Henry Mercer - 21 months old

This kid is hilarious. Seriously. And he loves the attention he gets from it!

His current favorites: still balls, balloons, Word World, slides

He knows the letters i and o (because of watching Word World all summer). Sometimes he can pick out T, E, and D.

He's learning new words everyday - but won't always use them.

He loves to throw away dirty diapers. If you try to do it without him, he'll chase after you yelling, "trash! trash!"

Yesterday - I told him he had to say "grapes, please" before I would open the fridge. He gave me a big kiss. He always wins!

Owen's 2 Month Stats...

Owen had his well child check up today!

Weight = 13 lbs 6 oz - 84th percentile
Height = 24.5 inches - 90th percentile

Hearing "I can tell he gets a lot of interaction." or "Wow, that's a three month skill" from the doctor warms my heart.

Hearing "He probably had a pulled neck muscle and you didn't ... appreciate it" makes me cry.

(and what does that even mean? "appreciate it" ? just say what you mean, I either ignored it or didn't notice)

We did notice that he favors turning his head to his left, but I didn't think it was that big of an issue. We've been working on getting him to look the other way, but apparently we need to work harder at it. His ears are now off by an inch because of this -- how weird is it that how your baby lays affects how his head ends up being shaped right now?!? So we have a month to fix it or else he'll be referred to massage therapy or something.

At least he's happier these days - even if his ears are lopsided :)

Owen - 2 Months Old

Today Owen is 8 weeks and 5 days old, or 2 months according to the calendar.

The last week has not been fun. But, the past 16 hours have been an amazing improvement. Read on for more details...


WAKE TIME
We were really struggling here. Due to constant waking early, Owen was always tired. I never knew when to put him down for naps. After a good car ride nap yesterday, I started really focusing on getting him down exactly 60 minutes after he woke. It worked great for his last two naps yesterday, and first nap today. He still fights it, and might cry and squirm, but it seems he needs to throw a little hissy fit to fall asleep. 5 minutes of fighting it is much better than the hour of screaming we were getting. So - the next couple days I am going to focus on this, and see what happens.

Feeding
After Owen eating two four ounce bottles in 2 hours time yesterday, I had a thought. Umm, hello - what if he's still hungry and that's our sleeping issue? So, again, once we got home from our errands, I made a change. I bumped him up to 5 ounce bottles. And again, so far he seems to be doing better. If my baby was a freak for a week because I wasn't feeding him enough, I will ... well, I just feel like a bad mom!

GAS
Same - gas drops at every feeding. He still farts. All. the. time. And we've really been working on getting his burps out. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes of patting him on the back, and then a huge one will come out.

NAPS
They were lasting only 20 minutes at a time. He was even rejecting his bouncey seat. But - with the adjustments already discussed, he's had 3 good naps. I'm working on the routine of swaddling him with his arms out, rocking and singing, then laying in pack and play. So far they've been like this:

Yesterday Afternoon Nap: 10 min. in pack and play, 60 min. in bouncey (bounced on and off)
Yesterday Evening Nap: 15 min. in pack and play, 45 min in bouncey
Today Morning Nap: 45 (!!!) min. in pack and play, currently in bouncey...

Again - it appears that my child wasn't napping because I a.) wasn't feeding him enough and b.) wasn't being consistent with wake-times and routines.

All of these things I knew were important, and I just chose not to go with them for whatever selfish reason of summer fun... not cool mom, not cool.


NIGHTTIME SLEEP
Same here - except he has had a couple nights of sleeping through the night! But most nights, he gets up once to eat. However, he now is fighting returning to his pack and play and loves to sleep with me in our bed. Which is great because he goes back to sleep for a long time - but I only get light sleep because I'm worried about him ... I always lay him on a diagonal so his head is far away from me and his feet are curled up into my side, but it still makes me nervous.

OUTINGS/EVENTS
We've been busy busy busy --- at first Owen did better on outings and car rides. Yesterday, not so much.

SAHM
My summer as a SAHM is quickly coming to an end. I am excited to get into gear of teaching a new grade -- but am starting to get really, really anxious about sending the boys to daycare all day. Thankfully we have an amazing daycare provider, and I know they'll be fine... but it's more me being sad that I'll miss out on so much Owen time that I was able to have when Henry was young. I know, I know, poor me. At least I have a job that we needed me to have. And at least I have two amazing boys to love and miss all day.

