Thursday, September 6, 2012

My kids - an update

Where have the last 6 months gone? 

I was on here a few nights ago reading through posts when Amelia was Carter's age.  It was helpful for a couple of reasons.  First, I feel like I am, in fact, doing a better job the 2nd time around.  Not that there's a scale, necessarily.  I did the best I could with Millie but she had issues.  Issues sleeping, issues nursing...you know, just the basics.  Carter's rocking the sleeping and eating thing.  I started Millie on solids at 5 months (!!!).  I didn't even consider starting Carter until 6 months and, true to his nature, I can't shovel them in his sweet little mouth fast enough. 

I'm ending the comparisons now because I don't want it to seem to my grown daughter who may be reading this in the future that she wasn't an awesome baby.  She was.  She is. 

I have too much to catch up on.  Here's the basic overview from the last several months with our boy.  He's a chunk.  He nurses beautifully and will eat anything put in front of him.  There is nothing he doesn't love.  I do remember around months 3 and 4 he didn't really think it would be helpful to us if we actually slept, but other than that he's been so great.  Last night he slept from 6:45pm - 1:30am.  I pulled him in bed with me, fed him, then returned him to his bed where he slept until 7:40am.  He was swaddled until last Thursday, August 30th.  I had put him down for his morning nap and about 10 minutes after falling asleep he rolled himself onto his belly while in the swaddle.  I got rid of it then and there.  The first few days were rough.  He barely napped, but he slept like a dream at night.  Now his naps are getting a bit longer which is fantastic. 

He's, literally, the happiest baby on the face of the planet.  He smiles ALL of the time and at anyone.  Even when he's so tired that his eyes are red and the vein is popping that runs under his right eye...still a smile.  Does he cry?  Of course.  Absolutely.  He's particularly not a fan of the 25+ minute drive on the way home from Bible class on Wednesday nights.  He screams like a banshee most of the time.  Thankfully, he will keep calm for a Mum Mum now that he's on solid food - I hope this isn't a glimpse into the future and we are blamed for his compulsive overeating. 

He rolls.  He Army crawls.  He drools excessively.  He has eczema that comes and goes and caused me to go dairy free until I realized it wasn't making much of a difference.  He's extremely ticklish - even his hands are ticklish. It's adorable.

Millie is amazing with him.  Really, she is amazing.  She loves to hold him and talk to him.  She's not mean, although at time she's a bit bossy but it's just her not really knowing what he understands and what he doesn't.  She even lets him chew on her beloved Cars which is incredible to me.  If he wakes up and I'm in the middle of something, I just have to ask her if she will go talk to him and she says "Of course!" and she stays in there and just chats with him until I can get in there to get him.  I love my girl so much.  She's 3, and she's good at it which means she definitely tests me.  But for the most part she's kind and gentle and likes to make people happy.

Millie is taking ballet/tap and we also put her in swim lessons.  We will see how the swim lessons go - they start on Tuesday.  At this point she won't even get her face wet when I give her a shower.  The other day I took Carter and sat on the front steps waiting for David to get home.  Millie was running around in the front yard and being crazy as usual.  All of a sudden she walks up, sits down next to me, throws her arm around my shoulders, and says "Mom, I know it's hard for you".  I didn't know whether to laugh or kiss her so I did both.

She's still into Cars, cars, trucks, trains...anything with wheels.  About a month or two ago we were sitting on the pew at church waiting for worship to begin and David's mom (who sits behind us), held up a Barbie to Millie, offering to let her play with it.  Millie didn't flinch.  She glanced at the doll then looked at her Grandma and said "Got any cars?"

I love my kids so much, and I feel SO blessed to be their mom. 
 
Happy Friday!