Blessings and Plagues

After having had a first child who didn't sleep through the night until almost 18 months and a second child who was serious to the point of gruffness as a baby, I can't tell you how it warms my heart to have a baby who wakes after a five hour stretch of sleep, then grins and squeals delightedly at me as I pick her up. Life has developed a Biblical atmosphere around here. Daphne was baptized a week ago. Jack has taken to reading his children's Bible by himself and giving us oral book reports. His current favorite stories include Jesus's temptation in the desert, Peter's betrayal, and Solomon's sins of building temples to his many wives' pagan gods. Rather macabre fare. He has a relative sense of humor about it, though, as apparently yesterday at his preschool's VBS, he announced that he felt sorry for Noah's family because they had to live on the ark with the likes of Mosquitos and flies and bees. Graham is following Jack's interests as usual. Angered at something his brother was doing a few days ago, Graham decreed, "I'm going to throw you into the lion's den!"

Who needs delivery?

Graham just made pretend pizza and served it to me. A few minutes later, after we had cleaned up that "meal," he asked if I wanted "leftover pizza."

Introducing...

Daphne Catherine! She was born April 20 at 2 a.m. and she is amazing. An unbelievably easy baby who only cries when hungry or needs a diaper change. And I need it, as her birth day was also the day we moved into our new house, and because Ben didn't have any paternity leave since he just started his new job at Energizer two months befor, and because my Aunt Jane, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer only a month before, had died a few days before Daphne's birth and her funeral was that afternoon. There's been a lot going on in our lives the past few months! Just as an observation, no one has yet said the completely unhelpful but seemingly universally used phrase, "Wow! You've got your hands full!" since Daphne's birth. Interesting, since just about everyone I saw for six months after Graham was born said that to me. I'd like to think its because I now look so competent with the three of them that it doesn't look difficult. More likely it's because I have a crazy, don't-mess-with-me look in my eyes at all times. Although I suppose people may actually say it but I'm just too distracted to hear them.

Heard Around Our House This Week

Jack: (to Ben, when "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" comes on) Daddy, this is The Bugs! Have you heard of them? The Bugs?

I've just started introducing the boys to The Beatles, obviously not soon enough...

Graham understands that Daphne is not yet born and that she's in a belly, but he seems to think that she's in his belly, as well as mine and Ben's and possibly Jack's. Today at lunch Graham was sweetly offering to share some food with Jack. Jack rejected the offer with a simple "No," which Graham corrected, "No thank you, Jack?" Graham proceeded to offer food to Ben and to me, and then we asked if he wanted to share some with Daphne. Graham, with a big smile on his face, pushed his sandwich gently up to his shirt on his belly and said, "'ere go, Baby Daphne!"

Graham's other favorite words lately include: "Haa-boot" (caboose) and "All 'Board!" imitating the conductor in The Polar Express with perfect inflection. He's also learned to put train tracks together impressively well for his age. Looks like we'll be making lots more trips to the Transportation Museum in the near future!

Surprises

1. I'm blogging. I'm going to try to do that more this year.

2. I'm pregnant. With a baby girl.

3. A ton of other things have happened in the past 9 months.

Well, I suppose that last point is not too terribly surprising. But in the interest of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, those things will (hopefully) come out over time.

For now, updates on each child.

Daphne, our baby girl still in utero, is due April 26, making her the fourth Angelette birthday within a two week span. I'm 23 weeks along with the easiest pregnancy I've had thus far. At least the easiest for me. I've been horribly moody, so Ben in particular and Jack to a lesser extent may not agree that it's been fabulous, but morning sickness was mild and short lived, and I had very few food aversions. Amazingly enough, both my brother and my sister are due to have their first babies on the same day, 6 weeks after Daphne's due!

Graham is 20 months and at a completely adorable, chattering stage. He loves to talk and is learning what seems like a million words a day. His favorite phrases right now are, "Christmas lights," and "Lego guy." Yesterday morning when I walked in the door with Starbucks for Ben (who had the day off) and me, Graham lit up and came running toward me shouting, "Chocolate milk!"

Jack is reading like a fiend. He started really reading well around his 4th birthday and has improved about a grade level every 2-3 months since then. Right now as best we can tell he's reading at a 3rd-4th grade level. He loves it. Legos were the Christmas theme this year, and we've just started reading Harry Potter together. J.K. Rowling is a genius writer--it's thrilling to see Jack's reactions to hearing the story for the first time. His amazement and excitement are definitely contagious.

Ben's company, Savvis, was sold to telecom giant CenturyLink last summer, so his job responsibilities have been changing significantly and for the better. He's been taking so much vacation that today is only the fourth day of work for him in the past two and a half weeks. I'm missing him a lot today!

Quick Catch Up on the Last 5 Months

I've been horrible about posting. Yes, the blog was really dying, and, no, this is not a guarantee of continued vitality, just a random post that may or may not be followed up any time soon. As consolation, here's an update on what we've been doing since I last posted at the beginning of what turned out to be a very long, cold, snowy winter that is thankfully now drawing to a close.

Graham learned to sleep! When he was still waking 2-3 times a night in mid-February and was only sleeping 15-45 minutes a day total (not a typo), would not go to sleep without being attached to my breast, and was crying in excess of 3 hours a day almost every day because he was clearly so exhausted, we decided to consult a sleep specialist at the hospital where Graham was born. She prescribed a course of action that involved Ben sleeping on a mattress beside Graham's crib for a week, then slowly moving out of his room. He did. Graham slept. It was amazing. There were a few tears--the first night it took about half an hour for him to calm down, though Ben was there the whole time so that Graham didn't feel abandoned--but overall the whole process was a great experience. Within three weeks he was sleeping 11 hours straight through the night very predictably, and napping at least 45 minutes each for two naps a day without any struggle to go to sleep. In fact, sometimes he now practically jumps into his crib from our arms when he's ready for bed!

The change in Graham's mood and ability to learn has been astounding. He is truly like a different child than the one in the last post from November. Graham loves to play peek-a-boo with anyone who will look in his direction, using any covering he can scrounge up, and his face practically glows when he's "discovered." He still has his serious baby moments, but he is happy. He is really a happy baby, which it has very much relieved me to discover.

Graham learned to crawl and to pull up all in a single weekend in mid-December. By early January he had started to stand by himself. Whereas Jack tried every possible new skill right away, Graham seems to wait until he's really ready to do things perfectly before he attempts something new. By the time he stood for the first time, Graham was already falling gracefully. Not a single bad fall yet. Jack, by contrast, had bumps and bruises almost constantly for the entire year between 6 and 18 months of age.

Jack has been very supportive and loving of Graham, despite all the attention a baby requires. At one point over Christmas Jack worried to Nonna about Graham being able to reach one of Jack's CDs that was nearby. Jack then explained that he was worried, not that Graham would break the CD but that Graham would try to eat it and would get sick.

Jack's teachers also tell us that he's just blossoming socially. And he does seem to be. Last week we spent almost every day at a playdate, and Jack just loved it. Saturday was a treasure hunt with Thomas and his parents, Sunday Maddie and her family came over to grill out, Tuesday we visited Ava's new house with Ellie and Walker, Wednesday we went on a picnic with Thomas and Colin and Leander, Thursday we went to Bible study with Gabriel and John Paul, and then Friday we met up with Gabe and John Paul again at the park. Only on Monday were we alone together, and even that is qualified by the fact that he had preschool that morning! Jack gets along with almost everyone, and is learning to be assertive when other kids do something unkind to him.

But the stress of learning new social and academic lessons daily, if not hourly, has not left Jack unscathed. He's had sleeping trouble, in particular some dreams that seem to have truly terrified him. Sometimes after having a scary dream (we started using that term instead of "bad" dream, because Jack seems to have thought that that adjective meant he was bad, not that the dreamwas unpleasant), Jack would refuse to discuss it. One time he even explained why.

Jack: Do you know why I'm not telling you about my dream, Momma?

Momma: Why not sweetie?

Jack: Because then you might be scared of it, too, and I don't want you to be scared.

One time, he described with a horrified look on his face what happened during the dream. But his explanation left us a little befuddled and really working hard not to smile/crack up laughing.

Jack: In my dream a mean Humpty Dumpty came in my room. And I said, "Boo!" And the mean Humpty Dumpty said, "[gasp!]" Then he said, "Jack, your red birdie is eating a lemon!" in a mean voice. And my red birdie doesn't like lemons!

Well. Okay then. Not sure what to say to that. I think we managed to mask the amusement with a concerned look and asked something like, "And that made you worried about your birdie?"

Then there were the trips to the doctor. We logged at least one a week from mid-December until the end of January. On December 29, as Ben and I were getting ready to go out to dinner with friends, Jack fell off the step stool in the bathroom. Though he cried for about five minutes, which is uncharacteristically long for him, he seemed to be fine immediately afterwards. Two hours later, however, when our friends arrived to pick us up and Jack was still holding his right arm at a strange angle and refusing to use it, we asked our friend Neesha, who's an internist, to take a quick look at it. Jack let her move his arm around a lot, so we decided to wait until the next day to take him to his regular pediatrician. It was then that we discovered he had broken his clavicle. A broken collarbone. On a three year old. Seriously? Yeah, that was not fun. Fortunately he didn't need a cast, but he was in a soft canvas brace for six weeks and needed three sets of X-rays. It healed relatively very quickly, though; in three weeks it was mostly healed, and by his six week checkup, he was back to a completely normal range of motion and strength.

Most of January was a complete haze. In addition to dealing with Jack's immobility from his broken clavicle, we had two straight weeks of all of us being really, really sick. First we all caught the flu. Jack went down on a Friday afternoon and had temperatures of 104 for five days straight. Ben and I started getting really sick on Monday and were completely useless until Thursday. It was the kind of sick where you don't want to leave your bed for a week. But when both of you are sick and you have children to take care of, that obviously just can't happen. It was miserable. Wednesday night Jack was starting to mend, but Graham finally succumbed. Graham's bout was a lot less serious than ours, but it was still not pleasant. We must have gone through 20 boxes of Kleenexes. Chills, very high fevers, coughs, congestion, snot, body aches. We had it all except digestive ailments.

