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…)

I think Eve must be thinking “WAAAHHH….
What the hell??? Why aren’t we snuggling in the big bed now???
Why do you keep looking at me and leaving the room??
WAAAAAAA….” Sigh. Tough, but necessary.

You all politely read my frustration with naps
in the past few months, so I thought I should post an update
for you (and me). I’m not sure what’s changed, but he has
started napping again. YAY!!!! It usually takes him anywhere
from a half hour to an hour and a half to fall asleep, but he
stays in his bed, stays fairly mellow and eventually falls
asleep. If he gets out of the bed I stick him right in the crib
and he falls asleep there. I don’t feel like we are doing much
different from the past many months, but maybe we are. Or maybe
he made it through some phase or something. Not sure, but I’m
much happier now. And he’s MUCH happier now. Which makes
everyone else much happier :) Our plan for this weekend is to
do some sleep training with Eve now. She’s been waking up 2-3
times a night to nurse. She eats more often at night than she
does during the day! I’m sure she isn’t really hungry though,
so we’re moving Lex into our room for the weekend and doing a
little training with her. I will be a happy camper if I can get
both of them napping and sleeping through the night. What we
need around here is a little more sleep!

The picture is from
today and has nothing to do with the post. Just felt like
including a picture :)

Lex got a few board games for Christmas (Candy
Land, Chutes & Ladders, and Trouble) and he LOVES them!
He’s so funny. We play several times a day and he’s really good
at the spinning, drawing a card, popping the dice, counting,
colors, and moving (when he wants to), but what he really needs
work on is his focus. Last night we were playing Candy Land and
the game went something like this: Alan draws a card, moves his
piece, I draw a card, move my piece, Lex jumps on the
trampoline, grabs a card, runs over and tucks it under doggy, proclaiming “doggy got a red!!”,
sits down and does a few little silly moves around doggy, jumps
back up on to the trampoline, a few more bounces, climbs over
Alan and finally makes it back to the board. Now, if he’s had
enough, he’ll move his piece to the next red square and the
game will continue. Otherwise he’ll move his piece backward (I
think he does get confused about forward and backward
sometimes) or he’ll put his piece ON the card over by doggy, or
use his piece to “draw” all over each red place on the board,
or do some other silly thing. All the while Alan and I are
saying, “Come on Lex, draw a card, move your piece, come back
over here, etc.” Then finally he’s done and Alan and I go and
it’s right back to Lex again. Needless to say, games take
awhile. But he loves them. Earlier in the evening they were
playing alone while I fed Eve and Lex ran into the kitchen to
show me each card that doggy picked. :) Remind you of a Family
Circus cartoon?

Now a game we can all
play…
I got a new camera for my
birthday 8 weeks ago and we’ve already taken 743 pictures and
movies. That’s a lot! Most of them of Lex and Eve. When I saw
that I was reminded of a comment my Grandpa made at his 80th
birthday party two years ago about how the number of pictures
taken of a person is the inverse of their age. So, the
challenge is to guess how many pictures we have taken of Lex
over the past two and a half years. Most of the more recent
ones also include Eve, but for the purpose of the game I’m
going to just say Lex since he was born. Now, I have NO IDEA
what the answer is and I’m not about to count every single one,
but in a few days I’ll go back through and come up with a
reasonable approximation. The person with the closest guess
will win a fabulous, wonderful, exciting prize… like a
picture of Lex!

Just a quick post to welcome in the new year. We
spent the day doing not much. Haircuts for the boys so I could
clean up my last attempt at cutting Lex’s hair. Then Lex and I
spent awhile playing outside. It snowed all day and it was
beautiful. Big, fat, airy flakes drifting slowing to the
ground. The temps were good and there was no wind, so it was
really nice outside. We had fun. We’ve had a nice few weeks of
holidays and vacations. Alan has been working off and on, a day
here and a day there. Tomorrow we get back into the real
routine. My daycare baby comes back (I’ve missed her!) and
Alan’s back to work every day. Was a nice vacation, but life
has to get back to normal sometime, right?