Yoga

Mike has just started a new workout regimen called P90X. You've probably heard of it. Part of the program includes doing Yoga once a week (I think; I'm not real familiar with it). Mike does most of the workouts in the morning, but the yoga is quite long, so he has done those in the evening. This week he got started before the boys went to bed, so Zach and Drew joined in. They were already playing in their swim trunks (something they've been doing a lot lately- I have no idea why). So they took off their shirts, got their makeshift yoga mats (beach towels) and joined in.

It's a little difficult to see Drew in this first picture,

so I took another picture from a different angle. I'm not sure why Drew is using the table to help him with this particular pose.

Then Drew decided he could get more out of his first yoga experience by losing all of his clothes. Actually, he had to go potty, and then decided to just finish his workout in the nude. Drew may be onto the next big thing in yoga- using the table for new poses and doing the whole thing nude. I really love the pose Drew is striking in this first photo. I feel like he looks like a rockstar posing before a big performance or something. And I'll give you one guess on what he's doing with the hand you can't see...

Brotherly Love

I have to say, Zach and Drew have proven to be great big brothers so far. They both sure do love Jake. Jake gets lots of unwarranted kisses and hugs from his two big brothers.

Jake was having some tummy time yesterday and Zach got down on the floor and started talking to him. Thankfully the camera was close by.

This morning I laid Jake down on Drew's floor while I helped Drew get his shirt on. Then I went into the boys' bathroom to brush their teeth, and Jake stayed in Drew's room, where he was content for about 2 or 3 minutes. I was right in the middle of brushing Drew's teeth, and Zach rinsed out his mouth and ran into Drew's room. I quickly finished up with Drew and went in to get Jake. Zach was sitting on the floor, holding Jake in his lap, gently bouncing him and going, "Shhhh shhhh shhhh." He said to me, "I know how bouncing and shhh-ing calms him down, so I thought I should do that." What a sweetheart.

Today I was thinking about how close my sisters and I are, and it really makes me wonder if Zach, Drew, and Jake will be close when they are older. I certainly hope so. It's not like it's all happiness and smiles all the time; there's plenty of bickering between Zach and Drew, but they definitely love playing together. It will be interesting to see how Jake fits into the equation as he gets old enough to play.

Babies

Yesterday I asked Drew what he wants for his third birthday, which is just a couple of weeks away. First he mentioned a new Mater truck because one of the side mirrors had literally just broken off of one of ours. Then, he surprised me by saying he wanted a baby, as in a doll. I truly was floored. When Drew was born, we asked Zach if he wanted a doll, and he definitely did not want one. So it surprised me that Drew, my car-loving, all-boy boy said he wanted a baby. At first I thought, Okay, so we get a doll for him and then he plays with it for a week and is done with that phase, and I'll be annoyed we spent the money on it. Then I remembered that I had some of my old toys in the storage room, so we went downstairs to see if I had a baby, and sure enough, right away we found my Cabbage Patch Kids. Drew took one look at my preemie Cabbage Patch Kid and knew he'd found his baby. I have to say, fatherhood suits him. He loved that his baby has a binky and a bottle, and he made sure to feed his baby right away. He also named his baby Duckbird, although I noticed that today the name changed to Birdduck. And the way he talks to his baby is just how he talks to Jake- it's very sweet and loving.

Since Duckbird/Birdduck went along to pick Zach up from school, Zach took immediate notice and asked if there was another baby he could have. So when we got home, we headed straight downstairs to check out the other Cabbage Patch Kids. Originally Zach wanted the one boy Cabbage Patch I have, which is actually a clown doll. However, he then changed his mind and went with my little African American Cabbage Patch Kid. This girl (I want to say the name on her adoption papers is Teresa?) was my first ever Cabbage Patch Kid. I remember saving my money and having my friend's mom, who worked at Target and therefore had first dibs, buy her for me. I really wanted a little black girl, for some reason. After that I got 3 other Cabbage Patch Kids- the preemie, a little white girl with glasses, and the boy clown. Anyway, Zach was excited to have a baby, too. As far as I know, Zach hasn't named his baby yet.

