Hi.

Timothy's been a little slow in the talking department. But in the last few months, his vocabulary has exploded. Unfortunately, I'm really the only one who can understand it and many words sound ridiculously similar, so there are some days I still play the guessing game.

Of course, Dada was one of the first words he did come up with. And for a long time, Dada was used for both Erik and me. But about July, he finally started calling me Mama. At first, it melted my heart. It was so cute. And I was so happy he finally had a name for me. But now this is my life:



Every five minutes. All. Day. Long. Can we go back to not speaking? :)

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Ditching the Bink

Lily is a thumb-sucker. She has been since she was about 6 months old. When she first started, I was honestly ok with it. No needed to buy binkies. No hunting down the missing binky. No getting up in the middle of the night to return the binky. She was completely able to self-soothe, and I was thankful. Plus, sucking her thumb was mostly reserved for when she was tired or hungry or really distressed.

But when Timothy was born, I decided the bink was the way to go. Lily was three and half at the time and still sucking her thumb. Two years later, she still does on occasion. Not very often, for sure. Usually when she's really tired, and still when she's really distressed and upset, but there's not really anything I can do at this point other than encourage her to stop. So for Timothy, I decided I wanted the control. I wanted to be able to take the bink away when it was time. I don't know if he would have ever turned into a thumb-sucker, but his bink was always close, so there was no need. When he turned two, we cracked down. Nap time and bed time only. Most of the time. Admittedly, there were times we gave in. And he's not a dumb kid. He knew where the bink was in the diaper bag and would go hunt for it. When he'd wake up, it was chucked into his bed, and sometimes he could reach between the slats and get it. When we converted to a toddler bed about a month ago, it was amazingly easy for him to retrieve it. If we managed to get it away from him again, it ended up on a counter or the bookcase, and once he'd see it a couple hours later, it was all he wanted.

I was dreading the day we took it away completely. And I wasn't sure what the plan of attack would be. I'd read different theories, like having the kid either watch you or making them throw it away. There's also the method that involves taking a pair of scissors to it while your kid watched. But they seemed so cruel. I mean, come on. They're attached to the thing and you cut it all up. I figured cold turkey was the way to go, but I wasn't looking forward to it.

Then last week happened. I could not find the bink any where. I had a spare in the medicine cabinet, but I decided to see what would happen. So when it was time for bed, we brushed his teeth. We grabbed his blanket. We read some stories. We sang a few songs. Then I put him in bed. And then he asked for bink. "Sorry, buddy," I said. "I don't know where bink is." "Bink?" he asked again. "I don't know where it is. Say bye-bye, bink."

And he did. Could it really be that easy? I guess so, because he hasn't looked back. I can only hope potty training is just as easy. The missing bink mysteriously reappeared a few days later, luckily while Timothy was busy doing something else. It was quickly whisked out of sight, never to be seen again.

 

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Bubba turns 2!

Our little Bubba turns 2 tomorrow. Yes...I said 2. Where has the time gone? I definitely don't remember two years' worth of stuff. But that could just be that I'm getting old. But whether I remember it or not, tomorrow is his second birthday. It almost makes me sad to think he's not really a baby anymore. Then I remember what those actual baby days were like and I'm ok again. He is definitely my favorite two-year-old...even if he is the most amazing ham. Or maybe because of it. But there's no denying the boy has personality!

We jumped the gun just a bit and celebrated his birthday tonight with some great company and chicken nuggets. Since what two-year-old doesn't like chicken nuggets? Especially from Chick-fil-a. I'll tell you what two-year-old. Mine. I think he had one grape and decided that would meet his fuel requirement to spend the rest of the evening playing at the playground. Oh...and I think two or three glasses of lemonade. Some of which may or may not have been his own.

