Drew is two months old!

First, thanks to you guys who commented about the sleeping stuff. I've talked to a number of people whose babies actually sleep on their tummies. I know it's much more natural for them to sleep that way. And I've been pretty happy with the Angel Care monitor so far. The only thing is that it's very sensitive.....it picks up the ceiling fan as movement (at least when the pack and play sits right under the fan). So we'll have to experiment and make sure we can turn the fan on in his room as long as his crib isn't sitting right underneath it (he's still sleeping in our room now). But like I said, it gives me so much peace of mind when I lay Drew down to sleep on his belly.

Anyway, Drew turned two months old on Saturday, so I wanted to post a few pictures of him from the past couple of weeks.

My sleepy baby (this is what he looks like probably 85% of the day):
He's been smiling for a couple of weeks, but it's really hard to get a shot of it! Here's probably the closest thing I've gotten.
Laying down and "playing" (as much as they play at this age!) on Grant's Elmo couch.
Sleeping on Daddy. He still spends a lot of time sleeping in our arms. But Dean only holds him after Grant's in bed....Grant is still very possessive of Daddy.


"What are you doing to me??!" Here's Grant giving Drew a kiss or hug.
Our two kids have differed so much on their sleep habits/patterns. Grant slept wonderfully in the swing, Papasan (bouncy chair) and carseat. He slept in his Papasan at night until he was 3 months old! And every time I put him in the car (especially when he was this age), he'd fall right to sleep, and usually sleep the entire time we were out. I didn't realize how nice this was!

Drew is SO much different! He will fall asleep easily if I lay him down on his belly, but he HATES the carseat. And he really doesn't care too much for the swing or Papasan either.....if he's fallen asleep in my arms, he'll often wake up after just a few minutes if I lay him in one of those. The hardest part is listening to him scream when we're in the car. He doesn't do it every time, but many times he'll cry nonstop until I take him out. This laid back baby is turning into a little handful!

But in the past week or so, he's been sleeping really long stretches for us at night. Most nights he wakes up somewhere between 2:30 and 4:30 for the first time, but last night he didn't wake up until 5:45, when Dean was about to get out of bed! Yay!!

Okay, I really am intending to get pictures from Grant's b-day up in the next day or two. Our computer is VERY slow and the software I use to brighten pictures keeps crashing. Fun times with the computer!

Two years and two months

Now that I've written this I realize it's quite long.....unless you're family, you may not care to read all the details about our doctor's appt today! I will try to post pictures tomorrow of Grant's birthday......


Today Dean took the day off and we took the boys for their two year/two month appointments. Grant picked up a virus a couple of days ago and has had a fever off and on since Monday evening. Thankfully, for his birthday yesterday he felt okay for most of the day. But he woke up a lot last night, and this morning was in a very foul mood!

So we went to their appointment at 1pm, and Grant was not happy when we got there. It's been months since he's been to the doctor, but he started freaking out the second we stepped into the examining room! Weird! He's never been scared of the doctor's office before, except maybe for a few seconds at his 18 month checkup. One nurse took Drew's measurements while the other (poor lady) TRIED to measure Grant....he threw a complete fit when she tried to put the measuring tape around his head! We knew we were in for a long appointment at that point. Everything was a struggle....laying him down to measure his length, putting him on the scale to weigh him, etc. The nurse had to prick his finger to draw a sample of blood, and it sounded like he was being tortured!

When our doctor came in, she examined Drew first and Grant was SO interested! I thought he might see that nothing bad happened to Drew and decide it wouldn't be too bad. But nope, he got hysterical again when she got even close to him. Again, very weird. Grant can throw great fits, but I've rarely seen him acting hysterical like this.

So it just felt like a madhouse, trying to get both boys checked while Grant was crying almost nonstop and Drew was fussy for a little bit of it. When we left, Dean wondered why he had taken a vacation day to do this??!!

I don't remember all of their measurements right now, but they are both BIG boys! Grant was in the 100th percentile for height. Dr. Thomas was convinced that he'll be 6'2" or 6'3", although I am a little bit skeptical that you can really make that assumption on a 2-year old. It was weird imagining him as a tall man as she talked about it!

And Drew's height and weight (13 lbs, 3.5 oz) are also both in the 90s, percentile-wise. She was very impressed with the way Drew could hold his head up when laying on his belly, and guessed that I must have already started tummy time with him. I didn't mention to her that he's sleeping on his belly at night and for most of his naps! But.....(and this is a little bit off the topic!).....I am scared to death of SIDS, so I bought an Angel Care monitor that detects motion in the crib. So I don't feel like I'm being reckless by letting him sleep on his belly....it gives me so much peace of mind. And Drew sleeps SO much better on his tummy!

