"Two and We're Through!"

That's a quote from one of our friends this weekend that kind of stuck with me. I've been saying for so long that I'm not sure if I'm done having kids (although Mondo is 100% done!) but now I'm feeling pretty sure. My two boys are enough for me. Ethan is so fun and so trying at the same time and Caleb is waking up and developing quite the personality.

These are some pics from the park Monday. It looks like an enjoyable experience but it turned into a disaster. Ethan had a little potty accident while feeding the ducks and Caleb had such a big screaming fit that we had to leave before Ethan really had a chance to play. Ethan is such a good kid. We told him that we had to go home because Caleb was too sleepy and he just said ok and got in the car. Not really the 3 year old reaction I was expecting!

He loves to climb!

Obviously before the screaming incident.

Look how close those pigeons get! We thought we were only going to feed the ducks.

Ethan

"Hello ladies!"

Showing off his new clothes and haircut.

Rockin' out with his new guitar shirt.

Too tired after school to finish dinner.

He's doing so well with the potty training. I don't know when to call him potty trained. It's been about a month I think. We're down from having 1-2 accidents a day to having 2-3 accidents a week. He had been sleeping in regular underwear for about 2 weeks then had an accident the other night. We decided to keep our sleep and put him back in the pull-ups at night for a while. He still wears the underwear during the day. He hasn't asked for a diaper in about 2 weeks and I think he won't anymore. I'm really surpised that he hasn't had an accident at school yet. Today they told me he peed standing up in a urinal! He's never peed standing up, he always sits. So of course now he only wants to pee standing up. It's so cute. He gets his little stool and handles all the business himself. When did my baby grow up?! Here are some conversations from the week. Me to Ethan, "You can climb the walls after you finish your dinner." (He was too busy being Spiderman to eat.) Ethan to Mondo when Mondo was tucking him in last night, "Be sure to tell Mommy to put Shamu in my lunch box for school." We bought him a little plastic Shamu to play with in the bathtub. I thought it was so odd for him to ask for it to be put in his lunch box since I've never put anything other than food in it.

Caleb

Just saying "hi".

He's mastered the big cheesy smile.

"My best friend." That's what Ethan says when he hugs him. Too sweet!

Oh, where to begin! Mr. Caleb has developed quite the personality. He's not the laid back baby like Ethan that I thought he was. He enjoys being held and will only let you put him down when he decides he wants to be put down. He seems to hate being outside or away from home. He will scream until we get him and he gets out of the carseat and then he is an angel. Maybe the carseat has nails in it. :-) He still loves to lay in his bed and watch his mobile for some reason. It's just little blue sail boats going in a circle. Every time I go in to wind it he gets the biggest smile and kicks his legs. Last week he slept from 9pm-5am two nights in a row and I was in heaven. Well, now he's back to sleeping from 9pm-1am, then up again at 5am, then up again at 7-8am. Will I ever sleep again??? I've decided that maybe all of this formula trauma was never a formula or reflux issue at all. I think it all stems from the flow of the nipple. He was on the thickened formula for reflux so I cut most of his nipples to make a bigger hole. Then I decided that he didn't really act like a reflux baby but more like it was a gas pain issue so I switched him to Enfamil Gentlease. It's for fussy/gassy babies. Well, the slow flow nipples seemed too slow for him. (All Playtex bottles come with the slow flow nipples as a standard to start out). He would get really fussy and scream but still suck vigorously on the bottle. So, I changed him to the fast flow nipple. Well, that was too fast. We were back to drowning and spitting all over me. But, alas, I found the medium flow nipple. I swear I heard the Hallelujah Chorus when I fed him with it. So, I don't know that he needs the Gentlease or not but I don't want to change him again. I'll wait until his next pedi appt and discuss it with her.

Back to Work

Who would want to leave these precious angels???

My 3 month vacation is quickly coming to an end. I go back to work this Friday night. It will be the first time working nights since I became a nurse 6 years ago. I did night shift for 5 months and didn't enjoy one minute of it. But back then I was working 3 random days during the week and now I will only be doing every Friday/Saturday. I think it will help that I am doing two nights in a row and then will be off for five. We'll see. I'm so glad I'm not doing three days anymore. I would be so sad to leave the kids for that long. With me working nights I'll be gone while they're sleeping so I don't feel so bad. Ethan and I have grown a special bond over the last 3 months. Not that we didn't have one before but he has always been a 100% daddy's boy. Now I tell Mondo we're 51/49 (with him being the 51 of course). Poor Mondo will be a single dad every weekend. I'm not looking forward to losing my weekends but it will be so worth it to not have to worry about child care. I'm hoping to make it to church on most Sundays but we'll just have to see how that works out. We've been going to N. Richland Hills C of C recently so that will be hard for Mondo to deal with both kids alone. At least when we were at Turnpike my parents were there to help. I'm sure it will all work out. Only time will tell.....

I'm the Biggest Loser!

Ok, so I'm not the biggest loser yet but I'm working on it. I've decided that this last 20 pounds isn't going to come off by me sitting around drinking chocolate malts (sad, but true). I've started trying to cut down on the calories and exercise when I can. Did you know that a chocolate malt has about 1000 calories in it!!! That sure helped me pack on some baby weight. I decided it wasn't such a good idea to drink one of those every night in bed then roll over and go to sleep. Now when I get a craving for one I try to just enjoy a nice small glass of chocolate milk. Mondo is helping me by coming home for lunch so I can go jog outside. It just wasn't happening with the two kids. Ethan won't ride in the double stroller so that was a complete waste of money...good thing I bought a cheap one. Anywho, I've lost 7 pounds in about 2 weeks so that's pretty good. I can't really tell that I look any different yet and I sure am far away from fitting into my size 3 jeans but it will happen! Especially now that I've announced it to the world, I have no choice!

Daily Showers Are Highly Over-rated.

Yes, daily showers are a thing of the past. If I don't take it at night it doesn't happen. That's one of the many things I've learned to do without with two children. But, I do think I'm getting better at this two kid thing. We've got a pretty good routine now. Sometimes the house gets clean, sometimes it doesn't. I realize now that I had no excuse for my house to not be spotless when I only had Ethan! I've even ventured out to the store several times with both kids. It's doable (is that a word?) but it takes twice as long and has to be scheduled around naps and feedings. Caleb is doing good. I can't decide if I like this new formula or not. It's so frustrating to feed him because either I cut the nipple to small or too big. If it's to small, he will suck on it forever and nothing has come out so I have to keep taking it out of his mouth and squeeze the clump of formula through. If it's too big, he drowns and literally spits formula all over his face and mine and gets mad becuase he can't breathe and because I keep taking it out of his mouth. So, it's hard to say if it's really helping or not. I'm tempted to go back to regular Enfamil after I finish this can and see what happens. As for Ethan, he is doing great with potty training. Still 1-2 accidents a day. He does great at school. No accidents there which really suprises me. It seems like he's a new kid since he turned 3. Just so much older. He is so independent. Everything is "No, I do it!" He carries around his little stool to reach lights and other things out of his reach...like the microwave and the fish bowl. He says a lot of funny things while we're in the car. Last week he said "Mommy, stop drivin'...you makin' me sick!" Yesterday we were driving home after school and he had had his Valentine party so I thought I wouldn't be able to shut him up about it. I asked his how his party was and wanted to know what fun things they had done. Here's the reply I got "Mommy, shut it. I no feel like talkin' right now." What?! I told him that was not nice so he said "Shut it please." Sometimes he's in a mood after school. Probably too much over stimulation. Well, I'll shut up and let you get to the pictures...who am I kidding, you already looked at them! You can see from some of them that I had a little photo shoot in their matching outfits. It didn't go quite as well as I had planned. I could never photograph children as a profession! I need to get them more matching outfits, they're so cute!

So sweet. He loves to give him kisses.

Where did my little baby go?
Always in a great mood in the morning...he didn't get that from me!
Check out the picture below. That's Ethan in the same chair when he was a baby. They grow way too fast!


I don't think that looks like Ethan at all!


This was pretty much how our photo session went. Caleb wasn't having it! But they were too cute in their matching outfits not to do it.
There's a good one. Too bad Caleb didn't feel like smiling.

