Saturday, August 21, 2010

30 Day Challenge: Day 6

Day 6 of the 30 Day Challenge is making a list of 20 of my favorite things!

Favorite Smells:
1. The smell of cookies or bread baking. YUM!
2. The smell of freshly cut lawns. SUMMER!
3. The way the air smells when it's ready to rain. FRESH!
4. The way sheets/bedding smells the day it's freshly out of the dryer. CLEAN!
5. The way my babies smell after a bath and lotion. MAGIC!

Favorite things to touch:
6. The feel of velvet
7. The feel of baby soft skin
8. The way bars of soap feel when they are wet....slimy, yet clean!
9. The feel of warm pavement on cool feet
10. The feel of silk!

Favorite things to eat (I am a choco-holic.)
11. Milk Chocolate bars
12. Chocolate Ice cream
13. Chocolate Pudding (homemade of course)
14. Oreos
15. Coconut MnMs (Do not try them. Highly addictive.)

Other Favorites:
16. Lake Michigan
17. Sleep
18. Computer time
19. Adult conversation with no interruptions
20. Hot baths

If you haven't already started doing the 30 day blog challenge, here is the list of things to post about. I look forward to reading your posts.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Well-Children Exams

We were driving and the car was on a bumpy road. A new song came on with a good beat and Claire shouts, "Mommy, The car is dancing!"

I asked Claire, "What would you like for lunch?" And her reply? "I wanna eat poopie!" Everything is funny if it has poop or pee in it. She know sings, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Poop" "Old McDonald Had a Farm with a poop-poop here, and a poop-poop there...everywhere a poop-poop!" Also making it's way into her musical repertoire is "Out came the sun and dried up all the poop, and the Itsy-Bitsy Spider climbed up the poop again." It's like mad-libs. But only poopier. Then she will sing "abcdefghijklmnoP(giggle, giggle) P!!! P!!! PEE!!!"

Today we went to Claire's 3 year-well child exam. I cracked up at the man sitting in the lobby eating MnMs and drinking Pepsi while reading The South Beach Diet. I could give him a couple pointers. Then he pulled out a bag of peanut MnMs. REALLY?! Wow. Then we went over the hospital to have Claire's blood drawn. I'm having her tested for basic seasonal and basic food allergies...maybe that has something to do with the night wakings? Can't hurt. She had a great lab-tech. She did not even cry when she got stuck.

Claire's favorite lunch request? A peanut butter cup...but not the kind you are thinking of...she wants a cup with peanut butter in it. I had filled a 1/4 measuring cup with a little peanut butter to dip apples in one day, and now she asks for it all the time. She likes to eat the PB with just a spoon, but who doesn't? :) And finally...Claire is no longer labeled failure to thrive or "slow weight gain!" Yay! :) The doc said she was just fine. No check up until she turns 4!

Another funny thing Claire likes to say is when she wants to wear tennis shoes instead of sandals. She says, "I want shoes that hide my toes and keep them secret!" She will also say that her hand is "sad" and I need to hold it. It's too cute.

She also calls coins, "Coinys" which sounds like "COIN-KNEES" which is super funny.

If she sees a "pimple or zit" on someone she calls it a "ZIMPLE" which is her combo of "ZIT plus the ending of PIMPLE." I love it.

Today at the hospital lab, we say an old man when we were walking in, and "She goes, "HI! YOU LOOK LIKE DOPEY!" You know, from the Snow White story! Then she wanted to know why that wasn't nice. See, we got a set of bibs for Alex's drool. One of them had Dopey on it. I told Josh that I didn't know if I wanted him to be wearing a Dopey bib cause then people might think, oh, he's dopey. And Claire immediately knew how to use this word, and said, "Hi, my little dopey Alex."

Her check-up went well and the doctor was impressed at how well she could talk and even say things like, "Mommy, be quiet, it's my turn to talk!" When I was trying to talk to Dr. W. That cracked the Dr. up!

She was also very concerned when one nurse took Alexander to weigh him on the baby scale in another area. She kept saying, "Why they taking my brother? They gonna bring him back?!" It was sweet.

Alexander was 27 1/2 inches long (99%); weighed 19.10 (99%); and his head was 17 1/4 around. He is a very busy boy. He has been grasping objects and bringing them to his mouth for a good month. He started rolling from tummy to back right before 2 months and started rolling the other way about a month ago. He is still slow, which is good, but he is amazing with how he will scoot around. Like he will do a 360 on a blanket on the floor. If he is on his back, he can pick up his body weight by pressing down on the floor with his feet. He is a very strong little kicker. He also kicked my belly a lot more while prego with him vs. Claire.

Alexander is very laid-back. He loves to laugh and smile, and be held. He is a great sleeper and is only waking up 1 or 2 times at night. (THANK YOU LORD! :) because Claire still wakes up a lot!) He tolerates Claire being very close and in his face all the time. He had his first taste of solids. An orange MnM. Yup. Thanks to Claire. Luckily, she was just holding it in his mouth and he was sucking on it, but boy was his tongue orange!!! And I'd had this discussion with her several times since my mom said someone fed my little brother a Cheerio and he wasn't latching right when he nursed. So in her defensive, Claire explained to me that he wasn't "eating it" he was just "sucking on it." Sigh.

Alexander is wearing mostly sized 12 month clothes, but has moved to 18 month is some smaller sized items. Yeah. He is gonna be big, but Claire was also 19 lbs by 4 months, 24 lbs at 9 months, then 23 lbs at 15 months and was labeled FTT, so whatever. She is fine now! Alex is wearing size 3 diapers during the day, and I put him in sized 5 at night since the sized 4 Huggies overnights were still leaking thru. I refuse to change him at night. It wakes us both up too much! The size 5s should last for awhile. Claire was in size 4s last winter when she potty trained and 5s at night, but I also remember buying her size 5s at around 7 months for a few cases, before her thighs thinned out! :)

Claire loves gum. LOVES IT! But so do I. Recently I shared that I took her in for a dentist appt and that she had 4 cavities. Well, we got a referral to a peds dentist, and I wish we would have just started there. She only has 2 that needed to be filled, which she had done there and did absolutely great! The issue is I was only brushing 1x per day and definitely not for a full two minutes. They gave me a sand timer, so I can time the brushings.

