Oh My

Something has lit a fire under the boys because it seems like they've decided to kick some milestone butt this week. For this reason, I think I'll join in on Shannon's Things I Don't Want To Forget Thursdays.

Lucas:
*Instead of sitting in my lap or daddy's lap, he's started picking up books on his own and turning the pages, pointing, and talking as if he's really reading on his own. It's precious.
*He's also started cruising. He doesn't pull up on furniture, but if you let him pull up using your fingers and walk him up to a piece of furniture he'll grab on and eventually start moving along. His biggest motivation is watching Ethan crawl over to me. He doesn't like being left standing there watching his brother get the attention so he gets a move on.
*He's really started walking well while using the musical walker to hold on to. He's done it a few times before, timidly, but he seems confident now.
*When you say pattycake, he immediately starts clapping his hands. Where did this come from? I have no idea.
*He is pointing at everything and telling me what it is. Can I make it out? No, but he seems to know what he's talking about.

Ethan:
*He's eating cardboard!?!?!? Seriously son, where is this coming from? His love for books is a different kind of love from Lucas. Ethan likes to chomp on his board books and he's slick and super fast about it. We started giving him bigger books that were hard for him to lift thinking he wouldn't chew on ones he wasn't able to pick up. Wrong. He just leans down to the floor to gnaw at the edges of the book. He's so not a picky eater :)
*He has learned to crawl up the stairs. He's tried on a few occassions, with supervision of course. Yesterday I was headed upstairs to clean bathrooms while my MIL watched them and he followed me right up. The way our stairs are set up is you walk up two to a platform, then turn to the right and go all the way to the second floor. He had no problem getting to the platform and even went up a few more just to prove he could do it. We have a gate at the top, now I guess we need one at the bottom. Oy!
*This isn't a good thing but it seems like yesterday and today Ethan has had a real paci attachment.


On an unrelated note....
I've been wanting to decorate the hallway bathroom for the boys. It's very simple now. A light aqua with aqua/gold shower curtain and two pictures I painted on the wall. Definitely not kid friendly. Behind the curtain it's all kid with toys, rubber ducky tub, Johnson's & Johnson's baby wash and shampoo. So after realizing that kid appropriate pirate shower curtains are rare, we went nautical. I found a curtain at Target that had bright underwater creatures on it that even had an octopus with an eye patch on it. I snatched it up with a few accessories and brightly colored towels. The next step is to pick out the new wall color, paint, and finish it off with some new bright rugs and Mommy paintings. I'm very excited about this project!!
Now, time for So You Think You Can Dance....my summer guilty pleasure :)

Pool Babies

My sister came out to visit today and to give the boys haircuts. It was Lucas' third but Ethan's first. Man do they look grown up. After a trim we decided to bust out the kiddie pool I bought James for Father's Day last year. I wasn't sure how they'd do in a big cold pool vs the warm bath that they love. Even daddy got in the pool with them. Ethan had a blast, which kind of surprised me. Lucas was a big unsure and then did a face plant right into the water and after that it took a long while to calm him. He did finally chill out and played with a few toys while Ethan splashed and crawled around with a big smile on his face 99% of the time.

11 Months

Today the boys are 11 months old (I'm picking up jaw up off the floor). They are looking and acting more like toddlers and less like babies and I don't know when that happened. My babies aren't babies anymore. Here's what they're doing these days...

Ethan:
*crawls at the speed of light
*pulls up on EVERYTHING
*loves to cruise around the house holding on to any furniture he can to stay on his feet
*getting brave and tries to stand up without holding on for a few seconds at a time
*puts paci's in his mouth if one is in sight/reach
*steals toys and paci's from his brother
*very talkative but other than mama and dada isn't making out any real words
*smiles all-the-time!
*eats everything you put in front of him (we're increasing table foods and decreasing baby food)
*his new thing is eating the cardboard of the cute board books we have
*absolutely will not stay still during any diaper change-must roll multiple times
*is kind of a bully to his brother

Lucas:
*refuses to crawl
*walks as long as he's holding on to someone's fingers
*loves to stand up holding on to furniture
*is starting to cruise a little bit
*rolls over during diaper changes and while in the crib
*not showing interest in pulling up on anything yet
*cries when his brother comes over towards him and touches him
*increasing table foods and decreasing baby food (but we had a bit of a set back after his stomach bug)
*loves holding and opening books
*is a chatterbug, but this two favorites are mama and dada
*can wave and say bye bye

Ethan's definitely on the move while Lucas is still stationary. Lucas gets frustrated watching Ethan crawling and cruise but it hasn't seemed to motivate him much. He does love being on his feet and walking as long as he can hold on to your fingers. I think he's really going to skip crawling all together and start walking, if he'd start pulling up on things to get to his feet.

So it seems right now that I have one bully child and one wimpy child. It doesn't matter what Ethan is doing, if Lucas picks up a toy Ethan will stop what he's doing and come take it from Lucas. Lucas sometimes lets him take it and finds something else, sometimes cries, and sometimes takes it back. I really have no idea how to deal with this. Ethan also will not let anything get in his way when he decides he's on his way to something. This includes Lucas. If Lucas is laying or sitting in the path of Ethan, Ethan will climb right over Lucas. This makes Lucas cry. Sometimes if Ethan just gets close to Lucas he'll start fussing. I don't know what to do. He just needs to buck up and push back or suck it up but how do you tell that to a baby?

I'm also stuck on how to adjust their feedings to where we move from 4 meals with bottles to 3 meals with snacks. We want to get the boys on a normal feeding schedule so we're eating at the same time, especially dinner. We're also wanting to lose the bottle at 1 year and I'm not sure that's going to go half as smoothly as I'd like. There's way too much going on!

Finally

Lucas is doing better! He's taking 8oz bottles and keeping them down without needing the Zofran. I guess it's time to start slowly reintroducing solids. He's laughing and smiling which just melts my heart. To see his eyes filled with excitement after seeing the hurt, it's the best thing in the world. Thankfully, Ethan's still showing no signs of getting sick. It's so nice to get back to a resemblance of our schedule.

Tomorrow we have a busy day! A friend from work is home on bedrest for the last couple of weeks of her pregnancy so we're going to visit. She's having a girl and we were hoping she'd be birthday buddies with the boys because she's due on their birthday. However, she's had some fluctuation with her blood pressure so they won't let her go a full 40wks. After that we're celebrating Nana's 95th birthday. Last Saturday we celebrated my grandma's 80th and tomorrow we celebrate James' grandma's 90th. These ladies have been super blessed and I'm so happy the boys are getting to spend time with them.

Poor Sick Baby

Lucas has been dealing with a stomach bug this week. Seeing your child sick, looking up at you after he just threw up wanting you to make it better, is so heartbreaking. Trying to take care of a baby who is sick and wanting mommy to hold him most of the time is extremely difficult when you have a double ear infection and feel like poo!! I found out Monday that I felt so crappy Mother's Day because I had a double ear infection, which I'm still dealing with. This has obviously left me at feeling less than 100%. When you have a sick baby in one arm and a healthy baby that is crying for attention tugging on the other, you need to be 100%. I am so thankful that my MIL was able to come help me out this week. I'm not sure what kind of condition any of us would be in if I'd not had the help!

Tuesday morning James let me stay in bed while he made bottles and got the boys up only to find Lucas covered in dry formula that he thew up in the middle of the night. Unexpected bath time! James ended up taking him to the dr after he threw up again. It was determined to be a stomach bug and we'd have to just wait it out, unless he developed a fever or got worse. Guess what? It got worse. I spoke to the dr's office Thursday and was told as long as he had 1 good wet diaper in 8 hours, that was good. The nurse said to cut his feedings by half the amount and feed him twice as often so we weren't putting too much on his stomach at once. She also told me to avoid Pedialyte and stick to formula only. I don't know about you, but when I'm sick I stay far away from milk. I listened however. Bad call. Vomiting continued and he didn't have a single wet diaper within their 8 hour time frame. Made an appointment and went back to the doc today. She said he wasn't a "send to the hospital right now" case but if we didn't get some fluids in him soon, he would be. She said to give only water and/or Pedialyte for 24 hours and see if that helps. We also got a Rx for Zofran in case he vomited again. Thankfully, from 11:30am until now, 10:58pm Lucas has not thrown up. We've given him sips of water to keep him hydrated and he did have a good wet diaper. He wasn't very interested in the Pedialyte, though. I'm praying that he's getting some relief from that awful nauseous feeling and also that Ethan won't come down sick too. People keep telling me it's inevitable but I'm hoping to prove them wrong :)

Mother's Day

My vision for the day: French toast breakfast, play with the boys, a picnic lunch in the park, and then open house for the grandparents to visit.
Reality: Woke up with sore throat, had french toast, started to feel achy, took a 30 minute nap, felt worse, took hot bath thanks to James, felt worse, took temp and had fever so took tylenol, fever broke, felt good enough to have pizza and cookie cake, had grandparents visit, went to bed early.
Wasn't the ideal way to spend Mother's Day, but when I think back to last years Mother's day sitting in the hospital with preterm labor, being monitored for contractions, I'll take feeling sick while watching my two healthy babies play!!!

We finally got our computer back! I'm so happy. I hate feeling behind on my blog and reading others. It's become part of my regular routine and without it, my days have felt weird. Glad to be back.

I was able to order the boys birthday shirts and some of the birthday supplies. The monkey theme is in full swing. I can't wait to get my packages!!

PLEASE

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you have any change at all, please consider donating to the March of Dimes. Our walk is this weekend. Every cent helps. The donation size doesn't matter, it's the support. This means a lot to our family! The walk is this Saturday so I won't be asking again, but I want to give as much as possible. Thank you so much!!!

We should be getting our computer back soon so I can actually blog for real. I miss this as my outlet!!! I also miss keeping up with my other bloggin mommas!!

Crib Recall

Thankfully, up until now, we haven't had any baby equipment on any of the recall lists. However, the crib recall that just came out does affect us. I got on the website and ordered the hardware replacement that they are sending out, but what do I do for the next 2-3 weeks that it says it will take to arrive? There has been WAY TOO MUCH going on...I don't need anything else to stress about (and this is a big stress).