a noodle at 2 months?

One week ago, Caden turned two months old! He had his check up on Monday morning (9 weeks old!), and Zane came with us so that he could get his flu mist. We explained that he was going to get medicine in his nose, and Caden was going to get medicine in his legs with needles. We wanted to explain it ahead of time so that he wouldn't get too upset about Caden crying. He kept asking if Caden was going to get a "noodle"... even after Caden got all 3 of his shots. :) Zane was right there for Caden and told him that it was going to be ok! Zane even got the extra bandaid on the nurse's tray for being such a big helper (an awesome prize for a two year old!).

Our pediatrician was happy with how Caden was doing, and we got his official stats: 12 lbs 8 oz (54%) and 23.5 inches (70%) long. Unfortunately I missed taking his pictures on Sunday (I blame my 2nd solo adventure of getting both boys ready, walking Molly, going to soccer, and getting to the airport to pick up their daddy...) and had to take them Monday. Caden slept a lot after his traumatic morning of getting poked and prodded, and when he was awake, he really did not want to be put down. It's pretty clear how he felt about posing in the picture above... so I flipped him over, made him even more upset, and snapped a few more pictures really quickly:







I was worried about how he would sleep that night since vaccine days usually mean a rough night of sleep around here, but that was Caden's best night to date... just over 7 1/2 hours from the start of his late night feeding to his next! We've been back to 5 hours the last few nights, but its nice to know its possible.

baby model

We finally got the pictures from Caden's newborn photo shoot today! He was about 3 weeks old when these were taken. Here are a few of our favorites:

7, almost 8 weeks!

Caden turned 7 weeks old this past Monday! It doesn't feel like it's been that long already. I've been bad about taking pictures, but thankfully I had my phone when Zane woke up on Sunday from nap and put teddy in his moby:


Teddy has super head and neck control because Zane jumped all around with him in there! Clearly Caden has spent lots of time in the moby :)

He even got to go to a parents' meeting last night at Bella Mente with me in the moby. Zane was very tickled when he realized his baby brother ("MY baby!" when his friends at school get too close to Caden for his liking) is going to be in the baby room one day. :)

Caden's somewhere around 11 lbs now, and his head is becoming less and less wobbly (although nowhere near as sturdy as teddy...). He's really into dark and light patterns these days. He loves staring at the blinds when the light is coming through them. The other day Caden was in his stroller for a while when we met up with one of his future classmates (4 days older!) and his mom for a walk, and he couldn't get enough of the pattern on the inside of his carrier sunshade:


Caden and I took Molly for a really long walk at Alki this morning, and he had his first bald eagle sighting. I'm pretty sure he missed it flying out in front of us though. Of course I didn't have the real camera with us, and my hands were tied up anyway feeding Caden and hanging onto Molly's leash. It flew away once we were walking closer to it, so we attempted to get a picture of a pelican for Zane, but that was a bust too and this is as close as we got:


Our goal this next week is to take more pictures!!!

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who's who redo

We took pictures of Zane in an outfit his daddy wore for pictures when he was about six weeks old (who's who?), so of course we had to do the same with Caden! It was a tight squeeze again, but thankfully we didn't wait too long and it still zipped!
Can you guess who's who?









Yep, they're in chronological order with Caden at the bottom. These boys are definitely brothers! We keep realizing how alike they look anytime we look at pictures of Zane from around the same age.

Caden didn't seem too excited about the yellow sleeper though, and I had a harder time trying to catch a smile. Maybe it's because he's a summer baby and was nervous I was trying to boil him! Despite the worried look, I confirm that no peanuts were boiled or harmed in any way for this photo shoot.



I even cooled him off right away for a few more cute pictures:



But not before he posed as a disco baby:


Some of the most noticeable differences between Zane and Caden are that Caden's eyebrows seem a lot lighter, Zane's eyes were dark chocolate brown from birth and Caden's are still a dark charcoal/blueish gray (we are curious to see what they end up!), and Zane has my short stubby toes and Caden has his dad's finger toes:

two boats!