The boy is obsessed with fish. Every night before bed, he has to tell the fish good night, and they're the first thing he looks for in the morning. (Oh yeah...due to my lack of blogging, I may have neglected to mention we are now the owners of a 75-gallon saltwater tank complete with 2 nemos (and some other fish, but nemos are all that really matter), a peppermint shrimp, two conchs (have you ever actually seen a conch...weird), a few coral, and various crabs and snails.) So we went with a partial fish theme, including Swedish fish, gold fish, and a "rainbow" trout birthday cake. He was nice enough to blow out the candle, but the call of the playground once again took precedence over opening presents. I'm sure that will be fixed next year.

I know this year will go even faster, so while I can, I will enjoy his cute Bubba kisses and his cheerful "Hi" and wave whenever he sees me. We think he's definitely the cutest little boy we know.

 

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Our demon?

So after a two-month blog hiatus, I'm finally posting something. Was my life completely uneventful over the last two months? Probably not. Did I have the motivation to actually post anything of substance? Not one bit. But I don't really remember what happened over those two months, so I probably should have made some sort of effort to document what went on.

I'm over it.

We did get some new pictures of the kids recently, so I thought I'd share. I posted some to Facebook, but it feels more official to share them this way. :)

Looking at these adorable kids, you'd never know the turmoil we went through. The photo session started out pretty nicely. Lily was cooperative, and Timothy sort of stood where we asked. But then Timothy got bored and started wandering all over the studio. At one point, we were bribing him with jelly beans. Which worked for about 2 minutes until he caught on that we were getting what we wanted, too. For about a minute, though, he did walk over to his chalkboard fish and pose for us very nicely. While we were distracted on different background for Lily of course. But then he decided he just wanted to be held and putting him down resulted in a classic two-year-old tantrum. Not to mention one of the jelly beans happened to be purple and his face and shirt now had purple goo everywhere.

And once the chalk came out, that's all Lily wanted to do. We were able to convince her to do some more shots on a different background, but then suddenly she was done. She didn't want to do pictures, but she didn't want to leave either. A real problem (that was eventually resolved by physically carrying her out to the car). I told her it was ok to be done if she wanted, but she insisted she wanted to do some more. So we sat her on a cute pink ottoman to try a few more, but she just sat there and sulked. And she even chose the ottoman. What exactly are you supposed to do in a situation like that? Because I feel completely inept when they come up. Do I try to comfort and console her and try to fix the situation? And completely waste the time of the photographer? Or just tell her we're done and leave. At home, I would just ignore it, and she'd scream like a banshee and tell me how mean I am for putting her in time out for such an over-the-top reaction. But we're in PUBLIC. You can't let your kid do that in public. So I tried the comforting as long as I thought was appropriate, and then I carried her out kicking and screaming.

Not really the way I wanted the whole thing to go.

All I can say is, for a studio setting, I can't recommend the people at Whimsy Photography enough. It probably didn't hurt that we were a morning appointment on a Friday when they weren't super booked, but they were amazingly patient with our moody kids and made a real effort to get pictures we would like. They even offered to have us come back on a day when Timothy was in a better mood before we paid for anything. We ended up totally pleased with the final product, so we didn't take them up on it. But the offer was there.

But back to my moody kids. Really...any advice would be appreciated at this point. Ok: Timothy's a toddler and almost two. I understand his tantrums to some degree, and they're usually calmed by distracting him or ignoring the tantrum completely for a few minutes. And honestly, I think most of his stem from the fact that he understands everything we say, but he can't communicate back. It's a guessing game most of the time. Although I'm getting  better, and the words are starting to come, so hopefully, the end is in sight.

But Lily? She's a dang 5 year old! I asked her pediatrician at her checkup if it's normal to be so emotional. He basically told me adolescence starts in girls about this time.  Are you kidding me? If I have to deal with this for 10-12 more years, I won't make it. She's up and down, and you never know what will set her off. We try to say yes enough that she gets to choose things and activities and make her own decisions. And she's a pleasure to be with then. But as soon as she hears no, the demon is unleashed. And it just makes me want to say no more because why should I be nice at all when it all ends with the same melt down. In fact, she's been almost unbearable for the last month. Am I a terrible mother for even thinking that? Is it my fault? Is it just the way she is? She's always been "spirited," but now she's old enough to really assert herself and I just don't know what to do. And the books are no help. NONE! She won't calm down enough for me to try any of the tricks, and since what sets her off one day is no prediction of the next, I can't head her off before it happens.

