Brooklyn 4 Months & Other Happenings

Well it appears I just blog when my kids reach certain age milestones. Wish I could do more, but I guess this is better than nothing.

Brooklyn had her 4 month check up today and she is doing great, and SUPER BIG. Here are her official stats:

Weight: 18 lbs, 2.5 oz
Height: 27 3/4 inches
Head Circ: 17 1/4 inches

She is completely above the percentile charts in all 3 categories. If you map out those measurement with age, she is about the size of an average 8-month old! Santa's bringing this growing girl some new clothes for Christmas! She's outgrown the 6 month sizes already and on to 9-12.

We're going to start some solid foods in about a month. She needs to be able to sit up better because the way she hunches over is not good for swallowing and keeping food going down. She isn't showing an interest in food, yet, and a breast-milk diet certainly seems to be working for her!

I thought for sure she'd roll over several weeks ago, but she still has not met that milestone. Any day... But I'm actually nervous about her getting mobile. We're going to need to pack away some of Hayden's smaller toys and trucks with removable tires/parts. We had a friend's crawling 7 month old baby over recently and I was noticing all the baby-proofing things we've let slip since Hayden is old enough to know better. Wake up call!!

The doctor also prescribed some low-dose baby Zantac for possible reflux. Because of the way she cries in pain and arches her back when laid flat, and makes a sour face after burping, makes us think she might have an issue even though she doesn't spit up very much. I may also try going off dairy again more strictly to see if that helps. We don't want our baby to have tummy problems, or a burning esophagus! No fun!

We have a sort of routine down with sleep, but I would certainly like to see her take longer naps and longer stretches of night sleep. Lately, this is approximately our day:
7am - Wake up
8:30am - 1st Nap
9:15am - Wake up (Grr... wish this was longer)
11am - 2nd nap
11:45 - Wake up, get her back to sleep if possible
12:30 - Wake up again if fell back to sleep
2:30 - 3rd Nap with Mommy while Hayden naps
5pm - Wake up
7pm - Bedtime
11pm - Wake up - feed, right back to sleep
3 am - Wake up - feed, right back to sleep
7am - repeat above.

So she's taking 3 naps a day, but the first two are usually only 45 minutes, which is frustrating because by 2pm she becomes a total Fussmunchkin (stealing the nickname our neighbor's call their little baby!) And of course, she takes a great 3rd nap because I lay down with her. If I sneak away after she falls asleep, she often wakes up within 5 minutes. She has Mommy radar and is a very light sleeper. A loud truck going by our house, dogs barking, or kids outside yelling usually wake her up, even with the white noise machine on it's loudest. Really wish we lived on a quieter street. I find myself consumed by getting her to take good naps.

The doctor suggested that we could try getting Brooklyn to sleep more than a 4 hour stretch at night without feeding, if we wanted to. That basically means not responding to her when she wakes up, or trying to get her back to sleep without feeding her so she learns that it's sleep time and not eat time. If you know me, you might know I'm a supporter of the Attachment Parenting philosophy and I personally do not believe letting my baby Cry It Out is OK. (If you click that link, you can read more about why Cry It Out is believed to not be best for babies.) So I'm not really going to push the effort to "train" Brooklyn to sleep longer. If I stay up until that 11pm feeding then I only have to wake up for the 3am feeding and that's not so bad. We'll get to the longer stretches someday...

It's not the nights that are hard. It's the NAPS! My day often feels 'good' or 'bad' depending on whether she napped for more than 20 minutes unassisted or if I had to get her back to sleep 15 times throughout the day. It's hard too because Hayden has to occupy himself quietly while I deal with Brooklyn, and I feel guilty for how many Thomas the Tank Engine, Elmo's World, SuperWhy, and Mighty Machines shows he watches.

Hayden is doing amazing as a big brother. I haven't really noticed any jealousy signs and he is getting used to her noises and cries. He is gentle with her and helps me whenever I ask him to hand me something. (We'll see how he does when she starts getting mobile and can grab his toys.)



We spend most of our days at home. The weather has been below freezing lately and I'm nervous about going to the mall or other kid-friendly indoor spots because of all the germs flying around this time of year. Brooklyn isn't old enough for the flu shot yet, so I need to protect her as much as possible. And with her nap schedule and light sleeping, she does better when I don't over-schedule our day. I've even been going to the 6am Stroller Strides ("Just Strides" because no babies) class so she can have a better morning nap. Hayden and I have been doing lots of craft projects, Play-Dough, Legos, baking, watching out the window at all the cars and trucks, reading books, setting up trains, and watching TV/Movies (*gasp!*) at home. We went to the park this afternoon and Hayden's hands got so cold he wouldn't touch the cold metal playground equipment and was asking to go home after 20 minutes. :(

We did, however, brave the 20 degree temperatures for our neighborhood Christmas festival last weekend. Luckily, there was an indoor cookie-decorating craft Hayden enjoyed, and Story Time with Mrs. Claus. After standing in line for the horse-drawn wagon ride and freezing our buns off, we decided to call it a night!

Bundled Up!

Yummy Cookies!

Story Time

Wagon Ride

There was also a live nativity display, complete with real barn animals AND a REAL CAMEL! We spent about 30 seconds looking at them because it was too cold. And there was live outdoor music, but I don't know how the musicians managed to play their instruments with frozen fingers. We also passed on visiting the "Santa" because he looked kind of lame and I didn't want to risk a traumatic Santa experience before we got Santa pictures done. Which we did this week! Yes, I braved the Mall and the germs for a Santa Photo:


I can't believe neither kid is crying! This is the face Hayden makes when you ask him to smile. I told him if he cooperates and sits on Santa's lap and smiles while they take his picture he would get a candy cane. So I was very pleased that he was so cooperative. Hayden likes Candy Canes. :)

Hayden's 2 & 1/2 Birthday

When I was growing up, my family celebrated 'half birthdays'. It was nowhere near the hoopla of a real birthday, but it was an anticipated special day nonetheless. My half-birthday is technically February 30th, which doesn't ever exist, so we'd have to celebrate on Feb 28th. Usually all it entails is a special dinner and dessert with just our immediate family, a card (with a little "half" squeezed in between the words "Happy Birthday" on the card), some small gift or flowers, and a couple Lotto scratch cards (don't ask me how that tradition started!) Even to this day, I mentally anticipate my half-birthday (even though my last celebrated half birthday was 15 & 1/2 (when I got my driver's permit!). Bummer. ;)

I thought it was a good idea, though, since for a child, a whole year between your Special Day is quite a long time. Phil never celebrated half birthdays growing up, but once I explained it to him, he was on board to start the tradition for our kids. It's always so cute when you ask a kid how old they are and they answer "TWO AND A HALF!" because that "HALF" is a big deal!

So today, November 20th, was Hayden's 2 & 1/2 birthday. We went to the Toy Store and he picked out a metal 50s Chevy Pick-Up Truck. I was surprisingly able to convince him not to get the garbage truck, which seemed poorly made and surely would break easily. He added it to his collection. Not like he needs more, yesterday we lined up all his vehicles on our table:



He sure LOVES cars, trucks, and trains! He knows the difference between a "hummer" and an "SUV" and a "Jeep", has an Army Truck, a Monster Truck, and a Garbage Truck, among his favorites. And if a truck has a "Spare Wheel" or a hitch on the back, that is very exciting! If it pulls a trailer, that is a bonus, too! He loves to lay with his head at eye level to watch the wheels and roll the vehicles back and forth. He tells you that Daddy drives an "SVT" (which he has a small model replica of!) and Mommy drives an "Outback" and Uncle Adam drives a "Jetta Wagon". He can point out these types of cars when we are out driving on the road. It's amazing.

Before dinner, he (and Brooklyn!) watched an episode of SuperWhy! If you look closely, you can see his new red pickup in his hands.


For dinner, Phil brought home Red Robin takeout (seems to be the easiest way for our family to enjoy a restaurant meal these days) and Hayden got a half a cheeseburger, in keeping with the theme!

We also determined a few months ago that his half birthday was going to mark the day Hayden stops getting a pacifier. To ease this potentially painful process, we borrowed a strategy from the Supernanny. She has toddlers send them to the "Paci-Fairy" who leaves a special prize for the pacifiers. So we rounded up all the pacifiers - 5 - and set up a magic pacifier box that transformed his 5 pacifiers into 5 Matchbox cars and trucks (I left out the part about "Paci-Fairies" - I'm still debating whether I want to make up certain fictitious characters... Kind of seems like lying to your kids... Guess I better decide where I stand before Santa season!! ...).


He seemed to think that was a pretty awesome trade. Although, here it is 9:30pm and he is still chatting away in bed... Hmmm...

Earlier in the day, I made a half cake (and cupcakes with the leftover batter). After dinner, we sang "Happy Half Birthday" and he blew out his 2 and a half candles.




He "blows" by saying "FFFFFffffffff" with all his might. It's adorable. He really enjoyed his cake (with M&Ms!!) so maybe that's also partly why he's still awake!

And since I've been so Camera-Happy the past couple days, here are some extra bonus pictures of adorable Brooklyn:

Brooklyn 3 Months

So I'm obviously not doing the week-by-week updates that I did for Hayden, but I already feel like Brooklyn's infancy is whizzing by like a bullet train, and I better stop once in a while to record these times.

With your 2nd baby, it's so hard not to compare them to your first. So here are some statements about Brooklyn, and if you knew Hayden as a baby too, you can guess what is similar and different.

• She is close to being able to roll over.
• She grabs at things and pulls them to her mouth. I think she's teething already.
• She cries when she is tired and is hard to console.
• She is having a really tough time sleeping longer than 45 minutes, and is a really light sleeper.
• She VERY RARELY sleeps in the car.
• She often cries in the car.
• She likes to eat every 2-3 hours, and fusses if we offer her a bottle.
• She spits up sometimes, but just a little bit.
• She prefers to sleep on her tummy, in the bouncy seat in our bathroom with the fan on and lights out, or in bed snuggled up next to me.
• She doesn't like to be swaddled, at least not with her arms in.
• She doesn't really like her pacifier. She'd much prefer her fingers or fist, if she could just get the coordination down.
• When she's not tired or hungry, she is pretty mellow.
• She 'talks' adorable coos and high-pitched squeals.
• She has cradle cap, but it's getting much better with the help of olive oil before bathtime.
• She may have a dairy allergy/sensitivity. I'm off the elimination diet and we're watching her BM's closely.
• She outgrew all her 3 month size clothes and weighs around 17 lbs now. Sizes 6-9 Months fit perfectly!
• As much as I was excited about "pink", I think she looks really good in purple
• She likes to stare at the ceiling fan.

Hayden is doing so much better lately with Brooklyn. He asks to hold her and is very gentle when he does. Then he promptly asks me to hold her!

He likes to gently touch the top of her head and then does his "that tickles" giggle. He is surprisingly good at using his whisper voice when she is sleeping. In the car when she is crying hysterically, he seems to be tuning it out better and doesn't start crying, too. He'll mimmick her cry sometimes, but not be truly upset. Here is a cute photo of Brooklyn "tackling" her big brother:

Halloween!

Halloween has lasted all week in the Lott Family this year. Starting last weekend, we attended the Issaquah Highlands Green Halloween Festival. Hayden enjoyed the pony rides, carnival games and good food. He was excited about his costume, Super Why, which is a character in a PBS kid's program of the same name. It came with a green eye mask, but he would not wear it so I painted his face. Surprisingly, he sat relatively still for that.



Later in the week, we decorated the pumpkins that we picked out at Remlinger Farms. Hayden was slightly fascinated by the pumpkin goop but wouldn't dare touch it. I guess my fond childhood memories of getting elbow deep in pumpkin guts will have to wait to be passed on in the future.


I carved both pumpkins - one is a Happy Hayden face, and the other is a Crying Baby Brooklyn face. When Hayden saw the baby face he mimicked Brooklyn's cry. Just the reaction I expected! Unfortunately, she's been crying a lot lately, and I thought this might be a way to make light of a stressful situation we've been experiencing in our family.


Then we had our Stroller Strides Halloween party. All the kids dressed up and there was a fun craft (decorating a fabric orange Trick or Treat bag with foamy Halloween stickers) and TONS of treats. Guess we totally un-did the workout we did that morning with the cupcakes and cookies! At least I did ;) Hayden still has a tough time interacting with kids his own age and the loud, chaotic party room made Hayden anxious to leave.



Brooklyn sure looked adorable in her Pink Butterfly costume, though (and as it turns out, this was the only time she wore it!). She wore it for about 5 minutes because the wings made it hard to hold her or put her in the Moby and the zipper/hood part was ill-fitting. Should have thought her costume through better. She couldn't even go in the stroller or car seat with it on. What was I thinking?! Oh yeah: Cute. Pink. Butterfly.


