Can I get some Summer Weather?

We have had an unseasonably cold, cold Texas winter. I am NOT a winter person and I am SO ready for tank tops, shorts, and pitting out 2 seconds after you walk outside (yes, I said pitting out). I feel like the days when we see the sun are so few and far between. I have had to use my dryer for diapers/clothes a lot more lately than I like to admit. I want to take the girls on a picnic, to the park, and in the water. I am so desperate for any sign of summer/warmer weather that I get a little crazy when it is just slightly warmer (65) and I see the sun. Yesterday was a beautiful day, compared the what we have had, and even at 65 degrees it was still chilly if you weren't standing in the sunshine, but I was determined to make it warmer than it was. While Blythe and I waited for Maddie to wake-up from her nap we made Country Time Lemonade, it made it feel just a little warmer outside. Then we packed up and headed to the park (sadly I forgot the camera).

Public child/adult etiquette?
On Tuesday we went to the children's museum and we were interrupted by a 6 or so year old in our 2 and only under please room. She was clearly not being supervised and was rather aggressive towards the other youngers in the room. That got me thinking, where is the line between minding your own business and sticking up for your kid? After seeing her push one of the 'legit' kids (2 and under) I decided that if she pushed/scratched, etc. Ian, Maddie, or Blythe, I was going to politely remind her care giver that this was the 2 and under section. Luckily she got bored and moved on so no confrontation needed.

Yesterday while we were at the park we were sitting down and having a snack when another little girl came up and wanted some too, naturally. I have no problem sharing our snack, I just prefer to hand it to the little girl instead of letting her put her hands into our snack container. I looked around for her mom because I would want a stranger to make some sort of gesture to me before giving my child something to eat. I didn't readily see her mom and it was either 'give me some Cheerios or I will take them for myself,' so I handed over some cheerios. She kept coming back and I was thinking "where is this girls mom/caregiver, we need some regulation over here." That's when I spotted her sitting over on a bench on her blackberry. I don't have a blackberry and I don't even text on my phone, but if I ever chose to hang out on my phone instead of interacting with my child at the park, please call me out on it, that's not the parent I want to be.

Jason cleaned, cleaned my car for me yesterday. We are talking inside and out, even conditioned the leather. It looks nice and sharp. Of course I know he really cleaned it because we will be traveling to Austin this weekend for his brothers wedding and he wanted it to look sharp, but I will pretend it was for me.

Maddie and Oslo

Our afternoons have been a little sweeter since mid February when we started watching Maddie Cabezes. Precious Maddie is my best friend from College's little 11 month old sweetheart. Jennifer recently landed an awesome full time job, but sadly had to leave her job as a stay at home mom. Blythe and I are happy to have little Maddie playing with us in the afternoons. This is great practice for both Blythe and I. Blythe gets a little practice of mommy's attention being divided and hearing "Blythe your a big girl so I need you to walk, Maddie can't walk so mommy needs to carry her." It also gives me practice at juggling 2 babies at different stages of life. Yes, I had tons of practice doing the 'twin'' thing when I watched our buddy Ian for the first year of his and Blythe's life, but this is different. It's funny how quickly you forget all the different ages and stages. The spread of 7 months 18-11 doesn't sound all that large, yet SO much happens in those short 7 months and its beautiful to see how much Blythe has grown and learned and yet it is equally as beautiful to see Maddie in this stage and know all the wonderful things she is doing and what is just on the horizon.

Oslo, this is a name you will hear A LOT at our house these days. Oslo is Blythe's best buddies these days which is great because he is a great kiddo and has great parents. It is total fate that we ever got to know the Winds. One afternoon just after Blythe started walking we went on a bike ride and happened upon a beautiful little park with a Gazebo and decided to stop and play/take pictures with Blythe. Not too long after we arrived a little boy and his dad turned into the park and Jason immediately introduced himself. At the time Oslo had another little girl friend who was a ferocious hugger so he wasn't very interested in interacting with Blythe, but oh how that has changed. Long story short, that introduction at the park has lead to a great friendship between Lauren and I and now Blythe is blessed to spend her mornings with Lauren and Oslo. They have a great group of friends that get together for learning play dates M-TH mornings. So not only is Blythe having a great time with Oslo and Lauren she also has other play date friends, letter of the week, activities, the works. Each morning after breakfast and when I mention its time to get dressed she looks up at me with excited, anticipating eyes and says "Oslo's?" Most mornings I say "yes, we have to get dressed so we can go to Oslo's," but there are 3 days a week when I have to say "no sweetheart, its not an Oslo day." I try to pretend she doesn't look disappointed and is just as happy to spend the day with me, but she truly adores him. I can't honestly say that I would want it any other way though. Since I can't stay home with her full time it is such a good feeling to know that she wants to go play because kids don't fake emotions so I know she has a great time over there and I would be lying if I didn't confess that I love it over there too!

18 Months

Turning 18 is pretty significant so 18 months is too, right? At least at our house it was! I got to thinking about Blythe turning 18 months and how this would be her last big milestone as a single toddler (started to type kid, but she's not a kid just yet, I will hang on to toddler a little while longer) who had undivided attention from mom and dad. I didn't go nutzo and have a party, but I did make a point to have a nice picnic. We just happened to be watching Ian on Saturday so we had Ian and his parents out to the park for a hot dog picnic and we picked the park near Oslo's house in hopes of seeing him as well. Blythe lucked out and got to see both her buddies! After our picnic and running around the park we piled Ian and Blythe into the car to return home for an afternoon nap.

Ian giving Blythe a birthday kiss

Blythe, Ian, and Oslo hanging out on the lamp post

When Blythe woke up from her nap it seemed that she had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, she was a bit fussy and clingy. It wasn't long after nap time that Ian's parents returned from their basketball game to collect Ian. Patrick and Kera (our wonderful neighbors who are due a month ahead of us) had invited us over for dinner and Jason had volunteered we would bring dessert. Jason had a craving for peanut butter cookies so he and Blythe set out to make them. Of course Jason ignored all warnings against letting toddlers eat raw eggs and Jason and Blythe went to town licking up the dough from the spatula, bowl, beaters, etc. After they finished "precleaning" they put the cookies on the cookie tray. Blythe really enjoyed this because it was like playing with play-doh. The special cookies were the ones with nice little Blythe hand/finger prints instead of your typical fork scraped lines.







I guess making the cookies was just a really great distraction from the fact that she didn't feel very good. As soon as the cookies were in the oven and Jason sat down she immediately crawled up in his lap and laid her sad little body down on his, pulled at her ears and said "aw." Jason and I both looked at each other with a pouty face because it is oh so heart wrenching when your little one is sick. We quickly realized that it had nothing to do with her waking up on the wrong side of the bed, she was running a fever and it appeared that we had another ear infection. I immediately went into 'oh no I am bad mom' mode because just a few weeks ago we had our first every ear infection. We were given an antibiotic that Blythe absolutely HATED. I am talking 2 adults holding her down and having to squeeze teeny tiny amounts in at a time and forcing her to swallow kind of hate. We were supposed to continue to give it to her until the bottle was gone, but after 10 days we had had enough. Further confession: there were even days when she only got one dose instead of the prescribed 2 doses because Jason wasn't always up and moving in the morning before we needed to leave. So because of this negligence I was thinking oh no, now she has a double ear infection and its all my fault (sniff, sniff).

Sunday she seemed sickish off and on, but quite a bit better. I needed to make her 18 month check-up anyways so I figured I would aim for Monday in case we did have an ear infection we would want to have that remedied before Nathan and Caitlin's wedding this weekend. I lucked out and when I called this morning they had a 2pm appointment. O.K. well I lucked out that they had an appointment in the afternoon, but the timing was completely unlucky. That is RIGHT during nap time and my baby needs her rest, but I knew I needed to take her today, just in case I had caused this. So I set out to be supermom with the expectation of picking up Maddie, swinging by to get Blythe and making it back to the house and have her down for a nap by 12:30 so she could get a quick hour in. My supermom cape was just a little shorter than I had hoped for so it was more like 12:45 before I got her down so that gave her 45 minutes to nap. I pondered whether it would be better to just postpone the nap till 3ish or let her get what she could and I opted for the later thinking that it was already going to be a somewhat challenging Dr.'s appointment with 2 kiddos (I need to update on Maddie, more on that later) and having a really fussy, over tired kiddo would not add to that fun. So I reluctantly woke her up at 1:30 (I just hate waking up a baby/toddler/kid it just feels so wrong) and threw her in the car, needless to say she was NOT impressed.

By the time we got to the Dr.'s office she was well on her way to recovering from the abrupt wake-up and enjoyed the table and chairs at the Dr.'s office. All the while I cant help but think that she is probably picking up some kind of other virus from the other sick kiddos who have played there. Maddie was a real trooper and sat quietly in the stroller gnawing away on a once frozen teething ring. Blythe weighed in at 20 pounds 12 ounces and 31 inches long. That drops her down to the 10th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height (WOW how her body composition has changed). AND we lucked out because both her ears look great and the doctor said she looks perfect so some little short lived virus on Saturday, THANK YOU, I can now remove my bad mommy badge. We usually end up with 3 or 4 shots and this time we only needed 1, hep A, to be caught up and that was nice. We don't go again until 24 months. wow. 2 years old. 2 babies by then. NOT ready for that. To my surprise by the time we got home both her and Maddie were showing signs of wanting another nap so they are both sleeping soundly.

We had spaghetti for dinner last night and well the bowl got a little anxious and jumped right off the high chair. Lucky for the clean-up crew it landed right side up (aka mommy because Jason had a take-home test that started at 8am that he was still working on. Blythe and mommy do NOT like take home tests, it takes away from our daddy time)!

Blythe is ALL about her babies these days and she can turn just about anything into a baby bed. Here she is 'helping witht the dishes' needless to say I couldn't really load any spaghetti sauces dishes in there otherwise her babies would have been a mess.

Sewing Projects:

This weekend I set out with 2 sewing projects in mind. A growth chart for Blythe, I decided that she probably should of had one by 12 months so she certainly needs one for 18 months. I was determined to enjoy her 18 month birthday with her as well as complete this growth chart. She helped me cut out the fabric Saturday morning and I sewed it during her nap. Of course since I actually got the growth chart finished we didn't actually measure her on Saturday and somehow we forgot yesterday :(. So hopefully we will get her measured today and I haven't decided which date I will use.

Blythe helping mommy cut the material

Blythe abandons the sewing project to read to her babies


Checking to make sure Dada is measuring her just right.

Investigating the growth chart, check out the hair in the back!

My second sewing project was by request of my wonderful sister in law, Rachel. Mr. Wilkes and her are training for a triathlon and she wanted a wet bag for her swimsuit, so naturally I jumped at the chance to make her one and I couldn't leave Mr. Wilkes out. This was my first attempt at sewing a zipper so I can't say its professional, but hey I think I did a pretty good job. Pics to come.

SNOW

On any given day I can look over my left shoulder and see an array of thing, cars, trucks, 18 wheelers, college kids on foot, bike, scooter, etc, but today, today I see big white snowflakes. It is just pouring with snow; snow in College Station, in February. The once brownish/green grass is quickly turning into a white blanket. The worst part is that my sweet little Blythe is not with me to enjoy this moment, to throw on a warm coat, a hat, and stand outside and just enjoy this rare moment. Its moments like these that make me yearn all the more to be a stay at home mom. Moments like this when I am missing out on a great ‘moment’ with my little one, stuck in an office, in front of a computer, but hey at least I have a really large window, right?

Here’s to hoping that the snow continues to fall long enough for me to pick up my sweet baby and enjoy the moment. Oh my neck and eyes hurt from straining to turn around, I think I will give into watching the snow and throw away these last 30 minutes at work, hey it’s not every day that you can sit and watch snow fall out your office window, now is it?

Got a few stories for you Ags!

The above picture is from the "Crazy Dinosaur" game that I bought IONS ago, I think were talking 3rd grade. Anyways I NEVER could get those darn dinosaurs to all line up correctly. I stumbled upon it when I was at my moms this past weekend and took it out. I played with it for about 10 minutes and then Jason took over, he counted up the dinosaurs, colors, etc. made a chart to figure out who could and couldn't go here and there...yada, yada...basically messed around with it for a few hours and then GAVE UP and put them back in the box. I came around a little bit later looking for those pesky dinosaurs and took them back out of the box. Then low and behold about 20 minutes later I had SOLVED the dinosaurs!!! Fortunately, no one was recording my victory dance, but let me assure you I was mighty proud that I had finally conquered the dinosaurs. Don't worry I numbered the back of them so I could feel victory again someday!


If you can't have snow on Christmas morning, why not Valentines day? And hey it was like Christmas because we celebrated Christmas with my dad and Blythe is sporting her new oh so cute Pink coat! I LOVE this coat so it better fit again next year :)



If you have spend anytime around Blythe lately you know she LOVES her baby dolls. Here is a picture of her contemplating what she should do to/with them next.


I thought I heard a little russle out of Blythe after nap time, but it got quiet again so I went to go get the diapers off the line, knowing Jason was inside and could collect her if she was really awake. I got back inside and still silence, then I heard some giggles. I went into her room to find THIS. Daddy taking over her crib. Silly daddy. She looks quite thrilled to have a bed mate though.


