Nightmares and teeth

Lots has been happening in our household lately.  Where to begin?  How about with the kids--this blog is mostly about them anyway right?  In a post a time or two ago I mentioned Lila having a hard time when I leave her at school.  That hasn't really improved much.  The whole ride to school today she said, "I ont up Mommy, I ont up please" and "hold my hand please Mommy".  She kind of whines the whole way to class and then starts to cry as soon as she gets the slightest inkling I'm going to leave.  Her teacher says that she's only upset for 10 minutes or so and then has a good day.  She has taken to randomly boycotting naps there though, which doesn't thrill me, but whatchya gonna do? 

Ms. Lila has also been having some night time fears.  Quite a few months ago she started asking us not to close the door to her room at night.  We'd leave it open about a foot, but every so often the air conditioner will come on and create a little vacuum that forces the door closed.  It happened the other week right after Roman left her room, and she started screaming.  I ran upstairs and when I opened the door she was scrambling out of her bed and screaming and crying.  For at least a week after that happened she was afraid to close her eyes and go to sleep.  We'd tuck her in and leave the room, with the door open, and she'd call out to us over and over, asking us to come sing her a song or come give her another hug, etc.  Then in her sleep she started screaming--"DADDY", "NO", and Roman thought he heard her say "I DON'T WANT TO SEE IT".  She wouldn't wake up though, just call out in her sleep. 

We kept asking her what she was scared of, but other than the air conditioner closing his door, she didn't really say anything.  We had her wedge books under the door, and the corner of one of her pillows so she could see/feel that the door wouldn't be able to close.  Then Grandpa Kent thought maybe she didn't know what the air conditioner was, so we took her on an A/C tour.  We took her outside and showed her the big A/C unit, explained to her that it kept the house cool, then let her feel the air coming from the vents.  I told her that it was just the air that was closing her door.  That seemed to help.  She still doesn't want us to close the door, but the other night she said, "Mommy, close the door half way so baby Jett doesn't wake me up".  Since then she's been much better. 

Jett, my boy, is a trooper!  He got both of his bottom front teeth at the same time, with little distress.  He was mildly fussy, but nothing that some Tylenol didn't help. 

He loves to grab onto things--hair, ear, cheeks--whatever is close by.  And he is STONG!  He grabs and then tries to pull us in so he can chew on us. Lila frequently tries to give him a hug and when she leans in he gets two handfuls of hair.  She usually tells me, but she's too impatient to wait for me to get his hands out so she just pulls back and Jett ends up with big chunks of her hair in his hands.  Poor thing, but I guess it doesn't bother her too much.

Roman just finished the third quarter of the year.  He's been working really hard and still travelling once a week or so.  We are going to San Diego for a little vacation in Novemeber.  Grana Nan is going run the San Diego Marathon so we're going to cheer her on and take the kids to do some fun things while we're there.  I'm excited for us to take a vacation.  It's been 11 years since I moved, so I can't wait to go back! 

Roman got Lila some feety pajamas. She loves them!

He got me!

I have no words for this one

We went to a birthday party at the zoo this weekend and Lila got her face painted

A rare picture of Jett sleeping on his back.

We bought Lila this play Tinkerbell dress months ago and she hasn't cared one bit about it until the other day

Jett got his first taste of real food the other day.  Some avocado.  He enjoyed it more than I expected.  He was trying to grab the spoon from me the whole time and shoving it in his mouth.

I let Lila run around in the rain.  She had a great time.

This is a lamp that my dad owned.  I had wanted to keep just about everything of my dad's but, of course, that wasn't realistic.  My aunt Jan took quite a few of my dad's things for us.  I think most of the things she took, she took because she didn't want me to have to face giving them away.  Lila talked about this lamp, she remembered it from his house, so Jan sent it to us.  It was so sweet of her because I know this is one of the things she really, really liked having. 

The two videos below are of Lila.  The first is of her playing uncle Max's guitar with him and the second is of her being a "mommy" to her baby.  Sorry about the poor camera work on the second one.  I was laughing so the camera was shaking.  She's obviously been paying attention when I feed Jett. 

Pictures

I mentioned in a post some time ago that my lovely friend Rachel came to our house to take pictures of the kids [yes, all of the pictures you see were taken at our house, she brought everything she needed with her! It was so great not having to pack up two kids, snacks, outfits, etc. and haul them to a studio.] She took pictures for us when Jett was only a week or so old, and we had her come back recently and take some additional pictures. She was so kind to let me post some of the pictures on my blog. There were SO many good ones, I had a hard time narrowing it down. I still don't know how we're going to decide which ones to order prints of.

Here's Rachel's contact information if any of you are interested. Her email is rachelparikh@hotmail.com and here's her blog site if you want to see more of her work... rachelparikhphotography.blogspot.com.

Swimming

Video of Lila (and briefly Jett) swimming in their pool. (Note: if you get this update via email, click on the title, "Swimming", to go to the blog site and watch the video.)

School and birthday

So it's September already? As I keep saying, I don't know where the time goes. It seems like I blinked and 5 months went by. Here's what's been happening as of late.

Lila started Mother's Day Out again on Tuesday. She'll be going twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. Dropping her off on Tuesday was fine. The teacher was just getting the Play-doh out so I guess that distracted her. Today was a different story. The whole way to school she kept saying, "Mommy, ont you to stay with me. Don't go home Mommy, don't go home." I kept telling her that the mommies and daddies don't stay, that school is just for kids. That didn't seem to sink in because when I took her in she still kept telling me not to go home. Her little lip started to quiver when I hugged her goodbye and then when I got up to go she started crying. It was hard for me to leave her. She rarely cries when I leave her, so it was hard for both of us. When I went to pick her up, she was in her old teacher's classroom. Apparently she'd gotten really upset because one of the other kids was crying and she couldn't calm down. Mrs. Diane (her old teacher) only had one little girl in her class today, so she told Lila's teacher to bring her to her class. Hopefully next week will be better.


Jett is having his own issue right now. He has started turning himself over in his crib and doesn't like it one bit. He can only get himself one way though and can't turn back over, so napping has been a serious problem around here the last three days. He finally just gets tired enough that he goes to sleep, but about 45 minutes into his nap he turns himself over again and wakes up.


When he's awake he's really interested in the things around him. Roman brought the bouncy down from the attic and he loves to bounce up and down in it. It has toys all around the edge so as he turns he can play with the different things. It makes noise when he bounces and some little lights flash. Fingers crossed he'll get the turning over thing figured out and be back to normal soon.


It was my birthday on Tuesday as well. We didn't do much that day, but we did some celebrating at my mom's house over the weekend. I got a really great gift from Roman and the kids. There's a picture of it below. I think it might be a hint though, judge for yourself.

I've been writing down some of the sweet and funny things that Lila's been saying. There are really so many, but I forget a lot of them before I have a chance to write them down. Here are a couple from recently...

We've been working on Lila's manners. When we ask her yes/no questions we want her to respond with "yes please" or "no thank you".

Mommy: Come on Lila, let's change your diaper.
Lila: No thank you.


The other thing we are working on is sharing. I'd given Lila a snack, a bowl of cheese and goldfish crackers. I proceeded to get out a bag of cheetos and some almonds. Lila: Mommy ont some cheetos please.
Mommy: Lila you have a snack on the table.
she comes running back over with her bowl and says..."Mommy you share some with me pleeeeeease."
She got me there didn't she? Was I going to NOT share with her? Of course not!


Mommy: Goodnight sweet girl.
Lila: Goodnight sweet mommy.


The other day she was giving me kisses all over my face and laughing like we do to her. She stopped abruptly and looked at me with this funny, perplexed look on her face. The she said, "Mommy, you eyebrows are scratchy."






Got all my hair cut off. I LOVE it short.

Lila helped me blow out the candles

Then licked the frosting off every single candle I put in front of her.

Lila was dressing up poor baby Jett while he was in the bouncy. First, the hat...

...then the bunny ears...

...then the headband.

This is a picture of Lila in the bouncy when she was Jett's age. Pretty similar looking huh?

Ready for her first day of school. No fancy clothes here. They do all sorts of messy crafts so they tell us to dress them in play clothes.

My birthday gift

I helped Roman make my birthday cake with the new mixer. He was on the floor so Lila could watch him decorate it. He let Lila decide which colors she wanted on the cake and then he used the white icing to mix up the colors with some food coloring.

My cake

This is a video of Lila talking to Jett, making him laugh.

Hooray for the big girl bed!

Little Miss Lila has slept the last 5 nights in her bed instead of her crib. She had been sleeping in her bed at nap time, but always wanted to go in her crib to sleep at night. On Sunday night we were laying in her bed and had finished reading her books. I said, "Okay, let me tuck you in" to which she always replies "Onna go in my crib". This time she just rolled over and let me tuck her in with her bunny and her blanket. We've had no crib sleeping since!

We got the stool I ordered for her, so she can get in and out of her bed without our help. The first morning I went up to get her and she was just starting to get out of bed using the stool. The next night I told her she had to stay in bed or we'd shut her door, and she's stayed in ever since. The next step is to get the crib out of her room and put her bed in its place.

Lila is also getting her two year molars and has been such a trooper. She hasn't complained about them once! I just noticed them when I was brushing her teeth. Yesterday I think they may have been bothering her though. Lila's Mother's Day Out teacher from last year has kids over at her house each week to play. I take Lila on Thursdays and they play, have snacks, lunch, and take naps...just like they did at school. Mrs. Diane called about 11:00 and said she thought Lila wasn't feeling well as she kept crying. Lila got on the phone all sniffy and said, "Mommy? I onna come home Mommy" It was so sad! I went and got her and she was fine the rest of the day.

Today I was asking Lila to help me look for her sippy cup. I swear we have a monster in the house that eats them! It's ridiculous how many have been lost. I'm on the floor looking under all the furniture and looking in her toy bins. Well Lila is following me around the house saying, "Doan worry 'bout it Mommy, my daddy will find it. Doan worry 'bout it. There's plenty a stuff here." This has been Lila's refrain lately. She broke one of her toys the other week and I fixed it. When I gave it back to her the next day her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh my daddy fixed it!"and ran off. What the....????????! She's only two and she already thinks boys are the only ones who can fix things!

BBJ (that's baby Jett) is a sleeper! He LOVES to sleep. He typically goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and sleeps 12 hours. He stays awake an hour in the morning, then goes back to sleep for 2 hours. Then the remainder of the day he'll stay awake no more than 2 hours at a time before he wants to nap. Yesterday he took two long naps (1.5-2.5 hours each) went to bed at 7:00pm and didn't wake up until 8:45 this morning! Then at 9:45 he still went back to sleep and as I type this at 11:45, is still sleeping soundly. I'm grateful that he likes to sleep, but boy is it hard to go anywhere as he only really likes to sleep in the crib. He's still chewing on everything he can get in his mouth, which is mostly just his hands and clothing, and drooling all over!

My friend Rachel came over this last weekend and took some more pictures for us and the kids. She has two boys of her own and gave us a bunch of really cute clothes for Jett. It's hard for me to decide what to put on him each morning now there's so much to chose from. I want it to hurry up and be winter so I can put him in the cute cold weather clothes before he outgrows them.

As for me, I have a new hair cut. My hair is falling out, postpartum--while you're pregnant you hardly lose any, so your body usually makes up for it postpartum by shedding a bunch. Because my hair was long it was even worse. It was everywhere! I decided to chop it all off, well most of it, and start fresh. I like it a lot and actually think I might cut it a little shorter in the front next time.

Roman has been working like crazy. He's had to do quite a bit of travelling in recent weeks. I think he enjoys it a little as he gets go out to dinner and sleep all night. He loves to come home and see the kids though, and you can tell they're both happy to see him too!

Big J

Lila and her cousin Daniella

Sitting on cousin Sofia's lap, who's sitting in baby Jett's Bumbo

Lila sharing her toys again

Lila put her sunglasses on Jett

She loves to have us take pictures of her and Jett. Everytime she lays down next to him she says, "Take a pitcher Mommy"

Well you can't really see it here, but there's the first of the two molars coming in, in the back of her mouth.

Her hand-painted step stool. The lady altered it from the standard design to match the colors in Lila's room, and she also added a dragonfly in with the butterflies. The top lifts up to allow some storage inside.

Rachel was here when I was getting my hair cut and she took a picture. Here's my chopped off pony tail! The girl who cut it took it to the salon with her to donate, to help make a wig for someone who has cancer.



My new do

video of Lila and Jett

There was a problem with this video in the last post so I'm reposting it a different way. Hopefully it'll work.