Long overdue update.

I know. I'm behind. Really behind. It's so hard to find a spare moment these days - especially a coherent spare moment. I often think about what I would like to write. There is a lot. I just don't get the chance. I'm going to try to make a quick update. Even if I forget a bunch or repeat something, at least I'll have something written down.

Junior -

Junior is growing and changing every day. He is eight months old now. He has four teeth (and has had them since seven months) and has used them to chomp down on me more than once. He has an awesomely powerful pinch as can be seen by all the red spots on my arms and chest where he got bored or curious while nursing. He can pick up a single grain of rice on the carpet. He often picks up small particles on the ground that he knows he's not supposed to have. He picks them up. Sits down (from crawling) and then smiles and looks at me like, "Yeah, I got it. That's right. I know I'm not technically supposed to have it. What are you going to do about it." Oh yes, the child knows when he is doing something he isn't supposed to. If I'm not looking directly at him, he'll grunt or start babbling to make me look at him and then he smiles the smile that I know means he's up to no good.

He had a good stretch where he would sleep at least a six hour stretch and then a four hour stretch. That period of time passed too quickly. Now he's back to getting up every two hours or so. It's a different cry now though. It's not the reflux, this-is-painful cry anymore. Now it's more of an I'm-lonely cry. He has also decided that 4am or thereabouts is time to be up and playing.

He is a crawling champion. He's darn fast. He pulls up on everything. He can walk along the side of the coffee table, of course holding on with both hands. He has stood up without holding onto anything when he is holding his toy with both hands and not paying attention. It doesn't last long though. If you hold his hands he will walk with you.

He has lost weight. Yes. Lost. Not just evened out, but lost. He's gone down by about four ounces in the past two months. I'm not sure about his height. Now, the only disclaimer I will give to that is that at his last checkup he hadn't pooped in about three weeks, so that backlog could very well have added to his previous weight. Now, per doctor's orders, we give him pears everyday to help with his regularity. In case you were wondering, pears work. He will eat two jars of food and 6-8 oz of cereal each day in addition to nursing when I am home and pumped milk when I'm at work. My supply has dwindled considerably and I'm terrified that he's not getting enough nutrition. He still has tons of energy though, so who knows. You can really tell from his pictures though how my chubby baby has become a slender baby. He doesn't look unhealthily skinny, but it is just a huge difference from where he started and from where Handsome was at this point.

His eczema is still here. It has not gotten as bad as it was when he was a few weeks old, but it is still there. I think that time was so bad because it was infected. Now he just has dry patches all over himself - a few of them are red and require medicine. We put thick lotion on him twice a day and his skin just soaks it up and still dries out. I wish the doctors would test him for allergies to see if we could stop some of this by diet, but they just tell us that his test could be inaccurate. I get that, and I can amend when I need to, but I'd like to relieve his poor skin if at all possible.

Stubborn. The boy is stubborn. There is no distracting him if he wants something. I can't even count the number of times I have to tell him no or redirect him. He knows exactly what he wants. If you take that away, be prepared for screaming. His smiles are not as common as Handsome's are, but when you get them, they are awesome. His giggles are the best.

He can climb the stairs. Scary.

Handsome -

Handsome is doing awesome in preschool. He loves it. On days that he can't go, he cries cause he wants to be in preschool. We got his first criticism from his teacher. She told DH that Handsome has been whining a lot. She said a lot of the students have been lately so they have been trying to work on it. We are reinforcing the "don't whine" rule at home. We were previously, but not as often as we are now. I'm not sure if it's helping anything, but at least he is aware.

Everyday he comes home singing whatever song they learned in school that day. I'm impressed that he can remember all the words to the songs and whatever dance moves they taught with the songs. It is obvious that this is his favorite part of preschool. The teacher said one day that he was reluctant to wear their paint shirt to paint. Crazy kid, right? He does not care at all about art projects. But music? He loves music. They put up a project where they had to color a corn on the cob and glue on the kernels. All the girls had theirs colored in the lines and colored as much of the paper as they could and then the glued on so many kernels you knew there had to be extra layers underneath that you couldn't even see. Handsome? He colored with the crayon the least amount he could possibly do and still have qualified as coloring the paper and glued on the fewest number of kernels in a similar manner. Just by looking at it, I can see the teacher saying, "Handsome, just color a little bit more. Just glue a few more pieces on." And Handsome reluctantly putting more on, but longing to go play with toys or talk to whoever was closest.

Whenever one of the other parents in the class realize that DH or I are Handsome's parents they always say, "Oh you're Handsome's parent? Our child talks about Handsome ALL the time!" Again, I'm imagining Handsome always talking, joking, singing, dancing in class while the rest of the children are working nicely on their art projects.

Handsome seems to have picked two best friends in his class: B and K. B is a little girl and K is a little boy. Those three stick pretty close together. Each day after class, B and Handsome play together at the preschool playground while B's mom and DH and any other parent that is there talk. I got to meet B's mom when I took Handsome with his class to see Santa. She is awesome. Very nice and seemed to be someone I would like to hang out with. Her husband was there too and he was also very nice, but he didn't talk as much, so I don't know much about his personality.

The trip to see Santa was interesting. It was good to be able to see Handsome interact with his classmates. He stuck pretty close to K and B - he spent more time with B though. At first Handsome would not sit with Santa. I guessed that would happen. I finally convinced him to go because we saw K sit with Santa and Mrs. V was sitting in a chair right next to Santa. I got him to stand with Mrs. V and then after giving Santa a high-five he was convinced to sit with him to get a quick picture. It's true that I am anti-Santa, but I'm not going to be actively anti-Santa, just not as pro-Santa. Make sense? I'll tell him the Santa stories if he asks and put the presents under the tree with no name attached so that he can decide for himself if they are from us or from Santa.

When my parents came for Thanksgiving, my mother managed to start Handsome reading. He can read basic three letter words: sat, cat, pig, sit, hat, map, pot, etc. He already knew all the letters and sounds, but we hadn't tried to put anything together before she came. Now my three year old can read - the basics anyway.

His speech skills grow everyday. You can have real conversations with him now. He is still only speaking English though. He's resistant to speaking anything else.

He is wearing his glasses full time now. He has done really well with them. It also helps that they are nearly indestructible. I think the crossing has actually gotten worse though. We are patching at home for a few hours each day. I hope that helps and that this doesn't continue. I always wonder whether he realizes when his eye stops working. I don't think he does.


Handsome and Junior -

These boys play together better than I could have ever hoped for. They both seem to really love each other. Wherever one goes, the other will follow. In the backseat of the car, Handsome will play with Junior until they are both giggling uncontrollably. On the other hand, they always want the same toy. Always. How an 8 month old and 3 year old want the same toy, I don't know, but they do.

I think though that eventually, Junior may be the leader of the two. He's got the stronger personality and Handsome is so easy-go-lucky that I think he'll just go with whatever Junior is passionate about. I could be totally wrong, but that's what it looks like right now.

Me -

I don't even know where to begin about me. I'm stressed. There is just too much going on right now. I don't have time to breathe. I think this is the main cause for my milk supply failing me. I don't have enough time to pump as much as I need to and when I do pump, I can't stop thinking about work. I've started drinking more water and taking supplements to help my supply increase. It may have added another ounce or two to what I get throughout the day, but I'll take whatever I can get. It's beyond frustrating - especially when I see that Junior has lost weight. Honestly I'd really like to stop nursing. I know that's crazy from me who wanted to nurse Handsome until he was two years old and was devastated when he stopped early. With Junior it's just harder: he's losing weight; I'm stressing; I'm losing time at work; he bites; he pinches; he's easily distracted; he nurses too frequently at night. I'll continue for as long as I can, but it's not easy.

While Junior is losing weight, I'm not. I lost about 20 after he was born and then I stopped losing weight. So, this past weekend I joined WW. I've never done a plan like this, but I figured I needed something to kick me in the rear end and remind me how I'm supposed to be eating. I know I've been eating like crap since Junior was born. I've been drinking more coke than ever and eating bags upon bags of oreos - oreos have no milk. Anyway, we'll see how this works out. It's just something else to worry about but I feel like my health needs to be on the to-do list somewhere so I don't think I should give this up.

(Sorry for all the typos)