Our little old man

Jude is such a little old man! He makes the best faces, all scrunched up and serious-like or his little mouth shaped like an "o" with a look of surprise.

Then there are all the noises! Grunts and squeals are most of his vocalizations of late...which are certainly better than screams or cries. These get especially loud when he is deep in thought about pooping or passing gas :-) It does make sleeping in the same room as him a bit hard because of all the noise he makes while sleeping!

Jude is definitely his own little man and different from Tamlin. He LOVES to be held and absolutely hates to be left alone. He also loves being warm...so I think he is just sucking warmth out of whoever is holding him, but he is very fond of his blankets being wrapped around him. He hates sleeping on his back and will loudly protest this position; we aren't sure if this is his personality or because he often has gas or reflux. He sleeps much better on his side or on his tummy, preferable sleeping on his tummy on top of one of our stomachs. When awake, he wants to be upright and looking at everyone...even if he doesn't see very far or well yet.

As to a schedule...we certainly don't have one yet. Jude is rolling in approximately 2 to 2.5 hour cycles still. He eats, stays awake a little, than sleeps. And he is definitely NOT sleeping very well through the night (see the above statements about sleeping on back and all the grunting). Most evenings he'll eat around 1am, 3:30am, and 6am...which means I'm not sleeping that much or in any long stretches. I had forgotten how much fun this part of having a baby is (sheesh). Some nights I take Jude into the spare room because he's being fussy and eating more frequently and this will let Brian catch a bit more sleep...though, this does make me supremely jealous of Brian sleep logging. On the flip-side, Brian often comes in to get the baby for morning duty with him and Tam from 6:30ish to 9ish...which lets me catch a bit more shut eye. I just keep reminding myself to enjoy these intimate moments with my little baby in the wee hours of the day because all too soon they will end.

Garage sale scores

This past Friday and Saturday mornings Brian stayed home with the wee ones while I went out on a few garage sale excursions. This was a great way for me to get out of the house for a bit and have some alone time...without a kid attached to boob or ankle. As usual, I had a fist full of dollar bills, a set limit for gas expenditure, and three hours before Jude would want another milk meal.

Well . . . I scored several great items for great prices...

A great pile of books, many of which were Mercy Mayer's Little Critter books, which Tam has recently really liked (especially finding the mouse, frog, or spider hidden in each page). Also in the pile were a couple of dinosaur books (latest craze here) and a "I spy" treasure hunt book. Tam's really good at spying all the cars on each page!

A great pile of clothes, mostly for little Jude who isn't that little. There are just so many cute outfits for a baby! Luckily, Jude obliges by dirtying 2 to 3 outfits a day by spitting up or pooping on them.

Race track...for Tam's next birthday if I can wait that long to give it to him.

3 geodes for breaking open with our friends Xander and Jo at our next gathering. Should be a fun amusement for a few minutes.

A Peter Pan costume. So, I'm not a big Disney fan and could care less about dressing Tam up like Peter Pan, but I totally saw the potential int his outfit. It included a great green tunic with Velcro belt, brown leggings, hat, and shoe covers. With a few minor adjustments this will make a great Renaissance outfit for Tamlin for this year...and I won't have to sew it from scratch!

The pic shows the tunic, belt, and hat on our goofy kid...can you tell that he is thrilled to be playing dress up?


The other major score of the weekend was a tricycle for Tam. He's grown too big for his red push car, though he still tries to ride it while his feet drag on the pavement. He still loves the blue plasma car, but I wanted to get him something with pedals to try. I picked up this tricycle at the local church sale. The back brace is for pushing by the parent and is removable and the seat adjusts for a bit of leg growth. Tam was more than a bit excited to see this in the driveway for him. He was just as happy to push the thing around as he was to ride it...except that he REFUSED to use the pedals. "No pedals, mom!" So, he has a tricycle with pedals that he insists on riding like a push car. Sheesh.

The downside was that I didn't see many baby items that I needed / wanted...many things were for girls and just too pink for me to get for Jude.

1st bath

Jude got his first bath, much to the delight of big brother Tamlin.

I'm still figuring out the whole bedtime routine with two little ones to manage...some nights it works out and other nights I'm trying to read a story to one while the other is a screaming banshee. Tonight was the first attempt at getting both dudes into the tube, cleaned, jammied, and ready for bed together...and by 8pm. (kept fingers crossed).

In reality it went really well.

Jude didn't seem to mind the bath at all! We had learned our lesson with Tam that one of the secrets is to keep the water fairly warm as well as the room. Jude just relaxed in the water and let me gently scrub him up. No screaming :-) He didn't even let loose his own stream of water until the end.

Tam thought it was AWESOME to share bath time with his little brother. He kept looking over the bath tub edge to check on baby Jude. After Jude was out, dried, diapered and into jammies, I turned to Tam to finish cleaning him up. Eventually, both boys were all ready and in bed listening to stories...then Jude decides to spit up dinner all over himself and me. Sigh.

Finger painting

In preparation for making card for the upcoming Father's day, I was going to let Tam do some finger painting. This isn't as bad as it sounds since I use soap foam and a bit of food coloring as the "paint", which makes clean up really easy.

So...
paint = check
paper = check
apron = check
Kid = check

Commence having oodles of fun getting paint all over....

And Tam sticks his fingers in, makes a few marks and gets...frustrated. Apparently I have the only kid who doesn't like finger painting. It seems that the paint doesn't last long enough, so Tam was having problems drawing a car like he would with a crayon. sheesh.

Problem solved with the introduction of paint brushes.

Then a fun time was had all over several sheets of papers, his hands, arms, and face.

So sweet

Brian was getting ready to leave for work today...

Tam "Daddy work?"
Brian " Yep, Daddy has to go to work now."
Tam "Hug, Daddy?"
Brian gives Tam a hug goodbye.

Tam "Kiss, Daddy?"
Brian gives Tam a kiss

Tam "Kiss momma, too, daddy?"
Brian, with a big grin, gives me a kiss goodbye too.

So glad that Tam notices our affection for him and for each other ;-)

Wordless Wednesday - Jude

Someone is 3 weeks old!
And measuring 11pounds, 11 ounces, and 22.5 inches long