make-up and la abuela

Too cute. Yesterday morning Liam was up while I was getting ready and says "wuss dat?" Make-up. "Cam I put on da make-up too? Weeum make-up?" So I took my older blush brush and swiped it across his face. "Dat tickles momma!" Then I brushed his hair with my big paddle brush (which is like as big as his face) and spritz him with a little hairspray. "All done mommy!" Ummm, I do think this kid is either destined for theater or drag (he also calls himself a "pwincess" when he grabs the laundry from the hamper and puts it up to himself). Either way; that's cool with me.

We also went to the park after dinner. He was running around in diaper and t-shirt and suddenly said "I puddon da sand-do-does. I go to da park." Do you want to go to the park? "YES PWEEZE!" So I let Jon stay home and relax since both boys had been up since 6:15am and I couldn't get home until after 5pm. I put Colin in the carrier, grabbed a sheet and the boppy, a juice cup for Liam and the Yam (yes, he did put pants on). He had a grand ol' time. I took him to the park instead of the elementary school across the street. It was a toss up really. The school means i can let him run around a little more since it's fenced in and only across the street in case of boo-boos. But the park has equipment more his size. I chose the park. While crossing the street, I was singing our little "hold hands, cross the street" chant and a sheriffs deputy stopped and said to me "you got your hands full there" before he continued into the intersection. :)

There was a little Mexican girl (maybe 2 years old) and her grandma getting to the park just about the same time. Thee little girl was quite the dare-devil. Yeah, my son will go down slides by himself even if no one is watching, but she was sliding down the tall, bumpy slide backwards and on her belly. Wow! It took about an hour before Liam went down that slide at all, but he loves the twisty slide there. When the street vendor came by with his cart, the little girl and her grandma got some Mexican junk food (those pork rind things that look like rings and a shaved ice. Liam whined once about wanted some "ice cweem" but yo no tengo dinero, so sorry buddy. It turned out not to be a problem because he was really too enamored with the playground equipment to mind. And then, the little ol' abuela started offering Liam some of their snacks. Wow, how nice grandma. I made sure Liam wasn't too much of a pest and that he said please and thank you. He and the little girl ran back and forth along the wall. They went down slides. He got so overheated that his little pale anglo-nordic cheeks were bright pink. He was hot and sweaty and very sad when I finally put the kybosh on park time and we headed home.

Considering he hadn't taken a nap and had been up since 6am, I wasn't surprised when he drifted off to sleep easily after his bath...I only had to read 5 Thomas stories and 1 animal book :)

long day

Just to bookend this first day of the weekend after going back to work, here's the post of today. Ummm, wow! My boys are the biggest whiney brats. I don't know why but my fuse was so short today. Everything the littles did seemed to frustrate me beyond measure. I do feel bad but it seems like I'm getting to the end of my rope so easily with Liam these days. I know a lot of it has to do with him pushing his boundaries a little further now that he's 3. But still, WHY?!!!

Liam got up a little after 7am and was totally happy just totally loud for the first hour. Then his day went downhill fast. He "made a mess" by spilling his dry cereal all over his Green Ghost (who we just frickin' cleaned last night); it wasn't a mess, but he refused to either eat it or pick it up. Colin decided that he wasn't going to be happy unless he was in my arms so I couldn't exactly get any chores done. Jon was sleeping the morning away on the couch. I figured if I couldn't do housework I could try to do some work-work that I brought home but the boys were not going to have it. Colin spit up on me at almost every feeding and he took two 30 minute naps (that's all). He also was just a major complain-atron for the whole damn day.

Liam did not nap, but at least he entertained himself for a couple hours in his room. He peed on the living room floor after twenty minutes of sitting on his potty and on the big toilet watching videos of peeing on the potty (yes you can find those on YouTube). He shrieked at the highest pitch he could muster and threw trucks at me so I sent him to his room. During his bath, he insisted on getting more soap for the bath pouf but I wouldn't let him have it. So he tried to "climb" the corner bath shelf and yanked it so hard that EVERYTHING flew off of it and into the tub around him and scaring him (except for the particular quart sized bottle of baby shampoo that he had been trying to get - umm yeah, that flew out directly at my head by the other wall of the bathroom where I'd been sitting).

He went down to bed easily but Colin decided that he was finally going to be happy and cheerful for the first time today when I was trying to put him down. Such a cheeky monkey :)

So yeah, it felt like everything happening in this house today was created to irritate me. If I hadn't just had a cycle, I would swear it was my TOM. Grrrrrr. It's a good thing they're so cute or I'd probably have eaten them out of frustration.

mega update

No, this will not be long like the title might suggest. I just have some mega news to report on.

#1) I went back to work this week. Well, technically I went back to school last week to start getting my classroom in order. And it was quite the ordeal as I left my room rather messy and told my substitute that she was NOT in any way expected to organize beyond what she needed to function. So when they took down my room for the summer clean-up; yeah, they hid my mess in all my little tiny cupboards. Oh well. I also have some big changes that I'm making to my teaching methods and I had to pick up a class of 8th grade US History due to the massive size of the class of 2016. They gave me the most challenging class; I've never had an aide in my room everyday but there are enough students that require push-in support that I get one. Frankly, I accommodate for all of my students. But I also got some low readers and some pretty lazy kids who could do a lot better if they just did their assignments. These will be my little loves. I missed them all a lot when I left for maternity leave, but they're mine again [cue megalomaniacal laughter here].

#2) Liam's daycare/preschool will be remaining open! Laura is moving to the Redding area, but she decided that her original plan of having a manager oversee the school in her absence would work after all. So this allows the daycare to stay open AND the gals to retain their jobs as teachers. I'm very happy all around. We won't be putting Colin in or having them go full-time until Jon gets a regular job however. For now, Yamster will continue to go in the mornings only.

#3) Colin finally (seriously we thought he was gonna be walking before he did this) rolled over on the 17th. This makes him just 10 days shy of being 5 months old. He's been scooting around and getting into all kinds of crazy positions when he's on the floor or in his crib, but he just hadn't quite managed that roll. And he did the more difficult one first. While I was on the floor watching him in the baby gym, he rolled from back to belly so quickly and got his arm out from under him in so short a time you would have thought he'd been doing it for months. Hooray! He's not done it many more times since then, but it's awesome knowing he can now. Just a side note on the rolling around in the crib thing ... well, several times now we've found him completely turned around from the direction we put him in and he's been managing to get those skinny little legs of his stuck out of the crib slats. It doesn't really bother him though. Have I mentioned before what an awesomely happy and chill baby I have? Well, I do; he is.

That's all for now. You wouldn't believe what a mess the house has become after 2 weeks of being back at work and the Hubster still needs to finish the craft project for the ladies room in the office at work.

Preschool Rainbow Cupcake - Pt. 2

Happy birthday to my Big Boy . . . the Yam turned 3 years old today!!! Can you believe it. He's done some phenomenal growing over the recent 3 months that he's been in preschool; I was excited to make cupcakes for his class in the preschool (and the school-age room as well). It's a little thing that I probably won't get to do a lot since Liam's birthday is in the summer and even if he were to have a party at school, well guess where I'll be – at school in my own classroom. (Colin is a risk too as his birthday may sometimes fall during Spring Break.)

When we dropped him off at school this morning, they had written on the window a birthday message for him. There was also a giant banner in rainbow dots between the two classrooms. How did they know I chose a rainbow theme?! I asked when we should bring the cupcakes by and they said around 10:30am so that there would be sufficient time before lunch to get a bit of appetite back. The preschoolers/toddlers were so cute in their little chairs. They all started to sing to Liam while I was handing out the cupcakes and Liam tried so so so hard not to dig into his frosting (which is pretty much all he eats of cake these days) until everyone was served.