And by the way. Alex will get teeth sooner than Claire. He already has some white showing on his gums, and is drooling and mouthing his hands more than Claire ever did. She didn't get teeth until well into her 10th month.

And a little update on me...I'm taking an anti-depressant safe for nursing and I think it's really helped. Seriously, go get yourself to a mental health professional if you think you have post-partum depression or depression, because you probably do! Stay healthy!

We've had so many appointments this week, it's ridiculous. We also went to Claire's meet the teacher night. It was fun! I can't wait for her to start preschool! She is excited to. I wish I could say I could nap during the preschool sessions, but I'll probably be running errands with just Alex and stuff like that. The clothes for both of the kids are such a mess right now. Alex has outgrown seriously about everything in his dresser. I need to sort through it and get it ready to give to my sister for her little guy, Nolan. I can't wait to get rid of it either!

NO MORE BABIES HERE! I always wanted four kids. Then I had Claire and I said NEVER AGAIN for the first 12 months of her life. Then I had Alex, and now I'm saying NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN EVER. TOO MUCH WORK! LOL! Besides, I want to be able to give them lots of 1-on-1 attention and well, you know, maintain my own sanity.

Another nursing milestone for Claire...nope, she hasn't weaned...lol. I decided the issue that I wasn't against nursing, I was so "depressed" and feeling overly tired. Taking away a comfort to both of us was not going to help. Besides, it would be good to get Alex through his first year without his sister getting him sick...and a good way to do that is to keep letting her get an immunity boost from me. I never offer, and I do refuse sometimes. She can wait pretty well know. Sometimes she will forget, but mostly not. Remember that list of all the foods/cups of water she would drink. Not so much anymore. She barely drinks a cup of water/day...and maybe one cup of juice. I usually throw out the 2nd half of the cup. One day she ate just a few bites of apple.

Today: breakfast--didn't eat anything offered. Lunch--offered 1/2 cut up hotdog, with ketchup on the side, a few chunks of cheese with crackers, and orange segments. She ate 2 orange slices dipped in ketchup. Yum? Then she ate about 4th of a cracker. That's it. Oh, she did have a tiny dum-dum sucker after her blood draw, but did not want anything else all evening. Yeah...except to nurse. So I've heard that some kids with allergies will nurse more to ward off the allergies and their body "knows" this. So I can't want to see what the allergy results are. Oh, but the nursing milestone: She can nurse with GUM in her mouth. Yup. She tucks it under her upper lip. I knew she had it in there because she would pop off, chew for a second, then go back to nursing...I was like...give me your gum. She said, "I don't have gum." Because she knew I'd trash it ;) So then I said, "Where are you putting the gum when you nurse?" Since it wasn't in her fists. She pointed to it. Hahaha...starting to learn how to "lie" but not quite! They say that if a baby isn't mother-lead weaned by about 18 months, they will usually nurse until 36 months which is a common time for child-led weaning. So I'm waiting ... tomorrow she actually turns 37 months. I doubt she'll wean though ;) She's a huge comfort nurser and never would take a binky. Alex isn't a big comfort nurser, I've noticed already. He obviously get enough, though, since he's my great big chunky monkey! :)

Last weekend I drove up to my parents, picked up my mom, and then we drove up to Madison for my cousins baby shower. We stayed in a hotel with an indoor water park. CLAIRE LOVED IT! I must have taken her down a water slide there about 50 times.

So that's just some of what we've been doing lately and what's been going on with us. If you haven't already started the "Blog" challenge and you blog, I'd love to see you do your challenge and learn more about you! :) How's that for a bunch of random things? LATER!

30 Day Challenge: Day 5

My Favorite Quote -- It's actually a prayer, but I say it counts! ---

The Serenity Prayer:


God, grant us the...
Serenity to accept things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference
Patience for the things that take time
Appreciation for all that we have, and
Tolerance for those with different struggles
Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the
Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other and the
Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

30 Day Challenge: Day 4

Day 4 is my Favorite Book!

It's hard to pick a favorite of any one "thing" in this culture of overload, but I am going to limit myself to just sharing one favorite each day of this blog challenge. I would have to say my favorite book of all time is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Why? Because I hated it in high school, but reread it after and loved it. :) It just goes to show that time and experience change everything, and it goes to prove "You can never read the same book twice!" I loved teaching it to my juniors even more. It's really cool to see what others get out of it.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

30 Day Challenge: Day 3

Day 3 Challenge - Your Favorite Television Program -
Mine would have to be GLEE currently. Watch a quick video clip here see a taste of all the fun drama. I also love the musical feel of the show!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

30 Day Challenge: Day 2

Day 2 is my favorite movie -- It would have to be The Sound of Music and you can watch a trailer of it by clicking here. Super catchy songs, and I am named after the main character! How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Monday, August 16, 2010

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

My favorite song was/is the song that Josh and I danced to at our wedding 9 (!!!!!!!!!) years ago called "Truly, Madly, Deeply" by Savage Garden. I am going to embed it here, so click on the play button to watch it or if you use a feedreader, click here to watch the lyrics. It's also a super-relaxing song.


30 Day Challenge

My friend Mary from HS is doing a 30 day blogging challenge that she heard about here. I challenge you to join in the fun. I will do this every day for the next month along with some other posts here and there.