Plugging Away

Happy Baby

It's hard to believe it's already May. As a teacher, I'm usually very cognizant of this month because I start to feel the push of winding down the end of the year. Maybe it's the four days of ISTEP testing, maybe it's the strange weather, or maybe it's the trying to keep up with a two-and-a-half year old and an eight-month old who has an entourage of doctors and appointments. However it's happened, it's almost the end of the school year and I haven't even begun processing it!
In general, it's been a pretty good last month at our house. Callum is as busy as ever, and in the last few days we've noticed his two-year molars popping through. He's done really well with it and we've hardly noticed. He was a bit under the weather yesterday and today, which meant me spending a night curled up on the chair sleeping with him. While it wasn't the most comfortable position, he's so rarely a cuddler that I didn't mind, except for his need to wake me every so often to tell me a story (which included everything from recounting everyone who went to church on Sunday to the fact that he got to see a monorail train on PawPaw's computer last week). Silly boy!
He did also hit his half birthday milestone. Since I haven't done a Hey Hey picture in a while, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to get one. Sitting still just wasn't in his vocabulary.

Speaking of milestones, Declan also hit eight months! He's up to 14 lbs, 1/2 ounce, and the doctor was really pleased with his weight gain. While he's still below the curve, he has moved up just a tiny bit. She said she would like to see better height gain, but Declan was screaming his head off while the nurse attempted to record his height, so I'm unsure of the accuracy.

So sweet--holding Squeaks's hand

Sitting by himself!

Otherwise, he's doing well overall. He's still in therapy (and will continue to be probably until he ages out at the age of three), but we're seeing some good progress! However small they are, I'm just excited to see milestones in the right direction. He's been eating some baby food--he's up to cereal, bananas, sweet potato, applesauce, and prunes and seems to like them all. I've been able to add corn back into my diet--yipee (if you think corn isn't a big deal, check out the labels next time you eat and see what all has corn starch or corn syrup in it)! I tried eating eggs, and that didn't go so well, so they're still out.

On Sunday we had Declan's baptism finally. Well, it was actually a recognition ceremony, but we'll consider it his baptism. He was officially baptized on Scott's birthday, right before his heart surgery. We didn't tell most people because 1) we didn't want to scare people in thinking the worst of the outcome of his surgery, and 2) we wanted people to treat his recognition like a baptism so he could have a normal moment in his babyhood. We actually tried doing this ceremony in November, but since most of the family was really ill, that didn't work out. It turned out beautifully this time!

Callum is working on his photography skills. He set this photo up all by himself and then pushed the button to take the picture:

Posing with Squeaks

 Callum's also a whiz with musical instruments. We'll be setting up his tour dates soon:

Random Easter pictures (we didn't get any good family ones--Declan was exhausted and hungry after church, and then we got too busy to go back and take ones).

 

Everyone always asks how Callum is doing with being a big brother. I think these pictures say it all: