- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gretta teeth

So I forgot to talk about that Gretta got more teeth! Finally finally finally! The same day that she took her first steps, October 2, she broke through her third tooth – that is, her first tooth in FIVE MONTHS!!! It was not a top front tooth, but a top right tooth. It was the tooth to the right of the front right tooth, if that makes sense. So she still has not broken through her top front two teeth, but I think they're coming really soon. As of just a few days ago, I'm pretty sure she finally broke through the corresponding left top tooth – that is, the tooth to the left of her left very front tooth. That one has not broken through very much but just a tiny bit. It's hard to get in there and feel it or look around without her being such a wiggle worm. But pretty sure that her front two teeth on the top will be the next ones to come in, and hopefully within the next couple weeks. I do feel like there has been a difference in her irritability in general, and I think she is really feeling some relief from the teeth breaking through, and not being so fussy. So excited!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thursday Bible school

Georgie has been doing so good with Thursday Bible school this year. He's been so brave, and I'm so proud of him. I started praying with him on the way to school every day, as well as just talking about being a friend to make friends, and being a big boy and sometimes doing things he doesn't want to do. He still doesn't love it, but he goes, and I think it's so good for him. We also got him the Daniel Tiger goes to school book, and I think that helped him a lot because he loves Daniel Tiger!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gretta walking!

On October 3 Greta took her first steps. She of course did it when I wasn't home even though I'm with her 95% of the time – she did it when I was at a girls night with Mops, for George at home. She was just doing a few steps at a time and over the last couple weeks she has done more and more. She would really only do it with coaxing until a couple days ago, and just as of about Wednesday the 15th, she just kind of started to prefer walking over crawling. But she still in the very wobbly insecure stage, where she'll walk for a few steps and then fall and crawl. But it does seem like as of a couple days ago, she is starting to realize how cool and fun walking is, and is seeming to like it more and more every day now. It's so funny that she started walking around 14 months because that's when Georgie and Leon he started walking, even though George he called for five months and Leon he crawled for four months, Greta only called for about three months before she started walking. So funny that all our kids walked around the exact same age. Greta is also obsessed with cheese it is like her favorite food. She says it cheese – it doesn't quite sound like the word cheese, but she's definitely saying cheese. It's hard to explain how she says it! Basically she gets that E Val. I also put her hair in pigtails for the first time a couple weeks ago, and is so-so so cute. It makes her look like such a big girl. I also have done to low pigtails, and that is really cute too. She doesn't really like for me to take the time to do it, so I don't do it very often, but when I do it's super cute. She's still doing two naps – the first one has been a little bit later - pushing 10 o'clock-ish, and the second one around 3 o'clock-ish, give or take. It's been nice that her nap has been pushing slightly later in the morning, because I think we need to start thinking about dropping that nap or at least pushing it later and later. A lot of kids drop one of their naps by 18 months, so she has four months to start weaning a nap. Although, Georgie didn't mean to one nap completely until he was almost too I think, so who knows – they're all different! She definitely has a strong little personality – she really likes to squeal and scream and shout out loud even when she knows she shouldn't, and she likes to harshly throw objects on the ground. She thinks it's really funny. She also is very obsessed with her Binky, which is worrying me a little bit, as she seems to be even more attached to it than George he was. Which is ironic because she didn't really love it that much when we first gave it to her when she was a newborn.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gretta discipline and words

Greta is getting so many words – it is just absolutely crazy! If it is even a somewhat pronounceable word, I ask her to say it, and she almost can repeat me with almost every word I try with her. She is literally picking up a new word almost every day right now, which I think is pretty incredible for a almost 14-month-old. She now says mama, data, Bubba, Wawa, uh-oh, I, and she just started sort of saying cheese, Dee, yeah, baby, and I know there are a couple more that I can't remember. It's so cute – in the mornings when she wakes up I just hear her saying over and over again behind the door in the playroom in her pack and play, mom mom mama mama, over and over again. It's so precious. She is really turning out to be quite a mommy's girl. She wants me almost all the time, which is awesome and a little bit tiring sometimes. We've had to start doing some little timeouts with her where we turn the high chair around so she can't see us, because she's been throwing food on the ground, as well as her milk cup or water bottle. And it's so funny because she'll look a straight in the eye and put it over the ground and then just drop it, very knowingly. We've also started doing flicking her hands. It's kind of cute because she'll have a delayed response, she'll just look at us after we flipped him for about five seconds scowling, and then she'll burst into tears. It's sad, but it's kind of funny too. It's like she can't believe that we just discipline her for doing that!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

August updates

Georgie is really cute and is a really good talker, but he is starting to say some things grammatically wrong – like mixed up it, instead of mix it up. I can't think of others right now but some of them are really cute! Greta is still sleeping in the front room and occasionally napping in there too, although pretty consistently their naps are alternating right now which is fairly difficult for me. I don't have very much time to do quiet time because I'm never alone. Greta is crawling fast and furious everywhere, sometimes she'll crab crawl – usually if she's on a hardwood floor. If she's on carpet or a rug, she will often times do a regular call. Also, right when she started crawling she pretty much immediately started pulling up on furniture and now she is pretty pretty fission at walking along furniture sideways like the coffee table. She has become so much more aware and conscious of us lately. She is definitely developing a conscience and starting to give me more complicated looks like she really does understand what I'm saying. She is still doing two naps a day – her first one is usually about 2 1/2 hours after she wakes up in the morning, which is usually between 630 and 715. Then she'll do her second afternoon nap about 3 1/2 to 4 hours after her morning nap. Then she usually goes to bed some Time between 745 and 815 realistically. I aim for 730 or 745 though! Dirty usually goes down around the same time, maybe a little later, but he pretty much has been laying in his bed talking or getting in and out of bed or saying he has to go to the bathroom or Poopoo etc. for usually at least an hour before he actually falls sleep. I think that he possibly could drop his nap, if we were to put him to bed really early if he could get used to it. Although I'm just not sure because some days I just think there is no way that he could not nap and make it the whole day. But if we were consistently putting him down to bed earlier, it could work. But I just really need that time when he naps even though Gretta's awake. I'm thinking when the days start getting shorter and darker earlier we might attempt to remove his nap and put him to bed earlier, and then maybe we could put them to bed in the same room at the same time. But right now it's nice because we can keep him up a little later and even though the days are starting to get shorter, it still stays light fairly late. So it works right now.

Regarding food, Greta doesn't seem to love meat. It's so funny – I have tried many many times as I do with all foods very determined to make her like them – but she just doesn't seem to acquire a taste for meat. If it's puréed I can sometimes mix it in with vegetables that are puréed and she'll eat it, but she just doesn't seem to like the taste of chicken or beef – I think it's the texture too. She loves cheese, and I feed her a lot of 100% whole wheat bread, and she likes eggs for breakfast. We all eat eggs for breakfast scrambled, as well as toast or just bred for her, and then usually some kind of fruit. It's been so nice for the last month and a half because I haven't bought baby food – I finally realized (duh) that I could give her whatever we are eating, just in very very small bites. And since she's over a year now she can have pretty much anything. I don't think she has any allergies that we are aware of. I've been trying to give her some cold milk in her new Lola cup, and we couldn't decide between almond milk or cows milk, so we bought both and we kind of alternate which one we get her. And sometimes I will mix in like half breast breast milk with almond milk or half breastmilk with cows milk. I still have quite a few bags of pumped milk from the last six months, and I'd like to go ahead and give them to her and have her use them, because she can still benefit from my breast milk. Just as of the last few days I have more consistently dropped the mid day feeding because I was doing three feedings a day, but I just ran out of the don't baritone which I weaned off of very slowly, and so my supply has definitely been less. But since she is over a year now, I'm not stressed out – I am just slowly weaning her – very slowly though. As long as I'm producing some sort of milk, I'd like to give it to her. So now I'm just doing mornings and evenings, and eventually will probably only do mornings. But it's working fine. Oh – she also does not seem to like cold milk very well. She will drink it if she's hungry or sip on it if she's thirsty, but she definitely does not down it. I think she's going to be like Georgie – she just doesn't really like milk. And it's hard to tell if she has a preference between the cows or the almond milk. I think she might slightly prefer the almond milk because it's not as thick.
Back to sleep – she has been sleeping through the night for the last few nights, though she does seem to go through periods where she'll regress and start waking at an early morning hour – like around 5 AM – and so I'll just go ahead and feed her because it will calm her down and put her back to sleep, and then she'll sleep until her regular time usually. But even without doing anything she usually stops doing that after a few nights.

That's all I can think of right now – although I'm sure there's more things! Georgie, as usual has just been so cute and smart. He loves to saying it's raining it's pouring the old man is snoring and insert his name instead of old man. And he's obsessed with playing shark – we sit on the couch or the front porch swing and pretend like we're on the boat and we see sharks. It's hilarious because he is so entertained by it – he thinks it's so funny when I am getting eaten by a shark! Laugh out loud I also try to do Safari or camper or hot air balloon with him – pretend, that is – but he doesn't like it as much because I'm not getting injured! He loves the book we are going on a bear hunt, and many others too. He loves wearing his flip-flops because they're like mommies. He has been still doing so awesome with potty training, and never has accidents at all. He likes his undies that have the little hole in them or he can stick his pee pee out! He also will sometimes make us leave the room when he is going to, and I think it's because daddy stays in the bathroom by himself for a while when he goes to the bathroom – so Georgie thinks that he should sit on the potty for a while too. So so so cute! He likes to ride his tricycle around our house too. We do that when Greta is napping sometimes. He is also getting to have quite a bit of a sweet tooth like his mommy. He is starting to request dessert more often. Dang it! Whenever I bake, which is fairly often, too often, I let him help me – and he really likes it. Also, he is really loving gymnastics so much. It has seemed to grow on him more and more, and he likes his teacher Miss Peggy. She told us last week that he was ready to move up to the next class where parents aren't involved. This makes George and I both kind of sad, because we like going with him. But he probably should move up. Usually it's daddy's job to take him to gymnastics, because I have to stay home with Greta while she naps. Though sometimes it will work out to where we can all go if Greta does a really late nap.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone