Snow Day

So, right now, we it is sleeting on top of the 6+ inches of snow we have on the ground. I can not believe it actually snowed that much. This morning, I bundled Brody up and took him outside for his first snow experience. Unfortunately, it didn't last long because he was covered in snow in about 5 minutes. I was worried about taking him out because I think he is starting to catch a cold, but I didn't want him to miss it either. He was so cute and was really excited. Here are some pics......

Pictures

Here are some pictures from the last week. Molly is 7 weeks old today and she slept the best she has ever slept last night. She slept from 8:30 to 1:30, ate and went right back down, woke up at 5:45 ate and went right back down, and I had to wake her up at 8:30 this morning. Right now, she is asleep again....in the swing without it swinging. That cracks me up because Brody would never have done that! She is finally out of newborn diapers in into size 1s and I have started to put her in 3 month clothes. Her wardrobe has expanded tremendously because that is all I bought before she was born.

Brody helping change Molly's diaper. That is his new favorite seat.

This photo cracks me up...he is wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses!

Brody and Pop-Pop being silly after dinner!

Here are a few pictures from the zoo.....

Brody and Daddy watching Yo Gabba Gabba......

Molly is changing so much. She is starting to fill out more, she is smiling and is talking so much these days. I can't believe how fast she is growing!

We are supposed to get 6-12 inches of snow (ha!) tomorrow and I am going to take Brody out in his first snow if it happens! I am curious to see how he will react. Of course, I will have the camera to document it and will post some this weekend.

Hope everyone has a good weekend! And I am sending good vibes to my cousin Sarah for a fast and safe delivery. Hopefully she will welcome her new baby sooner rather than later! :)

Really Brody....it is 3:45 am!!!!

Brody has always been a good sleeper. He started sleeping 8 hours at night around 2 1/2 months and from that point on, there have only been a couple of instances where we have had to go in there at night and calm him down. Those couple of times have really been when he was sick. He goes to bed at 7:00 every night, but he normally doesn't actually fall asleep until closer to 8:00 pm. That has never been an issue. The mornings have posed some issues for us the last month or so....actually it started before Molly was born. He used to wake up between 6:00 and 7:00 and on the weekends, would entertain himself in his crib until we got him at 8:00 for breakfast. During the week, he would just stay in there until I got him around 6:45-7:00; sometimes I would even have to wake him up. Well, he started this new thing of throwing everything out of his crib and crying for us to come in there and give it back to him. He does that in the morning and after his nap when he is home. A couple weeks into him doing this, we decided that we would just turn his TV on in his room and let him watch some cartoons while we were getting ready, or to give him some down time. Well, I think we have created a monster! This morning, I awoke to Brody crying out for his Daddy (which is another story I will tell later in this post) and I looked at the clock and couldn't believe it. It was 3:45 am!!!!! I of course was up because I am on Mommy alert right now with Molly waking up in the middle of the night. So, I went in his room and there he was....standing up and he had thrown everything out of the crib. He said "tv on!" I said, "no, it is still night-night time. Lay down and I will give you your stuff back." The funny thing about this is that he will tell us everytime we go in there "no throw things" because he knows he is not supposed to be doing this, but since we have enabled him this long, he still does it. He ended up laying down and I went back to bed. About 30 mintues later, he started crying for Daddy again and I thought "fabulous, this is going to last until it is time to get up." I went in there, again, gave him his stuff back, and told him to lay down. This time, he laid down and fell back asleep and didn't wake up until 7:15 am. I hope this does not start to become a habit. Of course, once he was back to sleep, Molly started to cry to be fed. So, I was pretty much up all morning! Ted told me to try and take a nap today, but I can't nap during the day. I don't plan to do much....just go to the grocery store later today and that is about it.

While I am on the topic of sleeping, Molly had a rough night the night before last. She went to bed at her normal time and slept until 1:00 am. I fed her, and she went right back down. Then, she awoke again at 4:30, I fed her and she pooped so I had to change her diaper after she ate. Well, I guess that really woke her up because she would not go back to sleep. We brought her in our bedroom in bed with us and Ted and I tried to calm her down, but she was fussy from about 5:00 until she ate at 8:00. And she was pretty fussy all morning until she ate again at 11:00. After that, we spent the afternoon with my parents and she slept on an off all afternoon. I had a great time with my parents and was happy to actually get out of the house. The two days prior, I took a shower both days, but never left the house. I was starting to get cabin fever. That is another reason why I am going to get out of the house today. It is supposed to be near 60 so it will be good weather for Molly as well.

