Colin Army Crawls

Colin has been moving himself around a little bit for a couple weeks now, rolling, shuffling, and scooting.  Today he seems to have really figured out the army crawl. 

 

Kaida is learning a lesson about sharing and not leaving your stuff on the floor if you don't want the baby to eat it.

 

Not that the measuring tape is hers either...

Tiny Posts

Last week Colin pooped out some paper.
Yesterday Colin ate a blade of grass.  He promptly threw it up.
Today Colin ate a sticker.  Awesome. I only found it when he started laughing hysterically after he gagged a little.
Note to self: Do not leave anything on the floor.  Ever.  Also, get that kid some food!

Kaida loves putting words together.  Today she pulled out "Go outside play rain please."  Because she wanted to go outside to play in the rain.  I was very impressed.  But in the car after picking up JR she said "Mommy baby diaper rainin' car seat."  So... yeah.  Sometimes she just likes to hear her own voice.  Like the 72 times she asked me "Watcha doin' Mommy?" while I cleaned the upstairs bathroom.  Eventually I started answering her "Getting ready to throw a little girl out the window.  What are you doing?"

One night last week Colin woke up at 11:30 right when we were going to bed.  He was pretty mad and just kept screaming no matter what we did so I nursed him even though I had just pumped.  He chilled out after that and went to sleep.  Then he woke up at 4 and at 6.  But each time he woke up he would stop complaining and fall back to sleep by the time I sat up and got my glasses on.  He did that 3 times at each wake up just a couple minutes apart.  It's good that he could sleep through after that one wake up, and it's good that he can put himself back to sleep too, I just wish he could do it without waking me up.  It was almost as bad as having to get up to nurse him the same number of times.
In a possibly related note I think if I give him cereal at night he sleeps longer without needing to nurse.  The trouble with that is catching him when he's hungry enough to actually eat.  So I try to wait a while after he nurses but I want it to be before bath time so I can de-crust him after he eats.  I have the feeling this kid is not going to subsist for 3 days on one peanut butter cracker and 3 glasses of milk like his sister does.

Yesterday Colin grabbed my earring.  I carefully pulled his hand away and continued to put him in the jumper.  When I stood up I noticed something in his mouth.  My earring.  I have the feeling this is going to be a very anxious year or so until he stops putting everything in his mouth.

Today it was raining and as we walked to the car Kaida was telling me all about it. "Rainin' Mommy."  "Car rainin'." and then "Rainin' Mister Briggs' car."  So apparently she's been paying attention when we talk to her about the neighbors.  My baby is brilliant!

Kaida is three days accident free in potty-ville!  Fingers crossed.

Kaida's Birthday

Kaida had her birthday party in Pittsburgh on the Saturday before her birthday.  We had a lot of fun.  And sugar.

Aunt Jen, Addy, and Brooke came, and Aunt Jamie, Melanie, and Claire.

Kaida and Addy welcome Aunt Jamie, Melanie, and Claire

Colin and Claire

Brooke

She got a doctor kit, a toy camera, color wonder finger paint, and an interactive elmo that talks about the blocks you hand him.  And a balance bike and helmet.

We played and had pizza and then we had cake!

Her cake was Minnie Mouse with Minnie Mouse cupcakes.  The cupcakes had fruit roll up bows so she and daddy got to eat a lot of the scraps and mistakes during the day.

When we had the cake she ate some of her cupcake and then she wanted the bow from the big cake.  That bow was made of fondant so she chewed it for a while before she decided it wasn't worth swallowing.  Chewed up fondant is pretty gross.  I'll spare you the picture.  Instead here's the miracle picture of all 6 cousins looking toward the camera with no one crying!

On Her birthday we watched some princess movies and played with her new toys.  Then she wanted to eat dinner at a "westahwant" (we think because they run a restaurant in the one epidsode of Bubble Guppies") so we went to Arby's for dinner. 

We had cupcakes when we got home and then skyped with Grandmom and Pop Pop.

We went to the Doctor on the 20th.  She was getting pretty excited because we had been talking it up a lot and then she got the Doctor kit for her birthday and we played with it a lot on Sunday and Monday.  She even started to say Dr. Kovatch please! ("Dahtor Tovasch peas"). 
I think it would have gone really well except that we waited outside for a half hour and then another 15 minutes inside, then we had the student come in first.  45 minutes of waiting and then two doctors was a little too much for her.  But she got back at them.  Pretty much as soon as they came in she said "Potty please", so she made them wait for her while we went to the bathroom.
She didn't like it when the student looked in her ear 'cause it hurt and then she cried a little during Dr. Kovatch's exam.  I think she realized that the real instruments weren't quite the same as her toys and that made her a little scared.
She cried a little after the shot but I think downplaying it helped.  She was just sitting there in my lap while the nurse prepped her arm and then the nurse jabbed her and it took a minute for Kaida to realize what was going on.  She was like, "What just happened?  Holy cow!  That hurt! OWWww... A sticker you say?  Why yes I would like a sticker!"
She is 24.4 pounds and 34" tall and her head is 49.53 cm.  So her percents are pretty much the same as they've been, 20th for weight, 55th for height, and 93rd for head.  Seriously, how does this kid walk around without toppling over?!

Dutch Wonderland

We went to Dutch Wonderland the weekend of August 11th. It was a great little trip.

We met Gio, Mike, and Sevi at the hotel for a whole weekend of fun!
The hotel was really nice and the front desk staff was very friendly.  The only bad thing was they told us that they couldn't give us two cribs for the room since it's against the fire code.  Had they told us that when we booked the room we would have just brought our pack n play.  Screw the fire code.

Once we got there we unloaded the car while Kaida and Colin played with Mike, Gio, and Sevi. 
We unpacked a little and got everyone changed.  Kaida explored the room while we got ready.  She went over the the phone in all it's corded and buttoned glory and said "piano!"
Then we went to dinner at Perkins.  Kaida ordered macaroni and cheese and wanted to know why it was taking longer than the 3 minutes and 30 seconds it takes at home.

After dinner we went in the pool at the hotel for a while.  The tile was very slippery but once we got in the water it was fun.

As for sleeping, we decided that Colin would sleep in the crib and Kaida would sleep on the couch that pulled out to a bed.  That is not what happened though.  After two hours of fighting to get her to stay either in her bed or in our bed, Colin woke up.  So we put her in the crib and arranged cushions into a little nest on the other bed for Colin to sleep in.  I thought about having him in the bed with us but I doubt I would have gotten any sleep that way.

It was pretty terrifying to have Colin sleeping on the couch-crib we built him but it was so nice that he went right to sleep and didn't spend 10 minutes rolling around beforehand like he does at home.  The bed was a lot squishier than his crib mattress so he just sunk right in and went to sleep.  I'm sure that's why crib mattresses are so hard, so there's no sinking in.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast and went to Dutch Wonderland. 

It was nice and there were a lot of rides that were aimed at little kids like Kaida and Sevi.  We all rode the train and the carousel, even Colin,

 and watched a story book show and ate some lunch.  We took a rest out in the shade by the cars. 

Then she rode on a couple car rides, a big spinning ride, and a panda ride that she went on without any grown ups!

She had a lot of fun but not having a nap took its toll.  She was sucking on her fingers by 6:00 (which she only does when she's really tired) and dinner was a bit rough.

We went to Ci-Cis for dinner (woo!) and back to the hotel for bath and bed.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast and went to the pool for a little while.  Then it was time to pack up and check out.
We had a lot of fun and it was really nice to spend time with Mike and Gio and finally meet Sevi (Kaida's future husband). 

Kaida did really well with the potty.  She wore a diaper the whole time but she still told us when she needed to use the bathroom and only had a couple times when she needed the diaper.

Yesterday Kaida found Baby's stunt double right before nap time.  She said "More Babies, more Babies!"  So she had two Babies for nap.  And she's started calling it Baby Blankie.  Which makes me sad.  I hope she doesn't drop the "Baby" because I think that's adorable.

Colin is 18 pounds and 26.5 inches.  The computers were all having issues when we got there so we didn't get a print out but he said that his head was right at 50%.  I think everything else was around 50-75%.  So, not quite so huge anymore.


Kaida really loves to play Ring Around the Rosey. We often play while Colin sits in the middle of the room, running in circles around him.
Tonight she asked Daddy to play "Ring a Rosey" with her and we made up new words to sing.

Ring around the Colin
Pocket full of pollen
Kaida in the sugar bowl
We all fall down!


Yesterday while I swept Kaida kept coming up to me.

Kaida: Watcha doin' Mommy?
Me: Sweepin'.  What are you doing?
Kaida: Dancin'.

Kaida: Watcha doin' Mommy?
Me: Sweepin'. What are you doing?
Kaida: Nothing

Kaida: Watcha doin' Mommy?
Me: Sweepin'. What are you doing?
Kaida: Beepin' (sweeping)


The other night Colin started scooting on his butt very short distances at a very slow pace.  And today he seems to have figured out creeping around on his belly.  Mostly he grabs the carpet and pulls and pushes at the same time.  I'd be happy except that means he's starting to be mobile.  This is a very sad day.

Kaida's potty training!

Kaida has been wearing the same diaper for her naps for 4 or 5 days now.  I'm impressed.  She's stayed dry through her naps for more than a week.  Eventually I'm going to have to wash it just because it gets a little sweaty but it's still pretty cool!

But backing up, Kaida is potty training!  She had a dry diaper all morning one day last week. so I figured that was as good a time as any to give the potty thing another try.  She's much better about sitting on the potty now.  We still need to entertain her a little but she'll sit there. 

She isn't a huge fan of actually using the little princess potty we bought her.  Luckily the potty seat is multi function.  The seat from it comes off and is a potty seat adapter for the big toilet. Then the lid comes down and it turns into a step stool.  So she uses the toilet in the bathroom.  If she's naked she can climb up on the toilet by herself but usually we help her.  (We got a new toilet and it's very tall.  It's almost uncomfortable for me it's so tall).
So now the princess potty is a step stool / success sticker repository.

It took a little while but it seems like she's figured out how to relax enough to actually pee when we put her on the potty.  In the beginning I put the princess potty in the bathtub with her on it and ran the water a little.  That made her pee and after that she seemed to catch on pretty quick about what she was supposed to do while sitting on the potty.

She gets a sticker and an M&M or gummi bear when she goes on the potty.  If she pees on the floor she gets a reminder that we're supposed to pee on the potty, then changed, and then she helps clean up the puddle.

Where we need a lot more work is getting her to tell us when she needs to use the potty.  She's very good about poop but I think pee still takes her by surprise sometimes.  So right now I just make sure to ask her frequently and put her on the potty at least every hour depending on how much she's had to drink.

She's had two afternoons where there were no accidents and this morning she had no accidents too!  I had her in a diaper to go to the Dr. yesterday.  She told me "Pee" while Colin was being checked but I told her she could go in her diaper.  After we were all done we stopped in the bathroom.  She hadn't used the diaper and she went on the potty!  It was pretty exciting!