Messy but beautiful

It's been a busy, hard, exhilarating, and exhausting few months.

We have a lot of poop explosions in this house, so we've started putting Niall on the potty in the morning, which saves on diaper and clothing laundry.

"Ba ba," who has been living with us since May but who is headed home, leaving us as a family of four, took these great pictures of us at bedtime tonight. My hair is a mess and Iver looks a bit strange in his much-loved oversized tie-dye tee as a sleep gown, but we are all smiling. Life/work/kids have been really challenging lately, and I'm not sure how we're going to stay fed and sane without my MIL with us, but I suppose it will work out somehow (although probably very messily).

We owe this woman so much for keeping things together these last four months and helping our boys thrive while we try to stay afloat in our emotionally demanding and time-consuming jobs. 

Brothers at the Judo Hut

Doesn't this melt your heart? This makes me feel I did something right.

Here is a funny random snapshot of "sunbathing" (animal surveying) on our deck this week

I am thankful for supportive family and spouse, two healthy kids, and a much-needed break. Life is messy but yes, oh so beautiful.

Fair Day

I am getting a bit tired of the local fairs-- same rides, same overpriced bad-for-you food, but Iver sure loves them, so on Saturday, we headed to Ferndale for the Humboldt County Fair.

Pictures with Smokey the bear (California has sure had our share of forest fires this year)

 

Binoculars from a goody bag

(backwards and upside-down but in style!)

The barnyard animals are always a hit!

"It's a zebra, not a sheep!" - Iver

Being cold after our treats

In the bleachers watching a parrot show!

 

Swing men

The boys have enjoyed Pierson Park's Thursday night park series!

Milestones

Iver (3 years, 8 months) figures out chopsticks.

Niall (6 months) sits independently!

A heavy load

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground... The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”  

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being  

 

a boy and his bike

 We've had a lovely summer of sunny days and Iver loves riding his bike(s)!

Here is "bike day" at school with his Strider, balance bike.

Here's his "big boy" bike with training wheels

He loves dancing to the Blue ("Macarena") ice cream truck which comes around our neighborhood (although, thankfully, I'm not sure he knows that it sells ice cream) and which cracks up the driver. Sometimes he confuses it with the mail truck and dances when he sees the latter one, too!

Niall's 6-month update

 

At 6 months, Niall

- weighs 16 lbs (18%), a bit more than Iver was at this stage

- wears 6- and 6-9-month clothing

- still has gorgeous big eyes (turning more brown than gray) and dimples, and a winning smile and even cuter laugh

- drinks exclusively breast milk (breastfed when I'm home, pumped milk when I'm at work where he will drink about three 6-oz bottles in a 10-11-hour work day).  We have been gently introducing solids in the past week-- he's doing okay with cereal but hasn't liked sweet potatoes or bananas.

- still spits up, but it seems far less in volume than in the past.

- is in cloth diapers during the day and size 3 overnight Huggies at night; he loves diaper changes!

- stays home with bà nội for another two weeks, after which he will head to daycare with big brother

- sleeps in his crib in our room at night and does very well. He goes down with a few songs and patting between 7:00 and 8 p.m (sometimes, in under a minute). He is waking 1-2x per night, often doing a 7-hour initial stretch (until 2-3 a.m.), when I feed him, and then he's back down for another 2-4-hour stretch until about 6:00 or 6:30 a.m.  He seems to prefer to sleep on his stomach, rolling over soon after we place him on his back to sleep.  I don't nurse him if he wakes before the 6- hour mark, so he soothes himself back to sleep at his sometimes-11-p.m or 1 a.m.-waking. This seems to work fine for us right now, as I constantly feel anxious about my milk supply while working and on call, but I think in a month or so, we will start trying to stretch his initial sleep stretch out to 3 a.m. then, with hope, 4 a.m. or beyond (apparently 1-week-younger cousin Klian has been successfully sleep trained to sleep 11-12 hours straight!). It would be beyond my wildest dreams to have a baby that slept 11-12 hours at night (even with one waking-- I think we barely got 10 hours total ever out of Iver), so I don't expect this to happen, but even an 8-hour stretch would be amazing!  His (about 3) naps are less predictable and sometimes as short as 30 min., frustrating my mother-in-law often , but he naps well in the car or stroller (and I will take a nighttime sleeper over a napper any day!)

- loves rolling around (and across) the floor and the crib and scooting around; he seems to want to crawl (Iver crawled at just around 7 months)

- likes to be forward facing in the baby carrier or stroller

- can sit supported, in the high chair, and in a tripod position, but only for a few seconds independently before he topples over

- loves "talking," squeals, and giggles when his brother sings, dances or talks with him

 Alas, we couldn't get a good smile out of his posed photos!
 

Spot the baby (who started by me)

Morning potty time

All smiles!

Sharing mama's love of reading

First bites of solids

 

Here is what Iver was doing at 6 months. 

We survived half a year with two children!