Kid Update

It is time for a kid update, so we will start with...

Daniel

Dan the Man is 5.5 month now. "What?" you say. "You didn't do a 5 month post?!?" I know, I'm the worst, lets move on.

Dan is my funny happy boy, he is always smiling and being my happy little man. His favorite things right now are:

• Jumping in the exersaucer.
• Watching Nicole play.
• Eating solid foods.
• Punching Daddy in the face. (every time Dan is on the bed with us, he punches Matt in the face, don't know why.)
• Thumbing things (this is when he sticks out his thumb and sticks it on any surface and then rocks his hand back and forth. I don't really understand this action, but he does it to everything.)
• Sucking on his hands, his pacifier, his burp cloth, his bib, his clothes, his toys, pretty much anything thing he can get a hold of (so different from Nicole who did not like to put foreign objects in her mouth.
• Touching Daddy's fuzzy face.

Dan is now 17.5 pounds (same size as his 1-year-old cousin Olivia) and I don't know how tall, but short enough to still fit in his baby car seat.

Dan is now wearing 9 month clothes even though he is not even 6 months and he has almost grown out of the 9 month clothes that he is in right now. Not because he has long legs, but because he has a long and fatty torso. The onsies are getting harder and harder to button. He doesn't have any sleepers that fit him because I couldn't get the buttons to snap around his rolly polly belly. 

Dan was/is borrowing clothes from his cousin Damon, but it seems that Dan has caught up to him. I need to go shopping for more clothes.

Nicole

Nicole is so smart. She gets smarter all the time and I am proud but then I also fear because the smarter she gets the sooner that she will be able to out-smart me. Here are Nicole's recent "smart" enhancements:

• Coloring objects on a page. Nicole doesn't just scribble across the page any more, but she deliberately colors objects on a page and tries her best to stay in the lines. We aren't there yet, but she loves to color and does it better than any one else in her nursery class (not that it is a competition, just something that her teachers tell me.) We are still working on how to hold a crayon. Right now it is in a fist.
• Nicole can identify all the letters and 3 of the numbers (1,2, and 3). We are now working on sounds that letters make. She remembers a few of the sounds, but we still have a lot of work to do. We want her reading before kindergarten, so we are starting with letters now. Once she learns how to hold a pencil, we will work on writing the letters.
• Singing songs. Nicole LOVES to sing. She is the only child in her nursery who joins in and sings songs during singing time. She knows all the little kid primary songs. She also loves to make up her own songs and it makes my heart happy.
• She is starting to identify flavors by herself. Last night I made Key Lime cupcakes. Nicole tasted hers and said, "Mommy, is it lemons?" I said that it was kinda like lemons. She thought about it and said, "Is it limes?" So smart! Then she told me it was a little spicy. She was trying to say it was a little sour, but just didn't know the word.

Nicole also just does and says the funniest things. I can't get enough of this funny kid. 

A couple days ago, we were at Marie's house and Damon was going to bed. Nicole announced that she needed to go to bed too. So, she went up to the kids bedroom and climbed into bed, then she said to me, "I'm going to sleep Mama, leave me alone." Hilarious! What 2 year old says that?

Yesterday, she showed me a big zebra toy and a little zebra toy and she said, "A baby zebra and his daddy." I thought this was funny because she related the big zebra to daddy and not mommy because she is with her daddy all day long. So, of course the big zebra would be a daddy.

Matt likes to ask Nicole, "Nicole are cows yummy?" Nicole responds with, "No, they are cows."

When Dan starts to fuss, Nicole goes to him and says, "It's all right little man, I'm here. I'm here." Probably because this is what I say to Dan to try and calm him. It doesn't really work for him whether it is me or Nicole.

Last night I gave Nicole a choice to watch her cartoons or to watch Wipe Out. She chose Wipe Out.

This morning she woke up before I went to work. I told her I had to go to work and she said, "I love you mama." I said, "I love you too Nicoley. I've got to go." Then she ran after me and said, "But, I love you!" Apparently, love should be enough to make me stay home from work. If only.

There are a ton of funny things that she does, but I forget to write them down, and then I forget them. But I love this little girl so much! I love her even more when she isn't crying at my face. Which is her favorite past time.

Ugly Bear

So awhile ago I decided to try my hand at Amigurumi. What is that you say? It is crocheting or knitting stuffed animals. I decided to do something simple and start with a bear. I used pink yarn because that is what I already had and I have a little girl who loves pink.

Constructing the bear was not challenging, stuffing the bear was not challenging, but sewing it all together WAS challenging. It took several attempts to get the limbs and the head on, but I finally did it! Unfortunately, it ended up being a seriously ugly bear. Here is the end result.

I also had to embroider on a face. But, I quickly figured out that I am bad at sewing on a face to the bear. So, I ended up with only a nose and eyes. I did not put on a mouth because I couldn't figure out what a bear mouth looks like.

Nicole keeps saying, "Bear is hungry."
Then I say, "Feed Bear."
And she says, "Bear has no mouth."

Maybe I will have to figure out how to sew a mouth.

You'll notice the many threads coming off of Bear's limbs. This is because I can't figure out how to hide the ends. What I usually do for afghans does not work because Nicole plays with bear and the strings keep coming out. The arm has fallen off once, both ears have fallen off and the left leg is close. I cannot figure out how to keep the limbs on. This results in the ugliest bear ever.

But, Nicole LOVES this bear. She could barely wait for me to finish sewing it all together. She sleeps with it, she carries it everywhere with her. When a piece falls off, she cries until I sew it back on. So, even though I think the bear is a complete failure, Nicole loves the bear more than any of her other toys.

Mommy Tip Tuesday

Yay! I am finally doing another Mommy Tip Tuesday! Today I am talking baby food. I like to make my own baby food when baby is first starting eating. I like to do it for the following reasons:

1. It is cheaper than buying jar baby food.
2. I know exactly what is in the food, no preservatives.
3. It is easy.
4. When I run out of baby food, I can just make more. No need to rush to the store.
5. It tastes so much better than baby food from the jar. If it tastes better to me, it should taste better to baby.

So, I make a bunch of different kinds of baby food and I do them all pretty much the same way. Here is how I made applesauce and sweet potatoes last night.

3 Apples

1/2 t of Cinnamon

2 Sweet Potatoes

2 T Brown Sugar

Water (amount unknown)

Peel and cut apple and sweet potato into 1/2 inch chunks.

Put two inches of water in a sauce pan and put on high heat. Put a steaming pot on top of the boiling water. Put the apple chunks or sweet potato (one at a time) into the steamer. Put lid on pot. Steam until the food slides right off the fork when stabbed.

Put the food into a blender. Add water from the sauce pan to the blender. How much you ask? Enough to be able to blend the food. More if you want a thinner food. I do a lot of water when baby is first starting to eat because baby has a hard time getting down thick food.

In the Apple blender, add half a teaspoon of cinnamon for flavor. It will make it taste more like applesauce you find at the store.

In the Sweet Potato blender, add 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar. This will sweeten the sweet potatoes and make them more yummy.

Taste all the food you make. If you don't like it, baby certainly isn't going to like it.

For first time food eaters, blend to death. For babies who have been eating a while blend to a slightly chunky consistency. Each baby is different as to what they can handle.

Then, pour the blended food into ice cube trays. I have regular ice cube trays, but I also got a silicone bottom tray from the dollar section at Target. Which works great for getting the food out once it is frozen. I need to buy some more of those.

You can also put your baby food in jars and store it in the fridge. I usually put a little into a tupper to give to feed to baby right away.

Freeze the ice cube trays until baby food is a nice solid block of ice. I usually stick them in the deep freeze to get them super solid. Then, pop the baby food out of the trays, put the cubes in a labeled freezer bag and pop it back in the freezer. Be careful when you are popping the cubes out of the trays, you may just snap your tray in half if it is too frozen... like what happened to Matt the other day.

Then, when it is time for a meal, take out a cube or two, stick it in the microwave for twenty seconds and you have fresh baby food. Tadah!

Dan was trying apples and sweet potatoes for the first time yesterday. He loved the apples, and felt unsure about the sweet potatoes.

I also found this website complete with baby food recipes. Which I have not tried, but I plan on it. They do it a little different. They use a frying pan and saute the food rather than steam. It takes a little longer than just steaming them, but maybe it is yummier, I don't know.

Bloody Nose

Yesterday, Matt was letting me take a nap while he played with Nicole. I awoke to Matt exclaiming, "There's blood all over you!" I jumped out of bed and was on my way downstairs when he called out, "It is okay, it is just a bloody nose."

I grabbed a ton of toilet paper and raced downstairs. Nicole was sitting on the stairs to the downstairs with her face turned away from me. Matt prepared me with, "It's okay, it is just a bloody nose."

Nicole turned her face and it was like a horror film! Her face was covered in blood. Not just below her nose, but all over her cheeks and chin and on her eyes and in her hair and down the front of her. I quickly covered it up with my handful of toilet paper because my heart was racing and I was starting to panic. I don't care who you are, if you see your child covered in their own blood, even if you know that it is a nose bleed, you freak out a little.

