Last week was really rough. Henry is suffering from either sickness, teething, growing pains, or all of the above. A few nights he barely slept. Stephen seems to be sick too. For a couple days he couldn't get to sleep very well at all because of his stuffy nose. Lots of baby tylenol and children's benadryl has been administered in this house recently.

It was particularly worrisome because this was the weekend we were supposed to take both of the boys for a night in a hotel in the Baltimore area with my family. It was absurd now much stuff we had to pack for one night in a hotel. Clothes, bathing suits, two playpens, tons of diapers, special swim diapers, pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, medicine, the baby monitor, white noise generator, baby cereal, the pump, some extra milk, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things. Everything ended up going very well. We went swimming with both of the boys in an indoor pool. The rooms were very nice and the drive was just over an hour each way from the Youngs' house. The boys slept in our hotel room; Stephen slept from 8pm-6am and Henry slept from 10pm-6am. Between 8-10pm we looked up vacation homes (for 2012) in my parents' hotel room while everyone took turns entertaining an overtired Henry.

We woke up on Sunday morning at 6am, took showers, and packed the car. We had a good complimentary breakfast at the hotel and hung out a little more. Everyone had to leave to board the cruise ship between noon and 1pm, but we left at 11am to head back to the Youngs'. We watched the Redskins put together a[n ugly] win and headed home with the dogs. Henry went to sleep at 7pm which meant he got up at 4:30 this morning. Grr..

We switched Stephen's crib to a day bed and he loves it. He never gets out of the bed until you open his bedroom door, even if he is awake for a while. We kept him caged (cribbed) as long as we could, but he was beginning to escape the crib when I put him in there for a timeout. There would be a huge thud and then he would open his door two seconds later and leave his bedroom, so we figured we had to stop that before he injured himself. I switched the lock around on his door and now I just lock him in his room for a few minutes for a timeout. It's not a real timeout but it sure does improve his mood!

Stephen loves to take pictures. We don't let him use my camera yet (not for another ten years hehe), but he loves to use Jaime's and he understands how it works. He even calls your name before he takes the picture to get you to look at the camera. If you disable the flash, it can entertain him for a long time in a restaurant to take 45 pictures of everyone at the table.

I know I keep saying this, but Henry is about three seconds from crawling. He can sit up in the high chair now and he eats a pretty good-sized dinner most nights. He's tried carrots, applesauce, peas, and rice crackers.

You just have to love a six-month-old. Henry is a real champ. We never need his car seat anymore (except in the car, of course). We can plop him right in the stroller and he loves it. He looks around until he inevitably falls asleep, at which point we recline the stroller. That massive double stroller is very nicely designed, and it doesn't weigh so much without the car seat in it.

We went to Sweetwater on Sunday night with Jaime's parents, and Stephen literally ate until he puked.... at the table. He had a good amount of lobster bisque, a lot of spinach & artichoke dip, and of course, more french fries than he could handle. The puking at the table thing was pretty unfortunate, but my wife's fast action stopped it from being a complete disaster. He was embarrassed and afraid that it would happen again, but everything ended up being fine.

Yesterday I took both of the boys and both of the dogs on a regular-length walk (30mins) by myself at 5pm. Stephen walked for the last half by himself. I've taken everyone for plenty of walks by myself, and Stephen has walked the last half by himself plenty of times, but we've never combined the two. I was a bit nervous to let him free without Jaime around, but of course he was just fine. He runs ahead a little and waits to cross the street. He started sniffing the grass a lot yesterday and saying "dog." He thinks he's pretty funny.

Stephen has his letters down pat. He definitely knows them all, though he can't say a handful of them (anything with the 'ck' sound is out, as are H, C, W, and S). Everywhere we go, he reads the letters off of street signs, menus, pretty much anything that has letters.

With the exception of a few daily tantrums, the "terrible twos" are not terrible at all. At least now Stephen knows how to be good. He is more helpful every day; he can put all the clean silverware in the dishwasher away by himself. He can go into the basement and get me more blankets for Henry. He uses the laptops in a nice way (for the most part). He can watch whatever YouTube videos he wants. He can make a video full screen, pause it, and do all of that stuff. On Jaime's laptop, he nicely types gibberish into her sticky notes program. He loves to hold down letters while he says what letter it is. EEEEEEEEEEEEE.

When you're having a child, everyone loves to warn you about all the perils. The same thing happens when you're having your second child. Horror stories about someone's child hating their new baby sibling are everywhere, and you suddenly find yourself unable to escape them. I will say that Stephen has been nothing but nice to Henry. He likes to sit with him and watch TV and wipe his drool with a blanket. He makes noises and faces at the baby to make him smile. He lays on the floor next to him and pushes me away if I try to join in.

Henry obviously needs a lot of attention, and most of the time I'm the only one around. Stephen has taken to going upstairs and playing/reading in his room by himself for about an hour every day. He "reads" his books one by one, page by page, and puts them in a neat stack on the floor. Then he puts all of the books back on the shelf. Sometimes I go up to check on him and ask if he wants me to read him any books. "No," he replies. On one hand I feel bad that he's not getting as much attention as he used to, but on the other hand, he is learning at a young age that the world does not in fact revolve around him. And he is dealing quite well with it.

This multiple children thing is going to be a lot more fun for everyone, I think. Stephen already has a new friend and I have someone else to entertain the baby. People that don't have children are worried that having a baby will ruin their lives. To that I say, yes, your old life goes bye-bye when you have a kid (and even more so when you have more than one kid), but it gets replaced by a new life that is much better. What was so great about my old life, anyway? I could go to bars and pretend I was still 22? I could waste endless amounts of time on the computer? When people talk about "how hard it is" to have kids, I think they are really talking about how hard it is for them to let go of their pre-baby life.