Wednesday: this and that

I brought up the excersaucer today.  We've put Joshua in it a few times, but today was the day he gets to be put in it more.  Isaac had fun playing with the toys; Joshua watched.  (Joshua did figure some out later.)

We went to the mall for the playground.  Isaac really liked looking out the window and finding me. 

 Both boys did, actually.

Isaac really wanted a snack this afternoon but since he hadn't eaten all of his lunch I told him no.  However, I did remind him that he had saved several "treats" from going to the bathroom that he could have.  So he had several of those, but not all of them.  Every time he puts something in his box I'm rather surprised.  The bottom was almost covered, but now it's only half covered.

Joshua needed his picture taken too.

Tuesday: today

Today was better than yesterday.  I know it didn't read that way in the blog post, but by the end of the day I was done.  Isaac was so willing to be helpful, but around 4pm I ran out of things to do.  I don't remember what we did after that, but apparently it was something.  We might have read some books.  He found these books (and there are several of them) that have too many words per page but still pretend to be picture books.  I've started just summarizing them (thanks to Aunt C's example) but still kind of dread them.  I will only read one per reading session but always feel a little bad about that.

Anyway, today I got out to get some groceries, everyone took a nap, Isaac had an accident free day, and I think I was just in a better mood.  And there are plenty of things to do tomorrow too.

Also, I'm a mom.  That is just a crazy thought, even three years into it.  I still picture myself as 25.

Monday: 17 weeks

Joshua is 17 weeks old!

His head is healing from all the scratches.  I feel as though he's been a bit grumpy this past week, but just a bit.  He's been enjoying toys a lot more.  Getting smiles from him is one of my favorite activities.

Isaac helped with the laundry today; he wanted me to take this picture and posed himself just so before I was allowed to take it.

We also had some serious bathroom issues today.  I don't know what was up with the boy!  Usually he still goes to the bathroom on the toilet most of the time.  Today it felt like it was only a few times.  Anyway, after one time that he did make it he must have taken his pants all the way off.  So he put them back on...inside out and backwards.  I just laughed.

This evening Isaac also was playing the piano and singing "Jesus loves me so much!"  It was probably the best part of my day.

Sunday: nap

Joshua came to take a nap with me.  After rubbing his head and getting him to calm down we both slept some more.  When I woke up, we were both in the same position...both arms up so that our hands touched our heads.

Saturday: head

I've found that Joshua tends to calm down more quickly if I rub his head. It has been rather handy these last few days.

Friday: more independance

This morning I told Isaac that when he wakes up he can just get out of bed and go to the bathroom; I don't need to tell him.  Well, everyone took a good nap this afternoon.  So good that I woke up by myself and was contemplating whether to get up or turn over when I hear the pitter patter of little feet running for the bathroom.

I waited for the normal "TREAT!" to come from the bathroom but instead heard the stool being moved.  Oh, he had a bowel movement.  Well, he's dealt with it before a few times so I waited some more to see what would happen.  He went back to his room.  He went back to the bathroom.  Now I'm rather confused.  He went back to his room and through the monitor I hear, "so much poop!"  I leap out of bed.

There wasn't really that much.  He had had a small accident and so had some on his leg, which he was trying to clean up.  But besides that he was rather clean.  He knew what he needed to do and was trying to deal with it.  I was so proud of him.  But also glad that I was there to help...he's not quite ready to deal with those accidents yet.

Thursday: bran muffins

Back story: we had previously made some bran muffin mix, so we just needed to put it in the muffin tins, add raisins, and bake it.  Joshua woke up (from a 2.5 hour nap without any wakeups...a first!) and needed to be fed, so I told Isaac to put in the muffin cups.

Then I hear silverware being rattled.  I figured if he really was putting the muffin mix in that was fine...what was the worst he could do?  Here's what I found when I came out of Joshua's room.  (Spoiler: I caught him just in time.)




And in case you don't understand Isaac-speak:
A: "Hey Isaac, what are you doing now?"
I: "Doing that thing now."
A: "What is that thing?"
I: "It's Sugar!"  (Important note: it's SALT)
A: It's sugar?  What are you going to do with the sugar?
I: "I'm going to pour some in [measuring or baking] cups.

But really, I was impressed with his initiative, even if execution wasn't quite right.  He also enjoyed putting raisins on.

I tried to get Joshua to smile, but he was having none of it.  This hat, courtesy Grandma Menkveld, worked very well.  It went over his eyes once or twice, but actually stayed on.

Wednesday: snow and friends

We went to play at Betsy and Ethan's house today.  We started by sending the boys on the deck to play.

