Outside as long as in

In the blink of an eye, Royce has now been on the outside as long as he was in. 

I can't stand it.

I took this selfie less than an hour before my water broke! 

I truly can't believe how fast it's gone. He was born at exactly 39 weeks, and has now been out here, making us all smile, for exactly 39 weeks. (He will be 9 months Monday for those, like me, who don't feel like doing complicated mental math.)

Snap chatted a couple days before he arrived - my last prego pic. Can't believe he ever fit in there!

He's such a big boy. His first tooth finally popped through this week, after the most agonizingly (for me, maybe a little for him) slow movement up from his gums. 

No babies were harmed in the taking of this tooth photo.

As I've said, he's a man on the move. While I may get a couple minutes to hold him if I'm lucky, he's no longer content to just snuggle. He wants to be on the floor, crawling around, investigating his surroundings. He even climbed the entire staircase from the basement to the kitchen the other day!

Watch out world.

As I'm guessing is typical with second children, he always fools me because he seems like such a little baby. With Dalton, he is always going to seem so big, because every age he hits is a new horizon for me. And Royce has always seemed so tiny, because my basis of comparison is a two year old. I find myself shocked when I realize he's old enough to participate in reading books, or use a toy, or demonstrates that he understands what I'm saying - in my mind, he's just a brand new teeny baby! 

He will be this size forever in my mind.

And maybe he is, but he's no longer just a sleeping, eating, pooping lump - he's a real person, participating in the world he lives in.

Clapping at Wegmans, as we all do.

Example: sippy cups. We got rid of the bottles kind of early with Dalton, and just sent his milk to daycare in sippy cups once he was ready. It made the transition to cow's milk at a year pretty easy, so I hoped to do the same with Royce. We gave him one with a little water with dinner for like two months before he realized it served a purpose and was able to get the water out. I suddenly realized that if I was going to follow the same plan, I needed to switch him over entirely like, now. He still seemed so young though and I thought I must have gotten my dates wrong, and Dalton was older when we ditched the bottles. But nope, I know I packed up all the bottles when my niece was born, and Dalton was only 9.5 months then. So now - Royce is also done with bottles, and he just drinks from a cup at daycare. (Of course, I have yet to pack them all up, I was more on top of things with two kids). I'll never miss washing bottles, but it still makes me a little sad - one more mark of babyhood packed away. 

Cool story bro, right?

In other news, he's smart and crafty. As I posted on instagram, he had himself a little snack party in his crib the other night. When I woke him up to nurse before daycare today, I couldn't figure out why he smelled SO strongly of coconut oil. I brought him over to get him dressed, and found the little dish of coconut oil that we keep on the changing table upside down in his crib - almost empty. 

It was full before!

Then I figured out exactly where the smell was coming from - it was on his breath! He must have stood up in his crib in the middle of the night, got the oil, eaten it (since I couldn't find any anywhere), and gone back to sleep without ever waking us up. Tell me that's not crazy. 

Not that I should be surprised. Here's what I found after getting Royce out of his high chair (which takes - 20 seconds?) while I thought Dalton was absorbed in an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

On the counter. Note the knife right in front of him.

Speaking of Dalton, he's just chugging along with the growing as well. He will be 2 and a half next month, even though he just turned two 5 minutes ago. I want to just write down every single thing he says because he's hilarious (to his parents). When we ask him to do something, he says "sure". If he bumps into Royce, he says "sorry Royce" and gives him a hug. The other day Royce was crawling in the kitchen and he started yelling "mommy!!! Royce, oven!! Hot!!". He had to save his brother! He almost never naps anymore at home (at daycare he does, go figure), his response to us trying to do anything for him (example: dress him) is "I do it!", he's obsessed with cleaning (in fact, after he puked that night he threw up some pedialyte and just said "oh! messy!" and grabbed a baby wipe and tried to clean it up) and I don't remember the last meal I cooked that he didn't help out with.

Helping my mom with the Vegetti!

In other random news, Dalton and I got stomach flu, and he massively shamed me with his attitude. Here's the scene: it's Tuesday night around 11. I had one of those horrible moments when you wake up and sprint directly to the toilet to puke. As I'm helplessly vomiting, I hear Dalton crying downstairs, and I just knew. By the time I finally recovered enough to move, Royce was crying too. I nursed him back to sleep while Eric was attempting to clean puke from all over Dalton's room. After both having been woken up by the immediate need to vomit, Dalton and I reacted very differently.

Him: Running around the house, laughing, asking to watch Mickey, chugging Pedialyte, generally finding it wonderful and thrilling that Eric and I were both up to hang out with him (in his mind) during the night

Me: weeping in the fetal position on the couch

My kid knows how to boot and rally. He's not one to let minor inconveniences like stomach flu get him down. Me? I basically left this planet for 24 hours. It was a tough time, but the silver lining was that by the time it was all over, I was totes skinny.

It's hard to get non blurry pictures of him these days!

A few stats on my boys:

Dalton:

Weight: 28 pounds, based on my friend's scale
Clothes: 2T, although they fall off his lack of a butt
Sleep: Fights it to the death. No nap, would stay awake for 3 days straight if left to his own devices, we force him in his crib between 7-8pm, and wake him for daycare around 6:45. He does not appreciate this. He's been waking up crying at night a lot lately and ending up sleeping on the floor with Eric. No clue why.



Eats: All the things. Possibly being enrolled in Yogurt Addicts Anonymous. Enjoys spicy food, which is unexpected for a 2 year old.
Potty training: Like sleep, I hesitate to speak of this when it's going well, but after a full two months, I'm starting to suspect I may not have to pack diapers next to the shower caddy in his dorm room.
Likes: All vehicles, current favorite is trains, Mickey, his brother, Elmo, books, painting, attempting to dress himself, brushing his teeth (no clue why but I'm riding that wave as long as I can), running wind sprints (his current favorite game).
Dislikes: typical two year old stuff - basically any time an adult enforces rules/makes him do things for his own good, including, but not limited to: going to sleep, getting in the car seat, turning off the TV, personal hygiene

Royce:

Weight: 17 pounds over Christmas break
Clothes: 9-12 months, still fits in some 6 month
Sleep: 2 naps a day in the crib or sometimes the car on the weekends, goes down for the night 6:30-7. Rarely now nurses to sleep/falls asleep in my arms. Cue tears. He generally prefers being put in the crib to go to sleep on his own. I'm very superstitious about jinxing things so right now let's just say sleep doesn't suck.

Dalton always asks for Royce in his crib with him!

Eats: All the things. Obsessed with solids, like his brother, including spicy food. We've now given him everything except honey, and he just eats whatever we are eating for dinner (example: tonight white chicken chili). I put it on his tray, making sure it's in small-ish pieces, and he feeds himself. He also figured out pouches (during stomach flu 2017 crisis in our house, he was the only one eating, so I called a pouch dinner for him). He nurses before and after daycare, before bed and usually once at night, and gets 8oz of breast milk at daycare. I'm still pumping twice a day at work, but stopping at
6-7 oz hoping to slowly phase it out and use my freezer stash to make it to a year.
Potty: Diapers, you know, not much to share, he dirties them, we change them
Likes: Crawling, pulling up, attempting to eat everything on the floor, attempting to do whatever his brother is doing, toys with buttons/lights/music, peekaboo, humpty dumpty, itsy bitsy spider - basically everything makes this guy smile
Dislikes: very little - taking things away from him (generally dangerous things), when he falls and bumps his head (although even that often doesn't even make him cry), being out of food

And that's that - here's to another glorious 9 months and beyond with these cuties!