Ian - 5 Months

It's hard to believe that my baby boy is now 5 months old. Perhaps it's because he's outgrowing clothing so much faster than Molly ever did (already stretching his 6-9 months duds), or perhaps it's just because he's a second-born and life is that much busier, but his infancy seems to be flying by at lightning speed.

So, what has Ian been up to lately?

• He's been spending a lot more time on his tummy. He started rolling both from back-to-belly and belly-to-back before he was 3 months old, but many times it almost seemed to be by accident. Lately, his rolling adventures have been very purposeful, usually to get closer to a favorite family member, a desired toy, or just to get a better view of the action going on around him. Tummy-sleeping has also become his preferred sleep position. Despite faithfully putting him on his back to sleep as the doctor recommends, I find him on this belly 90% of the time. His new-found mobility has also rendered our beloved bouncy seat and swing obsolete. Being strapped in is way too confining for our active little man, but left unstrapped, he'll roll himself into this position in a matter of moments.

• Toys hold his interest much more than in the past. He has learned to grasp and manipulate many different kinds of toys, but his favorites tend to be any soft toy that he can suck and chew on. However, nothing compares to his all-time favorite---his toes. He's been fascinated by his feet for quite a while, and while he doesn't really suck a pacifier or thumb, he can find that big toe of his rather quickly.

• He is quite strong and surprises us by picking up heavy objects when we are unaware. Often it's when we pick him up from the floor and find that the whole blanket or play-gym has come with him because he has a piece of it in his little kung-fu grip. He also likes to bear his weight on his legs and stand up holding onto your hands.

• He has been sitting supported in his bumbo seat for quite some time, but we've just recently started practicing sitting unsupported. If we make a little tripod by placing his hands outside or between his knees, he can balance himself for a few seconds, but pretty quickly finds himself back in his favorite tummy position.

• Ian is already learning to be a mischievous little boy. He's quite good at reaching for things that seems unreachable with his go-go-gadget arms. Just tonight, he was on the floor in his bumbo when we heard a crash. He had not only lunged out and reached Molly's toy shopping cart that was a good distance away, but he managed to pull it to himself and tip it over. He even seems to have a guilty little look on his sweet face. Molly didn't mind helping to clean up the groceries though.

Although Ian is growing and changing at lightning speeds, one thing remains the same. He's still the sweet, easy-going, happy baby boy we brought home from the birth center 5 months ago. He still smiles easily, laughs often, and brings such immense joy to our home. I don't know what we'd do without him!

Molly Mayhem

How could this face be responsible for producing mayhem? Never, you say. Well, our little Molly-doodle is not quite 2 years old and has become just a little bit mischievous. Most of the time, she knows exactly what she should be doing, but would prefer to do things her way. I've always known she was going to be a stubborn one, but up until this point she didn't have the power to always do as she pleased. Now that she has the mobility and agility of a toddler, she is able to exercise her will much more powerfully. She has added several new skills to her repertoire lately, such as closing doors (she still can't open closed doors with the doorknob, thank goodness!), moving chairs around the house, reaching into drawers, and climbing. Climbing has become her new favorite pastime. She climbs on the chair in her bedroom to turn on the iPod; she climbs up to the top of the couch to play with the blinds; and her new way of letting us know that she's hungry is to push a chair over to the counter and climb up in search of food. This last one has me the most nervous because the kitchen is filled with plenty of safety hazards. At this point, she'll point to the stove and say "Hot!" and point to knives and say "Harp!" (translation: sharp), both messages we've relayed to her a thousand times. But I've still become ultra-vigilant about washing and putting away knives as soon as they're used instead of leaving them in the sink. Molly's newest climbing venture occurred the other night as I was making dinner, when I turned around to find this:
She was actually IN the exersaucer with Ian (I leave my camera on the counter just for these moments). He looked a little shocked, but didn't put up any protest. He's spent the entire span of his short 4 months here on Earth learning to put up with Molly's antics. If he's in his Bumbo playing with toys, Molly's right there piling more and more toys in his lap. I think the object of the game is to quickly pile as many toys on the tray as possible before Ian knocks them all off. It's actually quite a challenge for her because his wiry little arms are constantly in motion, shoving toys to the floor faster than Molly can replace them.
Ian's thinking, "What is up with this girl??? I was perfectly happy with just the duck."

Or apparently the doll. Notice all the toys knocked to the floor and what remains. Shhh, don't tell Daddy, but I think he likes the doll. Well, actually, he just likes to suck on her hands and feet, which is what he does all day anyway with his own fingers and toes.
Unfortunately, Ian is needing to learn how to deal with some new "Molly antics" recently. Her newest bad behavior has been hitting, scratching, and biting Ian. I know that most older siblings react with jealousy to a new baby at some point, but I was really hoping that we'd skipped over that unfortunate stage because Molly was so sweet and loving to Ian when he was first born. I guess after four months, she's realized that he's really here to stay and her sweet patience has run out. She wants her queen chair back (aka, Mommy's lap)! The thing that frustrates me so much about the situation is that she is so sneaky about it. She'll come up to him so sweetly and act like she's going to kiss him. She'll even look up at me with that precious, loving expression in her eyes. Then, at the last second, she'll bare her teeth and bite him or turn her gentle caresses into scratches. I was hoping to put off the whole sibling-rivalry situation until much later, but I should have known with Molly that it would come early and be fierce!

Molly's antics resulted in our first visit to urgent care this week too with a case of a pulled elbow, or more commonly "Nursemaid's Elbow". I was trying to take her shirt off so I could put her in the tub, but she wanted to continue climbing on the chair in her room so she could turn the iPod on and off (a favorite playtime activity). Per our usual routine, I had her left wrist in my hand and was stretching the armhole of her shirt so I could slip it over her elbow. She suddenly made a mad dash for the door, but her wrist was still in my hand, resulting in the injury. It's the same kind of injury you see when a toddler falls off a curb and the parent holding their hand jerks upward or when a frustrated babysitter drags a toddler (hence the given name). There was no swelling, bruising, or malformation and she only cried out when we tried to move it. She continued to go about her play, but only used her right arm. The doctor did a quick, simple click-click move with her arm and, voila!, all better. Through the whole thing, I learned an awful lot about Nursemaid's Elbow that I did not know before. Interesting reading for anyone with a child between the ages of 1 and 4. You can read about it here. Molly's now as good as new, other than needing to be careful not to re-injure the same elbow in the next few weeks. Interestingly, one of the sites I read was a paper in a medical journal that said the injury is most common in the left arm of girls around the age of 2. Perfect profile for our scenario.
So, life with an almost-two-year-old is turning out to be quite adventurous, but for every moment of fear and frustration she causes, there are plenty of other moments where her sweet preciousness will just take your breath away. After all, she is my Molly Joy and she fills my days with just that.

The Potty Incident

Ever since Molly was born, the one piece of potty-training advice I've heard over and over again is, "Don't force the process until SHE indicates that she's ready." For that reason, I haven't even thought about potty-training, especially since Molly is not the most verbose toddler. I suspected it would be at least a few more months, if not longer, before she'd be anywhere close to ready.

Well, today we had an incident that in its own pitifully hilarious way, indicated that we may have to at least start thinking about the process. We spent the afternoon outside in the "Flower Power Pool", which is something we've been doing a lot of this week since temperatures have been in the mid-90s.
After playing in the pool, I stripped Molly naked on the porch before going inside. Once inside, Molly started pointing "down there" and babbling in her Molly language. I didn't think anything of it, except that she continued to very persistently point and babble. I asked her if she had to go pee pee and was surprised when she responded with a very emphatic, "UHHH" (a sound that's hard to translate into written language, but that we've learned means an affirmative response in Molly-ese).

I figured there's no harm in trying so I sat her on the porcelain throne, but she seemed scared that she was going to fall in so I quickly rifled through her closet and grabbed the potty seat we received as a shower gift before she was born. She was enthralled with the froggy potty and thought sitting on it was super-fun, but that's all she did---sit---for 10 minutes. She'd stand up, turn around, stick her foot in the potty, sit again, clap her hands, babble, squeal, laugh, point, and babble some more. But no pee pee.

