Ingenue Mom

Lux (We haven't had our 9 month appointment yet, so these are from her 6 month appointment.) Height : 27.75 inches Weight : 16 lb 6 oz Mainly, she is just long!! Sleep Sleeps 12+ hours a night! She goes to bed around 7:15pm & wakes up around 7:30am.  Takes 2 naps a day - and she's pretty flexible on the 2nd nap as far as what time it starts. Sleeps in her crib for all naps and nighttime, but will sleep easily in a pack & play at other houses as well. Play Her favorites right now are an old calculator & remote, which I think is so funny. She loves playing with Isis or being around any of us where we are. She loves the pool! We've been going a couple of times a week and she loves getting in the little floats and just kicking her legs! She loves bath time and will kick and play in there for as long as we'll let her! She loves playing with other babies. She does an army crawl with her arms to get wherever she wants to go....

I think it's kind-of hilarious that I haven't posted since January. It's June. The end of June. I also think it's funny that the last time I posted it was to say I went back to work. Are we thinking maybe going back to work with 2 kids threw me for a loop? I'd definitely say that is a valid assumption. But here we are, June 22. Isis is 3 1/2. Lux is 8 1/2 months. It is summer. I am home. We are all finally hitting our stride. I'm no longer scared to take 2 of them out by myself. I have started grad school to get my Masters & I'm a few days away from being done with my first 8 week session. I feel like I can finally breathe and it's time to share some updates. (I'm going to split these into 2 posts because it's been so long & I have so much to say!) Isis   Communication & Emotions Boy do we have a talker! That personality is coming out full force! Isis loves to talk. She'll even sit down and go, "Mommy, let...

Because I didn't capture any pics of my Fearless Friday escapades, here's a cute pic of my 2 ballerinas from Halloween on Wednesday! Isis was Angelina Ballerina, but she refused to wear the ears or the tail.   I read a post on Rookie Mom about how we should observe Fearless Fridays. Her blog is for rookie moms, which I am now not one anymore, but I am embarking on a new stage of motherhood with 2 kids. You can be as prepared as possible & adding a child to the mix is still going to throw you for a loop. So I think it'll be fun to try to do something each week that scares me in terms of motherhood! I may not always do it on Friday, but I'll post about it on Friday. This week my Fearless Friday activity happened on Thursday. During the day, I took Lux out for our first shopping trip alone to Target & then we met a couple of women for lunch. I was nervous about both, only because you never know if your child is going to cry throughout the shopping trip ...

General Stats: 28 lbs, 35.75 inches tall   Movement: Obviously as a 2-year old, this is becoming a less interesting update. Isis loves to run & dance & she is absolutely a little climber! She loves to climb up on Lewis' weightlifting equipment. I swear she can scale some of that stuff! I have to keep an eye on her or she'll be climbing up somewhere she shouldn't! She is starting to be able to walk up and down the stairs like normal, alternating legs. But she doesn't do this all the time. She has had a couple of tumbles down the last couple of stairs if she starts going too fast, so she's not yet going down stairs alone.   Food: For the most part, she is an excellent eater! We were told that she would start to eat less this year, but we are still amazed at how much she can put away! She usually eats well for breakfast and lunch and then dinner is hit or miss. If we're eating Mexican food or pizza, she can throw down at dinner. But if it...

Having a little celebratory ice cream for pooping in the potty! We are successfully potty trained! This is an experience & a milestone that I have to record somewhere, if only just so I remember for next time! Also, this has lots of potty talk in it, so if you're not interested in reading all that...don't.  Readiness Isis has been going occasionally in the potty for pee since she was a little older than 18 months. This would happen more often with the grandparents because they seemed excited to do it & she seemed more at ease about doing it with them. We didn't push it almost at all at our house because I wanted to go all in or just wait. I didn't want to just go halfway with the potty training & drag it out forever. She also has woken up dry for naps pretty frequently for about the same amount of time. She has also woken up many times dry in the morning. She would also tell me sometimes that she needed a diaper change, so I knew she was ready. ...

We are having another girl!!! I am so excited that Isis will have a little sister. That is something I never had and I always wished I had. Having a brother was fun, too, don't get me wrong, but there was always something I envied about that bond of sisters. I look forward to seeing this with my girls!! Everything looked great with the 20 week ultrasound, so we are excited and well into nursery planning and preparing as I want to have everything done and ready before I go back to school at the beginning of August. Now, second reason for this post: Potty Training   We have also decided it is time to potty train Isis. I held off during the school year because I didn't want to make my babysitter do a lot of it. Isis uses the potty occasionally as it is, usually about once a day, if not more. She just doesn't really tell us if she needs to go all the time. She also wakes up with a dry diaper some of the time both at night and almost always for naps. So we feel l...

I cannot believe she is 2 years old already!! General Stats: Weight - 27 lbs, Height - 34.25 inches Movement: This girl is obviously on the move. She runs, jumps, climbs the stairs, walks down the stairs when she's holding our hand and obviously walks everywhere. We're having some issues keeping her in the stroller or shopping cart sometimes. She just wants to walk, but she can't quite keep up, so on a quick shopping trip it can be difficult. Food: She still eats pretty much everything. She's started trying to resist vegetables lately, but we can usually get her to eat some at dinner. She loves peanut butter & jelly sandwiches or pretty much anything with peanut butter. She loves to dip things. She dips chicken in A1 or honey mustard or ketchup. Most things if she's not wanting to eat it, we can offer something to dip it in & she'll start eating it. She's eaten some really weird stuff dipped in A1. She also likes spicy foods! It's...

We bought a house!! Well, we're under contract for a house. We close on December 16, just in time for Christmas! I feel like things are moving fast in my life and I'm excited! School is going great! I absolutely love my job, my school, the teachers I'm working with, all the people working with me on my KTIP intern year, everything! I just feel like things are finally getting into a good flow. So, we decided it was time to buy another house! Since it'll be time for baby #2 in the near future, we knew we needed more room and with the market being what it is and mortgage rates being what they are, we just decided to go for it!  We found a beautiful house that is perfect for us and for our ultimately complete family! 4 bedrooms, a 5th bonus room with a big closet! 2.5 bathrooms, beautiful kitchen, dining room so we can entertain or host holidays at our house, LOTS of closet space! It has a backyard that even comes with a wooden play set with a slide!! Imagine the...

How beautiful is my 15 month old?? She's growing up too fast! General Stats :Weight - 22 lbs, Height - 30 inches Movement : She is finally walking !!! She took her first steps at 13 months, but didn't start getting really interested in walking until about 14 months. Now that she's 15 months, she can finally walk on her own! She's still a little wobbly at times, but she has stopped crawling. She only crawls now maybe once or twice a day! Other than that, she's walking everywhere!! She also prefers to hold your hands and walk up the stairs - no more crawling there either. She can get off the couch by herself, but she can't get up on it yet.  Food : Still eating anything & everything, with the exception of eggs & pasta sometimes. She also isn't crazy about red meat. We finally offered it to her for the first time about a month ago & she just didn't eat much of it. Not sure if she actually doesn't like it or if her teeth just aren't t...

I find it amazing how quickly kids pick up on technology. My friend's 6 year old can play games and things on the computer that I couldn't do in 4th grade! Although, to put things in perspective, the fabulous computer games were just coming out when I was in 4th grade, but still! We let Isis play with our iPhones & our computers sometimes. I thought I'd share a little list of what she can do right now! Unlock an iPhone Scroll through menu screens or pictures on the iPhone Click on apps on the iPhone Hit the home button when she's done scribbling on my Scribble app (or when she wants to get back home from any app or screen) Push the keyboard buttons when it's in the text messages Move a computer mouse around & click buttons She knows that hitting the space bar when watching a YouTube video will pause the video & then hitting it again will start it (she giggles a lot when she does this) Hold the phone to her ear & say "hi!" Hit butto...

For the last 2 weeks, Isis' naps have been all messed up. She would only sleep about 30 minutes for the first nap and then less than an hour for the 2nd nap. Something just wasn't quite working. It was like she wasn't quite tired enough & she was just taking cat naps to get her through the next couple hours. We finally decided to try dropping a nap. I realized I'd rather her take one really good 2+ hour nap than 2 naps that were starting to be less than 45 minutes each. Today, instead of putting her down at 9:30am for her first nap like we normally do, we went out for some family errands! We went to Toys R Us to get her a table to color & draw on because she's been trying to color on everything & rather than her color on my kitchen table, we decided to get her own Isis-sized table! We picked this one . It has 3 setting for size so it can grow with her & it wasn't horrible colors that clashed with my house! Then we went to Joseph Beth Booksellers...

It's so funny, yesterday I wrote this post (scheduled for today) about how Isis isn't walking yet and she's just taking her time and blah blah blah. Well, she also decided yesterday to take her first steps! She did it several times and I caught it on video once. She wouldn't do it if you got close to her. If you get close, she tries to get you to pick her up or hold her hand, but I found that if I sat away from her, she would do it herself. I'm telling you, she is just like me and Lewis - wanting to do things on her own time in her own way. We're in for a fun adolescence. Thankfully that's not for a while, but right now my baby is now a toddler! Crazy!

  So our lucky girl is going to end up having THREE first birthday parties! I had one at my friend Diana's house with just friends. Then my mom had one with my side of the family and Lewis' mom is going to have one at the end of January with their side of the family! This won't be something we do every year, but it's how it ended up working out this year. Normally, we will just have a party at our house, but right now we are in a townhouse & there's just no way we could fit very many people there. Our first party was at my friend Diana's house. It was a cupcake themed party! I made the cupcake liner pom-poms that I found on Melissa from Dear Baby 's guest post on The Daily Julie . They turned out really great & I did them in colors similar to Isis' bedroom so that I could hang them over her bed after the party! She LOVES them! Everytime we get her up, she wants to reach up & touch them. We had a make your own cupcake set-up, so we just h...

  All pictures by Avenue D Photography General stats : Weight - 20 lbs, 8 oz, Height - 29 inches She has grown 13 lbs, 12 oz and 11 inches this year!! Movement : She is a major crawler & a major cruiser, but has yet to walk. I think she crawls too well & cruises too well when leaning on things! We try to stand her up & get her to walk to us, but she seems to just know that crawling is faster or she will reach out for the couch or the wall & then walk to us. She will stand on her own sometimes if distracted, like holding a toy with both hands, but as soon as she realizes she's not leaning on anything, she drops straight down. We've seen her stand on her own for about 10 seconds, but she won't do it very often. We're just waiting patiently for this, I guess! Food : She eats anything & everything...except pasta. I have no idea why she doesn't like pasta! We've tried everything with no allergic reactions. She love pickles! And she eats black o...

Isis is now officially drinking from a cup - no more bottles!! But our journey to get here hasn't been the most fun, although it was probably better than some! I thought I'd share some of our story for those of you who may be at this point soon! First, we started weaning her at about 11 1/2 months. At that point, she was taking a bottle at 7:30am, 11:30am, 3:30pm and 7:00pm. We started with the 3:30pm bottle. I gave her a sippy cup with half whole milk & half formula. She screamed. For about 45 minutes. It was awful. I consoled her every few minutes, but I didn't offer her a bottle. After about 45 minutes, I sat her down in the living room with the sippy cup on the ottoman and I walked in the kitchen to get her a piece of bread. I was gone about 5 seconds. When I came back, she was drinking the milk from the cup. Hilarious! I guess other than her 45 minute tantrum, it was a pretty easy transition. About 3 days later, I started giving her a cup at the 11:30am feeding w...

Today was my final day of breastfeeding with Isis. We made it 10 months & I think that's pretty fabulous! I wanted to breastfeed to 1 year, but I mentioned before that when I started student teaching, there was a significant drop in my supply. After less than a month of student teaching, Isis went from exclusively getting breastfed to taking 1 bottle a day, then after a couple more weeks 2 bottles a day. I stopped nursing her at night about a week ago and today was the last time I nursed her in the morning. I wasn't producing much, so Isis & I had a little chat this morning & we were both just done. It had been a struggle to get much of anything the last couple of weeks. So 10 months!! I'm proud of myself.  It was hard, then it was easy, then it was hard again, but overall I have been incredibly happy with this experience & I look forward to breastfeeding my future children for as long as possible!

I realized the other day that I haven't shared an update of what's going on with Isis now! I really am seeing the growth spurts. There will be weeks when I'm like, "it feels like nothing is changing & she's just never going to do that" (whatever it seems like everyone else's babies are doing). But then, one week she'll just start doing 5 new things without any trouble. It's crazy! Here are a few highlights: At her last doctor appointment at 9 months old, she weighed 20 pounds exactly & was 27.25 inches long. She now says mama & dada (when she feels like it) & to the right person. She can pass objects from one hand to another. She can pick up food & put it in her mouth. She picks it up with her thumb & forefinger, but then uses her whole palm to put it in her mouth. It's adorable. She stands holding onto things & pulls herself up easily. Sometimes she cruises between the ottoman & the couch or between a stan...

Life is moving so fast. 10 days ago, Isis couldn't pick up a small piece of food & get it into her mouth. She could pick it up, but then she'd drop it continuously in the process to try to get it close to her mouth. She also couldn't fully pull herself up to standing. She was still getting used to crawling.  10 days ago, I was fairly confident in myself as a teacher. I was still in the beginning of my student teaching experience. I wasn't quite to the point of looking for jobs, but I was excited about the possibility. Now here we are & Isis started putting food in her mouth one day like it was no big deal - like it had never been a struggle. She pulled herself to standing & now will cruise between the ottoman & the couch. She can crawl across the room quicker than I thought possible. 10 days!! I am still fairly confident in myself as a teacher, although I went to a seminar where I saw an absolutely fabulous teacher & I was pretty much completely ...

We have a crawler, people!!! She started crawling this weekend & I was there to see it the first time!!! I've been worried that I'll miss big things since starting student teaching, but I'm not missing anything! I saw her crawl across her room & then she crawled all over the living room! She's such a little cutie. And p.s. - I've decided not to write posts on the weekend while I'm doing student teaching. It's just too much. But I'm going to try to keep up with it during the week as best I can! Thanks for still following along!! I seriously love you all!!!