Mr. Personality

Oh, yes. Mr. Conrad is certainly starting to develop a personality. He's babbling and laughing, rolling after toys and trying to scoot around the floor. He's started taking baths with his big brother (thanks to this awesome invention) and he loves to kick and splash. Joseph kicks and splashes right back and it's a big old giggle fest in the tub (assuming everyone has napped well and one - if not both kids - are not near meltdown mode by bath time). His babbling is a little bit like screaming...

People ask me a lot if Joseph and Conrad have similar personalities. The answer is yes and no. No in the sense that Conrad is not bat.shit.crazy. Joseph is....oh goodness, it's honestly, hard to even describe Joseph. He's just more. More? What does that mean? He's a typical child but with more persistence, more energy, more passion, more zest for life, more ker-aziness than your average kid. He's just Joseph...and we love him...but we didn't need another just like him.

Luckily, Conrad is calmer. He can be quite content with a couple toys just watching Joseph and I build block towers. While Joseph was at school today, I laid toys out all over the basement, turned on some music and ironed for almost an hour while Conrad played with minimal fussing. I NEVER could have done that with Joseph. 5 minutes in and he would have been telling me in his infant way "Oh hellz no, lady, you best be devoting your attention to me real quick". Conrad wants to crawl - he gets up on his hands and rocks his little tushy - but when he realizes he can't do it yet, he just lays down and rolls. Joseph's failed crawling attempts ended with screaming and crying and utter frustration. Joseph has always jumped in to new things with both feet. He's never been hesitant about new people or places or experiences. New = fun and exciting. Conrad is more hesitant. He's wary of new people and crowded places make him visibly nervous. He does not like little old ladies all up in his face cooing. He's definitely the more cautious child.

How are they similar? Conrad is as perceptive as Joseph is. Joseph's scarily perceptive. My dad put a smoke detector up when he took a nap one day. He hadn't been out of his room 5 seconds and he was like pointing at it yelling "Oh, oh, oh...wuz that?" Joseph has an insane sense of smell. Rich was eating fries one night when Joseph woke up in his crib. Rich went in to settle him down and immediately Joseph starting yelling "FRIES!!!!". Joseph smells everything. He sniffs his clothes, his toys...definitely his food...which equals VERY picky eating. He chokes and gags if he eats something he doesn't like. Conrad is the same way. He completely dry heaved and vomited after getting a single spoonful of peas.

Conrad doesn't miss much either, which as we learned makes traveling and needing to share a bedroom with him slightly difficult. Rich and I couldn't go to bed while in Vermont without him waking up. Almost every night he ended up snuggled in bed with me for an hour before I put him back in his crib....Only to be awakened by him at 3 am pulling down the bumper, staring at us and squealing (as if to say - "Hey peeps, I see you over there. I'd like in on that snuggle action").

He's also quite energetic with his toys....like a certain somebody also was.

Although, he's got some work to do because I don't see him getting THIS crazy with an exersaucer anytime soon.

I did find Conrad like this this morning:

I fed him breakfast, cleaned it up, came back 3 minutes later and there he was...asleep. I can assure you that never happened with Joseph. If it had, I probably would have called 911.

Fall Funsies!

Hello People! I don't have a good excuse for my lack of blogging behind the same tired "we're busy" excuse. Which is true but you're tired of hearing it and I'm tired of typing it. So let's just cut right to the point of this post: Fall photos!!!

We've been enjoying our first family fall in New England. While we have seasons in the south, autumn isn't really autumn except in New England. The air is crisper and the leaves are brighter than anywhere else in the country. We even got to enjoy a little taste of Vermont last week with a visit to "PopPop and T" (my parents).

I'm tired (Thanks to a 7 month old who decided at 9 pm last night he randomly needed another bottle but has parents that are so stupid they didn't realize he was waking up every 20-30 minutes because he was hungry until after midnight. Thanks also to this city's ridic waste management department who feels 4:00 am on Monday mornings is a perfectly acceptable time at which to collect garbage and a 2 year old who is petrified of the "boom boom" truck and screams bloody murder at the "boom boom sounds".) so I'll limit the commentary and just share the pictures.

So, our trip to Vermont involved hanging out at the Vermont Country Store:

A trip to the pumpkin patch where Joseph ate apple cider donuts

And we attempted some family photos:

And we hung out with the uni-bomber (aka Uncle Jeffrey).

We just hung out at PopPop and T's house:

(Uncle Jeffrey looking less terroristic)

And Conrad got some bonding time with the great-grandparents he's named after:

And we tortured naked babies in hollowed out pumpkins:

And made some forceful attempts at capturing brotherly love on camera (which ended with Joseph climbing over the couch yelling "No touch baby!!!" and "Mine pumpkin!")

And in true Vermont fashion, fall left as quickly as it came because on Friday we got a snowstorm. A full out, hardcore snow that lasted 3-ish hours that left us with 2-3 inches of snow!

And because their true northeasterners, my parents celebrated thinking this meant they'd be hitting the ski slopes early this year. And because I'm not yet that reacquainted with the frozen tundra, I cried myself to sleep thinking about snow suits and hats and gloves and two kids in and out of the car and being trapped in my house for months. Luckily, winter isn't quite upon us in Connecticut.

It's Been So Long Since Last We Met.....

Well, yes. I'm sure you are thinking it has been a long time since I met my blog. Unfortunately, a hubby in the midst of a whirlwind travel schedule and kids who ended up with colds = little time or energy for the blog.

But what I'm really referring to is my recent reunion with one my bestest college friends, Lauren (and FYI...the title of this little entry is the opening line of the Georgetown Fight Song). Her week long East Coast tour brought her to the big old city and she was more than willing to hop on a Sunday morning train out to the 'burbs. Amazingly, it's been over 4 years since we saw each other but a move from DC to Phoenix (for her) and 2 kids (for me) doesn't make it easy to see each other very often.

But even after 4 years we still had a great time reminiscing about good ole days on the Hilltop and catching up on life. Lives that are pretty much polar opposites right now. See, she's still single and LOVING it! She can just decide there's a whole lot of people on the East coast she hasn't seen in too long and head out east for a week. And this trip involves a suitcase and a computer. There's no double stroller and carseats and 1 carry-on with just 47 diapers (just in case your flight makes the morning news for setting some sort of record for time spent trapped on the runway). Her weekend nights (and a lot of her weekday nights too) involve ethnic restaurants and hipster concerts. Mine involve takeout and some DVR. I fell asleep on my couch at 10pm on New Year's Eve last year. She randomly booked a flight and spent NYE in Chile (or something like that) because there was a good deal on the flight. My Christmas card last year was the standard family picture on the beach. She sent a CD of her favorite music from the last year with bands that I had mostly never heard of. It arrived in the mail one day when I was standing in my kitchen barefoot and pregnant (literally) baking Christmas cookies, rocking out to Michael Buble (is that an oxymoron?) with a toddler playing at my feet.

Despite her super coolness, she was still thrilled to spend a day in the 'burbs, sitting on the beach, watching Backyardigans and having pretend sword flights with a 2-year old, feeding an infant a bottle and just generally loving on my babies.

That's why I love her and why Joseph was pretty psyched to make a new friend. He liked Lauren so much, you'd think they were blood related...and well, they sort of are since my boys certainly bleed Hoya blue.

And I just had to add this picture of Joseph:

Taken after he kept putting sand in his mouth and my repeated warnings of "Joseph - that's not going to taste good. Joseph - Don't do that. You're going to get mad."