I thought, "Eh, no big deal. We gave it a try. She's not ready. Perhaps I mis-read her." No sooner did I get her up off the frog potty and she started to walk toward the livingroom, then she stopped and peed right in the middle of the floor. It actually seemed to startle her. She quickly jumped back. Then she ran forward, directly through the newly-formed puddle and, swoosh, her feet flew out from under her and she landed flat on her back, you guessed it, right IN the puddle. It was a cartoon-character, banana-peel kind of fall. I tried not to burst out laughing, especially since she was definitely crying.

Needless to say, the whole episode ended with a rinse in the tub and a scrubbing of the floor, but who knows? We may have to go check out some potty-training books from the library. One thing's for sure: Molly has a new favorite seat---her froggy potty :-)

And a special thanks goes out to GG and Pop for both the pool and the potty. At least one of those two things will get plenty of use this summer . . . maybe even both of them!

Ian---Movin' & Groovin'

At 3 months old, our little Ian is a man in motion. The only time he stops moving is when he's sleeping. But when he's awake, it's go-time! About two weeks ago, Ian decided it was about time he started rolling over. In the morning he rolled from his back to his belly and then fell asleep that way. That very same afternoon, he rolled from his belly to his back while playing on the floor---both directions in the same day!!! I tried to tell him to slow down a little. I'm not ready for him to grow up so fast, but he doesn't seem to care. He's just going full-steam ahead. He didn't stop with rolling over. He can now scoot, wiggle, and roll himself all over the place. I remember commenting to Eric while I was pregnant with Ian that we were definitely in for one active little baby. The amount of moving he did in utero was just incredible. I thought Molly was active, but she had nothing on the belly moves her little brother was making!

He started on his back under the play gym and ended up on his belly, scooting his way backwards and out of the side of the playmat!

Here's one of his first attempts at "crawling". I laid him on his back under his toys and went to the kitchen to make dinner. I turned around to find him on his belly, launching himself over the boppy and onto the carpet! And he's not even four months old!

As you can guess, he started out in the middle of his blanket turned 90 degrees to the left, and he wiggled his way all the way off toward the kitchen. Maybe he wanted a snack :-)

Another new skill Ian has learned is playing with toys. He's really been enjoying the exersaucer lately, as well as his play gym. Because his arms move a-mile-a-minute, he actually ends up hitting most of the buttons on his own. I remember it taking Molly months to get the hang of pushing the buttons hard enough to play the music.

The one skill he hasn't quite grasped yet is how to let go of one toy while playing with another one. He just ends up collecting all of them until I go over and pry one or two of them out of the death-grip he has on all of them.
Another one of Ian's new discoveries is his toes. Now that he's found them, he just LOVES them. They make great pacifiers AND toys. Sometimes he'll just grab onto both feet, kick out his legs, and squeal with excitement!
He's still just the happiest little guy in the world. He smiles easily, laughs heartily, coos and babbles constantly, and is just a delight to be around! I can't imagine life without our sweet boy.

Video Updates

I don't take videos often. I guess I just forget about that wonderful little feature on our camera. But I remembered today and captured a couple short clips that represent a little snippet of the stages our two kiddos are in.

First, Molly and Her Ball. She's been having a blast lately learning how to play ball. She's now pretty good at kicking and throwing. We're still working on the catching. One of her favorite games is to stand on the porch and throw the ball down to Eric. She makes the cutest noises when she's concentrating on lining up her throw and gets very excited about playing ball with her DaDa :-)

Ian is at a very adorable stage right now where he's starting to "talk" and smile a lot more. He coos quite a bit and makes some of the cutest noises when he's talking to us. He's such a patient boy and he certainly has to be with such a high-spirited older sister. He'll lay quietly under his play gym while I'm wrapped up in some activity with Molly, but as soon as I walk over and smile at him he starts talking and smiling up a storm. It's as if he saves up everything he has to say until he knows someone is listening. Then he just goes crazy. He has so many funny facial expressions, just like Molly did at that age.