Olivia and Madelyn's Tit for Tat

-Just a little note: This blog entry has been in the works for three months now.  It is amazing how much can change in the life of a baby in just a few weeks.  So as you read this understand that I had to cut it off at some point, or I would be constantly revising! 

A January afternoon we took this picture in their new shirts!

I can hardly believe how much our family has changed since our last update!  Olivia is now 28 months (almost 2.5 years) and Madelyn is almost 7.5 months!  Lil Miss Madelyn has come so far in the past two months.  The combination of starting daycare, the RSV virus, Christmas and New Year, plus the adjustment to the crib, another ear infection and her feeding schedule all out of whack, she was at her limit by the end of January!  We have really worked with Miss Sharon to get her eating and sleeping habits balanced. She is now a much happier and adjusted baby.  Olivia continues to thrive, speak more clearly and in complete sentences, and is developing quite an imagination.   So here are the highlights of the fun new things the girls are doing based on a game we play, "Tit for Tat."

Eating

Loving the cereal! 

Madelyn has started solid foods.  She had her first taste of cereal around her five month birthday, and at six months we started introducing Gerber foods.  We started with green beans, and she hated them!  I thought her awful face was due to the fact she had never eaten them before, but as we tried other foods, I realized that she does not like green beans.  So far she has tasted, bananas, apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, and pears.  We have also tried peas, but she really hates all food that is green!  However, she wants whatever is in our hands, so she will eat green beans and peas.  I guess she hates that baby food; can't blame her! 

Prunes all over her face!

It has taken quite a bit of adjustment to get her bottle schedule set during the day.  It seems she is not really into nursing before we leave in the morning, but will be starving by 8:45/9:00.  So I nurse her a little bit at 7:00, and then she will have a six ounce bottle around 9:00 along with her cereal.  She eats a Gerber food around 11:30 and takes another six ounce bottle at 12:15ish.  Miss Sharon gives her a last six ounce bottle around 3:00.  We had to play with the timing on her second Gerber food at night because she LOVES the food and would eat and then not want to nurse at 6:00.  Lately, it works best to give cereal at 5:00/5:15 and then nurse at 6:00/6:15.  Naturally, we compare what Olivia did to what Madelyn is doing.  We tried to force Madelyn into a schedule of eating that Olivia fell into and that was part of the problem with the food.  We always have to remember they are individuals, and they have their own unique schedules.  Lesson leaned, and Madelyn is more like her mother, who needs little meals all day long!

Olivia eating some cereal, just like Madelyn

Olivia on the other hand, continues to be a great eater, happily eating  just about anything we give to her.  Her recent favorites include, mac and cheese, rice and black beans, and hot dogs (we give her the turkey ones).   If she had her way, she would eat lollipops all day long.  In her head, lollipops include the actual lollipop, and any other candy or chocolate!  Miss Sharon has a candy bowl and when I come to pick up Olivia the first thing she says to me is, "Mommy, I want a lollipop!"  Miss Sharon just laughs!  It is fun to give her treats every now and then, but we continue to give her a healthy diet of protein, fruits and veggies.  Of course we really cannot sneak any food or snacks anymore.  As soon as she sees us eating something, she will say, "I want some of that."  If you ignore her, then she will repeat herself and open her mouth wide, indicating she wants to see what is in our mouths! So she is really helping out the diet because she is always watching!

She can use a cup and we usually give her one to use at home, but she is two and loves to play games, putting her utensils in the cup and stirring her milk, or her favorite is to put food in the milk.  There are days I can't deal and I know that we should not, but we give her a sippy cup to drink from. Just last week we decided that we are over the sippy cups, and we got Miss Sharon on board, so as of the end of March, she is totally drinking out of cups.  

Sleeping

Every morning the girls cuddle in one of their cribs! It is such a cute routine!

Miss Olivia goes to bed around 7:00 and sleeps until 6:30/7:00 each morning.  We have our little bedtime routine of books, songs, and prayers.  We really enjoy this time of day with her because she is cuddly and usually calm.  Since the time change it has been lighter out when she goes to bed.  Often we hear her singing to herself before she settles down.   

Olivia pretending she is asleep with her bottle!

Olivia still takes a two hour nap starting between 12:00 and 1:00, depending on the day.  Every once in a while at Miss Sharon's house we arrive and learn she has not napped because she has climbed out of the pack 'n play, or she slept an hour before calling out to Miss Sharon and singing.  The best nap story at Miss Sharon's is when Olivia completely stripped down to her diaper and then climbed out, calling out to Miss Sharon, "I'm a naked baby!"  When we arrived to pick her up at the end of the day she was running around with no shirt on!  Miss Sharon just laughed at her.  Needless to say she went to bed early that night!  She is still not ready to drop that nap. 

Waking up after her morning nap!

Madelyn, Madelyn!  We learned with Olivia that "sleep promotes sleep" and we followed the same pattern.  Madelyn nurses around 6:15 and lately she has been falling asleep while nursing.  If she does not fall asleep while nursing, then we do books and prayers before we put her down in the crib.  She is a good sleeper and sleeps until about 6:30/6:45.  We usually do not go in and get her until 7:00ish, and she is happy to roll around in the crib and coo to herself.   I enjoy the extra sleep on the weekends :).  She also takes a morning nap around 9:15/9:30 and it can range from 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending.  We have worked it so that she also goes down about the same time as Olivia.  We will hold one of them up so they can go down together.  Having them on the same schedule for the nap is great to get things done on the weekend! 

Madelyn is a restless sleeper though.  She is all over the crib and is rolling onto her stomach in the middle of the night.  She will wake herself up and cry out for a few minutes while she tries to get comfortable.  She loves to sleep on her side, and it is so cute to see her  cuddle peacefully with her blanket!  Overall, she has followed in her sister’s footsteps and is a good little sleeper!

Playing

Madelyn started sitting around six months and she is a much happier kid! She really likes to see what is going on around her. She loved laying on her playmat and would lay there content for quite a while, but Dan and I were happy to put that away (it was a hard toy to store in our house)!  At seven months her favorite toys include any of the Lamaze toys, especially her Puppy, the Sophie Teething Giraffe, her jumper, the ring stacker, and a colorful elephant stacker toy with crunchy textures. She is very content to sit with toys around her and watch Olivia, Hurley, and the other people in the room. When she is tired of sitting, she will fall forward and lay on her belly.  Overall, she is content with a few toys and watching the world go by! 

Rocking out with Elmo!

Olivia on the other hand is a typical toddler, who is constantly running, singing, dancing, and playing!  She has two speeds, fast and faster!  Her most favorite toy is her play kitchen.  The kitchen will keep her busy for quite a bit.  It is fun to hear her “talk” in the kitchen, she makes food, coffee, and bakes cupcakes!  She also loves her little play table and baby high chair, so she will set the table and feed the baby at the same time!  So adorable.  Her other favorites include books and puzzles.  We have quite a few wooden puzzles, and we have one actual puzzle with 24 pieces.  She likes us to sit with her, but she can almost do that puzzle on her own! It is a Minnie and Mickey puzzle, so she will start with Mickey’s body and move to Minnie.  Dan has really taught her how to do the puzzle and it is funny to hear her talk it out!  She continues to love watching her shows.  Miss Sharon checked out The Curious George Movie from the library and she enjoys that so much.  She will laugh out loud at several places.  Of course the only time she watches TV is when we are putting Madelyn to bed and that is about 20 minutes, so she watches the same 20/25 minutes of the movie every night!  Finally, she is enthusiastic about playing outside too!  She has a tricycle and has begun to understand how to pedal it!  She can go down our little sidewalk and just needs a push to get going up it.  The first time she actually pedaled was a few weeks ago, and she was so excited, arms waving, cheering, “Hooray I did it!”  It was a memory I will keep with me!

Moving

Olivia climbing our fence out back.  It makes me so nervous!

