Our Goin Life

Quick post. Lee is here! But I have a bunch of videos to catch up on. I am sure there will be more to post from his visit as well.

Here is Paul T being. Watching his brother and Daddy play. I bet he wishes he could get up and play too. Soon Paul T, don’t rush please!

He was talking when I started the vid but he stopped when i started filming!

Andrew the Ninja!

I have more but for the sake of your browsers I will make another post soon with them!

Paul T, not yet 6 months old and not even fully crawling yet, is already trying to reach up like he is going to pull himself to standing! I don’t think he will until after he crawls and sits from crawling on his own all the way. He is doing both of these things already kinda, but it’s like he won’t sit up all the way and he won’t crawl more than 2 “steps” and now he’s starting to reach up for things. Like today he was going for the night light on their room’s wall and in the bath tub he tries to get the silver circle thing, don’t know what that is. Andrew was pulling up to standing at 7 months so it won’t surprise me if Paul does it pretty soon too. He loves to stand when someone holds him and today he even moved his legs like he was walking while Daddy walked him.

Andrew can catch! We have been playing “catch” with him since he could sit. I used to roll a ball to him and he’d roll it back. Some of you may even recall a video from back then I love playing catch! I could do it for hours I swear. And since he’s been old enough to throw he’s been throwing and we’ve been throwing back, and he’s been chasing the ball to retrieve it! Both Andy and I worked with him on things like keep your eye on the ball and hold your hands out in front of you. It didn’t seem to be sticking. I figured he just didn’t get it yet, and I guess he didn’t, until yesterday! Now if you throw a ball (soft balls of course) to him directly he will catch it more times than not! And he’s always had a good throwing arm, throws right to me most times. And the cool thing is if I miss it and the ball goes flying, HE wants to go get it! Ah, I love playing catch.

I do have a video of some wrasslin but I can’t get it going right now. It is late, Paul is sleeping and Andrew is about to fall asleep on the couch right now. I don’t want to disturb them by playing the video so I will try and make another post tomorrow to put it up – I haven’t seen it myself but it should be pretty cute.

Also, Grandpa Lee should be here tomorrow! I am so excited! Can’t wait to see what Andrew thinks of having him around for a week or so. And can’t wait to see what Andrew thinks of his brilliant grandsons! Well, Andrew is super smart, we don’t know yet if Paul T is too but I can assume he is too since he is my child and I must think nothing less from him! You moms know how it is.

Anyway, Lee is driving in tomorrow evening and plans to stay for a week I think. We’ll take it easy. No big trips planned no days to Six Flags or zoos or anything extravagant. Just walking around here playing at the parks and generally letting him get to know the kids. It’ll be fun and relaxing.

Accept for poor Andy. He is super busy right now! It’s a good thing. After the drought we had last fall when we didn’t think we could pay our bills let alone buy Christmas gifts, it is a welcome change. But it’s a bad week to be so busy with our guest coming. And it does still induce stress, a better stress but a stress nonetheless!

Gotta go give back tickles!

Well we did it. We’ve been talking about getting Andrew his own bed in his room for a long time. Since about the beginning of the year. We set a goal of having it in there by April. No rush on getting him to sleep in there either. Just naps for now. But he likes it and I have a feeling he wants to go to bed in there soon. Last night when he was tired he went to his bed first and not the chair for rocking! *sniff

At first I had said let’s wait until he is fully weaned to push a bed on him. Too much change all at once. But it’s one of those things that we followed his lead with. Well, gentle nudges to see how he liked it. We started putting him on a blanket on the floor in his room when he fell asleep in the van. Andy would set up his toys for him in there and he seemed to wake up excited to be sleeping with all of his toys. Then I rearranged his room to allow for a ‘permanent’ blanket on the floor that he could see all the time. He could lay there and watch shows and take naps on it. And it was where we planned to put the actual bed when we got it.

My mom had a day bed she said we could use until we needed something more. Perhaps when Paul T is ready for a bed too and we can move him into the same room – BUNK BEDS! The thing we really like about the day bed is if we turn it toward the wall it has a built in rail to keep him from falling out.

Andrew really does love it. He plays in there. He gets up there and throws everything out. He climbs in and out of it. He lays and watches a show. He’s slept in it once when we first brought it home. He fell asleep in the van and Andy and I rushed to get it put together while Andrew slept on the couch (Paul was helping us) and when it was ready we put Andrew in it. He slept through all that and woke up to find himself in his new big bed in his room with Mommy and Daddy looking at him! He seemed very happy about it.

We had talked about it for a while too. We let him know we were going to get it for a few days before we went. We showed it to him at my mom’s house before that even. We just really prepared him (and me!) and went super slow. We plan to do the same thing with gently encouraging him to sleep there. But he will always be welcome back into our bed if he needs it sometimes.

