Benny: 15 months

This morning I was getting dressed for work and I heard Benny in his room saying “Choo choo! Choo chooooo!” I went in and found him looking at his favorite picture book, pointing to a toy train. I exclaimed and clapped and gave him a big hug, saying “yes Ben, that’s a TRAIN! Good boy!”

This age is just so darn fun. Every age has its own joys (and its own challenges!), and one of my favorite things about this age is how rapidly kids learn and how proud they are of themselves – and how proud they make us feel as parents – when they catch on to a new word or a new skill.

Ben’s ability to talk has exploded this past month, and we are so enjoying his little voice and his ability to communicate with us. And once he started walking consistently at about 13 1/2 months, he never looked back and is now delighting in his ability to bomb around our house and the yard at lightning speed.

Ben is our little sparkler – happy as can be, always on the move, opinionated, hilarious and a complete daredevil, keeping us on our toes at every moment.

I adore this child with every ounce of my being, and I can’t get enough of him. I don’t get enough of him, in fact, and it hurts my heart every day. When I’m home with him, I want to be attached at the hip to him at every second, but obviously, that’s not feasible, and I’d drive the poor kid insane if I were to do that. I have things to do, and he’s so content on his own, playing, running, climbing, exploring – and I know that’s good for him, so I have to sometimes restrain myself from being all up his face, smothering him in hugs and kisses every second!

I get so EXCITED to be reunited with him, whether it’s after a nap or a night’s sleep or after my day at work. I get a little thrill each night when I get to check on him before bed, taking in the perfect baby Ben smell of his room, and giggling to myself at the funny position he’s in when I look in on him in his crib. Sometimes he’s on his stomach, butt high up in the air. Other times he’s sprawled on his back, arms and legs stretched wide. Most often he’s curled up close to his bumper or his big stuffed polar bear.

I feel panicky at times lately at the fact that, soon, he won’t be a baby anymore. There is just NOTHING as sweet as a baby, and I have loved loved loved having a baby again. But it’s gone so fast and now he’s a toddler already!

Every chance I get, I squeeze his chunky thighs, nibble his soft belly, smell his sweet neck and hair, kiss his perfect round cheeks, and I wonder to myself, what will I do when I don’t have a sweet baby in the house? I look forward to all that is to come – and life with Henry proves every day how it just gets better and better in so many ways – but oh, how I will miss having a baby.

I could go on all day about what an incredible, awesome child Ben is. We are all crazy about him, and I am thankful beyond words that he’s part of our family.

For now, I have to get down the list of things I want to remember about Ben at 15 months old!

Words he says regularly

Daddy (says it all the time, when he’s around Dave or when he just sees him in a picture – he still doesn’t really say mama or mommy unless I ask him to, though!), ball, car, dog, baby, all done, up!, please, thank you, uh-oh!, cracker, wa-wa (water)

He started saying “thank you” completely unprompted probably a month ago now. We’ll give him something and he’ll say “thank you!” which sounds like “date-doo!” or “day-doo!” We’ll say “bless you” when he sneezes and he’ll say “day-doo!” Such a sweetie. He’ll say please (sort of – it’s more like “pee!”) when we tell him to, but he says thank you all on his own.

He LOVES dogs and points them out everywhere – on walks, in books, on TV. He draws the word out, like “dooooog!” and his voice goes up when he says it. Oh my gosh, the cutest. But he’ll call lots of animals dogs and we have to correct him. No, Ben, that’s a horse. No, Ben, that’s an elephant.

Animal sounds

For awhile every animal made a monkey noise. He’s recently learned cow, but now pretty much every animal moos. Ben, what does a monkey say? “Mmmmmooooooo!” He’s a little slow on the animal sounds. But he’ll ruff ruff so cute when we tell him what a dog says, and he still does his monkey noises like “ooh ooh whyyyyyyy.”

He does meow like a cat, and he meows like crazy when he sees Kelly’s cat, Tigger. I come to pick him up and he’s just meowing away, and I’m not sure if it’s to get Tigger’s attention or what, but it’s hilarious.

Body parts

Henry was a rock star on this one, naming like 10 or 15 body parts at this age, as seen in this little video, which has always been a favorite of mine. Ben’s getting there! He can point to his feet, hair, head, eyes, mouth, and nose (as of this week, this one took awhile!), and he can do his tummy and ears about half the times that we ask.

Following directions

Along the same lines, I just love asking him things and having him show me that he knows what I’m talking about. If I tell him to throw something in the garbage for me, he’ll take it and toddle over to the garbage, even if we’re in the next room. He knows that he’s not supposed to have his nuk when he’s just playing or hanging out, so when I tell him to throw his nukies in his crib (always two, of course), he’ll throw them in. When we ask “did you poop?” after he’s pooped, he’ll pat his hand on the front of his diaper and say “poop!”  When I tell him something is hot, he’ll put his lips together and start blowing on it.

Eating

He eats well, when he wants to. If he doesn’t want to, there’s no forcing him, and he’s a big fan of throwing his food on the floor when he doesn’t want to eat it. He’ll also announce “all done!” when he doesn’t want to eat any more and push himself away from the table with his feet. I’m sure he’s going to go flying at some point, as Henry did when he was just a bit older and sitting in that space-saver high chair at the table.

His favorite foods are graham crackers, yogurt raisins (snacks, just like his bro, imagine that) and anything made of carbs … bread, pizza, pancakes, etc. He loves yogurt and oatmeal, and he’s really into meat and handles spiciness well, too. He’ll eat chili and Mexican food, no problem. Not a huge fan of vegetables, though we keep trying, and fruit and cheese are both really hit or miss, which is strange to me.

Sleeping

Ben is a DREAM SLEEPER. A dream. If you’d told me this six months ago I would have either laughed in your face or fallen to my knees and wept for joy. I can’t really get over it, actually. For two reasons – one being that he was such a horrible sleeper as a baby and two being that Henry has never been a great sleeper, so I just figured Ben would be the same way.

But wow, the kid just really enjoys his sleep. Hallelujah!! Goes down without a peep every single night. If he doesn’t, he just talks happily to himself til he falls asleep. And he sleeps all night EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT. And the cherry on top? He sleeps past 6 am every day! Most days past 6:30 am!! Henry has always, always risen in the 5 am hour, up until very recently when he’s finally decided to sleep later than that. But Ben sleeps from 7:45/8:00 until 6/6:30, sometimes even later, night after night.

Then there are naps. There are exceptions, but most days he’ll nap for about four hours – two in the morning, two in the afternoon. Sometimes we even have to wake him up if he’s napping too late in the day. I have always envied parents who have children who will nap for three hours at a stretch. Henry’s done that, I think, one time in his life. Once. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that once we let Ben drop his morning nap that he might – just might! – be our three-hour napper.

Miscellaneous

- Ben lights up and squeals when he sees us after we’ve been apart. When we pick him up at Kelly’s, he laughs and runs into our arms. On the flip side, he shows no signs (knock on wood) of sadness or separation anxiety when we part. He happily goes into Kelly’s arms when I drop him off in the morning, and when Dave leaves for work in the morning or I leave the house for some reason, he’ll smile and say “bye bye!” as he waves. I pray that continues since I can’t bear the thought of my baby crying as I leave! Henry went through a few stages like that and it was absolutely brutal.

- We like to say “ohhhhh Ben!” and have him repeat it, and he likes to slap his belly and say “ohhhh Ben!” really loudly after we’ve said it.

- Ben says “beep!” when he hears a car horn every.single.time, without fail. When all four of us are in the car, we just laugh and laugh, since he’s facing backward and we can’t see him, but we know that when a car horn sounds we’ll hear the “beep!” from the back seat. I was in downtown Chicago yesterday and I laughed to myself as the taxis blared their horns, thinking about how Ben would be going nuts!

- He loves wagon rides, and when we’re in the driveway, he’ll walk to the garage, point up to the keypad and whine for me to open the door. Once it’s open, he’ll go right for the wagon and try to climb inside. When we go for walks, he just sits there, happy as a clam.

- He’s still such a daredevil. He’s gotten more than a few cuts and scrapes already, and I joked this weekend that our first trip to the emergency room will no doubt be for him. Scares the crap out of me! He’s constantly climbing, his favorite things to climb being the ottoman in our living room and our staircase. He loves to play on our bed or Henry’s bed, standing up and falling over like a tree over and over again. He flings himself backward a lot, often at the most inopportune times, and we’ve both almost dropped him on several occasions. He loves loves loves going down the slide in our yard and at the park, and he’ll send himself down whether we’re ready to catch him or not. He’s also started climbing up slides, too.

- He loves books and will find a book on his shelf and bring it to me, then happily sit in my lap while I read it. He also just reads books all on his own, especially his picture book, which is something that’s so foreign to me since Henry hasn’t read a book by himself once in his life. Ah, the differences between children!

- He walks around our house as if he owns the place, and he’ll now help himself to food from our pantry. I know we need to nip this in the bud, and I could put things up on higher shelves, but man it’s funny. He’ll disappear from whatever room we’re in and then reappear with a cracker or granola bar in his hand.

- He gets in a moods where he doesn’t want to be put down, and he will FREAK OUT if I put him down. The kid definitely lets us know when he’s unhappy, which thankfully, isn’t too often.

- He loves pretending to talk on our phones, and he’ll make anything – a toy, a piece of food, the remote control – into a phone by holding it up to his ear and having a pretend conversation, complete with “hello?” and “bye bye.”

- He loves to dance and will start dancing whenever there’s music, whether it’s on TV or just some music from one of his toys. The kid’s got moves!

- He makes the funniest faces, sometimes closing or fluttering his eyes in very dramatic fashion. He looooves to play peekaboo, and one of the best ways to get his attention is to disappear around a corner or behind something so he can’t see you. He’ll immediately laugh and come running to find you. He still loves the game where I pick him up and we chase Henry around the house. He’ll repeat “go go! go go!” as we give chase, it’s so cute.

