happy leap day

After watching 30 Rock last week, I had big plans for making ben dress up as leap day william and living it up this february 29.  But regular life things just took priority I guess... and living it up amounted to a trip to walmart and an extra large slice of cheesecake tonight after the babies were asleep.

In other news...

photo by bob

Cha-lazy-eye is back.  It's killing me.  (Actual ailment: chalazion -- a blocked gland in my eyelid.  I think it's from the mom hormones.  Not the worst thing in the world.  An annoyance.)

I had one when Bobby was born; it appeared at the exact same time he did, so I liked to unaffectionately refer to it as his twin.

We were staying at Gram's one weekend -- I guess it must have been Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving before her stroke -- and I'd been suffering the thing for weeks, and Gram was very concerned about it.  I kept putting warm washcloths on my eye, like I had been all along, per doctor's orders.

Gram just would not stop looking at it.  "Well, by gully."  And then she told me I should put my tea bag on it.  (We drink a lot of tea at Gram's.)  We all laughed but then she wasn't really joking.  So I tried it a couple of times that night.  And she noticed the effects immediately.  The next morning she insisted, "Well it's looking better isn't it?"  I really didn't think so... but I was amused and encouraged by her optimism nonetheless.

I kept up with the tea bag treatment and sure enough, it seemed to work; I did heal.

So now I'm back at it.  Tea-baggin myself all the time.  And shedding a couple of tears because I just truly miss my Gram.  I miss her input in my life.  I miss her ridiculously hilarious and ridiculously amazing advice that did always turn out to be just what I needed.

And for your leap day present, my favorite leap day pics...

Happy leap day, all.

Dear Owen, you're one month old.

Five weeks now actually, because you keep my arms occupied so often that I don't have a whole lot of time for blogging.

You want to be held pretty much all the time, and we oblige because we love you.  I've got you cozied up in the Moby wrap now to free up my typing appendages.

I don't think I take quite as many photos of you as I did of Bobby at this age, only because I'm busier taking care of both of you now.  I think you might get photo-tortured a little bit more though, as I try to set up the perfect shot.

You love to nurse.  You eat a lot, plus you just like to hang out by my boob.  Sometimes you pull away and let the milk spray everywhere.  Kinda inconvenient getting covered with milk, but very funny watching you get milk-fountained in the face.  At your one month well visit on the 17th your weight was already up to 9 pounds, 14 ounces.  Little piglet.

You've been smiling a lot, but I haven't been lucky (or diligent) enough to catch you with my camera yet.

You love to be swaddled and snuggled.

You'll usually only take your pacifier if you are holding our fingers with your hands.  You love to cuddle.

You are super ticklish, especially on your lower back and feet.  Meaning, you get super irritated if we touch you there.

You have an umbilical hernia and your bellybutton is pretty much always bulged out.  Looks a little gross, but when it does go in your belly is adorable.

You stick out your tongue a lot.

Like, a lot.

I love your tiny little toes and feet and legs.

I love your alert little gaze, the way you already study everything around you.



I love your fuzzy newbornie hair and soft newbornie skin and teeny newbornie bum.

You've liked the bath so far -- a quick whimper when your body first touches the water, then nice and calm.  Here you are in your first tub time...

and your second...



You are a little tough guy; yesterday Bob threw one of his little people and it hit your head but you didn't cry, you just stuck out your little lower lip for a minute to show that you felt it and then you were fine.

You're a pretty good sleeper, but for the past week or so you've been insisting on being awake and restless at 5am.  Some days I am so tired I just can't stay awake.

You don't pay a whole lot of attention to Bobby yet, but he likes you a lot.  "I wanna peek at him.  Just look at him!  He's so cute!" Bob'll say.

We are so very thankful to have you in our family, Owen.

We can't wait to watch you become you.

But we love you so much already.

Bob on cheesecake {Happy birthday, ben}

Yesterday was Ben's birthday -- 31.  Ooooh, getting old.  (Happy birthday, babe!)  We laid low for the day, then my Mom and Tom came over to watch the little people so that Ben and I could go out for dinner.  Two hours out of the house by ourselves -- first time in a while.  We had to wait for longer than we liked but ended up getting a table right next to the fireplace downstairs at the Old Forge.  It was a pretty cute date.  Thanks very much to team mom and tom for holding down the fort; Owen is pretty needy for me (or my boobs usually) in the evening so I know it wasn't easy.