Drew got a few shots today, as well as an oral vaccine for Rotavirus. Of course it was hard to see him grimace and wail, but he drifted off to sleep afterwards as I nursed him. Grant's never had any reaction to shots, so I'm hoping Drew will be the same.

Grant's 2nd Birthday!!

Today is Grant's second birthday! It hardly seems possible to me! He's acting like such a big boy lately and picking up on so many things that we do. Last night I casually asked Dean if he knew where the remote control was. A second later, Grant ran behind the couch, then came back around with the remote! He handed it to Dean and said, "thank you!" And also last night, he started putting his toys away and said "pick up." This was without me even asking him! I think he's learned this at school and thinks we'll be impressed when he does it here.

Every day there are so many things Grant does and says that make me puzzled because I don't remember teaching them to him! It's so funny having a conversation with him these days; he knows what certain words are supposed to sound like, but sometimes stumbles when he tries to put multiple words together. The other day we were watching penguins on tv and he tried about a dozen times before he said "funny birds" successfully! But he is always putting together words into phrases.....you can tell that his little brain is working nonstop!

A few of Grant's favorite things at two years:

Favorite foods: cheese (as always!), milk, goldfish, cereal bars, macaroni and cheese, toast and cream cheese, pineapple, scrambled eggs, any/all types of sweets!! Notice that there are no veggies and very few fruits on this list. He hardly ever will try anything that he's not familiar with; we definitely have a picky eater!

Favorite toys: at the moment, his new "Cars" helicopter and race car that we bought him yesterday at Toys R Us (with birthday money from Great-Grandma). Really, he loves all of his choo-choos, cars and other transportation vehicles.

Favorite activities/games: Playing "chase Grant" with Daddy; playing hide and seek with Daddy (he finally likes to be the seeker!); playing outside; feeding the outside kitty; going to school; watching planes and helicopters fly above our house; playing with Daddy's tools and helping Dean with pretty much everything. Can you tell that he likes his Daddy a lot right now??!

Favorite TV Shows: I'd say now it's a tie between Super Why and Little Einsteins. He's never been able to sit and watch TV for longer than about 10 minutes, even when watching Super Why. But in the past few weeks, we've noticed him being drawn a lot more to the TV, where he'll sit and watch almost any cartoon for a while. I don't want to make this a habit!

I look at my big boy and can't believe how he's turned from a baby into such a funny, sweet little kid. Everyone says how quickly it happens and I can now attest to that!

My sweet boys

Here are some recent pictures of my little guys. First, a few of Grant and Drew together. I have been so (pleasantly) surprised by how much Grant likes his little brother. He definitely has his nasty moments, but many times he asks for Drew to lay down next to him, and he likes to hug him and hold his hand. And if Drew is crying (which happens a lot more now than before....he is becoming quite a fussy little guy sometimes!), Grant acts concerned and will bring him a blanket or paci. It's really sweet.
We have had such wonderful weather the past few weeks, and we've been out in our backyard for hours on some days. This little bulldozer was left by the previous owners, and Grant puts his farmer toy into it and wheels it around.
He also LOVES to help Daddy these days, and is fanatical about tools! He "helped" Dean fix the remainder of our fence last weekend, and this weekend he helped Dean make a little house for our outside kitty. Any time he sets sight on Dean's toolbag, he starts begging for a tool and won't give up until we give him something to play with. We really need to give him some of his own tools, but I'm afraid he will know they're not real and that he'll refuse to play with them!

Here Grant is being a good helper and bringing old fence pieces into the backyard. He was so proud of himself for helping!
A cute picture of Drew. He's seven weeks old now and isn't quite the easy baby he was for the first month! He doesn't sleep as soundly as Grant did, and he doesn't like to be set down in his bouncy chair or swing if he's even remotely tired. But if I lay him down on his belly, he'll instantly stop fussing and usually go to sleep within a couple of minutes. He has given me quite a few little smiles, but I haven't caught any on camera yet.....they still come and go very quickly!

Halloween

I am perpetually about a week (or more) behind with uploading pictures! Here are some pictures from Halloween. Grant dressed up as Superman and Drew was a horse (I found this little onesie at a resale shop before he was born and thought it would pass for a costume!).Look at the little tail!
A few weeks ago, Grant tried on his Superman costume and thought he was pretty cool! It's funny, though....he thought he was dressed up as Super Why (from one of his favorite TV shows). I guess he doesn't know about Superman yet, and the closest thing he knows is Super Why!

With his friend Graham at our church's fall festival:
Grant had fun at the fall festival. We thought about taking him trick-or-treating, and I think he might have understood the concept after going to a few houses. But we ran out of time and just went up to our church instead. Next year I know he'll love doing trick-or-treating!