Bye-bye Onesies!!!

Piper decided last week that it was time to start pottying in the potty. 

So I went to the store, found the smallest panties I could find, washed them in HOT water so they shrunk, and we started midweek last week.

And guess what?  It’s been DAYS since she’s had an accident.

She potties.  She poops.  She even potties at the store.

Holy moly, I was NOT expecting this!

Eight Months

Adalynn turned eight months old this weekend. 

I think she’s getting cuter every day.  She LOVES her big sister and is constantly following her around the house.  She’s learned the sound of the bath tub, and the girls have races down the hall to get in.  Both squealing in delight along the way, of course. 

Her hair has not grown.  Pretty sure we’re looking at kindergarten for pigtails on this little twirp.

SHE HAS TEETH!  Piper cut her first tooth at 18 months.  Addy was just shy of eight.  Those little monsters were NOT fun coming in, and they weren’t particularly delightful as she learned to nurse with them (um, didn’t miss that part with Piper…), but I can’t wait for them to be big enough to see when she smiles.  You can see them poking up on the bottom here.

And speaking of smiles?  She has perfected the cheesy grin.  And I can’t help but crack up when she does it.  Our photos are now screwed until she gets her fill of it, but that’s okay.  I think.

She HATES food.  Seriously.  With a passion.  She will tolerate apples, pears, and yogurt.  And by “tolerate,” I mean maybe a tablespoon at a time.  She does not like: avocados, sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, cereal…  Get the idea? 

She’ll walk across the room with the walker.  Well, she’s able to walk across the room so long as Piper doesn’t “help.”

She’s incredibly leery of strangers.  Some days are better than others but, man, she can give some serious crusties to someone she doesn’t know.  Which is pretty funny in comparison to her sister, Miss Social Queen herself.  When she’s in a good mood, though (which I’m pretty sure means that she has a LITTLE bit of sleep), she’s willing to give a wave to someone who looks like a grandma.  And  yes, my kids pretty much think that Costco is the local version of Disneyland.  It’s got to be the most fun place on earth.

And she thinks this is hilarious.  So does Piper.  We use this method of transportation frequently.  It also, by the way, has been a great source of proprioperceptive input that Piper craves.  She loves this!

She says mama, dada, Piper, dog, hi, and bye in context. Yup, she’s a talking maniac. And it’s way cute. Like, seriously. She waves hi and bye, and signs dog, too. She’s also said “Hi, dog” to Duncan when he startled her the other day.

Happy two-thirds birthday, Munchkin!  Can we celebrate with some sleep???

The Sleep Drama continues

I’m not sure how Addy could have possibly celebrated her eight month birthday this weekend.

Maybe that’s because time has warped in some horrendous way due to her inability to sleep.

This weekend she went several nights where she was up at least every 45 minutes to an hour.  All night long.  NO stretches of sleep.  And, of course, she doesn’t play nicely in her crib or anything.  Actually, she screams as though to say “where the heck am I and I’m sure that the boogie man is going to get me!”  Which is doubly fantastic since she shares a wall with her sister.  Fantastic.

And it’s not something that I can just put her back to sleep and wander back to bed.  No, no- usually these episodes leave her awake for several hours at a time. 

She’s on a schedule.  She goes to bed early.  She sleeps during the day (when she does, of course), but not so much that it should affect her night time slumber.

I’ve spent many nights in tears because I’m so gosh. darn. TIRED. 

Anyway, flash forward to last weekend.  We met some friends up north and we went to a park to let the kids play (more on this later.)  Adalynn and one of her little boyfriends fell asleep in the swings together.  Addy was OUT, but her feet kept kicking.  We laughed that it looked like she had restless leg syndrome.  For kicks, when I got home, I Googled it.

And, wouldn’t you know it, it made sense.  I always thought that it was a load of hooey, to be perfectly honest, but I found some studies done through Mayo Clinic, so I trusted what they had to say.  They said that one of the precursors to RLS is a low iron level.  So, I Googled THAT.  And one of the risk factors for low iron is having a low birth weight- specifically, being less than 6 1/2 pounds.  Addy, if you remember, was 5 3/4. 

So, I emailed her pediatrician and asked if this was something worth looking into.  I drove Addy down to Children’s for a blood level the next day.  Found out yesterday that she DOES have low iron!!!  Go FIGURE!!!  Tonight I picked up the 16 ounces of ferrous sulfate (her daily dose is 2ml- should last a while…) and started.  Please, oh pleeeeease, let this work.  I fully expect to have to break her of a LOT of bad sleeping habits at this point (the kid HAS to be nursed to sleep…) but surely, surely, if we can rule out the medical reasons, we can deal with the behavioral ones. 

Because this little girl has GOT to get some sleep.

…and so does this mama!!!  Wish us luck!

A week of updates

It’s been busy here.  Really busy.  With a few BIG things, which I’ll get to, and a few not-so-big things, too.  There are several things that I need help with, so I’ve decided that this will be the week of updates to try and get caught up on our month of staying home, nice weather, meeting friends, and playing, playing, playing!

A break from the winter chill

Piper’s teaching Addy to dance here.  Do you like the flapping arms??

And it started

It started here… 

…which led to this: 

…and brought us here.  To a full-time stander-upper-on-anything.  One-handed, even. 

Oh yeah- see the stance in the above picture?  It’s because she’s cruising, too.  Yup.  Our house is about to get a lot more busy. 

And a lot more bruised.

Christmas Pictures

Yup.  It’s nearly the middle of January, and I’m just now getting around to Christmas pictures.  Yikes.

Anyway, two years ago we found out that Christmas is a whole new monster when a baby is involved.  This year, we found out that Christmas is a whole new monster when there are THREE kids involved- Piper, Adalynn, and my nephew, Bridger, sure made the day a whole lot more fun.  But a whole lot busier, too!

We got to my parents house first thing Christmas morning.  We got to have breakfast together with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, my grandparents, and my great aunt, who was visiting from Arizona.  It was so fun to have everyone under one roof!  Breakfast was, of course, amazing (thanks, Mom!)  Mom put up a gate into the rest of the house so that Piper couldn’t go and snoop around the tree.  Hummm…  I wonder why?

I snuck out first before Piper could so I could watch her face… 

Not the best picture, but do you like her tilt?  She was excited! 

She ran into the room and found out WHY!  There was a kitchen set (that was mine when I was a little girl), a new table and chair set, a grocery cart, a baby stroller and a new baby bed.  The kitchen, stroller, and baby bed were all mine when I was little.  My dad and grandad made the kitchen and bed and got tons of use through the years; I’m so excited to share it with my girls! 

Also in the room were TWO new cars.  I found a Little Tykes pickup truck and a police car at garage sales last summer.  Luke spent WEEKS sanding them down and repainting them with special plastic paint to make them cute.  My nephew got a brand new, shiny red fire truck and the girls got a girly pink beepbop car.  (I’m in the process of getting stickers made for both; I’ll show you the finished product when they’re done.  But you get the picture.)

Piper was excited.

Piper wasn’t satisfied with Addy’s present-opening skills, so she thought that some tutoring was in order.

By the time everything was opened, the girls were POOPED.  Piper had a blast looking at all her new fun things and teaching Addy and her cousin how to use theirs.  But for this mommy, nap time couldn’t come sooner…  Piper fell asleep wonderfully (as usual), and Addy finally, finally, fell asleep.  Under the tree.  With her brand new blanket that Mom made her (with crib sheets to match, by the way.) 

What a fun, fun day!

Peppermint, please

She won’t eat pears.  She won’t eat cereal.

But she WILL suck on a candy cane.  What the heck???

The cane was wrapped, but it had a little hole in the bottom.  She was sucking on it hard enough that she was getting her own peppermint-flavored spit back out.  She liked it.  A lot.  Go figure.

Piper the photographer

When we took the girls to the doctor a few weeks ago, we had a bit of a wait in the room.  Piper wasn’t in the mood to stay still for any period of time, so she went through my “planned” activities quickly. 

So we moved on to her ideas.  I suppose it was just a matter of time…

I helped her with the first one:

And then she flew solo.  I gotta say- she didn’t do half bad!

She got a better picture of my mom than most of mine!  Go figure.

Well hello there, 2012

12 things I’m looking forward to during the next year:

12.  Getting down my Christmas decorations <<ahem>>
11.  Luke (maybe?) doing some work with a band of former Marine musicians.
10.  WaterWorld this summer- Piper will be big enough to go this year, and I want to go!
9.  NDSC anyone??? (July. Washington, DC. You’re going, too, right???)
8.More decorating for the holidays and seasons. Thank you, Pinterest- you’re about to cost me a whole lot more time. And money. But it’ll be fun! 
7.  Our TEN YEAR wedding anniversary in June.  Surely it’s an accounting error. 
6.  Working on starting a Moms group for the local DSA chapter. 
5.  Doing First Response calls for the DS group.
4.  Addy leaving the baby stage and turning into a toddler. I will definitely miss having a baby in the house again, but surely, surely, this will also mean I can get some sleep. Please???
3.  Piper talking more and just maybe getting a glimpse of some of the random things that are flying through her little brain.
2.  Piper starts preschool this year! Excited? Nervous? Anxious? Yup. Sounds about right.
1.  I will get better pictures of the girls together.  I WILL.  Because, really, these leave a little to be desired.

What are YOUR big plans for the year???