Well my first born, you have changed quite a bit in the past
six months! Or rather, life in general
has changed quite a bit since June! You
are now a big brother and you are such a big helper! I will never forget the first time you met
baby brother, Andrew. You walked into
the hospital room with DD Nana with a “I’m scared” look on your face. I could tell the tears were about to start
rolling… but then you noticed the baby I was holding. You walked right on up to me and climbed on
the bed, held your hands out and said, “Need that.” It’s been a love relationship with your
brother ever since. After that moment in
the hospital you’d hold your hands out and say “Hold him.” You were quite enamored with the new baby for
the first few days.
You are such a big helper, too! You love to run and get diapers, wipes and “oye-ment”
[ointment] for us. One time Andrew had
quite the poop explosion that resulted with poop everywhere.. like the floor,
daddy’s shirt, daddy’s pants, mommy’s foot, the closet door and the wall. It was amazing… I’d never seen anything like
it. So now, anytime Andrew poops you
always say, “Andew poops on daddy’s shirt!” or “Andew poop on mommy’s foot!” or
even “Andew make big poops!”
This update might include a lot of poop/potty talk because
besides getting a big brother we’ve been potty training you and poop was a BIG,
BIG deal. We started at the end of July
and did the bare-bottom weekend with you.
It was CRAZY. We scared you half
to death trying to run you to the potty… so much so, that you refused to sit on
the little potty. The first day was
pretty much you peeing everywhere and mom trying to catch the pee. I felt like I needed a potty tool belt that
was equipped with wipes, cups, sanitizer and the like. It did not go well. But, you started to catch on for day 2 and
3. With pee at least. It took us 3 MONTHS to get you poop in the
potty. You refused—you would just hold
it for forever and poop in your pants.
So, mom had to result to giving you a laxative of sorts and just sit you
on the potty until you pooped. That
kickstarted it for us. You cried
though. It was a traumatic experience. I can now officially say that you are daytime
potty-trained! The book Oh Crap Potty
Training was a god-send. You haven’t had
a poop accident since before Andrew was born and only randomly have a pee
accident when you get too focused on an activity and we forget to tell you to
go potty. They are few and far
inbetween.
Potty training has been such an experience for us—we read
what seemed like every book possible about pooping. I will never forget reading “Everybody Poops”
which is a book about animals and people pooping. You would scream out Elephants make “BIG
poop!” and a mouse makes “TIIINNNNYYY Poop!”
A one hump camel makes “ONE HUMP POOP!” and a two hump camel makes “TWO
HUMP POOP!” I can’t even say the word
tiny without picturing you yelling out “TTTIIINNNYYY POOP.” We talk about pooping and peeing a lot. That has literally been our world for the
past 6 months. We carry a potty chair in
the back of our car and a potty seat in the diaper bag. I’ve got post-it notes to put over the
automatic flushers, too. That way the
auto flush doesn’t go off while you’re sitting there. When you first getting the hang of it, when
you’d poop in the potty you’d raise your fists up and yell, BIGGG POOOOP!” You were so proud of yourself and so were mom
and dad. Now, you thank Jesus for big
poops and pee at your nighttime prayers.
I haven’t attempted to get you to be potty trained at night
yet. That seems like a feat that will be
impossible. You don’t seem bothered by
wet sheets or anything, so you don’t even wake up when you pee in your
bed. So, our goal is to get you potty
trained at night by the time you are 3.
I think we’ll pretty much have to eliminate drinks after like 4 PM to
get you stay dry… you’re a very deep sleeper it appears.
Let’s see.. what else?!
Your vocabulary has exploded [and continues to explode!] and you can say
sentences now. How crazy is that?! I love listening to you talk and I think you
are maybe slight ahead of your peers right now when it comes to your pronunciation
of words and the amount of actual words you say. You just love to talk!
Your favorite thing is still to jump on the trampoline with
dad. You call it the “jumpleen”
though. You do seat drops over and over
again and just jump. You could literally
do it for hours and hours. One of your
birthday presents was a marble run and you really loved helping dad set up the
run and then watching all of the marbles run down. You’d jump up and down and say, “yay marbles
yay!” You seem to be losing your
enthusiasm slightly for it recently but that could be because we’ve lost most
of our marbles… they’ve descended down the toilet or otherwise been thrown
around/lost by you. We started with 15
marbles and now are down to two.
You still love all things elephants. You have recently started wanting mom to
sleep with you--- I don’t even know where you get this idea b/c we’ve never
slept with you before. You seem to have
become scared that we will leave you. I
think it has a little bit to do with Andrew being around and knowing/sensing
that I spend all day with him at home right now and see me with him a whole
lot. You’re still my good little sleeper
though—we went through about a week long phase of you not wanting to go to
sleep for naps/night but luckily that was short-lived!
Your crib is filled with animals (3 elephants), red blanket,
pumpkin towel, parker-saurus towel and giraffe towel. You even like to sleep with a pair of pants
and your “fuzzy ball” hat. For some
reason you want to sleep with your bath towels.
But, whatever floats your boat when it comes to sleep!
