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(Yes, we might like this commercial a little too much in our house and PS, why aren't you on Vine yet?)

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Our house is run by a tiny terrorist and a toddling dictator

You read that right, our house is run by a tiny terrorist and a toddling dictator.  And oddly enough, I kind of love it.  Avett (22 months) is a great kid and a wonderful big brother.  Stone (6 weeks) is quickly adjusting to a somewhat structured life on the outside, but I keep it real around here and there aren't unicorn pellets in their diapers, and things aren't roses and rainbows ALL of the time.  Case in point...

The Terrorist

So, there's a funny thing about having a second kid.  A couple weeks before Stone was born, we ran into some friends/parents of two and after catching up for a couple minutes, they dropped a little nugget of wisdom on us that I'll paraphrase here:  having a second child is a case where 1 + 1 does not equal 2.  More like 200.

Exsqueeze me?  A-baking powder?  Why didn't I ever think of that?  Give me just a minute to pick up the pieces of my mind that you've just blown.  Here I was thinking that we were kind of jamming on this parenting thing.  Fast forward to present day, and I'm finding that they were right.  Having two kids, especially just 21 months apart (and yes, that was on purpose), is no joke.

Sure some things are inherently easier.  Diapers?  Piece of cake.  Confidence that you're not going to pull off an arm getting him into that onesie?  Sky high.  Feeding, burping, etc.  No problem.  But then come the curve balls.  Stone likes to exercise his lungs far more than Avett ever did.  What's that about?  My normal baby whispering tricks aren't working and the volume is turned to 11, and the other kiddo is asleep a mere 20 feet away.  HELP!

Editor's Note: We have mastered the middle of the night combination shush-walk/door close/diaper change/prep for feeding technique, and to this point have avoided waking up Avett (knock on wood).  And since I've been back at work, my better half has taken on night duty, bless her heart.

We were lucky with Avett's ultra easy-going manner, and I know that.  And we're lucky with Stone too.  He's healthy, growing like crazy, and is starting to settle into a schedule and a routine.  As an added bonus (not to my wife), I've created a plethora of freestyle raps with horrible lyrics about things I can physically see at the moment and really honed my beatbox skillz, as those tend to calm him down when a normal shush just won't do (watch out Eminem, I'm coming for you!).  We're all figuring it out, slowly but surely, but don't worry about us.  We're equipped for anything - we have help from big brother.  AKA....

The Dictator

What you see here is a very regular occurrence at our house.  This kid loves the vacuum or "vaaaaaaaaac" or "vac-room".  "Vac.  Keeeeeen.  On.  Hahahaha".  Seriously, his enthusiasm for a purple cleaning machine is borderline unhealthy.  Funny thing is, when you do bow to his demands wishes (and with the dog hair in our house, he usually has a valid point), he scrambles up onto the couch to happily supervise me.  From a safe and respectable distance.

We are immensely lucky to have grandparents in town that are able to keep Avett during the day.  Fortunate.  VERY fortunate.  But with that comes some trade-offs.  I think it's physically impossible for a grandparent to say no to a grandchild and while that's quite a lovely situation for an aspiring tyrant, it makes things a little tougher on parents of said tyrant to lay down the occasional "not right now, we just vacuumed this morning, buddy".  And like most other new-ish parenting things, we're figuring those things out along the way.

Are there dull moments with this new family of four?  Not many right now.  But you know what?  I don't know if I'd change a thing about our little crew.  And watch out world, because we're taking Team Timmons v4.0 on the road.  I think we're sometimes guilty of staying in because it might be easier than going out for some kind of random adventure.  But it might not always be more fun, so we're making extra effort to "just do" things with this newly updated family of ours, and also to enjoy more than just those freshly vacuumed floors...

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And then we were four

A few weeks ago, we were all like...

This.

 and this.

and this.

But as if by some kind of crazy magical miracle, and unlike a short 2 weeks ago, we are a family of four now.  Or six, if you count the four-legged kids.  Me and RA, two boys under two, and two geriatric, yet still wild and crazy weimaraners.  And a partridge in a pear tree*.

*No partridges or pear trees were harmed in the writing of this post

Gulp.

I won't go into too much detail on the birth itself other than to say a few things.
1.  When Ruth Ann says it's baby time, it's baby time.
2.  Laboring through the night is an oddly different experience than laboring during the day.  I'm not sure why this is, but it was, I don't know, quieter?
3.  Ruth Ann is a professional baby deliverer.  We checked into the hospital at midnight and welcomed Stone at 5:12 AM.  15 minutes of pushing.  Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.
4.  I survived the delivery (again), stayed completely conscious and was able to cut the cord.  Those that know my track record with all things needle-y and blood-like know what a great personal accomplishment this is.

When it was all said and done, we were left with a 6 pound, 12 ounce bundle of joy.

Hello world, I'm one minute old.

And man, it's just been a whirlwind ever since.  This humble little blog post has been in the works for more than a week, but it's just tough to squeeze out the time to put together more than a couple coherent sentences.


...sorry, I dozed off there for a quick minute.  I'm back now, and I'm really going to finish this thing.


First of all, I know you're not supposed to compare your kids, but I think this is an acceptable exception.  That's Avett on the left and Stone on the right, sporting the same duds.  Brand spanking new.

 

And I think everybody wondered how Mr. Cool, almost always laid back Avett would react to being a big brother.  Short answer: very well.

Very well, indeed.

Avett has started off his journey as a big brother like a pro.  He loves "'tone, 'tone", and can't seem to get enough kisses and pat-pats of his new bestest pal.

And what about Mommy?  Yeah, she's doing pretty well too.  And looking great, if you ask me.

Didn't quite make it to 40...

And those dogs?  If they could talk, I think they'd be saying something like "Seriously you guys?!?  Again?"

Me?  I'm doing what little bit I can to pitch in and help keep the family machine well-oiled and operating as efficiently as possible.  I'm re-honing my baby whisperer skills and do steal a snuggle when I can.  Don't judge me.

Finally, here are the obligatory "yard stick" pictures of our fellas, just a shade under 21 months apart.

And there you have it, our new and improved family unit.  It's louder, busier, and powered by less sleep (at least for now), but it's pretty great.  Here's to the journey (in a minivan, no less)...

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