Trip to St. Louis

Everyone taking their summer vacations did not help with our desire to take a trip of our own.  Michael has been wanting to go on vacation for awhile now, but I said there is no way I am going anywhere with a baby that is not sleeping through the night.  Well, now that miss Maddie is sleeping at night, we decided to give this vacation thing a try.  We have taken a couple of road trips up to Wisconsin with Nate, but we have always left at night.  This being our first trip with the both of them, on the road and in a hotel room, we decided to go somewhere moderately close to home so that if disaster strikes, we can get home within a few hours.  What better place than St. Louis? It's a five hour drive and has a ton of activities for kids.  Perfect.

So we set out last Wednesday on our first family vacation (first with Mads).  The drive there went really well.  I loaded the car with toys and books.  Jaime lent us the boys' computers.  We had the DVD player (which I thought would be on the whole time and didn't end up using until close to the end of the drive).  We were set.  I also wrapped up some cheap toys I had gotten so every now and then I could pull out a gift for Nate to open up.  He enjoyed that, although once he realized there were gifts in the car he wanted to open them all at once.

The first day was designated just for travel.  No other plans or schedules so we could take our time.  Not knowing how the car ride was going to go or how many stops we were going to have to make, this flexibility was essential.  Although we only ended up making one stop for lunch and then went to the Walmart there so the kids could run around the toy section and play and stretch their legs. We got into St. Louis (we actually stayed on the IL side) that afternoon, checked into the hotel, got a pizza, and chilled the rest of the night.

For our first day we went to the St. Louis Zoo.  Awesome place and it's free!  We had taken the kids to the zoo last fall and what a difference 9 months can make.  Nate was much more interested in the animals this time.  He really enjoyed himself.  I don't know that he really liked one animal more than another, but didn't want to get too close to them, even if they were on the other side of the glass. Maddie didn't care where we were, just enjoyed running in the opposite direction of where we were going.  She thought that was hilarious.  Us, not so much.  It was really hot and the kids were tuckered out by lunch time so we headed out without seeing the whole zoo.  Of course they both instantly pass out the minute we get in the car (this is how naps happen during the trip) so we just grab some lunch and head back to the room.  After lunch and since the naps were done, we had some time to kill.  We decided to take them to the park.  We went to Tilles Park in one of the suburbs that was really neat.  The playground equipment was awesome and there was a fountain/sprinkler system to play in.  Nate really enjoyed running through that.  One of the fountains caught Maddie by surprise.  She did not like that at all!

Day two started out at Grant's Farm (free-only had to pay for parking!).  It's a really neat place.  We got a trolley ride through the whole park to see all the animals and then they dropped us off at the zoo area to view the animals.  Nate enjoyed feeding the geese but the highlight was feeding a goat a baby bottle of milk! He thought it was just the best thing ever! We tried to feed the llamas but they wouldn't leave the shade to get their treats. We finished the day at the St. Louis Science Center (again, free!).  This place is awesome!  There were so many stations and exhibits and everything was made in such a fun and engaging way, it didn't feel like learning at all!  Nate had fun exploring and liked all the hands-on activities.  His favorite was the dinosaur room-he kept roaring at the big dinosaur while digging for his fossils.  He also liked the bird room, probably because of all the magnifying glasses. 

The drive home was just as smooth.  The kids, so wore out, slept almost the entire first half of the drive; Maddie was out almost as soon as the trip started and was out until almost lunch time.  So we only stopped for lunch and then headed straight home.  I think the trip was a success! I don't think they would have lasted much longer than just a couple of days though and so it was probably timed out right.  It's good to know the option is there to get away for a couple of days and that they can handle the car ride and hotel room just fine.

Maddie is One!

My baby is now officially a toddler! I am excited about each new stage and development as the children grow, but it is hard to say good-bye to the baby days, knowing they are forever gone. She is now my big girl, and what a big girl she has all of a sudden become.  She's been walking for what feels like forever, but now her attitude feels much older, just overnight.  She is no longer content to sit in the cart at the store, she wants down so she can explore! She just knows what she wants now and is no longer willing to just "go along with things", although is still pretty happy and content. 

