Our boys are cute

Babies are so cute when they're naked!  And when they're grabbing their feet!  And when they're smiling!  Ooooh, triple whammy!

Robin can still be snuggly when he's tired

Liam showing off how good he is at sitting for Poppa

I let Robin take a few pictures by himself in early November.  He even got a few good ones

(He also got a lot of the floor and close-ups of inanimate objects.)  You can see a few more of his shots at Science Fiction Mommy.

Mom made Liam a sweater.  She was very proud of herself too.  Isn't it nice?!

We met a friend at a place called Monkey Bizness, which is an indoor play area for kids.  Unlike the Children's Museum, this place doesn't charge for parents!  Score!  This is Liam in the crawlers area.

Robin climbing around

He had a lot of fun here

Hee hee, a baby on the big slide

Robin climbed this thing all by himself

Taking Liam down a slide

The three of us in a toy house

Robin doesn't seem to have realized the distinction between "friend" and "best friend," because he calls everyone his best friend.  For our part, we're enjoying this because we know we won't be his best friends forever.

Meanwhile, Liam continues to grow and learn.  He's a pro at sitting up now, reaches for everything, and wants to be part of everything that's going on.  We survived his first major cold, though I, in particular, didn't get much sleep.  But he's back to sleeping through the night again (and I'm hoping that doesn't happen again anytime soon.)

More October photos

An armload of boys

Robin made this sand castle all by himself (I coached, but didn't touch it)

Liam LOVED this teeter totter.  It has two seats on each side, and the moment I put him on in front of me, he started laughing.  Went on for quite some time too.

Liam just barely fit out of my apron.  Time to bake cookies!

Seldom has Dean cuddled in bed with Liam while I was already up.  Sweet.

Liam's first time in the exersaucer

Look at the cute little spider I found on my floor!

And THIS is why we cannot afford to leave Liam in his swing without buckling him in!

Robin on a rockwall. Yes, he made it all the way up.

Robin climbs into Liam's crib on a regular basis.  What is the appeal of baby things for a three-year-old?

I don't want to make Robin resent his brother, so I almost never ask him to hold Liam.  However, whenever Robin says he wants to hold the baby, I'm all over those moments (usually scrambling for the nearest camera in the process.)  I'll take every moment of fraternity I can get!

Robin going to town in the bouncy castle at the Rec Center's Halloween festival.  At first he didn't want to move around with the bigger kids in there, but after he warmed up he had a ball!

Robin has resumed taking naps on a regular basis!  I think it began after a day when I could tell he was tired but wasn't sure if he was going to sleep during quiet time.  I had him lay down for his second story, and then I told him I wanted him to lie down and try to sleep for at least 10 minutes.  If, after that, he didn't feel tired, he was welcome to turn his light on and play, so long as he remembered the rules of quiet time.  Of course, he has no idea how long ten minutes is, but that's not the point.  I just wanted him to rest.  And he started sleeping again!  In fact, I think he's slept every day that I've asked him to do that!  Hallelujah!  (Because I know he still needs the rest.)

We think Robin might have started having a few nightmares as well.  I know he's at the right age for that sort of thing.  I can't be 100% sure, since I couldn't get anything coherent out of him about what was wrong, but he's awakened screaming twice now.  The first was at night, after he'd been asleep for a while and I'd recently put Liam to bed but hadn't gone myself.  Robin started screaming, and I went in to see what was wrong.  He just wanted me to hold him, and couldn't tell me anything that was wrong or that he wanted.  Eventually I started singing to him and he drifted off in my arms.  I shifted him back to his bed and he went fully back to sleep.  The second time was a few minutes before his nap was supposed to end.  The same thing happened, except we didn't put him back to bed and after a few minutes he was his normal, alert self again.
Edited to add:  this happened a third time since I wrote this.  This last time, he woke up crying and he said "I want go inside."  He seemed to wake up pretty thoroughly within a minute or two, and when I asked if he had a bad dream, he said "yeah."  I asked him what he wanted to go inside of, and he said his bed (not quite sure if I got the actual context of the dream out of him or not.)    I reminded him of what Christopher Robin said about bad dreams in our Winnie the Pooh book--that it's his dream and he's in charge--and then sang him a song.  He promptly went back to sleep.

Robin's fear of choice these days is a LION.  Out of the blue, he'll announce that a lion is coming and will run to one of us for help.  He'll also say he can't go downstairs alone because there's a lion down there.  He doesn't do this all the time, but it's regular.

Robin's word for alligators and crocodiles these days is "crocogator."  I think that one might stay in our vernacular long after he outgrows it.  :)

Robin's language skills have really come along.  I understand most of what he says these days, though if he's talking fast or thinking hard while he's talking, it can still come out as gobbledegook.  He still can't converse on a huge range of topics and he leaves parts of speech out (the "to" in "I want go inside" from earlier) but he's really come a long way.  Hooray!  It's fun to hear his pronunciations sometimes.  "Silly" comes out "sis-zy," and his "th" sounds come out as z's.