We are in the throes of the terrible two’s. If this is bad I really don’t want to see the
horrible three’s. You want to do many
things by yourself and get frustrated when you can’t actually do them and you
want things done a particular way. You
say no a lot and “I want..” a lot. Some days you just have meltdown after
meltdown. You do best when we go out do
something. But, even then… you can just
plain have a bad day. I’m working on
trying to get you to understand the emotions you’re feeling and letting you
work through it, but I’m not gonna lie… it’s hard! I sometimes feel like I’m failing you because
my patience is short at times.
You still dig trucks and rocketships. In fact, we made you a bulldozer costume for
Halloween, but you insisted on being an elephant. So, an elephant you were! The cutest elephant there ever was I might
add! You loved trick or treating this
year, too!
Let’s see…. Food. Some days you love it and some days you could
care less. I have to remind myself this
is pretty normal. In general, you like
noodles, chicken, steak, sausage and turkey.
You also like oranges and strawberries.
Blueberries have gone by the wayside.
You can eat a baked potato like nobody’s business, too. You also love all things yogurt. We made a ton of homemade smoothies during
potty training whereby I would throw in some flax seeds and coconut oil to keep
your stool soft and make you go regularly.
You thought I was just putting in “butter.” Mom’s a trickster! Hehe!
It really helped you, though! You
eat yogurt for breakfast every morning along with either pancakes, sausage
biscuits, cheerios or waffles (all frozen!).
You also have a strawberry smoothie for breakfast, too. Then, you might have another smoothie or
another yogurt after nap. Yogurt is your
thing! You also like goldfish and the
Nature Valley Soft Baked peanut butter bars.
You are also really into chocolate milk… just like your daddy!
Overall, it’s been so fun to watch you grow. You are quite a big taller and look more and
more like your dad each day, I think!
You are full of energy and don’t like to sit still [will you
ever?!]. You can count to 15 and know
your ABC’s. It’s so cute to hear you
sing them. You know all of your trucks—thanks
to TWENTY TRUCKS you tube channel. We
can just drive down the road and you’ll start yelling them out. You are a bossy little thing—it’s your way or
complete meltdown ensues. I have no idea
where you get that from. J
The bright and shiny of having a baby brother has kind of
worn off in the last month and half or so.
I think you realize that this baby is staying with us and sometimes you
feel a little resentful that we spend time with Andrew, too. But, when you don’t think we’re paying
attention you will go up to Andrew and try to tickle him the way mom and dad do
and talk in a real baby voice. It’s the
most adorable thing. I know you love him
and he’ll get more playful, soon! You
will give him your elephant and like to see Andrew in the morning. You give Andrew hugs and kisses every night..
you really are a good big brother already!
We spent Thanksgiving at the beach and you loved it even
though it was cold. I’m excited to take
you back there this summer. You loved
the waves and would say 1-2-3 Blast Off before you jumped in the water. You also did seat drops in the cold water,
too. It doesn’t bother you that the
ground is hard, haha.
You love to read books.
You’ll say, mommy, read that one and you’ll pick up your own book and
flip through the pages. We read 3-5
books a night and you seem to have most of them memorized—which I think is
amazing because I don’t think you are usually too much attention to me. But, somehow you are!
So, here’s some more fun stuff that you’ve been up to these
past six months:
- Weigh around 31lbs and are just over 3 ft
tall!! You can see over the kitchen
counters! Aah!
- Wear size 8 shoes and are just about into a size
9.
- Will do just about anything for a sucker.
- Enjoy taking your picture with a smile if it
suits you
- Sleep about 8-8 every night in your crib with a
2-2.5 hour nap around 1. I still haven’t
moved you to a bed because you do so well in your crib—maybe by 3 I’ll finally
do it!
- Enjoy taking a bath every night and right now
you are into bubble baths.
- Love all things yogurt.
- Love to keep little elephant “safe.”
- Would run a mile straight if mom could keep
up! We are always running around
outside.
- Still have not figured out your balance bike yet
- Love to swing
- Enjoy playing chase at the park with daddy and
you hardcore play on the jungle gym.
- Need a new trampoline because daddy has ripped
two springs off of ours
- Go to gymnastics once a week on Thursdays. Some weeks you do really great and other
weeks all you want to do is jump on the trampoline. You finally do the trapeze, now! 6 months in the making for that trick! I had to convince you to just do “little
trapezes” which you agreed to and you’ve been excited to trapeze ever since!
- Give the greatest hugs and kisses.
- Going through a separation anxiety phase with
mom.
- Love your teacher Ms. Zainab at school. We are sad to be transitioning to a new class
in January.
·
We love you baby boy, always and forever. I know the next six months will be just as
fun!
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| Fourth of July-- your first sparkler bomb! Which ruined your taste for fire and fireworks! |
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| You love splash pads!! |
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| You love scootering and like to wear your helmet! |
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| Meeting Andrew for the first time! |
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| Giving Andrew hugs! |
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| My little elephant! |
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| My elephant and pumpkin! |
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| At your school costume parade! You would just hold you elephant nose and show it to Ms. Zainab and say "look, I have elephant nose!" |
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| Playing a little football at the beach! |
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| 1-2-3 Blast Off! |
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| Gosh your big. And you look handsome like your daddy. |
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| With your "fuzzy ball" hat |
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| Bubble baths! |
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| I love seeing all this joy on your face! |
