How do they know?!!

I swear kids have some sort of ESP. They can sleep all hours of the morning, but they day that you have to get up early they HAVE to get up early as well. I don't get it! You can teleport down the hall, walk in credibly silent and not make a peep or even float down the freaking hall, but the minute you are up early the kids just know. They just know!! And how the freak do they know?!! I have no idea!

Yesterday morning I had to get up early to start getting some things ready for our trip up to Story Land in Glen, NH. I did a bunch of things that day before, but there was still a lot to do and what was left over to do couldn't have been done until that morning or later that day. I got at 5:30, already 15 minutes later then I wanted. Fed Rebecca so she would end up seeping later that morning since the only real reason she wakes up is because she is hungry. Full belly = sleeping later. And she slept until 9:30am. Upon putting her back to bed I headed to get in the shower and that is when I heard another bedroom door open. Not my bedroom door, but Aiden's. I tell him that it is too early and that he needs to go back to bed. He asks for his music and I tell him that he can't get out of bed until the music is over, just over an hour long. I got 45 minutes out of that. But seriously if I didn't have to get up then he would have stayed sleeping and you never hear me getting up in the house. I know where every creak is in the floor and how to open every door without making a sound. Ahh cest la vie.

Comparing children.

No matter how much you try to not compare children you always end up doing it in the end. You think back to when each child hit a milestone and try to remember if the second or third child did each one sooner or later then the child before them. Here are just a few of the ones that have crossed my mind lately.

SITTING

Rebecca 5.5 mos


Aiden 6.5mos

EATING- At this point Aiden was just getting started on rice cereal. We tried it out at 4.5 mos, but he really didn't seem like he was getting the whole eating with a spoon thing so we waited a month. Rebecca was copying us at 3.5 mos. She wanted what we were eating. So far she has had apples, pears, peaches, plums, prunes, sweet potato, green beans, squash, a Mum Mum and as of last night she wanted to suck on the lemon from Seth's iced tea. She even got mad when Seth took it away from her.


Aiden Jan 2009


Rebecca June 2011- not really liking the rice cereal so we skipped it.

Last night with the lemon.

There are so many other comparisons like Rebecca started to sleep through the night at 12wks and Aiden didn't until he was 7 mos. But there are also theses. Aiden was sleeping in the crib at 10 weeks. Rebecca is still sleeping in her Rock n Play. Aiden would fall asleep almost anywhere as long as he was in his car seat. Rebecca will only sleep if she is in her swing at home or if the car is moving. She also developed separation anxiety around 4mos whereas Aiden didn't until around 8mos. That may have something to do with the fact that Aiden was in daycare at 14weeks and Rebecca is still at home with me.

I do know that both kids are smart and I know that they are their own people. I know that I will probably still compare reaching milestones, but I do keep in mind that they are also different genders. Girls tend to reach milestones fast then boys and it doesn't that Rebecca also has a big brother that she is dying to catch up to.

Cuddles

As Aiden gets older I notice that the cuddles start to get fewer and fewer. He loves to cuddle when watching Mickey right before bedtime and there are times on Fridays when its just him and I that we cuddle while reading a book, but it's not like it used to be. I can still get my cuddle fix for the time being with Rebecca, but I know that there will be a day that those to will start to fade.

Last night I heard Aiden stirring in his room around 11:45pm. I went in to check on him. he was still sleeping so I tucked him in and left. A few minutes later I heard him again. I went in again. He sat up I gave him a hug. He asked me to sit with him for a little bit. I sat down and he still seemed fidgety. I asked if he wanted a drink of water. he did. I got him one and he was waiting for me on the step stool. He drank and then I decided to pick him up to put him in bed. He put his head on my shoulder so we sat together for a bit to cuddle. It was soo nice.

This morning I was down stairs getting things ready for the day. I knew that Aiden was up but he headed to our room where Seth was. After a bit I went up to check on them. They weren't in bed, but rather when I turned I saw them cuddling on the floor. Apparently Aiden wanted to lay there to cuddle instead of in the bed. All I can say is that I wish I had the camera. It was sooo cute. No matter how big he gets I know that there will always be a time that he will want to cuddle with one of us.