Even two of the infants got to have some cake. And the school-age kids were super stoked when I said they could all have a cupcake too. The teachers were so impressed by the rainbows and called me Supermom! Awww. I told them it was easy but it just took a long long time. The little kids exclaimed “Wainbows!” when they bit into the cupcakes and when they saw the papers. The papers are beautiful actually; Jon said they looked like little tie-dyed shirts with their circular pattern that wasn't always perfect VBGYOR order.

It was a cool feeling, being that awesome kind of mom. You know, I hate to have a Back to School whinge right now, but I feel like I put this much effort into everything I do for others and that includes my friends as well as my students. Why oh why are my efforts not viewed as spectacularly by the administration or the parents? Maybe I need to make rainbow cupcakes for everyone at “B2S Nite” to get their appreciation. Um yeah; like that's ever gonna happen!

I hope Liam always enjoys cupcakes and being spoiled a bit on special days. I know it seems like we're going a bit overboard this year, but last year I wasn't even home because I was at a CTA conference and besides, this is like the first birthday he's going to remember anyway.

Oh, we finally got to learn the names of his little school chums. When I was loading the photos onto the computer this evening, I actually got Liam to tell me who everyone was. Apparently this Cami girl that he's confessed to holding hands with before is an older woman (she's probably four by my best guess). That was adorable when I learned about Cami. “Cami an' Weeum hold hans. Hold hans's OK to hold hans.” Awww.

First ever time at the cinema

No not for me, but yeah for me in a sense. I've been to the movies a grand total of 1x since Liam was born; Hubster and I were lucky enough to go see the first part of Harry Potter 7 last Fall while I was pregnant (Mannam came to babysit - and she frickin' cleaned the living room and kitchen while we were gone SCORE!!!). But yesterday was Liam's first trip to the cinema to see a movie properly - ergo our first time taking a child to the movies.

We got my colleague Luanne to watch Colin so it could be a "focus on the birthday boy" kind of experience. Unfortu-nately we had to drive all the way to Rocklin to see Winne the Pooh and it was totally a Murphy's Law kind of drive down. Traffic, mega-mobbed gas station, farm equipment chugging down the road, more traffic, and a detour through Lincoln all served to get us to the theater approximately 4 minutes after the posted showing. They weren't selling tickets to that showing anymore but that's fine because I wanted Liam to have the whole, find a seat, lights go dim, kind of experience for his first trip. So we had to wait 2 hours for the next show. To placate Hubster, we went to Guitar Center and I let both boys run around and "jam" on as many instruments as they could. We also ran around Joann's Crafts for a bit. Then we went through the drive through at McDonald's and parked in the shade so I could pump breast milk before the movie.

Then we got to the movie. We let Liam give our tickets to the ticket gal. Then we took him to the arcade and let him pretend to drive the race car game. Then I got us popcorn (his favorite!) and some M&Ms to share and we went into the theater. We found a great seat; the theater was only 1/3 full and it was all families with little children (Jon was the only dad in the whole theater - although there were some older brothers but they were like high school age). We noshed on popcorn and delighted in the animated short about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

Liam managed to only get up and want to run around 4x. I had to remind myself that he's just 3 years old and it was his first time at the cinema and he can't even sit through 70 minutes of movie at home. Once I thought I smelled a poopy diaper so Jon took him to the restroom but there was no need. Another time he was starting to get a little loud and antsy so I took him out in the lobby and he ran around, played on the car game again, and we went on a hunt for our theater by looking for the theater number (he's so great at his numbers). Totally forgot about the M&Ms, oops; I'll probably put them on the cake for his party this weekend at my Granny's house.

He was passed out by the time we got home and woke up enough to be cute for Luanne and her daughter (and our usual baby/cat/house sitter) "Towia" but was basically passing out on his feet. Jon changed his diaper and put him to bed in his street clothes. It was a wonderful special day to start our celebrations for Liam's 3rd birthday.

