So one of the things I’ve made for Desmond to play with is a container filled with beans. We started with a small container and just lima beans. He had another container he could transfer them to and a set of measuring cups to use as well. He really likes playing with it for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. I have since made the container bigger and put in more and different varieties of beans so it is more of a small sensory table. Here are a bunch of pictures of him playing with it the first time I gave him just the lima beans and measuring cups. He really liked dumping them on the floor when he was done. Fortunately he doesn’t do that with the larger set up!

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Desmond put his left over mac and cheese in a bucket and then put it outside of the gate, and closed the gate?

Two year olds are amusing!

Desmond likes taking away whatever toy Eloise is playing with so that he can play with it. Sometimes though he will actually give her a toy to play with instead. He will sometimes even bring it to her when she is in a different room then him. These pictures from last week show him playing with a car and then letting Eloise have it, which was very nice of him.

Desmond is still not sure what to make of Eloise. He is getting more use to her though and will sometimes touch her and play with her. One of his favorite things to do is to tell me to sit her down where he pats. He then “waits” till she falls over, or “helps” her fall over and then “helps” he get back up to a sitting position. As long as he isn’t trying to lift her up and she is happy I let him move her about with supervision. Here is Desmond playing with Eloise to get her to sit back up. The picture are in order starting with her sitting and then on the ground, so Desmond can “help” her back up.

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I have noticed that I am not really posting much more then a short paragraph and tons and tons of photographs. So I’ve decided to change around my blog a bit. I am still going to be posting the tons of photos, but all but one or two will be hidden from view, so you’ll have to click on the “read the rest of this entry” link. I figure it will clean up the front of my blog a bit. Also I can then highlight one or two pictures I really like from each set, but those who want to see all the pictures can still see them, and those that are happy with one or two don’t get overwhelmed with the thousands that I tend to post.

I am also going to try to make longer posts, but no promises on that, since Desmond is only napping about 50% of the time right now, which means I don’t get a ton of downtime.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments in my comment section.

So last week I got out the finger paints so that Desmond could play with them. He tends to wake up in the morning about 2 to 3 hours before Eloise at the moment, so letting him do various arts and crafts then makes sense. Anyways he really enjoyed finger painting a lot and insisted on doing it again the following day. He likes to put his hands in the paint and then smush them on the paper making little hand prints.

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Today you are 5 months old. Just 5 months ago you were about to make your appearance into the world.

From the start you loved being held and having someone holding you. You won’t sleep alone, or hang out on the floor or in your co-sleeper alone without crying for the first 5 weeks or so. So you were rarely put down. Though occasionally you were okay for a few minutes.

You got to meet your Great Grandfather and he got to hold you.

You grew some, and Mommy stopped having milk products and you became much happier.

ANd your big brother decided, maybe she isn’t too horrible…

And you kept growing and trying to move, you learned to roll.

You started sitting up with no support, and playing with toys and trying to figure out everything. And you got to swim!

Then you learned to get on your hands and knees and rock and propel your self forward to get whatever interested you. And you got your first tooth!

And despite your brother sharing his pasta with you today, you are still exclusively breastfed! You are learning more every day and growing up so fast, you are no longer a newborn. You are opinionated and know what you want and you are working hard to get it too. Soon you will be pulling up and standing and cruising and talking. Happy 5 months Eloise!

So I finally gave up on getting Desmond down for his nap last week. I refuse to fight him for 2 hours to get him down for a nap. He does get quiet time while Eloise naps, but I don’t sit with him till he goes to sleep, he is welcome to stay up till bedtime. The past three days however, he has decided to just fall asleep where he is.

“No Night! No Night, Mama!” (He calls any going upstairs for sleep, nap or bedtime, night)

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Eloise sleeping on my lap:

Thursday (aka today):

On the plus side nap time is much easier these days, so I am amazed at what positions the child can fall and stay asleep in.

Here are a couple of close up pictures of Eloise that I took when I took the previous pictures. She is just so cute and has the best expressions.

Here are a couple of pictures from the other day of Eloise. The first two are of her “crawling” She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks and then pushes herself forward and does it again. Then there are two of her sitting, she is great at sitting now, except that her brother likes to push her down. When he isn’t around to help her out though, she can stay seated with no support for over 3 minutes. There is also a picture of her just lying around.