Logan is 6 months old!

Another tough month for Logan, and yet he is so smiley and happy through all of it.  Logan had 2 ear infections this month.  The Sunday before we left on our trip, I noticed that he had all this drainage coming out of his right ear.  Sure enough, Monday they diagnosed him with an ear infection causing a perforated eardrum.  So, the whole trip he was taking antibiotics and ear drops twice a day.  Then, Monday before we came home, at dinner I noticed drainage from his left ear – Tuesday we drove home and went straight to the doctor.  Yup, another ear infection with another perforated eardrum.  So, he is now on stronger antibiotics and more ear drops.  And he has had bad diarrhea the whole time from the medicine.  But he has become great at taking medicine, the champ!  On an up note, his eczema is getting better.  With consistent baths, and a 1-2 time a day lotion routine, it was MUCH better … it went downhill a bit over the trip, but it is getting better again.

Logan is still big.  A couple week ago he was 23 lbs and 8 oz!  He is enormous and everyone comments on it.  I think he has gotten taller, too, because he looks slightly less chubby.  His 6 month appt has been delayed due to the ear infections, but in a few weeks we’ll see how he stands on the charts.

Logan loves to sit and is much better at it.  He does well in the high chair and okay in shopping carts.  He sits really well on carpet, but was a bit more unsteady on all the different surfaces he sat on on our trip.  When we got home, he seemed overjoyed to have carpet again to sit on.  I feel bad when he falls.  Often, it is because he is reaching too far forward and he falls on his tummy.  He hates being on his tummy and trying to make him do tummy time is a chore.  And he still doesn’t feel like rolling much.

He also gets excited when he’s sitting and it’s almost like he is bouncing on his bum.  Sometimes that makes him fall over, too.  He tried out our friends’ jumperoo on my graduation trip, and he LOVED jumping.  Now, sometimes he likes to jump on our laps.

He loves to play.  He grabs everything he can.  He has really gotten the hang of rattles and will shake them with abandon.  He also loves to knock over towers still.  He likes to move things that can spin.  But he most especially likes to chew on anything and everything.  Chew, chew, chew.  Everything goes into his mouth – toys, sand, receipts, paper.  Today, he grabbed a shopping list out of my purse while he was sitting in the cart and started eating it.

He still nurses about every 3 hours.  I am trying solids, but …  Well, he thinks cereal is disgusting (which it is).  I tried pureed squash today – he liked the flavor better, that was obvious.  He much prefers trying to feed himself than me putting a spoon in his mouth, even if I give him his own spoon to hold.  He also is still not sure what to do with the stuff.  It hangs out in his mouth and either he gags on it or it just comes right back out.  He seems desperate to eat though and tries to grab whatever we are eating.  He loves to gum on things – crackers, rolls, bread, tortillas, Matzo, anything he can find.  I tried Cheerios or puffs, but again, getting them in his mouth is tricky and then they just come right back out again.

He still gets upset with large crowds and noises.  He still likes to be held a lot, but is fine being on his own for a while, too, especially if the boys are around and entertaining him.  Unfortunately, that often turns into wrestling and sometimes Logan gets jostled and even if that doesn’t happen, I practically have a heart attack that he is going to get trampled.  One day, Andrew and Seth were wrestling and I looked over and Logan was trying to climb onto Seth.  No … it is starting too early!!!  Seth is starting to play with Logan more and it is so sweet.

Logan is obsessed with ceiling fixtures.  He LOVES our dining room fan.  Whenever he is in the room, he looks expectantly at the fan, waiting for us to turn it on and then he gets really excited and loves to watch it go around.  He looks around at every ceiling fixture wherever we go, whether to admire the lights or hoping for more fans, I do not know.

Logan is starting to take longer naps (yay!).  He seems to take a long nap in the afternoon (2 hours or more!); it’s hard to tell with morning naps because we are always going to and from preschool.  I hate waking Logan up when he is sleeping … it seems so cruel.  I am a little excited that preschool is almost over, so I can set our own schedule.

