Eli-isms

So, I laid the boys down to sleep at about 7:50 (they were tired, I was tired...it worked) and except for a few jumping in the crib noises and about 5 minutes of Liam screaming his head off, it was pretty silent in there. Just now, at 8:30, I heard a full out, super loud version of Old Mac Donald. Which raises the question Mike and I have every night. Eli is CLEARLY awake...so what was he doing for that past half hour? Sometimes we will go in there an hour after we put him down and he'll start talking to us. He has his night night music/lightshow every night that lasts about 10 minutes... so what is he DOING in the dark? Contemplating his day? Thinking of ways to be crazy? I think it's AMAZING that he can be quiet for so long and truly wish I knew what he was thinking about in there. I'm SUPER proud of him for being so quiet and super grateful that he's so easy to put to sleep.

So the last week or two have brought about a different two year old than the one I know so well. Most of the time, this new guy is a pleasure to be around and is fascinating with the connections he makes, songs he sings, dance moves he shows off, etc. Eli really is a COOL guy... I mean, he's super outgoing, super smart, super friendly, super funny.... he's just a COOL guy. But every so often (and more frequently in the past few days), Mr. I-Will-Disagree-With-Everything-You-Say has reared his ugly head. Whenever we say something that he doesn't like (i.e. "You have to put your toys away" or "It's time to eat dinner" or ANYTHING he does not want to do), he gets his super mad face on, points his finger at me and says that he does NOT WANT to do what I'm asking or does NOT HAVE TO do what I'm asking. Sometimes, these little anger fits are just too funny.... I'll tell him, for example, that I'm hungry, and he'll get mad and say "NO. YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY." Or he'll do something that hurts me and I'll say "OW! THAT HURT!" to which I get "NO. That did NOT hurt" in response. Tonight, he got ahold of my belt and was whipping it around... I went to go take it from him and he yelled "NO! I AM NOT HOLDING THE BELT." Nice try, buddy - you're right in front of me, and I can see that you are, in fact, holding the belt. He still gets his pronouns mixed up a lot, so a lot of the time, the argument will go like this... Me: "You're tired. It's time to go to bed." Eli: "NO! You are NOT tired. You are NOT going to bed."

He's also become even bigger into telling me what to do. Not in a mean way - just that he wants to play a certain way and he wants to make sure I'm playing the right way. This dictation can be very helpful since our games constantly change ("but I thought I was supposed to be the one holding the green ball, Eli!" "NO! You do NOT hold the green ball... you hold the RED ball") and are never, ever the same as they were the previous day...or heck, even in the previous five minutes. When I don't respond immediately to his request (which is usually that I run somewhere, chase something, throw something, hide somewhere), he gets mad and comes over and physically pulls on my clothing until I follow him. He also likes saying "COME HERE!" and curls his fingers up to signal he wants me to come to where he is."

(Seriously? He's still awake! It's 8:50!).

We got his Buzz Lightyear costume last night (thanks, amanda!) and he LOVED wearing it today. I can't wait to see how excited he is on halloween!

More Eli-isms (I can't keep up with them...he says so many note-worthy things every day!)

Eli: I'm putting it (the watermelon) on the table, mommy! (taking it off of his plate and putting it on the table instead).

Me: Why are you doing that?

Eli: "Because there is no more watermelon." (um...what??)

He's big into asking me what I'm cooking or what I made for dinner and he now always asks me:

"Mommy! What you made?"

More conversations with a watermelon. Two days ago, he was biting into the watermelon and then decided it looked like a baby. Here's a conversation he had with his watermelon:

Eli: "That's a little baby, mommy!" "He's sleeping." "Hey! Are you awake?" "He's awake."

He's always in the car with me when I'm driving around looking for a spot.... Today, he told me... "I'm gonna ride my motorcycle and go find a spot." Lol.

He still LOVES to play the Wizard of Oz Game.... I stand behind a door and he knocks. I then say "WHO RANG THAT BELL?" and he laughs hysterically and tells me "Yet's go see the wizard!" We then skip around the apartment while singing "We're Off to see the wizard" until we get back to the door and then do it all over again.

He LOVES spinning around and around to the hokey pokey. LOVES spinning.

Whenever Liam is sleeping and eli realizes it, he tells me that Liam's "sweepin." He now loves touching him when he's asleep (Greeeat) and always tells me "I want to touch him. I want to touch his face, his nose, his ears and his head." (It only took HOW long of me telling him not to touch his eyes for that to sink in?).

He's been big into coloring this week, but our coloring has changed.... now he dumps out the box of crayons and hands them to me, one by one, demanding that I color a pirate. He then takes the crayon and lines it up in a meticulous way and I get a new color.

OK...I'm falling asleep. It was a busy day!

mid-october

Memories....

Yesterday, I was singing something and Eli told me to stop. I asked him why and he told me "Because it is IRRITATING. (I don't think he knows that word and don't think that's really the word he was using, but that's what it sounded like!) Go sit in the corner!" Lol.

liam loves being naked. If he's ever fussy, all I have to do is take off his clothes and he's instantly happy.

Liam is still in a size 1 diaper, though size 2s fit him much better. Eli is in a size 4. Eli is wearing 18-24 month pants (if it's 24 months, they have to be maaaaaaaaajorly cinched at the waist or belted) and 2T shirts. Liam is comfortably in 3 month stuff... if we go with the 3-6 month clothes, they are super baggy on him.

Other things that make Liam smile:

watching his brother, pinching/kissing his cheeks, kissing his feet, kissing his belly, playing with/clapping his feet together, blowing him raspberries. If I say "mamammamamama," it is the funniest thing he's ever heard of and he breaks out into the biggest smile of all time. This is how I get him to smile so big for pictures. :)

Liam LOVES bathtime and has recently started playing with/noticing Eli's bath toys. I can't WAIT til they can sit in the tub together and play.

Liam also loves grabbing onto my fingers. He puts FAR less things in his mouth than Eli did at this age, but maybe that's cause he likes to suck his thumb and use the pacifier and Eli did neither of those things.... No sign of teeth yet, thank goodness!!

Liam's hair (patches!) is ridiculous right now!!! He's CONSTANTLY rubbing his head/scratching his head and I don't know if that's cause it's itchy or just a habit he's developed. Either way, it's not helping his hair grow in.

Eli still LOVES reading me his bug book every day, asking me over and over again which bugs I like (NONE, dude, NONE). He'll occasionally sub in his dinosaur book, but he much prefers to ask me about bugs.

If anyone talks to him (which everyone does, cause he's always telling people "Hi") and then leaves us, he immediately asks me "Where's the lady?" or "Where is the man?" They are usually right behind me or near me, and I always have to say "I don't know where the lady went!"

Eli is obsessed with trying to push the fire alarm in elevators. He then tells me "the firemen will come and they will be MAD and the police lady will come and you will go to JAIL." He obviously wants to go to jail still (darn, curious george book where he goes to jail and has fun), because he always tries to push it.

Reasons I know Eli is my son: he LOVES desserts (will do anything for ice cream or cake) and LOVES sun chips. :)

If anyone asks Eli how he's doing, he replies "I went to the ZOO!!!!" and tells them about all the animals he's ever seen.... usually highlighting the giraffes. He also tells people "I'm going to be BUZZ LIGHTYEAR for halloween!" A good number of the people he is speaking to only speak Spanish, and while my spanish is pretty good, I'm not so good at translating Eli's little thoughts.

Eli LOVES chasing riley around with her little play/animal stick and she loves playing with him. It's GREAT. Keeps both of them busy. Eli usually tries to take it a step too far, though. Today, he kept trying to put his frying pan on Riley, telling me he was cooking for her.

Eli's big into "cooking" right now and this morning, he cooked all of his Melissa and Doug puzzle pieces for me. I found myself saying things like "thank you for cooking me the doggie...but it's just play cooking, ok? In real life, we don't cook doggies."

Eli is obsessed with coins right now, thanks to pirates, and calls them "goldens."

Ok.... dinnertime!!!

A typical day in the life of a mom with two little ones

This has been the first week in a long time where I don't have anything concrete planned and I am loving it. I worked three days last week and have been getting over this yucky cold, so a week of being able to get stuff DONE is making me happy.

So what's a typical day like for a mommy of two little ones trying to get stuff done? Here's my life in a nutshell: (warning...this is SUPER long and mainly only intended for me to read later in life.... it's looong and boring and you can just stop reading now).

5:30: Liam wakes up.. I try to stall him by giving him back his pacifier, but he continues to whine and I can't risk him waking Eli up. (Eli's usually a pretty heavy sleeper and isn't disturbed by Liam unless it's after 6:15 or so.... after 6, we're entering the danger zone...). I sucked it up and got up and brought Liam out to the living room to feed him. I always lay him down on the mat we have on the floor, change his diaper... then hope that he stays quiet for a minute while I run to the bathroom, feed the cats, grab some water for myself and clean up the cat poo. (Yes, I have a cat who enjoys pooping outside her litter box. Every. Single. Day.). I then feed Liam... I used to be able to put him right back to sleep, and he'd sleep til Eli woke up around 7:30... but this past week, he's been wide awake, so I'll play with him, cuddle with him, talk to him, hold him, etc...til about 7:15 or so when I'm able to put him back to sleep. Eli always wakes up between 7:15 and 7:45 and immediately wants to come out and watch a movie (these days, it's Toy Story or Peter Pan). It's a bad habit we've gotten into, letting him watch a movie every day right when he wakes up, but it's really one of the only things that has kept me sane in the morning.... allows us all to wake up, me to make breakfast, take care of things, etc. These past few days, Liam has miraculously been able to sleep through Eli and his movie and has been waking up around 8:30 or 9.

Our mornings consist of watching TV (Fireman Sam, Dora (the ice cream one) and Diego (the Linda the Llama one are our favorites right now), coloring (he now insists that I draw either a smiley face or a pirate, depending on the day, with each one of his crayons. He then lines them all up in a nice long row and we do it again), putting stickers on his cards (he's JUST now starting to be able to take stickers off himself - yay!), playing cars, ice freezing each other (Thanks, daddy, for letting me watch spiderman), chasing each other around, reading, etc. It's usually a crazy jumble of all of those things, and usually I end up keeping the TV on for much longer than it should be... BECAUSE when Liam wakes up, I'm trying to do all of those things while holding Liam/trying to pay attention to Liam. Poor guy gets carried around on such a crazy whirlwind OR completely ignored for long stretches of time. Liam is NOT down with sitting in his Bumbo chair for more than 2 minutes or sitting in his froggie recliner for more than 5 minutes. He's pretty good with tummy time and will lay on his belly for a good 10 to 15 minutes without whining (less now that he's rolling over more consistently!). He also enjoys being on his back, but I can't often leave him on the floor with Eli constantly running/jumping/spinning/throwing things. Don't get me wrong...Eli's been a VERY good big brother and we're so proud of him (today, it was quiet and I peeked out of the kitchen to see Eli putting one of his toys in Liam's hand), but he's two and if he wants to catapult himself off of the couch, he's not always going to stop to think about where Liam is. So Liam kind of gets shuffled around a lot.

When Liam starts to get cranky, that's our cue to move it move it move it to get ready to head out for whatever errand we need to get done. I learned a few months ago that if I lay Liam down for his first nap inside, that's pretty much trapping us in all day...cause when he wakes up, Eli goes down, and then Liam wants to go down again when Eli gets up.... it's a bad cycle if you want/need to get out (but great if we're going to be in for the day.... then I get quality time with Eli while Liam is sleeping and vice versa). This is where it gets crazy, cause I have a cranky/tired baby screaming his head off, a 2 year old running around in his jammies NOT wanting to get ready, and me.... still in the clothes I slept in and usually without a breakfast in me. Eli usually has a FIIIIIIT and a half when I try to get him ready to go outside, most recently telling me "no mommy... I'll stay HERE. YOU go." I usually tell him that he can bring two toys (he either picks two cars, two trains or buzz lightyear and one of the toy story crew) and bring them with us if he agrees to be the driver right away (He sits in the front of the double stroller, so I've always referred to getting in the stroller as "being the driver for Liam."). About 40% of the time, he gets in with only minimal struggle, 10% of the time he climbs right in, 30% of the time I have to chase him/pick him up, carry him and forcefully put him in and then there's that lovely 20%....where he becomes stiff as a board/super kicker/complete terror and it's nearly impossible for me to get him in the seat. Those are my most favorite days. Not.