Then we got some pictures of the younger two.  Leah really liked Joshua's toes.  (Joshua is doing a much better job in the bumbo than appears in this picture.  In the last two days especially.)

Joshua also got two good scratching sessions in on his head today.  It looked so sad.  So I filed his nails down and put on a hat.  I have several hats to try out...this one worked ok.  I'm also going to try itching his head for him a little more so that he doesn't need to do it.

Isaac used his two pictures of the day to take two pictures of the goldfish box.  It's the first time I've gotten a big one and he was so excited yesterday when he saw it.  (He also took out all the groceries from the bags and put them on the counter while I was feeding Joshua.  It was cute.)

Tuesday: snowday

There was a snow day today.  Normally they don't affect me much, but on Tuesdays they do.  (And it often seems like we have snow days on Tuesdays.)  So my morning plans were out the window.  So I suddenly had a free morning.  But no plans...which usually doesn't go so well for me.

Luckily, it went significantly better than I expected.  I got out the glue stick, scissors, and some colored paper and Isaac crafted for 1.5 hours.  (We did pause to sing some songs.) Then I got out the hole punch and he continued for another half hour.  By that time, we were home free.  Lunch, naps, and then Dad came over so I could get groceries.  (Side note: Joshua literally woke up 15 seconds after Isaac went to sleep.  Our monitor has a two minute audio history and I could not believe my eyes.  I did get a little sleep while Isaac was still awake though since he was in bed.)

(I know it's blurry but Isaac only wanted me to take one picture)

I love snow!

Monday: 16 weeks

Joshua is 16 weeks old today!

He had extra spit up today. :(  And has decided that raking his fingernails across his scalp is a good idea, so his head is rather battle-marked.  I try to keep mittens on him when he's sleeping, but sometimes they fall off.  And he did it once today while awake.

Isaac wanted to take a picture "of all of us" again today.  He set up the camera and the better of the two pictures looked like this:

I've tried to tell him that zoom doesn't work all that well but he doesn't listen.  And while his picture does technically contain all of us, we did one more.

Sunday: headache update

A quick headache update...

The medicine definitely seems to be helping.  I've gone from several stabbing pains per day to about one, and even that one is usually more of a dull ache than a shooting pain.  The length is still short, about two seconds.

I should probably stop calling it a headache and start calling it a pinched nerve.

Saturday: I's

A few days ago we started our Christmas cards.  Isaac's job was to seal the envelopes, but he got sick of that pretty quickly.

So I let him draw on the backs of envelopes.  Maybe you'll be a lucky winner!  He wrote his first I's (unprompted).  He tried an S on one enevelope but it didn't turn out so well.  After a scribble on the back of another it was time to be done.

Friday: snow!

So here's the picture of all of us from yesterday.  I love Joshua's expression.

Since it snowed we decided not to do our planned errands today.  they could wait and the roads weren't great.  So we played a lot of baby marbles.

By the end of the day Isaac decided that he really wanted to go outside.  So armed with some beach toys he went on the deck.  I was a little afraid he'd come right back in, but he stayed out there for a good 30 minutes.

Thursday: isaac quotes

Ben stayed home today.  He has plenty of vacation time, so once in a while takes off random days.  It's been fun.  I got a wonderful nap.  And it snowed out!  Our deck has a small inch of snow.  And WOW came out.  It is currently very laggy, but during the day it was nice.  I was going to show you a picture from today, but due to a slightly silly computer I'd have to leave the game and I wouldn't get back in before bedtime.

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Ben put up a pillow between the couch and the table and then told Isaac he'd need to duck under the bridge.  Isaac went under it, saying "quack quack" the whole time.

Isaac has had a very small scratch on his forehead for a few days; I think he scratched himself while sleeping but didn't notice it.  He noticed it after his nap and told Ben (and then me) that he needed to go to the doctor's office.  He said this with his very serious and sad face.

Ben asked Isaac what his favorite number was.  "i" replied Isaac.  We laughed.  Ben asked what his second favorite number was.  "e" replied Isaac.  Ahh...we have a smart son.

Wednesday: 15 weeks/friend

Joshua is 15 weeks old!

His neck control is getting much better...we've started to use the Bumbo in short spurts.

Isaac likes playing in the empty cabinet.  He was smiling for this picture, even though it looks like he's in the middle of a tantrum.  He just doesn't get how to smile nicely.

We had a friend over for a lot of the day too.  Babysitting has gotten so much easier now that Isaac is a bit older.  I don't feel like I need to play with the children for hours on end and deal with a small child.  That isn't to say that I didn't play with them, but I didn't have to do it all the time.  They actually played quite well together after the first hour, so that was fun to watch.  It was especially fun to listen to their conversation.  Neither can speak all that well (although it did show me how far Isaac has come in the last year).  Isaac did a great job sharing and wanted his friend to sit right next to him while watching Wall-E.

