Catching Up with the Girls

As promised, here is my post dedicated solely to catching up on the girls' latest and greatest...

C:

- has hit the Jekyll/Hyde stage of childhood known as 4.5 years old. One day she is amazingly mature, patient, and wonderful to be around. The next she is a whiney, tattle tale that drives me insane. Anyone parent who has made it through this age deserves sainthood. I would just appreciate some pointers!!

- is almost 42 inches tall and 41 lbs. Officially big enough for a booster seat which she uses in my mother in law's car, but in my car she will remain in a 5 pt harness until high school. Just kidding...I think at least!

- is loving school. She now goes 5 days a week in the afternoons. Let me just tell you that this schedule fits her perfectly. She takes after both myself and J in that we don't move our butts in the morning. The afternoon schedule suits her well. She's made lots of friends and is thriving there. She's definitely tired afterwards so bedtime has been moved up, along with the shenanagins that accompany it.

- is reading!!! Yup, I said reading! A while ago I bought her a set of BOB books which we recently have been working through. She can already read the first 6 on her own with little prompting from me. It's been extremely exciting and making both her and me proud!

- has taken some great field trips with school. Here are a few pics from the pumpkin patch and the fire station! I'm really enjoying being able to go with her on these!

M:

- is sad that she doesn't get to go to school like C, but is loving Little Gym! We go Tuesday mornings and it's been great for her. She's always the first to go with the teacher instead of me, so I think she's almost ready for school! Don't think there will be much seperation anxiety here!

- is almost 37 inches tall and 31 lbs. She's officially wearing a lot of C's clothes from last year! I'm talking size 4 shirts here!! It's amazing how differently both girls are built. M's torso seems to be longer while C's legs are longer. It will be interesting to see how this impacts their growth later...

- loves sleeping in her new WALL-E bed! She's officially in a twin bed and loves it. We still have some sleep issues (ahem, and a paci ) but she loves her bed. Recently she seems to be trying to get rid of her nap which scares the beejesus out of me! Not sure how that's going to pan out but I'm hoping it's not done yet!!!!

- has for the most part adjusted well to the move. Yesterday was the first time she asked to go to "my house" because she wanted her pictures from her room. Needless to say, I'll be heading over to storage this weekend to get them!

- is talking a ridiculous amount and is funny! She loves telling "jokes" but she just says the funniest things. An example was we all went out to dinner with my cousins and their significant others, and they wanted to pay for us. J and I were protesting it, but they just said, "That's the way it will be so be ok with it!" to which C replied, "I'm ok with it!". We all started laughing and then M turned to us and said, "HA HA! What's so funny??". She also has been going around and doing the robot and saying "I am a robot!". She's just too funny!

Here are some recent pics of her from pumpkin picking:

I'll have some pictures up this weekend from pumpkin carving and Halloween. We're looking forward to it and hope you will to!!

The Big 4 Year Checkup

Consider this a public service announcement for all of you who have a kid who will be 4 anytime soon...

C had her 4 year old checkup on Friday. It's a BIG visit! They check weight and height like a normal visit, but also vision, hearing, and urine!! Yup, C had to pee into her first cup. Now, I won't go into the specific manuerving we did to make this happen, but it happened. Just an fyi to make sure your kids have a full bladder before the visit!

Now, on to the actual dr. talk. We spoke about potty training, sleep, eating...all the basics. Then she had C write and follow directions. Luckily she followed directions perfectly and all was good.

That is until the shots... Yup, I said shots. 4 of them to be exact! I had prepped C for the possibility of shots, but I came prepared. I had an ice pack and lollipop standing by. None of that helped. C screamed so bad I thought she would throw up. It was awful. We spent a good 10 minutes calming her down before we ventured back out into the waiting room. The only thing that worked was the promise of a new dress for her doll and a strawberry milkshake. Hey, you would give your kid anything they wanted in that position too!! :)

Ok...so here are the stats from the visit:

Weight: 37 lbs. (70th percentile)
Height: 41 inches. (75th percentile)

Vision: 20/20 both eyes, 20/30 individual eyes
Hearing: perfect

She's in perfect health which is wonderful to hear. :) Now she's due for another shot but I'm not tackling that for at least a few months. *** End of public service announcement. *** :)

Cha Cha Cha Changes....

We've had a weekend of changes around here. M has been moved into a toddler bed. It wasn't by choice, mind you, it was a necessity. You see we have been debating the great move for a few months now. At first it was because we thought M's sleeping issues were caused by her dropping thing out of her crib or hitting her head on the crib rails. Then it was her "testing" the ability to climb out of her crib. She never actually did it, but she would put her one leg over like she was daring us to say anything.

So what made us make the move? Well on Saturday, Miss M. got her leg stuck in between the crib rails and actually got a burn on her ankle from trying to twist it out. So we decided it was time, or rather J decided it was time. I was all set to leave her crib in the room with the toddler bed for a few days, but J being as efficient as ever had the whole thing down and in the attic while I was at the store. The result?



M slept well until about 3 am Monday morning. Then she thought it was fun to get out of bed and knock on her door every 20 minutes until about 6 am. Needless to say, I wasn't a happy camper about it. Luckily last night was better with only one episode at 3:40 am where she fell out of bed. Hopefully tonight will be even better. She's loving her "big girl bed" and the freedom it brings. I on the otherhand am not as happy. It's a bittersweet moment. M is not in a crib, she's one step closer to being more independent. The crib, which my grandmother gave us, is packed up quite probably for good. So it's a mixed bag of emotions for me. I'm definitely happy and excited but I'm also mourning M's babyhood if you will. I can't even imagine how I'll be in a month when C turns 4!!!

Procrastination at it's finest...

Yup, that's me procrastinating. You see I should be getting ready to get on the road and head up to NJ, but instead I'm writing this blog. I'm tired, correction exhausted, as my kids were up from 4:30-6 am. I then had to dash out the door by 9:30 am to go get bloodwork. Now it's time to pack. Or is it??

I realized that I neglected to provide M's 18 month update. Bad Mommy, I know. So, here you go...



M had her checkup last Thursday while I was in bed recovering from a stomach virus. Her stats are as follows:

Weight: 25 lbs. 3 ozs.
Height: 33 1/2 inches

She says the following:

• Please
• Thank You
• Welcome
• Mommy
• Daddy
• Mema
• Pepa
• Mimi
• Samby (Sammy)
• Tubby
• Cup
• Drink
• Cat
• Kitty
• Milo
• Baby
• Puppy
• Birdie
• Monkey
• Boots
• Dora
• Diego
• Super Why
• Show
• TV
• Pancakes
• Bagel
• Dip
• Carrot
• Yummy
• Roni (Macaroni)/Pasta
• Yes
• Ok
• No
• Let GO!!
• Stop It!!
• Get Down
• Done
• Cleanup
• Nose
• Eyes
• Ears
• Mouth
• Teeth
• Tongue
• Cheek
• Chin
• Head
• Hair
• Buckle
• Open/Close
• Up
• On/Off

There are a ton more but that's all I can think of right now. She can sing "Twinkle, twinkle", "See Saw", "Cleanup", "Go to Sleep", and "ABC's". She's running, trying to jump, and loves to dance and spin. Overall she's really happy all the time. She's just started throwing tantrums when she gets mad. Fun, right?

Her sleeping is still being worked on, but we'll be dealing with that after the holidays. Ok, enough procrastination. Off to pack. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!!

Where have we been?

Well, I wish I could be writing a post to say we've been on some exotic vacation or won the Powerball but in truth we've just been busy. Here's quick rundown of what's going on...

• C started school at the beginning of September (Thank God!!!). She goes to a preschool 5 minutes from home two mornings a week. Sure, I wish it was more, but hey it's something, right?
• C is also signed up for some classes to keep us busy. She now has gymnastics and ballet/tap on Fridays, and will start swimming class in October.
• M has been enjoying some alone time with me. So far we've gone grocery shopping, taken trips to the park, attended a tots playgroup, and gone to MOPS.
• M had her 15 month checkup in which she was 31 3/4 inches tall and 23 lbs. 9 ozs. She was a real trooper even through her 2 shots.
• I've been back and forth to the doctor's again. Have yet another sinus/ear infection (my 4th of the summer) and had sinus xrays done. Luckily they came up clear but I'll be heading back next week for a follow up.
• I'm serving as the Activities Coordinator for our MOMS Club in town and also attending MOPS twice a month. (Just is case I wasn't busy enough already...)
• We've had things going on every weekend so far and it won't end until late October! Some of our fun has been: going to Richmond to visit friends, heading to Six Flags for J's company's annual picnic. This weekend we're heading to the circus!

That's basically been it. Lately I feel like I should put a meter in my car and earn some money for all the driving I'm doing! So...that's been it. Hopefully I'll start getting a little more free time soon and be able to post more often.

These boots were made for walking...

So big news in our house..... M is walking!! She took 2 steps on Sunday, followed by 8 yesterday...and she's just going from there. I'm so excited and scared at the same time it's not even funny! My back is loving that I won't need to carry her as much soon, that's for sure! Not sure how I'm going to handle both girls running around, but we'll manage.

On top of this, I got a call from C's ballet teacher yesterday that Miss C may be in a local newspaper this week!! Apparently a reporter was there on Friday during the dress rehearsal and snapped a few pics of her. They have asked my permission for one of them to appear, but we won't know for sure until it comes out on Friday. I can't wait to see!!

Exciting week in our house so far!!!

Kid's Update

I figured we are way overdue for an update on the girls. So, here we go...

C...
- is fully potty trained. She's even staying dry overnight now and is very proud of herself!
- is able to write her name by herself as long as I tell her the letters. When she takes her time, it looks really good!! We still have some work to do, but I'm really proud of her!
- is still a singing and dancing fool. She's constantly making up her own songs, especially when playing. She's completely into her tap dancing and loves showing it off!
- enjoys meeting new friends when we go out. Although she tells me that she's being shy, she's really doing a great job of playing with other kids.

M...
- is starting to cruise around. She's been standing for a while, and definitely loves being a part of the action!
- has a total of 8 teeth now.
- is saying: mama, dada, baby, baba, ball, kaykay (for Caitlin), and kitty cat. New things are coming out everyday!
- will eat anything she can get her hands on. She loves quesadillas and bananas!! You can't walk by her with a banana and not give her some.

I think that's it for now. I'll try to post an update monthly!

K

And they're off...

So in the last week, M has hit a major milestone...she's crawling and pulling up. She went from slowly crawling last week to now flying. She's getting close to standing. It's all exciting and scares the crap out of me at the same time. I'm going to have two kids to chase around?!? And now the real fun begins...

This week is C's first full week without school. To start off, we had C's big party with her school friends on Sunday. She had a blast and was so sugared up by the end, that she was actually running around in circles. Today we tried to go to the zoo and realized that going when all the kids are on spring break, the cherry blossoms are in bloom, and a new museum is opening...not a good idea! Instead, we drove around DC for almost 3 hours. We wound up going to the farm park around the corner from our house instead. Oh well...we'll try again another day...

Off to bed...

--K

Two weeks and counting...

Two weeks until C is done with preschool. She's been in it 3 days a week since she was 18 months. We've taken her out since it's so expensive to keep her in with the sporadic work I have been doing, and since we are trying to move. Now the question comes, what the heck am I going to do to occupy her?? I have signed her up for a Tuesday dance class, and I'm hoping to find a playgroup or library group to fill in at least another day or two. I also went out and bought a preschool activity book to help me out! Oh boy...we may be making a lot of trips to NJ to compensate...

M is 9 months old now and is such a joy. Her personality is really coming out now and it looks like she will be giving C a run for her money. She's started really yelling when you take something away from her, or if she's bored. Today, she's decided to shriek almost all day long. It's definitely been an Advil day today!

It's hard to believe that C will be 3 so soon! God, where has the time gone?? We were supposed to head to NJ this weekend to celebrate, as well as meet some relatives that are in from Italy. Unfortunately, C woke up with a fever yesterday and today there's been some really crummy weather, so I'm not sure what we are doing now. We may still head up tomorrow, but we will have to see. Guess I should do some laundry so I have something clean to wear in case. It seems to never end!!

Later!
K