Patrick's Many Faces

There's not much going on around here, so here are some pictures to tide you over until I have good stories again. I expect a few later this week, as Grandpa is here on business, staying with us for the week.

Weird expression on his face

I'm not sure what he's thinking as he eats that goldfish.

This would be his "kitty" face (which works just as well for dogs).

This might explain the huge crack on the bottom of the drum.

And this explains why the drum is now in hiding until he's a little older and can play with the drum more like a drum than a hat or a ball.

Four-Month Check-Up

I'm sorry I didn't write about Nathan's four-month check-up yesterday when we got home. We were all exhausted from the outing and chose to be lazy instead.

The appointment went well, though. Nathan is gaining weight impressively, up to 15 lb, 2 oz. It's pretty much right on track with his previous weight gain. His length yesterday was 23 1/2 inches, which is inconsistent with past measurements, but he kept curling funny when the nurse was measuring him. She agreed it's probably not an accurate measurement, but it was the best she could do yesterday.

The doctor said he was doing great. He looks perfect and is strong for his age. He has no concerns at all about him. We discussed starting solids soon, and then Nathan got his shots. He actually didn't notice the first one at all, and he didn't cry until the last one. That's some high pain tolerance! He's doing fine still today, with no reactions to the shots at all.

Payback

The other day, I was sitting with Nathan on my lap, shortly after he'd eaten. Patrick came up to us and started playing with the snaps on Nathan's outfit. I glanced up at the TV for a second, and when I glanced back down, Patrick had a disgusted look on his face and was holding his hand weirdly. He grabbed Nathan's burp rag and wiped his hand vigorously. I laughed, thinking it was funny that Nathan had slimed him, a common occurence around here since his hands are almost always in his mouth.

When Patrick finished with the burp rag, I took it to wipe Nathan's hands, as they must be slimy. That's when I found the spit-up on his shirt. It turns out that Nathan had spit up on Patrick, not slimed him.

I laughed much harder at this, probably due to the mean streak in me. It's about time he gets paid back for all the spit up he aimed at us for the first year of his life!

Four Months

Dear Nathan,

The last four months have gone by so quickly, yet it seems like you have always been here. You are so completely a part of our family that none of us can imagine life without you, even Patrick.
Your biggest development of this last month is definitely your physical growth. I swear you're just a little football player. You're a chunk. I don't know a better way to say it than that. You don't look the least bit overweight, though--just filled out. One glance at most of the pictures I have of you, and nobody would ever guess all the chub wrinkes that are hidden underneath your clothes. Your thighs are monstrous, short little pillars to hold up that beer belly and big head. They are easily as big around as my wrist, if not more. It's truly something to compare you to your brother at the same age, even the same size. You're filled out in a way Patrick never was, and probably never will be.

You look just as tall as you are thick, though. You only barely fit lengthwise on your changing table on your playard anymore. When you stretch out, your head touches the top while your toes push against the bottom. It will be interesting to see the exact stats at your check-up on Friday. I suspect you're still well above average in both weight and height. How did your daddy and I spawn such a large child as you?

Your size is also starting to present some challenges for us. You have outgrown the bed you've been sleeping in, the bassinette part of your playard; its weight limit is fifteen pounds, which you have certainly exceeded. I would love to move you into your crib in the room with Patrick, but your sleep patterns still need some work. For the moment, you need to stay in the room with Daddy and me, at least until you are able to sleep through most of the night without a feeding. (That might explain the weight, huh?) I don't like the solution we have right now, but you're staying in your playard on the bottom. I'm not sure you've noticed, but your mommy is on the short side. Leaning down into that playard to put you down and pick you up is not something she's going to stand for for long. Please work with us as we attempt to adjust your sleeping patterns so that you won't wake up the whole house for a feeding in the wee hours of the morning anymore.

