Bocce fun

More catching up to do... bocce was at our house last week:

The new swingset was a big hit, with both adults and kids (but it looks like Nolan had the most fun!).



We moved on to ball sports, starting with Zach and Stuart playing some baseball:


Baseball was followed by a new game the kids invented that started with chasing the big blue ball and ended with tackling each other. Great fun.

And then there was Carter, with his own special style of goal-tending:

Grandparents visit and "four minutes!"

I've got some catching up to do. I haven't even mentioned my parents' recent visit, and that was almost two weeks ago already!

I decided to surprise Zach with his grandparents' arrival. This was partially because I thought he'd really enjoy it when we all showed up to pick him up from school. But it was also for my benefit, since it meant I could avoid the "how many days until...?" questions that I usually field for days and days beforehand.

I told Zach I'd have a surprise when I picked him up, and he immediately guessed it was M&Ms. His next guesses were cupcakes and cookies. When I asked why he thought the surprise was food, he thought for a second and then said "Is it Dinoco Lightning??!?!?" (a version of Lightning McQueen he'd been coveting.)

Sure enough, his face was priceless when he saw G&G behind me at school. And when we asked if they were a better surprise than M&Ms, he didn't even hesitate when he said yes. :)

We had a great time while my parents were here, filled with all of Zach's favorite things to do - outings to parks, lots of time playing cars with both his grandparents, etc etc. And, as they usually do, my parents encouraged Scott and me to go out on our own, which we happily took them up on. We decided to see if our friends Matt and Jenny would like to join us, as a "last hurrah" before their baby came - Jenny was due 4 days later. So the four of us had a rare kid-free dinner out at a very old-school steakhouse - a great time.

Our dinner was even more fun for me when we got to be a part of counting minutes between contractions... turned out Jenny was in labor that very night! Since I never had to do it, I was fascinated as Jenny kept checking her phone and saying "four minutes." She kept denying she was in labor since she'd had all sorts of contractions the weeks before, but we left the restaurant at 8:40 pm, and Reagan Caroline entered the world just over four hours later!! :)

Once again I was remiss in taking pictures while my parents were here. But as you can see, Charlie got some good snuggling time in!

A baby named Charles

I just got back from the pediatrician's office, and I'm wondering if it will always make me laugh to hear people refer to our Charliebug as "Charles." I know, that's his name, and obviously we chose it, but we've never had any intention of calling him that, we just wanted him to have the option someday. Charles is such a big name for a baby!

Anyway - all was well at his two-month check-up. For comparison, at Charlie's newborn visit when he was 4 days old, his stats were:

Weight: 5 lbs 13 oz; 5 - 10 percentile

Height: 18.5 inches; 10-25 percentile

Head: 13.5 inches; 10 - 25 percentile

And now, two months later, here are the numbers:

Weight: 11 lbs 6 oz; 25-50 percentile
Height: 22 inches; 10-25 percentile
Head: 16 inches; 50-75 percentile

Goodbye 5-10th percentile! Our little man has put on a few pounds. :)

In addition to the routine physical (he's "perfect" according to the doctor), this was also Charlie's first round of shots. Ugh. Fortunately, they've combined some and turned one into a medicine he could take orally. But, that still meant 3 needle sticks. Just like Zach, he turned bright red and screamed his head off while he was getting poked, but calmed down relatively quickly once I could pick him up. Poor little guy.

It's always nice to have confirmation that your baby is doing as well as you think he is. He's continuing to sleep a little longer; I can now count on him going at least 4, but up to 5.5 hours between eating at night. And he's so much more alert during the day - especially in the evenings, it seems.

I'm amazed by how content Charlie is to lay on his back and look at the world. His arms and legs wave in the air, and he just gazes around with big eyes, taking it all in. He's starting to really move - often when I lay him down on his activity mat and then look over, he's turned himself 45 degrees. And he especially seems to love being outside; I often put a blanket down in the wagon for him to lay on while I chase Zach around the yard. And he just hangs out happily, watching the clouds go by!

Charlie's also continuing to give us big gummy grins, and is starting to "talk" a bit more too. Check out the video... I did my best to capture a little bit of his charm.

Not your typical father's day weekend

I think most dads want to spend father's day weekend doing... nothing. Sleeping in, laying on the couch, watching a ball game with a beer, maybe getting up to throw some burgers on the grill - that sort of thing. That's not exactly how Scott spent his father's day weekend this year - instead he spent most of the weekend putting together a new swing set for our boys.

So how does this big pile of (unlabeled) wood and gazillions of nuts, bolts, screws, and washers

turn into this???

With a LOT of hard work, that's how. Scott was outside by 7:30 Saturday morning, and only came inside for a dinner break and a very short ice-cream cake break before he called it quits around 9:15 pm. After four more hours of work Sunday morning - it was complete! Doesn't it look GREAT?!?!

Despite all our efforts to prepare him, not surprisingly Zach had a very hard time waiting for this project to be completed. Friday night, after Scott and I came in from prepping the wood with some weather-proofing gunk, Zach very excitedly asked if his play park was ready. When we said no, he said "then what are you doing in here???" What a task-master!

And, as you can see, he played on each part as soon as possible, even having a snack on his new little picnic area while Scott did his best to work around him. So far, Zach's favorite thing to do on his new swingset is race his cars down the slide. Not particularly surprising, I guess.

And does Zach understand and appreciate what a huge effort this was? That his dad gave up the majority of a weekend just so that he (and someday Charlie) would have a fun place to play in the backyard? Of course not. But I do. And it's just one of many, many reasons why Scott is the amazing dad that he is. So on behalf of the two cuties pictured below, thank you, and we love you! Happy Father's Day!

Two months and more

Charlie is two months old today!!

He's really becoming much more active - we've learned if we put him down on his new playmat (thanks grandma K!), his little legs kick like crazy. He is constantly looking around, staring at all the new things around him, which of course makes us wonder how much he really can see. He also has started to grin a lot more, just in the last couple days. It still brings a tear to my eye every time though - so very very cute!

Zach has become quite the little consumer. As we drive around town, he yells things like "There's Arbys! Holiday! There's Home Depot!" If it's a store he doesn't know, he asks. And he loves the (annoying) Staples commercial that is on too many channels on tv; the one that goes "WOW! That's a low price! I KNOW!!" He does quite the imitation.

He's also trying to learn to read. He does his best to sound out the words, but usually just looks at the first letter or two and then guesses. It's amazing how often he gets it right, just using the context of the book or picture. When we're driving, he tries to read signs he doesn't know, and it usually takes me a minute to figure out what he's even talking about. For example, when he saw the sign for Davanni's pizza, he decided it said "David". A more confusing one: we were driving next to a semi that said "Valley Cartage;" the little voice from the backseat piped up with "Mom - V Cat!"

And I may have mentioned before that Zach seems to have inherited both of his parents' interest in art. I've tried to come up with creative arty projects to do with him, but he's rarely interested. He likes stamping, particularly with the alphabet stamps he got from his cousins, but painting, coloring, drawing - he generally says no thanks. So imagine my surprise when he wanted to fingerpaint the other day - a rainy yucky day that was just perfect for that sort of thing. We got his easel out for the first time, and he definitely enjoyed painting on that more - he went through about 8 pieces of paper, between finger painting and using brushes! Perhaps he was inspired with his experience at the Children's Museum last week, when he got to paint... on his face!

The many faces of Charlie

A roller coaster week

Zach experienced a lot of ups and downs this week. On the up side: his Grandma Cookie came to visit for a few days! That meant a lot of his favorite things - a trip to the park, an outing to the Mall to go on the roller coaster and other rides, and lots and lots of time playing cars, Uno, and whatever else with a very willing playmate.

On the down side: after he told us his mouth hurt, we discovered some telltale blisters on the roof/back of his mouth... hand, foot, and mouth disease once again. Sigh. (Our apologies to any kids who may have been exposed before we realized what was going on!)

HF&M usually starts out with a few days of a fever before the blisters appear, and if Zach had one, we totally missed it. But since hindsight is 20/20, a lot more things are making sense - why he seemed unusually whiny, and why he was waking up screaming bloody murder several times a night. I was quite concerned he was starting a nightmare phase, since that's apparently common when a 3-year old's imagination really kicks in. But coincidentally, he only experienced the nightmares for 3 or 4 nights (and naps too), which is about when he would have had the fever and the worst of the blisters. Whew. It was horrible to listen to him scream, and very difficult to comfort him. And, of course, it wasn't exactly pleasant for us to be woken up in the night by both kids. So we're glad that's over! The blisters have disappeared and he's his happy self again, sleeping just fine.

The other downer for Zach was the results of a tumble he took while running around after the parade on Sunday. He scraped both knees pretty badly; and to our surprise did NOT want us to bandage them up. He's been fascinated with bandages since he received the book Dan the Bandage Man, but despite that, he wanted his knees bare. Not even Lightning McQueen bandages could entice him! Worse than his knees, however, was the damage he did to his lip - somehow inside AND out. Lips bleed a lot, and the resulting scab was... yucky, to say the least. And it clearly bothered him, especially since it got in his way and was probably painful when he wanted to suck his thumb. Fortunately that has healed fast, but here's a lovely look at the scab near its worst stage (the scab is bad enough; you do not want to see what's behind the black rectangle):

Charlie, on the other hand, had a pretty "up" week - he got to meet his grandma, and have lots of snuggle time with her (mostly when Zach wasn't around to be jealous). And, of course, a bath from grandma - he loves those!

Do you ever get tired of naked baby in the bath pictures???

Some grand adventures

Zach's buddy Vincent turned three last week, and hosted Zach and their friend Elly for a lunch playdate to celebrate - complete with personalized birthday cake cookies!

^ When, oh when, is he going to lose the cheesy "grin"?

^ Fun in the bounce house; cruising with Elly in the F150.

As is becoming an annual tradition, on Sunday we assembled to watch St. Paul's Grand Old Day parade from our friends Aaron and Jen's front yard. It's a very odd parade - we learned that the ash borer is more serious than we think, and that there is a St. Paul Gay Rodeo Association - but Zach really only cares about getting the candy anyway.

^ Charlie, Grandma Cookie, and Zach waiting for the parade to begin; Daddy - is the parade starting YET???

^ Bagpipes + a baton = happy kid

^ Don't we have good-looking friends?

+50%

Charlie is 50% larger than he was at birth! In less than 7 weeks, he has gained 3 lbs and 4 oz; he now weighs 9 lbs 6 ounces. Check out that belly and the thigh rolls!

We went to the doctor today so she could confirm what I suspected - there's nothing wrong with this boy. The pear juice made him poop a little more, but didn't help with the gas and the struggle to get it all out. So the doctor checked him out and basically said his digestive system just takes a while to get it all done, and that he'd probably outgrow it by the time he's 2-3 months old. We are going to try some anti-gas drops, and hope like crazy that they work, because the next suggestion the doctor had was for me to go on a dairy-free diet. She obviously doesn't realize I'm from Wisconsin...