Regardless of how Eli gets in, I have about 23 seconds before Liam starts to lose it. So much for me getting dressed (I just live in sweatpants, mostly), brushing my hair (I'm lucky if I was able to fix my ponytail from the morning), getting stamps on any of my million things waiting to be mailed, grabbing anything nutritious to eat (I live on granola bars and nutragrain bars), finding any of the coupons I stayed up late cutting out, figuring out what to have for dinner/looking at recipes, cleaning up the explosion of toys..etc.

As soon as we get outside, both boys are happy. Yay! I am happy to get out...always. It always makes such a difference when you're not trapped in one room all day, when you can see other people walking around, etc. We are usually headed to the grocery store (our favorite...as Eli is the local celebrity there and the checkout people literally stop whatever they are doing to come talk to him), the post office (NOT FUN going there, as there are double doors and stairs and a teeny aisle we have to force ourselves down if we want to get to a teller. If we have to wait in line, Eli twirls the ropes and is generally LOUD), or any number of places around. Today, we hit both the grocery store and the post office and then went to Payless so I could measure Eli's feet... (he's still a 7...so what the heck do I do? Buy 7s for the winter and know that he will outgrow them or buy 8s knowing they will be too big? 7.5s don't really exist), went to 7-11 to get mommy a slurpee (YES!), went to The Children's Place to capitalize on the 40% off of dress shirts sale (so that I could buy the boys matching nice shirts....I know, I know...corny, but I love it) and went to a street fruit vendor where I got a bunch of radishes, a bag of onions, 2 pomegranates, 2 heads of broccoli, and a bunch of bananas for $5.75!). (All of these stores are on the same street, thankfully). We also passed by the fire station twice in hopes of seeing the trucks, but the doors were closed. We then went to our favorite local restaurant so I could pick up a beef empanada for Eli (the only time he ever eats meat!). I have found that if I let Eli eat it outside, he'll eat the whole thing...so we walked around until he finished it. He then threw a BLOODY MURDER FIT that we weren't continuing down the street and that we turned around to go home. He was SCREAMING "Go THAT WAY, MOMMY!" for a good 10 minutes, all the way up to and inside our apartment.

When we get inside, both kids start screaming because they both want OUT and it becomes a battle of how to take care of them both plus unpack the groceries. On a good day, Eli will play by himself while I try to fix Eli's lunch as fast as possible while usually holding a screaming, hungry Liam. This is why his lunches aren't the most balanced or nutritional and usually consist of chicken nuggets (which he will eat 2 or 3 30% of the time), a piece of bread (what he calls a sandwich), a fruit rope, some crackers and whatever else i can get out of a jar/package.

When Eli is eating, I feed Liam. When Eli is done with lunch, we "play a little bit" and I try to get us reading stories by 1:30. Liam is usually SSSSUUUUPPPER cranky during storytime but I try to keep him up so that I can have a dual nap. I put Eli down around 2 and for the most part, he goes right down. I cover him with his favorite blanket of the moment, line up his toy story dolls, put some books in the corner of his crib, turn on his safari lamp, turn on his night night music, and leave. He's usually asleep for 2-3 hours. Yay! Liam is harder to get down for naptime, at least recently. I have to rock him several different times before he falls asleep...and his naps have been much shorter... lasting an hour tops. When he gets up too early for himself (like right now, today), he's a cranky crying mess and I have to just pray that he doesn't wake Eli up.

"Break" time SHOULD be spent cleaning (which I can't really do, cause Liam is out in the living room and a light nap sleeper), cooking or something productive, but usually by that time, I'm so drained (physically and mentally) that all I want to do is sit on the couch and do completely mind numbing things.... like watching Ellen (which I tape every day but only get to watch once or twice a week) or Project Runway or Top Chef... while chatting to friends on the computer, updating this blog, or uploading pictures. My scrapbooks sit on a table 10 feet from me, begging to be worked on, but I know that if I take time to spread everything out, the boys will be up and I'll have to pack it all up again. I should be better about getting dinner started or doing the dishes, but I ALWAYS ALWAYS say "ah, I'll just go on the computer for a few minutes and then get to that" and NEVER do.

When Eli wakes up, it's usually crunch time.... Mike gets home around 5:30, so I start dinner and time just goes whooooooooosh. It is NOT easy making dinner with two little guys. Liam usually hangs out in the kitchen with me and I move his bouncy chair from place to place to try to keep him entertained. Eli usually plays by himself or I let him watch TV. On good days, I get to make a nice dinner without problems. On most days, I usually am trying to appease Liam, cook/wash dishes, run around trying to clean up the living room a little (it really becomes a disaster zone), play an inning or two of baseball with eli, play stickers/read a book with Eli.... all at the same time. When Mike comes home, I feel better cause I am no longer ignoring Liam... and by 6, dinner is usually on the table. (We're trying not to order out so much to save money and I genuinely enjoy cooking... I really like doing it). I usually feed Liam while the boys start and then get to join them right when Eli is having a fit about wanting to get down. He's not the best eater these days and we usually have to bribe him with a yogurt pop/ice cream/popsicle to get him to eat dinner.

After dinner, we play a little bit, usually some kind of family sport thing...basketball, baseball, chasing, etc... some nights are bath nights. We then try to get everyone in "the big bed" by 7:30 or so to start reading books. We usually read about 5 or 6 and then Eli goes to bed. If I got to feed Liam during storytime, then he goes down, too... otherwise he comes out with us for some Liam/Mommy/Daddy time.

He's usually asleep by 9:30 or so, and then I sit down and lose every ounce of energy and willpower I have to get anything done. Throughout the day, I am always 100% confident I will get to addressing my cards/letters, working on my scrapbook or any one of my million other projects... but I never, ever, ever have the energy to do that. I SHOULD just go to bed then, but I really cherish that time to mindlessly surf the net, watch the occasional TV show with mike, etc.... It's my ME time and it's what keeps me sane.

WhEW. That was a loooot longer than I intended, but I'm glad I wrote it all down so that one day, I can look back on this and remember!

Liam is 4 months old today!

FOUR. months. old. I feel like I was just writing the 3 month update last week. Insane.

Poor Liam got his first cold this week. He caught it from his big brother and mommy and has been such a little trooper battling it out. He had a slight fever on Tues and Wednesday and now just has a horrible little cough. Thank goodness he was never really congested and has still been able to eat ok. It's so, so sad to hear a little baby coughing. Hopefully this will clear itself up pretty soon.... and then first sickness: survived! yay!

Liam's favorite thing to do is watch his brother do ANYTHING. I'm kind of afraid that he's just sitting there, taking allllll of the craziness in and is going to do everything 10x bigger.... sigh.

He's also been able to reach for things purposefully and grab and hold onto toys. He's just starting to get to the stage where he tries then to pull everything to his mouth.

He still loves his pacifier and I LOVE that if I pop that sucker back in, he'll sleep another hour or two! Last night, he slept from 10-6! WOOHOOOO!

Here's to more adventures!

Liam rolls over again!

So yesterday, Liam turned 18 weeks old. He celebrated by learning how to roll over from his back to his tummy!!! He rolled to his right two times in a row and then looked at me like - hey wait, I didn't want to be on my tummy.... lol.

Both boys are sick and have been since Friday. ugh. Eli had a fever and cough for a few days before Liam caught it, and now they both have bad colds. Luckily, the fevers are finally gone, but this cough is no joke. Not looking forward to the potential 2-3 more weeks of coughing. Blah.

Gotta jet cause Eli just woke up... just wanted to say that yesterday, when we were reading Winnie The Pooh, Eli pointed at a picture of Eeorye (how do you spell that?) and called him EE-whore. Nice.

to be continued.

Pirate Land

Eli's new obsession is with pirates. Nearly everything we do involves some kind of connection to pirates. The things he likes watching on TV right now are... The pirate episode of the Backyardigans, the Halloween episode of Yo Gabba Gabba (cause one of the monsters dresses up like a pirate), Peter Pan (cause of the Pirates), The Wizard of Oz (more on that later) and A Bug's Life (more on that later). His firehat aka yankee doodle hat has now become his pirate hat and he likes to wear his eye patch (which often falls off and bothers him since he can't fix it himself) and use one of the foam edges from the alphabet mat as his pirate sword. He runs around yelling ARRRR. A phrase he keeps saying that I didn't figure out until today is "Ooooh a pirate's life for me!" (From Peter Pan). I bought him a pirate outfit from Melissa and Doug that I'm going to give him for Christmas. :)

During lunch, this was a conversation we had (to show you how confusing it can be for mommies of children this age):

Eli: "Mommy, are you a pirate?"

Me: "ARRRRR" (what I have been instructed by him to say in the past as a response).

E: "Are you a pirate?"

Me: "ARRRRRRRRR"

E: "Are you a pirate?"

Me: "Yes. Mommy is a pirate. ARRRRRR!"

E: "Mommy's not a pirate???" (He was asking and telling at the same time).

Me: *Sigh* "No, Mommy's not a pirate." (confused....cause now I don't know what I'm supposed to be next time)

Another conversation I have 47 times a day:

E: "Do you like ladybugs?"

Me: "yes, I like ladybugs."

E: "Do you like spiders??"

Me: "Noooo."

E: "Do you like spiders???" (cause he always repeats himself when I say no, just to make sure I understood, I guess? lol).

Me: "Noooo. I don't like spiders. Do YOU like spiders?"

E: (Today, his answer cracked me up.....) "No. They have TOO MANY LEGS."

We went to the museum of Natural History on Monday to meet up with Sawyer and meet her new baby sister, Jasper. Sawyer was confused about why Eli had to stay in his stroller since she is such a well behaved little girl and always listens when mommy tells her to come here.... but when I explained that Eli will run away unless he's strapped in, she relented and decided she wanted to push him around the whole time. It was adorable to see a 2 year old pushing another 2 year old in the stroller. She did great, the little mommy, and even managed turns and tricky spots. lol. The kids had a fun time seeing each other again...it's been a while!

Yesterday, I took the boys to the zoo and when my friend Dianne met up with us, we took turns taking him on the bug carousel. He LOVES bugs right now (Hence, always wanting to watch A Bug's Life!) and was thrilled to get to ride the fly and the ladybug. He's pretty good at naming most bugs and can tell you which ones he likes and which one mommy likes. He has a book of bugs that his Tita Carol gave him and we look through it allll the time so he can question me about which ones I like. I'm up in the air about whether or not I should be honest with him and say no all the time cause he tends to not like the same ones as me and I don't want to cloud his judgement on bugs. lol. I often find myself saying I like beetles, centipedes, moths, bees and other bugs I can't STAND just so that he stands a chance at liking them. He also gets upset if I say I don't like certain types of bugs, so most of the time it's easier for me to just say yes. lol.

My favorite part about the zoo yesterday was when we went to see the Lions. When I told him that's where we were going, he said "lions and tigers and bears...oh my!" HA. Then when we got there, we saw that there was a Mommy Lion, a Daddy Lion and a baby (teenager) Lion, all of whom were sleeping. The zookeeper told us lions sleep a LOT and I read that they can sleep up to 21 hours a day. Well, Eli LOVED that they were sleeping and told every single person that came up to see them (a lot of people, since we stayed there for about 15 minutes): "The Lions are taking a NAP. They are VERY tired." lol. He's SO not shy.

