2 year/3-4 month update

What an exciting title, right? Ha! Sometimes just keeping it simple so I know what the post is about when I want to look back at it years from now is the way to go :).

Wren turned 2 while we were in Florida on a family vacation for my aunt's 50th birthday.  I decided not to do a big shindig this year because we were out of town and I just had a baby, but she did get to blow out candles twice...she was turning 2 after all.

She is a sweet girl! Does she have her moments? Yes! Does she whine and pitch fits? Yes, but for the most part she is a sweet loving easy going kid.  She loves her 'broder.' She loves on him all the time and if he's crying she pats him and says, "It's ok broder. Don't cry."

Though she be but little, she will knock you down! Isn’t that how that famous quote goes? J

She bit Easton a couple of weekends ago when they were here visiting because he wouldn’t let her have something. We used to call her the silent assassin because she would instigate, but nobody saw it until the other kid fought back.  Easton has gotten in trouble more times than I can count because of things that Wren probably did to him that nobody ever saw. When she gets hit by another kid she doesn’t cry, she fights back.  That doesn’t mean she doesn’t cry when she gets hurt. If she falls down or hits her head she cries and wants someone to kiss it, but when it comes to toys and other kids she just stands her ground.  Shelley and I have decided the two of them need to work it out sometimes and we have stopped stepping in as often.

I think other girls around her same size intimidate her and she feels the need to dominate them.  On a daily basis she plays with her older boy cousin, Benjamin, so it seems she’s not as comfortable around girls or something.  It’s the strangest thing.  She pushes them down, pinches and just tries to run all over them.  It’s annoying and I’m sorry to you sweet little girls that my kid is so mean to. Sometimes she feels guilty for being mean and before I even ask she is saying, “I’m sorry” with a super pouty face and giving out hugs.  She really does have a sweet heart, but we just have to learn how to control her domineering side J.

Gary is pretty much in charge of bedtime with Wren.  We started that when I was pregnant because we knew that once the baby arrived I would probably be tending to his needs when it was time for bed.  That was one of the best things we could have done because it’s very rare that she calls out for me at night and if she does it’s usually just because she doesn’t want to go to bed.  She’s going to try to get the other one to save her from that J. We are pretty relaxed on bedtime and routine, which some people would revolt at the thought, but she’s usually in bed or at least laying down somewhere by 9:30. In the old house Gary got into a habit of watching Cars with her while they laid down, but now she doesn’t have a TV in her room so we got away from it.  However, just in the past few nights they have been laying down on the couch in the play room and watching Monsters Inc.  I have to say, it is pretty cute when I peek in there.  On the rare nights that I do lay down with her we say our prayers and then sing our night night song.  

"Night Night Wrennie.  Night Night Wrennie.  Night Night Wrennie.  It's time for you to rest."

I always rub her hair and face when I sing to her.  Then sometimes she wants to sing night night brother or night night horsey. When she starts getting tired she will start rubbing my face with her sweet little hands.  It’s pretty much the best feeling in the world!

Just about every night Wren’s little feet pitter patter down the hallway and into our room.  She always goes to Gary’s side and he lifts her up and puts her in the middle of us. Most of the time I don’t even notice she is in the bed until the next morning because she has gotten a lot easier to sleep with. That could be because I don’t have a huge pregnant belly for her to kick. I do wish she would stay in her bed all night, but for now I will enjoy that sweet face when I wake up next to her.

Her eating habits are still pretty good.  She goes through phases though, just like every kid.  One day she will love corn and the next she won’t even look at it.  One day all she wants to eat is cereal and ‘oakmilk’ (that’s oatmeal in case you couldn’t figure that one out J). The next day she devours a whole deer steak.  We just kind of go with it and make her a plate of what we’re having for dinner.  A lot of times she won’t be hungry at dinner time, but we will leave her plate on the table and she will come back intermittently to have a few bites while she’s playing.  She weighs about 23 pounds so she’s still pretty tiny.  Baby brother is going to catch up to her quickly!

She talks all the time and has started telling us stories. Not the lying kind of stories, but adventures that happen to her.  She will smack her lips together and say, “So ummm…the bunny was hopping.  And ummmm (smack lips again) daddy chased it.”  It’s kind of like a valley girl thing she’s got going on, but it’s super cute and she knows it J.

