If I could put time in a bottle....

Yes, I did just quote a super corny song. But the words ring true. There is something about having a second child that really puts time in perspective. It definitely gets put into perspective with one, but then when number two comes along for whatever reason it really solidifies things. With number one, phases seem to drag on because you don't know how long they will last and you're not really sure what the heck you're doing. With two, you know from experience that everything is fleeting and you get more of a chance to truly cherish the moment and mourn the moment's passing.

Callen is doing this thing lately where, after a feed, he'll nuzzle his face into my neck, close his eyes, and make pterodactyl noises. It's this half squawk/half groan sound that he'll make for a few minutes as he falls asleep on my chest. To anyone else it is probably the most irritating sound on the planet, but for me it is the sweetest noise in the world. And it brings tears to my eyes, knowing that in a few weeks chances are he won't be doing it anymore. I would give anything to be able to put those moments in a bottle and keep them, to be able to re-live them whenever I please.

And the same goes for Audia; she is at a stage of her life where she is testing and asserting independence, but she still has this fierce need for our closeness, both physically and emotionally. I do everything I can, in those moments that she climbs into my lap or into bed with me in the morning to snuggle, to just breathe her in and enjoy it. Because goodness knows it will be all-too-soon that she won't need me in that way nearly as often as she does now.

My babies are growing up. And they won't ever stop. I love it and I hate it.

Callen at 5 Months

Our little buddy sure is keeping us busy these days! According to my measurements, Callen's now 19.5 lbs and 28.25"! At the rate he's growing, he'll be out of his infant carseat in a month or two, which is probably for the best as carrying him around in it is getting a bit difficult. He figured out how to roll to get places about a week ago, and has been keeping us on our toes ever since. There's no more putting him on his play mat on the floor while I wash dishes or throw in a load of laundry; goodness knows where I'd find him when I came back!

Just heading into the kitchen, Mom! No big deal.

He is still teething, and just yesterday I noticed what I think is his lower front left tooth starting to break through. It's hard to get a good look with all of his talking and smiling though. He's been passing toys back and forth between his hands for a couple of weeks, and just recently discovered his hands. It is so funny to watch him stare at a hand while he moves it closer to and farther from his face, wiggling his fingers just to really be sure that he is in control of this thing that he's looking at. His favorite thing to watch, however, is still his sister. The way that he looks, smiles, squeals, and laughs at Audia is absolutely heart-melting. He is in such awe of, and so totally in love with his big sissy. And while she has a hard time understanding that he doesn't purposely try to pull her hair or clothes, she is still absolutely wonderful with him. I love watching their relationship develop!

 

Tyrannical Threes

Before I had kids, and even while Audia was a baby, I had heard plenty about the "Terrible Twos." Enough so that I braced myself for all hell to break loose and prepared for the worst. Maybe it's because I was expecting the worst that the "Terrible Twos" didn't really seem that bad. Sure, we had our days of testing and we had quite a few nights of refusal to go to sleep or stay asleep, but overall the twos just did not seem that terrible. And maybe because of that, because I was over-prepared for the twos to be terrible and they weren't, or maybe because I had heard the threes referred to as the "Terrific Threes," or maybe because our daughter has never done (and probably will never do) things 'by the book', or maybe a combination of all of these things, the "terrific threes" are simply not. They are, instead, the "Tyrannical Threes." This isn't to say that Audia is a tyrant all the time. Nor is it to say that she's a tyrant at heart. She's not. She is truly a sweet, loving, hilarious, engaging, and lovable little girl. However, she is also very smart. A little too smart. And, as I've said from day one, she is also very strong-willed. And increasingly independent. And extremely curious. When you combine these things with the typical ego-centricism of any 3-year old, you essentially get a mini tyrant or dictator. She truly believes that she should have a say in whatever goes on in our household as well as in what anyone around her should happen to be doing at the time. And obviously, this cannot be the case, nor do I let it be the case. This, of course, is met with fierce opposition by the mini tyrant. I see flashes of her teenage years and am admittedly terrified. I've read my share of parenting advice both via books and the web, (and continue to do so....any recommendations? I'm all ears!) and of course testing at this age (and really, at any age between 6 months and 5 years) is typical. The problem is that our strong-willed daughter doesn't just test things a dozen times. She tests things hundreds of times, waiting for just one slip-up by one person. And then she starts testing it all over again. I try so hard not to get mad about repeating myself for the fiftieth time because I know that really she is just trying to figure out how things work. Even her teacher mentioned that while most kids her age just ask "why?" Audia has very specific and detailed questions. Which is wonderful. I love that she is so interested and curious and inquizitive. But it is also exhausting. All I can do is hope for "Fantastic" rather than "Fearsome" Fours......

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year was a lot of fun. I really like when Halloween falls on the end of a weekend...or, in this case, on a Monday. It gives us a whole weekend to celebrate and do fun Halloween things!

Our Halloween celebrations started for on Thursday. Audia got to go to preschool dressed in her costume, and all the kids did a little Halloween parade around the school and had a Halloween party in class. It was so cute to see them all in their costumes!

Munchkin decided early on that she wanted to be a skeleton, and when we went shopping for her costume she insisted that she wanted to be a scary skeleton. Of course as soon as we got the costume on her, she decided she wanted nothing to do with the mask, which was the part that made the costume scary. She loved wearing that jumpsuit, though!

On Saturday we went to the Arboretum with my parents and enjoyed their "Goblins and Ghouls" event. It was the perfect fall day; clear skies and a bit chilly. They had a trick or treat trail, crafts, and a big maze. The trick or treat trail up to the maze was a bit more of a trek than I think any of us had anticipated, so we ended up skipping the maze. We all had a great time, however, and I am sure we will return next year!

Sunday afternoon Chris' dad and brother came to town for a little while, and we met them at a park to carve pumpkins and play in the leaves. Audia sure loves her Grandpa Mustache and Uncle Brent! She is asking me quite regularly now when they are going to come play with her again. I really love that she seems to feel such a closeness to them even though we don't get to see them that often.

And that brings us to Halloween! We started off our All Hallows Eve with a trip to the mall to take part in their "Mall-O-Ween." Audia got a good base of candy trick or treating there, and after a quick dinner we went to my parents house to see them and so that Audia could do some trick or treating in their neighborhood. Callen and I helped my mom pass out candy while the Munchkin went trick or treating with dad and grandpa.

Just like last year, Audia seems to have more fun sorting her candy than eating it. Unfortunately for us, there's no sneaking candy as she has the memory of an elephant and notices even if the littlest piece goes missing. That's probably for the best, though. I gotta get rid of this post-baby marshmallow belly sooner or later!

Callen at 4 Months

Four months, and yet I feel like I've been his mother my whole life. That's how it is with babies. Really, that's how it is with anyone who you truly love. It is hard to imagine what life felt like before them.

These days, our super sweet boy is learning all kinds of new tricks!

~He loves to "talk" to his toys and to us; sometimes it's a quiet coo, a bubbly gurgle, or, more frequently, a high pitched, excited shreik.
~Just like his sister did, he is doing things backward and is rolling back to belly regularly, and has rolled belly to back only a handful of times.
~He loves tummy time, and still is pushing himself forward with his feet, though more often these days he is getting up on his knees, chest on the ground, and sticking his butt in the air. I will not be surprised if he's an early crawler; he is definitely anxious to MOVE!
~He is chewing on everything, a sign of teething I am afraid.
~In the span of the past 5 days, he's gone from batting at his toys and sometimes hitting them to grabbing them in his first try; he also loves to grab my nose or lip and laughs hysterically when I pretend to eat his hand.
~He absolutely loves to watch his sister. When she comes around, he will stop whatevery he is doing to just sit and watch her in awe.

As for his stats, our big boy is HUGE! He is even farther off the charts at 27.5 inches long (the length of the average 9 month old!) and is in the 95th percentile at 18 lbs, 5 oz (the weight of the average 6 month old.) I am willing to bet that he is going to be even taller than his daddy one day!

Lesson: You are your own (and your kids own) best advocate.

One lesson I learned the hard way in life is that you are your own best advocate when it comes to your health. It's one of those lessons that I try to impart on anyone I know who is having health issues: if you have a gut feeling something is wrong, beyond what the doctors say is going on, listen to your gut. Push for more tests, get a second opinion, research your symptoms on your own. Do not silence your intuition just because a doctor gives you their diagnosis. Doctors are not Gods; they are human. And they can be wrong.

