SMALL update: Isabella 22 months

Statistics:

                Weight: 34lbs

                Shoe Size: 6-7

                Clothes: 3t

Milestones:

                We have FINALLY started potty training.  For the longest time, she had absolutely no desire to even sit on the potty.  A few months ago I was reading an article about potty training your children and they said that sometimes they can be coaxed into potty training by you letting them choose a potty.  We were at the mall one day and found this potty that we have now and she seems to like it more than the one that we had before.  The first time that she sat on it, she sat there for an hour with her phone just hanging out.  She finally went and we were ecstatic!  Lately she has been more willing to sit on it for shorter periods of time, which is awesome.  We are still a long ways away but we are making good headway.  She has mastered putting on and taking off her shoes.  She doesn't always get them on the correct feet but we are working on it.  She knows her letters and some of her numbers.  She can sing her ABCs and most nursery rhymes.  She speaks very well and is very intelligent for her age.  She has been speaking in full sentences for months which is awesome and I appreciate now that we are able to communicate with each other instead of just me trying to guess what she wanted by what cry she was making.  She has an excellent memory and is very helpful with the two babies. 

Attitude:

                Isabella is very smart for her age, but I feel like she is very emotionally immature for her age and she always has been.  She has always gone through certain phases later than other children, which hasn't been a problem until recently.  She didn't go into the "terrible twos" when she was two years old.  Unfortunately Silas went into this stage early and they are not in the same phase together and it is proving to be too much sometimes.  She has a very strong willed personality sometimes and gets very emotional when agitated.  On the other hand, she is the sweetest little girl that you can find sometimes.  She is quick to apologize for hurting someone either physically or emotionally and she makes me cry on a regular basis because she apologizes after she gets punished for acting up and it just crushes me. 

Learning:

                She loves to assign time to certain things like how long before you have to go to bed, how much longer she wants to be in her chair eating, etc.  She is very helpful with teaching Silas things that she knows, even though sometimes that comes with a bossy attitude.  She loves to learn new things.  We are trying to teach her currently how to put words to her emotions and about telling time.  She is one of those learners that needs to hear something and then repeat it in order to learn it.  She absorbs a lot of information from educational programs and shows that she watches on 'her phone' and is able to easily regurgitate that information back to you.  She has an amazing memory with things that she has heard or said before, but we are also very lucky that she rarely repeats bad things that we say to each other or that she hears from programs from TV.   

Likes/Dislikes:

                Isabella likes:           

                       Playing with kids

                       Disney Jr shows like Doc McStuffins or Little Einsteins

                       Balloons

                Isabella dislikes:

                             Strangers

                             Heights
                       Bugs

SMALL Update: Silas 19 months

So, I wanted to start doing monthly updates for my children.  Mostly so I would have their milestones and stats documented somewhere since I am AWFUL about writing in a baby book.  Every month I will cover a SMALL (Statistics, Milestones, Attitude, Learning, Likes/Dislikes) update for each of my children.  Recent photos will also be included every month.  Let me know how your little ones compare! 

Statistics:

                Weight: 28lbs

                Shoe Size: 5

                Clothes: 18-24 months

Milestones:

                Silas has always been an ‘early’ baby with the exception of speaking and being born.  He sat up, stood, walked, and cut teeth early.  He is cutting at least one of his 2 year molars right now and has been for at least a month.  He has all of his other teeth.  He is currently completely weaned from a pacifier.  See other blogs here and here about that torture.  He is currently back into climbing, especially climbing into the car.  This is getting him into trouble during the day though climbing on top of the tables, his sister’s chairs, etc.  He is very adventurous and is definitely a boy, as evidenced by how rough he plays and acts, and his constant state of being filthy.  He is eating with silverware at almost every meal and can 100% feed himself with a spoon and a fork.  He builds with blocks, is capable of bringing items to you on command and can’t point to certain body parts when prompted.  He eats really well and is an excellent sleeper.  He goes to sleep at anywhere between 8pm and 9pm, and generally wakes up after 7:30am.  He also usually has 2-3 naps during the day and falls asleep without assistance.  He has just recently started drinking out of a sippy cup with a straw.  He mainly uses a water bottle style drinking cup or a normal sippy cup.  He is beginning to figure out how to take shoes and clothes on and off, he can brush his hair, and he gets his own snack out of the pantry.  Silas hates riding in the car.  He is miserable with any longer than a 15 minute car ride and doesn’t fall asleep in the car unless he is covered with a blanket and all the stars align.  He is now capable of letting you know when he needs a diaper change and he normally will approach you with a diaper and possibly some wipes.  He is now very interested in throwing trash away and putting plates in the sink.   

Attitude:

                As is his normal, Silas was early into the ‘terrible twos’ phase.  He is very headstrong and has an awful attitude when prompted.  He is very angry sometimes and has no problems displaying that angry to anyone.  He is very jealous of attention being paid to another person and will not hesitate to use violence to get what he wants.  On the other hand, he is very sweet when he wants to be.  He is quick to hug and make up.  When one of them hurts the other and does something that isn’t particularly friendly that they get in trouble for, of course they get a punishment of some sort depending upon the level of how awful they were being at the time.  When they are finished with their punishment, we make them go and hug the offended party.  Silas is normally down to hug.  Sometimes he follows that up with a slap to the face, but normally he is a sweet boy.  He is a big momma’s boy, especially when approached by strangers or scary situations.  He has a lot of fears, which is pretty common for this age, so we knew what to expect.  He is very afraid of his baby monitor in his room and has a strong fear of a lot of things right now, like strange animals, loud noises, hand dryers in bathrooms, etc.  Silas has very strong ‘stranger danger’ feelings, especially with men and even with men that he sees on a regular basis.  He is able to generally warm up to strangers that are women but he absolutely is not going to warm up to a lot of men that he doesn’t know or doesn’t see every day.

Learning:

                Silas is a ‘normal’ boy according to my pediatrician in that he is a relatively slow talker, meaning he doesn’t say many words.  He has the ability to say and can say about 20 words when prompted that aren’t names.  However, on a daily basis he uses about 5, not including this ‘nanu’ word that he uses for everything.  He is very intelligent though and so I have no doubts that he will be fine.  He knows almost all of his body parts that you teach at this age like arms, belly, belly button, head, eyes, etc.  He is now capable of operating an iPhone and can turn on his favorite PBS or Disney Jr. shows without assistance.  He gets very proud of himself when he learns a new skill and is very happy to show it off.  He loves to be read to and loves to interact with you while you read to him. 

Likes/Dislikes:

                Silas likes:           

                       Muslin blankets

                       Nutrigrain bars

                       Anything pink

                Silas dislikes:

             Car rides

                             Shoes and socks

                             Hats

Paci update - are we there yet?

I feel like the journey with Silas to be done with a pacifier is similar to a never-ending car ride.  You feel like you have been in it for days and it's really only been a few hours.  He was obviously not ready to be done with it and I was not ready for him to be done with the pacifier so this has been a lot more difficult of a transition for everyone involved than it was with Isabella. 

Isabella used her pacifier to go to sleep.  She soothed herself with it sometimes while she was awake but by the time she was biting holes in it she had found other ways to soothe herself.  She had several stuffed animals, babies and music makers that she was attached to by then and so her entire comfort didn't need to come from the pacifier.  Silas, on the other hand, has nothing.  He never warmed to a stuffed animal or anything other than the pacifier.  Yes, he loves those muslin blankets, but nothing compared to his dearest pink pacifier.  He used it for comfort, to go to sleep and to stay asleep. 

He has always been more of a 'biter' of things than Isabella ever was so I should have seen this coming that he would be biting holes in his pacifier earlier than she did but I was totally and completely caught off guard.  And yes, I understand that I was probably caught off guard more because he will be my last biological baby probably and I want him to stay a baby forever.  I'm going to leave that subject alone right now because if I think about it too much I will probably cry. 

Just to recap what has happened in the last few days in one sentence - life has been a challenge.  Once Corry cut the end off so Silas wouldn't choke if he bit off a bigger piece, Silas would no longer have anything to do with that pacifier.  We quickly realized that letting him see it was making him more and more upset as well.  I figured that he would take to it like Isabella had and just wear it on his finger but that didn't happen.  He acted like he didn't know what to do with it and kept having temper fits about it.  Durin one of his fits he took it outside, got mad and threw it down and so I left it in the garage.  It stayed out there for days until it got moved somewhere.  I need to track it down and save it like I did the one for Isabella. 

