Connor: Six Months!

Height/Weight: At his six-month checkup, Connor weighed in seventeen pounds, six ounces, and measured just shy of twenty-six inches tall. The weight was a little lower than I was expecting per our scale at home--although he's been battling a cold for a few weeks, so I'm sure that made a slight impact--and I'm kind of convinced he was measured wrong because I'm hard pressed to believe he only grew half an inch since four months, but our doctor wasn't concerned by any of the measurements so I guess I'm not either.

Wearing: Still in size three diapers and completely filling out his nine month clothes. I've even started pulling out some twelve-month items; I had to go digging to find him a suit for swim lessons, and as I was going through some of the twelve-month clothes I kept thinking "this sure looks like it would fit Connor now", and sure enough, it did. So I'm guessing it won't be long until the twelve month clothes completely take over his closet.

Eating: Well, this is the last time I'll get to say that his diet consists only of Momma's milk. We started solid food a few days after he was six months old, and there will be no looking back. We had our assumptions that he was ready, and boy were we right. I still isolate him during the day to nurse and he is still up at least twice a night to eat, but from a big picture perspective I suppose I don't really have much complain about from a nursing/eating standpoint.

Sleep: With his sleep, on the other hand, there is plenty to complain about. Either his four-month sleep regression lasted FOREVER, or some of his developmental milestones were impacting his sleep (which all the "experts" say that they can)--whatever the case, we had way too many nights of multiple wakings (sometimes just over an hour after nursing, so we know the kid wasn't hungry) and attempted 4am crib dance parties. We started to let him cry a little bit though, instead of going in to him right away, and he finally started sleeping on his tummy instead of just waking up screaming every time he rolled over, so hopefully things are moving in the right direction. And hopefully his naps follow suit--sometimes I feel like I spend as long getting him ready for his nap (diaper change, stories, songs, etc) as he actually spends napping.

New Stuff: Oh boy. This list could get long. He figured out how to move himself by army crawling around the beginning of March, and hasn't slowed down since. His brothers are slowly but surely learning that the floor is no longer a "safe" place to play or leave their toys. We also started bathing him with the other two boys at the end of February; the first time I put him in the tub he was completely unfazed and acted like he'd been doing it his whole life. That attitude has carried over into his swim lessons--I'm convinced that one of these weeks he's actually going to fall asleep in the pool because he is just so content the whole time he's in the water. He isn't quite perfect at sitting yet--which makes bath time with him very hands on for me or Darrell--but he can be left alone (on the carpet, of course!) for a solid few minutes before toppling over (and even then it's usually because he's leaning too far to try to reach a different toy or get closer to what his brothers are doing). And speaking of toys--he definitely is starting to have an awareness of "possession", and you best believe that he'll let you hear about it if you take away something that he was playing with (aka shoving in his mouth and drooling on). We aren't hearing a ton of consonant sounds out of him yet (although I swear I heard a few "mamas" the other day), but that doesn't stop him from making plenty of noise. And by "noise", sometimes I just mean grunts. Lots and lots of grunts. It's pretty cute--but naturally I'm a little biased and think everything he does is cute.

Photo Every Hour: February 21st

By the hair of my chinny chin chin I will get this post in before I start taking pictures for March 21st!

7:00 Rise and shine everyone!

8:00 I'm pretty content with this view during breakfast

9:00 One kid wants to do puzzles on the stairs, the other wants to sweep the foyer. I don't ask questions

10:00 At the library for their special pre-kindergarten program

11:00 Headed home--with plenty of "new" books to read, of course

12:00 Lunchtime!

1:00 Not a bad view for my lunchtime

2:00 A rousing game of Chutes and Ladders with my favorite William

3:00 Snack time! (Is it just me or does it feel like food is dominating my pictures today? #storyofmylife)

4:00 For now, the older two can distance themselves from Connor if they want him to leave them alone... For now...

5:00 and 6:00 No pictures because I was wrangling all three boys down at the Shriner's Mosque for dinner by myself because Darrell was working. And truthfully, by 6:00, I was busy trying to get all three boys back out to the car so we could get to church for...