This is a picture where she proves to mommy that she knows the color yellow. We were at the park up the street and there is a yellow infant swing on one side of the park. Daddy was swinging on the big kid swings so she went over there. She wanted to get on the swing, but I said "no, you have to swing in the yellow swing," she quickly turned and walked a few swings down, pointed and said "wellow," I was thinking 'good guess kid,' so I looked down and saw there was another yellow swing so I said "no the other yellow swing," she promptly went to it! How could I NOT let her swing on the yellow swing? Watch out they are smarter than you think!

19 weeks

Last Friday we had our 'big' ultrasound and found out that the baby looks good and healthy! The measurements returned a due date of July 2nd which is just 1 day off from the original due date of July 1st so we will stick with July 1st as the 'official due date.' I have now officially gained weight, but only 2 pounds :). 2 pounds less at this point than I had gained with Blythe and this baby weighed 11oz at 19 weeks and Blythe weighed 9oz at 18 weeks. Just some little fun facts :). This time they gave us a DVD of the ultrasound so we got to show that to Blythe and Momo. This was the first time we mentioned to Blythe that mommy has a baby in her tummy.

My belly really popped out over the weekend, I am officially out of the 'beer gut' stage and onto the small round belly, but I can still button my pants :).

When I picked Blythe up from Lauren's house yesterday afternoon she felt warm, but wasn't acting like she felt bad so I left the potential fever alone knowing that if it doesn't bother them they recommend to leave it so it can fight off whatever it is that is causing it. She took a good 2 hour nap, but when she woke up I could tell she wasn't feeling 100%. She sat in my lap and ate a snack and played with her baby (Nilla) for about 45 minutes. Then she crawled in my lap and looked pathetic :(. I asked her if she wanted to lay her head down on mommies belly where the baby was and she did. I scratched her back and she quickly fell asleep. Cuddle time with Blythe is few and far between as she is always on the go and it's usually when she isn't feeling well, but the cuddling is nice. I couldn't help but think that these times are probably short lived, soon there will be a newborn taking up a lot of mommies cuddle time and I won't have 2 hours to sit on the couch and hold her while she sleep, someone else will want my attention. It was a very sweet moment and Jason got to enjoy some good cuddle time when he got home as well. When I left to go to work this morning Jason and Blythe were cuddled up on the couch watching Bambi. I hope this is just a cold and it goes away quickly.

Weaning

Who would have ever guessed we would wait to wean till 17 months, certainly not me! We had a handful of struggles in the beginning and I can remember telling myself, I WILL make it to a year. I had planned to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months and then introduce solids, well little Ms. Blythe was NOT very interested in solids until about 10 months. Even at 10 months she still wasn't eating a very substantial amount of solids and we were planning to go to Ecuador in December so we decided we should keep breastfeeding as an option while in Ecuador. As soon as we returned I had a 3 day plan to wean her. I would remove one feeding every 3 days and we were down to about 4 feedings a day. While in Ecuador she had gone back to waking up in the middle of the night and that was the first feeding that she lost the night we got home (momma needed a full night of sleep)! That was an easy feat. The next feeding I decided to remove was the one before morning nap, especially since she only had about 3 days left of morning naps. Side Story:

[This semester she is staying with Oslo and his mom Lauren while I work. They have an excellent group of friends who get together M-F in the AM for a play date and learning time. I figured by 16 months Blythe was old enough to go without the morning nap and she would be distracted enough with all the kiddos to not miss it]

I wasn't sure how she would react to me putting her down without nursing her since that was our usual routine, but I knew she was capable of putting herself to sleep because when I am not there for nap (which is at least one nap a day) she is laid down in the crib and she goes to sleep. So I kissed her night night, laid her down, and to my amazement she went down without a fuss! Feeding #2 removed, check!

Three days later it was time to remove the afternoon feeding and again it wasn't a problem. 3 days later is when the 3 day plan lost a wheel. The next feeding to remove was either the morning feeding or the night feeding. Jason thought I should remove the night feeding last and I thought she was more attached to the morning feeding since as soon as I take her out of the crib in the morning she is asking for milk. A few days passed and we decided to remove the night feeding first and Jason came up with a bed time routine (books, gram crackers, milk (in a cup), and bed). I thought she might really reject Jason putting her to bed, but she did great. Now we were down to the morning feeding.

I have to admit that I was a bit attached to the morning feeding as well. Blythe is an early riser (6:30am) and I enjoy the 15-20 minute morning feeding/watching news before I have to really be awake. Its our quiet time together before the day really gets started. On Sunday Jason let me sleep in and I did not nurse Blythe so I decided this morning that I should continue the trend. When I got her out of bed she asked for milk like she normally does and I handed her a sippy cup with milk. I think she was more bothered by the fact that she went from her dark room to a kitchen with the lights on than she was to not be nursed. Hopefully tomorrow morning will go just as well.