Fun Things This Month:

• Easter – Logan didn’t participate much.  He did enjoy chomping on Matzo when we did our Passover dinner.  He also got a cute basket from Martha (he loves Martha, by the way; his whole face lights up when he sees her).
• Park visits – we spent a lot of time at parks this month.  Logan enjoys swinging in the baby swings (very slowly) and often falls asleep.  It is SO cute!
• Trip to Michigan
• Let’s just say that driving plus ear infections was difficult – he would do well for a little while, but there was LOTS of crying.  We would stop when we could, but it was still hard.
• Playing with his friend Jack in Ann Arbor.  They are a month apart and Logan seemed interested in watching him.  Mostly, he really was interested in the jumperoo.  
• Seeing Grandma and Grandpa.  He enjoyed being held by Grandma and spending time with them.
• Seeing Mom graduate … he did really well during the ceremony considering.  Katsu yelled out when they said my name and Logan got upset and started crying.  An emotional day for everyone (ha ha ha).
• Logan did not enjoy all the different cribs he slept in.  He would be fine for a little while, but then he would wake up in the night and kick and kick and kick his legs.  He could tell it was not his crib.
• We hiked Sleeping Bear Dunes.  Logan did not love the carrier in the front position and also did not like the flies and would cry until he finally fell asleep – so maybe he was just tired.  I also hiked halfway up the Dune Climb with him and then let him play in the sand which he enjoyed.
• Logan liked being on the back carrier at the Meijer Gardens much better and seemed to mostly enjoy it, especially when I danced him between the different sculptures.

Seth is 2 years 10 months old!

Okay, so I am a little late on the update.  I was too busy / worked up to post before we went on our trip and now we are back and it’s time to get back to business.

Seth is still doing great on potty-training.  Even on our trip.  He was good at holding it and except for one tense moment (going through the toll roads/highway interchanges in Chicagoland hell where we quickly had to throw a pull-up on him when there were no stops to be seen), he did great!  He has figured out the whole peeing standing up thing and also wipes his own bum sometimes!  It’s like Andrew potty-training over years compressed into a couple months!  Seth always wants to be completely independent, so it just fits in with that.

Seth whines and whines and whines.  Sometimes I wonder if he knows how to talk without whining, but every now and then some real language will emerge.  I am hoping this is just a stage and not an omen of things to come forevermore.  He talks a lot.  He has a lot to say about everything.  I love this age when he just loves to pronounce things, all matter-of-factly.  You can just almost see the wheels turning and him figuring everything out.

Seth is obsessed with good versus evil and fighting and guns and army things.  Andrew and he are blowing things up all day long.  It is a little quieter when Andrew is in preschool and we get some book reading in (and now, he likes to play on the computer a little bit on starfall – so young, but he has figured out the laptop non-mouse).

Seth has started to take a real shine to Logan.  He likes to spend time with him just by himself and gets mad when Andrew tries to butt in.  He says “Logan loves me (not Andrew!).”  He gets very excited when Logan smiles at him or touches him.  It is cute to see the two of them being brothers.

Seth had a fun time on our trip.  I think he has a kind of hard time making transitions, so on the way home he was crying that he wanted to “stay in Missouri”.  I tried to explain to him that he lived in Missouri, but that kind of went on deaf ears.  He mostly wanted to keep staying in the “hotel with all the pillows”.  Nevermind that we have plenty of pillows and that he doesn’t particularly like to sleep on them – that hotel had awesome pillow fights, of course.  He really enjoyed playing with his friend Charlie.  Seth doesn’t get too many play dates here, so it was so fun to have someone just his age.

