Oh, autumn!

Every time we have a nice day, I think, "Oh, it's our last nice day of the year! Let's get outside and enjoy it before winter comes and we're mired in grey funk and gloom for another six months!" Tuesday was one of those days - warm(ish) temperatures, sun shining, the last leaves still on trees. In the morning we all went to the local park (where Augie attacked other children with his hockey stick), and in the afternoon we took another long walk around Långholmen. We feel so lucky to live where we do and have a park like Långholmen in our backyard. It's always fun to take Augie to a playground, where there are swings and slides and sandboxes, but it's also nice to go somewhere outside where he can run free and explore, and use his imagination to make his own games.

I've had trouble narrowing down the photo selection for this post, so I'll just put them all up.

"Boo!" - we played peekaboo around this tree forever!

A dream come true

Look what different colors they are! 

Augie has been so great with Dai-dai; he showers him with kisses and hugs, he wants to carry and hold him several times a day, he shares his toys and food with him. He's only pulled his hair once, and only sat on him twice (both tonight at dinner). However, he's been acting out in other ways. We had friends over on Saturday afternoon - they have a baby three days older than Dai-dai and a boy who is four. Augie pulled this boy's hair three times, twice while they were playing alone in the bedroom, and once in front of all of us. At a playground on Saturday he pulled off other children's hats two or three times (presumably because he couldn't reach their hair?), and today at the local park he hit two kids over the head (but not hard, thankfully) with a plastic hockey stick for no reason at all! We've never seen this kind of behavior from him. We've seen him be territorial or possessive, but with the two kids he hit on the head with a hockey stick, there was no aggravating incident - he wasn't even playing with them. He just walked up to these kids and hit (more like tapped, but still) them. We suspect that it's anger and jealousy about Dai-dai manifesting in other ways, and we don't know what to do about it.

On a significantly happier note, one of my dreams came true today: the family nap. Dai-dai had been sleeping on my chest, as below, when Augie woke from his nap. He came into our room smiling and climbed into bed, then James climbed in next to him. I massaged Augie's back and head, and soon enough he was back to sleep, and I was sandwiched between my sleeping babies. *The best.* (Full disclosure: I didn't sleep at all because my neck was uncomfortable and I'd bee in the same position for ninety minutes; but that meant I got to savor the moment!)

It's been a long weekend

Augie is off from dagis today and tomorrow because they have planning days, and also because most of the city is on fall holiday this week. We've had a couple of rough nights, with both boys breaking down at the same time and James and I exchanging one screaming child for another. For nearly two weeks now, Leif has a period of 1-4 hours every night when he just doesn't want to sleep, but nor does he want to be awake. Sometimes he's okay during this period, sometimes he's screaming, sometimes he's nursing, sometimes he's refusing. It's been trying. It's also the main reason I haven't been posting.

Some photos from the last few days...

James got his guitar out and has been playing with/for Augie, who loves it (spot the baby!):

Yesterday we went to a really cool park with all sorts of different play areas - he most loved the boat and the airplane:

Today we went to a 4-H farm to show Augie some real-life animals, as he sees pictures of them in books and has several stuffed and plastic animals. He thought they were neat, but what he really enjoyed was the adjacent construction site! The playground in the park is being rebuilt, and there was all sorts of activity going on - a bulldozer, bucket loader, a buzz saw(?) shooting sparks - Augie just stood at the fence, staring, for fifteen minutes! It's the longest he's ever focused on anything in his whole life.

More painting

Augie and Baba got the paints out again the other day.

I love his focus face:

I don't think he enjoys Baba painting on his paper:

I really don't think he enjoys Baba infringing on his territory!

Oh - and here's a little Leif:

Asleep!

The big news today is that Augie slept on a mat at dagis! He's been sleeping in his stroller this whole time, but today when James went to pick him up, he saw that they had posted this picture on Augie's cubby. Hooray!

In other news, Leif had another check-up today; we should really just call them weigh-ins, because that's what they do- weigh him. He's up to 4.700 kilograms, or 10 pounds, 6 ounces. That's a gain of 320 grams in the last week (and remember, we're aiming for 150 grams per week). We go back next week for another weigh-in. 

My boys in the morning

Bunny!

Another nap photo:

And another video. Saturday we went adventuring around Södermalm and found ourselves at a churchyard. A giant hare was running back and forth across the yard, and another boy and Augie chased it. Here he is, yelling "Bunny! Bunny! Bunny!" as he chases it (email subscribers click here):

Quiet moments

Don't expect much, at least in terms of words, from the blog these days. It's taking 2-5 hours to put Leif to sleep each night, which saps my energy for anything but sleep.

Augie beeping

Yesterday afternoon I picked up Augie from dagis and took him to the park. It was an on-and-off-again rainy day, and on my way to collect him fallen leaves kept grabbing my attention.

Augie always like to play on the biggest possible bikes at the park - but at least now he's found a way to drive this thing, even if it isn't as intended. And listen to his dialog with the car! (Email subscribers click here to view the video):

Leif's stages of sleep

In the interest of full disclosure, yesterday when I was telling you how proud I am that my milk has put so much weight onto Leif, I should have told the whole truth: that he's taking in at least half of those calories (probably more) overnight. He nurses about every two hours overnight, but much less during the day. Ugh. Maybe I should drink more whiskey before bed...

Here are Leif's stages of sleep.

I am tired, so very tired. If only my eyes would close:

My eyelids are getting very, very heavy:

I can't keep them open much longer:

Resistance is futile:

And the ultimate - arms up, knocked out, sound asleep:

Gaining, gaining, gaining

We had another brief check-in with the BVC (Barnavårdscentral, the equivalent of the pediatrician's office) to measure Leif and make sure everything's okay. It is. Remember last time I said that he's supposed to gain 150 grams per week? Well, he's gained 470 grams since last week, so he's up to 4.380 kilograms (that's 9 pounds, 10.5 ounces). And he's grown from 51 centimeters to 54.3 centimeters long since birth (21.37 inches). I take great pride in how well he's growing on my milk!

Focus

I've been trying to do more focus-intensive activities with Augie lately, inspired by different Montessori blogs I read. The ability to focus for very long is not one of his stronger points, so I've been trying to find activities that will challenge him just enough to keep him interested but not so much that they discourage him. Some of my ideas are failures (he just won't play along, he either leaves the table or upends the basket or bowl of goods that I've gathered), but some lead to engaged, sustained attention from him.

The idea of this game was for Augie to scoop the beans out of the bowl and into the sections of the egg carton. He worked on that for about three minutes and then was done. But he found the little coffee maker in the cupboard, and then spent about twenty minutes shuffling the beans from the filter to the carafe to the water compartment. It was neat to see how he interacted with the machine and found different ways to use the beans, the spoon, and all the coffee machine parts. 

James letting Leif get a little taste: