boys will be boys...: June 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Usually on Sunday evenings, Todd's family comes over for a big family dinner. It's honestly one of my favorite times of the week (with the exception of clean-up). I love to see my boys interacting with Todd's parents and my brother-in-law. This past Sunday we did a cookout, and the boys got to use the pool for the first time this summer. Logan is fearless around the water, especially since swimming lessons. It worries me a lot. Actually, that afternoon Todd was out back running the weed eater and Logan was watching him. Todd looked up and couldn't see where Logan was, and when he finally found him he was sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in. Yikes! We will be getting a gate for the pool deck very soon. Anyway, both of my boys really like the water. On this particular day, we had Logan wear his life jacket in the water for a few reasons. We wanted to make sure that he didn't fall in while we were all hanging out outside, and I kind of wanted to see how much swimming we could get him to do on his own. The water was chilly, and he was a little tentative at first, but quickly warmed up. He ventured from clinging to Troy and Stacey (Todd and I weren't brave enough to go in that day) to swimming with the noodle to swimming alone! We were super impressed, and he had a blast!

Logan and Uncle Troy

Ok, I'm going to jump in!

One, two, three...

...JUMP!

So focused

Logan and Stacey

He loves the noodle!

Brayden and Uncle Troy

Wow, this is fun!

Both boys, Uncle Troy, and Stacey

That sun is bright!

Way up high in the sky!

And again

Swimming alone for the first time!

Happy baby

We love swimming!

Look, a fountain!

Cookie cake, yum!

Now that's a blue tongue

Jumping in

Jumping to Uncle Troy

Daddy throwing Logan in the pool!

Swimming with the noodle

Logan swimming all by himself!!!

Swimming!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

We've Hit Double Digits!

Today my baby is 10 months old. I have no idea how we got here so quickly, but I love it! Brayden is right about at the age where I feel like I can really have fun with him. He is interactive, he plays independently for a bit, he's starting to understand what we say to him, he can babble a few words (Mama, Dada, Bubba, and Nana) to us, and he absolutely adores his brother. As Logan would say, this makes me so happy. He is continuing to crawl all over the place, and loves to be chased. He pulls himself up on everything, but doesn't show a whole lot of interest in walking yet. Whenever we try to get him to stand or walk holding our hands, he lets his legs give out and collapses to the floor (giggling of course).

New this month:

* Waving hi and bye-bye

* Swimming lessons

* A "big boy" haircut, using clippers! He looked so different when we first got it cut, and I wasn't sure if I even liked it. But it has definitely grown on me, and I love that now I can really picture what he might look like in another year or two. So cute!

* Top teeth - two of them, right in the middle. I can't wait to see how different he looks when they are finally in.

* Climbing the stairs, which terrifies me. We will be working on how to go down, like, pronto.

* Eating more table food, but also becoming slightly pickier about what he will eat. He loves bananas and strawberries. He loves cheese. Peas usually go over well too. He recently turned up his nose at carrots, which he usually really likes. I think his hands-down favorite right now is my chicken-macaroni casserole. I've never seen a kid eat so fast as when I put that in front of him! He also loves my mom's banana bread (as does his older brother). Other things he's tried recently and liked: guacamole, meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, baked potato, noodles, cantaloupe, yogurt, pears, and black beans. On the "no" list so far: cucumber, cut up peaches (though he'll gladly eat baby food peaches), and meatballs (but they had spaghetti sauce on them, so I'm thinking that's why).

* Boat rides at the lake - his first one put him to sleep, just like his big brother!
* Pointing. Yelling. Attitude.

Struggles this month:

* Clothing/diaper changes - He hates them! As soon as he realizes that I am going to change him, he starts wiggling and squirming and screaming. I literally have to hold him down with one hand and diaper with the other. It's not all that easy. Toys provide minimal distraction. Sometimes singing works, but for the most part we just tough it out.
* Sleeping - Oh, the sleeping struggles. Neither of my children were good sleepers as babies. Thankfully Logan has figured it out and is now a wonderful sleeper. Brayden was supposed to be my good sleeper - HA! I can't get this kid to fall asleep independently for anything! And lately he's been waking during the night as well. I feel as though I can't really complain a whole lot because we have made progress but we have also come to a halt. About a month ago, Brayden started waking up randomly some nights and staying away for an hour or two in the middle of the night. Nothing I did would get him to go back to sleep and stay asleep. He ended up in bed with me on several occasions. Since then he has gradually decreased the awake time to now only about 5-10 minutes, but he won't go back to sleep unless he can see me. I can stand by the crib, sit in the rocker, or stand by the door and he's fine. But as soon as I walk away he screams. He gets overtired very easily, and the more overtired he gets, the earlier he wakes in the morning. It doesn't seem to make sense, but I'm really struggling lately to get him to bed early enough that I can sleep past 5:30 a.m. I'm frustrated. And tired. And at a loss. I don't know what else I can do to remedy this problem.

Some fun pictures from the past month: