Are we there yet?

Today is one of those days. Henry is nothing but fussy. He cannot and will not be comforted. He's uncomfortable and I can't do anything for him.

Jack has asked for his paci for the 12th time, has inquired about his third snack of the afternoon and will not play in the basement so at least I can get a break from at least one of them because "It's scary down dere, Mommy."

I just realized I haven't showered in about 3 days. There isn't enough salty/sweet/alcoholic treats in the world to make this sh*t show of a day seem better. But you know what? The Husband will be home in two hours and hopefully he'll take over so I can stop smelling like a dirty gym sock.

1:59:59..... 1:5958.... 1:59:57.....

Parenting is funny

Jack says funny (hilarious) things:

"I'm watching constructions on TV, Mommy."
"Don't be sassy, Mommy."
::I ask him to do something:: "Ugh, fine." Excuse me but I'm pretty sure you're a toddler not a mellow dramatic teen, thankyouverymuch.


Henry does funny (odd) things:

At night he's clearly so uncomfortable, full tummy/gas/needs to poop that he can't sleep. It lasts for hours. Often he'll wake up from his nap at 4 and be awake till 7 when we try to put him to sleep, and again at 7:45 and again at 8:15 and again at 9 and so on till 10 pm when exhaustion finally wins and he passes out. I feel so had for him because he's clearly so darned uncomfortable. My 'mommy instinct' tells me that starting solids right at 4 months might help his little digestive system work out the kinks with some fiber and what not but I've never experienced anything like this with my first. Has anyone had a baby with lower digestive issues? What can I try?

Also Henry is obsessed with his feet. He could hold them all.day.long. When he's in his Bumbo he tries to get them in his mouth. One day he tipped himself out of the swing (which is only about 2 inches off the floor, thank goodness,) because he was trying to get his feet in his mouth.

We have our first showing today. Wish us luck!

It's decided

Henry loves his thumb. It's not my preference but trying to stop him was impossible. Honestly though, he's such an independent baby and considering the renovation, home sale/purchase situation I don't really want to do anything to discourage his independence.

Worker Bees

Like father,

like son.

Bros

Jack loves his brother, but usually from a distance. He's always checking to make sure Henry has a toy and he's ready to make sure I'm going to get Henry from a nap with reports like "Mommy, Baby Henry is crying. Go upstairs." But he's not really into cuddles- I believe he gets this from me. Well, Henry saw that Jack fell asleep on the couch, so he insisted on stealing some quality snuggles.

Ah, Jack, if only you'd take that nap in your room like a normal kid.


Update on the home-front: we're under contract! I would be more excited but unlike buying your first place... when you buy your second place you have to also worry about SELLING a home. For now I will settle for cautiously optimistic. Please send any good-home-sale-karma you have laying around, Thanks!

Om nom nom

We are officially enjoying the "everything must go in my mouth" phase. Jack is particularly grossed out by Henry's new skill. I can remember being a kid and being horrified that my little brother slobbered on my toys, so I'm trying to channel my 5 year-old-self and be patient with Jack... but even my 29 year-old-self finds baby slobber pretty gross.

Home

This is the house I grew up in.

This is the house I'm trying to buy.

I'll admit when I saw the pic in the listing, my breath kinda caught in my chest a little bit. The house I grew up in: my parents built it, like mostly with their own hands. I was 2 when they were working on the house, I'm sure there was a whole lotta crazy working on a house with a little kiddo under foot. Apparently I want to be like my parents... kinda almost just like my parents.

But seriously- this house once it's shown some love and respect is going to be a beautiful home.... I just hope it's my home.

Maybe

he needs to spend a little less time with the cats?

Found Some Pics

Gone Fishing.

Black Eyed Susan.

Go, Henry, Go!

My littlest man is rolling over. I went to pick him up from his nap and found him face up in his crib and I exclamed, "Henry! You rolled over!" Hence his slightly surprised look. After having one child go through all these stages and new developments with Jack I was wondering if I'd be as excited the second time around. Yup. First thing I did was run for the camera, second thing was call the husband. I'm so proud!

