Amber is 2

How on earth did our little baby get to be 2!!??

Spring is Here

I am in the process of writing out 100 things that I'm thankful for, for my 100th post, but it bogged me down. I guess I'll continue on and post that when it's complete. Meanwhile, nicer weather is here!

Precious Memories

Putting cookies out for Santa:

The task.


The walk.

Here we go, just for Santa. Now, is anyone watching?

The cookie looks pretty good.


I'll just see if it's good enough for Santa.


Mmmmmmmm

Guess Where We Are?

Santa!

Cory and Tyler both sat on Santa's lap. I thought Cory would, but Tyler surprised me by climbing up in his lap. Amber surprised me by not climbing in his lap. They both asked for cuckoo clocks (!?) and 2 wheel bikes (without training wheels). In fact, Cory informed me that he would cry if his bike had training wheels on it.

12 Months

So much to update now that I'm back to work and in our regular (and somewhat new) routine. The new being that I'm trying to add an exercise regimen back into my schedule. I'm trying to get up at 5AM every day so that I can exercise.

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Amber had her 12 month well check Dr. appointment today. Here are her stats:

Height: 31" (95%)
Weight: 25 lbs, 5oz. (93%)
Head: 18 1/2 (92%)

Big, healthy girl!

Precious

I can't believe our little girl is 11 months old. How did that happen. Miles said that it was the boys that keep distracting us.


I am so incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful family.

Fussy

Ever have those days where at least one kid is crying the whole time? I think yesterday classifies as that in our house. Miles had to quickly leave right after dinner to meet with a friend and a builder to look at his house. He wanted to get some ideas for our new house. I had all three for the rest of dinner and up to bedtime.

Tyler threw his food, so had to miss the rest of dinner and go up to his room. He banged and cried until I went up to get him. I opened his door and told him he could come down when he was ready. He continued to bang and cry for another 10 minutes until I went up to see what he might want. He had stripped himself down to only his shirt and socks. (This is dangerous as we've learned from the pooh experience.)

Amber has been fussy in the evenings and I really don't know what she wants. Well, I do. She wants me to hold her and walk around with her and play with her. Hard to do at dinner time when I'm trying to make dinner, feed everyone, get their milks in the right cups, make my own plate, inhale a few bites of my own dinner, pick up thrown food, pick up thrown cups, pull dogs off the table, get finished plates into the sink, rinse off plates, pull dogs off tables, pull dogs off high-chair, feed dogs their own kibbles, feed dogs food not eaten, pull dogs off counters, get dishes into dishwasher, hand wash pots and pans and other things that can't go into the dishwasher, stop kids from hitting each other, make sure kids aren't getting into something dangerous, make sure kids only grab one ice cream sandwich from the freezer, clean off hands, clean off table, clean off floor, clean off faces, etc.

Oops, I digress...

So not sure why Amber's been fussy, other than I think she's not napping as much as she should. I have been giving her a little bit of whole cow's milk at dinner. I'm wondering if I'm pushing that and it's bothering her stomach. I guess I'll stop that for awhile and see if she's still fussy.

Cory was pretty good last night, but he gets fussy because he doesn't want to share a toy or someone takes a toy from him. He cries when he can't find DeeDee and he cries when I'm not holding him. I can usually snap him out of it by kneeling down to his level and asking him to use his words. Usually he just wants me to hold him.

So after I got most of the dishes done, we all went downstairs to watch a movie. I can usually do this in the evenings with a high rate of success. Last night was good. We all went down and they picked out Stellaluna. When the boys were settled, I took Amber up to bed. She was very glad to get her bottle and lay down. Went to sleep without a peep.

I went downstairs and Tyler wanted to cuddle in my lap. Cory wanted to sit next to us. Ahh, calm. Miles got home and we went to bed.

When does the fussy slow down? Aren't the boys old enough to stop all the crying?

Mother's Day 2008

My sweet, sweet babies. How much I love you and how much I love being your mom. Each of you are becoming your own person and developing your personalities and how much I love each of you!

Cory

You are such a sweet, cuddly boy. I love our mornings together when I come in your room and you make up words and I say them back to you. You love to giggle at this. Then you roll around and say, "You can't reach me" and I pretend I can't and you giggle, giggle, giggle. Then you want to get dressed and go down and join everyone for breakfast.