The boys are not only excited about their babies, but also about the accessories that go with them. I have a matching diaper bag, baby carrier (one where you wear the baby), and an infant seat (like a car seat) that is at my parents' house in Colorado, but which they are going to mail to me. Drew and I also found a second purse that he is using as his diaper bag. The boys are not so interested in the different clothes for the dolls, even though I washed them in case they wanted to change things up at all. Drew says his baby is a boy, even though he (she) is wearing flowers and hearts. That's ok. Zach's doll had crazy hair, so I braided it in two braids, and he was so sweet- hours later he said to me, "Thanks for braiding my baby's hair, Mom."

In this picture Drew is using my sister Sandy's baby sling to hold his baby.

Today Drew and I saw a video of a mother giraffe nursing her baby at the zoo here. So then Drew decided we were all giraffes, and Birdduck was his baby giraffe. So he got Birdduck's bottle, held it between his legs, and then held Birdduck down to drink from it. At first I didn't get what he was doing, but then I realized that that's kind of how it looked like the giraffes were doing it. It was pretty funny.

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And then later today, just out of the blue, Drew said to me, "Thank you for giving me my baby, Mom." For as many headaches as that kid causes me, he sure can be a sweetheart. And even if the doll phase doesn't last, it's kind of neat to see the boys playing with some of my old toys. I didn't ever expect that to happen with three little boys!

And... We're Rolling

I'm trying to be pretty good about giving Jake tummy time. Thankfully he tolerates it well, and even seems to enjoy it for short periods of time. Last Wednesday I had him on his tummy, sort of propped up on his elbows, and the next thing I knew, he rolled to his back. Thinking it was a fluke thing I immediately propped him back up and he did it again, and then again a third time. Then last night during tummy time he did the same thing 5 or 6 times, so I think I can officially say that he is rolling from his tummy to his back. Yes, I know it helps that I put him on his forearms, but still, his actions are deliberate. Today I tried to get a good video of it, and most of the time he rolled so quickly after I set him up that I was barely fast enough. This seems early to me for any sort of rolling over, but it's still fun!

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Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We celebrated by making some homemade valentines for Mike, going out to eat as a family, and dressing for the occasion. Well, Jake actually had a special Valentine's Day outfit that Grandma Linda got him; Zach and Drew just wore red. Drew and I also made some chocolate covered strawberries for dessert after dinner. They were delicious and we had fun working on them together.

I decided to try to get a decent picture of all three boys. The first one was definitely the best one, but the last two are the funniest!

Jake at Two Months

Jake is officially 2 months old now. Time is flying! He continues to be such a great baby. I feel like I've written that line a bunch of times in this blog lately, but I just can't help it. He is a happy little guy, smiling all the time, and generally being pretty laid back. I keep trying to get a great picture of Jake smiling, but it's very difficult. He smiles at people, and if I put the camera in front of my face, he can't see me very well, and so the smiles just aren't as forthcoming. The other day Zach tried to help produce the smiles so I could get a picture. We didn't have great results. Here they are.

He is cooing more and more, and Zach and Drew love that. Drew says all the time, "Did you hear that sweet coo, Mater?" Last week Drew sat in my lap at a music class and together we held Jake and snuggled all together. Drew hadn't held Jake since the first couple of days of Jake's life, and suddenly, that day he wanted to hold Jake 2 or 3 more times. It was sweet.

A couple more attempts at big smile pictures.

In this next picture, Jake has a pretty good smile, I think. It must be the fact that Foudy is near him. She is just the sweetest dog.

When Foudy knows I'm upset (like if I'm talking in a stern voice to Zach or Drew), she is all in my face, like she's saying, "It's okay, Mom! Calm down!" She acts the same way if Jake is crying. She is right there near him. The other day I was doing something (vacuuming the dining room, I think) and Jake was in his bouncy seat. When I came back out to the living room, I saw that he was crying a little, and Foudy was sitting right in front of his seat, like she was guarding him or alerting me to the fact that something was wrong.

