30 Minutes

Now that Ian is taking 4 naps a day in his crib, I can pretty much guarantee that I'll have 30 minutes each afternoon to myself. I know I should be grateful given there was a long stretch there where just 30 minutes would have seemed amazing since I was holding Ian 22 hours a day, but I really would like more than 30 minutes. Ian's naps have consistently been 30 minutes long lately. He is up for about 2 hours in between each nap. Sometimes it's hard to get him to stay up a full 2 hours. Nadia usually naps for 1.5-3 hours so it's pretty much a given that Ian will have one of his naps sometime during that time span. Unfortunately today Nadia's nap was less than one hour long. I let her fuss for awhile so that I could at least have 20 minutes to get something accomplished. I had hoped to clean the three bathrooms. I did clean the 3 toilets and sinks, but 20 minutes wasn't enough time for me to also scrub the floors. In light of the time spent nursing each day, I don't have much trouble getting my schoolwork done since I can do almost all of it on the computer. What I struggle to accomplish are those tasks that I can't seem to do while watching the kids - cooking, exercising, and cleaning for example. I have mastered the art of mowing the lawn while carrying Ian in the Snugli. That is getting to be quite a workout now that he weighs 14lbs 9oz! Nadia weighed 16lbs at her 6 month checkup, and Ian might possibly weigh about that much at his 6 month appt. That would be amazing considering she weighed 13lbs at her 4 month check-up compared to his 9lbs! When I get frustrated or overwhelmed or discouraged about my inability to accomplish much around the house, I keep telling myself this is temporary. It will get better. Soon I hope. If Ian would sleep more at night then I wouldn't be going to bed around 8pm most nights and that would give me more time to get other stuff done. And hopefully some day his naps will also be longer which would also give me more time to get stuff done. On the days I teach I end up using those precious 30 minutes to do things like get dressed for work and make a sandwich to eat for dinner. The chores I have done the best with the past 5 months have been sweeping the kitchen floor (I do that on average about twice a day), grocery shopping, laundry, and the dishes. I haven't done very well with dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, and cooking. I keep reminding myself that time spent with the kids is more important than time spent dusting.

The potty training update would be that she went from Friday morning until Sunday at 4pm without an accident (about 52 hours). On Sunday she stayed dry at church as well as during her afternoon nap, but then she had a big accident while eating dinner in her highchair. Today she had two accidents - the second was also in her highchair at dinner around 5pm. Both times she had been sitting on her potty prior to being put in her highchair. The biggest positive would be that she hasn't had any #2 accidents the past 6 days. This morning for example she pooped in the frog potty (we have two little potties for her) in our bathroom while I was taking a shower. Another positive would be that she has excellent bladder control - she can go hours without peeing. Today I took her to Target and a shoe store, and she stayed dry in the car and while we were shopping even though she hadn't peed for a couple of hours (since her nap). Lastly, she has had a few successes with peeing on the potty. The areas that we still need to work on are peeing on the potty more often, learning to pull down her underwear, and learning to go on other potties (at church for example). For now I just want to keep working on getting her to have more successes with peeing on the potty. Then we'll tackle other things. Of course farther down the road we need to work on skills like wiping, flushing, etc.

When I picked Nadia up from church yesterday, she was painting with the other children. I think it was her first experience with paint. She wasn't happy that I was interrupting him from that activity, so I promised her she could paint more at home yesterday (see above picture). She painted three "masterpieces." Her favorite color when painting yesterday was definitely black.

I discovered that our Target has this extension in front of some shopping carts which is for seating two children (with nice straps). You could easily shop with three young children with this cart! I had Ian (sound asleep) in his carseat in the front part of the cart, and Nadia was sitting in one of the special seats. She loved it! She is still super friendly. She says "hi" so loudly these days that I think half of the store can hear her when she says it. She would make a great greeter at Walmart. Once Ian gets to the point where I don't feel comfortable carrying him in the Snugli, I might switch to shopping more at Target than Walmart just because of these shopping carts. I never would have guessed a few years ago that a type of shopping cart would determine where I shopped, LOL!

Good News!

I said yesterday that I wished Ian would get at least 10 hours of sleep at night, and last night he almost did! Between 7:15pm and 6:05am he had 2 feedings, and he slept 9hr 45 min altogether!

NO Accidents!!!

Aside from during her nap (and I put a pull-up over her underwear before I put her down for her nap), Nadia didn't have ANY accidents today! She peed and pooped in her potty! It seems that the promise of chocolate worked today (Hershey kisses). The last time she peed she sat down on the potty and then said "good girl." It took me a little while to figure out what happened (because the toilet didn't make music like it's supposed to), but sure enough she had peed in the potty! She forgot to pull down her underwear, but hey we can work on that. It's much easier to throw those in the washing machine compared to cleaning up a mess on the floor. The day was going so well that I even took her on a quick shopping trip. I gave her one kiss when we got home as a reward for staying dry in the car and the grocery store. Whew... I am sure we will continue to have ups and downs, but I think she will be trained in the near future. Yahoo for progress!!

Friday night I discovered Nadia loves pierogies, and tonight she ate almost an entire ear of corn. I gave Ian a few more bites tonight to keep working on his ability to swallow food. As to be expected, it's all being "ejected."

He sleeps on average 10 hours a day. Babies this young are supposed to sleep a lot more than that! Nadia sleeps 12-14 hours a day (10-12 at night and 1.5-3.0 during her nap). Ian usually gets 8 hours at night as well as four 30 minute naps. The only time his naps are longer than that is when he's held such as today the nap he took in the Snugli while I mowed was almost an hour long. Hopefully he'll start getting more sleep in the near future. I don't think he's ever going to have a 6pm bedtime like Nadia did for awhile. We start trying to get him down around 7pm, but it's often 8pm or later before he actually goes to sleep for the night. I'm hoping at some point he'll sleep from about 7pm to 7am. Nadia slept 12 hours a night for quite awhile. She was about his age when she started sleeping 12 hours straight. I'd just be thrilled at this point if he slept 10 hours total (with a feeding in there somewhere).

Good with the Bad

1. The bad news was that on Thursday night Ian's first stretch was less than 4 hours long, and to make matters worse I stayed up until 9:30pm (such a party animal!) to work on a photo book of our trip to Florida (had a coupon for a free 20 page 8x8 custom photo hardcover book from Shutterfly). This meant that my first stretch was less than 2 hours long. It has really been frustrating me lately that I have to go to bed so early in order to get about 7 hours of sleep on average (compared to my usual 9). Last night I went to bed at 8pm because I felt I had to, and so of course Ian decided to sleep more last night, LOL. The first stretch was 7.25 hours long. WOOHOO! That's the longest he's slept in a row in many weeks. Please do it again, Ian!

2. Potty training didn't go well yesterday At All. She never used the potty. The good news was that she didn't have any accidents past 11:00am that I had to clean up. She did go during her nap (but I've been putting a pull-up on over her underwear during her nap), and I think she peed during her bath in the evening. She had three accidents in the morning, and I guess if I tried to find the good in that I'd say it was that only one was on the carpet. I really, really don't like potty training. I bought some Hershey kisses and dum dum lollipops for her yesterday. Hopefully we'll have a reason to open the bags today.

3. I gave Ian his first cereal last night. He didn't like the taste At All (I am posting the pic of him smiling, but I could post of a pick of him grimmacing with the first bite, LOL) and of course it kept coming out. With Nadia I had to work on some fruit first and then swtiched to cereal, veggies, and then more fruit. I will probably do the same with Ian as he wasn't keen on the baby oatmeal. I know it takes time for them to learn how to swallow solid food. Ian's growth spurt has definitely come to an end. The good news is that yesterday he didn't want to take a bottle much At All. The reason that was good news was because he much preferred to nurse! Way to go, Ian! Nadia started to show a strong preference for the bottle (over me) at 5 1/2 months. I am soo happy that Ian has the opposite opinion.

4. The good news is that Nadia is making a lot of progress with learning how to drink from a glass. I have found yet another reason to LOVE the bib Lucia gave me. It holds the milk quite well. The bad news is that it's still really hard to get her to drink water, even from a sippy cup. Also, she's not happy that I'm only letting her drink milk with her meals these days.

5. The bad news is that the brown hair Ian was born with has now almost totally fallen out. I do not like the bald stage. He's following the same pattern as Nadia - brown hair at birth, hair falls out, and new hair is blonde. We shall see how long both of them stay as blondes. I can't wait until Ian's hair grows back in.

6. I haven't had time to shop at yard sales lately, and they're definitely "in season" now. It's difficult enough to shop at CVS with two under two. I am not even going to attempt it if there's no shopping cart involved. Beth loves yard sales, and she stopped at one yesterday that had a lot of baby stuff. She was very excited when she stopped in and gave me a big pile of toddler girl clothes that she got for me (I'll pay her back what she paid). Unfortunatley, she thought Nadia wore a size 5T. Nope she wears 24m/2T and in fact can still wear size 18m pants. I plan to take most of what Beth got to church on Sunday as Nadia's friend Abby (who recently turned 4) probably does wear size 5T. I saved a few things for the future, and a few things did fit. The bad news was that as Beth was leaving, Nadia said "bye bye mama." She has been calling Beth "mama" lately. I don't like it At All. It hurts my heart. She spends on average three hours a week with Beth. I guess it's just like her calling elderly strangers at the grocery store "grandpa" and "grandma."

7. Lately it's been very easy to put Ian down for his naps (most of the time anyhow). I put him on his belly, pat him on his back, and he's out. The bad news is that almost all his naps are 30-40 minutes long.   Last night after his first stretch he would not go back in his bed. I tried until 4:20am, then Paul tried, and then he was in Paul's arms until 6:30.

Forward and Backward

As expected Nadia has been taking forward and backward steps in her potty training. I was amazed that she woke up dry this morning as she had been in the diaper for about 11.5 hrs! I put her on the potty right away. She didn't go, but a few minutes later she screamed "pee." There was a very small puddle on the floor; so I knew she wasn't done. A few minutes later she got a lollipop (the breakfast of champions!) for peeing in the potty. Later she had an accident in the carpet. She also peed during her two hour nap. I expected that since it had been awhile since she'd gone even though I had her sit on the potty many times.

I taught tonight so Paul was responsible for the potty training for the first time (from 3pm until she went to bed). During that time span she had one accident (on the carpet unfortunately) and two successes (peed and pooped in her potty). I have to say I enjoyed the reprieve from potty training. It's not fun! I see enough progress though that I've decided we're seeing it though this time. No turning back! In March she cried when she succeeded on the potty. For whatever reason it scared her. That hasn't been happening this time. I do believe she'll be potty trained before she turns 2 - at least during the day, and if she keeps waking up dry in the morning, then we'll also work on the night time training as well. I was only planning on working on the day time at this point.

Something that Ian has made a lot of progress with is his ability to be happy somewhere other than my arms for longer periods of time. I have been able to make good use of the gym, bouncer, and swing the last several days when I need to take a shower or am pushing Nadia on the swing, etc. Of course I still love holding the guy. He and I took a nap together today for the first time in a long time. It felt great to get a nap since I'm still not getting enough sleep at night, and it also felt wonderful to have him snuggled close to me since I know the days when that will happen are definitely numbered. I had planned to go grocery shopping during that time span, but I am definitely glad we napped instead. Paul has been staying home this week (aside from Tuesday) preparing for his comps so I had planned to take Ian with me to the grocery store during Nadia's nap as I am not planning to take her to the store while we're in this stage of potty training. I'll probably go tomorrow instead. I don't regret my choice one iota!

A Good Ending

I have to admit that I totally underestimated Nadia's ability to climb this ladder. I thought there was no way a child this young could climb it given the distance between the steps and the fact that the pieces of wood used for the steps are narrow and round. I was wrong! She's been climbing it for a couple of months, but I didn't think to make a short video of it until yesterday. She hesitates at the top of the slide because it was hot. We had a really hot day yesterday (in the 90's) especially considering it's only MAY. My next goal for a video of Nadia is to get a good one of her singing.

