Happy half, big guy.

Jake turned 6 months old a couple of days ago. I cannot believe that it has been 6 months since I woke up to my water breaking! I find the rate at which time is passing to be very unfair......I turn around and another month is gone, another milestone reached.

We had his 6 month visit today. It appears he is reallocating calories into height, he weighs 22.2 lbs and is 29 3/4 inches long, which shocks me to the point of wondering if the nurse got an accurate measurement. That is what Luke was in height at a year, I think. Either way, he is a big tall boy, with the requisite Mangan melon head. He is doing all of the things that he is supposed to do, barring getting ear infections, which was something that his big sibs had a real talent for yet Jake has yet to experience.

At 6 months Jake sleeps through the night most every night. He goes down around 6.45 and sleeps till either 5 or 6, and then I can get another hour of nursing in bed in with him, generally. Some mornings, like today, we get up at the wonderful, beautiful, 7 am. Other days, the painful cold dark 6. He is a jolly little boy, he loves to smile, he loves to watch his big sibs, he loves to be close to his Mama. He loves to eat, solids have been met with enthusiasm (and impatience, don't get distracted while feeding Jake, or you might lose a hand). The bathtub or our bathroom are probably his favorite things ~ as soon as we get up to our bathroom he smiles and starts flailing his arms and legs to get down ~ he just loves to be naked and crawl around our bathroom, for some reason. All in all I feel like Jake just slid easily and seamlessly into our family. The transition from 2 to 3 kids really was easy....much easier than going from 1 to 2 kids, to me.

Jake, big fella, you are now closer to one than to none. I love you so much, thank you for being such a sweetheart, a great nurser, a good sleeper ( now, you little bugger, I will never forget those first 8 weeks or so), and thank you so much for completing our family. I love looking around the table and seeing the faces that I plan to spend the rest of my life loving on.

Thanksgiving 2010

The kids love playing with Samantha on Thanksgiving. Next year there will be 5 kids in this picture!

Luke helps Mom Mom put up the Carolers. This year there is a new one, for Jake!

Bounty. So grateful for delicious food prepared with much love on this holiday.

Jake feels the love.

Triumphant after our Thanksgiving morning 5K. We ran with Jeannie and Tim (and sweet Henry, of course!) in the first snowflakes of the season. It was so much fun and a tradition that we hope to repeat for many years!

Whirlwind! From Tuesday night out with friends, to Wednesday car hunting and pie making, to a race (Nate's first ever!) with all three kids in strollers, to an amazing Thanksgiving meal, to choosing and decorating a tree, to Matt and Janine and Zoey and Owen visiting for the weekend, it has been a go go go sort of holiday. It was fantastic. I'm beat, but ever so happy and grateful.

More to come later. I need to take full advantage of this downtime with all three kids napping and the fireplace on. Go Eagles.

We eat.

What else you's guys gots? Steak? Who gotta steak? Gimme it.

Don't mind the rind.

These spoon thingy are pretty nifty! Who knew?

Sibs.

I've been an awful blogger lately. Probably a good thing. I think that it signals an arrival to our rhythm. We have figured out a working-ish scheduley fly by the seat of ones pants sort of thing.

The kids are awesome. Luke hit puberty. I mean, not really......but he seems so much taller, so much more like a boy than a pre-schooler of late. His face is emerging ~ not his baby face but his boy face. Not sure what exactly it is, just a general era of big boyness with the retention of his sweet spirit along the way. He suddenly has all of these memories, these observations, these quirky little boy things that I just find so endearing. He has the soul of a boy trapped within the maelstrom of a very, very active body.