Nine days after it began, we seemed to be all mostly clear of the flu. That night Ben developed a horrible stomach bug. The next night I got it. Two hours after I started getting sick, Jack got sick. After two days of that, I called my dad and begged him to come stay with us for a few days. He did. The day after he got home, he got sick. We were down for the count for another week. The only good part of that week was that Graham didn't get the stomach bug. It was miserable.

But there were some fun developments bookending our two weeks of confinement. On January 9, Graham first started clapping and Jack first started reading his BOB books. By February 2, Jack's phonics awareness had developed enough that he made this card by himself.

He put the letters on from right to left and didn't leave spaces, so if read backwards with spaces it says, "I hop yo feel bettr." My jaw dropped. I was sitting right next to him as he did it and helped him find the letter stickers after he had told me which letter he wanted, but otherwise I did not intervene at all. It was truly amazing to watch.

I Can't Believe

how big our boys are getting.

Just after he got out of the bath tonight, Graham took his first real steps! He didn't stop walking until we put him in his crib. The light in his eyes clearly revealed that he was thinking, "Oh, ho, ho! Now what can I do with this new way of moving!? Any new things I can get to?" Quite pleased with himself, and very steady on his feet. As well he should be--he's been cruising for over four months now! He just had not yet seen any value at all in walking independently since he could do everything he wanted by cruising or crawling. But this walking thing, he seems to realize now, is a game changer.

Then at bedtime Jack showed us how incredibly well he can read. He sounds out 3-4 letter words and has great comprehension. He can read just about any word with traditional letter sounds and short vowel sounds, along with blends (sh, ch, th) and a few double vowel sounds (ou, oo, ee). I suppose this means we'll be skipping the spelling-out-words-we-don't-want-Jack-to-understand phase.

Both of these developments call for serious regrouping on the parental front. Brace yourself--we've got quickly growing boys here!

Practice

Graham is practicing chasing after cans (and pretty much anything else that moves) in preparation for crawling. He's sitting up very securely now. I'm still hoping for teeth to pop through any day, as his sleeping (lack of) and crying (abundance of) are starting to drive us all a little batty. Graham rarely sleeps more than a total of an hour and a half during the day, usually in one catnap of 15-30 minutes and one 1-1 1/2 hour nap. According to all the sleep books (and a cursory measure of what nap patterns 1) result in less Graham fussiness, 2) give Jack and me a little time alone each day, and 3) leave me feeling sane), Graham should be taking 1-2 more naps and sleeping a total of 3-4 hours during the day. We're working on sleep so that future videos will have more examples of cooing and less of crying.

Despite teething pain, Graham still frequently rewards us with fleeting but adorable half-smiles that he immediately hides by burying his face into the nearest shoulder a la Harrison Ford with separation/stranger anxiety (which Graham is exhibiting in spades).

Jack said to me tonight as I was tucking him in, "Momma, after you go downstairs and after I read my book and the light goes out, I'm going to practice singing 'Hush Little Baby' for when I'm a daddy someday."

Also attached are our Halloween pictures. We went as a pirate family, with Graham playing parrot. I was quite proud of myself for throwing together Graham's outfit especially.

Every Day in Lots of Ways

That's how these boys amaze me.

Graham? Sitting up. All by himself. And he loves it--I've seen more smiles from him in the past 2-3 weeks since he's been able to stay up by himself than I've seen in his entire previous six months combined. It's completely changed his world view--literally. His experience of sitting up wasn't quite as dramatic as Jack's. I didn't realize until Jack was six months old that he was capable of sitting up, but when we first tried it, he immediately sat. With Graham, I knew how much more fun a sitting baby can have/be, so we started propping him to sit several weeks ago and gradually pulled away the supports. So there's no exact time I can put on the "First Date Baby Sat Up" line in the baby book, but he definitely has the hang of it now.

Graham also seems to be getting his first tooth. I haven't had any official sightings of it yet, but I can feel a bump on the right side of his mouth, and we've had more than a few rough nights in the past few weeks, with lots of crying, gnawing, and drooling. All of which adds up to a likely tooth.

And Jack? Well, two things. Yesterday morning we were at a Bible study and Jack was playing in an adjoining room with two other little boys while the mommas talked God. One of the other boys was having a bit of a rough morning (sharing was hard for him and shoves were more plentiful that day), and Jack dealt with it soooooo well. A few of the snippets I overheard Jack saying:

Can I help you with that puzzle? Maybe I can put together the James pieces and you can do the Thomas ones. Would that be okay? [It was, of course, a Thomas train puzzle, though oddly enough we weren't the ones who brought it.]

Ouch--that hurts me. [when the other boy was tackling a little too hard. Note the lack of accusation. Just the statement of effect was enough to get him to back off. Makes me wonder if Jack's noticing and imitating Ben's and my conscious efforts to try to use statements instead of demands/accusations a la "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk"]

It's okay. You did not break my train. It's supposed to be that way. You have been playing very gently with my trains. [the other boy thought he had broken a wheel on a train, but it really wasn't broken.]

[when the other boy was sitting on all the trains so that his two friends couldn't play with them]: Jack: Why don't we all play with trains together?

[when the other boy didn't respond to that after several tries] Jack to me: Momma, should we all get to play trains together?

Me: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!

[other boy, hearing this and seeing that his mom was noticing, though hadn't had to say anything yet, started to get up]

Jack: Yeah, I think we should all have a train to play with.

