We Were THAT Family!

We had quite a fun-filled weekend. Of course, Saturday morning was the usual 'nastics!!! class for Alli, and then lots of playing outside in the beautiful weather. In the afternoon, we decided to take a trip to run a few errands, and we just so happened to be up by one of Dad-E and I's favorite restaurants, Chipotle. We contemplated with each other back and forth about attempting to go eat there with both babies. Now mind you, in the 6 months since Aiden's been around, we've only done this twice. Once was with the assistance of my mom, and the other time went fairly flawlessly, but, we are still petrified. We're scared to be the family with a screaming baby, a toddler who's uncontrollable, and be those parents who are just totally embarrassed about it all. Well, we decided to go for it... on one condition. We would have to eat outside. You all truly don't understand how content and relaxed Aiden is when he's outside. And Alli, well, she's just hit or miss. She's almost two. She's got a mind of her own, and a little thing like the wind blowing her hair the wrong way can totally set her off. But anyway, we went for it.

We got our food without incident, she got a cheese quesadilla, beans, rice, chips, chocolate milk (all for like $3.50! Go Chipotle kids meals!), and we made our way outside to a table with a good sun shade. (Yes, it was still almost 80 outside!) Alli sat in a regular chair right beside us, while Aiden hung out in his car seat, which yes, he still hates, by the way. Dad-E and I cautiously dug into our meals while everyone was still quiet. We were surrounded by a few other couples eating outside, and as more people came outside to sit around us, I got more and more anxious... wondering when the chaos would begin. To my amazement, Alli was just as happy as could be, really enjoying her food and the sights around her. She'd hear cars honking as they drove by and she'd yell "beep beep!" Her napkin went flying, and she jumped out of her seat to get it. I was about to lose it, until I saw heard her say, "I get it!", and head straight for the trash can. She threw it away and ran back to her seat. What?! Who is this girl? Aiden was smiley, giggly, grabbing his feet and just coo-ing away. I wasn't so worried about this, knowing how happy he is outside, but I figured he'd be hungry soon and was definitely unprepared with no bottle and not about to breastfeed right out in the parking lot/outside patio of Chipotle. But anyway, we got through the meal without incident. We actually had people look at us and smile in admiration instead of in disgust. I could tell they were thinking, "Wow! Those kids are behaving so well!" We were finally THAT family that I always envy... but, that still doesn't mean we will be doing it more often. Lets just savor that trip for awhile.

Happy Half Birthday Bubby!

Are you serious? Our baby boy is already half a year old...??

He is the happiest, smiley-ist baby we have ever been around (and yes, that's comparing him to his big sis too, she was kind of a crier... like... all the time...), and he truly completes our family. I'm just in love with him more and more every day... and seeing him watch Alli in such admiration is just indescribable.

Aiden goes for his 6 month check up (and shots, boo!) this Wednesday... so, I'll update more on his progress after his appointment.

Happy half birthday bubby, we love you so much!

Pumpkin Progression...

I know I posted something similar to this last year as well, but another year has gone by and it's crazy to see the progression of our lives...





Pregnant with Alli, October 2010

Alli, Halloween 2010





Alli Halloween 2011

Alli Halloween 2012

And now we've got Aiden! Halloween 2012

Alli & Aiden, Halloween 2012

Little Tidbits...

Since Dad-E took the time and energy to write some great blog posts the past few days about both of our adorable babies, I thought I'd just take a minute to add my two cents and add some funny little stories about things that have been going on recently.

As Dad-E mentioned, Alli is just a riot and becoming so independent these days. She speaks in full sentences a lot of the time, her all-time favorite sentence these days being, "No doggy, it's mine!" Every time she gets anything to eat and Scrounge-lett follows along for some extras, she always puts the dog in her place. It's quite amuzing.

Aiden is becoming more and more fun and independent, even just the past few days. He babbled his dada's, lala's and yaya's all the way into school today, and while I'm sad there are no mama's yet, I'm happy to hear him jabbering away. He is holding his bottle really well, and trying to sit up on his own quite a bit these days, too. I can hardly believe tomorrow he'll be six months old...