Jake is sleeping okay. Not great; not terrible. I was really hoping to finally be one of those moms that could say, "My baby slept through the night at 6 weeks!" Alas, that hasn't happened. I did switch him from his swing to the bassinet, and he's done better than I expected with it. The last few nights he has gotten up once to eat, around 1:00-2:00 or so, and then maybe he's been awake another time or two just needing a pacifier. I have switched him to the swing around 4:30 in the morning, and that seems to buy me a little more sleep. So he's not doing terrible, but there's definitely room for improvement. I keep telling myself that in another month or so, maybe we'll be there. He does seem to know that bedtime is different than other times that he goes to sleep. Many nights I lay him down semi-awake (he wakes up as I go to transfer him), and he lays there and goes back to sleep with only the help of a pacifier. I'm not sure yet when we'll move him to his room. Mike finally finished painting the stripes, but there are a couple of finishing touches and some general organizing to be done (his crib has a bunch of crap in it right now), and then it's ready for him. Maybe in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday Drew and I took Jake to the doctor for his 2 month check-up. He weighed 12 lbs. 13 oz, which is a gain of 4 pounds in the last 7 weeks. That weight puts him in the 75%ile. Just for reference, at the exact same age (9 weeks), Zach weighed 12 lbs. even, and at 7 weeks 6 days, Drew weighed 12 lbs. 3 oz. So they've all been pretty close in size. I have felt lately like Jake's getting too long for the one-piece outfits he has; it seems like his toes get cramped in the little footy parts. I feel like the measuring of a baby's length isn't really an exact science, but more like a pretty close one. Jake was 23.5 inches long, which is one inch longer than Drew and Zach were and puts Jake in the 70%ile. The interesting thing is that all three boys have had the same head circumferences at each check-up thus far. At 2 weeks they all had a head circumference of 36.5 cm, and at 2 months they've all been 40.0 cm. Thankfully Jake did great at his appointment, but he did not appreciate his shots. I think having my kids get shots is way harder than getting them myself. That sad, sad crying just about does me in.

The other night our friends/neighbors Brad and Molly came over with their boys Cooper and Max to have dinner with us. Cooper is just over 3 months older than Drew, and Max is just a month younger than Max. Max was born a month premature, so he's still just a little guy. In fact, he's just about at 8 pounds, so he's still smaller than Jake was when he was born! This was the first time our whole families have had a chance to get together since Max was born. We waited until the end of the night to get a picture of the two newest boys on the block, though, and both of them were tired and hungry, so the pictures aren't great. Right after I took this first picture, Max found one of Jake's knuckles and started sucking on it. We thought it was pretty funny, but Jake (who looks like a giant next to Max) didn't think so.

We thought maybe they'd enjoy some tummy time together, but they just were not in the mood!

I know it's cliche, but it just blows my mind how quickly the time is flying by. To think that Jake is already 2 months old; it feels like I just had him! Today I put away some more of the newborn clothes that Jake hasn't been able to wear for a month or more, and even some of the 0-3 month clothes that are getting too small. As I put away some onesies today that Zach, Drew, and Jake have all worn, I felt a little twinge of sadness knowing that no more of my babies will wear them. Such a conflict of emotions- I definitely look forward to moving on from all things baby- diapers, nap schedules, nursing every 3 hours, etc.- but I also feel a little sad about being done with this stage of our lives. I guess it's a good thing Jake's only 2 months and I still have a while to get used to enjoy my last baby! And if I've said all that before, forgive me! You know what they say- each time you have a baby you deliver part of your brain with your placenta, so now that baby #3 is here, there's not much left up there with which to think!

And Two More

Two funny things Drew said just today:

This evening, "Being a mom is hard..." Then, switching into pretend mode, "I'm a mom. One time I fed my baby Zach from my nipple." And here I thought my middle child was a boy!

But wait! After a nice, long session on the pot, "I love the smell of poop!!" Yep, definitely a boy. Definitely.

Quotes From Drew

Drew turns 3 in just a few weeks, and he is most definitely at that age where he says so many funny things without even trying to be funny. If you laugh, though, you get into big trouble, because he does not appreciate people laughing at him. I've tried to explain that it's good to make people laugh, but Drew's not buying it. So, if you find any of these Drew quotes to be funny (which you may not- most of them are much cuter in person than in writing), don't tell him that they made you laugh!

The quotes:

To Zach, when Zach must have asked him to do something he thought wasn't safe, "Zach, I can't do things that are dangerous when I'm two."

Upon seeing some horses on a digital screen outside Wells Fargo Arena, "Did you see those horses? Those horses are increble (incredible)!"

Drew and I were in a public bathroom, and after he pottied, I pottied, and asked him not to flush until I was done. He said he'd just hold the flusher up, and unlike most toilets we're used to, this toilet flushed when the handle was pushed up. It surprised us both, and Drew said, with perfect inflection, "Well, that's one way to flush it!!! That toilet's increble!"

Me, to Drew, who has his hands down his pants: "Drew, what are you doing?"

Drew: "Just checking to see how big my penis is... It's good big."