And that was the only time any parent needed to get involved with their interaction. The rest of the time the boys solved issues by themselves. Everything Jack said was very judicious, with no blaming, no whining, no tattling. And yet it was also very assertive; he wasn't going to let anyone steamroll him. Preschool has given him great opportunities to use his emerging social skills. I'm constantly grateful for his fantastic teachers there and amazing to see him bloom into such a thoughtful, fair, kind little boy.

And the other thing that just floored me today was when Jack read a word I didn't know he knew. He's known how to read/spell Jack, Momma, Daddy, and, the, and maybe a few other words I'm not thinking of now for a while. When he was interested in letters last spring and had just learned all the letter names, I got some small foam letter stickers from a craft store and we used them to "write" words on paper by sounding them out and sticking them on. I didn't want to put too much pressure on Jack learning to read by himself at an early age, because he's got decades of reading ahead of him, and right now I'd much rather he learn the imaginary play, social interaction, and creative thinking skills that are already becoming important to getting along with a group of his peers--things that aren't taught directly in school. But he kept persisting in wanting to learn about letters, so whenever he showed interest, I talked about it.

So at noon today we were at the drive-through (teething nights leads to Momma outsourcing some of the cooking) when Jack pointed to a sign and said, "Momma that says 'dog.'" Surprised, I looked up, and sure enough, there was a sign that said "Dog Wash." No identifying pictures or symbols--just "Dog Wash." So I stammered, "You're right, Jack--it does say 'dog!'" Then asked how on earth he knew that. Jack responded, as matter-of-factly as if every 3 year old knew these things so surely every momma should, "It says D-O-G. Duh-AW-guh. Dog." My jaw dropped.

Judge Not...

In contemplating whether having both boys asleep by 6 p.m. tonight makes me a good momma or a bad momma, I realized several things:

1. I have got to find a way to get Jack to take the naps he still so desperately needs but is refusing so obstinately, especially on his most tired days.

2. I am a bit to involved in reading Wicked, as I thought of that opening sentence in the same cadence as, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

3. Who cares, when it means I'll have time for a treadmill workout to replace the jog that had to be aborted this afternoon due to a baby who didn't want to ride in our awesome new double jogger in my hour of need today?

4. I really have to stop judging myself so much...

Perfect Day, Perfect Night

Yesterday was a fantastic day. Church in the morning, book club at our house afterwards (with a fascinating book to discuss), then an impromptu dinner with friends and their kids and ice cream afterwards. Couldn't be more fun. But it was capped off nicely by the fact that Graham slept from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. last night! I can't tell you how heavenly it is to have a sleeping baby...

Three Cheers!

First cheer for Graham, who rolled over for the first time this morning! We were all playing downstairs and decided it was tummy time. Jack loves to do tummy time, too, so he laid down on Graham's left side. Graham then turned with his whole body to look at Jack and was already halfway over, so Jack and I encouraged him to look even further up, and Graham rolled right over! It was amazing, as he had never shown any interest in rolling over before and isn't crazy about tummy time so hasn't done much of it. Immediately after the first time he rolled over, I tried to get Graham to do it again on video. Jack was too impatient to let Graham roll over himself, so the following video ensued. Rest assured it was not a fluke event, as Graham rolled over again later this morning while our friends Emily and Milo were over.

Second cheer for Jack, who did a fantastic job as ringbearer in my cousin Julie's wedding last weekend. They even had him carry *the real rings* (!) on the pillow, a prospect that really scared me when I first heard they were planning on it.

We rode the train to Nonna and Pops' house, which Jack loved. There was even a very nice conductor who came over to talk with us for about 10 minutes. Hilariously, Jack was so starstruck that he lost all ability to communicate. He started taking things out of our bag to show to the conductor and could only manage one-word descriptions.

Meanwhile, I was trying to demonstrate to Jack how he could ask questions of the conductor, who turned out to be excessively chatty with me. Thus for about 10 minutes our conversation went roughly like this:

Jack: (pulling out a book) Book!

Momma: So did you have to go to school for a long time to become a conductor?

Jack: Pretzels!

Conductor: Actually, yes. I went to Choo Choo U

Jack: Peanut butter!

Conductor: for about two months up in Wilmington

Jack: iPhone!

Conductor: Delaware. Out in Kansas, Johnson County Community

Jack: Sling!

Conductor: College has an associate's degree railroad science program

Jack: Breastfeeding cover!

Conductor: but I didn't want to go to school for that long, so I haven't done that.

Third cheer for both Jack and Graham who finally managed to take coordinated naps for the first time in a long time, allowing me to write this post. Graham's been resisting naps of late, and he's had a couple of two-wake nights recently, but he's still a fantastic sleeper. About two weeks ago he even managed to go from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.! My baby can sleep through the night. I didn't think I'd be saying that until at least 6 months from now.

Graham at Julie's wedding

Jack playing the trumpet noisemaker favors that Dustin and Julie handed out at the wedding. I think everyone slightly regretted about 5 minutes after Jack got hold of it.

Is It Wrong? Yes, but...

The first question: Is it wrong that last night my 3 year old woke me up more often than my 2 month old?

