Friday, January 30, 2009

Tone Deaf

So, I begin to wonder if Dean sings the way he does because he is tone deaf. You know from all of those ear infections. Ok, so I'm totally kidding.

Dean does have another double whammy infection with some concern that his right eardrum may burst during the night. Poor thing! He'd been telling me for the last two nights that he needed an "Eye pah" (ice pack) and was very adamant about it. I gave him one because I was curious what hurt, and he put it on an old scratch on his finger. Confused I am...

Today Dean was yelling at Jack telling him not to pee on him. Jack found this thrilling, so he grinned and grinned at him. Funny.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Sing to Me

Ok, I had to include a video of Dean too. This one cracks me up. Dean can sing in tune and knows many songs, but for some reason when he plays his Mary Had a Little Lamb puzzle he sings it like this. What a goof!

Meet Jack




Hobbies:

Sucking Thumb

Sleeping

Eating

Grunting


I haven't written much about Jack for lots of reasons. The main one being that I prefer to spend my time enjoying him instead of taking pictures and typing. The other being that after two months I still haven't figured out how to put what I am feeling into words. He is amazing and I am enjoying him in a way that I never knew I could. What's more is that his addition to the family has given me a different kind of love for Dean. I thought I was already loving him with all of the love I could muster, but apparently that just grows.

Jack's 9 weeks old now. When Dean was 9 weeks old, he finally learned how to nurse. I struggled for every ounce of milk and was never able to give him a full feeding without formula to help us along. With Jack eating easily I don't have that problem, but my thoughts are rooted deeply in the past. This morning I threw away 14 bottles of breastmilk (I have over 20 left the freezer) and I am still having difficulty leaving them in there. It is after 3. Logically, I know that I pump an extra bottle a day at work and freeze it. That's over 20 bottles a month. Jack is not going to starve and I'm prefectly fine with giving him formula if it came to that anyway. But...that milk in those little bags is like gold. The gold of which my precious Dean never seemed to get enough.

Thank you sweet Jack for nursing so easily. I do hope that you have less ear infections than Dean did from all of those antibodies.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Where's the Memo

Both boys slept for over 8 hours last night...AT THE SAME TIME! It was pretty neat to get 7 hours of uninterupted sleep because it has been almost a year. The only regret that i have was that my breasts didn't get the memo and I'm all blocked up today. OUCH!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Hooray!

I was ready for Lucas' move. Totally prepared to suck it up and be the best single mommy I could be by week and just take things one moment at a time. We'd even had some inadvertant practice nights when Lucas had to work rather late and I was left to do things by myself after work. I knew that I could do this and survive.

Then, this morning, in the way things like to change in my household, it all changed again. For once, it was a change that was easy to swallow. Lucas was told that a boss had pulled a few strings and managed a position down here for him that would get him through my school year at least. Yahoo! So we'll all be here until June...at which point I imagine we'll move.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Tag Team

Well, the boys tag teamed us last night, or shall I say very EARLY this morning. Jack's been pretty easy so far and wakes every 3 hours on some nights and has had a few 6 hours nights. I go in and nurse him back to sleep and stumble back to my bed to catch a little of that sweet rest myself.



Last night my night looked a little bit different. Jack went down for the night and was up by 12 ready to eat again. He finally drifted off again about an hour later. Dean was awake within minutes stripping off his PJs and talking about how he was going to get dressed. "I go Miss Su-ey. I go Miss Suey." Miss Suzie is his daycare provider. We tried to tell him that it was night night time and that Miss Suzie was alseep, but he'd see her later that morning...after he slept some more. Well, he did finally sleep some more after screaming until around 3ish. At which point he tagged Jack, who awoke hungry again. I think I was up from 12-4:30. Then up again to get ready for work by 5:30. Man am I tired, but man do I love them.

Poor Dean. I'm upset when he fights me over taking the dearly beloved PJ's off. Then when he's finally ready to do it without a fight, I tell him he has to leave them on. Oh, the confusion.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In Plain Sight


I often think of Dean as a little advanced after picking him up from daycare or talking about some of the things he's doing with my colleagues at work. For all of his intelligence, sometimes he still just doesn't quite get it. Last Saturday was one of those times. He spent the entire morning looking for daddy, who was hiding in plain sight. I even invited him to help me fold laundry and piled the laundry on top of sleeping daddy before folding it. After a few hours, Lucas' gig was up and naptime ended when I took the pillow off (I needed help.).

Friday, January 9, 2009

Maybe Funny Later

Tonight's bedtime battles with Dean will probably be a little funny to me when I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Dean is tall enough to reach his light switch, and recently figured out that he was capable of taking off and putting on clothes. I say figured out because I've realized for quite some time that he was capable, and was waiting for the day it dawned on him. I was curious to see what he would do with that information. So far he has the previously mentioned self diaper changing and tonight the PJ dilema.

Dean LOVES his PJs. In the mornings we go round and round about how Ms. Suzie doesn't allow PJ's at daycare and yes Dean must put on other clothes so we can all go. The most common phrase heard in my house early in the AM is "I want my PJs." Well, that and "No, mommy!"

Tonight daddy was having trouble talking Dean into putting his PJs on, so I thought I'd help. I off course just managed to make it worse. I thought that if I offered Dean a choice between two pajama's he'd have more ownership and daddy wouldn't have to pin him down. I offered a choice between the dinosaur pajamas and the train pajamas. He chose dinosuar, so I started to put the train away. Then he said "No, no dinosaur. Choo Choo!" I started to put the dinosaur away. Well, as you can guess he changed his mind again. We had to make the choice for him which of course he didn't like at all.

Well, as I previously mentioned the tall enough to reach the light switch and capable of clothing changes caused a long night of putting Dean to bed. When we would close the door, Dean would get up and turn the light on, begin to change his pajamas, and yell "I stuck!" He was too, stuck with an arm or leg in the wrong sized hole and unable to retrieve said limb.

Lucas had decided after their first battle to go to bed himself, not realizing the light, changing, and getting stuck situation. I ended up in there with nursing baby in tow changing a toddler's PJs and trying to tell him he MUST stay in bed and go night night. It didn't work out so well and I had to go get lazy bones out of bed to help. This whole experience left me wondering how in the world to get the two of them to sleep when I'm here by my lonesome. I'm seriously considering having Lucas move Dean's dresser to the living room.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

It Tickles

Some things that Dean have been doing that give me a good giggle.

Nursing his baby doll after pulling his shirt up like mommy.

Running to find me, then squatting and making pee noises while he pees in his diaper.


Oh dear goodness, there are more, but my mind is all muddled up and tired. I'll try to remember the others for another day.

I've returned to my kiddos at work and miss my kiddos from home dearly while I'm gone. I can't seem to get enough time to spend just playing with them and certainly have said good bye to time when I can relax.

Monday, January 5, 2009

I Miss You Both

Today I brought the boys to daycare. I had a glorious two weeks with both of them and found myself enjoying motherhood immensely. Well, except the parts where the eldest was naughty and I had to actually be The Parent. That was unfortunate.

I missed both of them so very much. With Dean it was a bit easier for me to cope because we've been through this before. After about a week or so he'll be upset when I make him come home because he's enjoying himself so much. Also, Miss Suzie (his daycare provider) is awesome. She teaches him so many things of which I find myself ignorant.

With Jack I found it very hard to go all day without him. VERY HARD! I remember going through this with Dean on a different level. So, I know I will get used to it and so will he. Today though, it was like a piece of my body was missing, or like I was mourning the death of someone very important to me. I wanted his little snuggly body right next to mine always. Because I know that before too long, his little body will get much bigger. He will be moving with Dean-like energy. The time for snuggling will become less and less. I want to soak up every minute of this stage. My dear readers, please remind me of these feelings when I am totally exhausted, at the end of my rope, and complaining of how he STILL DOESN'T SLEEP through the night. Because, night time snuggling is still...well...snuggling.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Diapers

It is high time to potty train Dean.

As many of you already know, Dean can pee in a toilet. In fact he has on many occasions, but due to one thing or another (I don't know what those things are) he is not potty trained yet. We have been seeing the signs of his readiness to use the big boy potty since some time last spring. He knows when he wets or otherwise dirties his diapers. He tells us before he does it, while he's doing it, and after. He hates (always has) to be in a dirty diaper. He finds the toilet, toilet paper, and process of hand washing to be a fantastic adventure. One such adventure led to an entire roll of paper in the toilet recently...while we had company for Christmas. He is beyond ready to make the switch.

Today in his latest demonstration of wit, charm, and general awareness of all things potty he set the mark a little higher. We went through our general nap time routine and I left him to drift off into a slumber. He has actually been drifting off into a slumber regularly for almost a month now at both nap time and bedtime. Today he did not drift off. I could hear him doing God knows what as I nursed Jack in dumb hope that they would actually both be asleep at the same time. Finally, I went to check on his mischief. As I peeked under his door one thing stood out as odd. The dirty diaper that was haphazardly placed in my line of sight. Then I spotted his tiny feet as he pranced in circles near said diaper. The one that threw me for a loop though was his bum which was halfway covered with a pull up. That's odd. I wonder if daddy put a pull up on while I was gone. No wait, I took him to the potty before I put him down for his nap and put on a diaper. I distinctly remember putting on a diaper because he'd just be sleeping anyway.

When I opened the door I was greeted with a hearty "I go poo poo!" In Dean talk that could mean he's pooped, peed, or sneezed a juicy sneeze. I frantically looked for all signs of poo poo and was relieved to find a diaper that was full of urine only. The little tyke peed in his diaper (immediately after mentioned trip to big boy potty) and then decided to change his own diaper.

A clear sign that your child is ready to use the big boy potty. HE CHANGES HIS OWN DIAPER.