Randoms with pictures and videos!

I came into the kitchen one day and found this guy peepin' around through a hole that he'd made in his play doh.  He told me that it was his mask.  He's real into masks these days.  I helped him out by adding another eye and even a mouth hole.  Really classed it up, don't you think?  Not creepy at all.

Instead of eating in his highchair one morning, he decided to curl up in a stray beam of sunlight in our laundry room.  After I'd finished making his oatmeal, he took the bowl over to the little pool of light and started to get settled in, paused, turned back to me and said, "I want to sit in my highchair.  So I don't have to sit in the sun." In our entire 900 square foot apartment, just that one square foot had any direct sunlight.  Worked out for me though.  I'm a big fan of the kids eating in their highchairs.

Ryan got Bears a whole bunch of wooden-looking-but-actually-foam shapes that can be used to build all sorts of cool stuff but he's more interested in wearing them.  He'd been trying to balance that thing on his nose for hours when it occurred to him that it needed a strap.  I hooked him up and he was pretty pumped.  Clearly he looked like the coolest guy ever in that mask, his "black darth vader" cape, his "old MacDonald" hat, and red light saber.

He also went down a slide one time.

 Bears was pretty pumped when he got a hold of this old red wig.

 Sleepy time with Daddy

The suavest, soulful-est spider man ever. 

This one time I made lunch.  This is proof.  I am very domestic.  Alright fiiiine.  It's a tv dinner, you caught me.  hope you're proud of yourself.

He gave himself a real fright by being Spider man.

Apparently I'd just caught each of them doing something.  Guilty looks all around...

Hi!

"I eat snakes for my bitty breakfast!" Biscuits is so hardcore.

I don't know.  Except that this was Bears' idea.  I...uhh.  yup.

Annnd a bunch of videos for Grandmas:

Biscuits Clapping:


Diddum gave Bears a birthday Ecard.  It was a big time hit:


Bears teaching Biscuits to growl:


Biscuits has this desperate need to swing backwards all the time:


Biscuits decided today that the thing to do is say "eh?" It's good times:


Bears reading a story:

Bears 'n Biscuits Love Bouncing

Look at these cute, cuddly boys!

For Bears' birthday, we went to a warehouse full of bouncy castles.  Well.  Former warehouse. Crap.  I do not know the definition of a warehouse.  I guess bouncy castles could be considered their wares...and they are housed by the building.  So.  It's a bouncy warehouse.  And it was a hit.  and...I'm trying to think of a way to tie the zoo in as well, since it's also in the video.  but there's no connection.  blast it.  also, something about a bike.  well.  I shouldn't spoil it for you. (spoiler: he rides a bike at the end.  sort of.)

Learning to Talk

The other night, just as I was about to put Biscuits to bed, I noticed him staring at the light. He, like his brother and nearly every other baby before him, is obsessed with lights. I have to be careful to block off all light in the room when it's time to nurse him because if there's a stray beam anywhere, he'll find it and will fixate on it, unable to nurse no matter how starving he may be. On this particular night, I decided to spend some extra time trying to teach him the word "light" since he's right around the age (10-11 months) that Bears was when he said his first word. Which was, of course, "light."

 As he was staring at the light, I said the word. He looked, transfixed, at my mouth. I said it again. He looked back and forth from the light to my mouth several times and I could see the moment when it all clicked. His eyes widened and he got a huge grin on his face. Then he opened his mouth, took a deep breath and said, "...anaaanaaa!" His brow twitched. "AnaaaAA!" A look of frustration and confusion crossed his face, then he let out a desperate, "ananaaannaaaAAAGHHGHH!!!!" Finally, he succumbed to despair and burst into tears. Poor little friend. It's got to be very frustrating to know what you want to say but be totally unable to say it.

Oh and I just realized that I only posted their laughing video on Facebook so I'd better throw it up here as well for Grandma:

Happiness

This evening we decided to take a walk down to the park, something we do fairly often these days now that we live less than a block away from one. Ryan and Bears were walking just ahead of me and bitty Biscuits snuggled up against my back in his carrier. The sun was about an hour from setting so it was right smack in our eyes. I couldn't see much of anything except for the silhouette of Ryan and Bears up ahead, a bright halo of sunlight surrounding them. I was struck with the idealistic image of father and son: the only defining characteristics were Ryan's height and broad shoulders, and then Bears' tiny size and bouncy, awkward gait as he loped alongside him. I felt a tightening sensation in my chest as I thought about how I get to call them mine -- my family. It was one of those moments that you'll have occasionally where you can tell will be etched into your permanent memory banks, something to grasp for when times are hard. It's the perfect knowledge of what happiness feels like...in this case, it's warm sunlight and my boys. Also, happiness smells like spring. Figures.

Baby Eyes

Bears was born with dark brown eyes so prior to Biscuits, I'd never witnessed the phenomenon of  my baby's eyes changing from steel gray to...whatever mysterious color genetics has in store. It's been fun to watch the brown slowly bleed into the gray and take over.  I'm guessing that the outer ring will eventually turn green, just like his mama's, papa's, and diddum's eyes but only time will tell.

Love You Forever

Lately, Bears favorite bedtime book is Love You Forever.  If you've never heard of it, it's basically the story of a crazy mom who continues to sneak into her sleeping son's bedroom at night, pick him up, rock him and sing to him well into his adulthood. I'm assuming that it's not meant to be taken literally and the point is that the mother will always love her child with the same fierceness that she did when he was a baby. Here's the song:

I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be

Towards the end of the story, she tries to sing the song to her son but she's too old and sick, so instead, he picks her up, rocks her, and sings the song, substituting "mommy" for "baby." Then goes home to his new baby daughter and starts the singing/rocking tradition over with her. We've read it at least 30 times now but my voice still gets suspiciously husky toward the end.  I think it was Ryan's mom who got it for Bears when he was first born but I can't remember for sure.  It's really a good one though.  I highly recommend it.

