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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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Banana-Fana Fo-Fana

Let's play the name game, shall we?  It's well known in our circle that we cast a wide child-naming net.  There are lengthy lists, a scoring process, eliminations, re-scoring (seriously), and a whole slew of names that are just off the table from years spent in a kindergarten class.  It's a hairy ordeal no doubt, but it did yield Avett the first time, so the bar is set pretty high.

We're struggling to find the right name for #2.  We did some work coming back from the beach in March and narrowed the multi-page list to a shorter (still multi-page) list, but haven't gotten any closer since then.  Today I put them all up on the chalkboard in our kitchen so they're in our face and maybe we can figure this thing out.

Baby Timmons v2.0 is on here somewhere, probably

Between this whole name thing, this recent purchase, and a soon-to-be nursery that's still pretty full of junk, your friendly neighborhood blog writer's been a little stressed.  Like, waking up in the middle of the night and staying awake stressed, which those of you that know me know is very abnormal if not caused by a brand new baby that needs to eat all the time.  I'm a guy that likes my sleep, so we've been working hard to get stuff done.  Van?  Check.  Nursery?  Ruth Ann has been great in picking and compiling things, and with some help, I got the room painted and most of the new furniture assembled.  So yeah, some progress.

Great Helper

Voila!

Lo and behold, I got a full night of uninterrupted sleep last night!  And it was awesome.  So we'll continue to chip away on the name and all the other prep work for this baby, and try to manage to relax, take a breath and have a little fun while we're at it.  As busy and stressful as things have been for me, we've still managed to do some fun stuff.  Proof below...

Mother's Day at the Deacon Tower.  Someone enjoyed spending time on the field:

and even put up with some family pictures with the Moms:

The Robinsons:

The Timmons Collective:

And Team Timmons (I'm sporting the temporary Clark Kent look):

And for comparison, here's last year's Father's Day vs. Mother's Day this year:

Let's not also forget that the rascal turned 19 months old (give yourself a hand, kid), 

And that Ruth Ann turned 32 weeks (!!!) pregnant.  She looks good, right?

 

And in late-breaking weekend news, after more long hours, I can proudly say that all baby furniture assembly is complete.  Our upstairs is kind of in shambles as we search out a home for everything that's being redirected out of the new baby's room, but we're making headway on that too.  And over dinner tonight, we did a little bit of name work.  We might get ready for this little guy after all!

 

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End of an Era

No, I'm not just talking about the series finale of The Office, but did you watch it?  It was amazing.

The particular era that's come to an end is my glorious 11 years spent with a very special...automobile.

This Automobile:

That's right, friends, my undercover (yet very functional) sport wagon aka, silver bullet, aka Scooby has moved on.  The hood scoop, the turbo boost gauge and all 227hp, the whole shebang - gone.  This was the first new car I ever bought with my own money, and I've loved it.

(a lot)

I know what you're thinking, "if you love the car so much, why don't you marry it?  Or at least don't sell it?"  It's a fair question, and here's a hint:

And while you can't really see it in this picture because RA is a great-looking pregnant lady, she is indeed quite pregnant.  And as great as the Subaru is, putting a second car seat in the back wouldn't be all that comfortable for anybody.  So, what's an almost dad of 2 kids under 2 to do?  How do you possibly replace such a great ride?  What you do, if you're me, is embrace fatherhood and take the plunge.  And when I say "take the plunge", I mean buy a minivan.

Zoinks.

Now this:

I'll let this settle in for just a minute or two.  Everybody back with me?  Cool...

In the words of Ron Burgandy, "that escalated quickly".  After I mentioned needing to part ways with this glorious piece of magic, a friend was interested in giving it a great second home.  And before I knew it, I was driving something that could swallow my old ride.

Is it weird to think of me driving a van?  It is for some people I've talked to, but maybe the weirdest thing is that it's not weird to me.  At all.  I mean, do I watch that Swagger Wagon clip more regularly now?  Sure, I do.  But by and large, I'm almost proud to roll in this giant tank of a vehicle.  I consider it a dad's badge of honor, that just so happens to have a back-up camera and Bluetooth.

So, transportation is all set.  Stay tuned for another update on names, nurseries, and general prep for still unnamed baby #2.

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Ketchup

This blog title is a reference to how much Avett likes demands to dip food these days, surefire clickbait for Ginger, AND a weird way to tell you that I'm going to play "catch up" on the happenings with Team Timmons.  See what I did there?  Wordplay, for the win!

Sorry about that, sheesh.  On to the news...

You already know about our recent trip to the beach for the Wrightsville Beach Marathon.  We couldn't let the runners have all the fun, so we decided to pack up the crew and venture to the aquarium at Fort Fischer. I was super excited about this and thought it would be right up Avett's alley, and boy was I right - for about 36% of the time we were there.  The other 64% of the time was meltdown like we've never experienced before with our normally good-natured little dude.

 Cool Place!

We went from the "content in the stroller"

To the "oh wow, let me explore this"

To the "hey, let me hang onto you around the albino alligator"

To the "if you don't let me push this stroller wherever I want to go, I'll squall, throw myself down and bang my head on the ground" *headbanging not pictured

And again "driving"

Eesh.  Call it lack of naps, being off schedule or just not digging the fish, but we were "those parents" for the first time.  The scornful looks are SO special.  But it goes with the territory, as they say.  We still managed to have a mostly good time, and baby 2 got his first aquarium experience (sorta):

As did Eleanor and let's face it, it's deeply rooted in her genes to love animals

Avett was able to rally pretty well and have a good time at dinner

We also had plenty of time to rest and relax, which was a welcome break from the daily grind.

(Almost a bro)

+/- 8 seconds of stillness

Smooches

And finally what's a trip to the beach without, well, the beach?  It's not exactly beach weather in March, but we did have a make a quick run out into the sand.

Not all smiles and unicorns

(my enthusiasm didn't rub off)

Not our best family shot

On the car ride home, Avett caught up on some much-needed Zzzzzzs, and we played the baby name game.  Our version of the name game involves each of us scoring each name on our 2+ page list, combining the scores and hanging on to the top vote-getters.  We have some front runners, but we still have some work to do.  Stay tuned on that...

And since this is a catch-up post, here are some other fun shots since the last big update.

Quick trip to the doc for a fever and urine sample.  Not the most fun we've ever had.

Then back again for the 18 month checkup (still hugging the bottom of the size curve)

I'm 18 months old, y'all!

Avett loves his Swiffer (and truck, wearing PJs and Cousin Eddie hat)

The dogs love snack time

Avett loves the new helicopter I control with the iPad.  Either that, or he likes watching Cooper's reaction.  Cooper does NOT like the heli.

Avett loves the BAAAA (banjo), and I'm getting a little better

And I love these two

Until next time...

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