Mish Mash

This is long overdue, but Nolan had his 18 month well-check on September 6.  He weighed 22 lbs. (with his cast on) and was 34.25 or 34.5 inches tall.  String bean.  He and Beck are different in a lot of ways...most ways, actually.  One example is that Nolan will eat pretty much anything.  And, he seems to eat about three times as much as Beck ever ate at his age.  Despite this difference, they're about the same size when you compare them at the same ages.  However, Nolan is taller than Beck was, and I think Nolan might actually catch up to Beck at some point.  I venture to guess they might be wearing the same size a year from now.  Nolan's feet are also bigger than Beck's were, and I'm on my last pair of hand-me-down shoes for him.  I've also pretty much run out of hand-me-down clothes for him, so the boys will either have to share clothes next summer (and I'll be doing a lot of laundry), or I'll need to find some good deals.

Now on to Halloween!  Beck's birthday!  The election!  All very exciting stuff that I'll cover quickly.  Halloween was lots of fun.  The boys participated in the Halloween parade and their respective class parties at their day care the day before, and then we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood on Halloween.  It was Beck's first experience with real trick-or-treating (we previously just trick-or-treated at businesses in our old neighborhood - which was during daylight).  He loved it, and Nolan did, too.  Other than the occasional Dum Dum sucker from the doctor's office, Nolan had not had much candy prior to this Halloween.  I think he ate three or four pieces in quick succession and was begging for more.  I cut him off and he threw a fit, but then he almost threw up and I think he realized he didn't need anymore.  I hate being the sugar-regulator.  They each had a small treat after breakfast the next morning (nothing like starting off your day with a sugar buzz), and then I had Paul take all of their candy to work.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Beck turned 4!  We had a HUGE party (by our standards).  There were about 20 kids and 20 adults, and we rented a HUGE bouncy castle.  It almost felt like our wedding, where I didn't really get to have a conversation with anyone, but it was a blast.  It was Beck's "golden birthday" (he turned 4 on the 4th), it was also sort of a housewarming party for us, and we rarely entertain, so what the heck.  He got lots of great presents (thank you!  we're working on thank you cards) and I think he's pretty proud to be 4.  His well-check is next week, and hopefully I'll be able to post his stats.

The election!  I think most of you know I'm pretty much a lifelong Democrat, and I used to be sort of politically active.  Not so much anymore.  It's just not at the top of my priorities.  But, this election reminded me about how much I do care.  I'm pretty excited about many of the election results.  Heidi Heitkamp was elected to the U.S. Senate in North Dakota (the first woman to be elected to the Senate in ND).  Barack Obama gets another term to do his thing.  The country voted "yes" and "no" in ways that move us closer to equality for all.  I'm feeling proud and optimistic.

NoJo's a big boy and I'm in the picture.

Nolan: Smiling!  Beck: You will never catch me smiling nicely.

On September 20, I mentioned in my post that Nolan was hooked on his pacifier.  Sometimes, you just have to put it out there, into the universe, and things change.  The very next day, we had a talk with Nolan's teachers at daycare.  He's in the "Tottler" room and will soon be moving to the "Toddler" room.  He was using his pacifier for naps, but they don't allow pacifiers in the Toddler room, so his teachers thought they should start putting him down without his pacifier to get him accustomed to napping without it before he makes the switch to the next room.  We agreed that it was a good idea, and also agreed that we needed to make the change at home, too, to provide him with consistency.  We decided to make the change starting the next Monday.  I picked him up that day, and they told me he did just fine.  Seriously?!?  I almost didn't believe it.*  I sucked it up and as soon as we got home, I ran through the house to collect and hide his pacifiers.  I was very nervous, because he had been very dependent on them, both for sleeping and for soothing himself throughout the day.  But, it went well.  Waaaaay better than I expected.  And, just like that, no pacifier.  Looking back, I can see that in the month or so leading up to Operation Pacifier Removal, Nolan was going through a tough time.  He was getting his bottom molars.  He broke his arm.  Paul was out of town quite a bit.  I was stressed out and probably not doing a great job of staying calm enough to try to soothe him without the help of the pacifier.  Luckily, he was in a much better place when Operation Pacifier Removal went into effect.  And, he handled it like a complete champ.  He was ready.  I was ready to trust that he could do it (although I was nervous and skeptical).  Phew.  He's been totally pacifier-free for three weeks.  Awesome job, Nolan! 

