Painting with Jack

Today I busted out Jack's paints and smock (courtesy of Allison) and he had a blast!  As soon as I got everything out he plopped down on his little table and sat there at the ready, excited to do some painting.  Jack is already enjoying the arts and crafts from the Bates aunties and cousins.

Smiley Nate

With Nate being our second child it's hard not to look at him and think about what Jack was like.  Personally, I think the two of them look an awful lot alike, though one things for sure: while both of them started smiling early, Nate smiles way more than Jack did as a newborn.  It's so easy to coax a grin out of him!

Blogging... or not

I'd hoped that I'd have an easier time finding opportunities to update the family blog, but it turns out with 2 boys I tend to run low on spare time.  Don't get me wrong, they're both great kids, but between the 2 of them they take up an awful lot of my time and attention and then when you try to add in things like chores, household projects and even the occasional workout... there's not much time left in my week let alone in my days!  Fortunately it's a 'good' busy, with 2 happy little campers and parts of the house are even clean sometimes :)

Jack and Nate

One of the questions that John and I have gotten the most since Nate's arrival is asking how Jack's doing with being a big brother, and for good reason.  During his 26 month reign as our only child Jack was the center of John's and my universe, not to mention utterly doted upon by his 6 grandparents.  I have to admit, as Nate's due date crept up I found myself feeling increasingly guilty knowing how much we were about to rock Jack's world and also fairly worried that Jack was going to resent his little brother's intrusion into his life.  So you can imagine our shock when we saw that Jack was so excited to be a big brother!  He is fascinated by Nate and continually wants to touch him and he even finds the little one hilarious.  Sure, a lot of his affection is shown by trying to poke Nate, but the kid's only 2 so it's to be expected.  I have even seen him try to share his trucks when the baby's upset, and as the above picture shows Jack's even offered his beloved pacifier to his little brother.  Of course, that's not to say that we didn't have some growing pains because Jack definitely did some acting out... for a little while we had to go back to square one when it came to how he's supposed to behave with other kids (the low point was when he headbutted his little friend Bryn) and we got an awful lot of crocodile tears with every minor bump and bruise.  But for the most part Jack's really embraced the role of big brother and decided that he's a big boy now.  Our stubborn little boy will even occasionally listen to us when we tell him not to do something!  John and I have really lucked out with how great Jack's adjusted to having Nate around.

Nate's 1st night away from home

When we found out that Dad and Cheryl got about 2 feet of snow up in Cle Elum this past week John and I agreed that it would be great to take the boys up there to enjoy what could be the last gasp of winter.  Jack has had so much fun in the snow this winter, and after being at home for the past 6 weeks it was nice to have a change of scenery.  Nate did very well away from home, even considering that we tried to keep to just the essentials when we packed.  It's good to know that the little one is so portable!  Jack of course had a blast, especially when he convinced Grandpa Mike to push him on the swing for what seemed like hours on end.  He also greatly enjoyed shovelling snow - it's about time that we put him to work.

There's 2 of them

Here we are 6 weeks after Nate's birth and things have settled into a nice, new 'normal'.  There's something completely surreal about bringing a baby home from the hospital; all of a sudden you're bringing an entire new person into your home and your family.  Yesterday there were three of us, today there's four.  Oddly, the adjustment has been pretty uneventful.  We'd wondered how Jack was going to handle having to share the spotlight, but the kid has been fascinated by his little brother and he's been fine with mom splitting her attention between the 2 boys.  One thing's definite: it's been much easier to go from 1 kid to 2 than it was to go from 0 to 1.  This time around it feels like we've hit the ground running; my recovery was much faster and the boys and I fell into a routine pretty quickly.  That's not to say that we haven't had our bumps in the road... I cringe when I have to get everyone into the car, and of course I could have cried when Nate dropped one of his nighttime feedings a week ago - the weeks since he was born I was lucky to even get 3 hours of sleep at a time.  Even in the hospital Nate kept me up almost all night, and when he started sleeping he'd still decide that when he got up to eat he'd prefer to stay up for an hour or two.  As you can imagine by the end of this I was in something of a haze; in fact I'm still trying to remember where I put my credit card!

It's amazing to look back at when Jack was a newborn and compare it to now, because it's a night and day difference.  We both felt much more confident and prepared, and so it doesn't feel like we've had to put our whole lives on hold since we have a new baby.  We're eating dinner as a family every night, we're out and about and doing stuff, and I even get a shower every day. 

So to summarize, 2 really does seem to be better than 1 - at least when you're lucky enough to have kids as awesome as Jack and Nate!

And now we blog

Jack and Nate are lucky enough to have all sorts of friends and family that dote upon them, especially grandparents that think they're bundles of 100% greatness.  Especially now that we're busier with the two little ones a blog just seems like the best way to share our photos and keep everyone up to date on the doings of our little family.  Plus this way Dad and Cheryl will no longer be dependent on Anj showing them what we post on Facebook.