Best Friends in the Summer

A big thing here is Vacation Bible School. All the big churches do it during the summer, it's basically a week of summer camp and usually it is free of charge. Bridgett's older sister Abby was going this past week (every morning from 9-12 pm). Well, Bridgett was sad that she couldn't go and her parents were sad that now they had to single-handedly entertain her for hours without the help of an older sister, and I was sad that Willa couldn't play play play with friends every single minute of every day like she would want to. So, we came up with a plan. Two days of the week, I dropped Willa off at Bridgett's house. They played together for a few hours while I got stuff done. Then, two other days they dropped Bridgett off here and they got stuff done and enjoyed being child free.  Oh, and that pesky fifth day? We met at the library for story time. Then, today we went over to their house for water play in the backyard. Wow, we've hung out every day this week... I just realized that.

It's funny, before I had Willa I thought that having kids over to play would be so much more work. In reality, it's so much easier! Your child has a friend to play with so you can actually clean the kitchen without a little shadow hugging your leg and saying, "I wash the dishes, mommy." Though, I have to admit that that is also very cute sometimes.

I was making bread and decided to give each girl a small ball of dough and a little bread pan. You should have seen them slap that dough! It's a good thing that bread dough likes to be handled, I'm sure the gluten really got worked by these two little girls. Bridgett's loaf was actually formed pretty well in the end; Willa's looked like a bunch of clumps piled together. They both looked delicious after rising and baking.

Giving their babies shots and taking their temperatures with a little doctor's kit that I picked up for $1 at a garage sale.

Being blanket monsters for me in the kitchen. Oooo, so scary!

It's fun to see Willa with Bridgett and it reinforces my opinion that children need siblings. Willa would do so many things that she thought were cool (and that Ryan and I would usually praise her for) and Bridgett couldn't have cared less. I have so many memories of wanting to show a sibling something so cool and having them ignore me. You've got to learn that what you're doing usually isn't that great and that you're not the center of attention. Bridgett, however, showed her true colors and I'm not so sure if her big sister is a good influence on her. For example, she pretended to put lipstick on her babies, herself, and on Willa saying, "Lipstick makes me cute!" I told her mom that I wasn't sure if that was a good example for my two year old :). She also told Willa that it wasn't nice to let her dolls be naked, which I also thought was pretty funny. Apparently, there was a three-year-old cousin in California where they just visited who didn't like to wear clothes and they had to have lots of discussions about it.

Fits and Fits

Would you believe that this little one has been giving us fits and fits? No? It's true.

She went from sleeping nine hours at night, to waking up three or four times! She has never been a great napper. She goes down easily for naps, but wakes up after her first sleep cycle about 95% of the time. It's like clockwork, actually. I can look at the clock and the video monitor after she has been down about 45 minutes and she will just be waking up. At first I could reinsert her pacifier and she would sometimes go back to sleep. Then, I had to rock her or put her in the swing. Now, she will only go back to sleep if I rock her for 20+ minutes and don't talk or do anything that might disturb her. No one else can talk or do anything either :). Then, no matter how long she has been asleep in my arms, she will wake up within five minutes of me putting her back in her crib. Now, someone might ask - what if she was just done napping after 45 minutes? Well, I just knew that she wasn't. She would wake up really crabby and not her happy self and she wouldn't eat when I tried to nurse her. She was just plain tired but couldn't put herself back to sleep.

She was getting majorly overtired and so was I. I think the habit of getting picked up and comforted after every sleep cycle was creating a bad habit for the rest of her sleep during the night. She was losing the ability to sooth herself throughout the night. Just to make sure, I took her to the doctor two days ago to check her ears and make sure that she wasn't coming down with something. She got a clean bill of health except that we decided to restart her Zantac just in case she was still having a little reflux.

After the doctor's appointment, my path was clear. It was time to let her cry it out :(. The doctor said she was old enough. For me, a sleep-deprived child is a sadder sight than a crying child. She was becoming a textbook example case from my "Healthy Sleep Habits" book. Only sleeping in my arms, very hard to get to sleep (because she was so overtired and agitated), not her usual happy self. Before all this, I could just wrap her up and she would start to fall asleep. Now, she was so wound up, that it took 10-20 minutes or more of rocking to get her down. I knew she had the ability for good sleep since she had been doing it. So, we buckled down and have been doing it the past two nights and yesterday during the day. I think this is definitely the right decision. She is already sleeping better and is SO much happier!

The crying is sad, but it is getting shorter. Last night, she woke up once to eat, and then didn't wake up at all. Yesterday, I made her cry through her naps. It was sad, but she fell back asleep and slept an additional 60-90 minutes. For me, it's better because I can't just sit and rock her for hours on end, even if I wanted to. It's better for Willa because she's not forced to play quietly by herself for hours while I rock June. It's also better because after a good nap, we actually have a few minutes where we might go somewhere before June needs to go down for a nap again. When she was waking up so early, she never was quite awake and happy, and never up long enough to go somewhere like the store or a friend's house. It's just better all around. I really hoped I'd never have to let her cry it out, and I especially didn't want to do it before six months, but she needed it. She needed more sleep and she was getting less and less. I still listen to her at night and get up once or twice to feed her because she is still little. But, when she was waking up so frequently, she wasn't even hungry most of the time. So, if it has only been an hour or two since she last ate, I know she's not hungry and I let her cry. One of my friends made the comment once that she was trying to put all the burden of sleep training on her baby, but SHE was the adult. She needed to take some responsibility and help the baby learn too. I like that. Sometimes crying is hard, but we also are the parents. For me, that means making sure that June gets the good sleep she needs. We're only two days into this, so I'm not quite ready to call it a huge success yet, but so far things are going well.

Fight on! So sad that this onesie was too small by the time I finally put it on June. The half body shot is because it is too small to snap on the bottom.

Fun Times

My mom came out for a week visit and just flew back a few days ago. We miss her already and had so much fun while she was here! I will probably post a few pictures of her trip later when I have downloaded them. For now, here are a few pictures from my camera of what we've been up to.

I've been trying to do more tummy time with June. Of course, I don't want to do it when she's in a good mood because it just seems mean to ruin all her smiles with this tortuous activity. I don't want to do it when she's in a bad mood because then the screams would be intensified and inconsolable afterwards. No time is a good time for tummy time, in my opinion. I also wanted to show a picture of her wet hair. Look how curly it is! It dries straight, but I'm pretty sure that the wet curl means real curls are here to stay in the future.

She's still a long drink of water in my book, but she is chunking up a little more.

Ryan takes Willa's games and play to the next level. Witness the very tall tower he helps her build - so tall that she has to get on the stepladder to keep adding blocks. It is very exciting for her.

I got this train out of the cupboard. My mom asked our neighbor to make one for each of her married kids. We got it before we had even had kids so it's been packed away. It is such a cute handmade train!

I walked by one day and saw Willa buckled into the infant seat and rocking furiously back and forth in it. It was hilarious!

Lastly, I was fixing dinner two nights ago and June was in the family room in her bouncy chair with Willa. I came by to check on her and found that big sister had brought lots of toys. It makes me so happy to see Willa reacting positively to June. It's getting more frequent and is so cute. Sometimes she sits next to June and says, "Hi June-bear." It makes me laugh, it's so sweet.

Petting Zoo

To kick-off their summer of fun, the library held a little petting zoo. It was ADORABLE. It was nice and cool in the shade and actually clean. There was an alpaca (that had to be caged apart since she kept spitting on the kids), goats, sheep, a duck, chicken, deer,  donkey, and pig. The pig was actually just a little piglet and some of the goats were only a few weeks old. It was super adorable to watch them on their little newborn legs.

In typical Willa fashion, she was very tentative at first and gradually warmed up to it. First I had to pet the animals or hold her hand to pet them. After we petted for quite a while, we took a popsicle break. I was planning to take her to the face painting area, but she wanted to go back to the animals. The second time, she was much more comfortable. The petting turned to hugging the animals, kissing the animals, and finally getting down on all fours and pretending to be one of the animals. She also saw one of the goats pooping and told it to, "Push hard!" So helpful!

I had to take this photo of the mom and baby goat. I must have just had a baby, because it made me teary-eyed to see the mom helping the baby take  a nap and being protective. Of course, once some food was sprinkled a few feet away the baby was temporarily abandoned.

The three stages of the petting zoo:

Petting the animal:

Hugging the animal:

Being the animal:

I love this little romper. This was her first time wearing it and I couldn't stop laughing. She looks like she belongs in the background of a 70's disco video with Cher.

