Weaning

The best thing about weaning is I can leave Lily with someone else for several hours.
The worst thing about weaning is leaving Lily with someone else for several hours :-(

Lily's Party

We had Lily's birthday party Saturday and all of Jay's and my family that were in the state came. Hugs and kisses to the uncles who couldn't make it. So here is Lily's birthday party in pictures.

Okay this picture was taken before the party, but I thought it was so cute how Ryan put his blanket over his little sister. They are watching Caillou together...see Caillou on the other side of Ryan?

Lily liked her balloons. Here she is dragging Clifford through the house. I love her little angel wings shirt. So cute!

Here she is about to devour the whole cake, but Daddy rescued it. I guess she thought it was pretty cool to get this whole big cupcake for her real party;-)

Here she is playing with her new ball. She really loves it.

Present time.

Snuggles for Grandma.

Fun with Daddy.
She is laughing her self silly playing with her balloons. She had a ball hitting them and kicking them and watching them come back. This picture in no way captures the joy.

New Table

Our new table came! I L-O-V-E, love it!!!

This is the best picure I could get in the current light. And bonus you get Ryan eating his lunch;-)

The Blog Curse?

Note to self: Never post about getting sleep again...just in case.

Mr. Sandman

Mark the date on your calendar folks. Lily slept through the night!!! We started Sleeping 101 with her last Monday. What possessed us to start right at daylight savings time I do not know, but we did. The first step was moving Ryan into the other room. It just wouldn't be fair to him to be in the same room with a sleep training baby. After much trial and error we discovered she likes singing. We successfully got her to sleep without nursing after about 2 hours of trying. There was some crying involved(I won't say who), but I think Lily and I both figured some things out. She woke up 1 or 2 times that night...it's pretty much a fog at this point. The next night was easier. I didn't think it would be since Jay had a meeting and I was on my own for bed time with all 3 kids. I managed to get the older two done by 8:30 and Lily was asleep in her crib by 8:45! She woke up twice that night, but went back to sleep fairly quickly with some singing and tummy rubbing. I guess she was wiped out from it all because she slept until 10am! Wednesday was pretty good again. She was asleep by 9 that night, woke up her normal 2 times and woke up for the day at 10:15. Thursday was really good Lily woke up once and fell back to sleep on her own before I even got to her. Friday and Saturday were fair considering there was so much excitement over having visitors and her birthday party. Last night she didn't go to sleep right away. We started at 8:30 and she wasn't asleep until 9:15ish, but on the bright side--the VERY bright side--she slept the entire night without crying at all. She woke up looking a little sleepy around 8, but perked up quickly. What a fantastic night! NONE of the kids woke up.
In case you are wondering our routine starts around 8 with stories. Lily picks some and Ryan picks some and we all read them together. Then the kids get songs all together and Ryan gets prayers. Then I take Lily to her room and we rock while I sing a round of songs. Then I give her a kiss, put her in her crib and sing the second round of songs. While I sing the second round I gradually withdrawal from her from rubbing her back to sitting in the rocker looking at her and finally to leaning back on the rocker where she can't see me. This progression sometimes takes 2-3 rounds of songs depending on her. Then I stop singing and sit in the chair and wait for her to fall asleep. If she starts to cry I revert to the previous step. If she keeps crying I go one more step back and so on until she stops crying. If she stands up and cries harder I hug her and if that doesn't help I pick her up and start over. This system has worked for us so far. Every once in a while she will only stay quiet if I hold her. After I pick her up and start the routine for the second time if she starts crying when I put her down and won't stop I will leave the room for 5 minutes and come back to start fresh. I have not had to leave the room more than once since we figured out our system. Which for all intents and purposes was the second night of Sleep 101 since the first night was full of trial and error. When she wakes up in the night we let her cry for 5 minutes(if we can stand it) and one of us goes in to do the routine. I know we are not in the clear yet, but last night gives me hope that there will be sleep in our future.

Snipits from the Bathroom

Ryan to me: All done Pee-pees!
Then looking down at his, well, you know, in a scolding tone he said: I said all done!

R is for Ryan **updated**

Ryan, Lily and I were sitting on the couch. Lily and I were playing peek-a-boo and Ryan was sitting next to us scribbling on his mini-magnadoodle. He generally scribbles something and tells me it's a picture or it says something. Imagine my surprise when he says, "Look mommy!" and I see a plain as day R right there on the board. He took it upon himself to do it and he did. We weren't even talking about letters at the time. He was so proud of himself. I think he really liked it that I said it was so good we should save it to show to daddy. That means it's really special. He was embarrassed, but I made him take a picture with it later in the day. He kept hiding his face, so the picture here is when he popped out from behind the doodle board. I think it turned out well for a picture taken on the fly.