Jules is a girl, all of the sudden. She has totally differentiated ~ babies are pretty much all the same, but for how we clothe them. Recently my girl seems to have clear differences. Her penchant for relationship and understanding nuances (who is who's sibling amongst playgroup, who is who's daughter/sister/brother etc) all are just leaps and bounds ahead of where Luke was at this age. She knows all of her friends at school by first and last name, and notices things about her friends that I can't even believe (aka Madison has earrings but Ava does not, but Ava wears sparkly tights and has pigtails sort of details, which she loves to relate upon pick up from school). We have suddenly started doing "girlfriend" things together ~ the other morning she wanted to help me get dressed up to go out, yesterday just she and I went shopping for the kids Christmas outfits. I'm so not a girly girl ~ mascara signals a big going out event in my life. So Julia and I walked through the "getting ready" process together the other day ~ we washed our faces together, put on moisturizer, she brushed her hair, she put on "lips sticks" (aka chap stick), and she delighted in her special time with Mama. She has this new habit of asking me (whenever I am emotional, as I find myself being a lot ~ I'm acutely aware lately of how my cup runneth over ~ ) she asks me "Mama, are you happy or sad?" when I get emotional about these kids of mine. My answer is generally "Oh Jules, I am so very happy".....and then she throws her arms around me and proclaims "Oh Mama, we are going to be girlfriends FOREVER!" with a huge happy sigh. I love her. I still can't believe that I get to be the mother to a little girl. I so hope that we do, in fact, remain girlfriends forever.

Jake. The Snake. Jake has pretty much done everything but put up billboards on 95 to signal that he was ready to start solids. Short of hunting and killing and eating a deer, he pretty much got the point across that he was ready to eat something other than just nursing. I was hell bent on ignoring his signals, until I realized that I was quite honestly sick of sitting half naked at dinner every night nursing the little man while I tried to shovel food into my own mouth. Out came the highchair. I cut up some bananas, and let him go to town. He loved them. He then loved gnawing on a cantaloupe rind.....and he loves oatmeal mixed with breast milk, and carrots, and sweet potatoes......in fact, my fat toothless old man baby seems to adore gnawing on anything that I put before him. So, about a week before he turns 6 months old, we have embarked on solids. He is also......moving. I won't really call it crawling......but he is pretty much mobile. He flops and planks and scoots and turns and wiggles and rolls and army crawls to wherever he wants to go. We are brushing up on our infant CPR and sweep and clear maneuvers as a result.

We had brunch with old friends today ~ one of these friends had their first little girl 2 days after I had Jake. I went through clothes yesterday to hand over my baby girl clothes to my friend and her sweet daughter Mia. I ended up weeping in the basement. NOT because I want another baby, but because going through the boxes of baby girl clothing made me miss my baby Jules. I can picture her in the darling little dresses and hats and whatnot as though she was just in them yesterday. It is hard ~ NOT the not having any more babies thing ( I'm happy about that), just the physical acknowledgement of looking at these baby clothes, and seeing clear physical proof that my daughter is never going to be a baby again. I mean, I feel like an idiot even writing that, it is so obvious........and I adore who she is and what she was, but man, this all just goes much, much too quickly.

We are preparing for Thanksgiving. We are local this year, going to Mom and Dad's. We are having fun with friends, and trying to organize, and party planning, party attending, and busy busy to the max. The trees have dropped most of their leaves. The coats are going on every morning. The nights are dark by dinnertime. The fireplace is lit daily. Things are getting baked, and dinners cooking in the crock pot, and while we treasure every day that we are squeaking in at the playground with friends, we recognize that they are coming to a chilly end.

It's Eagles time. Go Birds. Happy Sunday, all.

This is my life

Jake loves me (I suppose). Jake is also hungry. I can't tell which aspect of our relationship has started this habit of his.....but whichever one it is, it runs deep.

Every time I pick up my son, this is what he does. Hungry, full, awake, tired, this is what he wants.

This was part of our wonderful Monday night where my Mom and Dad had a dinner date with Luke and Jules.....so it was just Nate, me, and the sweet fatty.

The kids got home around 7:45.....we freed them from their car seats, and Luke started literally running in circles around the driveway. In his pajamas.

Cupcakes were involved, apparently. Cupcakes are an anomaly, in their lives, (especially at night!). Grand-parenting seems wonderful. All of the fun, none of the consequences! :)

The kids went to bed easily, (shockingly) and we are watching the Eag's TROUNCE the Skins.

Life is good. Anyway, this is my Jake, and his penchant for my jaw.

Just another week.

Jake hangs and watches football with Nate and I today. He brought all of his chins along.

The kids love on Ben. I don't know why it looks like they have no lips in this picture. Apparently this is their very serious, lipless, "I love him" face. Quite interesting.

Family movie night after Jake went to bed. Ben participated.

Jake and his girlfriend roll around nibbling on one another's ears all afternoon on Saturday. Oh, young love.

Jake delights in eating Julia's tu-tu. Between the dolls, the tu-tu's, the pom poms (his very favorite thing to eat).....the photos of Jake's babyhood are already quite different than Luke's were. Having an older sister rocks.

Daylight Savings Time is Evil

Julia declared herself a "Superhero" this morning. Not sure if it was the Dr. Cape, the gloves, the striped shoes, or the necklace....... but something in this magical combo made her feel very powerful. Very powerful, and very serious about her power.

Brothers. Notice the sky out the window. That is the color of the sky at dawn. If you are not seeing it daily, I envy you.

A cold picnic lunch with friends at our new favorite jaunt, Freedom Playground.

Julia gets her fingernails painted for the very first time. It inspired dramatic feelings in her, as you can see.

The kids catch up on some much missed cozy time with Daddy.

I hate daylight savings time. I have been up at 5:45 the past two days with Jake. Yes, the cozy snuggly love on one another in front of the fireplace time is quite lovely.....but not as lovely as sleeping soundly, in the warm darkness, next to Nate. We got through the weekend and Nate successfully completed his mini-program. We are going to a reception at Nova wednesday night to brainwash encourage Nate and I into tackling the actual 21 month long executive MBA.

I'm going to take a nap. These mornings coupled with cold days make me crave nothing more than crawling into my big warm bed when the kids do.

The flip side to those early mornings is the fun of having three naked little bodies in a warm bubbly tub, however. I do love these chilly nights.

Weekend

Danger.

I admit to hoping for a wonderfully content, play with ones toes, lay around smiling forever sort of third. Jake is not that. Jake seems to have some sort of biological imperative to move. And to move now. The velcro isn't working.

In other news, I am a weekend widow again this weekend. Nate (who I am so proud of) is at Nova again all day today and tomorrow at school. It's hard! Not hard so much with the kids, as I am well used to having them all day, but somehow the weekend feels more lonely. I miss our silly routines like breakfast sandwiches and the gym and family time. I miss my husband. We had a wonderful day, we met my friend Erin and her sweet boys for a great walk at Valley Forge on a beautiful, sunny, cold fall day. By the time we got home, it was lunch, then naps (for all four of us). I woke the kids early so that I could go for a run with Bec ~ she took the double jogger and me the single and we got through 5+ miles with all of the kids being happy as they ate their snacks and provided color commentary on the endeavor, as par the course.

Nate is considering going to get his executive MBA this coming August. I am so proud of him for wanting to do it. I also am a little bit scared. It will mean every other weekend of school (Fri Sat and Sunday) for 21 straight months. I am a SAHM in a world of SAHM's. Weekends are when we go out as couples, do house projects, live family life to the max. It is hard to envision giving that up for two years, though I know that it may well be a great thing for our family. Nate is so awesome about giving me my nights out ~ my book club, my girls nights.......but weekends just feel different. I don't know. I have mixed feelings of pride and excitement for my husband, and worry about lonely weekends.

Figuring out Fall

Today was a Seattle sort of day. Foggy, cold, grey, and very, very wet. I loved it.

Our schedule is weird. So weird. I find myself settling into fall. I find myself confused.

Luke and Jules are easy. They get up at 7, though, on days like today (dark and misty) I actually had to wake them for school at 8. They do things ~ school, gym, friends, play group etc.......eat then nap at 1. They sleep till 4. We eat at 6. We all jump in the tub (all three kids with either Nate or I). I take Jake to bed at about 6.45. By 7, I put a show on for bigs and middle, and Nate and I relax. The kids do the brush/potty/book thing, then go to bed by 8. We relax some more. Simple, right? But there is that little issue of smalls.

