Saturday in the park

Oh shoot guys, I'm going to have to change the date for our "Easy as PB&J" link up.  I wrote that blurb on the bottom of last Wednesday's post anticipating a conversation with my friend Tiffanie, but we haven't worked out all the details yet.  So hold on to your lunch idea posts!  I will give more info soon!!!! 

*     *     *

During the dark winter months I always think I love summer.  But what I really love is spring and fall.  Those are the seasons you can actually leave your house.  Two kids in the summer is just about as difficult as two kids in the winter. 

But Saturday.  Saturday it was so cool.  Right around 80 degrees, overcast with a nice breeze. 

Olivia needed to run.  That girl was going crazy inside, and Adam was gone all day golfing so we hadn't managed to get outside.  We let her play on the playground and I chatted it up with the Ax Man on a blanket under a tree.

I got jealous of Adam and Olivia's fun, as I usually do, so I abandoned my post and Axel and I walked over to the playground where Olivia was attempting to do the monkey bars.  As I watched her play, music from a near by event (so near we were practically attending) floated over to us.  It was a jazzy instrumental version of "Til There Was You".  It was one of those moments you are happy just to be.  You don't want to be anywhere else. 

So naturally I made Adam take a picture.  I'm a blogging work in progress.

Soon Olivia was running again.  That girl, she is beautiful.  Her little body is just so perfect.  I can see all the muscles when she moves, and she's thin but not frail looking at all.  I'm pretty sure she's buff enough to knock out a kindergartener.

We walked while Olivia ran around three baseball fields.  "Keep running!" we would say.

After our fun walk/run, Olivia didn't want to leave the park.  Not in a throwing a fit kind of way, but in a "I want to hug the parking lot" kind of way.

 

We got her in the car with the promise of "ice cream", which was really a Hawaiian shaved ice, but same thing when you're two.

We shared a half gallon of shaved ice, I swear it was that big, and got home around 9pm.  Oops, like an hour past everyone's bed time! 

But you know what?  They went right to sleep.

The Big Sister

 Hi.  My name is Olivia, and I'm a big girl.

At least, that's what I keep hearing.

It started out innocent enough.  Lift your head off the couch, you're a big girl!  Eat rice cereal, you're a big girl!  Take a few steps, you're a big girl!  But now, I'm hearing it more and more and it seems to be getting less and less fun.

It really got out of control with this boy moved in.

I really like him, but suddenly I'm expected to teach him things I'm just learning myself!  What the heck!

"Show Axel how big girls sit still during church."
"Show Axel how big girls use the potty."
"Show Axel how big girls don't wear diapers anymore."

So I'm a big girl?  But do I get to stay up later?  No.  Do I get to dress myself?  No.  Do I get to look at the contents of the trash can?  No.

Doesn't sound like the gig I signed up for.

Some things will never change

My daughter just licked the screen door.  She looked at me and said, "Gross."  And. . . did it again.

Olivia loves tasting things.  She eats the play dough every time.  She was the oldest girl in her nursery class at church to still eat the crayons. 

It's funny because this oral fixation has been something unique about her since she was just a couple weeks old.  Here she is licking the side of her car seat, less than a month old!  People would see this and say, "She must be hungry!" (which, let's be honest, always bugged the heck out of me) but no, she just liked to lick things.

And here's my Axel Boy, pulling the covers over his face to sleep.  Every time. 

He does not sleep like this at night.  At night he's swaddled and cannot use his arms to pull the blanket over his head.

In fact we were on a walk yesterday and he was happy, but near the end he started fussing a little.  I stopped and replaced his binki using his burp cloth to kind of keep it in place (he can't hang on to a binki to save his life, this kid) Seriously like one minute later I checked to see if he had fallen asleep and he had pulled the burp cloth over his face and just zonked.  It was then that I realized he totally pulls that blanket over his face on purpose.

I can't wait to see if he continues this for years to come.

Its so crazy how kids are born with their own personalities and traits, right?

The truth is. . .

My favorite time of day is 7pm.  Dinner is over, Adam is home, babies are getting ready for bed and sun is pouring in the windows (more and more I'm realizing my happiness is largely linked to the sunshine).