I must admit I am a bit sad. It’s a happy sad. I’m also not sure how to get this started. We got a nightlight for in there and we’ll keep lights on throughout the apartment in case he wakes at night and wants to come to our bed. But I just don’t know how to start the process. Andy has said he’d sleep in there on the floor if need be for a while. Again, we aren’t rushing and what we need to do will unfold naturally I am sure.

And Paul T is so close to real crawling, he even takes “steps” before collapsing. He is going forward using his moves now. His second tooth is almost out. Thought I felt it this morning. I need to check again since he’s had a nap and things grow best when sleeping. He is also about to sit up from his crawl position. He can sit for a while on his own but going into that sit position is a big deal. Makes for much easier examination of toys and things.

Look for pics on the web album of Andrew new bed!

We have a first TOOTH! Ah, yes. Finally the right front bottom tooth has broken the surface and may now scratch up any finger that gets near it. But alas the one right next door is still trying to bust through so no clear skies just yet, but the gray is fading.

And our Second first… a sunburn! Pobrecito! Poor baby Paul T! We went to the zoo for a ST Patty’s day celebration, they had a $1 entry fee for the small one in Gainesville. I made sure to bring Paul’s hat because he is too young for sunscreen. And we were out once for 4 hours at a park a few weeks back and his head got a little pink, wouldn’t count it as a sunburn though. But it didn’t occur to me that his arms would be exposed! Daddy carried him all through the zoo and it wasn’t long before Paul T passed out. I got the hat to cover his whole face head and neck, but his little fat arms were just dangling right out. That night I noticed they had turned pink. It isn’t too bad and it really doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Andrew never got a sunburn as a baby and in fact out of the 4 of us was the only one to not get any burn yesterday! I didn’t even sunscreen him much. Not that it would have mattered, I put a lot on myself and still got burned. When Andrew was a baby though we didn’t go to outdoor events much, no need. Now that we have Andrew who enjoys parks and the zoo and such, poor baby Paul T gets dragged along. He does enjoy it and if he is tired can sleep, but I think he prefers to stay home and work on crawling.

Which btw, is almost down. He gets around here somehow. I haven’t quite locked down how he is doing it but it isn’t quite crawling I can tell that for sure. He gets up on hands and knees and rocks, pushes up onto his feet and then falls down. He rolls and scootches. Not really a full scoot, like an army crawl like Andrew did for so long, but a scootch. You’d know what I mean if you saw him. He gets all over the place with these little movements though. And it’s funny because I’ll watch him for a long time and he won’t get far, then I’ll go do something for a second and come back and he’s on the other side of the room. And if I ask Andrew how did Paul do that, he just says “roll.” Like it’s no big deal and he barely even noticed!

The 2 of them are quite the pair. i dont’ get nearly as many pics and vids as I’d like to because Andrew is often naked. I try to get him to wear pants or shorts or underwear or something but it isn’t worth the fight unless we are going outside. I do wish I could get more pics of them together. And a video of them wrestling! That is hilarious! I’ll shoot for that this week.

Andrew and I planted some seeds in a pot outside and they are growing! One is marigolds, the flowers that we had at our last place that he liked to pick so much, and the other, sweet basil. If that grows, Andy will be thrilled! We do have a few little sprouts popping up and we check it every day. I dont’ know for sure if Andrew gets what is going on, he tried to pick one of the sprouts today, but I keep telling him and we’ll do it every year! We also, got a cute plant pot from my mom for St Patty’s day that you put herb seeds in and grow indoors so we did that too. Hope those grow!

I updated the pics in March’s folder with a few from the zoo and more from just whatever BS we do around here!
March pics

Here’s a few videos too!

This is a game Andrew and I play sometimes. This time I happen to have Paul T on my lap because he was upset and this seemed to help cheer him up big time! Phwew what a workout!

First real air hockey attempt. He wanted ZERO help to play this! It was so funny. Daddy would try to lift him up and he would say ‘DOWN, Anam dood it!’ So Daddy feeling useless whipped out the cam and videoed it instead. Good move!

And here are the feed the animals videos from the zoo. Remember this was dollar day so it was very busy and the animals just aren’t that hungry since I am sure hundreds of people had already been by feeding them. One of the food dispenser machines was completely empty even!

I know there is so much more I wanted to tell you about here but I am so tired and it is late and I forget. We’re so busy and so not! We stay home as much as possible but always seem to be running around to the store or outside to play and walk, then end up walking to the mall or Best Buy to play more. Andy has been meeting clients every week and is comfortably busy right now, and we are enjoying it while it lasts. Tomorrow he has a meeting at the mall, so we are all going, the boys and I will walk over there to meet up with him. Andrew can’t get enough of playing trains at the mall!

Grandpa Lee comes in about a week to visit for a while and I am so excited! I am telling Andrew all the time about it so he’ll be ready for a new visitor. Though they have met before Andrew was only 8 months old. He gets it too, today he made one of his phone calls and when I asked who it was, he said Grandpa Lee!

Seems that this teething issue with Paul T is well justified on his part. He really does remarkably well when he isn’t over tired. But I found the source of his great discomfort just the other day, looks like he has not one but TWO bumps coming in on the bottom at the same time! Not something Andrew ever dealt with. Andrew got one at a time, every month from 5 months old to the time his first year molars were done. Fortunately for Paul (and the rest of us) the teething tablets seem to help. In fact tonight I forgot them before starting to try and put everyone to sleep and it wasn’t happening until I got them for him. He just kept whimpering, the poor baby, like he was trying to sleep but couldn’t. Gave him some tablets, nursed him some more, and he conked out. Now let’s see if it lasts!

Paul T is also getting up on all 4s now and trying to crawl forward. He goes backwards well but that doesn’t do him any good when the object of his desire is in front of him. As a matter of fact this causes quite a bit of stress to the little dear. Sometimes he works it out by rolling around and scootching until he can reach it. Sometimes he just scoots farther and farther back away until he is under Daddy’s chair or almost into another room and we have to get him. I can’t even imagine what we’ll do when he is fully mobile. Our home is well toddler proofed of course and Andrew is smart and knows what is allowed and what isn’t, but we haven’t baby proofed in a long time. I remember when Andrew was crawling and cruising, we’d block him into one area so we may have to try and work that out…. somehow.

Speaking of those old days, who remembers this?
Andrew at about 6 months or so

I was checking out our old blog posts to see when Andrew started crawling. Looks like it was pretty close to now since that post is mid-April and the video may be several days prior to the posting!

Our unschooling lifestyle struck again today. I am so pleased when I am able to let go and let childhood happen. It doesn’t work for me at bedtime and I don’t think that is the time, at this age anyway, to let our children explore and experiment fully. But in the middle of the afternoon when there is nothing going on but play, sure anything goes. Andrew says today, “belly hurts.” this is a common phrase around here lately. We all had the tummy funk a while back and then Daddy had it again recently for almost a week straight so Andrew has heard that phrase a bit more than usual. He says it a lot too and it means a lot of things. Sometimes, it means he is sleepy, sometimes, he needs attention, sometimes he has to poop! And sometimes, like today, he is just playing. I of course react a bit strongly since I cleaned up so much vomit from him I am leary of it happening again. I asked him if his belly hurt and he said “no Green Guy.” Green Guy has made an appearance in several photos and even a few videos. he’s just a goofy little stuffed thing I got when I worked retail. I found it in a tub of my old things and let him play with it and he latched on to it.

Anyway, I asked what Green Guy needed for his belly ache and Andrew said a bath. I let him take the toy in the bath tub once before. It’s stuffed and got soaked of course but it is small and it was no big deal. I thought today we’d try something new. I took Andrew to the bathroom. We cleaned up around the sink and rinsed out all mommy hairs (they are everywhere!) and I filled the sink up almost halfway with water and said, bath!

Andrew had a blast. I took the trash out of the room and got all the laundry out. Everything else was fair game. It’s just water. In fact drying up the floor was a nice easy way to clean it! Andrew proceeded to bathe Green Guy, soap and all, then throw his water logged form all around the bathroom splattering water everywhere. I stayed out. When Andrew was done, he let me know. It took less than 3 minutes to dry everything off, and 3 minutes is far less time and effort from me than the amount of joy he received from his play (and I received!). Green Guy was another story. I rung him out and draped him for a bit then while Andrew napped I threw the well loved toy in the dryer. When Andrew got up I showed him his buddy in the dryer all ready to go. Instead of being thrilled like I expected he informed me that he wasn’t dry enough yet and put him back in and let me know Andrew “do’ed” it when he closed the door! He’s so funny.

Andrew is totally in that phase of doing everything for himself. I usually love it and try to cling to the usually times in my mind when I am not loving it so much. He is even insisting on walking (running) on his own around the store with us when we go shopping. He does so well at staying close to the cart and when he gets too far he runs back when we call him. Of course he runs into people sometimes, but I dont’ see too many other 2.5 year olds that are as trusted by their parents to run free and are well behaved enough to stay close by and can handle it. I am, as always, well aware of the fact that this could change at any moment. In those cases, having food for him to eat in the cart pretty much always works!