And now - for Owen's photo frenzy :)

Twinkle Toes...

For those of you not on FB ... check out these moves :)


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Henry Mercer - 20 Months Old

Oh, where does the time go? I cannot believe how big Henry is getting!

His loves are still the same: Balls, Outside, and Running.

His latest trickeries involve setting up elaborate scenes for him to "fall" off of. Example: his giraffe bike, with his popper and school bus underneath - each put in an exact location, so that he can fall over the handle bars.

He also has some new twinkle toes dance moves - I need to work on getting that video uploaded because it is hilarious.

Owen - 6 Weeks Old

Oh, how the time is flying by!! Our summer vacation is half way over - this makes me sad for the time with my children and fun summer activities, but also excited and anxious as I'm starting yet another new grade this year. I'm considering starting a different blog for that adventure - but then again, who has time for such things? I can barely keep up with this one!


WAKE TIME
Still no clue -- I thought it was exactly 60 minutes, but sometimes it seems to be more, and sometimes less. He is so, so confusing during the day.

NURSING
All done with nursing and pumping. Bittersweet really.

GAS
He still gets gas drops after each feeding. We've also moved to the Gentle formula. He no longer wakes up or screams when he has to pass gas.

NAPS
On the average day - Owen takes several 10-30 min. cat naps throughout the day. You need to bounce or rock him for him to sleep, or drive him in the car. This is so not ideal. The only good part is by mid-afternoon he's so exhausted he will sleep with me during Henry's nap time, so I usually get at least a 30 min. snoozer in there too. The problem is I was going to stay home and do CIO bootcamp next week when it's going to be miserably hot outside - but really, the problem isn't him falling asleep. It's staying asleep. I cannot figure out what's waking him up all the time.

NIGHTTIME SLEEP
Lovely here -- he goes down still between 8-9:30ish - gets up usually only once to eat, and goes right back down most nights. Once in a while he's awake and I need to bouncy seat him for 15-20 min. before we go back to bed.

OUTINGS/EVENTS
Owens best napping happened this week when we took a car ride at every single nap time. He took 3 solid naps this day. And he was a happier, more interactive baby because of it. I know he needs better naps.

EMOTIONS
Doing much better here - only had one evening of major breakdown this last week.

HEARING
Owen passed his hearing test! Thank goodness!

SAHM
Oh, this is not easy. The thought "Why on earth does anyone ever have more children" has entered my mind more than once. I am so lucky that Nick gets out of work at 2pm so he's home by 3 most nights. And I'm so so lucky that he's unbelievably helpful with our children!

My other issue here is that Henry does so much better (as do I) when we try to get out of the house at least every other day, if not every day. But to really sleep train Owen, I need to commit to being home all day for a week or two. Hmmm...

We have been having lots of fun traveling to visit friends, toddler time at the library, and the zoo.

Henry - 19 months and 2 weeks

Here's what's going on in Henry's world these days:

He's talking. We all just have no idea what he's saying!! He has a few words that I can decode, but for the most part - it's all mush.

One of my favorite things he does right now - is as he's walking away, sometimes he turns around - leans in - and says something. You can tell whatever it is - he means business and it's important to him. Then, you have to reply before he'll turn around and continue walking away. So cute.

When he runs - he swings one arm like crazy. Sometimes he even leads with that side arm. I think it's the right arm ... hilarious to watch!

He's starting to take notice of his baby brother. When Owen cries - Henry runs to him. He throws his paci at him. He messes with the swing buttons or bouncy seat to soothe him. He pats his head. So cute - but I really have to be on my game keeping watch. He recently tried to pick up his little cousin who's only 2 weeks older. Yipes!

He's fiesty and tantrumy. We're entering "that" stage. Time-outs are happening. Often, I have to remember to keep my temper and go through the proper steps, instead of just jumping to yelling and consequences.

Overall -- he's just a boy. A wild, on the go, breaking books, knocking down towers, roaring with dinosaurs boy. I love him to pieces :)