A Week in the Life (v2014.22)

Please ignore my AWFUL singing (I promise that I won't quit my day job) -- apparently someone really loves the original and also thinks that Mama is a BAD BAD BAD singer.  (Watch him dancing (i.e. wrist twisting) until I start to sing and then he tries to sing)

Playing with the keyboard that Opa gave her

My dear, dear Munky

Munky & Fish

Finn's claddagh ring

Fish falling over on the bed

Trying to make macarons

Finn's view leaving the zoo

Trying to take a selfie with Mama

Deep truth

Dinner time!

Learning all about spoon power

Kitchen floor antics

Kitchen floor tea party -- everyone was invited

Fish gets very excited about bath time -- the squeals can be heard 'round the block

Every Fish loves a bath

Going to an alumni watch party for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team

My girl

My beaus

Little Hawkeye cheerleader

Cheering for the Hawks

Finn had her first chicken wing!

Nailed it! (And ate the whole darn thing!!!!)

My boy

Daddy dressed her

Fish's Irish is coming out!  Digging on the tea biscuits.

She loved her new leotards for gymnastics -- we had to put it on the moment it got taken out of the package.

We hit up the Farmpark last week -- some docile lazy sheep

We did this same photo about a year ago.  See here -- someone has grown!

There were ponies loose in the arena -- they were Finn's size.

Pony love

Trying to get a photo with Rosie the Goat.  She had different ideas.

Rose had an appetite.  An appetite for our map!!!!!!!!!  And she got it!!!!!

After that, Fish wasn't too sure about Rosie.

Best smell in the whole entire world -- EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Baby chicken under a heat lamp)

The Farmpark had six day old piglets.

Finn loved them!

Playing with markers

Fish is getting his voice

Our usual dinner conversations

Ordinary morning at our house

Morning Fish

Back to school

In the past week, sickness has engulfed our house.  Okay, engulfed is a little dramatic, but when I'm sick, it isn't pretty.  Fish started with a cold on Thursday.  There was lots of drool and lots of snot.  So I naturally assumed that his second bottom tooth was breaking through (which I still think that it is) and wasn't careful in maintaining my healthy status.  Yesterday morning, the cold took over me.  Sore throat and a nose that felt like it is five times it's normal size.  By the end of the day, I was under a heavy blanket while it was 80 degrees in our room.  And last night, Finn was hit.  Except she didn't have the sore throat and the snots, she had a fever, chills, and was throwing up.  I felt 500 times better by midnight when the kids woke me up.  And as of this morning, Finn is acting quite normal.  I did give her some Tylenol as she still felt warm when she woke up.  So we will see how the day progresses.  Our fingers are crossed that E doesn't get our sickness.

But before the three of us got sick, I was able to hit up a little red schoolhouse in our area and snap some photos of the two kiddos in their "back to school" gear.  I feel slightly better that it's practically a month late in realizing that they aren't actually going to school,   Fish was a perfect angel for the photos despite not wanting to smile for me.  Finn was another story.  She has LOTS of other ideas of what she wanted to do and none of them were sitting pretty for me.  But despite her shenanigans, I was able to get some really great photos of the two of them.

Gone fishin' at 32 weeks

---According to our unofficial weigh-in, Fish is tipping the scales at 22 pounds and is 29.5 long!!!
---Fish is currently in size 3 diapers.  But he is known to "borrow" sister's size 4's and have no issues with them.  I think this is our last box of size 3's.  Why have two different size diapers in the house when you don't really need them?  So at 7 months old, Fish is going to be in the same size diapers as his sister...
---He is currently sporting size 9-12 month clothes with his jeans being 12-18 months. The 9-12 month stuff is sometimes short, depending on the brand.  But I'm trying to keep him little for as long as I can... 
---Breastfeeding is going strong.  My goal is 12 months and that means that we only have 4.5 months left.  It seems like just yesterday that he was born, but so long ago at the same time. 

Total second child syndrome -- I haven't taken any photos with my big-girl camera lately...  Phone photos it is. 

---Dude is a serious eater.  He LOVES food.  He still eats the purees (2 oz of fruit with an oz of oatmeal or barley for breakfast and an oz of fruit & 2 oz of veggies for dinner).  We also started giving him yogurt bites, which are his current favorite.  He totally recognizes his bowls in the cupboard and starts squawking the minute that I can one out.  His wrists start rolling (which is his "I'M-SO-EXCITED!!!!!!' sign) and he will not calm down until that first bowl is gone.  He is also a big "tea biscuit" eater now.  He makes a big mess and I'm thinking that only about 60% of the biscuit gets eaten, but he really enjoys them.
---We have one official tooth!  The second is breaking through currently.  I see the white mark, but it hasn't broken out yet. 
---We are still not rolling all over the place.  I spoke with the doctor during his last appointment.  She said that as long as he has rolled once each way, it's nothing to be concerned about.  She said that a lot of bigger babies don't roll at all.

 
---And the doctor is even less concerned because he is an accomplished sitter.  She said that he will probably never be a big roller.  He doesn't really fall over anymore (although I'm still afraid to sit him on our kitchen floor for the rare chance that he is going to crash and burn and really hit his head on the tile -- so he sits on our padded mats against the cupboard doors).  He really likes sitting up and can reach for toys that are out of his reach. 
---We are not crawling yet.  He is starting this new thing when he is sitting up, he will lean off to the side with both of his hands on the ground and try to reach out as far as he can go to get whatever it is that is out of his reach. 
---He has finally become a big TALKER.  His latest is lots of "dadadada" and this deep guttural "AAAAAAHHHHHH" like a scary monster on Halloween .  

 
---He still isn't sleeping through the night.  He now only wakes up once during the night to feed, which helps with my sleep.  And he falls asleep for the evening around 8:30-9:00 and is usually up in the morning by 7:30.
---Another new development is that he is throwing things.  When he sits up in his pack 'n play, he will pull himself over to the side of the pack 'n play and start picking things up and throwing them over the edge.  At first, I thought it was a mistake, but then I saw at least 3-4 toys/socks on the floor in a heap.  He also likes to "rock" his pack 'n play by scooting his butt back and forth to get the floor of the pack 'n play swinging.
---He LOVES his sister, like I mean, seriously LOVES his sister.  She gets giggles, smiles, and belly laughs all the time.
---He has developed a strong attachment to having a blanket at night -- though he doesn't like being covered by a blanket.  I received two flannel sheets, which are his favorites.  He will fight sleeping until he gets one of those flannels and then he will settle down immediately.  The flannels don't need to be covering his legs, but it has to cover at least one arm or be in his hand and be up by one side of his face.
---One of his favorite times of the day is bath time.  I put him on the floor while I fill the tub and the minute he hears the water, he starts screeching and scooting on his butt.  And he sits up in the bath and splashes water all over the place.
---Unfortunately the bugs are attracted to him, just like they are attracted to me.  He got five bug bites one night while we were out and no one else got any (except me and I only got two).

Our little tumbler

(as always, you can always click on a photo and it will enlarge to fit your screen.  Some of these are kind of smaller as they were taken from the viewing balcony at the gym.)

So since the last update, we have went to two more gymnastics classes.  Let's just say that the first class was totally a fluke.  Girlfriend is all over this class!  She was still a little shy in the 2nd class, not speaking up when it was her turn to tell the instructors what her favorite thing was.  But by the third class, she was telling the instructors which way she wanted to flip and she even told Miss Lauren which thing was her favorite on floor -- the "rolling" of course!

It's still super crazy-busy in there every time we go.  As referenced by the photo above (kind of a "Where's Waldo" type photo to find us in -- look on the balance beam), I wasn't lying.  There is no space in-between everything.  They pack as much as they can in the 1,200 square feet of the gym.  But I think that Finn got used to the commotion going on around her.  That and we now have two rules that are repeated over and over in the car on the way to class.   #1 -- We only do what the instructors tell us we can do and #2 -- We won't be sassy.

I also think that having E go to each class and sit in the balcony to watch her during the class helps a lot as well.  She can look up to the balcony and see how Daddy and Little Brother are watching her and she can show off some more.

Fish was eaten up a couple of nights ago when we hit up the park.  In the single hour that we were out in the park, he received five bug bites.  Poor boy -- I think that he has my special sauce when it comes to bugs.  They are always attracted to me (and not E).

But I think the reason that the classes have been a big success is that we focus on having fun, rather than being competitive as a lot of the other moms are there.  She doesn't do it perfect every time, and that's okay.  As long as she is trying and doing it safely, I let her do what she wants to do.  I mean, come on -- she's only two and a half.

 She is becoming more fearless.  She still holds my hands a lot more than the other kids in the class.  But there are times now during class where she will let go of my hand and jump on her own.  Something that she wouldn't have dreamed of doing in the first class.  She is getting more confident and becoming stronger.

The instructors also now realize what her skill set is (in that she doesn't have any compared to the other kids) and they are both really gentle with her, especially when it comes to jumping into the big pits of foam cubes.  She hasn't refused to do anything, but does require a hand to help her jump in.

At the end of each class, they receive stamps "for a job well done".  And it is one of Finn's favorite things.  She likes to run and how Daddy what kind of stamp she got for that class.  There have been kitties, cars, butterflies, and monkeys.  I'm glad that we stuck with this -- because I think that she finally really enjoys it.  And I think that we are going to be signing up for another month or two if she wants.

Our lately

Finn Lately:  We have enrolled our little girl in a gymnastics class for being such a big girl and giving up her binks to the Bink Fairy.  Our tale was that little girls with binks couldn't go to gymnastics class and so once the binks were gone, she would be a big girl and she could attend gymnastics class.  Our first class was a pretty big failure.  But I think that most of that could be placed squarely on my shoulders.

Fail #1:  I've never been to a gymnastics class, so I didn't know exactly what to expect.  I expected lots of somersaults with little girls playing together.  Couldn't be further from the truth.  We were the late because we had to sign paperwork before entering the gym floor.  So we missed the stretches.  There were about 20 little girls in her class.  And they all knew the routine -- meaning they had all been there before.  So we hung back and were usually the last ones to do something so I could watch the other little girls go and knew what to tell Finn to do.  Let me tell you -- there was NO play between the little girls there.  It was pretty serious business, like most of these parents were trying to mold their little girls into gymnastics already.

Fail #2:  It was a very active gym.  It is advertised as being over 1,200 sq feet, which means large.  And every single inch of the gym was filled with something or someone.  There were two feet walk-ways between apparatuses.  And Finn was quite wont to run over to another apparatus to do something else instead of what we were doing.  The only issue with that was that there were lots of high school girls on EVERYTHING.  I envisioned her stepping in front of a poor girl sprinting down to vault and breaking legs, both Finn's and the older girls.  But that also led to a severe distraction on Finn's part.  She saw big girls (whom she idolizes) doing other things and wanted to do THOSE things, not the things that our instructors told us to do.

Fail #3:  I was stressed out -- not knowing the routine of what's going on as well as being petrified that I was going to end up being sued by an injured gymnastic by the end of the evening.  I was sweating by the end, literally.

I only signed her up for four weeks and I think that after four weeks, we are going to locate to another more friendly gym that lets little girls be little girls and not serious training to be gymnastics stars.  We were hoping to use the classes as ways for Finn to interact with little girls her age.  And unless Finn wants to continue with gymnastics when she turns 3, we are going to try dance at that point (which I'm more familiar with).

Plus I'm beginning to search local daycares for an early discovery preschool setting for Finn to go to a couple of mornings a week for little kid interactions.  I'll keep you posted on that as well.

Fish Lately:  He has been sick with boogers.  He had a cold when he was a couple of weeks old, but since that point, hasn't been sick again.  And I'm glad -- he is a miserable sick (as I'm sure that Finn was at that age, I just don't remember it).  I can't remember having so many boogers smeared on my chest (I'm sure that I blocked it out of my mind from Finn).  In addition to his sickness, he has also been breaking his first teeth.  The first one came in last week and the next one will probably be showing up this week -- it's there, just not quite pushed out yet.

He also shows no interest in being on his stomach to learn how to crawl -- or even roll over more than a handful of times.  All he wants to do is stand up.  Seriously.  I think he will probably walk before he crawls.  Fish thinks he is such a big deal when he stands up.  His chest even puffs out, his eyes light up, and his smiles just beam.

Along with the cold and the teeth, he has been very clingy, obviously.  He isn't one to be able to play on his own yet.  I can get about 15 minutes out of him if I sit him in his pack-n-play with his toys.  But if I set him on the floor, unless I'm down there with him -- it's a no-go.  And most of the time, he cries until I pick him up.  If I put him down into his exersaucer or his walker, he instantly starts to cry.  The only thing that he always enjoys being put in in his jumper.