Woznation

Its April and I’m giving a run down of thanksgiving and christmas.  Yikes.

I feel like I usually look back on events with rose-colored lenses but when I think back to the holidays of 2016, all I remember is everyone being sick.  Mostly me. Which is usually fine — but I was sick FOREVER and then everyone else was sick on and off, which made for a grumpy few weeks. And holidays are not the time to be sick.  You cant lay in bed for a few days and get better — you have to suck it up and be where you need to be.  Which was sometimes great because holidays are when you see people you dont see very much — but man, it was an overwhelming few weeks, when I probably should have been laying in bed.  I will give the highlights — because thats more fun and I dont have pictures of anyone puking.

My parents came for Thanksgiving! I hadnt had thanksgiving with my parents in like 7 years! It was really nice to have them.

I went to my first Bears game!  It was a miserable, cold, snowy day —  but we managed to have some fun.

Then we went to Bloomington for Em and Sam’s baby shower – its always great seeing these two! Wish we could see them more.

The week before Christmas the kids had a million school parties,  concerts and events. We of course went to see Santa.

Then it was Christmas! This was our first year of playing Santa.  We have always gone to bloomington and had Christmas morning at one of the grandparents — so we’ve never really had to worry about having presents, santa gifts, stockings, etc.  I LOOOOVED being ‘HOME’ — especially since this is our first real home.  We made cookies and the kids had ‘reindeer food’ from school.  (Did you know reindeer eat oatmeal and glitter — GLITTER?! F-you school. It got everywhere.). It was awesome and stressful and exciting at the same time.  We wrapped everything in secret and stashed things away and waited for them to be asleep to get things ready (and ate all the cookies).  Luckily we are still at the age where kids didnt have anything big or pricey they really wanted — Phil and I actually just went up to our local goodwill store and bought like $50 worth of toys/puzzles/books and it was a HUGE christmas! We bought like 10 plastic airplanes for 50 cents a piece and individually wrapped each one and the kids thought it was the best thing ever.  So easy.  I know it wont always be that easy, so i’m thankful for this year when its still as simple as that.

Then the day after Christmas we drove down to Bloomington for Christmas with the grandparents.  We overlapped with my sister for a bit and got to celebrate Nick’s birthday! I even snuck out with a drink with friends.  We pack in as much as we can on these trips!

Then we made it back for NYE at the Deviches (which is also Quinn’s birthday!) It was a crazy night 😉 and we were at home asleep by 9pm.

PHEW! Since then — we havent traveled at all!  And spent the rest of winter doing activities around here.  More on that next…

7:00am — The big kids ‘clocks are green’ (we have the ‘OK to wake’ clocks and they know not to leave their room until 7:00am when the ‘clocks turn green’ — best investment ever!).  They both come into my room and crawl into bed and wake me up. We put on a Blaze episode while I wake up a bit and I hear Zev start to fuss. I grab Zev and we head downstairs while the kids finish their show in the bed.  (Phil is already gone. Hes always up by 5-ish. He took Barney out and drove my car around for 15 minutes since it died the day before and he wanted to make sure the battery was working again. He was at work by 7:15).

I do a zev diaper, make a bottle, get the kids oatmeal ready, and grab a cup of coffee. The kids come down and everyone eats before playtime.  I help Evie in the bathroom and set up Zev with some toys in ‘the baby cage’.

8:00am — I head upstairs with Zev to get ready while the kids play downstairs.  Zev hangs in the pack-in-play in our room while I get dressed.  Wil and Evie get in a fight downstairs and I end up making them both come upstairs to play in their rooms while I finish getting ready.  Everyone gets dressed.  I do a diaper for Zev.  Phil calls about planning some work travel.  We all head back downstairs and I get Wils school stuff ready — snack, library book, and parent-teacher conference signup sheet.

8:45am — We are out the door to drop off Wil at school.  Its still warm enough that we dont really need jackets yet.  We park and get out to play on the stairs with some friends and I chat with parents about the Cubs.  We make it back home by 9:15 and Zev plays in his bouncer and Evie plays in the playroom while I clean up breakfast, straighten up the house, start roasting some chicken for dinner, round up all the trash in the house, start the dishwasher, put laundry away, and water plants.

9:45am — I make Zev a bottle and head upstairs for his nap — do a diaper and lay him down, but have to check on him a million times and keep laying him back down until hes finally asleep around 10:15.

10:15am — Evie sits at the table with me to do ‘homework’ while I make notes for Wil’s OT teacher.  We only have a few more sessions, so his therapist and I are making sure he has everything he needs.  I finally eat a larabar.  Then unload the dishwasher, take out the chicken, take barney out, and start to get lunches ready since we have to eat at OT.  I get Zev up around 11 and do a quick diaper, help Evie in the bathroom – then we are out the door.

11:15am — heading to get Wil from school.  On Wednesday he has ‘Computers’ and tells me all about this game he played ‘jumping to get the letter J’.   The kids eat in the car on the way to OT.  We get there 5 minutes early so I have time to give Zev a bottle in the waiting room.  After Wil heads back with his teacher — Evie, Zev and I run to target down the street.  I bump into a mom from Wils class last year and try to be friendly but I only have 30 mins!!

1:00pm– we make it back to OT just in time to get Wil and make it back into the car  before it starts pouring down rain! I meant to give Zev a pouch and some crackers while we were out but never had time, so hes getting super grumpy.  We’re home by 1:30 and within 10 minutes Zev is changed and in the high-chair eating.  Evie picks out her small treat before nap time, I help her in the potty and I tuck her in for a nap. I have no idea what Wil was doing during all this. I head back down to help Zev finish up his lunch and hear Evie go in and out of her room like 5 times.  So I head back up to reinforce that its nap time and to stay in the room. Wil plays with Zev while I get target, lunch, and bookbags out of the car, and start cleaning up and putting things away.

2:oopm — make Zev a bottle, do a diaper, and lay him down for his afternoon nap.  Evie finally seems to be asleep.  But I go upstairs about 5 times to get Zev asleep.  Wil is watching minecraft videos on youtube on the tablet (he doesnt understand yet that you can actually play video games yourself — he just watches other people play video games, haha — someday we’re going to blow his mind!).

2:30 — i finally sit down.  i’m exhausted by this point. Its nice to sit with Wil in some peace for a second.

3:00pm — Its time to get Evie already!  I carry her downstairs and she and Wil watch a show and have a snack while I take barney out and get the mail.  When I come back up, we make cards for my Aunt, cut fingernails, then playtime — Currently they love making houses out of megablocks and magnatiles for their little paw patrol figures.  I usually expect Zev to get up around 3:30 or so — but by 4:00 hes still not up and the big kids are still playing nicely by themselves.  I dont quite know what to do with myself when things are this calm.

4:00pm — I start prepping dinner.  I cut up some onion and butternut squash for risotto and by 4:15 Zev is up.  I do a diaper, bottle, and cut his fingernails.  Then he plays in the kitchen while I start cooking the risotto.  Hes pretty fussy and feeling a little warm.  He ends up on my hip for most of dinner prep.  I pop some chicken nuggets in the oven for the kids. I havent heard from Phil since the morning, so I’m not sure when hes supposed to get home and the kids are fussy – so we sit down to eat around 5:20.  Kids try the rice, but eat mostly chicken nuggets and bread roll.  Zev like the risotto though!

5:45 — Phils home after a marathon 4 hour meeting.  He eats and we chat while the kids play/fight in the other room. Zev hangs on my hip until I pass him over to Phil so I can go upstairs and change for 6:15 yoga class.

6:00pm to 7:30pm — a glorious 1.5 hours out of the house.