Fun things this month:

• Mo Willems Author Event – our first and the boys really enjoyed it.  Seth enjoyed watching the movies especially and was transfixed when Mo read his newest book.
• Easter
  • Seth was a master egg finder – at one of the egg hunts, he got so many eggs, I was embarrassed.  He had substantially more than any of the other kids.  But I didn’t help him at all – he just went out there and was at it.  I could barely find him half the time.
  • Palm Sunday – Palm branches, dying eggs, and a nature walk
  • Tuesday – talking about parables, eggs from Grandma
  • Thursday – a little Passover – well, matzo, bitter herbs, grape juice and lentil soup to eat.  Lamb was just too expensive.  The boys LOVED it.
  • Friday – making Resurrection cookies and talking about the crucifixion.
  • Saturday – making Resurrection rolls.  Easter Egg hunt.  Jerusalem dinner – food that Jesus ate – olives, goat cheese, cheddar cheese, pitas, hummus, figs, apricots, grapes – boys also loved it … while we watched Tin-Tin (okay, not so Eastery)
  • Sunday – talking about resurrection, eating rolls and egg casserole and of course, the Easter Bunny and an easter basket from Martha, plus ham and brocolli and devilled eggs for Easter dinner.
  • Monday – fish and honeycomb for dinner and talked about resurrection some more.
• Stories in the Park – the new nature playground opened in Richmond Heights and the boys have loved playing there, especially in the sand area.  Seth was signed up for the Stories in the Park class, so each week in April, we went to the park for stories, a craft, and a snack.  Seth LOVED it.  The second week we decorated plastic cups and then planted grass and Seth was so excited to watch his grass grow.
• Opening Day for the Cardinals.  We didn’t think Seth would be able to go (we only had 2 tickets), but it turns out he was young enough to go without a ticket.  It was pouring rain and the game was delayed for 90 minutes plus they had gotten there quite early … so it was a long time, but Seth had so much fun.  He really loves sports … although maybe not watching baseball so much.  He was mostly excited about eating fruit snacks and cracker jacks.
• Trip to Michigan
  • Playing with friends in Ann Arbor (basically killing each other all day long for three days and learning to do a scooter), seeing Grandma and Grandpa.  Seth was so excited to see his grandparents (we were still in our neighborhood and he was already asking if we were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house), especially when he was beating up on Grandpa (poor Grandpa).
  • Seeing Mom graduate … not sure he was actually excited about it, but it was the reason for the visit.
  • Staying in a fun hotel in Traverse City with two floors.  He feel down the stairs almost as soon as we got there – it looked like he feel on his neck, but he was thankfully okay, but we were all scared half to death.  Learned the wonders of Sponge Bob (yikes!).
  • Hiked the dune at Sleeping Bear with Dad and collected rocks along the seashore.
  • Playing at the park in Traverse City.
  • Running around like crazy at the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park – loved the caterpillars and butterflies inside and got himself soaking weight in the water exhibit in the Children’s Garden running the boats along the Great Lakes.  Loved the mazes and tolerated our seeing the sculptures in the rest of the Garden.
  • Slept through most of the Ford Presidential Museum and threw fits when he couldn’t push Logan in the stroller the rest of the time.
  • Liked looking at the flowers in Holland.
  • Never wanted to leave …

Three Boys

Andrew is 4 years 11 months old

I think Andrew is really ready for kindergarten or something with structure for more of the day.  This has kind of been a tough month.  First, he had the flu and missed a couple days of preschool and then he had two weeks off from preschool and oh, how much he told me about how he missed his friends.  And the last week or two … he has been a HANDFUL.  I just can not believe how much trouble the boys have been getting into.  Andrew kind of gets into this trance where he won’t listen to me and is just very disobedient.  He throws things, says mean or unkind things to me, laughs maniacally and spits and is just totally crazy.  I have been trying to pre-empt it and stuff like that this week.  We’ll see if we can get some improvement.  Hopefully.

On the other hand, Andrew can be so sweet and good some of the time.  He really loved Easter time this year.  I could tell that he really looked forward to doing the activities and watching the bible videos each night.  And I can’t believe how much the kids loved the Passover dinner and our “Jesus foods” dinner and honeycomb.  Andrew told his teacher on Good Friday how “this is a very sad day because Jesus died”.  Although Andrew told us after last week, we didn’t need to have Family Home Evening because we have been having so many.  He doesn’t like church, but he seems to be really intune with spiritual things.  He has been telling me about how he has been feeling the Holy Ghost and how we need to remember to pray every morning and night.