Now, I am on to another topic. I e-mailed my cousin, Sarah, who is expecting her second baby anyday now, to find out how things were going and to see how she was feeling about having 2 children under 2. Her son is 2 weeks older than Brody and now we will have our second children pretty close together. I told her I was pretty freaked out about it but it was a little easier than I expected. One of my girlfriends has 2 kids that are about 2 1/2 years apart and she told me that before I had Molly and it gave me a little comfort. While overall, I do feel better about it, there have been many challenges that I never expected. For example, I am constantly worried about Brody waking Molly up during the day, and for Molly to wake Brody up at night when she starts crying. It hasn't seemed to bother either one, but it is a constant worry for me. Also, once I start to go back to work, I am starting to think about how hectic our evenings will be!! When we just had Brody, I would get home, we would all eat dinner, play for maybe a half hour, then take him upstairs, give him a bath, read him some books and then he would go to bed. After he was in bed, I could either get some stuff done around the house, or just crash. Well, now we will have another child to put to bed. It is good because atleast I will have some time with each child, but whew.....it will be a mad dash in the evening times. And, it will only get more hectic once homework is thrown into the mix. But, again, I am not complaining at all! I know that we will get in a nice routine and things will work out just fine. It will be more hectic when Ted travels, but my parents have offered to help and I am so greatful to have them close by and willing to help out! They are the best!

(As a side note, Ted found out yesterday that his trip to Hawaii got pushed back a couple of weeks. YAY! The original plan was for him to leave February 21 and get back around March 20th. He would have missed mine and Brody's birthday. Now, it looks like he is leaving for San Diego on February 21st and coming back the 27th and he doesn't leave for Hawaii until March 22nd! So, he will be here for both of our birthdays and this will be the first time in a couple years that Ted will be here for my actual birthday, and it just so happens to be my 30th! :) I am feeling relieved that he will be here for my first week back at work, even though my Mom had offered to come and stay. Thanks Mom!)

Earlier in this post, which has become quite long and I apologize (this is my release...Molly doesn't talk back to me....yet!), I talked about how Brody cried out for Daddy. He has become such a Daddy's boy. He is obsessed with Ted and can not stand to be away from him. Last night, we were getting him ready for bed and after he got out of his bath, he was running into his room and he tripped and fell on the carpet. He hit his mouth and he started to cry. I was sitting right there next to him and I reached for him and he looked right at me, turned around and ran for Daddy. To say that broke my heart is an understatement!!! While Ted is fully capable of comforting him when he cries, I want to do that. I want to be the one to make it better and right now, it seems like Daddy is the one he wants right now. On one hand, it warms my heart to see Brody with Ted and to see how happy he is whenever he is around, but it is hard to adjust to Brody wanting Ted more than me right now. Ted was trying to make me feel better and told me that this is just a phase and that his buddy at work went through the same thing, but I hate it. This is one of the concerns I had while I was pregnant with Molly. I never wanted Brody to feel like I wasn't there for him or that I was not giving him enough attention. I love that kid more than anything and I hope he knows that! Again, this is one of the challenges that I considered, but could never really prepare for.

Whew....this post is long and probably a bit boring, but it is nice to be able to get all of this out! Ted brought the memory card home so I will post some pictures from this past weekend later this afternoon. I am off to go put Molly down for her morning nap and get in the shower!!

Great Weekend

We had another great weekend here in the Crumb household. On Friday, my girlfriend from work came by to see Molly and Brody. She was so sweet to bring gifts for both kids. Brody was a little hesitant to see her at first, but once he realized she had gifts, he was loving on her! :) She brought him a Mr. Potato Head, which I can not believe that we had not bought for him before. He loved it and he hasn't stopped playing with it. Thanks for stopping and hanging out Melissa! On Friday night, Molly slept for 5 hours, which she really hasn't done before. She has come close, but Ted had to somewhat wake her up to feed her. She started stirring and he went to feed her and she had fallen back asleep. Chances are, she would have woken up soon anyway.

So on Saturday, we had gorcery shopping to do so we decided to try and get it done in the morning before Brody's nap. We typically stay in the house in the morning times since he goes down for his nap around 11:00-11:30 but we thought we would be adventurous and get it done in the morning. Well, may not be such a good idea. You know the kid in the store that you hear screaming over all other noises? Yep, that was ours! We had a successful trip through Sam's with no problems. The kids were in the double stroller and all was well. We headed to Wal-Mart and it all went down hill when we decided to just put Molly in the stroller and have Brody ride in the cart. Brody wanted to ride in the stroller and not the cart, but we were already heading in. Well, the trip was somewhat short because Brody threw a fit and was not happy. I finally took both kids out to the car, while Ted checked out. Not even 5 minutes after I got the kids in the car, I started driving around the parking lot and adjusted the rear view mirror to see Brody and he looked right at me and said, with a big smile on his face, "Hi Mommy!" I couldn't help but smile! God, I love that kid! :) My parents came by that afternoon for dinner and Brody was good the rest of the afternoon.

On Sunday, it was supposed to be a bit warmer so we decided to take Brody to the zoo. Alot of the books we have been reading have animals in them and he can identify all of them and we thought it would be fun for him to see them in person. Over the summer, Tab and I took him one afternoon and it was a bust. It was hot, I was uncomfortable, and Brody didn't seem interested. This time was different. He loved it! The best part was when we got to the elephants and the giraffes. They were indoors getting fed and clean and there is a hallway where you go inside and the elephants were through the windows on the left and the giraffes were on the right. Brody was running back and forth yelling "Elephants, giraffes, elephants, giraffes!" Then there was another little boy looking at the elephants and Brody was instantly glued to him and trying to talk to him. My social little butterfly! :) It was really cute. I have some pictures that I will post later....Ted has the memory card with him at work.

All in all, we had a great weekend. This weekend coming up, I am flying solo on Saturday. It will be my first time with both kids by myself for longer than a couple of hours. It should be interesting. It will give me a preview of what life will be like when Ted leaves for his work trip at the end of February. He will be gone for almost a month and will hopefully be back right around Brody's birthday. I can't believe he will be 2 in less than 2 months....where does the time go?

Hope everyone has a great week!

Not So Much....

Well, last night, Brody asked for his pacifier when he got in his crib. Damn it! A part of me was hoping (fingers crossed) that we were done, but not so much! We have said that if he asked for it at night, we would give it to him and not refuse, but we did try and distract him, which obviously did not work. Oh well....I am sure it will happen in due time!

The other funny thing is that I bought a pillow for him the other day and we put it in his crib to get him used to having a pillow when we transition him to the big boy bed. He wants nothing to do with it. He gets excited about it until we put it in the crib with him and then he says "no pillow, no pillow" and throws it out. When we are getting him ready for bed, and it is on the floor, he will lay down on it and said "lay down" or "night-night" but doesn't want it in his crib. He would rather lay directly on the crib. Last night, Ted said we should get a Yo Gabba Gabba pillow case and he probably would like it more! HA! We have a Yo Gabba Gabba addict.

Other than that, not much is going on here. I got my hair cut and colored yesterday, which was nice. My mom came over and watched Molly for me, which I know she enjoyed as much as I did! I am going back to my hairstlist in a couple weeks to get a Keratin complex treatment, which will take all the frizz out of my hair. I am so excited to see how it turns out. Brody got his hair cut the other night too and he looks so handsome. It is crazy how much a haircut can change his whole look.

I am off to get some laundry done while Molly is sleeping.

OMG!

OMG! Even though I posted this morning, I had to post again because I am so excited. I mentioned in my last post that we are in a "don't offer, don't refuse" stage with the pacifier for Brody. He never gets it during the day and he knows that he only gets it when he is in his crib for night-night and naptime. He normally will ask for it immediately when he gets in his crib, but tonight, he never asked for it and we didn't give it to him either. It is now almost 7:30 and he has been in his crib for 30 minutes and he has not even asked for it once!!!! I can not believe this! He has done so good with adjusting to everything the last couple of weeks and I am hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of the pacifier for him. I guess he needed to give it up when he was good and ready. He is such a big boy!! Way to go Brody....we are so proud of you! :)

Questions

Brody is all about the questions now. He is starting to become inquisitive and when he notices something is off, he asks questions. When Ted left the room the other day, he looked perplexed and said "where daddy?" When we put him down at night, we don't offer him his pacifier, but we don't refuse it if he asks for one, once he is in the crib. Last week, he looked around the crib, picked up his loveys and his blanket, and looked at us and said "Where paci go?" Yesterday, he was watching his Yo Gabba Gabba video (which he loves!) and when it stopped, he turned around, looked at us and said "What happened Gabba Gabba?" It is so funny. I can't believe how much he is talking and now asking questions......my baby is growing up! Here he is at Molly's age right now and this past weekend. It is crazy for me to think that Molly will be his age sooner than I would like!

Brody at 1 month

Brody at 22 months

I have found myself going back to old blog posts and comparing Brody and Molly. I hate doing that because of course they are their own individuals, with their own personalities, but it is interesting to see what Brody was doing at this age. Their sleep patterns were much different, with Brody waking up at all different times at night. She is like clockwork and has been since we got home from the hospital. I was hoping she would start sleeping for longer stretches at night, but I am definitely not complaining about 4 hours between feedings. We increased her formula to 4 ounces yesterday and she is doing pretty good with that. She still sleeps alot during the day, but has brief awake moments and seems to be taking it all in. Brody was such a pacifier baby, even from such a young age and could not go to sleep without it. She could care less....especially at night. She never gets her pacifier when we lay her down, but if she does get fussy, which is very rare, we will go in and give it to her and she calms down. Another difference between them is that Brody alwasy had to be moving to fall asleep during the day.....either in the swing or riding in the car. She is not like that. Sometimes, I think she likes it better when the swing is not swinging. Also, she is taking a pretty good nap in the mornings in the pack'n'play. I just find it interesting to see how similar, yet how different they are! :)

Today, Brody has an appointment to get his hair cut. I can't wait...he is definitely in need of it and he looks so handsome after! :)

I am off to do some laundry while Molly is sleeping.....

Nice Weekend

We have had a nice and relaxing weekend. Not too much to report. Molly is still doing fabulously well and the other night, she slept for a 5 hour stretch for the first time. It was nice. But for the most part, she still wakes up about 12:30 and 4:30-5:00. It is nice on the weekends because Ted does one of the feedings in the middle of the night. But, it doesn't take too long and she goes right back down so the feedings are pretty painless! :) I took lots of pictures this weekend and a few videos that I am posting below. Molly smiled for the first time this weekend, although Ted says it was more of smirk. I have a picture and video of it.

We actually had a nice weekend. On Friday, I went out and had a drink with my neighbor friend. It was weird to get out of the house, but it was nice. My emotions have been all over the place so while I wasn't excited at first, Ted convinced me to go and I have to say, I had a great time! We said that we were going to start having a girls night out once a month going forward, which will be really nice.

Yesterday, it was in the high 50s so Brody got a chance to play outside. Of course, Ethan was outside for hours, but Brody only played outside for a little bit. It was nice to get out of the house and for him to burn off some of that energy he has. We played with his car a little and then I took him to the park in our neighborhood. He had a great time and kept saying "one more time" everytime he went down the slide. It was really cute. Today, it rained so we hung out inside. He is really into the show Yo Gabba Gabba so I picked up a DVD of the shows and he really enjoys watching them. He will actually sit still for most of the show and it is so nice! I will definitely be picking up more DVDs of that next time we go out.

Here are some pics.....hope everyone had a great weekend!

Molly smiling on her boppy mat...

Ethan and Brody...

Brody was having fun running and playing at the park....

Brody giving Molly a kiss.....he loves "playing" with her...

Here he is playing with her "socks" as he called it.

He pulled out my old beach chair from the laundry room and was eating his snack and watching football....

Playing with Molly again.....

Molly and her big, big brother....

Me and Ethan....

Brody watching Yo Gabba Gabba.....he loves this show!

Here is the video of Molly smiling.....

Here is a video of Brody identifying his eyes, ears, nose, etc.....he is so smart!



Here is another video of Brody singing ring around the rosies......

Sleep

Last night, Molly slept really well. She went down at 9:00 (she was a little more difficult to put down last night, but did okay) and she started crying at 1:30. She went right back down and slept until 5:30. At the 5:30 feeding, she didn't seem really hungry so I felt like I had to force the last bit of the bottle in her, but she went right back down and I woke her up at 8:30 am. I really can't complain at that. She is doing so well and I think she has started to finally adjust to the formula.

At this age, Brody had his fussy time from about 5:00 to 7:00 at night. Well, this seems to be one thing they have in common. After her 5:30 feeding, she seems to be a little fussy from about 6:30 to her feeding at 8:30. I am thinking about trying to adjust her schedule to feed her at 8:00 instead of 8:30. She seems to be pretty tired by 7:30 and I feel like we are just fighting to keep her awake. We will see how that works!

Another thing I have noticed is that she seems to like the swing better when it is not swinging. We have the papisan chair swing and she just likes to sit in there. She will fall asleep pretty easily that way. Very different from Brody, who was so attached to the swing, and would immediately wake up when we shut it off. It is funny how I am comparing both kids and how similar, yet very different they are.

Yesterday, I brought out the playard for some tummy time. She wasn't really interested. You can see in one of the pictures, she was fighting to stay awake! But, she did wake up towards the end.

Wrong Video...Here is the Right One!

I just realized that the video I posted yesterday of Brody was the wrong one. I meant to post this one.....

Molly's One Month Checkup

I took Molly for her one month check up yesterday. It is hard to imagine that she is a month already. She is doing really well and her doctor said everything looks great. Here are her stats:

Weight - 8 lbs. 13 ounces (45%)
Length - 21 inches (45%)
Head - 14 inches (10-25%)

She is still such a small little thing. She is still in newborn clothes and newborn diapers. The newborn clothes say they go up to 8 lbs. but she is still fitting them good. I am sure she will be in 3 month clothes in no time.

I have officially started her on formula and she is adjusting pretty well. She was still a little jaundice last week but once we started her on the formula, it has seemed to help with her coloring. She is definitely more awake now and there is more crying than before, but she is still such a good baby. I can't quite decide if she wants a pacifier or not. It is almost like she looks for it, but then when I try and give it to her, it is not what she wants. We will see how that goes. She is eating 3 1/2 ounces every three hours during the day, and every 4 at night. She does really well most nights, just waking up to eat and going right back down in the crib, but we have had a few nights that she has cried and not wanted to go back to sleep. But, all is good! :) Here are some recent pics of her....
Brody is doing great as well. He has pretty much adjusted to Molly's existence in the house at this point. I am sure as the days and months go on, we will experience more adjusting but right now, all is good in that department. We have also started to take the pacifier away and he is doing amazingly well. Right now, the only time he gets it is for naps and at bedtime and he knows that he can only get it when he is in his crib. He did regress a little when Molly first came home, but he is doing really well now and has only asked for it a couple times in the last week or so. I am extremely proud of him.

The next transition is to the big boy bed, but not sure when that will happen. He is still throwing everything out of this crib in the morning and screaming for us to come get him. I know the only thing that will probably break him from this is to let him cry it out, but honestly, I worry about him waking up Molly. So we have been enablers and gone in there, given him his stuff back, and turned the TV on until it is time to get up. I am embarrassed to say that is what we do, but I am hoping this is just a phase and this will stop soon. Here are a few pictures of him from the last week or so......he is such a little boy now!

Here he is getting ready to go to school....

He was looking at the family calendar and naming all the family members...he did so good!

Here he is sitting in Molly's swing. I was telling him to get out as I was taking the picture. Talk about mixed messages! :)

Playing with Brandon in the playroom.

Not sure what was going on here, but he walked out of his playroom like this....

Watching football with Pop-Pop. He is sitting in Molly's infant swing, which was his and he hated sitting in it when he was a baby.

Walking around with his hands in his pockets....which he just started doing a couple weeks ago.

I had to post this video of him and Ted. He loves imitating Daddy and Ted was walking around with his hands in his pockets and humming, and Brody started doing the same thing. Talk about a mini-me. I hope you can hear him humming...it was hilarious!