September updates

I feel like there is so much that I should be blogging about, and I know I will forget somethings, but I am going to try to remember what I can. Georgie has been using a strong southern accent lately – it's hilarious! He will say they yes for this and they yet for that and really exaggerate his diphthongs really bad. It is so funny! Bay for a bath breakfast for breakfast and so many others. They yell first bell. Anyway, I have to control myself so I don't start laughing. His stuttering comes and goes, as well as the southern accent. He'll go days and even weeks without doing it, and then one day one of them will pop up out of nowhere and he'll do it for a few days. On a different note, not really relating to the kids, we have been looking at lots of houses over the last few months. I am really starting to think that we should just build, as we can't really find exactly what we want, and this will be the kids is growing up house. If we do decide to do that, the issue will be finding a lot to build on. Anyway lots more I could say on that but I will leave it at that. Greta sleeps through the night inconsistently. If she's overtired she will wake up in the night. It is getting exhausting. I have to say that even though this is probably my favorite stage of life so far, it is also probably the most difficult stage so far. I am absolutely exhausted almost every day, and my nerves wear thin all the time. It is a good practice in self-control, which I am trying to teach Georgie. That, and all the fruits of the Spirit. He whines a lot, or will throw a temper tantrum. He has gotten to be quite Mr. independent, and will really be stubborn if he doesn't get what he wants. Sometimes we have to lay down the law, or tell him that he can't always have what he wants, and it is really really hard on him. He is definitely not one of those kids that can just let it go. But he is growing into such a wonderful smart sweet little boy, with the wheels turning every day. We have a tradition where we talk about our day and everything we did that day, at night right before he goes to sleep. Our bedtime routine right now is: I get Grettas pajamas and sleep sack on, and George gets Georgie's pajamas on, and we all brush teeth together sometimes. Although sometimes I'm faster with Greta then he is with Georgie. And Greta is very quick to brush her teeth because she only has two! But we are really trying to get in the habit of brushing her teeth early, since we did not do that with Georgie, and it was an incredible struggle getting him to start brushing his teeth. So she will just be growing up always brushing her teeth, and it shouldn't be as big of a deal. I am about ready to pull my hair out at the fact that Greta still only has two teeth, for like 4 1/2 months now. Teething was never this grueling with Georgie, and she has a constant runny nose lately and I'm pretty sure a low grade fever as well, and is just fussy almost all the time. She does the screeching noise that is so completely annoying, and she is the worst with fussiness in the morning, when George and I are so completely exhausted from never getting enough sleep. It weighs on my every nerve, and I have really had to develop a strong tolerance for it. She was a pretty easy-going happy baby, but it seems like a couple months before her first birthday she started getting almost colicky – okay maybe not that bad – but still just really edgy and fussy and opinionated all the time, and I think it is directly related to the fact that she hasn't gotten any more teeth. For some reason, her teeth are just not wanting to come through. I think some of it might be that she eats most all foods now, and not purées ever, and so her gums are just really tough. I expect her to get a whole mouthful of teeth soon, and at that point I am absolutely praying that her personality will calm down a little bit. It is just a trying time. Those issues, coupled with the sleep deprivation, and it makes life pretty hard right now. But I still love it. And I know I will miss it, as hard as it is. There are lots of times when I burst out in anger or frustration because I feel like things should be getting easier, since we are well beyond the newborn stage, but they just really aren't getting easier. Georgie is a really early riser – well, usually between 615 and 645, which doesn't sound horrible, but when we don't sleep very good as it is, and Greta sometimes still wakes up in the night and interrupts my sleep cycles, it is grueling. It is definitely making me question having more kids, with which George would be fine with. We are still undecided on that, but we will see. I really do go back-and-forth every single day, and I just hope that God will reveal to us what we should do. Right now our focus is on getting into a bigger house, as that's where some of our stress is derived from. It's pretty stressful having Georgie's room be right on the other side of our bathroom, which we all share, and he insists on keeping his door cracked open – meaning the bathroom door. So we have to be so quiet when we go to the bathroom, so as to not wake him up, and we can't go in the bathroom, or shouldn't if we want him to fall asleep, about an hour before he actually falls asleep at night, because it re-energizes him if he sees and hears us. Also, there have been many times when two of us needed to go to the bathroom at the same time, especially since George he is potty trained now. We just really need another bathroom – and our own bathroom preferably, where we can have more privacy. Also, Greta is still sleeping at night in the playroom in a pack and play, right behind the door of our bedroom into the playroom. I think that's a little hard to, because she can probably hear George snoring sometimes, and that room is brighter, so I think she wakes up earlier sometimes. Also, she can hear us, and pretty much as soon as George he wakes up and comes in our room and makes noise inevitably, she wakes up soon after because she can hear us. So it affects her sleep too. And I think she also just knows that mommy is so close, so she has more inclined to cry out in the night because she knows I'm right behind the door. We are just ready for them to