Nashville Zoo!

On Thursday Britni and I loaded up our boys to go meet some friends (Amanda and her daughters Coraline and Willow and Samantha and her daughter Amelia) and my cousin at the Nashville zoo!  It's a very easy drive, almost entirely freeway.  Eamon took a nap on the way up there and the three boys watched Despicable Me 2 on 3 different screens because technology.

Trying to nurse distracted Eamon.

4 boys, 4 car seats.

Parker and Connor coordinate!  This caused me some confusion.

Hot baby is hot.

We started looking at the animals on the Savannah loop.  Then we went to lunch early to avoid crowds, which went great!  There was no line in the cafe went we got there and we had our choice of seats.  By the time we were done with lunch, the inside was filled up and there was a line 5 people long.

After we left (and half our party went potty), my cousin Ann Laurel came to hang out with us!  She lives in Nashville and has boundless energy.  I was feeling a little defeated after our short time walking around before lunch, but with another adult- who wasn't directly responsible for any children- it was downright pleasant!  Always have a floater.

Connor came up to me and said, "Mama,
I have to show you something!" and lead me
over to look at the meerkats.  It was precious.

Baby brother.

I had to beg him to leave the meerkat tunnel.  It was like an oven.

Looking at some turtles in a pond.  They cared more about this
than the elephants or giraffes.   Or most of the animals.

Ann Laurel took my camera and got a
bunch of pictures.

Putting Eamon on my back was a great decision.  He got to see
and it wasn't hot at all.

I had to beg Connor to leave the turtles.

The zoo has a new exhibit of kangaroos!  They have several (like 20?) in an enclosure and you are allowed to pet them if they come onto the sidewalk.

Right after we walked in, one of them hopped over the sidewalk and Connor got to pet one!  He was super excited!  He talked about it many times the rest of the day.  He tried to go off the path to pet more later, but we stopped him :)

Outside of the zebra, ostrich, and some kind of deer-like creature enclosure, we took some group shots!

Thank you for the juice boxes Samantha!

The only one not in this (besides the camerawoman AL) is Willow.

Seriously, having Ann Laurel there was so amazing.  All the mamas but Samantha had two children to wrangle, so having an extra person was great.  She ran ahead with Parker and just had so much fun with all of them.  It was great to catch up with her and hear about how her family is doing too, even though I wish we could have done more talking.

I love Amelia's laughing face.

When we got to the alligator area, it was completely blocked by kids.  Connor was not deterred at all.  Before I knew what he was doing, he had climbed up on the sill of the big tank window and wedged himself between several much older children.  Again, it took me a long time to coax him away from it!

The Nashville zoo breeds cloudy leopards, and one of their leopards is named Tula!  I told the zoo keeper/docent (or whatever he was called) about my Tula carrier and he thought it was funny.  He asked me if I had one that was named after the other girl cat in the exhibit, Nori.  Ha!

 Our drive home was funny because I totally spaced and missed the exit for 565 and didn't realize it until I passed the Priceville exit, which I only know because it's Jessica's exit.  It only added about 20 minutes to our trip, but it made me realize how much I'm dependent on navigation from my phone.  Next time I won't turn it off.  Oops!

My super sweaty boys after getting home and nursing together.

We're planning on going back again this summer, hopefully when Paige (Will's girlfriend) is off of work so we can see her!  Britni said she would go with us, so I hope we can make it work!

Trip to the School

These pictures are from a trip we took to the school next to us a few weeks ago.  They are just really great pictures and I like them a lot.  

Patrick was going to fly his quadracoptor, but unfortunately flew it into a tree.  We need to get another one because it's fun to play with!

On our way back, we saw our neighbor Gloria.  Connor loves to go to Gloria's house and look at her clocks.  She always puts them forward so he can hear them chime.

Boyos

Those boys!  They keep me busy, but we are very much enjoying our time together.  I've been able to figure out how to balance screen time with other activities for the past few days with Connor, which is really nice.  Mostly it involves me not being on my computer or phone, or being in the living room where those things (and the TV) are.  When Eamon is taking his first nap, we go into the dining room and I do clay while he colors.  Yesterday we got to spend a lot of time out outside since it was very cool from all the rain.  Connor had me write out all the letters twice (once they were washed away by rain).  He's pretty obsessed with letters!  He knows so much, and it's honestly a lot thanks to videos he's watched, so it makes me feel less conflicted about how much screen time he has.

Connor has been going back and forth on not napping.  At the beach he slept great and when we got back, he was taking epic naps.  Then he would stay up really late (one night he was still rowdy at 10:15).  After a couple days of not taking a nap, I've been letting him not nap and it's evident that he still needs one sometimes.

Eamon had a rough time sleep at the beach.  He would wake up before dawn and not be able to settle again so he would just nurse and toss and turn until Connor came in around 6.  He also was restless at night, so I had to go into him pretty often.  And his naps were really short.  After he and Connor got some of their rest back (while I tried very hard to as well, since I was completely exhausted) he go sick.  It's always kind of amazing to me how my kids get sick right after going to their well visit.  I guess they could be picking something up at the doctor's, but there's usually another explanation and it's just funny to me.  Anyhow, I wasn't completely sure something was happening with Eamon because there is so much going on with him at this point in his life.

Growth spurt, developmental spurt, Wonder Week (which is neurological), plus he's cut his 5th tooth and is working on his 6th.  But after being "off" Sunday and Monday, he developed a fever on Monday night.  He threw up in the night and had a fairly high fever (103ish) so I took him in on Tuesday morning.  He had a negative RSV and strep tests and ears looked clear, so that was all a relief, even though he felt so bad.  He's very difficult to give medicine too because his gag reflex is so intense (probably the reason he threw up, gagging on post nasal drip or coughing) so we have been giving him acetaminophen in suppository form, which has been awesome.

He was completely pitiful on Tuesday and I let Connor watch TV all day.  Like 10 hours.  Connor was really sad I couldn't pay attention to him, since Eamon slept in my arms almost the whole day and Connor eventually fell asleep in front of the TV and since Eamon was asleep too, I took a nap!  Wednesday he was better, but not great, Thursday he was very fussy and that's when he started getting very congested and coughing hard.  Friday he's even better, but with a fever hovering around 99-100* and congestion/cough.  I'm not sure if it's a part of the sickness, or if he has a cold on top of it.  Either way, I hope he feels a lot better tomorrow!  This nasal congestion is horrible.

Things Connor says:
"I don't know, think so."
"I don't think so, what to do."
He will often say, "No, no Eamon!  No, no!"  The other day he started saying, "No sweetie, no!  No sweetie!"  Today he started patting my head and said, "Sweetie, don't step on the number 7."
"Mom! Don't say everybody/one!"  Which seems to mean, "don't say no," or "don't say not right now."
"Um, not right now." (Usually when I'm  telling him he HAS to do something.)
He tells me all the time that it's time to go see Sani and Sassy.  Like, multiple times a day.
"'Oh no!' she cried."  He says this when anyone is upset or crying.  I love it.


Eamon is VERY close to standing on his own.  He will sometimes let go of whatever he is cruising of and hover as he lowers himself to the ground.  He had 5 teeth and the 6th is coming through any day.  Please let it be today!  He does his teething at night (much like Connor) and I felt positively chewed up after last night.  He also is restless in the middle of the night, which is exhausting.  He will almost settle and I will drift, and then he will wiggle and climb all over me again.  I'm ready for this cluster of 9 month growth spurt+physical and mental development+teething+vacation and then getting sick to be OVER.

This blog post was written over 2 weeks of time and I can't even edit it to make more sense.  I'm just going to move on.