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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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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Plain White T's

Looks like February is our month for concerts. Last year, we headed to Vegas for Jack's Mannequin. This year, we stayed close to home for Plain White T's. I LOVE Plain White T's, so when I found out they were coming, it was a no-brainer. And I'm so glad we went. They put on a great show, and we had a blast. And during a surprise change up in where they were singing, we ended up being super close for the all-famous Hey There, Delilah.

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Sky View Cheer Clinic

The lady who watches Lillian has a daughter who's a Sky View cheerleader, and the cheerleaders were putting on a clinic for girls between 3 and 14. She was in charge of the three year olds and wanted Lily to come be in her group. We figured 15 bucks that paid for lunch and a shirt and left us a few hours to get some of Lily's Christmas shopping done was 15 bucks well spent and left her in the cheerleaders' capable hands for almost 4 hours last Saturday.

After the clinic, we got to see a performance of all the groups and then they got to perform between the girls' and boys' scrimmage games this last Friday. Lily had a great time dancing with Tiffany, up until she got poked in the eye during the performance following the clinic. It took some convincing to get her back out on the floor to do the cheers for us, but she was a trooper and did. But isn't this the saddest face you've ever seen?

The performance during the basketball games went much better and she was so excited to get to give it another go. I don't know if she really has the dedication to be a cheerleader (she was really more interested in the letters on the gym floor), but she was sure cute. And she's three...so she could outgrow the whole ADD thing. But she does have Erik as a father, so probably not. :)

Anyway...here's some pictures of her performance and a video Erik put together. You can see the eye-poking incident at about 20 seconds on the right.

 

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Christmas

I realize this post is a month late, but please don't judge. :)

Christmas this year suddenly seemed to make sense to Lillian. She was constantly noticing the sparkly lights and pretty trees. She was actually WAY too excited about snow for her own good. And most importantly, she understood that Santa was coming. Somehow, though, we managed to completely miss (or forgot - one of the two) taking her to sit on the fat man's lap. Horrible parents, I know, but I swear: we will remember next year.

Since she was so enthralled with all the lights on the houses, we decided to take her down to Temple Square to see some proper lights. Rather than drive, we hooked up with Erik's parents in Roy and rode the Front Runner train. I think, in the end, she was more excited about riding the train than anything else, but as long as she had fun, I guess it doesn't matter. And I have to say, riding the train was the best decision we EVER MADE!!! No parking hassles. No traffic. No worrying about the weather. The worst part was not timing our departure so that we didn't have to wait half an hour on the train before it headed back to Ogden.


Once we got to Salt Lake, we met up with my parents at the Gateway and had dinner before we all headed to Temple Square. Of course we chose the night of the MoTab Christmas concert at the Conference Center as well as a Jazz game, so Salt Lake was swarming with people. Being Utah, everyone was naturally on Mormon Standard Time, so our 7:00 arrival nicely coincided with half the attendees of the concert rushing across the Plaza causing complete chaos and a huge crowd. When you have a toddler with you who is VERY reluctant to hold a hand, this can cause great stress for the parents, but miraculously, she didn't get lost and we were able to see all the lights and have a great time. Whenever we pass the temple in Logan, she still talks about how Grandmas and Grandpas and Addison all went to the temple with her.


On Christmas Eve, Lily helped me make some cookies for Santa. She had blast rolling and cutting them out and (of course) eating the dough. She helped me stir and we had to roll out and cut a shape from every last scrap. We decorated them later that night before bed.



On Christmas morning, we opened presents and had some breakfast. Lily had to examine every present thoroughly before moving on to the next one, which made for a long process, but it was fun to see her get so excited over every item. After breakfast, we headed down to Ogden to make the rounds with the other side of the family and had a great time seeing people we only see a couple times a year.

It was definitely a great Christmas. It's hard to believe that next Christmas, we'll have two munchkins to celebrate with, but I'm looking forward to it!

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Random blogging

Because I've been lax in my blogging recently and because nothing else is really going on, today's post consists of random bits of...stuff.

First of all, how about this adorable picture of Lily and Erik in their ties. No cute story. No funny explanation. Just a cute Fred Flintstone-ish tie that was just too cute not to share.

Second, I have to brag about how brilliant my child is. And isn't that really the point of any mother's blog and the right of every parent? I thought so. I'm sure every parent totally thinks the same thing about their kid, but mine's the real deal. ;) The other day, Lillian looked at my shirt (which happened to say Wal-mart) and said, " There are lots of A's on your shirt." I guess two is a lot to a two-year-old. But that's not the point. The point here is that she knew there were A's there at all. So I asked her to find each letter. AND SHE COULD. I was amazed. I guess I shouldn't have been since she's ALWAYS asking which letters are what while we read and she plays her ABC Zoo game online. And she's been singing the alphabet for while now. But she got every single letter right. All of them. Of course when I tried to show Erik, she got every single one wrong. But the other day, I let her tag along while I ran into the office for a bit, and while I put together some meeting materials, she played her game. When she got bored, I tried to drag it out just a little longer by asking her to find letters. Once again, she got them all right.

Erik and I, especially recently, are constantly asking each other if the average two-year-old should be able to do the things she's doing or if we are just easily impressed. Whatever the truthful answer is to that question, we're amazed every day at the little person she's becoming, and I'm looking forward to seeing her continue to develop.

My last random topic for this post is Lily's vocal performance debut:



Thanks, as always, for reading my ramblings. :)

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Independence Day Weekend

Because our babysitter decided to take a trip to Florida, I decided to take the same week off and enjoy a chance to be a SAHM. Lily and I were able to spend a lot of time outside playing at the park in front of our house and just having fun together. We took a trip to the Willow Park Zoo one day, and even though we'd played at the park already that morning, she was more interested in the slides she could see at Willow Park. So we headed over there after checking out the monkeys and birds.

My week of vacation was capped off with our Independence Day festivities, and we sure kept busy for those couple of days. July 2 was the performance day for Lillian's swimming lessons, so Erik and I actually got to see what she'd been learning. Unlike the lessons we took her too a few months ago, parents weren't allowed to even been seen by the kids let alone get in the pool with them. They learned how to float and kick and blow bubbles, and even go off the diving board (video below)! If they cried when doing the diving board, they had to do it again. At first, I thought that was a little harsh, but after seeing how great she did, I've decided the teacher knows what she's doing.

It was so fun to watch her follow all the directions and actually enjoy being in the water. After our first round of lessons, she was still clinging to me for dear life and would scream bloody murder if her face went under water; what a different experience we had when I took her to the aquatic center last night. It took a little while for her to decide she'd be ok actually playing in the pool and not just sitting on me, but once she got going, she didn't want to leave and even went down the twisty slide. She starts a second session today; she'll be ready for the Olympics in no time, I'm sure.


After Lily's swimming performance, we headed to the park for some good grub and great company before heading to Hyrum City's fireworks. Unfortunately, my camera battery lasted just long enough to get the diving board video, so no pictures from that event . :-(

But I made up for it by taking a ton of fireworks pictures the next night during the display at USU stadium.


During both displays, Lily decided they were too loud and spent most of the show cowering under a blanket with hands over her ears. During the stadium event, she actually fell asleep in the middle, so I guess they couldn't have been that loud. And for the Hyrum ones, she did end up watching the end very sneakily, peeking out over the blanket periodically - until she realized we knew she was watching; then right back under she went.

For the actual 4th holiday, Lily and I headed down to West Jordan to see my Dad, step-Mom, and sister who were in town staying with my Grandma. Even though she's the closest great-grandma for Lillian, they've never actually met, so it was a lot of fun letting her meet some cousins and play with her Aunt Cassandra. We had a BBQ, watched the celebration at the National Mall on TV (wha-hoo, Barry!), and created our own display of sparklers and fountains outside. All in all, a very fun evening.


I have to say, I love the 4th of July. I probably don't ruminate on it nearly as much as I should, but going to events like the one at the stadium always remind me of how grateful I am to live in this country and for the sacrifices that were made so I can have the freedoms I do. I don't even know anyone in military service, and the medley of service songs and seeing those who've served stand up when their song is played always chokes me up. Not to mention the National Anthem, God Bless America, and I'm Proud to Be an American...just my little patriotic self coming out, I guess.

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Ring Around the Rosies

The other day, Lillian tells me, "I'm ready!" Since we weren't really doing anything to be ready for at the time, I asked what she was ready for. She proceeded to spin and fall down.

Umm...ok.

I thought about it for a second and thought maybe she was doing Ring-around-the-Rosies, even though I've never done it with her. But she has a whole life at daycare I'm not really involved in, so I figured it was entirely possible. So I started singing, and she starts spinning. After about 10 minutes, I realized I should start filming it. So here she is...not the best example since I think she was starting to get bored. She was much better at falling down when we first started, but it's still pretty cute anyway.

And I ask you to please ignore my messy floor...a hazard of a two-year-old. Oh...and ignore the spot where I whack her in the head with the camera. I'm not the best cinematographer.

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Sucker Thief

Today we went to the Fall Festival 2008 at the American West Heritage Center. Really not as great as we had hoped, but they did have a petting zoo and poor Lillian had a run-in with a goat that stole her yummy sucker. The video says it all.

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