She started gymnastics a couple of weeks ago.  Her coach, Coach Ruth, is amazing at ETC. She is so patient with her and comes over and chats with me after class. Wren does pretty good for about 30 minutes and then she’s done.  Coach Ruth says that’s pretty normal at first, but she will get used to it.  She goes to gymnastics on Tuesday evenings so this past Tuesday when she woke up I said, “Wren do you know where you get to go tonight?”  She replied, excitedly, “BIBLE CLASS!!!” I felt bad when I had to bust her sweet bubble and tell her it was gymnastics!

Walking the balance beam and having a meltdown to hold me.

The girl loves Bible class! When she’s pretending to go bye bye it’s usually to go to Bible class.  If she ever does pretend she’s going to the store she’s going to buy Bible class when she gets there. She is in a bit of a clingy stage right now, though, so when we drop her off the teacher has to distract her while I sneak out. But she does fine and wants some fruit snacks as soon as class is over.

She will eat her weight in fruit snacks if I let her.  We can’t even buy them anymore because I got so tired of having to tell her she couldn’t have another pack after she’s eaten 5 in 20 minutes (ok that’s a little bit of an exaggeration) so church is the only place she gets them and she NEVER forgets!!  She starts chanting, “snacks snacks snacks” as soon as I pick her up and then when we start walking toward the nursery she squeals and squeezes my arm.  Sometimes she gets so excited that she pinches.

She loves to be chased.  Her and Gary will chase each other around the island in the kitchen and she just cackles the whole time. She runs on her toes and it’s the cutest thing. She says, “I gonna get you Daddy! I gonna get you!”

Singing is one of her favorite things to do as well.  She loves to learn new songs and sing her old favorites like Happy Birthday.  Sometimes we have to sing Happy Birthday to everyone in the family...it takes a while.

Her sweet Bible class teacher videoed her singing in class.

She loves “belly beltons” (belly buttons).  She thinks they're funny.  I, however, don't like belly buttons. For some reason they make me feel sick.  I don’t like for anyone to touch mine and it grosses me out to watch someone touch someone else’s. Gary thinks it’s hilarious to get Wren to touch his in front of me and then get her to chase me to touch mine. NOT FUNNY GARY!

Let's see, there's just so much about our sweet girl that I don't want to leave anything out.  When she wants to be held she says, "I wanna hold you." She claps her hands and reaches out like an adult would do a baby. Pigtails are a big part of our lives these days. In order for me to get her to sit still long enough for me to fix her hair I let her play in the sink in some bubbles. Every time I say let me fix your hair she automatically replies, "bubbles!" 

Ok so now for an update on our sweet boy.  Man is he cute!!  Those dimples.  That double chin. Those rolls.  I just can't get enough of him!

As stated in my previous post, he was hard to handle every once in a while in the beginning and even a few times in between, but we think it was reflux and he's pretty much grown out of it.

NOW...

He wakes up happy!

The only time he really gets upset is when he has a dirty or wet diaper or he's hungry.  Other than that he's a pretty laid back baby. Below is a video of his snort cry.  He has grown out of this, but I'm so glad that Jessica captured this one day when she and kids were over.

He likes to sit in his bouncy seat.  He kicks and kicks and laughs at the owl when it starts swinging.  

When he's in his car seat he loves for you to push the lion all the way around and when it starts swinging back and forth he just cackles and cackles everytime. Wren liked that one too.

He also loves his sister.  This was the first time he laughed more than once in a row.  So sweet!

When I found out I was pregnant I didn’t think twice about having 2 in cloth diapers.  I loved them with Wren!  Well, it got to be a little too much for me to handle. So I decided it would be easier to pull Wren out of cloth (fingers crossed she potty trains soon) and just try to do him. That hasn’t gone so great either! He leaks through them.  Does he pee more? Do I need to buy a certain brand? I knew all of the ones I had for Wren needed to be stripped, but it’s time consuming and time is one thing I don’t have a lot of. So, I followed the instructions from my cloth diapering group on how to prepare new diapers because I got a pretty good stash for just Thayer. Well, those are leaking too!!  I have to find the time to sit down and figure out what’s going on with these diapers, so stay tuned on the diaper front.

