Liam: 2 Years 3 Months

As crazy as it sounds, things have been easier for Liam since I returned to work.  For one, he has been having more regular naps.  He gets up earlier, and I leave work earlier (around his nap time) so he falls asleep very easily in the car, and then when I get home I take him quietly to his room and he sleeps for a couple of hours.  And two, he isn't as bored.  He gets to hang out with both his Grandma's during the week, and has 2 or 3 days where he also gets one-on-one attention from them too.  The variety of activities and attention gives him the right amount of stimulation.  He is really starting to be able to communicate with us a lot better.  He's putting sentences together, and mimicking us.  He consistently is saying 'Hi' and 'Bye' at the appropriate times...He is also learning the different vehicles on the road, and will point them out on our rides.  All trucks were the garbage truck, but I'm teaching him new ones...he's got the diesel truck down, and I also taught him the school bus.  He is also very polite.  He says 'Thank you' and 'Please' most of the time now.  A very new thing he started doing recently is dancing.  It seemed a lot of younger kids were doing that a lot earlier, and I wondered when he'd catch on to it, but he just kinda started one day...very cute!  He is really bonding with Rowan.  Most of the time he so sweet with her.  He will let me know if she is crying.  He kisses her on the head, and plays peek-a-boo with her.  When I pump milk, he will say 'Mama milk for baby Rowan'.  Just adorable!!  One really funny thing he did yesterday for the first time was he was playing with dad, and Gretchen was in her kennel barking, and he stopped got really serious, and told Gretchen to be quiet, and shushed her with his finger...the best part is I also got it on video!!  It is hilarious, and once we figure out how to share the HD video's we will post it online.  Anyway, he is growing so quickly, and I just need to make sure I document the highlights of his adorable life!

comment by gaylene on 03/20/2010
Liam is adorable and you can tell how loved he is from this post. So glad everyone is doing well.

Rowan: 3 Months

I am back to work now, and a little behind on my update for Rowan.  She turned 3 months on February 26th.  She is getting so BIG!  I weighed her on our new home scale and she is about 13 lbs now.  I know I mention this a lot, but she is such a smiley baby!  It doesn't take much to get her to smile either, she is just so happy!! In fact, I'm pretty certain I heard a giggle out of her yesterday when I was giving her kisses! She has started to take an interest in toys, and is also starting to grasp and hold them.  She is also starting to take a bottle better since she kinda is forced to while I am at work.  Although she still will not take a binky!  She has moved from sucking on her hands and fingers, to just her thumb now.  I'm not sure how I feel about it, since the habit will probably be harder to break her of than taking a binky away, but I do admit it is pretty cute right now, and it gives her comfort which is a good thing.  She absolutely just loves people, she is a very social baby and just loves being with 'her people' and she especially adores her older brother, Liam.  We can tell they are forming a special bond with each other already.  Liam likes to play 'peek-a-boo' with her too.  One thing that she started doing recently that is both frustrating and adorable is she has started to 'sing'.  But, the reason it is frustrating is because she will do it between nursing. She will nurse for about 4 or 5 minutes, then she will just look up and start singing....I love it, but would like if she waited till after her feeding to do it because she really didn't get much to eat over the weekend...but she also slept a whole lot, so we think she might be going through a different phase in her growth...anyway, she is just a sweet, wonderful baby, and we just love having her be apart of our family!!

comment by Star on 03/10/2010
Bailey still sucks her thumb but not nearly as much these days. Killian did the same thing but grew out of it on his own. It is so cute when they do it at such a young age! Now I had a sister that sucked her thumb till she was 12 or 13!!! What broke her was my dad took a picture and hung it on the fridge for all to see.

Rowan is 11 weeks, going on 12 weeks

Well my time home with the little ones is coming to a close.  Rowan is 11 weeks now, turning 12 weeks on Thursday the 18th...also the day I go back to work.  We just can't believe how much Rowan has grown and changed in the last 11+ weeks.  She is such a smiley baby, and sometimes when she's 'talking', it sounds like she is saying 'Hi'.  She is such a 'people person', and just loves  to be held and talked to.  She loves to look at our faces and coo and smile back at us.  She has also discovered her hands.  She moves them and holds them, and she especially likes to suck on them.  One thing she did yesterday that surprised me was she rolled over.  Granted she was on a bit of on incline on our bed, but it wasn't much and she rolled right on over.  I guess she's about that age, but since Liam was a preemie he didn't roll over until he was 5 months old, so it was pretty surprising to see her do that at 11 weeks!  Usually a baby that is early to roll over is also early to crawl, so we are in trouble, with a capital 'T'!  Anyway, I have really enjoyed my bonding time with our kids, and will really miss them when I go back to work!