Um, yes. But what can I do about it? Ugh. Last night both boys fell asleep around 9, though we tried to put them to sleep at around 8. Graham woke up at 3 for about half an hour. But Jack had already beaten him to two wake ups--at 1:30 and again at 2:30 Jack called out, "Daddy I need you!" Though he called for Daddy (everything's Daddy this and Daddy that right now for Jack), I went sleepwalking into his room to pull the covers up and give him a nuzzle-kiss, since Ben 1) rarely wakes up when Jack calls out, and 2) can't get up fast enough for my taste even if he does wake up. I, on the other hand, wake up so quickly that my first roommate freshman year of college was convinced that I only ever pretended to sleep; she swears that my alarm never made more than two beeps before I slammed it off. For the record, the second time I went into Jack's room last night, despite his obvious sleepiness, he accusatorily asked me, "Where's Daddy?" No credit at all for dragging myself out of bed.

I've been wondering how much Jack is waking up lately and we just aren't hearing it now because we're so sleep deprived. About a month ago I groggily awoke to hear Jack calling out in the most pitiful voice ever, "Daddy I need you! Daddy I need you! Hew-wo?" The hello was particularly heart-wrenching as I pulled myself out of bed to comfort my poor little boy. But my curiosity about his undetected night wakings deepened last week, while my mom was visiting. One night she accidentally locked herself out of our house after Ben and I had gone to sleep. After using the keypad to open the garage door, she found that even the door from the garage into the house was locked. She then tried knocking, but that didn't wake us, so, cringing, she decided she had to ring the doorbell. No response. After 20 minutes, 2 doorbell rings, and four garage door opening/closings, we finally woke up to her banging on the front window! Neither of us had heard a thing before that. So my guess is that Jack is waking up quite a bit more than we realize.

At any rate, I was extremely tired this morning and woke up with a too-little-sleep migraine. I've recently discovered that migraines seem to be my body's way of reminding me that mothers of two month old babies are not supposed to stay up to have any free time at all in the evenings. Even mothers with two month olds who could very fairly be labeled good sleepers should go to sleep by at least 9 p.m., according to my aching head. It's not a terribly frequent occurrence but is one that is particularly annoying, especially since breastfeeding prevents me from taking Excedrin, which normally will cure the problem in 15 minutes flat. No, to banish my migraines now I have to resort to caffeine, one of the main ingredients in Excedrin, but one that takes longer alone to work and has the side effect of keeping both Graham and me awake all...day...long. Not fun.

So on the way to playgroup, I drove through Starbucks to pick up my first nondecaf latte in a long, long time. Yes, Stacy, they amazingly have Starbucks drive throughs here in St. Louis. Sounds a little excessive when viewed from a city where everyone can walk nearly everywhere. I myself laughed aloud when we moved here and I realized that within a mile radius of our house we have not one but two Starbucks with drive through windows. Quite as amusing as the two Starbucks within view of Farringdon tube station. But when faced with endless stretches of five-lane roads and a distinct lack of good sidewalks that prevent walking almost anywhere, one is forced to use carseats instead of strollers. And when dealing with the hassle of carseats and the ensuing hassle of walking stroller-less with an infant and a preschooler, one quickly learns that a drive through anything is a true gift that should be given preference to a walkup version.

Well, generally drive throughs are a good thing. Today they were not. Due to Disney World-like magic, the line of waiting cars appeared about half its actual length. Had I known there were actually about 8 cars in front of me, I would have hauled the boys inside, carseat hassle or no. But I didn't realize how long it was until we were already trapped into the drive through line, at which point Graham immediately began wailing inconsolably. Simultaneously, the line came to a dead stop. The car at the window must have been paying in pennies, I swear. Five minutes later we haven't moved at all and can't move because of the concrete barriers beside us and cars behind and in front of us. Jack and I have exhausted our repertoire of lullabies, and none of them have calmed Graham in the least. So I jump out of the car and try to soothe Graham while leaving him in his car seat. Two or three minutes. Still no luck. Desperate, I unbuckle the seat and carry him to the front seat, where he remains with me until my venti nonfat iced cinnamon latte is lodged in my cupholder. We exited the drive through, pulled into the parking lot and I returned a very happy baby to his carseat with no problems.

Second question: Is it wrong to drive (even for just a few feet at less than 5 miles an hour) with a baby in your lap? Yes, but I have a lot more sympathy for Brittney Spears right now.

It's All In the Timing

Can I just say that I love, love, love our new daily routine? I mean, seriously, it's great. I never thought I would say that I adore getting up at 6 a.m., especially not while having a two month old baby, but I really do--I love waking up at 6 in the morning. Let me tell you why.

When Ben was working at a law firm, he usually didn't have to be at the office at any set time in the morning. So we never set an alarm, and he usually aimed for leaving our house somewhere around 8:30 or 9. We woke up when Jack did, had a leisurely breakfast together, then got ready for the day at our own pace. Of course, we were always slightly trying to hurry, so my "getting ready" usually consisted of just getting a shower. Ben usually needed to leave before I had time to dry my hair or get dressed, a process that currently involves about 10 costume changes since I have around that many outfits that fit me and I'm not satisfied with how I look in any of them. Jack was also still generally in his pajamas when Ben left for the day. And Graham? Well, for the two weeks of his life that Ben actually went to work at the firm, Graham's wardrobe didn't really consist of pajamas and non-pajamas so much as a general category of clothes that were hopefully not yet spit up upon since the last washing. There was no possibility of the three of us ever getting out of the house before 10.

