Monday, December 17, 2012

4 Months! And 5 Months!

My baby is growing up so fast! Maybe not super fast, but at any rate, she's growing faster than mommy can write new blog posts. She's already 5 months old. Of course it feels like we've had her forever (especially at 1:00 in the morning).

In the last month she's started rolling front to back, then a week later, back to front. Now she's trying to sit up on her own and actually manages to stay upright for a few seconds before faceplanting into the floor. Next week she'll probably be crawling. Although I hope not since I'm not very mobile at the present time.  

I have to say, Greyden is the best big brother ever. I had to take both kids to the doctor for their well visits a few weeks ago. Of course both needed shots and Kevin was out of town. I had them do Greyden's first so that I could calm him down before doing Emerson. He cried for a few minutes, but I asked him if he could help Sissy with her shots. He said yes and climbed up on the step stool next to the table and held her hand. It was precious. It's also amazing how much Emerson adores Greyden. If he's in the room, she has to be watching him and, if possible, touching him. There is nothing the two of them like more than laying next to each other in Emerson's crib before their baths each night. Emerson just reaches for him and laughs the entire time.



Here are her 4 month pictures:




And here are her 5 month shots:



Checking In!

Weeks Post Partum: 22 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: A TON. Well, not quite a ton. But I was thrilled to step on the scale last week and see that I was down to 165. How? I have no idea. It must have been the fact that I haven't exercised since October. Or maybe the fact that we order pizza at least twice a week. Regardless, I'll take it. (And if that's the case, bring on the Christmas cookies!)


Maternity Clothes: I have officially ditched the maternity pants. Literally. I threw a pair of jeans away. Granted it just about killed me since I hate throwing away clothes. I'd love to say it was because they were too big on me, but to be honest, the belt loops were ripped off (from me hauling them over my love handles) leaving gaping holes where my muffin top was squeezing out. How's that for a visual? 

Sleep: Have you ever heard of the 4 month wakeful? Apparently at 4 months, babies are hitting a stage where they're becoming more aware of their surroundings and therefore are sleeping a lot less. I remember Greyden going through that phase. I just laughed this time thinking about how Emerson would never start waking up at night. She's been sleeping all night and only getting up once since day 1. No sense in ruining a good thing, right? Then she ruined it. At about 4 months and 2 weeks, she became very difficult to put down. I used to nurse her, lay her in the crib, and walk out. Now I nurse her, lay her in the crib, walk out, walk back in, put paci in, walk out, walk in, put paci in, sit in chair because I'm sick of walking out, walk out, go downstairs and relax for 15 minutes, go upstairs, nurse her, lay her in crib, walk out, walk back in, put paci in....you get the idea. All I could figure was that it was because she was fighting her swaddle so badly. So we stopped cold turkey. For the 3rd time. The last 2 times we gave up and reswaddled her again after a few sleepless nights. This time, we're sticking with it. She's getting a little better. I only have to go back into her room 1 or 2 times before she's down for the night. And when I say "down for the night" I mean, down until she gets up at 11, 1, and 5.

Best moments this week: 


 
What I am looking forward to: Christmas! I am so excited for Santa to come for the kids. We've been telling Greyden all about Santa. While Kevin was explaining that Santa was coming to bring presents, Greyden suddenly stopped and looked at the door. Then he looked back at Kevin and said "Someone here, Daddy!" HA! Not quite yet, buddy. We took them to see Santa last week. There is a little one room schoolhouse that the Brighton Historical Society opens each year to host Santa and Mrs. Claus for the kids. It was perfect. No mall, no lines. There were probably 20 people there total, and most were running it. And they had baked goods. We've definitely found our Santa spot. I'm still shocked that Greyden went and sat on his lap. Emerson was ALL about the candy cane (which Mommy later ate - refer to weight loss section above).





Milestones: Rolling front to back (18 weeks), back to front (19 weeks), and wanting to sit up on her own. We've also moved her into the big bathtub with Greyden since her little infant tub was causing tsunamis all over the mirror and countertop. The girl likes to splash just a leettle bit.

This is when we caught her rolling from back to front. Doesn't she look proud of herself?

Friday, December 14, 2012

Babies are Hazardous to Your Health

Guess where I spent the morning today? If you guessed at my desk and hard at work, you'd be wrong right because my boss reads this blog! However if you guessed at the local Urgent Care clinic, you might be a little closer to the truth.

