A few recent photos

 Michael brought Snoopy to the park and made sure he got to eat something too.

Running through the park

At the arboretum - the pumpkins were cool, but snacktime came first

 My little cutie, looking a lot like Grandpa in the one to the right!

Fun at the pumpkin patch

 

 

 

Almost two

On Sunday night we stopped by Theresa's house before picking up Mike at the airport, and she couldn't stop laughing at how much Michael runs around.  He kept running between her couches, slamming into them, climbing up and down, talking the whole time, and then sometimes (at her encouragement -- thanks, T! :) spinning in circles and falling down.  NOT on the coffee table corners this time.  Is he like this all the time?  Oh yes, yes he is.  Except for naptime and nighttime, he pretty much never stops!  This month has been better than the last one, though.  I feel like we are managing the mini-tantrums better and they've gone down in number.  Some of it is setting expectations -- I am constantly telling him when he gets food that when he's finished with what he's got, it will be "all done!"  That seems to help it not be such a surprise when he reaches the end and there isn't any more food.  I've also been in better positions to physically manage any issues at the table -- remove from the setting if he does start playing with it.  I don't want to give the impression we have lots of issues with food, though.  Michael pretty much eats anything you give him, and with gusto.  Meal times are not usually a problem!  We've only had to do a few time-outs in other circumstances.

Michael continues to be very solicitous toward his younger brother.  Yesterday when Malcolm was fussing on the bed, Michael found a pacifier and climbed up to give it to him.  This is always accompanied by getting right up next to his face and saying "Pah-mah!!"  :)  Poor little guy was upset when I wouldn't let him do that in the first few days after croup last week, but while I'm so happy he loves his brother, I didn't need the breathing-right-in-the-face issue :)  Malcolm seems to have escaped catching the virus, thankfully.

Last week I told Amanda that Michael had not been letting me read to him much lately because he is so distractible, but since then he's gotten re-interested in a few books.  We have read the "circle" page in Big Bird's Guessing Game Book About Shapes about three dozen times in the last few days.  (He doesn't seem to want to move on to any other page in that book, but he did point out the triangle and square on the cover when I asked him this morning, so that's cool.)  We have also read the "green" page in Elmo's Guessing Game Book About Colors about the same number of times.  You have to concentrate on one thing at a time, I guess!  I think I'm decent about being patient with the repetition.  I will sing 15 verses of "The Wheels on the Bus" in a row without complaint.  Michael's favorite is when the mamas on the bus say shh, shh, shh.

Lastly, Michael is being every bit the "explorer" he is supposed to be at this age.  At the park lately we've only been spending a little time on the playground equipment.  We spend more time going to see the tennis players and walk alongside the fence, pick up things and take them to various trash cans, climb on various benches, check out numbers and letters on car license plates, and pick up sand by the baseball fields.  Michael can cover a LOT of distance on his own.  Sometimes I let him walk down the street on the way to or from the park in addition to all this, and he tells me the colors of the street signs, the numbers on the mailboxes, and every time he sees a car, an airplane, a truck, or the moon.  He still can't say two words together yet, much less a sentence, so he's either a bit behind or just normal for a boy this age, but then again he knows a lot when it comes to number, letter, object and color recognition, which I think is more advanced.  Everything comes in its own time!  Michael continues to be a very fun, cheerful little boy and I'm grateful to his guardian angel for keeping him safe :)

Number time

Michael has really been concentrating on numbers lately. He loves playing with the digital clocks in the house and seeing numbers on license plates at the park. He told me numbers he saw in the hospital and on price displays at Walmart tonight. Sometimes it takes me a minute to realize what he's saying but he's usually right! He hasn't ever counted before, though - but today Theresa was playing with him and she got him to count to ten. So neat! We practiced a few times at home and then the whole afternoon he kept coming up to me to run through the numbers again. I'm a proud mama :)

A tough day

I'll write more later, but here is how Michael looked at the end of his second hospital visit of the day, with five stitches and a yummy orange popsicle to help him feel better:

So: on Wednesday night we woke up at 1AM to Michael making a barking cough sound and breathing pretty miserably. After checking him out, we figured it was croup like he had in March. Mike stayed with Malcolm (who ended up being mad at having to take a bottle later!) and I took Michael to the ER in his Elmo pajamas with Snoopy. They gave him a nebulizer treatment (pretty upsetting for him, but singing to him helped) and oral steroid to help him breathe better, and then we waited for a few hours for the medicine to wear off to make sure he really was better. I turned all the lights out, but of course he couldn't sleep at all while we were waiting. He loved looking at the pulse-ox monitor readout. The numbers ranged from 93 to 100 and every time the right hand number changed he told me what it was :) Thankfully he sounded better after a few hours so we were able to leave and we got home around 5. Everyone was exhausted.

