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The time that has lapsed since the last blog post is clearly not a point of pride. However, we came to realize that we are in danger of forgetting many of things about the kids. In particular, elements of their personality, and stories that we must remember to embarrass them with when they are older.

On the whole, the boys are quite different. Maybe that is to be expected, even though we swear that our approach to both boys has been identical. Below is a quick summary.

Spencer

Spencer is very rough and tumble kid. Anyone that lies down on the floor is immediately treated as a wrestling dummy. One of Spencer’s teachers recently questioned me regarding his penchant for wrestling. Specifically, does he wrestle with his brother? Ronan, who was in the room at the time, replied that they are not allowed to wrestle. The teacher went on to explain that Spencer loves to wrestle with the biggest boy in class (~40 lbs, to Spencer’s 28 lbs). Apparently Spencer will “take him down” to initiate the wrestling. Both boys enjoy the wrestling relationship; however, one of the teachers indicated that the boys can be hard to separate.

At the same time, Spencer frequently surprises us with a sensitive side. If he gets spoken to sternly, his bottom lip pulls way down and the tears start. He will also spontaneously hug Ronan when Ronan is upset. Spencer is still quite cuddly when he is tired, and will lean back into you for a book.

Spencer is an all-star sleeper. Rarely does he wake in the night, and if he does, he is easily put back to sleep. There have been instances where he says “bed” then starts to head up the stairs. He seems to have a bit of a handle on when he is tired, and is usually willing enough to go to sleep.

We often refer to Spencer as the “Menace”. He is quite simply into everything. He has no interest in watching TV for longer than about 15 seconds, and then it is on to something else. That “something else” often involves climbing on whatever is accessible. He seems to lack a regard for his own well-being, and will jump/fall off of furniture with abandon. The nickname of Ooshoo or Oosh has stuck and we call him this as often as his own name.

Ronan

Ronan’s uptake of French has been surprising. Not that he will be translating at the UN anytime soon, but certainly common phrases and requests are in his vocabulary.

It has been an adjustment with Ronan going to JK. More for us than for him. In daycare, there was a daily “report” on the happenings. In JK we need to rely much more on Ronan’s own reporting. Often that reporting involves answers like “Nothing” and “No one”. Tidbits come out from time to time, but they won’t be coaxed out. Ronan loves riding the bus and this is likely the best part of the day for him. Lunches have been a bit of a challenge as most days he comes home with most of his lunch un-eaten fanning “I didn’t have time to eat”.

For Christmas Ronan got a Nintendo DS with Mario Kart. This was a big struggle for us, as we felt he was too young. We still feel he is too young. Certainly not to young to use the unit or play the games (his learning curve was very, very quick), but too young to manage his own impulses surrounding the game. His attitude has been greatly affected and if he could, he would probably play it for 10 hours straight. In an effort to better manage the game play, I limited him to 10 minutes this morning, and set the timer. Ronan, who had just gotten up was still in his pull-up, played for the allocated 10 minutes and turned off the DS without having to be asked. What a great bit of parenting! All it took was some boundaries. Why was his wearing the pull-up relevant? Well, in true casino-slot-machine fashion, Ronan had to pee, but refused to get up. You see, going pee would have cut into his 10 minutes. And, what the hell, that is what pull-ups are made for, no? Not such great parenting after all.

Ooo-shoo Sha-shoo Ga-ga-la

Progress on our house is going well, looks like we will be moving on time on May 23rd.

Ronan's devious smile

Guess where Spencer likes to play? Under the computer desk. It is tough to keep him out some days.


Our self family photo - as directed by Ronan

Ronan slept in one day so Spencer and I went to wake him up.

Playing on the carpet

Spencer "everywhere I want to be, but I especially go exactly where my brother is"

Ronan has taken to calling people by nicknames. One day Coby will be Couscous and Ronan will be Sled. Most of the time the nicknames last for a few hours and then we go back to our regular names. Quite a while ago he started to call Spencer Ooo-shoo Sha-shoo. Then the Ga-Ga-la part got added on. Then Coby started calling him Ooo-shoo. And it's stuck. And now he is quite often just Ooosh for short. I'm not sure how Spencer feels about being called Ooosh, but it has certainly had staying power and even I find myself calling him Ooosh. I am just envisioning the future - Spencer gets a sports shirt with his name on the back and insead of Lamarche he has Ooosh.

Over the last month Spencer has started to crawl really fast on hands and knees. We have to be constantly on the lookout to see what he is into. The boys are also fighting over the same toys now and we are trying to instill the concepts of "we share everything", "trade", and "take turns". Ronan is really good about using his words and of course he doesn't understand that Spencer is too young to really participate in all of this.

Photos

In addition to the update below I know that everyone prefers photos.

Laughing at his brother, of course

First haircut at 10 months - it was so long in the front that it was in his eyes

Swimming lessons

The construction worker kitty

"I'm not smiling for this photo no matter how hard you try to make me laugh"

Spencer just loves the Jumperoo

Ronan's last day of Little Gym - Sports Skills class.

Luke, Ronan, Tristan, & misc. kid

My boys

Ronan - 3+3/4 years old

Spencer 9 months

Spencer - 10 months

Well Spencer's 9 months just flew by shortly after Christmas and so we made it to the Doctor for his appointment closer to the 10 month mark. He weighed 21 lbs 12 oz, was 29 1/2 inches long, with a head size of 46 cm (18 inches). He has generally been following just above the 50th percentile curve and continues to do so.

He definately feels leaner to me these days but that is likely as he is scooting around non-stop. He started out moving backwards on his belly just before Christmas, then he figured out how to turn in circles. Just after Christmas he would get up on his knees and then plop onto his belly without moving. About a week ago he finally figured out how to move forward and he is so much less frustrated now! He is still moving on his belly with a very laboured up and down movement that must be tiring, but I'm sure it won't take him long to perfect crawling and find a better way. For now we are all just getting used to him moving around, keeping the basement door closed, picking up all of Ronan's small parts toys, etc. Luckily he isn't too fast yet so we can keep up ;)

Spencer also picked up eating cubes of food very quickly as well. And although we still top him up at the end of the meal with some mushed up food he generally eats everything solid. And he prefers it that way. Spoon feeding him has become a real challenge as he will not open his mouth and bashes the spoon away. He will sign for more and all done - the 2 look relatively similiar so it take him a few tries to get the message across. It also doesn't help that Mom & Dad are distracted at meal times by someone very loudly saying "more ketchup! more milk! I don't like this!, I'm not eating this! don't give me this to eat any more! OK, I'll eat 2 bites, but then I get a treat."

Spencer has lots of different sounds and loves to imitate people, both in noises and in movements. He knows what the "cool" toys are already. One day he had Ronan's motorcycle and Ronan wanted it back. We have set up a rule where you must trade toys, not just grab. Ronan tried to offer Spencer 3 different toys of his own but he would not let go of the motorcycle. Ronan then tried Sally - one of the Cars movie toys and he consented to the trade.

Spencer has always generally been a great sleeper - since an infant he has gotten up 1-2 times a night. But the bad news is that he is now 10 months old and he still gets up with the same frequency. We stopped feeding him in the night about 1-2 months ago and he was generally OK with a soother pop in, covered up and leave the room. No big deal to be up for 2 minutes, and I can usually fall right back to sleep. Other than some issues when he is sick and will only sleep when held, this continues to be the case. He is rocked to sleep for naps and falls asleep by himself at bedtime. He has been doing this since about 6 months of age. He has recently taken to longer naps and we have cut out the 3rd nap of the day just before x-mas. He now will sleep 2 1.5 hr naps, although if he gets too overtired he will only sleep for 1/2 hr.... so the trick is to catch him before he is too overdone.

Spencer now has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on the bottom. He cut 3 of them over the x-mas holiday and 1 more after that. I think that like Ronan he will likely be missing 1 tooth on the bottom as it hasn't made it's appearance yet. We will see. Spencer loves to laugh and smile. And he loves to make other people laugh, especially his brother. The 2 of them are so cute together it makes all of the work worth it. They will both go to great lengths to get a giggle from the other.

I decided to go back to work part time starting at the end of January. Spencer got a spot at the daycare on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at the beginning of January so we could slowly integrate him. We were prepared for the worst as Ronan cried every drop off for the first 3 months or so. Spencer was just as happy as can be sitting on the floor playing with the toys and checking out all the other kids. So far he has only cried 1x and I think this is because he was pretty tired. He does fairly well there - sleeps and eats so we have no complaints.

In January we also added a 3rd day for Ronan as he was very lonely at home and really misses having other kids to play with. It started in October when Franklin the Turtle (of TV and book fame) started coming over to visit. He would need to eat at the table with us, be tucked into bed with Ronan, come to swimming lessons, etc. Franklin started coming to our house every day that wasn't a pre-school day and then he started to bring his other friends along with him too! Bear, Fox, and Beaver were all regularly spending the better part of the day with us. We felt that he really missed playing with others and as Spencer was taking up a fair portion of my time and not really at an age where they can play together yet an additional day at school seemed to be the right thing to do. Since January we have only had 1 visit from Franklin and 1 from the "swimming ghost" - ? And none of them spent the night with us.

I will be part time until the end of April when Coby will take over looking after the kids 2 days a week. This allows them to be part time all the way until September when Ronan will start JK 2-3 days a week (and go to preschool the off days) and Spencer will be full time at the Y. We have registered Ronan in the French Immersion program here in Guelph as their only entry time is at the Kindergarten level. We will give it a try and if it isn't for us we will switch him to English school. There are a few friends in his preschool class who will be going as well as some of the Little Gym friends so hopefully he will have someone in his class that he knows to ease the transition.

Merry Christmas!

Today I remembered that Ronan had an issue with a nutcracker (creepy soldier style) ornament last year. Consequently, I put it in the hutch. Well today I thought I would see if a year made much of a difference. I told Ronan I had something for him, and then produced the nutcracker. Ronan didn’t really react, except to say "That was disappointing". The nutcracker guy is now the disappointing guy.

I am not sure at what age kids pick up dismissive sarcasm, but I got a dose of it last week. Ronan was eating a foil wrapped chocolate ball. I told him "when I was little, those were my favorites". Ronan responded with "Oh, great." and went right on talking about something else. The tone said "Who the hell cares about you and your chocolate balls". It was funny, mostly because it was spot on. Who really does care about my chocolate balls?

Spencer has just started to move in appreciable amounts. Mostly it is backwards type moves, and sometimes he goes around in a circle but it is movement nonetheless. I had forgotten the pure joy of an infant stuck on his belly in the crib and unable to roll back over. Yep, joyful 30 times in a row.

Spencer has three teeth right through on the bottom, and two more that have just come in on the top. He is a bear when he is teething. Oddly, I don’t recall teething being much of an issue with Ronan.

Ronan continues to get along really well with Spencer, although in recent days there have been some squabbles over toys. Perhaps Spencer won’t be quite so cute now that is mobile and interested in everything that Ronan has. Just last week Ronan was trying to tease Spencer in the back seat. The words "I’ll pull over" were on the tip of my tongue. Then I thought, "Really, already?". I was sure we had another 2 years before the back seat fighting began.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas this year. Everyone is really getting excited around here and every other question relates to Santa, how will he get in? What is he doing now? etc., etc., etc. Coby has him temporarily distracted right now by playing the guitar and Ronan is "playing" the pitch pipe.