I Fuffoo

That's Liam's "I love you."

Liam is doing a great job showing love and affection for his little brother. This morning, I've only been awake for about an hour and already he's melted my heart again. Colin was fussing while I had Liam on my lap (we were watching Toy Story 3) so I had to put him down and pick up the bairn. Then I asked Liam if he still wanted on my lap and he replied he did. There I was, sitting with both my lads on my lap, and I took Liam's hand and had him hold Colin's hand (it was the part of Toy Story 3 where the toys are just about to be incinerated and they all hold hands - that part makes me tear up every single time I see it!). Anyway, Colin immediately grabs Liam's finger and just about bending his hand backwards. Liam turns to Colin and says, "I so much Cow'n. I SO much Cow'n." There was so much gentleness and genuine affection in that voice. So what that he missed the Fuffoo part. The fact is he said he loved Colin so much, to Colin, without prompting from me or Jon. Oh my, I'm getting teary just writing this. Can't believe my sweet little guy, my Smoochie, is gonna be 3 in two more days!!!

Colin is 4 (months)

The little Coco-butter is now 4 months old and becoming a better human every day. I'm getting a little apprehensive because I can't believe it's almost Back to School time and I'll be leaving my little guy and heading back to work in a couple weeks. Here's the latest on Colin Alexander Rogers: Age 4m.

Likes:

• sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed (no we don't co-sleep, but he falls asleep nice and hard after his early morning meal and can sleep a couple hours more if we leave him on the bed)
• his JumperRoo (which he is now a pro at using and gets everyone in the house smiling when he uses it)
• his feet - he hasn't quite gotten them into his mouth yet, but he loves to hold them and usually only talks when he's got his feet in his hands
• LIAM!!! - zOMG his big brother is probably the most awesome thing Colin has ever encountered
• diaper changes - probably the time Daddy and I get the biggest smiles from him is when he's trying to make diaper changing difficult by grabbing feet, diapers, or various articles of clothing
• Lamaze toys - he was obsessing over Mortimer "Bruce" Moose earlier in the month but switched to Jacques Peacock. Then we got him a "knot monster" the other day when we wanted to go to Roseville and he love love loves that.

Development:

• talking/cooing - he's a chatty little guy, but see above note about feet
• rolling over - ummm, still trying hard on that one; Colin gets about halfway over and decided being on his side is better
• no longer needs to be swaddled, but it still calms him down a lot of the time
• can be put down for a nap/sleep without falling asleep in the arms
• has basically outgrown the Puj (his baby tub)
• almost reached out for me in his first moment of "Mommy, you need to come here and pick me up" when he caught eye contact with me after I had been at the grocery store and didn't come get him as soon as I got home. He also cried really loud then.
• sleeping for long long stretches at night and on a good-night schedule that usually has him asleep within 30-45 min of putting Liam to bed each night (8-10hours of straight sleeping baby = bliss for Momma)

Growth/Doctor Stuff:

• Dr. Honeychurch is still not concerned with Colin's poop-schedule. Yup, Colin is still pooping only once every 3-4 days. Because he's not straining and his belly isn't distended and there's no blood in the stool, he's just not a poopy baby. It's just so weird for a mostly breastfed baby to not poop all damn day. Liam pooped at least 3x/day and he was mostly formula fed by this age.
• Jon thinks Colin's hemangioma is getting smaller. I can't see a difference. Doctor said it would actually shrink from the inside (middle) out so I don't think it is shrinking just yet.
• Both Daddy and I were WAY off on our guesses for how big he would be. We had a bit of a cheat in that we weighed him the day we took Liam in to ask about his fever & rash. Colin was 14 1/2 lbs on that day.
• 15 3/4 lbs (55th percentile)
• 27 1/2 inches tall (99th+ percentile)
• 42 1/2 cm head circumference - my babies have such enormous braincases
• Got more shots at the doc's this time. Only, unlike the 2 month visit, he was not so much of a trooper. And boy was he miserably grouchy for the rest of the day.
• Still mostly breastfed; he takes only about one bottle/day anywhere between 4-6oz of formula.
• Had an allergy attack this week. Basically, seasonal/environmental allergies. Luckily his only reaction was red rimmed eyes and lots of congestion (which led us to haul out the dreaded sot snucker)
  

