Jonah Nicholas, 30 Months. Tessa Rose, 4 Months.

Whew, are we ever tired or what?! We're also sick of talking about how tired we are. And the blog isn't getting written very quickly at this rate, because Tessa's long nap, well, hasn't been all that long the past few days, leaving us with very little time to ourselves to do things like blog. But the show must go on. The kids are sweet and lovable; it's truly a miracle the way their cuteness puts fuel in our empty tanks and gets us through the day.  Sleepy as we may be, and thin as patience may wear by the end of the day, we're happy campers.  Most of the past month has been pretty good; it's just a recent string of worse sleep that has us feeling tired.

Growth: Our little Jonah is still our little Jonah.  At precisely 2 1/2 (which Grandma taught him to say) he is still more like an 18-24 M size in pants, but not for lack of nutrition.  Some 2T pants work, and most tops. He's just a lil' dude.

Note the 2T pants rolled at the ankle, per his request

Tiny T is becoming less tiny.  She had a 4-month appointment, and weighted 13# 13 oz (41st%ile), measured 23.5" (14th%ile), and leapt up the charts with a head circumference of 42.5 cm (93rd%ile!).  She has become a true 3-6M size, wearing some 6M clothing comfortably. It seems like we can almost see her growing! She's got the sweetest, softest, squishiest little legs, tummy, and cheeks. They're just perfect.

Photographed in the same PJs as seen in month 1. You can see how much bigger she is!

Sleep: No major changes in Jonah. The nap shenanigans got a little better temporarily, then worse, now unpredictable.  You never know when you'll get a sweet Jonah or step on a land mine. Yay, fun.  Neither kid liked the time change, and by didn't like, I mean went to bed at the adjusted time, got up an hour early. You'd think if they had been getting up at 7 they'd start getting up at 6, right? No. 5.  Thank goodness they made their way to 6 throughout the week, and now closer to 7. It has been tiring since we haven't had a full night of sleep in 4 months, so when there's a string of worse than usual nights it can be devastating in terms of fatigue.

Jonah still enjoys brushing Tessa's hair after bath, before bed

Tessa, who had been waking once at night to feed, started waking around 2 and 5, then Jonah up at 6, so pretty much we would just sleep 4 hours then 2 hours. By and large, Tessa is on the same routine. She wakes around 7, eats, plays, 8:30 nap, 10:00 eats, 11:30 nap, 12:30 eats, 1:30 nap (usually long), 4:30 eats, 6:00 catnaps or rests, 7:00 eats a "snack," 8:00 bath for both kids, 8:30 Jonah to bed, Tessa nurses, 9:30 Tessa to bed.  Tessa likes her swaddle, pacifier, and Rock n' Play. We left her arms out of the swaddle and it didn't go well.  Dr. Koesters says it's fine by now, but the goal is crib and no swaddle by 6 months. She's so happy and easy as is and change is scary.  Still, I think we will wash her sheets and assemble the crib soon.

Eating: Jonah continues to be Mr. Adventurous.  We love that he will ask for a bite of foods he cannot even see from where he is sitting!  Lately, in restaurants, he is wanting to get up from the table sooner than he had before, but other than that, all is about the same.  He got a bit of Halloween candy, and enjoyed the lollipops and Reeses Cups most. He has become infatuated by the soft pretzels at Whole Foods and asks for one every week when we are there!

Halloween dinner with Grandma

"Silly lunch." He didn't want to eat the face.

Salting everything, as usual

"Pretzel's being a Boo-Boo Bunny!"

"Pretzel's being sunglasses!"

By request, Jonah and Ducky watch the leaves being blown around

How many licks does it take?

Tessa drinks milk, as Jonah will tell you. She does it well.  She is showing some developmental signs of preparing to have "solids," but she's too young at this point.

Personality: Jonah is our sweet boy, independent player, good cleaner-uper. He loves his friends, reminiscing, and singing.  He has written a song "Vegetables Daniel song, Vegetables Below song" and will sing that, and several others, while accompanying himself on the ukulele.  He sings "Happy Birthday, Yom hu'ledet sameach (with a strong emphasis on the pronunciation of the Chet, that lovely throat clearing Hebrew letter), Row Your Boat, Rock a Bye Baby, ABCs, Twinkle, 5 Little Monkeys, Baa Baa Black Sheep (followed by Baa Baa White Sheep and Baa Baa Blue Sheep), and probably more I am not thinking of.

He talks about things he did an entire year ago and can recall much about what went on.  Lindsay just brought up the train exhibit at the downtown branch of the Library (go see it if you can!) and he talked about it. Speaking of which, if he has a question or needs help remembering something, he asks "Mommy, talk about it."  On school picture day, I snapped a shot of him on the bench outside school.  Now, thanks to his Jonah memory, he insists upon a picture on the bench every day. I'm talking won't get in the car without one.