When we got home a couple special people came over for cheesecake.  And Bob got to have cheesecake at the time he'd normally be getting ready for bed.  And he liked it a lot.  First thing he said this morning was,  "Cheesecake is out there, and Alice is out there."  ("Alice" would be my cousin Nate's girlfriend Alison.")

Here's a video of bobby being bobby -- taken after the company had gone and we were trying to get him settled down in his room. You have to crank up your volume and listen carefully for bob's impressive sound effect at 2:53.



Thanks, Bubbs, for providing us with endless entertainment.

And, thanks, Ben, for being such a wonderful love to me and our boys.  You are my favorite.

three nights of trying to write...

It's hard to get a whole post written in one sitting these days.

Here's Saturday's attempt...

Not a whole lot to report.  Our days go something like this: Wake up, nurse little baby, get the big baby up, change diapers... make breakfast, eat breakfast, clean up breakfast... nurse baby, play assorted sports and games and maybe sneak in a shower... make lunch, eat lunch, clean up lunch... more diaper changes... read books to big baby and put him down for nap... sneak a little mom and dad chillax time... more nursing and diapers... get big baby up and play fireman sam or trains or an array of other funtivities... cook supper, eat supper (often while nursing baby), clean up supper... then more playing or straight to the tub if supper involved lots of whining or tiredness or mess... bath, toothbrushing, maybe a little quiet play, then books and big baby to bed... more diapers, nursing, newborn snuggling... then mom and dad tv time, or mom computer and dad xbox time... then mom gets too tired and goes to bed where the nursing is occasionally interrupted by a couple of hours of sleep, or more like four.  So you see: busy and rewarding, but not particularly exciting.

After a description like that I could see one wondering why anyone ever has kids.  But then... take a look at this:

Come on, now.

Here's Sunday's attempt:

Last night when Bob was in the tub I sang "On top of spaghetti" (don't remember why it came up) and when I was done (I finished after "and then my poor meatball went straight out the door" because I don't remember the rest of the words) Bobby just about had a total nervous breakdown over my poor, poor meatball, terribly sad and crying.  I tried telling him it was just a silly song but he wasn't having it; finally I was able to distract him from the subject and we moved on.  Later, Bobby's in his crib, talking to himself and not going to sleep, and suddenly he remembers the whole meatball thing.  We were listening on the monitor: "And Mom lost the meatball!  Yes, mom, you did.  You lost your poor poor poor meatball.  You lost it.  You lost it!"  And then he proceeds to get hysterical again.  It was hard to keep from laughing at him because the source of his anguish was so completely ridiculous.  We tried telling him, it's just a song, just pretend, I was just kidding; I changed all the lyrics to the song; I even showed him some meatballs safe and sound in the fridge, which seemed to ease his heart for a bit.  I let him stay up and play for a while to get his mind off the meat tragedy (I actually think that to bob it was more of a ball tragedy -- perhaps he has a bit of a ball-loss phobia).  We had several more mini-breakdowns until finally when I was rocking him in his room and he still wasn't buying the "it never happened" story I said, "Okay, buddy, here's what really happened if you must know: I lost my meatball; it rolled right on out the door.  But I saw it, and I ran after it with my fork, and luckily I can run faster than a meatball, so I caught it, and I stabbed it, and I brought it back home.  I saved my lost meatball."  And that, apparently, satisfied him.

I'm tempted to post a video, but is it a violation of my son's privacy to share with the world footage of the tears he shed over a fictional lost meatball?  I don't know...

Now I'm back and it's already the day after I started, so of course I'm feeling short on words and long on photos.

Days with bobbert are always amusing...

Owen is three weeks old now and he's a total sweetheart of a boob-monger...

Last weekend David and Crystal came with Chloe and Mason and cooked us a huge supper and dessert.  We had leftovers for two more meals.  It was awesome.  Bob very much enjoyed the company.

One of these days we'll have to dress ourselves up for a family photo but at this point the best I have is a shot of us as we usually are...

I think Ben and I both have moments wondering, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" but, truth be told, we are super happy.