But now we have a routine that I love firmly in place. We wake up at 6:15, if Graham hasn't already woken us. Graham, the awesome sleeper I deserve after having dealt with Jack's sleep problems for the past 3 years, has been fairly consistently waking up only once a night for the past two weeks! He goes to bed around 9, wakes between 2 and 3, and then goes back to sleep until 5:30 or 6. It's amazing. So we wake up, Ben gets showered and dressed, and I get showered and dressed, fix my hair, and occasionally even get makeup on (which is amazing since for the past six years I've put on nearly all makeup with the aid of a visor mirror) all by 7:30. Jack wakes up sometime around the time Ben's ready, so the two of them are generally done with breakfast by the time I'm ready. Even though the boys aren't dressed by the time Ben leaves around 7:30-7:45, we can still get out the door by 8:30 no problem. It's amazing. I know I just said that a few sentences ago, but it really is amazing.

By being ready so early, our morning is completely freed for us to do lots of fun activities. Just this week we've been to the park twice, the grocery store, Target, music class, and we made a valiant effort to go to the zoo (parking lot was full on a Wednesday? Seriously?). All in the morning. This makes for very sleepy boys, so we come home about noon, have lunch, read a book, and Jack is down for a nap by 1-1:30. He sleeps well and usually doesn't wake up until around 4. Graham generally eats during Jack's story, then pretends to go to sleep for a few minutes, then eats again and is down from 2-5. That leaves me with 2, that's TWO free hours in the middle of the day. Amazing.

But that's not even the best part. Ben gets to leave the office by 6 p.m. At the latest! And he's home by 6:15. At the LATEST! So my afternoon (post little boy wakeup) consists of playing with Jack for an hour, feeding Graham while reading to Jack or watching a video with him, then playing with the boys together. And then I get my husband back. I love my life.

Why I'm Glad I Have Sons

1. That time I was at the park and overheard five 5 or 6 year old girls fighting. "We're not playing with Stephanie anymore, so just ignore her." Boys don't do that kind of dirty emotional damage to one another, at least not so cruelly or so often.

2. Setting the scene: Same park. Hot morning. Just leaving after an hour or so of playing. Graham's already strapped into his carseat and is crying, having suffered the injustice of being removed from my nipple at a time he deemed premature (okay, buddy, I cut you off when you're sleeping and only waking up to suck as I'm trying to detach you from my chest--that's no longer eating in my book). I walk back up the sidewalk to hold hands with Jack, who had been going for one more slide while I got Graham into the car.

Jack turns to me and says, "I need to pee, Momma!" I cringe. The bathroom's all the way across the playground, and getting there would involve at least 5 minutes and the hassle of getting Graham out of the carseat and into a sling. I only had the complicated Moby wrap with me, which I love but takes five times as long as every other sling to put on. Then there's the difficulty of helping Jack balance on an insanely dirty park toilet seat (seriously, why are they all so much more disgusting than any other public place?) that's far to big for him, all the while trying not to crush Graham against me.

Me: "We're going to the grocery store right now. Can you wait until we get there?"

Jack: "No. I really need to use the potty."

I thought for a (brief) second (made briefer because we've had several accidents in the past week, after months of no problems), did a quick look around and told Jack he was going to learn to pee standing up. No trees anywhere nearby, so he went right in the parking lot so that we wouldn't have to get Graham out. Jack hasn't stopped talking about it, though I've repeatedly reminded him that we only pee outside in emergencies. Still, good tool to have. Can't do that with daughters. I think I've resigned myself to being a boys' momma.

Circus Soapbox

This morning we went to the circus! St. Louis has its own circus that runs for a couple of weeks here every summer and travels to a few other locations during the year. A few mornings during its run here in town they hold special shortened programs, which are perfect for those who have very fidgety children and/or are trying to deal with several young children at once. Today we fell into a category encompassing both needs. Although the circus' interpretation of a Don Quixote storyline was a bit generous to the star of Cervantes' original work, it was fairly entertaining. Some impressive horseback tricks, several trained dogs (Jack's favorite act), and a jaw-droppingly good act involving six trapeze artists on three trapezes rounded out the show, interspersed with some less-than-stellar Sancho Panza clown gags. The highlight for both Jack and me, however, was the cotton candy, Jack's first taste of my favorite fair treat.

Graham amazingly slept through most of the performance. He's been talking lots the past few days and has started spending some time hanging out in the jungle.

He's also a frequent subject of Jack's photography. And Jack's photo portfolio is extensive now (see, e.g., the following picture of the Bendaroo turtle we made last week--there are currently at least a dozen pictures of Turtle on my camera). So much so that we're thinking of getting a new camera for us and giving our old digital camera to Jack; he would love to have one of his own so that he could take pictures whenever he wants, and the kiddie versions just wouldn't cut it.

On a completely different subject, a friend of mine from law school works at the Environmental Defense Fund and just sent a link to this very moving video of the oil spill disaster in the gulf. A few of the pictures are disturbingly graphic depictions of the damage, but I think it's important that we be uncomfortable about what has happened so that we demand highly enforced regulations that will prevent any more such tragedies.