- And as always, watching the sibling relationship is incredible. They are such brothers – butting heads every day but just adoring each other, too. Henry is SUCH a great big brother, being so patient with Ben and wanting to show him things and do things with him. Of course, that patience runs out quite often and then there’s yelling and crying and sometimes hitting, but for the most part, they get along so well, making each other laugh and always trying to get and keep the other’s attention. I love it so much.

I feel like I’m forgetting things, but this boy is well on his way to 16 months already so I best hit the post button! Better some of it than none of it, I suppose.

I am blessed beyond words to be this boy’s mom.

Ben is 15 months, 9 days old

This mama’s heart.

This morning on the way to daycare, Henry was singing me a silly song, and he asked me to take a video of him. I did as we were walking into Kelly’s house, so I had my phone on me as I said bye to my boys for the day. Henry told me he’d wave to me from the kitchen window, which he’s never done before today. The stars aligned and I snapped what I think might be the sweetest photo I’ve ever gotten of my boy.

Words can’t really describe what this photo did to my mama heart this morning.

Leaving my boys is harder on some days than others, and Wednesdays always seem to be the hardest, since I’ve already been apart from them two work days, and we still have three to go. The week is just one damn day too many, and one day I will work four-day weeks! It’s just not in the cards for awhile probably.

I shed a few tears on the way to work today. I posted the photo and looked at it a few times throughout the day. It made my heart physically ache. From the separation and the guilt, from the pride and the anticipation, from the insane amount of love I have for him.

From the window separating us to the sweet smile on his innocent little face, the photo just spoke to my heart.

His face said “I love you and I’ll miss you, Mom, and I know you love and will miss me, too. But we’ll both be ok. We’ll have a good day and we’ll be back together before you know it.”

At least, that’s what it said to me. As if, on this day, it was he who was offering me the comfort and the reassurance, instead of the other way around.

Henry is 3 years, 7 months, 2 days old

And so it begins (a few more Henry-isms)

This morning I was sitting in Henry’s room getting Ben dressed and Henry walked in and said “Mom, Evan has a TV in his room. Do you think I should have a TV in my room?”

I just looked at him, a little stunned that I was already being asked something like this by a 3 1/2-year-old. He didn’t even wait for me to respond before continuing.

(Gesturing to his dresser.) “We could move all of that stuff and put a TV right up there.”

I sort of laughed and asked “how do you know Evan has a TV in his room?” Henry said “because he told us yesterday. And I definitely want a TV in my room.”

I said “well, I don’t believe in TVs in bedrooms, and I’m pretty sure you’ll never, ever have a TV in your room. Sorry bud!”

He persisted. “When we move to a new house, then I can have a TV in my room!”

I said, “yeah, probably not.”

He lowered his eye brows and gave me his best mean look. “I’m going to have a TV in my ROOM!”

I told him, nope, probably not, and that was the end of that. For now, anyway.

I knew I’d face this as a parent, my kid wanting whatever his friends have. But I didn’t expect it so soon!

I’m fully prepared to say no to a lot of those requests and not feel bad about it. I’m not one who really feels the need to keep up with the Joneses just for the sake of keeping up. At the same time, I may be the parent who gets his kid something someday that the other kids then ask their parents for – I guess we’ll see.

For example, a cell phone. If you’d asked me a year or two ago at what age a child should have his or her own cell phone, I probably would have said 14 or 16 or even older. Heck, I didn’t have a cell phone til college!

But now? I often wish Henry had one already, and I won’t lie when I say he’ll probably have one by the time he’s … seven? Eight? I don’t know. But when I’m apart from him, I find myself wanting to call and check in, just to see how he’s doing. To send him a text message telling him I love him (never mind that he can’t read yet) or just a funny picture of my face.

I digress.

Another exchange from this morning:

“Mom, let’s just stay home today.”

“I wish we could, bud, but mom has a responsibility to go to work when she’s supposed to. I work to make money so we can buy things, you know. We’ve talked about that.” (Not to mention that Mom likes to work, too, which we’ve also talked plenty about.)

“I think we have enough things now. I don’t need any more things.”

I explained to him that yes, we do have a lot of things (toys!!), but we have to pay for things on a regular basis, too, like our house and our cars and electricity and food and clothes.

He thought about that for a few seconds and then said, “ok, you go to work then. I’ll go to Kelly’s.”

Thanks kid.

One other comment from him from a couple of weeks ago … Dave recently got a new job and he starts the first week of June. It’s an exciting development, since he was pretty bored with his current job. He’ll be making a bit more money, but the raise will be all but cancelled out by the extra day of daycare we’ll have to pay for now, since he’ll no longer have Mondays off with the boys. (Bittersweet!) (But he’ll get much, much better benefits, which is a big plus.)

I was telling Henry about the pros and cons of Dad’s new job, including the no more Mondays. I told him how Dad was excited about the new challenge, and that he’d make a bit more money now, too.

Henry, without missing a beat, said “so we can buy more toys and candy!”

Recent Henry-isms

Dave emailed me at work yesterday and relayed this conversation he’d just had with Henry while they were making fruit salad for lunch.

“Dad, seeds can take a really really really really really really long time to grow into plants.”

“I know.”

“You know what seeds need to grow?”

“No, what?”

“Lots of water and sunshine. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“Love.”

Visiting me at work yesterday and trying out the big massage chair – which sadly, I’ve only used once since I started. And Dave texted me this picture last weekend when I was away for a couple of hours at my wine class – he’d picked flowers for his mama.

I’ve been keeping a list of a few other good Henry quotes from recently … there are so many I don’t write down, though, and I need to get better about it, because this kid just amuses us to no end.

(About my thong as I was getting dressed for work this morning)
“Mom, your underwear is stuck in your butt!”

(Playing the opposites game he likes to play)
Me: “What’s the opposite of cute?”
Henry: “Lonely.”

(Upon waking up a few days ago to sunshine, especially cute since he often wakes up grumpy)
“Mom, come look out the window, it’s the greatest day!”

(As Ben was trying to climb up in the high chair that’s in the basement since we transitioned Ben to the space saver one)
“Mom, I got an idea! When you grow another baby, SHE can sit in that high chair!”

(I asked him if he liked having a brother or if he wishes it was just him.)
“I like having a brother. … And I want a sister!”
(I told him he may very well have another brother someday, and he firmly told me he doesn’t want another brother, he already has one.)

(Then there have been a few disturbing ones that make me wonder where in the world he gets this stuff, like this one.)
“When I was a little kid, there was a man with a gun in my house.” (holds up finger like a gun) “And he just – pow – cracked the heck out of me.”

“When I grow up I’m going to have a parrot and he’s going to mock me.”
(He’s big on ‘mocking’ us lately, as in repeating things we say just to be sassy.)

“Mom, do you want to bring this baseball with you to work today? You can play catch with your boss.”

(He likes to perform for us when he knows a new song or rhyme, but he’ll always preface it)
“Now DON’T laugh and DON’T smile.”

Tonight he was singing a song he learned on Ni Hao Kai-lan at Kelly’s house this morning. I got a little video of him singing it before bed, and his little singing voice reminds me exactly of mine when I was young, all soft and raspy and proud.

Henry is 3 years, 6 months, 3 weeks old

Day in the Life: Spring 2013

The date is Thursday, April 25, 2013
Henry is 3 1/2 years old
Ben is 14 1/2 months old

My last DITL post was in October. We’re all sleeping better now, I’m not breastfeeding/pumping anymore, we’re on the cusp of spring instead of (a looooong) winter, and I have a new job and the boys are a new daycare provider. I think I’ll do my next DITL post on a weekend this summer, since I’ve now done two on a workday.

(Check out Navigating the Mothership for a whole lineup of spring DITL posts in a few days! I love reading the details of other people’s days and seeing how people’s lives vary so greatly. And I know I’ll love having these types of posts to look back on one day, since they’re filled with little details that are otherwise forgotten by the following day. These posts sure take some work, though!)

2:35 a.m. – Wake up to pee; I’d gone to bed around 10:30

2:46 a.m. – Henry calls out in his sleep, I figure he has to pee so I go in there, but he’s fast asleep, so I go back to bed.

5:18 a.m. – The alarm on my iPhone goes off, and I lay in bed a few minutes before getting up. I note how much nicer it is to get up when there’s light coming through the windows and I can hear birds chirping outside. It’s raining. I hop in the shower and when I’m done, I wake Dave up and he showers while I get ready. I try to check Instagram but it won’t load. #annoying

6 a.m. – I hear Ben wake up, happily talking to himself in his room, and I get excited to go in and see him. Henry wakes up about two minutes later and, per usual, isn’t quite as chipper as his brother. This is early for both boys, as they’ve both started sleeping til about 6:15 or 6:30 most days. I get Ben and smother him in hugs and kisses, while Henry stays in his bed and calls out for me to come snuggle him.

6:15 a.m. – Dave’s ready and I hand over Ben so he can take him downstairs. I go into Henry’s room and lay by him, telling him I only have a minute or two and then I have to go dry my hair. We snuggle and he randomly starts talking about crying, about how he’s never going to cry again, and do I cry? And does daddy cry? I tell him that yes, I do, and that yes, sometimes daddy cries, though not very often. But that sometimes people just have to cry, but it’s silly to cry over silly things like he does sometimes.

6:20 a.m. – I tell him I have to get up and he says “Mom, you cuddled a long time. Let’s cuddle more after you dry your hair,” and I say ok, even though I know that probably won’t happen. He gets up and asks me about the fake flowers we have on a table at the top of our stairs. Are these real? Do they grow? Do they need water?

Then he asks me if he can do a “quick craft” this morning before going to Kelly’s and I say he can if he eats a good breakfast and gets dressed quickly. Crafts don’t usually happen in the mornings; we either play a little or he watches a show on TV while I get things ready. He hangs around while I get ready and sits on the toilet and tells me a story while I straighten my hair.

Telling me a story

6:30 – I’m done getting ready and come downstairs to Benny wreaking havoc. Take a pic of the fridge to note that Ben is obsessed with Al and Kristen’s save the date card – anytime I’m holding him and we’re near the fridge, he points to the picture and smiles and whines a little to get a closer look. I say “uncle Alex!” and he tries to repeat it, it’s really cute. Ben’s already eaten and Henry’s about to eat his breakfast.

6:35 – Time for Dave to leave. Good-byes are quite the production with Henry these days, with multiple rounds of hugs and kisses and blowing and catching of kisses. Dave snaps our picture in the doorway and we all get one more kiss and he leaves.

Bye daddy!

6:40-7:20 a.m. Henry eats his breakfast, then we go in the sun room for a bit and he sees the dinosaur puzzle box and launches into one of his stories. When I was a little kid (that’s how they always start) I had a pet dinosaur. He lived in my room. Me: Where was I? Henry: Probably in college. Me: Then who was your mom? Henry: Grandma Mimi. Me: Then you’d be my brother. Henry: Yes, I was your brother and Benny was daddy’s brother.

Alrighty then.

Henry had a fruit cup with his breakfast, but when he decided he didn’t want it, he went and got a baggy and wrapped it up all on his own and put it in the fridge. I was impressed.

We get the craft bag out and I tell Henry that hey, I saw an idea on Instagram the other day. I get cotton circle puff things out of the closet upstairs and cut little rain drops out of them, and I draw some clouds and tell him he can glue on the rain drops. He loves this idea, then points out that the remnants of each look like crescents and he wants to paste moons on the page, too.

We head upstairs so we can all get dressed, and the boys play on the bed for a few minutes. Henry and I disagree on what he should wear today – he picks out his Packers t-shirt and I tell him I wish he’d wear something cuter, mostly because it’s DITL day. But I let him win because it’s not worth the fight, obviously. Then the boys quickly get annoyed with each other and both end up in tears. Ben almost falls off the bed numerous times, even though I’m like a foot away from him.

Henry showing me how Ben just threw socks at him.

Henry goes back downstairs to do crafts after we brush his teeth, and I brush Ben’s teeth and get myself dressed. See that Dave left his wet towel on our bed and get annoyed – not cool, dude. Luckily he doesn’t often do that. I half make the bed before we head downstairs.

Ben playing in the bathroom while I get dressed.

7:30 – We leave the house, about 10 minutes late, probably due to the crafts and the snapping of photos for DITL. I usually like to leave by about 7:20 or 7:25.

Snap a group pic by the car. Obviously not too concerned about being late.

Get the boys strapped in and make the four-minute drive to our new daycare lady’s house. Tell Henry how much I’ll miss him and to have a great day. Take the boys in, give both hugs and kisses, hand Ben over to Kelly, give Henry another round of hugs and kisses, snap a pic of his cute face in her kitchen and head out.

7:40-8:03 – Drive to work. Hit some red lights and check Instagram. Mrshiggison is one of my faves. Love the collage from last night at the park. (And that experience will be repeated later today.) Hear a song on the radio that I think is pretty so I look it up on my phone. Am only listening to the radio because I’m burnt out on talk radio for awhile and just finished listening to The Paris Wife yesterday, which I really enjoyed. I eat my breakfast in the car – English muffin with peanut butter, a banana and a string cheese. Same breakfast every weekday of my life.

8:03 a.m. Pretty downtown. Walking into my office.

Settle into my office. Get my coffee in the kitchenette, with peppermint creamer, of course. Was so happy to discover that this new job, like my old job, provides coffee – and good stuff, too!

9:06 a.m. Instagram a pic from this morning.

9:30 a.m. Ask my coworker to take my pic because I like my outfit, and since I’m going to contribute soon to Work Your Wardrobe, a fashion blog for young professional women. Decide, though, that the pics are super dorky and my cardigan is kind of wrinkly, so I’ll have to plan better to have Dave take my pic one morning soon.

9:40-10 a.m. Drive to a meeting at one of our restaurants and enjoy the gorgeous views of Lake Michigan along the way.

11:30 a.m. Leave my meeting and decide to treat myself to some lunch from Whole Foods, since I don’t get out much over lunch anymore, and I never get to Whole Foods since I’m not often on that side of town. Spend way too much time just wandering around and looking at all of the gorgeous food. Love this place so much and I wish we were rich so we could shop here for every meal. Have a hard time deciding and am leaning toward sushi, but it’s super expensive and I know I’ll be hungry a few hours later, so I get a panini that’s on special for $5, plus a little edamame salad from the deli. I spot the greeting cards and remember I want to get one for Julia, whose birthday is Saturday, and I end up buying EIGHT cards because I love them all so much. Get some bananas and cilantro for at home, then impulse buy a rice crispie treat and a reusable bag at the checkout. $40 lunch hour right there, oops.

12:15 Eat part of my lunch at my desk while checking email, then join a few girls in the conference room to finish up lunch. The panini and salad are SO good, the rice crispie treat is only so-so. Have meetings at 1 and 2 pm, then work til 4:30.

4:33 – Look at the clock and realize I’ve lost track of time – time seriously flies at my new job. I told Dave I’d get the boys today, so I gather my things up and head out.

4:57 – Pull into Kelly’s and head in to get my boys. I have my phone ready to snap a pic or two since they are both SO cute greeting us in the evenings, especially Benny who comes walking around the corner into the kitchen with a big old smile on his face. But alas, I’m in my head and just barge into Kelly’s house without knocking and I totally startle her, and she nicely says um, could you ring the doorbell or knock before you come in? I know you’re coming but that kind of scared me! Oops. I apologize and kind of laugh it off, but I feel bad, and then I forget to take any pictures. Oh well.

Henry carrying the day’s crafts to the car; holding my Whole Foods bag with my new greeting card collection inside.

5-6 p.m. Cooking / playing / dinner time – Dave makes pork and we have taco salads, and Benny surprisingly loves the pork. Henry says he’s not hungry so he eats nothing and sort of just hangs around while we eat. He’s been doing really well with dinner lately so we just let it go.

Both of them asked me to take their picture in these moments.

Henry knows we’re going outside after dinner, so he volunteers to help clean up to expedite the process. He wipes the table and floor, and then as we’re walking out of the house we see that he’s stuck a few random items (a craft, Ben’s sleeper) into the dining room cabinets. Not sure how that constitutes cleaning up, but we end up leaving it there til the following evening.

Ben gets mad when we don’t get him outside fast enough.

6-7 p.m. Outside time – We play in the yard a bit and head down to the park.

Henry asks us to hold his hands and do 1-2-3 wheeee! and we do that 5-6 times on the way down to the park. Love this pic I managed to get of his happy face.

Ben whines to go on the slide the second we get there, having gone on the slide for the first time last night and realizing he loved it. Dave and I take turns sliding Benny and playing with Henry. There are big kids at the park and Henry gets a little shy around them, refusing to go down the slide unless they’re well out of the way. Seeing him around other kids is always such a keen reminder of how little he still is.

Another of Ben’s favorite things – hanging like a monkey.

Dave coaxing Henry down the twisty slide; Ben saying bye to the park for the night.

7 p.m. – Inside and time for baths. I bring Ben upstairs and strip him down to his diaper and let him play on the bed for a minute, which turns into at least 20 minutes, with Henry soon joining in. It’s crazy town for awhile and I love it.

7:30 p.m. – Bath time. Ben plays peek-a-boo behind the curtain, and then toots while Henry’s face is right behind him and we all have a big laugh over that.

7:50 p.m. – I get Ben out and get him into his sleeper, and Dave gets Henry out. We all convene in Henry’s room and we read one book before bed. Usually I put Ben down around 7:30/7:45 and read him his own book or two before heading into Henry’s room to read with him after I’ve put Ben down, but tonight we read all together because it got so late.

I take Ben into his room and we snuggle for a few minutes in the rocking chair – one of my favorite parts of the day.

I close Ben’s door and find Henry getting a drink in the bathroom, with his sunglasses on. He’s been wearing these a lot today since he just found them after having lost them for a good few months. We do Henry Sandwich and I snap a few pictures, and the first one (above) flashes and blinds us all. Henry asks that I take ‘just one more’ about 10 times, and we’re blinded every time. Then Dave leaves and I tell Henry a Deery Deer story, as I do every night lately. It somehow comes up that daddy’s birthday is next month, and Henry says that we should get him a cake with pink frosting with a polar bear on it, and the polar bear will have Henry’s face and the cake part will be strawberry flavored.

I kiss and hug him good night and leave the room at 8:10, and he ends up coming out twice to ask for more hugs.

8:15 p.m. – Dave’s made us old fashioneds and we’re going to watch The Office, but I need to do #plankaday first. Julia and I agreed to do it every day for seven days straight and keep each other updated on our times – sort of a friendly little competition. I get my best time ever – 3 minutes, 10 seconds – and text her to let her know how I did. She points out that DITL probably motivated me to push a bit harder and she’s totally right! She goes on to get 3:20 the following morning on HER DITL day. Now that’s my new number to beat!

We watch The Office, saving our favorite, Parks and Recreation, for the following night, and then … yada yada yada. I tell Dave that I will have to add this to my DITL post, and he says “but our families read your blog.” And I say well, they know we’re married, plus we do have two kids. This does not normally happen on a weekday night (we’re wild, I know) but we were really overdue, due to a variety of circumstances. So, yeah. Good Thursday night over here.

10:15 – Downstairs to write out Julia’s birthday card and check email, then of course I spend way more time on the internet than I originally intended.

10:55 p.m. – I take a bath, like I do every night, but instead of reading, I start making these photo collages for this post.

11:15 – Get my pajamas on, brush my teeth and go in and check on my boys, as I do every night – first Henry, then Ben. My heart is so full as I watch them peacefully sleep. I tell them each I love them (in a whisper!) and then psssst Dave up to tuck me in. We talk and snuggle, but not for long, because I am up WAY TOO LATE!

