Before I forget

A quick little update on Mia's vocabulary before I forget to add these words to her ever-growing list:

"Thank you" (used often and appropriately!)

"Here you go"

"Roo" is definitely Luke

"Day" (for my mom, usually used in "hi day")

"Hello" (in addition to hi)

"milk"

some form of "brother"

"book"

"read"

Her absolute favorite books right now, which we read very, very regularly (often several times in a row):

This one is great because it is really interactive, I read as Mia places the baby animals into their beds

A Mia update

Again, it's been far too long and I have way too much to say about Mia at 16 (nearly 17 - where does the time go? - months).

Wow - she has SUCH a personality ... and by that I mean that she's a little Miss Sassy Pants. Yikes! I'm sort of starting to really worry about what she'll be like as a pre-teen. Crazy! She just knows what she wants and is not happy to settle. Perhaps this trait will serve her well one day - I hope so. For now, however, it makes life a lot more difficult for the rest of us! A few examples of things that Mia does NOT like:

• changing her diaper (um, sort of a necessity). This typically elicits a full out screaming, sometimes pulling my hair and scratching my face, kicking and rolling all over the floor fit


• putting on or changing clothes (similar reaction to aforementioned diaper change)


• getting in car when she doesn't feel like going "bye bye" (again, usually accompanied by a full out, blood curdling scream, arching of the back, flailing of the arms, fit)


• being picked up or having her hand held in a parking lot or other dangerous place for a one year old to be roaming alone (similar reaction as above, often including throwing self on the ground/pavement)


• having Luke take back a toy of his that she has previously "stolen"


• sitting in her highchair too long ...and by "too long" I mean more than 30 seconds after she has determined that she is finished (this results in throwing of food and yelling)


• going upstairs when she knows it is bed or naptime

And the list could go on and on. Needless to say, we have our work cut out for us. It seems that her tantrums have ramped up in recent weeks, so I am trying to be sure that she sees and begins to understand that that type of behavior will not alter what is about to happen.

All that aside, there are certainly times (most of the time) when Mia is a happy little girl. She loves to climb, play with Luke's toys (tools are a current favorite all around), feed her baby dolls, dance, splash in the tubby, be outside, and be read to. She is so happy to bring one book after another to us right now, plop down in our lap, and have us read ...and read....and read, which I LOVE. She also loves to "read" her books to herself (super cute!). Her favorite people: Daddy, Luke, and Paw.



Despite her little tantrums leading up to nap and bedtime, once she resigns herself to what is happening she is a complete snuggler. She loves to lay her head on my shoulder, twist my hair with one of her hands, and fall asleep while I rock. I don't think that there is anything better than having a sleeping baby on your chest.

According to our bathroom scale, Mia is between 20 and 21 pounds. She fits well into 12-18 month clothes now, is still wearing her medium size cloth diapers (or size 3 when in disposables), and her feet are now comfortably fitting into size 4s. Her 1 year molars are nearly all in now - the last one on the bottom left has been working its way up for the past few days, bringing the total count for teeth to 12.

Mia continues to be a pretty good eater, but she definitely goes through spurts when she doesn't eat much ... but I know that she'll make up for it later. In terms of sleeping she is ready for bed between 7:00 and 7:30 each night and typically sleeps for about 12 hours. She also takes a good afternoon nap for between 2.5 and 3 hours.



Vocabulary has not made any huge changes since I last posted. I think she's added a few more words, and she is certainly communicating better overall. She is using more hand gestures and putting them together with words to convey her wants/needs. One word that she has most definitely added to her repertoire in recent weeks: "no, no, no, no, no" (it is never just one "no"). What I do know is that her comprehension of what we talk about or ask her to do has increased significantly in recent weeks. She is now completely able to follow directions (when she feels like it, of course!).



Oh, Mia, we just adore you. There are no words for all of the ways that you light up our lives. What a sparkly little girl you are ... and how lucky we are to have you as part of us.

Our 10 month old

10 months have flown by and as Mia's personality really begins to emerge, we fall more and more in love with her. Here is the latest and greatest at 10 months old

Eating
She continues to be a good eater. She loves her pureed foods (I've continued to make all of her food, which has been easy and sort of fun), and has been a bit slower to take on finger foods than I anticipated. Perhaps it is because she is still working with only two teeth. Favorite breakfast foods include waffles, pureed fruits, yogurt, oatmeal, toast (I've tried eggs a few times, but without much luck). At lunch we try to serve only finger foods. She seems to love deli turkey. Her tray usually has quite the sampling on it - cheese, different types of diced fruits and veggies, small crackers, pasta, etc. At dinner she eats several ounces of pureed vegetables (she's not picky - loves them all, even brussel sprouts!) and rice cereal along with any finger foods that she can have from the regular dinner table. Her favorite finger foods are puffs - and she enjoys teething biscuits as well! She has a cup of water or half juice/half water with just about every meal, and I have started to offer formula in a sippy cup occasionally to prepare her for the transition to regular milk in a few months. She still nurses about 4 times a day (wake up, late morning, before afternoon nap, bedtime) and in the past week I have substituted one feeding (late afternoon, when my supply feels lowest anyways) for a bottle, which she seems happy to have.

Sleeping
Ugh - this child has really put us in our place as far as the sleeping goes. I guess we were a bit over confident in our abilities to sleep train. Luke was such a difficult, fussy infant, but ended up being a champion sleeper by about 5 months old. Mia ... not so much. The good news: she is now very good at putting herself to sleep, both at night and for naps. The bad news: she still is not consistently sleeping through the night (and by that I mean, 11-12 hours). We often have a wake up somewhere between 2am and 4am about 4 nights out of every week. Until very recently, I would eventually respond to her because she could scream so loud and for so long that we weren't sleeping through it anyways (even without the monitor turned on), but we've made the decision with the go-ahead from our pediatrician to really put our foot down, so she's going to cry/yell it out at night. Earlier in the month I tried putting Mia to bed earlier (somewhere between 6:15 and 6:45), and this seemed to help her get through the night. So, her day looks something like: 6:45-7:00 wake up, 9:30-11:30 morning nap, 2:30-3:30/4:00 afternoon nap, and bedtime by 6:45.

Playing
Mia is very mobile. She is fast and often surprises people with how quickly she moves around given her size (since she looks so small). She can crawl at lightning speed, can cruise around furniture, and I even have caught her standing on her own without holding onto anything a few times in the past week. Her favorite game is climbing up the stairs while someone chases her. She also loves "helping Mommy" - putting laundry in the dryer, climbing into the open dishwasher, unloading newly folded laundry from the basket (onto the floor in one giant heap), and unrolling toilet paper from the rolls in all of the bathrooms. She doesn't seem to really love any one toy - in fact, she seems to like playing with all things that are NOT toys. And, of course, she loves anything her big brother is playing with, much to his dismay. Pat-a-cake and This Little Piggy are two of her favorite games and she has just recently started dancing (rocking) to music or singing.

Talking
This month has also brought with it some of Mia's first words. Her first word was "da-da," followed by "ma-ma." She also can now wave and knows the sign for "more." She loves to babble and "read" stories to us. We are working on learning many more new signs - Luke was such a great signer, and we loved to be able to communicate in that way with him when he was a baby, so hopefully it will be the same for Mia.

Growing
Ah, she's SUCH a peanut! People see her and almost always guess that she's about 6 months old (until they watch her take off crawling!). My guess is that she's about 16 pounds now. She is really fitting into the 6-12 month clothes, but sleepers in that size are still too big. Carter's 9 month clothes are still a bit big, but that's what she's wearing. When she wears disposable diapers they are size 2 ... although, I just bought a pack of size 3 this week for our upcoming trip to Cabo, and I just washed her medium sized BumGenius diapers and I'm going to put the smalls away. I am so savoring this time where she's still small and feels so much like a baby - I know it will be gone all too soon.

Just in general, Mia is a very happy and pretty easy baby. She definitely has a mind of her own, knows what she wants and isn't afraid to tell you, and is very short right now in the patience department (think yelling immediately upon waking or when she decides she has finished a meal). She can be very loud, loves to squeal, and is full of smiles and laughter. What a joy ... what a perfectly, well-rounded girl. We're in love!

Luke's speech follow up

Just a quick update post our IEP meeting with the local school district regarding Luke's speech/articulation issues...

In short, he does not qualify for services as of now. Apparently, in order to qualify, children need to test about 6 months or more delayed, and Luke does not at this time. That being said, their requirements at age 3 are pretty minimal, so it is likely that if his difficulties with articulation continue, he will qualify at 4 years old.

We also have a lovely neighbor who is a speech pathologist and who screened Luke when he was 2.5 and offered to screen him again in about 6 months. Based on her findings, we may pursue some private speech therapy.

What ALL of the "experts" who have met with Luke have said is that he has an amazing vocabulary, advanced sentence structure and phrasing, and an above average attention span for a boy his age. They all seem to agree that his articulation issues stem from that period of time when he essentially lost a good portion of his hearing due to ear infections (from about 15-21 months) until he had the tubes placed in his ears. That time frame is essential for the language and speech development in kids, and Luke missed out on that due to the fluid behind his eardrums. :(

Our hope (and the hope of the speech therapists who worked with Luke recently) is that his speech will continue to develop and catch up over the next 6-12 months.

Introducing ....

our beautiful 5 month old!


Most of what is going on in Mia-world I have already blogged about this month ... but, I have not yet mentioned how much our girl likes to TALK! I thought Luke was a vocal baby, but he really had nothing on Mia. She has a LOT to say, and can say it very LOUD. The funniest part about her talking is that you can absolutely tell by the tone of her voice what she is feeling (there is no doubt when she is yelling at us because she is not happy!). I'll have to try to get a video one of these days.

Conversations with Luke

Okay, he seriously is at that age where he cracks us up all the time. Here are just a few examples:



In bed one night last week, I walk in to kiss him goodnight and tuck him in

Luke: Mommy, wanna lay with me?

Me: Of course I do, but only for a few minutes. Mommy is hungry and I need to go downstairs and have dinner with Daddy.

Luke: Want a hot dog?

Me: A hot dog?

Luke: Ya, a hot dog. I have a bunch in my hot dog stand.

Me: You have a hot dog stand? (I'm thinking that maybe I'm mis-hearing him because the kid has never even had a hot dog in all his life, and I have no idea how he would know that they are sold out of stands)

Luke: In my bed. A hot dog stand in my bed. You want one? They are hot - mmm, yummy. (as he pretends to gobble one down, and reaches his hand towards me to "hand" me one)


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At the dinner table with Mommy and Daddy he sees the bowl of broccoli and a big serving spoon, which he reaches for

Luke: Mommy, want some broccoli?

Me: Oh, yes please (we help him to serve us)

Luke: Mmm, broccoli, it's so "nummy" and good for you. Yum!

Daddy: Luke, do you want some?

Luke: Nope! ... Daddy, you want some broccoli?

Daddy: Yes, please

Luke: Mmm, broccoli is so nummy and good for you. YUMMY!

Me: Yes it is - do you want some Luke?

Luke: Nope!

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One night right before bed Luke was waiting for me to come brush his teeth. I had run to throw on my pjs (a nursing nightgown that night) before tucking him in. As I come into the bathroom

Luke: Oooh, that's a "beeautiful" dress you have on
Me: Why thank you (as I laugh to myself)

Luke: Where are you going?

Me: Oh, just to bed. These are my jammies.

Luke: I need a pretty dress for sleeping.

