Brotherly love

(Sorry for the orientation of this video, I didn't realize it was sideways. I wish I'd caught the exact moment, but this was just after I was changing William's diaper and Henry came over and told William that he loved him.)

Everyday lately I've been getting glimpses into what it will be like when Henry and William are able to play together and be little comrades. William is fascinated with and totally mesmorized by Henry. I always joked when Henry was a younger baby that he needed an older brother because he was always entertained by his older cousins. And now because William responds to Henry by smiling, cooing or laughing at him, it makes Henry want to play with him all the more. It melts my heart everytime I see them looking at eachother and smiling or laughing.
Henry's new favorite thing to do is to dump out all of William's "baby toys" (as he calls them) on the chaise and play with William on there. I think he likes that William's sitting up and watching him. Quite the entertainer...
In the picture below, again on the chaise playing with baby toys, both boys have their sippy cups. William is still a little bit dangerous with his, mostly he bonks himself on the head with it. But it's fun to see them both sipping together.

Happy Easter!

Our Easter activities this year included:

1. Coloring Easter eggs with Henry for the first time. He didn't want much to do with the whole thing until he saw Patrick drop a white egg into one of the mugs and pull it out dyed yellow. Then he became fascinated and was an egg dying machine. He ended up dying his legs green when one of the mugs spilled and poured into the booster seat he was sitting in. It took a few baths to wash completely off!

2. Going to visit Oma on the Saturday before Easter and going to her church with her and then out to dinner together where she gave Henry his Easter basket. Just Henry and I went since William was still doing nebulizer treatments for his bronchiolitis. Henry loves seeing Oma and had so much fun at dinner. After he sucked the juice from the lemon in my water, we asked the waiter for another one. He brought us an entire cup full of lemons, all of which Henry sucked the juice from. He can be seen doing this in the picture below. 3. Going to church at our church on Easter Sunday and then to Patrick's parents house for Easter lunch and an Easter egg hunt for the kids. This year Henry was a little bit more competitive since he understood the relationship between Easter eggs and the chocolate candy hidden inside.

4. Not pictured above - Henry and I also visited with my Dad and Sandi and Cory, better known as Papa and Grandma Bug. In the Easter basket they gave to Henry there was a fairly small rubber crab that grows when placed in water. We have left ours in a bucket of water since Easter and it has gotten huge! I'll have to put some before/after pictures up of our new pet crab. He's become our very high-maintenance pet that Henry insists has to stay either in the bucket or in the bathtub full of water.

Most importantly I'm so thankful for Easter and for the resurrection! What great news that Jesus lives. A few nights ago after we prayed Henry asked me where Jesus lives. I explained to him that Jesus lives in heaven with God and he also lives in our hearts if we ask him, and then I asked him if he would like Jesus to come live in his heart and he said, "no". Why not, I asked him. And he replied, "because I want him to stay in heaven with God." I'm thankful that because of Easter we have the opportunity to join them both in heaven one day.

And William's "first" is...

I'm posting this first because a couple of people have asked me (with some premature excitement) about what William's big first was since I listed it in the previous post.
So, drumroll please.....



He started solids - well, rice cereal to be exact. Buh-dum-bah. I feel like after some anticipation I wish I could write that he took his first steps or at least rolled over or something. I'm sorry it wasn't that exciting and maybe not worth the wait! But as his mama, every first is exciting and feels somewhat monumental.

Also, my "plan" was to delay starting solids until he turned 6 months old, however after some recent sleep backsliding and some angry nursing (on his behalf) I felt like he was ready for something more. He had his first rice cereal last Tuesday at lunch. I was going to wait until dinnertime and have Patrick ready with the camera to capture his expression, but Henry talked me into feeding him earlier. We had gone to the grocery store that morning and Henry was excited that we bought some food for William to eat and when we were eating lunch he asked if William could have his cereal, too. It worked out fine because he literally did not make one face that would seem to ask, "what on earth is this" or "what are you doing to me". He just ate and ate and ate and got a little anxious if I paused to take a bite of my sandwich. He literally ate it all, I mean he WOLFED it down. I guess he was ready for something more.

To do list

I have lots of updates that I need to post and since I hear William waking up from his nap and I won't be able to post right now, I wanted to make a quick list so that I don't forget.

