My Little Bookworms

I could not be prouder of my boys. We went into the library yesterday to get a Love and Logic CD I had on hold and I thought we'd wander over to the children's section and see how the boys did. They had a lot of great toys and the sweetest, perfect children's librarian who greeted us and asked if she could help me find anything. I told her that they love trains and off she went to gather books for us. She came back with about 8 perfect books that were the right length and right up there alley. The boys played happily. Then she found some potty training movies and a book for them as well. Throughout our time there she kept pulling out new toys and they played so well! Pierce loved a peg board maze on the wall and Blaine played on the floor with blocks and a bead maze. We were probably there for almost 45 minutes and then we expired. They started fighting over the wooden train (shocker) which led Pierce to begin screaming and Blaine promptly announced he had a bee-ol' poo poo. I quickly herded them to the self check, allowed them to help me (which went surprisingly well), and we loaded up. They are thrilled with their books and we've been reading all the time. Yesterday morning we just came down and read first thing...no TV! Pierce has also started taking a book to bed with him. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that as I shut the door for nap time, he already had his book open and was just sitting in bed reading. I realized that he must read himself to sleep most days. Precious. He is definitely the book worm of the two. Every now and then he'll find a book by himself and climb up on the sofa or a chair to look through. I love it!

Acorns aka "Acums"

The new obsession around here is acorns, which has coincided nicely with the start of Fall. I'm not sure where the boys first discovered these little gems, but they love them! We occasionally go on a family walk around the block and one day we walked by a big monster-type truck that had lots of mud on it. It was immediately deemed the dirty car by both boys and after that they constantly wanted to walk to see it and even touch it- causing me to wonder if they've had a tetanus shot recently. I think so. Anyway, the same house, which is on a corner, also happens to have a big oak tree and a storm drain. The boys can spend forever picking up an acorn, laying down over the drain, and throwing it down. It thrills them like only trains can. And it's so cute. BJ and I just sit in our spots (on either side of the drain) and actually get to converse while they gather and throw acorn after acorn.

Nana and Papa's house also has plenty of acorns for our little squirrels to gather and they love gathering, throwing, and sliding them. Blain says acorn pretty clearly, but Pierce calls them "acums" in his cute, pixie voice. And he says it really fast too. Too cute! His full phrase is usually "wa, wa, acums" meaning he'd like to go on a walk to that corner house to throw acorns. I'm beginning to wonder if we need to start a stash for the winter?

Kicks!

I finally felt some good solid kicks from Baby Buh this afternoon! I've had several questionable and brief flutters, but this was undoubtedly a baby kick. Yay! I was laying on my side on the sofa watching TV and I felt them on my lower far left. So exciting!

Pregnancy Update 22 Weeks

We've been terrible about taking pictures of my belly progress, but at least I'm journaling a bit more. I truly feel so much smaller than this point last time. I can still fit into my size small t-shirts and overall am still pretty comfortable. I'll take it! In fact, I was a little nervous before my 20 week appt that he wasn't growing quickly enough, but he measured 4 days ahead of my due date. I'll take it! 

I'm still not really feeling him much or at all. At the sonogram she told me that my placenta was in front so that I probably hadn't felt him yet, but I thought I would more by now. I've felt a couple of really subtle flutters very occasionally, but that's really been it. 

I've had a very easy pregnancy overall, but have noticed a few differences from last time. I feel more hormonal overall. I think I'm more apt to cry and have just felt more PMS-y many days. Woohoo. I also had a foot issue a couple of weeks ago. I'd been wearing flat sandals all summer and a couple weeks ago I started having really bad pain where my heel and arch meet on my left foot. Dr. Cooper mentioned that certain hormones can flatten your arches, so I bought a pair of heel insoles and have been more selective in my footwear. I got my mind set on finally getting a pair of Sperry's, but this came at the end of the month with no extra cashflow. So my wonderful husband somehow put together $60 and gave it to me and told me he wanted me to have them. Such a gem. So I did and quite frankly I haven't felt this cool in awhile. :) 

I still crave sweets more than anything, but lately my cravings and huge appetite have backed off a little. 

I'm still teaching Zumba twice a week at pretty much full pace. It's crazy to me that I was 2 weeks away from having to stop last time. I made a personal goal of teaching through the end of the semester not knowing how possible it would be, but it's looking pretty good for now. Knock on wood. 

I think we're pretty close to settling on a name. We've known middle name for a while (which is funny, because that was our hold up last time). We've had a running list of first names, but for one reason or another they've been nixed. Many of the ones I really liked I've thought sounded too similar to one of the boys' names. The name we're probably looking at is a little more out there than I would prefer, but I don't think it's too prominent. It just seems to be the best fit. 

Independence

Blaine has become quite independent in the last week or two and emphatically tells me, "Baine Weil do it." And can I just say how darling it is that he refers to himself in the third person? This goes for putting on and taking off shoes (which he can completely do alone), climbing in the car seat and high chair, getting dressed, etc. He's very capable, but not always the speediest. He's working on autonomy and I'm working on patience. I think I'm going to have to start adjusting our time table to get out the door to allow for some of this new independence. It's really fun and exciting to see him capable of so many things now though. He's been such a delight lately and talks, hums, sings, and babbles throughout the entire day. I wake up and look forward to what he'll say and do that day.

He also has bossy moments. He'll get into these short segments where he furrows his brow and emphatically points if he wants someone to go somewhere or sternly say, "No, B.Weil. No do that." Really cute stuff these days!

It's A Boy!