All the sleep and food you have been getting lately, though, have turned you into quite a happy baby. You give all of us the biggest smiles when we look at you and coo and giggle regularly. In fact, I think those coos are the reason behind your big brother's name for you. You make sounds similar to "gaga" often. You have the biggest smiles for your daddy. I can't begin to tell you how special you make him feel when he walks into a room and you recognize him by immediately grinning and cooing. You even remembered him after he was gone most of last week on a business trip. You seemed truly glad to see him again.

I personally love changing your clothes, and not for the reasons you might expect. You enjoy getting your clothes changed, especially when I move to your chest to pull your clothes over your head or to snap or unsnap them there. I suspect you might be ticklish because you never fail to laugh when I touch your chest area. Just to warn you, you have many tickle fights in your future if you're that sensitive to it already.

Lately I haven't been able to help myself when I gaze down at you while you eat. I have been overcome with gratefulness that God chose to bless our family with you. You are truly special, and I can only hope that I can prove myself worthy of being your mommy.

I love you so much, my little chunk.

Mommy

Nathan Gets a Nickname

Once upon a time there was a boy named Patrick with a baby brother names Nathan. Patrick basically ignored his baby brother the first few months he was alive. But very slowly, he started showing his brother attention.

He started by poking at the snaps and buttons on his brother's clothes. Patrick would unsnap and attempt to snap back the many snaps found on Nathan's sleepers and other outfits. Nathan was his personal baby to dress and undress (if only he knew his mommy sometimes thought the same way).

Then Patrick realized that if he showed the squirmy thing inside the clothes attention, Mommy and Daddy gave him special attention too. So he started booping Nathan on the nose and petting him on the head, games which he thoroughly enjoyed for the reactions they drew from his parents.

One day, Patrick took it one step farther by doing something his mommy had been waiting months to happen: He showed his natural compassion to his brother. He attempted to calm his brother while he was crying by repeating, "It's okay, it's okay," mere inches away from Natha's face.

Amazingly, Nathan calmed down enough for Mommy to hear the sweetest thing yet from her sweet Patrick. Patrick gave Nathan his first nickname. "It's okay, Gaga. It's okay."

And this will be the nickname that will haunt both of them in high school when Mommy insists on repeating the story to every girl they bring home: Gaga.

Update in Pictures

No new stories yet from today, since I blogged all the most recent ones last night. Instead, here are the pictures I promised.

He's getting so good at holding up his head, isn't he?

I'm guessing this suspicious look was at his brother...

...because who knows what he had in mind here.

For the first time, I gave him goldfish in a bowl for his snack. Usually I would just dump handfuls on a clean spot on a table. He loved having the bowl, though. Appropriately he kept taking it over to the kitchen and storing it in the fridge. As you can tell, he was oh-so-careful not to accidentally dump out the fishies.

Obviously this picture was taken before his pants boycott. Because the pants are a little loose (like most of them--this kid's just too skinny), he had to run around holding his pants up. It made for some funny pictures.

It looks meaner than it was, I promise. Nathan was having a blast, giggling and cooing the whole time. And to be on the safe side, we didn't play like this for long--basically just long enough for me to get a good picture or two.

Compare this nearly-naked-baby picture to his newborn ones. It's safe to say he's filled out just a bit. I wish I had some good ones of those hambone thighs. He's no skinny Patrick, for sure.

Picture #1 of the pants boycott. His grin says exactly how he feels about going pantsless.

And my absolutely favorite picture from the boycott so far. He looks like he's modeling the boots. Like any good model, he can't let pants interfere with the focal piece

He has started stomping lately, too. He'll do it in bare feet, but he much prefers to stomp in the boots. I can hear him wander over the entire house looking for a better flooring to stomp on. So far the tile wins. I had a good laugh yesterday when I walked into the freshly-vacuumed study to see these funny footprints in the carpet; they were the remnants of some odd stomping rain dance Patrick had perfomed there in his boots.

More Cute Stories

Patrick now says, "bear," too. He picked up a small stuffed bear he had never seen before and immediately said, "bay-ah." Either he's really working on those language skills, or I've finally started learning to translate toddler language.

