5 Miles

Marcus had his 2 month check up yesterday. He’s weighing in 12 lb. 8 oz.  The Doctor was impressed with his head control again. He’s moving along right as expected, starting to focus on faces, smile more, coo and blowing bubbles.

These make all of us laugh–he blows more/bigger spit bubbles then I remember the other boys doing (such a skill to be proud of!)

And we’re starting to see BIG smiles…I was sad this was blurry, but it was my only shot of such a great smile, I still had to show it. I know I’ll have more chances to get a picture of that smile! (I was getting him to laugh by waving my camera strap. While that worked, I discovered it made the camera move and made for blurry pictures! Lesson learned.)

Finally, this is the smirk we often see right before he starts to talk.

We’ve taken to recording the Olympics and letting the kids (mainly Will) watch them the next day, so we can skip commercials and the “boring parts”. Today Will and I watched the women’s downhill skiing. His comments were making me laugh:

“But they’re not DOING anything!” (As opposed to those races where they do tricks we’ve seen in snowboard the last few days.)

“How can their legs get tired? They’re just sliding down.”
(Says the child who’s never skied before.)

“I hope she crashes but I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want anyone to get hurt!”

I’m sorry for taking such a long time to post, and then dumping lots of posts up in a row (again). I was trying to avoid that trend this month!

But…

My laptop is out of commission right now.  James replaced the motherboard but it’s still having problems, so he thinks it was defective.  He sent it back and we’re waiting on them to test it and replace it.  So we’re down to one computer for the two of us (*Gasp!*) (I know, we’re so spoiled.)  So when James is home, I let him get on (he has limited access at work), and usually I work on these posts in the evening. Instead I’ve been, um… folding laundry, holding Marcus, trying to learn to knit, reading, holding Marcus and the goal is to start scrap booking again.

So, below this post are some the bigger highlights (or more photogenic ones)  of the last few weeks.  Other then those highlights, it’s been crazy with snow, more snow, freezing fog, blowing & drifting snow, snow days, 2-hour delays, etc. We had a sad Super Bowl loss. (James and I went and watched the game with friends. The boys had a great time with a babysitter and while they watched the game, they also played and didn’t seem too sad…not as sad as we were. But we’ve moved on!)

My parents visited on Saturday. Dad was flying out to Ireland and Mom came down to see the boys. She watched them Saturday night so James and I went out for Valentine’s Day then.

Alex has his Valentine’s Day party last Friday, Will’s school had a 2-hour delay (and he only goes mornings on Friday so his class didn’t meet) and everyone had Monday off,  so they made it up today.  It was great fun to go and help out there.

Marcus has grown  out of his 0-3 month clothes, and is now moved over to 3-6 month size.  He’ll go to the dr. next week and we’ll find out what his official weight/size is, but I know he’s over 12 pounds.  I’m pretty sure he’ll have doubled his birth weight by 2 months old.

James has been working days the 3-4 weeks while he continued his broker training. Next week he goes back to nights for 6 months or so before he has more training, so we should get used to this alternative schedule (that he’s only done for 2 months out of the last 5).

We’re looking forward to temps getting above freezing tomorrow for the first time in a LONG time. I think our final snow totals was around 12 inches but I lost count so I really have no idea (and it’s hard to measure with the blowing/drifting, some melting in the sun and then more snow on top of it all.)  And, you can now consider yourself caught up!

Last Thursday we went to the Children’s Museum and saw the new Bob the Builder exhibit. (This was around 3 years ago, it was fun to take the kids back now that Alex was old enough to enjoy it.)

Boys trying to fix a pipe.

Waiting to go into a special activity for the exhibit–they got to work with REAL tools!

About 10 kids all hammering in one open space? It was loud.

Amazingly, this is what Marcus looked like most of the time there. I woke him up at the end to go on the merry-go-round together (the stroller wouldn’t fit) and then fed him. He still managed to cry most of the way home though.

It made me laugh to see how hard Alex was working to get to play in the water.

I started this 10 days ago! So we’re adjusting, just a bit more busy.

That’s a question I’m hearing a bit…and we’re adjusting!   For the most part, things are fine. But there are a few tricky spots!

Thankfully, Marcus is a laid back kid, most of the time. We’ve been working on shortening his naps so he’ll sleep better at night. (He would sleep in 2 1/2- 3 hour stretches, eat, and then go back to sleep.  This made it easy to get things done/do things with the boys. But then he was also up every 3-4 hours at night and it was getting really hard for me!)  For a few days I started waking him up and now we’re in a good routine where he wakes up on his own in the morning and evening, with a long afternoon nap.   This is easier to do now then it would have been earlier, I think he’s at just the right age to start this, he’s now more alert and awake.  While this is helping with him sleeping more at night, it’s becoming trickier during the day. He’s up, he’s awake, but he’s not old enough to sit or be entertained by his brothers or anything else. He’ll be content to lay on the floor for a bit, but then he’s done with that. Swing…he’ll put up with for a bit. Same with the bouncy seat.  (Ok, 10 days later he’s getting a bit better and enjoying his swing/bouncy seat a bit more, you can tell he’s starting to actually see the things on it and is fascinated by everything.) He’d rather be held.  I have a sling for him that works some of the time. So, we’re getting use to that, just as I’m also getting used to something else…

Cooking!  We were blessed with meals from so many people in our church, but the time as come to get back into meal planning and cooking for us.  I was a bit over ambitious with a few things and I feel some things are just not quite working out. The chili I made for a Bible Study pitch in was a bit bland and I forgot the beans. Another meal I made was drier then I liked and I didn’t saute the carrots long enough, so we had crunchy carrots in it as well (and that was a meal I made to share! Whoops!) Again, 10 days later I’m getting better at things (as demonstrated by Alex’s comment in a post down a bit!).

Now, 10 days later after I started this, I feel we’re getting into a pretty good routine, as much as you can with snow days, 2-hour delays, plus preschool and school that makes each day different.  Marcus is starting to coo and smile more and more and it’s been fun to see that. No pictures of that yet though–but here are two random ones I took a last week and love.

Last week, during one of our snow days, we finally began working on Valentines for the boys class parties. When you have boys, this is what you get to see lots of:

I was surprised Alex wanted to write all the names for all the kids in his class.  The previous two years Valentines have been a 2-3 day process for Will because he gots tired of it after about 5 and wanted to be done (back when he was 4 or 5). Now that he’s in Kindergarten he lasted much longer, but still asked me to do his last 4 or 5 (I refused, but there are 21 kids in his class, only 15 in Alex’s).  I did learn we need to work on the letter “S” and “H” with Alex (His H looked like an N).

I also wanted to have something a bit more girly & crafty to decorate the house. When I saw this craft idea, I was sold (since I have LOTS of red and pink scrapbook paper I don’t get to use too often).  So the boys helped me cut out hearts (I didn’t touch Will’s, but I did go back and trim Alex’s), and then we glued them together (because I wanted them to look pretty on both sides, and most of my scrapbook paper was blank on the back).

After lunch, I pulled out the sewing machine and starting sewing these into garlands or chains.  The boys decorated them once I was done (but I didn’t plan ahead too well so didn’t have much to decorate them with that were Valentine themed… I overheard Alex coloring a green and yellow snake on one of his.)  I wanted to get a picture of the sewing part of the process, but it was too hard to sew and take a picture at the same time! (I would say the double layer of paper & the use of some cardstock did cause some problems. I’d recommend only using one layer or not as thick paper if you’re going to do it because when I’d get to the card stock the thread would break, so some people’s chains were a bit messy in the thread areas, sorry!)

We ended up with a number of cool chains. The boys picked out ones to give to teachers and I have 1-2 I still get to enjoy.  It was quite a fun craft!

Me: What do you boys want for lunch?

Will: I want PB&J!!

Alex: I want PB& J, too!!!

As I serve them peanut butter and jelly, Alex starts to cry “I don’t want peanut butter and jelly, I want PB&J!