You are a smart cookie! You know all your colors and you love to put different thoughts together. I don't know why I am so amazed at your brilliance! I try to encourage you and ask you all sorts of questions. "Hey, I have an idea." and "Don't ya" are two of my favorite sayings right now. You know what a grader, a loader, a dumptruck, a scraper, a roller, a tractor, a combine, a backhoe and a snort are. You correct me when I'm wrong.

You are starting to say, "I can't". This bothers me probably more than it should. I know you can do anything you put your mind to and I don't want to do things for you and ruin your self esteem.

You are a born leader. Everyone likes to follow you. In a new situation, you just jump right in and are in the middle of it in no time. You and your older cousin Kyran like to help Bumpa with the planting of the garden and both of you run around together. You are very careful and make sure that you are safe in the parking lot and around the streets.

You like to cuddle and I love our time together. I love you so much!

Tyler

You are such a gentle soul. You love your brother and you especially love your baby sister. I have to help you learn to be more gentle with her because you like to hold her and want to pick her up. She lets you do it because I think she loves you just as much.

You are a little shy in groups, but once you survey the situation, you are comfortable anywhere. You are a tall, handsome little boy. I worry about your teenage years because you are not afraid of anything. You go all out and are very focused. When you put your mind to it, there is nothing that you can't do.

You are such a good sharer. You like to give Amber toys to play with and you will give her your DeeDee (blanket) if she seems upset. You will give Cory a toy if he's crying about it and you have it. You like to bring things to me and help around the kitchen and the yard.

You are so smart! You know all of your colors and you can count to 8 all by yourself. You love to play Sudoku and you can draw little circles inside all the squares. You are very organized and can line things up very neatly, although you mostly prefer to dump toys all over the room.

You challenge every fiber of patience in me. I hope I can be a good mom for you and guide you in a positive way. Sometimes you don't want anything to do with me, but if I go away, you want me right back. I love our cuddle time together.

You are a quiet leader. You are a quick learner and others follow you just by your very nature. You have a quiet determination and a nack for getting things done.

I love you so much! You are my precious boy.

Amber

At 10 months you are starting to really let us know your opinions. I think you've realized that with both your 2 1/2 year old brothers, you need to start voicing your opinion. You have been such a blessing and so wonderful to take care of.

You love your mommy and get upset every time I leave the room. We have had a wonderful time together and I love having you around. You help keep us grounded. You really don't like to cuddle that much, but you want me right there by your side.

You are very sweet and very independent! You never did very well with us feeding you baby food, you went straight to the solid food your brothers were eating. When you were just born last summer you would cry and I would hold you and bounce you and nothing worked. When I set you down, you were happy.

You are crawling and getting into all sorts of stuff. You love to be in the middle of the action and will often times get close to being run over by a flying dump truck or fire engine.

You are very forgiving of your brothers and will let Tyler poke at you and try to pick you up. Tyler and Cory make you giggle and you love watching them.

You are my precious girl. I love you so much!

Croup

Well, we didn't go to the Dr., but Amber was sick over the weekend. So much for sleeping through the night! Friday night she woke up at 11pm and had a fever (low grade), about 100.8. I gave her Motrin and it seemed to help, but she woke up several times.

Along with the fever was a barky like cough and difficulty breathing. Saturday was tough for her, she obviously didn't feel very good. Saturday night was better and she slept most of the night. By Sunday she felt better with no fever, so we decided that she could go to daycare on Monday.

When I got to daycare there was a sign on the Infant B room door - 1 confirmed case of croup. I'm pretty sure that's what she had. I looked it up and it is pretty common for her age group and encompasses a large range of upper respiratory inflammation type viruses. Monday she had a great day and was completely over it.

I think about how much easier it is to parent the second (or in our case third) child. If this had happened to one of the twins, I'm sure I would have panicked and gone to the Dr. over the weekend. As it turns out, Amber is fine, viral infection that can't be treated anyway. It is so much better to be more laid back about these things. So much easier on everyone.

Crawling

Amber has been scooting across the floor on her belly for several weeks now. I realize how dirty our wood floors continually are! I guess I can at least blame the boys...

Every day she would get up on all four, rock a bit, then plop down and scoot. She wiggles her legs and feet and looks like a fish out of water. Both Cory and Tyler scooted before they crawled too. Tyler started crawling pretty quickly, but Cory had the army crawl down so well, he could zip across the floor almost as quickly as Tyler. I think he finally saw that crawling was more advantageous and got up to crawl.

Today Amber took about 10-15 crawling steps across the floor to come see me. I have such mixed feelings about these huge milestones. I love watching them grow and I can't wait until she says, "I love you Mommy". But she's our last baby and it makes me sad to see her growing up so fast.

Thoughts on Breastfeeding

This post by one of my favorite bloggers got me thinking about this subject and I just want to write about my thoughts and experiences. I bounce between feeling incredibly guilty and then justifying my decision about doing what I needed to do.

Here's my story. I breastfed the boys until they were 6 months old. I think that was a pretty darn good achievement. They were big boys and ate a LOT. When they turned 6 months, I went back to work, they got hungrier and I just couldn't keep up. Plus, the pumping at work thing just wasn't working either. I did it for awhile, but after I realized I wasn't producing enough milk for them, I made the choice to go to formula.

My hope was to do the same for Amber, 6 months and then move to formula. I knew that I was going back to work after 4 months, but was committed to give it another try. I had finally purchased the industrial breast pump after the boys were about 4 months old.

When Amber was 7 weeks old, she came down with a nasty virus. She didn't eat for an entire day, we ended up in the emergency room and an overnight stay in the hospital. The Dr. thought it could be pyloric stenosis (that's another post...), but good thing it JUST ended up being a virus. Anyway, I pumped in the hospital, but my milk supply had already suffered and was being stubborn about coming back. I did get enough I think for her to be satisfied with, but I never really totally recovered.

In addition to that blip, Amber was sleeping most of the night. I was home on maternity leave with the 3 of them by myself and was exhausted most days. I just couldn't fathom setting my alarm to get up in the night to pump. I also couldn't get the time to pump during the day. So, after Amber was about 3 months, I gave up on the breastfeeding altogether.

Like I mentioned, I do have some regrets. I wish I would have put forth more effort, especially when I read comments like this...

"The benefits of breastfeeding last a lifetime. This is scientific fact. Children who are breastfed tend to be slimmer, smarter, and healthier as a group. Are there exceptions? Yes. Can formula-fed children be healthy, thin, smart, and happy? Of course. Should women be made to feel guilty for not breastfeeding? Most definitely not.
But, please, ladies, don't pretend the benefits of breastfeeding are fleeting as that's an insult to science and the millions of women worldwide who go to the trouble of breastfeeding."

So I am trying not to beat myself up and trying to tell myself that Amber is going to be happy and healthy despite my failure to breastfeed for longer than 3 months. I hope the 3 months gave her enough of a boost that she still gets a benefit from it.

Only time will tell, I guess.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

7 Months (+ 3 weeks)

I've been wanting to post about Amber turning 7 months, but our picture software is still causing us fits. We just don't seem to have the time to fix it. So finally, I used an old program so I can post pictures of our precious Angel! And now she's almost 8 months.

She's not crawling yet, but so close. I'm going on a business trip next week and I'm afraid her first crawling is going to happen when I'm gone. I hate that!

3 In a Row

Amber slept all night again last night. That makes 3 nights in a row. I stopped putting her in the sleep sack and bam, sleeping all night. Maybe she didn't like that thing, or it got too hot? Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed.

Now if we could just get Tyler to go to bed and not wake up at 5:30 every day...

Infant B

Amber moved up to the Infant B room at daycare yesterday. I remember when the boys moved up -- it was dramatic, stressful and final. I couldn't believe they were already ready for the bigger infant room where babies were crawling, pulling themselves up and some were walking! They were eating solid foods and interacting with each other. They were getting ready for the toddler room. I was tearful.

With Amber it was calm, inevitable and celebratory. She's not crawling yet, but she's rolling around to get what she wants. She's sitting and reaching for toys. She's very clear about what she wants and lets you know. She enjoys her friends. She's getting ready for the toddler room. I was joyful.

I think the difference is that I've been through this before. As much as I love each stage, I know what else is coming for her and I'm excited for her. She wants to keep up with her brothers, she wants to be mobile, she wants to stand. She can stand on her own if I pull her up and give her something to hang on to. I've had thoughts of her skipping the crawling stage and going right to walking. It wouldn't surprise me. She watches her brothers and she wants to keep up.

Last night the boys were chasing each other around the kitchen island. I was holding Amber and she was following them with her eyes and giggling and laughing. She would lunge out and I know she wanted to be running around with them.

But this is still bitter sweet. As much as I want her to be able to walk and keep up with the boys, I don't want her to skip her crawling stage. I'm not ready for my last baby to become a toddler. Such mixed feelings, but also excitment about the future. How fun this is getting!