Boy Mamma's Delight

I love Etsy. It's a window-shopping addiction of mine. Unique items, handmade, supporting small business... what's not to love. I also love my boys, but the thing with Etsy is it's very heavy on the cute girl things and much lighter on the cute boy things. Then I found Monkey Cheeks. She has two boys of her own so she has quite the selection of boy-friendly patterns for this Coloring Wallet. Since Jack is obsessed with Cars, this pattern was the clear winner.

Look at those clever pockets for the crayons.

It has room for a pad of paper and a pocket for... well anything. You know how toddlers are a pocket could be for frogs or napkins or a matchbox car. It's about 5" x 7" and it fits right into my diaper bag which is great for those restaurants who don't give crayons and paper for kids. (What is that about, by the way?! It should be universally understood that all kids in restaurants need crayons and paper!)

Love it!

I have completely lost my mind...

The husband and I have lost our minds. We've been talking for some time about putting our townhouse on the market and moving to something bigger with more land. We've put blood sweat and even a few tears into renovating this house and we've learned so much in the process. We love this house and we love our neighborhood, we're really lucky to live on the same street as a bunch of cool people!. But we are ready to get into something with room to grow (we might even get a place with enough space to put all our books on shelves).


So this weekend we took the plunge and went hunting. And now we're motivated, meeting with lenders, stagers, chatting with our agent. I'd like to say we've found the perfect home, but those who know me know better. We've found a home that needs an insane amount of work, but in the end, when we're finally finished.... 5....10 years from now.... this house is going to be beautiful.

It's entirely possible that my blog will be come more sporadic; It's guaranteed that my blog will become more schizophrenic. Trying to get our house cleaned and organized and market ready with a toddler and baby who still deserve lots of love and attention is going to be interesting to say the least. I hope you'll enjoy the ride with me.

Firsts

Henry is really grabbing his feet (and trying to get them in his mouth.) This picture us from the first day he did it. I forgot how much fun that is to watch! Aren't his legs huge? My chunky monkey.






















Jack went fishing for the first time. He didn't catch anything and at first he didn't get it (he kept trying to put the rod in the water) but he clearly had a blast because he's still talking about it 2 days later.

Ferry Boat

We took the ferry from Cape May, NJ to Lewes, DE on our way back to my parents place. I have decided that all our trips should include a ferry ride! Jack had such fun and it was nice to get some Henry snuggles during our trip.

The Fortress of Solitude

It all starts with breakfast

Sea Isle City, NJ doesn't allow any chain stores on the island. So all the restaurants and shops are one of a kind. This restaurant had a yummy breakfast menu. I ordered a stack of pancakes and 2 eggs scrambled thinking I'd share some of the pancakes with Jack. Jack had other plans for his pancakes.

Jack took Uncle Tom and PaPa down to the beach.

As the week goes on we perfect our engineering skills.

Since today's beach trip was an afternoon - early evening trip we had to build a dam to save the baby because high tide was late in the day. But by the time our dam's structural integrity was in jeopardy it was 5 o'clock, and you know what that means.... happy hour!

Another day at da Beech

We discovered that they re-grade the sand early every morning. Jack was BESIDE himself. Backhoes?! At da Beech?!

Henry was not impressed with the backhoes. He chose to nap instead. My cousin, Kristin, loaned me this pod while we were at the beach. It was perfect! Henry took great naps while the rest of us sunned and swam.

Here's our crew with our camp all set up. Some days (when Uncle Tom was there) we were a group of 13, so we took up quite a bit of oceanfront real estate.

Clam.

My husband stole my camera.

Well played, husband. Well played!

Beach- Day 2

This was the day we couldn't get him to take his shirt or Keens off all day. He walked up over the dunes and ran straight into the water and didn't stop playing once. Henry stayed at home with Daddy because our beach trip conflicted with their naps.

Mommy Powered. That's green living. Photo credit Rob (or maybe Kristin) Singh.

Eat wake.

Happy 4th of July!

Photo credit Rob Singh.

We're going da beech

as Jack would say. The requisite hole digging. Jack, Kristin, Aaliyah and Sierra.

Henry came to check it out too. Husband, Jack, Henry and I and PaPa.

Henry 'enjoyed' his first dip in the Atlantic Ocean.

Jack acting fearless, as usual.

Long first day at the beach equals a tired tot.

Traffic was bad, Real bad

Every mid-Atlantic beach I've ever been to has one small 2 lane road leading all beach-visitors to their destination. This means traffic backs up for miles and crawls at an unreasonably slow pace. (Hello, transporation people... this is a problem we can solve!)

Henry seems to take great pleasure in making our road trips memorable, so while we're sitting in this painfully slow line of cars I hear all the tell-tale signs of an eminent diaper change. Seriously, though, traffic was so bad people were honking and shouting at each other. The one road that was merging with ours no one on our road was letting anyone in, it was madness. The Husband suggests that we pull over and change Henry's diaper and I'm all like "Oh no you didn't". I exaggerate, actually I gave the most logical and responsible parenting response I could think of: "No way, no one is ever going to let us back in. I'll hop out, grab Henry and change him on the side of the road while you keep driving."

So that's exactly what I did.
I cannot believe Matt grabbed this pic of Henry and I in the rear view mirror as he left us in the dust.

It was a pretty smart idea of mine on paper, but the practical applications weren't well thought out. See, running about 300 yards to catch up with my car while wearing flip flops and carrying the infant car seat is no small feat. Waddle waddle waddle.

Next road trip I'm wearing my runnin' shoes.

Like a Crack Whore with no Crack...

I am without internet all week. Right now I'm literally stealing internet from some unsuspecting beach family. I'm feeling quite split between being "free" from the pressure of coming up with new blog material and feeling like I'm MISSING OUT ON EVERYTHING.

I have no idea how long my connection is going to last. Suffice it to say, we're having a fantastic time and there will be great pictures to see and stories to tell (example: how I changed Henry's diaper on the side of road while Matt kept on driving.) Now I'm off to read as many blogs as I can before my connection dissapears! Cheers!

Hands Full

This is the husband loading the kids up for our week at the beach. I may or may not be blogging so have a fantastic 4th!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 3 Month Birthday, Henry!! You are now grabbing your feet, 'talking' to us, laughing (but not the belly laughs... I'm looking forward to that), you love your bunny and you appear to be a night owl. You are also quite the chunkey monkey.

School's out for summah!

After two weeks of pre-pre-school our kids are now graduates! Brooks, Cady and Jack showed off their paper mache fish.

We took the tots for lunch and then treated them to ice cream. They thought this was the best idea EVER. I balanced the camera on the hood of Lindsey's car to pull of this shot. Everyone (even Henry) made it in the frame so score one for my mad camera skillz.

Jack hardly ever gets offered desert unless it's an oatmeal cookie the size of a quarter. There might be some subconscious guilt there because I compensated by getting him an ice cream so large he couldn't finish it.

Brooks enjoyed his yummy treat!

Cady can make even ice cream eating look innocent.

I asked Henry if he wanted some but he didn't answer so I dutifully ate it for him. Takin' one for the team.

most of these photos credited to Lindsey

Eat Your Crusts

I am a member of the "Eat Your Crusts" generation. I was always told to eat my crusts. As though crusts are a requisite part of a meal, like all the vitamins and nutrients in bread somehow all end up in the slightly over-dry, no-jelly-on-the-edge crusts. To this day I don't eat all my crusts. I'm not anti-crust per se. I just don't see the importance of them.

Why pick a fight with my kids over crusts when there are much greater nutritional battles to fight? I can wage war over eating vegetables or having 'taste bites' of a new food, but I'm not going to waste my time and energy on crusts.