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........

Callen at 10 months

Oh my goodness. It's April! Then May. Then he'll be ONE YEAR OLD! Not to mention my 30th birthday is somewhere in there, too. I just can't comprehend it.

Our sweetheart of a little man is getting closer and closer to walking solo. He's been cruising around the furniture for a couple of weeks now and in the past couple of days has started letting go of the furniture to stand unassisted for a few seconds before sitting down. He is also starting to lift his arms to be picked up, and I could swear that he's said "Hi" and actually meant it a few times now. He still loves banging things to make noise, is still obsessed with anything that spins, and has recently discovered his ability to throw and bounce balls, which he loves to do.

Seeing Audia and Callen's relationship developing is so much fun. They play so well together 95% of the time, and listening to them talk to eachother (well, Audia talks and Callen babbles) and shreik and laugh at eachother is one of my favorite things. Callen of course wants to be in on anything that Audia is doing which is ok with her most of the time. She also regularly initiates play with Cal by calling him over to her and playing with his toys with him.

Unfortunately Callen has been sick the past few days, and sick enough that I brought him in to the doctor yesterday to make sure that he didn't have strep or something more serious (diagnosis was Coxsackievirus, which he should be over in a day or two) but the silver lining is that I get an official weight for his 10 month blog post :-) Cal is now 23 lbs, 6 oz. Getting him to lie still long enough to measure his length at this point is a fool's errand so I will not even bother trying. I am pretty sure he is still off the charts in height as he seemed to grow out of his 12 month sized clothes overnight on Saturday and is now in 18 month size!

Snuggle Bug

This little man of ours is turning out to be quite the snuggler. As he's gotten older and more mobile and more independent (can you believe he will actually sit and play by himself for 10-15 minutes at a time? Even if we're sitting on the floor wanting to play with him? Me neither. His sister NEVER did that at his age,) he has also gotten more snuggley. When I pick him up out of his crib in the morning or after a nap, he almost always lays his head on my shoulder for a minute. If I sit down on the floor to play with him, the first thing he does is crawl over to me to lay his head in my lap before trying to use me as a jungle gym. He loves to lay down next to Audia when she's laying on the floor watching tv, too. And being the total snuggler that I am, it melts my heart. Every. Single. Time. It is no secret that Audia is super affectionate as well, loving to hug her family and friends and frequently asking us to snuggle with her. I feel so lucky to be blessed with such lovey kiddos!

 

Cal at 9.5 months

I waited to do Callen's nine month post until we had his well visit, which was today. Our BIG boy is still growing like a weed, and thankfully is still gaining weight normally even though he hasn't been huge into solids the way Audia was at this age. He's 22.5 lbs and 30.5", putting him in the 75th percentile for weight and off the charts yet again for height. His doctor told me that he is the size of the average 15 month old boy!

While he still isn't hugely interested in baby food or being fed from a spoon, he is hugely interested in anything and everything that we might be eating. The only caveat is that he be fed what we're eating from our fingers. The exception to this rule seems to be puffs and cheerios; he will eat them by himself no problem.

Our little man has been crawling 'normally' for a few weeks now, and just recently has started pulling himself up to stand and even transferring between objects while standing. Though he isn't technically cruising just yet, it is just around the corner!

Callen is OBSESSED with wheels. He loves spinning them with his hands and rolling anything on wheels around on the floor. He also has been huge into hammering things lately, and banging toys together to make as much noise as humanly possible. He also likes throwing balls and other small hand-sized toys.

It's a wheel!

Overall our happy, laid-back boy is still just that. He has gotten a lot better at letting us know when he wants something via whining, but he still amazes me daily with how easy going and happy he is. We certainly are lucky to have him in our lives!

Summer in March

Apparently we have basically completely skipped over spring in Minnesota this year. Although, with the mild winter that we had I suppose you could say that February was kind of our spring. Either way, with temperatures in the mid 70's for the past week, it's felt like summer around here and while I am a bit worried that this means that this summer is going to be a scorcher, I am certainly enjoying the warmer temperatures right now!
We've been getting outside as often as possible to take advantage of the beautiful days, and the kids, of course, have been loving it. I cannot wait to move into a house this summer so that I don't have to pack up a 30-lb diaper bag everytime we want to go play in the grass!

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