Alex Update

It's been a while since I talked about little Alex.  He is great by the way.  Check out my favorite picture of us:

Seriously, could he be any cuter? 
He is going on 8 months old (January 6th).  He is a strong sitter now and so close to crawling.  He rocks back and forth all the time on his hands and knees.

(Uggh!  I can't get any more photos to upload - instead of stopping I will just blog with no pictures, sorry, but it is the only way to stay current)

I really think he is going to be fast as soon as he figures out how to lift his knee.  Mason tries to help him by moving one limb at a time.  He can get pretty far by rolling and sitting up and purposely falling on one side or the other. 

He is starting to show a few signs of separation anxiety.  He will cry when I walk away from him.  It is not all the time, but if he is tired, he wants his momma around.  He also has started screaming at the top of his lungs.  He does it just to hear himself I think.  Mason did the same thing too.  It is SOOO LOUD, and the bad part is that Mason laughs, and so Alex learned that it is funny to scream like that.  Umm, blog readers, how come nobody picked up on the fact that I wanted (needed) sound canceling head phones for Christmas?  I was not joking.  I cannot stand the noise.  I guess I will just have to use some of Steve's earplugs.

He has been pretty healthy all month (last time I talked about him, he was still on his breathing treatment).  All that wheezing finally cleared up.  I hope he stays well through the winter.  By next winter he will be so much bigger that I won't be so worried.

He eats really well.  So far he hasn't turned down any food that I give him.  He started this weird pig snorting though when I feed him.  I think he is happy, but it is hard to tell.  I will try to get it on video.

His Christmas was good too, but unfortunately he was mainly on the side-lines to Mason.  I can see how the order of your children starts to mold their personality.  No matter how much you think you will treat them the same, the older kid is just going to get more attention.  I am so curious as to the things he is going to be interested in.  Will he be outgoing, like Mason, or shy, like mom?  Will he be into all teh same toys Mason is or will he be different?

That is all I can think of for now.  If someone is curious about something, send me a comment.       

Update to Alex Update: He have a crawler!  His feet get bound up sometimes and he sits up to straighten them, then falls back forward for a couple inches, feet get tangled, sit up, straighten them, falls forward, tangled, sit up, straighten, fall...I am sure he will get them straightened out soon enough, but he is moving!  Now I will see what he gets into and see what I need to baby-proof. 

Christmas 2010

What it is my lunch hour and I am not doing some on-line shopping?  Oh, Christmas must be over!  I love Christmas, and this year was the least-hectic one I can remember, but it is still Christmas, and there always seems to be just one more thing to do.  But not anymore, now I can blog!  Oh yeah, thank you notes.  Well, be patient, I will get to them soon enough.

I went to Costco yesterday and it was the slowest I had ever seen it.  and they had tons of prime rib and rack of lamb, and rib roast that were all still $90 + and I shake my head why Costco never has sales.  I am not sure why I said all that, but oh well, it's my blog.

Anyway, I will document backward through December and see how far I get.  I am at work so I don't have convinient acess to any of my pictures.  I did get them all posted at my smugmug site, so you will have to just go there to see them (and there are lots of movies for Grandma Chris!).  http://www.jlbphotos.smugmug.com/  

Christmas was great.  Mason awoke to find Santa had dropped lots of candy canes out of his sack, all the way down the stairs and to the tree.  The only thing he consistently asked for was candy canes and the Thomas Holiday movie.  Santa delivered!  He loved all of his things, but he is so funny about the smallest little things.  If he only got a stocking, I think he would be just fine.  The tiny play doh and candy canes and puzzles made his head just spin before we even opened one present.  The other thinsg he got were, a big firetruck, lots of clothes (his face was priceless when he opened the clothes - if we caught it on video it would be a $10,000 video for sure), a(nother) train set, Thomas movie, and Toy Story 3 movie (and how lucky am I, Toy Story 1 and 2 were on last night, so we can have a movie marathon), an alarm clock (so he stops coming in my room at 4 AM!  It turns yellow when it is "ok to wake"), lots of books (15 in total!), hotwheels, collector coins, and a toolbench.  I think that was all.  I am probably missing a couple small things, but you get the gist of it.  Alex was too young to know what was really going on be he got some things too.

