8 Weeks Old!

Today is Tyler's 8 week birthday!

Eating Habits:  no changes here to report.  Still eating 8 times per day.  The early part of the day, he typically goes up to 4 hours between feedings and then in the afternoons/evenings he often goes every 2-2.5 hours between feedings.  Night time feedings are all over the map.

Sleeping Habits:  we don't seem to be settling in to a consistent sleeping pattern yet at night.  Tyler will have a few nights were he goes four hours between feedings and I can time it so that I only have to get up once with him in the night.  And then he'll switch back to wanting to eat every 3 hours at night.  We occasionally get a 5 hour stretch but that's really rare.  As for naps, Tyler sleeps great if I take him somewhere and he's in the car seat.  He's out like a light and I end up waking him up if it's been 4 hours since his last feeding, just so I can prevent him from sleepting all day and staying up all night!  However, if I don't go anywhere such that he's not lulled to sleep by the car, he mostly just cat naps 15 - 20 minutes here and there.  Not really having any luck getting him to sleep for any real length of time.

Awake Time:  Tyler is starting to babble and coo more during his awake time - when he's not fussing, that is.  We still have a lot of fussing during awake time.  Could be tied to his bowels or could be that he just wants to fuss. 

He's also getting a little more head control but still not quite ready for the Bumbo seat. 

Hard not to love this face!!!

Put on my big girl panties....

This morning was an interesting morning with miss Liliana!  She woke up a little whiny this morning and throwing a mild tantrum.  She didn't want to take off her jammies and didn't want her pull up changed. 

During this fit, her brud-her woke up so I abandoned trying to convince Lily that she really didn't want to keep wearing 4 pounds of pee-pee to attend to him.  I got him up and changed and starting feeding him and then Lily decided her new fit would be that she wanted me to "hold you."  Now, it's a pretty interesting game of Twister to try to sit in the rocking chair to breastfeed Tyler while he's on the boppy pillow on my lap AND to try to hold Lily.  I have a big lap but it ain't THAT big.  But we managed a sort of "hold"which was enough to keep her settled down for a few minutes.

After feeding Tyler, I tried again to get Lily to change her clothes.  She took her jammies off but then decided she DID NOT want to wear a pull up today.  She wants to wear "underwears."  NO WAY, NO HOW was she going to wear that pull up.  I'm practically sitting on her trying to get it on.  She wants UNDERWEARS!!!!  I'd get one leg in a hole and then before I'd get the second leg in, she'd have the first leg pulled out.  All the while, she's screaming her head off.  It was so fun.

NOT.

I can't let her go sans pull up just yet because I still needed to shower and such before taking her to daycare and I didn't want her to go that long "unsupervised" with no pull up on.  She's never worn just underwear before.

So I decided to abandon her again because I thought if I stayed, I was going to pull out all my hair and/or give her a whoopin'.  I went off to the kitchen to get her some cereal and milk thinking I could calm her down with breakfast.  When I get back to her room, she has taken her clothes for the day and her pull up and her underwears to Tyler's room and is lying on his floor crying into her clothes. 

I show her I have cereal and milk and she calms down and lets me put on the pull up with the underwears over the top.

So while I'm showering, I decide that today is going to be the day that we try underwear at school.  Since she was SO determined to wear them, she must be ready.  So I pack up a bunch of underwear and extra pants to take to daycare.

Ms Christina is very excited to try the underwear thing with Lily and says they'd try the morning with no pull up on.  Well apparently she did great all morning and didn't wet her underwear!  Of course for nap they put her back in a pull up and were going to leave her in that for the afternoon (the kids rotate teachers in the afternoons every 20 minutes so it's too hard for the afternoon teachers to deal with the newly underweared kid).  But whoever got Lily after her nap and did her pottying ended up putting her back in underwear and she did great all afternoon. 

That baby came HOME in the SAME clothes she went to daycare in on her first day of UNDERWEAR!!

YES!  My little pee-pee prodigy.

So as soon as she gets home, I take her to the potty and she goes.  EXCELLENT!  We are on a roll!

I kept her in her underwear.  Bet you can guess where this story is going......

About 20 minutes later, Joel and I are in the kitchen and Lily comes in. 

Mama!  I poopy!

DOH!

That baby girl had peed down her leg and had a huge ol' mess o'turds in her underwears.  Watching her walk to the bathroom was HILARIOUS (but I was a good Mama and only laughed on the inside).  She was not a fan of that poop in her drawers.  Hopefully, she'll remember that and choose to go in the potty next time.  Right?

