Rocker chick

So all weekend Kylie has had her tongue stuck out. Not just a little- more like she has been watching too many Kiss videos. Coupled with a little crankiness, and lots of drool, this girl might be actually getting a tooth finally. Jace got his first tooth at 7 month old and Kylie is going on 10 months old and has none. Just one more thing, on a very long list, of the differences between my two children. But we don't have a visual of the tooth yet, so who knows.

Jace is doing world's better at swim lessons this time around. I am not sure if it is because this teacher seems more interested in making sure he feels comfortable (the other was all business), or he just had a better idea of what was going to happen. Whatever it is I am glad he is having fun. He walks through the door by himself, with no prodding- yeah!

Crazy Mommy Weekend

Well this weekend it was Mother's day and my birthday all rolled into one. I had Friday off, but spent most of it working on projects for Jace's room. I sewed some curtains and a bed skirt, and made a cornice. I also put some vinyl stickers up- supposed to be the easiest. Well within 20 minutes they had all peeled off. I used them because when he outgrows construction equipment I just wanted to peel them off with no damage to the wall. Well I ended up using scrapbook adhesive, and so far it is holding. Here is the end result.

There is still more to do, but I have to decide what that is exactly.

Mother's day was pretty low key. I did get to sleep in a little so that was nice. I scrapbooked a lot (I had not done any since January). But looking at all those pics reminded me that I had not taken many lately, so I broke out the camera.

Tomorrow we start swimming lessons again. It is a two week class. We started this once before but Jace missed the second week because he had a bad stomach bug. I am hoping it goes better this time- he was pretty scared. He had started to warm up at the end so I am hoping we pick up there. Tonight we practiced in the tub- I am crossing my fingers.

Progress

Geez, I keep saying I will get back to weekly posts but I am not there quite yet. So we have had a couple progress reports as of late:

#1: Kylie has started taking some first steps. Of course using a walker, but walking nonetheless. She just turned 9 months old! Jace was at least 11 months old when he started this all.. And she pulls up on things with the greatest of ease and is getting brave enough to let go every once in a while. I am sure running is around the corner (especially if Jace's teasing continues).


#2: As I already mentioned Kylie turned 9 months old April 17th. Time flies so fast. She weighed in at 18#7.5oz(25-50%) and 27.5"(50%). We are definitely noticing some of her baby chub is disappearing. She is on a faster track than Jace was except in one department- still no teeth!

#3: Kylie has outgrown her duck tub. Tonight was her first bath in a real tub. I felt adventurous and decided to let Jace join in. They had lots of fun.



#4: I am hoping I am not jinxing this as I write, but Jace has made progress in the potty training department. After using pull-ups for a month, and fighting him every time to go potty, we talked to the school and went to underwear. He only had one accident a day. And then this weekend none (outside of naps)! We also crossed a big hurdle- going potty in public restrooms. He hates loud noises so flushing toilets and hand dryers strike fear in him. We we were out to dinner and poor thing had to go #2. We went to the potty six times. I finally convinced him to go, promising we would not have to flush (of course I did after he left the stall). After that he has gone all weekend long, and we ran lots of errands this weekend. I am really hoping we have made a step forward, but realize there will be little steps back every once in a while.

#5: I rarely post about myself.. But I got a new job! Still with Ineos, but it is a promotion. I am now the Feedstock Supply Manager. I am responsible for making sure we have feeds for two of our plants. A lot more interaction with the outside world. It has been fun so far.

One day this weekend was miserably hot and humid- I am sure just a taster of what the summer will be like. But I could have done without it. Our outside time was in short increments, so here we are blowing bubbles.



And we had another photo session with Laura. It went fairly well considering it did not start until 5PM and Kylie is usually in bed by 6:45. I love the sneak peaks:

http://www.studiobloomphoto.com/blog/?p=986

Three Strikes We Are Out

So again I went missing again, geez, for over a month. To put it nicely it has been chaotic.

#1: Steve and I went on a real vacation- no kids! My parents came to watch them a few days while we ventured off to Asheville, NC. We stayed at the Inn on the Biltmore Estate- it was gorgeous. We had a fun and very relaxing time. The only thing that could have been better was the weather. Just like spring weather anywhere it was unpredictable. When we flew in it was in the 70s but then the next two days it was in the 40s. So maybe would have been better to wait a couple more weeks- plus the flowers were just starting to bloom. Neither of us packed for it to be quite that cold, so we just wore lots of layers.