He is also OBSESSED with the wizard of Oz and I couldn't be happier. He wants to watch the movie every day. He loves the lion and loves acting out the scene where the lion first appears. He loves watching the scarecrow and is THRILLED to see so many scarecrows out this time of year (we have one on our door that he always tries to touch/pull off/play with). Yesterday, he went over and put his toy frying pan on his head and told me he was the tin man. Lol. His new favorite game to play is me and him skipping around singing "we're off to see the wizard." He always goes to pick up his basket (something mike is not fond of... "Why does he have to be Dorothy? Why can't he be the Scarecrow... Why does he always need the basket??) and skips (runs) around the room. He wants me to follow him and skip and then he makes me go into the bathroom and close the door. Once I'm in there, he knocks/rings the doorbell. I then open it and say "WHO RANG THAT BELL?" Eli: "Me. Let's go see the wizard." Then I follow him around the apartment skipping until he leads me back to the bathroom and we do it all again. We literally did that about 40 times in a row last night. Lol. He really wants Liam to be The Wicked Witch or Toto or The Lion for Halloween. I'm ordering a Lion costume for Eli that I will also give him on Christmas. I should get the Scarecrow, too.

Ok - nap time is over (ALL TOO SHORT today!! Noooo), and we're going to try to venture out and walk over to the KFC in the Bronx to pick up some chicken for Daddy. It's an absolutely gorgeous day today and since Mike's second job called to say they don't need him tonight (too many cancellations), we're going to make the most of it and head up to the Yonkers Raceway to watch the horses race! Should be fun!

Liam is 16 weeks!

The weeks fly by! Liam is already 16 weeks old and in about 10 days or so, he'll be 4 months old. He's still a pretty little guy. I feel like he's taller than Eli was at this age, but no doubt skinnier. Some of the outfits that Eli was in at this age fit Liam, but are definitely looser. He's in pretty age-predictable outfits right now, wearing mostly 3 month stuff. He's still in size 1 diapers, but that's mainly cause I have some left and am trying to go through them all before we bump up to size 2.

Liam is, and has always been, Mr. SMILEY. He loooves smiling and when he does, he smiles with his whole face. He loves smiling at his daddy and at his big brother Eli. He LOVES watching Eli do anything and is always smiling whenever Eli walks near him. Eli continues to be an amazing big brother to Liam and now tries to comfort him with extra hugs or kisses if he ever sees him crying.

He hasn't been napping too good the last few days and yesterday refused to take an afternoon nap at all. Part of that is cause my attention is often divided, and when I should be focusing all of my energy on getting the little guy to sleep, I often have a "MOMMY! PLAY TRAINS!" guy hanging out next to us. Sigh.

Liam continues to sleep well at night. He typically goes down between 8:30 and 10 and then sleeps til about 4 something... I can usually get him to go back to sleep for another hour (2 to 3 times) by putting a pacifier in. I'm very thankful he goes back to sleep, but broken sleep isn't so restful. He's usually up for sure by 5 or 5:15 and after I feed him he'll go back to sleep for another hour or two. He's then up for two hours, from about 7:30 to 9:30 and then starts to REALLY get fussy. He NEEDS that morning nap. I've been trying to make that nap coincide with our getting outside to run errands or go to the playground, but there are a lot of times (like this morning) that I realize getting me and Eli ready to head out isn't going to work. Those are the days we're pretty much trapped here all day, because when Liam wakes up from his nap, it's lunch-ish time and then time for Eli's nap. Life is GLORIOUS when they both nap together in the afternoon and I try SUPER hard to make that happen. I always have grand plans to get stuff done, but oftentimes those 1-2 hours fly by at an insane rate and I realize I've done nothing productive.

Making dinner can be a bit of a challenge some days, but for the most part, Eli plays out in the living room (or watches a movie) and Liam hangs out with me in the kitchen. Poor guy is stuck in his little froggie chair for like an hour sometimes..and he's such a trooper about it. When he starts to get fussy, I just move the chair around so he has something different to look at. He currently likes being parked in front of the fridge cause he likes to stare at all of the magnets.

He's doing GREAT with tummy time and is now able to balance on his belly and lift both his arms and legs up (like he's swimming). He's also started to reach for things and rolled over a second time last week. He likes it when I put crunchy books in front of him.

Yay 16 weeks!