The boy turned two and a half on Monday.

He is a wild man with boundless energy and a stubborn streak that may serve him well later in life if he can channel it wisely.

He loves his sister, except when he wishes she would go away, or stop babbling, or leave his toys alone, or stop needing his mama when he wants her.

He has moments of fierce independence, when he wants to put on his own clothes, or get his own drink, or change his own diaper (!), but they can be immediately followed by moments where he wants mama to do the exact things he had just wanted to do.

He has no interest in using the potty.

He still loves going on walks or playing outside, but he finally does recognize that some days it’s cold and maybe not so fun to stay out for long.

He still loves Mickey Mouse, but also loves Little Einsteins, Cars, The Sword and the Stone, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood.

He just discovered Finding Nemo on Monday and I think it’ll be a favorite as well.

He still loves mama to read to him, and likes to recite parts he knows.

He loves going to Chick-fil-A and getting “nuggets and french fries and MILK!”

He also loves going to “brea-fass” and getting PANCAKES!! Daddy has started making pancakes at home on the weekend and oh boy does he love that. Although going out for them is still better because then he gets to ride in the “truuuck.”

Tomorrow is baby girl’s six-month birthday. Six months!

She is such a happy baby (despite the solemn expression in the photo above), lots of gummy smiles and joyful squawks when she sees us. She adores her big brother and watches him constantly.

Her six-month well baby checkup is next week, so I don’t know exactly how big she is or how much she weighs, but she’s a big girl. We’ve just made the move into size 3 diapers because she’s so long than the size 2′s didn’t have enough of a rise for her torso. She’s also barely fitting into 6-month clothing sizes, and in some brands 9-months are too tight and short. Crazy!

I gave her “solid” food last weekend for the first time and she’s not a fan. I need to get her on video because her expressions are so hilarious as her eyebrows raise and lower as if she’s saying “what on earth is this awful stuff!.” She smacks her lips and sticks her tongue out in disgust too. Maybe she’ll like something else more, but I remember her brother also wasn’t a fan the first few times as he had to get used to the idea and texture, and then he turned into a fiend for certain foods. I’m not sure that any of it actually ended up in her stomach, but she definitely had plenty in her mouth and then on her face by the end of the meal.

She’s teased me by sleeping 6 or 7 hours in a row for a few nights, but then she’ll have nights where she’s up every hour or two. Hopefully she’ll settle into a reliable night sleeping pattern soon. She’s also just really getting to be reliable for nap times too. That I’m sure she’d have already established if it weren’t for her brother often keeping her from napping when she would like to.

She’s still not crawling, but she is so close. She does cover some territory by rolling around however – she’ll get from one side of the room to the other in a blink!

She’s not a fan of her car seat and doesn’t like to be cooped up in it for very long. Fortunately she doesn’t have to spend much time in it generally, although if we do road trip to Florida this Spring that might be a challenge.

We love you baby girl!

Baby H turned four months old last week. I can tell she’s not the first baby because I missed the actual date, and with her big brother I always knew exactly how old he was, usually down to the day. With her, I have to think about it and even then I’m usually not completely confident in what number I get. But I just looked it up, and she’s 18 weeks.

She is an absolute joy, and as happy and cuddly a baby as I could have ever wanted.

I tried her on a bottle only a couple of times, and she rejected that substitute as if it were torture. I hate pumping so much that I never bothered to pump more to try again after those failed attempts. Her brother used a bottle at first, and then refused it after manymanymany tries to get him to take it again, so I ended up exclusively nursing him and decided it really wasn’t that big of a deal as a stay at home mom. It made it pretty easy to halfheartedly shrug and figure she’ll be eating other food soon enough, I’ll just nurse her until then. Her dad was bothered more when her brother wouldn’t take a bottle and kept him from participating in feedings, but he’s never once said anything about H’s feedings – I think he also realizes now just how short a time period it is when he can’t participate.

She’s just starting to settle into more predictable nap times – I can count on her wanting to nap somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours after she gets up in the morning. And sometime after 9:00, if we haven’t already gotten you moving toward bed you let us know that IT IS TIME PEOPLE.

She LOVES bathtime, so much so that we have to be very prepared when she gets out of her bath. Get her pj’d and eating as quickly as possibly, before she works herself into a rage over being taken out of the water. Go go go! Get that diaper on!

Her brother ADORES her and calls her “honey honey {h} girl.” I have got to get it on video because it is the sweetest thing. He came up with that himself; I do call her honey and {h} girl but I’ve never doubled up the honey and put it all together. It just makes my heart melt.

She snuggles with me, but rarely will settle down and snuggle with her dad. At least she will let her daddy hold her in the evenings; this age is right about when her brother when on a daddy strike and refused to let anyone but mommy hold him. That was exhausting so fortunately it was short-lived.

We all love you baby girl!

Continuing my theme of writing posts inspired by other posts. This is inspired by Life… Your Way, and their post about what baby gear you really need, divided into needs, nice to haves and just-plain-silly. I generally agree with her, but not always.

Needs:

• A car seat. Yes, absolutely, unless you live somewhere where you never travel by car. In my life, this is totally and completely the highest priority need since they wouldn’t have even let us leave the hospital without one. Yes, I live in a car-focused society. I love love love the Chico KeyFit 30, and will happily be reusing it with baby#2. I really went back & forth on getting the infant seat versus a convertible seat, and decided that the convenience of the infant seat plus the hopes of having another baby who could reuse it would make it worthwhile. And I am so glad we did. If money was super super tight, going with a convertible seat would have been possible, but G would still be using it and we’d still need to buy a second seat for this baby. As it is, she’ll be in the infant seat, and will either get a new bigger seat of her own when she outgrows it or if G keeps on growing at the same rate, he’ll be ready for more of a booster seat when she’s ready to take over his Britax Roundabout (another great seat).

  It didn’t hurt that the infant seat was a baby shower gift from R’s family either.

• Place for the baby to sleep. We actually got a basic bassinet in addition to the crib, plus we even received a pack ‘n play as a baby shower gift from my coworkers, so G had plenty of options for sleeping locations, and used them all. The bassinet was FANTASTIC for the first 3 months or so, to save me from having to walk down the hall to get him for those middle of the night feedings. He outgrew it quickly, but it was cheap enough and sleep was precious enough in those days that I absolutely consider it money well spent. We co-slept occasionally too, but used the bassinet as well so again I’m glad we were able to have it available.

• Stroller. We kind of overbought on a stroller, getting the one that worked with the infant seat, which is great while G was still in that seat, but less of an issue once he moved out of it. And it is heavier than I’d like. But, it is also a great stroller that is easy to steer and gives a smooth ride so at least we didn’t spend money on a lousy product. I’d sort of wanted to get a lighterweight stroller, something like this one, but never bothered, and now I haven’t decided if I want to try and get a double stroller or not; they are just so HUGE and seem so unwieldy. Maybe the lighter stroller and a wrap or sling? Something to consider.

• A changing table. Mandi calls this a nice to have, saying they changed the baby on the couch or floor. For the sake of our backs (especially R’s, who has had major back issues in the past requiring months of treatment and some enormous medical bills), this was not a good option. Selfishly, I cannot imagine getting up and down from the floor during those first weeks post c-section for every diaper change. Also, with a boy, I don’t want to put my couch at that level of risk because there were a couple of diaper changes where I wasn’t quick enough to get things covered before a fountain sprayed if you get my drift. We bought a dresser/table combo so it will continue to get use and am quite glad we had the room for it. No, not a need like a car seat, but I would have been hating life without it.

• Burp cloths. A lot of them. They don’t need to be fancy, in fact my favorites were the plain white old school prefold cloth diapers. They’re simple and basic, but the first however many months or so they got a LOT of use.

• Breast pads. G nursed for 17 months and I think I leaked for the first 16 of those months. For the sake of my clothes, modesty, and pride, I am very glad I found some absorbent and inexpensive pads.

• Nipple cream. Because at least at first, nursing hurt.

• Diaper covers. We used a combo of cloth and disposable diapers, and one of my favorite things about cloth diapers was the fact that there were no poop explosions with the cloth. Those blowouts up the back that seem so frequent with disposables? NEVER happened thanks to the elastic at the waist of the cloth diapers. I figured out that if we used a cover over a disposable, we could get the poop containment of cloth with the extra absorbency and convenience of disposables. It started while traveling (see below, a trip to see my parents with a three month old) when I knew that we wouldn’t have convenient access to a washer to use cloth, and then continued whenever I’d use a disposable. Much much nicer to not have to worry about poop on the baby’s clothes, my clothes, my furniture, etc.

Not necessary, at least with baby #1:

• Baby monitor. We sleep with a fan and a massive air filter and still didn’t need one. The nursery just wasn’t that far away and except for that first week home when I was a walking zombie I was so exhausted, I always heard him squawk. And that first week he was in the bassinet next to me so no monitor needed. In another house with a different layout things might have been different, but as it was we had a monitor that someone passed along to us but never used it. Still have it in case things change with baby#2.

• Sling, wrap or carrier. Had one, used it only a handful of times because it just was never that comfortable. However, I can see that maybe I’ll want/need it more with a second child, so I’m looking into some other options to see if another brand will work better.

Nice to haves:

• Bouncy seat or swing. We have a bouncy seat, and it got some use for the first 4 months or so, but not really all that much. G just wasn’t that impressed. Perhaps his sister will like it more, since I know some kids love them. If she doesn’t and I’m desperate for something to keep her happy for a few minutes we might end up getting a swing this time around. 10 minutes during dinner prep time can be a precious precious thing!

• Boppy pillow. Somewhat helpful the first month or so of nursing, but since then it’s mostly just a toy for G. Although that’s ok too.

• Wipes warmer. Mandi calls it just silly, but I found it very helpful when we cloth diapered. Not for keeping the wipes warm, but for keeping them moist which made cleanup much easier. The bathroom isn’t close enough to the changing area to make it easy to just wet a wipe as needed, and when I tried to keep a water bottle or spray bottle at the changing area I found it just made a huge mess. The warmer kept the wipes just damp enough.

• Baby bathtub. Yes, it’s big and unwieldy, but we just let it live in the bathtub when not in use (our master bath has a separate tub and shower so it wasn’t in our way) and it saved our backs so it was worth it for those first months. Would I bother if we were super crunched for space? No, and that’s another reason to be happy that we’re not. Now it resides in the attic waiting to be put into use again.

• Activity gym/play center. When G was 3 months old we met my parents at the beach where they’d rented a condo. Once there we realized we should have brought something for him to do/look at beyond the few books and items we had packed. Off to the store and we found this inexpensive play gym which he then played with and loved for the next year plus. It was nice because it adjusted slightly as he got older, and he adored the music. A big win! Another bonus – it’s pretty compact, especially compared with some of the other baby activity centers available.

Just silly:

• Quilt to match the nursery bedding. It’s silly if you think of it being used or anything, but if you are really into the whole decor thing I guess if it makes you happy. I’m not and think most of the nursery decor items are silly or at least not worth my time and money, but know that some people are really into that.

• Diaper genie. Use cloth. Or keep a small trash can so it gets emptied frequently, and if you get the occasional bomb that can’t even wait that long, wrap it in a plastic grocery bag and take it directly to your outside trash receptacle. Or flush the contents first before wrapping the diaper in plastic and taking it outside.

• These things which I find so ridiculous I refuse to even type out their name. Yeah, we dealt with a couple of fountains, but there was enough behind said fountains that these little teepees would not have stopped anything, they would have just gone shooting off as well, so they wouldn’t have helped. And that assumes the baby just lies perfectly still so it doesn’t fall off to begin with. I can’t remember a single diaper change where that was the case, including the ones where he was in the NICU with tubes and wires everwhere. He still wiggled.

• Baby robes. Seriously, when they’re that little getting them into one would be so much more work than just using a towel. They’re cute I’ll grant you, but so not practical. And on the same note, infant towels and washcloths. It is possible to use regular towels and washcloths. And they stay useful longer once the baby is no longer so tiny. Although, as a confession, I did receive some handmade hooded towels that I still use. Perhaps because they’re regular adult-sized towels that she added a hood onto, so the size is much more useful than the infant ones. The smaller store-bought ones we also received and I tried out? Got used for about two months max. If I’d known better I’d have returned them for store credit for something more useful. Again though, yes, they are very very cute.

Yes, 18 months. It seems impossible.

If I was better about things like scrapbooking or keeping a baby book, I’d have lots of memories preserved already, and sentimental write-ups about how you’ve grown and what you can do now. But I’m not, and I don’t.

What I do know is that you shock everyone who finds out your age – you are just so BIG and so advanced physically. All the books say things that you might be able to do, and you mastered them months ago. You run and climb and bounce and dance with joy.

You love helping mama – load the dishwasher, put clothes into the washer or dryer, wipe the table, it’s all great fun to you.

You are absolutely obsessed with going outside “owwww-siiiigh” in your lingo. You kicked and sobbed the other day when I had to bring you in before you’d had your fill. No matter that we were being pelted with freezing rain, you wanted to stay right where you were! You get so excited when you realize we’re going somewhere, and rush to bring us your shoes “tshoo! tschoo!” and coat “coa! coa! coa!” I’m not sure what you’ll do when the weather gets warm again and you no longer have to wear a coat to go outside; I think you won’t believe it for awhile.

Your favorite food, bar none, is macaroni and cheese. You will eat and eat and eat and eat and eat when that is on offer. You also love dried blueberries “blue! blue!” and get your daily quota every night at dinnertime. You ask for them throughout the day, but seem to accept that those are only at dinner.

You also love eating toast now, probably because daddy eats toast every morning. You get so happy when it’s being prepared (with apple butter, please) and then cram it into your mouth with relish.

Not surprisingly, you love m&m’s. Daddy gives you those, not momma. You also love momma’s peanut butter fudge so much that you threw an absolute fit when we wouldn’t give you any more than a few tiny tastes.

You are still a carb fiend – bread and pasta and potatoes all make for fantastic dining as far as you are concerned. And your cheese fetish is still in full swing. You have to get your daily cheese snack.

Your favorite toys are trucks and cars and anything with wheels, although books are a close second. You also like puzzles and blocks, and every once in awhile you’ll pick up a stuffed animal and give it a kiss.

You’re great about giving kisses and hugs to your parents, and even to others if we ask. Your kisses are usually super wet and sloppy, but oh so sweet.

Your daddy is your buddy and playmate, but you are still very much a momma’s boy. You can be playing nicely by yourself or with daddy, but if I leave the room, you have to follow me. You do love roughhousing with daddy though, and having him scare you with a sudden “BOO!” You’ve started to also call out “boo!” now when you come around corners or peek around an open door.

You know so many words, and surprise me sometimes with new ones – both your daddy & I will say “I didn’t know he could say that!” You got me with towel last week, and daddy with turtle yesterday. Your favorite word of all though, is “NO!”

We are so blessed to be your parents, and love you so very much.