In no particular order:

• Easter
• A big first for William
• Some brotherly love
• I've been tagged by Sally

This is the story of a chocolate eclair, a missing cell phone, a bar, and the kindness of a stranger named David. This is the story of my afternoon.

Today was a beautiful, sunny day - a good way to kick off Spring. William and Henry both woke up this afternoon from their naps around the same time so I asked Henry if he wanted to go on a walk to the bakery near our house and get a treat (i.e. a large, seasonally shaped sugar cookie caked in delicious sugary icing). By the time we left the house and I got both boys in their stroller we had only 20 minutes to make it to the bakery before closing time. We made it with a few minutes to spare, but to Henry's dismay all of the cookies were sold out. Then to my dismay he chose a chocolate eclair instead. It's an occasional treat, so I let him take his pick from the display case - I later realized he would eat only the top off the eclair, the chocolate part. I'll be honest, all of the speed walking caused me to break a sweat. I was steaming, so after we walked about a block towards home I decided to take off my coat and put it in the stroller. A block or so later I thought about my cell phone that I had in my coat pocket. I stopped the stroller to make sure that it was still there with all of the shifting around. I reached into both pockets and found no phone, then I thought maybe I put it in my wristlet after we left the bakery so I checked there but also found no phone. As I was digging around the stroller a man across the street shouted, "are you missing your cell phone?" With his question he affirmed that I was. He then proceeded to tell me something that I couldn't figure out because of the distance of our conversation and the constant flow of traffic passing by. I finally figured out after several failed attempts at interpreting what he said "my phone's on the ground?", NO, "you have my phone", NO, "oh there's a man in a gray sweatshirt up ahead with my phone". Ok, so a man had picked up my phone and was walking in the opposite direction with it.

I thanked that man and spun the stroller around and started walking towards the stranger in the gray sweatshirt. As I explained the whole crazy scene to Henry he kept saying, "that man took your phone mommy". We walked toward the man who was only a block or so ahead of us but couldn't catch him before he slipped into the door of a bar next to the bakery. As I approached the door I figured at 4:00 no one would be in there so I'd just open the door, peek my head in and see the man in the gray sweatshirt and retrieve my lost phone. I was wrong. There were stairs leading into the bar, so I couldn't take the stroller in. So I backed it in and held on to it with one arm and opened the door with the other. I was wrong about the crowd. The room was full and all eyes darted to the door, the stroller, the children. I suddenly wondered what I was even doing here and thought about just ditching the phone and finally getting the Razr I've always wanted. But I was already standing there, so I explained that I had dropped my phone and that a man across the street told me that a man in a gray sweatshirt had picked it up and then I saw that man walk in here. Everyone was very helpful, but no one seemed to be able to find a man in a gray sweatshirt holding my pink phone. Finally when it seemed there was no hope (about 3 minutes into the ordeal) someone shouted "wait!" and then the gray sweatshirt emerged. He handed me my phone and I thanked him very much and turned and finally started walking home.

Now what's the first thing you would do if your phone went MIA? I checked the outgoing calls and noticed that at 4:00 when my phone was missing my mom's cell had been called. So I called her right away and after she answered she said, "Christina, how did you find your phone? David called me." Oh my word, the kind man's name was David and he had called my mom. He told her that he found my phone and saw my mom's number (listed as Mom Cell) and thought she'd be a good one to call. He told her that he would be in town for 2 more hours and how to reach him to get my phone back. Pretty creative problem solving on David's part. I'm thankful that he was helpful and that I was able to retrieve my phone. I wish someone would have called me between 4 and 4:10-ish, I think it would have been hilarious for good old David to take a few of my calls.

A few things to note

• First and foremost, there was a mouse in our house! Patrick has been working on our basement (with the eventual goal of finishing 1/2 of it for a playroom/family room area) and worked for a few hours Sunday to get it cleaned up. Last night I had to take some laundry out of the dryer and needed to wash a few of William's things, so I brought Henry downstairs with me to rave about the newly cleaned basement. As I was raving I brought a stained sleeper of William's over to the large sink next to the washer and as I leaned in to turn on the cold water, what do I see to my shock and horror but a MOUSE. What followed was just an instinctual response, I screamed several times and bolted across the floor and up the stairs. When I reached the top I came to my senses and realized that I'd darted upstairs and left poor Henry in the basement alone. I called for him to come up the stairs and reassured him that everything was just fine. Together we ran into the office where I told Patrick the terrible news. He'd heard me screaming and continued checking his emails, apparently not the least bit alarmed. Oh! Then he and Henry went back downstairs, thankfully Henry takes more after Patrick when it comes to being brave. Patrick caught the mouse in a jar and he and Henry felt bad for him for quite awhile. Finally I told them that he needed to leave the house and I asked Patrick to throw it away. It was garbage night. I'm not sure if he let him go, but I'm thinking I'd just rather not know and hope I'll never see another one! Very scary.
• I took the boys to the mall today by myself for the first time. They both rode in the stroller - the "strollerbus" as we lovingly refer to it- and both did really well. Henry got to ride on the carousel there for the first time and since I didn't want him to go alone, I rode along and William vicariously got his first carousel ride. I was super dizzy as we spun around and I did wonder what would happen if Henry got very dizzy and got sick. He didn't though and had a great time. We also strolled past the Easter bunny a few times but never quite worked up the nerve to sit either on his lap or on the bench next to him. I think Henry was freaked out by the fact that he just waved and didn't speak. Although the whole idea may have freaked him out.
• Today William is 5 months! Life is getting more and more fun with him. He has started laughing at things Henry does and both love getting each other's attention. I'm really excited for them to be able to play together. I feel so fortunate that they have each other. I'll confess, when we first brought William home I cried because I thought we'd ruined Henry's life. Now I can see how God has truly blessed all of our lives. Henry's and William's lives will be richer because they have each other.
• William's cough is getting better. We've been having some ups and downs with the nebulizer. He's been grabbing hold of it and trying to put it in his mouth while I'm giving him the treatments and then gets really upset when I take it away and put it back over his mouth. Hopefully we'll only end up needing it for a week. We'll go back to the dr. on Monday, so I'll know more then.

Gas

I just noticed that gas is $3.39/gallon. Whoa. I feel like it used to be in the low $1's when I started driving and it didn't even get about $2 until a year or two ago. It just seemed like so much when I saw that, and it made me wonder what other gas prices are out there. Got a higher one?

Egg Hunt

Yesterday our neighborhood association held an Easter Egg Hunt in the front lawn of a nearby school. Patrick brought Henry for his first ever hunting of plastic Easter eggs. I didn't want to bring William out in the cold, so I relied on these pictures to narrate the experience for me.

Here's Henry hunting away, when all of a sudden he stops dead in his tracks - what could he possibly see? Keep scrolling...The Easter Bunny made an appearance! Patrick said Henry wasn't so much afraid of this bunny as he was confused by him. And despite the bunny's best efforts to talk to Henry, Henry was having nothing to do with him.
Even with the small bunny sighting setback, he still managed to do well and filled his basket with the allotted 10 eggs.
His face and fingers were covered in chocolate when they got home and Henry was thrilled to show me that there was candy inside the eggs he found.

A Visit

Last Friday Papa Bug, and Grandma Bug came to visit us for the day and Uncle Cory surprised us by taking the day off school and coming for a visit, too. It was an absolutely beautiful day, in the 50's with lots of sunshine. Henry, my dad and Cory walked to the bakery in the morning where my dad bought one of every cookie and dozens of other assorted muffins and pastries. Then we all went to the zoo and enjoyed the sunshine walking around there for a bit. It was lots of fun having them here. Oh, and the highlight for Henry - finding a (dead) baby Garter snake while on a walk with my dad, Cory and Patrick and bringing it home dangled on a stick to scare me out of my wits. Very scary!! I didn't know there were snakes living in my neighborhood.

Big Hugs!
Cory checking out the goats

Henry and my dad trying to see and count the fish in the pond

It's bronchiolitis

After William's teeny bit of a runny nose turned into a rattly cough and some noticeable wheezing I decided to call the doctor yesterday morning. I was able to make an appointment and brought him in shortly after. The doctor confirmed that he was indeed wheezing and told me that his diagnosis is bronchiolitis. He likened it to bronchitis in adults. It's caused by an infection of the bronchioles that lead to the lungs. As these airways become inflamed, they swell and fill with mucus, making breathing difficult. Fortunately (and I must admit, surprisingly to me) his ears are clear and there's no sign of infection. After the countless ear infections that poor Henry had, I'm thrilled that William's not starting out the same and I'm optimistic that maybe he won't be prone to them the way Henry was.

