When?

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm suddenly incapable of keeping up blog posts with any regularity. The boys are growing and growing and growing and I can't keep up with them. Currently we are home in Morristown, visiting our families. Henry asks repeatedly, "When are we going to Mamaw and Papaw's house? When are we going to see Grammy and Grandpa?" until we give in and make the trek to East Tennessee. The boys are such great travelers, I don't know why we don't do it more often. Laziness. That's it. Henry spends the entire trip looking for the "Welcome to Morristown" sign with the rising (setting?) sun on it; that's his cue that we've arrived. Charlie, age 19 months, is still in his rear-facing car seat, so he spends the trip waiting for Henry's face to light up upon spotting the "Welcome to Morristown" sign.

Charlie: As I already wrote, Charlie is 19 months old now. He had his 18 month checkup this week. On the growth charts, he is in the 75th percentile for height, 50th percentile for weight. Still off the charts in head size (or smarts, as we say), but his head growth rate has leveled out and Dr. Johnson says he is no longer concerned with the size/shape of Charlie's head. Actually, he didn't even bring it up, and acted as if he never had worried about it at all, which is maddening to me, considering he prompted us to put Charlie, age 9 months, through an ultimately unnecessary CT scan less than a year ago. Charlie's vocabulary has exploded lately. It is still confined to one-word phrases, mainly, but he can repeat just about anything we ask him to now. His favorite word is still "Henry," and it's the first word he says when he wakes up in the morning. He says, " 'Gain," for "Again," just as Henry did at this age, and he'll say it 'gain and 'gain whenever he wants us to repeat a story or do something that makes him laugh. Charlie can get very attached to items in the grocery store when we're out shoppping (toys, cups, etc.), so Russell has invented a game called Here Take My Wallet, which we use to remove such items from his clutches and avoid paying for them at check out. Basically, he says, "Charlie, I'm going to have to take that [ball/cup/package of oatmeal] from you...here, take my wallet!" It works every time. Charlie has an uncanny ability to know which card in the wallet is the credit card, and that is the card he always forms an attachment to. This frightens me a little for our future. We have semi-officially weaned Charlie, as of today. I am having more difficulty with this than he is. It's just so good for him, and it has kept him so healthy! And flu season is upon us. But I got him a flu shot, and it's really just time to move on to the next phase of our lives. He, of course, doesn't know the difference, having been exclusively bottle-fed for his entire life.

Henry: Henry is still adjusting to preschool, almost three months in. I keep hoping we'll get to the point when there are never any tears at dropoff time and when he'll be comfortable enough to sleep at nap time, but I'm beginning to think that may never happen. He likes school, and there certainly has been enormous improvement since the beginning of the school year (long gone are the first-day tortured screaming, wailing, and gnashing of teeth), but he's still just so nervous about being away from me, and about sleeping there when I'm not around. I'm not sure what else to do about this, except keep sending him regularly. Sleep is such a huge issue for our family. We've told Henry that when he turns four, he'll have to start sleeping in a big boy bed. We've added that he'll be sleeping with Charlie, which seems to comfort him somewhat. I'm not sure how that will work, though, because Charlie still wakes once a night crying "Meh! Meh!" (milk)...what am I supposed to do, have Henry give Charlie his milk at night? And Henry is terrified of sleeping anywhere but with Russell or me. I have begun having them fall asleep side by side, with Charlie between Henry and me, so that they can get used to snuggling with one another. So come December, we shall see. Halloween will be here in two days. Henry is dressing up as the Incredible Hulk (Charlie will be a monkey).

Other news: We think we are going to try to add one last baby to our family some day in the near future. Russell and I both feel like this is the right thing for our family, or at least I feel like it most of the time (but not in the middle of the night), and Russell says he can't think of a reason not to have another one. Henry says he wants to have another brother or a sister, provided that someone is available at all times to hold him. Charlie is not at all on board with the idea yet, and when he sees me holding a friend's baby, he points and loudly says, "No! NOOO!!!" but hopefully he will warm to the idea.