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Finally my growing Henry-pregnant belly movie is on YouTube and working.  Check it out if that’s your thing : )

I only update this blog about once a month, so here’s a LONG post…

Henry is now 2 months old and weighing about 14 lbs!  He sleeps very well at night, and less well during the days.  At least once a week he throws me a no-nap day and those are very trying.  Obviously he gets a bit fussy because he’s exhausted, and I get fussy because it’s no fun juggling a crankypants baby, a two-year-old and a job.  Luckily he usually counterbalances those with a couple of super sleepy days to help me get back on track.   In general he is still a very pleasant, easy-going dude.  He’s really becoming quite expressive – giving us big open-mouth smiles and lots of “goo ahh goo”‘s.   It’s wonderful!

Lloyd continues to bond with Henry, calling him “MY Henry” and shouting, “OH NO MY BROTHER!” when Henry fusses.  He has started grabbing Baby Fred (his doll baby) when I’m parenting Henry and copying what I’m doing.  It’s funny to learn what he’s picked up on.  Apparently I say, “Just a second! It’s okay!” a lot, given how often Lloyd says that while running to comfort Fred : )

Lloyd has had some big developments in his athleticism this month.  One day he decided enough was enough and he FINALLY started jumping!   It’s no wonder he had some difficulty, as he is a lot of boy weighing in at about 38 lbs.  Anyway, now he is a jumping man, who can also do a sommersault and can climb on the jungle gym!   Here are some youtube videos you can enjoy :

• Jumping/Sommersault Movie
• Climbing Movie

Lloyd has started quoting the beloved program Dinosaur Train by exclaiming, “I have a hypothesis!” and he’ll tell us that a hypothesis is “an idea you can test!”  The other day he said, “I hypothesize Grandma eats meat!,” so he’s making good progress in his understanding of the scientific process : )   Thanks, PBS!

He’s also in a really WONDERFUL stage of grumpiness (/sarcasm) where he becomes Lloyd the Grouch.  Key phrases are: “I don’t like people,” “I don’t like Mommy/Daddy/These Guys,” “I go away,” “I don’t like mans and women,” and the ultimate womp womp, “I’m just a sad boy.” I can’t wait for the time when I can look back on this phase having come out the other side and laugh.   He’ll be over this soon, right?  I swear we give him tons of attention and affection!

Other big events this month included Mother’s Day, and we did it up right.   The boys celebrated me on Saturday and gave me a new phone, an orchid plant, some wine (glug glug), and a wonderful day filled with fun!  On Sunday we started off the day at my parents’ house doing a nice trail-walk and later we went over to Grace and Jerry’s for a great kebab dinner.

Our friends Erin and Zach got married and Henry tagged along for the big event.   When Henry was about 4 weeks old Greg started giving him the occasional bottle (of pumped breastmilk) so that Henry would be used to them.  It really helped us for the wedding, because I was a bridesmaid and wasn’t available to b-feed for the event.

Henry taking bottles also means that Mom and Dad get to go on dates!  So Grandma and Grandpa have babysat the boys twice now and it’s wonderful getting some time with Greg where we can have a real conversation and enjoy each other’s company without all of the (beloved) distractions.   Funny story: when we went on our first date it was to a nice dinner at Terry B’s and I decided to dress up.  I came downstairs in a skirt and high heels and Lloyd was totally perplexed.  He ran up to me yelling, “What are these legs?!?!?!  What are these shoes?!?! Where are your pants?!?!”  I guess that’s what I get for working at home and wearing jeans and sneakers every day : )

I want to end by sharing this email my dad (Gramp-E) sent me the other day.  It really made me smile:

hey Beep, I was out working in the sawmill this afternoon and something occurred to me about Lloyd. Do you remember Tuesday when Lloyd was out in our backyard and all of the sudden he said he needed a washcloth? You didn’t question him. You just gave him one and he set about sadly dabbing at his uncomfortably wet shoes (and socks).