We took a little walk in the stroller in the morning and I was trying to keep Michael calm and quiet while I made lunch before naptime, since he was supposed to take it easy. This, however, does not really happen with boys of this age. He was running back and forth around the media room while I made my own sandwich and then I heard him hit the table and start crying. He had fallen on the corner of the coffee table - where he constantly pulls off the foam corner guards I put there *for that reason*! So of course the corner guard wasn't on when he hit it. I managed to get a large band-aid over his eye to stop the major bleeding and called the doctor. Ordinarily I wouldn't think to call in over him falling or getting cuts/scrapes/bruises but I could tell this cut was deeper. We took him in to the doctor's office to try and patch things up with glue, but it wasn't holding, so we were told to go back to the ER . . . only 7 hours after we'd left!

Michael didn't generally mind being back at the hospital, because of the toys (it was a pediatric ER)- but he cried every time someone did something to him, like take off the band-aid or even tape a cotton ball with local anesthetic over the wound. And he definitely cried a lot during the stitches when the orderlies were holding him still, even though I know he couldn't feel the stitching. Poor guy. The rest of the time he was very good. He kept saying "Oh no!" to the TV (which was broken) and the pulse-ox monitor (because he didn't have it connected so there were no numbers). One funny thing was that the doctor recommended giving him a "relaxing" medicine so he wouldn't be quite as agitated during the stitches. You could definitely tell when that took effect - he was completely loopy. We were finally able to leave about two and a half hours after we got there (and after he ate the popsicle, which made him happier). Michael shows no ill effects from both incidents, which we are thankful for, but he continues to run around like crazy. He's not even two yet and we have another boy, too - I hope we don't have many days like this in the future!

Brothers

Here are a couple of pictures I have pulled together showing how much Michael and Malcolm have looked alike so far.  Not exactly, of course, but there is no mistaking they are brothers!  I wonder how closely they'll continue to resemble each other as Malcolm gets bigger.  For now, they're even following the same pattern in having their hair all fall out at this point :)

 

Little linebacker

I am getting a little bit better at transporting two kids around town, although it still takes me too long to get out of the house.  I'm trying to build in that time and it's going all right.  Yesterday we did our first restaurant outing on our own, to Panera with my friend and her little boy.  Malcolm stayed napping in his car seat and Michael was content as long as he was eating pretty much the entire time (this is as per usual).  In his customary surveying of tables and available food when we arrived, though, he actually climbed right up in a booth with two women we didn't know and sat politely to wait for food!  I apologized profusely but fortunately the woman he sat next to was a great sport about it and Michael let me pick him up for us to go find a high chair for our own table.

This morning's first destination was the doctor's office, as Mike said.  I knew Malcolm was big -- he looked twice the size of a baby girl we saw at Panera yesterday, whose mother I overheard saying was seven pounds, but I didn't think he was *actually* twice her size.  Apparently so. He matches what Michael's length was at two months (95th percentile) but Michael was much smaller in weight -- it took him closer to six months to hit 15 pounds.  Malcolm actually is a half pound over what Mike was at two months, too, and those who have seen pictures know how big he was as an infant before everything evened out after age one!  In any event, Malcolm is a very contented baby overall and I'm happy he's all healthy (and proportional :).  He did relatively well with his three shots today, also -- didn't cry for too long.  After the doctor's office we went to the park to meet up with other mom and baby friends.  Funny to have confirmed that Malcolm definitely is as big as he looked next to his older cousin and friends in the picture from last week!

Boom!

Malcolm had his two month check-up this morning. His official weigh-in is below:

15 lbs. 1 oz.
24 1/2 in.

Malcolm is in the 95th percentile in both height and weight. To help visualize his explosive growth, I have created a chart that projects his measurements at 12 months, given the current trend.

It looks like Malcolm will be 47 in. tall and weigh 42 lbs., 3 oz.

Those buying gifts for his 1st birthday can now plan accordingly.

Baby blanket

Malcolm with his cousin Canon and friend Jack at the park this morning

Caught

This is how I found Michael after he got up from his nap the other day.  I had it closed and in sleep mode on the end table and he just pulled it out and busied himself figuring everything out.  Silly kid.