Pumping and feeding him while I was on maternity leave was not as easy as it was with Wren. When I was on maternity leave with Wren I had so much time! Time I didn’t realize I had. I could craft. I could pump. I could watch entire seasons of shows. Maternity leave with a toddler and a newborn consisted of nursing the newborn while fixing breakfast for the toddler. Lines were formed at the diaper changing table. Laying one down for a nap meant the other one was waking up from theirs. This blog (http://www.mommysmetime.com/to-the-mom-with-a-toddler-and-a-baby/) describes it perfectly! There was no down time. So the routine of pumping twice a day for 20 minutes wasn’t always accomplished. However, Thayer is an eater…you don’t say? He ate ALL. THE. TIME! Going back to work I was a little nervous that since I didn’t stick to the routine that my supply wouldn’t be as prosperous as it was with Wren.  Well, I was wrong.  Because he ate all the time my body supplied.  I consistently take home 42 ounces a day pumping at work and he eats anywhere from 18-30 ounces while we are apart, so we are doing good.

Sleep.  The one thing everyone asks you about and the one thing you hope nobody mentions.  I remember when Easton was little Shelley hated when people asked about how he was sleeping because as soon as she sang his amazing sleeping praises he wouldn’t sleep that night. It seemed the same thing happened with Wren so I got in the habit of saying, “We have our good nights and our bad nights.” With Thayer it seems like every night is a good night.  Now watch he’ll stop sleeping because I said that J. I know sleep regressions happen and they start getting teeth so a once good sleeper can turn into an all nighter just like that. We had a really rough start, so I’m thankful for every night! He’s been sleeping through the night for about a month because he started right before I went back to work. He slept in a co-sleeper in our bedroom for the first 2 weeks, but the first night in our new house I put him in his own room and he’s been there ever since. He has just recently started falling asleep while nursing.  He used to get done eating and still be wide awake so I would just lay him down in his crib and he would slowly drift off to dreamland, but just within the past few weeks he has started falling asleep before I put him in his crib. I want to eat as much as he can so I usually nurse him on one side and then change his diaper for him to wake back up to eat on the other side. It works out pretty great for us and I cut out my night time pumps pretty quickly!

Gary’s mom keeps the kids Monday through Thursday and my aunt and grandmother have them on Fridays. Some weeks that changes, but that’s the pretty standard schedule. And just like before, dad of the year lives in my house. What do I do in the mornings?  Get up, get myself ready and go to work.  What does Gary do? He gets up extra early, works out, comes back to the house and packs the kids and takes them to their respective house for the day.  Then he comes back home and gets himself ready for work.  Also, most afternoons I go home immediately after work to get in my work out and picks the kids up. He’s pretty amazing and I sometimes take that for granted.  There are some mornings that one or both of them wake up before he gets back, but it has been very rare in the month that I’ve been back to work.

Someone asked me the other day if he’s rolled over yet and I had to really think…when does he actually lay on the floor?  HAHA!!  When I’m not holding him and checking out his sweet dimples or feeding him he is usually sitting in his favorite spot, the bouncy seat.  He has a couple of floor mat activity centers, but he really loves his owl friend on his bouncy seat so that’s my go to when I need to get some things done.  Sunday morning Gary went in to get him out of bed because he was just a chattin and he was laying on his back.  He sleeps on his tummy, which is very comforting to reflux babies (or any baby for that matter).  Yep I’m a rebel. Rules about babies change so often who knows what expert is really right? So I go with the person who knows what they want and that’s my kid.  He sleeps better on his tummy so that’s what I’m going to do.  Anyway, Gary said, “Did you put him on his back last night?” I said, “Nope, tummy like always.” I run in there to see it for myself and wouldn’t you know it there he is just a grinnin’ laying on his back.  We obviously came to the conclusion that he rolled over, but I’m not exactly sure when it will happen again J.

These kids of mine are something else and it feels awesome to be their mommy! Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to fulfill one of life’s greatest treasures!!

We had our 2 year/3 month pictures with our sweet photographer yesterday!  She always captures our family so perfectly!  I can't wait to see them, but here's couple for your viewing pleasure.