October, including Halloween, 2012

Oops, just realized I haven't posted pictures of the boys since September. Niiiiiice. (I'm sorry, boys! I love you as much as ever!) Here are a bunch of October moments:

Auntie Rache and Bella dropped off Will's birthday present: a plasma car!

The boys play barbershop, and I'm their victim client!

 Grandmom and Grandpop visit

Playing at DeFazio with Will's sister-wife Abby

This guy loves his baby sister

Ah, back in the days when Bridgie liked the Jumperoo...

Bridget and one of her faves, Auntie Julie

The first (very minor) snowfall warranted our first hot cocoa of the season

 The Parent Talk Fall Sale!!!

In vino, sanity

Halloween cookie bars, yum

Baby's 1st Halloween

Finn was Lightning McQueen for school

He switched to Spidey for trick-or-treating; Will was Batman, and Bridget was a hand-me-down jack o'lantern

 

The babies (Bridget, born in March, Nicolas, born in May, and Gracie, born in February)

 Jack, Finn, Will, Connor and Riley

Almost all the kiddos at Mindy and Bryan's

Jack (fireman), Will (um, Bruce Wayne?), and Connor (Buzz Lightyear)

Bridget at (almost) 9 months

I forgot to say last time that Bridgie popped a tooth (her lower right in the front) and it's now jutting out quite noticeably. She went to the doctor today and measured at:

17-inch head (83rd %ile)
20 lbs. (80th %ile)
28.75 in. (88th %ile)

I've always said that B really reminds me of her oldest brother in sleep patterns, mannerisms, mobility, etc., and the similarities continue. Bridget is always cheerful and she's just begun signing "More" and "All done" like a rock star. She loves her table food and wants to eat everything we're eating. Everything. All parents have the things they're particular about and others they prefer to laisser faire. When it comes to food/allergies, I'm the latter, only because we've never had issues in our family and it's unlikely we will--although of course it's possible. I don't take risks, mind you--no honey before age one, nor any plain old cow's milk, but everything I've read about more allergenic foods like peanut butter say that as long as a severe allergy doesn't run in the family, you should introduce those in the first year. So, we do. (It makes life a lot easier, too, since I can break off pieces of omelette to feed Bridge in a pinch, or even not worry about pumpkin bread that has traces of chocolate in it--although I try to work around the chocolate chips when I'm feeding her!) All this to say, Bridget's had just about everything. But we're also sort of busy with the older boys, so we're going to try to actively focus more on table foods, steamed veggies and the like, and reduce her bottles--they're just so easy when we're in a rush, which is ALWAYS.

Bridget's cruising, climbing stairs, and she definitely recognizes her own name--Dave and I will say "Mama/Dada do it," and then "Bridgie do it," and she'll copy whatever we've done, whether it's drumming or hiding or clapping hands.

I was going to add a bunch of cute pictures here, but it looks like there's some error with my Blogger photo storage, so you'll just have to trust me that they're cute until I can find a way to post them!

Eight Months of Baby Bridgie

At seven and a half months, Bridget started doing this:

 And perfected the art of this:

This is what she does when you try to hold her on your lap for more than three seconds:

It's so wonderful to see her grow, explore, become mobile...but I watch with equal parts pride and wistfulness, knowing she'll keep moving way faster than I'll ever want her to.

Creepy Crawly

This Halloween, we have our very own (two-legged) spider in our home. In other words, little Bridget is crawling! The way she goes about it is so different from the boys--she's methodical, focused, always looking down at the placement of her hands. The only downside is that she's going through the typical always-wanting-to-be-on-the-floor phase, and we've had to haul the safety pen out of the garage to keep her safe from the boys' choking hazards small playthings. 

Here are some pictures of our sweet-as-pumpkin-pie seven-month-old (!!!):

And, Naturally, Your Daily Finn

"I-L-N spells...pee-pee." Finn looked up from his pen and paper and shot me a mischievous look. I'd normally respond with "No potty talk, please," but today (after reading a scary and very informative article, which this less scary article sums up) I wanted to make sure they knew the real word for the private part in question.

"Did you guys know it's not actually called a pee-pee? It's called a penis," I said bluntly.

They both looked up at me, grinning conspiratorially as if I must be joking.

"Naw!" Finny shook his head at me, smiling, and turned his attention back to peeling truck stickers out of his activity book. Will laughed, still holding my gaze with a quizzical expression.

"Guys, I'm serious. It's really called a penis! That's the real name for it."

Will giggled. "Peeeee-nis?" he said, skeptically. They both chuckled, and Finny again shook his head dismissively and went back to his sticker book--then he added in an authoritative tone, "No, issnot PE-nis. Iss Jupiter!"

Your Daily Will

I was looking for my phone today (spoiler alert: it was in the fridge*) and the boys were patiently waiting outside for me to take them on our walk. When I came outside, Will said "Mom, Finn and I were talking about the clouds, the trees, the ants and spiders, the boys who just pulled up across the street, and our neighbor's house."

"Oh!" I said. "And what were you saying about the clouds?"

"I was saying that we see the clouds moving slowly across the sky, but they're actually moving really fast, we just can't see it because they're so far away."

"Yeah, you're right. Wow, you know a lot about that, buddy!"

"Yeah, I do," he agreed, starting to skip alongside me. "Because I'm really smart about that."

* My old excuse was "baby brain" and my new one is "Parent Talk Sale brain." Hopefully this mental glitch will be resolved after next weekend's sale!

Love for Kyle

I didn't want to write about this until now--it wasn't my place--but I think this family could use all the thoughts and prayers they can get. My close friend Lisa flew from Tanzania to D.C. to meet her critically ill baby nephew, Kyle, on Sunday. He passed away shortly after she arrived. Lisa's sister Christine and her husband Kevin (and the rest of their family) are mourning the passing of this beautiful boy at less than a month old. They fought so, so hard for their son's life and their loss is unimaginable to me.

The website set up to give updates about baby Kyle is HeartKyle. There is information on where to send a condolence card, and more importantly you can leave a comment with a loving word for Christine and Kevin, even though you (probably) don't know them.