They're out there

As I was listening to the radio this morning, the host of the show took some phone calls for a contest. I'm pretty sure one of the callers was a fellow prisoner patient when I was in the hospital. She had the same moderately unusual name and did the same nerve-grating squeally-shrieky laugh thing. It had to be her. And it made my stomach lurch a little.

The past three months, I've had a fear of running into someone I was hospitalized with lurking in the back of my head. Early on, I worried about this quite a bit. What would I do if I ran into someone? Would they recognize me? Would I say hi? Would I ignore them? Would we talk about the psych ward - only thing we have in common? Would it be the most awkward thing in the whole entire world? The further away my hospitalization gets, the less these thoughts cross my mind. In fact, I hardly ever entertain them any more.

Then I hear one of the other patients on the radio, and I'm reminded that these people still exist and are still out there somewhere, probably not all that far away from me. It's kinda weird to think about. I just hope I never end up actually seeing one of them in person. I'm not sure I could handle the awkwardness.

Getting better sucks*

It's been a rough few days weeks months weeks. And the work I've been doing on and for myself has been HARD. Really, really hard. I'm tired of working so hard and seeing so few results. Nothing I do seems to get me any closer to my ultimate goals. The things I'm reaching for seem so.far.away. Everything is so overwhelming; I barely even know where to start. My sources of professional help are only helpful to a point. But then I get home, and it all crashed down on me again, and I don't know what to do. I'm so frozen that I can't even determine which baby step to take at this point in time. When I do takes some sort of action, it seems to not make a dent in the surface of problem. Slowing chipping away at the giant, petrified shit pile my life has become over the past year-and-a-half or so is tedious, painful, exhausting, and FRUITLESS.

I want the healing to be over. I want my family life to magically be better. I want me to magically become happy, fulfilled, and adoring of my kids. And crushed hopes - even when they're of the pipe-dream type - never feel good.

So there you have it. This why (the process of) getting better sucks. I just keep hoping the end result of actually getting better makes it worthwhile (but even that mantra's getting a little old).

*If you don't won't to read the whole post, here's a pretty good summary:  Whine, whine, whine. Whine, WHINE, whine, whine, whine. Gripe, complain, desperate-sounding final though. The end.

Weekend fun

It was a fun, busy weekend. Friday night, we spent some time hanging out as a family and playing in the back yard.

R loves lawnmower rides. I promise he does.

After dinner, the boys and I went to the neighborhood ice cream place with our neighbors. This was a poor choice. The kids were being awful (when W is the best behaved of the bunch, that's saying something). When we finally made it home, we had a visitor.

Yes, I let my children play with random cats. Why do you ask?

W shared his slushy with Kitty. Kitty liked it.

Saturday, B helped some of our friends move. These are the friends who manage to be on vacation every time we move, but whatever. We still love them, and I still volunteer my husband to help them move heavy objects. My mother-in-law came up to play with the boys, so Mommy got to go to therapy and run some errands. Yay! Actually, it was great. Pre-offspring, I used to do all of my running around for the week on Saturdays, and I loved the alone time. I'd forgotten how much I liked those hours until I got to have them again this weekend. I need to arrange for this more often.

Today, the boys and I went to my moms to attend a fun fest at the church a block from her house. It was a ton of fun, and all free! They had inflatables, face painting, games for preschoolers, an old firetruck, decorate-your-own cupcake stand, balloon animals, and awesome junk food (sno-cones, cotton candy, popcorn, and hotdogs) I forgot my camera and my mom's battery died about half an hour in, so the only pics I have are from my cell (and these are mostly from the end of the afternoon).

Once we discovered the firetruck, W didn't want to do anything else.

Firefighter W! Who is blocking baby brother.

R - my baby who cannot possibly be mine because he doesn't really like sweets - refused my attempts to feed him sno-cones and cotton candy, but fell in love with the cupcake. I told my mom to grab a red velvet one for him to "decorate" because I figured I would end up eating it. I was very, very wrong. One taste of the frosting, and it was all over. The little old ladies manning the cupcake station just fell in love with this kid. They were fawning over him and his cake-smeared face like he was the cutest thing they'd ever seen. The pics don't really demonstrate the extent of the cake carnage. By the time he was done (and by "done", I mean "Mom and I took the cupcake remains away from him") he and I were both covered in cake. He must have been dying for some milk to go with his cake because he kept burying his sticky little face in my boobs and rooting around like he belonged there. I pointed out to him that the boob fountain had been closed for months, but he didn't listen.