7:00 The Lenten service. It was a little bit of a pain taking all three boys while Darrell had to work, but I just looove the Holden Evening Prayer service and Lent is pretty much the only time we do this service, so I really didn't want to skip

8:00 Playing games or getting ready for bed? You be the judge

9:00 As if putting the three kids to bed by myself wasn't enough work, now I have housework to do. Joy. But at least....

10:00 I can reward myself with a little wine when the work is done (who are we kidding. I poured that glass before I started chores. That's just what's left by the time I finished)

Bedtime!

11:50 Psych! Connor wanted to make sure I got up in time for one more picture today (especially since I forgot to snap pictures of his feedings that were before 7:00am, because why would one of my infants sleep through the night?!?)

Garrett: Three Years!

Height/Weight: Not surprisingly, Garrett still falls into the "peanut" category for his height and weight--although he's moved up in percentiles since his second birthday, so there's still hope that he won't be the smallest boy in his class! At 29 pounds and 2 ounces, he's just shy of 30 pounds, and measures in at exactly three feet tall. And truthfully, I'm selfishly pretty glad he's still as small as he is; despite being three he still insists on being carried more often than I'd like to admit. And I suppose if he were heavier I'd just be stronger--or I'd have to tell him "no" more often--but where's the fun in that?

Wearing: Honestly, I have no idea what size he is wearing. But I blame that on the grossly inconsistent sizing for kid's clothes (and the fact that some of our clothes have likely shrunk due to the number of times they've been washed). I know for a fact he has 24 month clothes in his closet--maybe even a few rogue 18 month pieces in there somewhere--but he also has a few 3T items. The majority are 2T though. However, if he had it his way, he'd have far fewer items in his closet than he actually does. His absolute favorite things to wear are his football clothes (anything Vikings) and his sweatpants (or "soft" pants, as he calls them). Out of principle, I make him change into real pants whenever we are going out somewhere, and as a result there are some days where he changes clothes upwards of four times. But, he changes them on his own and (so far) doesn't fight me about putting "nicer" stuff on to leave the house, so I'm letting it happen. Because what's a little more laundry when I already average five loads a week?

Eating: I'm honestly trying to think of something that Garrett doesn't eat, and I'm coming up blank. He rarely complains about any of the food he is served and for the most part he clears (at least the majority of) his plate without issue (although generally speaking he almost always eats his vegetables before his meat. Usually he'll eat a decent amount of meat without coaxing, but not always--and usually not without asking for seconds of his vegetables first). He definitely has a higher tolerance than William for spicy foods, and whenever Darrell is adding hot sauce to his food Garrett insists on having some too. He still enjoys helping with meal prep as well, and as a result frequently snacks on raw vegetables (including onion--so weird). He tried some celery the other day as we were prepping it for a meal and he made such a big deal about how awesome it was that you would have thought we'd given him chocolate.

Sleep: If this were a report card, Garrett would probably average a "C+" in sleep. The boys have been sharing a room for just under a year, and the first month or two was really (really) rough. Part of the problem was probably self-inflicted; we knew the boys would be sharing a room at the beach in June, so we wanted them to have a few months under their belt before we tried it on vacation. So we pushed the issue even though the timing was probably not good for the boys. Garrett did not transition well through Daylight Savings time, and as a result he was taking upwards of a hour to settle himself down for bedtime (even when he was still in his crib). Around the same time, William pretty much stopped napping altogether, so when bedtime rolled around he was usually out almost immediately. Put the two together and it spelled disaster. William was either so exhausted that the two bickered through bedtime and we had tantrums and frustrations across the board, or he was in a "drunk tired" mood where everything Garrett said or did was hysterical and they couldn't stop giggling like school girls (which was at least better than them fighting with each other, but Darrell and I were usually still plenty frustrated about the situation, especially when it would persist for ninety minutes after lights out). Eventually things leveled out (especially once we started putting Garrett down for his nap earlier and limiting how long he slept for), but even still we'll go through rough patches of getting them to settle down at night. Additionally, Garrett will still wake up occasionally at night. It comes and goes--two or three weeks of nothing, then a week or two where he's up every other night (and multiple times a night at that!)--and we're struggling to find a way to effectively nip that in the bud, especially since we don't want him waking up William. However, the thing that is consistently keeping his sleep grade from being in the pits is his napping--despite the headaches he gives us at bedtime and the slowness with which he settles down, he usually goes down very easily at nap time and probably averages a ninety-minute nap (and we rarely let him nap for longer than two hours).

