It's been too long....

Oh my goodness - well I'm not the best blogger am I? Two months since my last entry! I blame the holidays. I did write up some posts but never put them online, so here are some updates, and I will post more soon!



From 12/15:

So much has happened in the last month or so! Both boys have gone from sitting up on their own to kneeling and crawling. Brendan is even pulling himself up to a standing position with the help of our furniture. Of course that means the end of being able to leave them alone on the floor of the family room for a few minutes to do a few quick tasks. Even leaving the room for a minute is a gamble. Dave walked out to get a bottle for Jamie the other morning and the next thing we knew Brendan was screaming and blood was pouring out of his mouth - he had been standing up at the gate we have between the family room and kitchen and he fell and apparently cut the inside of his mouth. He's fine now though, despite all the blood it was a very minor injury.
Brendan learned to crawl pretty quickly and had even figured out how to get up the one step that leads into the kitchen. He does this really fast army crawl, so you really have to keep your eye on him. Thankfully Jamie is more cautious than his brother, he started crawling a couple weeks later and doesn't go nearly as fast. He is pretty content to stay in one area and play with his toys, but he'll crawl across the room if he gets the urge, like when an unsuspecting Nigel is sitting nearby. But what he really prefers to do is to kneel and then bounce up and down on his knees which allows him to shimmy across the floor a little bit. It's pretty funny.

The boys have been eating well for the most part and are just learning to feed themselves small snacks. They get so excited when we put a few of the "baby puffs" in front of them to eat. Jamie has gotten quite good at the "pincer grasp" to get the puffs into his mouth. Brendan has a bit to go, as he is still using the "rake" to feed himself so more puffs end up in his lap and on the floor than in his mouth.

Brendan has also become a bit leery of strangers. The only people he feels comfortable with now are me, Dave, and Grandpop Walt (sorry Mom and Dad!). He tends to start crying if other people hold him or even talk to him-especially if Mommy or Daddy leave the room for a minute. Meanwhile, Jamie just smiles at anyone and everyone.


Well, I could just go on forever. I guess going forward I need to do a better job at writing updates so my blogs don't need to be so long!



From 11/18:

I haven't updated this in a while but we have lots of new developments. Brendan is regularly bringing himself into an upright sitting position now - in fact, he's doing it all the time. For a little bit, this was making things a bit difficult. You see, he could sit up but he hadn't yet learned to catch himself from falling backward. He had clunked his head on the floor a few times and so began spending a lot of time in the pack and play, where he could be safe if we had to be out of the room for a minute. And now he's been spending time in his pack and play because he is crawling all over the place! It's funny, just two Sundays ago he was crawling just a bit here and there, but then by the next day, Dave said he was scooting all over the place and was into everything. And this past Saturday, he figured out how to get over the one step into the kitchen, so now we're really in trouble!
Jamie is making progress too, he's been crawling around a little bit but is not as confident as Brendan. I'm sure he'll get there soon. I think he's just a little less motivated, he's never been quite as nosey as Brendan is, he doesn't have to grab and touch everything (though he gets his hands onto plenty of stuff as well). He also is now bringing himself into a sitting position and is kneeling a lot too, which he especially likes to do in his crib - as does his brother. As a result, we've had to lower the crib mattresses, to avoid having them topple over the crib rails some day. However, by lowering the mattresses, Brendan has now managed to get enough leverage to get himself into a standing position by holding onto the rails. So, there's that.
We think Brendan may be teething, he's been super fussy. And he's developed quite a bit of separation anxiety. (Kind of abrupt, but I never finished this post)

From 11/9:

Well, not a particularly exciting weekend. The four of us participated in the ALS walk at Citizens Bank Park this weekend, it was nice to get outside with the boys, although it was a bit cold. Everyone had their kids all bundled up like they were going to visit Santa at the North Pole. Meanwhile, we hadn't even thought to bring some hats to keep the boys' semi-hairless heads warm! We kind of felt like bad parents. And then to add insult to injury, Jamie lost a sock somewhere along the walk and we didn't bring any extra socks! Strike number two. So there we were at the end of the walk with two hatless, partially sockless babies! Well, lesson learned. And as Dave pointed out, the babies survived despite the bad parenting :) We had a nice lunch at Chickie and Pete's afterward, we don't get out too often to restaurants with them, but they behaved quite well-although Jamie was kind of noisy with his babbling - cute, bu t I'm glad Chickie's is a generally noisy place. Oh - here's something funny - I discovered over the weekend that the boys, particularly Brendan, find it hilarious when you pull a tape measure out of its case and then let it snap. (Again, kind of abrupt, I never finished).