* * *

We’ve had below normal temperatures for most of the month. Last Friday Will’s school had a 2 hour delay, which meant his morning class was canceled. (The delay was either for the freezing fog or because it was 5 outside, we’re not quite sure which.) Alex’s preschool is in a different school system and it did not have a delay, so he got to go to preschool. Will got to go shopping with me during that time. We went to several stores and as we’re walking out of the 3rd store, Will said, “Wow, it’s really getting warm out!” So after 5, a temperature of 20 feels warm, or we’re getting used to winter here!

* * *

The boys love to watch a show called Max & Ruby, about 2 bunny rabbits. Ruby is the older (bossy) sister and Max is the younger brother. They have started to notice you never see the parents in the show and have asked me why several times.  This week Will noticed a family picture on the wall of the two kids with two parent bunnies. I suggested maybe the parents were at work and Ruby was babysitting. Will said, “Maybe their dead.”  Alex then said “Or, MAYBE, they’re in Illinois.”

* * *

Tonight I told the boys I was making spaghetti and meatballs (their favorite meal). They both cheered and Alex said “You’re a good chef, Mommy!”

Saturday I saw several robins outside. I was a bit surprised to see them amidst all the the snow. I like to record the day I see them and a quick search of the blog confirms they are usually around the end of February or beginning of March.  So these guys are either like my daffodils that started coming up in December–very confused, or both are signs of an early spring? Can I dare hope? I say that as we have 8 inches of snow outside and another storm on the way later this week!

Friday we had our big storm of the year.  The snow started falling around 10 am and by Saturday morning we had between 7.5 and 8 inches of snow (depending on who you listened to and where you put the ruler in the back yard). The boys were thrilled! Friday I helped them shovel the driveway (so James could get in) but didn’t have time to help them build a snowman–it was perfect packing snow. Sadly by Saturday it had dried out and it was no longer sticking together. So lesson learned–when it’s wet flakes and sticking together, you need to do the snowman right then!

Saturday we had a bright, sunny day with clear blue skies.

Alex wasn’t shoveling here, he was using the shovel backwards to smoosh out the larger lumps and smooth them down flat on the driveway. It was cracking me up to watch him looking like he was sweeping the snow. After the driveway was shoveled and we all had lunch, James took them out sledding for a few hours.

Mandatory nature shots.

I was amazed how the snow was sticking to the SIDE of the branches–it was rather windy out.

While the boys were gone I worked on trying to get a few pictures of Marcus. He has a slight cold and so he didn’t put up with it for long, this was the only good picture I got.

We’ve been working on trying to change an annoying habit the boys have. They have started saying, when bored, “Mommy (or Daddy), I want to DO something with you!” (In a whine.)  We have been working on eliminating the “I want” and telling them they can come to us asking to do something specific, but not just “I want to do something”.  I wasn’t liking the mindset that we were around to entertain them.)  So today, when Alex said, “Mommy, can we go for a walk today?” I felt I HAD to say yes.  And the weather had said today was going to get up into the 40s, so it was a perfect day for a walk, right?

So after lunch we bundled up. The boys decided they didn’t want to walk, they wanted to ride.  Marcus got bundled up and stuck in the stroller and we were off. It was a bit chillier then I expected–I was glad we had all bundled up. And this was without any wind! So the walk/ride was shorter then the boys really wanted, but Will was ready to head for home when we turned around and Alex soon conceded he was getting tired/cold too.

The frozen pond (with a log on top) and the stream near it that wasn’t frozen.

I liked the look of the leaves trapped under the ice. I wanted to get closer to take a picture but Marcus was fussing because the stroller had stopped moving, so I had to get moving again.  It was good to get out with the boys. Alex is now able to pedal well enough that I can get a good walk in (instead of the trudge I used to get when I’d be walking along as he used his feet to drag a Big Wheel or Foot Pedal Car along).  It’s something I am hoping to do more–as soon as it’s a bit warmer! While I love snow, I’m still a wimp in the cold, I blame 17 years of living in Texas!