Love for now

Here are the three stages of Zach's interest in James:
Stage One: I LOVE my brother, what is he doing? "Why is he doing that? Look at his tiny feet! These are his tiny ears Mommy!"

Stage Two: Can I squeeze his head? Can I poke his eyes? What if I pat him just a little too hard....people will just think I am being sooo sweet. Until they get a look at the mischief in my eyes.

Stage Three: And he is done. Something else has caught his eye and he is off. Luckily my sister was there to catch James as he rolled him off his lap. 

Baby Brother

I am trying really hard to not include Zach in every single post about James. I finding it very hard in real life and in my blog life. We want to compare James to Zach at every turn. Does he look like Zach? Does he eat like Zach? I don't remember Zach doing that? etc.

As someone told me before I had James - you are going to have another little person, not another Zach. But how do you keep them separate, especially before James has his own personality that is shown? I am working on it...

But since we are speaking of Zach, I will continue. He is doing pretty well adjusting to his little brother. He runs to see him each morning and each day after school. We completely do NOT trust him in the slightest, but so far he has not shown any real aggression towards James. Speaking as someone who tried on multiple occasions to suffocate her sister - I am sure this is just the calm before the storm.

But for now he likes to be close to James and to have James participate in things with him. Such as when he decided to crawl underneath James' bed and "work" on his bassinet. James slept through the loud, loud drilling on the bottom of his bed. One of the reasons I like this bed (Thank you Mimi!) is that it is too tall for Zach to reach inside. Well, unless Zach gets his stool, which of course I did not think of until he did.

 Working, working, drilling, hammering

Precious baby did not even stir. This will be his life for good and for bad. 

He will not know a time when someone was not trying to "fix" his bed

or his pacifier or his blanket. 

The newest Little Wall

James Wall joined our family at 6:59am on Thursday, July 7th. He was 7lbs 5 oz and 20 inches long. He is just the most precious baby and we are loving getting to know him. Here is what we know so far:
1. He poops a lot. And I mean a lot.
2. He looks just like his brother did at his age.
3. He has blue eyes that are not super dark so I am keeping my fingers crossed they stay blue.
4. He has excellent hearing and jumps at loud sounds. I am certain in our house he will get over this quickly.
5. He is perfect and adorable and completely kissable.

We have been home a week and so far so good! He is sleeping about as much as can be expected and eating like a champ. We feel so blessed and lucky to have him here safe and sound.

Happened?

Zach walked into the kitchen, where I was making his breakfast, and said "I ready for school, Mommy!". And he looked like this:

No shirt, khaki shorts and that hair. What the world happened in his bed last night??? It took three swipes with a wet comb to get it down.

And I specifically heard his father negotiating with him that Zach did not have to wear a shirt to eat breakfast but going to school shirtless was not an option. Apparently Zach choose to not hear that last part.

Pop Pop Game

On one of the blogs I read, linked to this game, which Zach calls the Pop Pop Game. The game is really for older kids, as they are supposed to draw cards or roll dice and then jump on the appropriate letter/number/shape. I made it work for a 2 year old by making cards with a picture of the shape in the color it was on the floor and the numbers 1-5. Using an old piece of bubble wrap I had laying around I glued the pieces to it, cut them out and let him go. He now plays the game on his own, which mainly means he jumps on the pieces saying "Square!", etc. 

I think I will make him another set in a few months with more numbers and letters. He is pretty good with numbers but he only knows the letter Z. Which I take FULL credit for since I cut his bread pieces into the letter Z. And I need to know that I have taught him more than saying "Come on people!" in the car and "Are you serious?" to random people in the grocery store. 

Cousins

My sister and Baby Charlotte flew in to spend the weekend with us and it was a good test run of having 2 children. And by good I mean terrifying. Baby Charlotte is 7 and 1/2 months old and cute as a button! Zach was fascinated with her and kept rolling around like she does, trying to kiss her and sharing his toys then grabbing them from her.

It also turned out to be a good thing that Chuck wears a helmet as he binged her a few times with books on accident. She was not the least bit disturbed.



This picture is an excellent portrayal of what our weekend was like.
Everyone is talking and moving and there is a dog running sprints around us
the entire time. 

Zoo - 2nd try

At the end of our last zoo incident I promised Zach we would go back to the zoo ASAP to see the seals. And I called on my friend Beth and Zach's friend Sophie to join us. Who would NOT want to go to the zoo at 4pm in June? Luckily Beth is my type of gal, always looking for something to do with our kiddos in the afternoon, so she sweetly packed up Sophie and her baby sister Lily and off we went to the zoo. 

Turns out there are not many (aka zero) animals out at 4pm in June. Strange I know. But the kids got to see the seals and elephants who don't care that it is 95 degrees out and we walked around and pretended we could see the other animals. Alex joined us around 5 and the three of them  played tag (or something) and splashed in the fountain. Luckily this time he did not let Zach get in the fountain, which is very surprising I know. 

About this time I was yelling for Zach to stop drinking the water, 

I had a perfectly good cup of water RIGHT HERE!