I have a 4 year old?!!!!

Wait!!! When did that happen?!!!! 

When did this...

 

...turn into this?

Such a little goofball. 

You are 4 years old today.

You are 31lbs and about 38inches tall.

Your favorite color is blue.

Your favorite shows are Mickey and Octonauts.

Your favorite movies are Cars and  Monsters Inc.

Your favorite book is The Very Clever Crocodile.

You love to play with your bazillion cars on your car ramp. 

Your favorite food is mac n cheese.

Your favorite snack are gummies. 

I wish you all the best the year has to offer and I can't wait to see all the new things that you learn this year and the new adventures that you will have. 

Love Always, 

                   Your Mommy

Toddlerhood.

I'm not sure if I am ready for this.

I love that Rebecca is growing and getting bigger, but...she is still my baby and I guess I am having a bit of a hard accepting that she is not going to stay this squishy, cuddly little girl forever. In three weeks she moves over to the toddler room at daycare. While its great because she is walking, getting into everything and is starting to be comfortable interacting with new people. Plus, her rate goes down $30 a week so that's a savings of $120 a month for us. But.....I worry about how she will do because she is small. She doesn't say many words and she also is not using her utensils much. I know that they will work with her and Seth & I can work more with her at home to master this better. I do like that her daily routine will be more structured i.e. snack times, lunch time, naps at the same time everyday, etc. Maybe she needs to be in a room where the kids are older so she can "catch up" so to speak. I know with Aiden I was excited for him to move over to the toddler room, but I also feel that he was doing more then she is currently. He was also about 7lbs heavier as well. And that does make a difference.

I know in my mind that she will be fine and she will adjust well. She will get used to her new teachers and she will make a few new friends. One of the boys in her room will be moving over a week after she moves over so hopefully they will be together. That will be a comfort for both of them in the transition. I just need to take a step back and breathe. I don't want to be one of those helicopter moms that I can't stand. I want my kids to grow and learn and explorer for themselves. I want to be there to help them when they need me and offer support. I want them to trust me and I in return. It will all work out in the end.

The Next Stage of Growing up

So I guess we've hit the point where there are some aspects and things that kids do that make you wonder if they are a toddler or are they a teenager. That being said we've hit the next stage of Aiden's drive towards independence,

"I want to pick out my own clothes."

This can be pretty trying since he takes a while to decide what he wants and he also doesn't watch the weather like we adults do. For example, this morning he wanted to wear jeans. No way am I sending him to school in jeans when its suppose to be 80*+ today. We settled on a Fruit Loops shirt and tan shorts. Usually we pick out the clothes the night before to make it easier, but last night was Seth's night since I was at the gym.

I love that he wants to be more involved in his daily life. I still have a little bit of a say in what he wears, but I try to leave that mostly up to him. I still get to call all the shots with Rebecca, but those days are numbered as well.

Now a bottle free home.

Thursday I packed away all the bottles. Actually I went through them, peeled all the labels off them with Aiden and Rebecca's names on them, scrubbed off the label residue and threw away all the nipples. I posted them on Craig's List to see if anyone wants them that way and I am going to try to see them at the Spring Consignment Sale in March if they don't sell on CL.

Let's be honest. Rebecca has not taken a bottle in a little over a month and for me to keep them in the pantry until her birthday in a "just on case" moment that she decided that she wants one was just plain stupid. She's not going to take a bottle and she definitely wants nothing to do with formula as this point. The girl made my life a whole lot easier by making that decision herself. Aiden we had to cut him off the bottle cold turkey and even then he held out for almost 3 weeks before he would drink milk out of a sippy cup. We're still working on getting her to drink more milk, she prefers room temp water the best, but our pediatrician said that she really need should be in the formula still. Well.. she is...kind of. I put it in her fruit and in her yogurt and she eats it. She doesn't get the same amount, 20oz., that she got when she was drinking it, but she is getting about half so I guess that is something. And its not like she is dehydrated and not getting any fluids. I make sure that she drinks at each meal, before and after each nap. And she also gets fruit at each meal and snack as well which is loaded with fluids. So she is good to go in my opinion.

It is nice to have all that space in the pantry again so I can spread out the kids' food out a bit to see it better and don't have to worry anymore about making sure that I have water to make a bottle or if I remembered to fill the formula sorter. I just have to toss in a sippy cup. And ironically she's not keen in on the soft spout cups (woo hoo more stuff that I can get rid of!!), she likes the hard ones already. The thermo ones are still a little hard for her to suck out of at this point so she is using all of Aiden's old take n toss cups. Not bad they are stackable and don't take up that much room either. Now I guess the next step is to start going through all the old baby toys to see which ones I want to get rid of and which ones I want to hold on to for the future, like the shape sorter or the nesting blocks. Anything soft and fabric needs to be sold since that won't hold the test of time. I can't believe that its starting to come to this already. It goes by too fast.....

 Oh yeah, she's already got straws down too. (stealing brother's juice box)

Getting bigger too fast

They say that once you have children the days go by faster and the more that you have the days seem to just start to meld together into one long day. You sometimes forget what day it is, what you have to get done and in some cases you forget to even shower. I don't have that last problem, but I do know that the days seem to go by so fast that I don't know where the hours went since having Rebecca. And now I can start to see her little personality starting to really take shape. These past two weeks a lot has happened for Rebecca. She cut tooth #1 and #2 is just under the gums, but you can see it.

 

I knew that the time of her napping in the swing would soon be over. I need to get her used to napping in her crib and for Thanksgiving we are not going to have the swing with us so she needs to be able to nap in the crib or a pack n play. Well today I walked into her room after she refused to go down for a nap and I found her sitting up in her swing holding onto the sides as is swung side to side in the cradle motion...Looking at me and smiling. Time to put that up on Craig's List. 

The last two transitions of this week is I took the back support out of her baby tub so its just her sitting in it. She really hasn't been using it all except when I lay her down to wash her legs. It makes it easier to wash them, but afterwards she tries to pull back up to a sitting position so why put it in at all. Lastly talking up a storm. Little miss chatter box. And I know that soon I will also be packing up the bouncy seat since she hasn't used it in weeks and the same with the playmat. All these changes!! She's getting big too fast.

Watch this video of my little chatter box.

Rebecca Talking