Steve wanted to document that I asked to go on a carriage ride when it was 40F outside.

#2- Easter. Steve's mom and niece came to visit for a couple days. Jace and Kylie were thoroughly spoiled. We went to the zoo- Kylie's first trip.

It also gave us some time to work on projects. We converted Jace's toddler bed into a full size bed. Ever since we moved him upstairs a year ago I had not decorated his room knowing that once we converted his bed I would get all new bedding. So we have gone with a construction theme. We painted his room (over the course of the next two weeks) and Steve put up a chair rail. I think Steve is done with construction projects for a while (or until I threaten to hire someone again)- he had some rework on the chair rail and had to call out an electrician after the room lost power when he was hammering in a nail. It was a lot of work, but we like the way it turned out- all for a 2 year olds room...

Jace's room- stage #1. Paint and chair rail.



#3 sick kids. Easter Sunday Jace did not eat very well, which is not like him- and by mid morning he had thrown up the two M&Ms we had let him have. As the day went on he started doing a little better, so we thought it was maybe a 24 hour bug or something he ate. By Monday afternoon they called from daycare that he had a fever. He had picked up a full-on stomach bug that I later found out had started to spread at school the week before. Jace never had a stomach bug that lasted longer than a day, so this was new to us. It took him a couple days, but besides being tired, a mild fever, and an upset stomach it was not too severe. Then Thursday morning Kylie caught it. When I put her to bed the night before she was happy, and had eaten well. When we went to get her the next morning she was dangerously cold (94F), had diarrhea and was not very responsive. So we quickly took her to the ER- our first trip with a kid. They ran a series of tests on her and took x-rays and nothing showed up so that coupled with the fact that her temperature had come up and she was more alert after getting her hooked up to an IV they chalked it up to her getting dehydrated. That day she was not very happy- she did not feel well, I am sure, plus she was not very happy to be getting small doses of pedialyte- she wanted to eat. But by Friday afternoon she had gotten much better and was back to her normal self by Saturday. It hit her a lot harder than Jace, but she got over it quicker.

So we got the kids back to healthy (for now), and I started getting things back to where they had been almost four weeks ago. I need another break....

Ride'em Cowboy

We took the kids over to the rodeo last weekend. Well we actually did not see any of the rodeo (we figured neither of them would sit still long enough), but we did go to the carnival and the Agventure to see the animals. Kylie rode her first longhorn! When we walked in we were amazed how all these small children/babies were sitting on that thing- well they do a great job hiding it, but there is someone back there holding them. The animal was heavily sedated but still made me a little nervous.

Jace loved all the rides. He ran from one to the other. We learned a lesson. He got on the jeep ride, and it started bouncing up and down a lot, which we were afraid would terrify him but as you can see from the picture he loved it. But we made sure to watch the rides first before putting our two year old on them, from then on.

On our way home from dinner last night Jace was singing, Row-Row-Row Your Boat. We thought he had skipped to another song, but then realized it all rhymed. I guess there is another verse we never knew for this song. He taught us something.

Talkers and Movers

Jace's vocabulary is really expanding, and he is starting to put together gramatically correct sentences. So in order to keep up, Kylie started talking as well this week. Some might call it babbling, but nonethless it is cute. She has started with the always popular, b-b-b.

So she is a talker now, and has got the moving thing down as well. She takes a couple crawls and then resorts back to army crawling. Either way she quickly gets anywhere she wants to go.

Hermann Park

Well this weekend has been gorgeous so we decided to venture a little further from home. Jace has been to the zoo many times, but we never has just packed a lunch and spent some time at the park, which is bad because it is so beautiful. So we did just that. The only rule for us about going is that we go early to beat the crowds. By the time we left around 1PM it was a mad house of people trying to get in. Jace had so much fun while we were there- they have multiple playgrounds and then a lake as well. The picnic lunch was an adventure (I would not expect any less) because Jace could not be still so he was continuously sitting/stepping on food. And in the end Jace and I road the train back to the depot and Steve picked us up- no lines to get on and we did not have to pay since we only road half way so it worked out really well. Both kids passed out on the trip home- a sign of a good time.