Random Thoughts

Okay, time for another quick update, these are random thoughts rolling around in my brain...


Collin is still nursing strong at 11 months. With him finally eating solids well, I am looking toward weaning him. I nursed Kate until her first birthday and that is my plan for Collin as well. I do love nursing, but it has been a little more trying this time, Collin is so distracted by noises (namely his sister:) and he has six teeth....so, yeah. I am also getting quite anxious to wear normal clothing:) I don't think he will be super happy about weaning and I won't stop cold turkey obviously, but as soon as he turns one (oh my gosh, I'll jump into that denial later...) we will be introducing cows milk and trying to free Momma up a bit! So...I'm trying to soak up the last month or so of our nursing snuggles, as emotional as I have been since his birth, I'm sure I will have some trouble with this too. 

One area that has been wonderful lately is Collin's bedtime. Did I mention this already? We are getting better at having a consistent bedtime for the kids and we do his bath, then he gets to nurse, we read books  - he loves this part! He could just sit and look at/play with his board books for a long time. His favorites right now are Words, Curious George at the Zoo and Peek Bah Boo. He will just snuggle with you and be really focused on the books and sometimes I get this big sigh out of him:) Once I get the sigh or if he starts to try and chew on the books, then we turn off the lights and turn on the sound machine. I sing You Are My Sunshine on the way to the crib and he usually burrows into his blankie. Often now, he will actually try and get into the crib, no extra cuddles then, he is ready to go to sleep! I lay him down awake and it takes him up to about 15 minutes to fall asleep. It is such a warm and comforting, easy routine. I look forward to it each night. Because I am nursing, if Dave is home, he will do the bath and then I do the rest. I used to have anxiety leading up to bedtime because it was... well, just awful. He wouldn't fall asleep, I would nurse him asleep and then try to get him down without waking him,  or bounce around...not good. Needless to say, for many reasons, we are very pleased with this! By the way, it took us doing sleep training and me finally digging in my heels to get here. More on our sleep training later...

Dave and I have been moving furniture around again:) I'm not sure if Dave loves it or not, but things are basically getting determined by my ability to see Collin and get to him if he is about to pull something down on himself:) The kids' rooms are also drastically different and once Dave and I discussed what we were going to do, we just started doing it. Oops, Kate saw the changes and was sobbing about her room. That's right...she is old enough that she needs to be included in some decisions, or sat down and explained things prior to the changes..sometimes we forget how old she is! At bedtime, she of course was saying how much she loved her new big girl room:) Long term disaster avoided! 

Kate has been practicing how to whistle and must have had some instruction from Dave, she is kind of doing it! It is pretty cute and she is very focused while doing it. So, basically during the day I have a little chorus of "Uh ohs" and whistling throughout the house. 

There should be a special book of firsts for siblings...the other day I noticed Kate playing fetch with Collin in his walker. She would throw the ball, tell him to fetch it and then say "Good boy!" (he did not fetch it, but she would go get it for him:) He loved it of course. One of my greatest joys each day is watching Collin's face when he sees Katie, he just lights up. When I bring him down from a nap, he searches around for her and she usually, says (loudly, as she says most things), "Hi, Buddy!!" and comes running over. He gets so excited, he wiggles around and grins from ear to ear:) Precious. 

I will let you know when Kate stops singing Christmas songs, please realize it may be around the Fourth of July:) She will just randomly burst into, "Have a holly, jolly Christmas..." or "on the third day of Christmas, my Mommy gave to me, three huge fish, two roving ducks and a par-pigeon in a tree." This last one is a mix - we have a 12 Days of Christmas in Wisconsin book and it has the crazy verse changes, she mixes it all up:) But her favorite is probably Hark the Herald Angels Sing. She will stand tall, or climb something and sing loudly, "Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy rhymes..." It is pretty cute.

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing!!"

Dave and I had a date night! We finally got a sitter but we didn't make serious plans until she was here:) We had tried to have her come a few other times, but she cancelled last minute. We have had the worst luck with sitters, but I think the tide must be turning now, we have two different sitters that we can use and intend to do so more often! Dave actually remembered while I was getting ready that we had a gift card to the nicest restaurant in the Dells! So, we headed down and had a wonderful evening. It was a great place and the food was incredible. We will definitely go back for anniversary dinners or something special. The report form the sitter when we got back was that the kids did great. Collin was super tired and went to bed easy. Kate did fine, but was not super thrilled we were gone at bedtime. Tara Jo ended up laying down with her for awhile. She also got up a couple times and at one point said she was just going to sit up and wait for us to get back. Then she got sad and said she was sad about her room being different...I'm sure Tara Jo was rather confused! 

Kate did this to me the other day. She was upset about Dave being gone at bedtime and was standing next to the rocker in Collin's room crying, she opened the door to the nightstand thing and found the candle from her 3rd birthday, she just added that in along with everything else...."I miss Daddy!..(sob, sob sob)..and....I...wish...I...was...still...three!" What?! She went on and on about how she wished she was still three years old. Oh my goodness, so I was nursing Collin, or trying to, and trying to calm Kate down and get her to realize that it was okay she was four.

Kate is still crushing Collin with her hugs:) She is so sweet but while Collin loves her back as I stated above...he dislikes being smothered:) Luckily for him, he is growing and we are starting to see some retaliation. If she is within reach, he is grabbing her hair. I would say it is pretty effective:) And is probably just our jumping off point for many years to come! 

And lastly...This is a Kate quote from the other day. I'm not exactly sure what I said that triggered it:
"I trust my Grandpa. Mom, Pastor came and talked to us about…trust. Like how I trust grandpa to jump in the pool. And then parents had to walk in the desert for five weeks! Parents! Five weeks!"

Peace!