Axel is happy, Olivia is happy.  Plus, naked babies.  The best, right?

Olivia and Baby Emily.  We hoped that she could care for Emily like I care for Axel, but instead she often makes me care for both of them at the same time.  Dang Emily, always crying at the same time Axel is, always needing my attention.

A video, if you so desire.  But you can skip it and the rest of this post will still make sense.  Don't feel bad.  I understand my kids are cutest to me.

And I could stop right there, and you would all think my life is great.  Well, it is, but let me tell you what happened right after I turned the camera off.

Olivia ran up to the bed excited to tell me something, and in her excitement she slams her hands down very close to Axel's head.

"Be careful, we don't want to hit Axel in the face."

In more of an act of defiance than cruelty, Olivia looked me straight in the eye and raised her hand to hit Axel.  I looked right back at her and said, "Do.Not.Hit."  And then. . . she did.

Well of course I got mad at her, and leaned over to pick her up so I could calmly explain why her actions were wrong get upset with her.  She went limp and smacked her face on the edge of my bed frame.  Axel got scared and started crying, she was screaming.  My happy moment dissolved into all out chaos. 

Eh, it happens right?  RIGHT???

Nicknames

My dad is the king of nicknames.  We all had several growing up.  Some are obvious, like Kim Kim.  Some are less obvious, like Monchichi (my brother Rob's because he had a buzz cut and looked like this) 

I guess I take after my dad (I can hear Adam laughing in my head.  He would say that is an understatement!) Axel has several nicknames.  My favorite thing is watching Olivia call him by what ever name I just used.  It's very sweet. 

Just a few of the names we call Axel:

Axel Boy

Baby Axel

Axel Waxel

Little Nuget

Little Strawberry 

Chuga Chuga

What do you call your babies? 

PS.  I'm also over on Shannon's blog, The Scribble Pad, talking about my first six weeks as a mom of two! 

Easter Sunday

Its been almost two weeks since Easter.  I almost didn't bother to blog it at this point, but I bought new clothes for Axel and Olivia and I took pictures!  So here it is. 

This bow tie is as big as my head! --Axel

I dressed Axel and Adam matching!  Okay, I didn't really dress Adam.  I know he wears brown slacks and a white shirt so all I did was request a green tie.

When ever people have cute pictures of their kids they always say, "I had to take a million shots just to get one good one!"  Well I took a million shots and didn't even get one good one.  Dang balloons my father-in-law got for the kids, I couldn't get Olivia to focus on anything but that dumb balloon.

This isn't the dress I bought Olivia, but she loved her orange Easter dress so much she wanted to wear it on Saturday and since Kati (her grandma, Adam's mom) had gotten her this pretty blue one I figured we could swap 'em.

And proof that I was there:

A post about not sleeping and pictures of Axel's blessing day

If you've read this post and this post, you might have come to the realization that I am sleep deprived.

I struggled with sleep loss after I had Olivia, and she was a good sleeper!  Axel is less good, but when I spend some time googling things like "breastfed baby sleep through the night" I realize he's better than most of the babies I'm reading about.  He sleeps from 9pm-6am with just two feedings (sometimes one!) and sometimes he sleeps even longer than 6am, but not lately.  And in between those two feedings he wakes up several times with gas, especially if I have a hard time getting a burp out of him at 2am.

I'm glad I didn't start giving advice about getting your baby to sleep through the night.  I would sure have egg on my face right now.  But that's the frustrating part.  I know exactly what to do to get a formula fed baby to sleep through the night.  Easy!  Because its easy to control the amount they are getting at each feeding.

But Axel wasn't gaining weight as fast as the doctor would have liked.  Plus he would only take two ounces from a bottle (making me suspect he was used to eating only two ounces a feeding) and six feedings times two ounces equals 12 ounces, about half of what a baby needs!  Plus he was fussy.  I'm like 95% positive that he was fussy because of gas (isn't that what colic is?  Gas or reflux?).  He would scream in pain and then toot toot toot.  I know the difference between a hunger cry and a pain cry.  Still, those three things (weight gain, bottle feeding and fussiness) stack up to look like my baby isn't getting enough to eat.

All this to say, I would rather feed Axel in the night than worry about his weight or health.  We're going to the dr for Olivia's check up next Monday and we'll have him weighed while we're there.  After that I'll make the call.  I sleep trained Olivia at 3 months and Axel is only a little over 2, so its not like I'm behind but with Olivia things were starting to look up around 6 weeks (she would sleep from 9pm-4am).

So I guess my question is, how do I get Axel to eat more during the day?  Is that even possible?  Will gas eventually stop waking him up All.Night.Long?  Please tell me stories so I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

The Colic

Axel, Axel, Axel.

He's got it.  He's got the colic.  A pretty dang mild case compared to my mom's babies and many of my friends babies.  But I won the baby lottery with Olivia, she hardly ever cried, so any baby compared to her is going to have colic.  If Axel was my first I would probably think he was a perfectly good baby.

Right now he's asleep in his crib.  When he's not sleeping I manage to convince myself that he'll never sleep again.  At night Axel waking to eat seems like a tragedy.  In the day time I realize its not so bad. 

I guess its all perspective.

I try to remind myself that this can only go on for another month or two, eventually he'll sleep through the night and he wont be so fragile so that Olivia can actually hug him with out giving me a heart attack!

But over all, I love this kid.

Random thoughts for a Friday

*We went on a walk the other day.  Axel and I lasted two minutes maybe.  It was sunny, but cold!

*I'm thinking about cutting my hair and selling it.  I figure I've got a good 10" if I were to cut my hair to the base of my neck.

*I went to look for a measuring tape so I could give an exact number of inches, but instead I got distracted and sorted the laundry. 

*I really think Sean and Catherine are going to get married.

*I always think that at the end of The Bachelor/ette

*This kid.   He's awesome.


*The only pair of pants I own that aren't too big or too small, are peach.  So people will know if I wear them everyday.

*I don't wear them everyday, but I no longer care what people think anyway.  I look cute in my peach jeans so I'll rock 'em Monday through Friday if no one spits up on them.

*I know I used the word "random" incorrectly in my title.  Obviously I'll do it if everyone else is doing it.

*Olivia got a shopping cart for Christmas.  She fills it with odds and ends and pushes it around the house.  She looks like a tiny homeless person.

*When I tried to take a picture of this, she asked me to take a picture of Cinderella, which is what she has been calling this Barbie toy from McDonnald's.  

Those are some boxes I still need to unpack.  And the planter is what we use to collect our produce that Adam orders every other week.

*I'm starting to like her haircut. 

She had a sweater on but decided to take it off.  Its getting a little warmer but not that warm.

Happy Friday!  Even though I don't work, I love the weekends because it means having another parent around to help out :)

If I can do this, I can do anything

This picture has nothing to do with the post, but its just so dang cute, and the morning was too crazy to pause for a pic.

Yesterday I had my 6 week doctor check up.  At 9:15am.  I made the appointment a week ago and I've been stressing about it since then.  9:15 is early when you have two kids and the baby doesn't have a firm schedule yet.  But I knew if I wanted a babysitter I'd have to do it first thing before my MIL went to work. 

The plan was to shower Wednesday night, but Tuesday night sleep was so awful and Wednesday my babies were so cranky that I went to bed as soon as Axel was dozing off.  8:30pm.  And that was a great night of sleep, thank goodness.  So good that we all slept in. 

I woke up at 7:50 and since both kids were still sleeping I quickly showered.  After that it was a blur of dressing kids, feeding kids and running back and forth to the bathroom to finish my make up.  I put Axel in the car seat bracing myself for the screams that always follow.  Nothing. 

We were out the door at 8:50.  I loaded the kids into the car and went to my in-laws to drop off Olivia.  Still Axel was silent.  He didn't make a peep the entire time.  I was practically holding my breath waiting for the melt down, but nothing.  He drifted off to sleep without even having a pacifier! 

Dr. Smith peeked on him and he stayed asleep.  He didn't make a noise until we walked in the door of our apartment, three hours on the dot to the last time he ate.  

Everything went so smoothly it was almost creepy.  And I can now breathe again.

My Two Babies

Olivia is adjusting really well to being a big sister.  She hugs Baby Axel, kisses Baby Axel, asks to hold Baby Axel and she has a hard time leaving him alone when he's napping on the couch (my bedroom, where Axel sleeps, is always really cold!  The venting in the apartment is a little goofy).

But not everything is perfect.  She loves Axel, but she's not so sure about sharing her parents.  Luckily she gets Dad's undivided attention most of the time he's around.  I can give her all my attention when Axel is sleeping, but that is quickly forgotten when he's awake and needs to be fed.  And he's a little fussy boy, so I end up holding him almost anytime he's awake.

That's how Olivia invented her new game: Two Babies.  I must have said that phrase at some point, and now she loves it.  When I'm holding Axel, Olivia will come up to me and ask "Do two babies?"  So I'll lift her up on my right leg (I always hold babies with my left arm.  Do you have a baby holding side?) and then she'll say "Rock 'em"  Which means rock back and forth and sing Rock-a-by Baby.

Its probably one of my favorite things.

Olivia kept smiling at me, instead of turning around and smiling at Dad.  This was the best we could get from her!

Linking up with Shannon @ The Scribble Pad's #littledays

Songs for those you love

For Valentine's Day when we were first dating Adam dedicated a song to me on facebook.  Why can't I find that on my stupid timeline?  Oh well not important.  I think the song was Never Wanted Nothing More, by Kenny Chesney.  In turn I dedicated You're My Best Friend by Queen to him.  And even though its not our song, it's become my song for him (I even put it on our wedding video).

The day after we found out Olivia was a girl I was driving to work when Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely came on the radio.  Its like it was meant to be and that has been my song for Olivia ever since.

I was remembering how organic Adam and Olivia's songs had come to me one day.  Maybe later that day, or a few days after I can't remember, I was driving to a doctor appointment because I was pregnant with Axel.  The DJ on the radio started talking about a song by Paul Simon, how it talked about the love between a mother and son.  And I knew it was my song for Axel. 

 

I worry I wont find songs for the rest of my kids as organically but I'm sure it will happen.

Do you have songs for your children or family members?

The lesson I missed in college

There are a lot of things I learned in college that have helped me to be a good mom.  First, I was a Family and Consumer Science major so I learned a lot about child development, cooking, sewing and decorating.  Even my non-major classes taught me things like hard work and staying focused that have helped me take care of a baby and toddler. 

A brand new BYU grad, not knowing that I missed the most important lesson of college.

But there is one thing most college students learned that I did not: How to live on little sleep. 

I was probably the only college student who was in bed by 10 or 11 every night and never pulled an all nighter.  I didn't even know that the library played music when it was time to close because I had never been at the library at closing time. 

In that way, being a mom is a huge shock to my system.  When ever I look at friends with two or more children and think, "If they can do it, so can I." I have to stop and remember, that while I was learning how to cook they were learning how to stay up all night.  And right now, with a two week old baby, that skill is more valuable than all the recipes and all the handmade clothing in all the world! 

I wonder how long mom can last on this crazy sleep schedule????

Baby Axel and Big Sister

 This was not the first time Olivia met Axel, but it was the first time she "held" him.  She wanted to kiss him, but it looked more like she was trying to eat him!  So funny.

Axel Thomas! (Do you want some TMI?)

I tweeted a bit while I was in labor, but I tried to steer clear of tmi tweets.  No one wants to know how dilated I am, right?  Well if you are a mom, you might be interested in that kind of thing.  I know I am!  So here's a brief run down of my day:

7:00am Show up at the hospital

7:15 Get into the sexiest hospital gown you ever did see (NOT)

8:00 After three attempts they finally found a vein and got me some pitocin

10:00 I started feeling contractions so I asked for an epidural.  I like to be prepared.

11:30 Got me that epidural and spent some time missing my legs.

12:00pm Dilated to a 5

1:30 Dilated to a 9

1:45 Felt the urge to push, never felt that with Olivia.  Didn't think to call the nurse, I knew she would be back soon.  She called my dr and he got on his way!

2:10 My doctor arrived

2:23 Pushed twice, head out.  Pushed two more times, we have a baby!