of two, so I open the door again.  He wants a pretend cookie.  I don't really want to get trapped in a big hug again, so I throw it to him.  Apparently I miss.  I throw another one, saying it's the last one.  I miss again, but close the door anyway.  Five minutes later he's still crying so I open the door.  Lo and behold, there is a nummy in my hand that I didn't give to him.  I sit and give him a hug, and the nummy.  (It's a yucky one by the way, so he's going to eat it later.)  I can't help but laugh even though he's crying...he's crying over a pretend yucky treat.  Luckily, Isaac laughs too.  Eventually I escape.

Joshua:
We're starting to work on eating every two hours instead of 1.5 hours.  If he eats every 1.5 hours the breakdown goes like this: 15-20 minutes for eating a diaper change, 15 minutes of being awake, 15-20 minutes of getting to sleep and making sure he's asleep, and 10 minutes of waking up early.  This gives me a whole thirty minutes to calm down and take my own nap, and that just isn't working for me.  With both of the boys I came home from the hospital thinking that feeding every 2-3 hours as suggested seemed fine (4 hours at night!).  But the boys didn't listen to the hospital recommendations.

Joshua did do a few three hour stretches last night; I'm hoping for the same thing again tonight. :)

Thursday: Hope for the future

Today I got Joshua dressed.  A bit later I got dressed.  Then Ben came out and said, "did you match on purpose?"  I stared at him blankly for a second before I realized - we were both wearing Hope shirts.  So I got Isaac dressed in his Hope shirt too.

Joshua had a doctor's appointment today as I had some questions.  The doctor said that he's doing great...he weighs 8 lb 9 oz, up a pound from when we left the hospital, which was amazing for two weeks.  He has a little bit of acid reflux, so we'll try to prop him up a bit at night, but otherwise there are no issues.  Isaac was rather cute and kept checking to make sure "Baby not hurt."

(As a side note, since we're talking about growth, I think Isaac has thinned out a bit.  Shorts that were fine at the beginning of the summer are now falling down when he runs.  I've been thinking about getting the 18 month shorts out, but will probably just put it off.  It's a cold summer and he still has several pairs that fit fine.)

Isaac also got a gift in the mail and was super excited about it.  It included a note, and he can recognize his name.  And it had a smiley face at the end which thrilled him.  So he ran around the table with them several times.  (I'm rather happy with this picture since Isaac is clear and everything else is blurry.)

Wednesday

Today went much better than yesterday; there were other people around and we went outside for a bit.

Dad watched Joshua while Isaac and I went grocery shopping.  I haven't figured out how to take both boys and get a week's worth of groceries yet.  Isaac enjoyed zooming up and down the aisles.  As long as it isn't too busy, I'm happy to let him do that.  We're working on stopping at the end of the aisles though.

Joshua had a small bout of big cries this afternoon.  His cry sounds slightly different from Isaac's.

Break time.  Dad played with Isaac for a few hours while I rested.  Last night wasn't a great night and I had a really hard time waking up.  Before this I may have not really wanted to wake up, but last night it felt like I was always in a deep sleep when Joshua needed me.

Tuesday: today

Joshua took several naps.

We were going to go to the church for playgroup, but we got there too late and it had been canceled due to only one family showing up.  We played on the playground for about 10 minutes, but it was rather cold (63 deg F) and drizzly, so we went home.  We broke out the baby marbles today.  I'm not sure if they're called baby marbles because they're in Joshua's room (probably) or because they're smaller.

Since it was cool and rainy we stayed inside all day.  It was kind of annoying.  But everyone had slept in and I did get a bit of a nap, so we all survived.

Monday: 2 weeks

Joshua is now 2 weeks old!  How time flies. :)

He slept a lot better last night. :)  He still wakes up to eat rather often, but it wasn't too bad.  And he went to sleep well.

I finally got him to somewhat enjoy a pacifier today.  He also isn't a huge fan of the swing unless he's already sleeping rather well.

Isaac was enjoying the fact that they both had camels from Cheryl.  Getting a good picture of that on the other hand was rather hard.

So that Isaac's quilt wouldn't feel left out, we got one of Isaac on his quilt too.

And then with both boys

Yesterday and this morning the fun activity was to play marbles...but using duplos instead of marbles.  I'm going to admit, it works a lot better than it sounds like it should.  There are a lot of "traffic jams", but the pieces slide rather well.

Joshua enjoyed duplo marbles too.  He was a bit more grumpy today, although looking back Isaac had the same thing around this time.  So it could be an age thing.

I was trying to trap Isaac as he ran back and forth today.  So he made me a trap.  But he was nice enough to give me nummies while I was trapped.

Sunday: sleep??

Friday night Joshua slept wonderfully...at least for him.  I got several 2+ hour stretches and after eating he went right back to sleep so easily.

Then there was last night...I think I got a 1 hour stretch once.  Joshua wanted to eat much more often and was fussier.  Often it felt like I'd put him down and he'd be quiet for just long enough for me to get in bed and think he's asleep and then he'd fuss again.  Usually he'd quiet down promptly...I think I only picked him up once.  But then we'd repeat the cycle.

Ben nicely brought both boys to church for me so that I could take a good nap though.