July and August 2013

Whew, what a busy summer. Here’s what we did:
– The kick-off to July was Jared and Margaret’s wedding down in Long Island. You both attended and had a blast (at least until mid-reception when you were both so tired). Sebastien rocked his ring bearer job like a star – no crying, no anxiety, walked down all by himself – and looked completely adorable in his bow tie. Archer danced the night away in the arms of various relatives and refused to go to sleep until we hit the hotel at 10pm. The wedding was beautiful and we’re so happy for Jared and Margaret!
– Sebastien went to CNS engineering and building camp and loved it. He built lots of cool foam structures and became briefly really interested in the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
– We went to Cole’s birthday party out in Southborough. Sebastien loved riding on the ATV and playing on the playground with his friends.
– We went to our first Pawsox game of the season with all of the cousins. Lots of fries and popcorn and burgers were consumed and not a lot of baseball was actually watched. We only made it through four or five innings before everyone decided they’d rather run around at the top of the stadium and we decided to call it a night.
– Sebastien then had four weeks of camp at FUSE in Lexington. The highlight was the gigantic water slide outside and fortunately there were only one or two rainy days where the kids stayed in. He also performed in the FUSE talent show, singing “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line in front of 30 kids ranging in age from 3-10. We were in total shock, but apparently it was all his idea.
– Archer and I started our first mom/baby class together – Baby Wiggles at Charlestown Yoga. He loved the music (and really loved the guitar) but also spent a lot of time trying to take people’s phones, drink their water and pull stuff off the wall. Sigh.
– Archer had his 12 month check-up with our new pediatrician, Dr. Bath. He weighed in at 22 lbs even and measured 30 inches. That puts him at the 40th percentile for weight and 60th for height and more than two pounds lighter than Sebastien at the same age. This is crazy to me based on how much Archer eats on the daily.
– Archer turned one and we celebrated his birthday with a picnic at Castle Island. All of our closest family was there and we had a beautiful day playing in the sun and having lunch. We had sandwiches, salads, fruit and cupcakes and gave kites and bubble wands as our favors. (A reminder to myself: planning all the details of the party is fun. Preparing all the food is not, even when you think it will be easy. It is also not much cheaper than getting it catered.)
– We spent lots of time down at the beach in Narragansett, including a full week at the end of August. We spent time with Gabi and Natalie, took bike rides, played in the sand and water, visited Biomes, rode the bumper boats and go-karts, visited Watch Hill and had a wonderful week.

Archer, the thing that sticks out most in my mind about this period of time is that you ARE NOT sleeping. Not even a little bit. Your top left molar broke the surface on August 3rd but we had a good few weeks of misery before that point. The other top molar popped through on August 20th, followed shortly by the bottom left on August 29th and the bottom right on September 3rd. As of writing this, they are still not all the way through and you are still waking up six and ten and fifteen times a night. You are firmly planted in our bed from as early as 10pm on and nothing we can do in the middle of the night can convince you to sleep on your own. Because of all this teething, you are drooling and biting like crazy (including biting us). Please be done with molars soon and then please go back to sleeping. In July, you started saying “uh oh” (or making a sound like that) when you dropped (or threw) something and “clap clap” when you clapped your hands. Shortly after, you added “car”, “book”, “juice” and “tree”. Once teething started up, you sort of put speaking on hiatus (is that a thing?) but are just now starting to get back to making some sounds that approximate different words. “This” (along with a point) and “juice” have been the most consistent, I think because they get you something immediate in return. (Although, sorry kid, what you’re drinking is mostly water.) You are obsessed with instruments – the drum, maracas, tambourine, harmonicas – and these are often the first toys you run for. You always always dance when Sebastien plays the guitar even though it can barely be called music. You are also in love with the blue garbage can that came with Sebastien’s truck. When we ask, “How big is Archer?” you half-heartedly raise one arm to the side of your head, like, “Huhhhh, fine.” You are still shoving everything into your mouth, especially things like drum sticks that can reach back to your molars, and you hide things everywhere. First I was getting annoyed with Dad because why in the world would he put a toy in the kitchen cupboard? But I quickly realized you were the culprit. You like to play peek-a-boo and just barely cover your eyes (sometimes it’s really just covering the side of your head) when we ask, “Where’s Archer?” You like to jump (with our help) especially off your brother’s bed onto a pile of pillows. You continue to be in love with going up and down the stairs and are just starting to get the hang of going down, but not enough that we can un-barricade the stairs. We had our first trip to the ER when you jumped (really, you totally dove) off the changing table and landed on your head. I had a hand on you, but it was not enough to stop you from launching yourself off and falling three feet down. I nearly had a heart attack. After you cried a bit, you seemed sort of lethargic and sleepy, so we dialed the on-call doctor. By the time they called us back, you seemed completely fine, but they had us go the emergency room anyway and you and I spent a good 3 hours waiting around. (You were fine. I knew that, the resident knew that, the nurses knew that. And they actually didn’t even check in after admitting us except to tell us that we could leave. Sigh.) Unfortunately, I am afraid this is just one of many – you are completely fearless.

Sebastien, you have made so much progress and are doing so great with friends. You initiate play and share and take turns better than a lot of kids your age. You still get a little overwhelmed sometimes when it’s crowded or loud or busy or when there is a lot of social pressure on you and then that leads to a meltdown, especially when you’re tired or hungry. I haven’t quite figured out how to reel you back in from there when I see it coming but we’re working on it. You do best when you’re in your normal routine and I’m hopeful that once we get through the first few weeks of school in September, we’ll come back out of this phase we’ve been in lately. Behavior issues aside, I had so much fun with you after camp ended and we had a few weeks to ourselves. We rode bikes sometimes twice a day and you got so good on your balance bike. We also gave the scooter a try, but you seem to prefer (and do better on) the bike. You love “coasting” down the hills in our neighborhood and by September, I could barely keep up with you on foot. Pop-pop let you taste root beer and you fell in love. You get to have it as a special treat when we go out to restaurants and your favorite is still Chipotle but you don’t pass up a good burger now and then. We celebrated you turning 3½ with a half a cake and a Lego airplane that you wanted. You loved it. You also loved seeing Archer covered in frosting a few days later for his celebration. When we went to the MIT museum, they posed the question, “What would you like robots and computers to do?” You answered with a drawing of a hurricane and told me you wanted a robot to predict it. You love running and Archer loves chasing you, whether it’s outside at the park or around the dining room table. It often ends in someone getting bumped and falling, but you guys seem to care a lot less about it then we do. (I think I need to remind myself that boys play rough and let you be more than I do.) You’re about to start pre-school (real pre-school this time, rather than the toddler class) at CNS three days a week and FUSE two days a week. It’s hard to let you go for so many hours but I know you do best in the structure and routine that school will bring and more exposure to kids your age is what will help you grow. But I will miss having you around the house to play this fall, and I know Archer will too.

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And here are Archer’s birthday party pictures, thanks to Grammie, Pop-pop and Ashlyn:

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