Update

Another month has gone by since I've sat down to write something here.  Life is busy, that never changes, but there always seems to be new things to be busy with, which is nice!  This post will be written in short spurts, so it probably will take me a few days to write.  Aaron has been showing some interest in toilet-training for the last little while, but I didn't want to push it too early.  We started yesterday with some dedication, with great success for the first days.  Of course, there are accidents, but he knows what he's supposed to be doing and he's quite intrigued by the fact that he gets to wear underwear.  I can hardly hope for it to be as easy a task as it was with Peter (who hates to be dirty in any way) but he's pretty motivated by the fish stickers that he gets every time he pees on the toilet.  Of course, Peter wants in on the sticker action as well, so he's got his own milestones that he has to accomplish if he wants to get a sticker too.
Nate is eight months old now - I was going to say almost eight months but a quick look at the calendar reminds me that I'm losing track of time.  Eight months eh?  He sits quite well on his own now with only the occasional tip-over, and he's up on his hands and knees a lot of the time now, rocking back and forth and on the brink of discovering crawling.  And oh, the joy to be mobile like your brothers!  I remember the first few days when Aaron had figured out crawling, and he would stop every once in a while and just clap out of joy that he could move at will.  Nate isn't clapping yet like Aaron was at this age, but I asked him for a kiss this morning and he leaned over and gave me a nice slobbery one, one of those ones that you don't really want unless you're a parent, or at least pretty closely related to the genetics of that slobber.  I didn't mind at all!  He was really drooling for a while, and finally last week his second tooth popped through - on the bottom, right next to the first one.
I took him in to the walk-in at the doctor's last week to get him weighed.  His length is still at the top of the chart at 29.5", but I've been wondering about his weight gain.  I was hoping he'd be around 21 lbs to keep up to his previous percentile on the growth chart, and I was disappointed to see him weigh in at 19 lbs 9 oz.  This drops him from the 67th to around the 50th percentile.  For a baby who was 10 lbs 7 oz at birth - WAY off the chart - he is not gaining like I'd like to see, and he's been slowly dropping down on the chart.  I know you can't really expect siblings to be identical in their growth, but at 9 months Peter was 22 lbs 4 oz, and Aaron was around 25 lbs.  He's on solids now, but not a big eater, and he doesn't nurse for long.  I thought supplementing him with formula would be a good idea, but I've tried everything I can think of to get him to take a bottle or a sippy cup but he is so stubborn.  He won't take it from me, Mike, my parents, my sisters, or anybody.  He won't take formula, breastmilk, homo milk, water, or even full-strength fruit juice.  He won't take an Avent bottle, Nuby bottle, soft-spout or hard-spout sippy cup, and out of a regular cup is just plain torture.  We tried a day and a half without any nursing to "encourage" him to take some liquids from another source, but I gave in for fear that I was going to damage his kidneys or something.  What kid doesn't want to drink for that long??  He's never been much of a drinker - I've even had an appointment with a lactation consultant, who was very knowledgeable but hadn't come across this particular problem before, and so we couldn't come up with anything very effective to get him to drink more.  So I'm adding formula to all of his meals, encouraging him to eat as much as possible, and I'm going to look for some high-fat yoghurt or cottage cheese to try and beef him up a bit.  Thankfully he's doing well on the developmental front - he's sitting well, trying to crawl, and he's a very cheerful little guy.  Anybody got any other suggestions for me?  I realize that he is probably just has more of a "slight" build instead of the chunkiness of his brothers at this age (who inhaled their bottles and couldn't get enough!), and trying this that and the other thing might just be more frustrating for him than anything, but I want to make sure he's getting enough of the nutrients that he needs.  If only kids came with instruction manuals!  Not to mention, by the way, that I've been taking a supplement to increase my milk supply to make sure that he has enough - and then he has the nerve to refuse to nurse, which in turn leads to problems for me and in general the whole situation is wreaking havok with my milk supply and patience.  It hasn't been a whole lot of fun!  And yet with all these concerns I've had with his eating, he's finally starting to sleep through the night a little more (I shouldn't write that though, as that's bound to change again).

Weight and length charts for Nate - click to enlarge

We have been greatly enjoying the warmer weather lately.  The last few days have been a bit gloomy, and the forecast includes a fair bit of rain, but that comes with spring time and we had some gorgeous weather last week.  The boys can spend allllll day outside, playing in the sandbox, digging in the dirt, and hauling pieces of wood from here to there building "hospitals".  I cut out some grass and turned over some dirt for a garden, and Mom and Dad came one day with some compost to help me spruce up the soil a bit.  I'm looking forward to planting some seeds and tending a garden again, as last year with the move, being pregnant, and it being a thousand degrees all summer I didn't do any gardening beyond kicking at a few weeds here and there.
Anyways.  I'm sure there's more, but this toilet-training has got me a little distracted so I'm going to wrap this up.  Enjoy the pictures!

Dave and Bethany came up the Sunday after Easter weekend for a visit.  The boys enjoyed reading books with them!  Yeah, that's underwear on their heads.  Again.  It's pretty popular around here.

 Nate had to get in on the reading action, too. 

 Silliness abounds!

 We're seeing a lot of this pose lately.  He's pretty proud of his new skills! 

 Hmmm. Unsupervised snack time...what can I do with this spoon?

 How about destroy all the pears in the fruit bowl? 

 When it's not too rainy or cold, nothing beats lunch outside!

 Yeah.  They're doing what it looks like they're doing.  I snapped a picture before going out in the 8 degree weather to pull Aaron's pants back up and to grab Peter, who was running around the backyard with a bare bum.  

We had Uncle Chuck and Aunt Carol over for dinner last week, 

and no one gets to visit without reading the boys a book or two. 

 Aunt Carol reads Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type

 Spending some time outside on a beautiful spring day

 Mmmm sweetness! 

Quick Update

 It's always fun to wear Daddy's glasses

Peter giving the glasses a try

 He's getting better all the time at sitting up on his own

 They like to put their chairs upside down at the back of 

the bed and use the legs as "controls" to steer their excavators

 Pretty deep hole!  Mike has been working on fixing some leaky basement issues

 As you can well imagine, they come inside pretty dirty sometimes!

 Nate is getting more mobile - he can't go forward yet but he pushes himself 

backwards all over the place, often getting stuck in interesting places

I only took one picture during the crazy wind storm last week Thursday.  There were gusts up to 124 km/h, hundreds of trees were toppled, fences were blown down, and lots of damage was done.  We were without power for over 6 hours that day, and some people in St. Catharines did not have their hydro restored until early in the next week.  A few tiles off our patio table blew off and shattered, and part of our fence blew over (we needed to replace it anyways).  We were thankful we didn't lose any trees or sustain any more damage, especially after taking a damage assessment tour of the city after the wind had calmed down a bit later in the evening.  So many huge trees blown over!  This picture is the last we saw of our election sign that day, who knows how far it went flying! 

 I think this picture almost deserves to be posted on its own, 

I love it!  It's a weird one but it makes me laugh!!

 Nate going incognito, haha

Easter Weekend

 Over the Easter weekend, the Vander Deen side of the family came to our place for a visit and to celebrate Aaron's birthday.  Mom and Dad came in their RV and stayed Friday and Saturday nights at a campground in Niagara Falls, while Karen stayed at our place.  The rest of the family (minus Dave and Beth) came up on Saturday.  What a fun visit!  Friday was a bit dreary and cold but Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous day, and we enjoyed being able to take the boys to the park while the guys played bocce.  Lots of fun!  I'm getting the feeling that I'm not particularly articulate or literative today so perhaps I'll just stop writing and make way for the pictures.  That's all you really want anyways isn't it?  Haha.

Peter and Aaron at the campground "hunting rabbits" in the gravel

 It's never too hard to get a great smile out of this little one!

 Aaron opening his birthday gift from Aunt Karen - books about fish!

Enjoying Grandpa's toque

Grandma and Grandpa gave Aaron a beautiful quilt for his birthday.

This morning, he was trying to eat the smarties off one of the squares, haha!

Bumper cars in the driveway!

Going on parade to the park!

Hi little cousin Derek!

Digging in the gravel

Everyone had fun, haha

Blowing out his birthday candles

I had too much fun making this birthday cake.  It was almost a 

shame to ice it, it looked so pretty coming out of the oven!

Buuuut I iced it anyways.  What's a birthday cake without icing?

At the end of the day, Rub a Dub Dub, Four Boys in the Tub!

Toddlers Training Themselves?

Peter:  Aaron, I need to go pee.  You come too, and you can pee with your belly button
Aaron:  Ok!!
They both run, laughing, off to the bathroom.  Peter pees, Aaron lifts up his shirt and pushes his belly out over the toilet.  Two minutes later, Aaron comes shuffling around the corner into the living room with his pants around his ankles. 
Peter:  Mom, Aaron needs to go pee in the toilet!
Aaron:  Pee!  Pee!  Need pee!
Mom:  Ok, we can definitely give that a try.
Aaron sits on the toilet and pees several times. I wasn't going to try training him again for a little while but I might have to do some rearranging of my plans for the next few days.  Who knows, maybe he'll just train himself, wouldn't that be great!

What's potty training without some stickers?  When Aaron got one 

for his success, Peter asked for one too, and then tried to go again.  

I wonder if he's going to be running off to the bathroom every half hour 

just so he can get stickers like Aaron!!

Forecast

Lovin' the look of that long-term forecast!! 