New Stuff: Um, everything? Apparently when I go a year between updates on a particular child a lot changes. Shocking, right?

--Biggest new development? Becoming a big brother. And boy oh boy, is he ever in his element as one. He loves Connor so, so much. He is so sweet and mimics so many of the things I do with Connor, especially in terms of trying to soothe him when he's fussing. There's nothing sweeter than watching him pat Connor on the back while saying "What's the matter buddy" and "It's okay sweetie". Unfortunately, Garrett does not have as much awareness of personal space and ability to be gentle as I do, so his attempts at soothing are often unsuccessful, but that doesn't stop him from trying. We really saw his nurturing side shine through last year after Rose and Jonathan were born, so we knew at least initially he'd be really good with Connor, but we weren't sure how long it would last since he would be around Connor all of the time. I think by now we can safely say his nurturing tendencies aren't going anywhere anytime soon (although sometimes I wish he'd be a little more disinterested in Connor so I can stop feeling like I have to watch Connor like a hawk 24/7 to make sure Garrett doesn't hug him to death. There are worse problems to have, though, right?).

--Along with being a fantastic big brother, he's really started to nurture and imaginatively play with his stuffed animals. At times, it's a really fun interaction to watch, and I'll usually humor him by "feeding" his animals when they sit at the table and "disciplining" them when they are being too noisy in the house. However, sometimes he is downright ridiculous with them. His elephant likes to use Connor's exersaucer (and needs to have the legs at a lower height because he isn't as tall yet), and I have to ask if elephant is done with his turn before I can let Connor have a turn. Puppy was forgotten at Grandma's house one time (he was having his tea on the piano and silly mommy didn't think to check there when I was packing up their stuff to leave) and for weeks we had to hear about how sad Puppy was about being left behind. I'm pretty sure he averages five or six animals in bed with him at a time, and I think it is usually worse at my mom's house because in addition to the ones he takes over there she has others that he has to cuddle with as well.

--We also see a lot of his imagination when it comes to reading books. He does a pretty good job of retelling stories that he's heard us read multiple times, but even if it's a story he's never seen before he'll pick it up and tell a story based on what he sees in the pictures. He's probably still a ways off from being able to read, though (which is probably an obvious statement since he's only three), because while he can sing his ABCs with no issue, his letter recognition isn't the greatest (although sometimes we feel like he is playing us and he knows his letters better than he lets on, so that could be a fun trait once he gets to be a teenager). He can also count to twenty with about 90% accuracy.

--He has been potty trained since January! We put him in underwear one Saturday morning (after talking about it for a few weeks beforehand) and he only had a handful of accidents over the weekend (although Sunday morning he did walk up to Darrell and say "Daddy, I have a poppy diaper" to which Darrell had to reply "Garrett, you aren't wearing a diaper". So that was fun). Monday was a major setback, though, with at least four accidents that morning (and Darrell was out of town for work until Wednesday--great timing), but I changed how I talked to him about it (go potty when you *think* your pee is ready to come out, not when you *feel* like your pee is ready to come out), and he's pretty much been dry since (whatever it takes, right?).

--For the most part, he is very sweet and helpful (which can make it harder than heck to discipline him when he needs it!). He loves washing dishes, he gets excited about getting to match his socks and fold his pajamas (not to mention the act of putting the clothes in the washing machine in the first place!), and he is always very quick to grab his knife and pull a chair over to the counter to help us cut vegetables for dinner (although he usually ends up eating as much as he cuts, but whatever).