Liam's First Museum visit, and other October photos

Whee!

Robin helping to make our signature Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies.  He completely took over this time, insisting on using the mixer by himself and doing everything his way.  It made quite a mess, but eventually we got some good batter.

I seldom get to see him sleep these days.  Still so sweet...

A trip to the zoo with some friends

Robin even fed the lorikeets this time!

Playing with play dough with another friend

Liam's first trip to the museum!

Feeding coins to the sabre tooth tiger.  Robin both loves and is terrified by this thing.  He'll watch it forever from afar, but heaven forbid you suggest he feed it.

Liam flying past Saturn

Yikes!  It's Sue, the T-Rex!!!

Good news!  Liam is finally sleeping through the night on a (mostly) regular basis!

When he was about 4 months, I was on the phone with a friend, who asked me if he was "doing all the things he was supposed to for 4 months, like sleeping through the night."  I replied "Um... no, I'm still getting up with him an average of two times per night."  But she got me thinking.  I looked back to see when Robin slept through the night, and he was doing it at about 3 1/2 months.  I thought further, and wondered if I was perpetuating his night-waking.  See, I would put him to bed in a pack 'n play in our room, then go to bed myself.  He would wake in the wee hours of the morning and, not wanting him to disturb Dean much (since Dean usually had to work the next day) I would get a quick drink and then take Liam into bed and feed him.  Somewhere through the process, we would both fall asleep.  Then, anywhere from a few minutes to two hours before Robin is allowed to get up, I would wake up because either a) Liam was starting to wiggle and thrash about (not necessarily awake, just moving) or b) the position I was sleeping in (making sure I didn't squish the little guy) became horribly uncomfortable.  In either case, I would try to change positions, waking Liam in the process, and when he was awake, well, he might as well eat.  So I thought I was probably interfering with his ability to self-soothe once he was in bed with us.  From there, I began to wonder if I was further interfering with his self-soothing by grabbing him shortly after he started making noise at night, rather than leaving him alone to see if he could fall asleep again.  Shortly after coming to these conclusions, the Pediatrician asked me the same question my friend did, and that sealed the deal.

SO... I began putting him to bed in his own room after his final evening feeding.  I also turned the volume on the monitor down to one notch.  That way he had to get fairly loud to wake me up.  To my surprise, he started sleeping through the night a lot just from that change.  When he DID wake up to eat, I would attempt to stay awake and put him back in his crib when he was done.  That doesn't always happen, and he sometimes winds up sleeping in our bed again, but it makes us all more comfortable when he's in his own room.

Liam is also sitting up for longer periods (though he's still prone to toppling over,) manipulating toys, and pushing himself up on his hands (from his tummy.)  He can easily flip from both tummy to back and back to tummy, and actually seems to prefer being on his tummy.  We always put him to bed on his back (current research says that's safest) but he flips himself over to his tummy at least half of the time.  He's a strong little boy and growing so fast--it's hard to believe it's been five months already!  He's also begun blowing raspberries--as if he weren't dribbly enough already--and he's starting to grab and feel people's faces.  I don't remember Robin ever doing that last part.  It's one more thing that's making me feel that Liam is more socially conscious than Robin was at that age.  We shall see!

Happy 3rd Birthday Robin!!!

It's hard to believe, but our first baby is THREE YEARS OLD!!!  How he's been around for that long, I can't fathom, but it's a fact:  Dean and I have kept a child (now children) alive for three years.  Amazing!

The theme of Robin's party this year was Toy Story.  It was either that or Thomas the Train, and I didn't want to overlap that much with his Planes, Trains, and Autos from last year.

We let the kids run around and just play for a while, mostly while waiting for everyone to show up (which took longer than I had expected, oh well.)  Then we played a few Toy Story games.

Pin the Sheriff badge on Woody and Pin the Space Ranger emblem on Buzz

I think Robin could see under the blindfold, because he got very close both times.

 

Assembling Mr. Potato Head

I created a Mr. Potato Head out of felt and invited the kids to put his features on.  I thought this would be a good activity and right around their level, because felt boards are always a HUGE hit at library story time.  And I was right, even the kids who didn't want to do the first game liked this one (though one was still elusive to the camera.)

Even Liam had a playmate!

After games we had lunch

And then the coveted CAKE!!!

This year, Robin's cupcakes looked like the aliens from Toy Story.  They took a while, but weren't as involved as his previous cakes (which was good, because I didn't have time to shave them to a different shape this year.)

We also made a 9x13 cake because we wanted leftovers, and drew the claw machine claw (that the Toy Story aliens worship) on it.  We wound up with a dozen leftover cupcakes though, so we didn't actually need to do that.  Oh well.

Gift opening is always a hit with the toddler/preschool set

The party favors came in Buzz's spaceship, which the kids seemed to enjoy

After Robin's friends left (mainly to go down for their naps), Robin finished opening presents from family.  He received quite a haul this year.  What do we ask for for Christmas?