What a Week!

The Morton Boys' Play set!! 

It's been quite a week in the Morton house!! Blake has hit several milestones, and Brian and his dad finished the play set, so Dominic has had a lot of fun playing on it! The play set is officially up and open for business!!  Brian and his dad worked for over 20 hours building the Costco play set.  Dominic was a little hesitant to slide down the tube slide by himself but a day later loved it!  The play set is geared toward kids older than Dominic, but he gets easily bored on the toddler play sets and we’d like for the boys to grow into it instead of getting too big of it soon.  Dominic can easily get up the ladder but cannot go up the rock climbing wall and needs assistance getting down the ladder.  However, he’s doing well enough that I can (thankfully) hold Blake while Dominic plays independently on the play set.  I love having the play set in our backyard because it's a lot easier than packing both boys up and taking the to a park. This way Blake can take a nap up in his room while I have the monitor on with me outside with Dominic. Most of all it provides Dominic with some much-needed "outside time" of running around and getting some energy out, and I'm sure the same will go for Blake soon enough. We're excited to put it to a lot of use!
 

Blake sitting all by himself!!!

Blake has had a big week!  He is now a “sitter!”  He can sit up by himself. :)  The funny thing about it?  He still hadn’t turned over from his back to his stomach or from his stomach to his back.  Usually those “tricks” come first and help develop the muscles necessary to sit up, but apparently that’s not always the case.  The first time came when I took Blake up to his room for bedtime.  I was changing him on the changing table and sat him down on the changing table afterward and he actually stayed up right.  He’s been doing it ever since, but still grows very tired and then falls to the side or face plants.  

Got teeth?

Two days later Blake was being fussy and started sucking on my finger only for me to feel something poking out from his gums.  Yes, Blake has his first tooth...at 4 months old!!  It was his bottom left tooth And the next day the 2nd tooth (the bottom right tooth) started popping through as well.  Since Dominic was 8 ½ months when he got his first tooth, I was half surprised that Blake was getting his teeth so early.  However, I got my first tooth around the same age.  Personally, I wish we could have put this off since Blake is too young to take Ibuprofen for the pain.  So far, Blake hasn’t seemed too bothered by the pain luckily though.  I think the top 2 teeth were more painful for Dominic, so we have that to look forward to.   

And then a few days after that, Blake (finally) rolled over!  I put him down for some tummy time while I walked over to the kitchen to warm up his bottle for his bedtime feeding.  He was very hungry and crying, so when I heard a noise and then Blake stopped crying suddenly, I quickly turned around and saw that he was on his back - very happily laying on his back.  Unfortunately, I missed it though.  So far, he hasn’t been able to repeat the action, but it was exciting nonetheless.  And THEN the next day, Blake rolled over the opposite way - back to stomach. I saw him do it this time. First he rolled over on his side and then he moved over to his stomach. It's obviously been a huge week for my baby boy!  

Happy as can be!

As Blake continues to grow and develop, he’s becoming more of a “real person” and show us his sweet personality.  He’s the happiest baby I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, the happiest.  He’s always smiling at people and very content unless he’s really tired or hungry.  He’s just a very good baby.  I finally got a chance to get out all of his little toys and he loves most of them - as does Dominic.  The light up, musical toys that Dominic loved (and still does) fascinate Blake, and he loves the ones he can grab as well.   I’m just in disbelief that my baby boy is already sitting up, getting teeth, turning over, and playing with toys!

The silliest little boy I know

As great of a week as Blake has had, Dominic has had a rough week - or should I say I’ve had a rough week due to his behavior.  Wasn't I just saying how his behavior had been so much better recently? He’s having a very hard time following directions and has decided to test every boundary that he is given.  It’s extremely frustrating and exhausting for me.  Needless to say, Dominic has found a new home in the “timeout chair.”  On the bright side, Dominic is doing great with the actual timeouts.  He used to scream at the top of his lungs if we was going into timeout.  These days he sits in the chair quietly and without resistance and then when I come to get him out after his 2 minutes, he tells me, “I’m sorry,” and hugs me sweetly.  That really does make up for a lot of the frustration.   

"Chase me!" 

Dominic's new favorite toy - my car.  Yes, those are my hazard lights that he turned on.  

Dominic’s favorite activities these days include being chased around (he’s obsessed) and now getting in my car, pressing every button in the thing, pretending to drive it...and then refusing to get out. I usually end up having to drag him out of the car.  He’s also still loving letters and numbers.  Dominic is doing really well learning what words start with what letters (i.e., d is for Daddy).  He’s also very into colors right now.  His favorite color had been blue, but I would have to say at this point it’s purple.  So far, he knows red, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and sometimes orange.  Dominic also absolutely loves making Blake laugh and loving it himself. It's moments where my toy boys smile at each other like that when I think this is exactly why I love being a mom!

I love these 2 boys...and being a mom to them!!