Where we've gone:

• 4th of July celebration at the Stonehouses. Colin did a little better swimming in their pool than he did in Katherine's pool in June.
• Spent a day at Granny's with Granny and Mannam while we were at a food & wine afternoon with friends.
• We went to the doctor for Liam; ergo we went to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's scoop shop
• We went to Roseville to go shopping for a breast pump adapter for the car; ergo we went to Big Spoon for fro-yo.

Happy 4 months my little man. I love you!!!

big bedtime to-do

So today is sort of a milestone day. Colin is 4 months old today. I hope I'll have a post devoted just to him later this evening (if I'm not too lazy). But there's another milestone that I just had to blog about. When I got up this morning (the actual getting up), my whole family was in the bed!!!

So I guess 2 nights ago, around 3-something in the morning, Liam came into our room and quietly climbed into the bed next to Jon. I guess he would have stayed, but he started whinging for Green Ghost and so Jon went in to get it and by that time Liam was amping up with energy. Jon ended up sleeping in Liam's bed for about an hour before he came back to our bed. All during this time, I slept right through it all and had no clue. If I had known, I would not have kicked Jon out of bed to be with Liam when the kid woke up at 5:45a. Sorry!

Well, this morning, around 5:30, just as the dawn was breaking through our windows, Liam stood in the door of his room and whined a bit. I sat up sleepily and said, "hey kiddo." Whimper whimper "momma," whimper. Then I waved him over as my head was dropping stone-like back onto my pillow. The next thing Jon knew, Liam was scrambling over him trying to climb into the bed. He laid down but needed his Green Ghost. Jon grabbed it and wouldn't you know, within seconds Liam was snuggling into the pillow between us. I held his hand so he would know he was safe (he's never slept in our bed before - so um wow!). Boy has some RANK breath! Serious morning breath/stuffy allergy nose stank going on in that kids pie-hole. At one point he sat up and flopped head first toward the foot of the bed, promptly putting his knees in my chin and feet in Jon's face. I just sat up, grabbed him, and re-righted his little bones back onto the pillow.

At 7a, Colin woke up and wanted his breakfast. It's typical for me to take him back into the bed to nurse him in the morning and sometimes I even get to leave him in the bed with Jon because our new mattress has a sleep spell on my infant when his belly's full. Well I wouldn't leave him this morning with the squirmy preschooler in the bed (he's hard enough to wrangle carefully away from Colin when awake). But as Colin was finishing feeding, I realized my sweet, sleepy family was all in the bed in the morning light. It's not so bad when it's summertime and there's nowhere for us to go/be. We even had one of the cats in the bed. So really truly, almost my entire family was in the bed (Lily isn't exactly allowed on the bed as that's Poppy's territory - oh well). It was a sweet and special milestone. I did get up and change Colin's diaper (which he loves btw) and as he and I were leaving the room, I heard a squeak, so high and loud, I would have thought I had stepped on a toy. But it was Colin, looking at his daddy and big brother, making the coolest exclamation of joy I've ever heard. I'm shocked the bigger boys didn't wake up.

:)

so far this morning

Liam: Momma, putda sunskeen on Weeum arm. Pweeze!!! Weeum wan peeut butter...peeut butter pop. And watermelon. I hungee hungee patterpillar. I hun-GEE! Dat's Momma's coffee. Weeum mess. Baby Cow'n's forehead! I found my twuck! Hanny Manny missing and da wheel!!!