Liam is 2 years and 2 Months

I know I say this practically every month, but it's true that Liam's personality continues to grow!  He is even becoming more affectionate.  He will give us hugs and kisses, and he will even say 'I love you' back to us sometimes.  He tries to do the hand sign for it as he says it too.  He's been eating better.  When he likes something he will say 'Mmmm this is tasty good', or he'll say something like 'Mmm tasty good strawberries'.   He's had a bit of an apple pie obsession lately.  He doesn't get a whole lot of sweets, so we are unsure where it came from.  But he talks about apple pie a lot.  He is still a bit unsure of Rowan.  He tends to get more interested in her if we have her on her play mat for playtime or tummy time.  But part of that could be he wants to check out her toys!  If we ask him to, he will give her a kiss, it's so cute!  He is getting better about sleeping in his bed.  Some nights he will actually sleep in his bed, although he does tend to end up on the floor sometime during the night.  I have ordered a guard rail from the company that made his bed.  The color won't match since there wasn't one made for his model, but we don't care...we just want him to be able to sleep soundly without falling out of bed.  The adjustment from his crib to his toddler bed has been quite interesting to say the least.  There have been a few bumps along the way, but overall he's done well.  One funny thing that happened was one morning when I went to get him, I found him running around his room completely naked!  Thankfully, he wasn't poopy that morning.  Now if I put on his footed pj's, I put a onesie on underneath.  As far as language skills, he continues to get better.  In fact, I was mentioning to his dad recently how much easier it is now to understand what he wants and doesn't want.  One cute thing he said this month was 'What's that?'  Dad was downstairs hammering something, and he stopped what he was doing and asked 'What's that?'  He really gets into his shows now too.  When they are doing letters and spelling he says it along with them.  If an action is going on, like if George is running, he will say 'Run Georgie, Run'.  And if something is intense or scary he gets scared too.  He was watching 'The Incredibles' and he screamed when something scary happened...it was so funny!  One thing that has developed over the last few months since I've been home with him is he climbs EVERYWHERE!  He is a little monkey...And another not so nice thing that he's started doing is spitting.  We are not sure how to deal with this new phase, but we tell him 'No' and now I make him clean it up...hopefully, he will stop that soon!  At the start of my maternity leave, I felt a little overwhelmed staying home, but I adjusted to it, and bonded more with Liam.  It is going to be so hard to return to work this month!

Rowan is 2 Months!

Rowan is now 2 months old, and she is blossoming into a beautiful baby.  Her baby acne and dry skin has cleared up, and her new hair is growing in.  It looks like she might be a blond after all.  She is starting to kick her arms and legs, and she can nearly hold her head up all by herself!  She will sleep in her bassinet at night now, which is good since she's nearly outgrown her lounger.  She is happy to hang out and check out her surroundings, and especially loves her swing too.  She looks into our eyes, and will smile back at us, and also 'talks' and coo's.  She started to regress in taking the bottle, but we are still practicing and she has been better the last couple of times we tried.  Today, I took her to the Dr. to have her 2 month check up, and she is now 11 lbs. 3 oz., and is 22 inches long.  She is growing so quickly!  She is wearing 3 month clothes already?!  And her 1-2 diapers are getting small on her too!  She continues to amaze us at how alert she is...she is such a sweet baby!!

Liam is 2 years and 1 Month

Since Rowan was born I have been home on maternity leave for the past 6 weeks.  It has been a mix bag being home all the time.  Apart of me likes being home, but apart of me is going stir crazy!  It has been nice to have more time with Liam, although he is going through his terrible 2 phase, which also is mixed with some jealousy of the new arrival.  Overall I would say he's doing pretty good considering his situation, but he's had his share of meltdowns...which basically means he's a normal 2 year old.  Since he's been stuck at home for more than he would like, we've been giving him some time to run around on the main floor, and I mean he RUNS.  Our main floor is open, and not really kid friendly, so we have to watch him like a hawk.  He gets into anything and everything that he's not supposed to.  But it's good for him to have a change of pace, and it burns off some energy.  We got him some snow pants and a winter jacket a few weeks ago.  We've tried several times to put them on him, but he just fights it.  I had to bribe him with a piece of chocolate the first time we got it on him.  But then he wouldn't put gloves on, so he was only able to go outside for a few minutes.  Every time since then he just refused it, until yesterday.  He's been watching Curious George plays in the snow DVD, and I asked him if he'd like to go outside and play in the snow.  He actually agreed, and didn't fight me at all putting the pants and jacket on.  He did a little with the gloves, but did put them on after a little convincing.  He was able to play outside for about 20 min. or so, and he had a blast!  Hopefully he will continue being good about that in the future too, he really needs that outlet.  Over the past month or so he has really improved his steadiness on the stairs.  We are there to spot him, but he can go up and down without any assistance now.  And if he's paying attention to what he's doing, he has avoided falling by sitting on his bum and going down that way.  His language continues to grow, and he's starting to better be able to communicate what he wants.  He is also very aware of the sounds around him.  If he hears a truck outside, he will run over to the window to look at it, and he will say 'truck'.  Also if he hears a plane above us, he will say 'airplane'.  He got a kitchen set for Christmas, and since it's a toy the water from the sink is pretend, but he thinks it's broken, we thought that was pretty funny!  He's pretty good about play cooking, and it's fun to watch him.  His other favorite play time activity is play-doh.  

