Baby Food, Schedules and Nicknames

So the boys are interested in giving up baby food. Especially Tommy. He'd much rather feed himself. Liam doesn't mind, but after awhile he seems to get tired of feeding himself and wants somone else to put the food in his mouth. He doesn't mind if it's a smooth puree like yogurt or if it's a tiny chunk of cooked carrot for him to mash what few teeth he has on it. Tommy's still working on teeth, LOL. He has ***1*** tooth. That's it. On the bottom. The two on the top look like they want to break free and the other one on the bottom is thinking about it too, but he can eat solid food like a champ! Here's an example of what they might have for a daily menu:

Breakfast: Cheerios and fruit (cut up into cubes)
Lunch: pizza (cut into cubes) and peas
Dinner: fried noodles with veggies (basically what we're eating but cut up the noodles into little pieces and cube up the veggies in it after it's all cooked)

Their overall schedule seems to work very well. When we were visiting family over the weekend, we stuck to it, although if we were out during naptime, we'd just encourage them to sleep in their infant carrier. On Saturday we were at my grandmother's during their afternoon nap time and when they got really cranky from being tired, we put them in their infant carriers, but didn't strap them down like we were going in the car, and put them in my grandmother's bedroom. They fussed for a few minutes, but then they had a blissful nap until it was time for their afternoon bottle which we gave them and then left. Here's how our days go:

6:30 AM - boys usually wake up and talk/play in their cribs
7 AM - boys come downstairs, get diaper change, Tommy gets Zantac and they get their AM bottle
8 AM - breakfast
9:30 AM - morning nap
11 AM - boys wake up from nap, another diaper change, lunchtime bottle
12 PM - lunchtime
1:30 PM - afternoon nap
4 PM - wake up from nap, another diaper change (LOL!), afternoon bottle
6 PM - dinner with all of us together
6:30 PM - clean up from dinner, bath time every other night for the boys
7 PM - bedtime for babies
8:30 PM - Phoebe's bedtime

I think starting next week, we are going to try to drop their 11 AM bottle and give them lunch with a sippy cup of formula. They've been working on sippy cups and seem to be doing very well. I figure if we transition each bottle separately to a sippy cup, by the time they are 12 months old they should be completely off bottles. That is the thought. We'll see what really happens.

I've always had a habit of giving the boys nicknames. Some for Tommy have been "my little brick wall" and the latest has been "Stinker" mostly because of his spitup, but now that he really doesn't spit up often and when he does it's not sour, I still like calling him Stinker as he gets into everything as he crawls around. Liam has been known to be called L.I.Am like the guy from the Black Eyed Peas. But last night I came up with a new one "Keebler" as I was telling him he was "elfin goodness". He really does look like an elf. Which reminds me of Phoebe as a baby. She was "Our Little Gelfling". For those that don't know the movie "The Dark Crystal"



Basically more elfin goodness. I've also thought of calling Liam "Legolas". Usually I don't find blonde men attractive, but I think Orlando Bloom and my boys pull off being blonde really well. Yum!