Bye-bye Baby

Holy so many things to update...

1. I got a wonderful surprise a few days ago.  I learned that Natalie and Ben had been taken for professional pictures by Aunt Beth.  I was presented a CD full of adorable pictures of them.  I would love to update my favorites, but am having some technical difficulties there.

2. Look at these faces:

(out of focus, but I appreciate his enthusiasm)

3. The weather.  Oh, the weather.  We have been thinking of anything and everything to keep ourselves from going stir-crazy being cooped up inside.  We look longingly outside every morning at breakfast.  I would not mind one bit to bundle up and play in the snow, but it has to be at least freezing to do that safely.  Everyone has had the same weather, so I know we're not alone, but it has forced us to get creative.

Our favorite thing is the obstacle course we made up.  We need exercise, and our course is awesome.  Diving over piles of couch cushions, jumping jacks (more for my own amusement than anything), crab walking, tunnel crawling, dance party stations, nothing is off limits.  

But boredom, and having stared at stashed away clutter, boxes of old baby clothes, and the same four walls resulted in me making a 63-item spring cleaning list.  It's fantastic, and I cannot wait to put the kids to work, er...to get started on it.  But make no mistake, there will be loads of helping by these two.

4. Our house feels strangely less like the house where a baby lives, and more like a house where two kids live.  This week we left bottles behind.  Ben finally gave in and started drinking out of a cup like a champ.  He was still taking a bottle at bedtime, but over the past two weeks wasn't even falling asleep drinking it.  I wanted to cut it out last week, but the kids caught a nasty cold, and I felt like that would have just added insult to injury for Ben.  So, whatever day it was, we went to bed like always, except sans bottle.  And it all went off without a hitch.  What an great, and sad, milestone!

5. Speaking of bedtime...sleep.  Sweet, sweet sleep.  That's right.  SLEEP!  I feel like a human lately.  Our little insomniacs have been hibernating like bears.  I'm actually not sleeping all that great, probably because for the last 15 months, at least, I have been averaging about 3 hours per night, up and down all night, and that's what my body is used to, but I am getting a load more sleep, and if I wake up I can almost always fall right back to sleep.  Natalie has been doing great, waking up to use the bathroom a few times per week, then going right back to bed, and sleeping until between 7:00 and 7:30.  Ben has been sleeping through as well, for the most part.  He was off when he was sick, but the week before Florida (Florida doesn't count because he did not sleep at all), and ever since (minus a few nights of misery when he was first sick), he has been going to bed great and staying asleep until some range of hours in the morning.  Usually he's awake at about 6:30, sometimes earlier and then he's content to sit with me on the couch watching the news.  And a few times he's slept until 9:30, and one more until 10:30!  

And the even more amazing part...he's going to bed wide awake.  He's also been napping great.  A couple of times I have gone to wake him up at the 3+ hour mark.  For example, at 3 hours and 10 minutes today, I went up to his room to start him stirring, and opened the door to find him quietly sitting in his bed playing with his Mickey Mouse.  Hmm...so, maybe not sleeping, but content to be in his bed, a former place of torment, not meant for staying in and certainly not for sleeping in.

So, the short of all this (aimless) rambling is that this week when I have looked at Natalie and Ben, I feel a little sensation of sadness and shock at how suddenly they seem so much like kids.  No bottles, sleeping, playing funny made up games all by themselves.  We've entered a new chapter here, I think.  One with its own wonderful things, but I feel that soon we will be closing the book on all the baby stuff for good.