Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!!

 Brothers...just wanna have fun!!

Ah, Zachary!  I don't think he was very happy with the last post.  It must not have been filled with enough excitement for him!!  On Sunday, Zachary got up on all fours while I was reading to Nicholas and his Daddy was walking to the other room.  Then, he just started crawling...real crawling!!!  He was sitting on his blanket when he spotted the ring of multi-colored plastic keys that he just loves to chew on which was stashed atop the pet hospital toy.  Then, away he went!  My jaw dropped mid-sentence and Nick stopped dead in his tracks!  And, just like that...Zachary was off!!

The next day, Zachary started pulling up on the recliners and sofas.  (Before he would only pull up on people and some taller toys.)  He even took my hands and started to take his first "true" assisted baby steps!  What a big boy!!  He is now into everything...  And boy is he quick!  Let the fun...and chaos...begin!!

And...he's off!!!

And today, just to ensure that I knew he was growing into a big boy, Zachary said my favorite word.  I was feeding him lunch in his high chair when he dropped his spoon on the floor...again.  It had been a rough morning and night, so I sighed, grabbed the spoon, and stood to go wash it.  Just as I turned my back I heard him say in the cutest, sweetest little voice, "MaMa"!!!  Now, I know that he was just practicing his sounds and at this point isn't completely sure what MaMa means, but after my reaction it probably was a little more clear!  I jumped back into my seat and leaned over to give him lots of hugs and kisses and he just smiled away at the extra attention!!  Sweet, sweet boy!!!  (Oh yeah, and earlier in the morning while we were shopping at Target, he did happen to say "DaDa?" with a cute inflection.  But if no Daddy is present to hear the words...were they truly said?!  Just kidding...  He got lots of hugs and kisses for that, too!!  Zachary is a Daddy's boy, too!)

Mama's Boys!!!

While I'm at it, here are two more cute little tales...

Nicholas is now obsessed with muffins, thanks to SA Grandpa.  So, to break up the monotony of a rainy Monday, the boys and I headed to HEB to pick up some bakery muffins.  We walked into the store and Nicholas insisted that I find a Car Cart.  Luckily, there was one nice, not-so-shiny, red Car Cart left at the front of the store.  (The HEB Car Carts are extraordinarily large and hard-to-steer shopping carts with a little bench seat and two steering wheels attached between the cart and the cart handle bar, if you've never been fortunate enough to see one!)  So, I plopped both boys into the bench seat and buckled them in.  I was a little wary about Zachary flying forward and bashing his head into the steering wheel, but he sat up and balanced like a champ!  (Which is impressive considering how terrible those carts are at maneuvering...and never mind the fact that I'm a bad cart driver to begin with!)  Then, a miracle occurred.  We not only found just the muffins were we searching for, but we also bought all of our weekly groceries!!  The boys were amazing!!  They both drove and vroomed with their steering wheels, looked around at all the yummy goodies, hugged and tugged at each other, and just smiled and laughed for 45 minutes!!  Shame on me for not getting a picture!!  I even have a camera in my purse now...I just plain forgot!  I must've been in shock!  Now...what are the chances of that happening again next week??

"Eat this, Zachary."

For some reason, Nicholas has started fighting his afternoon nap.  (Please don't drop the nap, Nicholas!!  I need those two hours!!!)  So, one day, not unlike many others, I tucked Nicholas into his crib, turned on his radio, and left the room.  I heard some singing and talking in the monitor as I moved about the house, but that's pretty routine for Nicholas as he winds down for his actual nap.  But soon, I started hearing some strange noises.  There was a weird buzzing noise and a few loud thwacks.  Ten minutes later, Nicholas was still making strange noises, so I decided to peek into his room to see what was going on.  Oy.  He had dumped almost his entire Thomas train collection and a bunch of stuffed animals onto his bed and was sitting atop this mess like a little prince.  I grabbed the camera and walked into his room.  At first, he was shocked to see me.  Then, he quickly shut his eyes up tight as I asked what he was doing.  And, of course, he replied, "I'm taking my nap, Mom!"   The strange buzzing sound was the sound of his poor battery-powered Thomas train that was turned on and trapped underneath the stuffed animal he was sitting on.  The train was quickly rescued.  Nicholas eventually took an hour-long nap about one hour after the toy-hording incident!

Caught!

"I'm taking a nap!"

Okay, now we really should be caught up for a while!!  :o)  I apologize to Uncle Charles for making him read, but a podcast is out of the question until the boys can recount their own tales!  ;o)

How time flies, Part Z!!

And then there was another novella...

Cheese 'n Presents!

Zachary and the Lovable Seven Months
Sweet, sweet Zachary!!  21 pound Zachary has grown so very much over the last couple of months!  He is now belly flopping his way around the house to get from toy to toy and person to person!  He pulls himself into the crawling position on hands and knees, lurches forward, and lands flat on his belly half a baby length in front of where he started.  To each his own, I suppose!  Nicholas chose rolling and then army crawling as his main methods of movement before he started walking.  Zachary is also pulling up on various objects to stand!  What a big boy!  One day he was very shaky on his feet, then he had a day of long, intense sleep, and then the next day, he was standing tall!!  Zachary is still battling his rosy cheeks that we presume to be childhood eczema.  Hopefully that will continue to improve as he gets a little older.  But never fear, Zachary!!  We still think your rosy cheeks are cute and pinch-able!!  :o)

Zachary finally graduated to his own room at six and a half months of age!  Daddy disassembled the crib in our room and reassembled it in Zachary's room.  He seems to enjoy his own space!

Zachary's diet is finally expanding, too!!  He is finally eating a wide variety of squishy baby foods!  He seems to enjoy bananas and sweet potatoes the most.  Well, as long as you're not counting his Gerber Puffs!!  That definitely remains a favorite!  He's almost got the thumb-pointer finger pincer grasp figured out!  What a happy day it will be for him when he can finally feed himself his own Puffs!!  :o)  Zachary is also drinking very well from his straw cup now!  He did a complete 180 when he decided that water wasn't the most disgusting liquid ever...  He decided that it was actually quite tasty!  And, if you listen closely, you can hear him say "Wa-ter" as you walk towards him with the coveted straw cup of water! 

It's so fun to watch Zachary's speech develop!!  He's approaching it so differently than Nicholas did as a baby.  Zachary is definitely going to be a babbler!  He'll repeat "I love you" and other such phrases in his own baby babbles that no one other than his parents and grandparents could translate.  Nicholas never babbled.  He waited until he knew how to pronounce the words "perfectly" (I use this word very loosely!  "Perfectly for a baby" might be a better way to put it!) before he spoke them.  Then, he slowly added words together until he had full sentences going.  Never babbles.  But, Zachary's babbles and inflections sure are cute!!  Still, his most famous and frequently used word is "Hiiiiiiiiii!"  (Said with a huge grin!)

Swinging is FUN!!

It seems that Zachary might enjoy music just as much as his brother!  He was so intrigued by the real upright piano at Grandma & Grandpa's house!  I walked in the room to watch Nicholas playing the piano, only to find that it was actually Zachary's little fingers flying across the keys and making beautiful baby music!  Zachary also enjoys picking at, and occasionally strumming, Nicholas's guitar strings.  He is a happy member of the Brother Band!!  Both of the boys are still enrolled in Music Together music classes and their teacher loves to comment on how wide-eyed and involved little Zachary is with the music and the class!  He loves bouncing up and down to music.  But, the songs that put the biggest smiles on his face are sung by his big brother!  Such sweet brothers.

Zachary loves the baby grand piano!

Since Nicholas's unofficial Little Gym graduation, Zachary has started his very own Little Gym classes...mostly to meet and interact with other little babies.  (I really want to take him to some infant Story Times at local libraries to interact with other kiddos for free.  But alas, none are scheduled during Nicholas's preschool hours, and they all specifically say "No older siblings allowed!"  Boo.)  But, Zachary has been thrilled with his gym classes!  He loves his teacher and he thinks it's just too cool that he's finally in the gym himself!  Which reminds me!  Zachary is master of Roll the Ball!!  Nicholas always hated that game, but Zachary just loves to catch the ball, and then let it go to see it roll back to Mommy or Daddy! 

Zachary enjoyed watching the early snowfall from his highchair.  

He wasn't too pleased later in the day when we went outside to actually touch the inch of snow.

Sorry for all the Zachary and Nicholas comparisons, but I just can't resist!!  They're both just so very amazing and unique in their own special ways!!  

How time flies!!

We've done it again!!  We've gone an entire month without any updates, so prepare for a little novella!  I'm hoping that I can someday use these posts to finally prepare a scrapbook for the boys, so bear with me (or just look at the pictures!)  It's very sad for me to wait so long between posts since many of the cute little anecdotes are forgotten in the meantime!  Alas!  Here's what I can remember...

Silly boys.

Nicholas and the Terrible Two (and a half)
Well, the terrible two rumors certainly held true here!!  February was a crazy month for Nicholas!!  (But, I won't linger on the destruction and stubbornness.)  He's officially two and a half years old now, despite the lack of an official half-birthday!!  He hasn't been measured, but I'm certain that he spent the whole month shooting up like a crazy little weed!!  He's also been flexing his brain muscles, too!!  His new letters and phonics DVDs have been amazing! (Thanks for the idea, Katherine!  And thanks for the Christmas gift, Grandparents N.)  When Nicholas chooses to have an attention span, he knows quite a few of his letters,  their sounds, and even some words that begin with those letters!!  His time at our church preschool has also been very well spent!! Nicholas's teachers have been so good and patient with him!!  And I am soooo glad to have their help!!  I am in no way trained to be an early childhood educator, so I mostly try to teach Nicholas through play and some fun workbook "lessons" from my childhood.  So I am extremely thrilled when Nicholas comes home from school telling me, "Agua is water in Spanish, and juice is jugo!" and "How many fingers do I have?  Let's count.  1-2-3-4-5!!"  I can't believe I never thought to have him count his fingers!!  He pointed at each finger and counted so well!!  He's since been great at counting things he points at...the trick is getting him to point at everything that needs counting!

Ash Wednesday...look at those pinch-able cheeks!

Nicholas is still singing up a storm!  His favorite songs of the month are George Strait's Carrying Your Love With Me, which makes Mommy very happy, and the country classic, Walk on By.  He also loves playing Brother Band with Zachary.  Nicholas distributes instruments to Zachary and Mommy or Daddy (guitars, keyboards, bongos, tambourines, harmonicas, and his new recorder are all fair game), then he turns on the CD player and the jam session begins!  (Zachary gets really into this, too...more on that later!)

This is Nicholas at his very last Little Gym class singing on the uneven bars at the top of his lungs!

Ah, and I can't forget to send my gratitude to the TV!!  I always feel like I must issue a disclaimer that I'm not a bad parent for using the TV to maintain sanity!!  Anyone who has ever tried to care for Nicholas for a day understands that he plays HARD!!  And if you don't take a break, you end up passed out on the floor with Nicholas using you as a trampoline.  And if he doesn't take a break, he'll end up fussy, exhausted, and very grouchy!!  Plus, those kids' shows are sometimes amazing!  So there.  Anyways, the main show Nicholas chooses to watch now is UmiZoomi on Nickelodeon.  It is such a cute show for him!!  He loves running around the house using his "Mighty Math Powers" to count, find super shapes, and use his pattern power!  So cute!!  And on that note, Nicholas sure does pick up fun phrases from TV!!  Here are a couple...

After preschool, I was lecturing Nicholas about playing nicely with his friends and I mentioned that Mommy gets very mad when she hears about him misbehaving at school.  Then, Nicholas looked up at me with his sad little puppy dog eyes and said, "Mommy, don't get mad!  Get glad!!"  Congratulations trash bags, your advertising works on 2-year-olds!!

And just today, Nicholas was trying to get me up off of the couch after I nursed Zachary.  He started by grabbing and pulling on the blanket I was using.  He tugged at one end and I held onto the other end until I saw that he was standing in front of the cushy diaper changing pad, and then I let go.  Plop.  Nicholas fell backward onto the changing pad.  He sat up and looked at me with a very serious expression and said, "Was that part of the plan?"  Then he responded to his own question by saying, "Hmmm...more or less!"  :o)  He gave the Disney channel's Special Agent Oso credit for that line.

 Fun winter afternoons at the park on the big boy swing!

What's left?  Oh yes, here's an anecdote that I can remember!!  Just yesterday, I found Nicholas hiding under the kitchen table while I was tending to Zachary.  I didn't give it much attention since that is a frequent hideout for him to "do his business"!  :o)  But, when I finally set Zachary down and headed into the kitchen to investigate, Nicholas poked his head out from under the table and very seriously said, "Mommy, I was very, very hungry.  Please don't be mad."  I raised an eyebrow and looked on the counter to see an open box of Girl Scout cookies.  Before I could say anything, Nicholas continued in the same serious tone, "I had a cookie, Mom, because I was just soooo hungry!"  Sure enough, only one cookie was missing!  (That's impressive self-control for a child sneaking cookies!)  Usually, Nicholas would have gone straight to time-out since reaching for and grabbing things off the counter is not allowed, but I couldn't punish him when he looked so innocent and cute!!  So, he got off with a clarification and a warning.  :o)

Snow in Austin!!  Here is Nicholas with his Mr. Nicholas Head snowman!  Nicholas enjoyed making the snowman and throwing snowballs, but he was also pretty happy when the cold, cold snow went away!

Now you probably need some coffee to wake you up after reading that, so I'll give you a break!!  But, you can expect the Zachary update in the next post!!  :o)