I used to dispense a lot of advice about helping babies sleep, because we had so much trouble early on with Ben, and then ongoing difficulties with the first year for Rex, that we learned a lot about what worked for them. Many of our friends tried some of what we learned, often to good effect, but it shaped the advice I give, too. A colleague asked on Quora about help with getting a 5-month-old to sleep, and I wrote a long response that I reproduce here, because with Quora you never know if a response will wind up staying in place or not: I have a sample size of two, so take that for what it's worth (one is now 3 and the other 6, so this is still sharp in memory).

Swaddling

You have to do it consistently for it to work, based on my experience and those

I've never lived in a city with anything but buses before. Eugene (Ore.), New Haven (Conn.), Camden (Maine): all small to medium-sized towns. Seattle's a big city, but it pretends not to be. Light rail and streetcars might help it grow up.

Nonetheless, it's great. The station and system is quite well designed. On the north end, it ties in with the bus tunnel, a tube that runs from the southwest end of downtown to the northeast, allowing express travel through. The tunnel was originally designed to allow later light-rail upgrades, but the project had a flaw (in the interests of expense) that required expense rework when the time came.

Again, nonetheless, it's great. The light-rail starts at Westlake Center on the north end, which is the heart of the retail district. The South Lake Union Train (SLUT), otherwise known as the Seattle Streetcar, terminates a half block from Westlake

We all took a trip to Port Townsend over last weekend to visit my dad, who is doing as well as one might do after losing a lifelong love who he'd been married to just shy of 44 years and known since he was a child. The biggest sign that mom was gone was that dad and my aunt had sorted through decades of stuff that my mom had kept in the interests of someday needing it. No longer, sadly. The house was free of clutter; the car was clean; those kinds of changes told me more about mom being gone than her physical absence.

PT treated us well. The weather was gorgeous, sometimes a bit hot even, unusual for the place. We took the boys to a gorgeous flight museum (the Port Townsend Aero Museum right at the Jefferson County airstrip). It's more of interest to serious pilots and

Yesterday, Seattle was bone dry, but the schools closed because a storm was expected. A strange "doughnut hole" (mmmmmmm) settled around the city, though, deflecting the storm. The radar maps were bizarre, like someone had put a literal circle around central Seattle. The 'burbs and other areas were getting some snow, with significant amounts north and east, but not Seattle.Parents bitched (I'll be one of them some day) at having the kidlings home on a day when the weather turned out cold but perfect, but the same parents would have bitched if the schools were open and then buses were sent out on slippery roads for early dismissal with inches of snow on the ground. It sucks, but better to keep the kids safe. This morning, we woke up to a few inches of real snow and about 30° outside. School was closed today (so our childcare was also

Ben is not a devil--he's a lobster!

I've been meaning to write something here about our awesome vacation in Maine, spent largely on Mount Desert Island. It was awesome in that it went so well, not awesome like it put 3 years back on my life. The boys traveled generally very well. Both wound up with ear infections a few days in, but responded well to treatment. We all slept mostly fine; we all generally did a few things we really wanted to. Lynn and I really want to go back in a couple years when the kids will be able to do more.

We had a bunch of firsts.

First time Rex slept away from home since brought home from the hospital. This is nearly ridiculous at 18 months, but there you go. Friends and family have been nice enough to come to us. (Ben has spent several nights away from home this year.)

First time

The boys have had the croup, a lovely catchall term that encompasses any virus that blossoms into a sort of respiratory ailment in infants and toddlers that makes it hard for them to breathe and comes with a racking cough.

Ben developed it Friday night, woke around 11 in some distress, and after consulting with our insurance company's excellent registered nurse hotline, Lynn took him to Children's Hospital's emergency department. They were there for hours, Ben did fine; he was given a mild steroid and sent home. That was pretty much it. He has a horrible sounding but increasingly infrequent cough, and he's had no distress.

Since croup is caused by a virus, it was likely that Rex would develop the same cold or flu, and then it might (but wasn't guaranteed) to also turn into croup. Rex slept through most of Ben's tumult on Friday night, but started to

I'm back at the office today after 10 days of not really working very much. The days were filled with boys; the nights with a little TV, conversation with a woman, apparently my wife, whom I spend too little time talking with in normal day-to-day existence, and some minor programming tasks. While 10 days with teh fambly can be exhausting--the boys are rather demanding—it was a big hoot, and went well until the end, when Rex got a small cold and went into teething overdrive. He's doing better today.

The key to keeping the kids happy is to get out of the house, and Lynn and I took the boys individually and collectively to dozens of playgrounds and parks. The weekend before last, Lynn took Ben down to Hood River to visit her brother and his girlfriend, while I had Rex for about 2 1/2 days. We had

I haven't posted anything since Rex's hand-foot-mouth disease experience, so I merely note that the boys are healthy and well. Ben got twin blisters on his feet from new sandals; he will be wearing flip flops soon.Ben is now in the oldest age group classroom (Jungle) at his child care, and enjoying it, although it's clearly a little stressful. This is the pre-school room, and Ben, at nearly 4, is just 15 months away from kindergarten, unbelievably to Lynn and I. Several kids left the room at the start of summer, since they'll start KG in the fall; several more will leave then. The room will mostly then be full of kids he knows, although many of the kids are ones that had already moved up from the previous age room, too. Rex is getting rather frustrated in his first "tween" state: he walks reasonably well, but not extremely

Rex has hand-foot-mouth disease, which produces sores in the mouth and throat, and on the soles of the feet and palms, plus fever, and he's pretty miserable. But we got through what we think are the worst couple days, and he's sleeping well now.

The boys' merger at night has gone beautifully, with two full weeks under our belt until last night, when Rex woke miserable at 8-something. Ben slept through it. Rex spent the night with us, and did sleep a 6-hour stretch (as did we).

H-F-M passes in under 7 days, and based on the symptoms tomorrow might be day 4 or 5, even. Poor guy. Jello and pudding is in his future--tomorrow!

I spent the evening with Rex while Lynn took Ben off for a haircut and dinner. Sort of like a mommy-date. You wind up in a close relationship with your kids (if you're lucky), so