have their own bedrooms, a little bit further away from ours. Another big issue is having the kitchen right next to the nursery. Between three naps a day between the two kids, there is not very much time that I have in the kitchen where I can be loud and making noise. And most things in the kitchen are fairly loud – either cooking or unloading the dishwasher or cleaning etc. so I feel like I don't have free range of my kitchen for a lot of the day. For that reason, it is often dirty and unkempt. It's not even so much a square footage issue, as it is a floor plan layout issue. We are just so ready to have something bigger. Georgie has been doing better this year with Thursday Bible school. He's been for three times now, and I've been staying with him for a few minutes before leaving him there, and helping him to get ease into it. We try to the Toughlove thing last year where we left and let them work it out, but it never worked for him. The teachers would call us like an hour later because he just wouldn't calm down. So I think this technique is working better. I pray for him on the way there and sometimes the night before, out loud with him, and also we got a book Daniel Tigers neighborhood about Daniel going to school. And I talk to him about being big and brave and choosing to have a good attitude, and being a good friend so he has good friends, and this last time he even looked up at me only about five minutes after getting there, and said bye mommy and waved. It was so glorious! I have been the one to take him, because I think I'm a little tougher than daddy. And I think part of the issue with daddy taking him was that he knew daddy was off and just wanted to hang out with him. :( so it helps if I am the one to take him, and daddy picks him up. Also, I told him that he didn't have to go the day that the fire truck comes, because I think that might have been what triggered his peers last year. It's funny because he loves firetrucks and firemen, but he's also afraid of them, and whenever we see one up close like at an event, he does not want to go in it or get that close to it. It's like he's fascinated and scared at the same time. He's kind of like that with other things too. Back to bedtime routine, after I brush his teeth, I put her on our bed and read her a book, and then ice seeing the mom is going to buy you a mockingbird song, but with the words that were on the blanket that lavelle Burson made for Georgie. Then I sing away in a manger, all three verses and lay her down. She is really good at self soothing, which is nice. They enjoyed it continues with putting Georgie down, and reach him two or three books, and then they pray, and then I get ready for bed while they're doing that, and then I go into his room and talk about his day with him after that. It is the highlight of his night, and he loves it. I consider it a memory exercise for me too! Sometimes he'll want to talk about Charlie's day, and so I'll basically talk about his day by inserting Charlie and Gretel and that imaginary world into it. As far as books, I usually read Greta the going to bed book by Sandra Boynton, or Chicka Chicka boom boom, or good night Moon. I just started this thing where after we finish good night Moon, we walk around my room and say good night to various objects. I don't know why I didn't think to do that sooner – it's brilliant, and it helps teach her the names of things. She likes it! Greta has been getting so much more attuned to the world around her, very quickly, and is becoming more manipulative and realizing she has control and choices. It's kind of been snowballing. It is really fun and exciting, although she is definitely learning how to push our buttons. She often times will throw her water bottle or milk cup onto the floor, knowing that she shouldn't, and sometimes she will even start laughing if we get mad at her because she likes to get a rise out of us. Dirty has been really sweet overall with her, and I do think he really loves her. She is getting closer and closer to walking – cruising along all furniture, and having great control with lowering and standing herself up. The last few days she's been playing in the sandbox with Georgie, driving tractors around. She really likes it, and will get to experience boy toys much more than I ever did. She was crawling around the grass, and also getting into the little car and George he was pushing her in it. She's getting to be such a big girl. She even was sitting on the roller coaster and I could pretty much let her go down without really holding her – she can balance herself pretty good now. And she is just so pretty and cute. Her hair is that an awkward length where it sticks up pretty bad, and is constantly getting in her eyes and her nose – and when her nose is running it will stick to her brothers and just be over her eyes for a while. I've kind of given up on it, although when I have time I put it in a ponytail so it stays out of her face. She's getting quite the long sprout on top of her head. In the last few months she's gotten a birthmark on her back, it's very small but I think it is there to stay. Not a big deal, just something worth noting. She also is still eating so much, and yet she was still not even quite 16 pounds at her one-year appointment (which was almost 13 months). She really is a lightweight, despite how much she eats. When she wakes up in the morning and is so so fussy, it does usually help after we feed her. And then she gets a little better after her morning nap. I'm wondering if for some reason her teeth start hurting more in The night from being horizontal for so long? On a different note, back to the stress of this season, sometimes it gets so bad that I feel like I am verging on depression, which is so unlike me. But it has just been really hard lately. For George to. And he has so much going on with the bike store and everything, and our rentals that he gets pretty stressed out too. Greta seems to be getting more and more picky with food – pickier than Georgie ever was. She definitely seems to just preferred fruit and bread. I know there is more I need to say, but I need to go now, so I will try to do more later.



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