For a third and final time (capitalize and italicize "final" in your brains please) life has slowly settled to the normal ebbs and tides of normalcy. Sleep is slowly returning to the house after a barrage of breast feedings, night terror episodes, stomach bugs, colds over the last 6 months. Now I do know that nightmares and and stomach bugs are in my future for basically forever. But getting past the newborn stage gives me a glimmer of hope. I have coached my young parents at the clinic that there is a perceived level of normalcy that comes with the 4 to 5 month age range, and I am pleased to announce that Nolan is holding true to a pattern I found with Thing 1 and Thing 2 (Dr. Seuss reference). I have found a small lull in my deliveries after delivering 8 last month which also helps along the recovery process. Things will ramp up again sooner than later.
Hopefully you will hear in the upcoming months that our family has done little or no projects and have succeeded in taking our mini-vacations unscathed. One of those goals are possible, but to expect both is just sheer misguided hopefulness. Jen asked me a month ago as to what projects I had in mind for the summer. Ultimately my project is to do no projects. I may need an intervention and strong support of a therapist to follow through. I sort of, kind of, already made an exception to my efforts. I convinced my neighbors that making a big sandbox was a great idea. Thankfully for Nate's motivation level the 8x8 foot sandbox actually happened. I mainly painted (with two very dirty helpers) and shoveled sand. He actually built the frame and basically proceeded to finish basically the entire sandbox without needing much encouragement. On second thought I did have to reconfigure the sprinkler system and do some landscaping to accommodate the space and THAT was a fair chunk of work. It has been a glowing success (thank you nate!). No w the kids have plenty of room but choose to knock step on each other's sand castles anyway. Now all of that being said, I plan on having my bees (2 hives this year, yea!) and watching my pumpkin patch overgrow the lawn and planting too many tomato plants (much to Jen's dismay). And that's it. Promise.
The kids are just marvelous. Truly. I'm pretty confident that this is my very fatigued but very real golden age to where I will be reminiscing quite a bit. When the kids are small/cute and respectful, kind, sharing 85% of the time. Sleeping through the night, every night is a pipe dream- but who doesn't own one of those! Nolan is just the happiest child with smiles for everyone and an insistence of being cuddled when he has been left too long in his jumper or "Exer-saucer". He is a very social creature, loves to laugh to both Jen's and Everett's antics. Given the size of his cheeks, it shouldn't surprise most that he has fairly profound chortle once you get him started. Everett figured out quite by mistake that "Peek-a-boo" is a favorite. He had Nolan giggling for a good 10 minutes straight at dinner one night. Poor Everett actually has so much endearing enthusiasm for his little brother that he often times mauls him with love. Pinching cheeks, laying directly on top of him, grabbing his hands and shaking is arms are all common forms of affection- and consistently produce tears. It is such a struggle to explain to big bro that these are all unwanted forms of love.
Nolan is now Rollin'. Consistently from back to front. Consistently pissing himself off that he can't get back to the other side. Jen has been in the habit of flipping him over in the middle of the night when he has a mini-fit on his tummy. I have enough sanity to not bother. I love you Jen :-)
He has easily out-grown most baby clothes, our swings, the Bumbo chair (his thighs outgrew the chair a long long time ago), and diapers (now up to Everett's size 5). He dwarfs his cousin counterpart Elizabeth. I just busted the 12 to 18 month clothes out. Gastic banding may be in his future.
Audrey is a spectacular sister, as always. She now owns a cat- our Nick; she is pleased as punch (for now) to feed him, give him treats, etc. She is excited about her new role as cat owner. She thrives in preschool- quite a social butterfly from what I understand. She is regularly getting married (sometimes in secret) to her "boy toy" Cade. I am regularly asking to see if she will elope with me instead. We have refined the ground rules for marriage: 1) first college 2) he needs to treat me like a queen 3) get married. Solid ground rules if I do say so myself. She is creative and constantly making up and asking for newly created stories. Very much into unicorns right now. The "Princess Audria" story series co-created by Audrey and Jen probably need to be published. She is reading "bob books" with me and doing flashcards with Bumpa all the time.
Everett, who has already been mentioned is blooming into quite the articulate spokesman. Who are we kidding, cousin Georgie will always be our family orator, but Everett is quite excited to share his plans and desires far more than he ever has before. He and Audrey regularly negotiate games, treats, meals, books and everything else under the sun. Favorite pet phrases include "Deal!", "Perfect!", "No way Jose!", "Watch a show?", "Watch a movie, have popcorn?". If you want to have a little fun with him, try helping him with the word "spoon"...also known as a "Foon". After Jen and I stressed over getting Audrey potty trained, we took on a much more laid back approach with Everett. It has paid dividends to wait and more specifically wait immediately after Easter to bribe our way through potty training. Fortunately for Everett, there is no apparent end to the number of jelly beans we have on hand in exchange for a successful poop. It has gone so smoothly, that we can hardly believe it. It absolutely helps that George and Audrey have served as good examples.
As for my wonderful wife, she is as hot as ever. And she is doing well aside from that. She is back into the swing of work now. Unfortunately, her computer system regularly disagrees that she should be back to work. She is now best friends with the IT department mediator. She has found a pretty awesome balance between her work and home life. However, with the addition off caring for Number 3 and Everett's tornado-like enthusiasm for life, she has found that the goal of folded laundry owns the same difficulty level as reaching Mount Everest's summit. We hit up the "Joke Joint" for date night last night- freaking hilarious and will probably be back. She struggles a bit with the concept of not starting new projects even more than I do, but the upcoming garage sale season will keep her distracted for at least a little while.
Much love! Ryan, Jen, and Entourage
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