On Halloween Night, my Mom and Step-Dad who are visiting this weekend stayed home with Brooklyn and to hand out candy to our Trick-or-Treaters while we took Hayden around the block. He seemed to enjoy it a lot and did a good job of saying "thank you" to each person. It rained heavily for a few minutes and then luckily let up and then was just cold.


He definitely enjoyed coming home and getting to eat a sucker! And of course Mommy & Daddy get to eat some of his candy too! Plus, we didn't have enough Trick-or-Treaters so we have TONS of candy!


You can see more photos from our Halloween week HERE:

Halloween

The Kids' Bedroom

We finally got Hayden and Brooklyn's newly designed shared room finished. Not that it really matters, since Brooklyn is going to be in our room (and bed!) for the foreseeable future, but eventually, the plan is that they'll share this little 10x10 room. (Note: You should be able to click on the photos for an enlarged view.)



It's quite a challenge to coordinate boy and girl decor, but I am actually very pleased with how it all worked out. Hayden's construction trucks bedding from Pottery Barn Kids almost perfectly matches the greens and browns in Brooklyn's flowers bedding from Target. His also has light and dark blue and hers has light and dark pink.



To tie them both together, we painted the accent wall and the IKEA shelves the common green (which used to be blue) and got some Pottery Barn panel curtains (off Craigslist) and discontinued PBK fabric for the window valance, which my sister graciously hemmed and sewed for us!



I searched for a while for art to go on the wall above the crib, but it was SO HARD to find anything with the right colors that was gender-neutral, so I got this idea from an Etsy site to do their birth stats in big type using the colors of their room.


Now, who knows when Brooklyn will actually sleep in here, but at least it looks cute! And I also have proof that at one point, their room was clean and organized! :)

Remlinger Farms

I've been posting more pictures and updates on Facebook, so if you want to see more photos, please send me a friend request on Facebook.

Here are a few from our trip to Remlinger Farms:






Hayden had a GREAT time even though he had to skip his afternoon nap, and Brooklyn slept the whole time in the Moby. What an easy baby!

Already 2 months

Hard to believe Brooklyn was born already 2 months ago. Here are her official 2-month stats:

Weight: 14 lbs, 4 oz - Above 97th percentile
Length: 25" - Above 97th percentile
Head Circumference: 16 1/4" - 95th percentile

That's right. Still my Big Girl! :) I don't think she'll appreciate me calling her Big Girl as she gets older, so I've been also calling her Sweetie, Baby Girl, and Beauty. Then it hit me. This is the perfect nickname: Squirt! You know, like the adorable little turtle in Finding Nemo (one of my VERY FAVORITE movies)! Check out the resemblance:
Plus, with the amount of poops she does every day, "Squirt" is appropriate on that level too! ;) (Our term of endearment for Hayden is "Bud" or

We are still definitely adjusting to life with 2 kids. She is sleeping in our room and I'm not sure how we'll transition her into the crib in Hayden's room. He is such a light sleeper and still gets upset when she cries. She is a pretty light sleeper, too. And just like her big brother, rarely sleeps in the car! At night, we try to put her to sleep in the bassinet in our room, but inevitably, between about 1am and 3am I have her in bed with me. I'm trying to put her down 'drowsy but awake' so she learns to get herself to sleep unassisted, but it's not going so well and rather than let her get sleep-deprived, I usually put her in the Moby wrap or lay down with her and she falls asleep instantly!

When she is awake, she's full of smiles and adorable coos! She has the most beautiful deep blue eyes I've ever seen! Her hair is almost all fallen out on the top, replaced by a pretty bad case of Cradle Cap :( but her baby acne has cleared up now. We've been trying to treat it with Olive Oil. Seems to be working.

Last week she went all day without a poopy diaper (very unlike my 6 poops a day little girl!) and at the end of the day, did a GIANT, green poop that wreaked like vinegar. When I Googled "Baby poo vinegar smell" I was amazed to see it was a fairly common issue. The results indicated that it may be caused by a dairy allergy, or dehydration, or not enough hindmilk, or a Gluten intolerance, or completely normal. Gee, thanks, Google. Well, I'm going to start with the dairy allergy idea, since that's also what Hayden had. Although with Hayden, he never had vinegar-smelling poo, he had streaks of blood, which is another symptom of a food allergy. Since Hayden was exclusively breast-fed, I cut dairy out of my diet completely for almost a year (and no more bloody diapers). It was pretty rough, but I knew it was best. And the non-dairy based formula is SUPER expensive, so that was a no-brainer. Luckily, we were able to reintroduce dairy to Hayden when he was about 14 months old and didn't have any issues. He now eats anything and everything without a problem. So for Brooklyn I'm going to cut out dairy completely for a month, see how she does, and then go back to eating dairy and if the problem comes back, I'll probably have to stay away from dairy again until she's at least a year old. Fun. At least I'll lose weight even faster if I can't eat cheese and ice cream!

