Siiiiinging in the Rain

Ok, so I thought the cutest thing ever was watching Jack discover a mud puddle last week. Until I saw him discover the fun of running around in his diaper during a summer rain storm. Jack, who had woken up from his nap in a bad mood and was inconsolable, was running around in the rain in sheer glee, laughing, so thrilled he was going in circles and back and forth - probably close to the happiest I've seen him, and I've seen this kid pretty happy.

So the memory is doubly sweet, first because nothing makes me so happy as to see one of my children laughing, but also because my mom took him out in the rain when she saw that I wanted to allow Jack to explore the rain, but didn't want to get wet myself. Now that I'm a mother I realize that she did this for two reasons: ( 1) she loves Jack and (2) she loves me. The "nothing makes me so happy as to see one of my children laughing" is a wonderful chain - she got to see Jack happy, but she also got to see me happy as I sat there - dry - grinning while I watched Jack run and laugh. Thanks Mom.

Declan, for his part, has been dubbed "the best baby ever" "giant baby" "baby giant" and "duck-lin" (by cousin Maddie - "where's duck-lin? where's duck-lin?") We're still see-sawing with the sleep, but I focus on the positive - at least he knows night time and day time (even if he wakes up a lot at night, he goes back to sleep) and he now goes down around 9 / 9:30. Declan took his first bottle of 100% formula (4 oz) which is a big milestone and a huge relief for me - he seemed to like it, which is a good thing since we'll be mixing it with cereal in just a few months. Yay!