Monica's 2nd birthday

Yes, her birthday was August 29th.  Yes, It's taken me over a month to write a post.  Yes, I'm behind.  Big surprise!  Life is busy!

Anyway, a week before her birthday, I told Monica that she had a big day coming up and we were going to be celebrating her birthday.  And her response was, "Cake!"

When she woke up on August 29th and JK and I said, "Happy birthday, Monica," she also replied with, "Cake!"  And so, naturally, we gave her cake for breakfast to begin her birthday celebration. I threw in a side helping of blueberries, so I could convince myself that there was some healthy component to the breakfast :)

Her next big birthday surprise was that we had finally - two years to the day, to be exact - re-finished the basement and turned it into a playroom.  A brand new slide and 500+ new Legos were waiting for her downstairs!

In lieu of a big birthday party, we decided to take Monica on a special adventure for her first time visiting the aquarium.  It was super hard to get any good photos of her, she was so excited that she hardly stopped moving the entire time we were there!

We did have a small get-together with immediate family to celebrate with swimming, pizza,  and cake and ice cream. 

And then we wrapped up the celebration with some fun with trains. 

It's hard to believe how grown up our little girl is, two years have gone by so fast! 

Introducing Lauren Nicole

She is here!  And had been for over two months. LOL.  It's tough to blog with two kiddos!  But, it's becoming evident that it is so important to make the effort.  I can't even believe it's possible, but time is speeding by even MORE quickly now that we have two little ones!

 Lauren was born on June 18th, 2013, weighing 8lbs, 8ozs, and 19.5 inches long.  She is absolutely perfect.

Newborn pic the day after she was born :) 

 

A couple of shots of our little sleeping beauty during her first two weeks at home:

Enjoying her swing!  She takes many naps and her first stretch of night sleep in her swing.  She loves it just as much as her big sister did at this age!  It's tough to keep Monica out of the swing, but we're working on it :)

We found out very quickly that the world around us isn't going to stop just because we have a newborn, so we are on the go quite often with this little love.  Luckily, unlike her big sister, she LOVES infant car seat and going on car rides.

Wide-eyed and ready to start the day

She's just so sweet!

I just found this one when I was going through my phone looking for pictures.  I think we took this our second day home from the hospital, and I believe it's the only shot of our whole family since Lauren's been born.  I'll have to make it a priority to get some more pictures of the four of us!






We have a couple posts in draft right now....highlights of these two sisters getting to know each other, as well as a post celebrating Monica's second birthday.  Lots of fun stuff going on here, so lots of updates to make in the upcoming weeks!

We're Ready

After months and months of procrastinating, I think we're finally ready for baby #2 to join us.  Good thing, because June 9th is only five days away!  JK has been in beast mode the past few weeks, painting, steam cleaning carpets, putting away and pulling stuff out of the attic, and assembling various pieces of baby gear.  

I've been cooking freezer meals, stalking supermarket sales to stock the pantry, doing laundry, and cleaning the house like a madwoman.

Monica has been helping by conducting quality control tests on all the baby equipment that has been unpacked and reassembled in the past few weeks:

She climbed into the crib all by herself in about two seconds flat!

Just a little big for the snug a bunny swing

This bassinet was soon filled to the brim with stuffed animals!

During the day, her and I have been keeping busy attending lots of play dates with friends and spending time outside in the yard.  On nights and weekends, the three of us have been going on picnics, hikes, and tons of walks around the neighborhood.  I'm trying to stay active as much as possible, while enjoying the great weather we've been having.

 

On another note, I'm super excited that Monica's been doing so well with independent play lately.  We had a huge breakthrough this week....she signed to me that she wanted to color, and just as I was turning around to tell her that we first needed to pick up her blocks, I saw that she had already cleaned them up!  All on her own, without me asking her!

So, she immediately received tons of praise, and, of course, coloring supplies.

Just for fun, one last pic of her and Daddy kicking off the swimming season!  This kiddo loves the water!

That's all for now....next time I post, we'll be a family of four!!!

Big Girl Bed Time

It has been several months since I've posted, a situation I fully plan to remedy by getting back to more regular posting! 

What's been going on since I last posted? 

1.  Monica is a full fledged little person now.  18 months old, and she definitely has a mind of her own.  We have been busy surviving the holidays, surviving our first illness-ridden winter, and surviving the scariness of joining our local MOMS Club group.  So, other than the holidays, our winter has been pretty busy between watching movies, wiping noses, and going to play dates. 

2.  In addition to all of that, we have other big news..... Monica is going to be a big sister!  Grub 2.0 is due in just three short months!

3.  In preparation for #2's arrival, Monica is being moved into a big girl bed so that #2 can have the crib.  We've decided to tackle this transition sooner than later, in hope that Monica will be comfortably settled in her big girl bed by the time #2 arrives in June.

How is that going, you may ask?  Well....to be honest, I'm not sure.  We're just wrapping up the first week. The first few days went surprisingly well, with little issue, and then....I'm just not sure what happened!  She seems to think that she doesn't need to sleep at all during the day, and while she goes to bed without issue at night, she wakes up after several hours and is tough to settle down. 

So, it was 2:30pm, I was starving for my lunch, and she was showing no signs of settling down during the 45 minutes I spent attempting to cajole her into getting in her bed.  It was time to change tactics.  So, I told her good-bye and goodnight, and left the room.  I locked her gate behind me and went out of sight into my own room.  I had my phone for visual support, and the monitor was on, so I decided to just wait and see what happened.

Surprisingly, she didn't freak out or scream for me to come back into the room.  Instead, she took this opportunity to inspect every nook and cranny of her diaper pail.

Then she pulled out and inspected every toy in her toy basket, most of which she has not played with in three or more months.











I became hopeful when she actually started to climb into the bed.  Hooray, we're moving in the right direction!  She's sleepy and she's heading for bed on her own accord!

Alas, it was a cruel ruse, as she jumped right back out of the bed.  Then she went on a mission to tear her changing pad off of the dresser and throw it around the room. 

Then, things got quiet.  But she was in the small area of the room closest to the door, where the camera doesn't have visibility, so I wasn't sure what was happening.  And I couldn't approach the doorway for a peek, for fear that she'd see me and start crying.  After a good five minutes of quiet, I decided I would angle my phone around the door to try to see what she was doing.

It's hard to tell in the pic above, but the very faint shadow through the lattice of the gate is her!

I waited five more minutes and then snuck into the hallway.

Kiddo was fast asleep on the floor, using the changing pad as a pillow.  Little weirdo!

I didn't want to risk going into her room for a small blanket, and everything in our bedroom is for a king sized bed.  So I grabbed a bath towel to drape over her for warmth.

She slept there for two straight hours, I couldn't believe it!  After tiptoeing around and whispering all afternoon - I couldn't close the door with her sleeping against it - JK and I went up to wake her at nearly 5pm. 

JK and I talked a lot about what had changed during the week, and why she seemed to have a sudden aversion to the bed after a few good days of sleeping in it.  Temperatures dropped during the week, and he thinks she was cold with the bed next to the wall on the outside of the room.  I agreed, and before bedtime last night, we relocated the bed to the inside wall, where her crib used to be.  Miraculously, she slept through the night last night.  I'm hoping that solved the problem, and that we'll get back into a good bedtime routine in her bed - instead of on the floor or in our bed!

My New Stylist

Monica and I had just returned from a short shopping trip in Media, and I was checking my email while she was investigating the contents of her diaper bag.  The laptop was on the end table next to the couch, so my back was to her.  I heard a little giggle, and then felt a yank on my hair.  What the heck!  She never pulls my hair on purpose, so I was really shocked...until I turned around and found this:

My very own little stylist!









She had found my hairbrush in the diaper bag, and was giggling away while she worked on giving me a new 'do.  Can someone please tell this kid that teasing hair went out of style about 20 years ago??

 

It wasn't the most comfortable experience for me, but she sure was having a blast!

Whoops!  Don't eat the hair, kiddo!

 

Monica says, "Mama, I officially declare you to be lovely!"   It might be days before I'm able to untangle this mess....but she sure had fun, so it's worth it!

Germs Galore

10/9/2012
We are in the throes of Monica's very first cold.  I really shouldn't complain, as we made it 13 months without her getting sick once.  Unfortunately, I'm still getting over this horrible illness, so I am in a weakened condition, myself.  However, I suppose that this is preferable to the alternative, which would be me getting sick the moment she becomes healthy again, as she will assuredly regain her normal energy x 1,000. 

The best word to describe our current situation would be "disgusting."  I actually found myself holding a tissue up to her nose and saying, "blow" yesterday, and then laughing uncontrollably at myself for being so idiotic.   It didn't dawn on me until that moment that she doesn't know how to blow her nose.  So she just sits there with snot running out of it at continuously, which means that I am wiping her nose with a tissue every two minutes; during which, she repeatedly jerks her head, thus smearing snot across her cheeks.  Where it dries into a crust because I am too busy throwing out the snotty tissue and washing my hands in preparation for the next round of nose wiping in t-minus 45 seconds.  That is, as long as she hasn't already wiped it on the couch.

The saddest part is that she can't suck her thumb while she sleeps because she can't breathe through her nose.  So she is alternating between sucking her thumb for a few seconds and then pulling it out to frantically gasp for breath.  Poor thing!

Except for when we're (sorta) sleeping, I don't think we've stopped watching TV since Saturday afternoon.  I'm pretty sure she is in heaven, as I have been too weak to try to engage her in actual brain-developing learning activities.  
 
10/10/2012
Unrelated post note - I just wrote 2011 and kept going like it was nothing.  And then I realized 2012 is almost over.  Brain = dead.

My fears have come true.  Monica is rallying even quicker than I thought possible, while I remain a supine, inert lump on the couch.  To her credit, she has been a perfect angel for most of the day today, revisiting with her toys that were ignored during her snuffly couch potato phase.  Unfortunately, she seems sick of watching television, and I don't think that I have much more time before she is climbing the walls and needed to get out of the house to burn off some energy.  Perhaps I will rouse myself after her nap for a quick trip to the bank.  The bank is a good errand because we can hit the drive through without changing out of our pajamas.  Seems silly to get dressed at 5pm, the day is practically over!

JK has been trying to convince himself that I have an exponentially worse version of a slight sore throat and mild fatigue he was feeling last week.  While I seriously hope he is right, I remain unconvinced due to the coughing he was just doing on his way out the door.

So, that's what's going on over here.  No cute picture to end this blog post, we're not the most photogenic bunch right now!

The Great Self-Feeding Experiment

The Grubster eats a lot.  That statement can be interpreted in two ways, and both apply.  She eats large quantities of food, and she eats on a frequent basis.

As of right now, I am basically serving her four meals a day.  We have breakfast when she wakes up (9am), first lunch before nap (12:30pm), second lunch after nap (4:30pm) and dinner (7pm) every day.  Once in a while one of the lunches is more snack-like, but there is never any telling as to how much she will eat.  And since she generally demands a variety of foods at each of these four meals, my on-the-spot culinary skills are unparalleled these days.  Thank God for the internet, which has a wealth of recipes and information relative to feeding toddlers!

This week, I was gauging her level of hunger for first lunch before her nap.  Thinking she was too tired to invest herself in a full meal, I handed her a cup of milk and a couple of puffs, and spooned some yogurt into a small bowl.  I figured it would fill her up enough so that she'd take a decent nap, and then we'd have a real lunch after she woke up.

I stepped into the living room to grab my phone off the end table.  JK usually texts me when he is on his way home, so I wanted to think ahead to what we could eat for lunch after Monica was asleep.  And when I got back, I found this:

 

Her high chair has this attached semi-tray that you see in the picture, as well as the removable full-sized tray.  Since she started eating finger foods, we ALWAYS have the full-sized tray on the high chair.  She hasn't had a meal without the full-sized tray since we started having meals in the dining room several months ago; which is why I had never before encountered this situation. 

Without the full-sized tray, Monica can reach out and grab whatever is close by on the dining room table.  In this case, happened to be the yogurt bowl and spoon. 

I decided to let her have at it and just see what happened.  She has tried to take a spoon out of my hand to feed herself some of whatever I was spooning onto her tray, but she never gets any food into her mouth that way.  She isn't quite ready to balance the spoon in a way that food won't slide off of it before it gets to her mouth.

Luckily for her, yogurt is sticky, and it stuck to the spoon.  All she had to do was stick the spoon in the bowl, and then stick the spoon in her mouth.  I was amazed and impressed that she was actually eating so much of the yogurt.  And boy, was she proud of herself....I had to refill the little bowl three times!  I'm not entirely sure that she was even that hungry, I think she was just showing off her sweet skills. 

Ahhhhh, this independent little baby isn't that much of a baby anymore!!!