Smalls wants a schedule. If we are stuck in the house all day, he has one of two routines. He either wakes up at 6.30 for the day then naps by 8:30, or sleeps till 8 and naps at 10. He loves his nap. He will easily sleep for two hours. He wakes. He nurses 37 times. He plays. He watches me feed the bigs, reads a book with us, and then once the bigs are in their beds, he and I go into his room. We nurse. He sleeps. This is a magical point. This is the point at which I straighten up from lunch, and then climb in bed or in the tub or on the couch. I love this point. I *should* be writing thank you cards and letters and picking paint colors and generally achieving something......but I don't want to.

Anyway, the point of the story is this. I like schedules. I crave planning, and adhering to plans. I need agendas. I need activities, and time with my girlfriends. I need exercise. I need a clean house.

I feel guilty whichever way I go. If I allow Jake to sleep like he needs to, the bigs are bored and we are all on one another's nerves.....plus the house gets messier, I don't exercise, we don't see friends, and we are loud/distracting to Nate who is working in his office. If I honor myself and Luke and Jules ~ by going to preschool, by going to the gym, by going to friends houses.....Jake gets screwed. Today Jake was up at 6.30. We came downstairs and sat in front of the fire and watched the sun rise over the cornfield while we loved on one another. By 8, I had to wake the bigs as it was a school day. By the time that the bigs were eating breakfast, Jake was ready to nap. He fell asleep nursing while I ate breakfast. I laid him down. However.........by 8.45 I had to wake him to change him and get him in the car to take the bigs to school. He slept in the car, but when I got to trader joe's I had to wake him to put him in the sling so he could foodshop with me. Then we stopped by Pop Pop's office, awake again. Then to pick up the sibs. Then home for lunch. By 1, he just wanted to play with me. I know that this is only because the poor child was shuttled around all morning (I don't count car seat sleep as sleep) and he was all out of whack.

So. Someone loses, and right now it is Jake. I really don't like it. I admit to (arrogantly) hoping that the hard work I did with L&J as far as respecting their sleep needs and planning my day around them paid off in the way of great, easy sleepers. I simply can't do the same thing with Jake. And I constantly hear how 3'rds are "so adaptable!".....and I want to believe that.....but. But I admit to being in uncharted territory for me. I want to allow my sweet boy all of the peaceful sleep that he needs, but I can't.

The end result is that we are doing a lot of flying by the seat of our pants. I feel like it is working for the kids, but it is hard on me. I miss the gym. I miss having a routine. I feel as though I am having a hard time finding the most efficient way to use my time, and that is frustrating to me.

Few Tricks, Many Treats

Halloween was a blast.

We spent Saturday at the Villanova/Richmond game. It is (finally!) cold out and the kids enjoyed watching the game with their first hot chocolates of the season in hand (and on face).

Saturday night was a late night for us as we went out to our favorite sushi place with some good friends. One of the most unfair aspects of parenting young kids is that no matter how late I go to bed, they wake up at the same time! Sunday was a lazy day of football and cooking and long naps and general gearing up for the big night. After an early dinner we got the kids dressed, and hit up our neighbors and friends right nearby. We piled in the car to drive the 4 miles to Mom Mom and Pop Pop's, then over to Aunt Bec and Uncle Rich's house. From there, we headed the two blocks to our old Biddle St. neighborhood. It was perfect, just one block, both sides, lots of old friends, the kids could walk and we carried Jake, and they had a fantastic time.

Much candy was collected. No tears were shed. Very little candy was eaten (by next year I bet this will be more of a challenge, this year they were most excited by looking at it and collecting it, I don't know that the reality of eating it all has even hit them yet).

Today we started a new family tradition by heading to Linvilla Orchard with Alexis, Samantha, Aunt Millie and Mom Mom. It was C.O.L.D but free of the pre-halloween insanity. We saw the animals, the scarecrows, played on the playground, and got a chance to get some fresh air and shake the sugar out of our systems.

I'm beat. Candles lit, fireplace warming me, kids in bed (first ever family movie night was tonight ~ the kids looked so cute cuddled up on either side of Nate eating their popcorn.). Nate and I are hot on their heels, it seems. Halloween chocolate hangover.

I can't believe that soon we will be decorating for Christmas. I dreamed of snow last night.