I want to say a little story about the train set.  I told everybody not to get him anymore Thomas things.  Santa didn't hear the message though.  He got the movie and a little train set.  I thought he was kinda done playing with trains, but that is the only thing he played with for the rest of the day.  Alex was in on the action too.  He has just started wiggling around to where he wants to go - not quite crawling, but somehow getting places.  He kept taking Mason's tracks and trains and this was the first time I had seen Mason get mad at Alex.  He is usually the most loving little boy I have ever seen, but not when the "baby" got near his trains.  I think his exact words, repeated over and over all morning long, were, "Ugh -Baby!..."I did catch this on video, so you will have to watch it.  Poor little brother.  We have a long way to go on the sharing front.

Anyway, the rest of December was all in anticipation of this one day.  Mason can grasp time a little better now, so we didn't have the constant "Is today Christmas" battles that we had last year.  Quite a few times over the past couple weeks he would ask me, "Can I just sit in front of the tree and look at the lights?" Of course!  And never stop being so precious please!

Ok, I didn't get very far before I have to get back to work pretty soon.  I will do another post on Alex soon.  He is getting so adorable - and I think he found his voice!

Oh, I have to say one more thing...We had our first trip to the ER.  Poor Mason was rough-housing with Dad - IN THE BEDROOM - which is one of my few rules; you can only fight on the carpet (meaning the carpet in the family roon where there is the least amount of dangerous obstructions).  If I had a nickel for everytime I said "get on the carpet" I could retire right now.  Anyway, basically Mason rammed his head into the very sharp edge of the armoire and split his head open.  It was so sad.  Luckily both of us are pretty calm people and we handled it pretty well.  Sorry for the lack of deatils, but I really have to go now.

BYE!

Morning with Mason

So much has been going on, but I don't have time to go through all the details.  I just wanted to share this sweet story.

I love Mason the most in the mornings.  I always say that if anyone is debating wheter to have a child or not, they just have to spend one morning in my home to convince them that there is nothing better than a sweet child. 

He comes in to the bathroom, where I was getting ready and Alex was playing on the floor.  The first thing out of his mounth was, "Oh, good morning baby, I missed you!"  Then he said good morning to me, and I asked him if he slept good.  He replies (and always says the same thing), "I slept good, I dream about [chocolate milk]."  Insert whichever thing Mason is obsessing about...[candy canes] [cereal] [yogurt] [blue blanket] [christmas trees].  It is so sweet to see what Mason loves.

I really wish I could record his voice because that is what really makes it awesome.  I never want to miss even one morning with my boy.

Ornaments don't bounce

We got our Christmas tree today.

We discovered that "ornaments don't bounce."

the first casualty of the season

We bought a new camera (Mom's making out this year - it helps when you just go ahead and buy for yourself).  Actually the camera broke when we went ice skating last week, but I thought I fixed it Saturday, and I was kinda bummed that I wouldn't be able to buy a new one; then, I went to take pictures of getting the tree this morning and it broke again.  Weird.  So off to Costco...

It has smile recognition.  That is so cool!

My boys!

So maybe my pictures will start improving and you will get to see just how blue Alex's eyes are, instead of all the red-eye fixes.

I still need to work on the settings a little, but I will get to it, after all the other things I have to "get to."  Can we please pause life for a few...

busy busy busy

So it is that time of year, where everyone is busy busy busy.  I haven't stopped moving from 6:00 in the morning (that is sleeping in for me!) and I forced myself to stop and write just a little.  

Bountiful baskets

making baby food

changing sheets

doing laundry

feeding kids

That's it, but that's a lot in my book.  Yesterday was packed with chores and some good Christmas stuff too.  Tomorrow we will get our tree and maybe see Santa.

Tonight the boys are sleeping at the cousins so that Steve and I can go to a little Christmas get-together.  YEAH!  It has been so long since we have gone out.  This will be the first night of my mom-life that I will not have to wake up to an alarm or a baby.  Wow!  Almost 4 years.  I am sure I will still be up at 6 am, but I AM NOT GETTING OUT OF BED!!!  It is going to be marvelous.  

Well that is all the sitting I get to do.  Alex just woke up.  Still lots of cleaning to do.  

Oh I want to post a picture of last weekend's ice skating (Alex can wait a minute).  It was a lot of fun!  

They had these walkers for the kids.  So awesome!

Mason said "weeeeeee" the whole time.

He has asked to go back every day this week.  We may be making this a weekly outing.  It is good exercise for me and he loves it!  

My camera broke while we were there, but at least I could get these pictures off the camera.  Guess what I am getting from Santa - but there is no way I can wait until the 25th to use it.  I am getting one tonight from Costco so I can take pictures of the tree going up tomorrow.  See you tomorrow!