But the times when she's not a demon? She is the nicest girl ever. She is the friendliest girl on the playground and can't understand why someone wouldn't want to play with her or that not everyone is really her friend. She helps all the little toddlers swing and go down the slides. She shares all her digging tools so everyone can play in the wood chips. She builds forts for Timothy and chases him around the house to make him laugh. She reads him books and helps him put on his jammies. And she feels everything so deeply...the good and the bad.

One thing I do remember over the last couple months is the purchase of Pop, Lily's betta fish. He's been living in a bowl on her bookcase for about 6 weeks or so. Maybe a little longer. Tonight when she went to feed him, as she has done faithfully since he came home with us, Erik had to break the news that he'd died. Her little heart was broken. She said she was going to miss him so much. And where do fish go when the die? Is heaven in the toilet?

I know (hope?) the over-emotional bit is a phase. And I know that the real Lily is the happy, loving, smiling one. I just wish we got to see her a little more some days. Or I could figure out the secret to locking up the other version. At any rate, thanks for reading the longest post in history (if you made it this far). I make no promise of future posts, but let's all cross our fingers.
 

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Instagram Thursday (on Friday)

 His precious (just call him Linus)

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Gingerbread

It's become a tradition in our house to build a Christmas gingerbread house. This year, I went for a whole miniature village. And it really was miniature. Don't ask me what I thought was in the box that cost the same a one normal-sized gingerbread kit. But for some reason, it wasn't the tiny houses I ended up putting together. But they served their purpose, and Lily had a great time. This year, she realized the frosting was pretty tasty, so the whole project pretty much went like this: Some frosting on the house. Some frosting in my mouth. Some frosting on the house. More frosting in my mouth. (Not that I blame her. It was a Wilton kit, and their premade frosting is pretty tasty.) The candy itself was pretty terrible, so most of it actually ended up on the houses. Last year, my job was to put the frosting where Lily pointed, and then she would add the candy. This year, she did the whole process on her own and even helped with some of my houses.

This has become something I look forward to every year, and I hope she does, too. Next year, though, she can make a house. I'm making this:

(Instructions/template here.)

And I'm hoping that next year, Timothy can help. Instead of just eating gumdrops off rooftops like he did this year. (Sorry...it's kind of dark at the start. I guess I could have turned on a light. :-D)


 

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Nudist Baby

I was thinking the other day how boring our December must have been since I've only blogged twice this month. Then I sat down today to download pictures and remembered some of the fun stuff we've actually done. It's a good thing I have a camera, or apparently, I'd forget most of my life. At any rate, I'm going to post a couple things over the next few days in an effort to document some of this month...

This first one has nothing to do with Christmas or holidays of festivities of any kind. But it will give you some insight into what happens around our house. Timothy has decided that clothes aren't really his thing, and he will jump at any chance to take them off. He spends quite a bit of his time walking around the house Al Bundy style, hand in his pants trying to get the dang things off. One day, he actually managed to get a pair of sweats off. And he brought them to me. Like a present I was supposed to be so grateful to receive. Then he started tugging on his shirt. So I figured, what the heck...and I took that off for him too. So he wandered around the house - in the middle of winter - in nothing but a diaper, free as a bird and happy as could be.

Then he disappeared. And he got quiet. Which is never a good sign. So I went investigating. This is what I found:

Our budding nudist. Erik found the same thing a few days later when he got him out of bed. We've chucked the two-piece jammies...footies all the way. And onsies are once again our best friend.

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SANTA! I know him!

Last year, Lily finally got the whole Santa thing about the end of the season. I think it really clicked when she woke up Christmas morning and her mermaid had arrived, along with several other fun things. This year, she needed no reminding, and when Old St. Nick made his stop at Wal-Mart this weekend, I took the chance to take the kids to tell Santa all their hopes for Christmas.(Plus, having some connections, I wouldn't have to deal with ridiculous mall picture prices and less-than-ideal scanned pictures. YAY!!!)

