Babysoroos

What a perfect day we had yesterday.

It was one of the best type of fall days — cool, sunny, dry, crisp. We woke up early thanks to the time change, had pancakes for breakfast, and got out to the garden by 9am. We dug beds, we planted LOTS of garlic and some kale, we watered our newly planted raspberries. We built a low stone circle around the fire pit and piled up all the garbage the previous owner had left — soggy magazines and old diaries (1983!) and medical bills and random bits of wood and cardboard. We covered it with scotch broom we’ve been cutting down and added wood and dry kindling and finally got a good fire going.
We made a thick warm potato/corn soup for lunch indoors, then had an afternoon snack and tea at the new picnic table out by the garden.

We stayed out as it got dark, watching the fire burn hot and the stars come out. Timothy fell asleep on my lap and Ben sat on Eric’s and looked for satellites.

The boys both seemed to have so much fun just being outdoors all day, and they certainly slept well!

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And Ahoy Matey!

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with Ben’s preschool. It was a damp day, so we didn’t stay all that long. But we did get a few pumpkins, which we will be carving, and we also got to feel hubbard squash to some very large cows. I think that was the hit of the day, really. Oh, well, that and the cute kittens that followed us around and climbed up people’s legs. 🙂

Again, we got busy. We moved house, we’re getting settled in, my parents came to visit and help with that settling in part (Thanks again, Granny and Granda, for all your help! 🙂 Ben still misses you.), we’ve had stuff to do for Ben’s preschool, we’ve been chasing a VERY mobile baby, and here we are, end of October, and I haven’t posted for a month and a half. Ack.

So, updates.

Ben is great. And very three. Heh. Sometimes we have issues, but mostly he’s fun and engaging once he’s warmed up. He’s got lots and lots of ideas. Last week, we were stumped for a dinner idea, so Ben decided for us. “Two cans of pinto beans…. one can of corn… maybe some pasta. And tomatoes.” And then he proceeded to get all the ingredients out, open the cans (with help, of course) and helped me make his dinner. It was good too — I just added a few spices and we had Mexican pasta sauce.
Timothy is getting more and more mobile. He can stand for long periods, cruise anywhere, climb the stairs if you blink…. He even took a couple of steps all on his own on Granny and Granda’s last night here. Then nothing for a week or more, but he was doing it again tonight. Two steps, on his own, then flop into my lap. He’s going to be walking soon, I’m sure. On the other end of the development spectrum, he’s still not eating much food. He makes the funniest face as soon as he gets anything on his tongue. We keep trying, but mostly he wears it or plays with it. Someday it will click, I’m sure. And he’s not exactly looking starved.

We’re loving the house. We spend a lot of time outdoors, the boys both love being outside and there’s plenty of stuff for all of us to do out there. We planted a bunch of flower bulbs last weekend, Ben loved helping with that.

Here are just a few recent photos. I still have some summer ones I want to share too.

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Wow, it’s been a month.

I had computer problems which prevented me from posting for a couple of weeks, and we’ve been sorting and packing and getting ready to move house, and unpacking and organizing and sewing things to help get Ben’s co-op preschool ready to start the new year in a new space. It’s been a little hectic. And once I let the blog go for a week or two, it’s so hard to get back into it.

News about Timothy: We’ve had a little bit of a development spurt. He’s CRAWLING. That started almost two weeks ago, on Wednesday Aug 28th. One day, he woke up and just got it. And crawled across the room. Then he started trying to get up the steps from our living room to our dining room. There’s only two, and he mastered that within a couple of days. Now he’s pulling up on things — couch, coffee table, laundry basket, anyone who stands still for 10 seconds — and can get up to standing in no time. He even let go briefly yesterday. And he’s climbing the wooden stairs at the new house. He got up 3 of them today, and probably could’ve kept going if I hadn’t spoiled his fun by lifting him down. 🙂

Packing up to move house with a newly mobile baby makes babyproofing a whole new problem.

News about Ben: He started preschool again today. He went two mornings a week to the toddler class last year, and did pretty well. This year, he’s in the older preschool class, 3 and 4 year olds, and goes 3 mornings a week. I work in the classroom 1 morning a week. It’s a fairly large class at this stage — 11 kids, only some of whom he knows — so he was a bit reserved (okay, downright clingy and silent) this morning, but even by the end of today’s class he was warming up slightly. I think another few days and he’ll be fine. Apart from school, he’s doing great. He’s so talkative, sometimes telling stories he’s made up, sometimes repeating (over and over and over) things he’s heard, sometimes just talking nonsense and making up words. And often asking questions. We’ve entered the “why?” phase. HOW long does this last???

News about the house: It closed last Thursday, and we move this Friday. We’ve been over there a lot, Eric’s been working (with help) on finishing what is to be his office space and installing bamboo floor. It’s such a wonderful place to be. 2 acres, very private, some wooded, some cleared. The back door opens from the kitchen into a huge (~ 1 acre?) fully fenced yard. Can’t wait to be living there full time.

Photos soon as I get through the backlog.

I finally finished Timothy’s quilt on Friday night. Just in time to enter it as an exhibit in the Island County Fair! We’ll get it back in a week to actually start using.

The green and blue fabric is little hippos, and the blue with orange and green on it is elephants. The others are all just random patterns.

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Little T is getting bigger.  I can’t believe he’s six months old already.

He can sit up totally unassisted for long periods. He’s trying desperately to crawl, but so far that just means he pushes himself backwards until he runs into something. He’s really trying to get his knees up under him, though, and I don’t expect it will be long before he figures it out. I’ve seen him up on toes and hands a couple of times. He loves to stand, holding onto our hands or in one of the various standing-baby devices we have.  When he’s holding onto us, he even takes steps and wanders around.  He’s babbling a lot, different sounds and with lots of intonations. He laughs a lot. He loves watching his big brother — one of the sweetest things about being a mum of two is seeing his little face light up and a smile appear just at the sight of Ben. Ben is still being a great big brother, loves to hold and cuddle Timothy, and often tells us what a nice baby he is. Occasionally, of course, he pushes him over or tries to drag him around by the foot, but I suppose that’s standard fare for being brothers… and at some point, Timothy will start fighting back. 🙂

Six month pictures to be taken later today, I’ll try to get them up tonight or tomorrow.

Today we met some of our preschool friends at one of the parks near us. Beautiful sunny day, with a nice breeze from the water. Ben decided to fly to “real Florida.”

This evening, we decided to let Timothy try some mango. He’s been desperately trying to grab our plates and our food for a month now, so much that it makes eating very difficult if you’re trying to hold him. We’ve let him have tiny tastes of a couple of things so far, and given him some food to play with on his high chair tray (banana slices are fun to mush! but not to eat! and green beans are great to gum!) but tonight we put a couple of chunks of frozen mango in the Baby Safe Feeder. Love that thing! He was able to hold on to it, shove it in his mouth and get the flavor and juice through the net bag, but no danger of choking. His first reaction wasn’t real sure, but then he seemed to get quite into it.

And lastly, a short video clip of Timothy babbling. He’s actually regularly saying both “mamamamama” and “dadadadada” — but he doesn’t quite appear to have meaning attached to them yet. 😉

Spent a little time at the beach by the marina in Langley yesterday. Just playing with the sand. And one of us was eating it. 😉