As you know, I don’t know anything about child development. But I do know that the majority of adults do not attack a problem with a solution without first complaining about the problem, blaming others, etc.  What I witnessed was a leadership trait, a strong one.

I’d say he’s one to keep an eye on… love, dad

Life with two kids is amazing.  Any doubts I had about my ability to love another kid as much as I love Lloyd have flown out the window.  Without a doubt Henry is an integral part of our little family now.  He’s such a joy with his easy-going manner.  I’m not sure if it’s just because Greg and I are calmer this time around, or that we’ve learned some tricks, or if Henry is just a much more relaxed baby – but he is easy.  As for his stats he weighed 11 lbs and 10 oz on Friday, April 29th.

It does get crazy.  Sometimes it seems like I spend my whole day sprinting back and forth between whichever kid is whining loudest, feeling like a customer-service operator saying, “Your crying is very important to me.  Please hold until my hands are free.”  I think it actually makes me a better parent.  Lloyd has learned a lot about waiting his turn and Henry will be a better man for always having patience be a part of his life.

I started back at work this week.  It’s been exhausting, but we’re making it work.  Greg is still in Dexter so he doesn’t have any commute time and he’s around for lunch.  Also, both of the grandparents went out and bought car-seats for Lloyd and they are able to come get him and take him out for playdates.  That’s been amazing – knowing Lloyd is having fun and being loved, but getting a break for myself and time to bond with baby.

Having Henry around has given me even more appreciation for Lloyd’s communication skills.  His vocabulary seems endless now and everyday his sentences are becoming more complex and his pronunciation clearer.   The other day I heard him say (while searching for a chicken toy), “Maybe it’s on the table, I think…” and just now, while playing with some dinosaur toys he said, “Wait a second, let’s find my favorite…”  And on Easter while opening his eggs to find the treats inside he shouted out, “They’re hatching!!”   His new phrase is “What are you waiting for?”  : )

But on the other hand, I think having such a mouthy two-year-old is making me value the simplicity of a newborn even more.   Henry’s needs are simple: help me poop, change my diaper, how about some food?, help me sleep. Lloyd can voice very specific desires in a very whiney way (such as, “NOT MILK IN THIS CUP – ONLY ORANGE CUPS!!”) and that means defusing a whole temper tantrum and talking about manners and appreciating what we have – that can be exhausting at the end of the day.

It’s definitely weird being back in the infant stage.  Everyday it seems we have an Oh yea… moment.  Oh yea, we have to burp them.  Oh yea, they poop all the time, don’t they?  Oh yea, they wear these crazy outfits with 100s of snaps. At the hospital Henry was crying and crying and we were carrying him around and I was thinking, “Oh no, colic…” until finally I realized he might need a diaper change, and sure enough he had an inflated, meconium filled sacked just about ready to explode.   Oh yea…

And then there was one of our first nights at home as a family of four.  We had such a wonderful day enjoying each other but whoops!  Lloyd suddenly cries out, “My pants are wet!” and we realized we hadn’t changed his diaper in perhaps eight hours.  Oh yea, we have to change his diapers, too!  (Side note: I’m really glad we didn’t try and toilet train Lloyd before Henry came along.  That would have been too much and I’m more than happy to change two kids worth of diapers for now.)

As for Lloyd and Henry together as siblings – it’s early, but it’s working.  Lloyd cares about his baby brother and is paying attention to his needs.  He talks to him without any prompting and I have faith that they have many years of friendship ahead of them.   I love my family!

My friend Emily posted this craft on her blog and I was so excited to see a cool art project that a 2-year old can do.  They are “stained glass” Easter eggs made out of tissue paper (so fun for little ones to tear!) and contact paper.   I’m thinking this is a great craft that can easily be translated to valentines, halloween, and Christmas. Fun!

Let me take a minute to talk about how we prepared Lloyd for Henry, because miraculously  it seems to have paid off.  Lloyd has been accepting of my need to nurse Henry and the fact that sometimes we have to hold the baby or take the baby upstairs to go down for a nap.   He doesn’t freak out when Henry cries and he’s eager to hold the baby before he goes to bed at night.