Needless to say, he is a lot more angry and has a lot shorter of a temper than he had when he was using the pacifier, but everyday seems to be getting better.  He is having fewer and fewer episodes when I would have previously let him have the pacifier so we are making progress.  Slowly but surely... Pray for us in the upcoming days as we are nearing the week mark and then I think that we will be over the worst of it. 

When did your kids stop using a pacifier? 

The paci – a love story come to an end.

Before I had children and even while I was pregnant with Isabella, I never wanted to give my child a pacifier.  I always heard from other people how difficult of a habit it was to break and I never really wanted to start that if I could avoid it.  However, when Isabella came into the world, it seemed everyone was interested in her having one as a soother and so it came to be.  And she loved it.  She took to it almost immediately and was in love with it for over 18 months.    

Once I gave her the pacifier, I never really had an issue with it.  If she wanted it, I gave it to her because I figured that she was only a baby for such a short time and eventually she would break the habit.  We actually decided to break that habit sooner than I thought because she started to use it as a teether and not so much a soother anymore and bit the end off of one of them.  We gave her another and she did the same thing shortly after that.  At that time we decided that she was done.  We were not going to keep buying pacifiers so she could destroy them.  We decided that we would cut that one and just see what happened.  My husband cut the tip off of one of them because we didn’t want her to choke if she kept biting that hanging piece of it off and we gave it to her like it was normal.  She hated it, but she still held onto it.  She would stick her pointer finger through the end of it and still suck on it.  I am not going to lie but at that point I had a lot of anxiety that we were creating a ‘finger sucker’ child in this process.  For over a week she still slept with it but she always had it on one of her fingers for the entire night.  Then after a week, one night while she was sleeping it fell under the bed and she didn’t realize.  The next morning we put it in her dresser and it has been there ever since.  I can’t bring myself to get rid of it and will probably have it as a keepsake.  It’s one of the last real reminders that I have of her as a baby and not as the ‘big girl’ that she is now. 

Unfortunately, my son is now in this same boat.  Isabella was never a bad teether.  We really didn’t even know when she was cutting teeth ever.  She didn’t really cry more or have any outward signs at all.  He, on the other hand, is an awful teether and has been since his first tooth.  He chews on everything, slobbers buckets before he cuts a tooth, runs a fever with each one and is just miserable.  As of late, that chewing has been on his paci, and last night he chewed a hole in his second paci.  In an effort to be fair and realize that he is a big boy now (he is 18 months now) we have decided that we will treat him like Isabella when it comes to the paci and my husband cut the tip off and gave it back to him.  He was heartbroken.  He cried.  Like, for real crying.  And because he was crying like that I started crying.  My husband justified it that he doesn’t use it at night normally and really only wants it when he wakes up so it shouldn’t impact his sleeping.  I am hoping that this will be as easy of an ordeal as it was for Isabella but he is usually more of a fighter so I am not going to hold my breath.

I will keep everyone posted on his progress to becoming a big boy. 

-Sara   

Garden Update

Hallelujah, our garden is finally planted!  Accomplishing this feat took a lot longer than it was supposed to, but someone (me) neglected to realize that the original placement of two of our raised beds didn't get any sun whatsoever.  Obviously, you need sun to grow most plants so we had to move them.. once they were built... and had dirt in them.  Yes, I feel like an idiot. 

We decided that we had to move them this weekend.  It was finally supposed to be above freezing all weekend and it was time to get our seedlings in the ground.  We planted them in this seed starter kit that Corry found at Walmart and they had taken off!  Well, all except for our bell peppers and our Ancho peppers.  For some reason they were the slowest seeds that we had. 

We decided that we were going to start with the following items in each bed:

1st 'big' bed - parsley (1), green bell peppers (4), Ancho peppers (3), cucumber (3), and cauliflower (3)
2nd 'big' bed - onions (1/3 of the bed), tomatoes (2), and bush beans (2)
1st 'small' bed - basil (3), zucchini (2), butternut squash (3), spinach (3)
2nd 'small' bed - romaine (3), zucchini (1), spaghetti squash (3), carrots (3)

We still have one strawberry plant, and two blueberry bushes that have an undecided location. 