I also managed to save the cat by telling them they had to go on the couch to see her.  (The words in the video, since it's hard to understand, are "meow, meow, meow, meow..."

Tuesday: neighbors

We had our new neighbors over for dessert and games this evening.  It was nice to meet them.

Monday: weird day

Today was a weird day.

Isaac put himself to bed at 11:45 for his nap.  He closed the curtains, turned on his little light, put some duplos in his bed, and went to sleep.

Joshua had of course slept well during the morning and so wasn't very tired.  Just as I decided he was ready to go down for a nap the doorbell rang (seriously, it was about 30 seconds after).  The dishwasher repairmen were here...they were supposed to be here before 12pm so that it didn't interfer with naps.  Of course, just as they were leaving Isaac woke up.  I think the door woke him up.  I put a movie on for him and tried to take a nap but Joshua kept waking up too.  Sigh.  This also made Isaac's lunch all messed up.  I was eating some brocolli and cauliflower so Isaac ate a bunch of that and grazed for the afternoon.

We also made spice bars.  I let Isaac lick the beater for the first time.

I also couldn't remember anything all day.  It was a bit of a problem and resulted in Isaac wearing a kilt for a few hours.  Sadly, I don't have a picture of it.

And our daily picture.

Sunday: made it again

Phew...made it through another day.  I found myself getting so frustrated trying to get to church.  Isaac would get stuck (on nothing).  It's a problem when I'm done for the day and it's only 9am.  But luckily there was church, Dad came over to babysit, and Isaac played well the rest of the day.  So we survived.

Saturday: made it

Phew...we made it through the day.  Isaac and I made a few freezer meals and that occupied a fair amount of time.  Especially since I didn't have all the necessary ingredients and we had to make a quick trip to the store.

In leaving, here is Isaac reading his book through the monitors.  He actually woke up and read for a bit, which let me sleep in.

Thursday: a hard thing

One of the hardest things I've had to do as a mom is try to get a hair out of Isaac's mouth.

Wednesday: War

I just started playing War with Isaac.  Ben kindly pointed out the night before we started that I should maybe remove the facecards since they don't have numbers.  It was a good idea (and makes the game shorter).

We've play three games so far.  One that Isaac won, one that I was going to win so he quit, and one that we just stopped.  But this is starting to feel like I'm playing a real game with him, so that's fun.  And maybe he's learning how numbers relate to each other.  I had been thinking it would just be a nice easy game that he could probably grasp the rules of, but there is actually a lot of learning in it too.

Tuesday: 14 weeks and what we hear

I forgot to post Joshua's 14 week pictures yesterday.   It was a "Go Hope!" kind of day and Isaac even ended up in orange and blue.

And then listening to Isaac...it still takes a bit to understand him if you're not around him.  Here's what was said (and understood) today.

"Dag, you can take it when you're ogre."  meant "Dad, you can take it when you're older."  (Somewhere along the way "when you're older" became a reason to not do something.  Sometimes Isaac uses it as the reasoning when Ben or I say no, such as why he can't have more candy and sometimes he uses it as an excuse to not do something.)

"We're going to go boat?" meant "we're going to go vote?"

Monday: doctor

So I've been having my weird headaches (again).  (As a reminder, they're about 2 seconds worth of shooting pain in the back of my head about five times a day, happening around certain activities.  There are no other symptoms, so once the two seconds are over I'm fine again.  But they're getting annoying.)  The doctor had an opening tonight, so I went in.

He said that it wasn't a normal set of symptoms, but could possibly be a pinched nerve in my neck.  So we're going to try some medicine.  This possible diagnosis actually makes a lot of sense to me, so here's hoping.

Sunday: Grandma Julie

I: who is this rock for?
A: you said it was for great grandma.
I: who is this rock for?
A: you said it was for grandma.
I: who is this rock for?
A: you said it was for other grandma
I: no, it is for grandma up-up.  With wings.  Angel.
A: grandma Julie?
I: yeah.  That grandma.  (Points to picture of Grandma Julie on the fridge.)
A: that's nice of you.  (Getting a bit choked up.)
I: can I play play-doh?

It should be noted that we rarely talk about Mom.  If it comes up we talk about her, but it really doesn't come up very often which made the conversation a bit odd.


And matching brothers!  It was hard to get both of them both looking ok.

Saturday: covers

I don't understand it...Ben always ends up with the covers at night, but I end up with the top sheet.  I understand how blankets get stolen in the middle of the night, but how do half go one way and half go the other?

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.