The Daily Doodle

What an exciting time it is – we’re priveledged to see Cole beginning to develop his language skills and to “try out” language concepts.

Today we were talking about yo-yos.  He has a hard time saying the word (preferring not to move his mouth so much).  Eventually, he got it, and we moved on.  Later, when we came back to it (I showed him a picture of the yo-yo and asked “what is it?” he answered “Two yo’s!”

Sometimes the funniest moments happen when you catch your kids so red-handed doing something they’re not supposed to they come up with the oddest things.  Cole had a bit of a red-handed moment today. 

He went down for a nap around 2pm, but with all the morning fun in the sun outside, he was apparently not ready to sleep.  He had been laying in bed singing, talking, playing with his Elmo’s and doing just about everything but sleep.  Around 3:30p Steph heard banging and went in to check on him.  Apparently the wooden letters on the wall above his dresser looked particularly interesting and Cole decided they needed to come down.  He had climbed off his bed and on to the dresser and had just removed the letter ‘e’ when Mom opened the door to his great surprise.  Steph asked, “What are you doing?”

Cole, totally caught, was grinning sheepishly.  He sat there for a second trying to think of something to say, then in a big gesture pointed down the hall and proclaimed ‘Papa!’ (Papa has not been at our house for weeks).  Apparently Papa made him do it.

Our sweet boy is Alex is growing and growing.  He is now interacting more – cooing, tracking with his eyes and granting us the occasional smile. Although he is still sporting his diminutive chin, he also is growing his “Windemuth” cheeks, and is getting rounder by the day.  Our informal weight check on him today measured well over 12 pounds!  This weight gain is evidenced by his constant eating – and lack of long stretches of sleep.  He is typically up at least every 3 hours at night to eat, and eats far more often than that in the day.

May 18 marked two momentous occasions – Alex’s first smile (intentional and non-gas induced) AND Alex’s first “sleeping through the night”.  Although it wasn’t all night, it was a great, long stretch, lasting from 9pm to 4:30am. Wow!  I was thrilled (and desperate to nurse him to ease my growing discomfort).  But alas, it was not to be anything to count on – the next night he was up every 2 to 3 hours again.

May 21, 22, 23 – Alex has been VERY fussy all day.  He simply cries if he is awake.  We’ve dealt with this before, but normally is was in the evening and we assumed it was a colicky period.  This crying-all-day thing is not only emotionally draining, but physically exhausting.  The only thing that makes him stop crying is to nurse him.  He ate almost non-stop on May 22 (Sunday) and I was absolutely drained.  Decided today that I wasn’t doing that again. I’d feed him only when he began rooting, but otherwise I would deal with the crying and try other avenues to sooth him.  He does find sucking to be soothing, so he spent quite a bit of time with a binkie.  Today was better, overall, than yesterday was.

We are heading to Walla Walla this weekend to see that clan.  Hope we survive!