One other video that I posted yesterday was of Ian moving his four limbs. It's not the most interesting 70 second video, but I wanted to make one to record how he is my little perpetual motion machine. My mom commented many times on our vacation regarding how often he was constantly moving all four limbs. She raised 4 children, works in the church infant nursery once a month, and has 9 grandchildren and said she doesn't ever remember seeing another baby move his/her four limbs as frequently as Ian does! I am getting nervous as to what he's going to be like once he gets mobile! I tried to get a video of Ian rolling over, but every time I put him on his belly, he rolled over before I could hit the record button on my camera. I'll keep trying. :-)

I do NOT enjoy potty training. I imagine no parent does. Thankfully we had a good ending yesterday. Over a span of 12.5 hours, Nadia had 5 accidents yesterday. At least they were all easy to clean up as she had two outside (one in the grass according to her and I did see her have one on the patio), one on the tile floor outside the bathroom, and two on the linolium in the kitchen. The first bit of good news was that her underwear stayed dry during her 2.5 hour nap, and the best news of the day was that in the evening she took the initiative to go sit on her potty and she pooped and didn't get upset when it happened like she did in March. I tried to make a BIG deal of this great thing she did, and she got to eat a lollipop. I was very grateful that the day ended on a positive note in terms of potty training. I am hoping today that we have at least one success with peeing on the potty. I can see I'll be doing laundry rather frequently this week as she went through several pairs of underwear and several dresses yesterday. At least I didn't have to clean the carpet like I did many times in March.

Experiments

Not only has Ian not been sleeping well at night, if his naps have been in his crib, they have been rather short (10-30 minutes long). If they are in the carseat, Snugli, or someone's arms, the naps are often at least 45 minutes long. Yesterday after two naps that were only 10 minutes long, I was getting frustrated. I was trying to find a way to soothe him without taking him out of the crib because I found that as soon as I put him on my shoulder he'd be fast asleep, but then he'd wake up a few minutes after I laid him down in the crib. I thought well sleeping on his belly would be more similar to what it's like to sleep on my chest. Also, I can pat his back to help him fall asleep. I tried this for the third  and fourth naps yesterday, and it worked! He's had two naps thus far today on his belly. I'd say that the average length of the four naps that he's been on his tummy instead of his back has been about 40 minutes. Much better!

I decided to try having him sleep on his belly last night. Nadia was a little shy of 6 months old when she started rolling over and sleeping on her belly even though I'd put her down on her back, and when I called the pediatrician out of concern about SIDS, she said not to worry about it at this stage. We have the breathable bumper in his crib and a sheet - no blankets or stuffed animals. I hoped that last night would be an amazing night. That didn't happen, but I'm still going to put him down on his belly for at least one more night. Last night was better than most nights recently, but not as good as Monday night. His first stretch last night was good - 5.5 hours. The problem was that his next stretch was less than 2 hours and the third was super short (less than 45 minutes). Since Paul waited for me to come home, Ian went to bed an hour later than he had been going to bed lately which meant that since he started his day before 5:15am, he got less than 8 hours of sleep altogether. Thankfully Nadia didn't get up until 6:30 this morning. I think it will feel like we hit the lottery (no, we don't actually play the lottery) if both children are asleep at 6:00am. Even though last night wasn't an amazing night, at least the last two nights the first stretch has been at least 5 hours long. That's a definite improvement over what he was doing in Florida and when we first got back.

Yesterday I started teaching Nadia to drink from a cup. At first I went cold turkey (had one cup for water and another for milk), but then today I decided maybe the better approach would be to let her keep using sippy cups, but just for water. I am hoping that this will increase how much water she drinks in a day since she likes her sippy cups. Plus if we happen to temporarily misplace a sippy cup somwhere downstairs (they never have been allowed upstairs), it won't be so bad since it will just be water. She obviously hasn't mastered drinking from a cup yet, so it also minimizes the mess if the experiences drinking with a cup are limited to mealtimes. She had to change outfits once yesterday after getting doused with water while trying to drink from a cup. She has definitely shed a few tears today over having to drink water instead of milk in between meals, but she needs to drink less milk and more water. I plan on doing things differently with Ian when it comes time for him to use a sippy cup. The oldest child helps us learn how to do things better the second time around.

Today we're also resuming potty training. This morning she said "pee pee potty" but unfortunately I was in the middle of putting Ian in his swing and by the time I got to her she was standing outside the bathroom door with a puddle on the floor. That was 100% my fault. I need to respond SUPER quickly whenever she says something like that even though many times they are false alarms. This was the only accident she had in the house over a 5 hour time span, but she also didn't have any successes. She told me that she peed in the grass once when we were outside, and at that point she only had a dress on (no underwear) so I have no idea if she really did or not. I put her down for her nap with underwear on with a pull-up over the underwear. I am hoping that by the end of the day she'll have at least one success.

Babysitters and Doctors

Paul's parents hadn't seen Ian and Nadia for two weeks so they came up after church Sunday afternoon and played with the kids for a few hours. During two hours of that time span Paul and I went on a date and had dinner at Red Lobster. I like the biscuits and maple glazed chicken. Paul likes various kinds of seafood so he gets different things. This time he had tilapia. We both took home doggie bags and finished our meals at home yesterday. I had put 40 dates as my goal, but maybe we'll have 80 if we start going out once a month. I think that would be great! We use gift cards for our meals; so even if we need to pay a babysitter, it won't be that expensive to go out. Plus our neighbors are sooo generous that it feels good to give them more "business." On Sunday the girls brought over a doll for Nadia and picture frames for Ian's room, and on Monday Gabby brought over 4 small sample cans of formula that they got at their pediatrician's office. How sweet!! Maybe we won't have to start buying any formula until Ian turns 6 months old. :-) I plan to start him on solid foods soon since he's about to turn 6 months old (and is over 4 months now even by his adjusted age). Today I started putting Ian in the highchair (see photos below) and "promoted" Nadia to the chair that hooks on to the table.

On Saturday I called Beth and asked if Gabby could babysit the kids next Saturday as I am going to a party about 90 minutes away from our home, and Paul will be busy preparing for his practice talk that he's giving on June 1 for his June 7 comps. I have only seen this friend a couple of times in the past six years, but she just graduated from college with her bachelor's in Social Work (from the university where I taught from 2003-04). She's about 31 years old, and it has been a long journey for her to complete this degree. She rode all the way out to IUP for my doctoral graduation in 2002 so I feel obligated to go to her graduation party.

I also asked Beth if Gabby could come over after school a couple of days this week so that I could get some schoolwork done. I've had one thing on my to do list since November and the deadline for completing it is now only 6 weeks away. I need a quiet room since I am adding audio recordings to the PowerPoints for the online course. Having a quiet room is a challenge with two under two. Paul never tries to get schoolwork done while watching the kids, but in the past I've never paid a babysitter so I could get schoolwork done. Gabby came over yesterday for 90 minutes, and I got far more accomplished than I thought I could have in that time span. I thought it would take weeks to accomplish this task (even with Gabby coming over), but I think I'll be able to cross this off my list by the end of the week. YAHOO! I want to keep this in mind in the future. It's definitely worth a few dollars so I can have a break from multitasking and just focus on schoolwork. I don't need to try to be superwoman, right? Gabby loves watching the kids so it is a win-win scenario. Today Beth will be coming over as the first summer class starts tonight. I'll have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for six weeks.

The urologist's office called twice while we were on vacation to reschedule Ian's appointment. I called back yesterday morning and found out that the first available appointment is three months from now. We've had the June appointment for over 5 months. They cancel it one month before it's supposed to happen and postpone it by two months. I am trying to have a good attitude about it, but I was really looking forward to the suspense being over regarding whether or not Ian needs surgery. Well I've waited 5.5 months, I guess I can wait 3 more.

I've gotten 3 letters recently from the hospital letting me know of doctors who are leaving whom I have been a patient of previously. One of the ones I got yesterday was about Dr. A. I actually got two letters about his departure (I assume retirement) as one was from him and the other from the hospital. I felt sad when I read the letter even though we don't plan to see an RE again. The ironic thing is that at first I wasn't keen on him. I liked the partner he had a few years ago better. Dr. A was quick to cancel cycles (or threaten to cancel them) and was in my opinion too conservative in picking doses of meds when I was doing inj/iui. Plus when he did my first iui it was extremely painful whereas it didn't hurt much at all when his partner Dr. W did it. Dr. A was the one who supervised my two ivf cycles. He did the first and third transfers (he didn't do Nadia's transfer). Obviously my feelings changed along the way! I was his patient from 2004-2009. I was a patient of seven RE's from 2003-2009 (just two clinics), and I have to say in the end he was my favorite. We went from hand shakes to hugs, and he was always doting on Nadia during my second ivf cycle. I feel sad knowing that if I'm at the hospital for some other reason I can't drop by and say hi to him and show him Ian and Nadia any more. He's worked very hard and is well deserving of retirement. I am grateful for the part he played in the Lord bringing us our children.

Prior to his 4 month doctor appt Ian was regularly sleeping 6-9 hours the first stretch. For some reason after we started supplementing he started waking up more often. For awhile he was getting up twice - once around midnight and once around 4am. I wasn't thrilled with that especially since he was often up for 90 minutes the first time he got up. On our vacation he started getting up even more often. He'd usually sleep 3 hours the first stretch and then have two 2 hour stretches and then one less than 1 hour. He was getting at the most 8 hours of sleep. I thought maybe it was because he was napping too much in the day since he enjoyed sleeping in my mom's arms more than in the Nap Nanny. On Saturday and Sunday none of his naps were really long. In fact all of them were less than 45 minutes with the exception of the one he took while I was mowing on Saturday. I was very disappointed that his sleep pattern remained the same on Saturday and Sunday night. In fact on Sunday night I did let him cry for about 30 minutes one time as I thought maybe I needed to let him CIO to get him to stop waking up so frequently. I realize that getting him after 30 minutes of crying is not a good move. Either I need to get him right away or let him cry himself to sleep. For whatever reason I am having a really hard time doing CIO with Ian.

Thankfully last night was a better night. His first stretch was 5 hours long. WOOHOO! His second was 2.5 hours long. I honestly was happy that it was 30 minutes longer than usual. I'm hoping he keeps going in the right direction because I haven't been going to bed right after putting him down. Last night for example he went down at 7:40 and I went to bed at 8:40. So if he had only gotten his usual 8 hours last night, I would have gotten less than 7. Sunday night I went to bed almost 2 hours after I put him down so I never got an even 2 hour stretch of being in bed. I hope he'll quickly get back to getting up only once during the night like he was a couple of months ago. I know he's not really hungry during the night as he's not even wanting any bottle after I nurse him until after 4am. The feedings earlier than that are just of Mommy milk. The one good thing is that at least lately he hasn't been staying up longer than 30 minutes each time he gets up. I think the fact that he nurses better during the night than he does during the day is part of the reason I've had a hard time moving to CIO. I think I'm afraid that doing so might bring an end to nursing, and my (revised) goal has been to make it at least until he turns 6 months old. I do think we will achieve that goal!

Last night I was up with Ian from 12:45-1:15am and 3:45-4:45am. Ian went down at 7:40pm and got up at 6:25am. That was definitely the best night he's had in quite awhile as for a few weeks he's only been getting a total of 8 hours of sleep and last night he got a little over 9 hours. I could have gotten 8 hours of sleep if Nadia hadn't gotten up at 5:15. This means from 3:45 onward I got less than 30 minutes of sleep as I didn't fall asleep immediately after putting him back down at 4:45. Mommy can't seem to catch a break!!

SUCCESS!!