I started back at Stroller Strides a couple weeks ago and it is kicking my butt! For those of you who think Stroller Strides is a bunch of ladies pushing their buggies around, chatting while sipping latte's, think again! Stroller Strides is 1 hour of fast-pace, intense, full body workout. I go Monday-Wednesday-Friday and I am always sore the next day. The times they have had couples workout days, Phil has joined me and says the workouts are even tough for him! My goal is to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight by Christmas. Unfortunately, with nursing and exercise, my appetite is voracious and I find myself snacking ALL DAY (and sometimes not the healthiest choices, since those seem to be the easiest and fastest).

I'm getting lazier about Hayden's healthy eating, too. Sometimes it's just easier to give him some Cheerios. And he LOVES M&Ms, Jelly Beans, and cookies. As we've been working a little bit on potty training, his reward is 1 jelly bean for pee-pee, and 2 jelly beans for poopy. Last week he went pee-pee in the potty TWICE!! He likes to do it standing up - like Daddy! :) He doesn't want to poopy on the potty, yet, though. He almost always goes in my closet or the pantry closet to poop. I've put the potty seat in the closet to see if he'd go if it was in there, but then he won't go in the closet, or takes the potty seat out and then goes back in the closet to poop.

Hayden's speech has improved dramatically over the last few months. He speaks in sentences and attempts to repeat any word we say. We are definitely needing to be careful what we and others around him say. Hard to believe I was ever worried. What a relief! Now the next thing I'm concerned about (there always has to be something, right!?) is that Hayden is still very anxious around other kids and gets upset when they are close to him. He does not want to have anything to do with kids his age. If a kid at the park even looks at him or gets within a foot of his 'personal bubble' he starts to cry and wants Mommy. I hope he outgrows this phase soon, too.

We're thinking of enrolling Hayden into some kind of sports program. I know 2 seems awfully young to get him involved in sports, but we're looking at things like Little Kickers, Playball, Little Gym, or Gymboree. I just feel like he has so much energy and we have such a small house, that with the weather about to be 6 months straight of rain, we are both going to go crazy if he doesn't have an outlet for this energy. They are all kind of expensive programs, so we're just trying to figure out which one is best and works for our budget. They all offer 1 free trial class, so we're going to start checking them all out. Stay tuned for our evaluation!

Also stay tuned for a post from our visit to Remlinger Farms & Pumpkin Patch yesterday. I am so behind on all my pictures, videos, birth announcement, art project for their room, and the blog. Sorry!!

Doin' the Puyallup

We had a great time last weekend at the Puyallup Fair (pronounced "Pyoo-al-Up" for those out-of-towners). The Fair is an annual tradition not to be missed! Last year, the weather was rainy and Hayden was too young to enjoy it, but this year we had beautiful weather and he was captivated by the people, food, animals, and rides. It was fun to experience this with him.


Brooklyn slept in the Moby the entire time. My mom said I experienced the Puyallup Fair in 1980 when I was 2 weeks old. So here we are, carrying a family tradition!


Given Hayden's tendency to be afraid of motorized ride-on toys, I wasn't sure if he'd go on a ride, but he gave and enthusiastic "Yes! Yes!" when we asked him if he wanted to ride on the cars that go around a grassy track. I thought for sure once it became his turn to get in the car, he'd have a change of heart, especially once he realized Mommy can't go on it with him, and he has to go with some other strange kid, but I was very proud when he got in, sat down, followed the operators instructions, and held onto the steering wheel. For the duration of each ride, he had the most serious expression and didn't smile or say anything, and Phil and I were cracking up at his intensity. When he got off the ride, he wouldn't stop talking about it and saying "Vvvvroom" and "Go Ba-pow" (Ba-Pow is his word for "fast"). He especially liked the ATV ride. Check out the video:



Hayden was also in heaven at the John Deere Tractor booth. I've never seen so many John Deer products! They even had salt & pepper shakers!




It's purely coincidence that Hayden's outfit perfectly matches the John Deere brand colors! :)