We have been dealing with sick kids lately. The coughy, sneezy, snot dripping down their chins kind of sick. You know, the kind every other kid at daycare also has right now. It's been awesome. Greyden, although still stuffy and crusty, appears to be on the upswing. On the other hand, Emerson is still pretty bad so I decided to keep her home from daycare yesterday. I figured that letting her get a good nap and keeping her nose cleared out would help her progress along. After napping from 9:30 - 1:30, then again from 4:00 - 4:45 she did seem to be a little better. Still, you can see where I'm going with this, right? Sick baby....urgent care..........................a knee injury.....*sigh*

Yesterday afternoon I went up to the nursery to get Emerson when she woke up from her nap. As I was holding her and gently swaying back and forth (while belting out Christmas carols at the top of my lungs), my knee cracked. In my mind it sounded like the crack of a gun shot, but truth be told, it was probably closer to a knuckle cracking really loudly. Regardless, you could definitely hear it over my singing so you know I'm not exaggerating too much. Immediately it started to hurt and as the night went on it kept getting worse. By the end of the evening I could barely walk on it. I was hoping that resting it overnight would help, but when I fell stepped out of bed this morning, it was obvious that it was no better. Therefore, I found myself sitting in front of the Urgent Care waiting for them to open.

After successfully elbowing all of the other patrons out of my way (I said knee injury, my elbows were fine), I was the first one in the clinic. The doctor turned out to be an older gentleman who was apparently hard of hearing. As I'm describing my unbearable symptoms (sharp pain below my kneecap, stiffness, extreme pain when walking on it) he's telling me to open my mouth and say "ahh", looking in my ears, checking my lungs, and telling me about all of the cases of strep and pneumonia he's seen lately. Huh? Granted, I wasn't expecting stellar health care from a walk in clinic, but I thought (was hoping?) that they might be able to land a little closer to the old goal line than that. Then he started listening to my heart and telling me that it sounded "funny". Dude, really? I figured it would be just my luck to come in for a knee injury and leave with a heart attack.

Eventually he got around to sending me off for x-rays (of my knee and not my chest believe it or not) which of course came back clear as we figured they would. My prescription? Ice and immobilization. Because THAT will be easy with a 2 year old and a 5 month old. He did give me a prescription for pain meds (the good stuff - regular strength Tylenol since I'm still breastfeeding), a referral to a sports medicine doctor, and sent me on my way. He told me that if I'm still having pain in a week, I am supposed to make an appointment with the sports medicine doc (since the orthopedic places can't get me in until the end of January) and we can discuss an MRI at that time. So I have at least a week of hobbling around like I'm 90. Oh, and he did say that I could use crutches, but recommended a cane instead since I have to carry around a baby wherever I go. (Yes, I'm trying to picture this too). Not that it matters since I don't own a cane and we can't even find both of my crutches. Kevin's been using one for an awning opener on the RV for the last 2 years. The other one is probably........ somewhere....... shop maybe........ basement........ Kevin was nice enough to apologize for separating them and losing one since he "thought my clumsy days were over" and therefore didn't realize that I'd ever need my crutches again. He also said he should have known better. I told him that I wasn't being "clumsy" this time since I was literally just standing there. Clumsy would have obviously involved falling over. Then we got to take a trip down memory lane as he recounted all of my previous "clumsy" injuries....the big ones being slipping down the stairs of our boat, landing on my ass in the cabin, and spraining my ankle, and walking through a door and breaking my foot (while failing to mention that the raised threshold that was the culprit, of course). Yes, I may have landed myself on crutches a time or two before, but who's counting? Definitely not Kevin since he also told me that he's lost track of all of my other injuries.

So that's my morning in a nutshell. There goes my dream of finishing up my Christmas shopping at lunch today, since I'm obviously limited to stores with Amigo scooters. And while I'm beyond thrilled to have an excuse to put it off for yet another few days, I'm also a little scared that I won't be able to walk next week either, although not as scared as the people whose gifts I haven't bought yet should be, since I'll have to send Kevin out for theirs. I'd tell you who you are, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out on Christmas morning.


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Greyden's 2nd Birthday!

If any of you read my post of Greyden's first birthday (you should have since it was only two months ago), you'll remember that he isn't exactly a fan of cake. In fact, he's downright scared of it. Sometimes I wonder if he really is my child. Since he was going to have an audience at his party, Kevin and I decided to ease him into the whole birthday cake thing this year. On his actual birthday (2 days before his party) we went to the grocery store and bought a practice cake for him. He seemed okay with it at first.


  
He was REALLY okay with it when those candles were lit. We lit and blew them out about 47 times. Then came the part where we encouraged him to take a bite. Yeah, not so much. (As he pushed the cake away being meticulously careful not to actually touch the frosting.)
 

We gave up. And relit the candles. And blew them out. And I ate the cake. Darn. No sense in making him do something he doesn't want to do, right?  


His actual birthday party turned out well! We did a Thomas the Train theme since having a two year old boy means that lately we live and breathe that quirky little train.



My Thomas the Train chili toppings holder

  
Greyden's favorite part of the night was obviously the presents. Because he needs more toys, right? It took him all of 4.3 seconds to catch on to the fact that there were toys under all of that wrapping paper. Game on.




We even skyped in Aunt Kerry and cousin Addie to witness the destruction. 


  
Then it was time for (dum, dum, dum)............the cake. I would LOVE to say that this cake is my own creation, but that's not completely true. I baked the cake from scratch and made the butter cream frosting, but I made mom decorate it. I just don't have that kind of talent patience. I did make sure to carefully oversee the project (over her shoulder) though.


When we put the cake in front of him, I thought we might stand a chance. Then I realized he was focused on the candles only.  Light, blow out, light, blow out, rinse, repeat.


 Yup, as soon as we suggested he stick a finger in it, he tried to get down from his chair.  

 

He obviously didn't stick around long enough to watch me cut it open. If he had, he would have devoured it. I mean, who can resist a cake that looks like this? 


I wish I had taken a picture of the pile of gifts he received. Although I guess it wouldn't matter since, even after amassing a ton of new toys, he ended his night engrossed in my salad spinner.


(While I have your attention, I'd like to take this moment to point out that Greyden would also like a new crock pot and a cast iron griddle for Christmas.)

While I'm posting about Greyden's birthday, I can't forget about Kevin! Since his birthday is 3 days after Greyden's (and therefore completely insignificant) I decided I should do something for his birthday too. When I told him I wanted to make him a cake, he told me not to bother because he didn't like cake. Yet, the cake I made him was completely gone by the end of the night. Hmmm.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Greyden is Growing Up!

As time goes on and Greyden and Emerson grow up, I find that I don't always have time to capture their cuteness on my blog. Instead I jot notes on my phone, then don't do anything with them. So in an effort to catch myself up, I'm writing a totally random post.

My first born baby is growing up! It's amazing the things that he is picking up. When I had Emerson, mom came down to help me take care of her. As we were heading out the door one day, mom picked up my purse to hand it to me. Greyden ran over to take it from her while telling her, "no! Mommy's!" Then he brought it to me. I had no idea he'd even noticed it before. He's also told Kevin "no! Mommy's shirt!" when he's wearing one that we both have. Since he's picking up on so much, we've had to be really careful about what we say and do around him. I hadn't put much thought into the breastfeeding thing and what he would think and how he'd react when he saw Emerson doing it. The first time I nursed her in front of him, I had my answer. As soon as I was home from the hospital, I was feeding Emerson when Grey came running over yelling "Back! BACK!" (this is what we say to the dogs) "No bite mommy!" Yes, we explained to him that mommy is feeding sissy, and she's eating, not biting. A few times since then he's asked if "baby sissy bites mommy?" but hasn't seemed too concerned. Then last weekend I was just finishing nursing her and Greyden asked me "Sissy all done biting Mommy?" So maybe he's still a little confused.

He's definitely turned into a toddler over night though. Suddenly everything is more difficult. For example, diaper changes. We used to be able to convince him to come with us to his room so that we could change him by telling him that mommy or daddy was going without him. Now he just tells us "okay! Bye!" He's also become very opinionated. Everything is "no singing, daddy", "no talking", "come, mommy" or "sit down". And god forbid you don't do it. You'll probably witness the tantrum from hell. If he's not giving orders, he's "fixin" things. "I fixin?" or "Daddy fixin?" And sometimes it's an order, for example when he brings you something (like two halves of Daddy's glasses that he had found on the nightstand) and tells you to "fix it". Yes, we're working on adding please to the end. Everytime someone says ow, he also asks "okay?" We've come along way from Greyden's first word of dog. Of course his favorite toddler word is "NO!" Actually, in the last week it's become "NO WAY!" I love daycare.