Anyway, I'm still super proud of her first day in underwear, but I hope that the number of times that I have to clean up turds out of underwears is limited.  Like, once is totally enough. 

7 weeks old!

It seems cliche to say that time is flying but it totally is!  Tyler is 7 weeks old today - unbelievable.

Eating Habits:  we're still having the bowel issues which I believe leads to funny eating habits.  Tyler eats about 8 times per day still but he tends to space his day time feeds out to ~4 hours and then his afternoon/evening feeds are 2 hours apart.  Sometimes, I feel like all I'm doing in the evenings is nursing.

Sleeping habits:  we were doing really good there for several days in a row of having 4+ hours between night time feeds and I was really convinced we were starting a new trend.  There was even a 5.5 hours span last Friday night!  It was heaven (until he didn't go back to sleep after the 3:30 feeding until 5am).  But the last couple nights, we moved back to eating every 3 hours during the night.  Sigh.  I'm starting to feel mild panic set in over the thought of only getting 4-5 hours of sleep (spread over several intervals) when I go back to work.  I'm holding on the fact that I have 5 more weeks before going back to work and a lot can and will change in 5 weeks.  It will.  It really will.  Right????

Awake time:  well this is tough.  During the day, Tyler's awake time is often limited.  He tends to sleep a lot in his car seat because any time I go anywhere, he falls asleep.  But if he is awake during the day, he's usually only happy for a short interval and then he gets fussy.  And typically, from about 4pm onward, he stays awake most of the evening with short little 15 cat naps.  And when he's not having a cat nap, he's crying.  I really thought it was tied to his bowels but he's even doing this on the days where he has a ginormous poopy diaper and in theory should be feeling great.  It's tiring when your baby is crying and you can't seem to figure out what's wrong.  Sigh.  I keep trying to remember if Lily did this (and I think she did to a certain extent) so that I can have hope to hang on to that it doesn't really last that long.  I don't remember this much fighting with her after I went back to work so maybe it won't last that much longer with Tyler.  It sucks when your only tool is TIME.  Makes you feel helpless.

Funny Pre-two Lily Annecdotes

A funny conversation with Lily the other day:
(in the car, on the way home from daycare....)

Lily:  I did it!  Booger out. 
Me:  Booger out?
Lily:  Yeah, booger out.
Me:  Where did you put that booger?
Lily: In ear.
Me (while trying not to wreck the car):  SNORT SNORT LAUGH!

As I got to thinking about it, maybe she said "In here" and not "In ear" but I really don't know.  Either way, when I turned around to look at her after she said it, her finger was in her ear.  So, regardless of what she said, it seems to me that she likely stuck a booger in her ear.  At least she didn't eat it!!  Haha!!

*****

The other day, I dropped Lily off at daycare and two of the little boys were in the middle of a heated discussion.  This is how it went:

Boy #1:  My Daddy.
Boy #2:  MY Daddy.
Boy #1:  My DADdy!
Boy #2:  My DADDY!
Lily:  MY DADDY!!  (she had to get in on the action)

I guess this was the 2-year-old version of "My Daddy is better than your Daddy"  - haha!  Ms Stina said they do this all the time. 

******

 

Lily has a new favorite word: Okay!

Only it comes out like "OH kay!" Like it's two separate words. She's replaced about 50% of her "yeah" responses with Oh-kay. It's unbelievably cute.

******

She says "mecidine" instead of "medicine" - we've corrected her a hundred times but it's like her brain doesn't realize that what she's saying is different than what we're saying. It's actually kind of catching....I accidentally said it a few times. Ha!

6 weeks old!

Today Tyler is 6 weeks old!

Eating Habits:  Still eating about 8 times/day but the distribution is changing.  He is starting to have a little bit longer intervals at night but he's making up for it by having short intervals in the late afternoon/evening.  Also, he's only having a dirty diaper every 2.5- 3 days.  So the farther we get from a dirty diaper, the harder it is for me to get Tyler to stay interested in taking a full feeding.  So he ends up taking more frequent, smaller feeds.  I hate that for the poor guy cause by late day 2 or day 3, he's clearly uncomfortable and straining and farting like a middle aged man!

Sleeping Habits:  Still having a lot of success with Eat - Awake - Sleep.  I did get two nights in a row with two four hour intervals and not much trouble getting Tyler back to sleep after feeds.  So that made for a couple good nights' sleep for Mama!  Hopefully we are starting a new trend!

Awake Time:  awake time is getting a little weary for us.  Tyler's been really fussy during awake time for the past couple weeks (may be tied to the bowel issues??).  His fussiness increases as the day wears on.  In the mornings, he's pretty content to sit or lay by himself.  However, as the day wears on, he wants to be held, bounced, vibrated, walked, left alone, picked up, rocked, talked to, etc etc.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm just working my way through a checklist to figure out what it is that will make him happy or at least not cry until he eventually he wears himself out and falls asleep.  I handle this part ok but Joel gets really frustrated.  He gets upset when he can't "fix it" and he thinks I have the magic touch.....I don't, I am just being more patient until I find the right button to push! 

But Joel truly does have magic abilities...he's the Lily whisperer!  Over the last month, Joel has been successful at getting Lily to return to her previous bedtime routine where she goes to sleep on her own without needing someone to sit in the room with her!  Yay!!  Way to go Daddy!

Just for fun....here's the two kiddos both at 6 weeks old:



In case it's not obvious:
Lily - Left
Tyler - Right

And now the sad part of 6 weeks old....it marks the halfway point of my maternity leave.  BOO!

Like Father Like Son

Of all the things for my son to inherit from his Daddy, he gets Joel's....

FARTS!

Super smelly, ridiculously loud and unbelievably frequent.

If it weren't so sick, it would be impressive!  He even hikes his leg up just like Joel.  He also manages to ruin a perfectly nice moment - just like his Daddy.  We'll be nursing (me and Tyler, not me and Joel - haha) and everything is peaceful and quiet and I'm enjoying this moment with my baby boy and then RRRIIIIPPPPPP!  Funny.  But only until the odor hits my nose.  Then, not so funny!

$20 says his first words are "Hey, Lily, pull my finger!"

Love him!

5 Weeks Old!

Tyler's 5 weeks old today!  He's doing great!

Go Boilers!

 

Eating Habits:  Sigh...still eating every 3 hours with some 2 hour intervals thrown in for good measure.  The one 5 hour interval we had late last week seems to have been a one time thing.  :(  I think by now, Lily was doing 5 hour intervals at night regularly.  I'm trying not to get myself too panicked about how well he'll be sleeping when I have to go back to work....that's still 7 weeks away.  A lot will change in that time (right?!?!).

Sleeping Habits:  We're doing pretty good at the Eat - Awake - Sleep pattern.  It works well unless I'm on the go during the day.  In that case, Tyler sleeps a lot.  We still struggle sometimes getting Tyler to go to sleep directly after the ~10pm feeding.  That can be frustrating but if he's going to give me trouble after one of the night time feedings, I'd rather it be that one than the 1am feeding!

Awake Time:  Tyler's pretty good at staying awake for about an hour after he eats during the day time.  We've starting putting him on the play mat and he seems to like looking at the lights and listening to the music. Big sister Lily seems to think she needs to lay down there with Tyler though which sometimes makes my nerves raw.  She can be so rough with him that we really have to watch every second.  We're also starting to see some improvements in head control.  Not too much longer and I think he'll be ready for the Bumbo!

I made my first visit to Evansville with both kids and survived the drive to and from!  I was able to schedule my departure times around feedings and nap time so both kids slept the whole way there and back which made for a nice peaceful drive.  The trip to Evansville is about as far as I can go without having to stop to feed Tyler so really it's a perfect distance for solo travel.  Any further and it would a lot more difficult.

While in Evansville, we went to the Fall Festival - four times.  Yep.  Four times.  I only gained 3 pounds!  Not too shabby given that I'm pretty sure I ate my way up and down Franklin Street every time we went!  Ha!  Tyler went with me each time (he's easy to take along!) and we took Lily for the pet parade which she really enjoyed (mas doggies?!). 

Latest Lily-isms

Lily has really increased her talking in the last couple weeks and it's so fun and entertaining to listen to her (although also hard to see my little baby girl get replaced by this grown up baby girl!).  She's growing up before my very eyes.  I just wanted to take a minute to write down some of the fun things she's up to.

• Lily calls Tyler "brud-her" most all of the time.  It's brud-her this and brud-her that.  Sometimes she calls him by name but mostly it's brud-her.
• She's completely obsessed with holding Tyler's hand in the car.  If she can't get to his hand, she yells "Hand!  HAND!!  HAAANNNDDDDD!!!" until I make Tyler's hand accessible to her.  I just hope that she isn't back there squeezing it too hard!
• She's also remembering things for longer periods of time. Like if she saw a "boo boo" on Mommy's leg three days ago, she'll point to it today and say "Mommy boo boo all better."  Also, I told her we were going to Grams house and she asked "Swimming?  Water?" So she remembered that at Grams' house she gets to go swimming.  Then I had to explain that it was too cold to go swimming.  She was not happy about that.
• "Yeah"  - this is Lily's FAVORITE new word.  Everything is "yeah."  She'll ask a question and answer it herself with "yeah."
• Watch-a Dora?  Yeah.
• Lily eat?  Yeah.
• Pizza time?  Yeah.
• Potty.  Yeah.  (That's a statement not a question - although she rarely goes even though we make a mad dash for the bathroom - which is sometimes every 5 minutes)
• Bye-bye?  Yeah.
• Stay here?  Yeah.
• Lily's couch.  Yeah.  (why she thinks it has to be HER couch, I'll never know)
• She puts herself in Time Out.  Any time we say something to Lily in even a slightly stern voice, she'll look at us and say "Time Out."  Sometimes, she then goes and takes herself to Time Out.  When we were at Grams house (where she had never been put in time out), she invented the Time Out location all on her own.  Hilarious!

Potty training is going ok.  She's starting to get the concept and is going more often on the potty.  However we have A LOT more false alarms than we have actual pottying going on.  She has recently just started taking off for the bathroom at a full run and pulls her pants down and then yells for someone.  MAMA!!  DADDY!!  We race back there and put her on the potty and 2 seconds later she's wants to get down - with no potty event having taken place (and then five minutes later we repeat the whole thing).  Then it's "Wash Hands!" I have gotten to the point to where I don't let her wash her hands unless she actually goes to the bathroom because she was basically faking the need to potty just so she could wash her hands.  Sigh.

Happy One Month Birthday Tyler!!

 

 

Stats:

Weight (10/2/12):  11 lbs 13 oz (98th percentile)

Height (10/4/12):  23 inches (98th percentile)

As if there was any doubt, my baby is huge!  The breastfeeding is clearly going well!  We had a sleep victory last night.  He went 5 hours between feedings which means I got FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT of sleep!  Hallelujah!

Here's the proud big sister!

What? 4 Weeks Old Already?

I really can't believe Tyler's already four weeks old!!  The time is really flying by!

Eating habits:  Still eating about 8 times a day, roughly every 3 hours.  Sometimes 3.5 hours and usually at least one 2 hour interval each day (although Monday, he cluster fed all afternoon - every 2 hours:  3 - 5- 7 - 9).  At night, he's like a little alarm clock and it's almost 3 hours to the minute that he wakes up to eat!  The spit up has officially started in earnest now.  Yuck. 

Sleeping habits:  Per my post earlier this week, we had a rough time over the weekend with lots of daytime sleeping and not enough night time sleeping.  So far this week, it's been a little better but I've been working hard to keep him awake quite a bit during the day. 

Potty Improvements!

Three cheers for peeing on the potty!  Lily had a dry pull up all morning today and went on the potty THREE TIMES this morning!!  Yay!!!  We are making progress!  It's been a bit frustrating at home because Lily will tell us that she wants to go potty and we rush back there and then she'll sit on the potty for about 10 seconds and want to get down.  And she'll say "I did it!!" all very excited.  And we're like, "No you didn't do it."  Then, more often then not, we'll find her squatting in a corner about 5 minute later doing her business in her pull up.  DOH!  So it's nice to know that even though we're not seeing huge progress at home, she is doing better at daycare so I think the fact that we are working with her at home is making a difference.

She was watching Dora which means I was lucky
to get her face and not just the back of her head!

To sleep or not to sleep

**I typed this up at 1am this morning but for some reason my phone didn't publish it.**

We seem to have regressed a bit on Tyler's sleeping habits. Suddenly this boy has confused night time with day time. This whole weekend he wanted to sleep all day even when Joel pestered the ever lovin daylights out of him (stripped him naked, put a cold wash cloth on him, tickled him, blew on his belly, etc). He still wanted to sleep through it all. Now here we sit at midnight WIDE awake. I tried leaving him in the swing. Not having it. Tried the vibrating bouncy seat. Nope, just cries. So, we rock. And we blog.

He's doing the eyes rolling to the back of the head trick so maybe it won't be long and I can put him to bed (and keep him there).

Good thing he's so cute.