Learning to Share and Starting to Crawl

Oh jeez, I started this post a month ago and am just now finishing it up on this here Easter weekend. Our lives are just jam-packed full of unpredictability. Otto had hand, foot and mouth virus two weeks ago. He's much better now. David and I had to switch off watching him/working half days in the office, until Otto was able to return back to daycare.

Now, on with the rest of this post...






Noah and Oscar are ready for Spring. They have way too much energy to keep it locked up indoors. Here they are playing with Oscar's slide.

And here they are dancing to Barney. I remember sitting through Barney when I was 13-years-old and babysitting for the neighbor kids. I swore no kid of mine would ever watch that goofy purple dinosaur. I was wrong.

If it's not Barney or Elmo, it's Thomas the Train. What is it with boys and trains?

In addition to a slide, we bought Oscar a mini trampoline to help him get rid of some extra energy. He can't get enough of it.

Oscar has evolved into quite the little helper. He gets so much satisfaction out of helping with the most mundane household tasks--like emptying the dishwasher.

Here's what the silverware drawer looks like once Oscar has finished "helping":

Oscar has a fascination with tasting and drinking everything David or I consume. Even if Oscar is totally stuffed from dinner, he will still ask to have what we're having. He especially likes hot cocoa. I can't blame him.

So many birthday parties the past couple o' months--so much sugar...

Unlike Oscar, who would bounce himself silly in this jumperoo, jumping seems to relax Otto. We put him in here when he's fussy, but doesn't want to lay down and he will eventually jump himself to sleep. He even jumps in his sleep. His teachers say he does the same thing at school.

Otto gets really excited about pushing the toy lawnmower around the house. It's a little tricky for him to navigate--since he isn't walking yet--but he manages pretty well with his walker.

Anyhow, in this video below, we're so preoccupied with Otto, Oscar sees an opportunity to sneak his tub o'train tracks into the TV room. This is a big no-no, since we have a "train room" with train tracks and a train table already set up for Oscar.

Anyway, it cracks me up how he first tries to sneak by us, then second tries to negotiate, and lastly uses the distraction/completely- change-the-subject-method. He asks his daddy to play "catches" with him and to put down the camera. Too funny!

Oscar isn't always patient with his baby brother, here he tells him to "go around" when they are both trying to go through the same entryway.

But then there are times when they're playing together, or reading side by side...and it seems to be the most natural thing for them. Makes me a little emotional to watch.


Speaking of getting emotional, Otto is starting to crawl. He's doing his own thing right now, which consists of kind of any army crawl/scoot thing where he's using mostly his upperbody and arm strength. He just needs to figure out how to use his knees more and he'll be crawling all over the place.

Lastly, here's Otto playing with one of Oscar's favorite toys. Our friend, Jen, bought this karaoke toy for Oscar when he turned a year old and we're still playing with it. Otto's favorite feature is the microphone.