Big Sister and Little Sister

Posted on May 18, 2013 by jenngator222

M likes wearing her big sister shirts. She likes reading her big sister books. She likes her sister just fine. But most of the time she just goes on with life like her sister isn’t even there. Usually the crying doesn’t phase her, but sometimes she says things like, “S is not making good choices” and “S is not using her inside voice.” When I set the bouncy seat near her while she’s eating so S can watch her, she usually tells me she doesn’t want S to watch her. Overall I’d say she’s currently indifferent about a baby being part of our family now. But then, usually a couple times a week, she’ll walk over to S, kiss her on the head and say, “That’s my SEESTER.” As you can see, neither of them really loved posing for this photo.

Grandma and Grandpa are here!

Posted on May 17, 2013 by jenngator222

We are so excited to report that Grandma and Grandpa have arrived! They’ll be renting the house across the street from us for 6 months and getting lots of quality time with the girls. My mom is watching S on weekdays – what a saint. She retired on Friday and then started her new gig as nanny first thing Monday morning. I had just dropped M off at school when I got a call from home that S’s door was locked and she’d had a blow out poop. M likes to shut all the doors before we leave, so we assume she locked it by accident. Poor Grandma. Day one, hour one and she’s got poop on her and no access to diapers or clean baby clothes. I headed home to bring them the diaper bag with a change of clothes and my dad was able to get the door open. What a way to start the week! I’m off to Home Depot soon to get new doorknobs with no locks.

Here’s a photo of Grandpa’s trailer with all their stuff and a bunch of stuff from my mom’s classroom for M (and eventually S).
Here’s M with her new backpack from my mom’s friend.And here’s S getting used to sitting on Grandma’s lap.

Future Violinist?

Posted on May 10, 2013 by jenngator222

R has great plans for M to play violin. Maybe we’ll even start lessons at 3? He gave her a decorative violin to play with and she absolutely loves it. She pretends to play it. We felt like she deserved something closer to the real thing, since she’d been using a cat toy (essentially a plastic stick with feathers on the end) as a bow. She calls it her “fiddle.” She even has a new dress with a violin on it! Maybe she’ll be a fiddle player in a folk band instead of a classical violinist. Either way, he’d be so proud. But we’re all about letting her do whatever she feels like she wants to do when it comes to playing an instrument. I just hope she’s more musical than I am!

My Little One

Posted on May 9, 2013 by jenngator222

S is a great sleeper, but an early riser. I’ll take earlier riser over night riser any day of the week! Well, maybe you could sleep past 5am on Saturdays? We enjoyed some quiet time, just her and I, on Saturday morning.She’s getting big so fast! We ended up going to the doctor about her cold/cough the day after she turned three months old and she was 11 pounds already. People who saw her Friday and then Monday said they think her face filled out just over the weekend. This girl is growing up fast.

Toddler Life

Posted on May 8, 2013 by jenngator222

As the mom of a two (almost three) year old, I deal with a lot of crying and whining. I think it just comes with the territory. At this age they have a lot of opinions and need to control something in their small world. Someone at work sent me the link to this blog and I was absolutely dying laughing. Every single picture made me say – RIGHT?!!?
After I hard night of solo (with two kids) dinner, bath time, bedtime routine, I thought – why didn’t I think of this blog? I could totally have this blog too. So, I started out with this photo:

She’s crying because I gave her sister the green pacifier instead of the pink pacifier. How this affects her – I do not know. But it’s just absolutely devastating and ruins her whole night. Such is toddler life I guess.

Note: When I floated my brilliant idea for a blog segment to my husband he did not think it was funny at all. He compared it to this blog. For the record, I think that blog is pretty hilarious too. He thinks they are both mean. So, I get only this one post. In my defense, maybe if he had been there for this epic meltdown he might have laughed about it too. If you don’t laugh you’ll cry – right?

First Hike

Posted on April 26, 2013 by jenngator222

We sat down to an early (4:45pm!) dinner on the eve of my return to work. I had all my ducks in a row and all my bags packed. And then R said, maybe we should hike up the mountain! And of course, we both knew it was crazy, but we went for it anyway. Come on, we had to prove to ourselves that we can still do spontaneous outdoorsy things even though we have two kids. We aren’t boring and predictable and stuck at home. So we did it. It’s a pretty short hike (1 hour or so) but has a great view at the top. It was S’s first hike and guess what? She slept through it. Big surprise! Love that little sleeping girl. M got out of the backpack and the top and did NOT want to get back in. Then bathtime and bedtime were both full of whining and crying, but it was worth it. Can’t wait for all the adventures we’ll go on as a family of four once these kids are a little older.

Oh, and did I mention it was a PJs all day kinda Sunday? Love Sundays.

3 Months Old

Posted on April 25, 2013 by jenngator222

S is three months old! We don’t have another doctor’s appointment until she’s four months old and (knock on wood) we’ve not been in for a sick appointment lately, so I don’t know her weight. She’s sleeping great! Since I’ve been back to work this week she’s gone to bed around 8 or 8:30pm (and sometimes crabbed a little bit until 9pm or so) and then slept until around 4:30am three mornings and until 5am one morning. Since we have to get up about 5:15am for work, this is just about perfect! It’s made our mornings pretty relaxing since we’ve got so much time. I just need to get myself to bed earlier. She’s really starting to give us lots of smiles. She’s really into watching M. I can’t believe how great this little baby is and how fast she’s growing up!

The True Story of What Was

. . . at least from where I’m standing.