The Scotts: Settling In

Two months in and our little family is starting to get our routine down. Wake up, be adorable, cry and don't let mommy eat any real meals (thanks Bradley), go to sleep, repeat.

I adore this sweet face

Bradley LOVES family pictures!

Things are a little different with a second child. I've learned to breastfeed the baby while reading a book to a one year old, holding onto a one year old who is trying to jump up and down while balancing on my legs, and saving a one year old who is trying to walk off the top of a high play structure at the zoo. THAT was a blast. Walking around with a little blanket over my shoulder while I fed Eleanor and tried to save Bradley from killing himself on the play structure. At one point I got to pass my infant off to a stranger so I could climb up a ladder in order to save a crying Bradley who had managed to wedge himself into an impossible position on the big slide.

A rare park picture. Usually I'm running interference.

But overall we've settled in and are doing pretty well. Bradley is much less fussy and really enjoys trying to play with Eleanor. This sometimes means disaster of tummy times for Eleanor since I have to save her from the Bradley loving with great frequency.

Bradley loves Eleanor's nose

He loves helping her roll over

And he loves finding her tummy

As well as trying to lay on top of her for cuddles

Here is a rare tummy time video. At the end you'll see why I don't get the opportunity to take these videos very often.

But here's another one for good measure. I don't know why they upload upside down sometimes. Very annoying. But Eleanor had a big smile finale in this video so I had to include it anyway!

It's really sweet how proud Bradley is of Eleanor. Anytime we have someone over he yells "bayyybee" and points at Eleanor right away so he can show her off.

Here Eleanor is beginning to tire of the love

Bradley doesn't just love Eleanor, he now loves all babies. I had a girl from a mom group come over with her 9 month old daughter and Bradley spent the entire 45 minutes harassing that poor child. He was so delighted, kept on saying "baby" and kissing her and throwing balls at her to play with and running towards her from across the room shrieking with joy. She only cried a little, she was a tough little thing. But she did cry more frequently towards the end and look very concerned whenever Bradley came close ... which was often. Bradley loves so hard.

I've been hesitant to say anything until now because it's so tough to tell with babies at first but I think Eleanor may have BLUE eyes! I'm pretty excited about this! I love Bradley's dark brown eyes and his thick lashes (She didn't seem to get those. Figures good eyelashes would be wasted on a boy) but blue eyes are so fun and I really thought that there was no way I was going to end up with a blue eyed child because of my dominant brown eyes, brown hair genes. So I'm calling her Xena Warrior Princess now. But that may not stick, it will be interesting to see if her dark hair turns blonde on me. Who knows at this point!

Baby blues!

I think you may be able to see the blue better in this picture ...

Hmm, or cute bath pictures may be best for showing off blue eyes ...

Munchkin face!

She loves bathtime

Things have been going pretty smoothly overall with only a few hiccups here and there. Like the night that I had to have Nathan come back from his softball game because Bradley woke up crying at 9:30 PM and was not interested in going back to bed which made putting Eleanor down for the night much more difficult. Bradley was, however, interested in blowing bubbles.

Bradley has also gone down to one nap per day which generally goes pretty well now. However, it was not without its trials along the way. One day he took a nap from 9:30-10:15 in the morning in the car and then refused to nap for the rest of the day. Bradley almost fell asleep while eating his dinner that night.

But he's such a little love and Eleanor is getting so alert and likes to watch Bradley while he's running around. Perhaps there is some survival instinct in this, Bradley does tend to throw objects around and you never know when a lego is going to be thrown in your direction. He's such a bruiser, we went to the park this morning with his two adorable friends Andrew and Eli (one is two weeks older than Bradley, the other two weeks younger). Eli ran off to check out some flowers at one point so Andrew and Bradley followed. Andrew pointed at the flowers and said "bee" repeatedly in an adorable fashion. Eli smelled the flowers and tried to pick some, also adorable. Bradley bashed at the flowers with the shovel he had taken from the sandbox. Sigh.

Bradley is so hilarious and fun. I'm okay with chasing after my little imp who always has a mischievous gleam in his eye. He's been adding to his vocabulary right and left but my favorite thing is when he chatters in baby to himself.

He's so darn cute and fun. I'm so happy that we genuinely have a pretty fun time together most of the time.

Fun playing with trucks!

Fun watching a show while snuggling with favorite stuffed toy (we call him "oof oof") and his favorite ball

And Eleanor, oh my sweet Eleanor! She smiles so big now and all the time. I really wish I had more pictures of her soul destroying smiles, but she frowns and stares whenever I pull a camera out to take a picture. But anything makes her smile and it's so fun. Bradley is a happy sweetheart boy but I don't remember him smiling this much. I remember him driving me crazy by smiling at his daddy at first but not at me. Eleanor is very equal opportunity with her smiles.

Big smile!

Less blurry smile

We were happy to have two recent grandma visits, both Grandma Colleen and Grandma Kathy came to visit in the last couple weeks. We took all the Colleen pictures on her nice camera rather than on my phone so I'm going to have to have her send me the photos but I grabbed a couple of camera phone photos of my mom with the baby during some precious moments.