7 months down, 3 to go

I will forever remember this as the longest 10 months of my life.

Here is Tim the first night of the ship's visit to Dubai.  I have a great picture of him golfing there, too, but it's a PDF (why does it have to be a PDF?!) and I can't figure out how to put it on this blog post.  

Timmy at 3 months

This baby boy is so much fun.  He has stolen our hearts, that's for sure.

Some of his favorite pastimes include sitting around sucking on his hand or lying in his activity mat and batting at the toys that hang down.  He loves when his sisters talk or sing to him.

He loves the changing table.  He smiles up at me while he pushes off with his feet and scoots himself backward.  I grab his feet and say, "Cut that out!"  He's never minded diaper changes, but now that he coos and smiles through them, I enjoy them so much more.

He's a very vocal little guy.  His favorite sound is "Gggggg.." with a lot of slobber, to make it sound like radio static.  I think in his language that sound must mean something funny, because he laughs when I say it back to him.  Sometimes he looks so serious as if he's really trying to tell me something.  I'd give anything to know what it is!

This month he has gone from 6 to 8 hour stretches of sleep at night to only about 4.  That is kind of a bummer for me, but at least we're only up for 15 minutes at a time -- as long as it takes to feed him, change him, swaddle him, and lay him back down.  Then I gulp down an 8-ounce glass of water and go right back to sleep myself.  He still sleeps in the co-sleeper.

Beautiful sleeping boy

As far as a daytime routine goes, he is on the EASY plan (Eat, activity, sleep, you time -- a la The Baby Whisperer) that we tried and failed to implement with Delaney four years ago.  I realized this recently while talking with a friend who said she was trying to put her son who is 4 weeks younger than Timmy on the similar Babywise eat-play-sleep routine.  She said she feels like she's trying to fight nature. That's when it dawned on me that Timmy was on that routine, but it had happened so naturally that I hadn't even noticed it until that moment.  He put himself on that plan by the time he was a few weeks old, and I just go along with it.  There is no set number of naps or even a set time.  If he's eaten and he's played for awhile, and then starts blankly staring and rubbing his eyes, I know what comes next.  Easy indeed.  It is hard when we're out and he can only catch a short nap on the go, either in the carrier or the carseat.  He ends up pretty cranky after a morning out and about with no good long nap.  Recently, we took an overtired Timmy on a hayride after a long morning at A Day at the Farm.  He cried so loudly no one could hear the tour guide.  I had to agree with Timmy that the hayride wasn't that much fun.  We do these things to make his sisters happy.

Timmy's nicknames include Timsy, Tims, Mistah, Wittle Mistah, and whatever else happens to gush from my mouth when I'm talking to him.  My babies have a gazillion nicknames by the time they're a year old. I can't help myself.

Grandma's fall visit

At long last, Carolyn holds a grandson!

Tim's mom came to stay with us from October 1 through 8.  It was a fun, relaxing, laid-back visit that didn't involve any assembly or disassembly of anything in our home.  I was freed up to get some things done myself. I put together and hung up a couple little photo galleries on my living room wall, a task that I had been procrastinating forever.  I got my highlights done, which hadn't been done since a few weeks before Timmy was born.  I put away most of the girls' summer clothes, pulled out the hand-me-down fall clothes for Annie, and shopped for Delaney.

I took my little guy with me to my hair appointment, where he snuggled up to me contentedly.  A woman sat in the chair next to me, caught my eye, laughed, and said, "That ought to be a Norman Rockwell painting."

Timmy charmed the socks off Grandma, smiling, cooing, "telling stories," and laughing.  He loved having someone else to hold him and talk to him.

The next person to come visit us will be Tim Sr.  A couple days after he gets here, we'll all drive up to Massachusetts.  So now we've got to hang in there the next 5 weeks or so, go to Massachusetts for the holidays, come back in January, and then wait one more month for Tim to get home.  Always counting down to something..

Delaney was so excited to hear the story she'd "written" about a friendship between a puppy and a big bad wolf read with drama and flair like only Grandma could.

Both our girls have a weakness for Dunkin Donuts.  On the way home one night, we stopped there for some coffee and Munchkins.  Carolyn put them on the kitchen table and went back out to the garage to help unload the rest of the car.  I don't even remember seeing Annie get out of the car and go inside.  But once we all got into the kitchen, we found her shoving Munchkins in her mouth as fast as she could, as if they were all about to be snatched away from her.  She must have been thinking about that all the way home!  

I still find it a little strange that I often take the kids to play, and once a year to look for pumpkins, at a  church graveyard.

"Decorating" pumpkins

Walking and window shopping downtown

Delaney at 4 1/4

These days, Delaney is really interested in letters and their sounds, and .. just learned to write her name!  This picture was taken three days ago, and since then she's been getting better and better.  She's so proud of herself, and I am proud of her.

Taken with my phone

She goes to preschool Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I send her to a different preschool than I did last year, and I'm much happier with this one.  I think the teachers are more professional and seem to love what they do.  I get the feeling that when I leave Delaney there, she is really being taught, not just babysat for 3 hours.  

Still can't understand  "today", "tomorrow", "later", "next week", or even the difference between naptime and bedtime.   She thinks when naptime is over, it's going to be "tomorrow", and she doesn't even sleep!  I try not to get exasperated when we have a conversation that goes like this:  "Mama how long until Grandma gets here?"  "5 days."  "How long is that?"  She gets really frustrated when I tell her she can paint or watch a movie "later", and with good reason since "later" is just my way of putting her off.

Another thing she'll ask is "When will it be tomorrow?"  "When you go to bed and wake up in the morning, that will be tomorrow.  But you will call it 'today'."  Then I stop because now I'm befuddled.  It will be "tomorrow", but by the time it gets here it will be "today".. hmm.  No wonder she's having trouble with this concept, it is confusing!  I can't explain it to her, and even thinking about it gives me a headache.  I hope she figures it all out soon because she is trying.

She likes for me to joke around with her, and be silly, but it is important to her that I assure her I'm kidding.  If I say to Timmy, "I'm gonna eat you up!"  Delaney will say, "No, you won't, Mama.  You're just kidding, right?"  "No."  "Please be kidding, Mama.  Pretty please.."  "Yes, I'm kidding, you silly goose!"

She is still very much enamored of her little critters who live outside.  Every day at least once, she goes out to the back porch to look for one of her little lizards.  There is a whole family of them back there.  The baby ones are so cute.  If she spots one, she tries to catch it.  Sometimes she's quick enough, or the lizard is slow enough.

The lizards do end up surviving.  I always remind Delaney to be gentle with them.  (Taken with my phone)

She loves to draw cute little people who consist of a big smiley face, and four long skinny limbs.

Sometimes she has trouble getting going on her bike, but once she does, she can go fast now.  Our trips around the block are a lot quicker than they used to be.

She has a bright, inquisitive mind, and wants to know all about everything.  To that end, she asks so many questions she exhausts me.  She has boundless energy and never naps, even when she looks worn out.  She's always wants to know what fun thing we are going to next.  Fortunately, she is happy by herself, doing things like searching for lizards and picking up rocks.