Big Boys

Why are my children growing up so fast? They amaze me every day. I think people must be getting annoyed at all my, "Can you believe they did this?" stories. 

Connor doing the big reveal.

Connor has been eating restaurant food! So far, it's just cheese pizza, broccoli, and pretzels, but he's getting warmed up to the whole thing. I'm proud of how he has been interacting with food. It's so hard when you want more immediate results, but I just keep reminding myself that he's not even three and we haven't been working on it that long. He still doesn't really understand his own bodily needs, but he's making progress there too. Sometimes he will collapse his little body in a heap and moan, "Connor's so hungry!" I'm almost completely sure the few times he's done this it's been when he was tired, but close enough, right? He's been better about drinking when he's thirsty too, and not just asking to nurse.

Here Paige, you need this in your mouth.

Eamon is such a flirt and just loves people. He seems a little nervous around some men sometimes, but will always have an exchange with a lady. He really loves people that he is familiar with. Some of his favorites are my friends Jessica, Sarah, my mom, and our friend Zandra.

So cute!

Connor's so happy he gets to spend
time outside playing with water.

Connor's favorite thing to do is throw. He likes to throw balls and rocks the best. I'm pretty sure he could throw rocks into water for hours. I've watched him do it for a half an hour before Eamon got bored. When he's outside, he throws sand at the side of our house, and puts rocks and chalk chunks into buckets of water and then dumps them into other buckets, ad nauseam.

Connor selfie.

Eamon pulling up for (maybe?)
the first time.

Eamon started pulling up on different things, which is fun, but sometimes he will lose his balance, or get tired, or try to get down and just tumble. That makes him mad, sad, and sometimes hurt. He has big feelings about it.

He loves playing music. Crawled over to it, pulled it
onto his lap and strummed.

He's super fly.

Connor likes to go on trips with me, most of the time. He often talks about playgrounds, going to see Sani and Sassy, seeing the balloons outside of various car dealerships, going to see Parker-Porter-Jerod, going to get sweet tea, iced green tea, Aldi, and Target.

Discovering the fun of couch forts.

So much chub!

I've started Eamon sleeping on his own for naps. Connor was just too distracting for him out in the living room. Right now he's sleeping in our bed, but hopefully soon he will sleep in the pack and play in our room for naps. We have a little before nap routine that includes books, and he is VERY opinionated on what we read. I put the books in front of him and he picks on he wants to read. If he decides he didn't want that book after all, he will close it in the middle of reading. He really likes "Busy Baby," a Disney book that has pictures of babies "interacting" with Mickey and his crew, doing daily baby activities. He also likes "Baby Faces," which is a simple book of babies' faces and one word descriptions. But his real favorite is the classic, "Good Night Moon."

Enjoying some food.

Toast!

Connor woke up today with a sudden ability to tell me what his body is telling him. He's never told me he was hungry or thirsty before today, and he told me several times! [Note from Patrick: I was in the middle of editing this sentence when Connor ran into the room, yelling, "I'm hungry! I'm not hungry! Mama, do you want some M&M's?"] It was amazing. He also took off his diaper while I was putting Eamon down for his nap and refused to put it back on.  I was worried I would be cleaning up pee all morning, but he went to the bathroom all by himself many times.  He only had one little accident because he was distracted reading a book.  I have no idea what this means long term, but it was totally amazing watching him stop watching TV to go pee.

Eamon's new high chair!  We both love it.

Eamon is not sad he ate dirt,
he's sad I took the dirt away.

Eamon really likes food! I'm not sure what I expected him to do, since Connor was so ambivalent. But Eamon likes doing what we are doing, and he likes getting whatever Connor and I have, so he ends up sampling a lot of different things throughout the day.

Chattanooga!

This past weekend we went to Chattanooga!  My mom just put her house on the market, and she had showings during the boys' afternoon nap, so we decided to do something fun during that time.  We went to the Chattanooga Zoo with Happah, Nana, Matt, Jessica, Riley, Catherine, Will, and Paige.  I think Connor had fun, even though he was pretty upset the whole time because he was tired.  He was a lot more interested in all the various water holes and how he could find and throw rocks in them than he was in the animals though.  

The fishes! 

The water!

Briefly inspecting a bobcat.

A waterfall!

Matt and Riley

Two toed sloth.

Grandparents. 

Cousins.

Look at that paw!

Such a cute boy.

They had a little train near the entrance that took short rides and I think the kids had a good time.  Connor really wanted to go on a second ride, but we needed to go and get Eamon to sleep a little!

Mom offered to babysit and Patrick and I got to go out to dinner with our friends David and Ethan, who we haven't seen in a couple of years.  It's amazing how you can fall back into a friendship with people that you've known a long time.  We had a great dinner and they came back to my mom's and we played a game on the iPad.  They got to see both the boys for a bit before it was time for bed.

Lately...

With children, they change every day.  Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of all the new and cute things they are doing.  Connor has especially gone through a cognitive leap lately and has started doing and saying all sorts of new things.  One big new thing is opening doors.  He's actually been physically able to open the doors in our house for a couple of months, but just hasn't for some reason.  We've never talked to him about, he just hasn't done it.  

Right after waking up from his nap.

Until this last week.  Eamon has been getting up early and then I close the door to our bedroom so he won't wake Connor up.  A few days ago, Connor just strolled in to say good morning and ask for milk.  I guess he got tired of waiting for me to hear him call!  But it has been working out pretty well.  What wasn't working was what he did yesterday.  I had gotten Eamon to sleep on top of me (as per usual) after putting Connor to bed and he decided he wasn't ready and come out in to the living room.  I was stuck with the sleeping baby on top of me and couldn't do anything for about 20 minutes, but when Eamon finished a sleep cycle, he stirred and woke up because of Connor's presence.  I put Connor back in his room (amid tearful, "Want to be with Mama and baby Eamon!") and he fell right to sleep.  I even got Eamon back to sleep, so it all worked out in the end.

Enjoying the warm weather last week.

Connor has been coming into the room in them morning and taking my phone to watch Netflix until Eamon and I get up.  Still not sure how I feel about it, although some mornings, it's really nice!

Connor has been telling us when he is laughing or thinks something funny by announcing, "It's laughing, Mama!"  It's very cute.

He loves certain foods and refuses to try others.  He really loves popcorn and every form of chocolate.  He will often ask for chocolate cake or M&Ms.  He refuses to try a lot of the things we offer him and it's very frustrating.  We try bribing him with M&Ms, but that has only worked a couple of times.  I think I just need to be patient with him, but I really want him to branch out!  I mean, he won't eat bread and butter!  Or chicken!  Oh well.  We'll just keep trying.

He loved being outside.

A new toy Mama!

He's wearing a diaper, but looks naked.

He LOVES to bang on the piano.

Eamon LOVES toys.  We can put him in the front room with toys scattered all around and he will crawl from toy to toy, entertaining himself.  After a while, he will get lonely and then his tolerance for us putting him down is really limited the rest of the day.  Sometimes I need it for my sanity, or just to wash dishes though!

Connor was being really affectionate and Patrick
ran to get the camera.

Connor taking his temperature.

We are beginning to get Connor to do some chores.  He's pretty willing to be helpful most of the time, even though half the time he doesn't know what you are talking about.  Getting him to follow a pointing finger is next to impossible.  Connor's chores are throwing diapers away, putting his shoes up in his room, putting clothes in the hamper, and sometimes helping us empty the dishwasher.

Eamon rolled and crawled his way under the table and got stuck.

Cute, cute boy.

Can you see his little pearly?

He loves chewing his tongue.

Waiting for Connor to get up the nerve.

Eamon is a huge flirt.  He is very sociable and loves to make eye contact with people and talk to them.  If he's been talking to someone for a little bit and they get distracted, he will grunt at them until they look at him again and then smile really big.  It's kind of hilarious at church because people are trying to pay attention to the service and he yells at them to look at him again!

Cute boys.

He can ride on it himself!  He was really
pleased.

Eamon has been making great strides towards what is traditionally thought of a crawling.  It think what he's doing right now probably counts, since he gets himself across a room pretty fast, but it's a funny little series of movements in his legs.  We'll have to get a video up of it soon.  I think he will figure the whole range of movements soon.  He loves trying to get Connor, going after favorite toys, and coming after us when we leave the room.  He's so sweet and wants to be with us a lot.  He will crawl up into our laps, push his body up against ours, put his arms around our necks and just lay his little body against ours.  Precious.