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.