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.

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.