Oh the tantrums

I know that this is just a phase, but Little Man has had some serious tantrums lately in addition to the screaming. It just makes you want to rip your hair out or just lock in him in his room until he turns 4. Maybe, just maybe it will have passed by then, but I am not holding my breath. Obviously it happens when you tell him "no" and he can't get his way. A lot of the time it happens when he is tired so the apparently is one of the side effects. However I know that he is just trying to assert himself as an individual person and he wants to be more independent. Its hard to convey the message to him that there are still certain things that he cannot do yet.

And of course there is Rebecca. My little sunshine smiley girl. Until she wants something. Last night we were in the pool and she was screaming. At first I thought she just didn't want to be in the pool, but it wasn't an upset scream it was an angry scream. I saw that she was staring at the swing. She wanted to go in the swing and wanted to let you know. Can't wait until she can actually talk...

Loves his Red Racecar

So as a toddler boy, Aiden is just like other boys his age and by that I mean that he is obsessed with Disney's Cars. He has pajamas. His pull ups have Cars on them. He has Cars slippers. He has a Cars powerwheels type of thing. He has a cars tray that is an art tray, but we use it for eating on the couch. You get the point. I have a pair of generic Crocs for him and they are getting small so I went looking ofr a new pair for him yesterday. Ironically Walmart had a pair or Cars on the shelf. The last pair and they were Aidens's size as well. I had to get them and for $5 as well you can't beat that. He was soo excited when he saw those shoes yesterday. He had to wear them for the rest of the day until he went to bed.




of course upon going to bed he had to put them next to his stool so he could put them back on when he got up in the morning. And yes they were on his feet when he went to school today n addition to the Cars shirt he requested to wear.

Weekend at Cape Cod

OMG was it work!!!!! Seth and I figured that since we don't live that far away so we would save money by just driving down every day instead of staying in a hotel like we did last year. I don;t recommend doing that again or we just go for one day. Aiden can go without a nap, but usually by 5pm his ugly side starts showing its face and especially when he has been outside all day. He did not stand a chance. 2pm hit and when we left the beach he was rearing to go. My in-laws were nice and offered to let us come back to their room since they had a 2 room suite, but he fell asleep on our way to the hotel and once we got inside he wouldn't go back down. Day 2 was much better and he managed to take almost a 2 hour nap. Day 3 he fell asleep in the car on our way back to my sister in laws because we ended up taking the long way back to the house after lunch.

Rebecca...on the other hand. That poor girl. She is just a creature of habit and if she is not in her usual place she just will not conform. At least not at this point. For 3 days she fought napping and pretty much only slept 1-2hours the whole day. She was tired. She was miserable. And since she was feeling that way she also was not eating well during the day so there were a lot of bottles where I dumped out half of it. Since there were so many of us, dinners took longer and we didn't end up heading home until almost 7pm, which is her bedtime. Add in an hour drive home and she wasn't getting to bed until 8:30pm at the earliest. Her only saving grace was that she was able to sleep in her own room and she did sleep great there, but then we had to do it all over again the next day. So now that we are home and back to regular routine she slept 14 hours last night. Honestly I have no idea what we are going to so when we go to Storyland in NH for the weekend the end of the month. Seth has realized this dilemma as well and he knows that we need to do something for naps while there. I am pretty sure that the park allows you to come ans go as you please the entire day so we may do some of the park and then go back for naps and then return in the afternoon to do some more of the park. We'll see how that all goes.




"Mr. and Mrs." (Aiden with cousin Naomi)




Digging tunnels at Seagull Beach.


Just hanging out after dinner.


Playing with cousin Justin


Playing minigolf.

Happy 5 Months!

Yeah I know its a couple of days late but we've been very busy this past weekend and I didn't have time to take the pics. Rebecca was pretty happy this morning so that made it that much easier to get great photos of her.

No more nursing.

