Me: Let's eat, Eleanor.

Ethan: No! Don't eat Eleanor!

Apparently, Ethan didn't hear the comma.

Life as usual around here. Eleanor sleeps like a champ, Ethan sleeps like a chump. We're dealing.

Eleanor with her boyfriend, Andrew. I love her face here. I wonder what Andrew just said to her - something scandalous, no doubt.

Lovely.

That's better.

Daddy's little weed-puller helper.

Lovin' my sleepy girl.

Lady Gaga

Me: You have an ice cream face.

Ethan: No, Mama. I have a poker face.

Life

As I type, both kids are napping, Ethan in his bed and Eleanor is her crib. While I read to Ethan, Eleanor sat happily in her swing and didn't make a peep. Then, the two of us played for a bit on the floor. Shortly thereafter, I put a paci in her mouth and put her in her crib for a nap. I had to return once to stroke her belly for a minute before she fell asleep. Needless to say, life is good right now. Of course, not all day every day is so peaceful, but I am really enjoying my time with both kids.

What helps is that Eleanor is a great sleeper. Other than her first couple of nights home, she's always only been up once in the night to eat, and for the past two weeks or even longer, she's slept through the night. I feel like I am being rewarded for all the difficult nights with Ethan. He wasn't a bad sleeper as an infant, but he got progressively worse and still has issues with night waking. Of course, I'm not naive enough to think that Eleanor will always be a great sleeper, but I do have hope that she'll have fewer issues than Ethan. I've paid my dues - now it's time to live on the other side. Getting enough sleep is vital, for me, to take good care of my kids. The past two nights, Eleanor has gone to bed later due to some gas issues, but I still feel a lot more refreshed than I did with just Ethan at this point, and I was able to take naps then!

Really, the major challenge right now is discipline with Ethan. He responds pretty well to the 1, 2, 3 method, but we still get frustrated when he does naughty things on purpose. I know a lot of it is attention seeking, but I also feel like he still gets a very good amount of attention. It's also simply age appropriate stuff, too. The only time I lose my cool (well, almost the only time) is when he is doing things that endanger Eleanor somehow. He loves her a little too roughly sometimes, and we are constantly telling him to stop squeezing her, stop laying on her, etc. It's cute that he wants to be near her (sometimes), but it is also a bit scary. :) The miracle of parenthood is that even on days when Ethan takes me to the brink, all it takes is a cute question he asks or a little snuggle, and I am madly in love with him once again. Which brings me to another Ethanism. Yesterday, during our picnic, Ethan saw an ant on the blanket. He was quite concerned about his lunch, but I told him the ant would not get to it. He said, "Yeah, Mommy, the ant won't eat my yogurt. It doesn't have hands! Just legs!" He seemed so proud of himself for realizing this.

First (unplanned) bath together. Ethan was taking too long. It was a little scary when Ethan tried to pour water over her head, but we survived.

Ethan used to LOVE his bath but lately it's a struggle to get him in. Once in, he's typically fine, but he does not like having his hair washed anymore. He used to pour the water over his head by himself with no problem. Hope he gets back to that soon.

The new basement! This is the play area - duh.

And here's the adult area. Ethan is in the picture, running around. I'm glad it's still open enough for him to be able to do this.

Our new couches. We will one day have a coffee table, but for now the train table works fine.

We are in the process of moving our books to the shelves.

This is the view to the left of the adult area. Our desk fits into a little alcove and I set up some baby things, too. Will's "gym" is behind the white door. And our laundry room is behind the wall to the left. I cannot say enough about how great this basement is for us.

Here is a super smily Eleanor before her nap today.

More smiles! She's really starting to smile more and more. Love it.

And here's the live version.

Ethanisms

Fairly often, people tell me that they love Ethan's little voice. I guess I take it for granted, hearing it daily, but enough people have said how cute it is that I have been trying to get him on video more often so that we can remember his voice later. These videos aren't the greatest for featuring his voice, but I will keep trying. Along with his voice, Ethan - like all kids - says some pretty goofy things. I wish I could remember every single one of his funny little Ethanisms, but there are just too many. In an effort to get a few written down, though, I am going to try to keep a log of his funny sayings or conversations and record them on the blog every so often. Here are a few of his latest goofyisms:

The other day, when I was helping him cut up his ham at Gram and Pop Pop's, he leaned over, grabbed my arm, and said, very earnestly, "Don't worry, Mama. It's all going to be okay. I'm right here. There's nothing to be afraid of." I really don't know what prompted this at all. I'm guessing he heard us saying things like this to him at night when he's scared about something or has had a nightmare. But it was so random in the middle of brunch.

Something he says often, when he wants something of mine and I tell him he has to wait until I'm done, is, "It's my turn, Mommy. Your turn is broken."

We saw three garbage trucks all in a row the other day. When he asked where they went I said that they had turned the other way. He shouted, "Oh, Mommy! They went east! We need to go east, too!" What was so funny was that they did, in fact, turn eastward. This he gets from our discussion of the train in downtown LG since it's always going either east or west.

Sometimes in the car, I will notice Ethan talking to himself, as I did the other day. I discreetly turned the radio down so as to hear him better. This is what I heard: "So Daddy said, 'Do you want to go in the aardvark house?' and I said, 'Oh, yes, I could go in there.' So we opened the door..." He was not speaking to me, but merely telling a story outloud.

We love our little oddball!

Six Weeks?!

Tomorrow, Eleanor will be six weeks old. Things are going SO well. Our basement is officially finished, and it looks amazing (pictures in another post, I promise). It changes our lifestyle, for sure. I'm so happy with it! I've definitely gotten into the groove of having two kids right now, and it helps that Eleanor is a great baby. She sleeps really well (through the night for over a week!), nurses fairly well (still a sore subject...), and is totally laid back. She is a bit fussy at night, which makes getting anything done difficult (hence the 6 week blogging hiatus), but I can't really complain. There's limited time before the next feeding, though, so I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Ethan decorated my Boppe pillow with Curious George stickers. At first, one of the hardest things was keeping him at bay while I was nursing Eleanor. He has since gotten used to this very frequent activity.

Either her first or second sponge bath. Not a huge fan of this part.

But she did LOVE having her hair washed. I think she will love the salon later in life.

Sleeping in the papasan...love those hospital hats.

Ethan put on Will's giant (and terribly ugly) coat from L.L. Bean circa 1990. It looks better on Ethan, I think.

Pre-haircut

Haircut

Eleanor's favorite sleeping position. We swaddled Ethan for 6 months. I stopped with Eleanor during the first week or so. She has sleep really well without it.

Ethan finally came around to wanting to hold Eleanor after he watched all of his cousins fawn all over her. Now, he requests a hold at least once a day.

Eating cereal - Will took this for some reason, but I think it's cute.

Grandma and Eleanor

The nice weather we've been having has made things a heck of a lot easier. We get outside quite a bit. Here is one of our driveway picnics.

Trying out tummy time. Ethan is definitely smooshing her, but I think in a nice way.

Another eating picture. This is pasta fagioli. We are so lucky that Ethan is a fantastic eater!

Cute strawberry outfit.

Here is Eleanor dressed and ready for my mom's retirement party.

Surprise!

Table 1 at Macaroni Grill

Table 2

We match, minus the bonnet.

I gave a little speech. My mom worked in childcare at COD for just short of 25 years! Happy Retirement!

Poor Pop Pop Jeff - he says he never gets to hold Eleanor.

But Grandma always holds her!

Eleanor with Laney and Andrew, children of my great friends Annie and Susie, respectively. Andrew was born about 8 hours before Eleanor on the same day. :) And, apparently, he's gang affiliated based on the sign he's flashing.

Eleanor and Andrew do not seem to happy to be propped up here.

Susie with the birthday twins!

And here we are - who would have thought 10 years ago, when we were in college, that this is where we would be now.

Will with a sleepy Eleanor.

Grandma Meuer, all 102 years of her, came to Chicago from South Dakota, for a few days. Here she is meeting Eleanor.

Aunt Lou has her now.

This is Ethan at our playgroup Easter egg hunt. Will showed up at the end. With so many big kids this year, it lasted about a minute, but it was great fun nonetheless.

He loved seeing what was in each egg.

This year, Lisa and I, along with cousins Jeanine and Amy, made our own calzone on Holy Saturday. It's a lot of work, but we felt it was time for the next generation to learn how to make it so as to continue this very special tradition.

Dad stopped in to taste the filling. :)

The finished product. Both mom and grandma were very proud of our results. It was yummy!

Eleanor loves Great Auntie Nancy!

Here we are before church on Easter Sunday. Both kids did very well at Mass.

Mommy and Eleanor. Eleanor is the one with the bow.

Our family picture.