He's also been super sweet for me lately. Today we had very few tantrums, and he worked to entertain me and his brother all day long. I have some great pictures of the boots for you, coming soon I hope. And remember that he still has this odd aversion to pants right now...got that mental picture? We'll have to see if the picture meets expectations in the next couple of days.

The cutest thing he did for Nathan today was walk up to where I had him lying on the floor next to me and start petting his head. It was really gentle and sweet, just another way to show him attention without playing with the snaps on his outfit.

I know this one is random, but he really, really, really loves animals right now. He might just take after his uncle Daniel with this one. Have any of you seen that ASPCA commercial they play on a lot of cable channels with Sarah MacLaughlan (sorry for the awful spelling--I don't feel like looking it up)? They show lots of picture of cats (kitty cats) and dogs (doggies) that have been rescued. Patrick watches the whole thing avidly, squealing at each new picture of a cat or dog. I'm guessing that when Nathan's a bit older, we'll have to try the dog thing again. Patrick's too much of an animal lover to not have a pet.

Some Giggles

Here are a few of the recent Patrick stories:

--I was holding Nathan while standing up as it was the only way to keep him happy at the time. I was about to set him down to see if he would be content that way, so I pulled the Bumbo into the living room. Apparently I was taking too long, though, because after a couple of seconds, Patrick walked up to me and held his hands up, similarly to when he wants held. He didn't want held, though; he was asking for Nathan so that he could set him in the Bumbo for me. I'm not sure whether it's sweet that he wants to take care of his brother or kind of mean because he wanted my attention instead of letting me give it to his brother.

--Speaking of the Bumbo, Patrick can now say Bumbo ("bubo"), at least repeating me. It's adorable to hear, one of my favorite words he says.

--He also says "choo-choo." I think trains are becoming his favorite form of transportation; he's always ready for me to read a choo-choo book to him or play with one of his train toys. This is a word he will say without prompting, not just repeating me.

--He still has a great sense of humor and is able to sense when I need a bit of comic relief. Today for instance, Nathan was crying (which he did most of the day) and I was getting frustrated. All of a sudden, Patrick walks around the corner in just his onesie, his pants discarded somewhere behind him, and sporting those awesome camo boots. The whole outfit was so hilarious that it no longer mattered that Nathan was upset--at least for a minute or so. Too bad I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of the ensemble before he took the boots back off.

--Patrick has learned how to take pants off. I suspect I won't have too many pictures of him in the near future with pants on because he insists on taking them off as soon as possible. It's a good step in readiness for potty training, but I'm looking forward to the day he learns how to put them back on too.

I'm on a Roll!

Now that I'm finally starting to blog with some regularity again, I better not break the streak today. We ended up going to the doctor this afternoon to check up on Nathan. Matt and I have heard rumors of RSV that could possibly be what we are all infected with, so we're not playing around with this cold. We were a bit worried about Nathan's breathing last night and decided it would be best to let the doctor have a look at him, just in case.
You'll be glad to know that it looks like it's just a cold--or at least the RSV hasn't had any effects on him other than simple cold symptoms. The most interesting discovery at the doctor's office was that Nathan now weighs 14 1/2 pounds. We'll get a more official weight when we go for his four-month check-up in a couple of weeks, but this is fairly accurate. That means that at 3 1/2 months, Nathan weighs what his big brother did at about 9. Crazy, huh?

By the way, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks that I haven't had a chance to post yet. Gigi, I think those pj pants are just a bit big around the waist still. :) He'll grow into them, though! (Let's hope that happens before his baby brother does.)

Nathan has discovered his feet. Fascinating little things, aren't they?

The boys got matching outfits for Christmas from Gigi. Patrick's is still a little big on him yet (I wish that boy would grow already!), but I had to make sure I got a couple of pictures of the two together in their outfits before Nathan outgrows his.

Nathan was more interested in an extended photo shoot this day than Patrick was. Go figure.

For My Own Records

Patrick added to his vocabulary yet again today. He said:

--"beeyee ba" for belly button
--"keekee" for cookie
--"Hi, Dada!" when Matt said, "Hi, Patrick" to him. This is the first reciprocal conversation we've had with him that wasn't just him repeating what we said.

Bop!

When Patrick was an itty-bitty newborn still in the NICU, Matt started the "boop" game with him. Patrick had (still has) this perfect little button nose that just begs to be poked, so Matt would poke the cute nose and say "Boop!" in this adorable voice. It was one of the first ways we knew to relate to him when he seemed so fragile otherwise.

We have kept up the Boop game, although it has become much less frequent lately. Nathan's nose may not be quite as adorable as Patrick's was, but it's close, so we also do the Boop game with him from time to time.

Today Patrick had climbed in my lap while I was trying to calm Nathan, who has been a little extra fussy lately because of the cold. Patrick took the initiative and started poking at Nathan, the first time he's shown much interest in him that's not related to snaps or latches and definitely the first time he has voluntarily touched him. Thinking it was cute, I booped Nathan's nose.

Patrick immediately caught on and poked Nathan's nose. "Bop!" When he saw my reaction, he did it again--and again and again. Then he did it to my nose and Matt's when he got home.

It's the cutest thing I've ever seen, watching my little boy play the first game he ever got to play with his own little brother. It warms my heart just to remember how they related to each other this afternoon.

By the way, this is just one more new word Patrick has spouted out lately. Yesterday it was "ball" and "apple" (which he can identify by a picture now and also says it when he sees the letter A). I could also swear he said, "I don't wanna sleep tight," after getting up from his nap today. Did he just wake up yesterday and decide that twenty-seven months was time to grow up all of a sudden?

Twenty-Seven Months

Dear Patrick,


You have had quite an exciting month this last month. Of course, the biggest event was your third Christmas. How could it possibly be your third Christmas already? I still remember that first Christmas so vividly, how tiny you still were and oblivious to all the commotion around you. But you gave me one of the best Christmas presents that year by sleeping mostly through the night for the first time while we were in Dallas.
This year was totally different. We had several stops on our Christmas trip, and you were a trooper everywhere we went. You've gotten really good at travelling. You much prefer the stops, though. How on earth did you get to be so social? All the people around really brought out the goofy in you. You played hard every day and slept hard every night and charmed every person you ran across in between.

I had fun watching how into Christmas you got this year. You caught on to the idea of unwrapping presents really quickly but were good to only unwrap those we gave you. You were also eager to hand presents to other people, whether or not they were intended for those people. I think you were just as excited to see what they would get as you were about your own presents. And your daddy in particular loved watching you fastidiously clean up all the wrapping paper as each gift was opened. Where were you during all those Christmases past when we had a wrapping paper mountain to clean up when the festivities were over?

Unfortunately, the day after we got home from the trip, you were struck by a runny nose that turned into a full-blown cold--your first illness ever. You've been so well trained that you were eager to share that illness with the whole family. The one time I wish you'd be selfish...

It's been interesting to see how your personality changes when you don't feel good. For a few days, I had the cuddly boy from your early months back. You really just wanted to be held much of the time, leaning your head into either me or Daddy for that extra comfort. Even now that you're feeling much better, you still want cuddles like that from time to time. I love that change.

You also get quite whiny when you're sick, though. I guess that's to be expected; you are only two, after all, and this is the first time you've really felt bad. I shouldn't expect you to be able to handle it yet. The funniest is when you come up to me whining because your nose is running and you need me to wipe it. You've already tried wiping it with your hand, though, and the snot on your hand is even more annoying to you than the snot on your face. I'm thrilled that you're starting to get the hang of wiping your nose already as I don't particularly enjoy this snotty job I've had to do over the past week. You even throw the tissue in the trash (towuh) when you're done with it.