Muggy Days Are Happy Days

Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for church, Jack went outside to check the weather. He proclaimed it "hot" and I added that it also felt very muggy. Jack looked slightly confused and responded, "I don't see any mug outside." A few weeks ago after a pre-preschool weather check, we talked about foggy and muggy weather, but apparently we didn't talk about it quite enough!

Despite the recent heat and humidity, we've had some great news around here. Last Wednesday Ben gave two weeks notice to Bryan Cave! He's officially leaving law firm life and is going to be an in-house attorney for a technology company called Savvis. Ben's excited and I'm thrilled that his hours will probably be shorter and will definitely be more predictable.

Graham also seems to be very happy of late. He's full of gorgeous smiles and adorable coos. I have yet to catch either on camera yet, though not for lack of trying. I'm especially fond of his Harrison Ford-esque half smiles that light up his eyes--it completely transforms his face.

A New Baby Boy

This morning I was moved by a Real Simple email quote of the day to start blogging again. "If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything." Win Borden said that, and I'm impressed by the thought though I have no idea who that person is. I'm hoping that keeping this in mind will allow me to move beyond perfectionism that leads to no posts being finished into mediocre but consistent record keeping. We'll see. I'm intending to eventually change the blog name and address to reflect our growing family, but before doing that I think I'll make sure I can actually manage updates.

Most important things first. It doesn't seem like it's been nearly that long, but almost two months ago Graham Joseph Angelette made his first appearance. He was born at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 17, just four days after Jack turned three and five days before Ben turned 30. At birth, Graham was 7 lbs., 1 oz., which is exactly what Jack weighed, and at 20 inches, he was just slightly longer/taller than Jack.

Labor with Graham was longer than with Jack by a few hours (2 p.m. until 11 a.m. as opposed to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.), but it was only really difficult or painful for an hour or two, while for Jack's birth I was in significant (though epidural-managed) pain for at least 6 hours. Much easier second time around. In fact I very nearly made it without an epidural, despite having several artificial labor-inducing practices thrown at me, including heavy pitocin use and rupturing of the amniotic sac. I also recovered a lot faster, which I've heard from other second-time moms is common. Fifteen to twenty pounds of extra weight's still hanging around, but not bad for having gained about 40-45, and it's coming off pretty steadily without any effort. Graham, on the other hand, has been gaining weight like a champ. At his two week checkup he weighed 8 lbs., 6 oz.! That's almost 2 ounces of weight gain a day, and our pediatrician said he'd be happy with a weight gain of an ounce a day.

He is thus far a very happy and easy baby. He's just starting to smile a lot and his coos and gurgles are adorable, especially when he's talking to the baby in the mirror above his swing. He rarely cries, though he absurdly cried through his entire baptism, punctuating the screaming with a very loud burp and massive spit-up all over the front of my shirt and skirt at the end of the ceremony. It was so out of character and over-the-top that Ben and I just had to laugh. Adding to the absurdity, Graham quieted as soon as we stepped down from the altar and sleep-smiled at us during prayer after communion.

He's also a pretty good sleeper. Daytime naps usually require a sling or swing to start, but the past few days I've been able to transfer him to the Moses basket without waking him. A few times (like now) I've even managed to get the boys to take partially overlapping afternoon naps, so that each one gets individual time and I still get a little time to myself. And though he's certainly not sleeping through the night, Graham fairly consistently sleeps for a 4 1/2 to 5 hour stretch and for 2 1/2 to 3 hours two more times at night, so he's only waking about twice at night. One night, around 6 weeks, he even made it from 11 p.m. until 4:30 a.m., and I was able to sleep that entire time, too! In comparison, Jack was 7 months old before I was able to sleep that long in one chunk. The best part of his sleeping habits is that his night wakes are brief--a 30 minute feed, a diaper change, and he's instantly back to sleep with no rocking or soothing fussiness required.

Ben had six weeks of paternity leave, which was a blessed, blessed reprieve from the real world for all of us. My mom was then here last week, so this week has been my first at home alone with the boys. And it's gone better than I expected. We've had more good days than bad, despite a few yelling incidents (several by Jack, one from me) and the persistent feeling that all I do all day is feed little boys and clean their bottoms.

Jack is a terrific big brother. We had a few weeks of fairly regular tantrums (including one 45 minute one that culminated in Jack screaming at Ben, "I want you to go away and not come back EVER AGAIN!" repeatedly for 20 minutes), his sleeping still isn't back to normal (though he's not waking us at night, thank goodness), and he's picked up a few odd bad habits (right now he's constantly sucking on his hands), but all in all he's taking it in stride. His preschool teachers said that of the 5 kids in the class who had new siblings this semester, Jack seemed the least fazed by it--aside from carrying around a doll all day at school for a few weeks, his behavior was completely consistent.

The best part is that Jack has never been anything but incredibly gentle and loving with Graham. Jack's had a few things to learn, like not running or jumping near Graham's head when Graham's laying on the floor and not throwing things to Ben or me when we're holding Graham. But Jack's never done anything even remotely malicious and has stopped all potentially hurtful behavior with just a few warnings.

