Potty Training Day One... A Battle of the WIlls

Today began day one of potty training at the Hughes house and it may be the final day for a while. We'll see.

Noah: "Mommy I'm too sick to potty."

Me: "You're too sick?"

Noah: "Yes Mommy. I'm so very very sick. I can't go potty now."

9 Months

Time is flying by. Esther's life so far has been a blur.

- She crawls. She started crawling the day she turned 9 months. In typical Esther fashion of being content with her current circumstances, it took her a while to realize that she could use it as a means to get around, not just get the toy that is two feet from her. Now at 10 months tomorrow, she is much more mobile.

- She takes two naps and usually goes down around 7-7:30 at night. She requires much more sleep than her brother ever did. I feel like at this point, we were pretty confident that Noah would sleep through the night, but that is definitely not the case with Esther. One, she is a very light sleeper and any tiny little noise will wake her. Two, anything that happens to her seems to affect her sleep. She gets sick, she won't sleep. She's teething, she won't sleep. Her world is altered in any sort of way, she won't sleep. I realize that this is the case with most babies, but it just seems to be extreme with her. I literally cannot remember the last time we slept all night without being disturbed. I am pretty certain it was before she was born.

- She likes to talk a lot and is quite loud about it at times. It definitely makes it difficult to keep Noah from yelling in the house. He doesn't always understand that it is okay for her to be loud, but not him because he is a big boy and knows better. :)

- She takes four bottles a day, but I am pretty confident that if we never gave her a bottle again, she would be just fine with that. I remember being nervous about weaning Noah off the bottle, but I am kind of excited about weaning her. Bottles are a struggle.

- She eats food three times a day. Usually yogurt for breakfast and maybe a little oatmeal or something like that, baby food for lunch/dinner. She loves Cheerios, but other solid/table foods are not her favorite. She just kind of holds them in her mouth and then starts choking on them later... aka, I fed her tiny pieces of banana for breakfast one morning. Probably close to an hour later, I was changing her diaper and she started gagging. When I looked, she had a wad of banana plastered to the roof of her mouth. Silly girl, just swallow!

- She is so happy pretty much all the time.

Although we are very tired these days, life with Esther is good and I can't imagine it without her anymore. It is definitely more trying, not necessarily from her because like I said she is always so good and so happy, but more from the interaction of her and Noah. It has mainly become that way since she started crawling. I don't know how many times a day I have to get on to Noah for taking things from her, not sharing, yelling at her, hitting her,laying on top of her... The list goes on and on. Hopefully sometime in the near future, he will just accept the fact that she can move now and choose to be excited about that and play with her instead of constantly fighting her. Wishful thinking I know. Anyway, back to Esther, we are so thankful that God has blessed us with such a sweet baby girl and look forward to each day with her.

Hand Foot and Mouth and Baby Doggie

Our kids look leprous. They have Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. We had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago. THat night their daughter got sick. Three days later, Esther did. Then three more days later, Noah did. Our kids were kind enough to pass it along to some other friends' kids and there parents. So now almost every baby and toddler at church has had it. THey really did pretty well. They each had a couple rough days and nights and then they were fine... Minus the blisters and sores ALL OVER their faces, hands, and feet. So for the last week, they have felt fine, but we couldn't really do much because we didn't want to pass our cooties on to even more innocent children. Noah feeling well + being cooped up in the house = Noah going crazy = Mom going crazy. :) Thankfully their leprosy is almost gone now and we will be able to venture out.

Baby Doggie... Noah has never really been attached to a stuffed animal. I have given him stuff to sleep with, but he has never really cared. He has always preferred to sleep with cars and aiplanes (very cozy I know). Well a couple of weeks ago, I left his stuffed dog and pillow at my friend's house who keeps them on Mondays. No big deal. He doesn't really care about the dog anyway, right? WRONG. Ever since that day, he will not go anywhere without the dog, lovingly referred to as Baby Doggie. Baby Doggie is a girl, which I think bothers Brian a bit, but I figure the only baby he is around that much is a girl so it makes sense. We'll see if it is just a phase or if his love for Baby Doggie sticks. :)

Mother's Day Out

Noah started going to Mother's Day Out one morning a week this semester. The picture above was him on our way to school. Not too excited. That morning I told him it was time to go to school and he looked at me and said in the most pathetic voice, "I not want to go to school. I want to stay here and clean the floor." One, I'm not sure what he is talking about. No I do not make my 2 year old scrub the floor. Two, as tempting as that sounded, we had alreadu paid a deposit. Cheapness won out and we loaded up and headed to school. He greadually got excited on the way there... Until it was time for the drop off. He ran inside so excited and then flipped when it came time to go in his classroom. He flopped on the ground and started screaming. They had to scoop him off the floor, drag him in, and then promptly told me to leave. Thus not a lot of pictures. :( When I picked him up that afternoon, he was pretty happy and they said he was great. The next week was a completely different story. Still not too excited on the way, but once we got there he was ready. He walked right into his classroom and said, "Mommy you leave. You not come in here." I told him I had to come in to bring his stuff in and he responded again with, "No, you leave." 2 years old and already too big for his Mom. Today was the fourth time he went to MDO. Last night he was so excited about going. What a blessing that his independence won out over his rigidity and resistance to change.

Half a Year- My how time flies!

Our baby girl is 6 months. The other day, I was looking back at old posts of Noah and it was so fun. And so good to remember that it wasn't all kicks and giggles. I felt really bad that all I have to show for our little girl is one entry... Her birth. So I am going to try to be better so that one day we can look back on her life too. She is such a joy to have as a child. When people see her, they always ask, "Is she always this good?" Now people would ask this question about Noah as well, and the answer would be "Not especially" or "Come to our house around naptime." With Esther, we can honestly say, "Yes, she is" or maybe "Even better." She truly is the best baby ever. She has made the transition from one to two much easier than I expected. Here is what she is up to:

- She sleeps all night. She usually goes down between 7 and 8 and sleeps until around 7 the next morning. We thought we were going to have to give her some tough love and cut out her night feed, but she did it herself. Yea! She takes two naps a day now. She probably should still take three a day, but she just refuses. She gets pretty tired in the early evening, but thankfully just when she is at her fussiest, Daddy comes home and puts the wind in her sails.

- She loves her exersacuer and her jumperoo. I keep trying to figure out which one she likes more so that I can put one up. They take up so much space! No luck yet. She seems to love them both equally.

- She can sit quite well. She has never been the most active of babies so sitting is right up her ally.

- She can roll over both ways now. She rolled from back to front for the first time at 7 months (Yes, she is 7 1/2 months old now).

- She still eats like a champ. She drinks four bottles a day (5-6oz) and eats solids 3 times a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). She has slowed down some on the bottles since starting solids. She is a little slower in taking them. I think she just gets bored with them... And very distracted!

- Speaking of distractions, she LOVES watching Noah and would much rather follow his every move around the room than drink a bottle. She laughs at everything he says and does... which is just what he needs, more encouragement. :) She is definitely his Ed McMahon.

- Her other favorite person: Brian. As I mentioned before she gets so excited when he comes home from work. We all get excited. It is pretty much the best part of our day.

- She laughs and smiles all the time. And she is quite the flirt.

Stats:

Weight: 7.98kg (17lb 8.9oz, 75-90%)

Length: 64.9cm (50%)

Head: 41.3cm (25%)

Four Months!

I thought I was a bad blogger before, but an extra kid has definitely slowed my already lacking writing skills. Esther is now four months old. I can't believe it!! The days just seemed to crawl by when Noah was this little, but they are all a blur now.

- She can roll over!!! She did it for the first time on Saturday, just one day after turning four months... Right on schedule I guess. I, of course, was not in the room to see the first time. It is a big joke in our family how I (the one who takes care of our children almost 24/7) have not been present for any of our kids' major milestones. Esther did not disappoint and kept the tradition alive. I was mopping the kitchen floor. Brian laid her down on the living room floor and tadah! she immediately rolled over. There is always rolling the other way...

- She laughs. It is so sweet to hear. She does it the most for Noah. She loves him so much. I pray that she always adores him and that he always takes care of her like now. They are so sweet to watch.

- She can sit in the Bumbo pretty well, much better than Noah could at this point.

- She LOVES to sleep in her bed... You won't find any blog posts about that with Noah. She is such a good sleeper. Right at 8:00 every night, she is ready to go down. She still wakes up around 4:00 to feed, but then is back down until around 8:00 am. The best part, is her napping. She takes about an hour long nap in the morning (sometimes longer) and about two hours later is ready to go back down for another 2-3 hours. Then she takes a little catnap in the evening. What a blessing to have such a great sleeper!

Stats

Weight: 6.45 kg (14lb 3oz) (50%)

Length: 62.6cm (50%)

Head Circumference: 40.3cm (25%)

I am a little skeptical of the head circumference because it looks rather large and round to me (and everyone else who has seen her), but I guess I can't argue with the tape measure.

Picture taken by Noah. He is becoming quite the photographer. :)

2 Months Already

I can't believe it has been two months!!! She is getting so big!

-She is a good sleeper. We put her down around 8:30 (her choice) and she sleeps until 4:00 when she wakes up for a quick feed and then goes back to sleep until about 8:00-8:30 in the morning. She also is taking two naps in her bed a day (morning and afternoon) and then catnaps in her bouncy seat in the evening.

- She smiles quite a bit now.

- She is on all bottles and formula. Sadly my body has failed yet another child. My supply started dropping when she was two weeks old. I pumped until she was six weeks old, but also had to supplement her with formula in that time. I learned with Noah, that it is best for the sanity of the whole household if I am not pumping all the time. Plus, I am pretty sure Noah would not have been too patient waiting for me to pump all the time.

- She is working on sitting in the Bumbo...

- Here are her 2 month stats:

Weight: 4.8kg (10lb 9oz, 50%)

Length: 56.1cm (50%)

Head: 37.2cm (10-25%)

So sad... :(

Both kids lying on their respective quilts made by Gram.