Back to school

Stack of books for Nathaniel's AP History class (minus one book I'm told.) 

You're probably thinking what I'm thinking-- is he really going to read all of this? 

And also, glad that's not me.

 This was supposed to be a picture of Nathaniel sleeping in front of the computer but as you can see he opened his eyes before I could get the shot. Kind of a shock to the system to be getting up at 6:45 when you've spent the last few months going to bed not so many hours before then.

My heart breaketh.

 Another shot of Will flailing his arms in his sleep. Watching him smile, or frown, or chuckle as he dreams really makes me wonder just what is going on in that little head of theirs.

If I could venture to guess by what goes on in his waking hours it would all have to do with food.

Smile: "Mom is going to feed me!"

Laugh: "She's pulling up her shirt!"

Frown: "Why am I not being fed?"

Getting a good shot of babies isn't always so easy. Last night I was trying to get a picture of him before his bath and this was one of them:

Heehee.

We had a fairly successful returning back to school. John is mostly angelic the first week and I'm here holding my breath. 

Sarah is in Honors English, which is going to be a stretch for her, and apparently myself as her first assignment was supposed to contain an adjectival, adverbial, participial, prepositional, and gerund phrase.

I have heard these words before. I've diagramed a lot of sentences. Do you think I remember what they mean?

Don't be silly--
of course I don't.

Some favorite parts of my day

 Will throws his hands up every time he's in the swing.

 Cracks me up.

I also love his fluffy hair after we give him a bath. I can't get over how much hair he still has. We have noticed his hair is taking on more of a reddish hue, so who knows?
I don't love that he's started up with the baby acne the last few days-- ah, man! Won't he have enough of that later in his life?

Just before I went and got my camera Will was facing the other direction and was intently watching as Peter was showing him an app on his new Droid phone. It shows pictures of animals and says, "Cow! Pig! Horse!"

It was a very cute scene to come upon.

But my favorite part of life right now is just holding Will and listening to his squeaky baby noises and having him look up at me. 

This is going to go by way too fast.

Difference between kids and teens

 "Mom, you're getting me in this picture, right?"

"Mom, you're not getting me in this picture are you?"

My perceptual toddler

Before we had Will we knew we were facing a major dilemma with John's inability to stay in his own room. We tried everything. Charts, prizes, pep talks, night lights of all sorts and so on. We lectured, warned, and threatened. We even paid a child psychologist $100 an hour for several sessions of therapy.
He talked to John about how many days he's been alive. They calculated it down to the day and then compared to that to how many times ET has actually crawled out from underneath his bed in the middle of the night.
(The odds were definitely in John's favor.)

After Will came there was clearly no space in our room for John to horn in on. We have a small room as it is. Now we had a bassinet and a big chair for me to rock/nurse/sleep right in the spot John would drag his bedding to in the middle of the night.

I'm pretty exhausted these days. The first 3 or 4 weeks I didn't get two hours straight. It is amazing to me that I was able to keep on moving and breathing and thinking.
Well, kind of thinking.
So when John comes busting into my room in the night I don't have any fight in me.

And now I wake up to this.
Yep, that's the chair. In my bedroom.

I told him yesterday if he really is that desperate he needs to just set up camp outside our door, which he checks throughout the night to make sure it is still open. 

Meh.

"But what about my legs? Can't just my legs be in your room?"

"No, John. They can't."

"What about just my feet then?"

His feet?

What's not to love?

 What I love about this . . .

 the milk dribble.

 baby fingers.

 baby thighs.

and of course,

baby toes!

Ah, happiness.

Cutest baby of them all . . . (to us anyway!)

(You can find our awesome photographer at

http://www.taisleywestonphotography.com)

Three weeks old

 Battlewounds. 

Tried to get a picture of Will's pricked heels. 

Only got one heel (and also got my scraped thumb) in the picture. 

 So weird to think we now have three sons!

 I love baby lips.

Boy, it really has been a while since I did this! We are continuing to adjust over here. The kids have been really good about helping me with Will but lots of stuff still falls by the wayside as you can imagine. I can't believe how long it takes to do things with a baby! Then when I get a chance I'm too tired to do anything!

We had Will's pictures professionally taken here at the house last Friday. As I was trying to make the house semi-presentable and wondering which wall she was going to use to hang the backdrops I asked Nathaniel to empty the dishwasher. His teenage response? "Why? Is she taking pictures of the dishwasher?"

The photographer was amazing and brought all her gear. Will was blessedly almost perfect. There was a point when she was taking pictures of him in a wooden pail-- ahhh! so cute! I wanted to get a picture of her taking the picture the whole thing was so cute. Peter thought it was just hilarious seeing him all stuffed in there looking so comfortable. At our kid's school the new principal started a motto last year of having the kids be "bucket fillers," which means they do nice things instead of being a "bucket dipper" where they are mean to each other. Peter was watching the photographer and said, "Well, he's a bucket filler all right!"