Rowan: 16 months

Rowan turned 16 months on March 26th.  We were talking the other day about Rowan, and how she is the happiest baby we have ever met.  And it's kinda crazy because both of us are pretty cranky, and so is Liam, so we have no idea where it comes from!!  But, we are very happy that she is so happy, and she makes the rest of us happier so we have no complaints here.  She is also a very good eater, which we are very grateful for because Liam is going through a picky eater phase, and I think I would just go insane if they both were picky at the same time.  She loves the Asian Noodles that come in a frozen pack at Costco.  Whenever I heat one up for myself, I pull out a little for her, and she just gobbles it up.  She also really loved the Salmon and rice we saved for her recently.  Once and a while, more so when she's just got up from her nap, she will push the food away and say 'Nooo'.  But if we can distract her with a toy or show, she will end up eating.  Liam was pretty similar at this age.  She loves saying 'Night night', and blowing kisses.  This morning I even saw her kissing her feet in the car ride.  It was pretty funny! 

 

One time recently she started putting her hands in the air, and saying 'Hoooray'.  I grabbed my video camera and got a little of it on video...but mostly it was of her from behind because she kept walking away while she was doing it.  But, we are glad we got what we did because we haven't seen her do it since.  She likes to point at the light and fan now, and I also taught her where her nose is, and she will point to it now when I ask her where it is.  She understands what her bath is, and gets excited when I tell her lets go take a bath.  She knows who Dada is, and calls him by his name.  And she loves to ride on Dad's shoulders, so much so that when he was holding her, she tried to climb up onto his shoulders!!  Speaking of climbing, she now takes an object, like a box in the playroom, and will bring it over to the couch and climb on up.  She loves sitting on the couch with the rest of us now, and is quite proud of herself when she gets up.  She HATES going to bed because she doesn't like leaving everyone.  She also hates having her teeth brushed, hair combed, diaper changed, dressed....pretty much anything that gets in the way of having fun!  Although, once she's in her bed, she just rolls on her tummy, thumb in her mouth, and she's quite happy to go to sleep, especially when she's really tired.  Overall she is such an easy and happy baby!  She is the kind of baby that makes you want or think you want another one!!

comment by Gaylene on 04/01/2011
I'm so glad we came down 2 weeks ago, she's grown so much and is a doll! Love the ending to your post too

Liam: 3 yrs, 3 mo.

Liam is doing really well with his potty training.  We don't have to ask him as often because he tells us he needs to go now.  He has had a few accidents here and there, and just to be on the safe side, we still send him to school with a pull-up, and we put a 'night time diaper' on him at night, but I would say he is pretty much POTTY TRAINED.  Sadly, earlier this month Liam got a really bad cough and it came with a fever that lasted more than 5 days.  By the 5th day we decided to take him to the Dr. to see what is up.  His cough was so bad that he gagged up his food and sometimes his medicine. Usually when he gets a fever it breaks after about 3 days. This one was not going away, so by day 5 we took him to the Dr. The Dr. listened to his lungs, and heard a crackle. He checked his Oxygen too. He wanted to determine for sure if it was a bacterial or a viral infection, so he had us go to the hospital to get an x-ray. While we were waiting to be seen, Liam was getting anxious waiting. We walked around a bit, and we came across a vending machine. He wanted the Doritos, and so I checked my wallet, and there was NO CASH! I called my mom, since she wasn't too far away and asked her to bring some cash. They took us to the back before she arrived, but they told her where we were when she got there. Liam was happy to see Grandma. Liam did really awesome getting the x-ray. He listened to direction, and wasn't scared at all. We got him the Doritos and finally went home 2 hours later! The Dr. called later that afternoon, and told us that it appeared as he thought, as a viral infection. He thinks it was RSV.  This is only the second time that Liam has been to the Dr. for being sick.  He has been such a healthy kid, but unfortunately when you send them to school, they are just bound to get sick!  Mike was saying that for the first 2 years of going to school they tend to get sick about every 4-6 weeks, and that is exactly what has happened this school year....it is really rough seeing your kid sick.  Another side effect of him being sick so often is he can't seem to gain any weight.  Once he gains any, he just loses it again when he's sick.  He has been 30 lbs. for a long time now.  He is super skinny and his pants fall off him, esp. now that he doesn't have a diaper to help hold them up.  He also seems to be going through a super picky eater phase, where he won't eat anything...at least not for dinner.  The whole time change thing hasn't helped either.  He doesn't get hungry till it's way past his bedtime.  He also won't turn off his light, so he's not getting to sleep till past 10 pm now.  And that makes it hard for him to get up in the morning, then he's tired all day...it's a viscous cycle and hopefully he will get back on track really soon!!

 

Now for the happy stuff.  Cousin Madison had her birthday party on March 12th.  And thankfully he was feeling much better by then because he had an absolute blast!  They had rented a bounce house, and it had a slide too.  He played for 90+ minutes straight, and crashed a few minutes after I got him in the car...he then slept the rest of the night. 

 

Liam is TOTALLY obsessed with Thomas the train right now. And I made the mistake of telling him that we got tickets to go ride on him over 2 months in advance. He wants to go 'RIGHT NOW!', and because he's only 3, he doesn't fully understand the concept of time, and that he won't be here for a couple more months. Lately, he has been waking up and wanting to go 'RIGHT NOW!'. And after I explain to him that it isn't till May, he gets very cranky, and is not happy for a long time. I got the brilliant idea (I hope) the other day to print out Thomas's schedule and a map of the U.S. and put stars on the state he's in...I hope it works, otherwise the next 2 months are going to be miserable.

 

Some of the cute things he's doing lately: 

~When I tell him something exciting, he says 'That is so exciting', or 'I'm so excited'. 

~He will sit on my lap and ask to snuggle.

~He colors a lot of Thomas pictures at G'ma's and he has to display them on her door, and he likes to bring them back and forth.

~He is starting to use imaginative play with his trains and cars, he tells stories, he will also act out the stories from the Thomas show.

~He knows how to use the Roku (instant Netflix player), and can find the show he wants and play it.

comment by mom/grandma on 03/25/2011
Liam is such a great kid, I'll be glad when he is eating well again too. I love when he narrates his play. "Then, Thomas said" or "Yes sir, said Percy" so cute.

Rowan: 15 months

Rowan turned 15 months on February 26th, and now it's a month later and I am guilty of being a slacker!!  Well, to be fair this past month has been a little crazy with the kids getting sick for 2 weeks.  And poor Rowan, her cold seems to either be returning, or she has another one.  I will be glad when Liam is out of school soon, and they can have a break from all the germs going around!!

 

Anyway, I will write all the cute things she's doing in my next update since she will be turning 16 months in a few days.  She had her 15 month check-up on February 25th and here are her stats:

 

head: 18.5 in. (85.52%)

 

weight: 21 lbs.  2 oz. (31.65 %)

 

length:   30.2 in. (57.83 %)

Liam: 3 yrs. 2 mo.

Liam turned 3 yrs and 2 months on February 7th.  Yes, I know I am behind AGAIN!!  But, even if it is a little late, I am very glad I have kept up month to month on their updates.  All the days tend to blend together, and when I look back on it, I am always glad I took note of what they are doing and saying at that moment in time.  So speaking of some of the things Liam is saying, here are a few....'good idie', for good idea , 'I got a question', even if he's just making a statement, when we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, he says 'I'm busy', and sometimes gets really mad.  One time Dad found something for him, and he said 'You saved the day'.

 

He has totally been into Thomas lately, more than we've ever seen him.  He knows most, if not all the names on the different shows.  He even knows who is in each one, and will say I want to watch the one with 'So and So' and we usually don't have a clue which episode it is, so we will have him point to the right one on the Roku.  He will do all the different faces of the trains, and one night I had him tell me a story about the trains while I took a video, it was really cute!

 

He loves playing with all his trains too, and carries them around all the time.  He knows exactly which ones he has and knows if any are missing, and names all of them off all the time.  Dad took him to the train show at the end of January and he got a bunch of new trains for him to use as a reward if he goes #2 in the potty.  We had them for a few weeks, and he'd always say, I can get so and so if I go poo in the potty.  He knew exactly what he needed to do, but he is just so darn stubborn he would not do it.  Anyway, last week I happened upon a site from someones blog, and found the secret to potty training our stubborn 3 yr old. We knew he was ready for it, but we just needed that extra tool to figure it out.

The site is: http://www.3daypottytraining.com/

It is an E-book, and there are some copyright issues, so I can't share too much publicly about it, but we are just thrilled with how well her information worked with Liam. After reading it, I have to admit I was a little skeptical and a little upset we had just paid $24 for an E-book, but being able to potty train him in about 4 days all but makes up for the diapers we are going to save!!

We did a variation of her method, and since we didn't have 3 entire days in a row to work on it ourselves, we decided we would just test it out, to see how well it worked and go from there. We also have decided to not worry about night time right now, and let him wear a diaper. We also were unsure what to do about preschool since he has multiple teachers throughout the day, so we decided he could wear a pull-up until we are all confident that he is comfortable asking to use the bathroom there.

So we started our 'Potty Party' on Friday morning. He had pooped in his diaper that morning, and I was ready to begin!! On went the big boy underpants, and shortly after that he told me that he had to pee in the potty!! I was shocked how quickly it worked?!?!

Day 1: He did all his pees in the potty! Had some #2 accidents though.
Day 2: He had one pee accident, and 1 #2 accident, and did 2 #2's in the potty
Day 3: Tricky day since we had prior plans and had to send him to G'ma's he did really well with pee's but not so well with #2
Day 4: Back on track, had ZERO accidents!!!
Day 5: Went to G'ma's again, and had school, NO ACCIDENTS

We are currently on Day 6, and I got a text from G'ma that he told her he needed to go #2 for the first time! I dare say our little boy is potty trained, for the most part. I expect he will have a few set backs here and there, and we will need to work on night time later, but we are just super happy with the results. So if anybody out there is needing a little help with this, I do recommend this plan.

 

Anyway, our little boy is growing up to be such a 'Big Boy', we are just so proud of him!!

Rowan:14.5 Months

A few days after I wrote Rowan's last update, she started to stand & walk!  It was on January 7, 2011 when she was about 13.5 months old.  It seemed to happen overnight. Once she started to walk more than 5 or so steps, she was walking half way across the room, then all the way across the room, then she just stopped crawling all together. Then she turned 14 months old on January 26th...and again I need to hurry and write up her update because she is just growing and changing so much!!  She is now an expert walker, and even was running yesterday?!?!?  She was home with Liam and Dad and she grabbed one of Liam's cars and ran across the room.  They were both very surprised to see her take off like that.  This past month she also has been sick. First she got a little cold, then when she seemed to be better she came down with a fever and cold, and Liam had a fever too...but after hers broke after about 5 days, she had a little rash so we think she had Roseola. Plus on top of that all, she was teething, so she was not very happy for about a week!   She has been loving trying new foods.  She has tried Kiwi, Mango, Orange and loved them all.  She pretty much loves anything we give her, and even if she doesn't seem to like it, she will eat it anyway. We usually know when she really likes something when she says 'Mmmmmm' .  We know one day she will probably start to get picky, so we are enjoying this phase while it lasts.  Some of her new words lately have been 'Night Night', 'Wow', 'Book'.   She makes growl sounds a lot, and roars at her riding Lion toy.  She says 'bye bye', and blows kisses, even with the kiss sound now.  We think she is going to be a bit of a tomboy.  She LOVES Liam's toys, especially his Thomas trains.  Thankfully, Liam is learning to share because she is starting to get a bit of a 'tude' now.  That is our word for attitude, but think 'tude' is a cuter way to describe it.  She is so easy to make smile, and she has such a funny sense of humor too.  She comes up to us now and tickles us, and says 'Tickle, tickle, tickle'.  She also thinks her farts are funny because after she farts, she laughs like a hyena...just like her mom ;) She also loves to dance, which is a totally new thing to us because Liam never started doing that till after he was 2, and even then it's more like running around.  We had a little dance party one night, and she made us laugh so much dancing to 'Jungle Boogie'.  We love her so much and constantly feel so lucky at what a good baby/kid she is!!

comment by Gaylene on 02/18/2011
So adorable! Love "tude" also...can't hardly wait to see how they've grown next month

Liam: 3 yrs. 1 mo.

Liam had a great month and holiday.  We all had about 2.5 weeks at home, and he had some time to sleep-in in the morning.  We figured he was catching up on all his sleep debt.  It was a little crazy because he and Rowan woke around the same time everyday,around 9am.  But on the flip side, he also had a really hard time getting to sleep at bedtime, and it didn't make much of a difference if he had a nap or not.  We think part of the issue is he insists on having his big light on at night.  He was really excited for Christmas, and had a great time singing with the other kids at his school's holiday party on Dec. 8th.  We don't think he really knew what Christmas was all about until he saw the presents on Christmas morning.  He loved opening up the gifts, and kept asking for another one for him.  He helped Rowan open hers, and still couldn't get enough!  So spoiled!!  At the start of our time off, he was really into the potty training.  We offered him a penny for a pee, and a nickel for a poo.  He earned lots of pennies, and even several nickels, but then kinda gave up after about 3-4 days.  We don't want to push the issue, but at the same time we hope he will get motivated soon!  He has had a new found love of Thomas the Tank Engine lately too. He knows all the names, and will name them off when they roll the credits between the episodes.  He is also pretty picky which episode he watches.  We have a ton on the Roku, and we can't just play just any ol' episode, he has to pick just the right one!! Even Rowan loves watching it now, and gets excited and points at the screen when we are picking one out.

We took Liam to his very first play on December 12th.  It was called 'If You Give A Mouse A Cookie'.  We had purchased the book before hand to familiarize him with the story, and to get him excited to go.  He was very attentive for about the first 15 to 20 min., but then he wanted to run around the theater.  He tried going up on stage, and down the side isle.  He started talking, and would NOT sit still.  We kept giving him different snacks to try to keep him quiet. Mike had to hold him for most of the time, and get him some juice from the car.  It was a super cute play, but it was one very long hour!  Hopefully next year he will be a little more mature and able to sit still for it.

On December 16th, he had his 3-year well visit.  He did amazingly well, and sat still and listened to the nurse while they did an eye exam.  He passed his 3-year questionnaire with flying colors!  He now weighs 28 lbs. 7.5 oz (16.54%), he's 37.5 inches tall (52.99%), and they didn't do his head this time, but did do his BMI which was 14.22 (3.72%).   He was the same weight as he was at a visit that he was at a couple months earlier and figured that he lost some from being sick twice with a tummy bug.  But he sure has grown a lot over the year, 2 whole inches!!  He has been a little more willing to try new foods lately, which has been a great relief to us.  He is starting to try some of the meals that we eat too. 

He also loves talking about all the different types of food.  He has shown a great interest in cooking, and Mike especially looks forward to having him help make some meals in the future.  Another new development he's had in the last week or 2 is he has decided that he isn't afraid of Gretchen any more and absolutely LOVES her now.  He wants to play with her all the time now, and calls her his friend.  He thinks it's funny when she licks him, where he used to get mad at her.  Gretchen is loving it too, and is now getting worn out by playing so much. Liam's school has their registration for next year going on now.  We debated which time would be better for us, better for him, and my work schedule.  We originally went with the same afternoon time, but the other day, he was commenting how tired he was on the way to school. I went in to talk to his teacher, and she did say that her morning time kids are more awake and refreshed.  Also she mentioned that she only teaches the morning class for his age group next year, and we really love her, and would like for her to be his teacher again.  So, the woman who takes care of registration told me that it would be much easier to switch to afternoon if needed, and recommended that we try the morning time first.  So, I guess we will see how that works next school year. One thing that Liam has known for quite a while now, that I keep forgetting to mention in his updates is that he knows the difference between his left side and his right side. He also has an amazing sense of what we try to tell him, that is if he's listening.  He will process what we say and either say 'Oh, OK.' or he will say something back to us that indicates that he has a profound understanding.  I will show him a picture of Sequoia, and he will say her name correctly now, and says he remembers her, and knows that she is dead.  We never really talk about death to him because he is so young, but he seems to have some level of understanding of it, and knows that it is a sad thing.  He still remembers the dead bunny in the road, even though we just drove by it, and he never even saw it!  The kid ceases to amaze us, and we are always telling him what a wonderful boy he is, we must also tell him he's cute too because over the holiday Liam kept saying 'I'm Cute', it was pretty funny and cute! 

Rowan: 13 Months

Rowan is growing and changing so quickly I can't keep up!  We had some time off for the holidays, and couldn't believe how much she changed over nearly 2 weeks.  On December 17th she had her first haircut, and she did great!  She turned 13 months old on December 26th.  She says a few words now, but mostly she chatters in her own language.  So far she does say 'Mama', 'Dada', 'Baby','What's Dat?', 'Uh-Oh'.  She points at things she wants or likes which lately have been Cheerios and lights.  She is starting to want what we eat now.  So I will give her bits of it to try. She really loved the hummus that she tried the other day, and she really loves bananas, and squeals in delight when she sees I cut some up for her.  She also loves graham crackers, and had a little tantrum when I tried putting them away after giving her some. I ended up giving her some more, and she is now learning how to get stuff from us, just like Liam?!?!  We are such pushovers ;) But she has learned the sign for more, and will do the sign, or clap which is similar to the sign. 

 

She LOVES the lamp I put in her room.  She was always blinded in the morning when I turned on her big light, and she would sneeze several times from the light...so the lamp has helped a lot and she loves to point at it, and give it her own word.  She also loves the lights on the Christmas tree, and thinks they are candles and tries to blow them out.  She is still very cautious about walking, but over the holiday she started to take more than 2 steps...it's around 4 or 5 now, then she will stop, pat her legs, sometimes dances, then kneels down to crawl.  She is getting braver everyday, and she is so proud of her walking.  She is also learning to stand on her own.  Last night she was able to stand by just using the boppy pillow to hold onto.  She also does this really cute thing where she will do a downward facing dog position with her legs and head, then she will take her hands and put them on her ankles, it's quite impressive, and I hope to capture it on video!! She is also now a climber!  But, she is not as cautious about climbing as she is about walking.  She can climb onto the kid's table if the stool is next to it!  She will pretty much try to climb anything she can reach now, so we do have to watch her more carefully!!  Another thing she loves is giving Liam hugs and kisses.  The best time to see it is at night when they are getting tired and loopy and they will just roll around on the floor in the blankets and hug and snuggle, it's the cutest thing!!  I love watching them play and bond, and am very grateful to have had some extra time to spend with them over our break.

comment by mom/grandma on 01/04/2011
They are so cute together, we are glad to have them here again.