Pat, we are no longer at the zoo

I have been trying to find a time to sit down and completely update my blog from the past 7 months and decided to face the fact that this is not going to happen and to move on. I want to be a good blogger, really I do, but I can't promise it's going to happen.

A lot has been going on since, April, Caroline is almost 2, oh, and we have a son, Brian Caleb Jr. He is 4 months old today, and the sweetest baby in the world. He would be the easiest baby in the world if it wasn't for reflux, although he is much less high maintenance than his sister was when she had it, and a perfect fit for our family. These past 4 months have been a complete blur, which is probably a good thing or else there would be no more babies coming into the Young family. I thought I was on top of this parenting thing until I had 2, all of a sudden I am tired, impatient, overwhelmed, scared, selfish and TIRED. But I love it more than anything in the world and it is the most rewarding wonderful thing in the world. I don't know how all of that is possible at once, but there it is and I love being a mom, I love my kids.

Caroline is almost 2 now, she asks "whats this" about 500 times a day and I am not kidding. For those of you who think that is cute come over and see what you think after a few hours of it. She would have us read books to her all day long if we would do it. She loves to read and will "read" to herself, it's the cutest. She flips the pages talking straight gibberish with occasional real words thrown in for good measure. For example, if she was reading "Are you my mother" it would go a little something like this: gibberish gibberish gibberish gibberish NO, gibberish gibberish gibberish, NO, meow, moo, gibberish gibberish gibberish MOMMY. If you are familiar with the book, this will make sense to you. She is a mama's girl, she asks for her dad all day long but she is all about mommy when he gets home. She loves her little brother, but she is aggressive in her love, its sort of scary. She brings him toys to play with, like a rolling pin that could crush his head, or tries to pick him up/drag him where she wants him, or she literally will smother him with kisses. Got to watch that one 24/7.

Caleb is sweet and cuddly. He does have reflux, which is no fun but when his tummy isn't bothering him he is the easiest baby. When he was first born and would wake up to eat he would lay in his crib and silently suck on his fists till I came in to feed him. He is pretty strong, he already can play in his excersaucer and sits in his tub seat to take baths. He grabs toys and plays with them intensely, and he is always interested in what his sister is doing. He gets so excited when she pays any attention to him and gives her the biggest smiles. He belly laughs all the time, his first smile was around 5 weeks, and was for Brian. Everyone always says this, but I could not imagine loving another child as much as I loved Caroline, and I certainly never thought I would think any child was as cute as I think Caroline is. However, we love him to pieces and I think he is the cutest thing I have ever seen. Oh, and he has NEVER peed on me which I think is kind of amazing since all of my friends with boys told me this would happen all the time, but he never has. When he needs to take a nap we just lay him down and he falls asleep, it's a miracle. And for the first 3 months of his life he slept anywhere from 8-11 hours at night. Caroline didn't do that till she was 11 months old and we had to let her cry 5 nights in a row for about 2 hours. It was not pretty. This past month we have regressed on night time sleep, but I guess I can't complain since he did so well for so long, and hopefully we will get back to that soon!

I'll sign off with some pictures of the kiddos.