Matt got her up to the bath while I caught my breath and then I started cleaning blood out of her clothes and her blanket and her ugly bear (a post on the bear another time). She was fine and bleeding stopped after a few minutes but man was my heart a racing.

Apparently, she was just sitting quietly on the stairs while her nose bled and she tried to wipe the blood on things like her face and her blanket and her dress. And, once Matt had noticed, it had gotten a little out of hand. She didn't say anything, she was completely silent about it. Probably because she didn't know what was going on.

This whole ordeal reminded me of when I was watching Norm and Rand's kids at my house. I saw Tommy rubbing his face on the carpet and I thought, "Why is he doing that?" Then, he looked up at me and he was covered in blood. He had gotten a bloody nose and was trying to wipe off the blood and thought the carpet was the perfect place to do that. Silly kids. Don't worry, the blood came out of the carpet.

Well, it was Nicole's first bloody nose and we suspected it was because it is starting to get really dry right now and she cannot keep her fingers out of her nose. So, we turned on the humidifier in her room last night to prevent further bloody noses. This was a bad idea.

Any time we change something in her room (like get her a new night light) she has trouble sleeping. She does not like change and this was a loud, wind blowing humidifier. She woke up four times between 9pm and 1am. Then, at 1:30am, I figured out that she was afraid of the humidifier, so I turned it off. But, the damage was done and she was still very scared. She was awake until 3am, when I finally turned on a movie in her room because she just couldn't sleep and I felt bad for her. I realized how scared she was when I turned on her dvd player and the internal fan turned on and she freaked out, "Oh no, oh no! The fan is on again Mommy!" In her high-pitched, freaked-out voice.

I went back to bed at this point. at 4:30am, when the movie finished, she came into my room to tell me that it was over. I walked her back to her room, turned off the dvd player and put her back to bed. I sat with her for a little while and she finally went to sleep around 5am. Ugh! She is most likely sleeping in right now.

But, because I have two children, a mommy's work is never done. Though I went back to bed, Daniel woke up at 6:30am for his feeding. But, I had to get up anyway to get to work.

Needless to say, I am tired. And, we need a quieter humidifier.

No Birthday for You!

Nicole, Daniel and I were suppose to go to Matt's niece Olivia's birthday party yesterday. Nicole was acting whiny, as usual and I didn't think much of it. Then she started rolling around on the ground and I thought she was just being weird. Then, when we were getting ready to leave, I was putting her shoes on and she said, "Mommy, I don't want to go, I don't feel good."

This was definitely unusual for her. So, I pulled out the thermometer and took her temperature. Sure enough, 101.1. Dan was at 99.2. So, I took shoes off and put her in her bed with some gaterade and a movie. We missed the birthday party, unfortunately, but I don't take my sick kids places. This is probably something that she caught in nursery. Parents are nice enough to send their sick children to nursery to spread the disease around. When my kid is sick, Matt or I stay home with the sick child while the other parent goes to church. It is not the worst thing in the world to miss church to care for a sick kid.

Even though I was kicking myself for not seeing the signs of her being sick, I am so grateful that she can finally tell me when she is not feeling good. She still can't tell me why she isn't feeling good or where it hurts, but she can recognize and communicate that something is wrong. It is just such a relief.

Cole's fever broke around 10pm last night, but she was still very whiny and say she couldn't sleep, even when Matt and I were very ready to go to bed. She tried laying on the floor of our room to sleep, but she just couldn't stay quiet enough (don't want to wake the baby) so she ended up in her own bed eventually.

I don't know what kind of sickness she has because the fever is the only thing presenting other then the lathargia and whiny crying. So, we will keep her home for another day and see how she is tomorrow. I'm taking a half day at work today so that I can go and take care of the kids while Matt goes to school.

Ah the life of the Mommy.

Go Utes!

We had Matt's family over for the game on Saturday. They are BYU fans, we are Utah fans. But, by the 3rd quarter, things were starting to get just a little sad... for BYU. Even though it was nice that Utah won, it was not a fun game to watch because BYU was decimated. I prefer watching the close games where both teams are rocking it.

So, I say Go Utes! But, I say it sadly because they won just a little to easily.

Where Have You Been?

I've been in training all week for work, so I haven't been posting. But, here I am now, posting!
I got to watch Marie's little buddy boy last night for a little over an hour and it was a lot of fun. Damon has a little man's voice. His voice is so much deeper than either of my kids that it is shocking when he is over because he likes to make sounds a lot.

