Time to lower the crib mattress

A few days ago, I noticed Joey would sit up in his crib when he was awake. That was cute. He's even pulled up to his knees before, still very cute. Well, at naptime today, he thought it would be fun to stand up in his crib. He was so excited about it, he wouldn't settle down, and kept doing it every time I put him back in the crib. So, I took a break and read him a book with MJ before MJ's nap. That made him realize he was tired and he fell back to sleep in his crib. Geesh!

 

 

He's also been after our steps...which are really great practice steps b/c there are only 2 of them and he doesn't have far to fall.

 

MJ has been doing really well. He really enjoyed "babysitting" again as we call it when I go to teach and he hangs out in the nursery. And he takes good care of Joey and I. While I wouldn't put all of my faith into MJ watching Joey, at times when Joey is doing something dangerous (like eating paper) I hear MJ say "No, Joey" and take it away from him. Then he gives him another toy to play with instead. So sweet!

Molluscum

Last Wednesday was pretty exciting and started what became a busy and fun weekend. Tuesday I took MJ to the doctor to check on some more bumps on his face. I knew he had Molluscum from a previous visit where I asked about one bump on his cheek. It was a small skin colored bump (like a pimple or wart maybe) that had been there since April. Molluscum is a skin condition caused by a poxvirus. It is not harmful, but causes small bumps to appear on the skin. Each bump can take a few months to disappear. The whole condition usually will disapear without treatment in 6-18 months. Treatment is to remove each bump by heat/freeze/scrap which is not reccommended for kids and may scar. I was fine with the one bump, and then learned that the 20 new bumps on his face were more Molluscum. I also learned that it is contagious and Joey has it too! (Although, once you have it you are immune to it like the chicken pox too, so it appears that Mario and I are not affected). The doctor recommended that we see a dermatologist since it was spreading kind of quickly. I was suprised that I was able to get an apointment the next day!

So Wednesday at 8:30 we checked and the dermatologist said the same things but offered a cream that we could use, though it's particular use for this might not be approved by the FDA. I wouldn't treat Joey's bumps anyway b/c he is so young. But I've decided not to use the cream on MJ either. The skin-colored bumps aren't as noticeable, and the red ones kind of look like pimples. But appearantly those are ones that the body's immune system is fighting and they will go away more quickly. It's been 6 days now, and they are looking better. Mario theorized that since it's an immune system thing that Joey's might go away faster since he is nursing. That seems to be the case since I've only noticed Joey's bumps for a week and his are definitely going away more quickly. It would be weird to have MJ drink breastmilk from a cup, wouldn't it?

Wednesday afternoon we took off for Charlottesville, VA since Mario was doing a recruiting event at Darden. I took the boys to hang out at Clark Elementary where I used to teach. It was very nice to catch up with old friends. We stayed at georgous hotel that was really not meant to have kids... the Clifton Inn. But it was only 1 night, and we survived.

We got back Thursday and made it in to volunteer. And then Friday, the Kazas came over to hang out for the morning and we took our crew shopping at SAMs together. It went pretty well. I don't have any pictures of it, but I had Joey, MJ, and Peter in the cart together, and they seemed pretty happy. Here are a few pictures of MJ and Peter sharing books (they are playing so well together now!) and it seems Joey and Catherine like to hang out too!

In this first picture, Joey is eating in his stroller (which is so multifunctional when I go on trips!) and you can see one of the molluscum on his forehead from last Wed. The last picture shows MJs red molluscum on his left cheek. He has several on his right cheek that are skin-colored and not noticeable really.

 

 

 

 

Video of Joey Crawling

I like how Joey thinks he's close enough to the magazine and flops down. But then gets up and tries again when he realizes he isn't close enough.

Look what we can do...

Mario and I think we can now say that Joey is crawling. He seems to have skipped the army crawl and prefers to go for the knees and pushing with his feet approach. This first picture is from yesterday (9/24) when he kind of did a crawl and flop for the magazine. I was just thinking this morning how I guess I rushed into his whole moving thing a bit when I posted about it last week.

Later this morning, we had Joey upstairs and I was changing his clothes when Mario had me let go of Joey as he was trying to take off. We use all sorts of bad things as incentives for crawling (like paper/computer cords, our boys' favorite things as babies.) We'll work on disciplining with those later. :-) He had at least 3 crawling revolutions (for lack of a better description) before flopping towards his goal. Maybe I can post a video later.

Among MJs new accomplisments: taking even better pictures with our digital camera. He had about 20 today, and some, like this one, even had a person in them!

Sunday, MJ had his first lesson in cutting with scissors. I am impressed by his motor skills (being a Kindergarten teacher, I've seen many kids who at 5 still cannot operate scissors). Of course, now I have to hide all of my scissors in the house, b/c this is his new fun thing to do. We've discussed how scissors should only be used to cut paper, but I still worry what harm a 2 year old with scissors could inflict on himself or other objects around him.

As for the rest of us, Mario finished the Ohio project last week and is starting on a new one next week. In the meantime, he has been working (very hard) on both projects and other stuff from home. We are happy to have him here! Last week my RE classes started. I'm only teaching one class this year. I'm sticking with K again, which has been so nice since all of my lessons are already completed. We have 20 students and so far it's been a lot of fun. MJ and Joey are doing well at the church babysitting too.

Football

ND may be 0-4, but the boys don't seem to mind. They still like football! Joey is still at the chewing on the football stage...we feel it may strike fear in his opponents.

MJ was intent on throwing the ball at the pole of this soccer goal. He was quite accurate at hitting it (albeit from a short distance). For those of you who know, Mario was quite into throwing footballs at targets when he was younger. Maybe MJ will take after his dad.

And for those who haven't seen it for themselves, this is what TV zombies look like.

Don't worry, the can is closed, but he seems to enjoy having it on his gums.

A few more pictures

I just had to throw this in. Michael with his baby Maria.

We tried to get Maria and Joey to sit next to each other. I think this may work better next time we visit.

Grandmama and Grandpapa with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who were with them at church on Sunday. They have many grandchildren and I think 10 great-grandchildren (so far).

And this is just a cute picture of Sarah and her baby Maria.

More from NY

Here's Aunt Sarah with Joey. Can you believe she had a baby less than 1 month ago!

MJ had a great time at Grandmama and Grandpapa's house. We played a lot on Saturday after the Baptism. Early Sunday morning, Mario had to go to work in Cincinnati again. MJ had even more fun running around the house that his daddy has many fun memories playing in. I'm sure it would have been even more fun if they were both able to play together there. Before the boys crashed Saturday night, we managed to get a picture of us all dressed up and looking cute. (The boys were pretty crazy-tired at this point).

Uncle Luke road home with us (since Mario was at work on Sunday). He was great company, and it was nice to have another pair of hands to take care of the boys. He's at a Seminary at Mount Saint Mary's which we have determined is only 53 miles from our house, so we will have to see him more. Luke is Joey's godfather.

And here are Sarah and I with our babies. It was hard to get Maria and Joey awake at the same time.