11:23 – I turn off the light and attempt to pray but am out before I get through more than a thought or two, as is often the case these days.

A very good day indeed, and I’m happy as can be that the next day is Friday and that the weather is finally, finally getting nice!

Mishmash

Oh, blogging. How I wish I had time to do it more. But alas, I no longer have a job that allows me much down time during the day, and in the evenings, I split my little bit of time between workouts, computer time, TV time, Dave time and, once in a very great while, on heading to bed at a semi-decent hour.

I just wrapped up my 2012 photo book from Shutterfly, which I’ve been working on (on and off) since January. What a humongous undertaking! This year’s is much bigger than my 2011 one was, which was my first attempt at a yearly family album. This year’s is 87 pages and I totally love the final result. It was quite the relief to finally hit “Place Order” tonight, and now I should probably get cracking on 2013′s to stay ahead of the game. I probably won’t, though!

So … a mishmash of what I’ve been wanting to blog about.

Veggie battle 

First, an update on our biggest battle with Henry, since that’s what I last posted about. Dave and I think that night was Henry’s rock bottom, because he’s since been more open-minded about trying new things. He ate grilled chicken the other night, and three nights in a row he’s eaten several bites of raw carrots AND a bit of cucumber. He even admitted that they were “kind of good.” They were, of course, dipped in ranch dressing, but it’s still progress!

Riding the sleep wave

Second, I have to take note and officially record the wave that we are riding over here right now – the SLEEP WAVE. Yes, it’s true. My household. Sleeping. I can hardly believe it myself. And for weeks I’ve been hesitant to say a darn thing about it for fear of jinxing things, but I’m going to do it.

My boys are going down easy in the evening and almost always sleeping all night. If there is a wake-up in the night, it’s usually Henry, not my baby Ben.

Ben, who was the world’s worst sleeper for the first 6, 8, 10 months of his life, has become a SLEEPER. He goes down without a peep at night, or if he does make a peep, it’s just him happily talking to himself in his crib before falling asleep. He sleeps all night and has been waking later and later, almost always post-6 am now, which is HUGE.

And Henry, while he does wake up probably half of all nights, usually just to pee but once in awhile to ask for a hug or for some other random reason like his arm fell asleep or he’s had a dream, has been sleeping even later, usually til 6:30 am, when Dave will have to wake him up to say good-bye before work. Today, since Dave didn’t have to leave until later, we let him sleep til he wanted to and it was almost 7 am before he got up. SEVEN A.M.!

Naps are pretty great lately, too. Ben still takes two naps per day, and some days he’ll nap for an hour and a half or even two hours in the morning and another two or two and a half in the afternoon. And Henry, who’s never napped all that well, will now nap two hours consistently, too. And they nap at the same time! It took us months to get to that point.

Of course, I still go to bed around 10:45 or 11 most nights and my alarm goes off at 5:15, so I’m still not getting a solid eight like I should, and I’ve made peace with the fact that I probably won’t for a very long time, if ever. Sleeping those hours straight through, though, after so many months of multiple wake-ups is heaven, and it’s a little scary how quickly I’ve grown to expect them again. It’s SO much harder to wake up now in the night than it was when it was just the norm.

And it’s funny how quickly one forgets those months and months of sleep hell. It wasn’t all that long ago but already it’s sort of like eh, ’twas a blip in the whole scheme of things. It wasn’t all that bad. Sort of like labor, I suppose – it’s a good thing we forget so that we’ll do it all again!

But yes. We’re all sleeping at night and it’s magical.

Life in general

I, like all of my fellow northern / Midwestern counterparts, feel as though we’re all still pretty much biding our time til spring finally decides to arrive. Yesterday was sunny and nearly 60 degrees, and when I got home from work, we spent the entire evening outside and it was pure heaven. It is incredible what a little sunshine and fresh air will do for the soul, and I am so very happy that spring and summer are finally, finally almost here.

Our social schedule is filling up, as it tends to do when the weather starts to get nicer. Something flips in my brain when the weather gets nice, and I go from wanting to keep our weekends free of plans and just hunker down at home together to wanting to fill our days with as much fun and social activity as possible.

Work is still really good. And the boys, well, what can I say? Lights of my life and then some. They are growing so fast and they bring me such happiness every day I could burst from it. I think a lot about number three lately – I just can’t help myself – but that’s a little ways off yet, and I’m so enjoying my two right now.

Ben and I were officially done nursing before bed a few weeks ago now, and we’ve now replaced that time with snuggle time in the rocking chair and I absolutely cherish it. Henry was never one to lay his head on my chest and snuggle, but Ben continues to be SUCH a little snuggle bug and I cannot get enough of it.

Every night after we read a book, we say good night and turn off the lamp and then I sit with him in the rocking chair and he sits facing me and lays his head on my chest. He doesn’t even fall asleep, he just hangs out there with eyes open, sometimes talking behind his nuk, sometimes just listening as I talk to him or sing him a song. In those moments, I feel such a connection with every other mother in the world, since the beginning of time, who has loved her baby so much. I sometimes shed tears, as I allow myself to think about all of the mothers who have lost children, or women who long to become mothers but are unable to do so. For those women, and for my future self who I know will miss these moments so much, I savor every nanosecond and I wish for the ability to savor them even more. To stop time. That’s just another thing I want to blog about, to find words to capture, but it’ll have to wait for another day.