I've honestly been really torn about this decision. My initial goal was to go 6 months and to have a really good freezer supply to hopefully get Rebecca as close to a year as possible. Seth was great and bought me an upright freezer to store everything I pumped and I really think he was delusional when he said that there was no way that I was going to fill the freezer with just milk. June hit and the freezer was about 2/3 full and what made me really sad at that point was even after all the work I put into making sure that my body was still in overproduction and I was storing about 20oz a day on top of feeding Rebecca, I still only had enough to maybe get me 2 mos. I made the decision that at 4mos I would start to wean Rebecca to straight bottles. She did put up a fight even though she had been using a bottle on and off since she was a week old. Maybe she had an inkling of what was going on. Its been about a week now since I last nursed her and honestly I miss it. I miss the closeness. I miss the way she would hold onto my shirt. I don't miss being full or having to watch the clock needing to pump every 4hours. Maybe its the fact that I know that I will never have that with Rebecca or any child. Its the end of a part of my life. She will always need me to clothe her and to love her, but she will never again rely on just me to be fed.

To get the longest amount of time from my supply we have been supplementing with formula. She transitioned well to the 50/50 mix so I think we will be good until she is 7 or 8 months old and then she will be on straight formula. I should commend myself seeing how Aiden was switched to formula at 10wks and we essentially had to dump the little amount that I did freeze for him because it smelled funny.

I am sure there will be many more of these types of posts as things get packed up as Seth and I have decided that we will not be having anymore children. I think the maternal part of me is sad that I won't get to experience certain things again, but when I look around. I love my life. I think I have the perfect family and that is enough for me. I wouldn't change a thing.

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a great weekend. Filled with a barbeque with great friends, a trip to the beach wrapped up with a barbeque with great neighbors. The weather was perfect. Only a small shower on Sunday night to make the 4th the perfect pool day. No fireworks yet, but I figure maybe in 2 years when Rebecca is older then we will try to go and its on a weekend. With both kids going to bed as early as they do and especially when Rebecca has a major meltdown around 6:30pm because she is tired its not the best situation to venture out to see fireworks. We have lots of time to see them so missing a few years is just a drop in the bucket if it means my kids are happy.


Starting the day out with some cleaning


Pool fun.




Daddy made me a waterslide.

First beach trip of the season

Yesterday was our first trip the beach as a family of four and I have to say that we did really well. We headed down to Onset Beach in Onset, MA. Its a smaller beach that is in a harbor so there aren't really any waves unless a boat is going by so that makes it better for smaller children. It was a beautiful day. Started out a little overcast, but the sun came out soon enough and there was a really nice breeze to help keep you cool. The water on the other hand was freezing!!! Other then wanting to do something just as a family we kind of wanted to get an idea of what next weekend was going to be like down the Cape with Rebecca and in case we forgot something this time around we would make a note to remember it for the next time. She did really well. Only napped for about 45minutes so she technically didn't get a morning nap, but otherwise she wasn't that cranky.

Baby Food

Everyone always says that homemade anything is usually the best. Not to be confused with the odd outfits that an Aunt Mildred would make thinking that it was the cutest thing. ( No I don't have an Aunt Mildred, nor did I ever receive such gifts.) With Aiden he ate store bought baby food and he drank formula once I returned to work. Since I am still currently not working I figured to help save money I would make Rebecca's baby food. One apple or one pear or one sweet potato does go a long way mealwise. I guess since I have more time I was able to research things more and I really wish I had done this with Aiden because it really doesn't take that long to do. So far the hardest part has been waiting for the food to finish cooking (the sweet potato took an hour to bake). I bought this book when I was still pregnant. Out of all the baby food books on the shelf this had the most amount of recipes in it for an affordable price.

I believe it was $20 at Barnes & Nobles.




I bought these food trays from Amazon.com. They are by Mumi Bubi. They come as a 2 pack with a total of 42 1oz sections and have a lids as well. So far today I made sweet potato and pears.



2 large sweet potatoes and 3 medium sized pears. Plus I put 2 servings of each in the refrigerator for today and tomorrow.

Things Kids Say.

I love watching as Aiden grows up and his mind expands, constantly learning new things. I am constantly amazed when I see him doing something new and wondering where he learned it or if he talks about something that happened days, weeks, even months ago. They're such little sponges. Yesterday as I was napping on the recliner Aiden comes over to me( after he got up from his nap) and I opened my eyes to see him. He cups my chin and says to me "No Mommy. Close your eyes and go to sleep. Listen to me." It was so cute because he said it so lovingly.

The other day in the car he was saying his name.
"My name is Aiden Klaplan."
So I correct him, 'No, KAP-lan.".
"No Mommy its KLAPLAN! I know it is!"

And some pics.