Live, From Boston...

It's been milestone-city in the Vargas household. No, we haven't hit the all important sleeping through the night yet, but I have next weekend tagged as a Ferberizing weekend for Mr. Declan. But our other milestones are really just as exciting:

- Declan is a crawling maniac, and has started to pull himself up into a standing position.
- Jack counted to nine - he can't say "f" sounds yet, he substitutes the "s", so it's "three, soor, sive, six, se-ten, eight, niii." (He also eats with a sork and the srog says ribb-it!)
- Declan's first tooth popped out today! (Maybe it was happening last night when he wouldn't go back to sleep?) We can see his gums and yo can see his two bottom teeth through the gums.
- Declan has become a pacifier junkie. After months of trying to get him to take it, he finally decides he loves the pacifier, at the age when I would ideally like to wean him from the paci. Sigh.

We're in Holbrook, MA right now staying at Billy and Cassie's new house - it's so exciting to see their beautiful new home and to have the space for the boys to sleep and play (and a separate place for us to hang out while the boys are napping...) Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner at Danny and Alma's house - a huge 22 lb turkey. It was the first year we had a legitimate "kid's table" - Jack was stealing cranberry sauce from Joe and Maddie's plates while chaos reigned.

I've been really proud of both boys and how good they've been this whole trip. They were great in the car ride up here, and they've been maintaining good spirits while we take them to new places with new crowds of people. Jack has maintained a good sleep schedule and has been going down without any fuss which makes me so happy. (I seriously never knew that sleep schedules would be so important to me as a parent, but it seems to be my thing. I guess it's because the better the boys sleep, the happier they are, the happier we are free to be.) On Wednesday we went to the aquarium with Billy and then had a great lunch at Legal Seafoods - Jack had a full bowl of chowder and was so well behaved - Declan was in our arms and happy as can be.

A Zeh-bra With a Double Ear Infection (With a side of great news)

So Halloween was a bust this year, although we still managed to be the House of Horrors. On Friday morning I decided to take Jack to Dr. Cambria because his cough did not seem to be getting any better. As soon as she heard him cough she said it was in his chest and that we'd give him antibiotics, and then she looked in his ear and said "And that ear is infected" and I thought I heard her wrong. How could this be? No fever, no ear tugging, how's a mom to know?!? And then she looked in his other ear and said "And this ear is infected too". ARGH!!!

(Sidenote: since this was a last minute visit, I had both boys on my own, for the most part they were spectacular - there was one point where they were both wailing, but Dr. Cambria took Declan (bless her! BEST pediatrician ever!) and I had Jack, reciting Brown Bear over and over....)

So Jack never got to bust out the zebra costume (zeh-bra!) but fortunately our playgroup is having our halloween celebration this Friday since everyone was sick. Back to our house of horrors - then Friday night I had fever and chills - went to the doctor on Saturday (Summit Medical Group - on call doctors on weekends - love them!) and I have mastitis and an ear infection. (Where are these ear infections coming from and how come I NEVER know about them?!?) So I'm on antibiotics too...

BUT... DRUMROLL PLEASE! Declan slept through the night last night! I'm talking from 9:30pm to 7:30am - straight!!! 10 hours - hooray! Yay yay yay! The night before he went from 8:30 - 4 and I was happy with that, but never expected something so wonderful! I'm hopeful for tonight, but never plan on anything. For future reference I think the following things help: (1) we put a humidifier in the room, we should have done that ages ago, even if it didn't make a difference; (2) I've been better about saline drops up the nose; (3) Declan gets a bottle of half formula, half breastmilk before bed; (4) General rule of thumb: 5 minutes of crying, visit and soothe, 5 minutes of crying; (5) No feeding if it's been less than 6 hours since his bedtime feeding (if possible).

This morning we went to the Turtleback zoo - Declan pretty much slept through the whole thing. It was cool because Jack actually took notice of the animals and he was smiling and enthralled. When we saw a brightly colored pheasant from China and were oooohing and aaahing over him, Jack copied us and said "wooooow". It was awesome. Overall, Jack is a little ape - copies everything we do. This past week he was helping rake leaves and put them in the barrel - he uses a small rake, but then he wanted to put on the gardening gloves and and it was the cutest thing to see him acting so grown up - afterward we came in from the chilly fall day and we made Jack's first hot chocolate. (sorry Declan - you were sleeping again - but we love you and you are the cutest baby ever!)

Declan's milestones: Sitting up on his own (will attach video) and he's crawling like crazy. I think it's going to be challenging because he crawls up to Jack and tries to play with whatever toy Jack is using. So far Jack has tolerated it pretty well, but I predict trouble in the near future. Javier says we're going to have to buy two of everything, but I say they will just have to learn to share sooner rather than later. (Why do I think we'll have two of everything?!?!)