Now that he's talking and repeating everything we say, we have to watch ourselves. No more asking Emerson if she wants some boobies. Nor can we make up words to songs and nursery rhymes that we don't know. Well, we still can, but we just have to make sure they're not inappropriate . (Have you ever noticed that it's much easier to make up inappropriate words to songs rather than sing the real words?) We've had some issues with pronunciation of certain words. For awhile "fishies" was "shitties". Kevin even tried to teach him to say it properly by saying "fa-fa-fa-fishies". All he got in return was "fa-fa-fa-shitties". He pronunces bear like "beer", which, the first time he said it, prompted Daddy to freak out and tell him "shhhh! Don't let your mommy hear you say that!" The newest pronunciation disaster is the word "bucket". He seems to be convinced that it starts with an F. Kevin and I have done everything we can to get him to say it correctly, including saying "buh-buh-buh-bucket". I'm pretty sure that's going in one ear and out the other, considering this morning he told me that his dump truck had a "buh-buh-buh-fucket".



Greyden is taking the whole new little sister thing incredibly well. In fact, he seems to adore her. Whenever she is in her carseat and starts to cry, he reaches over and holds her hand.


Greyden wanted a picture with his "beek ponekin" as he calls it. We have to go to the side light window and look at it multiple times each day.

This is what happens when I turn my back for two seconds.

Luckily he was just going in for a kiss. :)

Busted

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Today is my baby boy's 2nd birthday! Since it fell on a Thursday this year, we're waiting until this weekend to have his party. But I couldn't wait until then to give him a shout out and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Sunshine!

Baby Sissy showed up to get him out of his crib this morning, which he loved. No, seriously. He wouldn't let me take her out of the crib and piled all of his stuffed animals and blankets on her lap so she could play.


Good morning Big Brother!

We have some serious bed head going on.
Once we got up and dressed, we took him out for a birthday breakfast at Cheryl's Place before daycare. Papa and Nana had stayed the night to watch Emerson while we took Grey trick or treating last night so they got to come along too!

Dippies take serious concentration

I think he liked them, because he made this face with every bite he took.

A note from our waitress who celebrated her birthday yesterday!
More birthday fun to come soon! Stay tuned!

Emerson is 3 months old!

Okay, more like 3 1/2 months now. But I'm close!

My sweet little angel is still the world's most perfect baby. Yes, I'm biased but you would be too if you were me. I have a baby that doesn't cry unless she's hungry, tired, or has a dirty diaper and she's STILL sleeping almost all of the way through the night. Most nights she is still up once to eat around 3 or 4, but this week she even pulled an 8:30 - 6:00 for us. It's amazing. If I could guarantee that every baby I had was like her, I'd have about 30 of them. Okay, maybe not 30. Not that it matters, since it can't be guaranteed and I'm not willing to risk it!

Unlike Greyden, who had a doctor's appointment every month around his birthday, Emerson has been really healthy! Since we haven't had to take her to the doctor for anything besides her well visits, we're not exactly sure how much she weighs. I weighed her myself on our home scale just to get a general idea and it was right at 11 pounds. Her next well visit is at 4 months so we'll have another "official" weigh-in then. I wouldn't be surprised if she's put on another 10 pounds by then. The girl eats like a horse. After only a week in daycare, we were already increasing her bottles from 3 ounces each to 4. And she's taking 3-4 of them a day at daycare alone. That's not even counting the 4 times per day that I'm nursing her. It's insane. At this rate I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with her. She's going to eat me out of house, home, and boob.





Checking In!
Weeks Post Partum: 16 Weeks!

Total weight gain/loss: Um none? Okay, maybe 2 pounds (although I haven't weight myself in a week so I'm sure it's more like 20 pounds now). I guess when everyone told me that it was harder to lose weight after the second pregnancy, they were annoying right. The weight is just not falling off with this one. I looked back at my post partum check ins with Greyden and they were all "10 more pounds lost! Yay!" which is HIGHLY depressing (and annoying) now. It kind of makes me want to punch the old me in the head.


Maternity Clothes: Well, I can ditch my shirts, but the pants? Not so much. When I'm not in my yoga pants, I'm in my maternity pants. At least I was up until a week ago when I finally got sick of hauling up elastic-waisted jeans every 4 seconds (as they were being shoved off my hips by my love handles) and decided to buy a pair of real, non-maternity jeans. I thought this was a great idea and would also be great motivation to see where I was at in terms of sizing. I figured it couldn't be near as bad as I thought it was going to be. Nope, I was wrong. It was worse. I walked out of Target with a pair of size 14 jeans. I haven't worn a size 14 since never. The good news is that as soon as I wore them for a few hours, they stretched out so much that I was hauling them up every 4 seconds as well. So maybe I wasn't really  a size 14. The bad news is that this meant buying yet another pair of jeans. Right now I'm wearing a size 12 and I've had to haul them up a few times today too. I'm sure this is because I'm shrinking and not because they are stretched out too.

