Thursday: pop tarts

In our house, pop tarts are an adult-only food.  Because sometimes I want to enjoy them for breakfast while not feeling bad about giving my kids sugar for breakfast.  Sure, it's a double standard.  I'm willing to accept it.

Wednesday: zoo and gym

This morning we went to the zoo with some friends.  We had a very nice time; many of the animals were moving (including the large mammals), so that made it rather fun too.

 Here is Giraffe the giraffe, ready to see his friends at the zoo.  It was a special treat to bring Giraffe.  Unfortunately, Giraffe didn't have a great time because not all of his friends were at the zoo.  Giraffe is kind of clingy and sad lately.

Isaac enjoyed looking at the maps.

Here we all are (including Giraffe) with a chimp.

Joshua was extra smiley today.  Isaac was happy to help him smile.

Isaac loved playing on the train.  It was hard to get him to move on to the next thing.

A tiring day. :)

This morning Joshua also realized he could take all the plasticware out of the drawer at once.  It was rather cute.  What wasn't so cute is how ... much bigger Isaac is.  I quickly had to make a rule that it had to stay in the kitchen and that he couldn't put anything in his mouth and that he didn't need three cups full of water.

Today was the first day of a new gym routine...first strength training and then cardio.  You could tell we had worked by the time we got to racquetball.  I was a bit surprised, but it was good.  Strength training isn't as fun as racquetball, but still good.  Now I need to feel more comfortable doing it.

Tuesday: progession

Today I noticed that Joshua was doing several new(ish) things.

*He still has been standing.  There are a few times he'll stand for many seconds.

*He'll repeat "mama" to me.  So I asked him, "Do you like dada or mama better?"  No response.  A few hours later he clearly said, "I like dad better."  Hmm.

*We're not going to have any more night feedings.  (I.e., no feeding before bed).  Last night he was surprisingly understanding.  He cried a few times, but went back to sleep.  We'll see how tonight goes.

Monday: busy day

Today was a busy day!

It started with a mastitis follow-up.  Nothing unexpected there.  If it happens again I can request that they don't give me the antibiotic that is normally given first since it now hasn't worked two times.

Then we popped over to the daycare to officially register.  I think they're going to put Isaac in the preschool class.  They said the population has had a slight shift towards the younger kids, so everyone has been moved up a bit earlier than normal.  So the preschool class will be a young class and he'll know many of the kids in it.  (It was that or he would be the oldest of the kids in his other class, which isn't always fun either.)

A quick pop over to Meijer for bread, blueberries, and a different style sippy cup.  I bought two loaves last Monday and by Friday they were completely unusable.  It surprised and annoyed me.  Joshua needs to learn to drink from a sippy cup.  End of story.

Then to the gym were I had a meeting with an athletic trainer.  We found out that my right ankle is ...I'm not sure what the right word is...tight.  It doesn't bend as much, which sometimes makes my hips tilt.  We also went through some strength exercises to do.

Phew!  Four stops in the morning...I usually try to limit it to two, maybe three.

Then this afternoon I got sick of Isaac still trying to eat his hair and we went to the barbershop.  (They had an online checkin...it was awesome!)

The before picture (although without the curls).  The online check in was nice, but we still had to wait a bit.  Probably for the best, so we could talk about what to expect.

During the cut.  Isaac stayed nice and still.

Afterwards.  Quite short (the setting was a six.  I'm hoping it was short enough.)  It makes him look so grown up.  (And like a small Jacob.)

We went to "close beach" in the evening.

Here's hoping that it helps with the hair pulling!!

Sunday: friends

We had our Bible Study over after church for lunch.  It was a lot of fun; it's been a while since we've seen them.  How does life get so busy and go by so quickly??

Joshua did a lot more standing up...he has a sumo pose because his legs are often spread so far apart.

I cut off Isaac's curls tonight. :( :( Ben and I got sick of saying, "Don't eat your hair."  It's just something that he does without thinking.  He knows he shouldn't and never complains when we remind him not to, so that makes it hard too.  Maybe we'll try a buzz cut if this doesn't work.  I suppose it could work.  I just love his curls and how they bounced when he ran.  Good thing hair grows back.

Saturday: yesterday and today

First off, I realized I forgot two things from yesterday.

1) Joshua laughing.  When Isaac banged his cup or I banged the towels on the table, Joshua thought it was hilarious.  It's a long video, you can get the idea after the first little bit.



2) Joshua standing.  We were packing up water balloons when, in the middle of the deck with no supports, Joshua decided to stand up.  I was rather shocked.  He held it for a few seconds and then sat back down.  Right before bedtime at the park he kept doing it too...over and over.  Ben and I both thought that he would be doing it all day today, but it really took until right before bedtime again.  Of course, that was when he was in the bathtub. :p

On to today.

I got an early birthday present.

Two new monitors!  They seem gigantic compared to my old ones.  I'm loving them, and loving that the colors are the same between both.

While we were getting them set-up (which was super easy), Isaac cut around a monkey that had been printed out for coloring.  What what?  Last time I saw him cut all he could do was cut things in two.  There was no concept of cutting something out.  So I printed out some cutting pages for him and he cut out some shapes.  He chose the overalls this morning (black cords) and the monkey hat is to try and get him to stop eating his hair.

Friday: pictures

Flurry has found a new favorite spot in Joshua's chair.

It was a "dad day."  Joshua really only wanted Ben if he was around.  I just wasn't cutting it.

A friend got Joshua a "Little Brother" t-shirt that is really cute, so that meant we should take some pictures, right?

Isaac and Joshua.

Joshua

Everybody (at home)

Isaac and me.  Joshua is photobombing.

Joshua and me.

A hug.

Then we went to story time.  Isaac seemed very bored, but Joshua seemed more engaged than normal.  I've thought about going to the preschool story time, which would be better for Isaac, but I think I read less to Joshua than Isaac so it seems only fair that we should go to Joshua's story time.

Rest time.  We've been reading Richard Scary's "What do people do?"  He likes the "pipes" (building a house) and the "sharp cutter" (what do we do with wood) stories.  He did fall asleep.

The fun activity was water balloons.

Isaac did a good job of picking up the pieces after they popped.  He sorted them by color.

Popping it with his hands.

Stomping on it.

We had a picnic dinner with some friends.  It was slightly rainy but otherwise perfect.  It was nice to see them and let Isaac run around on the playground a bit.

Night time.  His new lamp came today so that he can read better at night.  We'll see how it goes.