Four Months and Fabulous

Pardon the corny title. Sometimes I get a little bored with the same ole, same ole titles but obviously can't think of anything much more creative. :-)

William was 4 months on Tuesday. Today was his check up. Everything went well. I even recruited Henry to be the "song singer" during W's shots. When they started and William started to get a little sad, Henry started singing "twinkle, twinkle little star". It was very sweet. I always sing to him during his shots (and did for Henry too), but usually I feel a little funny because I feel like I'm singing directly into the nurse's ear since I'm also hovering over the baby. In a funny way it helped me to not feel quite so silly having Henry singing along with me. It's definitely a little tougher taking two to the doctor. I feel like I have to give Henry jobs and really talk up the appointment so that he'll be on board to come with us. He does really well. And he really gets excited to see his doctor, I think because he knows that it's not his turn. He also loves standing on the scale in between the nurse leaving the room and the doctor coming in, so I get an unofficial weight for him on these off visits!

Williams stats at 4 months are:
Height: 25", 50% (Vance?)
Weight: 16 lbs 7 oz, 75%
Head: 16 3/4", 50%

Just for curiosity sake I checked Henry's stats at 4 months. He was 25 1/4 " and 15 lbs 9 oz
Interestingly, about the same difference in weight at 4 months as when they were born. Ok, let the comparisons stop there. I was just curious and it is always fun to look back and see.

William comfortably wears 3-6 month clothes, but I've also pulled out a lot of Henry's 6-9 month winterish stuff and he can wear most of that, too. He's a big boy! Just in the past few days I've really noticed Henry interacting with him a lot more. I'm not sure if Henry's starting to take a liking to him as a "playmate" or if he's just lonely and will play with anyone! Obviously there's not much William can do with him just yet, but Henry loves to get his attention and have him watch whatever he's doing. He loves to make him smile and he loves for me to set him down when he wants my attention!

Finally I'm productive

I've just been feeling like there's so much that I need to get done lately, and just never time enough to do it. Today after going grocery shopping with both boys and leaving feeling completely exhausted I was in tears just looking at the piles of laundry. So when both boys went down for naps around the same time I decided to try to get some stuff done. I was able to get two loads of laundry going and then I started working on the office.

I just finished giving the office a good thorough clean and doing some much needed organization. Both boys napped today at the same time - good naps too, Henry slept for 2 1/2 hours and William went down around 12:30 and as of now (3:55) he's still sleeping! So I was able to get some much needed stuff accomplished, as I mentioned. When Henry woke up from his nap I was just finishing vacuuming the office, so I asked him to come in with me while I finished. I told him I was cleaning the office, so when he walked in I asked him if the office looked so much better to which he replied, "nope"! Nope!! I think he really meant, YES, tons! Ha ha! Just goes to show that what means so much to me doesn't really matter much to a 2 1/2 year old. It does feel good to get some things done that I've been wanting to do. It makes me feel so much better, like a natural lift. Speaking of, anyone heard of the benefits of taking a vitamin D supplement? You know how sometimes you feel the blues in the winter? Dr. Oz said it's because of a vitamin D deficiency. We're inside more, less sun, etc. Anyway, you're supposed to get a natural lift by taking vitamin D. Just wondering if anyone knows about this. I think I need to take that and also I do need to start taking a calcium supplement. I definitely don't drink much milk and am trying to avoid too much dairy now because I feel like William spits up more when I drink it. Just a side note. I need to write about "schlumpadinkas" tomorrow...

Also, Henry just asked me for some juice and said, "I'm so hungry" and then I could tell he was searching for the right words for a moment and then looked at me again and said, "I'm so juicy!". HA HA....I love it.

Baby joy times 4

Our dear friends Jon and Tiffany became the parents of quadruplets on Tuesday!!!! (one exclamation point for each baby!) Three girls and a boy: Maggie, Lauren, Reese and Gavin. Tiffany and all of the babies are doing well. I just wanted to ask you to pray for these four babies now as they continue to grow and develop in the NICU. Pray that they'd keep on growing and that they'd continue to be healthy. We're so thrilled for Jon and Tiffany - they will be amazing parents.

You can read more and follow their story on their blog.

William's 3 (errr, 3.75) Month Pictures

Well, I did it. I went to get William's pictures taken at Portrait Innovations and left without spending $100! His 3 month mark sort of came and went and we never did any pictures so I was undecided about whether I should take him or not. I finally decided that I would take him and buy just the $9.99, one-pose package. (We went last Thursday, so he's closer to 3 months and a few weeks.)As you can see from the pictures above, I didn't end up doing exactly that. But I came really close. They really were all darling and I could have easily put together a 6-pose package, but I was determined to stick to my budget. (wow, did I just say that?)

