Playing Together

Now that Cole is mobile, and obviously getting older, we're finally entering the phase where our kids are playing together. Now that together is mostly in a sense that they are playing next to one another, but its nice to see them together. Cole is particularly fascinated with this little kitchen and the plates/cups. He loves to go over and throw it all on the floor. Abbi tends to take things from him, but he doesn't usually cry about it, he just moves onto something else.

9 Months

I'm not sure where to start with our little guy. I suppose there with "little". Cole went to the doctor for his 9 month check up and while he's exactly where he should be for height and weight, he's a little guy. He's in the 25th percentile for both height and weight. Compared to Abbi who was and still hangs out in the 90th percentile.

Definitely one of the more interesting things about having a second child is seeing all the similarities and differences between two kids. I mean Jenn and I are the same parents, but we definitely do things differently, and as a result Cole is already showing signs of being different from Abbi.

Cole will play a lot more on his own, mostly because Abbi demands that this occur. But he enjoys playing this way. He's constantly smiling. I mean constantly. I don't remember if Abbi was this way or not, but Cole is always smiling. And he's always super happy for me to be around. Abbi not so much. She was momma's little girl. Cole is my boy, for sure.

Cole has mastered the art of the crawl at this point. He's up on his knees and moving about. With this he can finally get around with greater ease, although his wounded warrior crawl never really seemed to impeded his progress all that much.

He's got 4 teeth at 9 months. He's rocking two teeth on the bottom and two up top. He's got the center two teeth on bottom, and one incisor and one center tooth up top. It won't be long before he's got 4 up top, but not just yet.

Now that he's 9 months old, we're going to start transitioning him off of baby food and more towards normal meals and such. So that will definitely be an interesting transition. Jenn has done such a phenomenal job over the past 4 months making all Cole's food, its going to be strange to start feeding him "table food". That said, Cole is definitely ready for the upgrade.

Lastly, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I wanted to make sure I did, so I don't forget about it years from now. Many times Cole is referred to as "Coley". Said as Cole-e. Why? Because I've got Abbi. And therefore he's Coley. It just works. Abbi picked up on quickly and so did Jenn. I think even grandmom has picked up on it here and there. He's got other nicknames from me too though, like Colers, Colerone and big man. But Coley seems to be the one thats really sticking at this point.

Leaf Pile

Over the weekend we raked up our leaves. This year I have the awesome power of a leaf vac/blower at my disposal, yet we still raked them up like normal in the back so Abbi and Cole could play in them for a while.

Abbi LOVED playing the leaves. She helped for a few minutes raking the leaves, but spent many more minutes jumping in and out, over and through the leaves. And of course, some time simply throwing them up in the air.

Hospital Visit

Last Thursday we took Abbi to the hospital for the first time. It was certainly an experience, one that I think Abbi did really well with. Jenn took Abbi to the doctor earlier in the day and they diagnosed her with croup. As the afternoon wore on, it became harder and harder for her to breath, and so we made the call to take her to the ER.

She handled the urgency of the trip well, and did great dealing with new doctors. They decided to give her a nebulizer treatment to open up her throat and make it easier to breath. They put a mask on her to administer the medicine and after about 5 seconds she freaked out. It took us a good minute to calm her back down to the point Jenn could hold the mask close to her face and allow her to breath in the medicine. But once it was done, she was much better. We stayed for observation for about 3.5 hours and then headed home. We ended up back at home a little after midnight, which we were thankful for since we were at least able to sleep in our beds that night. Instead of waking up in the middle of the night to rush her to he hospital.

She's still reeling a bit from the croup, still has some cough but overall she really seems to be getting back to herself, which is awesome to see.

Pumpkin Carver

Another year, and its the same ol story. Last year Abbi wouldn't put her hand inside the pumpkin to get all the guts out. This year, she was psyched up to carve the pumpkins, but once she saw the inside she wasn't so interested. Jenn was able to coerce her into putting her hand in once, so at least thats an improvement. She also as you can see helped Jenn decide on the carving style.

Candy

As I was sorting through Abbi's candy on Halloween night, Cole was very interested in all of it, and of course continuously tried to put it all in his mouth. I personally can't wait until we grow out of this phase. But as was recently told me, I'm not trying to rush him out of this phase, especially since it'll be the last time we get to experience it all.

Future Webmaster

This shirt is cute because it has spider man on it. This shirt is awesome because I happen to be a web programmer myself, making the saying on it, phenomenal. Obviously Cole doesn't care to much, but I personally love this picture.

Abbi 3.3 Years

More changes for our little girl. I think she's always like to sing and dance, but I really think that dance class is starting to have an impact. Each time I watch her perform her moves for us on the "dance floor" that is the area rug in our living room, I wonder if we're watching a future dance star. I say that thinking of the home movies you see of the people on the reality shows.

Abbi loves to dance. Most nights she clamors for our attention so she can show off some new creative moves she's been working on. Sometimes she wants to dance with me, other times she's just looking for spectators. Of recent topic she's been working on her saults. Such as the somersault, "fall"sault, "winter"sault, and "spring"sault.

The desire for her mom's attention has only gotten worse. She at times seems to have deepened her dependency on Jenn, and her desire to only have "Mommy" fix her issue. There are times when I can step in and help out, and others she just blows up at me and demands Jenn. One interesting thing, if we prep her by discussing what is about to happen, she often does well regardless of who's helping her or what we're doing. Unfortunately we can't always plan ahead for her whats going to happen.

This past month of course included the culmination of 3 months of discussion and waiting to dress up as Puss-N-Boots. She did great trick or treating, and really enjoyed getting dressed up. I was worried there would be costume aspects that she would immediately shed, like the hat or sword, but that didn't happen. She stayed in costume the whole time she was out!

We're still working through sleep issues, which isn't really all that surprising. But things have improved. She's also starting to develop a few less than desirable habits, such as not quite telling the truth. I wouldn't call them lies, but she's starting to stretch the truth, or omit things. Yet another fun challenge of being a parent, that like all the others, we're woefully unprepared for :)