Over Labor Day weekend, we had " Mama, Daddy, Zaney, Caden, Molly days" from Friday-Monday. It was great! On Sunday we braved the Bumbershoot crowds to meet up with Tanvi and Danny at Seattle Center while they were in town.

We checked out this garden while we were waiting for them to come down from the Needle (on a sunny blue sky kind of day - its been a good summer!).








Then we all went to check out the new Chihuly glass museum and garden. It was cool, and thankfully we can report that we made it all the way through without breaking anything! As you can see, Zane was impressed:





When we came across these displays (full sized row boats!), Zane said, "Look! Two boats!" We cracked up because two is definitely Zane's favorite number lately. He gets excited when he sees two of something... two spoons, two red cars, two dogs... But really it means more than one of something. Even though he can count to ten and sometimes to twenty when the mood strikes... he still says there are two things, even if there's more than two. I think he's starting to get it though because at night now when I say we have time for just two books, he replies, "No. I want A LOT of books." :)





We had a few Amazon friends over for a play date on Monday. Sophie and Zane are the same age, and I think we successfully kept the "mine!" battles to a minimum. It was also a reminder that Zane is pretty tall for his age; we tend to forget because all of his good friends at school happen to be tall too, so it just seems normal. I'm happy to report that Caden and his 3 month old friend, Alexandra, had no sharing difficulties ;)

On Tuesday, Zane got to go back to school like normal, and it was just 6 week old Caden, Molly and me during the day. Molly even started showing some interest in Caden finally. One day I walked around the counter into the kitchen while he was on the activity mat, and she immediately jumped down from her spot to lay down next to him and keep an eye on him:


Then on Wednesday Caden got to go on his very own play date to meet his friend Cooper for the first time! They are about 7 weeks apart, so I'm predicting more play time in their future. :) They were awesome shopping and lunch dates for Kelly and me!

just the three of us...

After my last couple of posts, my welcome-to-life-with-two-kids mommy boot camp continued! The weekend after Zane's bout of croup, it was just me and the boys because it was the 15th year of their daddy going to the US Open. Somehow the tradition trumped the newborn card! I did cheat and send Molly to the kennel so that she could have more fun playing with her furry friends and not have to wait too long for me to get her out in the mornings. She was definitely wiped out when we brought her home on Monday:




The boys and I kept busy with a play date on Saturday and soccer on Sunday. Thanks to Colleen for watching and snuggling with Caden so that I could run around with Zane at soccer! We stopped off at Starbucks to pick up some oatmeal and coffee on the way home, and Zane insisted on having coffee with his oatmeal too. So I poured my latte into a mug and poured his milk into my cup. I left a little foam for him, and Zane declared it was spicy. :)




Zane got to go to school on Monday, and then was home for the rest of the week because of our daycare's annual closure. After going to day 1 of the Open, their daddy got home late Monday night, but it was basically still just me and the boys through Thursday. We had a few play dates set up, and we went to go "see the diggers!" at the nearby construction site a few times. We put Caden in the stroller, and Zane helped me push him uphill to burn off some energy:












In the afternoons Zane had his turn in the stroller while we walked Molly. That way Zane got to have a snack after his playground play date adventures, and it meant Caden got to sport his cute sun hat while cruising around in the Moby (thanks, Fischer!):




Zane also made his own coffee a couple of mornings - he prefers his lattes with zero shots of espresso and a little cinnamon and sugar. Actually, he's pretty heavy on the cinnamon, but thankfully a lot of the sugar missed the cup ;)




One of the highlights of the week was starting to get real smiles from Caden! I even got a sort of laugh on Thursday. Too sweet! Caden flashes plenty of smiles at Zane too. I tried to capture one:




Overall, we had a pretty good time, and I survived and stayed mostly sane. I am definitely in awe of stay at home moms with multiple kids! Here we are hanging out on the activity mat together: