2 Months

Miss Madelyn is 2 months old today! My how time flies when you're exhausted! :) She's still only sleeping every 2-3 hours at night. She just started eating every 4-5 hours during the day and so the last couple of nights instead of feeding her every time she wakes up I give her the paci. The first night it worked very well and last night not as much. It takes her awhile to get settled back into sleep, and so I feel like I'm getting less sleep too (if that's possible!). But I will try and stick with it when I can (some nights I'm just so tired I do what I need to to get through the night--if that means feeding her or having her sleep with me).

She's getting better at holding up her head. She's smiling a lot and started cooing the past few days. She has found her hand and likes to gnaw on it. She's a slobber-puss and is constantly drooling. She has chubby cheeks. She is very mild mannered and can sit in her swing or bouncer seat for long periods of time (what I consider long because Nate wouldn't last very long). This is probably due to the fact that I always seem to have to put her back down because I don't have enough set of hands. There's no more fussy evenings; that lasted just during weeks 3 & 4 and then tapered away-thank goodness. She usually only cries if she's hungry or tired.

She had her wellness visit today. She is healthy and everything looks good. She is 14 lbs. 10 oz. (98%) and 22 1/4" long (98%). So, even though she started out bigger than Nate, he has her beat by a little over a pound in weight and almost an inch in height at this age. She's in size 2 diapers and 3-6 months clothing. She is growing so fast!

So Sweet

When we got Nate from the Nursery on Sunday, JoAnn told us a little story. She always gives them some cheerios for a snack. Nate was in there with another little boy and so they each had a pile on the table. Nate gobbled his up right away but the other little boy left his to go play. He kept eyeing up the pile but wouldn't take any. JoAnn told him he could have it but he still wouldn't take it until she pushed the pile of cereal in front of him. I'm so proud of him-such good manners! Although he doesn't always have good manners at home, I'm glad there are moments like this that he does.

It's weird now to say that he's in the nursery. Lately he seems like such a big boy. He's becoming so much more independent; maybe it's having a new baby that can't do anything in the house. He is taking more to Maddie. He tried to feed her food the other day. I can't remember what he was eating, but he decided she needed some too. He also likes to get down on the floor and play with her on the baby gym. When I set it down he crawls on it right away and now he requests that I put her down there with him. He looks over and just stares at her. It's so adorable.



The sleeping in the big boy bed is not going as smoothly. Last night he went right to sleep but he's had a few days this past week that were a bit rough. He will go up and holler and then play and then switch between the two until he finally falls asleep, sometimes on the floor. I guess the newness of the bed has worn off. He also is requesting his pacifier a lot more. He was doing pretty good with just having it at sleepy times but now he's wanting it about an hour out. He does not like it all when I tell him no. I think it will be awhile before we completely give it up (he eyes Maddie's paci when he doesn't have his & has taken it from her a couple times).




Oh, and one new development with his skin. We think it might be chocolate. So sad (Jaime, I know you'll be devastated by this one). One evening he had a horrible flare up and I thought about it and realized that I had given him a handful of chocolate chips. We started thinking about it and noticed that he always has skin issues and there are times that are worse than others. We are thinking that he drinks chocolate milk all the time and the little bit of chocolate in the milk probably keeps his skin bad and then when he has a bit of straight chocolate might be when his skin flares up. So we're on week two of no chocolate in his diet and his skin looks better than it has in a very long time. After this week I will give him a little chocolate and see what happens; if he gets a flare up then we know what the culprit is. It will be a bummer but much easier to manage than any of the other foods that came up (false) positive.

A (Much Needed) Super Fun Weekend

This past weekend was wonderful! And as the title says, it was in order. Last week was one long week. We were coming off a drill weekend, which makes for a long week anyway, but it was kick started Sunday with Nate getting up all night. The first time I thought it was his teeth as they have been bugging him horribly lately, so I gave him some Motrin, but he kept waking up crying. Finally around 4am when he got up crying again I brought him in bed with me. He has never slept in our bed and so he thought this was great fun. He kept looking over at me giggling. With neither of us getting any sleep I finally put him back in his bed around 5am. The rest of the week was just filled with those little things that make for long days (Monday was crying and tantrum day--all day, Tuesday the orange juice fell off the bottom of the cart at the store and spilled all over, you can see how this is going). So Michael, bless him, decided to take a half-day on Friday so we could all go up to the Children's Museum. He had never been and I had only been once when Nate was about 6 months old.

We all had so much fun! He enjoyed the sand table the most, but everything was entertaining (even the hand dryers near the water tables!). He liked the dinosaurs (of course) and the train. We took him up to the science room and even though it's designed for older children he had fun running around and just looking at things and exploring. It is definitely something we will do again. Maddie had a good time sleeping, the entire time! I couldn't believe it-5 hours! Now for her to do this at night. :)



On Saturday morning we met up with the Herter's at Appleworks. The kids had fun petting the animals, running through the woods (finding sticks), swinging on the rope swings, and "organizing" the pumpkins. Although it's still warm here, I think it was a great way to kick-off Fall, my favorite season. I am definitely looking forward to the cooler (note, cooler-not cold) weather, sweaters, baking, and all the other fun Fall activities.

Big Boy Bed

Well, Nate is in his big boy bed. We weren't going to move him until October, maybe beginning of November, but of course, things don't always go as planned. He has started chewing through his pacifiers and I knew we would need that paci during the bed change. So we stopped having the paci during the day and for about a week now he has only had it during nap time and bedtime. There are moments of meltdown over the paci but overall he has done much better without it than I thought he would. Sunday night I brought him up to bed and he laid right down. I thought this is going to be cake! But as soon as I left he started to cry and tried opening the door (I'm not sure why he didn't because he can). But within five minutes he was quiet. I checked on him later and he had crawled back into bed and went to sleep. Michael kept saying the true test will be nap time, when he's not as tired and doesn't want to stop playing. So on Monday I put him to bed, but there was minimal fussing and he was sleeping within no time! Today he cried a bit longer and opened the door, hollering to get out (we have a gate in the doorway so he can't get out of his room even if he opens the door) but again, it wasn't very long at all and he was asleep. I went up to close the door and he was in bed sleeping. I think it's so cute how he gets back in bed to go to sleep and sometimes even covers himself up with the blanket. Such a big boy! So the change over from crib to bed has been smooth, thank goodness! Now I'm sad that he's growing up. But as Michael's aunt told me, big boy bed also means that big boy potty is not far behind. That, I can deal with. :)