Happy Ten Months, Oliver!

This cute guy has developed such a personality!  Ten months old and busy, busy, busy.

We have learned that baby proofing our house has taken on a different level with this second child.  He LOVES to pull anything off a shelf he can.  His favorite targeted spot is the shelf with our cookbooks and DVDs and he can clear it within a minute.  He also loves to do the same thing at the library and I'm not sure how I'm going to take him to the library for the next six months without feeling incredibly frustrated that I can't just look at books without turning around and finding the shelf cleared.

Big sister baiting Oliver with Fruit Snacks

He is standing, unassisted, really well.  This kids is MOTIVATED to walk.  More so than his sister ever was.  He has graduated to the standing-and-falling-straight-forward stage a week ago and now has attempted to take a step or two before he falls.  ***Update as of tonight, he's taken many many steps in a row!  And even stopped, looked around, turned a little bit, and kept going.  We've got a walker, people!*** We have been practicing with fruit snacks (the only tried and true motivator we found with Zoë) and big sister loves to dangle them in front of him to tempt him towards her.  It's adorable.

Making mischief together already.

He's sleeping better these days.  He went through a period of waking up earlier and earlier and it was awful.  But, we're back to waking up between 6-7, which is do-able.  He's also napping, er, better.  I've figured out that he wakes up about 20 minutes into his nap and some of the time I can get him to go back to sleep for 20-30 more minutes.  If we stay home for the day he is quite regular with two or three naps, but if we go out it's anybody's game.

Oliver also had his first haircut a few weeks ago.  I was determined to wait until his first birthday but his shaggy 'do was driving me crazy since I had to keep sweeping the hair out of his eyes, so I took him.  He sobbed the entire time.  You'd have thought I took him to the dentist.  And, at first I didn't think it was a good one, but when I looked back at old pictures, I realized he looks much better!
























Zoë has certainly rushed into the "threenager" phase at an alarming speed.  The tantrums and attitude we've been getting has heightened.  It's so hard because she's SO sweet one minute and then it's like a switch gets flipped and she's a terror.  We had her birthday party at The Little Gym, which I hear was fantastic.  I was terribly sick with a stomach bug which eventually got everyone in the family (which was a horrendous two days) except for Z (she just got a cold).

Zoë got a new tricycle for her birthday!  Her feet don't reach the peddles, but she was really excited anyway.

From Preemie to 3-Year-Old

We went to the open house at the preschool we'd like her to attend in the fall.  We're on the waiting list (2nd!), which is SUPER discouraging.  The parents that were there were adamant that there is usually a lot of movement on the list over the summer so we shouldn't fret yet.  So, I applied to teach there, instead.  There's an open toddler teacher position, which, after I got over the idea that they'd make space for Z if I were the teacher (they told me so at the open house!) I actually got really excited at the prospect of teaching there.  Three mornings a week at the same time Z would be in school AND I could take Oliver to the 1s class at the same time since I'd be teaching it?  Score!  We'll see, I just sent in the application today.






Oh, and we've decided to sell our house in April and find something bigger for our family.  NBD.  Busy busy times!




























Just a few Valentine's pics of my lovebugs: