A new era...

Tim went to check on Micah about an hour and a half after he was put into bed. This is what Tim found: Yep, those are definitely Micah's pants in his hand. I had to turn the lights on and take a picture. Don't worry - before I took the picture, I did throw away the diaper that he also managed to wriggle out of. So we're apparently entering a new phase in Micah's life. The phase where he can take off his own pants and diaper. I guess it wasn't good to be so proactive about him learning how to dress and undress himself. Lesson learned. I put the new diaper on backwards. Let's see how long it takes our little Houdini to work out of that one! If he does, the duct tape is next...

Liam is 5 weeks old

I don't have too much time to blog today. The boys are both napping, but they've been asleep for an hour and I don't have all of my work done yet. I have a feeling that they're not sleeping too much longer so I'll post while I can! Here's Liam's 5 week picture. He's still a little cross-eyed, but we hope he'll outgrow that soon. I convinced Micah to get up on the chair with Liam, something I couldn't get him to do no matter what I tried when we were attempting to get professional portraits taken a few days ago. While I couldn't get him to look at the camera and smile, Micah would at least sit there and point to Liam's toes. I decided to brave the heat and took the boys to the park this morning. Liam slept in his sling. Micah, as always, enjoyed the slide! You'd think he'd been running around in a sprinkler, but he's just sweaty. As is his usual, he's also got one hand on his belly button. Micah has a pretty significant "outie" and has had a particular fascination with it for the last few months. I have an "innie" though, so what would I know about how cool it is to feel your "outie" all the time?

Liam wasn't crying so we took a picture

It turns out that what they (whoever "they" is) say is true: all babies are not alike and just because you have one doesn't mean you're going to have any idea what to do with the second. Liam is a totally different baby than Micah. Where Micah only really cried if he was hungry (not counting the earliest days of his life), Liam is a bonafide fusser. If he's not sleeping or eating, he's fussing. "Fussing" ranges from quiet sounds of displeasure to full-on wails. It's only in rare moments like this one... ...that we can see his handsome face and hope that there will eventually come a day when that face will not spend most of the day with its features arranged this way: Just to be sure that there's nothing wrong with him, we're having a couple of tests run this week. He's on medicine for acid reflux and that seems to have calmed a lot of the spitting up, which was a little violent at times. He's being tested to make sure that he doesn't have other stomach or intestinal issues. Since I have celiac, I'm hypersensitive to those issues, so I'm hoping the tests all come up negative. We should know the answers within a couple of weeks. I'm hoping they tell me I'm crazy for feeling like something is off with him, and they just diagnose him as a fussy baby. While it wouldn't make life easier, it would help to know that nothing more serious is wrong. Thankfully he's thriving, which is the medical term for continuing to gain weight. So even though Liam spits up a lot, he's keeping enough down to please the doctors. He just had his one month appointment and he was in the 98th percentile for height, the 68th percentile for weight, and (the real shocker) the 92nd percentile for his head size. He must take after my side of the family on that one. Tim shared his child-sized head with Micah! Speaking of Tim and Micah, here's a great picture of them playing together with Micah's trains on Father's Day. We'll keep everyone posted on Liam as we find out what's up.

Fun with a fireman's helmet

Today our community had a garage sale. Not many houses chose to participate, but we sold a lot of random stuff that was taking up space in our garage. Our friend Wendy joined us to sell a few of her own things. She also scoped out some other sales around our block and came back with a gift for Micah - a fireman's helmet! This helmet made Micah very excited. He liked to wear it backwards, like a fireman's rally helmet, I guess. Apparently, he felt like the rally helmet gave him special permission to touch everything that he's not normally allowed to touch - like Liam's swing. And our computer keyboard. And our printer. He's lucky he's so cute! I took a short video of him giggling today. There's nothing like a little kid giggling, and this isn't even one of his best giggles. And yes, for all of our friends who are "Star Wars" fans, Micah is definitely wearing a shirt with Darth Vader's picture on it, underneath which is the caption, "Who's your daddy?" Very funny! By the way, we also think Liam's cute too, especially when he's sleeping!

Liam is 4 weeks old today

I got a much better picture of Liam this week than I did last week. Lots of people who have actually seen him in person have commented on how full his lips are. This picture does seem to highlight that. Micah's all about naming body parts recently. Luckily, I think I have him convinced that he shouldn't worry about pointing at Liam's eyes. We've had a few close calls on that one. Today we focused on the dogs' features. They're not much more willing participants, but they can at least run if they feel threatened by Micah's finger coming towards them. Identifying Heinz's nose... ...and Samson's ears. Here he is just looking cute, and it's a good thing I caught him looking cute and was feeling lots of love for him today because I needed this image in my head later in the evening. Check out the next photo. This is what I found after I thought I put Micah to bed and then went back to check on him. I actually found him standing in the drawer that the picture shows him sitting in, and he was throwing out all of his shirts from the drawer two above where he is standing. Note the large pile. I could either cry or photograph it. I chose the latter, but by the time I got back with the camera, Micah had decided that he was guilty of something and was trying to escape. Not fast enough! So he's spending tonight in the pack and play. If I die before I wake up tomorrow, I want everyone to know that I really do fold all of Micah's clothes into neat piles before I put them in the drawers. I just didn't have the energy tonight to refold everything and instead threw it in the drawer much the same way you see it on the floor. It was a REALLY long, rough day today, and this was actually a cute way to end it - but only in hindsight!!

Frustrations of life with two

I'm a big fan of telling it like it is. Although I usually share the good, funny, and fun parts of parenthood on this blog, there are a lot of frustrating parts too. When Micah was a newborn, I took him everywhere and it was never really a big deal. Now that I have two, I'm seeing the world through a whole new set of eyes and a completely new respect for parents with two or more children, especially those with multiples. I could tell the stories here, but the entries would be really long. Suffice it to say that I wish stores put more thought into who their customers are. I know it's asking a lot - before I had children, I wouldn't have thought twice about cart size, having to wait in two different lines to exchange one item, or having to walk the length of a football field with two kids because the only lines open were the ones at the other end of the store from where I was. Now I find myself getting really frustrated in these stores and trying my hardest not to take it out on innocent employees. I have spoken to a lot of managers, and while I'm reasonably certain that me speaking to them isn't going to change their policies, I at least feel better for having spoken my mind. Maybe I have found my calling in life. I've always enjoyed (a little too much) being an advocate for my rights, and maybe I can apply that to motherhood. Maybe I can start an advisory panel of parents and go around to different stores and restaurants and offer our services so that they can become more family-friendly. With our economy in the state that it's in and stores desperate for customers, maybe this idea could really take off! Given my recent experiences, I'd start by taking my panel to these three stores. They need the help! :)

Catching up on the weekend

Our internet router fell victim to a really bad thunderstorm on Friday night, so we have been without service since then. Ugh - three days is a REALLY long time to be without the internet! So I'm trying to catch up on emails and blog updates now. If you sent me something via email and have been waiting for a reply, I promise one will be coming soon! In the meantime, here are some pictures from the last few days of Tim's paternity leave. He's officially back at work today, although he's been doing things here and there, and hasn't missed a Sunday. We went to the beach on Saturday night, and it was Liam's first time there. Here I am with my boys. And before you ask, he looks a little funny in it in this picture, but Liam LOVES his sling. I've had him in it a lot, and he seems to really like the snugness of it and being so close to me. I like the hands-free nature of it! Micah loves to run on the beach. A closer up shot of Liam just hanging out. This is our little engineer building a block tower one night before bed. He's been really into his legos recently, and we loved watching him build this all by himself. Here he is examining his structure... ...and here he is adding the finishing touches until he almost couldn't reach the top. Eating spaghetti, and clearly enjoying it a little too much! Little Liam is getting bigger by the minute, it seems, and he's already starting to fill out his swing a little more and we're grateful that he seems to be learning to enjoy it.

Liam's weekly pic and some funky hair

Liam has already been with us for two weeks. It seems like it's been longer, but perhaps that's because he's already eating as much as a toddler would eat! Well, maybe not that much, but he's not afraid to down the formula, that's for sure. This is his official two week portrait. This is just a cute shot of him on the chair between official picture takes. Right after I took Liam's picture, Micah woke up. Lately his hair has been crazy in the mornings. We're not sure why this started to happen; it was never an issue until right around the time Liam was born. But it's increasingly entertaining to see just what he'll look like in the morning. Today it was so great that I had to get a shot. It's a little blurry because it's hard to get Micah to stop moving, especially when he first gets up, but you'll get the idea. I took another one at breakfast because Micah's expression seemed to be saying, "What? My hair looks great - I don't care what you think." A few days ago, I found clips on YouTube of songs from the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" TV show, which is Micah's favorite. I've started playing them for him once a day. He has to use the headphones because we accidentally sold the power cord for our speakers at our last yard sale. Not the speakers, just the power cord. But he clearly enjoys listening to it and watching the video online. Finally, I wanted to post a picture of the gift that Tim got me for our fifth anniversary. It's the wood anniversary and he surprised me with red roses, which was what my bridal bouquet was composed of, that are made out of wood. They're really beautiful and it was so sweet of him to order me something in the middle of preparing for Liam's arrival and then actually welcoming him to the world. Thank you, Tim!

Pictures from the weekend

I tried to get pictures of everyone this weekend instead of just Micah. So to that end, here's Mum-Mum holding a very content Liam. Alright, I couldn't resist putting this one of Micah in the batch. He seems to be in a contest with himself to see how crazy his hair can be when he wakes up from his nap. Each day is crazier than the day before. And the look on his face in this one is priceless. It's like he's saying, why are you taking my picture again? Aunt Heidi came down to visit over the weekend and meet her newest nephew. Here they are hanging out together. Not sure why Liam looks fuzzy in this picture. He must have moved at the last second. We took a few outings together. The first was to the mall, where Micah got to ride the merry-go-round. Mommy and Daddy are too cheap to pay for the ride, but that's where spoiling from the grandparents comes in! On Saturday, we went over to my parents' timeshare in Orlando again. While over there, we went to Downtown Disney where Micah got to ride the train again - really it's his favorite thing. But it ended up just being too hot to be out, and the only picture I got from Downtown Disney is the one that's at the top of our blog now. Here's a picture of Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop Williams holding the tired grandsons. Finally, Daddy playing with Micah before we got in the car to head back home.