Late 18-Month Well Child Visit & More "Sleeping" Capers

I have still been struggling a bit to get the boys to sleep for their naptimes and one day, they just took to falling asleep on the couch together. They didn't sleep as long as I would have liked this day, but such is life. The newest naptime arrangement is to put Caleb in the pack n' play in the living room, which he absolutely loves and Daniel sleeps in his room in the toddler bed. What is kind of funny is that David's mom told me that when he was little, he absolutely INSISTED to be in the center of the action all the time too (like Caleb) and she also had to set up a playpen in the kitchen area where she was for him. Like father like son I guess! The other day, I fought and fought with Caleb to sleep in his room and poor Daniel was looking at me like, "Get this kid outta here so I can sleep!" After a while, I got the idea to try him in the pack n' play and low and behold that was the ticket! He stopped fussing RIGHT away and nuzzled his head in the corner of the pack n' play and was asleep almost immediately. The interesting part also was that he slept MUCH longer (about 2 hours) and he slept through a piano and a flute lesson being conducted right next to him. Works for me! I'll take it! Daniel is pretty easy to get to sleep. If he falls asleep in his high chair or the car, I can just transfer him easily to his bed and he continues to sleep for a good long time also.

Daniel does really well in his toddler bed and at night both the boys settle into their room pretty nicely. The new "fun" thing to do however sometimes when they aren't super tired, is to turn on the light and wreak havoc in the room. The funny part is there isn't much to destroy, but they find and destroy it anyway. We have two dressers of clothes in there and even with 2 heavy bins of books on top of one of the dressers, they still manage to turn it around and pull out all the clothes from time to time. Another little trick they discovered this morning was to pull off the childproof lock on the door and come barging into my room at 5:15am. UGH!! It was bad enough that I heard them turn off the monitor at 4:30am...they reach into the crib that I have left in there (and created a roof for, see previous post) and pull on the cord they can get and get the surge protector near them and then pull the monitor cord and turn it off and/or switch the channel number. David jokingly now calls them "Pinky & the Brain" and says that like those two, they are a very ingenious combination of intellect and risk-taking/crazy behavior.

At the well child visit today, Daniel weighed in at 28 pounds 14.5 ounces (60th percentile) and was 36 1/2 inches long (above 100th percentile), and head circumference was 20 inches (also at the 100th percentile). (Note: Daddy has a big head too and I am convinced that equals lots 'o brains in there!) Both boys had to get 4 vaccines today, so that was not super popular, but I believe necessary to protect their health. One funny thing that happened though during this was that Josiah misheard the nurses who were talking about "hibs" (the haemophilus influenzae type B hib vaccine) and chimed in, "The babies already have BIBS." Too funny! I guess it shows he is listening though, right? Daniel took a great leap in his height this time!! He went from being under the 50th percentile to over 100%! Crazy! Though they did say that perhaps they got the measurement wrong last time. We haven't been in for a long time though, so I guess it is possible to see such a leap over a long period of time.

Here is sweet Caleb who for some reason always ends up on the floor at night when he is in his room with the blankets over his head. I go in there before I go to bed and check on him and move him back to his bed for the night and make sure both boys are covered up in their comfy beds. I am not sure his infatuation for sleeping on the floor exactly, but it has been a pattern for a few nights in a row that he does this, so I am sure he has his reasons!

Caleb is our smaller one of the two (always has been too). He weighed in today at 24 pounds 13 ounces (20th percentile), was 34 1/2 inches long (60th percentile), and head circumference was 19 1/2 inches (75th percentile). His head is not as big as Daniel's, but it is close!! When the doctor looked at Caleb today she said that his throat was pretty red, so we had him tested for strep just in case, but he didn't have that thankfully! Not sure what the deal is with the red throat, so we will just need to watch him for the next couple of days to be sure. He doesn't act sick at all, so I am hoping it is nothing!

The boys did pretty well at the doctor, but due to a last minute change in my child care plans, I had to bring Josiah with me, which was a little stressful. He of course was the most noisy and difficult when I was trying to talk to the doctor, which was frustrating. He calmed down eventually though and we got through the whole visit, shots and all. They had 2 nurses to help with the shots and such, so that was good too. Overall, the doctor was pleased with their progress and she didn't see anything to be concerned about (other than Caleb's red throat as I mentioned before). I told her about the amount of words they have and she thought it was just fine for their age right now. Speaking of which, here are some of the new words they say now: "ungry" for hungry, "eee" for eat, "ree" for read, "tory" for story, "nana" for banana, "lie" for light, "claw" for clock (like big brother Josiah used to), "siah" for Josiah, "naniel or daniel' for daniel (but neither will say Caleb yet), and they say "A, B, D, T, P" consistently for letters and "1, 2, 3" as well. I am sure there are a few more words that I am not thinking of that are new, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. They are doing really well with all the animal sounds now and they have the following down: cow (moo), sheep (baa), owl (hoo), cat (meow), dog (oof, oof), rooster (oo, oo, oo, oo, Oooo), pig (funny throat sound for this one), & horse (neigh, neigh) are the ones I can remember offhand.