One major milestone he had over the past month was he started to climb out of his crib, so we had to change it to a toddler bed.  This has been quite the challenge for all of us.  He doesn't like being left in his room, and he doesn't quite understand the idea of staying in bed and going to sleep.  He usually cries when we leave the room then plays with his quiet toys until he gets so tired he just flops over asleep on the floor.  We sometimes will go in after he's asleep and put him in his bed, but he just falls out onto the floor shortly after. This new development has also created a problem for nap time.  He often will take 1 -2 hours to fall asleep now, which means he's sleeping till about 5pm in the evening.  Most of the time he wakes up mad and cries for up to an hour sometimes.  And then he's not tired at bedtime, around 8pm, and it takes another 2 hours to fall asleep making it 10pm! Then he sleeps in in the morning, making him not very tired when nap time comes around at 1pm. We are not sure what to do about nap time.  We know it's important, but it messes up his bedtime.  We have been doing 'quiet time' where he is offered a chance to take a nap or play 'quietly' in his room.  This also gives me a break to either take a nap or get some much needed stuff done around the house.  Anyway, this issue will change when I return to work in six weeks because he will be getting up earlier, and might be tired by nap time again...time will tell.  I have realized being a mom over the past 2 years that when issues arise they tend to go away so quickly because the child's needs change so quickly!

Rowan is 6 Weeks!

Before Rowan was born, I thought I shouldn't compare the two kids, but I have to admit it is quite interesting at how different they are.  For example; Rowan has dark hair, Liam has blond.  Liam had a hard time breastfeeding at first, Rowan took to it right away.  Liam took to the binky and bottle quickly.  Rowan still won't have anything to do with the binky, and we are STILL working on the bottle with her.  He hated tummy time, she loves tummy time.  Anyway, those are just a few things we have noticed about the two kids.  One thing they do have in common is they both grew soo fast.  Rowan is gaining weight and changing so quickly it seems she changes right before our eyes.  Her double chin seems to be doubling, and we can tell she is getting heavier by the day.  She has already outgrown the newborn diapers, and nearly outgrown all her newborn clothes.  Sadly she started her phase of baby acne about a week ago.  Liam's only lasted about 2 weeks, so hopefully hers will clear up soon!  Although lately it has been looking less like acne and more like a rash or eczema.  We are hoping it is only acne, and nothing more serious.  Her hair is starting to thin a bit, and it also is looking like a lighter color is coming in.  It will be interesting to see what color her hair ends up being...as well as her eyes.  At first they were pretty dark, so we thought maybe she would have brown eyes, but they are looking more blue-ish these days, so she may end up with blue eyes like her big brother.  This past week she went 5-1/2 days without pooping?!  Apparently this can be normal for babies, although we were quite relieved when she finally did, and we're sure she was too!  She is also getting really strong.  She is holding her head up much better, and she is moving her arms and legs.  When we put her on her belly she can kick her legs to where she is nearly moving her body.  We think she will be early to roll over and possibly crawl!  We have noticed in the past few days that she has become more aware of her surroundings.  She looks at us in our eyes, and moving objects are catching her eyes like the ceiling fan and the TV.  She also has been smiling a lot lately...she is much more smiley than Liam was at this age  (but he was also 4 weeks early, so that could be part of it).  Thankfully, she has also been more content.  She hasn't had as many fussy hours, and she has let me put her down for a few without crying right away, which has been nice. Anyway, it just amazes us just how quickly they change in the beginning.  You really need to pay attention or it passes before you know it!