June is 3 Months!

We are arriving at the end of infanthood and beginning plain old babyhood. I will miss the tiny baby, endless snuggles, and lots of sleeping. I am looking forward to less sad gassiness and reflux, to regular nap schedules, and to extended night sleeping.

Here is a comparison of her at two and three months. She is definitely growing! She is still a rather long baby and I wonder if the constant spitting up is making her less chunky than she would otherwise be.

She found her hands this month, what a fun tool! She doesn't really look at them, but she is an expert at getting the to her mouth. I love this photo because it looks like she is trying to cram her whole fist in.

She still has the prettiest blue eyes and I suppose I will go ahead and say that I think the blue is here to stay, lucky girl. She really is the prettiest baby, of course I am partial :).

June especially loves smiling and catching your eyes. It's almost like she can't keep herself from smiling when she sees you. Her favorite times to smile are when she has woken up early from a nap and I come to get her. It's hard to resist her when she is just giving the biggest, widest gummy smiles possible. I try not to make eye contact so I can get her back to sleep, but usually her cutest disarms me too much and I end up playing with her and messing up our schedule.

She is still sleeping long stretches, and has slept through the night twice, but not regularly yet. She is still in our room, which is part of the problem. My mom is coming to visit next week and then after that I think we will move her upstairs. I HATE the master bedroom being on a different level than the other bedrooms. At least we have the video monitor. I finally took it off Willa's crib today and put it on June, Willa keeps asking about it and I was sad too. We don't really need it for her anymore, but we love to watch her sleep and it has been there with her since the very beginning. However, it was super nice to see June while she napped today. I noticed her stirring about an hour into her nap. I was able to hurry and reinsert the pacifier before she riled herself up enough to cry. She closed her eyes again and slept another 90 minutes. I love, love, love video monitors. They are worth the money.

June still spits up a lot and has tummy pain, but overall she is a lot better. She still takes reflux medicine twice a day, but I hope to stop that soon. I'm just so excited that she is getting to the stage where I don't have to worry whether what I eat is going to upset her. She has the sweetest temperament most of the time but she can occasionally get very angry. If, for some reason I can't feed her right away- like I am driving the car, and she wants to eat and has to wait five minutes, she will get so mad that when I rush inside to nurse her two minutes later, she will refuse to latch. REFUSE!!!! I have had to put formula in her mouth with a dropper or squirt enough breast milk in until she will taste it and stop screaming. It is bizarre. She also favors nursing on one side, which is annoying. I often have to use the football hold to get her to eat on the other side. She loves her baths still and nothing beats the sweetness of a freshly cleaned baby. We feel very blessed to have our two girls.

Memorial Day

Last Monday our neighborhood pool finally opened. We invited the Thalmans for some Memorial Day swimming and a barbecue. It's nice to have friends to spend holidays with.

Ryan, Willa, and Bridgett:

June and I chilling in the shade. I took her in the kiddie pool for about 15 minutes. I'm assuming she enjoyed herself because there was no crying.

Back at our house for the food. I made the mistake of putting ketchup on Willa's plate with her hamburger. Ketchup is like Baby Crack, so I never give it to her. I don't know what I was thinking. By the end of dinner she had licked up all the ketchup and was putting both her palms on the plate and then licking them trying to get all the remaining drops.

Thalmans brought ice cream cones, Willa had never had it so good.

Night Sleep!

Don't let her perplexed look fool you, this little lady finally slept through the night! I think it was June's way of honoring and ushering the month of June, since today is June 1st. She nursed at 9:30 pm and slept until 6:30 am. She's a little late in the game, but I think that's more my fault and the complexities of balancing multiple kids. She has frequently slept 7-8 hour spurts before, but they were from times like 7 pm -3 am, not quite a full night sleep for me. Of course, I woke up multiple times during the night thinking that she "might" be waking up. I even had the thought, "I'd better get June up and feed her." And then I was like, "What the what, are you crazy? She's sleeping still, let her sleep!"

I also need to brag that I was able to lay her down in her bed today wide awake for her nap and she went right to sleep without a fuss. I did have to replace the pacifier once, but she is getting the hang of it. Sometimes I just want to cuddle and snuggle her instead of laying her down to sleep, but even more, I want her to have good sleep time habits. I feel like with her sweet little personality, if we work on it now we will avoid having to cry it out later.