Hen Hen and Dubya

I'm a definite creature of habit. I might have suspected this before, but having children has really sealed the deal for me. I love knowing what to expect and when I can expect it. I feel like I thrive having a structured day. However, the flip side is that it's really stressful to me when I don't know what to expect. Obviously I know there's a balance, especially when you have children because not everything will always go according to plan, try as I may. And this all leads back to my New Year's Resolution of taking the "chill pill" and not allowing myself to worry so much about things-especially every little thing. However, because I still do love a schedule, it's been a stressful couple of weeks with William's naps. I think I'm figuring out his new sleep pattern, but it's taken me several really short naps and failed nap attempts over the last several days to figure it out. It really seems like overnight he went from being this uber-sleepy newborn who would nap anywhere, in anything for hours at a time, to a very wide-eyed, alert little baby who will not do those things. So here's his new pattern, he usually takes two shorter morning naps (30-ish minutes, like really short) and then a longer afternoon nap. The afternoon nap was causing some frustration because for several days he would fall asleep and sleep for only 15 or 20 minutes and then wake up smiley but yawning. Refusing to believe that he was done taking a nap longer than 30 minutes in a given day, I'd put him back down (he fought this part quite a bit) and then he would sleep for a few hours. So it's been probably two weeks of this and by today I'm starting to breathe a sigh of relief - there will be some semblance of a schedule afterall. It is definitely so true that with a baby as soon as you think you have things figured out, they start to change again. For now, the schedule and order lover in me is enjoying this knowing what to expect. And as for my resolution, on the days that William's afternoon nap is much shorter than I expect I've been trying to roll with it and telling myself that it's extra bonus time that I get to spend with him. (just less time I get to blog)

Also, is it possible that he could be starting to teethe? Henry didn't get his first tooth until he was a little over 7 months so I was thinking it would take some time for William too. However, he's starting to be really drooly and seems to always be chewing on his own fingers or gnawing on mine. Also he's woken up once during the night the past couple of nights. Here I go...starting to blame everything on teething! Time will tell I suppose.

Then there's big brother Henry. He has really had me in tears laughing with some of the things he says lately. I know a lot of them wouldn't be funny if I put them on here, sort of you had to be there/he had to be your son, things. But I'm really loving this age and stage. He is absolutely in love with his pj's. Most days, he'd rather stay in his jammies than even pick out his own clothes. And I really don't mind my own sometimes, so we've been having a pj day at least once a week where we don't go anywhere and we just hang out around the house. It's actually been fun and it feels good to wake up in the morning and not feel any pressure to have to get ready and leave the house to be anywhere. I feel like those make-up free days have been some of my favorites with the boys. This week, we stayed in our pjs all day on Tuesday and Henry did some experimenting with food coloring in water - see the pics above. He added drops of the different colors to water and stirred it with a spoon and then dumped it out amazed by the colors he created. We ran out of green food coloring-at which point he was distraught because that is his very favorite color-and then he was both shocked and thrilled to learn that we could still make green with blue and yellow. It was fun (albeit a bit messy - we have a pretty big green splattish stain on one of our dining room chairs that he was standing on during the mixing).