Hmm...what is this white stuff?

Delicious is what! Get in my belleh!

We came home to a delicious beer-brined chicken B made while we were out playing. Unfortunately, W morphed into a melty puddle of stressed out baby when we got home. It was proof that he still NEEDS his daily nap. R was also crabby due to lack of nap time, so everyone went to bed super early tonight. We were kid-free by 7:30 tonight. It was nice. Now I'm just waiting for the laundry to get done so I can also go to bed.

How was your weekend?

Best teethers EVAH

Until a week or so ago, I had never heard of Chewy Tubes. And I have no idea why. None. They're marketed as tools for improving jaw strength and biting and chewing skills. But these things are AWESOME teethers.

Someone in Will's therapy pool suggested we get him some to help break him of the unfortunate thumb sucking habit he picked up out of NOWHERE a couple of months ago. I finally got them ordered and they arrived yesterday. In the past 24 hours, they've become the most highly-coveted toys in our home. W has be throwing fits if R even gets near one of the tubes, and about had a meltdown when I told him he had to share one of the four with his little brother.

R is working on some new teeth right now, and it didn't take long for me to see how the Chewy Tubes are perfect for him. This is what they look like:

Image from bipgear.com

The thicker the tube, the more resistance it gives and the more jaw strength it requires to chew on it. I gave R the yellow one (the smallest of the four). The short end of the T is a little thicker and more heavy-duty. R was using that part to work on his front teeth. The stem is PERFECT for reaching those pesky molars. I searched and searched and searched for something that would give W some relief for his molars when he was working on them, but none of the teethers I found were long enough to reach the back of his jaw. R's little molars were gnawing away on his tube within minutes.

These are a bit pricey for a teether (the average price + shipping price I found was between $7.00 and $7.50). If it provides some relief from the tooth-induced crankies and screamies, it might be worth it though. I got mine from Amazon, but there are other places around the web that they're available. I don't know of any physical stores that sell them, but I'm sure such stores exist. If you have a cranky molar teether, go buy one. Worth. It.

I think the best part of them is that the kids look like mini Popeyes when they're running around with these pipe-like thinks sticking out of their mouths. Cracks me up.

Note:  sounds like a review, but it's not - I bought and paid for these out of my own pocket. I'm just lovin' our new teethers, and wanted to share the love with my bloggy peeps.

Should they be roomies?

When we found out I was pregnant - literally the day after we signed the contract on our current, two-bedroom house - we determined that we would be ok, space-wise, because we have this tiny, fake bedroom that could act as the "nursery" until the baby was sleeping through the night and could share a room with W. We haven't moved R from the nursery to W's room yet, but this is still the ultimate plan. Once R was sleeping through the night, I decided to put off the move until R was in a big boy bed. Even though we're not there yet, I'm starting to think it's time.

B goes back to union school next week. Thankfully, our worst fears didn't come true and he only has class two nights a week. However, this still means I have to put the boys to bed on my own two nights a week. For the longest time, the one-mom-two-babies bedtime wasn't an issue because W would tolerate being away from me for a few minutes and would stay in the living room watching TV. Now, however, when I do solo bedtime, W is running up and down the stairs, opening R's door, turning on R's light (switch is in the hallway), and noisily playing in his room. No consequences or bribes positive reinforcements keep his hyper little bum downstairs (or quiet. I would accept upstairs and quiet).

As I sat reciting W a story from memory while aimlessly turning pages in the book reading W's bedtime story tonight, I got to thinking that my solo mom nights would go much more smoothly if the boys were in the same room and I could rock them, read them stories, and put them down at the same time. They're already on very similar sleep/wake schedules, and R will soon be on the same nap schedule W has at daycare (their nap times don't always coincide right now). So it makes sense, right? Following this train of thought, I also had a niggling feeling that this could be a really, REALLY bad idea.

An added bonus to this arrangement would be creating a "playroom"* where we could put some of the toys currently living in the living room, as well as the bigger toys in W's room. W is currently slightly possessive of the toys housed in his room (the kitchen set, the train table, the singing mirror that he has no interest in unless R is trying to play with it, etc.), and I'm hoping that putting them in a communal toy room would get him to realize that the toys aren't all his, but are his AND R's.

What do you think, readers? Is moving my crib-dwelling 16-month-old son into his two-year-and-10-month-old brother's room? Are the single bedtime and communal toys benefits outweighed by the sheer stupidity of thinking two toddler boys can sleep in the same room without killing each other or destroying the furniture?

* I have to use quotation marks when referring to this space because this room is 5' x 12', and I have a really difficult time calling it anything other than "the space that used to be two closets, but the prior owner was a doofus who turned it in into...this..."

A scary road

This is how it started last time.

Not how the ultimate crazy spiral started, but how the long, slow decline that dropped me off the edge of the cliff started.

I'm feeling those things, going back to those places. The only difference this time is I know what's coming and it's pushed my anxiety levels through the roof.

I'm the kind of girl who needs order and big steps. The disarray and baby steps filling my life right now are major contributing factors, I'm sure. Stagnation is the story of my life, and my impatient self doesn't do well with that.

I miss the old me. I want a full (or at least mostly full) bucket again.

I see my psychiatrist tomorrow and my counselor on Saturday. I'll be fine. I just wish I could curl up and hide until "fine" happens.

Fatalistically flawed

I'll warn you in advance that I'm writing this post-sleeping pill. Stop reading if you have no tolerance for rambling.

Tonight cemented in my head the fact that I almost certainly have something very wrong with my brain. Ok, ok, there's ample evidence of that throughout the pages of this blog. But tonight's revelation was different. Tonight I realized that I have a completely fatalistic view of myself and my life. The second anything goes wrong, my thoughts immediately go the "I'm destined to fail and should just put myself out of everyone's misery" route. Not a good way to be. I mean, stubbing a toe or having a tiff with a coworker aren't incidents that prompt normal (or even semi-normal-ish) people to think about getting the hell out. I know this. I also know that I do not fall into either the "normal" or "semi-normal-ish" categories when it comes to such things.

I wasn't always this way. I really wasn't. My main method of problem-solving never used to be idle thoughts of "I'd be better off dead." This seems to be a habit that I picked up a few months ago during the time leading up to my slight break from sanity. Now I keep wondering how much longer my brain's going to hold on to this way of thinking.

I'm shooting for "not long" because spending my bad days calculating things like exactly how much damage the giant tree that grows in the middle of a nearby side street might do to my car is exhausting. Not to mention extremely unhealthy.

Five signs you're watching too much children's television

1. When your toddler requests a show's theme song as a lullaby, you're able to belt it out without having to think of a single word.

2. You don't need a clock in the morning; you know which show's on when you leave early, which is on when you leave on time, and which one means you're running late.

3. You find yourself using characters' catchphrases all.the.time.

4. You know which of your kid's unintelligible words corresponds to which kids' show.

5. You have your very own favorite shows...and may or may not continue watching them even when your kid isn't in the room.

Bye, bye curls

Tonight was the night R's sweet baby curls met their demise. Here's how he started out the evening:

Oh, the curls! I die.

We waited for-EV-er for our turn, but R was a champ. He was happy and mostly stayed out of trouble. I was impressed. He was less impressive once he got in the chair. It started out well enough, but soon progressed to angry baby.

Being that irritated around a sucker took some work.

After these pics, he quickly devolved into screaming and flailing. He spent the rest of the haircut sitting in my lap sobbing, screaming, and trying his damnedest to slither off my lap. I really wish I could have gotten some video of it.

At the end of the cut, he was just pissed at life. He spent the whole time I was gathering our things and paying throwing himself on the floor in a fit of rage.

His life is so rough.

In the end, his haircut turned out pretty well, despite the fact that the stylist and I were fighting him the whole time. But now his sweet curls are gone, and a big boy has taken my baby's place.

Unrelated, but also of note tonight, W took his first crap behind the couch. I don't have any pictures of that (you're welcome). He'd gone potty and I didn't put a diaper back on him because it was almost bath time. He was playing behind the couch for a few minutes, then came out looking worried and saying something about going potty. I figured he had to go again, so we headed up to the bathroom. Nothing happened, so I tossed him in the tub and forgot about it.

About 10 minutes ago, I started writing and kept smelling something. I assumed it was B and his gas. He claimed it wasn't. On a hunch, I looked behind the couch, and sure enough, there was a toddler-sized turd back there. I laughed my ass off. B was far less impressed. He takes issue with the kids running around diaper-less and is always freaking out about them peeing on stuff. This was pretty much his worst nightmare. But we learned tonight that when W says "I go potty" while looking anxious and concerned, it means "I've already gone potty," rather than "I need to go potty." Live and learn, I suppose.

I'm pretty sure that was a flying pig

Lord help me, I finally caved. I joined Twitter. And launched my Facebook page. I almost feel like these are signs of the Apocalypse.

I can't promise I'll actually do anything with either one, but follow and like me anyway?

Stagnation and fate

This morning, a coworker asked me if everything is ok. She said I haven't seemed like my normal, perky self since she came back from vacation - which is also the week I came back from Camp Crazy. I brushed her off with a "Well, I wouldn't normally call myself perky anyway!" then sequestered myself back in my office.

I mentioned the convo to the ladies I eat lunch with, and did not get the response I was expecting. Two of them didn't say anythihng, but the third kind of muttered something along the lines of "Yeah, it's been awhile." That gave me pause. I thought I was doing better and putting on a socially acceptable front. Now I'm thinking I've done less well at being my "normal perky self" than I thought.

Progress = stagnated.

*     *     *

Ever felt slightly cheated by fate? Last night, I needed a laundromat. There are two that are mostly equidistant from my house. I chose one of them and headed that way. I had the address and a general idea of where I was going. But my phone's GPS refused to connect and the plaza(s) where the laundromat did not have laundromats in them. I'm not normally a "fate" kind of person, but I just had this feeling I was fated to go to the other laundromat. Something was going to happen. So I went (and it was extremely easy to locate, BTW). I got there, started my laundry, sat, waited, and...nothing. Not a damn notable thing happened. Nothing bad happened at the other place, either.

I'm feeling slightly cheated by fate for making my night so boring. But at least the laundromat trip made a good cover for sneaking off to a meeting I didn't want to go to and really didn't want to discuss with B. So there was that.

*     *     *

Random girl, out.

Could it be?

Three times this weekend -THREE TIMES! - W asked to go potty and then actually WENT POTTY! Like, he peed while sitting on the toilet (and never once asked for foundation). He's also been asking to have his diaper changed far more frequently than he was even a couple of weeks ago. Any time he's wet, he wants a change. I don't want to jinx myself, but these are signs, right?

Just to be safe, we won't discuss this issue any further. Instead, here's a picture from the county fair today. Did you know our cow barn has a milk vending machine in it? Genius, I tell you (even though the bottle caused a little bit of a milk goatee).

This is his "cheese" face.

I do not get this kid

W has been...more trying than usual lately. He is having more and more "sensie" days (we figured he's not quite old enough to be emo yet, and he's a little too male to be a drama queen, so B has been referring to W as "sensie"). He's almost reverted to the kid he was pre-SPD diagnosis and associated therapies. He's gotten super clingy again and completely loses his shit when I leave. He's refusing to interact with - or even look at - B most of the time. He's a little demon when I leave him at daycare. He's throwing major tantrums when I leave him in his room at bedtime. He won't even let B change his diapers any more. He also started sucking his thumb a month or so ago and does it all.the.time. now.

It's exhausting. And infuriating. I have no idea what has gotten into him or what I can do to get it out of him. I think we all know that my grasp on parenting ability is tenuous at best. W's behavior on sensie days pushes me right to the brink. I truly can't deal with him. I don't know what I can do to make him better able to cope with, um, everything.

On top of that, R has started to copy his brother's separation anxiety. When W is around, R also doesn't want me to leave him with Daddy, or leave him, period.

In the end, it all comes back to me. The boys only seem to act like this around me. They only have massive fits when I'm leaving. They only turn into whiny little monsters when I get home. They only hate Daddy when they have another parent option. If fact, our daycare lady tells me that the second my car disappears from view, W turns off the screaming and tears like a faucet. It's obviously an act he puts on for me. And I have no idea what to do about it. I don't know what I can do differently.

I've honestly thought that permanently leaving might not be a bad option. It would take care of so many issues. I lose the restraints and responsibilities of marriage and motherhood, the boys lose the source of their ridiculous behavior, and B loses the crazy pain in the ass wife he's stuck with. We all win.

Or I could just take W back to OT. It's been a long while since he's been to an OT appointment due to illness, Mommy's lack of time off work, and our OT's resignation. I'm wondering if that will at least calm him down to the point he was a month or so ago. That's all I can even ask for right now.

I call a do-over

Last night's post was a shining example of what happens when I unthinkingly take my sleeping pill BEFORE sitting down to do my nightly internet business. Sorry about that. This morning I recalled writing about my ass and including pictures, but the rest was a bit hazy. Kinda like blogging after getting really drunk, but without all the beer bongs and table dancing.

Anyway, I'd suggest trying again tonight, but I don't really have anything of substance to talk about. I'll give you some brain vomit general goings on around here, in bullets.

• Our sewer line is clogged. Allegedly, part of the problem is tree roots. B told me that and I'm exact reaction was, "Tree roots? How are there tree roots in our sewer? We don't have any fucking trees!" True statement. There is one tree on our property that is sizable enough to have sewer-skewering roots, and it's not really anywhere near the sewer line. Whatevs. B has a friend who owns rotor-rooter-type equipment, so I think the problem is semi taken care of. Or it will be, once the chemical stuff we also needed does its thing.
• I think I'm going to have to take R for his first haircut soon. He has this gorgeous, strawberry-blond curly hair that I just want to grow and get cute (I imagine it will look much like this cutie's when it gets a bit longer). But he's starting to get scraggly bangs and Daddy's bitching about his "hippie hair" (in B's world, hippie hair = anything that is past the top of the ears). As long as I can supervise the cut so he doesn't end up with a buzz, I think it'll be ok.
• Speaking of hair cuts, I'm currently coveting a super expensive one. If you have curly hair, you know the importance of going to someone who knows how to handle curls. I've recently become obsessed with Ouidad and really want one of her "carve and slice" hair cuts. The problem with that is they're pricey and the nearest salon that does them is 75 miles away. I'm saving up for one, but it's going to be a while.
• I've been craving Pop Tarts. Frosted cherry ones. No idea why.
• I got so excited to watch Project Runway tonight. Then I realized it's only Wednesday.
• I'm watching a show called "Babies Behind Bars" right now, and it's slightly depressing. It also just talked about recidivism rates being at 30%, which makes it even more depressing.
• I have a counseling appointment Saturday. I'm starting to wonder if my counselor is going to punch me in the face one of these days for coming in and whining about the same stuff over and ver and over again. I swear I try to fix this stuff, but it never seems to work out for me.

I suppose that's enough for tonight. Slightly (very, very slightly) more coherent than last night's post, no?

My ass is a pain in my...ass...

I'm sure I've mentioned my tailbone issues somewhere along the line. As a quick recap, I started having some pain when I was pregnant with W that went away. It came back early, early on when I was pregnant with R (I remember noticing that my tailbone hurt about a week before I found out I was pregnant) and hasn't really gone away since. I've been seeing an orthopedist and getting cortisone shots for the past year or so. I was ok from the time of my cortisone shot in February until about June. I finally got an appointment a month ago, got another shot, and got sent for an MRI. Today was my follow up.

So. While reviewing my MRI with my, my doc repeatedly mentioned how "weird" my tailbone situation is. Apparently, a normal tailbone looks like this:

And mine looks more like this:

(pics from the Kemper Tailbone Injury Foundation)

A little swelling and fluid, but no fractures and my other internal organs apparently look lovely. Notice the almost-90-degree angle of the bottom two vertebra. That's where it got "weird." We have no idea why my tailbone looks like that, though working theories are congenital malformation or some sort of significant ass trauma. We do know that when your butt bone looks like that, it causes pain while sitting. And there's basically nothing to do about it except cortisone shots or surgically removing the offending vertebra (which comes with a risk of a punctured colon. Fun!). I don't really feel like having my bum hacked into right now (not to mention that I would probably get fired for taking time off for recovery), so shots it is. *Shudder*

If you've ever had a cortisone shot, you know they're not fun. If you haven't, they shove a ginormous needle right down to your bone and shoot an almost-gelatinous medication into the trouble zone. It hurts. A lot. They make sitting hurt for like a week afterward. Ripping a band-aid out of you crack is no fun, either, FYI.

I'm typing this while lying on my side on the floor because even lying flat on my back puts too much pressure on the tailbone and hurts. I didn't expect a shot today, so I didn't prepare by taking pain killers before hand and arrange for my mom to help with the boys so I could spend the evening laying down. As I didn't have those luxuries, I had to attend gymnastics class, do baths, and play jungle gym for two rambunctious boys, and sit for the normal bedtime stuff.

The take-home lesson for today is this:  don't do anything that would require you to need cortisone shots, particularly in the bumular region. And if you do, make sure you have a good donut and someone who will enable you to laze on the couch for the evening.

And that, my friends, is why my ass is a pain in my ass.

And the winners are...

A drum roll please.... the moment you've all been waiting for! The winners of the Summer Block Party!

First, the technical stuff. All the valid entries from all the participating blogs were put into a spreadsheet that assigned a unique number to each one. There were a total of 156 valid entries. Then Random.org was used to find the winners. And the winners are:

Winner of a year's subscription to AboutOne: Valerie Stayton @ My-2-Cents, who said "I am a Google RSS feed subscriber, Valerie Stayton, my_2_cents at hotmail dot com"

Winner of a year's subscription to AboutOne: Kim, who said " And because I really, really want to win a b-day onesie: Bonus Entry No. 2: Your birthday is June 2. Melissa is also part of the trio. I generally remember because mine is the 3rd :)"

Winner of a year's subscription to AboutOne: Lisa, who said "I like being able to track medical information on AboutOne."

Winner of a year's subscription to AboutOne: StacyT, who said "I have signed up for my free trial."

Winner of a year's subscription to AboutOne: Cassie, who said "You prefer to read!"

Winner of the Amazon Gift Card: Maria D., who said "I signed up for the Free trial!"

Winner of the Blog Bling Button: JJ, who said "I'm cooool and subscribe to your blog with Google Reader"

Winner of the Cookies: Seussgirl, who said "Hmm..favorite summer song...right now, I'm loving "Knee Deep" by the Zac Brown Band. I also love "Redneck Yaught Club". Apparently, I go country when it gets hot. :)"

Winner of the Birthday Shirt: Tasha, who said "I follow you through my Blogger feed."

Winner of the Necklace: Geek by Marriage, who said "Following as GeekByMarriage "

Congratulations, winners! If you won a prize, get in touch with Jen by using the contact form on her blog and she will either get you your prize or get you in touch with the person who will get you your prize. If we don't hear from you this week, we have a list of alternates who will get your prize!

Thanks to everyone who participated! Even if you didn't win, you can still test out AboutOne by signing up for a free trial.

Newness

Oh, the new stuff going on around here. First, let's talk ads. You may have noticed the ad bar that appeared at the top of the screen a month or so ago. That was the first step, and as of today, I have my real ads up (over there --->) and I'm now an official BlogHer ad network member. I don't think it's going to mean too many changes around here, with the exception of the occasional book review or giveaway. Mostly, it's just some pretty ads that make me a (little, tiny) bit of passive money - which is my favorite kind!

Next, I made a Facebook page for my blog. But it's secret for right now. I'm trying to figure out how to not show up as the administrator. Mostly, it's because I don't want my full name attached to everything I blog. I have no illusions that I'm an "anonymous" blogger, but I feel slightly better without EMILY MAIDENNAME LASTNAME branded on everything. Right after saying that, I'm also going to say that my whole life/blog dichotomy is kind of weird. I know that people I know read it, but I don't necessarily want people I'm "friends" with to also know this information. I know it makes no sense...just go with me on this one. If I can ever anonymize the FB page to my satisfaction, I'll let you know. All three of you can come like me!

I also have a new (you probably can't even really call it a) job. It's a teaching job, but it's only as a back-up instruction. Essentially, it means that I might, maybe co-teach three or four lectures this semester. It's not much, but I'm really excited about it. I've been considering teaching for awhile (though I thought for sure it would be a reasearch and writing class), and I think this is going to be an excellent way to get my feet wet. It'll also give me a chance to tell if teaching is something I want to do without having to commit to a full class for a full semester. I'm nervous as hell about it, but I think this will be good.

And finally, what you all care about - new pictures!

R eats pasta! With sauce! This is something of a miracle in our house. I promise he only looks stoned because he was still getting over the puking/fever/pink-eye virus from Hades that ravaged our house for the past two weeks.

I love pictures that still make him look somewhat like a baby. This kid is just so cute!

This is getting to be a pretty common sight around these parts, especially since W figured out how to open jars. The kid will only eat peanut butter straight from the jar any more (he moved down from PB&Js to PBs to PB on graham crackers to shoving his face in the jar). I don't really try to stop him because it's something other than Nutrigrain bars, pancakes, and yogurt raisins, and at least it means he's getting some protein. *Sigh*

My babies from a couple of nights ago. R was on the tail end of the virus from Hades, and W was between bouts (the fever round started the next day for him), but they still look darn cute. They were hanging out on top of the kid-sized table together, which isn't behavior we usually condone, but it was too cute a shot to skip taking a pic. And how much does W look like a big boy in this pic?