September kids update

What's been happening recently...

AUSTIN
Austin's struggled with behavior issues in the past couple weeks, pushing both Amy and me past our limits more than a few times. He uses a variety of tactics...ignoring, arguing, defiance, sneakiness, even intimidation. He has this "mean face" that he puts on and gets right up on us like he's trying to bully us into changing our minds. It's gotten to the point that we immediately put him in time-out anytime he gives us the mean face.

I'm not saying he's always bad, he just acts out more than I'd normally expect--especially when Jonas is in the room. He's constantly testing and pushing buttons.

However, it seems like he's been improving slowly over the last week. And he's been on best behavior the past couple days, not least because of our impending football weekend. I think his kindergarten teacher's discipline methods are helping him too (especially when I try to mimic them). He's so much more pleasant when he's behaving. It's amazing to see how creative, loving, affectionate, and funny he can be when we're not constantly struggling with him to control his behavior and temperament. He's taken to randomly hugging me and saying things like "I love you, Dad", "you're the best dad", and last night he broke out "you're wonderful". It's so sweet.

In the last 2-3 days he's even started being markedly nicer to Jonas, which is eye-popping in its contrast to the usual dynamic there. There've been times when Jonas has pinched, grabbed, or hit Austin with little or no provocation, and Austin's just looked at me and said "I didn't hit back and I still love him even when he's mean." *boggle* WHO IS THIS ALIEN AND WHAT HAS HE DONE WITH AUSTIN?!!

I'm leaving in about half an hour to pick up Austin from school and take him to Clemson for the weekend. He is so excited he can barely stand it. I am too! But I'm excited about football...he's more excited about "special time with daddy", eating in restaurants, and staying in the hotel. But hey, whatever works. :)

JONAS
Jonas is talking more and more these days--he has a rapidly growing vocabulary and is putting together fairly sophisticated sentences too. He's still pretty hard to understand unless you're used to him, and even then it's not easy, but he seems to improve daily.

He is OBSESSED with books. If he can get away with it, he'll make us read him 10 books before bedtime...some nights we literally have to pick him up and carry him away from the bookshelf to go to bed. He's even starting to memorize some of the books because he's read them so many times. It's pretty awesome. He watches TV, but not a whole lot of it--he'll watch Blue's Clues till the sun goes down, and likes Phineas and Ferb because Austin watches that one a lot. But other than that, he doesn't really pay a whole lot of attention to TV (as far as i can tell, anyway).

He's got all his colors down pretty well now. It's funny to hear him say them...."duh-wed" ("red", actually we think it's "the red"), "bwoo" or "duh-woo", "wee-whoa", "geen" or "duh-geen", "or-nange" (this is cute enough to melt steel), "buh-wack", "duh-wyee" ("the white"), "duh-peenk", "purple" (oddly, he says this one almost perfectly). Guess what his favorite color is? ORNANGE! I'm raising him right. :)

Much like Austin, Jonas has distinct and developing musical tastes. He tends to like high-energy music like dance, electronica, and old-school hip-hop (while Austin prefers electronica, heavy metal, and speed metal). He loves to ride in my car because it's a "special occasion", and we always listen to energetic music. He laughs and bobs his head and "dances" in the car seat.

Jonas still an incredibly sweet boy with an incredibly big mischevious streak. I really love being around him when he's not driving me crazy getting into trouble. :) He is a specialist at getting into trouble, though. He'll grab anything that he can reach, even if he knows he's not supposed to. He knows how to use chairs and toys to climb on and reach higher spots. He can be a real terror at the table, pushing the table and his chair around, tipping backwards, etc. He really loves to step on and/or destroy things Austin has built (lego buildings and cars, forts, etc). And lately he's developed an interest in the computer too, which leads to fights over whose turn it is to be in the computer chair.

On the sweet side, though, he always comes sprinting to the door when I come home, laughing and shrieking "DADDY!". He likes to sit on my lap and watch TV or read. He can sit still for much longer than Austin can, so it's nice to chill with him on the couch. He loves to share with everyone in the house--his new thing is to say "here!" and share whatever's in his hand. He's really good about going down to bed, FAR better than Austin ever was--it almost never takes more than 15 minutes to get him down for a nap or for nighttime. He has a great sense of humor and sometimes he flat-out cracks me up, especially when I'm singing lullabyes or holding him. He loves being a comedian. He is also getting much better with Devon, backing off on the intentional startling and the random smacking. We still can't leave them alone in the same room because Jonas will still try something every now and again, but at least now we don't have to be right next to the baby every second.

DEVON
Devon's been off Zantac for the past several days and seems to be responding well. He's started to eat oatmeal and pureed fruit. He really loves applesauce. We think he might have an allergy to rice cereal, as he developed a really nasty rash a few weekends ago that we couldn't get rid of. When he stopped with the rice at his doctor's suggestion, though, it was gone within a day. Weird.

He's also holding his head up very well and turning over with ease. He loves to be on the floor. He's figured out how to push himself military-crawl style across the floor in small intervals, so he's becoming somewhat mobile--at the very least, he can turn himself in a circle to see everything around him. He's constantly trying to get his knees underneath him so he can start crawling (and keeping up with his brothers). We introduced him to an exersaucer a couple weeks ago and he seems to like that pretty well...won't stay in it for a long time, but often will go long enough for us to eat dinner.

Devon's personality is also very sweet, he loves to laugh with Daddy and Mommy and his brothers. He doesn't seem to mind strangers too much and is usually in a good mood when he wakes up--even when Amy has to get him up at 6:15am to get Austin to school in time. He's starting to "watch" TV and will sometimes even pay attention when we're reading books. He's really good about going down to bed; by 6:30 or 7 he's ready for his final nursing of the night and then he'll typically stay asleep until the next morning, sometimes sleeping till 8 or 8:30. Hardly ever wakes up in the middle of the night anymore; if anything, he'll wake up around 9-10pm because of gas bubbles, but he doesn't like being awake that late. Sometimes if he's up past 7, Amy will put him down in the crib (so she can take care of some errands) and eventually he'll put himself to sleep. That's something neither Austin or Jonas would ever do as a baby, so it's REALLY nice (almost heavenly) that Devon will do it once in a while.

And lastly he still likes Austin more than anybody except maybe Mommy, but is warming up rapidly to Jonas too. Jonas isn't as mean to him as he used to be, which helps, so often I'll catch Devon grinning and giggling at Jonas like he's never done before. It's really heartwarming to see them interacting better.

I think that's it! "See" you in about a month.