It's really sweet to see, because Jack must kiss Graham on the head at least 30 times a day and speaks in parentese to him all the time. The other day I heard Jack prompting Graham, "Do you have a smile in there? Do you? Oh, yes you do, don't you? How about a smile for me?" in the best mimic of me that I've heard in a long time. The funniest, though, was a week or so ago when Jack found a miniature Boppy pillow intended to be used for babies' tummy time. Jack decided it was a "Jack-sized breastfeeding pillow" and immediately put it around his waist, which it did, in fact, fit perfectly. He then grinned and said, "Momma, now I can feed Graham, too. I put him on here and then lift up my shirt. But, oops, sorry, I don't have any breasts." I'm pretty sure that's verbatim.

So even though this isn't completely finished and I haven't written all I want, the boys are starting to stir from their naps, and I'm posting. Now the hiatus is hopefully over, as adorable things I want memories of are happening on a daily basis (at least) and things are starting to get a little more sane around here (knock on wood). A Graham photo montage for your enjoyment:

P.S. - A Jack activity update: This morning Jack "drove" the Lexus while I was getting Graham into his carseat and loading the stroller into the trunk. He does this fairly often, so 1) we keep our cars locked even while they're in the garage in case Jack gets the urge to run away, and 2) it's not uncommon to start the car and have the radio blaring and/or the windshield wipers on full tilt. But this morning he explored new buttons; as I backed out of the driveway, I realized that my GPS was set to speak French.

Preparing for Graham

As a side note of background information, sometime while we were somewhere in New Orleans for Mardi Gras Jack lost his toy Thomas engine. You don't need to feel too sorry for him, however, because 1) he still has two other engines and multiple other train cars to play with, and 2) I've been constantly reminding him that maybe he'll get a new one for his birthday in a few weeks (I've already got that one covered).

A few days ago I was talking to Jack about how Graham getting here would bring a lot of changes, and many of them will be very fun. I'll be able to chase and play tag with Jack more and I'll have a bigger lap for him to sit in. I then mentioned that Graham would come with "the best gift in the world," referring to the fact that Ben will be home with us on paternity leave for six weeks. Jack immediately looked up at me and asked, "Is Thomas the best gift in the world?"

It's fading fast, but Jack still has a few mispronunciations that I find completely adorable. One day he came home from preschool telling me that they had learned about snowmen and had had "mosh-a-moes" for snack. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was talking about marshmallows, but since then they've become a frequently requested treat in our house.

Wednesday night I got my new Momma haircut--not that much different but a few inches shorter with a few more layers. Ben was at home getting Jack ready for bed. As they finished reading Jack's second story of the night, Jack asked if he could have some socks because his feet were cold. When Ben responded, "Oh, yes, of course. I forgot," Jack replied in a very serious tone, "Momma never forgets."

The nursery is completely finished now and has been for a few weeks, thanks to the fact that a few friends' early labors prompted me to have intense nesting instincts all during January and February. Even though Graham will be in our room in a Moses Basket at first and won't move in for another six months or so, I have to say I'm fairly proud of how nicely the nursery has turned out and how quickly we were able to get it pulled together. When Jack was born we were living in a rented flat, so our ability to decorate was limited. We couldn't paint, the odd-sized windows already had curtains on them, and the bright orange carpet ruined any possibility of a seamlessly integrated traditional baby theme/color scheme. Thus it was extra fun for me to plan out Graham's nursery, complete with dual colors on the wall and added chair rail, matching furniture, and a (subtle) woodland creatures theme.

Jack's Take on Graham's Motivations

As I was reading Jack his bedtime story tonight, Graham developed a serious case of the "wiggles." (Calling them wiggles seems a bit disingenuous, and even "kicks" is fairly tame; this little boy, just like his big brother, is a dynamo in utero! It's more like double back flips with a jab to the ribs as a chaser.) Jack, who was leaning back on me started feeling Graham's movements, so I asked if he wanted to feel Graham moving with his hands. Jack's hands reached my belly just in time for a big leap, and he burst out laughing, saying, "He's trying to jump out! Graham is trying to give me a kiss, but he's still in your belly!" His joy was adorably contagious.

Preschool is going very well. Jack seems to love it, both of us are meeting lots of new friends, and I'm finding out just how much I can get done in 2 1/2 hours without having to pull Jack in and out of his carseat at every stop. It's amazing to me that he comes home singing songs I've never heard and having read books I didn't read to him.

Also amazing me last week was when we were driving back from a downtown visit to Ben and Jack pointed to a road saying, "That's where Miss Kelly and Uncle Stephen's school is!" And he was right! Let me also specify that not only was the law school not visible from the turnoff, not only had even I forgotten exactly which turnoff it was, not only was there no sign to tip him off, but Jack had only been there once! When I asked how on earth he remembered that, Jack matter-of-factly told me that he had gone there with Miss Kelly and they threw pennies in the fountain but that the bookstore had been closed.

In other news, potty training seems to be pretty well finished. Hip, hip, hooray! Jack has not worn diapers or pullups since Christmas, not even at night! Though he's still having about two accidents a week at home, he's only had one at school. I cannot describe how incredibly nice it is to have even a few months' break from changing diapers! Now I just have to get geared up to go back to the 8-12 a day pace of a newborn... I'm so glad Ben has six weeks paternity leave!