Olivia has two speeds, fast and faster!  She loves to run and be chased. She runs around the island at Miss Sharon’s, she runs around our dining room table, she runs up and down the hill in the back of our house, she runs away from us (this new development is NOT our favorite), and she runs all around the neighborhood on our “walks.”  The amount of energy this child has is unbelievable! 

When I first caught her starting to move!

At 7.5 moths, Madelyn is a rolling, scooting, rocking lil thing!  We realize we should not compare kids, but we figured since Olivia was content sitting, surrounded by toys, we would be on easy street with Madelyn until this summer.  Boy, were we ever wrong! She has started by rolling all over the place.  We first noticed that at night she would end up on her stomach, sleeping.   We soon realized that we cannot leave her on anything with out watching her!  A few weeks ago, she rolled off the dresser/changing table.  She fell pretty hard, but luckily did not have any marks!  It was my fault, I bent down to answer a question from Olivia, and then I see Madelyn falling, in slow motion, out of the corner of my eye.   My heart broke that day and I felt awful, but hopefully no permanent damage was caused!  We have learned to be cautious of our bed too.  No falls from that yet! On a funnier note, Olivia was laughing so hard at Madelyn a few weeks ago!  I was changing Olivia’s diaper and Madelyn was on the floor playing around.  Suddenly she let out a screech and we looked, she had moved herself backwards under her dresser!  The only thing sticking out from the dresser was her head. Olivia and I were cracking up so hard.  She was stuck under the dresser and could not move.  Of course, Olivia had to reenact it and crawl under the dresser too.  We laughed so hard that night! 

Talking

 Olivia is talking non-stop now a days!  She has been talking in complete sentences for a few months now.  It is amazing how suddenly she is a little parrot and will often repeat things.  We have learned to filter what we say.

Here are the most recent top five sayings

1. “Look at me, I am…” (dancing, running, signing, jumping-you name it we are looking)!
2. “I can’t do...”  As in she wants to do something.  She will want you to sit and play with her and she says, “I can’t play with you.”
3. “Hi buddy” (to Hurley) “Hi Sweetie” (to Madelyn) and That's my ..." (Hurley, Madelyn, pooh, mommy, daddy, anything and everything is hers)!
4. "That's better."  She will be playing, putting toys in the bathtub, cleaning up her toys, giving Madelyn a toy, fixing the carpet that Hurley messed up, the list is endless... she'll say, “that’s better.” 
5. "Are you sad?  You happy now?"  She is really big on emotions.  She understands what being sad is and understands happy.  She is struggling to understand frustrating and mad.  Everything to her is funny.  Especially when she does something we don’t want her to.   When she does something to make us upset, like throwing her plate down at dinner because she did not want that plate(that is not a typical night though), she will look at us a few minutes later and ask, "Are you happy now?"  It is adorable and is hard not to laugh! 

My newest favorite is "Guys"  If Dan and I are doing something together or we are all in the same room she will say something to use like, "Guys, who put this here?"   It makes Dan and I crack up!  Then she will start laughing with us and I know she does not understand what we are laughing at!

Madelyn on the other hand is probably going to give Olivia a run for her money!  Madelyn is a screecher!  She will be playing, get excited, and just let out this scream!  She sees one of us, especially Olivia, and her face lights up as she screams and giggles.  She is babbling away too.  She says, mamamama, dadada, lalalalala, etc.  It is very fun.  My most favorite noise of her's is her giggle.  Playing in her car seat, she will let out this little giggle that melts your heart.  It is just so adorable! 

Our life is insanely busy with the two of these beautiful, lovable girls, and it is apparent by our lack of dedication to this blog update.  However, we are able to smile each day, give endless hugs and kisses, and enjoy the love of these girls!  As the school year comes to a close, we will certainly have more time to write more this summer.  So keep checking back for updates! 

Eating, Sleeping, and Playing

Olivia continues to grow and become so interactive. It seems like every stage we get through and she starts a new one we say, I love this stage!

She is eating well about every 3 hours during the day and at night will last anywhere from 6 to 10 hours. Last week she slept through the night twice! By sleeping through the night I mean from 6:30pm until 6:30am! I actually did not set our alarm because usually she is up once a night and I set it after that night feeding. At 5:45am I jolted awake, realizing I never fed her last night! I shake Dan awake, nearly scaring him, say, "She slept through the night!" He cheered and then feel back to sleep while I got up and showered! The next night she slept from 6:30pm to 3:50am and the following night slept through the night again. It is not consistent yet, but I have enjoyed the past few nights with longer stretches of sleep! It is amazing how it makes the days easier!  She has had nights when she is a restless sleeper and will kick all the covers off and even kicked out of her PJ's.  On morning when we went in to get her she looked like this and we got quite the laugh! 

Since she is sleeping better, playtime is much more fun!  She loves the Precious Planet Jumpero toy we have for her.  After her recent growth spurt, she now can touch the bottom of the toy and can jump  up and down! Last weekend she was content to play in the toy for 45 minutes and we took her out of it because it was close to nap time!   She also loves to lay on her back and bat at toys, stare at Hurley, and watch the other kids at daycare.  Olivia will tolerate tummy time and has rolled over several times from her tummy to her back.  This is not consistent, but it is fun to watch the few times she has preformed of us!  She still loves her bouncy seat and is grabbing at everything she can get her hands on!  She will hold onto her toys and investigate it and then put it in her mouth. 

She has also become very verbal!  She cooing all the time in her car seat, playing with her toys, when we are changing her diaper!  We hear her in the morning in her crib cooing and laughing.  It is the cutest sound ever!  Olivia has also copied Dan and I and started blowing raspberries with her mouth.  It is quite mess and get drool everywhere but Miss Sharon was impressed because she is not suppose to do that until 6 months!  Dr. Landcaster also saw that trick at her 4 moth check up and comment she will probably be very verbal.  Um..wonder who she gets that from! LOL

So all in all Livy Loo is growing up fast and playing hard!  Here are some other family pictures:

 

 

3 Months Old

Yesterday Olivia officially turned 3 months old and we spend the day helping Grandma feel better!  My mom has been battling some back issues and yesterday was off of work, so I packed up Olivia and went to keep her company.  I also think she kept me company.  It was an enjoyable day and Grandpa was home for the afternoon and played with Olivia too!  To my relief she took two 50 minute naps in her pack n play at their house.  That made me happy because in just a short week she will have to sleep in that at Miss Sharon's house, her daycare women.  For the next week I will continue to make Olivia laugh, give her lots of hugs, and enjoy the precious moments with her.  At least I can look forward to Spring Break and then Summer Vacation!

So how has Miss Livy Loo changed in the past three months?  Where to begin!  I was looking at her pictures the other day and it is amazing to see how much she has grown!  She now looks less like a starving alien and more like a healthy baby!


It is just so cute to see her face light up when she see something she likes or someone she recognizes!  She has started cooing now and it is getting pretty loud!  The first time I heard her start cooing loudly was a few weeks ago.  I was in the kitchen putting dishes away and she was laying in the living room under her play gym.  I heard this noise and I thought she was ready to switch toys.  When I went into the room she was under the gym talking away at the toy!  She has the cutest little voice ever!  Of course on the flip side her cry can be equally as loud!  I joke that she is going to be as loud as her mother!  I guess it is my payback for being so loud...poor Dan!

She has been gripping things in her hand since Christmas time when Aunt Jill put her rattle in her hand.  She will hold onto the item for a few minutes and then fling it on the ground.  Well the past few days her new tick is that she will reach out and begin to grab at things.  I really saw it this morning when she was sitting in her swing toy we have.  There is a dangling bear on the side.  She reached out and started batting at it!  It was very cute! I cannot wait until she begins to pull at my earrings!

We continue to work on her stomach muscles by daily Tummy Time.  She prefers her back though because she likes to look around and investigate what is going on around her!  She will tolerate Tummy Time and is close to rolling over.  She is starting to figure out that her arm has to come up above her head, but she just does not get that force to roll all the way yet.  I do help her out when she really gets frustrated!