Mason's Letter to Santa

We are having a good day today.  We are sending out Christmas cards, getting the apple butter ready to ship (one more batch to make tonight!), and later we are going to have an early Christmas with my mom (who will be in Hawaii on Christmas).

I thought it would be a good time for Mason to write his Letter to Santa.  I prompted, and Steve typed it out word for word:

Me: You start your letter by saying why you have been a good boy this year.
Mason: I played with my friends and say hi to Arianna.  And I am her best friend.  And say hi to Addison and be good and maybe you pick me up.  And that's all the words I'm gonna say to Santa.
Me: Ok, then what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas.
Mason: Thomas Holiday Movie.  Candy Canes.  And maybe a Christmas Tree and maybe some presents and I's wants um um more maybe um uh a new new new new car seat.  Yeah Yeah.  A new car seat for Abby and Owen and that's all.


Ok, some explanation.  Mason doesn't like Arianna (girl from daycare), so we go over this almost every day.  I say you don't have to be her best friend, but you have to say hi to her.  He hates to do this, but he does it because he is being a "nice boy."  That is probably another post: Should I make him be friends with everyone?  He likes everyone else at daycare, but he just doesn't like Arianna.  I have no idea why.

Car seats: I think he is just saying that he wants Abby and Owen to drive in the car with them and he wants them to have car seats like he does.  They just drove with us yesterday, so it was on his mind.

It is nice that he doesn't want so many toys yet.  This is going to be a fun Christmas!

Pretending

Mason is fully in the pretending stage now.  He is always "getting things packed up" to go on trips.  When I ask him where he is going, it is usually "breakfast" or "lunch" instead of an actual place.  We go out to eat very rarely and when we do it is a big deal.  I think he remembers every single restaurant we have ever been in (but again, that is not very many).

Right now he is playing airplane/boat/car.  He is sitting on a towel which is the airplane, but everything is "packed up" in the boat (Alex's rubber ducky bathtub) and he is driving the car.  When I walked by he screamed for me to get out of the street, and then when I tried to talk to him, he said he couldn't hear me because he was in the car.

With the cousins last night they mostly played zombies.  There was lots of bombs going off and shooting bad guys.  I guess this is pretty common for boys.  At least boys that are Steve's off-spring.  I think I need to invest in some noise-canceling head phones, because this kind of play really annoys me.  I am going to need them by the time Alex joins in the chaos.

He often acts out the Thomas the Train episodes with his trains.  I don't know if that is pretending, but it gets pretty elaborate.  By the way, I checked on the number of Thomas engines there were, and there are officially 84 engines!  EIGHTY-FOUR!!!  That is ridiculous.  That doesn't count all the extra trucks and stuff that goes with the engines.  He probably has about twenty, I should count those next.

Another of Mason's constant expressions is always needing to know where he is going when he wakes up. He asks, "Where am I going when I wake up?" I answer with whatever it is, and then he points up in the air with one finger and asks, "this morning?" (checking to make sure that we are indeed going to that place tomorrow).  I say yes, and he gets happy.  Always the same.  And always happy even if the answer is nothing except to clean the house.

He also asks about "when you were this big" all the time.  Whatever he is doing anything, he asks if I did that "when I was this big" or "when I was a little girl." I don't really know why he does this, maybe it makes him feel normal if it was something that I did too.  It is just simple stuff, like coloring: "Momma, you like to color when you was this big?"  I say yes, and he just goes on with coloring with no response.  It is almost like his validation that he can continue doing whatever it is he was doing.  

He is also very aware of the things that he has, when he got them, and who gave it to him.  Absolutely everything he owns goes this way: [Thomas book] "Sherry got me this book for me for Christmas from the store." (lots of things are just from "the store") Or it is in question form: Mason: "Who got me this book?" Me: "Abby and Owen" Mason: "Why did they get it for me?" Me: "Because it was your birthday." Mason: "Where did they get it?" Me: "the store." Mason: "Why?" Me: "Because they thought you would like it." Mason: (smiling, because I played along again...) "Oh."  Always the same.  And he already knows all the answers, he just wants to hear them again.  I don't know if other kids are like that, but he sure is.

On the Alex front, he is still not completely cleared up from his chest congestion.  I don't really know what else to do, but I will probably take him back to the doctor soon.  He is still acting perfectly fine and happy.  He is starting to get up on his knees for crawling and just rocking back and forth.  If I remember correctly, that means crawling is a couple of weeks away.