She came down with a fever last week and after a couple of days I took her in to the doctor.  No other symptoms and the doctor sent us home.  The fever finally broke on Sunday and she got a rash so I'm diagnosing her with Roseola.  It made her lethargic and fussy, but she was a trooper for her birthday party on Saturday.

We had our friends and family over for a birthday celebration cook out.  We had the kiddie pool and sprinkler toy out for the kids and Michael's coworker brought a bouncy house.  So the kids had a lot of fun and expelled a lot of energy.  Maddie, of course, had no idea that any of this was for her, but seemed to enjoy the attention.  She wasn't really interested in opening her presents.  She did try a few but I think I spent more time chasing after her-she just wanted to keep running away with tissue in her hand.  She played a little bit in her smoosh cake but didn't take one bite.

11 Months

Well, Miss Maddie is WALKING! She's been walking a few weeks now and gets better and better each day.  She is still a little wobbly, but walks most everywhere she can, only crawling out of speed necessity.  It really makes her seem like such a big girl. 
She loves to hand us toys now.  Whenever she gets a chance to hand us a toy she will; thinks it's the best thing ever.  She is also cleaning up her toys (something Nate still struggles with--so now we have our dumper and our cleaner).  She can put the ball in the hole now too. 

I figured out why she was waking up at 1am last month-she really WAS hungry.  One night I decided just to go get her during one of her crying spells.  I thought, even if she goes to sleep with me, I don't care, I can't take this anymore!  She didn't want to sleep with me and didn't want me to hold her, so I tried to feed her and she ate like she was hungry.  So the next day I decided to pump and found out my milk supply had gone down.  So all these nights she really was hungry! Of course I feel horrible!  So we are now pumping all milk and bottle feeding and supplementing with some formula.  It has helped at night but she is still waking for a feeding.  It's probably the guilt, but I am continuing to get up and feed her.  If I'm wrong, so be it.  Maybe everyone is wrong and she really is hungry.  I just don't understand why she can soothe herself back to sleep when she is content (she wakes periodically in the night and will cry just a bit and then go back to sleep) unless it is time to eat and then she won't stop crying until she's fed. 

She's also completely off baby food.  She eats mostly table food and likes most everything we eat.  She's not very picky at all.  She is even eating fruits now!  If it is a dinner she doesn't like then we have toddler meals for her which she seems to enjoy.

This past week has been pretty rough with teething.  We have been lucky so far as all her 8 teeth that have come in have not caused her too much of a problem.  But she has her first molar coming in and it's pretty rough.  She's been getting up at night and is a little crankier during the day.  Hopefully it will come in soon, poor baby.

**New developments at the end of this week: Maddie is sleeping through the night! That's right, I said it! She started the night before she turned 11 months and has continued to do so each night.  She sometimes gets up at 6am for a bottle (we are now completely done breastfeeding and just using formula/milk mixtures) and sometimes sleeps until 8 or 9am without getting up at all during the night.  There are some nights she wakes and stirs and sometimes cries a little, but she goes back to sleep like a champ! Maddie's sleep has always been on her schedule, even when I try to manipulate it.  I knew eventually she would get it and she did, it just clicked!

Big Scares

We had a couple of pretty good scares with Nate this week.  Raising a boy will be the death of me.  We have a shelf that hold baskets of toys in the living room.  On Monday he went to pull out one of the baskets but it stuck, causing the whole shelf to go down.  The top edge caught him right across the nose.  Luckily he was okay, no broken nose, but he got a pretty good bruise across his nose.  You always hear of furniture falling on kids and when we first got the shelf I was so afraid of that happening.  But we never secured it to the wall and I always stayed right by him when he was around it.  But after so long and no accidents happening, I became complacent and didn't really think it would happen.  It was very scary and gave him a pretty good scare too.  He now asks every time he wants a basket out.

Yesterday we went up to the pool in the afternoon, a last minute 'hey it's hot out, let's cool off!' decision.  My friend (who is also my neighbor) Mikki came with us.  We went up to the Atterbury pool and played in the kiddie pool.  We weren't there too long when all of a sudden Nate tripped and went down.  The water in the deep end is only two feet deep, so if he would have just stood up he would have been fine.  However, he panicked. He started flailing, head under water, and once I saw his feet kicking and him not coming up I knew he was not going to get above water on his own. I was with Maddie and I couldn't leave her so I yelled to Mikki to get him. She jumped over and got him (probably only five feet from him) and pulled him out.  It's funny when something like that happens, it feels like we were in slow motion (Mikki later said it felt like it took her forever to get there even though she was just feet away) yet everything happened so fast.  He was under the water for seconds, yet it felt like forever.  It gave us all a good scare and he stayed out of the water for awhile afterwards.

It's still upsetting just writing about these incidents and yet I know that this will probably not be the last time Nate get hurts or gives me a good scare.  Of course I'm glad he's okay and it just makes me want to love on him a little extra.  

10 months

On the move! Maddie started walking with a walker at the beginning of the month and now she is starting to take steps all on her own!  She is also pushing herself into a standing position from the floor.  She tries to be upright every chance she gets. It doesn't seem like it will be too long and she'll be walking.

She's becoming more vocal and more of her personality is emerging.  She is not as inclined to give up a toy that Nate wants and really lets me know when she's upset if I won't let her do something.

We are really getting into a good schedule with naps.  She is now going down the same time Nate does, which is wonderful, and they both sleep a good amount of time (1 1/2-2 hours).  Some days, if she gets up early or is just really tired, she will take a mini nap in the morning. 

At night, it is a much different story.  We have been struggling for about 3 weeks now to get a full night of sleep in.  I decided to cut out her night time feeding--just an early morning (around 4 or 5am) feeding.  The first couple of nights were horrendous!  She woke up and just cried and cried on and off for about 2 hours.  The first night I went in to try and console her, but I should know better, it just made it worse.  So the second night I let her cry.  And the third night, she SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! I did do a separate blog entry about this because it is a BIG DEAL. Well, that was just for a night.  Since then she has been waking up around 1am every night and crying on and off for an hour or two.  I have tried giving her medicine, thinking it was her teeth, but she still wakes on those nights too.  And then there was last night, she slept until 4am.  I am willing to do the 4am feedings a little longer (originally I was going to try and push those feedings back until they just disappeared) as long as she will start sleeping solid until then.  I guess it wouldn't be a monthly update on Maddie if there wasn't talk of sleep, or lack thereof.

Last Day of CMO

Nate had is last day at CMO this year.  I am sad that he won't have school to go to (he loves it!) and even more sad for me (I loved it too!) but it will start up again in August, just like the rest of the schools.  In just the few short months that he has gone to CMO, he really has grown a lot.  When I peeked in the last time he was doing the motions during their song-so cute! And I notice other changes.  I had the 2 & 3 year old room for service at church on Sunday.  When I lined them up to get a drink from the fountain Nate got in line (something he wouldn't have done 6 months ago) and he actually put the stickers on the coloring page where they were supposed to go (when he first moved into the 2 & 3 year old room he was placing the stickers all in one spot on top of each other).  He's talking a lot more now too. 

Before leaving on Tuesday he made sure to give Josh a kiss good-bye; I see a bromance forming.  And as he waved bye to everyone, I became a little sentimental, much like I am doing right now.  My baby boy is growing up.

Anniversary #5

Can you believe we've been married for five years!?! Me either! :)
It feels like it has flown by, with so many changes--like two tikes--among many other things!  Michael had drill (of course) but luckily he was done earlier than normal because he had ceremonial duties this weekend and so we got to spend more than a couple of hours together.

No big celebration.  Just some reheated take-out Chinese from the night before and I made a cake.  We watched our wedding video, which was awesome to see again.  Nate thought seeing Mommy and Daddy on tv was hysterical and couldn't stop laughing.  And an early night, which is no different from most other nights because we are so exciting.

It feels good to be married five years and look forward to many more years to come.