As soon as Lily saw him, she ran right up to him, jumped in his lap, and gave this complete stranger the biggest hug EVER! (Stranger danger? What's that?) Luckily there wasn't a line because I can almost guarantee that would have happened even if there had been 10 kids in front of her. Ok...maybe not. But the girl was thrilled to be there.They chatted for a few minutes and I heard "bike" in there somewhere. So I think we're still ok on that front. Unlike last year when we had no idea she wanted a mermaid until we hit up Santa closer to Christmas. After all our shopping was done, of course. And with few mermaids to be found. But Santa managed to pull that out of his bag of tricks some how.

Once she was done, I went to hand Timothy to Santa. And I hadn't even held him out yet. For all he knew, I was changing hips. But he did know and started crying and promptly hid his head in my shoulder. A little disappointed, I figured we'd forgo his Santa picture this year rather than torture the poor kid. If anything, we would have a story about why there's no picture of Timothy with Santa in 2011. But when Erik could break away from actual work, he decided every kid should have at least one sad Santa picture and this was Timothy's year.

So here they are...both ends of the Santa-loving spectrum...

And yes...even with the sad face, I love this picture. It will be a good reminder of the year Lily really latched onto the magic of Santa. It will also be a reminder of the evil eye Timothy gave Erik when he got back safely to me... :-P

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I'm a Mom

I'm not going to lie...having two (or more) kids isn't always easy. There are some women who make it look so easy. Their kids are always well behaved. They are cool, calm, and collected. Their hair is perfect, their makeup's done, and there's not a wrinkle in their clothes.

I am not that woman. I'm not saying having one kid was a complete walk in the park. But for some reason, doubling the number of munchkins in the house tripled the stress. Of course, it might just be the 4-year-old. We've hit a phase where every time we get in the car, we're bombarded with "How much longer?" and "Are we there yet?" This is before we've even pulled out of our neighborhood.  And heaven forbid Timothy even look in her general direction (Stop looking at me!!!!) or babble something cute (Don't talk to me!!!!). We're working constantly on sharing since she doesn't seem to grasp the concept that if she wants to play with all Timothy's fun toys, she needs to share with him occasionally, too.

Don't get me wrong. Timothy is not a complete angel in all these situations. He's figured out how to push her buttons for sure. Stop looking at you? Well I'm going to stare you down and maybe even come sit right next to you to bug you even more. Don't talk to you? I'll make even more noise! He's also a greedy little bugger. You can give him something to eat and then get your own. And it's the EXACT. SAME. THING. But yours is much more appetizing. And if you give in and let him have some of yours even though he still has the same thing on his plate, he won't touch it. He'll eat what you gave him in the first place. It's just some twisted test.

But then there are days they are so fun to watch. They play together and love each other and make you so happy that they have each other. They have the best time playing with Lily's kitchen. Occasionally Timothy ends up with the chef's hat, which is the most adorable thing you've ever seen. He pretends to eat the plastic food she assigns him (with appropriate "smack-smack" and "yum") and will even pass her the food she's assigned herself. Timothy will throw balls down the stairs and Lily will bring them back up for another round. Lily will make a fort in her room so they can jump into the pillows and blankets together. Lily will chase Laddie around just to make Timothy laugh because he thinks it's HILARIOUS to see Laddie bolting around, sliding on the wood floors.

Last night, we'd just finished bath time and I was putting on Timothy's jammies while Lily was putting on hers. Timothy and I finished first, so he toddled into her room. And I guess sat in one of the bins from her toy box. It's not very deep...just a couple inches. Just the right size for him to step in with his blanket and have a seat. So Lily gave him a ride back to his room, which he thought was about the best thing ever. They ended up doing this for about 45 minutes. Back and forth between their rooms. Timothy would hop out for a second at the end of each ride and then get back in to go again. Since I was in his room, he would wave until he couldn't see me anymore as they headed to her room.

