Walter Laughed!

While he was falling asleep on my lap this morning he laughed three times! I've seen babies smile or suck their tongues while falling asleep but I have never witnessed this before. It's the first laughter I've heard from him and was so natural and adorable.

Okay, that's my best birthday present. Ever. He is the sunniest baby I've ever met.

Development

I realize that it's been a while since I've written about the latest developments of my boys. I think the last update of this kind I wrote right before giving birth (I think the day of). So here are a few things that the boys are doing now that are enough to melt any heart (at least in my opinion) and that I will appreciate remembering in the future.

Logan is a wonderful big brother. He has very little problem with sharing his blankies with Walter - even voluntarily removing some from his bed to give to Walter in case Walter's feeling cold. There have been a few times when he's asked Walter to share the blankie, too, but I don't mind giving it up and getting another one for Walter because sharing ought to be a two-way street. I'm really happy that I have so many receiving blankets so there are plenty to go 'round. Logan's speaking so much more the past few months. He is still only forming simple sentences but his vocabulary is extensive. At times he fills in the articles and other extraneous words with a repeating sound that he places between the nouns and verbs. So the string is structured as a sentence but only with the necessary words pronounced. For the past month or so (at least, perhaps longer) Logan counts saying: "one...three...nine...ten...". He knows other numbers, recognizes the numerals 1, 4, 5, and calls the 3 'eight' (a similar shape) but always returns to this when counting to himself. He also knows and can name most of the colours, the basic shapes, a few letters, and can almost spell his name.

Walter is such a sociable baby. I saw his first smile only a week or two after his birth and within a month he was defying convention by smiling at people (especially his daddy) and cooing quickly followed (along with aspirated sounds that are freakishly close to 'hi'). I have a sneaking suspicion that he is an extrovert. The few times we have been out with piles of people he has been happy and alert (not to mention charming) the entire time. Not that he isn't happy, alert, and charming when it's just us at home but it's a little unusual for a baby to be quite so consistently content in a crowd. He's growing extremely quickly and I've had to pack away a couple boxes of clothes that he's outgrown (half of which before he had a chance to wear them). He's just over fourteen pounds and turned two months yesterday. But he's not just chubby - part of the reason he's outgrown these clothes is because they don't fit length-wise. Although he's fairly hefty, he's also fairly strong and has held his own head up from the start - no mean feat with the size of his cheeks and chins (although perhaps the chins help support the head and the cheeks act as ballast...).

I love comparing the two and I'm not worried about either losing by comparison. They are different and I love them differently. As Mom said, we love each child with our whole heart but not the same way. They are different and it would be impossible to love them exactly the same. Love doesn't follow the rules of mathematics.

Cheese

Boys

Wendell Berry on discrimination

“Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred” - Wendell Berry

The quote was taken from the following article: http://abpnews.com/culture/social-issues/item/8130-wendell-berry-expounds-on-gay-marriage#.UPWd-x1LUg2 I am not hoping to raise this issue here but have found, as usual, that his argument is balanced, fresh, and compelling.

These pictures are completely unrelated to this post but I have a problem with blogger in that they do not show my paragraph breaks so the only way I have found to break up the text is to insert an image. I'm sure there is some way to get around this but I haven't found it yet. Hence the pictures.

My stars

I have a feeling that this is just the start of my boys being a pair one way or another.

Isn't it fun?

Chubs

I didn't really realize just how large my boy was getting until a day or two ago we visited a newborn (just over a month younger than he) who is half his weight! He was born over a pound heavier than she and with larger head, feet, and hands so with what he's gained in the past month he looks like a real bruiser beside the teeny girl. I don't have any pictures from the meeting but here's a recent one of the start of some rolls...

Snowy Day

It's 2013! I believe that's the first time I've written the date this year. Despite ringing the year in in memorable style, it'll take a few more times of writing it down for it to sink in that we're in a new year. James took our big boy out to play in the snow and watch the machines remove the snowbanks from our street. They were out there at least three hours today and, miraculously, the baby slept the whole time. So I was able to clear a lot of the papers off the table/desk. Hopefully this means it will be easier to get necessary things accomplished in the coming days and weeks. I was also able to get a few pictures of some of their fun while I brought them out some water part-way through. And here are a few of the few pictures I took...

Oh, and here's one of some of the action from inside the house: