Our new tradition of reading Halloween books in the weeks leading up to the holiday was a great success. Henry really enjoyed his holiday books, so much so that he wanted to dig into the Christmas books as soon as we book the Halloween ones away. 

As much as I love the holidays, I am not the kind of person who likes to start focusing on Christmas early. I like waiting until after Thanksgiving–one holiday at a time! 

I decided that it made sense to purchase some Thanksgiving books. Here’s what we ordered:

It dawned on me the other day that Henry never seemed to have a hard time adjusting to life with his new brother Tate at the time of Tate’s birth. I realized, however, that it’s probably getting harder and harder for Henry, now that Tate is more of a presence in our lives. He interacts with us, he laughs with us, he cracks us up a lot more, he asks for things, he demands a lot of attention, and he elicits a lot of positive feedback because he’s so stinkin’ adorable now (in my opinion, 16 months is when kids start to get really fun). 

Tate’s more pronounced presence

I remember the indecision and uncertainty I faced when deciding whether or not to introduce a pacifier into my first son’s life. The Montessori philosophy recommends against the use of pacifiers (as do a whole host of books about helping your babies sleep well), but I really felt like my son needed the extra support to help soothe himself.

Around 14 months, he started daycare and his teacher helped us wean him off of it. We started by limiting its use just to nap time and bedtime. And then we just stopped using it all together.

We started the same thing with Tate when he hit the 14 month-mark. I