Just a suggestion...

For each child that she bears, a mother should sprout AT LEAST one more set of arms.

Long Time No Blog

Wow! It has been a REALLY long time since I have posted anything to this blog. Part of me wants to go back and try to fill in the holes of the last 7 months, but I realize that this would pretty much be impossible. Eli has just changed so much since March, and so much has happened. Plus, we have a new addition to the family, and since I (obviously) have trouble keeping one blog up to date, I am forsaking the notion of giving Brayden his own blog site. So I am taking all of the posts from the old Brayden site and publishing them here. We truly do have a Monkey House now.

Let me start by introducing Brayden. He was born October 18th, 2007 at 7:45 am, weighed 8lbs 2 oz, and was 20 inches long. Since Eli was born via c-section, Brayden's birth day was scheduled months in advance, which was strange but at the same time comforting. On those days when I was tired of being pregnant (which was pretty much every day of the third trimester), I at least knew when the end would be. No guessing.

Let me also say how much easier motherhood is the second time around. I am much more calm. If the baby screams, I (generally) don't panic because I know that babies do that and it won't hurt him to cry for a little bit. Plus, the child knows how to sleep. A very good thing, because I like my sleep. Granted, I still am lucky to get 6 hours a night, but one of my biggest fears was being up all night with a baby (which I was with Eli when he was an infant... and a toddler) and then being up all day with Eli. I am very relieved that Brayden is usually asleep by 11:00 and only gets up once or twice a night, eats, and goes right back to sleep. He is a pretty good-natured baby, too. Sure he has his quirks, but we have figured them out and can usually avoid endless hours of crying.

At the time of this post, Brayden is 6 weeks old. He is smiling at us, tries to reach for his toys, coos when he is happy or when we talk to him, and is a very healthy eater. I am guessing that he weighs at least 11 pounds, and is wearing 3-6 month clothes, depending on the brand of clothing. He rolled over for the first time tonight (front to back), but I was not able to get it on video. He started to do it when I had the camera rolling, but then realized that he was laying with his mouth on his arm and it was much more fun to suck on that. He LOVES to watch Eli, though Eli is no really interested in entertaining him. We can occasionally get him to sing Brayden a song, but that is it.

As for Eli's adjustment, it has gone pretty well. He does miss having our undivided attention, and is purposefully mischievous as an attention-seeking mechanism. I know he feels neglected when he gets destructive. Honestly, the hardest part of having 2 kids is trying to figure out who needs my attention more. That, and trying to leave the house. I can't imagine trying to do it when they are both mobile.

Here are some things that Eli is doing right now. He is still very active. We need to leave the house pretty much every day so that he can go burn off some energy. He loves going to the play area in the mall, to Lend and Learn, and to Little Gymmers at the ARC, and he almost always finds another child there to be his friend for the day. Such a little socialite. He still loves music. His favorites right now are the Doodlebops, Garth Brooks, and Carrie Underwood. He has several musical instruments that he will play as accompaniment, but the cutest is his guitar. Or as Eli says, Gui-tah... darn the Wiggles and their Australian accents.

I think that covers most of it for now. Now that I have some updates, I can start posting regularly again. The hardest part is getting started.

News

For those of you that do not know, Eli is going to be a big brother. We are pregnant with baby number two, due on October 22nd. And in keeping with the tradition of this blog, I have started a new blog for the newest Wolf. I have been submitting entries since we found out about the pregnancy, but did not want to make it public until we were a little further along. Here is the link if you would like to check it out.

Not so subliminal messages

The people that work in advertising really know what there are doing.

At least when it comes to selling a product to a two-year-old.

Eli obviously recognizes the golden arches as the place for french fries, but he also know that tacos come from Taco Bell, CDs (DVDs) come from Blockbuster, and that Applebee's = lunch (by the way, we have never been to Applebee's for lunch). The other day he saw the keys to Chris' Ford Explorer, which have the Ford logo stamped on them. Eli immediately got excited and said, "American Idol". "American Idol" is sponsored (heavily) by Ford. Of course, the Ford logo looks very similar to the "American Idol" logo, which I realized when Eli started talking about the show again when we passed by Culver's.

What do you think? Compare the show's logo:



with the mistaken ones:

Breaking several child labor laws

Eli's new favorite activity is to do the dishes. Which is good, because we have plenty of them. Mostly he just stands at the sink and makes a big mess with the water, but he does pretty well rinsing his plastic dishes, bowls, and cups so that we can put them in the dishwasher. The good part about this is that I can do the dishes and I don't have to worry about what he is doing while I am in another room where I can't see him or hear him. This means less time in front of the TV, which is what I normally would have to do to keep him occupied and out of trouble. He is a bit of a sink hog, though, so he likes to push me out of the way when I need to rinse a dish. And it is slightly frustrating that he keeps taking the clean or already rinsed dishes out of the dishwasher and washes them again... and again. It is kind of wasteful, because it means that I have to keep the water running while doing the dishes instead of just filling the sink, but I guess that it is worth it to be able to accomplish SOMETHING during the day.

I reserve the right to change my opinion when we receive the next water bill.

Eli's Alphabet

A B C D E F G H I J K Elmo Poopy Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Head over heels, part 2

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better...

We were cooler before we were parents (I think)

While most adults our age in the U.S were watching the Superbowl (or at least the commercials) on Sunday, we were watching something much more interesting...

Head over heels

Creating bad habits

Eli takes a Flintstones gummy vitamin everyday (well, most days), and he really likes them. The problem is that we are having a hard time explaing to him that he can only have one a day. The other day he asked for a second vitamin, and I told him no, that he only can have one, but he was really persistent. None of my usual distractions were working, so I had to move on to my last resort.

I gave him some chocolate.