Now Nathan has the cold the worst, now that you're mostly recovered from it. (Thank goodness I seem to be on the road to recovery now too, since Nathan is even more uncomfortable than you were and seems intent on keeping me from sleeping.) His discomfort has brought out the compassionate side in you. More than once in response to his crying you have attempted to wipe his face, thinking I'm sure that he's fussing because of a snotty nose and face like you've been doing for days. You also crawl up with me in the chair when I'm holding Nathan. I don't know whether that's for the bonding time with me or so that you can help me calm Nathan. You enjoy playing with his snaps or my belly button, which cracks me up and in turn usually relaxes all of us, even Nathan, so I guess you are helping.

More and more I'm realizing what a big boy you are. You are so independent unless you don't feel good. You're even a big help around the house and love to be a big helper. If only I could tame those terrible twos temper tantrums, which I haven't seen many of lately, you would always be a joy to be around. As it is, Daddy and I are usually able to overlook those moments and focus on the sweet you that we get to see more often.

Did you know that after you go to bed at night, Daddy and I go back over the day with you and comment on all the cute things you did? Did you know that we talk in Patrick-talk to each other when you're not around? You do so many things that make us smile. I don't know that I have ever truly conveyed to you what a joy you are, what a blessing you are to our family. I hope some day you will read these letters and discover for yourself what you mean to us.

Love,

Mommy

Christmas, Parts 3 and 4

When we left Big Spring, we decided to break up the drive home by spending another night with my parents. We didn't do anything exactly Christmassy, but it was fun.

I seriously love this picture. Matt looks so content.

Grandpa and Nathan

Patrick at dinner--Really he'd eaten dinner by this point, but I can't say I particularly love his choice of dessert.

Nana and Nathan

Grandpa (in his new cool robe) and Patrick

Patrick and Nana having fun "reading"

When we got home from the trip, Santa made one last delivery, a kitchen for Patrick. He woke up Saturday morning to find this in the living room and knew immediately it was for him and what it was.

Here he is putting the remnants of his breakfast waffle in the fridge, I guess to save for later.

Jennifer and Nick had spent their Christmas in Houston with his family and were getting ready to start their trip home, so they decided to swing by here on their way.

Patrick fixing something for Aunt Jennifer in his microwave

Nick enjoying one of Matt's and my Christmas presents, Guitar Hero (I seriously love this game!)

Uncle Nick and Aunt Jennifer playing the Burrito Game with Patrick--He thought this was really fun, especially when he got to be the burrito sometimes too.

Christmas, Part 2

The second phase of our Christmas was in Big Spring with Matt's parents, Papa and Gigi. I pulled out my new flash almost as soon as we got there, so you may notice the quality in many of these photos is greatly improved. That's also why there are so many, especially of Patrick, who was having fun showing off for the camera.

Climbing on the couch

Crouching down, in imitation of Mommy and Daddy

Just a cool picture

I'm not sure what they're looking at, but it must be fascinating.

Hehe, look at that belly.

Papa and Nathan admiring each other

This was Gigi's chair when she was a little girl, and Patrick immediately loved it, dragging it all over the house to sit in it.

Patrick enjoying a cookie

Grammy and Nathan

Patrick got his first car for Christmas.

Nathan in his cute Christmas outfit and the hat that came with Patrick's but never fit the kid's huge head

When Gigi grabbed both for a picture, Patrick's first reaction was to grab for his own hat, even though he wouldn't wear it.

Nathan absolutely loved this swing, which means I absolutely loved this swing. :)

The three brothers: Daniel, Matt, and Chris

Nathan and me on Christmas morning while opening presents...He loved this stuffed dinosaur and immediately grabbed his horns. Patrick got a dinosaur as well and insists on sleeping with it.

Patrick rockin' out on his new guitar

Nathan got an outfit that matches his brother's, so of course we had to get pictures. Patrick wasn't exactly keen on the idea, you might notice.

That's a suspicious look if I've ever seen one!

There was also this motorcycle/rocking horse toy that Patrick had fun climbing on and then off and then on again. I'm not sure he understood it was for riding.

Gigi and Nathan

Nathan got to ride the motorcycle too--with help of course.