Happy Eleven Months, Oliver!

Oliver is eleven months old!  How crazy!

Oliver's first pair of new kicks from Nordstrom.

He's a walking, chattering, quick moving boy and charms the pants off everyone he meets.

Playing with the big kids at the Nelson's house.

Just last week he finally decided to start walking around on his own and in just a week he's a pro.  He LOVES to walk laps around the kitchen and living room and often does so for 45 minutes to an hour at a time when I'm making dinner or tidying up.  He LOVES that he can follow his big sister anywhere now and he especially LOVES that he can reach things he couldn't before (and more quickly, too).

Crocodile Rock.

The turkey has figured out how to pull plugs, the carbon monoxide detector, and night lights out of the wall sockets.  He prefers to spend time in Zoë's room but she's taken to closing her bedroom door so he can't go in there.  He is eating like he never gets fed.  Down to three bottles a day, when he wakes up, mid afternoon, and at bedtime.  He is FINALLY napping more than 20-30 minutes at a time.  His morning name is around 9am (although, earlier if he's up before 6, which he often is) for about 30 minutes and then his afternoon nap is usually longer, between 1-2 hours.  WHEW!  Of course, when we're out running errands or doing something fun in the morning, Z and I play the "STAY AWAKE OLIVER!" game in the car by clapping, singing, and shaking his carseat until we get home.  Most of the time we do pretty well and win the game.

Cute ballerinas.

Zoë has been busy with lots of activities and she is THRILLED at the thought of having a new house to move to (her new bathroom is BLUUUUUE!!!).  She started gymnastics class by herself (no parents!) and only had one incident with one little girl who pushed her, which sent her running out to the lobby to me.  She was fine the next week, though, and I have a feeling she would have recovered if I weren't sitting out there.  She also started ballet and tap class with her good friend Avery and she LOVES it.  I enjoy watching the class of eight little girls in their leotards and learning "tap-tap".  Only two more weeks of that with a "show and tell" class the last week that parents are invited to.

We had a trip to the doctor for a nebulizer treatment this month...

She DOES love the doctor.

She's been waking up in the middle of the night lately and been WIDE AWAKE.  She'll come in and stand next to my side of the bed and whisper my name until I wake up (creeeeeeeeepy!) and then whine and scream for me when she gets tucked back into her bed.  She'll do it for an hour until she finally crashes and then will sleep in until 9.  It's AWFUL.

New house!  Hoping to close sooner than is now planned...

We're closing on a house in mid-April in NE Tacoma.  The best part about the new house is the neighborhood and schools and we're really excited to spend the rest of the kids' childhoods there.  Plus, the house is big and will seem like a fancy mansion compared to our current house.  :)  The plan is to list our house once we vacate it, so keep your fingers crossed for us that it sells quickly.  The new house has a pool and hot tub and a big deck so we're really excited for summer to be here and our weekly BBQs!  Zoë, Oliver and I went and visited a preschool near the new house today and she had a great time.  It was so much fun to watch her interact with peers her age that she didn't know and to watch her listen to the teacher and participate in all of the activities.  She is growing so fast and I'm so proud of her!

Lots of things to keep us busy in the next month.  Here we come, Spring!

Girls day out!

Handsome men.

Riding together at Costco.  It's like Disneyland!!!

Happy Ten Months, Oliver!

This cute guy has developed such a personality!  Ten months old and busy, busy, busy.

We have learned that baby proofing our house has taken on a different level with this second child.  He LOVES to pull anything off a shelf he can.  His favorite targeted spot is the shelf with our cookbooks and DVDs and he can clear it within a minute.  He also loves to do the same thing at the library and I'm not sure how I'm going to take him to the library for the next six months without feeling incredibly frustrated that I can't just look at books without turning around and finding the shelf cleared.

Big sister baiting Oliver with Fruit Snacks

He is standing, unassisted, really well.  This kids is MOTIVATED to walk.  More so than his sister ever was.  He has graduated to the standing-and-falling-straight-forward stage a week ago and now has attempted to take a step or two before he falls.  ***Update as of tonight, he's taken many many steps in a row!  And even stopped, looked around, turned a little bit, and kept going.  We've got a walker, people!*** We have been practicing with fruit snacks (the only tried and true motivator we found with Zoë) and big sister loves to dangle them in front of him to tempt him towards her.  It's adorable.

Making mischief together already.

