Max 23 Months

I can't believe my little Maxi is a month away from turning 2! I have already sent out his party evite and am looking to make it a Thomas the Train birthday party. He has started to talk more saying Bottle, Girl, Water, Bath, Ball, Car, daisy, agua, baby although he doesn't pronounce it too well. But it is slowly starting to come together which is nice. We believe his terrible two's have started over the last week because he has become very defiant and is defintely trying to test his boundaries. At first I thought it was because of me and being gone at work all the time but now I'm realizing it is just the terrible two's. He has been falling down a lot lately and always has a scratch or a bruise to show for it. We had our family pictures in upstate CT which turned out great. The drive was a bit of a pain because it was past the kids bedtime on our way home and they were both a bit testy but overall it was a great experience.

Max has started to help out around the house. If I ask him to get me a diaper for Jake he is able to go into his room and open the cabinet and bring me one. He also is able to throw away his own diaper or put something in the garbage if I ask him to. If I ask him to tidy up his toys he sometimes does it. One night we were doing naked time in Jake's room when Max pointed to his privates and ran into his bathroom, sat on his potty and peed. I couldn't believe it and I was so proud I rewarded him with a piece of chocolate. Of course he hasn't done it since ha!

Max is incredibly intelligent and just needs to watch us do something and is able to replicate it. Not sure that is always such a good thing since he now knows how to turn on the fireplace and open locks. But I have to give him credit for picking it up so fast. He is able to look at cards and pick out what I ask him. He adores his little brother and always brings over a toy for him to play with.

He has had a terrible rash on his butt which is slowly clearing up. He is still sleeping like a champion and is becoming such a big boy. We just decorated the basement with stickers and he especially LOVES the cars. I have been working on the house a bit since he has messed it up quite a bit. Things are slowly starting to look better. Tonight we made our very own pizza at home and it turned out so delicious. Max also helps out when I bake cookies and cupcakes and loves to eat the dough. He plays with playdo a lot lately and still loves books and his trains and cars. He watches Thomas every day.

Halloween was so much fun with the kids. Max was Yoda and Jake a cow. They both looked adorable. We went to the community party at the clubhouse followed by trick or treating around the community with all the other kids. It was a blast. The Croppers joined us along with Delia who cooked us dinner and watched Jake when we went door to door with Max. He carried his own bucket and picked out his own candy. The older he gets the more fun we have. It really is something special watching your children grow.

Jake 6 Months

Little Jakorino...or shall we say definitely not so little is 20 pounds now and rolling around like a gymnast. He first started rolling over from back to belly but was unable to roll back and cried like crazy the entire night because he hated being on his belly. It only took him about a week to learn how to roll full circle and now he prefers to sleep on his belly which is great for his head which we still have one month to correct. Our families don't think he will need a helmet, but we will have to see what his doctor says at our next appointment. We switched him from rice cereal to oatmeal since it was constipating him a lot. He has it for breakfast with his formula mixed in and then the bottle to finish. We started him on butternut squash and then gave him pear as well. He loves both which is great, however for the past few days he has had severe diarrhea so I took him off of it for a day and am giving him soy formula instead. He got his first tooth at 5.5 months and a few days later his second one on the bottom appeared. He now has two adorable little teeth and is still teething like crazy.

Jake loves to giggle and has become very loud. He has started to babble and today even sounded out mamamama. He is MUCH louder than Max was but is such a happy baby it is adorable to watch. He is on a size two nipple now and has even used a size 3 from time to time. He is wearing a size 3 diaper which is becoming a bit small so soon I'll be putting him in 4's.

Jake still adores his big brother and looks for him all day long. Once he spots him he just looks at him with the biggest smile and big puppy dog eyes. He is sleeping so well these days and rarely ever gets up during the night. He still can't sit on his own but sits in the bumbo without a problem. His feeding schedule is still every three hours six ounces with one eight ounce feed and his nighttime feed 7 ounces. He eats solids twice a day and I'll be introducing pureed apple into the mix now.

I just organized his entire closet having to pack up all his clothes size newborn to six month. He now has 9-12 months in his closet which still baffles me. He is just such a loving little Buddha baby and we really lucked out with him. My hair has finally stopped falling out at the rapid pace it was. I barely have any hair left and I have baby hairs all over the front which looks awful. I am so glad it has all stopped and hope it will fully grow in again. I am back at my pre pregnancy wait before I had Jake but still ten pounds over from when I had Max.
In two weeks we have our doctors appointment for Jake and I'm just so excited to see what my big juice bug learns next!