Thanksgiving week

We had an eventful week. The Sunday before Thanksgiving we had a visit from Grandma Anne & Grandpa Pete. I think the visit cheered them up after a not-so-nice ending to their annual trip to The Game. Jack was a bit sick (again) - he had pink-eye and a touch of a fever, so we had a very slow Monday/Tuesday. However, Wednesday we hit the road to Connecticut to visit my (Lauren's) family. We got to celebrate cousin Patrick's birthday, Thanksgiving (2 times), and went on a train ride to one of Santa's workshops.

Big Boy!

Nate just had his 4 month check-up. All is normal with him. He had a whole array of vaccines and was upset for less than 30 seconds, and wasn't even that upset during those brief moments. What a trooper! He was 17lbs 2 oz (84th percentile) and 27 1/2" tall. That is super tall - 97th percentile and 3/4" taller than Jack was at that age. His head is still small - around 42nd ptle, but apparently this is no concern as long is stays growing (which it is). The Dr. thought it might also be a bit small because it is less flat than many babies since he spends quite a bit of time upright or on his tummy.

Time to start thinking about new car seats - again. (This seems to be neverending somehow). Nate's infant seat only goes to 29", which I suspect he will hit by 6 months for sure. (Jack was 28 1/2 at 6 months).

Just Nate

4 month update ( a day late---oops)

We have been getting Nate to practice sitting a bit (tripod style). He is getting pretty good at it, actually. This is early for real sitting, but Jack was an early sitter, so I figured I would get Nate going.

He also already loves to "stand." Obviously he is nowhere near able to balance, but his legs are very strong and can support his weight.

Sleeping -
Nate is still doing great. He normally sleeps all night, but sometimes needs us to put his pacifier back in his mouth in the middle of the night (usually around 12-1). A few times he needed to be held for 3-5 minutes, but then fell right back to sleep. Not quite as amazing as it was, but still ZERO complaints. At bedtime we can put him in the crib (we still swaddle) and he falls asleep on his won within minutes - sometimes with one check-in. He still doesn't really have a nap schedule, but the length of them are getting longer. Sometimes it will be an hour+.

He eats fine - absolutely no issues there. He still takes a bottle without issue too. We have been very diligent and he gets one every day. I also have been super diligent about pumping every single morning. This is different than we did with Jack - we didn't want the same issue he had of not wanting bottles.

I did go out to a meeting last week (a local family organization I a lot of work with) and I had to come home as Nate was screaming for Steve. I came home and he was fine as soon as I held him. I am glad he is so attached to me, but hopefully that isn't a regular occurrence. He was fine with our sitter on Sunday night, so it isn't an "always" problem.

Mommy's Helper - Stylist

Jack picked out Nate's clothes for me a few days ago.

Daddy's Helper - raking

Ok, he started out helping, but as intended, he made a big mess jumping and throwing leaves.

Halloween Part 2

So Halloween was a big hit in Jack's mind. We went to one town-wide parade (the same we went to last year) as seen in previous post. It is just a little walk, about 5 blocks long, but the little kids love it. The second parade was just our neighborhood (pictures below). A woman on the next block actually even sent cute invitations to all the houses. It was great to see all the neighbors and meet some news ones. It is truly incredible how many little kids there are. The organizer even had noisemakers and streamers for the kids.


Jack, Steve and Nate went trick-or-treating around 6:15 with our neighbor's 2 and 3 doors down. Jack enjoyed saying "Happy Halloween" all day, but was pretty shy when it came to actually saying that or "trick or treat" at the door.


At our house, we had, get-this, 144 (give or take a few) trick-or-treaters! Our neighbors confirmed that they gave away 292 pieces of candy so our count is pretty dead on (they gave 2 pieces per kid). They have been in the house ~30 years and thought it was as busy as they can remember.