We went in for our first official (and probably only) sonogram last Monday. I was so excited and anxious to find out.  I feel like I was even more so than with the boys and I think it's because I'd already had several sonograms by then and had a feeling at least one was a boy. This time I honestly had no idea. All along I had been thinking it was a girl for whatever reason. Almost everyone else thought the same except for Nana K, Daddy, and Pierce. It was just one of those things where every time I thought about the baby, I thought girl things. As we got closer to the sonogram I started really trying to pray and focus my heart for either gender possibility. More than anything, I just wanted to be excited no matter what the results are. A girl seemed like the newer and more adventurous possibility, but in my heart I knew that God had picked out the perfect child for our family at this perfect time.

I will never forget the Friday before our appointment. The boys were napping and I was in the middle of painting a desk for the dining room. I walked by the gallery wall  in the hallway and glanced at a picture of the boys. It was in that instant that God distinctly spoke to my heart and impressed on me the honor, privilege, and importance it would be to raise another boy. I think I can count the number of moments like that on one hand where I just knew it was God's voice straight to my heart. I immediately felt a calming peace over me and knew that God was in control and the outcome would be exciting no matter what. I also started to seriously wonder if we were having another boy. :)

Monday morning finally came (I felt like a kid on Christmas morning) and Daddy and I put in our final votes while driving down I35. He had thought boy all along and I kept going back and forth the entire drive. I could not decide! Finally, I settled on boy although I was only 51/49. Our sonogram started right on time and it was so wonderful to see our moving and active baby. I could have laid there all day and watched. She took some measurements and finally got to the time to see the gender. She settled in on one angle and said, "It's a..." and we both immediately said, "BOY!". There was no doubt about it! I felt a familiar excitement come over me. It wasn't the new, unexpected excitement that would have been with a girl, but a knowing excitement for the joys of raising a little boy. I immediately thought of Pierce and Blaine and the fun (and mischief!) the three of them would have. Also, my fears about the spacing being too close were immediately erased as I looked forward to them growing up together.

We had a reveal party that night and all our friends and family came. Once everyone was gathered we pulled out a wrapped box with two white streamers coming out. The boys each pulled and pulled until blue streamers popped out and everyone cheered. Many were quite surprised to see blue, thinking it would be a girl!

Pierce and Blaine like looking at the sonogram picture and have affectionately named their brother "Baby Buh". It's perfect. We're excited to have you as part of our family, Baby Buh!

27 Month Update

The buddies are talking all the time now. We really just have continual conversations throughout the day. They undoubtedly understand everything I say to them and, for the most part, I understand what they say back. Blaine is talking in all 2 or more word phrases and Pierce is adding to his vocabulary daily.

We've started seeing a little more push back lately with discipline, the main infraction being jumping around on the couch after being told not to. We've been doing time outs as the main disciplinary action, but they have seemed to lose a bit of their punch so we bought Love and Logic for Early Childhood and are a couple chapters in. We've seen some success already though. We give a lot of choices to give control which makes "withdrawals" easier. The hardest part for me has been to give them learning opportunities and chances to make mistakes. The mom in me wants to keep them from doing those things, but then I'm stealing their chance to cement it in themselves. The only part I'm skeptical about right now is their ability to apply the lesson learned in once situation to the next time. I know they will eventually, but I'm just not sure about now. Especially when it comes to meal time and skipping it.

Speaking of which, I still don't enjoy meal time with my children. Someday...Pierce still won't try/like most everything and even Blaine has been throwing fits about sitting down to to eat dinner. I'm pretty sure he's eaten a banana for the last 2/3 meals. Could be worse I suppose. I know I need to get tough with love and logic and let them just completely skip a meal if they won't eat what's been given or throw a tantrum. We've got to start somewhere I suppose.

Some common/funny things they're saying these days...

Blaine calls Pierce "B.Weil" all the time now. My guess is it's just been shortened down from "Buh Weil". Still cracks us up.
Pierce says "heeeeeey" anytime he's annoyed
A buds- Angry Birds- the favorite ah-paa (iPad) game
Trains (most are Pierce's given names): Nom (Thomas), Deal (Diesel), Wowie (Rosie), Ne (James), Nene (Stanley), Blaine calls his favorite "nana how wain" (black train from Nana's house). Nana how (Thomas that came from Nana's house), and my new personal favorite Poopy (Percy)- which can definitely get confusing involving diapers or their Percy water bottle
Pierce seriously says "no fower" before we play in the front to remind us all that we are not allowed to play in the flowers. This was cemented after he went off the edge head first over his car and scraped his chin on the retaining wall. See? Love and Logic at work!
Blaine can count to 5 in Spanish and loves it. P is not interested yet.
They love their too too Nom books- especially the one about the dragon. Raaaaw!

They're sleeping well and bedtime is pretty much 8 now. They do so well that we have to be careful not to go past it some nights. Getting darker earlier will help.

They are as active as ever and would climb and jump off just about anything if we let them. Blaine loves jumping off steps and hopping over cracks. And Pierce has gotten some air under his feet too lately. Blaine can somersault with ease and still loves to do push ups with Daddy. We're working on his form. :) Pierce does his happy feet dance in a circle with a big grin on his face whenever he's excited about something.

We've gotten great about pacis in the last couple of months. Ever since we got really strict on Sunday afternoon in July, we haven't had to look back. They get them until breakfast and again at naps and then out again at snack time until bedtime. I have no idea how we're going to break them at night though. Definitely putting that one off for now.

They haven't shown much or any interest in potty training, but in their defense, I haven't really introduced it at all. I've always had the mental approach of not rushing it and waiting until closer to 3 when I've heard most boys do it. But lately I've been thinking maybe I should at least start getting some potty books or videos and introducing the idea.  I've feared the baby could interrupt any progress we'd made. We'll see.