The next morning

Luke: Mommy! You still wearing that beeautiful dress. So pretty!!

Talking to Grandma

Apparently, Grandma tells really fabulous stories!

Mia "talking" to Grandma (6 weeks old)

Luke "talking" to Grandma (2 & 4 weeks old)

28 month update

Wow! The past two months with Luke have brought about so many amazing changes. He is such a little boy and so very sweet. Some of his most recent accomplishments:

1) PUZZLES are one of his most favorite things right now. He LOVES his 24-piece Thomas floor puzzle, and can put it together entirely on his own within a few minutes. He also has a fire truck floor puzzle which he can very nearly complete on his own.

2) Learning the ALPHABET. He has been singing his ABCs for a few months now, but just in recent weeks we have noticed that he is able to match a letter name to its shape. He loves using the alphabet game on his computer, and calling out the sponge letters in the bathtub as he puts them on the wall. He is also able to identify his name now and verbally spell it out. Pretty amazing how much he is learning every minute of every day!

Letter naming in the tub

3) Sleeping in his BIG BOY BED. He took to his new bed with no problems at all. In fact, I think that he is actually sleeping better, and seems just thrilled with it.

Sleeping well with our "other" little boy - Linus, who apparently thinks he deserves a big boy bed as well!

4) Saying goodbye to the PACIFIER. Yep, it's gone! We had been talking about how big boys don't need "binks" for a while now (and I was nervous about the possibility of some sleepless nights), but finally last week I took them away and told him that they had gone to the babies who need them. He whined a little bit on the first day, and we had one incident about 3 days in when he woke up from nap crying for it, but that's about it. I do notice that sometimes it seems to take him a little extra time to settle down into sleep, but I'm sure that as the days go on, he will learn to soothe himself to sleep quickly without it. Yay!

First night with no pacifier

5) Sitting in a BOOSTER! I ordered Luke a booster seat that came just this week. He was getting too big for his highchair and his legs and feet would often get stuck when getting in and out. Despite all of Luke's eating issues, he really, truly loved sitting in his highchair. However, he surprised me again when he very happily and easily transitioned to the booster. We made a big deal of it and even went to the store together to pick out some special place mats (his choices: a monkey face and a frog). He seems happy with his new spot at the family dinner table - and we love having him there. For the time being, the highchair went up into storage at my parents' - that way it is not an option to go back to for Luke, and it makes room in our house for the baby swing which will be back very shortly!

6) READING to us! Luke has several of his books memorized and now enjoys reading some of them to us. The one that he knows best and is his favorite right now is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Eric Carle. Luke loved this book several months ago, but was reintroduced to it at school and now we read it nearly every day.

7) Using the POTTY. Okay, despite an effort over the weekend that Michael was out of town a few weeks back, Luke is not officially potty trained. I was hoping that we could get it done that weekend, but after a few days Luke decided that he was NOT going to cooperate. He ended up screaming, arching his back, and simply refusing to even sit on the potty. So, we are taking a break and will revisit again in the coming month or so. What I have noticed since our initial attempt is that he has the ability to be trained during the day and that he is starting to show some interest again (this morning in fact, he woke up and immediately came to get me so that I could help him use the potty). He also has his eye on a package of Thomas underwear that he knows we are going back to get once he is using the potty ... we'll keep you updated!

8) TALKING about everything, and in full and complete sentences. I know that over the past year I have made mention of Luke's increasing ability to converse, but now I feel that it has really hit a peak. I hear him say new things all the time - things that he didn't learn from me (which is a little strange, but I should get used to it). I love listening and talking with him - it's really amazing how much is in that brain of his!

9) Staying HEALTHY. Knock on wood, Luke has been pretty healthy for a long stretch now. He did get an ear infection back in September, but thanks to the tubes, did not suffer any from it. We had a 6-month re-check on his ears this month with the ENT specialist and he said both looked really good. Both eardrums healed nicely after the surgery. One tube (in the left ear that had the infection a few months ago) will not be in much longer, as it is very anterior, but the other is still in place. We just have to hope now that his anatomy has changed enough so that if his left ear is infected again this year, the fluid will be able to drain on its own.

10) SINGING songs. Luke can now sing, hum, and "la-la-la" a bunch of songs. It amazes us that he not only knows the melodies, but also nearly all of the words. Some of his favorite songs right now include: the ABCs, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Let's Go Fly a Kite, I See the Moon, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old Macdonald had a Farm (which he also sings when we go to McDonalds!). He also has informed me that he likes the song Bubbly by Colbie Caillat, and can identify it after just the first few notes ... "Ooh, Mommy, I like this song!"

2 months until he's 2!

Today Luke is 22 months old. I simply cannot believe that my little baby is almost 2 years old. Where has the time gone?

Luke, every month you are cuter, more fun, and more full of life than the previous. And, each month we seem to fall more and more in love with you. Here are just some of the things that I love about you right now:

1) I LOVE your conversation. Since the tubes were put in your ears, your vocabulary has exploded. You are now talking in 3 and 4 word sentences, and some of the stuff that comes out of you amazes us.

2) I love how you now refer to yourself at "Ruke." You spend a lot of time telling me what "Ruke" should be doing ... "Ruke swing," "Ruke drive," "Ruke choc-choc milk," "Ruke Daddy gui-tar" (Luke & Daddy play guitar together), "Ruke, Ma play choo-choo" (Luke and Mom play with trains), "Ruke shaow" (Luke take a shower).

3) I love that you can repeat just about anything and everything. Last week I was asking Daddy why it was so important that he got his hair cut that day. He said it was because he wanted to look hot for me. You heard this and instantly looked at me and said so matter of factly, "To look hot for you!" We definitely need to watch what we say from now on!

4) I love that you are getting very good at going to sleep in your big boy bed. You can now really understand when Mommy asks you to stay in bed, and you try SO hard most of the time to resist the ultimate temptation of getting up and playing in your room.

5) I love that you see things that I don't even notice. For instance, when we drive anywhere in the car, you look out the window and notice the sky, trees, airplanes, trucks, cars, train tracks, etc.

6) I love that you are able to describe things now. Instead of just saying that you see a truck, you tell us that it is a "white truck," or a "red car." So smart!

7) I love that you have some incredible sense of direction that most certainly did NOT come from me! If we say that we are going to Grammy and Poppy's and we take a different route, you make sure to let us know that we are going the WRONG way! You also know exactly where the light rail train tracks are, and if we approach that street, you start talking about the train before we even get there. It amazes me that you know where you are!

8) I love your hand motions that go with songs. You love to do "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

9) I love that you love when Mommy sings to you. Sometimes, if you are upset about going to sleep you will cry, then settle in my arms and in your most sad voice ask Mommy to "siiiing peez." Just to make it better, you sing along with me, but usually only making sure to hit the high notes along the way. Listening to you sing while we rock is one of the best parts of my day.

10) I love what a little musician you are. I know that I've said it before, but I'll say it again - you are destined for great things musically! You love to sing, dance, clap, drum, bop, watch concerts on TV, and sometimes just listen. This month the guitar was your highlight ... and I love to watch you hold it (the "right" way without even being shown how) and strum and dance away. Daddy is going to make you a strap so that you can move around with it more easily :)

11) I love that you seem to love books and reading together more and more all the time. You can even remember and repeat lines from books as a way of telling me which one I should pull off the bookshelf.

12) I love how you come into our room on weekend mornings very quietly. Sometimes you just sit on the floor next to the bed and watch us sleep. And then, out of nowhere (and usually quite loud) you either announce that you have "poo-poo" so that we will get up and change you, or you start singing your version of the Elmo song "La la LA ELMO!"

13) I love how you "swim" on your tummy in the bathtub!