I took Nadia for professional pictures the end of October 2008 (age 4 months) at Walmart and the end of November (age 5 months) at Sears and neither time did we get a single picture of her smiling even though it was pretty easy to get her to smile at home at that time. The first professional pictures that she smiled for were in the middle of February 2009 (age 7.5 months) at Sears. Ian's pictures have been taken twice so far at Sears - both in February. The second trip in February was just to get shots of the two of them together. Well Ian smiled for Karen at Sears today at the age of 5 1/2 months old! Way to go Ian (and Karen)!! Unfortunately I found out today that Karen is switching to another Sears. This Sears is 15 minutes from our home, and the one she's switching to is 35 minutes away. I will have to decide over the next month whether to have Karen take Nadia's 2 year pictures or whether to try Leah (whom Karen recommended at the closer store). I'm thinking I'll try Leah and if I don't think she's as good as Karen, we'll make the trek to the farther store to see Karen for future appointments.

Because Ian smiled it was hard to pick between the 8 poses! I got one sheet of four of the poses - two 5x7's, eight wallets, one 8x10, and one 10x13. I'll probably buy the extra $25 package that they usually offer when you pick up your prints. I used a Sears gift card so it didn't really cost me anything although my total wasn't too bad ($25.42). The pictures in this post are the ones that I did select. I'll use the other pictures in another post so that you can see all eight poses that I was choosing between. This outfit was one that Grandma Kennedy bought for Ian. I had brought along a spare outfit just in case he spit up on this one, but thankfully I didn't need to change his clothes. I know I will get a lot of delight out of looking at these pictures in our home and in my office at work.

23 Months Old!

Nadia is exactly one month away from turning two years old. If you ask her how old she is, she says "three." That's because three is currently her favorite number, if you ask her any question that involves a number for an answer, three is what she says. Her favorite color is yellow at the moment; it used to be green. If you ask her any color question, the answer will be "yellow." I am glad she's not already turning three. She's growing up fast enough as it is!

She's now usually talking in sentences or phrases rather than just words. Her vocabulary continues to grow grow grow! Thankfully she's gotten back on track with sleeping in later in the morning. In fact this morning she got up the latest she has ever gotten up over the past 23 months - 8:45am! WOW! I am not expecting her to regularly sleep in anywhere near that long, but I am thankful she's not getting up at 5:15 these days. I am not sure why she got up early in Florida, but I'm glad she's back on a better schedule. She's gotten really good at catching a ball that is thrown to her. She can also throw and kick a ball although she does a better job of catching. She still loves doing puzzles, playing in her sandbox, going down slides, swinging, running, singing, coloring, watching VeggieTales or Curious George, playing with play-doh, and playing rough house. I took this short video of her singing Twinkle, Twinkle this morning. I want to make more videos of her singing other songs in the very near future. She usually sings more words and louder than she did in this one, but I figured this one was good enough to share. :-)

Skills that I want to work with her on over the next month include transitioning away from a sippy cup, drinking more water (and less milk), potty training, sharing toys with Ian, and her self-feeding skills.

Two Weeks

The kids and I were away from home for a full two weeks. Let me say there was a lot of packing involved! First I had to pack everything up here in PA in preparation for driving down to MD on 5/9. Then we did more packing once Paul arrived in MD on 5/13 in preparation for our flight to FL on 5/14. We were packing again on 5/21 in preparation to fly back to MD, and packing one last time on 5/22 to leave for PA. We got most of the unpacking done yesterday. My mom helped out by doing 3 loads of laundry on Friday night. I only had one small load to do yesterday once we got home. The clothes don't know what hit them as my mom also did some ironing on Friday night. I'd guess that my mom does more ironing in one week than I probably do in about four years.

Since kids change so quickly at these ages, here are some developments over the past two weeks. Ian gained almost 2 lbs while we were away. He weighed 14lb 1oz yesterday. The sudden weight change has been hard on my back. When we left Ian would occasionally bat at a toy when he was in the gym or his bouncer. Now he very purposefully grabs them and plays with them vigorously. He had a blast in his bouncer yesterday. Nadia never had so much fun with it when she was this age. He also will hold various toys and pass them back and forth between his hands - also something he wasn't doing 2 weeks ago. He lost a lot more hair. The new hair is blond. I doubt it will be permanent (since Paul and I were both blonde when we were young), but for a while I am going to have two blonde haired, blue eyed children. I am not keen on the hair falling out stage that babies go through, but at least it's only temporary. Ian laughs a lot more these days. It was so funny to watch when my dad would "scare" him on vacation. Ian would jump when he was startled and then burst into laughter. It was adorable! He learned how to roll over in the last two weeks, and yesterday learned to sleep in his crib on his back. Bye bye, Nap Nanny! The new skills I hope he learns in the very near future are to sleep more at night (he's been getting up every 2 hours or less lately) and how to eat solid foods.

Nadia's growth hasn't been as dramatic over the past two weeks. She learned how to use a straw. She learned new words and is using sentences more often. She really cracks us up sometimes! Yesterday when she was about to go play with Daddy's shoes (put them on her feet and walk around with them) she said "Okay I'm coming, shoes." Wasn't that nice of her to give Daddy's shoes an advanced warning or her impending arrival, LOL? Once in the swimming pool she said to a bird that was on the edge of the pool, "Hi birdie, how are you?" Her friendliness is not limited to her interactions with people. :-) The biggest change in Nadia over the past 2 weeks has been with her singing. She now sings some of the lyrics to quite a few songs including Twinkle, Twinkle (she sings "how I wonder what you are" very clearly for example), the alphabet song, the VeggieTale theme song, and her current favorite, BINGO. We sing many variations on BINGO, and one of those includes her name. She says "DIA" when we're spelling out her name. I think in the near future she'll be able to spell her name! I felt better about her VeggieTale addiction when I overheard her singing the words "love your neighbor" while she was watching a DVD in Florida.

