Little Miss Independent

If there is one thing that Audia keeps teaching me over and over again, it is that she does things on her own. There is no 'training' her to do anything. There is no convincing her to do something she doesn't want to do. She happens to take after her Mama in that she is a very strong-willed girl. She does things on her own, when she is ready, in her own way. Frequent blog readers might remember that she basically daytime potty trained herself two weeks before Callen was born. I had tried periodically for months to get her potty trained to no avail. One day she woke up and decided to start using the potty. We rewarded her efforts, but her decision to do it was her own. Periodically over the past few months I have been trying to get her nighttime potty trained as well, again to no avail. But about two weeks ago she started waking up with dry pull ups in the morning, so I created a sticker chart for her. After 5 days in a row, she got a toy out of our toy stash (the word stash makes it sound like we have a pile of toys hidden away. It's more like 4 toys.) Then, after five more days she got to pick out something special at Toys R Us. Audia had decided before we left for the store that she wanted to get a Spiderman toy. She's recently developed quite an interest in Spidey; a boy in her class has Spiderman shoes and for whatever reason she has really latched onto him. I was sure that once we got to Toys 'r Us she would get distracted and choose something else, but she had no interest in the Littlest Pet Shop, Princess, or stuffed animal aisles. It was Spiderman or bust! And now she carries him everywhere with her.

Our munchkin is now going on night 15 without any accidents, and I couldn't be more proud of her. While Audia's willfulness can certainly be a challenge and extremely exhausting at times, it is also one of my favorite things about her. She definitely knows what she wants and goes after it with gusto!

Callen at 11 Months

At 11 months, our "little" man is now 25 lbs and 5 oz. Measuring his height is nearly impossible so I will leave that to the professionals at his 1 year appt next month. He's in 18 month size clothing and strangers still regularly ask me if he's a year and a half (one even asked if he was 2!) when we're out and about.

Despite all the issues we had with his eating earlier on this year, Callen has become a big eater, and will gobble up pretty much anything we put in front of him as long as he can feed it to himself. He essentially skipped over the baby food phase and went straight to self-feeding. He will try pretty much anything at least once a meal, which is awesome, though if he doesn't like something he will throw it on the floor, which is not. (Awesome, that is.)

Cal has gotten insanely fast when it comes to crawling and cruising, and has recently started to try taking a few steps when holding onto my hands. He is still hugely interested in anything with wheels or doors, and loves Audia's little people doll house and little people bus, which he will put little stuffed animals or toy characters into and then drive around on the floor, making a sort of raspberry sound with his mouth. It is hard for me to believe that he already knows how to make a car sound, and to associate it with playing with a bus toy, but I swear that is what he's doing!

Recently Callen has started waving 'Hi,' though he rarely does it on command. He also has started clapping and will shake his head back and forth to try and get us to do the same. He is babbling a ton, frequently using 'B,' 'V,' 'F,' and occasionally 'S' sounds.

Though he's been teething again the past week or so (or, at least I assume he is due to the copious amounts of drool he is producing and the fact that he is chewing on everything....including me.....) he is still such a happy boy. It seems like he is always smiling, always giggling and trying to get other people to laugh. He still adores his sister and loves playing with her, and she is still wonderful with him despite the fact that a lot of times his idea of playing involves pulling her hair and smacking her in the face.

Changes

There are a lot of changes going on in the C-B household these days. Some of them are gradual. Callen is cruising like a pro, standing on his own for short periods, and walking while holding someone's hands. He's also increasingly frustrated with being limited to certain areas of our apartment; he wants to be everywhere, getting into everything. Audia was never the toddler who opened cupboards and took everything out; we never even purchased locks for our cupboards because she simply never showed an interest. Callen, on the other hand, is going to be that child who gets into absolutely everything.

As for the munchkin, I've heard that a lot of kids go through a rough patch around age 4 and I do wonder if we are at the start of it. Audia is, for the first time since Callen was born, expressing frustration and jealousy over the attention that Callen gets. I'll be sitting on the floor playing with both of them and she will be happy as a clam but as soon as Cal tries to crawl into my lap she will get upset and say, "I wanted to sit in your lap!" I am trying my hardest to make sure that she understands that I do not love either one of them more than the other, and am hoping to schedule some more regular mommy-Audia time to help her to feel more secure about it. Thankfully she is still very loving with him; just the other day she said to me, "You growed a good baby, mom."

We put in our 2-month vacate notice for our apartment so we are on the hunt for a larger place. Ideally I am hoping that we can find a house to rent but am open to the idea of a townhome also. The rental market here is insane compared to Arizona. We were in a 5 bedroom house, overlooking a golf course, in Tempe (essentially the middle of everything) and paying less than we are now for a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. I know I need to stop comparing but it's hard! Depending on where we move, we may also be on the hunt for a new preschool for Audia. Stress, stress, stress. On the upside, by best friend N and her family are going to be moving to the cities this summer (they currently live about an hour and a half away) so that is exciting!! Not to mention she is due to have her third little one any day now!

And in between all of this we will be celebrating both Chris' and my birthdays, Mother's day, planning and having Callen's first birthday party, and there is potential for some pretty big changes at work for Chris. And then, a couple of weeks after we move, we will be spending 2 weeks up north both spending time at the cottage (hopefully seeing Chris' family!) and going up to Grand Marais to celebrate my Mom's 70th birthday. Then it will be August. Phew! I am doing my best to just take things one day at a time. But there are days it definitely is difficult to do and I get a bit overwhelmed. I am a planner, big-time. I like to have time to plan things out. This isn't to say that I'm not spontaneous; I can be. But with bigger things like, say, MOVING....I like to have all of my ducks in a row well in advance. I hate not knowing where we are going to be in two months, and if I need to be looking at preschools, and all that jazz. And when I am stressed out I am preoccupied. And when I am preoccupied I am not giving my children the level of attention and patience that they deserve. And then comes the guilt. Which stresses me out. Which preoccupies me.....do you see where this is going? *deep breath* Day-to-day, Erica. One-at-a-time........