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:

Smiles

Here are a couple recent pictures of my boys:

two little heart-melters

Day of Days

Merry Christmas! Why am I posting at this time on Christmas morning, you ask? Because I am awake and my boys are all still sleeping. Judging from past sleep-in days they may not wake up until around eleven. Do I wake them prematurely? I think at this point in time I am the most excited about Christmas. Our two-year-old hasn't experienced the season enough for anticipation to cause wakefulness and my husband has worked quite a bit with the huge snow storm we had recently. It's lovely to have snow on Christmas but it's also quite nice to have a husband. I think I'll let them sleep. It'll be my gift to them...

Wal-E's here!

And he's been here for two weeks already. I'm definitely behind in updating but I do believe he's part of the reason I'm a little behind in some matters. He's already gained over a pound beyond his birth-weight and is doing a bit more looking around in between all the sleeping and eating. In a way I'm in no hurry to get to the next milestone but at the same time I can't wait to discover his personality because we've had so much fun with our first one! Anyway enough of my writing, here are a few of the (multiple) pictures we have of him:

Number two

I had been meaning to write a birthday post for my boy last Monday but we all came down with a terrible awful cold and have been barely subsisting for the past week. I'm still unable to breathe and have no sense of smell (not to mention residual aches etc) but feel a little more human today. I'm also feeling a little more on the point of giving birth so maybe that's prompting my need to write this now while I still have two free hands.

It's hard to believe that two years have passed since our boy was born. Although it is not hard to believe that he is two years old. He is getting so independent and it's great to see. He's also going through some fairly large transitions these days and I hope they don't overwhelm him.

The first is that we have finally moved him into his own room. He loves it but the last two nights has woken up in the middle of the night and been disoriented (or possibly lonely) in the room by himself so I've found him by the front door crying to have the lights turned on. He has settled back to bed (first time he had to come into our room but the second night he was fine back in his own bed) and I'm hoping that it passes quickly. During the day he loves to bring books onto his bed and set up his little shelf and side-table and there has been no problem getting him to bed at night so I think he's taking it quite well over all.

The second is that he's become amenable to wearing underwear these past few days and has done quite well with it. He was quite good at using the potty during the summer but during and after my kidney stone I haven't worried about dealing with that issue so we've been lazy and stuck mostly to diapers. He's progressed a little at various times but then one day last week when his daddy asked if he wanted to wear underwear he was thrilled to try and fine with keeping it up.

The third, and by far largest, transition is in the works at the moment. I don't think it'll be many days before his little brother makes an appearance. I think he's as prepared as he can be but it will be a major change in his life and I hope will be mostly positive. I do wonder how this change will affect how he deals with the other changes and I only hope that these other milestones will not be affected negatively by having a new baby and a new position in the family.

But whatever happens, I know that he is growing up and is a boy I am thrilled to call mine (mostly through who he is as a person, not stemming much from what I have to do with it...). I've been blessed to be able to spend most of my time these past two years with my sunny son as my companion and I look forward to seeing more of his character as he develops and grows and matures.

virginia creeper berries

Christmas children

Although this boy is due in early December (and I'm ready to have him out any time now), thoughts of Christmas seem to be tied to his birth in my mind. Everything from the fact that Christmas is about birth and new life; to hopes that I will still be able to make and keep meaningful traditions with my family despite the inevitable busyness and exhaustion that come with a newborn; to the reading material I am bringing to the hospital. Logan was born only two weeks earlier than this one's due date but doesn't seem like a Christmas baby to me. We had a small Christmas at home that year. It was larger with the extended family and the last one to take place at Grandma's.

Maybe the difference is that this year with Logan understanding more I feel more urge to make sure our Christmas at home is special for everyone. Maybe, too, seeing all those ideas flooding pinterest has re-inspired me on the varying levels and facets of the beauty of Christmas. Either way, I love Christmas and having my favourite holiday season tied to my second son's birth is okay by me.

Nesting

Now that the due date is less than a month away I have been working more than ever to get things organized and ready around here for our baby's arrival. I've been wondering if it's evidence of the nesting instinct that often is said to be linked to the last little while before a baby is born. I also tried looking back to think if I felt anything of it with my last baby. Perhaps I am not in touch with my inner self but I don't really feel as I think it would feel to be motivated by a nesting instinct. I also think it's more commonly linked to the day/s immediately before giving birth, rather than several weeks before so maybe that has something to do with it. The only thing that changed the day before giving birth last time was that I ate my entire supper that evening (something the baby had been preventing by taking up all the extra room in there). Thinking about my motivation these days I believe it has more to do with desperation and deadlines than any internal instinct. Either way it is good that I have been able to finish a lot of what needs to be done. Now is not the time to let my procrastinationatory tendencies take over because babies can't really be postponed...

Gathering His jewels

Autumn is my favourite season. It has been said (and I usually think it a pleasant thought) that Autumn is a second spring with every leaf a flower. I may have mis-quoted that slightly and I can't remember who said it (and this is a time that I refuse to default to google for my memory but that's another topic) but that's the gist of the quotation. In any case it is a pleasant thought and I do agree but at the same time I think other metaphors are equally powerful in describing the beauty of Autumn and go beyond by exploring the aspect of age that is absent in any springtime metaphors.

This picture, to me, embodies something that I've often felt about leaves but never described or captured quite so well before. When looking at a leaf such as this one in a regular manner it would appear lifeless. The glory of display has left (if it was ever there) and it has fallen into a heap of other seemingly dull dead detritus. But when you see it at the proper angle and it catches the light it becomes a glowing gemstone - something it couldn't be until that moment in time. I could go on about what thoughts this metaphor brings to mind and what lessons I get from this object but I don't have time and I think it might take away from the simplicity of the image.

Fictional musings

I have been doing a bit of editing this past while (and loving it) and have been asked by several different people if I intend on writing anything myself at any time soon. This is a question that I have struggled with on and off ever since starting my University career. Before that time I would write little dribbles of stories and had several more ideas brewing at all times. But then all that was cut off partially by being busy developing actual writing skills (although I never took part in a creative writing workshop so just dealing with the mechanics of writing) and partially by seeing what good writing truly looks like from the inside. I realize now that what I liked to compose during my highschool days were really just written-out daydreams. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I've just passed by the stage in which I want to imagine my life being lived out in a multitude of other ways. What it all comes down to is that I have very little inspiration left.

So now I generally fill any creative writing desire (along with satisfactions of other kinds) with the type of editing I have been doing recently - working with an author to improve a text. But unexpectedly, having been asked to write a review of the text as a whole I found myself plunged into the musings of what writing is all about. The whole process (to a certain extent) came back at me and I found myself asking myself the same questions I have been asked as to why I haven't been writing more.

At just this point in time I was loaned a book written by Fay Weldon called Letters to Alice, on first reading Jane Austen in which Fay writes to a (fictional) niece who is an aspiring writer. The book is a blend of a lovely critique of Austen and of sage, and occasionally off-beat, advice on what it is like to be a writer. This book came to me at the exact time when what she had to say fit perfectly both with what I was hoping to articulate in my review and with what I needed to hear personally.

I still do not know if I shall ever take up my pen to attempt to compose literature (I find that Fay expressed my position better than I could with the simple phrase: "the paralysis of the over-literate") but I now have the urge to work on that side of my creativity more so it's a start. And I have plans on sharing some of my favourite quotes from the book here in the near future so it will not all be in vain in any case. I shall leave you at this point with one of the quotes that should give me a certain amount of comfort: "Fiction is much safer than non-fiction. You can be accused of being boring, but seldom of being wrong."

Orange and Blue