Patrick is so Naughty ... And I Love It!

Patrick is officially 10 months old and is such a stinker. His favorite thing is getting caught doing naughty things. And oh does he do the naughty things.

He climbs stairs. Forbidden!

He gets in the pantry! Forbidden!

He plays with the handle to the window that isn't secured properly and falls off. Forbidden!

He managed to unscrew one of the screws that holds our barstools together the other day (I swear I took my eyes off of him for two minutes while I was getting things ready for us to leave the house). And he also climbed onto the fireplace and opened the glass doors so he could play with the fake coal. This was while I was trying to mediate a fight between Bradley and Eleanor. Perhaps the problem is not so much that Patrick is naughty as much as I'm generally a fairly distracted parent these days.

In my defense, there's generally a bit going on.

The best thing about all these things is Patrick's reaction when you catch him. Joy, glee, and then he just tries to hurry up and get to whatever his goal is. This sweet guy, I could eat him up.

He's getting so mobile and so fun to take places. Except when we go to the trampoline place with a "pillow jump site" and the baby repeatedly tries to throw himself in and hollers at me when I won't let him. Finally I placed him in the thing and he crawled around happily while I tried to keep him from falling between the pillow and the wall.

Patrick's favorite thing to do besides get himself in trouble is to blow raspberries. Like, all the time. One morning I watched him on his baby monitor and he literally stirred a bit, picked his head up, and started blowing raspberries. The other night he was blowing raspberries literally nonstop as I was singing him his lullaby (making it a bit difficult to focus on singing the words) and then I laid him in his crib and he went straight to sleep. This guy.

This is the face you make to blow raspberries

Speaking of lullabies, I rather love that I've kind of had a special song for each child. Bradley's wasn't really a lullaby, it was "A - You're Adorable" (The Alphabet Song). Eleanor's was "Hush Little Baby" and I still sing it to her every day. Patrick's is "Baby Mine" and let me tell you, it really gets to me. I guess there are a lot of versions out there, here's what I sing.

Baby mine, don't you cry
Baby mine, dry your eyes
Lay your head close to my heart
Never to part
Baby of mine

Little one when you play
Don't you mind what they say
Let your eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear
Baby of mine

If they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for the right to hold you

From your head to your toes
You're not much goodness knows
But you're so precious to me
Sweet as can be
Baby of mine

Try to read through that and not get a little teary. It's less tender when I sing it to Patrick these days though because my sweet angel child generally flails and cries and complains until I lay him in his crib already. So a little less touchy feely than it could be.

Stinker

Patrick also loves to dance with Mommy but I've made a serious error by dipping him before while dancing and he LOVED it and now he just tries to throw himself backward whenever I dance around with him so he can be upside down. He's 24 lbs so it's not a small amount of force we're talking about here.

I don't have a Patrick dancing photo so here are some Patrick with kitties pictures. I really have to watch him around the cats because unlike the other two, he grabs hard and pulls out tufts of fur. Our cats are incredibly nice but everyone has their limits. Why don't the cats just move away from him you ask? Because we chose our cats based on beauty, not brains.

I know it's a lot of Patrick in this post but he's becoming such a little person and it's just so much fun. His favorite toy in the whole house is the dishwasher, which sounds cute but is a bit of an issue because if he's anywhere on the main floor he'll come speed crawling over if he hears you open the thing. I always save unloading the dishes for when Patrick is around, it is one of his favorite things. I frantically try to get all the silverware put away before he gets his grubby hands on it and then I try to keep him from killing himself when he rolls the bottom rack in and out of the dishwasher with great verve and vigor.

Bath time is also more of an adventure with Patrick than it was with the other two kids. They never really splashed that much because they would splash themselves and they didn't like it. Patrick doesn't mind it at all. He's a bit of a terror to be around, older children sometimes complain about the amount of splashing they are subjected to around their sweet little brother.

I can't get enough pics of this cute little naked bum!!

One of the many nice things about Patrick being so roly poly is that I don't have to worry too much about accidentally getting his little privates in a bath time picture. His belly covers his bits and pieces. This kid is so round!

His siblings so good with him though, I can't properly express how much it warms my heart to have the kids love each other in the way that they do.

Even when one of them is clearly a menace.

Here's a lovely series that demonstrates Patrick's high levels of determination in achieving a goal.

Okay, Patrick may have a role model for a certain amount of his behavior.

