Ben and the "Bee"

Had to share a cute video of Ben laughing and smiling at "the buzzy bee":


He is such fun these days - laughing and smiling and cooing pretty much all the time. Such a happy baby!

Growing up fast!

Just a brief note to say that Cori is now 100% potty trained!! The other day she just decided she was going to poop in the potty at school, and has followed through at home ever since. We are thrilled!

And she is also in a new car seat - a booster with a back. She was too tall for her Britax; the shoulder strap was on its highest setting but was still below her shoulder which is not recommended. So that is now packed away for Ben (who will need it sooner than later). They do indeed grow so fast!

Here's your cute photo of the day - my sweet crew lounging in bed:

chop chop

Guess who got a bunch of hair cut today?! I am in love with it, and my new stylist rocks! This is the third time I've been to her and felt enough trust to let her cut so much.
I showed her a hair style for inspiration (thanks Chelsea Kane!) and she asked what I liked about the cut and what I didn't like. (The stylist asked, not Chelsea.) And not only did she cut it as I asked, and adjust a few spots as I interjected along the way, but she talked about how to style it - what works, what won't work, why it wont work, etc. Rock star stylist!! And all for $40 - so worth it!Self pictures are so hard, but I think it's fairly obvious that I really look like my mom! Like, identical! It's almost scary!

Stash

This weekend we finally got a second fridge, but mostly for the freezer space. Our current freezer was full, totally full, of frozen breast milk... to the point where we couldn't buy any more frozen food items. This stash is just from Sept through now and each bag is 5 or 6 ozs.
This is one of 5 freezers in use - my mom, my mother in law, my father in law, and my friend Sara all have freezers full of frozen stash from me (since I had run out of room from July). As much as I hate pumping at times, seeing this makes me proud of my efforts! I think we're set to be able to give Ben breast milk for a long time since I don't plan to stop pumping anytime soon.

Autumn at our place

Fall is our favorite time of year around here... so much so that we even considered naming Corinne "Autumn" when we were first going through baby names. Since this is our first fall season in the new house, we had extra fun decorating.

Our entrance and house in evening.

Cozy spot to sit:

Beautiful view from our backyard, and only about half the trees have peaked in color:Fall by the fire:

Carved pumpkin:

Our Lenox halloween tree:

Some neat leaf lanterns:

Trick or Treat!

More pumpkin candles:

Happy Autumn from our house to yours!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

6 years ago on this day:

Back at work

Yesterday was my first day back at work, and Ben's first day at daycare. I wasn't worried about how he'd do at daycare - he's an easy going kid and I love the ladies who are looking after him. What I was worried about was how we'd get ready and out the door on time and all together.

I woke up at 5:30 and the adrenaline kicked in fairly easily.... I was looking forward to a "required" shower instead of just a 3 minute fast-as-can-be shower. Putting on make up and making effort to look presentable sounded heavenly! I'm happy to say that things went fairly smoothly, though I'm sure both Dave and I were tired under it all.

We managed to snap a quick picture on the iPhone of the morning. (Apologies for the grainy quality - our DSR camera's battery was dead.) Ben doesn't look too happy to be leaving Mama (that's what I told myself).
Things seemed to be going well until I left for work, got half way there and then realized I forgot half my stuff in the fridge. Whoops! I had to turn around, which made me late. Dave also forgot his lunch and didn't realize it until he was at work, so there was no turning around to be had for him. But overall, we didn't forget our laptops or kids, so that's good right?

The day passed fairly quickly for me. Lots of things to catch up on, and it was great to see my work friends. The day wasn't without its challenges though; a laughable moment occurred when I was pumping in the afternoon. What you need to know is that I work in a male dominated industry and building (there are only about a dozen females in the building) and there is really NO place to pump (unlike our HQ building which actually has a designated lactation room outfitted with comfy chairs, privacy curtains, fridges for storing breast milk, etc. )

Since I just have a cube and no door, there really isn't any place for me to pump. I will not pump in the bathroom. So they've given me access to what is basically a large storage closet for the computer servers. Only 2 people in the building have an access key, so it's small chances that anyone will enter. And the sign I place on the door hopefully keeps those 2 people out.

Well, yesterday as I'm finishing pumping, the power went out in the building! So there I am in a pitch black closet, fairly exposed so to speak. I buttoned up and attempted to find my way to the door. I imagine if anyone would have seen me inside, I'd have looked like a drunken person stumbling into things left and right. I finally managed to make it to the door (about 20 feet) and open the door to find a friend running to me with a flash light. Thank goodness someone was coming to get me! Apparently an HVAC unit was smoking badly and filing the building with awful electrically smelling smoke. Not sure if I would have heard any alarms as I had my ipod playing and my earphones in. It was quite a few minutes! My poor friend said she was just glad I was clothed as she wasn't sure what she'd find when she opened up the door....