I so desperately wanted to go grab the camera, but from past experience I knew that once Lily saw the camera, the fun would be over. So instead, I let them have this fun time together...a little sad that we wouldn't have pictures to remember this cute game. But hopefully in between all the "He's touching me!" and "She won't stop looking at me!" moments, we'll have enough of the ride-in-the-toy-bin moments and the play-with-the-dog moments that eventually, the fun times will be the foundation for a close relationship.

I know that for me, it makes it ok that my hair isn't always perfect, there are some days I don't even touch my make up, and yes...I probably have something from a grubby hand on my clothes. It means I'm a mom to two beautiful, loving, amazing kids.

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New Trick

Timothy's been pulling himself up on stuff for a while now...the couch, chairs, the baby gate, my hair. You know...the normal things. But about a week ago, he decided to try standing without any help. This was his attempt:

I'm sure he'll be walking any day now...which blows my mind! Didn't we bring him home yesterday?

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With extra butter

A couple weeks ago, Timothy had his one-year check up. Turns out he's on the small side. Never would have guessed that one. Oh wait...we already knew that. At his 9-month appointment, he didn't make as much progress as he had at his 6-month check-up and had even fallen off the curve completely. At the time, the doctor wasn't worried; he just said that this was about the time genetics kicked in, and looking at Lily, he wasn't too concerned. But at the12-month weigh-in, he'd fallen even further off the curve and was actually starting to flat line. Now he felt we had reason to worry a little since it was starting to affect his length, too. So he recommended we see a dietitian to get her insight.

The next week, we headed to the dietitian's office where we got to tell her what Timothy eats and how much. I know she was there to help, but as we tried to capture a typical day for Mr. Bubs, I've never felt so judged! Such a silly thing to worry about, I guess, but I was so sure her response was going to be, "You're terrible parents. No wonder he's not growing!" despite the fact that I try to give him a fairly balanced, healthy diet...with the occasional french fry or popsicle.  Of course that's not what she said; she actually said we were doing pretty well, except for his bottle usage (will NOT take a sippy to save his life!). So her solution was to "power pack" what we are giving him. Basically, we have to increase his fat and calories without adding much to the actual volume of what he's eating. This means adding butter or cream to just about everything and being given free reign to make him a milkshake (with the tip to look for the ice cream with the highest calorie count) for a snack.

Oh...and make sure he drinks at least 24 oz of formula a day and try to get him off a bottle within 2 months. The thing about that is, I'm not sure he was drinking 24 oz a day when he was on a straight liquid diet. That's probably not entirely true, but for the last few months, we've been lucky to get him to drink maybe 10 or 12 oz of formula a day. And as soon as we started the whole power packing thing, he hasn't even wanted that. He's now refusing a bottle in addition to the sippy cup.

When she was explaining what she wanted us to do, I mentioned that I didn't want to bulk him up just for the sake of bulking him up. But from the information she gave us, it says adding extra fat at this point shouldn't have any last effects as he gets older. But I have to admit, every time I add extra butter to his mac and cheese or cream to his apple sauce, I hope it will bulk him up enough that the concern will go away and we can go back to normal meals. Obviously I want him to grow and be healthy, but the kid never stops moving. I don't think I ever chased Lily around this much. He makes a beeline for the dog's water dish so I move him and he beelines for whatever Lily doesn't want him playing with. From there, it's straight to the fridge to laugh at his reflection and then to the other side of the house to cuddle his blanket for .2 seconds before he's off again to find a bead Lily forgot to pick up or a penny I missed with the broom. I think he just has the metabolism of a hummingbird.

So we'll keep up the extra butter at least until mid-July when we have to get a weight check and see if it's helping. In the mean time, we'll just enjoy his energy and his cute ways. Like this video. Whenever I put something on his head, he'll try to put it back after it falls off. Never fails. He's about as adorable as possible!

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One Year Old

On Sunday, Timothy turned one. Can you believe it? One already. We had a little party for him on Friday, and I attempted to make the cake myself. It was first time working with fondant, but it turned out pretty cute...although fondant is definitely not for eating. It looks fantastic, but I'd much rather eat good old fashioned buttercream.