My only interaction with doctors as a kid was with my pediatrician, for standard things. Well checks, strep tests, vaccinations, diagnosing the chicken pox. I had perfect vision and perfect hearing. I never broke a bone, needed stitches, or had any odd illnesses that required me to see a specialist. Overall, I was pretty healthy and pretty lucky. But because of my only ever interfacing with my pediatrician (for 18 years,) I also think that I developed an unrealistic view of doctors. In my mind, doctors (at least the vast majority of them) knew everything. They rarely, if ever, faltered. My first wake-up call was in the spring of 2005 when I developed a blood clot and spent a week in the hospital, half of my days in ICU. I only saw my doctor 2 or 3 times total in a span of 6 days, had to teach three different nurses how to draw blood out of my arterial line, and while I finally left the hospital with a diagnosis, I also left without the surgery I needed because I was so horrified at how alone I realized I was in defending my own health. I won't go into details because the story is LONG, but the short of it is that after a bunch of research done by me, my family, and a family friend, I decided to have the surgery done in a different state by a doctor who not only knew what the heck he was doing (and later told me that he would have been able to give me a diagnosis in a day or two tops) but also had bedside manner, which my first doctor definitely didn't.

My second experience with this has been in the past couple of weeks. Again, it is a ridiculously long story, but the short version is that Audia was having light sensitivity and watering in her left eye. First we were told it was "non-contagious conjunctivitis" and prescribed drops. A couple days later, we noticed a whitish spot on her cornea and brought her back in on day 4 of the drops because she had not improved at all and the spot was still there. We were referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist. He couldn't see any spot and said it was probably just pink eye and to give the drops another week (it had been 6 days on the drops already.) The next day her eye was worse and my gut told me that it just was NOT pink eye. We insisted on another appointment, and this time the eye doctor actually used a slit lamp and magnification (which he did not the first time....) and saw what we were talking about. He brought in a corneal specialist to look as well and they both agreed that she needed to have surgery to have the abnormality removed ASAP so it wouldn't cause permanent scarring of her cornea. The day after that, our brave little girl went under anesthesia for the first time in her life to have an "abnormality in the epithelial layer of her cornea" scraped off. Apparently they typically see that kind of abnormality when there is a foreign body embedded in the cornea (like a piece of sand or glass) but they did not find any foreign body, and the "sample" of tissue was too small to send off for testing. The good news is that so far it seems to be healing well and her light sensitivity has diminished immensely compared to a week ago. Only time will tell if this is something that will recur or has impacted her vision.
Lesson reiterated: trust your gut!!

My Memories Suite - Software Review and GIVEAWAY!

A couple of weeks ago I recieved an email asking me if I would be interested in trying and reviewing a digital scrapbooking software. If you know anything about me, you know that I love to scrapbook. Of course, these days with two little ones I don't get much of a chance to actually do any physical scrapbooking, so I've taken to digital scrapbooking to feed my addiction. I used My Memories Suite to make a brag book for my dad, as well as a card template and a few scrapbooking pages, and I have to say that I am quite impressed! Here's an example of a page I made in about 10 minutes.  

I found the software super easy to use; it is very intuitive and only took me a couple of minutes to get used to the controls and how to start making a page. For those who are a bit less technologically inclined, their website has links to some great video tutorials. They also have a ton of additional scrapbooking kits, both free and for sale. And a huge plus is that you can also use the software with papers and embellishments that you've already purchased or made yourself.  

In return for my reviewing their software, My Memories has been kind enough to give me a coupon code that you can use for $10 off of My Memories Suite and $10 off of a purchase from the My Memories store. The coupon code is  STMMMS76732.

In addition to that, they are allowing me to give away one copy of My Memories Suite to one of my readers! So, here's the deal:

1. Go to www.mymemories.com and take a look at their scrapbooking kits. Then, come back here and leave a comment telling me which kit you like best. Easy as pie, you're entered to win!

2. For an additional entry, follow My Memories on Twitter, then leave a seperate comment letting me know you're following them.

3. For an additional entry, like My Memories on Facebook, then leave a seperate comment letting me know you've liked them.

A winner will be chosen at random on Friday, October 14th, 2011 and announced here on my blog!