And sometimes Eleanor tries to read a book to Patrick so he will go back to sleep and she can play games with Mommy.

Eleanor got a new dress from my amazing mother who makes these things for fun and she kept talking about how she was going to dance with Bradley at church in it.

"Oh tank you tank you tank you!"

Kissy face. She is such a sweetheart. I try not to ever ask her to stop kissing me but it's tough when the kisses are nonstop while you're trying to get her dressed. Or hold her and sing at a Christmas Eve service ... oh Eleanor. 

My mom also made matching shirts for the boys and the kids were dolled up adorably for church!

And here's a little sample of what Bradley and Eleanor dancing is like:

Bradley has had a much better February than January. We started him on some speech therapy and fine motor skills therapy which I would question the necessity of but it's a free program and they come to his school for a half hour once per week and he really likes the one on one attention. So fine, we'll go with it.

Eleanor pulling Bradley up onto a mat at a fun play place.

Playing a fun game with Daddy.

Outside time! Hurray for a mild winter!

Patrick gets so excited and happy when his brother or sister bounce him on the shaky bridge while I hold on to him to make sure he doesn't fall off.

Bradley also seems to be growing out of some of his three year old angst, or maybe I'm just comparing him to Eleanor who seems to be rapidly approaching a more "mature" level of angst when she's upset about something. Either way, he seems to be handling life's great trials like having to wash hands or put on shoes with more dignity and grace.

And some sucker bribes never hurt anything

Bradley surprised us by easily giving up his pacifier a few days ago in exchange for Hungry Hungry Hippos. I don't even think it was necessary for us to give him the game as a bribe, although it certainly didn't hurt anything. He's been sleeping like a champ without it, I think we would have tried a while ago but we were terrified to do anything to mess with our champion sleeper while we still had a baby to sleep train. Things work out! Pacifier free before age four, woohoo! I'm pretty okay that Eleanor never took a pacifier and Patrick stopped using the soothie pacifiers once he had a bad cold, it will be nice to not have to deal with this again.

Possibly our last picture of Bradley with a pacifier

The picture above is after a very exciting day of monster trucks for Nathan and the big kids. I thought Nathan was taking a while to leave Bradley's bedroom after bedtime stories and sure enough, I walked in and found this. Nathan took Bradley and Eleanor to Monster Jam a couple weeks ago and they had a blast.

New monster truck toys

Noise canceling headphones for both kids

The action

Bradley skipped his nap for this and dozed off for a bit and I'm told Eleanor got a bit bored 2/3 of the way through the show but all in all it was a great success.

Luckily she had a toy car and a big brother to entertain her.

Patrick and I had a rather mellow time at home. For the record, Sookie is going to be sad when I'm not nursing the baby anymore.

Everyone likes to come and have a cuddle during nursing time. 

Here's a great little Bradley story: they had an art project at preschool where they made handprint fish and he had to name his after he was done. He picked Eleanor "because it was his favorite name." Nathan and I melted and Eleanor was very pleased with the attention.  

I continue to take pictures of my children with friends' babies in the hopes that I will get to be in-laws with friends someday. Baby Patrick was very interested in baby Avery, let's arrange a marriage already!

Nathan and I had the least romantic Valentines Day ever this year because I got sick with what I'm fondly referring to as the "death cold" and I spent the 14th wandering around in my pajamas hacking up phlegm. Romance! Now the kids seem to be coming down with colds so wish us luck as we try to make it through this winter.

At least he got some good Valentines cuddles from someone else.

Patrick loves his Daddy not a small amount.

Is it summer yet? Can we go swimming? Eleanor picked out a swim suit at Target today, we're ready! She also picked out some jewelry. I am so crazy about this little girl, definitely hit the jackpot of everything I could possibly want in a daughter!

The other morning I was having a little difficulty getting my opinionated girl in the "correct" clothes according to Eleanor and she informed me that she had to cough when I put her in the wrong clothes and then demonstrated if a clothing option was wrong by coughing when I held it up for her to examine it. Turns out princess themed apparel is pretty much the only correct apparel to be found.
 

It's so fun to have these guys all developing such strong senses of self and doing hilarious things. One last story: Nathan was playing hide and seek with Bradley and Eleanor the other day and asked Bradley how he learned to hide so well. Bradley matter of factly replied "It's a gift" and ran off to hide again. Nathan and I about died laughing.