He's cutting his top two teeth, so he's been a bit grumpy lately. This means that he wouldn't let anyone else hold him. He's such a mama's boy. I have to admit, though, it's kind of nice. Lily was never clingy; she's never had a problem settling in with someone other than us. And I think that's great, especially now that she's starting to be a little shy around people she's not familiar with. (Crossing our fingers that this means we can stop worrying that if a stranger offers her some candy out of his van, she won't say, "Cool!!!" and hop in.) Hopefully this means she'll avoid my extreme shyness  but not be quite so shameless as Erik. (:-P) At any rate, I kind of enjoy when Timothy snuggles in when he sees someone reaching for him. (It's nice to be wanted, after all.) But the other side of that, of course, is that it's hard to pass him on to someone else when I have other things to do. But I still enjoy it just a little because I know the day will come (sooner than I'd like, I'm sure) when he won't want to be held by mommy at all.

But I think he still had a fun time, even if he didn't want me to let him go. We got him his own little cake with traditional icing and let him go to town. It did take a finger-full of frosting from Grandma Nancy, though, to convince him it was delicious and that he really was going to enjoy being put in the booster to have his way with it.

It's been a pretty good year. Lily loves her Timothy even if he does mess with her stuff when she doesn't want him to. (Just wait, right?) It's amazing how his little personality is already coming out. Sometimes, when she tells him to leave her stuff alone, he takes a deep breath and lets her know how he feels about it. He always giggles when he sees his blanket, and then he crawls as fast as he can to get to it so he can dive head first into it. He knows when he has something he shouldn't and will hand it to us without our even asking. Usually after taking a lick first to make sure it's not something tasty. He loves feeding himself, but if I'm feeding him, he's usually placated by holding a spoon of his own, even if he's not using it for anything. We're working on moving to a sippy cup, but he's been very vocal about that change and will throw the cup to make sure we really get his point. One of his favorite pastimes is splashing in Laddie's water bowl and then turning to make sure we see him doing it. He likes to bear crawl and crawls normally as fast as he can but shows no in interest in pulling himself up to standing or walking. And that's fine by me. I remember how excited we were for Lily to start walking and then when it happened, it just doubled the chasing we had to do.

It's been a year with some adjustments, of course. I wouldn't say having two kids is harder than having one, but it definitely presents its own set of challenges. Especially on nights when Erik is working, I think Lily feels a little neglected on nights when Timothy seems to need a little more attention. I'll admit, I'm not great and giving them both the attention they need at the same time. I can multi-task lots of things, but apparently, that isn't one of them. So I have to make sure once he's in bed, Lily and I can sit just one on one and read some stories or color some pictures. Or even play her version of house, for which my attention span is extremely short. Now that Timothy is more willing to just cruise around and check things out, this is getting easier, and I hope it will keep going that direction.

Even with the adjustments, the lack of sleep, the frustrations, and all that other stuff, this has been a great year with some great memories. In just one year, I find it hard to remember what it was like before Timothy...it just feels like he's always been here somehow. And I love the addition he's been to our family.

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The mind of a baby

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9 months

Timothy is now 9 months old. We kind of like him, so we've decided the trial period is over and we'll keep him. Especially now that he's back to sleeping through the night...most of the time.

This whole parent thing definitely doesn't come easily to me, but I'm still trying and I hope I'm doing an ok job. All I know is that when I'm the most frustrated, that's when he seems to give me this look that melts my heart and helps me remember I'll get through it...eventually. Plus he's so darn cute. Here's a look at how he's grown:

And I think Lily likes him, too. Of course, the sharing is very one way. What's Timothy's is hers and what's hers is hers. But for the most part she's a good helper and I think there's already a pretty strong bond...which I think is fantastic.

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Wherein Timothy makes things interesting

I've heard the stories. From so many people. Some I've known and some I only know through hearsay. Mommy puts her adorable baby down for a nap. A couple hours later, that adorable baby lets Mommy know they're awake and ready to party. Mommy walks into the room to find her so-called adorable baby has removed their diaper and created a masterpiece on the wall, on the crib, on their clothes, and (gasp!) maybe even all over their face. Lily, fortunately, never did that. The worst thing I found when I went into get her after a nap was a mess of diaper liners that I had left too close to the crib.

 

I definitely counted myself lucky. (Side note...ohmigosh, doesn't she look just like Timothy in that picture?!?!?)

This morning, however, I learned I may not get off so easy with Timothy. When I was getting him ready for bed last night, I grabbed a pair of pajamas he hadn't worn in a while. Usually, he rocks comfy fleece footie jammies and I had totally planned on doing our usual, but then I saw the cute pair I bought him for Christmas. They were a little on the big side at the time and since it was a shirt and pants instead of one piece, the pants kept falling down. So he only wore them a couple times before I decided we needed to wait just a bit. Last night, I decided it was time to give them another go.

After feeding him this morning at 6:30, I laid him back down and hoped he'd be content enough to give me at least a half hour more sleep...maybe even 45 minutes. That would be divine. I crawled back into bed and was surprised to wake up 2 hours later! I haven't been able to sleep in like that for a while and it was great. Erik had set Lily up with Bambi before he left for work so she'd been completely entertained and Timothy had finally slept in like a normal person. Timothy was still sound asleep, or so I thought since no sounds were coming from his room. But it wasn't long before I heard him rustling. I finished my breakfast and checked my email before I went in to get him.

He may have been quiet, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't asleep, because there he was with no pants on. And his diaper unfastened. And you totally thought I was going to say that he'd smeared poop everywhere. Luckily he hadn't...yet. But yes, the diaper was poopy, so I'm sure that if I'd had one or two more emails, I would have had a very different morning.

There's no picture...sorry. I didn't want to risk what would happen while I went to grab the camera. But I'm pretty sure this is one kid we will need to watch like a hawk. He wants to have everything he knows we don't want him to. You can pile a million toys up in front of him, and he'll zoom in on the remote or itsy, bitsy, tiny piece of paper you never noticed. And if you take it away? What were you thinking, woman?!?!? Let me tell you how I feel about that! This could get very interesting...

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Three random things

Number 1: In a random fit of feeling crafty, I made a yarn wreath last week.

 Number 2: Next week we'll be attending this concert. I'm beyond excited!

Number 3: Timothy went to church today dressed as the King of New York and ready to Seize the Day.

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Six months in

If you can believe it, our little guy is now 6 (6.5, really) months old. And here's what we know so far...

Stats

• Weight: 14.5 lbs
• Length: 26.25 inches

Likes

• Lillian and Laddie (We get the biggest smiles when either one comes in the room, and nursing quickly comes to an end; whatever they are doing is infinitely more interesting than eating.)
• Anything colorful
• Anything that makes noise
• Tags
• Grabbing anything within arm's reach
• Practicing yoga moves that any yogi would be totally jealous of (usually during a diaper change, making my job nearly impossible)
• Gnawing on his hands
• Gnawing on my hands
• Gnawing on anything that fits in his mouth, really

Dislikes

• Getting his face wiped off
• Sleeping
• Being alone (for even two seconds)
• Having what he's gnawing on taken away
• Sleeping (Wait; did I say that already?)
• Being put in his car seat
  

So yeah...the sleeping isn't so great. Remember a couple months ago when I bragged about his great sleeping? When we could put him down around 8, he'd wake up once to eat, and then he'd sleep until 7 or 8 the next morning? That's completely gone out the window. Oh, he still goes down around 8 without fail. If you try to keep him up (which I have in hopes that a later bed time and more exhausted baby would mean sleeping through the night), he falls asleep in your lap at 8 any way. Now we're lucky if he sleeps  3 hours for the first stretch. Then after that, I'm up probably every hour and a half...two if I'm extremely lucky and he feels like being generous. Then there's usually at least one stretch during the night, usually around 3 or 4, when he wakes up as soon as I put my head back on my own pillow and we play that game for about an hour.

Our pediatrician was really less than helpful at Timothy's six-month check-up. After hearing how we approach bed time and what we've been doing, his response was, "Sounds like you know all the guidelines. The only thing I can say is that eventually he'll sleep." I guess I wasn't really expecting any earth-shattering advice. I mean, I do quite a bit of my own research online and had read what I could find about "establishing good sleep habits." But I was still hoping he'd have some gem of a revelation I haven't heard about.

I've tried so many different tactics. Formula before bed (maybe it will take longer to digest and he'll sleep better), more blankets (maybe he's cold), fewer blankets (maybe he's hot), a constant stream of lullabies (and not crappy ones...these are lullaby renditions of Journey and Queen), a mobile, teething tablets, a stuffed animal (maybe he gets lonely), the Sleep Sheep he got for Christmas (award winning can't be wrong, right?). Nothing seems to help. Some helped for a day or two, so I'm assuming that was actually just coincidence. The real problem, however, isn't getting him to sleep in the first place. It's getting him back to sleep once he wakes up - and while these solutions seemed to help in the initial falling asleep, they suddenly become ineffective at 3 in the morning.

One good thing about his sleeping, though, is that his 45-minute cat naps seem to be stretching out a little. Some days, we even get a 2-hour nap out of him. I guess I have to look at the bright side. Plus, during the day, he's so dang cute when he's awake (he can be cute in the middle of the night, too, but it's not much appreciated). I mean, how can you stay mad at a face like this?

So we're plugging away, and I just keep hoping that tonight will be the night. It's got to happen sometime, right? Right??

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All I want for Christmas...

Yesterday, we took this kids to sit on Santa's lap. Which means I now feel like a good parent again since we completely forgot to take Lily last year. I think it was a combination of being busy coupled with the fact that I was about two and half months pregnant and sick as a dog most of the time.

When I first mentioned going to see Santa, Lily wasn't so sure about sitting on his lap. "I'll just stand next to him and tell him what I want." But by the time we got there, she was ready to do about anything the complete stranger in the red suit told her to do.

And what does she want Santa to bring her? A mermaid. Which is total news to us. A few months ago when I asked what she wanted from Santa, all I got was an, "I don't know." So I went with what I wanted Santa to bring her. But in the last month, anytime someone asks what Santa is bringing her, she says a mermaid. If she'd come up with the answer just once, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But she says it EVERY TIME. Which means Santa now has to do some more shopping because there is no way I'm destroying the illusion of Santa the first year she's actually interested in it. And she knows Santa won't let her down. If we ask what Santa is bringing her now, we get the answer in a very exasperated tone, because come on...she's already told us...it's a mermaid already. Can't you remember? Jeese!

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Comparison

Last night, I picked up a photo album from Lillian's first year and came across a picture of her at about 3months. And I thought, That's Timothy! I've looked at pictures of her we have hanging around the house, and while I could see some resemblance, I didn't think it was that close.

But what do you think? They're both about 3 months in these pictures. I guess there's no doubting they're related...

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Halloween

Ok...so Halloween was over two weeks ago. But I wanted to get at least a couple pictures up of our costumes this year for those who didn't get to see them. Once again, we attended the Mullahkhel Halloween festivities. This year, Erik was actually able to go, so for once I got to be the second half of a couple's costume. Unfortunately, I didn't have much say in it if I wanted to follow through on the whole "couple" idea since Erik was pretty set on his costume once I made the mistake of mentioning it. As a result, Erik and I were Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone of Anchorman fame. After several final decisions, Lillian settled on a Lady Bug. And Timothy, not having much choice in the matter, was a Harley Baby.

Lily had a great time trick-or-treating around Wal-mart again this year, and while I'm sure her stash won't satisfy her in the next few years, it was enough to make the kid as happy as anything. Now that she's actually remembering holidays from year to year, it's so fun to see her excitement and anticipation. And to be honest, I'm looking forward for next Halloween because I have an awesome costume in mind that includes Timothy. I have to use him to my advantage while I can. Pretty soon he'll have a mind of his own, too.

And then I'm doomed... :)

And remember, stay classy, San Diego.

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