4 Months Old

I can't believe Julia is already 4 months old!  The time is flying by.  She is the most amazing baby.  She rolled over for the first time, 3 weeks ago and is now trying to crawl when she is on her tummy.  I know that you're thinking, "that can't be!", but it is true.  She lays on her tummy and pushes her little bum into the air and scoots her body forward.  She can move and get where she wants to go.  I am proud of her, but am really not ready for her to be crawling! 

She is also HUGE!  She is wearing 6-9 month clothes and some of them seem small.  She had her doctor appointment yesterday.  She weighs 16 pounds, 9 ounces and was 25 1/2 inches long.  She is in the 90th percentile for both height and weight.  The doctor, Nathan, and I spent about 5 minutes of her appointment cracking jokes about how large she is.  Her thighs are so chunky that we can't get a hand around them. 

She loves her brother and he loves her.  He managed to teach her how to scream, a really high pitched scream that she loves to do all the time.  She also loves to wear dresses.  She likes to put the skirt in her mouth.  When I don't put her in a dress, she pulls at her outfit, looking for the skirt.

Baby girl, you are so special and we are so lucky to be your parents.  I feel so blessed to have you in our life.

It's 3am, What Are You Doing?

Let me paint you a picture of 3am in our house.  At least one of our children will have woken us up by this time.  Most people are sleeping at that time, but I'm writing a blog as I wait for both of my children to go back to sleep.  Tonight, Alexander woke up at 2 and hasn't been able to get back to sleep.  He did manage to wet the bed though, so we got to change the sheets and the mattress pad in the middle of the night.  It amazes me that he manages to do this even while wearing a nighttime pull up to bed.  Then as we were changing the sheets, he was so loud that he woke Julia up, so of course she had to eat.  While I was feeding her, he dragged two blankets to her room.  I thought that maybe he was going to lay on them while she was eating.  I was wrong.  He laid them on the floor, then proceeded to roll them up and carry them around.  This, of course, caused Julia to stay awake through her feeding, so now she is laying in her crib cooing and talking while I sit outside of Alexander's door to get him to fall asleep.  Instead of falling asleep, Alexander is serenading me with Frere Jacque and Baa Baa Black Sheep. I have to say that it is pretty cute, but he is going to be really tired tomorrow if he doesn't sleep now.

Nathan and I have decided that our 2 children and our dog plan together each day to see who will wake up up that night.  If the baby sleeps through the night, either the dog or Alexander get up instead.  Tonight, I guess everyone needed to be awake.  Hopefully they will fall back asleep soon!  Maybe this will be my wake up time for today. I hope you got to be asleep at 3 am!

Craziness

The last few days have been crazy!  It is testing time at school, so I have been focused on that.  We are now done with one test out of four.  My kids really impressed me and did an awesome job on their reading test, so now I have to focus on preparing them for the other three. 

My own kids have been really busy too.  Alexander wants to be outside all the time and Julia spends her time rolling over, then crying because she is on her tummy.

Julia is getting baptized on Saturday, so we are also preparing for family to come visit for a few days.  We are really excited for our weekend. 

So all of that craziness gives me very little time to write a blog.  I want to write about this past weekend, but that will have to wait a few days.

Roly Poly

Roly Poly is my new nickname for Julia.  She has mastered the roll from her back to her belly.  She works on it at every opportunity.  She practices it on the floor, which is a perfectly normal place to practice rolling.  She practices it in her pack and play, which isn't really big enough for rolling.  She practices in her crib, which would be fine if she didn't get her legs stuck in between the bars.  She practices rolling in the bouncy seat and rocking chair, which looks really funny.  Thank God for seatbelts.  She even tries to roll when I am nursing her.  The funniest part is that she really doesn't like being on her belly, but when I roll her to her back, she immediately rolls back to her belly again.  So, Roly Poly it is.

Mother's Day

I had zero time yesterday to write this post, so I'm writing it today.  I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.  I have greatest children and the most wonderful husband.  They gave me the most wonderful Mother's Day in the world.  All we did was spend time together, but it was wonderful.  I never thought that I would be this lucky to have this terrific family.  We are very blessed. 

Here is the most wonderful little boy.  He drew a picture of our family yesterday.  Nathan labeled it for him.  He forgot to put Julia in it at first.  We had to remind him.  Then he drew her and told me, "I gave Julia a lot of ears."  It is so funny to see the world through his eyes. 

Then today, he helped me get Julia's bottles ready for tomorrow and when we were done, he wrote me a note.  It says, "Happy Mother's Day!"

Here is the most wonderful baby girl.  She doesn't do very much yet, except smile and laugh, but she always makes me smile when I look at her.

I feel very blessed!

Zoo!

Many people have heard me say that our house is a zoo.  There is usually at least one child screaming or running around, getting into something.  I the midst of that, there is a crazy 6 pound poodle jumping on the table , digging at the couch, or barking at an inanimate object that is very scary.  Well today we left that zoo behind and went to the actual zoo.  We had a great time watching the animals.  My favorites were the family of otters that were running around. 

Alexander told me that his favorites were the lions.  He said that all the boy lions were Simba.

Julia had a great time riding around in her stroller.  She is the happiest, most easy-going baby!  Nathan thought her outfit was over the top.  I thought she looked cute!  One of my students gave her this princess outfit.

And our stroller is one of the best purchases that we have made.  It is the Phil and Ted's Explorer with the extra seat.  I think that we use it at least once a week.  I highly recommend it. Look how comfortable the kids look in it!

 After the zoo, we ended our trip with a pasta dinner and went home.  It was a great start to my Mother's Day weekend!

Please Tell Me I'm Crazy!

Anyone who knows me could say that I'm a very nervous person.  I'm a worrier and I have a lot of anxiety.  Having a baby, adds to my anxiety.  My anxiety manifests itself in many ways, one of them being through my stomach.  When I had Alexander, I ended up on anxiety medicine because I couldn't stop worrying and my stomach was constantly upset.  This time around, the anxiety is back.  I've been feeling it more and more recently.  I think I might be hitting anxiety overload now.  Here are the top reasons for my anxiety this week.

• Field trip today.  I had anxiety about the trip because we hadn't been there before.  I also had anxiety because we went to a farm and I had to figure out where I would pump while at the farm.  I woke up this morning with a horrible stomachache.  Luckily, I could talk myself through it and it went away.
• Testing!  I always have anxiety about this, but this year is 10 times worse than usual.
• Illnesses.  I am constantly worrying that the kids are going to get sick.  I want them to stay healthy.  There were quite a few sick kids at daycare this week too.
• School.  I've been very worried about getting everything done on time at school and doing it well.
• Next Year. 
• Alexander.  He seems to be having some regression. He was completely potty trained before we had Julia and now he tells us that he has to go pee pee and before we get him to the bathroom, his pants are a little bit wet.  Then I worry that maybe it isn't regression and is a medical problem.  (Nathan thinks I'm crazy!)

Maybe, writing down my issues will help me process them.  I really don't want to end up on anxiety medicine again.  Nathan just looks at me like I'm crazy when I tell him my worries.  He has been great at helping me forget the anxiety.  I'm hoping that when the stress of the school year goes away, the anxiety will too.  I am so blessed to have his wonderful family!

Weekend Excitement

We had a busy weekend.  Grandma and Pap Pap came to visit this weekend.  They helped us so much.  They had fun playing with the kids so that I could clean up the house and Grandma helped me clean too.  Our house actually looks livable again.  Thanks Grandma and Pap Pap!  Then on Saturday afternoon, we went into the city to Trucko de Mayo.  This was a big food truck event in the parking lot of a stadium.  There were 35 food trucks.  I wanted to eat something from all of them and it was so hard to choose.  We ended up trying things from several different trucks.  Alexander ate pulled pork and a hot dog.  Then he wanted popcorn and the lady running the popcorn truck was so nice.  She made him special popcorn with olive oil and lemon because he can't eat anything that has dairy in it.  Nathan and I ended up eating Thai food that was awesome.  Then we went and bought cheesecake from the cheesecake truck. It was exceptional cheesecake!  Grandma had a special grilled cheese from the grilled cheese truck and Pap Pap had a gourmet hamburger.  Then we couldn't leave without cupcakes from the cupcake truck.  They were some of the best cupcakes that we have eaten.  As we were getting ready to leave, Alexander saw a garbage truck and had to see it.  I didn't get any pictures of him with it, but he got to see the garbage man, and the garbage man showed him how the truck worked.  That was his favorite part of the whole trip.  We had lots of fun and are going to look for more food truck  events to attend.

We met The Great Gatsby.

Where should we eat?

Delicious cheesecake!

Yummy cupcakes!

So many choices!

Julia learned how to roll over today.  It was so exciting.  She isn't nearly as excited as we are because every time she rolls over, she doesn't understand why she ends up on her stomach.  She hates being on her stomach.

This is what happens when you learn to roll over. Help! Mommy and Daddy to the rescue (after we take a picture)!

Crying is Contagious

Alexander can go from happy to sad in a matter of minutes.  He can be the happiest little boy and then, BAM, all of the sudden he is the most unhappy boy in the world.  Any little thing can set him off.  Tonight a lightbulb burned out in the bathroom while he was taking a bath.  Now, mind you, there are two other lightbulbs in the bathroom fixture, but because one lightbulb was gone, he could no longer see and that was the beginning of the tantrum.  Three year old tantrums are different from the two year old ones because of the sound of the screams.  At two, it was basically just inconsolable crying that lasted a couple of minutes.  At three, it is the loudest screams you can possibly make with the biggest tears.  It is all about the drama.  This happens at least four to five times a day, if not more.  Because of this, Julia is getting very used to hearing crying from her brother.  Now she thinks that if Alexander is crying, she needs to also.  Tonight, while I was dressing her after her bath and her brother was having his tantrum about the lightbulb, she was very happy.  Then as we heard more and more screams from the bathroom, she looked up at me smiled, then started giving me her pouty face, the one that she gives before she cries when she wants to get a reaction.  It was like she was saying, "Well, he is crying, so I need to cry too, right?"  She did that for a few minutes.  She gave the pouty face, whimpered, then smiled, and repeated the pattern.  I never knew that crying could be so contagious!

In the Mind of a 9 Year Old

We had a power outage last night.  It was the first power outage that we have had in a long time.  My students came into school completely hyped up about it.  They were so wound up that they couldn't settle down all day.  They did have a reason for their excitement.  Someone started a rumor that the power outage was caused by a fireball from the sun that hit the town where we live.  According to them, that is why we heard the firetrucks and helicopters.  This really isn't what happened, but I thought it was really funny that they all believed this.  It lightened our moods this morning.  In the mind of a 9 year old, anything is possible!