Hello Old Friends

I have really been letting the time slip by me lately! Nothing big to report even now, but here are just a few tidbits:
Henry has had this obsession with my pink baby blanket since HE was a baby. My grandmother made it for me. It is pink. It is tattered. And he loves it. It was never something I planned but one day when he was a little teeny baby, he was fussy and I gave it to him while he was laying in bed with me. And he passed out. Some men would have been a bit freaked out by their son carrying around a pink blanket. Luckily Ed is not one of those men. Even his dad tried to replace the blanket with a Thomas blanket cleverly disguised as a Christmas gift two years ago. He loved the Thomas blanket but you just can't substitute a kids' security blanket. That pink blanket has gone to daycare and come home every day since he started daycare. If you haven't gotten it yet, he love-love-loves this pink blankie. Recently, I have started noticing that he was not QUITE so attached to it. There were a few nights that he didn't ask for it, so it would stay in his daycare bag. So this week I decided to experiment. I asked him if he wanted to leave his blankie at home and take the Thomas blanket to school for naptime. And guess what? He giggled and said YES! And guess what else? He survived! As proud as I am, and as much as I know that he cannot carry a pink blanket around forever, it does make me a bit sad that he is growing up.
And speaking of which...Henry is almost THREE years old! Holy cow, how do I make them stop growing up so fast??? He decided a few months ago that he wanted to have a dinosaur party so the dino party-planning has begun. Invitations are out, decorations and party favors are ordered and the dino-game research has begun. There will be a fossil-dig (in the sandbox) but I am looking for another age-appropriate dino game if anyone has any suggestions!
Andrew had another not-great day at school a couple of weeks ago. There was only one yellow dot involved this time so it was not nearly as bad as the double red-dot day. His punishment for the yellow dot was missing baseball practice which was absolutely devastating to him. I was a psychology major in college, so I know that "positive reinforcement" is the way to go. His positive reinforcement was that he got to go to his school skating party if he got all green dots for the next week. I don't know if it was the punishment or the positive reinforcement, but he has had nothing but green dots since then!
Henry and Andrew are getting to be closer buddies all the time. The fight like any brothers, of course. But I love that they want to play together all the time. Andrew gets frustrated because Henry copies him but I keep telling him that it is because Henry looks up to him. It is pretty cute watching Henry watch Andrew's every move.
Back to Henry for a moment. He still doesn't like to sleep. As I type this, he is rolling into the den, all Mission:Impossible style. Like maybe I won't see him if he doesn't stand up.
Jacob now has 10 teeth and is about to cut two bottom molars. I can see his poor little red gums and he has been pretty fussy the past few nights. We took the bumper off of his crib a few weeks ago (more on that in a moment) so now when his binky falls out, it is likely going to end up on the floor. I told Ed just yesterday that we are going to have to take the pacifier from him soon if he keeps this up. He is almost 15 months old (YIKES!) and still doesn't sleep through the night every night. And it is all because he loses his binky and can't find it. Andrew and Henry got to keep their binkies until they were two, but I think sleep interruption is a pretty good reason to take it early.
So, back to the reason the crib bumper is off. Ed put Jacob to bed in a t-shirt and diaper one night. No big deal, I do it all the time. Let me rephrase that. I DID that all the time. Until I walked into his room on this particular morning to find him with his diaper in his hand and poop everywhere. Sheets, wall, floor, hands, CRIB BUMPER, everywhere. Gross. So the crib bumper was removed for washing and never got put back on.
So ends the story of the crib-bumper. And that seems like a good way to end this post!