Growing Every Day!

Birthday Day and Day After

 Balloons first thing in the morning on your birthday are VERY exciting!

Why not share them with your little brother?  

 Opening presents at breakfast time

 Animals!  He's pretty thrilled

 We went to an indoor playground for the morning with Aunt Dell 
and Aunt Lauren, and met up with some other moms from church.  
We had a really good time!  The kids spent a lot of time on these slides.

 It was hard to get good pictures because the kids were always 

moving but at least you can see they were having a ton of fun!

 Thankfully I didn't have to worry about keeping the aunts occupied

 Don't you just want to give this sweetie a kiss??  

Minus the peas plastered all over his face of course!

 They just keep growing!  I love these kids!!

 I actually managed to get a good shot of Peter -

he can be tough to get a picture of. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Aaron!

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Aaron,

Happy birthday to you!!!

Dear Aaron,
Time goes by so quickly!  You are already two years old, my spunky little redhead.  It's amazing to think of how much has changed in the past year.  On your first birthday - actually the day we bought this house! - you couldn't say much more than a few words, you couldn't walk - actually, you had just been crawling for a few short months.  And now, one year later, you're talking to us in sentences, you run around doing crazy things with your older brother, and your imagination is growing by leaps and bounds.  We LOVE seeing your reaction to things like trucks and animals - a little screech, and your whole body shakes with excitement.  Everywhere we go, people comment on your red, curly hair - I think you're just going to have to get used to people wanting to stroke it because you're just too cute!  You're silly and funny and your laugh is so much fun.  So full of energy, yet whenever I sit down on the couch with a book you can't seem to get over fast enough to snuggle in beside me and quietly listen to the story.  You are learning so much about the world around you and the One who created it, who lives "in my heart" as you so tenderly put it.  It is our prayer that we may continue to teach and guide you as you grow in a way that honors the Lord.  We look forward to what the year ahead has to bring for you!  
Love Mom and Dad

Moving Right Along

Since I haven't been faithfully updating my "little black book", the one I keep the kids' development information in, I figure I'd better keep this blog up to date as far as what they have been doing.  This way, when I publish the blog at the end of the year again, I'll have all that info in one place.  Might make for some boring blog posts for all you readers, but I like to keep track of this stuff, and why not do that here.   Here goes.
Peter is now just shy of 3.5 years and things for him are not changing at the same rate as they used to.  Those first few years of life are so full of changes and growth and learning, it would be kind of crazy if we continued to develop at the same rate over the course of our lifetime, or even over just a few years.  Imagine what people would be like!  It's been a pretty healthy winter for him - I don't think he's been much sicker than a runny nose and some coughing over the season.  Perhaps he's already developed some more immunity than his brothers, or perhaps he's just been fortunate, who knows.  We certainly don't mind though!  He does still wake up in the night frequently, wanting cuddles or who knows what.  Maybe he's having scary dreams, it's kind of hard to tell.  He often talks about "scary things" during the day, so maybe these thoughts are affecting him at night.  Scary monsters hiding under his bed, scary lions eating people, scary chickens eating people, scary ____ eating people.  I'm not really sure why he is so afraid of being eaten but this thought seems to consume him (haha).  He continues to enjoy playing with soy beans or split peas, the newest thing.  He can be occupied with them for a looooong time, scooping them from here to there, putting them in wagons, dumping them, plowing them, putting them in the garbage truck, spilling them all over the floor.  It's a little bit messy but nice to see him so absorbed in play.  He continues to be a serious little boy, doing a lot of thinking, and often coming up with interesting and amusing comments, and we are reminded of how much kids pick up from what we say and do, how they can sense if we are trying to do something behind their back (like sneak a cookie, lol - "What are you eating, Mom?  What are you eating?  Can I have some too??"), and how much they can remember when we are sure they have forgotten.  The mind is an incredible thing!  So we try to fill it with all kinds of important lessons and fun memories.
Aaron is going to be TWO next week Thursday.  Two?  Already?  He's never been a small kid, but it still feels like he's gotten BIG so quickly.  He's always been at the top of the growth charts, but his height and weight are slowing down while his awareness and mental accuity are blossoming.  This is so much fun!  He understands so much of what goes on around him, and he is piecing together sentences that keep us amused.  I don't remember if Peter was stringing words together like this at 2 years old, but it is enjoyable to be able to communicate with him more and more effectively.  He knows his alphabet fairly well - not as well as Peter did at this age, but he can sing along.  He loves praying the Lord's Prayer with us after dinner, and he can count to ten.  Counting to ten was definitely learned playing Hide and Seek, a favorite game of Peter and Aaron's, although they aren't too good at staying quiet while you "try" to find them, haha.  This age does come with the famous "Terrible Twos" behaviour sometimes - temper tantrums and days full of crying - and I have to continually remind myself to be patient with him as we teach him to balance his growing sense of independence with an also-growing need to learn godly obedience to his parents.  He is a humorous child and we continue to enjoy his mischievous antics and heart-warming laughter - we could see in him a long time ago that he is going to have a great sense of humor.  We get the feeling that we are in for some interesting parent-teacher conferences in the future!  He is on the mend now from a bout with tonsillitis - not very fun.  Over the course of four or five days, every time the ibuprofen or acetaminophen wore off, his fever would shoot back up to over 103 degrees.  I'm sure glad the antibiotics have kicked in and he is feeling better.  Still a little clingy but I don't mind cuddling with my kids.  Too soon, they will be too old and "cool" to cuddle with their Mom and give her kisses when she asks, so I will enjoy snuggling with them now while I'm still able to, and while my kisses still maintain their magical healing properties for "owies".
And last but not least, our little Nathaniel.  He's getting close to seven months old now - wow, time goes by quickly!  He weighed in at 18 lbs 4 oz, and measured 28.5" at his well-baby visit last week.  He isn't growing at the same rate as his brothers did, which has me a little worried, but we're keeping an eye on it to make sure he doesn't drop too many percentile points on the growth charts.  The saying "double their weight in 6 months, triple in a year" doesn't apply to every baby I suppose, but I don't want him to fall behind developmentally.  To compare, at the same age Peter was 18 lbs 12 oz and 27.75", and Aaron was 21 lbs 8 oz and 29.5".  I've been trying without much success to get him to take a bottle of breastmilk now and then, and he finally took two ounces today for the first time.  Maybe I don't have to take him along to the Ladies' Conference next weekend?  It would be nice to have a little bit of a break!  That wasn't the only "first" this week - he popped his first tooth a few days go (the other boys had their first one at around 5 months), and he rolled for the first time from his back to his tummy.  He rolled the other way for the first time at about five months, and still only rolls sporadically.  I'm not too worried - Peter didn't roll until after he learned to crawl - every baby at his own pace - and Aaron was rolling at 6 weeks.  So, very different babies.  Nathaniel usually wakes up at least once a night still to eat, although over the past few weeks he has slept through till 7:00 two or three times.  Bedtime is between 7 and 7:30, at the same time the older boys go to bed, and he usually doesn't give me any trouble going to sleep.  He naps in the morning around 10, and then again after lunch for about 1.5-2 hours usually.  I'm not too picky about the timing of the schedule, but things definitely go smoother with a well-rested baby.  He's eating meals with us three times a day, and taking a variety of baby foods, all still well-pureed with the exception of the apple bits that Peter was feeding him this morning (see the earlier post).  I've got a few of those Mum Mum crackers in the house that he'll be able to start trying in a month or so once he starts sitting up a little better on his own.  He's still tippy with sitting on his own, but he's getting stronger all the time - I'm noticing that more and more when he sits in his bouncy chair and squirms around in there, trying to sit up and twist himself around so that he can see what's happening behind him.  He absolutely loves the attention he gets from his older brothers, and they can make him smile and laugh in a very special and precious way.  I love watching the three of them together and seeing the bond that exists so naturally between them.  It definitely warms my heart, fills me with joy, and reminds me that we are so very richly blessed beyond our deserving!!

We went for a quick walk around the corner the other day 

to watch a backhoe working.  How exciting!  

 Driving their home-made cars/fire engines/garbage trucks/

backhoes around in the living room.  They are most popularly 

known as fire engines, yet look suspiciously like diaper boxes. 

 Always full of smiles! 

Triking around the neighborhood on the way to the park

Climbing on the "rock wall".  This is a very blue picture.

 They love the slide!

Gotta stick that tongue out when you're working hard

digging in the split peas!!

But Mom! Daddy does it!

I was busy making a batch of play-dough this morning and I had given the kids some apple slices to munch on as a mid-morning snack.  I was just finished cleaning up when I poked my head around the corner to check on them, as they had migrated to the living room to where Nate was in his exersaucer looking out the window.  Peter was carefully chewing up his apple and stuffing little bits into Nate's open mouth - aaagh! 
Mom:  "Peter!!  No!!  What are you trying to do??!"
Peter:  "I'm just feeding him some apple, Mom"
Mom:  "No, you can't feed him apple.  He's just a baby!  Please don't put things in his mouth, he's too little yet and it's not good for him."
Peter:  "But he's a lizard, Mom!  I give apples to Daddy's lizard and Daddy does too, and the lizard likes apples.  Nate is my lizard!"
Although Nate's first tooth did pop through this week,  he isn't quite ready for solid chunks like that yet.  Thankfully no harm was done, but I'm really going to have to figure out how to grow one of those extra eyeballs on the back of my head.