13/52

The sun is shining today as it was yesterday so we moved our afternoon snack outdoors to the deck and I took a million photos with my big camera. It really makes me want to bust out the big camera more, the quality is so much better but gosh darn it the iphone is always in my pocket. I am also choosing to ignore the pending snow that we could see this coming Sunday. After a couple of nice warm Spring days I'm over the cold and ready to usher in the bike rides and gardening and park play. So go away cold, blowing snow!

As I write this the sweet cheeked little one you see above is screaming his little face off in full nap revolt. He is doing so much better at night, even with an ear infection and popping 4 teeth but man the naps are still tough and he never goes down without a fight. And it's too bad because he is so much more jovial after having napped.

Oliver is growing like a weed and again the warm weather needs to stick around because I need to chop all of his pants into shorts seeing as he is starting to look like he is preparing for a flood!

mr. blue steel. even chomping on a yogurt stick he still is the most gorgeous boy I know (biased opinion, of course!).

Mr. happy. He really is the happiest little guy. He rarely complains except when he is tired (or being put down for a nap). I adore both of my boys but I call him my redemptive baby because he is showing me the joy in babyhood.  Oliver was a tough baby. Very needy and a terrible sleeper so I did not have a lot of "joy" when he was small and never understood how people adored the baby phase. Well, now I get it. Having a little one is still really tough but Huck is such a friendly, happy boy that I find myself enjoying his babyhood a whole heck of a lot more that I did with Oliver.

And the two of them are really starting to "play" together a bit more. They are 5 years apart so it will always be a different sibling relationship but I love watching the two of them find ways to interact together. Huck, of course worships the everything Oliver does. So it did not surprise me when all Huck wanted was the toys Oliver was playing with. Sneaky little bugger.

Ooops. Not sneaky enough! And overall I'm really proud of how Oliver handles having a little brother who constantly wants to get into his stuff. Usually Oliver is good about going and finding a Huck-appropriate toy but sometimes he does forcibly remove Huck from what he is doing. I'm ok with that as long as he is gentle with him and does not use the headlock method...ahem as he did yesterday. Huck let his displeasure be know loud and clear!

Nice defense, O!

12/52

Up and at em. Busy boys. Keeping me on my toes these days. Ollie had a bout of strep throat and then Huck decided to throw in an ear infection. Fun times. So between getting everyone well and waiting for Spring to fully appear I am just sort of doing the daily grind. Plus meal planning has become such a burden I feel stuck in a rut! Dinner woes.  

We are around for Easter weekend and we may even go to the rock gym and Oliver will climb for easter eggs! 

 books...books...books.

watching the sun stream in.

 blueberry pancakes...to fix what ails you.  

boxes are the best...fly me to the moon!

two boys. a box. they are beginning to play together a bit and it is really sweet. 

and of course the grand finale...he is walking...well at least with a walker and looks a bit like a stroke victim...but it's a start.

11/52

Oliver is on the cusp of reading. He can sound out words pretty well (he just gets frustrated easily) and he is feeling more of the rhythm that you get once you start reading a story. He has even surprised with with his sight recognition of various words and phrases. Like yesterday, he was looking at the side of his juice box and announced that his juice had 40 calories. I told him wow! great reading and he looked at me confused and said I did not read that, I just knew what it says. Then we chatted about how his brain was beginning to recognize words without the effort of sounding them out. Oliver was very excited that his brain was growing and learning new tricks. I am excited to enter this new world of independent reading because, well I adore books and so does Oliver and I am thrilled to have a whole new world opened to him.  

Huck's eyes are magical. They are. They are still the most beautiful deep ocean blue I have ever seen and I hope they stay that way. But the way the light dances in his eyes is wondrous.  Matt and I both noted a couple of days ago that Huck is in a fun, playful phase. He cannot walk (yet) but he loves to cruise around and crawl and knock over towers of just about anything as well as roll a ball back and forth and giggle endlessly. I try to see bits of my day through his eyes, to feel the joy from the simple things like block towers and peach flavored puffs. 

movie night! we watched a movie a few nights ago (Cars 2) and Huck got in on the last bit of the action. Oliver is delighted to narrate the entire film for him, me, eh not so much. But it sure does make my Mama heart proud to see how much these two boys love each other.   

on sleep training.

"Watch carefully, the magic that occurs, when you give a person, just enough comfort, to be themselves." Atticus Sleep training. The dreaded time had come over this past week. Honestly, I think that Matt and I kept putting it off because we had PTSD from sleep training Oliver but when Huck started to move backwards with his sleeping (getting up more than once, being a royal pain to put back down) we knew the time had come. So we braced ourselves and we told Oliver that Huck was going to cry and that he was fine and that it was not his responsibility to go in and help. We are "cry it out" folks and we do the "extinction" method, meaning you do your bedtime routine, put them down drowsy and then walk away and do not go back in to do checks like in the Ferber method. I will be the first to tell you that this sucks. A lot. Walking out of Huck's room as he gears up to scream pulls at my Mama heart strings in the worst way but I know he is safe, full and tired so I close the door and take a deep breath. And in our case it works. And Huck is taking to it much, much better that his brother. The first couple of nights Huck cried for about 20 minutes and then settled in and in most cases has been sleeping through the night but if he has been getting up, it has been to eat and then go back to sleep pretty easily. Now for bedtime, he is down to crying for only about 2-5 minutes and last night because of the time change he slept until 7am! We follow the same routine for naps and he is still crying for about 20 minutes before settling in for naps but again he is actually settling and napping. So I may not have been blessed with the "magical" babies who sleep through the night at 8 weeks old but man does it feel good to get into bed and sleep for a long block of time. It really is the golden ticket of parenthood. Sleep. 

10/52

Another week almost complete...I hear you Friday, knocking on my door. It's been a pretty good week around these parts. Oliver is in a great groove at school and I love hearing all of the stories and projects he is working on. We also firmed up summer camp plans this week...whew, who knew that could be so stressful (and expensive!). But well worth it in my book because goodness me Oliver thrives on routine and I know that he would bug me every day pestering me to come up with plans all summer long! We still have time carved out for beach days and the sort but I know he will love having activities planned for him, heck we even signed him up for rock climbing camp! I want to go.  

Huck, oh Huckleberry...the time came this week. The time to sleep train. We are fairly staunch "cry it out" folks around here so as much as it pains my mama heart it does work (Oliver is proof) and Huck is already sleeping so much more consistently and through the night! Woohoo! So I am happy that we were finally able to carve out a space to sleep train him between colds and teething and life. Hopefully he keeps doing well and by the time daylight savings comes we will be in a good spot (darn you daylight savings!).

 my small living room...every morning...afternoon and evening...toy explosions. 

 goofball.

can you hear the chuckle?

9/52

Thank goodness it's Friday! Although weekends serve a different purpose these days than they did in the past (pre-child life that is). This week seemed particularly long to me. Our days were full and in general that is a good thing but by the time bedtime rolled around I found myself just watching the clock and willing the minute hands towards that magic time when both of the littles were tucked into bed. Sometimes the daily grind just catches up with you (along with the mountain of laundry to prove it). 

And even though there was a dusting of snow and a cold winter nip in the air today, I have noticed the sunshine sticking around a little bit longer in the afternoons. We have had a few Spring-like days and it is just a taste of what is to come. I am looking forward to getting back into our park routine and afternoons spent running around outside. 

So for now we will still pad around the house in our wooly socks and continue to bring Spring inside via Trader Joe's flowers and try our best to be patient for the seasons to change (and for bedtime to come!).   

ski weekend.

Ok, folks we did it! Another weekend trip on the books. Just me and my littles. All in all it was a really fun trip. The weather was gorgeous. Oliver skied hard both days and learned a few tricks (ahem, skiing backwards!). Huck and I explored some of the back roads of New Hampshire in search of yummy breakfast foods and we all hunkered down in the hotel and watched the Good Dinosaur before tucking into bed only to be awoken at a very early hour by an excited Huck who would not stop saying, "Oliver...Oliver...Oliver" (sounds more like Oli-ber). He succeeded in waking his brother so there were more snuggles and a bit of morning telly watching before heading out for more pancakes and more skiing for Oliver. While Oliver skied, Huck and I walked around Concord and hit up the L.L. Bean outlet. Then we packed up (it looked like we were ready to stay for a week) and headed back to Pats Peak to retrieve Oliver and head home. The ride home was probably the most challenging part of the entire trip seeing as Huck decided to serenade us with his screams and cries, all for no apparent reason. Needless to say we were happy to pull into our driveway. It is exhausting traveling solo with both boys but it is worth it and I really have enjoyed seeing Oliver gain so much confidence in his skiing this winter.  Click through to see all the pictures!