Bath time

Abigail has graduated from her baby bathtub and can now sit up all by herself!

Abigail is 8 months old!

Yesterday Abigail turned 8 months old. I can hardly believe it! It seems like just last month we brought her home from the hospital. I don’t remember time going this fast with Michael. We are trying to savor every day, because we know she will be going to high school before we know it!

Monday was her first swim lesson. She fussed slightly at first because the water was a little cold, but as soon as she got acclimated she seemed to love it just like her brother. She really seemed to kick like a pro. I think we will soon have another fish on our hands!

Saturday she did her first Cap10K race. She only slept through an hour of it, which is far less than Michael’s first go around. Of course I was pregnant with Abigail, so our pace was a lot slower last year. We happened to see 2 of Lawrence’s co-workers which was rather amazing in the sea of people. Next year Abigail will be able to walk across the finish line, so that will be something to look forward to.

Abigail has really taken to foods. She’s already had many vegetables: butternut squash, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, summer squash and yellow peppers. Her fruits have been: banana, avocado, papaya, pear and apple. I’m proud to say I have made all her food so far and she has yet to have jar (or pouch) baby food. Now that she’s hit the 8-month mark and her diet will expand more, that could change. We shall see.

After sleeping through the first 3 months of her life, she has taken a different motto and doesn’t want to miss a thing. And even though she doesn’t sleep much, she’s usually not too crabby or fussy which is a blessing. Of course she also wants to nurse through most of the night instead if sleep which creates a host of other problems. #1 Momma doesn’t sleep so well. #2 Momma puts Abigail in bed with her so she can attempt to get some sleep. And after all, that’s why we got a king size bed. #3 Daddy doesn’t seem to sleep so well with Abigail in the bed. So in the end, I think Michael is the only one sleeping well in the house!

In the last 2-3 weeks, Abigail has gotten quite good at sitting up on her own. She loves playing with toys (or anything else she can get her hands on) so she is perfectly content playing on her own. She is often quite entertained by watching her brother. But who wouldn’t be watching that crazy kid? She hasn’t figured out how to push herself into a seated position when she’s laying down. This becomes problematic when she falls over as she is reaching for a toy out of reach. She’ll start crying because she doesn’t really care to be on her back or stomach but wants to be sitting up again. Sometimes brother tries to help her get back up which usually doesn’t work out so well for either one of them.

As of late, I put a picnic blanket out in the backyard and put her on it with toys all around her. She loves to listen to the birds or the rooster next door while Michael plays in the rocks or on his slide and we do some weeding or other yard work. Not exactly the most exciting family time, but at least the kids are having fun while we get a little something done and we can all enjoy the nice weather.

Right now Abigail only has her 2 bottom teeth, but she seems to be cutting another tooth on top. She has been chewing everything like a dog, so I suspect that she’s been getting ready to sprout another tooth for quite some time. With all the teething, she still seems to spit up quite a bit. Just last week she went through 5 outfit changes in one day! It’s a good thing she’s gotten so many hand me down clothes or I would be doing laundry every other day!

Well those are the highlights of Abigail at 8-months. She’s no where close to crawling, but already trying to pull herself up so maybe she’ll skip it and go straight to walking. We shall see!!

St. Patrick’s Day

March 17 again. . . . my favorite day of the year!  Everyone wears green (my favorite color). And this year we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.  It also gives me a reason  to dress me and my kids up festive!

While they don’t look very happy now, the highlight of the day for both of them was taking them to a pub for lunch.  Michael roamed instead of sitting at the table, and Abigail had her eyes fixed on the basketball game (or the lights of the TV).

As soon as we walked in, we knew we picked the right location.  They had “party” hats on all the tables.

Michael took to the shuffle board right away. He played by his own rules of course, but isn’t that every game in life for a 2 year old?

Abigail sat in her seat being adorable most of the time, despite the fact that she had only taken a 15-20 minute nap in the morning.

Since we went at noon, the place was pretty empty so Michael could try on all the different party hats they had.

Daddy and Abigail

Michael’s cheesy smile:

While they served green beer (Miller Lite), I had to go with a true Irish beer.  Besides, they say Guinness helps a nursing mom produce more milk.  So I did it for Abigail. 🙂

Abra Cadabra!

Since I like to dress up and dress my kids up so much, these are their pictures from school  before St. Patty’s.

Daddy and Abigail

My sweet princess – “Little O’Cutie Pie”

Playing at the park

Abigail’s first swing ride

Lifting her baby “weights”

Crashed out

While celebrating our anniversary with our kiddos was fun, we also wanted a chance to celebrate alone.  So our neighbor and I did a babysitting swap (so we didn’t have to spend money) and we splurged at treated ourselves to Uchi. . .one of the nicest (Japanese) restaurants in South Austin.

Super Dad

This past weekend I went to a 2-day cycling training. I think I was on a stationary bike for 8-10 hours . . . I lost track. I’m not going to talk too much about how sore by bottom was, but more about the fact that I was away from my children for 2 whole days. Now normally this is not a big deal because they are in day care 5 days a week. This happened to be a Saturday and Sunday though, so day care wasn’t available. So Daddy was on his own for 2 days. Feeding, diapers, naps, entertainment and all. I wasn’t really worried that he didn’t know how to take care of the kids. I was more worried that he’d want to take a vacation from them after having to juggle them solo for 2 days. But he survived with flying colors! They even made an outing to the Y on Saturday and to church on Sunday. And everybody seemed happy when I got home exhausted on Sunday. I know every husband would not be willing to brave what mine did, but I’m proud of him for it. And as he mentioned, I’ve never had to juggle both kids alone for 2 days straight. So maybe I should offer him that vacation?

Bad Hair

Michael woke up with exceptionally bad hair today. So bad that I had to change his clothes so he wore his “bad hair day” shirt. I really should have taken a picture, but I missed that opportunity. After not having hair for the first 15-18 months if his life, it’s really hard to know what to do with it. Most of it has grown in the back with a small patch running to the front of his head. He still doesn’t have enough that makes me want to spend the money on a hair cut, but it’s getting a bit out of control that I feel like we need to do something.

My husband suggested shaving it off. I have such a hard time thinking about that since it took so long to get hair! The theory is that it will start to grow in faster and thicker. Really? What if it doesn’t? And then it takes him another 2 years to get a small patch going again? I just want to cut off the tail in the back to make it less wild looking. My husband is not a fan of that. Is it too much to put product in your 2-year old toddler’s hair? Maybe if I put gel or something it would calm it down? Of course then he might look like an old man. If only he’d wear a hat, that could solve my dilemma.

Sick & Well, Tired & Rested

We’ve been fighting the last few weeks of illnesses going around the house. I’m not sure who got it first, Michael or Abigail, but I’m pretty sure it came from day care. It’s really hard to avoid getting sick yourself when you have 2 kids coughing in your face all the time! But we all seem to be nearly on the mend, which is a good thing. And hopefully this means we can all catch up on sleep!

Michael is learning to sleep in his toddler bed without climbing out or falling out. And even though he climbs in bed by himself at night, he doesn’t climb out of bed in the morning until one of us comes in his room. I’m sure that will change once he realizes he can get out and play with toys and we might not notice. I say MIGHT because we do have a video monitor in his room which is quite handy. We usually only watch him when he’s making noises. So if she’s sly enough to play quietly, he might just get away with it!

Abigail has back tracked in her sleeping, as she really only like to sleep right up next to Momma and preferably nursing at the same time. It’s not as bad as with Michael we had to actually hold him in our arms, which made it hard to sleep. She’ll let me sleep as long as she can feel me. It’s really only bad when I have to go to the bathroom or when I want to roll over. I know she doesn’t NEED to nurse all night long, but sometimes I feel bad because she will never have as much time with me as Michael did. At this same age, I was only working 2 days a week so Michael got me for 5. Now I work 5 days a week so Abigail only gets me for 2 and she has to share me with brother.

My husband has been ready for a while to pull the plug and force her into her crib all night. I think I’m there. I can handle her waking me at midnight to eat. And even at 3am. But when 4am, 5am, and then 6:30am follow, I want to be done. Like last night. At 4am I had to leave my bedroom and go sleep on the couch. (keep in my that my husband left somewhere between the 11:30pm and 3am feeding).He tried to rock her to sleep but she resisted. So he had to put her in her crib awake. She cried for less than an hour (couldn’t really keep track) and then she was out cold. Unfortunately, I think more of these nights are in our future. But I think that will be the only way to have a well rested house. For all 4 of us, and not just the kiddos!

Overwhelmed

Today I’m feeling overwhelmed by life. Abigail is coming off of being sick for the last two weeks. Unfortunately she’s passed some of that on to me. So with a sore throat and multiple boxes of Kleenex, I’m trying to catch up on some much needed sleep and keep up with keeping the house in order. Lawrence and I feel like we are losing that battle. Laundry piling up, dishes never ending, toys everywhere. Being a working mom is so much harder than I imagined.

Michael continues to go through these phases where he whines, cries, and/or throws a tantrum unless he is being held. Tonight was one of those nights. So I’m trying to get dinner going, empty the dishwasher, clean up dishes from the morning and put groceries away while carrying my 27 pound toddler on one hip. Meanwhile my 6 month old starts to fuss a little. But poor thing who doesn’t have the lung capacity of her brother, often gets left in her bumbo. Then my husband is rushing to actually get the food cooked so we can start this blissful thing they call dinner time. Michael either eats all his food in 2-3 minutes, or refuses to eat. Either situation makes mealtime a stressful event. Depending on when she napped last, Abigail can be happy as a clam or in dire need of going to sleep. Either one usually leads to me eating cold food.

I know many people have told me that it will be great having my kids so close in age. They will really bond and be the best of friends I’ve been told. That might’ve true at some point, but if anyone asked me I would say put a bit more than 19 months between your kids. It’s overwhelming.

And if being a working mom wasn’t enough, work has it’s own set of stresses that make me question if this is all worth it? I know it is, it’s just hard to believe that deep down inside. My busy season should end in about 3 weeks. Then I can breathe. I feel like I’m trying to run a marathon right now without having been trained. Even though I can almost see 3 weeks away, I feel like I could collapse at any moment. How did I get so out of shape (vocationally speaking)? Oh I know! It’s called being pregnant/nursing for the last 4 years. That’s just overwhelming to think about!

We are still trying to make new friends, and it’s even slow going. With the craziness of two small kids and work, I don’t know when I could squeeze in an ounce of social time. Fortunately many of our neighbors also have small kiddos, so when we can connect with one of them it is a piece of heaven. Like tonight we came home and our left adjacent neighbor was in their yard with their 15 month old son. Hanging in the yard with friends – what a treat! They are having their second boy in 4 months, so they are soon to be wearing the shoes we are in. At least we can be overwhelmed together, instead of going it alone.

Weekend of New Things

So this was a weekend of milestones. Friday night Michael spent his first night in his new “Big Boy” toddler bed. He was all giggles as I was assembling it and quite excited to get into bed that night. It didn’t have a side rail, so after his nightly rolling around he fell asleep with his arms hanging off the bed a bit. Made us a little concerned, so we went out and bought a side rail the next day. Not that falling 5-7″ to the floor would hurt him, it just might startle him enough to keep us all up for the night.

Night 2, he thought he was back in a crib with the side rails and starting leaning back and forth into it. I’m not sure it’s that sturdy, but he finally fell asleep before the thing collapsed. So now we’re just trying to decide if we are better off with or without the side rail. A few more nights and we may decide. At least with the side rail, he doesn’t realize he can climb out!

Along with his crib, Michael lost the changing table in this room. So now he goes to the bathroom to practice sitting on the potty when he gets his diaper changed. They’ve been doing it at day care for months, so I figured that would be good to reinforce it at home. Who knows – maybe it will help with potty training?

This week Abigail got her first ear infection. Not a first I was looking forward to but I know an inevitable one being in day care. Couple that with RSV, and it’s been a week of sleep loss for all of us.

Saturday was Abigail’s 6 month birthday. I can hardly believe it. She doesn’t seem that old to me! I am thrilled to say that I made it totally breastfeeding without having to supplement formula. Before she was born, I didn’t think this would be possible. With Michael, I didn’t go back to work full time till he was 9 months old, so breastfeeding up to 15 months wasn’t too hard. (it was only the first 3 months that was hard!) Since Abigail was only 3 months old when I went back to work, I was just hoping to make it to 4 or 5 months. But here we are at 6! And now I’m hoping that I can keep going, but pumping 4 times a day while at work may have to end. Let’s just hope she takes to food well like Michael did.

We celebrated Abigail’s. 6 month birthday by giving her a first food (besides rice cereal). We decided on avocado, which was Michael’s first food. She gobbled it up promptly so we gave her a second serving! We’ll keep this up a few more days and then move on to sweet potato (which Michael never liked) and butternut squash (which he did).

Another new is that we let Abigail cry it out in her crib for the first time. Now some of you may be horrified just by reading that sentence. But after nights of her crying and crying and being rocked over and over both swaddled and unswaddled and still not sleeping unless being held, we knew we had no other choice. For those of you that don’t know or don’t remember, we held Michael EVERY night for the first 4 months of his life. He wouldn’t sleep AT ALL unless he was held. There is no way we are repeating that part of our lives! The good news is that she cried for less than an hour and then slept for 6. I think we may be on our way to sleep returning in our house very soon!

February is here!

When I lived in Chicago, January seemed like the longest month ever!  Now I can hardly believe the month is over.  We are already seeing multiple days of weather in the 70’s, so that makes me not even care what month it is.

 

I’ve already broken my New Year’s Resolutions and we’re only a month into year. 😦  I have good reason though.  My in law’s were in town last weekend, so I didn’t have time to post a blog.  More accurately, I didn’t take time to post.  Instead I had 3 dates with my husband.  I think that’s worth more than my resolutions, and we could do it without hiring a baby sitter.  Friday night at a coffee shop, Saturday night at Hopdoddy’s with nearly a 90 minute wait to be seated, and Sunday at one of the popular trailer parks.  All things we could not do with Michael in tow.

Part II of my resolution is to cook more vegetarian/vegan meals.  This pat week was a butternut and lentil soup.  The squash was a pain to cut up and the soup did not look very eye appealing, but the taste was definitely there.  A repeater no doubt.

Instead of having friends over, we went to someone else’s house tonight.  There were 4 other couples with young kids and one couple expecting their first.  Even with all the kids running around, we had a nice time to visit and connect with other adults.  Oh how I’ve missed that! Definitely something we need to keep working on.  This will be a challenging month to make it happen though.  We only have 28 days and 3 are already gone!  Abigail turns 6 months old on Saturday, so we’ll be celebrating by starting her on solid foods.  I haven’t decided if we are going to give her avocado or sweet potato.  Michael started with avocado and loved it. Didn’t care so much for sweet potato. Of course now he won’t touch it, but loves sweet potato fries.

This weekend we will also be transitioning Michael out of his crib and into a bed.  It’s a little scary to think about.  I’m hoping we won’t have to lock the door to keep him in his room. We don’t really have a plan for this, and maybe that’s foolish of us? He does sleep on a cot at day care and doesn’t go wandering off.  I think the days of 3 hours in his bed at nap time are coming to a close.  I just hope he doesn’t get out of bed before 6am and start destroying the house!

Lazy Weekend Turned Productive?

Yesterday both the kids took three hour plus naps.  Hallelujah!!  I wish I could say that I got an amazing amount of things done around the house.  No. But I can say that I got an amazing nap in myself, which made up for the 5:45 am waking of Abigail.  Abigail it seems is a morning person, like her Daddy.  Michael on the other hand is more like his Momma.  No matter how early or late it is, we need a few extra minutes in bed before we can face the day.  Michael and I are the kind of people snooze alarms were meant for.

Christmas is finally over at the Deeter house. It only took till January 20th to get all our decorations put away and the house back in order . . . well, sort of. Is your house really ever in order when you have a toddler?

To keep things safely out of Michael’s reach we have managed to keep everything important or breakable at least two and a half feet off the ground out of his reach. Yes, this does mean that the bottom two shelves of our pantry are basically useless. Recently, Michael has come to learn the power of a 10″ step stool. It has just opened up his world to a whole new array of things that used to be no-nos.  Now he doesn’t have to ask – he just drags his step stool all over the house. So we just lost one more foot of safety zone.

To distract our 2-year old from creating too much chaos, we find he is easily distracted. Just ask him where is “blankie” is and he will usually drop everything he is doing to go find it. This sometimes works with other objects, but it ALWAYS works with Blankie. Sometimes getting him to put blankie down can be a whole different kind of challenge. We usually try to hide it from him during non-sleep hours so he doesn’t become a Linus. This is not always possible though. When doing laundry, he always finds them. And we have four of them, so when he finds more than one he really goes crazy. Blankie is not allowed to take a bath with him, sit at the dinner table or leave the house. Yet Michael tries to do all three quite often.
Since we spend so much time either cleaning or hiding blankie, many of those house projects we always aspire to do get put on the back burner. I am happy to pathetically report that we finally hung our first picture of Abigail up in the house. Only took five months. :-p I’m hoping we’ll be able to hang a few more before her first birthday. She’s definitely getting that third child treatment. Poor thing, even Jonathan has more pictures in our house.

We will get there. In time, we will get there. For now, I just get excited when I can see the kitchen counter, and the toys are contained, and I’ve managed to keep up with laundry. Aaah, the life of a working Momma!