 

In other news, I'm in this picture.  That's me, between the two boys.  It's been a while since we posted a picture of me, so I understand if you've forgotten what I look like.  (p.s. does anyone read this blog anymore?  hello?  hellooooo?)  I don't look that great in the picture.  But, I recently read this article at The Huffington Post, about how moms are often not in their family pictures. 

 

"It seems logical. We're sporting mama bodies and we're not as young as we used to be. We don't always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think."

"But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves -- women, mamas, people living lives. Avoiding the camera because we don't like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay?"

I certainly don't intentionally shy away from the camera, but I'm usually the one taking the pictures, and if Paul does capture a picture of me with the boys, I usually don't look that cute (see the lack of bathing above - yeah, I'm usually looking pretty grubby), so I'm not in a hurry to post it.  Anyway, I do miss seeing myself with my family, so I'm going to make more of an effort to be in the pictures.  This was taken on our first official family hike.  We went to Lookout Mountain, which is a very short drive from our house and did a .6 mile loop.  It was short, but a perfect introduction for the boys.  It was a beautiful fall day, and we stopped to visit Buffalo Bill's grave and museum on the way down.  I really want to do more outdoor activities as a family, and this was a good start.
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*Sometimes, he would scream, seriously SCAAREEEEAM, loudly, tearfully, agonizingly, the whole way home from daycare to our house, which is at least a 25 minute drive, because he wanted his pacifier.  I would try daily to just not give it to him when we were at home, especially if he was playing or engaged in something else, but he would ask for it, and then cry for it, and I would inevitably give in, because I just didn't think it was worth it for Beck and me to try to hang out with, and attempt to ignore, a very loud, unhappy Nolan all day long.  Beck and I even made up a song to sing in the car to try to distract Nolan from his pacifier-denial crying - "No more crying, no more crying, Nolan John, Nolan John, put a smile on your face, put a smile on your face, just like this, just like this" - sung to the tune of Frere Jacques - (and Beck and I would SMILE :D and act goofy and try to get him to stop crying, to no avail).  That is why I was so skeptical that he could give it up that easily.

 

The purple cast.

Nolan broke his arm a month ago. He fell down the stairs. Ugh. Let me set the scene...

Paul left on a Monday night for a week-long fishing trip to Alaska.  My mom arrived on Tuesday to help us out and we had to pick her up from the airport around noon.  This messed up our schedule, so Beck didn't take a nap that day.  It's about 6:30 p.m. and I'm getting the bath ready for the boys. I've got Nolan undressed, down to his diaper, and the bath is ready.  I tell Nolan "the bath is ready...go get Beck!" So he heads downstairs.  I'm right behind him, but I missed seeing how he started to fall.  I see him falling from about the second stair down and he sort of flips over (and I think he rolled over his arm) and lands on the landing.  He's crying pretty hard and I scoop him up to assess the damage. 

While I was preparing the bath and Nolan was falling, Beck was outside and had found a stick.  He brought it inside and was swinging it around, so my mom is trying to get him to take it back outside.  He FLIPS THE FLIP OUT.  Remember, no nap, so he's exhausted.

So, Nolan is still crying pretty hard, Beck is throwing a serious tantrum, I'm trying to figure out if Nolan is injured or just scared, my mom is trying to calm everybody down, and it's pretty much mass chaos.  I immediately suspected that Nolan hurt his arm because he wasn't calming down and he wasn't really using his left arm.  I decide pretty quickly that I need to take him to urgent care, but I try to call the after-hours doctor on call to run it by him/her first.  I'm waiting to get a call back and decide I'm just going to get in the car and go.  Beck is HYSTERICAL and I basically just have to leave him in my mom's care and hope that she can calm him down.  (I see him run out of the house as I'm driving away.  My mom tried to get him in the bath, but he refused and he finally just asked to go to bed.  She put his jammies on and he passed out immediately.)

A nurse or someone calls when I'm driving to urgent care, Nolan is still crying, and I'm just trying to stay calm.  We arrive at urgent care and Nolan has finally calmed down, but he occasionally starts crying again.  We talk to the P.A. and she orders x-rays (she didn't really think anything was broken, but, you know...just in case).  We wait and wait and wait, they give Nolan some ibuprofen, we do the x-rays (see previous post re: haircuts and you can imagine how fun holding him down for x-rays was), we wait some more, and Nolan seems fine. He's playing.  I'm having him wave his arms around and he's moving them both like crazy.  I think "I am totally overreacting.  He's fine!"  Just as I finish that thought, the P.A. comes in and says he broke his arm in two places. 

So, they put a sling on and give me instructions to make an appointment with the orthopedist.  He chose a purple ("purpur") cast.  He broke both bones, but they were very minor buckle fractures and he only had to wear the cast for 3 weeks.  It didn't bother him at all (except maybe at night...he woke up a lot while he had the cast on, but that could have been due to his molars coming in), but bathing him was quite a challenge.  The cast came off last week and he's good as new!

Haircuts - Before and After

A few things:

1. I pay $20.00 for each cut, but I think it's worth it because they last for at least 3 months and there are (usually) no obvious jagged lines like when I pay $5 or $10 (or attempt to cut it myself...no way).

2. Yes, Nolan is hooked on his pacifier. I would have judged me, too, before I had Nolan. For now, it's not impeding his speech or messing up his teeth, so we plan to take it away when he turns 2.

3. Nolan SCREAMED and squirmed and basically thought we were torturing him the whole time he was getting his haircut. I held him in my lap and tried to hold his head still, and I have no idea how the hairdresser actually did a decent cut, but she did.

4. I cannot get a good picture of the two of them.

So, haircuts...check. Hopefully we're good until around Christmas.

Blackberries!

This is a huge perk of our new house. The yard came with blackberry bushes, as well as raspberries, red currants, sour cherries and plums. We missed the raspberries and sour cherries, but the blackberries are just starting to ripen and the plums are next. Nolan is in heaven.

Summer 2012

Like always, life has been crazy. We moved to our new house in Arvada on June 30, spent the weekend trying to unpack essentials, and then left for North Dakota on July 3. Beck, Nolan and I all had colds throughout the vacation, so it wasn't exactly relaxing, but I think they still had fun on the farm. We're still trying to settle in to the new place, but I'd say it feels like home, just a very unorganized home.

In other news, Beck went to bed a 3.5 year old and woke up a teenager. First, he slept until 8:30, which is about two hours later than normal. I said "good morning!" when he finally came out of his room and he said - no joke, people - "I don't want to hear it." He then continued to plead with me to leave him alone all morning. I asked to take a picture of him and this is the face I got. He seems back to normal now, but I got a taste of what parents of 15 year olds must feel.

Nolan is getting cuter by the day.

Spring Sing

Random iPhone Photos

A semi-blurry picture and a few quick words.

It's after 4 o'clock in the afternoon and both boys are sleeping. Lately, their nap schedules have ranged from "refusing to nap for several days and then suddenly taking a 3.5 hour nap on Tuesday" (Beck) to "I am NOT absolutely no way NOT taking a morning nap today, but I will not ABSOLUTELY NOT survive without a morning nap tomorrow" (Nolan). I dunno. If I strictly adhered to what seems to be their ideal nap schedules, we would not leave the house because it would go like this: Breakfast, get dressed, etc., Nolan nap from 10:00-11:15 or so, lunch, Beck nap from 1:00- 2:30, Nolan nap from 2:30-3:30, snack, and then it's almost dinner time. So, things have been crazy, and most days one of them ends up missing a nap and (understandably) behaving like a little demon, but then I get an unexpected gift like this, where they're napping at the same time. Whatever. I'll take it.

It's been almost 2 months since our last post, so I just wanted to let you know we're alive. I can't seem to get a decent picture of the two of them together, and honestly, we rarely take any pictures these days. Ugh. I'm going to regret that in the future. Thank goodness for the iPhone camera.

Snow!

NoJo

He's been here for a year. I have a partially written post about 2011 and what a challenging year it was, and I have grand plans to share Nolan's birth story in some fashion with you (which I finished writing a few months after he was born), but life with two boys is getting in the way of me writing about life with two boys.

A quick update, though - we had Nolan's 12 month "well-check" today. He developed a cough and a slight fever yesterday, so I knew he wasn't "well" but we were surprised to learn that he has an ear infection ("a 7.5 on a scale of 1 - 10" according to the PA). Also, goopy eyes and two or three molars coming in. What the what? He was a little fussy, but not "fever, cough, ear infection, goopy eyes, molar teething" fussy.

Anyway, we celebrated his birthday on Sunday. He's walking. He loves balloons. He still has the best smile in the world. We love him!

More Walking (Day 3)