Growing like... cucumbers?

We've spent the last couple weeks just enjoying summer - barbecues with friends, swimming when we can, visiting parks, etc. So I thought I'd just provide some random updates about the boys, starting with the fact that they are growing like cucumbers - at least like the ones in our garden. I couldn't resist taking a picture of this latest one with the boys; it measured 14 inches! Soon we are going to have cucumbers coming out of our ears, to go with the peppers that are already more than we need. Our gardening experiment this year is sweet potatoes - it'll be interesting to see if we have some yummy sweet potatoes to eat at the end of the summer. Zach loves going over to see if any tomatoes are ready; he checks every day and points out changes from the previous day. I feel like we should start tracking his growth from day to day; he's all arms and legs now!

And Charlie certainly isn't shrinking; our friends have a baby scale, so over the weekend we learned Charlie is now about 13 lbs (13 lbs 3 oz with his clothes and diaper on) at 15 weeks. He's got lots going on, particularly at the moment with the amazing amount of snot coming out of his nose. I'm not sure if he has a cold or what, but he doesn't seem particularly crabby, just a runny nose. It goes well with the drool now always present on his chin; I think he's going to have to start wearing a daily bib.

I am pretty confident I heard Charlie laugh for the first time Monday. And guess who he was laughing at? Zach, of course. It's funny to observe - when Charlie is watching Zach play or listening to him talk, he just sits there staring at Zach with a big smile on his face. But the instant I point it out to Zach and he tries to make Charlie smile - goodbye smile. It's not surprising, since Zach's general method of trying to make Charlie smile is to get his face about 1 inch away and do a REALLY loud fake laugh. These efforts generally make Charlie jump, not smile. It was the same situation with the laugh - Charlie was just looking at Zach's face, and out came quite a few laughs. I love it! I can't wait to hear more.

What I don't love is Charlie's new dislike of the carseat. He used to be content in the carseat as long as it was in motion, whether in the car, the stroller, or with me rocking it. Not true anymore. And he rarely falls asleep in it, even when we're driving for 30+ minutes! So I took that as a sign that it was time to make more of an effort at naps in his crib. We've have varied success with that, and while it's hard for me to stay home mornings, after a few days where he barely slept at all during the daylight hours, I'm going to keep working on it. He is still sleeping great at night, we've now had 3 "thru the night" sleeps total. Other nights he's generally right around 8 or 9 hours. Works for me.

Charlie is also really starting to make a lot of different noises. He loves having "conversations" with us; it really looks like he's working hard to get his tongue to work and make sounds come out. Occasionally I'll hear a sound, from the monitor or across the room, and I'll think it's Zach - it's so loud and so clear. But no - it's Charlie! We may have another talker in our house...!

Charlie has come a long way with his neck strength too. Like most babies, he does not enjoy tummy time - it usually results in a face like this:

And for a long time, he'd spend most of tummy time barely raising his head or like this:

But check this out:

Those pictures are from a couple days ago. Today, I plopped him down for some tummy time and headed for the bathroom; when I came out it took me a few beats to realize Charlie wasn't how I'd left him. He rolled over!!!!! I don't know if I can really count it as his first official roll-over, since I'd left him a little bit propped up on his elbows and knees. And he wouldn't show off and do it again while I was in the room. But still - it's a preview of what's to come!

And then there's Zach, full of the usual funny stuff. I've been noticing lately than whenever I ask him how he learned something, the answer is "at school." According to him, he's learned things like how to hop on one foot and an alternate way of getting into his carseat at school. Somehow I doubt that stuff is on the curriculum!

A frequent phrase we hear now is "can I try that?" Making his own pb&j, pouring his own cereal, that type of thing. I'm doing my best to encourage it, and ignore the mess and/or additional time everything takes! And other things we've been trying to encourage him to do on his own, like getting dressed (the shirt has stumped him for a while), blowing his own nose, etc - he's much more interested in doing now too. Mr. Independent! It must be his age - he's very proud of being 3 and a half!

A certain pitcher for the Twins has grown a mustache that I personally think is hideous. So, of course, Scott and now Zach have taken to teasing me that Scott will grow a similar 'stache. So the other day Zach and I surprised Scott with a mustache for Zach - what do you think??