He's just such a chatty Cathy in the mornings it drives me crazy with cuteness. - Yes, I put sunscreen on his arm even though we're inside and it was only 8:30a, he got a "peanut butter pop" (peanut butter on a spoon) with raisins, stuck his finger in my coffee, drank my cereal milk (that was the mess). Who knows what the deal was with Colin's forehead. He's obsessing over the fact that he can't find his Handy Manny figure or a wheel off of Handy Manny's race car.

All this while he's intermittently singing all his thoughts to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Old Mac Donald." Yesterday he decided I was the giant from Jack in the Beanstalk and he kept running from me screaming "Fee fi fo FUH, I smell da inchaman (Englishman). Be 'wive or be dead, grinda bones make da bwead!" Then he would hide under his green ghost on the middle of the bed while I "searched" his room or our room for him. Then he yells, "hidin' unda da bwanket!!!" That kid just doesn't know how to play hide and seek properly yet.

And of course we can't forget his "sand-do-dos" (sandals), especially his "cwokeedile sand-do-dos" his new crocs.

or happy? or sad?

I forgot to add last night the funniest, cutest thing that Liam said yesterday. I went into Liam's room and gave Colin to my hubs (who had spent the better part of an hour trying to get the toddler to nap). When I unlocked the door (yeah that's right, I said they had been locked in), the room smelled distinctly of poopie diaper and Liam said proudly "Weeum diaper is full," and he ran to his changing pad. This is a good thing because it's part of his Good Boy Chart and he gets to have pizza for dinner when he gets to 10 informs on the diaper - which means we all get pizza for dinner :)

When I came back into the room from the trash can, Liam was looking at Colin who was propped on his belly by Jon's belly. "Is Baby Cow'n happy? or sad? or happy? or sad?" Then Colin smiled a huge smile for his brother and then let out a little baby guffaw. "I fink he's happy!!!" Ahh, shot through the heart with cuteness. I also love that that was Liam's first time saying "I think." Man he's getting more and more language in these weeks before his birthday.

Before nap: Momma, Weeum have a beiber.
No you don't. You're cool as a cucumber. 98.2.
Weeum sick. Come in Daddy. Need med'cin. Yeah, purple med'cin.
No sweetheart. You're fine.

After nap: Mommy, Weeum hot. Too hot. Weeum tired. Ouch.
OH! 101.8 Time for medicine and juice.
Night night Baby Cawn. Weeum go back to sweep.

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funny things they say

I wanted to just take some time to mention the funny things Liam has been saying recently. I'm really excited about his language growth since he started school in May. He's stringing together phrases and he's also able to tell us thoughts he's had out of his own brain (don't get me wrong, he's also still doing a lot of mimicking . . . actually, he's doing a ton of it and we've had to curtail our swearing - oops) without us doing any prompting.

My mom is now "Mannam" which is odd but I like it better than Nana. Visiting Mannam and Granny is one of his favorite things and after we do, he'll insist on going to see them for days afterward. "I get onda shoos and go see Gwanny an' Mannam."

He likes to wear his "sand-da-das" [sandals] and he's very excited when "shoos go inda cubby Daddy." Thanks preschool for teaching Liam where to put some stuff away.

Lily tries to run outta the house when we take him to school in the morning. If she manages, he runs after her and says, "d'ere she goes." Then he's actually able to catch her; lucky me.

We are now insisting he ask politely to be excused from the table at dinner. "Pweezegetdown!" (all run together).

While he was "napping" yesterday, I made him a tracking chart for good behaviors. When we showed it to him, he stood there studying it for awhile, stating what each task was and saying "check!" after each one. I had drawn pictures next to all the behaviors so he could conceptualize them. No Tantrums was difficult because how do you draw a tantrum? Well, I drew a kid on the floor crying and shaking. Liam didn't quite know what to make of it and came up with "Man fall down? Check!"