He's sleeping better these days.  He went through a period of waking up earlier and earlier and it was awful.  But, we're back to waking up between 6-7, which is do-able.  He's also napping, er, better.  I've figured out that he wakes up about 20 minutes into his nap and some of the time I can get him to go back to sleep for 20-30 more minutes.  If we stay home for the day he is quite regular with two or three naps, but if we go out it's anybody's game.

Oliver also had his first haircut a few weeks ago.  I was determined to wait until his first birthday but his shaggy 'do was driving me crazy since I had to keep sweeping the hair out of his eyes, so I took him.  He sobbed the entire time.  You'd have thought I took him to the dentist.  And, at first I didn't think it was a good one, but when I looked back at old pictures, I realized he looks much better!
























Zoë has certainly rushed into the "threenager" phase at an alarming speed.  The tantrums and attitude we've been getting has heightened.  It's so hard because she's SO sweet one minute and then it's like a switch gets flipped and she's a terror.  We had her birthday party at The Little Gym, which I hear was fantastic.  I was terribly sick with a stomach bug which eventually got everyone in the family (which was a horrendous two days) except for Z (she just got a cold).

Zoë got a new tricycle for her birthday!  Her feet don't reach the peddles, but she was really excited anyway.

From Preemie to 3-Year-Old

We went to the open house at the preschool we'd like her to attend in the fall.  We're on the waiting list (2nd!), which is SUPER discouraging.  The parents that were there were adamant that there is usually a lot of movement on the list over the summer so we shouldn't fret yet.  So, I applied to teach there, instead.  There's an open toddler teacher position, which, after I got over the idea that they'd make space for Z if I were the teacher (they told me so at the open house!) I actually got really excited at the prospect of teaching there.  Three mornings a week at the same time Z would be in school AND I could take Oliver to the 1s class at the same time since I'd be teaching it?  Score!  We'll see, I just sent in the application today.






Oh, and we've decided to sell our house in April and find something bigger for our family.  NBD.  Busy busy times!




























Just a few Valentine's pics of my lovebugs:

To My Zoë On Her Third Birthday

Dearest Zoë, my blue loving, Pony obsessed, trinket hoarding, trampoline jumper,

How are you three?  I remember my sweet, 2 pound 12 ounce redheaded preemie laying in her isolette with tubes sticking every which way and bringing milk to you in an insulated lunch bag.  And picking you up gingerly and placing you on my chest in the quiet and darkness of your private room that I visited twice a day for six and a half weeks with only the sounds of your monitors beeping at us.  I agonized over your sucking and your oxygen levels and your vision test. And I marveled over every ounce you gained, every milliliter you swallowed, and every poopy diaper we changed.



Now, I pick you up and notice you are heavy, my 27 pound, feisty redhead.  You rarely sleep on my chest but you do demand that I snuggle with you "two minutes" every night I tuck you in, which I have given into far more than I ever said I would.  We feed you whatever you will eat, which is usually most anything aside from anything "ficy" (spicy) and would include yogurt, string cheese, and rice at every meal if we let you.  I spend my days and nights with you, chasing you around the kitchen, watching you jump on your trampoleeeeeeeeen, and devouring books by the bagful from the library.  I still agonize over your health, your breathing, your bumps, the length of your fingernails, trying to match your shoes to your outfit, and the fact that you don't sleep on your pillow but rather with your face smooshed up against the bedrail every. single. night.  I celebrate every pound you gain, every inch you grow, and every wonderful new word you use at the dinner table to surprise us.  Your dad and I look at each other and then back at you in awe of what you say and do more than you will ever know.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of you.  I am thrilled that you are smart.  And beautiful.  And kind and thoughtful.  I love that you ask your dad how his day was when he walks in from work every day, and even ask me sometimes when it's a few hours into our morning together and I was simply away from you in another room for a few minutes.  I love the way you love your brother.  You play the annoyed sister role well enough, but you are fiercely protective of him (and his toys) around others and respond to my continuous request for a "wipe! quick!" with "sure!" and the patter of your feet running to get one is music to my ears.

Your vocabulary is unreal.  You repeat words and phrases correctly after hearing them only once.  Your voracious reading makes my heart so happy and I know it's helping your little brain grow at the astonishing rate it is.  Your running, jumping, forward rolling, pointing and LEAP!ing and willingness to try something new has improved so much to the point where I know that one of these days you'll run away from me at the playground and not care whether or not I follow you.  The mess you can make in your bedroom with books and blocks and dolls and their accessories drives me bonkers but I am amazed at how well you can play with the same five toys (when there are a hundred to choose from) every day with the most incredible imagination.  The stories you create and insist we play, too, are so much fun and I know it's only going to get better.

