Nic Talking in the Morning

Nic is 4 Months Old!

Our big man is now 12 pounds 10 ounces and 26 inches long. His weight went down to the 25th percentile while his height jumped up to the 75th. We have a very tall and skinny baby on our hands!

He is getting over his cold that led to his ear infection, but is still quite smiley most of the time. He is laughing more and more now and loves to hear the sound of his own voice. We'll upload a video of him talking soon!

Give a daddy a camera...

Today was an eventful day. Nora had a dance recital this morning, and so I came to watch, equipped with an arsenal of photographic equipment which I borrowed from a friend. Despite my lack of expertise in properly setting up the camera, I was pretty happy to see how some of the pics turned out.

After the dance recital, we headed to Golden Gardens park in Ballard. We met up with an old friend who is visiting from Wisconsin and had a picnic on the beach. It was only about 40 degrees when we got there and we almost decided not to do it, but then our friends showed up with firewood and all was well. April made some amazing picnic food and Nora spent the afternoon flying kites and playing in the sand.

Here are some of the highlights:

Playing Outside

 
After a day of staying home with Daddy, Nora is feeling much better. I knew they had fun together because when I got home the house was trashed. Every fun activity imaginable must have been played! Nora finished out her day with some fun in the yard climbing our Japanese Maple and playing in the dirt.

Thank goodness for antibiotics!

Feeling Better

 

Nora has STREP!

Now both kiddos are going to be on antibiotics! Hopefully no one else in our house will get it. Nora is a mess. High fever and feeling terrible. No wonder she was up in the night five or six times!

Going to sleep all by herself

We have finally reached an important milestone in our house. This is the third consecutive night that Nora has gone to sleep by herself.

The bedtime routine around here has been quite complex for the past several months. Roles were divided up between April and I. There was the "reader" (usually me), who was responsible for reading Nora's bedtime stories to her, and then the "sleeper" (usually April), who would sit in the beanbag next to her bed and read a magazine until she fell asleep. On certain nights when she was feeling particularly gregarious, Nora would chat April up until well after 9:00...at which point April would come out into the living room and designate me the "Backup Sleeper".

With April's impending return to school, we knew we had to put this to an end. Previous attempts to do this had met with spectacular failure so I must admit I was not optimistic at first. But tonight, I think we have finally made a breakthrough. I only hope that by writing this I am not going to jinx it.

EAR INFECTION!!

Yes you read that right, Nic has an ear infection in his right ear. Here we go!

Sleep Routine

We've started a new sleeping routine around here. We've got to get rid of these 9:00 bedtimes around here! Nora and I made a visual chart last night that she puts stickers on after she completes each part of the night time routine. The biggest goal is for her to put herself to sleep. She was in bed at 7:00 and asleep, on her own accord, by 7:20! I guess the promise of going to get an ice cream cone today worked! Now we'll move to two nights before a big reward, then three, and so on.

I think we've always been pretty consistent about the getting-ready-for-bed routine, but the time we start it has been too late. I think that maybe we've just been missing her 'window' and then she's so tired that she wants to stay up and protest going to sleep for two hours. Because she will only go to sleep with me, I needed to make a change for my sanity.

For those of you that have children that want to go to sleep at night, you are SO lucky. I'm sure there is more than luck that goes into it, so we're trying something new. I go back to work on Monday and we need to have her sleep time be long before 9:00 at night. My sanity is not going to handle a three year old protesting sleep and 5th graders at the same time ;-)

Auntie Nessa

 
Whatcha think?

Blowing in the wind

Petrified Forest

On Saturday we drove out to Ellensburg to have lunch with Auntie Pea. After lunch we continued east to the banks of the Columbia River, and stopped to take a look at the scenery. It's hard to believe that only 2 hours in the car could take us to a place that looks so much different than home. We even saw tumbleweeds blowing across the highway.

This picture is from the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park. A few million years ago, this part of the state was covered with trees. The wind was blowing like crazy...Nora and I were struggling to walk against it.

Giggles & Sleeping

It's official, Nic is giggling! Daddy is the primary receiver of the giggles, but I've gotten my fair share of giggles in the past couple of days. The belly laughs usually start to come out when he's playing Patty Cake and bouncing up and down.

On another note, Nic is sleeping about 11 hours at night! It is amazing to have such a wonderful sleeper that can be put down easily. Gone are the days of rocking and singing for hours before being able to lay down the baby. We wrap Nic in the Miracle Blanket, put the pacifier in his mouth and lay him sideways across our chest (coincidentally, the same position that he always fell asleep in while nursing :-). After a couple of minutes of tapping on his butt (that's what I did when I was preggo to calm him down), he's out and can be laid down without waking up. Now if we could just give Nora a couple of taps on the butt and she was out too, we'd be in business!

Picnic

 

Beautiful day for sailing

 

Golden Gardens Park

 

Saturday afternoon picnic

 

We went to the beach on Saturday afternoon, where we had a picnic and enjoyed some of the balmy 60-degree weather we had on Saturday. These pictures were taken at Golden Gardens Park, on the far west side of Ballard.

Nic is Three Months Old!

 

 

 

 

Today, Nic is three months old. He weighed in tonight at a whopping 13 pounds!

He is smiling more and more every day, and his cute little baby burps are starting to transform into deeper, more percussive Homer Simpson-style belches.

Milwaukee Children's Museum

That smile should give you a good idea of how she acted at the museum!

Nora meets Baby Joseph

Joseph is the son of our good friends Jay and Jessica. You can check out their blog that is listed on the side under Baby Conway. I guess I should change that since he has a name now!