I got him this new Spiderman at Target the other day for being good and not running off. He doesn't like to ride in the cart anymore, he likes to walk. Scary! We now have to hug and kiss Spiderman everynight. Very cute.
Not a great picture but I was trying to show how big this Spiderman was. Note the Spiderman socks.
"My eye!" He hit his eye with something and instantly needed a bandaid. He did this himself. He's very into bandaids now. He hit his mouth the other day and put a bandaid over it but I didn't get to the camera fast enough.
How sweet is this! He slept like this for an hour. He's probably praying "Please don't let me potty on the couch!" He didn't by the way.
He's never eaten popcorn. Mondo and I were eating some the other night and he walked up and said "Mmmm, I love popcorn!" Then he sat down with us and ate some...and drank our coke. His tastes are changing so fast. He ate half of my lasagne today and he's never wanted that before either!

A Trip to the Dr. for the Boys

Today we took Ethan for his 3 year checkup and Caleb for his two month. It went well since Mondo was with me. Ethan is still not the best listener so I couldn't imagine going with both by myself. I decided maybe taking them together wasn't the best idea because I couldn't really concentrate on what she was saying about Caleb since Ethan was climbing all over the table and talking non-stop. But, they won't go together again unless they are sick at the same time. Won't that be fun! So here are the details of the visit:

Caleb: He weighed in at 12-3 and was 24 inches. I knew he had grown a ton since birth (he was 7-0 and 20.5 inches). He has already outgrown some newborn outfits. I'm so sad. But, he is sleeping more at night so I'm definintely happy about that. The poor thing got 5 shots!!! They don't make the combination vaccines anymore so they were all separate injections. Mondo was a trooper and held him down while I listenend to him scream in the hallway. I told Ethan that Daddy was just getting Caleb dressed and that was why he was crying. I didn't want him to freak out. He calmed down quickly when we put him in the carseat and he got his paci. So sad. Everything checked out well with him too. His only issue is that he might have a little reflux. A few feedings out of the day he will scream, arch his back, and spit out formula during the entire feeding even though he is hungry. I wasn't sure what that was all about since it wasn't every feeding and he hardly ever spits up. The doctor said that he might be refluxing but it doesn't come up all the way and he tries to push it back down. She said since he doesn't do it every feed, isn't spitting up, and is definitely gaining weight that we will try a formula change first to see if that helps before putting him on meds. So he is now on Enfamil A.R. It is thickened with rice starch to help keep it down. I had to make the hole on his bottle nipple bigger because he was sucking his little heart out and it wouldn't come out. I didn't think it was that thick. I'm interested to see if it helps. I'm also wondering if it will fill him up longer. She said to give it a few days and if there is no change we will talk about medication.

Ethan: He weighed in at 36.5 pounds and his height is 37.5 inches. He plotted out well on both charts. They didn't measure his head but I'm sure it's still big. :-) Everything looked good on him. He's finally eating some meat now so that's a plus. The potty training is going very well. He has had 3 or 4 accidents since we started on Thursday so I think that's pretty good. One or two of those accidents were my fault because I didn't make him go potty when I should have and he won't tell me when he has to go. I thought I wouldn't leave the house during training but we've been to a friend's house, the zoo, the doctor's, and to church....in big boy underwear, not pull-ups. I'm pretty brave. He did get one shot today. It was sad but he got over it when he got that sucker in his hand. Mondo was a good daddy and held him down for me. Then I took him out into the hall while Caleb got his.

Well, that was my eventful day. Not too many pictures since I just updated a few days ago. :-)

The Genious Staller

Well, I must say that potty training going better than I expected. Last night was a little rough though. He pottied before bed and went to sleep wearing his underwear (per his request). After about 5 minutes he came out and said he needed to go potty. So, he went and all was fine. I put him back in bed and he came out about 10 minutes later and said he went potty...and he did. So, I told him to wear the pull up or "special nighttime big boy underwear" as I called them. After another 10 minutes he came out and said he pottied and that his pants were wet. At this point I didn't think there could be any more left in him! Well, there wasn't. His pull up was dry and his pants were just a tiny bit wet in one spot...he then admitted that he spit on them! What a good stalling tactic. After that he was up and down a few more time but that's just because he didn't want to sleep. He was turning on his lamp and jumping off of his toy chest. He decided to go to sleep after Daddy went in and talked to him. He woke up this morning with a dry pull up and peed in the potty. I was shocked. We went to a friend's house for a playdate and he stayed in his underwear....and as I suspected...he peed in them about an hour after we were there. I learned the lesson that just because he says he doesn't need to go doesn't mean he really doesn't need to. There were no more accidents after that. Right now he is asleep in his underwear so we'll see if he wakes up dry. I'm not getting my hopes up.

Let the Training Begin!

Ethan is re-visiting the land of potty training and hopefully this time he will stay. I decided today that he is a big boy and is capable of being trained but I have just been to tired and lazy to do it. I bought him some training underwear today while he was at school. When he got home I put them on and had a little chat about big boys and where they pee-pee. He wore them from 3pm until bedtime without one accident. I was amazed. I have pull-ups for bedtime but he insisted on wearing the underwear. I guess that's good. I'm worried about how the night will go. I took him to the bathroom right before bed. Right now he is in bed singing the "pee-pee in the potty" song that we sing when he goes. I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to update with. Oh, I do have a picture of him in his big boy underwear and one of him reading a magazing while on the potty but I promised Mondo I wouldn't post them. :-)

Big Boys Don't Wear Lip Gloss

Web slinging action!

He actually enjoys tummy time. Ethan hated it.

Look at those big brown eyes and that double chin!

He did this himself then said "I go to work!"

There's a big gummy smile!

He loves to put his hands in his pockets. He looks so old!

"Grrrr, I'm a lion!"

My new investment. I don't think I'll get much use out of it because Ethan always wants to walk.

This is a little blurry but so cute. Ethan loves Caleb so much it melts my heart.

Yes, I never thought those words would come out of my mouth. My inquisitive 3 year old wants to know what everything is, what it is for, and if he can have it. He found a tube of lip gloss in my bathroom and wanted to know what it was. I told him it was makeup for mommy. He then needed to know if it was for babies or big boys. Everything he asks revolves around "Is it for Ethan or Caleb?" That's what Ethan always says. He's been saying some pretty funny stuff lately. Last night he laid down in the shower and was drinking the water. I freaked out and told him that was yucky and not to do that. He looks up at me with a confused look and said, "But I'm a hippo!" Duh, I guess I should've known. I told him hippos don't drink shower water. I'm still working on trying to find a good time for potty training. He still goes on the potty occassionally and I know he could probably do it if I made him but I'm still trying to figure out this two kid thing and am not ready to start a new struggle. I try to tell him that big boys wear big boy underwear and not diapers but he says "I too little." He's a big boy with everything else but he doesn't want to give up those diapers! We'll tackle that later.

Yesterday I was singing Twinkle Twinkle to Caleb and here's the conversation that Ethan had with me about it:

E: "Mommy shut it!"

W: "That's not nice. Don't tell mommy to shut it."

E: "Shut it please, you scarin' Caleb."

I continued to sing to Caleb.

E: "Mommy, stop it. One more time I spank you."

W: "You don't give mommy spankings."

I started singing again.

E: "Ok, I comin!"

He jumped off the couch and ran over to me to give me a spanking and then decided maybe that wasn't such a good idea so he didn't. I just thought the whole thing was funny.

Caleb is doing great. I can't believe he is almost two months old. I'm taking both boys for their checkups next week. That should be fun! Caleb smiles all the time now and holds his head up really well. He's working on sleeping a little better at night. He'll go to sleep around 9:00pm and wake up around 2:00am, then around 5:00am, then around 7:00am....that's usually when Ethan comes to my bed and is up for the day. Oh, I amost forgot! Ethan is still going to bed by himself!!! I can't believe there hasn't been a struggle. He still asks for Mondo or I to lay with him but when we tell him no there are no tears and no screaming. It has been great!

Wow, this turned out really long. You can tell I don't have enough adult interaction! I'm looking forward to going back to work at the end of the month. I need a little me time!