first weekend at the lake!

not an official lake trip yet as we are still working on actually getting the house boat out to the lake, all the rain has not helped us. but we did take the boys out to walk around on the docks, take some pictures of the boat we'll be selling and also to feed the fish at the marina. it was the first nice weekend day we have had in a long time and the lake was already busy. i am really looking forward to this summer! ethan was very excited to be out there exploring and wanted to get in the water, no doubt because of our fun time playing in the puddles at grandmother's the day before. he had a great time feeding the fish and didn't even try to eat the fish food - a big fear of mine since he likes to try lots of things (except food i have actually prepared for him). and big news - he had a successful potty experience in a public restroom - first in quite some time since the incident at the library!

going for a ride

we FINALLY had a sunny day...it had been at least two weeks since we saw any sun. ethan was dying to get outside. after our trip to the zoo last month, ethan has decided the double stroller is fun, so he loves to get up in it. i decided to turn the boys to face each other so they'd be entertained and both of them loved it. i loved hearing two little boys laughing as i pushed it along. nothing sounds better than that!

happy 9 months miles!

a few days late...

5 things that miles loves right now:
1. standing up! he is almost cruising. he loves to hang on the couch and our leather ottoman - he is so close to being stable enough to walk along it. he will also take a few steps in you are holding his hands.
2. stretching out sideways in his crib. i put him down lengthwise in the crib and every time i go in (morning or after naps) he is sideways...loves to have his feeting pressing up against the soft bumper.
3. puffs and cheerios! so my little guy is not really a fan of pureed baby food, but he will eat little finger foods right up!
4. mirrors. i stand him in front of our big mirror in the entry way and he loves it! he just smiles away and plays with the baby in the mirror. i can't remember when it is that they realize it is themselves in the mirror, but i think we are still too early for that.
5. when we are all around him. he definitely notices when we leave and he doesn't like to be alone. he likes to be part of the crowd. he especially loves when ethan is around playing with him - his favorite are tickles on his belly. ethan lays down next to him and kisses his belly and miles laughs like crazy.

5 things i love right now:
1. the fact that he is sleeping! enough said.
2. the babbling. he is chatting up a storm these days. he has even said what sounds very much like "dada" lance loves it!
3. this silly little head tilt thing he does when he wants to see things better. he does it especially when he is in his carseat or when he tries to see around you if you are holding him. it is so cute!
4. he is starting to wave. the sweet little wave where he opens and closes his hands.
5. that he is finally rolling over. i know all babies don't do everything at the same time, blah, blah...but you still tend to get worried when things don't happen right around the text book time. he had rolled over once or twice and it required a lot of coaxing from me so i never really considered it rolling over. now he rolls over onto his belly and finally doesn't hate it. he hasn't started crawling, but he will push himself up on his arms and tries to get his legs up. so far no forward movement, but he does push himself backwards some.

only 3 more months until he is A YEAR OLD!!

happy mother's day!

happy mother's day to everyone! we had a wonderful day here. lots of relaxing around the house for the most part...especially for me, lance took over taking care of the kids so i really had a day off! i even got to make a solo wal-mart trip. good thing i don't get to do this too often because i spent a lot more than i normally would have since i actually had time to wander. lance has done a wonderful job making it a very special day!

sweet sleep - an update on our sleep training

ah, sweet sleep!! miles has done wonderfully the past week. it is like he is a different baby. he eats 4-6oz at a time, when before it was a miracle to get him to take 3. he is happy and doesn't have to be held all.the.time. he is even eating his table foods better, though he isn't a huge fan of purees - he wants the good stuff - the puffs and cheerios!

while there is still some crying before bedtime and naps, it has been drastically reduced and sometimes there is none! he now goes down awake for both bedtime and naps, so that makes it a lot easier, especially daytime naps when it is just me with the two boys. we've even kept up a pretty good schedule of an early morning nap and then a mid-afternoon nap. it took a few tries before i figured out the right times, but i think we are almost there.

i am so thankful that is worked for us and that we now have a much more rested house. and a much happier mom.

snack time

i brought an extra high chair home from our office this past week (we had it from when i used to bring ethan to the office with me when he was younger). i thought miles might like it better than the rainforest one - he hasn't been so happy in it lately. well, someone else thought it was for him. even though ethan hasn't been in a high chair at home for quite some time, he INSISTED on getting into the one i brought home. he and his little brother even had an afternoon snack together the other day.

sleep training: take one

with two sleep books under my belt, i finally felt like we were ready to make an attempt at sleep training mr. miles. i read dr. richard ferber and dr. marc weissbluth. while it seemed like they were contradicting each other with certain things, i was able to take out parts of each book that i think (i hope!) will help us all get some more sleep. well, except for ethan, he has been our model sleep child...i think he takes after his dad. i actually found both of the books very interesting, especially ferber's book where it went into detail about the different sleep cycles. they were fairly easy reads and i really liked in weissbluth's book how he broke things down by ages so you could go right where you needed to go if you didn't have time to read the entire book.

a few days later...

well...since it has taken me a while to actually finish this post, i guess i'll update with our....SUCCESS!! so far miles has been doing great. his wake-ups have been drastically reduced and on wednesday night he even slept through from 8PM to 6:20! a first for him. it seems like his average after sleep training has been to wake, maybe once with some minor fussing around 2ish, and then sleep until about 5:30. we decided not to give him a bottle before 5. he was always pretty good about going down for the night, it was the hours between 11-5 that were iffy. we have been using ferber's method of letting him cry/fuss for increasing amounts of time before we'll go in. since we've started and up to this point, he hasn't cried for longer than 14 minutes (that was last night's record before falling asleep one minute before i would have gone in). so far so good. we're still using a binky, despite ferber's adamant warning that we are creating a monster, but it seems to be okay. we'll keep it up as long as it is working, i guess!

another part of our sleep training was revamping his daytime sleep. weissbluth was pretty big on this. he said around 9 months, most babies should be taking 2 naps - a morning one and an early afternoon one. a few would take a late evening one, but most would be dropping that by now. miles hasn't taken a late afternoon nap in a long time, so i just focused on getting him on a good morning and afternoon nap schedule. my first time to try it was on wednesday. normally, i just let the babysitter who keeps the boys tuesday, thursday and friday do her own thing and i do my own thing on monday and wednesday mornings. so this wednesday he started getting really fussy around 8:45, so i put him down at 9:00. took 15 minutes and one trip in, but he was down around 9:15. no swaddle, no sleep sack. and he stayed down until 10:15 when i woke him up. we tried to stay busy and have lots of activity between that wake-up and his next nap around noon. nap #2 took 11 minutes and one trip in, but it was another success as he stayed down for 2.5 hours. he was a much more pleasant baby to deal with in the evening and went down well for bed that night. that was also the first night of him sleeping for 10 hours straight!! so i guess there is something to be said for getting his daytime sleep on track.

it is definitely hard to keep up with all the sleep training and sleep logs, but oh so worth it! i hope that he continues to improve over the next few weeks. i need a break before we start getting into the teething phase, who knows what that will bring!