Well, the big news is, Oliver is now crawling!

He started last Thursday or Friday. It was slow and difficult at first, but he’s been improving every day. He already could roll and pivot to get pretty much everything he wanted, so only the straight ahead part is new. It’s surprising how much more trouble he can get into, even though he’s hardly crawling at this point. However, I think the cause and effect relationship is reversed: I think he finally started crawling *because* he wanted to get into so much more mischief! It gave him the required motivation.

He’s doing pretty well eating solids. He certainly has his likes and dislikes. His likes are baby cereal, pumpkin, and anything he can hold in his hand. He really likes apple slices, cucumber slices, green beans, potato wedges, etc. I don’t know if he likes things like that so much more than Evie, or if we just never figured out that it was so much easier to occupy her with something like that. Certainly food seems to be going better with him than with her, although we have a much smaller sample size.

This has changed his…bathroom habits quite a bit. He goes a lot longer in between poopy diapers, but when he goes, watch out! (You can ask Sara and the bathroom wall about this one)(and the floor, and the bath mat…)

Also similar to Evie, he’s not keen on sleeping through the night. A couple of times a week he wakes up at 4:30 or so and just stays up for an hour, usually crying. He’s crying because we’re trying to put him back to sleep and he doesn’t want to go; I’m sure he would be perfectly happy if we just let him get up. However, this never seems like a good idea at the time, so I usually just end up tired and irritable. Sara has to remind me that we went through all of this with Evie and it didn’t last that long and we all survived.

Oliver is as rashy as ever, with no end in site. Some days are better and you think something you’ve done is working. Then the next day he will be as bad as he’s ever been. We’ve sort of gotten used to that at this point, and gotten a routine down. But I still feel really bad for him, because he still seems pretty itchy.

Evie and Oliver’s relationship continues to be a little strained. They are now getting into that area where Oliver wants to “share” her toys (read “eat” her toys). Naturally, Evie doesn’t like that too much. She is constantly yanking things out of his hands and telling him he can’t touch anything. However, I think she is starting to crack. Lately she has been designating things that he is allowed to touch, or giving him one thing so he doesn’t take something else. Also, she will occasionally “play” with him by building towers for him to knock over (which he finds *hilarious*). However, this usually ends in her deciding she would have even MORE fun if he wasn’t involved, and cutting him out of the action.

She still doesn’t quite get that she can’t force him to do whatever she wants him to. Something tells me he might be stuck with that for life.