Andrew hasn’t been eating much.  He goes into these tantrums at the drop of a hat – “I don’t like that food”, “I don’t like blue plates” and then refuses to eat.  Sometimes he eats no lunch at all or a snack.  Sigh …  Of course, if I let him eat fried rice 3x a day, he would probably eat tons.  He loves that stuff.  He also loves any Asian food.  We have 2 tickets to the Cardinals opening day and we were trying to figure out who was going.  I said I could take the other boy out to get Chinese food – and now, both boys want to get Chinese food and don’t want to go to the baseball game!

Andrew has decided he wants to do gymnastics as an activity.  He thinks it will be really good for him.  He doesn’t want to do dance because he already knows all the moves (ha ha ha).  We’ll have to try to find him a class.  I feel a little bad that he doesn’t have any activities yet, but I feel a little too lazy to do them with him.

Andrew and Seth have been playing a lot together this last month, usually happily.  But the cars a constant set of problems, so we split them up and labeled most of them.  I think this is helping, though Andrew still tries to help himself to most of them sometimes because he always has some good idea, that he is trying to convince Seth of.  They have also been wrestling constantly.  I do not quite understand the compulsion to wrestle.  Like, why do you need to wrestle in the library?  Or in the grocery cart?  Why????

Otherwise, a good month.  Andrew is almost 5 and I can barely believe it.

Fun Things We Did This Month

• Flu – okay, this was not too fun, but definitely noteworthy.  Andrew got Tamiflu and perhaps this is why he had to the shortest of all and recovered fastest.  He did throw up quite a bit, which no one else did, though, so maybe that evens it out.  Poor kid.
• Shaw Nature Reserve and Purina Farms.  Andrew enjoyed the dog show and thought seeing the animals was fun.  I wasn’t sure how he would like the dog show, since he is kind of scared of dogs and doesn’t like them to be near him.  He loved the nature at the Shaw Nature Reserve – he always loves to tell me about how much he loves nature and how he is a nature boy and knows so much about it.  He really loved the children’s play area there.  Of course, their favorite part was McDonalds afterwards.
• Egg Hunts – we did two.  I think I am bad at overdoing it, but I love holidays.  We did one in Maplewood and then one in Des Peres the next weekend.  The one in Des Peres, you had to take a trolley to, which the boys thought was pretty fun.  Andrew was upset that he got less eggs than Seth and was kind of throwing a fit about it, but he eventually got over it (and he had lots of eggs besides).
• Letterboxing – we did one with just me and the boys at Stacey Park, which is close and was a little tricky to find.  Andrew found it actually and of course, he told everyone we ran into about the “treasure” and all the adults just kind of give me a knowing wink.  It’s pretty cute.  We also did one in a park near the temple in Town and Country.  It had three boxes and was pretty tricky, but we found them all.  And the boys really enjoyed the park and especially seeing all the caterpillars on the hiking paths.
• Mo Willems Author Event – our first and the boys really enjoyed it.  Andrew was laughing out loud at the reading of the new Elephant and Piggie book.  They weren’t too interested to actually see Mo, but they loved the videos he showed.
• Easter
• Palm Sunday – Palm branches, dying eggs, and a nature walk
• Tuesday – talking about parables, eggs from Grandma
• Thursday – a little Passover – well, matzo, bitter herbs, grape juice and lentil soup to eat.  Lamb was just too expensive.  Andrew loved this – I think because we have spent so much time studying Moses and the Exodus.  The boys LOVED it.
• Friday – making Resurrection cookies and talking about the crucifixion.
• Saturday – making Resurrection rolls.  Easter Egg hunt.  Jerusalem dinner – food that Jesus ate – olives, goat cheese, cheddar cheese, pitas, hummus, figs, apricots, grapes – boys also loved it … while we watched Tin-Tin (okay, not so Eastery)
• Sunday – talking about resurrection, eating rolls and egg casserole and of course, the Easter Bunny and an easter basket from Martha, plus ham and brocolli and devilled eggs for Easter dinner.
• Monday – fish and honeycomb for dinner and talked about resurrection some more.