Corry saw online something about a strawberry planter and so now there is confusion about what to do with that strawberry plant.  I only have one of them - do I need a planter or can they just go in the garden with everything else?  This is our first year with a garden and I am nervous about what is going to turn out.  I did tell Corry today though that I will be happy if we get one thing out of the garden, because in the past, I have been known to have a 'black' thumb when it comes to gardening.

This picture totally describes me and my previous gardening style:

 

Here's to hoping that this year will be a different experience!! 

- Sara

Surprise date night tonight

Today my mother and my younger sister decided to take the three munchkins to Ikea in Frisco while the rest of us were at work.  Taking three children under 2.5 out in public for several hours is an undertaking and I don't recommend it to the faint of heart.  There are guaranteed meltdowns, countless diaper changes and not enough goldfish crackers in the universe to keep everyone satisfied. 

Luckily it all went well.  Items that were needed from Ikea were purchased and no one had a thermal meltdown in the store.  Naps were had by a few on the way home.  It turned out to be a decent day and an super decent trip outside of the house with the kids. 

Unfortunately, since Frisco is more than an hour away and they are tearing up and working on every freeway in between the two locations it becomes impossible to get over there and get back in a timely fashion.  Mom decided while stuck in traffic that she would take the kids and the Armada over to her house, Corry and I could go to dinner and then later on this evening when we were done she and dad would bring them back.  I like for my father to see the kids at least once every two weeks without intruding too much since mom gets more than her fair share of them during the week. 

Corry and I always have a 'discussion' about what we are going to eat which sounds a lot like this ecard that I read the other day (on the right)and we finally decided upon Torchy's Tacos and a cupcake from Red Jett Sweets.  We then just came home and chilled out - talking and being together until the kids came home.

I am so tired that I am falling asleep while trying to write this blog - not a good idea.  I am going to go to bed and hopefully will have something more interesting to write about tomorrow. 

- Sara

Resolution Update: Part II

So it's been more than a month since I started blogging everyday and since I made these resolutions; perhaps I should check in and report on how it's going. 

Personal
1. Be more "girl"y, i.e. wear makeup, do my hair, etc. - I am still fighting the sickness of 2013.  I have worn makeup more than this year already than I have since my daughter was born, but I could still do better.  This is a daily struggle since putting on makeup sometimes is a fight in my head because ultimately you just wash it off at the end of the day. 
2. Blog everyday. - I am now in a pattern with this.  It's no longer a struggle of *if* I should write, but more *what* I should write which is a good switch. 
3. Go on more dates with my husband. - I have some things planned, but no updates as of yet.

Home
1. Do 52 "Pinterest" projects for the year. -No new Pinterest projects since the last update.  I have done 3 out of 52.  This needs work.   
2. Stock freezer with prepared meals once per month. - We cooked a chicken spaghetti that was added to the fridge and my husband charred some chiles that we use all throughout the year.  I really need to work on this.   
3. Create a monthly budget and stick to it. -  Judge all you want, but we are one of those families that would rather have less money throughout the year to get a bigger tax return in February.  I get my work bonus at the same time and it seems like we accomplish more this way than little bits throughout the year.  I am hoping that this will push us back into a good money zone.  We aren't struggling right now or anything but we are not doing awesome. 
4. Save more money every month. - See above. I moved money into our savings this month. Was it as much as I would have liked? no.
5. Do 52 acts of preparedness. - I have not purchased anything from the list or done anything on this list.  This is horrible and I resolve to work on this. 

Health
1. Stop drinking sodas.  Since December 31, 2012, I have had the equivalent of less than one soda.  I have had sips here or there with awful headaches but nothing except diet and probably less than half of a can.   
2. Do some form of exercise 5 days per week. - Let's not speak about the fact that I have failed completely on this one. I will get better. 

Overall this is NOT a good update.  Except for the blogging and the soda it has been awful.  It has to get better. 

-Sara