I ended up getting the really close up one of him for the $9.99 package which includes tons of pictures (a 10x13, 2-8x10's, 2-5x7's, 4 sheets of wallets and some greeting cards). Then I added the full body one of him, just one sheet for $15. Crazy how they get you with the packages! I didn't get the CD, which I do always love to have. So I just took pictures of his pictures to put them on here. Oh and I used walgreens.com to make the one picture black and white because you can't add that with the $9.99 package. All in all, I'm pleased. I'm happy that I ended up taking him because I love having formal pictures of him. Friends and family, stay tuned..you'll be getting one in the mail!

Mother's Love Day

Today all the mom's were invited to Henry's school for a special "Mother's Love Day" in honor of Valentine's Day. His morning usually ends at 11:45, but today we were invited to come at 11:15 for some special festivities. When we arrived all of the children in his class were lined up each one sitting on a carpet square. I loved the moment when I walked into the room and saw Henry; his face just beamed. The mom's sat across the room from their children and got ready to listen to some special songs they'd been practicing for us. Lots of children burst into tears when their moms walked in - I think seeing them but not being able to go right home with them was tough. Henry did really well - he did get up from his carpet square while we were waiting to get things started and came over and gave me a big hug and said "I love you". My heart totally melted. Then came my favorite part, the singing. The children sang a few songs they'd been practicing. Some sort of looked around the room, some watched the teachers and some gazed longingly at their mothers; Henry belted out the tunes with some nonsense words here and there and did some motions too. It was hilarious and really fun to watch. After the songs we got to go to their little tables and work on a craft together - decorating a framed picture and adding a magnet. Then Henry got to bring his decorated Valentine bag stuffed with Valentines home. It was so much fun. I really loved being able to be there and share that time with him. Patrick came home for lunch and stayed with William so I could go and focus on Henry.

Here we are working on Henry's special picture frame project together.

Henry on his pink carpet square during one of the songs.

This is the picture frame craft we did together. Check out the expression on Henry's face in the framed pic - we lovingly refer to it as his "mugshot". :-)

This is a placemat that the children made for the mom's. It's really sweet - the heart in the middle is painted with his handprints.

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).

Clip 'em maybe?

Today I was making lunch and Henry was playing in the living room. He ran into the kitchen excitedly and exclaimed, "look at my sock!". He had pulled it off and was thrilled with himself. So I grabbed his little toes and said something like "look at these guys!" to which he replied, "look at my toenails! Let's clip 'em, maybe?" Do most kids love having their nails clipped? Because Henry just loves it. He watches in amazement while Patrick clips them. And now he asks for them to be clipped for something fun to do. That made me laugh.

Note the part where I wrote while Patrick clips them. Here's a confession: I have never once in Henry's lifetime clipped his nails. It all started out as a huge fear of mine when he was such a teeny tiny baby. Even with the fancy clippers that came in the baby care kit that we registered for I was so afraid that I would clip too far and hurt his little fingers and toes. Yes, even with clippers that included a swing out magnifying glass I was absolutely terrified to do it. Double confession: I still have not clipped William's nails either. It's almost like not doing it for the past 2 1/2 years has made my fears even greater. So for now, Patrick's remains the designated clipper.

A Hairless Mousetrap

Surely you're wondering what this adorable, cuddly little creature is and wishing you had one for yourself. It's called a Sphynx, better known as a hairless cat. The site where I found this picture describes their temperament as "part monkey, part dog, part child, and part cat". Hmmm, something for everyone. What's not to love?

Am I trying to sell you on this hairless cat? Not really. It all started on Tuesday morning when I came downstairs and smelled the familiar smell of a dead mouse. Why familiar you ask? Most recently, in college our dorm had a mouse infestation. I saw one in my closet once running up and down the sleeves of my clothes and stood on my desk crying until Patrick came to save the day. I later threw away several sweatshirts in my panicked and traumatized haste. Shortly after that I smelled an awful smell only to find out from the maintenance man that the mouse had died under my fridge (ahh, can it get any worse?).

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, as soon as my nose hit the living room I smelled that same awful smell. Never having once seen or heard a mouse in this house, I tried to eliminate every other possibility. I cleaned out the fridge, emptied out the garbage cans from every room in the house, burned several candles and put a new tart in the burner. Nonetheless, everytime I walked past the small loveseat in the living room, that dead mouse-ish smell wafted by. No mouse alive or dead has been discovered even though Patrick has searched every area that my nose has dictated. The weird thing is that the smell has actually decreased every day. (I hope I'm not used to it and that every where I go I'm smelling like the dead mouse.)

In the midst of all of this I told Patrick that if a mouse is discovered we're going to get a hairless cat. Not really, but I thought it would be a possible alternative to the hairy kind that he's allergic to.