--Verbally, this kid is a riot. I know I mentioned last year that he must love the sound of his voice because he is always making some sort of noise, and that hasn't changed. However, as he has matured and his vocabulary has developed, he has picked up some pretty entertaining mannerisms to accompany what he is saying. He can be so animated and expressive when he is talking that I'm convinced he has a very successful future in theater ahead of him. And maybe some of the things he says/does are only entertaining because of his age (and small size, which makes him seem younger than he is), but when he drops phrases like "Thank you for making my toast not crunchy Mommy. It's so delicious" and "I don't want any cheese. Thank you for offering", I usually can't help but laugh a little.

--We were already seeing a lot of his independence at his second birthday, and not surprisingly that has only gotten stronger. While we (frequently) butt heads at the house with his tendency to push boundaries, I admire his determination at parks and playgrounds to push his own physical boundaries so he can keep up with the bigger kids (aka William). I've actually watched other parents step in to assist when he does something like climb the snake ladder for the hundredth time that summer, because admittedly, sometimes he really does look like he should be too "little" to do some of the stuff he does. Knock on wood, though--so far his fearlessness and drive to keep up with William have not resulted in any major injuries, because to his credit, he does have a pretty good understanding of what his limits are--at least on that given day.

--I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I'm really not sure what I would consider to be his "favorites" at this age. Sure, he loves Connor and his animals, but I don't know what I would say he is really interested in/enjoys doing (which--if I'm being honest--made buying Christmas and birthday presents a bit tricky). He's pretty adaptable and mostly tolerant about doing whatever William is doing, and as a result I feel like he hasn't really started to define himself/his interests more than just being William's younger brother. He'll go through phases of being really interested in something (like puzzles, art/music, cooking at the play kitchen), but he hasn't really had something that he's latched on to and stayed interested in (at least not to the degree that William latched on to trains). I suppose that's a little indicative of differences in their personalities, though--William has always had more of an ability to sit and do something for long periods of time, whereas Garrett is much more constantly on the move and jumping from one activity to the next and then back again.

Happiest of Birthday Wishes to my new favorite three year old! I'm so excited to watch where life will take you in the next year--and beyond!

Connor: Five Months!

This kid. He just loves to smile--even in the middle of the night when we would much rather see a sleeping baby than a smiling one. Good thing he's darn cute

Height/Weight: According to our scale at home, Connor has packed on nearly two pounds since his four-month well visit, putting him close to or just over seventeen pounds. I'll be curious to see next month whether that is accurate or not, because neither of his brothers hit seventeen pounds until six months (and that would finally justify my statements that he seems bigger than his brothers). And he's grown since four months, because we've had to adjust the height on his exersaucer, although I won't even attempt to gander what his height actually is.

Wearing: Remember my mentioning in his four month post that I was needing to pull out his nine-month clothes and retire his six-month clothes? Yeah, well, I finally did that--and procrastination got the best of me. Some of it was already too small. Granted, some of his fleece pajamas are still a little big, so there's the possibility that some items have just shrunk more than others (which would also explain why he's fitting into this size sooner than his brothers), but I guess we'll have more definite stats for comparison after his six-month well-visit. And he's still going strong in size three diapers.

Eating: Well, after dealing with a cold myself the end of December/early January, it's only natural that I passed it on to Connor. Thankfully, he handled the cold pretty well, although he wanted to nurse pretty constantly while he had it, which was exhausting and made it even harder for me to completely kick the cold. He's also started to get distracted while nursing, and even though I've taken to shutting myself in the nursery, I'm pretty sure he can hear his brothers drop a Lego in the kitchen and that's all it takes for him to rip his head away from my breast. So that's fun. He generally eats every two to three hours during the day, and at night we try to make him wait at least three hours between feedings, although he's usually up more often than that (also fun. Not).