Picking up the kids went fine and we went home and the crazy hour of trying to bring everything in / give the kids my attention / prepping dinner / waiting for Dave to get home started. I figured that dinner (spinach salad with almonds, strawberries, Gorgonzola cheese and shredded chicken) called for some wine!
Sometime around 9 PM, my adrenaline rush fizzled out, or the wine kicked in, or both. I was exhausted!! I couldn't even stay awake for my favorite TV show Castle at 10 PM. I got up at 1 AM to pump and felt like a train hit me. My head was pounding and I was so, so exhausted! I had no clue how I was going to get up in 4.5 hours and do this all again. Somehow I woke up, the Tylenol had kicked in (thank goodness) and I made it out the door only a few minutes late. But I have no clue how long I can keep this up, and it's only day 2!

Walk for Apraxia

This weekend has been a total washout weather wise... cool and rainy both days. But without the rain, we can't have rainbows! (Note that this photo isn't from this weekend; it's from earlier this week. It's been raining a lot here!)
I'm just thankful that this weekend's weather wasn't what we had last weekend. Our niece Kadence has speech Apraxia. If you arn't familiar with what that is, Apraxia is characterized by loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, despite having the desire and the physical ability to perform the movements. Those with this condition are unable to execute speech movements because of motor planning and coordination problems. We participated again in a walk to bring awareness to the issue, and the walk is outside in North Park. Luckily we had great weather last weekend.

Team Kadence:Lots of sponsors were there and there were lots of activities for the kids.
Ben got to pretend drive a huge firetruck!

Cori got her face painted, and so did Kad:

Ben hanging out with his uncle Dave.

He was sad when he was returned back to Mom & Dad

We're very proud of the great strides that Kadence has made; she's worked really hard, though we'd love her no matter what!!!

Haircut

Happy October! Our favorite month around here..... I've been enjoying the last weekend of my maternity leave, but most of it has been indoors. Today it's rainy, cold and in the low 40's around here! Brrr!!! We have the fireplace on and the chili is cooking on the stove.

Earlier today we went to get some hair cuts. I just needed a trim - I'm growing it out so I can shop it all off again (it's a weird obsession) and I wanted to show Cori that hair cuts don't hurt since she needed one badly. Here are here "before" shots; like they said in our favorite movie Tangled "That's a lot of hair!"
Cori did fantastic during the cut. I think the movie playing and the customized kids seats helped a lot! Cori was in a Blue Angel plane.The after result! (Note the fat lip from her splitting her lip yesterday - she's okay!)

Having Fun

Ben continues to grow and grow! He is obviously eating well, but his sleep is also lengthening out. Last night we had a 5 hr stretch, he woke up & ate, then went back to sleep for 4 hours. Nice! I think he is starting to want to roll, or at least he is leaning heavily to one side.
This adorable outfit is a hand-me-down from sweet Connor. Ben is my little rock lobster!
Cori is spending tonight at her Um-ma's house. Daddy's joy at a "free" night may not be all that obvious:
Having fun with the camera:
Cori has been sleeping really well since my prior post about her sleep. We got a new gate that she can't open and aside from a usual waking once a night to ask for more to drink (the girl is the opposite of a camel... what IS opposite of a camel by the way??) she doesn't cry or fuss. And sometimes she just sleeps straight through. So crisis averted for now!

10 weeks

Ben is 10 weeks today - time flies!! Our little chunky man is weighing in at 13 lbs, 12 ozs and is 24 inches long. Wow - considering he was born a full pound less than Cori and she only weighted 13 lbs at this point, our little man is a full 2 lbs (and half an inch) ahead of his sister.

Ben has been smiling and cooing and laughing up a storm. We can't always capture it on the camera but this recent picture is too cute to not share.
This also means I only have 2 weeks left of my maternity leave. Time has flown by. While i'm looking forward to getting back to work in one way, I'm also sad that I won't be able to be at home anymore and relax (as much as a new mom who also has a toddler can "relax- ha ha). I'm also a little nervous about trying to get all of us up and showered and ready to go by 7 AM! Yikes!

We woke up this morning to a chilly 39 degrees, and the view from the house was so pretty!
Stay warm folks!

Sleep

My apologies in advance if you don't have kids, or if you do but they don't have any sleep issues.... you most likely will find this post a snooze fest.

A constant reading companion of mine is Dr. Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems book... it talks about how anxiety is common at night and a frequent source of bedtime struggles. While most kids can control anxiety during the day thanks to distractions and activity, at night they may begin to worry while waiting for sleep to come. The ability to control one's thoughts and feelings diminishes as one gets sleepy, and because of this children often regress at night. Thus a 5 yr old at night may need the reassurance that a 3 yr old would during the day. At night, the child gives up what little control she has over her world. Anxiety is very common at this age, even for a child who goes off to school very confidently.

A few things we've done that have seemed to have helped have been to move her bedtime back a little bit. She was taking a very long time to fall asleep, and she doesn't need as much sleep at 3 as she did at 2 so I don't think there is any harm in that. Cori still naps most days for about 2 hrs; the average 3 yr old needs a total of 11 hrs of sleep a day. With a 2 hr nap, that would mean 9 hrs at night. Since Cori wakes at 7 AM usually, her bedtime should be around 10. But I feel that is way too late, so now were doing a 9 PM bedtime and she is usually asleep by 9:30.

Unfortunately one thing we also did (that is causing the most problems) is that we removed the baby gate from her door way. She figured out how to open it, so we just took it down. Cori has a hard time staying in her room every so often; for a while, she was coming into our room frequently and asking what we were doing or laying down on our floor at 4 AM (unknown to us!) and going to sleep. We didn't put up another gate but I think we'll have to. An interesting passage from Ferber is below:

The cornerstone of setting limits at night is ensuring that the child stays in the room where she should be sleeping. If she doesn't, you can't enforce any rules. Now who is in control? To enforce rules, you have to use a barrier such as a gate or a door. Threats and punishments are counterproductive; a young child shouldn't be punished for lack of self-control at night, when self-control is hardest. The temptation to leave is just too strong.

There is still a bit of a "power struggle" between Cori and myself. If I do not go right to bed, she throws a tantrum. And by tantrum, I mean full out screaming at top of lungs, flailing, etc. She doesn't act that way with Dave, but yet she insists on having me put her to bed. So I'm often held hostage to her demands and having to go right to my room until she falls asleep and I can sneak down. To keep the peace (esp with Ben sleeping) I've done so, but it drives me batty. I'd like to be able to do what I need to do without her freaking out. Unfortunately no amount of explaining makes it better for her. She doesn't care that I'm doing boring chores or anything - she just wants me up in my room asleep. Again - she is just trying to control the situation. I have to decide if I want to do what I need to do outside of my room (causing her to scream and wake her brother and to delay her own bedtime a long time with her tantrum) or just give in and do things in my room at that time.

We've struggled with limit setting in regards to sleep, and we've been inconsistent at times. I think this has made the problem more complex. We're unraveling it as best as we can, and praying we figure it all out before Ben gets into this phase. At least I know the upcoming 4 month sleep regression that is headed our way won't last forever.

Now, does anyone have any good recommendations for a baby gate that toddlers can't open??

What we've been up to...

It's been a while - time passes by so quickly! How is it September already? Fall is right around the bend!

Ben is 2 months old and doing really well. He is so alert and just watches things (esp his big sister) and is smiling more and more. This past week he started going longer sleep periods at night. It's nothing constant - for the most part the boy still wakes every 3 hrs to eat - but we've had some 4 & 5 hr stretches thrown in the mix. He's still very laid back and has been sleeping in his crib in his room for a few weeks now.
We took Ben on his first big car ride this past weekend when we went to Connecticut to visit Dave's step-sisters and family. It's normally an 8 hr drive straight; considering we had to stop to feed Ben often, we made great time on the way up. He did great (Cori too) and we really had a wonderful visit. We spent most of the time visiting family and allowing Cori to play with her cousins and the family to fawn over Ben. Cori also made a big fuss over the dog! Next time we plan to stay much longer than a long weekend and go into NYC and up to Boston with the kids and enjoy the sights.

Cori continues to do well for the most part. I think that the things we struggle with are things that are normal struggles for this age - exerting her independence, limit controls, occasional not so strong listening skills. Our biggest struggle continues to be sleep. For me, the worst part is simply that one night it's bad, then another it is totally fine. I'll think that we're "in the clear" and then BOOM! - setback. But that is a topic for another post....

With only 3 weeks of maternity leave left, I sometimes laugh at the things I thought I'd be able to do having 12 weeks off at home. Time just goes so fast each day in taking care of Ben and catching an occasional cat nap. Now I laugh that I thought I'd be able to do things like paint when there are days (like today) when I wasn't even able to shower! But in the end, it's just nice to be home with my little man and remember how blessed we are.