While Damon was over, I had to go and put Daniel down for the night and when I went back downstairs, Damon was sitting on the floor in front of the fridge. He had pulled down all of the alphabet letters and was trying to put them back on the fridge. Unfortunately, he kept putting them on the fridge magnet side out, so it would just slide off. Then, he would yell at it and try again. I helped him put all the letters back on the fridge, but my putting them back on the fridge only seemed to upset him. Funny boy.

When Anthon came to pick up Damon, Damon was at the top of the stairs (cuz he was playing in Nicole's room, I don't just leave babies at the top of the stairs) with a big stuffed lamb. When Anthon came in the door, Damon freaked out, "Da da da da da..." And then he started bouncing on the lamb really fast. He was very excited to see Anthon. The bouncing on the lamb looked hilarious! It was like he was trying to dance with excitement or something. It is possible that you just had to be there.

Anyway, it was fun to play with Damon for a little while, I love that kid.

Mommy Tip Tuesday

Instead of giving a mommy tip, I'm asking for tips. We have been trying to get Nicole off of the pacifier, but the more Dan uses the pacifier, the more Nicole wants to. Whenever Dan has the pacifier in his mouth, Nicole wants one for her mouth. We are constantly taking it away from her, but she has a stash of them somewhere and keeps putting it in her mouth.

I considered saying "goodbye" to the pacifier and throwing them away, but we really wanted to reuse them for Dan since we already have them and they are easily washable. But, she just can't give it up. She cries and throws fits when we take them away, she will steal pacifiers right out of Dan's mouth, and she can't (or refuses to) sleep without it.

We try telling her they are just for bed time, but then she says she wants to go to bed all the time and will lay in her bed with the pacifier rather than come out and play and leave the pacifier behind. We almost had her off the pacifier until we had Dan and then everything changed.

So, what are your tips for getting off the pacifier?

Mommy, You're Fat

The other day, Nicole was playing with her toys and she looked up at me and said in the sweetest voice ever, "Mommy, you're fat!"

Shocked, I said the only thing I could, "Thanks Nicole."

Yesterday, she was changing her clothes and she said to Matt, "I'm Fat!" And proudly smacked her tummy.

Then, I began to think... Why is my 2 year old talking about being fat?

And then I realized, we tell Dan, all the time, that he is fat.

"You're such a fatty!"
"You're so fat."
"My little fatty lumpkins."

Are just a few of the things that I will say to Dan.

Nicole often repeats what I say and I should have realized earlier that she would pick up on this because we all say it so often to Dan as a compliment. He IS a fatty baby and it is an indicator that he is healthy, so we say it to compliment him. So, logically, Nicole assumes that telling someone they are fat is a compliment.

I just hope she doesn't say it to someone who would take offense. We are considering changing what we say to Dan. Instead of fat, he shall be healthy.

Ugh!

Things I hear myself say to Nicole... all the time.

• Don't play with Mama's kitchen stuff.
• Don't put your magnets in the butter tray.
• No! No more "oh no-s."
• Stop crying! There is nothing to cry about.
• No more "I'm hungry." (she says this all the time, even when there is food in front of her face. Even when there is food in her mouth.)
• Don't sit on Dan.
• Don't kick your brother.
• Don't go back there Nicole.
• Don't stand on the tray.
• Don't put Dan's pacifiers on your feet.

I would like to believe that most of what I say to Nicole is positive. But, some days, it is just feels like I am reining her in from injuring herself or Daniel or from driving me crazy. I tell her all the time that she is a good girl or a sweet girl or a big girl, but I hear myself saying the other things a lot and I remember it because my own voice annoys me when I say it.

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy Tip Tuesday

Frustrated Mommies, I am here to tell you what I do when I am at my wits-end with frustration. When everything my kids do starts to bug me and I have no patience left. This does not happen all that often to me because I am a working mom and do not get to spend all day, every day, with my kids, but during the long weekend, I discovered that I am not immune to mommy frustration.

So, what do I do when I just can't hear Nicole cry one more time?

Just Dance!

It is exercise, it is a game, Nicole likes to play it too, so I don't actually have to have someone take over watching the kids while I get my frustrations out, and it is awesome.

When I'm frustrated, I just dance it out. Just DANCE!

I used to do the dishes, but that really only makes me more frustrated because then Nicole tries to help and then she cries because the dishes are wet and then it just makes things worse. I would do regular exercise like using my eliptical, but Nicole likes it too much and thinks it is a toy and the frustration begins again. So, I shall dance if I want to, I will leave my cares behind.

For more Mommy Tips, see my sister's blog here.