A few days later, Mike, Zach, and Drew were all in the shower. Drew stared for a minute, and then said, "Dad, your penis is humongous!" Then a minute later, under his breath, he added, "But not as huge as mine..."

After Zach about fell off his chair at the dinner table and started crying, Drew again used perfect inflection and said, "Oh, brother."

To Jake, who was just laying on the floor (and imagine Drew's normal voice going up about 3 octaves to his parentese voice, which he uses all the time when talking to Jake), "Oh, hi Jake! Aren't you just precious moments?" And, for the record, we do not have anything Precious Moments in our house.

Last week on trash day, Drew said to me, "Mom, do you hear the garbage truck approaching?" I loved that he used the word "approaching."

He's also using phrases like "Oh my goodness!" and "For Pete's sake!"

Tonight, just before bed, "I can do anything!" I'd like to use that one against him, every time I ask him to do something he doesn't feel like doing and he whines, "But it's so haaaaaard!!"

I asked Drew to show me his mad face for this picture, and he certainly did. Not his maddest face, though.

Zach wanted in on the mad face photos, but this isn't really what Zach looks like when mad.

Then they wanted a sweet photo together.

This summer Drew started noticing gas stations, and whenever we'd need to get gas, he'd ask if we were going to the green station (BP) or the red station (Kum & Go or Casey's). After the big oil spill in the Gulf, I stopped going to BP, which wasn't a big deal because there's a Kum & Go right by us that I go to 90% of the time anyway. I started by just saying I didn't like the green gas, but that answer just didn't suffice, so after being asked again and again why I didn't like the green gas, I told Drew the simple version of the gulf spill. Here's his take on it.

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And one last video that I just discovered on our video camera. This was from Christmas Eve, after church. Santa Claus (really Mike's dad) has surprised Zach and Drew the last two years by calling them on Christmas Eve. Last year Drew was too little to talk, but Zach ate up the whole act. This year, Zach was totally into it again, and Drew, well, he was a little too busy to talk to Santa, at least at first. Classic Drew- he has his own agenda, and he will let you know that he's not interested in changing it. See for yourself.

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Oh, that Drew. I love him to pieces, but he sure does wear me out some days!

Cheering on the Blue Demons

Last weekend our friend Arch's (real name- Kevin Archer) high school basketball team (he's the coach) was playing up at Wells Fargo Arena, so a bunch of us college friends got together to go cheer the team on. Our friends Troy and Jen live a few hours from here, so we don't get to see them often, and we see their kids even less often. This was really the first time that Zach and Drew got to meet Lauren and Reese, and boy, did they have fun. We all met up at a restaurant before the game- Jenny and Troy with 2 of their 3 daughters (little Paige stayed with family members to nap since she's just 9 months old), BJ and Carey with their son Charlie, and Jenn (Arch's wife) and 2 of their kids, Gavin and Rowen (their daughter Claire stayed home with Grandma). It didn't take long for the kids to warm up to each other. Once we were done with dinner, we headed to the arena to watch Arch's team play. First, Reese, Zach, Lauren, and Drew had some fun playing in the stands.

Notice that Reese (in the hearts) is a little taller than Zach. She just turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, whereas Zach will be 6 in 4 months. So either Reese is on the tall side, or Zach is on the short side, or probably both.

The school where Arch teaches/coaches had some cardboard cut-outs made of his face. We are constantly teasing Arch about the size of his head, so these gigantic cut-outs made for some fun jokes and picture taking opportunities.

First, me, Carey, and Jenny O. with Arch's head.

Then Carey decided to get a little closer. Thanks, Jen, for the pictures!

Even though Jenny has a 9 month old at home, she still needed to get her little-baby fix. Jake was happy to be on the receiving end of that. He knows a good mom when he sees one, so he just snuggled up and took a nap, which was amazing given the fact that there were some very loud junior high age fans right behind us.

Lauren must be learning from her mom, because she seemed to enjoy mothering Drew a little. He was happy to oblige her, too.

Unfortunately, the Blue Demons didn't win their game, though it was a close one. It was fun to watch Arch in his role as coach. After the game we headed back to BJ and Carey's house for a while so the kids could play and the adults could hang out. When we left around 9:00 (way past bedtime for our boys), the boys were tired but had had a lot of fun. Zach was asking when we could have a sleepover with Reese and Lauren. I think we'll have to get those kids together again sometime- hopefully before another 5 years passes!