This morning, when I came out with him to get the day started, he said "I hungy Momma." So I said, "let's go find some breakfast." "Bwekfast, where are you?" And then when I brought him his milk, he sat down on the couch and said "I sittin' in mah seat."

Oh the precious things they say.

Edit 10:58pm: Just had to add the hilarity that came outta his mouth at dinner (which he didn't even taste so no sticker - sorry dude). He was putting his fork in his mouth with just ketchup on it and Jon and I were continuing to plead with him to try some salmon. The he just looked at Jon so matter of factly and said, "whutso funny?"

Summer's early mornings

The last week has been very interesting in the wake-up department. Starting about Thursday last week, our little mini human slept a full 9 hours straight. So awesome to wake up and realize that it was 6am when Colin was waking up. He continued to be a sleepy little bug for about 4 days and it was heavenly knowing that I wouldn't have to wake up at 3am for a half hour.

But, we didn't get to wake up to all sleepy and snuggly with our little man because somebody (ahem, the big boy) was waking up at the crack of dawn!!! Not fair. Saturday morning he was up at 6:30. Ugh. More amazing was the fact that he didn't fall asleep until after 9pm on Friday night because we drove into Marysville to meet my mom and grandmother at the house and then we went out to IHoP for dinner. He did crash really hard in the car on the way home though; when I changed his diaper and his clothes, he slept through the whole she-bang. So Saturday had an early wake-up and then no nap. Instead we played tag, red light/green light, and hide & seek all day.

Sunday we got to sleep in a little later as it was 6:55 when he came into our room and climbed on the bed. He was vibrating with energy all freakin' day!!! The kid didn't slow down once. He was a maniac. He was whiney. He was happy, then sad, then happy all within minutes. He was constantly glomming for attention. When I tried to sing the "inside voice" song, he countered by singing the "outside voice" at the top of his lungs. And of course, naptime was a bust as he spent 90 minutes locked in his room pulling clothes from the drawers, books off the shelf, jumping on the bed, and throwing his cup at the door (probably shouting some toddler obscenities too). By 6:30 he was begging for a bath. He and I hopped in the shower then I got him his evening milk but (bad mommy!) I drugged him with benedryl. Funny, he sipped that milk down tout suite. Then we went to his bed and I read him two books while he continued to talk and climb his feet up the wall and try to turn the pages on me. Then I started the second chapter of The House on Pooh Corner (which I grabbed at the thrift store for 50 cents last week). He mimicked me when I read Tigger's growl and mumbled some, then the next thing I know he's breathing slow, his eyes are closed, and I finished the page. He NEVER falls asleep while I read. He didn't even stir when I lifted him up to get him under the sheet or turn on his music. He was fast asleep by 6:55pm.

Yesterday, we were awakened at 6:15 by him crawling into our bed and laughing and giggling. Usually he says "goodmorning mommy, good morning daddy. Wake up." in his loudest whisper. But no, on Monday morning he woke us up with "I hungy, I soooooo hungy, I hungy." Luckily, he was loud enough to wake Colin (who was back to getting up at 3:30am again btw) so I got to stay in bed and nurse the baby for a half an hour while Jon had to get up and do the breakfast ritual. His school teachers were under strict orders to wear him out, but I guess that didn't happen since he didn't nap (although he did stay quietly in his room reading and playing for an hour which is, frankly, all I ask for) and then we played tag and MONSTER AHHH for an hour running around the living room table and back and forth. Surprisingly, Colin napped through all that commotion. During his "nap" I made a Good Boy Chart for him so we can reward him for doing his good behavior things. He barely touched his dinner which was funny because chicken nuggets are probably his favorite right now. It was a pathetic attempt to eat and around 6:30 he crawled up next to Jon on the couch and said "I so tired." Jon pulled him up onto his lap and then Liam was asking for his froggy and the next thing we knew he was sacked out! Again, he crashed so hard that we were able to change his diaper and get him snuggled into bed without a slight stir. I took this picture at 8pm to prove he was still totally asleep.

He slept through the whole dang night and guess what . . . at 5:55am he was running into our room whispering "wake up Daddy, wake up Mommy!" Jon tried to go back to his room with him, but after 30 minutes I was awake from feeding Colin and just got up with him. I was hoping that he would be able to expend a lot of energy at school again today, but as I sat down to write this, the freak summer sprinkle that was falling on us as I walked him to school has turned into a torrential pour strong enough to disrupt the satellite signal a couple times. Woah, I also just heard a good clap of thunder. What an odd day (oh yeah, and it's gonna be 104 on Sunday - wth?). Please please please take a nap Liam and then go to bed at your normal 7:30-8pm bedtime and please please please sleep in until 7:30 tomorrow morning. Ack!

Colin 2 month

Colin turns 2 months old today. Yesterday we kept Liam out of school and took both of them down to Davis to see Dr. Honeychurch. The weather turned to crap pretty quick too. Can you believe it? It's almost Memorial Day and we've only had 1 day all spring that felt like it was getting warmer. It's basically been in the high 60s all spring and yesterday the temps dropped again and we had torrential rains in our area (it was only slightly sprinkling in Davis though). On an aside: I had to call Dad a couple of times yesterday afternoon to try to wake him up (he sleeps days/works nights) because his town was right in the path of a tornado warning!!! He didn't answer but I think it might havebeen hard to hear the phone when it was hailing so hard. Luckily no tornado touched down in Rio Linda, but . . . there were 4 confirmed tornadoes in the area yesterday. FOUR TORNADOES!!!

Okay, Liam still has a nasty little preschool plague. Jon's got it now and so do I. I'm starting to feel a bit better now though. Luckily Colin is only a little congested. Doctor didn't seem too concerned at all either about their lungs; both boys had clear lungs (as clear as you can get with a cold). Liam got a check-up too since he needed one for preschool. He's 39 1/2" tall which I kind of suspected since he's been walking around with a meter stick from my classroom and is pretty much as tall as it is. He also weighed in at 36 lbs. That puts him at 99th percentile for height and 65th percentile for weight. It also explains why he's still wearing 2T size waist but has to have 4T length. My boy is so hard to shop for. Since his eyes were a little crusty from his cold, the doctor decided to give us a prescription for pink eye medication just in case he should develop conjunctivitis. Gawd I'm not looking forward to putting eye drops in his eyes - please pray he doesn't get pink eye from preschool.

Colin was 23 1/2" and just a smidge over 12 lbs. He's pretty much in the 80th percentile for both. I compared their charts and Colin is consistent with a little shorter and a little chubbier at every mark so far. He had to get his next round of vaccinations and that was sad for poor baby. But I took him out and nursed him in the car right after the appointment and he seemed to be comfortable right away. He also did not get a fever or sleepy from his shots; he stayed on his normal schedule all day. Doctor also took a look at his strawberry hemangioma, which has gotten quite a bit bigger since his 2 weeks appointment but seems to have slowed/stopped growing now. Doctor said that it'll probably go away on its own but that it might take up to 2 years. He also told us to keep a good watch on it because they can get bigger and are very vascular so if it should get scratched, it wouldn't be uncommon for it to bleed for an hour or more. Ugh. He also said there's a treatment for it that uses lasers, but he doesn't want to consider it until Colin's growth has slowed in toddlerhood.

Without further ado, here are pictures of my big little boy!

Look at how strong he is and holding up that head of his! Good job!

Obviously Liam was not having a good time trying to take a picture with his brother. He really does love him, honestly.

coo coo cachoo

Just jotting down a quick note to say that Colin gave us his first real, true coos Monday night/yesterday morning. He's quite a chatty little guy in the morning (just like his brother). I was also able to get him to smile for the camera too. So of course, here are pictures.