The sleeping has become much improved too!  We have started a bedtime ritual and she goes down between 6 and 6:45, depending on the type of naps she had that day.  The crying has been extremely minimal since we have figured out that we were making her overtired and she could not fall asleep!  When we catch her yawning we begin our nighttime ritual.  It has worked out pretty well.  Most nights she wakes up for one feeding and then wakes up between 6 and 7 in the morning.  It is not perfect and she falls asleep much better at night.  I think it is the whole quite and dark thing! At least she is taking all her naps and sleeps at night in her crib.   I am sure when I return to work next week we will have a whole new issue to deal with but we will celebrate the peacefulness for now!

Well it has been quite the ride for three months.  I look forward to what is ahead and it is amazing to remember where we came from:

 

and are now here:

Time certainly flies when you are having a good time!

January Sleep Issues

To say we started the new Decade with a bang is an understatement!  As we came home from a wonderful Christmas in Ocean City, the reality of having a baby began to settle in.  The first month Olivia was an angel and such an easy baby.  Well when Dan returned to school the newborn bliss gave way to an overtired, cranky little girl!  Olivia was on a bit of a schedule and by that I mean she was eating every 3 hours and would take about 4 naps daily.  Usually a shorter one in the morning, which allowed me to shower, a longer one in the late morning and a longer one in the afternoon.  She would go to bed around 7:30/8:00.  I was all set to get right back into the swing of things on that Monday morning in January and Livy Loo had a different thought! I rocked her to sleep and put her down in the pack n play, like I have since she was days old, and five minutes later she was wide awake and crying!  Not knowing what else to do I picked her up and tried again...with no success.  I began to get a bit frustrated because she was clearly tired but would not stay asleep when I put her down.  So I called the pediatrician and the nurse at the office told me I should not be rocking her to sleep because she was not learning to fall asleep on her own.  She recommended I should let her cry it out for five minutes.  Well I tried that and honestly that only made her more frantic and me more frustrated!  I was in tears and exhausted when Dan came home and Olivia was a mess.  She was falling asleep while I was feeding her and as a result not getting enough food.  So after a frantic call to Dr. Lancaster on her cell phone she told Dan to take Olivia for a drive to settle her down.  I stayed home to sleep and after an hour she was passed out in her car seat.  Dan came in the room and put her down and she slept in the car seat for 9 hours that night!  It was a LONG day!

The next day was her 2 month check up and we talked to our doctor about what we needed to do.  Her answer was at this age you cannot spoil your child and do whatever it took to get her to sleep.  So after an exhausting week of trying to put her down to sleep, I finally gave in and let her sleep in the swing, the bouncer, any place that would not wake her up when she fell asleep.  It was a LONG week and Dan was not a happy guy coming home.  Several nights I handed her to Dan and went to bed.

We slowly became a bit more rested and went to visit our daycare women, Sharon.  On that day, I realized that Miss Sharon would not be able to rock Livy to sleep every time she need to sleep or hold her all day.  So I became a woman on a mission to help get over this sleeping hump.  I started to read a book that was recommended to me by several mothers, Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Babies. What I realized and started watching for was signs of when Livy was getting tired.  The book also made me realize that she really can only handle about 2 hours of awake time before she needs a nap.  While reading the book we also realized that we were keeping her up too late at night and she needed an earlier bed time!  We were skeptical at first, but tired and that night she slept from 6:30-3:30!  The book also said to keep the routine consistent with puting the child to sleep.  So we now rock her for only 10 minutes, which is less than our 20-25 minutes, and put her in her crib.  There have been a few times we let her cry for 5 minutes and went in to calm her down, but overall it has been much improved and she is a much happier baby!  I have enjoyed this too because she is currently in her own room and sleeping most nights until 3:30/4:00am.  It has been nice because Dan and I have  some time together in the evenings.

Although the first few weeks of January were challenging and emotional we have come out of it as a stronger couple and more confident in taking care of Olivia.