Sleep: Yes, thank goodness. Unfortunately I have to totally attribute her sleeping to being swaddled. Swaddling is a total pain in the ass, but we don't have a choice. A few weeks ago we decided to try to break her of it. After a full week of it taking an hour+ to get her down in the evening and then being up 4 more times throughout the night, we wrapped her back up. It just wasn't worth the effort.

Best moments this week: Taking Greyden trick or treating! The Halloween post will be up shortly. The other best moment happens every morning when I nurse Emerson and we get to have our morning conversations. The girl will lay on her boppy, look up at me, and chatter on and on for 10 minutes to me when she's finished. It's the cutest thing ever.

What I miss: My babies while they're at daycare. It's especially hard since I feel guilty since I'm home all day and they're not, even though I'm working and it would be impossible to keep them home with me and still get anything done. To add insult to injury, Greyden has started calling daycare "home". Grrrrr.....

What I am looking forward to: Greyden's birthday party this weekend! And this time I PROMISE that his 2nd birthday post will be up within a week, and not take a year like his 1st birthday post. :-)

Milestones: No major milestones yet, but she's well on her way. My favorite part of the day is when I go into her room to get her in the morning and she grins from ear to ear when I peek over the edge of the crib. Keep in mind she's still wrapped up like a burrito at this time, so it's the most adorable thing ever. She's also getting louder lately. And when I say loud, I mean it. On our way up to my parent's house last weekend she was babbling so loudly from the backseat that I had to turn around and put a pacifier in her mouth so that Kevin and I could hear each other talk. She goes on "talking" sprees where she babbles at the top of her lungs for minutes at a time. I think she takes after her Daddy.

Emerson's bunny snow suit

Holding mommy's hand


This would have been a great picture if Greyden hadn't been moving!




Grey "helping" to cover Sissy up


Greyden sharing his toys with Baby Sissy.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Emerson's 2 Month Post!

On September 12th, Emerson turned 2 months old! It's amazing going through the baby phase again. I had forgotten everything so much of it. Emerson is still an awesome sleeper, thank god, and she'd been sleeping in our room since we brought her home from the hospital. A couple of weeks ago, we finally decided that it was time to move her out of our room and into her own. Tiptoeing around at night was getting seriously old. Plus, after all of mine and my mom's blood, sweat, and tears, it was a shame to let this beautiful nursery go to waste.




The only thing stopping us from moving her was the fact that she slept so good in our room. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But we knew we'd have to eventually. Of course, had she started waking up multiple times a night, I would have happily let her set up shop in our bedroom until she turned 18. Luckily we didn't have to worry about it. She is still sleeping like a champ and only waking up once a night to eat. Every few nights she throws in an extra nighttime feeding to keep us on our toes, but for the most part we're all getting a decent night's sleep.  

Emerson passed her 2 month check up with flying colors. It's fun to compare her stats versus Greyden's stats at 2 months. 

Emerson: 
Birth: 6 pounds, 11 ounces
2M Weight: 10 pounds (25%)
2M Length: 22.5 inches (52%).

Greyden: 
Birth: 6 pounds, 3 ounces
2M Weight: 9 pounds, 10 ounces (10%)
2M Length: 21.5 inches (6%)

She seems to be having a ball with life. During my maternity leave I dragged the poor kid with me everywhere. We went for a walk in the park almost every morning unless the weather was bad. On Thursdays and Fridays we'd go garage sale-ing together. It was so easy to take her places because she made her schedule and stuck to it. She takes an hour long nap in the morning, about 2 hours after waking up for the day. Then she stays up and plays for a couple of hours before she's back down for her afternoon nap which can last anywhere from 4-5 hours. Then she's off to bed around 7:30 where she'll sleep until 4 or 4:30, wake up to eat, go right back to sleep, and sleep until 7. She definitely takes after me. I can't function without a schedule.

It's been fun to watch her go from newborn to baby. She's pretty much the happiest baby ever and only cries when she's hungry, tired, or has a dirty diaper. She smiles all the time and is constantly talking. After she's done nursing she loves to lay on her boppy and "talk" to me. I ask her if she's going to tell me a story and she'll go on babbling and cooing for 10 minutes. I could sit there and look at her huge gorgeous eyes for hours. It looks like she's going to have blue eyes like her daddy. Greyden got his hazel eyes from me, his are two different colors: one light hazel and one a deep hazel.






Emerson at her 2 month check up. This was obviously before her shots.