Sleep: Ever heard of the four-month sleep regression? Yeah. Waking up at four in the morning with a baby who is wanting to play is not my idea of a good time. He's waking up more than he did as a newborn--and is more difficult to get back to sleep--which is not cool. I honestly can't remember the last time he gave us a stretch of sleep longer than four hours. His naps are all over the place too; we're trying to get him in his crib as much as we can, but I think the longest he's ever napped there is thirty minutes. Maybe. Occasionally he'll give us a longer stretch if we move him to his swing, but not always. I keep thinking that we just need to find this good groove of solid daytime nursing sessions (see above distraction issues caused by older brothers) and consistent naps (pretty much impossible unless I keep the older two housebound, which would drive me crazy as much as them) and then he'll sleep better at night, but I doubt we'll ever get a chance to figure that out. Instead, we'll have to just keep powering through on mediocre sleep and hope that he eventually figures out how to be happy with whatever feeding and sleeping arrangements he gets #thirdchildlife

New Stuff: Early in February, he figured out how to roll from his back to his tummy, and ever since that has been his go-to position when he's on the ground. He's still fully capable of rolling from tummy to his back, but he is definitely more content on his tummy--although I imagine that contentedness will be short-lived, because I think he is starting to get the concept of crawling but just can't execute it yet, and that's probably going to frustrate him sooner than later. He can also sit independently for a handful of seconds, but I certainly wouldn't call him a "sitter" yet. An important milestone (maybe moreso for Grandma and Grandpa than him, but whatever) is that he--and the older two--survived the first full day of being watched by my parents while I subbed (four days after we transitioned Garrett to underwear, no less!). We've also started calling him Mr. Sticky Fingers because he is grabbing for EVERYTHING, which means you really have to be on your A game if you are holding him or he might just try to lunge out of your arms. He especially seems interested in trying to grab anything we may be eating, but (much to his disappointment, I'm sure) he has to wait another month to start solid foods. These last two things aren't exactly new, but just things I don't want to forget. Connor just loves patty-cake, and if you play it with him on your lap you are almost guaranteed to get belly laughs out of him. The other good way to get him to belly laugh? Get his brothers to do something goofy. He thinks William and Garrett are just hilarious, and they think that getting him to laugh is pretty awesome. Which generally makes the whole house pretty happy. It does seem like he has a slight preference for William's company, but we suspect that is just because Garrett is not as good as respecting Connor's personal space, so Connor tends to be a little more wary when Garrett is close. I suspect that when William is out of the house this fall at kindergarten (say what?!? Not possible) Connor will be perfectly content to have Garrett around--because honestly, he's a pretty chill and easy to please kid (expect when I refuse to feed him six times in the middle of the night. Then he gets angry. But that'll pass, right? Right?!?)

Photo Every Hour: January 21st

7:00 See that face? He's saying "Don't pretend like 7:00 was when you got up for the day Mom. I had you up plenty of times before seven"

8:00 Breakfast win: Leftover (homemade!) biscuits and gravy from Saturday, plus leftover bacon from Saturday night since we made a recipe that only called for half a package

9:00 Day two of being in underwear for Garrett--and plenty of treats to reward him for keeping his underwear dry!

10:00 Okay, so this picture was taken closer to 10:30, but getting all three boys (and two adults) dressed up and out the door for church can get a little chaotic. For what it's worth, I was probably putting Garrett's shirt on around 10:00 if you want to imagine what that would have looked like ;-)

11:00 Don't tell Darrell, but I snuck a picture during the children's reading at church

12:00 Ugh. Want to know what is in that suitcase? Clothes for Darrell for the next three days. Because not only does he have meetings in Minneapolis Tuesday and Wednesday, but thanks to an incoming blizzard, he has to go up today so they get up there before the weather hits. Guess how thrilled I am

1:00 Yes, I'm having coffee with my lunch. I suspect I'm going to be having coffee with lots of meals--and in between--for the next few days

2:00 Apparently these boys were so excited for the game that they couldn't be bothered to take decent naps

3:00 Good thing Darrell is halfway to Minneapolis--this blizzard is out of control #theweathermanwhocalledwolf  Minneapolis got hit pretty hard Monday afternoon though--which was when they were originally planning to leave--so at least that justified them leaving early

4:00 Got the beer ready for the big game!

5:00 Watching the end of the AFC Championship game while waiting for the game that actually matters #skol

6:00 Off to a great start!