I have sobbed uncontrollably too many times within the past couple of weeks while preparing slideshows and blog posts for your birthday thinking about how big you are and how grown up you are becoming.  I only got two lines into Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" before I was a broken, weeping mess at my computer, for heaven's sake.  I think, "my goodness, my baby girl is gone, I'll never have these moments back, it's never going to be the same".  You'd think that, by three years in, I would understand that it just keeps getting better.  That every milestone or accomplishment you have behind you just means there are millions and millions more.  But it sneaks up on me.  And every time I explain to you how proud I am of you and my voice catches a little bit thinking about these past moments of special, I think about everything else to come and somehow recover.  It would be helpful, however, if you could stop saying to me, "Mama, I'm growing up!" with the big, proud grin you have every time you say it.  Because I'd prefer if you just did it a little more slowly.

I love you to the moon and back, Zoë Maxine.  You'll always be my baby girl!

Love,
Mama

Happy Nine Months Oliver!

Three quarters of a year!

He is now cruising along the furniture easily and prefers to push the walking toys while on his knees.  He's done it a few times on his feet, but it's definitely not the norm.  He HAS attempted to let go of the furniture and throws his hands up in the air as if to say, "See!  Look at me!" before he falls down.

The falling down happens a lot, though.  Just this morning he executed the most graceful fall onto his face ever, which resulted in a really bloody and fat lip from his teeth crunching into it when he fell down.  It was very hard to not laugh while comforting him because it was an incredible move.  Poor guy.

He has grown to LOVE the trampoline that Zoë got for Christmas and loves to both sit on it while she bounces or gets up on his own feet and bounces.  He also has developed a taste for the rubber that protects the handlebar and taken out several chunks with his teeth.  He attempts to bounce AND chew it at the same time which is really funny to watch...if only he weren't destroying the handlebar.  He's been chewing on EVERYTHING.  I feel like we have another puppy in the house.  He's taken several good chunks out of the window sill, destroyed some magnets, board books, and puts any toy he can in his mouth.  I swear he's teething, but I don't see anything new coming through.

Clearly, he's got plenty of
food in the reserves...

Enjoying some mac and cheese
and mini pepperoni.

Oliver is finally eating better and slowing down a bit on how much formula he takes.  He weighed in last week at 24.5 pounds.  We're trying to get him to eat 3 meals a day of solid food and we've finally determined that it's better if we just feed him because he thinks it's HILARIOUS to grab fistfuls of food, hold them out over his tray, look at us and then release the food on the floor.  Any attempts with a sharp "NO" are met with a charming smile and giggle.  Grrrr...  He makes a beeline for the dog food and loves to chew on that, too.

Naps continue to be a daily challenge.  He naps about 20-30 minutes at a time and when he wakes up super early (like today, 6am!) he will take 3 small naps.  But usually we're at a two nap pattern.  He will scream and scream and scream for 5-10 minutes while I stand right there, pop his pacifier back into his mouth, and rub his back until, I think, he's screamed out.  It's exhausting.  AND, when he wakes up in the middle of the night (which is rare, but does happen on occasion) he won't go back to sleep if I go in, so poor Chris is back on middle-of-the-night put-him-back-to-sleep duty.

Quiet time.  Oliver was camped outside of Z's bedroom door.

Zoë is done taking naps.  :'(  Insert LARGE tear drop slowly moving down my face here.  She is really great at doing "quiet time" in her room, though.  I just have to get better at timing it so she's in there right when Oliver goes down for his afternoon nap (which is later than she usually would nap).  If she happens to protest after not long in her room and I still had my heart set on a nap, I'll throw her into my bed with my phone and let her watch PBS kids while I snooze.  NEVER thought I'd do that in a million years.  Motherhood.

BaLLET!  I'm a ballerEEEENA!

She is getting ready for her first ballet class next month and is loving all of the accessories dance class comes with.  I can't WAIT to go buy her some tap shoes; we've already been shopping.

Favorite coffee date.

Her 3rd (!) birthday is just a week and a half away and we're celebrating at The Little Gym with her friends on Saturday.  I SO can't wait to have all of her friends at her favorite place AND to not have to clean our house.  So THIS is why people have birthday parties other places...more to come with a birthday party update next week.

We had a girls only date with Teta and Baba last weekend.  'Mnastics, coffee, shoe shopping, and lunch at Five Guys.  

Teta teaching Zoë "Too Slow"