For one, we gave Lloyd these two books when I was about 5 months pregnant:  Waiting for Baby and My New Baby by Rachel Fuller.   They are primarily picture books, which worked great because we just made up our own text.  I’d say, “This is you and you’re the big brother.  That’s Henry, and there’s Mom and Dad” and read the stories with our family as the characters.  In the Waiting for Baby book it shows the Mom going to the doctor and getting checked out, which helped Lloyd understand all the times I had to leave for appointments while he stayed with Grammie.  We always talked about how someday I would have to go the hospital to squeeze Henry out of my belly.

I made sure that Lloyd understood the concepts of inside and outside (with dinosaurs in a cave), and sure enough he understood that there was a baby IN my tummy who would someday be OUT.   When I came home from the hospital he felt my tummy and I talked about how it felt squishy because it was empty: Henry was now outside of my belly.

Whenever we read books with siblings I’d make a big deal of pointing out the big brother and the baby brother.    When Lloyd had a big and a small version of a toy animal I switched from pretending it was a Daddy and a baby to a big brother and a little brother.

The “My New Baby” book is really great.  It shows the Mom breastfeeding the baby on at least two pages and it shows the baby crying on another page.  Lloyd learned about “Mommy milk” (sometimes called “Boob milk”) and luckily he was even able to witness a couple of our friends breastfeeding their babies.   When we looked at the page of the baby crying I’d say, “Sometimes Henry’s going to cry and it’s going to sound like this, ‘WAHHHHH!!'”  That would always make Lloyd laugh and usually we’d go into a rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus” where the babies go “Wah wah wah.”   Sometimes when we read the book I’d say, “Oh no, Henry’s crying.  Geeze when is he going to stop?  What do you think he wants?” and that would start another good discussion about Baby’s needs.

We always referred to the baby in my belly by his name, or as “your baby brother.”  We tried our best to never say “my baby” or “the baby.”

One last book we got that I think helped is “On The Night You Were Born” by Nancy Tillman.  We used this book to teach Lloyd about how he was “born” and what a wonderful day that was.   I’m not sure how much he understood, but the goal was to show him that once he was in my belly, and I squeezed him out, and then he was “born” and that was a wonderful thing.

And of course there was Baby Fred.   Lloyd never had a baby doll, so for Valentine’s day I gave him one and he carried it around and Greg and I taught him how to burp his baby.

For when I was in labor and needed to go to the hospital, we were lucky enough to have willing grandparents come to our house to stay with Lloyd.  I think it meant a lot that my mom and dad were up for living in our home and maintaining Lloyd’s everyday routine.  He was able to nap in his own crib at his normal time and he was with people who loved him to pieces and with whom he was completely comfortable.

When Lloyd came to the hospital, I was big on not forcing Lloyd to interact with Henry.   Being in the hospital was weird enough for Lloyd and I knew that we had the whole rest of the boys’ lives for them to get into each others’ faces.  I had other people hold Henry so that my arms could be free to hug Lloyd.   We had a couple of presents ready for him and we said, “Happy Big Brother Day!”  Lloyd came to visit twice that day and even by the second visit he was more curious about Henry and able to stand me holding the baby while also snuggling Lloyd.

When we came home we reenacted the pictures from “My New Baby” and Lloyd seemed to understand everything that was happening.   We made sure that Lloyd got out of the house a little bit everyday – whether to go on trips to the store with Greg, go to swimming class, his storytime at the library, or go play with Grandma.  Also – even though we were tired and sometimes I felt “touched-out” we made sure to give Lloyd some one-on-one playtime and cuddle time at home when Henry was sleeping.

Sure enough Lloyd seeked out Henry on his own terms.  It took about five days, but eventually I caught Lloyd going over to his baby brother and gently patting him.  Then it became wild pleas to “Hold Henry!” as a killer stall-tactic for bedtime.

So that’s what we did!  And so far so good.  Hopefully if you’re reading this and thinking about how to help your oldest adjust to a new baby some of these techniques will help.