7:00 Yeah. I had to walk away from the game. Good thing these two cute little fans were upstairs playing and not in terrible spirits about the game

8:00 The body language says it all. The game was ugly

9:00 I'm not ashamed in the least to admit that I left this one sleeping in his car seat while I got the other two into bed

Early bedtime for me in preparation for three days (and three loooong nights) of being a single parent!

Connor: Four Months!

I know this is usually the opposite of the sentiments that I have when reflecting on the previous month, but all I can really say is damn--I'm glad that month is over. And it really isn't anything specifically that Connor did (or didn't do) that makes me glad the month is over; month three to four in his life just fell during a rough time for the whole family. It was the peak of the holiday season, which--while wonderful--was super crazy busy. And then I'm not kidding when I say I was sick for at least half, if not three-quarters, of the past month. Nothing major--a random 24 hour stomach bug on Christmas Eve (awesome timing, right?) and then a bad cold that has taken forever to shake (which is unlike me, but I'm convinced that nursing and interrupted nighttime sleep is dragging the cold out for longer than it would have lasted otherwise)--but enough to be majorly annoying. Anyway. Enough complaining. It may have been a rough and crazy month, but Connor was still pretty darn awesome through it all. Especially given all the traveling we put him through over the holidays.

Height/Weight: Per his four-month checkup, Connor was 15lbs, 4oz. Definitely a substantial drop on the percentile scale (he had been in the seventies and dropped to the forties), but he's right on par for where his brothers were, so we really aren't concerned (and neither is our pediatrician, which I suppose is the more important opinion). He was up to twenty-five and a half inches, which is just slightly taller than his brothers were at this age.

Wearing: Despite being almost identical in height and weight to his brothers at four months, I am convinced that he seems bigger. And while the scale may not agree that he is bigger, at the very least he carries his weight differently, as evidenced by the clothes and diapers he is wearing. I think the day of his four-month checkup was his last full day in size two diapers, which William wore into five months and Garrett transitioned out of a few weeks after turning four months old. And while I still have exclusively six month clothing in his closet, I find myself rotating through the same eight outfits because the majority of stuff in that size is too small (and I haven't had time to get out the nine month clothing). William was still wearing a few three month outfits at four months, and Garrett didn't start outgrowing his six month clothing until five months.

Eating: Maybe I'm a little naïve since his weight did drop nearly thirty percentile points, but it seems like his nursing is still going perfectly smoothly. Like his brothers, he gets down to business and is done pretty quickly (usually around five minutes per session during the day and a little longer at night), although like Garrett he is also starting to get more easily distracted while he nurses. Although all of our traveling--and subsequently different nursing locations--during the past month probably contributed to that.

Sleeping: Like I've mentioned a few times, we were away from home quite a bit in the past month. In fact, from December 18th to January 3rd, the longest stretch of us sleeping (overnight) at the same location was four nights--and that four night stretch wasn't even at our own house. And honestly, even with the traveling and multitude of pack-n-plays that he slept in, I think I struggled more with nighttime sleep than he did (#ihatebeingsick). Other than the fact that I am seriously ready for him to start stringing his constant daytime (cat-)napping into two or three longer naps, I don't remember any major complaints regarding his sleeping habits--and I'm not even going to attempt to piece together a "normal" sleeping routine for him at this age since there was nothing normal about the past month.

New Stuff: The obvious? His first Christmas. Meeting the majority of both mine and Darrell's extended families. First plane trip (#rockstar on that, by the way). First visit to the lake cabin with my family to celebrate Christmas. The less obvious? Mastering rolling from tummy to back, although after two days of doing it pretty consistently, he realized that he was still "stuck" after rolling, and has since occupied himself by spinning while doing tummy time. I'm not kidding when I say he has spun himself in a full circle on more than one occasion (it's a wonder his weight isn't higher, right? #not #heneverstopsmoving). He also requires an outfit change at least once a day thanks to his drool (and the fact that EVERYTHING he can get his hands on goes into his mouth)--we've had lots of people ask us if he is teething already, but we suspect this is just a fun hereditary trait (William was really bad around this age as well, and apparently Darrell drooled constantly from the day he was born).