Disease Migration with Three Kids

A few weeks ago, we went to the Magic House with Davis, Alex and Evan.  We had a great time there, but I'm pretty sure Alex picked up his first serious cold there.  Both Alex and Evan have had a lot of congestion, high temperatures and general cold symptoms that turned into ear infections and required anti-biotics.  Its taken about two weeks, but everybody who has been in our house has slowly gotten this cold.  This made me realize that with three kids, we'll be in a pattern like this for the next few years:

New Pictures of Davis

I took Davis to a state park with the goal of throwing rocks.  A good time, but we needed a spot with more shade.
 

Bedtime with ghosts

Putting Davis to bed some nights can be a considerable challenge.  On Wednesdays he goes to daycare (where he naps; he does not nap at home) and then has swimming lessons at the Y.  It makes for a very busy, exciting, high-energy evening and it usually takes him a while to wind down.   Last week, he was up until around 10:00 and the week before 11:00.  Bedtime goes a lot quicker if somebody is willing to lie down with him until he goes to sleep, but this is a dangerous path to go down.  This week, his grandparents are here and it has been an extra exciting and energetic evening.

After we had already done his normal bedtime routine, had another banana to eat, brushed teeth again, he was asking for somebody to lay down with him to help him go to sleep.   Being the genius parent that I am, I thought it would be a great idea for his imaginary friends to lie down with him to sleep. I called Timmy, the Big Ghost, the Little Ghost and Six up from the basement to hop in bed and sleep with him.  

After some stern words with the Big Ghost, and picking the Little Ghost up and putting him in bed with Davis, I thought progress had been made and I could continue with my evening.   However, this genius parent did not think to tell Davis' friends they needed to stay in bed.  So far, the Big Ghost has gotten up twice and hidden once (Davis had to get out of bed to tell me this of course).  Also, there doesn't seem to be enough room in his bed for all his friends (they had to move to the bottom of the bed to make room for Davis).

Magic House

This weekend, we loaded our zoo into the van and headed to the Magic House (St. Louis Children s Museum).  Davis loves to play here, it is just a phenomenal place for children to pretend, act, explore and have fun.  This was the first time (that I can remember) where we have taken Alex and Evan.

One of Davis' favorite parts of the Magic House is the water room.  This time, we decided that Alex and Evan were sitting up well enough to try them in the baby seats in the water room.   They had a blast playing in the water, grabbing toys and splashing around.

Here are a couple of videos of Alex and Evan in the water room:

Alex and Evan at 6 Months

Alex and Evan had their 6 month appointments last Friday.  Both boys are growing and developing really well.  Evan is 19 pounds 5 ounces and Alex is 18 pounds 1 ounce.  This puts them in around the 80th and 70th percentiles, up from the 5th and 10th at birth.   Both boys are around 27 inches which is on the bigger side for 6 month olds (I don't remember the percentage)

At 6 months:

• Evan has figured out "solid" food and seems to like it.  
• Alex tries solid food, but he is much more interested in grabbing the spoon and doing it himself.  Results of which can be seen in my previous post.
• Both boys do really well on their tummies and are starting to reach and scoot.  
• Evan loves to roll.  Whenever we put him down on a blanket or the floor, he goes thump thump thump and is quickly on the other side of the room.  We can no longer leave him by himself on the floor.  Alex rolls quite a bit too, but tends to roll less.
• Both boys babble and squak a lot.
• Sleep and sleep training is going really well.  We haven't done much to actively train them to sleep, but they generally either sleep through the night or only wake up once around 2 or 3 in the morning.  Last night, they both put themselves to sleep and slept through the night.  Of course, I didn't because I'm trained to wake up, but progress...
• They are making progress on sitting up.  When they are put in a sitting position they will usually stay there for quite a while.  However, they still take a header into the floor if we aren't careful.  

Two videos of Alex and Evan

These videos are from the weekend.  The first is the two of them wrestling over a toy on the floor.  I tried to intervene with other toys, but you will see the results.  The second is feeding Alex and the differences between feeding Evan. There are many more videos on our YouTube channel.

Botanical Gardens, Trains and Water Park

We had a pretty fantastic day today: this morning, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens to meet Kristen's colleagues and their son (3 1/2) and daughter (9 months) with the express goal of playing in the water.  After lunch, we headed home and played with trains and in the yard until after dinner and it had cooled down some.  Then we headed to the Kirkwood water park for a little over an hour before they closed.  I took a lot of pictures today.  There are many more on Picasa online.

Botanical Gardens

Trains

Water Park