Couch diving

Porchin

DA DEET DEET!!!!!

Our friend Teresa is in town to visit, so we were doing some touristy things, like riding the incline to Mt. Washington. (Spoiler alert - the next sentence is an understatement) Attison was excited. Really excited.

We also got to play on the swing slides in Schenley Park: 

Fun guy

This little guy is really fun.

A-binks....+binks

Attison and Dennis had their 2 year/9 month check ups on Monday.  All is well, they are growing and healthy and, in case you didn't notice, gorgeous. 

Attison still sleeps with his binkey, so we asked the pediatrician about it. She said it was time to go, make it disappear and never come back. "It will be hard for a day or two but he will get over it." she said. Well, we pulled Mr. Binks. It was terrible.  Not terrible in the way I thought though.  I assumed he would be screaming and crying to high heavens for "da binks." He didn't. He just calmly proceeded to get out of his bed and play with toys. For HOURS. When I'd leave him alone in his room he would shake the door and scream "MA MA MA MA MA MA MA MA!!!" When I would go in he would run to his bed, lay down and say "read books Mama." It took 2 1/2 hours to get him to take a nap the 1st day, and 2 hours to get him to bed. 

Tim asked what the harm in the binkey was. I had some ideas, many of which were confirmed by  some online articles I read (Parenting.com, Mayoclinic.com, babysleepsite.com, etc.). The majority of the information I found focused in on between 3-4 giving it up for good.

So I gave him the binks back for a nap. He fell asleep in 2 minutes. For 3 hours. It was amazing. 

Now we have hard and fast rules for the binks - in the bed, only in the bed, while lying horizontally in the bed trying to sleep.  Not in the grocery store. Not in the carseat (unless under extreme circumstances and a loooooooong road trip.) Not while jumping in the bed. Not while playing with trucks next to the bed. Not while sitting on someone's lap reading a book before bed. In the bed. For sleeping.  

We'll worry about it next year, if he is even still interested in it then. 

D has teeth

Just another Friday morning breakfast with the family and I realized D has 2 teeth!  They came out of nowhere!

He has really started chowing down on food.  He lets you put spoon fulls of food in his mouth, but prefers to pick things up himself. He seems to enjoy gumming, and now chewing (!) foods rather than being spoon fed.

He has also started standing up all the time and walking along things, like the window sill or the train table.  Bad news, when he wakes up at night he sits up and has trouble laying back down without assistance, so he just criiiiiiiiiiiiiiies.  It is a bit exhausting to be getting up again after we were sleeping for long stretches for awhile.  They say not to get comfortable about infants sleep patterns, because as soon as they become predictable, something changes (ie. getting teeth) and it all mixes up again.

He is a very, very happy little dude and we think we like him. No, we really absolutely adore him.

Playing with belts