Isaac Speaks

It's funny how as a parent you assume certain things will be the same for every child just because that's how it was for your first one. It's a crazy idea of course but Taylor and I seem to fall into that trap so often.
Isaac has been such a joy and blessing in our home and so very different from Ethan. Ethan has this intense sense of right and wrong and that has made parenting fairly easy with him because he really wants to do what's right. Honestly. When we go for walks he rides ahead and stops right before the curb. He literally stops right at the line and looks back and waits for us. He never crosses the line even. That's the general pattern in the rest of his life too. If you tell him to not do something- he doesn't.
Isaac has not been as easy. He runs full steam ahead and only turns around to make sure you're watching him before he flashes you a smile and then darts into the road. It's not that he doesn't have a sense of right and wrong, he just cares more about having fun... and in his little mind EVERYTHING is fun! He's mischievous and a big tease and oh so much fun to have around. The world is literally his playground and everything is something exciting to climb on or jump off of or throw.
While Ethan makes me smile and appreciate what a good boy he is most days, Isaac either makes me pull my hair out or laugh my head off- not much in between there. So they're both a good pair to have together.
It's been sad for Isaac lately that because Ethan is getting older, he gets to do more things. He goes to preschool everyday and Taylor's dad has started taking him skiing on weekends. Isaac is not only sad to not get to go, but he misses his little friend too.
Last Saturday Taylor was out of town and his dad took Ethan up skiing. Miles was napping and I let myself get engrossed in a book. Poor Isaac played with his little Toy Story figures for almost the entire morning. He made them talk to each other and every once in a while I'd hear a fake scream and look over to see that the evil Zurg was attacking someone. He even insisted we do a photo shoot of his guys.
The biggest development has been that Isaac has started talking. Before Miles was born he probably said 4 or 5 words max. He didn't need any more than that it seemed and preferred to grunt and point. His vocabulary has exploded since then and I have to record some of his cute words for myself to remember in later years. So you can skip the next paragraph- it's just for me :)
pillow=pil-a-bow, buzz lightyear= buh-by-year, dinosaurs= din-oars, Ethan= E-tan, Isaac= I-gick, Miles= Mi-yuls, Grams= gwams, Grandpa= ba-pa, Grandma Tina= Gam Teen, Grandpa Pat= pa-pa-pat, Utah= jew=tah, pirate= pie-yet, penguin= we-wingo
Last night I left the boys with Taylor and went to a movie with some friends. I was up feeding Miles and then took him down to Taylor to drop him off and leave. Ethan and Isaac were watching Taylor play a video game. Isaac looked at me and said "get out" in a very commanding voice. I laughed and said, oh is this your boys night. He smiled and said again "ged-out!" So I did. And it was nice to have a girls night of my own but boy do I love all my boys- even if they look like zombies watching a video game.

Chinese Water Torture for a Baby

So I know it's not nice to laugh at someone but this cracked me up. At some point while I was making dinner and Ethan and Isaac were running around playing, one of them decided to be nice and brought Miles a toy. They were even thoughtful enough to put his little hand through the circle so he wouldn't drop the toy. Tragically this became a form of torture to poor Miles who could not figure out how to get it either farther up his arm and thus to his mouth where he wanted it, or down his arm farther where his hands could grab it and thus get it to his mouth. I seriously died laughing at him waving his arm around and both hands furiously clasping and unclasping trying to get the toy. You can even see in the picture his poor hands look so intent on getting the toy.
Luckily mommy came to the rescue. Toy-in-mouth=heaven!

Bad Passport Pictures

When I go to get a drivers license or some other government form of ID I always know that the picture is going to be terrible. It's like the people can't take a good picture of someone or else maybe they just delight in knowing you have to keep the terrible picture, in your wallet, for other people to make fun of... FOR YEARS! It probably doesn't help that I had to renew my license when I was 8 months pregnant with Isaac and then had to change it to a Utah license when I was 7 months pregnant with Miles.
But you'd think the picture people would take pity on a baby. Maybe they're just mean or maybe they really CAN'T take a good picture. Cause I have MILLIONS of cute pictures of all 3 of my babies. I personally find it hard to take bad pictures of them- okay except for the bugsy pictures but Miles is outgrowing that.
So yesterday when Miles' passport came in the mail I just had to laugh. Three in a row. Three boys. Three bad passport pictures. Ethan is totally washed out (okay and he has the Lloyd Christmas haircut from Dumb and Dumber which is my fault not the picture takers). Isaac looks like he hasn't slept in 3 days (which maybe will be accurate when a customs agent looks at him and the picture will match). And now Miles looks like some guy out of a DUI photo (and of course I forgot to dress him in something neutral so there's a monster on his belly in the picture).
Oh well, at least they only have to keep them for 5 years.

C is for Cookie

When I woke up at 5:45 to nurse Miles yesterday morning and heard the crazy wind blowing something around outside I thought... Uh-oh. Snow. And sure enough there was the white stuff. Although it was forecasted to be mostly sunny Thursday, it was indeed snowing and continued to snow most of the day. When it's overcast and snowing our house stays fairly cold. We have this great window/sun room that gets nice and toasty when it's sunny but when it's not sunny it's literally 6 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. Which is cold. For me. And since this is where all the toys and our couches are, it definitely affects my day.
So I decided to warm the house up by baking cookies instead. You can see Miles was very helpful.
At least he was entertaining. He was just SURE that he could get that cookie cutter to fit somehow.

Isaac (thankfully) didn't want to help. Things get messy with flour and sugar and a 2 year old. Playdough was a great distraction.

And there were nice flowers from my sweet husband to enjoy (even though we agreed to not get each other anything for Valentines Day- cheater!).

And even though it took me all day to make the dough, bake them, and then frost them after the kids were in bed, they sure do look yummy.

Yummy enough to make one child refuse to eat his breakfast. Yummy enough to say "cookie" 44 times in a row in the time it took me to drive Ethan halfway to preschool this morning (which is like 4 minutes total). Imagine all the ways you could beg for a cookie as a 2 year old. Cookie in a plea. Cookie in a command. Cookie screaming. Cookie crying. Cookie in a long drawn out "I'm going to die without it" sob. 44 times! Trust me. I counted.

So when we got home Isaac climbed back up in his chair, wolfed down the rest of his cereal (since that was the only requirement in the first place for earning a cookie) and then savored his soft, pink, heart-shaped cookie. And he's been an angel the rest of the day.

Of course he refused to open his eyes for a picture of him eating the cookie. Guess I can't have it all.

Good Brothers

I have to give them credit. Ethan and Isaac are really good brothers to Miles. Isaac brought him his favorite train- nevermind that there's a ribbon tied to the front so that it can be pulled and Miles of course found that part to chew on.

And Ethan gets down on the floor to entertain and talk to Miles.

And he brings him cars to drive around. Someday Miles will appreciate this more.

And when I'm desperate for an extra pair of hands, Ethan will even step in and feed Miles.

And no matter the chaos in our house, any night that ends with prayers like this...

is a good night.

Miles and his Fishy Chair

My mom bought us this blue "fishy chair" before Ethan was born. It's been well-used. I used to drag it into the bathroom with Ethan so I could reach out of the shower and put his binky back in his mouth every time it fell out. (This was before I realized I deserved to shower in peace and it wouldn't kill a child to let them cry for 5 minutes) With Isaac it got dragged around our apartment so that he could be entertained while I taught Joyschool to Ethan and his little friends. And now it is Miles' best friend. Amazingly, Miles is the first one to actually "bounce" in the seat. He kicks his legs up and down and full on bounces. I'm sure I should be following his example and I'd have rock hard abs like he does.

The Zoo Run

Since the title of the last post was stir-crazy perhaps you've guessed the mood around our house lately with the cold/cloudy weather. We haven't gotten out much lately and it's starting to wear on all our nerves.
So today when the boys got up from naps and 5 minutes later they were already fighting over army men for the 3rd time, I decided we needed to take some action.
It was still just in the 40's (okay I'm a wimp in cold weather) but sunny so we headed off to the zoo. It was almost completely empty and most of the animals were inside so you couldn't see them, but Ethan and Isaac didn't seem to care. They were "running" through the zoo anyways. Run, oh look there's a monkey, run again, oh look a tiger, run some more. You get the picture. Luckily they have short legs and I can keep up with them. They got out lots of energy though which was fabulous. I wasn't even going to blog about a basic visit to the zoo but there was one experience or several actually that were absolutely hilarious.
The first exhibit we went to was the monkeys, some of which were actually outside in their yard which has a covered netting and is behind a wooden rail fence. As we approached we saw a family there admiring a huge peacock perched on the fence. (At Hogle Zoo they let turkeys, chickens, peacocks, and in the winter lots of geese wander the grounds.) The peacock jumped off the fence and started walking down the sidewalk. Apparently Isaac thought the peacock was supposed to be in the cage with the monkeys because he ran right up to it, pointed his finger at him and yelled "NO! NO! JUMP BACK!"
I just about died laughing. He kept yelling at the peacock and I had to drag him away. Later in our trip we met some geese on the path and he yelled at them too. They started honking loudly back and he put his little finger to his mouth and said "SHHHH!" Then ordered them also to jump back.
Couldn't resist a picture of the new baby giraffe.

And this is how Miles enjoyed the trip.

Ethan and Isaac were more intested in running and climbing statues than the actual animals which was fine by me.

And of course the water ball. A great way to get them to run on a winter day if you ask me.

Stir-crazy

Isaac gave us a little scare last week. He had eczema as a child and reacted adversely to a few peanut-butter crackers he got a hold of almost a year ago. His face would get a big rash but that's about the only reaction he had to nuts. We assumed he had some kind of nut allergy so we've tried to keep them out of our house and away from him and he's been fine.
Then last month he went to a neighbors birthday party and there was a reese's peanut butter cup in his little treat bag that I didn't notice until I found the empty wrapper. He had no reaction which I thought was a good sign. And then he also ate some chicken with pine nuts on them and again no reaction so I thought- yeah! maybe he's not allergic anymore.
So I wasn't really thinking last week when I left a half-eaten bowl of mixed nuts sitting by the computer. We got back from the grocery store and I was halfway through unpacking when Isaac brought me the bowl with only 3 almonds left (apparently he doesn't like almost) and asked for "more". Ethan confirmed that it was Isaac that ate the nuts. But since he hadn't reacted the previous 2 times I didn't think much of it. Throughout the evening, his face got red, then it looked like it was swollen, his nose started to run, and he started coughing. Being an idiot, I thought- oh great he's getting a cold! Seriously I didn't piece things together until I was putting him in his pajamas and noticed his head-to-toe rash that he was scratching furiously.
A trip to the pharmacist, a dose of Benadryl, and a sleepless night for us later, he was fine. Sadly we have to ban nuts from our house again. Oh well! At least he's fine and we avoided an expensive ER trip.
He spent the next day happily playing with his baby (still in pajamas as I was catching up on missed sleep).
Miles still has his Bugsy moments.

But he's starting to really love tummy time. It doesn't hurt that his brothers bring him toys to look at- monocromatic even!

And he's almost rolling. He is happy on the floor but will kick his feet and follow you around the room with his head and make little squeaks to be picked up. He's a little charmer.