Dad-E has the fun job of getting the A Team ready for school 3 days a week, which can be quite a challenge. So, to try and help the process, I get all of Aiden's bottles ready the night before, and lay out both of their outfits for the day. Well, yesterday morning, I had laid out a pink dress for Alli with gray leggings to go underneath. Aiden had a blue shirt-onesie type outfit laid out. I guess in the rush of everything, Dad-E didn't realize that the gray leggings were for Alli, not Aiden. He slipped them on him, thought, hmm, these are a little big, but didn't think much of it. Luckily, he just happened to notice the lace trim around the bottom of each of the leggings, and quickly took them off of Aiden and slipped them on Alli. I have a feeling this could happen quite a bit since Aiden's quickly catching up to big sister in size... poor buddy. Hopefully he'll never leave the house in a dress or anything... :)

I'm having a really hard time with the fact that 10 days from now... I'll have a 6 month old and a 2 year old... my goodness... where does the time go?

Now on to Alli...

Simply put, she amazes us more and more each day. Every day she comes home singing a new song or using a new word she has been learning about at school. She can now “sing” the entire alphabet all the way through (correctly pronouncing each letter, by the way). The letter G is no longer “joo” to her. And she can’t leave out the ending where she proudly proclaims that she now knows her ABC’s and that you better sing with her next time. Good thing “next time” is usually about 10-20 seconds later… so you won’t have to wait long.

This weekend she started singing a new song but we couldn’t quite make out all the words, so Mommy B asked her teachers about it on Monday morning. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” was the answer. But of course… why couldn’t we figure that out? “Happy Birthday” is still a current favorite, and now she incorporates her classmate Scarlett’s name (not our dog) who we’re having a joint birthday party with in a couple weeks. Scarlett was born one day after Alli, and instead of trying to make the other kids from school decide who’s party to attend that weekend, we just decided to have one big party with everyone all together. Plus, Scarlett’s parents are hosting – so I’m all for it. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is up on the list these days, especially now that it’s still dark outside when we leave the house. She finally gets to see the stars in the sky rather than in a book, given that she goes to bed at night before the sun goes down.

We’re also working on “Trick or Treat” with her so she’ll be a big hit when she rings the doorbell countless times on October 31^st. I won’t reveal her costume yet, but it’s going to be hard to beat her Roo costume from last year. Last year, she had just started walking so it was a little tough for her to get to all the houses on her own. I have a feeling this year could be pretty exciting for her. Plus, she’s had another year to understand what candy tastes like and how wonderful it is. Dad-E and Mommy B could be “inspecting” much of it this year to make sure it’s all on the up and up. That’s what my parents used to do… yeah, don’t think I forgot!

She absolutely loves ‘nastics. Each Saturday morning, one of us takes Alli to a 30-minute gymnastics class just down the road from our house. There are usually 4-5 other girls there each weekend, all of which are maybe a couple months older than Alli. She was a little shy/hesitant at first – rightfully so given that she had never done anything like that before and didn’t know any of the other kids in the class. But with each week, she gets a little more confident and a little more daring with each of the lessons. She’s already mastered the balance beam (with a little help, of course), can hang from the parallel bars on her own, goes nuts on the trampoline (which results in a tumble into the foam block pit), takes herself down the slide, and kills the stretches on the floor. While the other moms are chasing their kid around the gym, Alli is (usually) sitting attentively in the circle listening to the teacher give them instructions. Must be from all the times she does that at school. It is truly gratifying to see how much fun she has each time we go. And to know the whole time that she’s improving her physical awareness, balance and concentration is just icing on the cake.

What else? She doesn’t really use a sippy cup with a straw anymore (unless we’re on the go); she drinks straight out of an adult cup holding it with both hands. They’ve been doing this at school for a while, so we recently stopped sending a cup with her each week. This results in a couple spills every once in a while, but you’ll have that given that she’s not even two years old yet.

Speaking of, she’s basically 98% potty trained. She has gotten so good at telling us when she needs to go to the potty, or will just go herself if we ask her if she needs to go. It has helped that we have a pretty good routine in the mornings and evenings that involves the potty, so the opportunity is always there for her. She typically goes once in the morning when she wakes up (sometimes even waiting all the way until she gets to school), and a couple times in the evening when we get home. She almost always wakes up dry and will go directly to the potty if she has to go right away. An interesting situation has occurred since we started her on this daily routine – she’s gotten into the habit of going #2 every night right before bed. This has turned into quite a nightly ritual – complete with Pooh and a couple books she likes to read while on the pot. And just when she’s all finished, cleaned up, and has assisted us with flushing everything down the toilet, it’s right back on the potty for round two. One night last week she made four (yes, 4) trips to the potty before she finally went to sleep… each trip being as, um, “productive” as the last. Mommy B was on Alli duty (or more appropriately, dootie) that night, so she caught the brunt of it. But my goodness, I don’t know where she keeps it all.