Speaking of food, Paul T is about ready to eat. I had wanted to wait even longer with him than I did with Andrew but he is showing signs of readiness I cannot deny. he isn’t quite sitting on his own fully yet but he will for some time and if I support him and push him back up, he sits for quite a while. But his tongue thrust reflex is pretty much gone and I see his little pincers getting ready to work on things as he rolls around on the floor. So yesterday while he gazed longingly at the banana I was eating, I mushed him off a bit and put it in front of him on my finger. He grabbed my finger and pulled it to his mouth – he was in his bouncy chair – and chomped away! Loved it! I gave him about 3 or 4 bites and most of it stayed in his mouth. I gave him a bit more this morning too. Maybe in a few weeks he can have some avocado.

i dont’ plan to go to the great efforts i did with Andrew until he is closer to 8 months or so and really needing to try foods. For now he will only get to eat things I can mush and don’t have to cook. Pretty much limits him to bananas and avocados! I do fully intend to be just as strict about food intro-ing with him as I was with Andrew. There’s no need to rush things when they have a whole lifetime to eat and it’s only one short year for the sake of safety and funny developing their guts.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, so much is happening here I want to share with everyone and my opportunities to type are few and far between. I’d rather be sleeping right now even but I wanted to get these things down before I forgot.

Enjoy your weekend!

I had to post really quick to say how much I love this! I am so tired I can barely stop rubbing my eyes. But I am so happy as I sit and watch my family enjoy the evening. Paul T is lying on the floor with a small toy he’s been working on for almost 20 minutes now. He’s twisting it in his hands, watching his hands, watching the toy, switching from hand to hand, putting it into his mouth, dropping it and getting frustrated and then finding it, rolling around, but mostly on his back, and then he’ll take off kicking like he is running in place but lying down on his back. So cute!

Andrew and Daddy are wrestling. Andrew cannot get enough! Andy will be sore tomorrow I think. lol Andrew is jumping off the couch onto his Daddy, Daddy is body slamming him on to the couch and getting him in holds and just all around good wrestles fun.

This is truly awesome and what it is all about! I have a feeling we will all crash soon, but for now, I want to enjoy the moment, but preserve it here as well.

Well as usual I spoke to soon when I said that Paul T was handling this whole teething thing better than Andrew did! Serves me right for making a comparison I suppose. I think I see a small bulge in the area of a bottom front tooth in Paul’s mouth so hopefully this puppy is popping out soon. He is so miserable. He does sleep pretty well at night so far but day time naps are challenging. And like the rest of our clan, he is pretty grumpy when tired. It must be so hard for him to take naps though when big brother is up and around and playing or watching fun shows. Not to mention he is so close to crawling, I think he wants to just keep trying and to keep exploring all this cool stuff we have around here!

I cut Andrew’s hair myself and didn’t destroy it! I just trimmed up the back. We had both really hoped to grow it a bit long again as long as Andrew still likes it of course. But now I am wondering if we’ll be able to. I mean here it is the start of March and Andrew already gets super sweaty out on our walks. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for him when we hit the 3 digit mark.

Here’s a couple of short fun videos for you too!

This one is Andrew’s work:

Same night, Andrew shaking Paul T’s hand. And don’t worry he is wearing his underwear under that big old Tshirt!:

Happy days now that the sun stays up past 6!

I am sure I am biased about that though!

I did these this morning while hanging with the kiddos before Daddy got up (he was still a bit sick last night – will this never end!).

Here is Andrew playing with number flash cards. He really likes numbers and counting right now, even calls letters numbers. And he is so close to counting to 10! He just gets too excited and starts shouting random numbers. But I think this video is pretty cool. Almost 29 months old.

I think he gets nervous in front of the camera. I can’t say I blame him…

Here’s Paul T. Honestly, this one may bore those of you not directly related to and amazed by our babies! lol There isn’t too much going on and it is a bit long. But I think it is awesome! I was waiting for Paul T to roll or something but he mostly just gets after the cat. He gets all over the floor nowadays but I haven’t managed to get a good video of it. I’ll work on that this week before he starts crawling for real.

At the beginning you can see how Andrew was taking every toy I gave to Paul T away from him. But Andrew decided on something he was comfortable with Paul having. Andrew is getting more frustrated by Paul T now that he can get around and grab at whatever Andrew is doing. One minute a toy will be OK for Paul, and then the next, Andrew must have that one and Paul is not allowed to play with it.
For now it is OK since Paul is easy going about things and will happily accept something else to grab at. I work with Andrew on getting another toy for Paul T when he takes one away so Paul isn’t left with nothing. Hopefully Andrew will outgrow this some before Paul really starts to care about it. But I am sure with brothers, there will always be some possessions arguments. We will work hard to find solutions that can satisfy all parties, and I do look forward to the challenge!

Hope you like the videos and see no naked butts!