Speaking of Ben and his nuk, that’s another thing that’s on the horizon – getting rid of it. We took Henry’s away around 15 months and it was kind of brutal, though I still think Ben isn’t quite as attached to them as Henry was. Ben wants it whenever he sees one, but if they’re out of his sight, I think he’s fine without one. When he gets up in the morning, he knows to take it out of his mouth and throw it in his crib, which is something we’d taught Henry to do, too. It’s pretty cute. He’s got one month til 15 months … We’ll see if we meet that deadline or let him go a little longer. Ben’s always seemed like more of a baby to me than Henry, so who knows, maybe we’ll let him have it awhile longer. If it keeps him sleeping all night, I’m all for it!

Henry is 3 1/2 years old
Ben is 14 months, 11 days old

As stubborn as they come.

Tonight we decided to dig our heels in and finally fight the vegetable battle with Henry.

I’m not quite sure who won. I guess Henry did. But we’ve started this now so we’ve got to stick with it – so that we’ll ultimately win the war.

As I’ve mentioned, we’ve tried everything. And I know that a lot of people believe in the “put the food in front of the kid and it’s up to him whether he eats it or not” way of thinking, but we decided that that’s not working for us. If we continue to let Henry choose to eat his vegetables or not, he will always, always choose no. And I need my child to eat *some* vegetables. When I was a kid, all three of us kids always ate our vegetables before we were allowed to leave the table, end of story. I hated it (particularly because the vegetables served were often frozen or from a can) but I did it because I knew it was what was expected of me. I didn’t learn to love vegetables until well into adulthood, and while I wish Henry would learn to love vegetables now, I’m realistic in realizing that he probably won’t for a very long time, if ever. But he’s still got to eat them.

Tonight we didn’t let Henry choose corn as he usually does. We heated up peas and a broccoli nugget – which is made up of bread crumbs, broccoli and cheese with a little egg for binding – really tasty! – and told him he could eat one bite of broccoli nugget or three bites of peas and then he could get up. He refused both and so he sat.

And sat. And sat.

There was crying at first, then it was as if a switch had flipped and Henry just resigned himself to his fate. Every few minutes we’d ask him if he was ready to eat that one bite and he’d say nope. He’d try talking to us and we’d mostly ignore him, then we’d check in again a few minutes later. He sat and sat.

I told him I was really sad that he was missing out on family time. He said he was sad, too. But he knew it was his choice.

He said he had to pee. We said eat your broccoli and you can pee. So he didn’t pee.

I explained to him how it was our job as parents to teach him things, the way we taught him how to sleep, how to count, how to get dressed, how to look both ways when he crosses the street. Now we have to teach him that eating vegetables each day is just something that healthy people do.

I offered to reheat his nugget. He said no. I explained it would take five seconds to chew it up and swallow it and then he could play. He said no.

When all was said and done, he had sat there for AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES straight.

Actually two full hours, if you count the time we were all sitting down to dinner, which began around 5:30. By 5:45 we were up and he stayed seated. We told him we’d go up to bed at 7:30, and that he’d have to go straight to bed with no play time and no books. And he sat there until 7:30. Happily even. As long as he wasn’t eating that broccoli nugget, he was content. He had nothing to do, we barely talked to him – it was crazy. We always knew he was stubborn, but this shocked us.

And it was a bummer for us, too, to miss out on that play time with him. This whole being a tough parent thing kind of sucks. But we know it needs to be done.

So what will tomorrow be like? I don’t know. Like I said, we’ve got to stick with it now, after all that. It’s a lot like sleep training – once you start and live through that first night of wailing, you have to do it again the next night or it will have all been for nothing. And hopefully, like with sleep training, he’ll learn very quickly that we mean business and he may as well concede.

I told Henry tonight as he was having his teeth brushed that maybe we’d make a fun vegetable chart, with all different kinds of vegetables on it that he can try and we can check off his list. We’ll make a rule that he has to try a different vegetable every night til he finds a few new ones he likes. He liked that idea and then said “let’s add watermelon and yogurt to it, too!”

Oh, Henry.

I guess the bright side is that he’s pretty much proven that when he sets his mind to something, he’ll see it through!

We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Here’s a video I took after he’d been sitting there an hour. And here’s one (taken near the beginning of the meal) of Ben mocking Henry as he cries. Hilarious.

Also, most nights I’m not nearly as patient or as willing to battle – I’m sort of on top of the world tonight because I’m finally feeling good after 4 1/2 days of having the flu – it was the sickest I’ve ever been and involved missing three days of work. Awful! I imagine tomorrow tonight after a full day of work there may be more yelling involved with the vegetable battle – but again, we’ll see.

Henry is 3 1/2 years old