Little Men in March

As Dr. A put it, you gotta love it when your best friend's kid becomes your kid's best friend.

The boys decided to cruise town in the Benz. (And by town, I mean A's parent's cul-de-sac.)

"Ugh - I wouldn't have to squint if Mom had packed my sunglasses."

And to give you a sense of scale:

"This parking spot is kinda tight - luckily the Benz is compact"

I laugh every time I look at this photo. Every time.  

Adios.

Happy 10 Months SS!

Matching outfits with Mama to go see the Seussical

Already 10 months old, we are now definitely on the countdown to the big ONE WHOLE YEAR OLD. Unbelievable.

Part of the reason it's unbelievable is that SS is my baby-baby - he is still army-crawling, although he has definitely perfected his technique and is fully mobile and fast now. He has just started rocking on his hands and knees a couple of times. He flipping over on his changing table like a crazy man and it's all we can do to keep him from wiggling right off the edge.  

SS is still chattering away in babbles and squawking too - he did look right at J and say "Da" on Memorial Day though, his official First Word. 

The two little teeth I have been monitoring for months finally fully erupted, and now that SS has them, he has been eating more finger-foods. Cut up pieces of avocado, apples, bananas, and sweet potatoes have all crossed his high-chair tray, as well as innumerable puffs. He is still working on the hand-eye coordination, but is improving. He desparately wants to hold the spoon while I feed him, which leads us to another new activity this month has brought:

Discipline. It sounds silly, to talk about disciplining a baby, but as I have been telling SS, "With great power comes great responsibility." With your newfound mobility and subsequent exploration comes the responsibility of not putting electrical wires in your mouth, kid. For some reason the lamp cords hold endless appeal to our babies - BB was the same way. So we have been working on "No". And the other night SS threw a full-out fit over not being able to hold the spoon while I fed him. Because he is such a happy baby, J and I had to hide our giggles when SS became demanding and grumpy over the spoon - I made sure to instruct him on "No" and not throwing fits with a straight face, but man, it was funny. SS is also starting to express more desire, for a toy or to do a certain activity, and to cry and fuss if he doesn't get it.

SS is still nursing and drinking formula, but is starting to prefer solids to formula mid-day. I am mostly nursing him in the morning, and then once or twice a day after that. Nursing is getting tougher as SS becomes more and more interested in BB - if SS hears BB's voice, he whips his head around to look for and observe his big brother. He is also very distracted by Daddy's voice.  The boys laugh together at the dinner table, and splash together in the tub. It's so sweet to see them start to play together.

SS's lungs are still sensitive due to the RSV he had in February, and a little cold is a much bigger problem for SS than it is for BB. He gets a croupy-sounding cough and we have to give him breathing treatments in the middle of the night, which are tough on everyone. SS had a cold over Memorial Day weekend and the day of BB's Birthdaysaurus party, but he recovered and is back to his happy self.

Happy 10 Months Boo Boo! You will be one year old before I know it, but I hope you are always my cuddly mama-baby.

Birthdaysaurus

We threw BB a Birthdaysaurus party on Memorial Day at our neighborhood park to celebrate THREE! with family and friends. I had started daydreaming about BB's birthday party theme about two months before his actual birthday and, completely forgetting that two months in toddler time and two months in adult time are totally different things, I started talking to BB about his birthday in March. Which then meant that from that point in March, through April, and then May, BB would announce "My bir-day is coming" and "I'm gonna have a dinosaw bir-day" multiple times a week. By the time BB's dinosaur party finally did roll around, poor BB had months of built-up anticipation to contend with.

Luckily, his party lived up to the hype.

In BB's opinion, at least. 

We emailed this invitation out - saving a tree and some dolla-dolla-bills ya'll, one of my favorite combos.

Our birthday gifts to BB were a basketball hoop and a soccer goal , which we set up at the park for the party. (We also got him a U of A hat that we gave him on his actual birthday which we realized tonight is missing - super bummed about that. It was last seen on Friday afternoon, which means it didn't even last 48 hours.) We surprised BB with the hoop and goal when his auntie walked him over to the park for the party, and he immediately went for the basketball hoop and started playing.

