Waaaaah

Sorry about the absence of posts lately. As I've said before, if the blog's not getting updated, we're up to our ears. Just wanted to give you a brief update on things that have been going on here over the last while.

Last Tuesday (the 11th), Max and Leo's grandma (my mom) came to visit from Winnipeg and we all had a wonderful time together. She brought treats from her recent trip to NYC, lots of energy for hanging out with Max and a magical touch with Leo. We pulled Max from daycare for three days and I took two of those days off work to visit. We visited three different wading pools over the course of the week, where Max would cavort, Holly would tan and grandma would soothe Leo. We were all so happy to be having our first summer weather (Winnipeg got hit pretty hard with the rain in July too, although Ottawa doubled their precipitation. Take that Winnipeggers! 240 mm in one month!). We ate well read a book or fifty, had family and friends over a few times and even had a road trip out to the Carp Farmer's Market (and ice cream at Carleton Place, of course) on the Saturday. All in all, we had a great time and I know Max is looking forward to the next visit. Leo will have to grow up a bit to know what he's missing. Here are some pictures:






Max is coming along fine. He's starting to get what I think is a minor version of night terrors. He wakes up crying a couple of times a night, but actually manages to soothe himself back to sleep relatively quickly. It's hard to hear him sound that upset! To mix things up a bit, he also talks in his sleep a couple of times a night, saying "No", "Mine" and "Go". Possessive, even in his dreams. We're trying to get him away from telling people to "go" when he's upset, but it seems like it's his go-to outlet at the moment. New words lately that make me smile: "No, thank you", "alligator", "zebra", "yogurt" (yo-lo), "scooter" and his rendition of the Bob the Builder theme song "Baaaaduh. Dee tho deeess!" The best is when I repeat to him the way he sings it and he says "No. Bob" as in "Dad, are you listening to what I'm saying? You're doing it all wrong!". Tonight, he also let us know that he might be all done with his high chair. Wow. A real big boy bed and potty training are on the horizon, so I guess it makes sense. I also realized at the mall today (with Max) that sometime over the last 2-3 months, he has pretty much started to walk everywhere and the only reason to put him in a stroller is to go long distances or to get somewhere in a hurry. Anyway, we love Max and are constantly fascinated by him.

Leo is also developing. 7 weeks already! Over the past week/10 days, he has started doing two things that have pretty much opposite impacts on us. #1: Leo's been spending a lot more time awake and, better yet, more of that awake time has been spent quietly with eyes wide open and no crying. While that's been pretty cool, finally starting to feel like we can connect with our boy, #2: Leo has started having serious screaming jags during which he is virtually inconsolable. We were lucky enough to not have to go through much of this with Max, but man, can Leo give 'er when he wants. We think that it's mostly gas-related, but when Leo gets really wound up, he's not usually that good at getting it through his system. Hence, the chicken/egg dance begins where we kind of have to get him to settle down to get the gas out, but because he's gassy, he's hard to settle down. These outbursts don't tend to last longer than 3-4 hours when they happen, but that's long enough. People who have to go through full-blown all-day colic have my deepest sympathy. I guess the only other development with Leo is that he's generally learned to stop peeing on me and to save it all for his mom. So that's pretty cool.

Here are some more pictures of the rugrats: