Teeth or Tusks?

I purposefully have not verbalized too much how well Heath had begun to sleep over the last couple of months. I stopped nursing him at night and when he would wake up, Jason would change his diaper and rock him back to sleep. Then he miraculously began to sleep from 8-5! It was great while it lasted. This past week or so he has been waking and not happy to just be rocked. He screamed (and I mean screamed) as I tried to rock him one night last week - we are seeing that he can be super dramatic. I took his signal and nursed him and he was fine. The next morning Jason asked me if I expected to a see a tusk poking out of his mouth after all that screaming and in my groggy, sleepy state, it took me minute to get his joke. He has had all four top teeth come in during the last few weeks and this last one was a doozy. I do not recall looking at Alder's teeth and thinking how huge they looked. Do you all agree that these things look really big!?

Just as the intensity of this round of teeth seemed to taper, and just after Heath slept through another solid night, there arose another reason to wake up screaming. Heath has been sick this past week and had a high fever last night (103). We got an ear infection diagnosis and started antibiotics. Yuck. I have to say that I have to blame some of this on him cutting all these upper teeth....;). Now mom is sick...

Speaking of teeth, Alder actually smiled at the camera the other night...


Alder is getting more and more goofy every day. My mom has said that there is nothing more silly than a 4 yr-old boy and I can see the beginnings of this developing now. He has really begun talking to himself when he plays and acting like his trucks/trains are talking to each other and it is as if he is reading a book...."What's happening said Thomas to James" "Nothing, I just fell down off the table" "Oh, do you need help?" "Yeah".....or.....in a deep gutteral voice, "hello" said the fire engine, "what are you guys doing up here gumballs and line level?" an on an on...

The boys have really taken to baths together. Taking them with Heath has given Alder a second wind on baths, as he had started to sort of get bored with them. Heath totally goes kicking-squealing nuts for baths, and has started enjoying them EVEN more since we have taken him out of the infant-sit-up-in-the-bath contraption. Seeing them in there totally gives me (dad) flashbacks, thinking of how the tub seemed so vast and fun, and remembering how I loved the deep end but hated the fact that I had to look out for the faucet bonking me in the head and back. I see Alder doing some of the same things I would do: lying down and noticing what parts of his body are in vs. out, trying to suck his stomach in to change that; listening to his voice with his ears submerged. Tonight I watched Alder practically get lost in the exploration of his hands, dipping softly in and out of the water, through a thin film of shampoo, while whispering something I couldn't hear. So much to be learned in the bath. So much that we forget.