He loves sharing toys with Tessa. Sometimes what she has becomes what he wants, but then he offers it back to her after he has taken it.  Perhaps he just wants to be the one to invite her to play with it.  He enjoys Sesame Street and is up to about 6 or 7 episodes that he watches; he will ask for each one by name.   He is very affectionate towards his parents, sister, kitties, and Ducky. We loooove the way he talks to us and them, giving a tender hug, and saying things like "I love this girl/boy, he/she's sooooo sweet." When we get home from somewhere, he asks "Daddy, how's work?" or "Mommy, how's the gym?" In the wee hours, there's "How's your nap?  You all done sleepin'"  He looks out for us and always notices if someone is not eating with him offering "Daddy you like some lunch?" with his voice going up at the end.  When Tessa is crying, he tells us what he thinks she needs and will start singing in the back seat when she cries.  We melt!  He loves to help push Tessa's stroller or a grocery cart.

Speaking of which, he loves Mondays and knows that means school, gymnastics, and Whole Foods.  At the grocery, he happily rides in the cart while Tessa rides in Daddy's baby carrier,  tasting samples, pointing out produce he knows, putting some foods in the cart, picking out more dinner foods from the buffet, loading foods on the belt, swiping the credit card, and signing the signature pad.

Too many beer samples for Tessa

Otherwise he remains the same likable dude, fascinated by and learning from everything!

Under the bleachers at a Bexley home game

Watching a tree come down 

Tessa is our sociable little lady!  She just loves faces and smiling.  Her eyes dart around the room, looking at whoever is talking.  Grin at her, and she'll do it right back. She's an easy-going gal. I tote her around on the 3 mornings Jonah is at school, and she's pretty much cool with it.  We drop off Jonah, then she goes to the babysitting room while Mom gets in a workout and a shower. Then we schlep off to see a patient in Bexley and Tessa eats and then puts on her PT hat.  She is a good therapy baby! She just looks up at my patient and they have the cutest interactions while we work. Sometimes she comes along in the stroller if we walk outside, or in the Moby wrap when she wants to be held but Mom needs her hands free.  Then it's back in the car to pick up Jonah and come home for his lunch and a fight nap. We have been doing this routine for a few months now and she seems to enjoy getting out and seeing the world.  Don't we all.

Milestones: Jonah is working at the same things as we blogged about last month.  He keeps working away tirelessly at his 24-pc floor puzzle of the alphabet and last week, while Lindsay was upstairs giving Tessa a nap, he did the whole thing! At gymnastics, he can now walk on a balance beam and lift one foot long enough to tap a cone to one side or the other. He's also working on his writing and letter recognition and can name most letters in a number of different fonts.

All by himself!

J-O-N as written by Jonah

Tessa is connecting with her environment. When she spies something she likes and reaches for it, her eyes widening, sometimes cooing at it. This just developed in the last week.  She has successfully brought Sophie, the giraffe, to her mouth.  She also just loves the birdie hanging from her car seat handle, which Mimi and Poppy got her for Halloween.  She's sitting supported very well and has even kept her balance in sitting very temporarily.  She's spitting as much as ever and has added drool to the mix.  You're never fully dressed without some spit up!  On her tummy, she will lift her head a bit and doesn't seem too upset about it either. She still loves her own reflection, but not also attends to the other animals hanging on the arch next to the mirror.

Grandma rigged the playmat so Tessa can better see her reflection;
here she can be seen modeling it!

Events: When we celebrate Halloween, we celebrate Halloween!  We kicked off the celebrations with a trip up to Sandusky where we played and stayed at an indoor water park then Cedar Point Halloweekends.  Jonah was a bit cautious as he wandered around between waterfalls, but once he got in the groove, he had a fun time going down the little water slides. None of us got a great night of sleep in the hotel that night, but that didn't stop us from having a great time at the amusement park the next day.  Jonah just loooooves the rides and didn't stop riding except to eat. He didn't even nap and he didn't miss a beat.  He slept in the car on the ride home and woke up while Julian was carrying him upstairs to bed just long enough to mumble "I want to ride that one..."

Playing with Daddy while Tessa takes a milk break

Tessa's roadside milk break

We hosted a Halloween party at our house and the kids had an excellent time running around in their costumes.  They seemed to enjoy the selection of themed foods, games, and crafts.  Our family had a children's book costume theme and Jonah got a kick out of the idea of costumes.  He keeps talking about "Poppy's being silly."

Good Dog Carl

Angelina Ballerina

Peek-a-boo!

We spent an evening at the Columbus Zoo, where Jonah saw a few animals, rode the train, and checked out the decorations.

On Halloween itself, Jonah got into the groove of passing candy to trick-or-treaters and saying "Happy Halloween."  He was so excited to see Grandma and Grandpa come to the door.  He went out with Lindsay and Grandma to a few houses on our block and was fairly serious about the whole thing.  He enjoyed the suckers, but hasn't been asking for the bag of candy otherwise.  How convenient. We attended the traditional after-party at Mimi and Poppy's, where our Good Dog Carl ate and partied happily and Angelina Ballerina took in the sights and snuggles.

We took a trip to the museum to play; we are eagerly awaiting the reopening of the kids' area! Following this we had brunch with the whole family at the Kitchen, a restaurant in the space that used to be Jonah and Tessa's great-grandfather Julius's store. Jonah loved exploring the area.

We also enjoyed several Buckeyes games together. Well, "enjoyed" is a relative term -- whoever schedules games for 8PM clearly does not have young children!