Sweet, funny, kind, caring, smart, creative,
playful, silly, strong, energetic, excitable, quiet,
persistent, loving, wild, beautiful, intense, curious,
athletic, questioning, rough, helpful, happy.
Perfect.

Eve has recently discovered books. I’m so happy.
I’ve been trying to read to her a lot, but I feel guilty that I
don’t read to her as much as we did to Lex at that age. I catch
myself putting her to bed then reading bedtime stories to him.
I’m trying to read to her more often and it’s getting easier as
she’s recently found a few books she likes and will actually
sit through. Her current favorite, “That’s not my truck…”
about a little mouse trying to find his truck. She loves it.
She will also sit through “Puppy love,” “Pat the bunny,” and
“Busy Doggies.” :) She’s even started getting those books off
the shelf and bringing them over to Alan or I to read.
Yesterday she crawled over to the bookshelf, pulled herself up
to reach the board book shelf, and took “That’s not my
truck…” down. First try, reached right for it, didn’t even
empty the shelf in the process. Good stuff. :)

Gotta love sleeping babies!

It’s been a few days so I thought I’d say
a quick hello before baby gets here this morning. Life is going
ok these days. We’re still working on sleep training with Eve.
She doesn’t fully wake up at night, but she does fuss off and
on a lot. The past two nights I’ve been weak and brought her
into the bed to nurse. Sleep training is hard! I’m going to try
feeding her solids before bed instead of nursing being her last
meal before bed. Maybe that will help her sleep longer. The
funny thing is I’ve been nursing her in bed at 5:30 or 6:00am
lately then putting her back to bed and she’ll sleep until 9:00
usually. The other day she slept until 10:00! Lex is always up
at 6:00 and the daycare baby doesn’t get here until 9:00, so I
get some nice quiet time in the mornings with Lex. We have
breakfast, read the paper, color, etc. Stuff that used to be
part of our morning routine pre-Eve. The baby is super sweet
too, and very mellow, so we’ve been having nice days. I have a
3yr old girl who should be starting part time next week. I say
“should” because my experience so far is don’t count on it
until they are actually here. But hopefully. I’ve also been
scheduling playdates here so Lex can have some toddler company
sometimes. We had a kid named Thomas over last week and it was
great. He can really keep up with Lex and they were wrestling
and having a great time. Anyway, that’s all for now.

We got a huge Staples catalog in the mail
the other day and it has become Lex’s favorite book. He even
brings it in the car with him. In the video he’s reading it
with Alan. Just before I turned on the camera he said, “Reading
the Staples catalog with daddy!” I tried to get him to say it
again, but no such luck. Instead he called it a “catalog with
staples in it,” which makes perfect sense really.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5L5-BtNFok]

The kids are so fun these days. They have
started playing together and they both get so happy to see each
other. We’re working on “gentle” with Lex because he gets so
happy to see her he just dives on her. She crawls everywhere
now and he loves to get down on the floor and crawl with her.
“We’re crawling now! Two babies crawling,” he says. But then
he’ll turn and push her over with his head. I think he has so
much energy and excitement and he hasn’t yet figured out how to
properly let it out. But he almost always has the best of
intentions.

With our new baby here
every day Eve is seeming more and more like a kid. I carry the
baby around and Eve crawls around after me. When I sit with the
baby in my lap, Eve will crawl right over and climb in my lap
too. Then Lex, seeing what’s going on, will climb in my lap
too! Usually resulting in at least one of the girls getting
squished. :) But they are just so much fun.

I put baby in the high chair today and Eve in a
booster seat for a snack. I gave Eve a cracker to chew on (she
is teething hard lately, there must be a tooth in there
somewhere!) and she was so cute. I had to take turns feeding
them, so while I fed baby, Eve would chew on her cracker. Then,
when I started feeding Eve, she would reach over and give the
cracker to the baby. Then take it back when I went back to
feeding baby. It was so sweet! They both love the baby. Lex
gives her kisses in the morning and looks for her at night. :)
I really love the people my babies are growing into. (I know,
Eve is definitely still a baby, but you can see a little person
in there too!)

It would seem that toddlers and savage
beasts have something in common besides the typical behaviour:
music soothes them. We recently returned from a family shopping
trip around 8PM, and as he often does when tired, Lex said he
wanted to stay in the car and listen to music. So, I let him
stay there while I put the groceries away and I checked on him
once in a while to see if he was still happy strapped in to his
car seat. Each time he indicated he’d like to stay.

Finally, I finished the groceries and some
other minor puttering, and it was time for Lex to come in and
go to bed. He was resistant, and he was so calm and sweet that
I was reluctant to force him. Then it occurred to me that with
about 5 minutes of effort, I could have him lying in the “big
bed” with the some music playing. I asked him if he wanted to,
he said yes. I asked him which CD he wanted from the car,
grabbed it, him, and the audio equipment, and within minutes,
he was happy and calmly lying in the big bed, with Mr. Diamond
sweetly crooning him to sleep.

Ever
since then, he has been happily, if not emphatically, going to
bed for naps and the night. The only exception was when he
uttered the title of this post. One can only imagine he had
something other than sleep on his mind. You know, like
memorizing more words to his favorite song: Bank Job. Get out
of the gutter. =p

The past few nights Eve has woken up a few
times, but just fussed a bit and was easily pacified with her
plug. This morning she even slept until 7am. Soon, soon, we’ll
be there :) And maybe someday I’ll start going to bed at a
reasonable hour too!

Lex has been very kissey lately, walking
around kissing all sorts of things. It’s hysterical.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p2EHOmsBQA]

We are making progress with the sleep
training. Friday night was hard and she cried a lot, but
Saturday night she slept until 2am, woke up and fussed for
about an hour, then slept solid until 7am. Not bad. I was
hoping last night would be even better, but not so. She woke up
at midnight and again at 4am, both time fussing and whimpering.
The 4am waking lasted until about 6am, then Lex was up at
6:30am. I’m a bit tired today :) But I still hold that we’re
making progress. Another few nights and I think we will
sleeping through the night! (I do miss the sweet baby cuddles
at night though… shhh, don’t tell…)