Weigh In

Seth recently had his 9 month appointment. Here's his stats:

Weight: 18 lbs, 2 oz (11%)
Height: 28.5 in (55%)
Head: 44.25 cm (25%)

It's funny, we call Seth our chunky baby, but apparently he's really not all that chunky. This made me curious about Matthew at this age, so I looked up his 9 month stats. This is what I found:

Weight: 15 lbs, 10 ozs
Height: 28.5 in
Head: 44.5 cm

So, I guess we are justified in calling Seth chunky, at least in comparison to Matthew.

Seth continues to be an easy baby. His recent bout with croup made me realize how much I take his good nature for granted. His sickness made him pretty needy. Otherwise he's pretty content to play by himself. Of course, he doesn't mind when Matthew and I play with him or at least when we are near him. He's getting closer to crawling, but not quite there yet. He loves his walker and is great at clipping all our ankles. Ouch! He gets really excited when someone actually takes the time to hold his hands and help him walk. He's a great eater and likes to eat things all by himself. He's good at picking up cereal, small pieces of cheese, and even peas. He loves to laugh, especially when tickled or watching his older brother do silly things.

We sure love this little guy and can't believe how quickly he is growing!

Our little monkeys on a recent outing at the zoo:

Easter, Molly & Kim, and Croup

We've had an eventful couple of weeks.

Last Saturday Kim and Molly (our sister-in-law and niece) flew out to spend a week with us in Seattle. For 3 days in January, Southwest had a 50% off sale on all flights in and out of Seattle. We thought it would be fun to get Molly and Matthew together. And, since Molly is not quite 2 years old, it would only take one ticket to have both Kim and Molly come out. Unfortunately, David had work and school to tie him down, so he didn't make the trip.

Their first full day here was Easter Sunday. We had a morning egg hunt before church. This was the first time we have ever done an egg hunt at our house, and it was a lot of fun. Matthew really got into it:

Seth wasn't too interested in the hunt; he was too focused on the blow-up Easter bunny that Grammy sent us:

Kim was following Molly around with her camera, so we don't have many pictures of her. But, we did get one picture with her in it (just to prove we weren't making the story up):

Part of the kids' Easter baskets included Easter Sunday clothes. Julie had looked online to find something for the boys and for Molly that would go together. It was fun for her to get to look for girl clothes for a change. We put all the kids on the couch to get a picture, but Seth wasn't too cooperative:

Matthew tried to comfort him without much success (much to Molly's concern):

By the end, Seth was really losing it. In this picture, it looked to us like he was thinking "Why do I have to wear this monkey suit? I'm getting a headache."


We had a fun week with Kim and Molly ("we" here is used in a loose sense...Jon was still working his usual hours and couldn't join us for much of the fun). We went to the Seattle children's museum, to the Seattle waterfront, to Grandma Ruthie's lake, and to the zoo. Julie and Kim went on a bike ride one day, for walks on other days, and even to one of Rachel's step classes. We really crammed a lot into one week. It was a lot of fun to have them here, and Matthew is still regretting that Molly had to go home.

After Kim and Molly went home, we had a busy Saturday of all the chores that we put off while we were having fun. In addition to our regular Saturday cleaning chores, we had our washer and drying going non-stop all day. Jon and Matthew also dug out two old cement fence post holds which had been in the backyard since long before we bought the house.

We were all fairly exhausted by the end of the day. The kids' went to bed well, and we were getting ready to go to bed around 11:00. Seth woke up wanting to eat (not uncommon for him), but when Julie got him up he was struggling really hard to breathe at all. It sounded so bad to us that we decided within a few minutes that we should take him to the ER to get checked out. Julie went with him and Jon stayed home with sleeping Matthew. Seth was checked out by a nurse and his breathing had gotten better the longer he was awake. The nurse thought it was croup, and that he would be fine. A doctor looked Seth over and agreed. He wanted to give Seth an anti-inflammatory to held open his airway and then observe him for 2 hours before discharging him. Julie and Seth ended up getting home around 4:15am, and neither had slept at all while they were away. We all stayed home from church--Julie slept and Jon took care of a needy Seth. Seth's breathing has been decent today...knock on wood that he continues to improve. He is going to our regular pediatrician tomorrow for a follow-up.

Career Paths and Easter

Lately the boys each have shown interest in two different career paths.
Matthew, the librarian:
One morning I walked into the boys room to get Seth, we woke up a little earlier than expected and it looked something like this:


Matthew had organized his books and put some on display for his patrons, oh, and also woke up Seth prematurely. Personally, I don't think that you can beat a dump truck book end. While Seth ate Matthew made signs to help locate the various sections of his library. Most prominently the O, M, and Q sections.
Seth, the cook:
He's got the mix then taste pattern down.

We got our Easter package from Grammy the other day and Matthew has been especially delighted by the giant blow-up bunny. We also started the 12 Days of Easter as suggested by Laura. Matthew is so excited for Easter he insisted on an Easter breakfast this morning. Taking a page out of the St. Patrick's day book, Matthew ate bunny pancakes and yellow milk.