Road trips

Some people enjoy road trips. I am not one of them. When I was young I didn't mind them. My opinion changed when I began to get motion sickness if I read in the car. I was a MAJOR bookworm as a child so most any activity was fine with me if I could read while doing it. Sitting in the car became boring to me when I wasn't able to read, and it became physically painful if I sat too far back in a vehicle. Once I became old enough to drive road trips became slightly more interesting as at least I had something to do (drive). However I still was of the mentality of "let's get this over as quickly as possible." When I was driving to college (Maryland to Ohio), my goal was to make the 8 hour trip without any stops if at all possible. If I filled my Tercel's tank up right before I left, didn't drink anything with my breakfast, and brought some snacks, I could usually make it. We took a wide variety of family vacations. I preferred the ones that involved spending the entire time at one location versus those that involved driving hundreds (seemingly thousands) of miles after we flew to our destination. This preference of mine has meant that my owning a time share has worked out well as Paul and I usually have stayed in one place for many of our vacations. The biggest exception would be our trip to Italy. (Note: this first picture was taken on the shuttle bus we rode after we returned our minivan to Alamo)

My dislike of road trips has greatly increased over the past almost 2 years since long periods of crying are usually involved. I know some babies fall asleep when they are in their car seats. Nadia wasn't like that the first few months of her life. There was a period of several months where if we traveled at night she would sleep the whole trip. That doesn't work any more for her. Lately she can endure an about 3 hour drive with minimal crying if she watches VeggieTale DVD's, eats snacks, and takes an about one hour nap. Note: This photo was taken in my mom's minivan as we were leaving the children's museum last night. Nadia initiated holding Ian's hand. What a sweet moment!!

Up until today, Ian has been a great traveler. The longest he ever cried in the car was 18 minutes (coming home from Grandma and Pop Pop's house). Most of the time he doesn't cry at all or cries at the most 5 minutes. Prior to today, he had been with me for four trips that were at least 3 hours long and he often cried a total of 15 minutes the entire trip. Excellent! Last night was a very bad night so I decided to leave Maryland this morning after Ian had been up for 2 1/2 hours in the hopes that he'd take a long morning nap on the way home. He did fall asleep soon after we left, but he only slept for 30 minutes and then he cried and cried and cried. After about 30 minutes of crying, I stopped at a McD's just over the PA border to give Ian some milk and change his diaper. This break took about 20 minutes. He then fell asleep for another 30 minutes and then screamed for another 30 minutes until I stopped at a gas station and nursed him in the parking lot. This break took about 40 minutes. He cried until he fell asleep about 15 minutes from home. Altogether, he cried about 2 hours over a span of 4.25 hours. He only slept 1.25 hours between the hours of 5:50am and 12:40pm. He's never cried 2 hours in one day. It was very hard on me emotionally and physically. I am hoping that the next time we take this long of a trip (probably in the fall) that it goes much better.

The kids did really well on the flight from PBI to BWI. Nadia slept on Paul for about 1 hr 20 minutes. The flight wasn't full (like it was on the way down last week) so Nadia was able to sit in her own seat for part of the time. An elderly man came up to Paul and I as we were leaving the airplane and said what good parents we are and how good our children are. That was music to our ears! He might not have said that had he seen the melt down both of them had in the van on the way to the Children's Museum a few minutes later, LOL.

Tonight is Ian's first night sleeping in his crib without a Nap Nanny. When we first got home I mowed the lawn while he napped in the Snugli. His next nap was in the crib. I think that transition is going to go very smoothly. I might be selling the Nap Nanny on eBay in the near future. I didn't attempt this transition earlier because I would have needed a second pack n' play. Hopefully tonight will be a better night as Mommy needs more sleep!

Florida Recap

May 14 we got up at 5:30am so that we could be in the van by 6:15 to drive to BWI for our flight to West Palm Beach, Florida. Our flight was slightly delayed due to fog. After we gathered up our luggage (which wasn't an easy task as we had 4 adults trying to push Nadia in a stroller and carry 1 baby, 2 car seats, 3 large suitcases, 3 small suitcases, and our carry-on bags), we picked up our minivan from Alamo. We stopped at Wendy's for lunch and arrived at our resort on Hutchinson Island around 2pm. We headed straight for the swimming pools. There was one large pool (3-5 ft deep), one small wading pool (1 ft deep), and a jacuzzi (3 ft deep). We spent some time at the pools and/or beach every day except for Monday. On Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday we made two swimming trips a day - once in the morning after Ian woke up from his first nap and once in the afternoon after Nadia got up from her only nap. Most of the days one of the trips was to the beach and the other was to the pools. Most of the days I was the only adult who made both trips. My mom only joined us a couple of times. Except for Wednesday when he worked all day and Thursday when he did both trips, Paul did one of the two trips each day. My dad did one trip a day.

The only day the weather interfered was on Monday afternoon, which is why we didn't go to the pool or beach that day. That was the only time it rained during our seven days here. The weather was in the 80's every day. It was beautiful! I wouldn't want to live in this warm of a climate (although I wouldn't mind living farther south than PA), but I do really enjoy visiting places that are this warm for beach vacations!! It was much cooler this past week in MD and PA, but thankfully it's warming back up so hopefully we won't be in for a rude awakening in terms of the temperatures when we return today.

Aside from Saturday when we had lunch at a restaurant at another beach that was about 5 minutes from our resort, we ate lunch in our suite every day. We ate breakfast in our suite all seven mornings. That's one of the advantages of staying in a resort suite rather than a traditional hotel room. Our suite had a full-size refrigerator/freezer, dishwasher, stovetop/oven, microwave, blender, toaster, dishes, silverware, glassware, etc. In fact the kitchen had two amenities I don't have at home - an ice maker and garbage disposal! There were two stools at the breakfast bar and six chairs around the dining room table. All of us had a delicious filet mignon dinner at Walter's home on Friday night. Saturday night we ate a restaurant along the river. Sunday night my parents had dinner at Walter's home while we had pizza delivered to our suite. Monday night we went to Cracker Barrell (my dad's choice). Tuesday we grilled burgers here at the resort. It was lovely to eat our dinner while looking at the ocean. Wednesday we ate leftovers in our suite, and Thursday everyone except Ian & I went out to eat. Nadia had her face painted at the restaurant and got a dog shaped balloon.

We had planned on going to four places during our stay. Due to Paul's schoolwork, we only did three of them. On Saturday (our first full day here), Paul, Walter, and my dad went to a military museum. Had I known that he was going to be too busy to keep doing things with us later in the week, I would have scratched that museum from our itinerary as it was very small (only open on Saturdays) so that Paul could have gone to the much bigger Navy Seal museum (open seven days a week). Oh well. On Monday Walter, Aunt Janet, my Mom, and I took Nadia and Ian to a Children's Museum. Nadia enjoyed that very much as well as playing in the interactive water fountains outside. On Wednesday morning we went to the Oceanographic Center. Aunt Janet and my Dad fed some sting rays.

While Nadia took her afternoon nap, we played games some days. I won two games of Power Yahtzee, one game of regular Yahtzee, and one game of Boggle. My dad won one game of Racko. My Aunt Janet won one game of Power Yahtzee (I didn't play that time) and one game of Racko. My mom joined us for one game of Racko, and Walter played two of the games of Power Yahtzee. The other games it was just my Dad, my Aunt, and myself. Paul didn't play any of these games with us, but he did play one game of billiards, one game of chess, two games of Backgammon, and one game of Yahtzee with my Dad. Paul won three of the games, and my Dad won the two Backgammon games.

We'll be checking out around 10am from our resort and heading back to the airport to return the minivan and eat lunch before flying back to Baltimore. We're meeting my sister and her kids at the Port Discovery children's museum at 4pm as the entrance fee is usually $12.95 per person (ages 2 and up), but tonight Target is sponsoring a Family Fun Night so it's only $2 per person. We'll spend the night with my parents and then drive back to PA tomorrow. It will be nice to spend some time with my sister and her family tonight as we might not see them again for two more years.

Lessons Learned in Florida

1. The playgrounds in Florida (at least in this area) have sand as their protective surface. I prefer the mulch that we're accustomed to because it's not nearly as messy and isn't full of anthills.

2. Nadia likes collecting rocks on the beach but not shells until the end of the vacation. I was expecting her love of rocks to immediately spill over to a love of shells. I was wrong. The good news is that it means this isn't an advantage of going to a beach in the US. I prefer the beaches in the Caribbean, and they don't usually have shells.

3. Nadia prefers swimming in the pool. I expect this is true for almost all 22 month old children. The ocean is definitely a scarier place due to the waves.

4. The flotation device we bought for Nadia wasn't appropriate for her. She's not advanced enough in her swimming skills to stay afloat with it on. Last year in Antigua she enjoyed this one, but Ian isn't big enough for that one quite yet, and Nadia wants more action than just floating in a "boat." What proved to be the best for her was an inner tube that belonged to the resort. She can kick and swim all around the pool by herself (with close supervision of course!) in an inner tube.

5. If you travel with Ian and Nadia, you will be up a couple of hours before the sun every morning. If I were a better photographer, I am sure I could have gotten some amazing pictures as we had a great eastern view of the ocean. Usually in the past I've tried to be up to see one sunrise on a beach vacation. This is the first time I've witnessed the event seven mornings in a row at the beach. The earliest my day started (meaning I never was back in bed after that time) was 4:15am and the latest was 5:40am.

6. Ian learned how to pass a toy back and forth between his two hands. He enjoyed playing with a rattle that was purchased for my brother 26 years ago.

7. Ian learned how to roll from his back to his belly. He had already rolled the other direction a few weeks ago. On Thursday morning (the day he would have turned 4 months old if he had come on his EDD) he rolled onto his belly and then right back on to his back proving he can now roll in both directions. Also, I have seen him roll from his back to his belly both by rolling to the right and to the left.

8. I've learned to pack an extra outfit for Ian in the diaper bag. This was never necessary for Nadia, but with Ian it comes in handy between his spit ups and leaky diapers. Ian outgrew size 1 diapers sooner than I anticipated. After having several leaky diapers (even though I was changing them even more frequently), we purchased a pack of size 2 at Publix on Wednesday. I hadn't anticipated Ian would gain weight so very quickly over the past 4 weeks!

9. Going out to eat is much more difficult with a 5 month old and 22 month old than it was on our last vacation with a 10 month old. Paul and I discovered that eating out wasn't enjoyable. Sunday night we ordered in pizza. My parents had dinner with Janet and Walter and brought us home some pulled pork that we enjoyed eating for lunches on other days. Aside from eating at "home," the next best options are fast food or a buffet restaurant. My first reaction in the early part of this vacation was that we should wait a few years before attempting another vacation, but now I'm thinking we should still go on the cruise in January since we could eat at buffet restaurants all the time if we so desired. Ian will be 13 months old, and Nadia will be 30 months old at the time of the cruise. Have any of you gone on a cruise with kids those ages? We are planning on going on Norweigan because you can eat dinner whenever you want and don't have to get dressed up. I think that we've been wise to avoid taking the kids out to sit down restaurants the past 5 months. If we want to go out, we need to hire a babysitter and go on a date.

10. It was impossible to have a date with Paul. I knew we couldn't go on a day trip like we did last summer in Antigua (we went on a catamaran snorkeling trip) since I am still nursing Ian, but we had hoped to go on one dinner date. Well we'll just have to line up a babysitter so we can go on a dinner date in early June to celebrate the completion of Paul's comprehensive exams. There were three times when I did get 10 minutes alone with Paul - twice in the jacuzzi and once we walked together when I wanted a smoothie.