Since the party, BB has bee-lined outside to play basketball in the backyard, and wants us to chant "U of A! U of A!" before he will shoot a basket. He actually has a pretty good shot already!

Family photo just before the party started, with the boys in their matching dinosaur t-shirts 

(I converted SS's to a jumper with snaps because they didn't have baby sizes)

I baked BB a yellow cake (I had him pick the flavor, even though I don't think he knew what it was) from scratch, and it came out moist and delicious. And then J and I decorated the cake together, turning it into a dinosaur.

BB loved his cake and just stared at it for a while with a little smile. 

 

Everyone singing BB Happy Birthday

We gave him the first piece, and Nacky said after a while he came back to the food table and was very upset that his cake had disappeared. He must not have realized that everyone else was going to eat it too.

Post-cake

(Although he actually didn't eat a ton of cake. He preferred Auntie Seen's Dinosaur (Jello) Eggs)

In addition to the soccer and basketball activities, we also set out sidewalk chalk and bubbles, and put blankets out with a couple of baby toys for the littlest party-goers. Unfortunately SS and I both came down with a cold over the weekend - I felt well enough by Monday morning to actually enjoy BB's party, but SS was still in the throes of the cold, so he did not get to play in the little baby area. Here are some of our littlest party guests who did:

Auntie Shawna was on SS-duty and just held him during the party, until Nacky took him back to our house to nap. We are so thankful to Auntie Shawna for helping watch our kiddos in the morning while we set up for the party, and for all of her help with SS during the party, and she even stayed and helped clean up afterwards. And Nacky also came early to help with set-up, and then took over with SS back at our home while we kept partying at the park, and she even surprised me by cleaning up my kitchen while she was here. It was amazing to walk into a spotless kitchen when I was expecting quite the opposite! Do we have the best family or what?

Auntie Seen surprised BB with this dinosaur sippy cup, and a whole bowl of Dinosaur Eggs (Jello eggs), which he had loved at Easter. Although, because Uncle Matt carried the bowl up to the party, BB kept correcting everyone, saying that Matt brought the eggs.

Our main party activity was a Dinosaur Excavation.

J had painstakingly buried plastic dinosaurs in layers of Jello the night before - here's an in-progress shot:

And then at the party we explained to the kids that they were going to excavate the dinosaurs.

The kiddos all gathered around as the birthday boy prepared for the first excavation.

E joined BB on his dig.

A dinosaur!!

The kids loved this activity even more than we expected, and eventually had to be torn away from the bins of Jello, much of which was strewn across the grass.

Before SS went back to our house to nap, my friend C made sure we snapped a picture of us mamas with our babies to update the picture from last May when we were all pregnant together.

We're missing Han and her little man from this photo, but they are in our hearts and thoughts.

I'm so glad C thought to get this photo - it's so fun to see how much has changed in one year, and to daydream about the lifelong friendships that can develop between these precious little ones.

We asked party-goers to bring a book for a book exchange in lieu of a gift, so each child went home with a new book, but BB did have a few gifts to open, which we saved until the very end of the party.

Here he is opening his Dinosaur Train train set from Auntie Seen and family (after opening sweet "gifts" that cousins B and Tada made, a paper hat and another paper "craft" and some itty bitty barbells made out of toothpicks and beads)

Sniffing his Scratch-and-Sniff book from cousin Sara

Opening his Boogie Dance kit from Auntie Shawna

Ready to boogie!

BB later said that he wanted his party again, so we interpreted that as a rave review.

Birthdaysaurus success!! 

Three

On Thursday our Barking Baby turned three years old.

GG came to town to celebrate BB's actual birthday, and we took BB to the splash pad at the park.

                   

BB displayed his physical prowess on the big kid rock wall.

Three years ago J and I began our journey of parenthood when our Barking Baby was born.

 

Happy, happy birthday BB! The last three years have irrefutably been the happiest of my life, and I praise God for the blessing He gave me when he knit your little self together in my womb. I love your passion, your silliness, your determination, your orderly nature, your spunk, your love for your brother - you have charmed this Mama and I am yours forever. Barking Baby, you're the one!