Oh boy!

Clara said the funniest thing at bedtime tonight that I just needed to document it because it was just too much. She was laying down for Matt to put on her diaper after her bath. "I opened Clara's BUTT!" is basically what she said as she lay with her legs in the air and she prepared her heiney to get diapered. I was dying, I thought it was hilarious. It was not just that she said that, but how she said it with her deep silly voice!

She also kept saying, "I'm fighting, I'm fighting" as she was giving Matt a hard time while he was getting ready for bed.

Almost there!

Ellis is almost crawling. Today he learned some sort of strange sidewinding trick that does propel him forward but it is almost PAINFUL to watch. He sort of turns 1/4 of the way over and then pushes himself forward as he rights himself. It works but it is very slow and his knees are completely red from the effort. It won't be long before he really starts going! Tomorrow we start his gym class and I remember Clara really motoring after we started that class. He is pretty determined these days about learning how to do it. I would say a week ago, if something was out of his grasp, he would just complain about it. My bet is by the end of the week. Watch out world! Here comes Ellis!

Wednesday Last Week

Last week, Clara at breakfast turned to me and said, Heather and Preston are coming today. It's Wednesday. And she was right! I had talk about the day of the week each day is SOMETIMES but I did not think that I did it often enough for her to pick it up like that. That kid is smart. I must have made such a big deal telling everyone what Clara said that she now insists most days are Wednesday!

Those darn purple "socks"

Yesterday when Heather got Clara up from her nap, Clara was wearing those purple knit booties that Grandma gave her a while ago and had them stuffed into her crocs. She insisted that she needed to wear these for the rest of the afternoon. Why not, they were comfortable enough to sleep in! By the end of the day, her feet had knitted creases in them and had to be DARN hot considering it was almost 90 degrees outside and she ran around eating an apple and going down a slide in them for over half an hour. She almost seemed relieved to take them off at the end of the day. This post is reminding me that I should find them and HIDE them. No ones needs to be wearing purple handknitted booties in shoes while running through the sprinkler in summer! Her obsession with crocs is more than enough for one person to deal with :). She loves the fact that we have the same matching gold mary jane crocs. I myself love them but Clara has taken that love to a new obsession. She wears them all the time. With pajamas, fancy feet or not and apparently they are also great to nap in. They watch her from her stool at night while she sleeps. On her right foot, she has Dory and Nemo Jibbitz. And on her left foot, she has a Daddy Car (Lightning McQueen) and a Mater and a C (Insert ridiculous smile here). They are her constant summer companions. I am glad she likes them!

Finger Man and DaDADA

Ellis started really babbling in the last couple of days. It is pretty funny. Matt was the one that got him to really do it. He was saying Dadadada to him and he repeated it. He also has his own version of Yayayaya. He does this funny thing with his tongue. Last night in the middle of the night, he started to babble and he was a bit looney this evening doing it.

He also loves to discover things with just his pointer fingers. He was doing that the other day when Matt brought his a new toy and he had his fingers ready to go. Just his pointer ones. He likes to touch the details of things. Matt said it was like a Mars Probe the way he had his fingers at the ready to to touch things. It is the perfect comparison!

May

Before the month of May disappears, I better get a blog in before I forget what is going on! Clara is ALMOST in her big girl bed. About two weeks ago Matt and I were talking about getting a dresser for her room and we commented that we needed to get her to sleep in her big girl bed before we had room for a dresser in there since a crib and a bed takes up a lot of room! Well we were in Ellis' room and Clara ran into her bed, curled up and asked to sleep in there. And she did! The whole night without a peep. The next day, her nap did not happen in there but I did create a chart with fishy stickers. For each time she sleeps in her bed without crying or screaming, she gets a sticker. For 7 stickers, a prize! Things are going OK, though today for her nap and right now, at night, she is in her crib. Not sure that that regression is about! It might just be easier to take out the crib and not give her the option. We'll see what we can do.

Onto Ellis news, he is in the complete octopus arm stage. He is so quick and grabs about everything he can. Clara is getting a taste for what really having a baby brother is like, he always wants what she has!

Clara is really into her Snowball cat right now. She likes to bring it everywhere she goes and this evening she actually kicked Ellis because she thought Ellis was going to touch Snowball. I don't think she intentionally wanted to kick him but they were on a blanket in the yard and when he went for it, she kicked her feet in anger and he got in the way. He cried.

Ellis really likes to roll around now. Changing his diaper is a bit more difficult because the first thing that he does when his diaper is off is roll over. He has not quite figured out how to get to a specific destination while rolling but he can get around. It won't be long before he is crawling I think. Feeding him is going OK. He really thinks he can feed himself which is frustrating because it is not the most efficient of CLEANEST way to do it. Sometimes he east something but other times he gets so frustrated nothing happens but a good old fat tantrum. He still nurses like a champ though!

Rolling again

Ellis finally rolled over from his back to his front with a LOT of cajooling. I basically had to dangle a toy at the right angle to get him to roll over. He easily did it too, he just did not WANT to do it!

He is sitting so well. We can finally walk away and he only falls over if he is tired. Clara is beginning to have fun playing with him. I was getting us all ready to head out on Monday morning and Clara was playing with a toy with him. It was nice to see.

Sitting!

Ellis started sitting in the last week or so. He is getting very good at it and only falls over when he is tired. He also started holding out his arms when he wants to be picked up. Something Matt discovered while I was gone in DC for Kelly's Bachelorette party. They must have bonded this past weekend, which is really nice. Matt is now more likely to pick him up before I do! I like to see that.

Clara barely noticed that I was gone but she was happy to see me. Clara and Ellis were both in good moods yesterday when we played around, I think they missed me! Though on Sunday night, I think Ellis was sort of mad at me and was extra cranky with me. He is nursing like crazy right now though! They mowed through my breastmilk in the freezer because the doctor cut him back to breastmilk and rice cereal because of the hives he had late last week. There is nothing like trying to leave when your kid breaks out into mysterious red spots. Lovely.

Ellis at 6 months

Ellis had his 6 month checkup yesterday. He is 15 lbs 7 oz and 26 1/2 inches long. This officially makes him too long for his car seat! Oops! We will have to switch soon. Clara was the same length but at 17 lbs at the same age. Ellis is getting closer to sitting but is pretty darn stubborn about not wanting to do it. He is certainly strong enough he just likes to jut out his pelvis. He likes to stand on his two legs though and supports his weight for a long time on them. He has Elvis' hips when he does it though! Ellis has been almost sleeping through the night. He likes to go down around 7 and if you wait too long he gets pretty darn cranky. Sometimes he gets up around the midnight hour and lately around 6 AM. Sometimes he goes back to sleep but this morning he was so happy and cooing that we were up with him until about 7:15.

Food is going OK. Ellis really likes the rice cereal and loves to eat it fast. He gets cranky though when he starts getting full. So far we have tried peas and he ate those but apples and sweet potatoes really made him mad. They basically end the meal even if he has only had a couple of bites of rice cereal because he hates the taste so much. There is a lot of gagging and anger!

adj.

Clara LOVES to use adjectives to describe everything and it always cracks me up. New fresh clean diaper. New fresh cold white milk. It makes me laugh and we certainly encourage it giving her new adjectives to learn every day. The latest ones I have been doing are trying to teach her obscure colors like turquoise and peach. She is getting good at those two. Magenta was a bit hard for her to grasp though.

Third day of food

We did dinner again with Ellis. I took 2 ounces of formula and mixed it would two tablespoons of cereal. He got frustrated in the middle of the meal and I picked him up because he was getting upset. He proceeded to barf the whole meal all over me, or at least I thought. I was not prepared for the second round of barf that came shortly after! Not sure what that was about but I will keep a close eye on it. He had a red rash on the left side of his face but sometimes his face gets really flushed when he is tired.

Ellis' big week

Ellis is just short of 6 months old and had a HUGE week this week. It was the week we traveled to NJ and he changed so much in the short time that we were away.

Ellis rolled over for the first time on March 15th. He rolled from tummy to back when he was on the floor of Cherie's house. He did it again later so he has the taste for moving now! He even sort of scoots just the littlest bit forward when he is on his tummy out of efforts to roll over.

Ellis also gives kisses now. He will grab your face and like all over your face. I am pretty certain that he does it on purpose! He is so sweet. He is ALMOST sitting. Very close to sitting for a short period of time. I know he wants to because when you sit him on the boppy he will try and sit up. He is getting stronger tummy muscles.

We also started Ellis on rice cereal on Sunday. He LOVED it. I knew he was ready because he was very into watching other people eat and seems to want to participate in meals. We gave him his first meal while he was in his exersaucer at breakfast on Sunday. He knew exactly what to do and there was no denying that he likes food. He was so excited about food last night, he was kicking his legs all over the place. I ran out of food and he obviously wanted more, started complaining to me. But as of dinner last night, he had not pooped. I am going to start him on peas tomorrow night! I am sure that will go well.

Ellis is now sleeping in his crib at nights and for naps. He seems to be falling into the pattern of three naps a day. Good news for us! He just needs to start sleeping through the night. I think Matt got a taste of my nights when we were on vacation. A bit sleepless and looney!

Almost 5 months

All of sudden a month has gone by without me writing anything down! Ellis is so amazing. We are having a ton of fun with him. He is SO close to rolling over but not quite there yet. I think it is so funny to watch him try and do something so hard but I don't think he is clear on exactly what he is trying. He gets so frustrated so easily though when he wants to do something and he can't. Like if he wants to get a toy in his mouth and he can't do it, he starts to SCREAM! He still has that high pitched scream and the angrier he gets the higher pitched it gets. It is really funny actually.

He has this funny laugh that he does when he is upset too. He is a really good complainer. Likes to talk it up when he is upset and wants something else. Sometimes it is easy to talk him out of it. For example you just do something silly, like a funny noise or a funny dance and he has this guffaw laugh that he does when he swings from annoyed to happy. And sometimes he does that same laugh when he almost seems like he is trying to talk himself out of a cranky mood. He cracks us up!

There are very specific things that Ellis does not like. Tshirts, not being held when he wants to be, being up too late past his bedtime and hunger are among them. Otherwise, he is such a great and easy going baby. We are very lucky!

Clara is enjoying her newly reorganized room. We moved the bed out of Ellis' room and put it into hers and she LOVES it. We have not let her sleep in it yet though she really really wants to. She loves to run in there and bury herself in the bed. She is pretty insistent on it. I actually had to change her clothes and diaper while she was in the bed today! A little nuts. We need to get bed rails before we allow her to sleep in the bed though. I think she is really going to like it once we let her, though I am curious to see if she is going to walk all around when she gets that new freedom. We will see!

Suck that bottom lip

Ellis starting doing the funniest thing last night. He was in his bath, something that he is mildly OK with as long as he can look at himself in the mirror, and he started sucking on his bottom lip when I did something he did not like, for exampe, washing his hair or scrubbing his ear. All day today he was sucking on his lip. It was pretty funny. When he saw me or when he was bored, he would make these loud smacking sounds with his lips. It really was very cute.

Ellis at almost 4 months

Ellis is changing every day. He is beginning to show signs of wanting to roll over. He'll pick up his legs up high and turn to one side. For the most part, he was doing it to the right but the other day he did it to the left when he was trying to grab Clara. He accidentally grabbed her hair and you can imagine how much she liked that!

Ellis loves things that Clara did not like when she was a baby. He likes to be rough-housed a bit. It makes him giggle. The kid has a great laugh! He is so easy going and easy to read. I am grateful that I have had easy babies! He is getting better about laying on his stomach, sometimes he likes it but he still tires of it quickly. He is doing a good job. It will be nice when he can hang out like that a little bit more.

He just loves people. Clara would often coo and toys but Ellis does not do it unless it is a person. If there is someone in his face, he is pretty happy! Definitely a people person. He is not sleeping through the night yet, though with my kids, I certainly did not expect that! On a good night, I will put him down at 8, feed him at 11 when I go to bed, and he will wake up at 5 and sleep until 8. On a bad night, enter in waking up at 1 and 3 in there. It is amazing how your body gets used to no sleep. It is only when he does that a couple of nights in a row that I get super tired.

Clara is amazing at how fast she is learning and comprehending. The other day, I was writing out her name and she knew most of the letters. She knew C, thought L was a K, knew A and thought R was a K. After a few times she recognized it all. She wanted me to spell Mommy and Daddy as well.

A couple interesting Clara stories was Matt was wearing his Superman shirt and Clara thought it was a pizza. The shape and color are right!

I was at a MOMS club meeting and a women inappropriately grabbed Ellis from me when I was cleaning chalk off of Clara's hands. Clara got so upset. She started saying, "Mommy hold Ellis?" over and over again. Each time she said it she got more upset. It was interesting to see her get upset over this lady holding Ellis. Maybe she likes him after all!

My kids won't sleep

Ellis is having such a hard time learning to take naps during the day. He is very particular and likes it VERY quite so when the kids are upstairs playing, he often wakes up and won't sleep because he hears things going on.

Over the weekend, Clara did not take a nap the whole time. We would go through the motions of putting her down and she just lay awake talking to herself and listening to her fishes for about two hours! No complaining, which is good. She needs the downtime anway! She did it three days in a row and then again during the middle of the week. I don't know if this is heading down the path of no nap, I sure hope not.

Giggle giggle giggle

Ellis giggled for the first time in the last couple of days. This morning was his first real laugh. I can always get him in a pretty good mood right after he wakes up for the first time in the morning. When I am changing his diaper I'll say hi and touch his cheeks. That always gets BIG smiles. And when I kiss his cheek and neck, he laughs! It is so darn cute. I love it :)

Ellis at almost 3 months

Ellis is changing so fast it is just darn right scary. He is such a good baby though he LOVES to be held. He has not exactly fallen into a routine yet, I am waiting for that to happen. He loves to nurse and when he is done, he likes to stretch his arms. His hand still has a bit of a nervous newborn reflex to it when he does that, where it sort of vibrates slowly back and forth. I remember Clara doing that too. Ellis loves to look around and see what is going on, and often when there is something interesting going on, it causes lots of smiles!

Clara is more and more interactive each day. She has such an opinion on things it is funny. You can really have a conversation with her now. It might be about something little like if she likes a certain food or not but it is a lot different than it was a few months ago. You can really see her brain working!

Oh my how we grow

Ellis is growing so fast. I blink my eyes, and all of a sudden he has grown out of his 0-3 clothes and I have to go to the store and get him a whole new wardrobe of 3-6. And he is only 2 months and 2 weeks old! He is really beginning to interact with us, smiles when you say hi. He even has this sound that sounds just like "Hi". His happy place is on his changing "pad" in the spare bedroom downstairs. After you change his diaper, he is all smiles. And he has such a HUGE big smile that just takes over his whole face. He is so sweet! He already has me wrapped around his little finger. He has been sleeping OK by himself at night in his bassinett. But during the day it is still a struggle, he really likes his swing but I don't want him getting too used to it! At night, he wakes from 2-4 times. A lot for his age I think but he falls back asleep quickly when I nurse him.

I have been trying to do tummy time with him every day at least for a little while. He is getting better at it but is often not a big fan of it!

Clara is getting older and older every day. She basically can do the whole alphabet on her own and sing "Twinkle Twinkle" from start to finish on her own. We started to let her watch television. Right now, the big hit is "Frosty the Snowman". She can watch it over and over again if we let her!

Today for breakfast, for the first time, she asked for something that was not right in front of her or something that she did not have recently. I don't even remember the last time she had eggs for breakfast but she asked for them and ate them! I don't mind making if she actually EATS it! Her gums are swollen today and I think that she is getting her two year molars.

Ellis - first three weeks

Ellis is now three weeks old. He is doing pretty well though I do spend the nights sleeping with him and I am hoping that ends soon! His nickname is Angry Man though. When he is unhappy, he tells us LOAD AND CLEAR. He goes from 0-60 in less than one second. He does love to be held though and it is hard to argue with that because he cuddles up close to you.

Wearing him the sling has helped a lot. Giving me some hands to have free to do things around the house. Clara seems to be adjusting OK. She has been asking repeatedly for Mommy and Daddy hugs so she is a little bit starved for attention. I feel bad for her sometimes but when I am nursing Ellis and she is trying to sit in my lap, it makes it a little hard.

Ellis is almost in 0-3 clothes. The one pieces work well but the two piecer newborn sizes still fit him well. It is just a matter of how to keep his socks on! I looked back at Clara's baby book and he is about a week ahead of her on that.

I think that Ellis smiled at me today. I was talking to him while he was awake and I thought I saw a fleeting smile! It is so hard to tell because he does it in his sleep so often. They are really so sweet when they do that.

He still has his quivering lip and when he stretches, his hands still twitch. I forgot how sweet that is, you forget about all those newborn quirks until they are right in front of your face. A lot of the times, he makes faces that remind me so much of Clara. He purses his lips like Clara and it is amazing how much they look alike when they do things like that.