The best part is that as I'm tucking him in to go to sleep, Bears likes me to sing the song again to him...except that I have to say "big boy" instead of baby. He's very insistent that he is the big boy and bitty Biscuits is the baby.  After I'm done, he puts his hand gently on my arm and sings the song back to me with "mommy" at the final line.  Blast it but it's a doozy.  Mostly because the song itself is a nostalgic reminder of how fleeting and precious these moments are.  I feel so very lucky that I get to be the mommy of this wonderful, troublesome,  loving, and rambunctious cub.

Out and About: The Strange Slew of Friendly People

You know those days where you feel isolated and disconnected even when surrounded by a sea of people? Seems like most of my days have been like that lately.  Normally when I go out with the boys, people walking by or waiting in line with us dutifully ignore our existence (I reciprocate, of course.  I am anything if not...not social. and also highly proficient with the use of double negatives.  but I digress).  The most we usually get are looks of disdain (when Bears is screaming) or pity (when they're both screaming). But not today.  I don't know what on earth happened but nearly every stranger we ran into treated us like family or old friends.

We started the day by going for a walk with Poopers, Kins, and Max.  It was some good times, as always, with good conversation and minimal tantrumming from the toddlers.  The strange happenings occurred when we headed out to the market after naps.  As we were waiting in line to return some items, the lady behind us struck up a conversation about her 3-year-old great grandson and how much she missed him, as she'd just started a full 2-year mission with her husband.  She was very sweet and tried to engage both boys while talking to me.  Soon the lady behind her started talking to us as even gave Bears his first piece of gum, for which he was ridiculously grateful and kept repeating "wow.  how neat!" over and over again while popping it in and out of his mouth.

After the return was over and we started out actual shopping, it seemed like every time we stopped to look at something, neighboring people would share some sort of anecdote about their own kids with me.  While waiting in the checkout line, a teenage couple behind us played silly games with Bears the entire 10 minutes that we were waiting and even narrated what Biscuits (riding on my back) was thinking, "MOMMMM...I'm pretty sick of being here, let's go HOooOOOMe."

As I was putting the groceries in the back of the car, Bears was yelling his heart out what sounded something like the 60's batman theme song, but I couldn't be certain...that is, I couldn't be certain until a lady roughly 20 yards a way from us started loudly singing "danna nanna nanna nanna na--BATMAN!" and then walked towards us and just as I was taking Bears out of the cart, takes the cart off my hands, says "some people never grow up," with a wink and heads into the store.  Whaaaa...? Is this the kind of thing that happens regularly to most people?  If so, I have really been missing out with all these years of hermitting about.  That is, going out while still managing to avoid just about all social interaction.

It feels so...foreign to feel this kind of connection with so many strangers in a normally non-social atmosphere. Almost makes me think that it might be worth coming out of my bubble so that instances like this won't be quite so rare.  Almost.

Moving Madness

This is Bears at around 6pm on the day after the move.  The whole process really tuckered him out.

Due to Biscuits not sleeping well, we decided to move into a 3 bedroom apartment a little over a week ago.  In that amount of time, he's gone from waking up around 10 times a night to only once last night.  The average lately hasn't been quite as amazing as last night but we haven't had more than 3 wakings per night since the first night here.  Hooray! We definitely seem to be well on our way towards getting plenty of sleep around here.  Poor little Biscuits just needed his own space.

Another bonus to this place is that we now have a little fenced yard for Lucy.  Not so much a big deal pre-kids since she's always been good about staying close (so long as I pay attention to her) but lately I've been so distracted by the boys that I'll often completely forget about her.  Not so good.  Especially when it's time to come back inside and I forget entirely that Lucy was even out with us to begin with so she gets left outside until I hear her scratching on the outside door.  I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I let this happen.  So...I won't.  In fact, I'm not officially admitting that it ever happened.  I was just speaking hypothetically. And because of the hypothetical happenings I just described, it's very nice to have a fence.

In all the chaos of moving, Bears was super pumped because all the baby proofing of our last place was gone and with piles of boxes everywhere, he could now get into anything he pleased.  He found a pretty gift box and decided to put a surprise in it for me.

He presented it to me with a very hopeful grin, obviously quite proud of himself:
(reenactment)

He told me that there was some tasty candy inside...


mmmm...delicious.
Well played, Bears, well played.

Later on, he gave me a terrible fright by dressing up as a LeprechaunKingShark:

Some pics of Biscuits and Daddy hanging out. I uh...can't think of how this ties in to the move.  Except in the sense that they were moving at the time.  And by that I mean that they weren't holding perfectly still.

The Many Faces of Biscuits

It seems that Ryan's beanie is very versatile.  I'm pretty sure that if one were so inclined, they could achieve nearly any look they desired.  Here are just a few examples:

Cap'n Biscuits!

Demure Biscuits

Smurf Biscuits

Guinan Biscuits

Just in case you're somehow out of the tng loop, this is Guinan:

Sailor Boy Biscuits

Robin Hood Biscuits

Daddy's Nightgown and Random Pics

Here's Biscuits, all ready for bed in the same cozy nightgown that his daddy wore when he was this age.

This is Bears at that same age.  I think they look really similar in a way.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to put him in his dad's nightgown as well for this photo.  I really dropped the ball on that one.

And here's a pic of them side by side, both looking appropriately creeped out. Crept out?  Spell check is really making me doubt myself on this one. Too bad I didn't have this nice camera back when Bears was tiny.  This really makes the difference in quality look dramatic.

I originally purchased this hat for myself but Bears seems to have commandeered it...at least for the time being.

Bears doing his best impression of Uncle Matt

Finger painting