Hellobee

Here I am with my next monthly update and I just can’t believe it. For a change, there is quite a bit to report on both kids! We have been going through a lot of changes lately and thankfully, most of them are good changes.

Lil Miss Wagon

The biggest change of all this month is that LMW started getting into a sitting position… by herself!! She has also started pulling up to stand on her own, and she’s crawling on hands and knees with her belly off the floor, but both are not very consistent. But all the new gross motor skills are very exciting for all. It is so cute to watch her on the video monitor in her crib and see just the top of her head as she’s just sitting up in her crib, looking around. She also gets up on her knees into a kneeling position and grabs the crib bars like a little prisoner trying to get free.

She has also learned how to wave and clap! Cutest thing ever. I swear, all these things she didn’t do last month have all of a sudden exploded and everything is happening at once. I’m writing this a few days after she turned 10 months, so this really belongs in the next month’s update, but I just have to mention… after trying a few times, she has started sucking water through a straw as well.

She is extremely opinionated and quite whiny these days. I think she is going through a third round of teething. She had a few nights where she screamed and I had to hold her until she was totally snoring. I kept trying to put her back in her crib and had to start all over when her eyes snapped open and she started screaming again; I had horrible flashbacks of when she was a newborn! But after that night we put her to bed with a dose of baby ibuprofen and she was fine. So I suspect the teeth.

She’s also developed quite a complex around mommy lately. She doesn’t necessarily have a preference for me, but if she’s with someone else (daddy or the nanny) and she sees me, she starts shrieking and won’t stop until I come over and give her my full attention. I guess even though I’m notoriously tough and strict with my kids and dogs, I am a softy for my little girl because I just can’t deny her the attention she demands!

Eating

LMW is still doing well with purees (and eats so much for our nanny than for mommy or daddy on the weekends!), sometimes two jars at a time, and sometimes we’ll top her off with a fruit pouch as well. She loves her puffs and mum mums, and now she is obsessed with these baby cheese puffs as well. That’s what actually got her to drink water for the first time out of a straw cup. I’ve tried in the past to get her to drink water and learn how to drink through a straw in the same way I taught WJ, but it was a big ole fail with her just making a face and turning her face away from the straw. But after a few helpings of cheese puffs, she was super thirsty and learned to drink even more quickly than WJ did. She’s still letting the water mostly drip out of her mouth so it’s a big mess.

Every now and then I’ve been trying to give her some bits of table foods. A few weeks ago she gagged on them and I’d just stop, but a few days ago she started eating bits of bagel, bread, and donut (don’t judge) easily. So I think baby food will be out of my life for good very very soon!

She’s still exclusively drinking breastmilk, and I am still exclusively pumping 3 times a day, but my supply is very gradually declining every week. My period came back last month, and right before I get it my supply takes a huge hit. Since I’m planning on stopping the pumping in the next month or two around the time she turns one, I don’t bother trying to build my supply back up after it takes the hormonal hit ’round that time of the month. I’ve gone through two of six boxes of frozen milk bags, so I’m hoping my supply and my frozen stash will last her until she turns one and moves on to cow’s milk. Fingers crossed. It would be so great to not have to transition twice (breastmilk to formula, then formula to cow’s milk).

LMW’s eczema has been acting up lately, and we have introduced both mango and strawberry in her food, but it’s tough to tell if it’s a food sensitivity or just dryness. But she’s starting to actively scratch her skin so we’re gonna have to address it soon.

Sleeping

LMW is still doing great with sleep. She’s still taking two naps a day, both always more than an hour (unless we’re out and about, then it’s usually 30 minutes) and goes to bed around 6:30pm each night. For a few weeks she was consistently waking up right before 6am, but lately she’s been falling back asleep until about 8am. That’s winning the parenting jackpot right there!

Wagon Jr.

Life with WJ, the almost 3.5 year old, is exhausting but fun, as always. Disciplining him is exhausting, and listening and responding to him when he says the same thing over and over and over is very draining. But he is SO funny and clever. He makes us laugh like nothing else ever has.

The big change for WJ this month is that we FINALLY converted his crib into a toddler bed (by taking the front wall of his crib off and replacing it with the bed rail). He was super excited when we did it, and even though the only change for him is that he can get in and out of bed by himself, it’s a huge change for us. Now we don’t have to lift him in and out of his crib anymore, we can even climb into his bed to hug him if he’s crying, and we can sit next to him and read him his bedtime books while he’s lying in bed. It’s only been a week or so, but he hasn’t gotten out of bed on his own yet (knock on wood) and still calls to us to come get him in the mornings. Still, I put a doorknob cover lock on the doorknob in his room so he can’t get out of his room, since we haven’t installed the gate at the top of the stairs yet and I don’t want him busting into LMW’s room in the mornings.

Eating is still a challenge, but one day he took a nap at daycare and came home acting like an absolute angel. He came in the front door declaring that he was going to eat his tomatoes tonight (we’ve been serving him a few grape tomatoes cut in half each night and he’s been taking tiny bites out of them when we beg and coerce him to) and he actually did! After he ate the rest of his food, he popped them into his mouth without a fight and totally ate them. It was such a shocker to see a completely empty plate at the end of the meal. He got a BIG serving of raspberry ice cream with star sprinkles that night!

Sibling Love

WJ and LMW are definitely contentedly coexisting. They don’t really get jealous of each other but their interaction is still pretty minimal. They do make each other laugh every now and then (usually in the car– since she’s rear-facing and he’s forward-facing, they sometimes get into giggling fits where they’re basically just laughing at the other one laughing) which is definitely the cutest thing ever.

They definitely have a tough time sharing, but I think that’s just a constant that we can expect forever. WJ’s first instinct is to grab and say “no! mine!” but most of the time, if we demand that he shares with LMW he’s willing to do so. Every now and then we’ll have a throwing incident which results in a time out, but he knows that throwing is wrong so by the end of the time out he’s very apologetic and is very willing to share. To the outside world it probably looks like pandemonium (shouting kid, yelling parent, parent picking up kicking kid to put into time out, crying, screaming, baby crying at the sounds of her brother’s screams) but it doesn’t stress us out at all anymore because we know it works. Of course, I’d prefer if it didn’t happen at all, but this always occurs after we’ve talked and he’s actively refused to behave. We always give him a chance to do the right thing first, and about 50% of the time he does, so I really can’t complain.

And here are a few more sibling pictures… there are just so many, and pictures of the two of them are always my favorite because there are two expressions that are captured, and so many times they’re interacting.

That’s it from me this month. We are about to go on our first plane trip ever post-babies (yes, both WJ and LMW’s first time on a plane!) so hopefully that will spur a non-monthly-update blog post from me and bust me out of this blogging rut I’ve been in.