Monday, May 25, 2009

Stepping Down

I am officially passing this blog on to James. I may make guest appearances every now and then, but if you want Dori updates, pester Mr. Dad! I start my Accelerated (12 month) Bachelor of Science in Nursing program tomorrow morning. I hope to update my personal blog more than I have been lately - I know a lot of you are going to want updates on school so I'll do my best. However, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Facebook is the best way to keep up with my news (I'm a status update junkie!) and keep in touch with me now. If you want to be my friend on Facebook, look up Kelly Crocker (there are 56 of us but if you specify "East Bay" network, I'm the only one who comes up). See you all in a year!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Family Portrait

Monday, May 18, 2009

sleeping update

Obviously there has been a lot about sleep on this blog. It is the one area where Dori isn't 'The Most Perfect Baby In The World'. Of course, if he slept like a baby (oh, the irony of that phrase!) we'd have trouble getting him to eat, he'd be antisocial, he'd still be crawling, or something else would fill the void. But with D it's sleep. The worst part is that when he doesn't sleep, neither do we. Actually, Kel has it worse; I'm a deeper sleeper and can ignore some of the low-level screaming. But we wouldn't have gone hungry had Dor resisted solid foods and I know I would have continued to walk upright had he remained carpet bound. His sleepless night is our sleepless night and it affects everything. That's why so many of our blogs, facebook updates and conversations involve napping schedules and different sleep strategies; it's such a big part of our lives as well as Dori's.

So, I am happy to report great progress. Last night he went to sleep at 6:15pm, woke at 4:50am and (once I'd led him back to his bed) slept on until 7am. When he woke he started singing in bed - very cute. When he finally climbed out to come and get us he was in a great mood. The best news? This isn't a one-off! Last week he slept in his own bed almost every night. He went to sleep easily and when he did walk to our room I led him back to bed (with what I call the 'bad date' method: no eye contact, no inflection in my voice, no physical contact), he resumed sleep immediately. The only problems we've had are when Kel tries to put him down. For some reason he plays her up. She has to lead him back over and over for 90+ minutes before he'll fall asleep. With me it's been once or twice and no crying. So I'm on sleep duty from now on. If we can get D to stay asleep to 7am every day we'll all be singing in the mornings.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Mother's Day

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Blog City!

This is the sixth, yes SIXTH, blog I've posted tonight so be sure to keep scrolling down after each of the below blogs to get your full Dori fix. LOTS OF PICTURES! I will post a blog with the remaining pictures from Jenny and Grae's visit sometime this week - then we will finally be caught up. I fell behind while working during tax season, then I was too exhausted while James was gone to properly blog. I hate not keeping my readers happy. I start nursing school in less than 3 weeks - James is going to have to take over. I told him this and he said, "Maybe I'll just delete the blog." (I won't let that happen.)

Daddy is Home

James returned home on Sunday and it was wonderful - Dorian remembered him and the boys played for hours. Lots of cuddles and giggles. Of course, Mama had to take lots of pictures of the sweet event! It's amazing how those boys look so much alike - if Dori didn't have my coloring, you wouldn't know we were related. I love how in all the pictures, they even have the exact same expression on their faces!





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Dorian At His Finest






















Social Butterfly

We have made so many local friends through Dorian. Dorian has playdates every few days! And of course, he still loves meeting up with all his friends at Gymboree.














Easter

We had a lovely Easter. I prepared an Easter basket for Dorian - he was very excited to find it when he awoke that morning. He even forgot about breakfast for a few minutes (this has NEVER happened before - that boy is desperate to eat when he first awakes in the morning). Later on that morning, at a more reasonable hour, our friends and neighbors Esther and Adan came over with their 20 month old son Joa, my Grandma and Uncle Tom stopped by, and my parents and James' parents were there as well. We had a traditional Easter meal of pork buns and honey buns from Chinatown, Noah's bagels with cream cheese, fresh strawberries, Hershey's kisses and Cadbury creme eggs. We washed everything down with mimosas...I have no idea how many bottles of champagne we went through that day but it was pretty impressive. The boys went on an Easter egg hunt in the garden. It was so sweet to watch them both find the eggs. Dori loved it! I wasn't sure he would "get it" but he caught on right away. It was a lovely day!