Moving on… she wants to do everything on her own. If it’s something she’s seen us do (or has done herself in the past), she doesn’t want anyone to help her do it. If we try to help her out, it’s “No mama!” or “No dada!” followed by her pushing our hand away from whatever it is. She’s becoming more and more independent by the day, and it’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. I know that all too soon there’ll come a day when she doesn’t need my help for anything she’s doing that day. She’ll be able to go to the bathroom, get dressed and feed herself without our help. Soon after that, she’ll be driving herself to school and coming and going as she pleases (well, almost).

Okay Dad-E, tap the brakes a little bit… let’s try to enjoy her 2^nd birthday before calling around for car insurance quotes for her.

I'm back... (like the real NFL referees)

Sorry for the prolonged absence everyone. The learning curve from the new job is starting to level out, which means I have a little more time to spare for the blog. I do it all for you, Followers.

Let’s start with Aiden – because he’s the baby of the family and probably won’t get to go first in many things in life thanks to his older sister. Can you tell I sympathize with him? Yeah, being a middle child will do that. Anyway, he has grown up so much in the last couple of weeks I just can’t believe it. He’ll be six months old next week, which I’m still trying to come to grips with.

He’s rolling over at will… and by that I mean often, especially in bed. Just like his sister did, he prefers to practice his new tricks in his crib when we put him to bed at night. There was one night last week where he simply would NOT go to sleep because he apparently was having way too much fun flipping over and then whining until we came to his aid. No tears or anything, just the hey-guys-I-flipped-over-and-I-don’t-want-to-flip-myself-back-so-come-get-me whining… which immediately turns to big smiles the second he sees our faces appear over his crib. The good news is that I think he’s over the novelty of it now and goes to sleep fairly quickly after draining his bottle.

On that same subject – we’ve been on a roller coaster ride trying to get him to consistently sleep through the night. We tried the just-let-him-cry-it-out method when he turned 4 months old, and for the most part it worked. However, every once in a while he would still wake himself up in the middle of the night (usually somewhere between 2-4am) and would want to eat. Lately, he’s been waking up and rolling over, which just pisses him off more and results in us having to get up and roll him back over. By then, he realizes that it’s been 6-8 hours since he last ate and he screams at us to feed and change him. This hasn’t gone over very well with the slew of houseguests that we’ve had in the last month or so. All of this has resulted in Mommy B just getting up and feeding him so he’d go back to sleep – and letting everyone else go back to sleep as well. We tried to let him cry it out again last week, and he cried for damn near an hour before Mommy B finally got up and fed him.

These early morning feedings have been wonderful for Mommy B who has to get up at 4am anyway and go work 12 hours. BUT, this week has been a different story. A few nights ago, he woke up around 1am but quickly (within a couple minutes) put himself back to sleep without us intervening. He woke up a couple hours later, and did the same thing. While it still woke us up in the process, it was a good sign that he was re-learning how to put himself back to sleep without having to eat. I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t starving – it was more of an I’m-upset-that-I’m-awake-because-I-don’t-want-to-be whine. It’s amazing how you can tell that type of thing from across the hallway at 2am, even being half asleep. Anyway, the last couple of nights have been nothing short of amazing. He’s been going to sleep about 7pm and we haven’t heard a peep from him until 5-6am the next morning. Ahhh parenting.

What’s next? Oh yeah, the boy is tall. I believe they still refer to them as being “long” until they start walking, but you get my point. If I stand him up next to Alli, he’s already up to her shoulders. And Alli appears to be pretty average height based on the other kids I see in her class, but we’ll have to wait for her official measurements in the coming weeks. She goes in for her two-year (eek!) check-up and he goes in for his six-month check up soon, so we’ll be able to get official stats soon. Either way, Aiden is our lil’ string bean – long and lean.

The funny part about is that not only is he one of the younger kids in his class, the fact that he’s “skinny” makes him look even more out-of-place. He just happens to have some chunkers in his class. I’m not kidding, some of the other kids have rolls on their rolls… we’re lucky to get a second chin. I know it all evens out by the time they hit 2 or so – and I can’t wait to see his measurements and percentiles. He definitely feels like he’s gotten thicker since we added more baby food to his diet. The fact that he’s already onto the Stage 2 baby foods and plows through 3-4 containers of it a day might help with that too. I joked with his teachers that I have to constantly bring in food for him (much like with Alli), and yet he appears “smaller” than the rest of the kids in the class. They joked back that the funny thing is that he eats more than them. I guess he is my kid after all.

