Week by Week 30

(January 17-23) I'll just start this post by saying that Brian went to Paris this week. We had an interesting week. It started off quite well. A few weeks before, we had gone to Conforama and bought a new mattress. Our Ikea mattress was killing our backs and so we decided that it was worth spending a bit of money to save our backs all the pain they were in. The mattress arrived on Wednesday the 20th. It is so much better than what we had before. Here we are playing on it! Well, here are the boys playing on it. Bimmy loves playing on our bed and Johnny-Lu is learning to love it too. They had so much fun testing out the new bed.This was a good place for Johnny-Lu to practice his crawling with a soft landing ensured.
He loves just rolling around on the bed. And he loves eating his toes too!
James always has a hard time when Brian leaves. There were a few times when he woke up crying for Daddy! It makes sleep schedules a bit harder to stick to but I do it anyway. Bubba just wasn't his usual happy self without Daddy around.
John-Luke was very determined to finish this crawling thing. He was practicing so hard all week. Can you see that look of determination on his face as he goes for another try.
Love this kid! But he was very naughty this week as you will see later.
Finally, a smile!
Silly Bubba!
Isn't he just the cutest baby ever? He just melts my heart!
We are fully into teething with no teeth to show for it. We do, on the other hand, have lots of drool and chewing everything in sight to show for it. And some chapped skin from all the drool.
Poor little chapped face. Still cute and happy as ever.
More happiness.
And more. I was still having lots of fun with my camera this week. We have to amuse ourselves somehow. The boys do NOT sleep at the same time right now so it is hard to really get out without hurting someone's schedule (almost always Johnny-Lu's).
I'm still hopeful for some hair.
More crawling practice. He was getting so good by the end of the week. It was interesting to see how fast he progressed. I was talking to Brian all week about his progress (on the phone) and he really wasn't crawling when he left and by the time he got home he was definitely crawling (slowly but still).
And James! Where do I start with my big boy Bubba? First off. I must take some responsibility as I did this. Yes, I tied the cupboards shut. This is where I keep the chocolate that I use to bribe James to do things (like get dressed without a fit). It is also where we keep all the medicine and vitamins. I found that every time I nursed or cleaned or didn't have my full attention on James he would rush into the kitchen and push a chair over to the counter and get into this cupboard and start pounding down as much chocolate as he could before I caught him. This was my solution. Notice his little hand trying to get it off!Do you want to know what James did instead of this every time my attention was elsewhere? Read on.
Looks like he took a shower? Not so. What he did do was take a stool into the bathroom and climb up to the shelf where I keep my hair balm (it is like pure grease that I use a very tiny amount of on occasion). Well, James took it and decided that if a tiny amount is good then huge handfuls in his hair would be great! He also got it all over our old mattress that I had in the hallway cuz I couldn't get it out of the apartment alone.
After he did this he then proceeded to take a bag of rasins (yes, rasins) and dump it out onto the mattress (at least it wasn't my new one) and spread it around. He liked how they bounced when he jumped on the mattress. When I finally got to him (he was unsupervised for about 5 minutes while I nursed Johnny-Lu) he threw a huge fit about getting the stuff wiped out of his hair. It was all I could do to take a dry handtowel to his head to clean off the excess. Needless to say it was still in his hair when Brian got home the next day. Shampoo was just not cutting it. It actually took about 3 days to get it to wash out completely. Yuck! That was Thursday.
Friday was even better. I left my purse on the counter. Duh! Why didn't I put it in the tied up cupboard? I should have. I went to the bathroom and changed a load of laundry and then found this! He told me he was painting his eyebrows. What? Who does that? And he obviously didn't stop there. It was just too much fun. Can you tell how proud he is of his accomplishment. He was so excited to see himself in the mirror and he threw another fit when I insisted on wiping it off his face. He wanted to wear it all day. He was still in his jammies (it was first thing in the morning).
Later in the day we went shopping. I decided that I deserved a chocolate cake from the store. I bought it. I hid it up very high. James found it and climbed up and was enjoying it by the fistful when I found him. He was very excited. He saw me and started prancing around and taking huge handfuls. Naughty little guy. He was very proud of this moment too. At least he didn't throw a fit about getting his hands and face washed. He did insist on seeing his "chocolate face" before getting washed.
James also was able to get to a half full bag of split peas and he proceeded to spread that all over the living room. While Johnny-Lu was sitting there. This one actually made me pretty mad! I had just vacuumed the living room and was in the hallway when he came running in to tell me what he had done. He just said, "Uh oh! Mess!" Then he said, "Purpose!" Meaning he did it on purpose. I put him in his room for a few minutes while I cleaned it up as quickly as possible. Johnny-Lu was totally irritated when he was confined to the port-a-crib instead of being able to get at all those peas! All I can say is that it was a good thing Brian got home that evening! I was done! I have to give props to any single moms out there. It is tough work. Even when Brian gets home after the boys are asleep (that happens a lot right now) it is still so helpful just to have him around. He always helps with the cleaning (especially folding and putting away the laundry which I hate).
Despite all the ups and downs of the week it ended on a high note. We decided to take the boys to the Tropiquarium on Saturday. We went about a year ago and James really liked it. It was fun this time too. The boys were good and we enjoyed ourselves. It is about an hour away from our house. There are lots of tropical animals (lizards, crocodiles, turtles, bugs, birds, fish, frogs, snakes) and some not so tropical ones (penguins). James kept calling the crocodiles dinosaurs. And he loved when they fed the penguins. It was a great! James even got a new stuffed snake that he has been sleeping with ever since. If you are in the Geneva area you might enjoy a trip there as a family. It is small enough to see it in a couple hours so it is great for those of us who have to rush home for naps!