11. It's a bad idea to go on vacation a few weeks before your husband's comprehensive exams. When we booked this vacation, we didn't know exactly when he would be taking them OR that I would be teaching online courses the second summer session. We thought we only had a two week window in between my spring and summer sessions, plus we wanted to fly Nadia turned two since that's when we'll have to start buying her an airline ticket. Paul had been trying to schedule his oral defense for July 27, but the only date in June or July that was good for all four members of his committee was June 7. The good news is that the stress will be over sooner this way, but the bad news is that he was busy writing his two proposals during the trip. Usually on vacations we eat all three meals together. This is a treat because normally at home we don't eat any meals together (at least not M-F). We did eat some meals together on this trip, but there were days (such as Wednesday) where he didn't join us for any meals or any activities. It was hard to have him so close yet so far, particularly for Nadia. If something similar happens during our cruise, then I think we should just hold off on any more vacations until he finishes his doctorate.

12. It was harder to entertain Nadia in our suite than it was last summer. I think this will be easier in the future since Ian won't be taking as many naps as he does now. For future vacations I also think it would be wise for me to try to pick a resort that has a playground. I was very grateful that we brought some VeggieTale DVD's and CD's. We made good use of those. The Aquadoodle also was a hit. My mom took Nadia shopping in Maryland for her birthday presents, and we brought those to Florida so she'd have some new toys. The Aquadoodle was one of those gifts. Also my sister gave me How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague for my birthday, and this was Nadia's favorite book on our trip.

13. It's important to strap Ian into his Nap Nanny. I haven't usually done so because it often wakes him up if I have put him in there asleep. We've had it in his crib so we haven't worried about what might happen if he fell out (although he never fell out of it). In Florida we had it on the floor of the coat closet that was right beside the master bedroom. If he isn't strapped in, when you go to get him when he wakes up his body is completely horizontal (rather than vertical like it's supposed to be). I plan to transition him to sleeping in his crib when we get back (i.e. no more Nap Nanny). Of course his favorite way to sleep is still in someone's arms. He took several naps in Grandma's arms.("Nap Granny" LOL!) My mom was a huge help with caring for Ian in light of Paul sitting at my laptop working on schoolwork All Day Long. This trip would have been an utter diasaster if my parents hadn't come as I couldn't take both children to the pool or beach by myself.

14. I love playing board games. This is not a new revelation, but it was just something reinforced in my mind. Definitely one of the biggest highlights of the trip for me was playing games with my Aunt Janet and Dad. On Tuesday I won a game of Boggle, Yahtzee, and Power Yahtzee. My Aunt introduced us to Power Yahtzee for the first time. On Wednesday my Dad won a game of Racko. On Thursday I won a game of Power Yahtzee, and Janet won in Racko.We own many board games but very rarely get to use them. It's always a treat for me when we play games with my family or Paul's family. I look forward to playing board games with Nadia and Ian in the future!!!

15. Nadia learned that she loves hammocks and foot washers. The first few days she didn't enjoy the foot washer when I used it after we'd been at the beach. By the end of the trip she wanted to put her hands, feet, etc. under the little shower both before and after every trip to the beach or pool. LOL!

16. If you want a restful vacation, don't go on one until your baby is sleeping through the night. I was hoping for a little more sleep than usual, but I actually got less sleep than usual. Nadia hadn't gotten up before 6am since the switch to DST in March, but on vacation she was waking up around 5:15am most days (the earliest she woke up was 4:45am). Once in Maryland she even slept past 8am so it was a rude awakening for her to shift her wake up time so much. Her crib was in the master bedroom bathroom (no windows) so light wasn't the problem. However the bigger reason I felt exhausted during the trip was because of Ian. Lately a good night for him has been if he sleeps about 8 hours total over a 10-11 hour time span. He usually was getting up sometime around midnight and again around 4am. He had a few of those nights this past week, but he also had several nights where he was up 3-5 times during that same time span. For example last night he went down at 7:15 and was up at 10:30, 1:15, and 4:05. Since he is usually up at least one hour each time he wakes up, this means that many nights I never got more than 2 hours of sleep in a row (since I didn't fall asleep until Nadia fell asleep which was always after 8pm). I think it's time for CIO. I am not looking forward to hearing him scream, but Nadia was sleeping 12 hours straight by the time she turned 6 months old so I refuse to keep getting up every 2-3 hours for Ian when he's getting close to 6 months old. The Pediatrician at his 4 month appt said that at 4 months he should have one stretch that's at least 8 hours long. I'd love that. I need the sleep deprivation stage to be OVER.

17. On Thursday night, Nadia learned to drink from a straw! She was SOOO proud of herself for this accomplishment that when she succeeded she pumped both fists and exclaimed "I DID IT!" Way to go, Nadia! This is perfect timing as I was planning to work on transitioning her out of sippy cups in the near future as well as switching from 2% to skim milk and also getting her to drink more water as now she drinks milk 99% of the time.

18. I don't like king size beds. This is another reminder (not a new lesson learned). The bedroom my parents slept in had two twin size beds. My mom commented that she thinks it's the first time in their almost 41 years of marriage that they've slept in the same room yet different beds. Well in my opinion when you're in a king size bed it feels like you're in two different beds. I'm glad we have a queen size bed at home. There was a queen size sofa bed in the living room of our suite, but we all prefered to use the bedrooms rather than the sofa bed.

19. It's important to nurse regularly. At home my pattern (since we started supplementing more) has been to always nurse Ian before offering him a bottle, and when I'm away from him and he gets only a bottle, I pump. Early in the vacation Ian started to refuse to nurse, and I attributed it to the fact that many times he was being offered a bottle without having nursed first. This was happening because there were more people who could give him bottles and also because sometimes I was down in the pool with Nadia. He never refused me at night, and thankfully once I got back to nursing him more often during the day, he wasn't refuisng to nurse then either. Whew. I really was convinced nursing was coming to an end much sooner due to the vacation. I'm glad that didn't happen!

20. It's wise to stand in front of the buttons on the elevator so that your toddler doesn't push the "help" button. Yes, she pushed the button, and I found there was no way to cancel it. I had to wait until a person spoke to us to tell them my toddler pushed it. I think it was a poor design to place that button as the lowest one on the panel. It's asking those under 36 inches to push it since it's the only one they can reach!