**UPDATED to add:
This is what he showed me today.
I guess he was inspired by the praise he got for his "R". Okay it needs a little work, but he did it completely on his own with no coaching. I'd say that is pretty good for a 3 1/2 year old!

Jump, Lily, Jump

Last night Lily started trying to jump in the air. It was so cute to watch her crouching down building up all her strength to spring up and *almost* making her little body leave the floor. She was having so much fun trying over and over. She looked so proud of herself. I remember Ryan doing this when he was a baby too. So cute. I didn't have a video camera, but I did happen to have my regular camera right there, so I put together a little series of pictures to try to capture the different stages of the "jump".

It starts out something like the first picture, she spreads her feet apart. She braces herself. Then she leans forward like in the second picture. Next she squats almost all the way down to the floor, even closer than the third picture shows. Then she springs up in one quick motion and you get picture number four:-)

A Tribute to Water

Have you ever noticed how water can make everything better? Water was my saving grace when both kids were sick at the same time. In the middle of every morning I would take my two housebound sickies to another place in the tub. All the grumpiness, tiredness, fussiness, and general blah feelings would disappear. The water would infuse life, energy and joy into our otherwise monotonous days of sickness. Bath time was like an escape to another world; in some ways like a short vacation. For those weeks that we were trapped in the house with our germs that was so important to have that. Some days we would even do two baths:-)
The kids were not the only ones who benefited from the wonderful, wonderful water. Some days I would go up after dinner and take a shower or a bath when I didn't have to rush because I knew Jay had the kids. It was fantastically relaxing and rejuvenating to have that time. It's no wonder to me that water symbolizes purity, rebirth, rejuvenation and relaxation. I just had to show water some love since it saved my sanity these past couple weeks.

Bust Out the Biohazzard Sign

In my last post I mentioned that Ryan had/has been sick for over a week. Before yesterday we hadn't left the house in a week. He had a fever two weekends ago when I gave him Tylenol he seemed fine and the next day no fever. I thought he was better. Then he got another fever and that went away and I thought he was better again. Then it came back. In the mornings he would seem fine, but by afternoon he would be tired and clingy with a fever. So I decided he would have to go a whole day without a fever before we would go anywhere. Sunday was that day. All was right with the world(well almost- Both kidlets had little colds, but I wasn't about to let that stop me after being cooped up for so long.) and we went to the doctor for Lily's well baby check up on Monday. She had an ear infection. Boy did her demeanor change after that appointment She went from happy baby with a runny nose and slight cough to fussy barnacle with a fountain for a nose and the cough of a horse. Ryan also started acting ridiculously tired and fussy. Back to being housebound. Things were looking slightly better yesterday until right before dinner when Ryan completely melted down. As I was getting dinner ready to put in the table I hear Jay from the other room, "Did you know Ryan has pink eye?" (excuse my French) CRAAAAAAAP! To Patient First we go. We get eye drops for his eyes and antibiotics for the ear infection that is developing in both ears. I usually look forward to spring. It is my favorite time of year with it's warm weather and flowers. This year it's not just looking forward to something nice I can't wait for spring. I am SO done with winter and cold and flu season.

A Regular Kid

Ryan and I discovered a new show this week. He has been sick, tired and not allowed out of the house so I have been letting him watch extra tv. We have a good bit of kid's programming recorded on our media center, but after a few days of watching the same old favorites I wanted some variety. That is how we found Caillou. It is a show about a preschool boy and what goes on in his world and in his head. He is just a normal, curious kid with a mom, a dad and a little sister. He actually reminds me of Ryan. Caillou has lots of adventures and discovers new things every day. It's really cute and I love the messages in the show. Ryan LOVES it. We discovered it three days ago and he has watched it like 6 times since then. It only comes on once a day at a time we never watch tv. I guess that's why we've never seen it before, but we will be recording it now. I'm sure it will be in the regular rotation with Curious George for quite a while. Ryan's two favorite shows(that I happen to love for him) both on PBS...it's enough to make me want to donate money to keep this stuff available to all kids. I never thought I would be one of those people who paid for free tv...whoda thunk it? ;-)

Happy Birthday Lily!

My sweet Lily Grace is one year old today! This year has flown by so fast. I will write a better birthday post soon.

Consider this a place holder.