7:30pm– I arrive home.  Phil has the bath filling up.  I get the run down of what I missed: Zev pooped,  Wil accidentally poked Zev in the eye, Wil and Evie did NOT play well, and Barney had eaten two toys in the basement. I give Evie and Wil their baths, then Phil takes over on PJs and books while I give Zev a bottle, pjs, diaper, bed.  Zevs still warm, so we give a bit of medicine.  Then I head over to Evie rooms for songs.  Then to Wils room for songs, and then back to Evies room for songs again, while checking on Zev and laying him back down a million times in between.  Phil is downstairs cleaning up the kitchen and putting on the cubs game.

8:30pm — I think this is the time I finally went back downstairs.   I start a load of laundry.  Phil is making his lunch and prepping coffee for tomorrow. He sits down to write some work emails and I hop in the shower real quick.  Then around 9:15 we grab a beer and watch the cubs!! I’d say 999/1000 days we’d be in bed with lights out by this time, but its game 7 of the world series! so beers and baseball it is.  I switch the laundry at some point and check work emails.  By the time the rain delay hit — we did finally go upstairs — I woke Phil up for when they won — Lights out around midnight!

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So yeah — thats a typical day around these parts — when the cubs win the world series!

Synopsis: Nine Zev diapers, still helping Evie with nearly every bathroom break, but Wil is independent.  Evie and Wil are good playmates but also tend to fight a lot. Zev is currently contained but starting to learn to bust out of his baby cage making things very difficult for getting things done.  Zev is having about 24 ounces of formula + whole milk and lots of solids.  Big kids are picky eaters but learning to try new foods.  Even though I mentioned checking on kids and reinforcing bedtimes often — we are still very lucky that our kids go to sleep relatively easily and stay asleep for the entire night (usually).  I took my fitbit off before yoga and dont know how many steps I ended up with — but its easy to get 10,000 a day around here!  I was lucky to fit in a work-out out of the house (but didnt get any work done, thats usually the trade-off).  And even luckier to stay up late and hang-out with Phil.  We paid dearly the next morning!

I havent had a story-time in a while — here are a few things in my mind that stick out from the last few months:

–Zev head butts everything.  If you are holding him and looking at him — he will throw his forehead into you.  I think it might be a form of cuddling or getting a kiss — but watch out because he will knock your teeth out! He also does it if you are watching him perform some sort of task — like climbing a stair — where he just head butts the step.  Good times.

–Evie spells her name: “E” “Up down” “I” “loopty-loop”

–One afternoon when I was picking the kids up from school — my battery randomly died and I was stranded in the firelane with 3 hungry kids.  I immediately went into an F-bomb tirade.  Of course after things calmed down a bit, Wil repeated the word.  I asked him what it meant and he said ‘something bad happened’ (not too far off!).  So then I had to talk about how its not a nice word and I shouldnt have used it and Wil is NEVER allowed to use it.  And since I said a bad word – I would have to throw away a piece of my candy (This was right after Halloween, so candy was a big motivator at the time).  A few weeks later I was at the grocery with Evie and I couldnt find the ‘stupid cheese’ and Evie goes – “Dont say that word mommy – throw away a piece of your candy!”

–We have a big costume box in the basement and one afternoon Wil combined the dinosaur costume and the batman costume to make ‘batman dinosaur’. He proclaimed it was the best costume ever and thats what he wanted to be for halloween.  Evie then followed suit and made ‘butterfly witch’.  I asked them a million times if they wanted to go to the store and pick out something brand new — but they were dead-set on their super-awesome costumes and LOVED telling everyone what they were for when trick or treating.   If they’re happy – I’m happy!

–Wil is done with OT!  He had his last session in early November.  As much as we miss Heidi, its a nice milestone.  We still work on self-regulating our emotions and channeling our energy in appropriate ways — but we have so many more coping strategies after 6-months of OT.  We are so glad it was recommended to us.

–Oh gosh — after many many months of talking about ‘the crazy guy with the orange hair’ vs ‘the nice lady’ — I quickly had to change my phrase to ‘the guy with the crazy orange hair’.  Yikes.

–We live off of a road with a very strict 25 mph speed limit and cops are always sitting on the way to school.  I often find myself going too fast and say out loud that ‘i need to slow down or the police officers are going to get mad’.  Evie’s response one morning was ‘Or you could just go fast, and not tell the police officers?’  hahaha — (What is this girl doing behind my back!!?)

–Now that Zev is one, he is like a totally new person in my eyes.  Maybe its my own mental shift or a recent growth spurt — but hes so with it. He understands everything.  He points at things he wants, I swear he nods when I ask him questions, He will sit and ‘read’ books by himself.  My baby is gone — but I’m loving this toddler Zev phase, too. (Hes not actually toddling quite yet — but he’ll take a few steps here and there — I’m guessing by Christmas.  Then lord help me, because I can barely keep tabs on him now! Ah!).

–Wil knows that the year is 2016 — (which he learned at school to be “two-thousand-and-sixteen”.  Isnt it supposed to be “twenty-sixteen”? Anyway…) — He also knows that this is a really big number.  The biggest number he knows, in fact.  So when he thinks something is a lot of money – he says i wonder if its 2016 dollars?! Or if I say we have 5 more minutes – he says how about 2016 minutes? Or if he wants more crackers — can I have 2016 crackers? It was cute for a few weeks.

–Wil and Evie call the American flag the ‘captain America flag’.

–Evie is OBSESSED with UPS trucks.  She literally freaks out when we see one driving.  One time we saw a double-semi UPS truck on the way to bloomington.  Oh. My. Gosh. was it exciting.

–When I give Wil a snack cup of fishy crackers — sometimes its too full for one sitting so I’ll say ‘dont eat all of them’.  So he leaves exactly one. Smart kid.

–Wil is working on rhyming word at school and Evie is trying to catch on.  But she seems to think ‘rhyming’ is when two words are kind of related.  For example, she saw an IU Hoosiers ornament on the tree and exclaimed “‘IU’ and ‘Hoosiers’ RHYME!”  She is so proud of herself every time she finds ‘rhyming words’ — its hard to correct her when its so cute!

Here is the Fall photo dump:

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We had a fabulous and busy fall 2016 — We were in btown for a wedding mid September, then Phil had back-to-back trips at the end of Sept/ beginning of October, then we headed back to indiana for back-to-back weekends — Things finally calmed down at the end of october and we made the most of the gorgeous (and warm!) fall in Long Grove.

We enjoyed lots of bonfires with friends:

Flew kites on windy days:

Had multiple date nights celebrating so many people we love:

Made our own scarecrow:

Got to see all the Watkins in one place (of course zev is the only one not pictured)

Had fun at the pumpkin patch:

And played in lots (and lots and lots and lots) of leaves!

The warm weather has finally gone and day light savings had ended (the sun goes down at 4:30 around these parts).  We’re bundling up and hunkering down until spring!

Oh man – I can barely believe its been a whole year since this little guy was born.

1 day old:

1 year old:

It seriously flew by — which sometimes feels like a good thing — but I will also miss him being a baby (never thought I’d say that — but now that it coming to an end – I’m definitely feeling sad about it).  Zev was such an awesome baby. For the first 8 months of his life, he never had his own nap time or even his own crib/room.  He just slept in the carseat on the way to pick up his siblings and roughed it in the pack n’ play in our room until we moved to the new house.  Once we got settled, we finally started giving him scheduled naps and real bedtimes in his own room. Thanks for going with the flow, buddy.

He is currently obsessed with finding belly buttons, he likes dropping things to say ‘uh-oh’, knocking on windows, and destroying everything Wil and Evie build (which they are less than thrilled about).  Wil and Evie call him ‘monster baby’ these days because hes always on a mission to wreck their games.  Hes cruising around the couches and using the walker but wont let go on his own yet.  We usual contain Zev in the living room using toy boxes as blockades and lovingly call it the ‘baby cage’.  It’s a place where he is relatively safe so I can get things done and he cant get to Wil and Evie’s playroom.  Hes been a great sleeper and we’re currently transitioning from two naps to one nap.  He just started working on sippy cups (because we couldnt find them in the storage boxes until a few weeks ago). At his one year appointment he was 90th percentile in weight (25.6 lbs!!) and 98th percentile in head size. My back hurts carrying him around everywhere!

We had a great time celebrating his first birthday.  Busia and DziaDzia were up for it and the cubs were playing in the world series! Wil was very excited to help him open presents and Evie was excited to eat the little pumpkin cakes.  Zev was definitely my best baby at the ‘smash cake’ – he didnt hesitate at all before destroying the thing!

Happy Birthday Mr. ZP Woz — We love you!

I came across way too many pics that made me smile from summer — so I’m dumping them all here for future enjoyment. Nearly 100! Wish I had time for individual stories for all of them. Summer is so great!

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June 6th – -Last day of School — Field trip to the farm

June 9th – 12th – btown for family funeral — never fun, but good to see these guys

June 12th – 15th -Chicago packing up house — we did a mix of moving things ourselves and hiring movers

June 16th- 19th – Idaho for Watkins cousins wedding — the Wozniaks watched the kids, so we had 2.5 days kids-free!

June 20th – 24th – Chicago moving into the new house — zev was my trooper, riding to and from btown nearly all of june. I think we took 4 trips in 3 weeks!

June 24th – 30th Btown to visit nieces and nephews — Mimi was watching Luke and Elise while everyone went on a safari in Africa — so I hung around to help and visit.

July 2nd – July 5 -Michigan with my brother – we rented a little house in south haven over the 4th.  It was so fun to hang with Phil, Maggie and Cole!

July 8th-10th – Em and Sam were in Chicago! Wozniaks visit the new house!

July 11th – August 5th — PURE SUMMER!! After 1.5 months of living out of suitcases — we finally settled into the new house and enjoyed summer.  The kids love the swing set, riding scooters down the driveway, and exploring ‘the woods’.  These first few weeks in the house were my favorite weeks of summer!! (I’ll do a house post soon!!)

Aug 6th – 7th  Celia visits! Dinner in the city with friends!

August 11th – 14th – Mimi and Pop-Pop Visit + Date night in the city to see Book of Mormon

August 19th- 21st   – Wozniak cousin wedding — Kids had a blast the whole weekend!

August 25th  — School Starts!

Wil has had an awesome year.  Hes officially been in speech for about a year now and his expressive language has really come along.  He has worked SO. HARD.  He also is working on some sensory things in OT.  His therapist has helped us find some coping mechanisms that help calm Wil down when needed.  Its been a great learning year for him and us.  He’ll also be repeating PreK so he has another year to work on things before starting Kindergarten.  I feel so good about everything and think hes much happier, too.

Other stories/memories about Wil these days:

• Some of Wil’s favorite things to say are ‘what the heck’, ‘one more thing’, playing ‘eenie-meenie-minie-mo’ and he loves to talk about poop. We actually had to make a rule in the house that we arent allowed to joke about poop any more, because it was getting so incessant.  But he realized I said we cant JOKE about poop anymore.  So when I hear him talking about it and ask him to stop – he goes ‘its not a joke mom!’ (like there are a lot of SERIOUS things to say about poop).  We’re trying new rules such as ‘only talking about poop at home while playing with your sister’ because we realize you cant actually stop a 5-year old boy from talking about poop completely.
• At his catholic preschool there would occasionally be a funeral leaving the church right around pick-up time and we would talk about having to wait for all the cars with flags to go first because they were leaving a funeral and we talked about how people would be sad because someone died, etc, etc.  Well fast forward to 4th of july – we were driving on the highway and a car had an american flag on the side of it to celebrate the holiday and Wil spots it and goes ‘I know what that flag means, mom.  It means those people are sad’. Haha – I had to explain that sometimes people have flags on their cars for other reasons than just funerals.
• Wil is obsessed with YouTube surprise egg videos!  That or any other toy review videos. I dont get the appeal of watching other kids open and play with gifts, but he loves it.  And then he asks for every single toy.  We’ve actually never really experienced this before since we havent had cable for so long.  He usually watched shows without any commercials – so any toy he got was just based on his current interest, not a specific item he wanted.  We did cave and buy him one toy he saw on a video and it was a massive mistake.  It was a ‘bug car’ where you could actually put a live cricket in a habit which then fit inside a battery powered car and the cricket would ‘drive’ it around.  This thing was LOUD and required bugs and for some reason I decided to get it for him.  It was in the house for about 30 minutes before being deemed an ‘outside toy’ and then got further demoted to ‘outside weekend toy’.  I still have a cage full of live crickets in the garage.
• One day Evie fell off her scooter and was starting to cry – and Wil goes ‘No, Evie its ok! shake it off! like the song! you know — shake it off – shake it off’ hahah – so glad my son is invoking his inner taylor swift to solve problems.
  

Here was his yearly birthday questionnaire:

1. What is your favorite color? rainbow
2. What is your favorite toy?  Transformers
3. What is your favorite food? Ice Cream
4. What is your favorite show? Paw Patrol
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? bow tie (he had just rediscovered bow ties and ties. and insisted on wearing them everywhere.  sometime a bow tie and tie together. super classy)
6. What is your favorite animal? lucy moosey (his pillow pet)
7. What is your favorite song? Too ra loo ra  (irish lullaby)
8. What is your favorite book? spaceship cat in the hat (new book from his birthday)
9. Who is your best friend? Cousin Luke
10. What is your favorite game? Paw Patrol
11. What do you sleep with at night? Lucy Moosey
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? Super Hero

We were really going to throw Wil a birthday party this year.  Like a big, giant, invite the whole class, rent out the bouncy house place kind of birthday. We truly, really were going to. Then life happened. And we were moving, and we were traveling,  and it turned out we were going to be in btown with his AZ cousins on his actual birthday — so a small get together worked out better.  And Wil had a fantastic day, just on a smaller level (But I swear – NEXT year – big party!).

I feel like the jump from 2 to 3 is a big one.  At 2 you can still pretend they are your little babies — but at 3 – they are bona-fide little kids! In the last year, Evie was potty trained, started sleeping in a twin bed, and gave up her pacifiers. Not to say those things all went smoothly — but hey, we accomplished them.  Here are some other stories and memories about Evie these days:

—One time Evie and I were waiting in the car, so she was up in the front seat with me pushing radio buttons and happened to push a station playing Phil Collins – who I hate – so I was like ‘NOOOOO Not Phil Collins!!’ and she thought it was hilarious – so she kept switching it back saying ‘I LIKE Phil Collins!!’ and then I told her it was the guy who sang all the tarzan songs (a movie she really liked at the time).  So now every time we are in the car she asks if we’re listening to phil collins or tarzan.

—Shes tough to put to bed these days.  She will ask you to ‘come right back and check on me?’ about 5 times before she actually starts to doze off and fall asleep.  If you do not check on her in a time period acceptable to her, she will scream bloody murder.  sometimes this happens at 2am when she wakes up and thinks you forgot about her.  fun fun.

—She loves paw patrol and PJ masks – she sings their theme songs and pretends to be characters.  These days shes insisting everyone call her ‘marshall’, one of the paw patrol dogs.  I called her this at the grocery store check out and the clerk was like ‘thats a cute name’, haha.  Also, she calls me ‘Ryder’ (the paw patrol  leader) and we have to go on missions around the house.  Its the game of the month for sure.

—She is definitely a mommy’s girl.  No one else can put her to sleep, help her in the bathroom, put her shoes on, etc.  It always has to be mommy.  When I go up to take a shower, she has to come up and wait for me in the bedroom until I’m done.  She will always run errands with me, over staying home and playing.  Its nice to be loved. (Its also nice to have 5 minutes of alone time.  But I guess I’ll get that when she goes off to college).

— She is becoming a great playmate for Wil. They can play in the basement unsupervised and not get bored with each other. She comes up with all kinds of creative games and make believe story lines which her and Wil get entirely involved in. Wil used to do this one his own, now he has friend to do it with.

Here was her yearly birthday questionnaire:

1. What is your favorite color? pink
2. What is your favorite toy?  Mom and Wil (I rephrased it as what do you like to play with)
3. What is your favorite food? coffee (I was drinking coffee at the time and couldn’t get another answer out of her)
4. What is your favorite show? Paw Patrol
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? Paw Patrol (her new shirt)
6. What is your favorite animal? elephant
7. What is your favorite song? sunshine song
8. What is your favorite book? baby book (no idea what she is talking about?)
9. Who is your best friend? Cooper (friend from school who we get together with a lot!)
10. What is your favorite game? Minnie game (new puzzle she just got)
11. What do you sleep with at night? Minnie (not true, but whatever)
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? Nothing

For her birthday, we just had a small birthday celebration in the burbs.  Busia and Dzia-dzia were in the area, so they were able to stop over as well.  Birthday pancakes, beach day, balloons, presents and purple cupcakes — it was a great day.  Here is our big 3 year old:

Zev most commonly goes by ‘Baby Zevin’ by his big brother and sister.  When they want his attention its ‘Baby Zeeeeeevin’.  Never just ‘Zevin’.  When they introduce him to strangers at the super market its ‘Baby Zevin’, like its all one word.  I usually go with Zev or Zev-man, though occasional by text, its Z or ZP. Whatever you want to call him – hes doing great.

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Here are some updates:

• Easily rolls from back to tummy – but tends to get stuck on his tummy and cant get to his back. Which is backwards from what is normal – but is inline with what i remember with all my other kids. This was extremely problematic at nighttime, but hes finally getting the hang of flipping back over.
• Started solids – He loves them and is taking everything like a champ – but I dont have time to sit down and do solids on top of bottles!  So we’re seriously lacking in this – hope to catch back up soon.
• Working on the pincher grasp.  Hes able to pick things up and get things in his fist, and then cant get them back out.  So I put little puffs on his plate and he just ends up with fistfulls of puffs and nothing in his mouth.
• Teeth count: 2 bottoms! O and P (I think?), for the dental folks.  Possibly working on top two, too.
• Sits up for 30-seconds at a time – then face plants into whatever is in front of him
• Starting to ‘crawl’ – but doesnt really use his hands or arms yet – so he just uses his ginormous forehead to prop himself up then scoots himself across the floor.  He does not stay put – he can easily get to within 5 feet of whatever is around him, so we have to watch his surroundings!
• After hes done with a bottle and I take it away – he just sucks on his upper lip. I wish I had a picture of this.  Its so funny.
• Zev is by far our LOUDEST baby.  Most people dont realize this because when theres a lot of people around, he tends to be quiet and watch everything.  But when we’re just sitting around the house – he screeches! Especially at nighttime, after I put the big kids to bed, Zev loves to make the loudest high-pitched noises possible.

At his 6-month appointment he was 20 lbs 4 oz (89%).  Here are some monthly doggy pictures:

1 week:

8 weeks:

5 months:

6 months:

7 months – Thighs for days:

Here he is in the same outfit against the Lion like Wil and Eves at 7-months:

Oh my gosh Evie, I cant stop laughing–

Sweet Wil —

Next milestone for Zev might have to be a haircut!  I cant tame the cowlick at the top of his forehead!