He’s gotten so good with his head and body control that he’s now doing the “cliff-hanger” when I carry him around. That means instead of lying flat against my chest with his head on my shoulder (or head up), he now wraps one leg around my stomach area and turns his whole upper body around so he can look outward (instead of over my shoulder). He’s actually started to use one arm to push himself out away from me so he can look around. While it hurts me to have my boy cuddle with me less and less, I know it’s an important step in his development. I recall it wasn’t long after that point that Alli started crawling.

He is quite the observer as well. Nothing makes him more content/calm than walking around outside. Especially now that he can look around so easily, he loves to just take things in. His teachers told us that sometimes they’ll put him in a chair or bouncer by the door that leads outside because he loves watching the older kids run around outside. Now, don’t get the impression that they just stick him in a chair by the door all day long – he’s usually on the ground gnawing on some type of toy when I pick him up. Speaking of the bouncer, I walked in with Alli yesterday and the kid was going nuts in it. I’m talking full-on, total leg extension bouncing. And when he looked up and saw us come in, you should have seen the smile that came over his face and how much the bouncing increased. I didn’t want to take him out of it because it looked like he was having so much fun. I was so proud to see how well he’s doing developmentally and physically. Those other kids may outweigh him by a few (okay, maybe a dozen) pounds, but he sure can move!

And he’s still Mr. Smiles. Goodness does this kid smile! He literally smiles all the time, it’s so crazy to see. I can smile at him from across the room, and he’ll make eye contact and smile back at me. When I’m getting him ready for his bath at night, I’ll tickle him and smile and he just giggles and smiles right back. I can’t wait until he gets really ticklish so I can get some good long laughs out of him.

Good for today? I think so. Update on Alli coming soon…

Is that normal??

This question is probably asked by millions of paranoid moms across the world every single day. Add in the fact that I'm a pediatric nurse, along with a paranoid mom, and poor Eric, poor Grandma C, poor grandma great, and anyone else that has to speak with me on a regular basis and hear me complain and worry and wonder if the things that Alli and Aiden are doing, or aren't doing, are normal.

Alli throws temper tantrums. She's almost two. (Ugh, see my previous post to know that I do not like admitting this!) This sounds normal, right? They aren't called the "terrible two's" for no reason. But of course, I have to wonder if my precious angel's terrible two's are worse than other kids? She has moments where I wonder what in the world is wrong with my child? Is it something I did? Or didn't do? She had an absolute meltdown just last night because she couldn't wear her socks in the bathtub. She cried the entire bath. Poor Aiden had to sit inches away from a screaming toddler while he tried enjoying his bath. Oh, paybacks from the days Aiden would cry all night and probably keep Alli awake. Anyway, as soon as we got her dried off and her precious bright yellow socks back on, she was fine. These type of fits aren't all that bothersome to me, but there are some that are hard. Like when she throws a huge tantrum when she can't ride her new motorized four-wheeler in the middle of traffic. I can only reason with a 23 month old so much. I feel like she really just thinks I'm the meanest mom in the world, and she gives me that awful lip quiver and saddest face ever and I melt. Ugh. Who signed me up for this? I have mentioned from day one that I knew as soon as Alli came out a girl, I was going to be in for it... as I was such a brat to my mom as a kid/teenager/etc... I like to think I'm her best friend these days, but, do I really have to wait 28 years until Alli will actually like me?

And then there's lil Mr. Smiles. As much as we call him Mr. Smiles, mister content, and all the rest, he still has moments of, well, being a baby. He has recently started to refuse sleeping through the night again... so I'm up usually around 2am to feed him. Oh joy. And he just recently started rolling over from his belly to his back so he gets absolutely ticked off when he is on his back trying to fall asleep. I can't win! I was over the top worried about the fact that he hadn't rolled over yet... and now, I wish he would stop so he could sleep again. I can't help but look back at pictures, notes, etc. of Alli at the same age as Aiden and see that he's not where she was developmentally. Everyone tells me that boys are slower than girls at things, and that he too will get there in his own time. At first, I was frustrated and worried and anxious. Now, I just hope he stays put where he is right now... he's growing way too fast all of a sudden and I'm not ready for two mobile kids around here. How is it possible that he's almost half a year old, too?

As every mom does, I just want my kids to be happy and healthy. And hopefully, my constant worry and fuss over if the things they are doing are normal or not won't hinder that development. I need a vacation to relax, take a step back, and realize how truly blessed I am.

See ya later mom...

Getting too close to being mobile...