Because it's a viral infection, antibiotics aren't used to treat it; however, we do have to give him nebulizer breathing treatments. It's very sad. He's supposed to have a treatment every 4 hours and each lasts about 10 minutes. He's been very brave and I'm so proud of him. He cried the first two times, but today he's done really well and just sits sweetly and patiently in my lap while I hold the breathing mask over his nose and mouth. After the treatment is done, he coughs A LOT and that's supposed to be a good thing. It sounds bad, but he's getting the mucus up and out of his lungs. We're supposed to continue treatments for 2 weeks, but I'll see the doctor again in a week to check on him. We're praying that it will take less than 2 weeks for his lungs to be clear and that he can be done with his nebulizer after we see the doctor again. I am relieved in some ways to have a diagnosis - he's had a really off napping week, having a very hard time going down for his naps and then not sleeping very long which makes sense now; he has been sleeping well at night but coughing a lot throughout the night. On the other hand, I feel so sad for him that he's gotten so sick and I feel sad that he has to go through this. More about my "BFG" in a post to come.

Date night

Well, it was more like a date matinee, but it was a date just the same. It's always fun to get out of the house. And I haven't been to see a movie since our anniversary in July! We went to see "Horton Hears a Who" and my date was able to talk his way in for free. He also ordered apple juice and fruit snacks at the concession stand. He got antsy and stood for part of the movie and then sat on my lap for the last half.

Guessed who my date was yet?

Did you guess? Yesterday I took Henry to a matinee showing of "Horton", his first movie ever. The picture above is of him seeing the big screen for the first time after we sat down. We got there just as they were seating for the movie, so the whole theatre was empty. I let him choose our seats and then he cracked up when he sat down and the chair partially folded up on him because he's so small. He ended up sitting on my folded up coat for some extra ooomph. He did stand for part of the movie which was fine because even standing he wasn't much taller than the heads in front of us. And then he sat on my lap when he got tired. The movie wasn't super long, but I still wasn't sure if he'd want to stay for the whole thing so I asked him partway through if he wanted to leave and he didn't. So we ended up making it to the end. He was definitely the loud talker at the movie, he tried to talk over the volume of the movie whenever he'd say something to me. And he had lots to say and lots of questions. There were several other children there so whenever they would laugh, he would laugh too, as loud as he possibly could it seemed. It was a lot of fun taking him out and I loved having the chance to go to the movies! I don't think we'll do it much, it seems like a lot of "tv" watching for one day. But it was something special to do and I loved watching him as he experienced a movie for the first time. Oh and it was pretty economical: his admission was free since he's under 3 and we shared the Kid's Combo which was a tray with a small drink (for me, I brought a sippy cup with juice for him), popcorn and fruit snacks (perfect size, thanks Holly for the suggestion!).

Makeover!

My blog got a major makeover this weekend! Have you ever linked to a blog from another blog and so on? I happend upon Hilary's darling blog this way and read a post of hers offering to design new blog layouts for fellow bloggers. She's a student who shares her creative gifts of design with blogging strangers out of the goodness of her heart. I think she's a doll and I'm thrilled with my new look! What do you think?

William looks like...

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Henry looks like...

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Pedigree chart - Descendants

I'm a little disappointed with these results! I was sort of excited about this and was hoping that this very scientific look-alike meter would solve our dilemma once and for all. We've never really been sure which of us either of the boys favor. But maybe instead of it being a cop out like I'm thinking, it just affirms that they both are a blend of both of us.

Not as sweet as you'd think

In the past couple of weeks Henry has really taken a liking to William. He's never seemed to dislike him; in fact, he's always been sweet towards him showering him with endless kisses in those first weeks, to putting toys next to him in the swing, and always asking me William's whereabouts if he wasn't in the room with us (i.e. in his own crib). Now however, he just always wants William around and likes for him to be included in whatever we're doing. It is sweet that he wants to lay William down next to his cars to play parking garage with us or on his pillow to take a nap with him, however impractical that is.

The part that's not so sweet is that Henry is now waking William up from his naps so that he can be with us. Gasp! Yesterday when he woke up from his nap he asked me the usual, "where's Wee-yum?" And I told him that William just went down for his nap and will need to rest for a little while. He seemed content with that response and we came downstairs to play. A few minutes later he asked again, "where's Wee-yum?", and I reminded him to which he replied, "we wake him up?". No, no dear Henry, he needs to sleep. A few minutes later I ran quickly to the bathroom and as I'm washing my hands I hear in a sweet little voice over the monitor, "Hi, hi, hi Wee-yum. You wake up Wee-yum?" As I ran upstairs hoping to salvage William's nap, Henry excitedly looks at me and says "Wee-yum's awake, look see his eyes!". He sure was awake and didn't end up going back down. It ended up being a long afternoon with a bit of a cranky, tired baby. It's like what do you do? I didn't want to break Henry's sweet spirit of love for his baby brother by disciplining him too much for waking him up; however I did try to explain that the reason mommy had to now hold William so much was because he was tired and that in the future we really need to let him sleep until we hear him wake up.

Then today as William was almost asleep in his crib, I was in the kitchen just cleaning up our dishes from breakfast and again hear Henry on the monitor. He quickly returned downstairs and William got really quiet again, so I thought he went to sleep. When he started crying a few minutes later I went upstairs to find several stuffed animals in his crib with him. Apparently Henry thought he needed some company and knew from yesterday that it couldn't be him.

Dance, baby, dance

Henry is a little dancing machine. My mom got him the movie "The Polar Express" for Christmas, after we DVR'd it when is was on TV early in November and he watched parts of it everyday. By far his favorite part is when the conductor asks the children if they need some refreshment and then dancing, singing waiters bring them hot chocolate. He always jumps off the couch and this is what ensues...

Sweet Discoveries

William has discovered his feet. All at once he went from not realizing they were there rooted at the bottom of his being, to firmly grabbing hold of them with his chubby little baby hands and trying with all of his might to stick them into his mouth. He loves those little feet now. And I don't mind that he's so crazy about them; if he gets a little fussy or bored, I simply pull off his socks and he's entertained. And I'm a huge fan too - there's nothing sweeter to me than baby hands and feet. I love the tiny toes and chubby, dimpled hands.

The other thing William is absolutely crazy about now is the remote. I've showed it to him before when we've been sitting on the couch thinking that maybe the buttons might be entertaining for him to look at. Now whenever he sees it he gets really anxious - arching his back and if I'm holding him he tries to push his legs up and stand and he makes facial lunges towards it until I hold it in front of him. He will then try to grab hold of it and put all of those tasty buttons in his mouth. Just today I discovered this fascination. He's definitely a baby that really loves putting things in his mouth. It's going to get tricky when he's mobile, especially with all of the little toys and toy parts that Henry has. Henry wasn't a real chewing on things kind of a baby, so this will be new to me.

Christmas in March

Last weekend we hosted Christmas at our house and celebrated with my mom, Dan, Sara, Gabe and Caleb. It was lots of fun to have everyone here. I absolutely love having all of these boys around. There is just never a dull moment. I love it too, that they are all so close in age. It has gotten to be pretty funny to watch Gabe and Henry interact. Gabe is really helpful and good at keeping Henry in line. He's so sweet! He is also so sweet to William; he doesn't only pay attention to him but he talks to him in a sweet voice, too. It's adorable. Henry was so anxious and excited for everyone to get here that he had his own little countdown going throughout last week. He would ask about Gabe and Oma (my mom) and then say (every time), "I just have 3 more naps and then they will be at my house." Sure Henry, just 3 naps I'd reassure him. He could barely go down for his nap on Saturday he was so anxious for "cousin Gabe" to be here. When he woke up Gabe was here and went upstairs to get him...Henry was thrilled!

We opened presents together - the boys all got matching pjs from my mom and after dinner we celebrated my mom's birthday. We were fortunate to have absolutely beautiful weather and on Sunday morning we all went to the zoo. It's the local zoo, mind you and there's not much to it, but it's perfect for toddlers (or is it preschoolers now? I'm going to hang on to "toddler" until we hit 3). I think it was the first time William's precious skin has felt the wind. He's been snugly tucked away inside his BundleMe in his carrier every time we've gone out with him ever. It was so much fun to be able to get out. I also got a serious dose of spring fever!

The boys passing out presents


Gabe and Henry helped Oma blow out her candles

For some reason my mom wasn't afraid of this creature. Gabe and Henry didn't want anything to do with it. At the zoo, Gabe strolls while Henry excitedly sprints to the next animal exhibit. (Notice the excited expression on his face)

Boys Will Be Boys

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

More to come...

It may seem like I've fallen off the face of the blog-earth, but I'm still here and have lots to post. William needs me now, but I'll have lots of updates soon.