Thirty (One) Months Old

When did my baby girl turn 2.5?   Well it's actually be a few weeks now!  Time seems to be barreling so fast!!  It took me nearly a month to get her 2.5 pictures even taken! (Bad mama!)   I can't believe that my preemie clothes wearing infant is now a chatty, expressive, and opinionated toddler!  Wasn't she just turning two?

Newities in the last six months:  singing, sleeping all night in his own bed exclusively, first haircut, very opinionated on clothing and shoe choices.

Heath wise we have had a wonderful six months!  Sleep wise we also have had a great path to rest in the night as well.    She still is quite the staller for going to bed and in recent months I have been taking pictures of her and having people try to "Find Mae Mae Today!"   She wrecks her room and then snuggles down into a location to sleep.    Whatever works!  It's silly and fun and I am sure she won't be doing it forever so it's something silly to love now. 

Mae still loves to touch Mommy's tummy for comfort.  It's what she replaced mama milk with and while she doesn't do it all the time - it's almost a guarantee she'll ask for my tummy at bedtime.   "I want your tummy."   It's sweet.

Mae at the moment doesn't seem to have many favorites - she loves to read books in brother's bed and most recently watch Silly Songs with Larry on her father's phone before bed, but as far as reading the same book over and over - she hasn't landed on one lately.  She does love Ladybug Girl, Princess stories, and the Bible.  Mae enjoys Doc McStuffin and Lalaloopsy toys.  She still loves to watch Daniel Tiger every chance she gets and loves to answer questions posed to her from Super Why.      Mae is recognizing some letters of the alphabet and can mostly sing the song as well with a few repeats in place of the regular locations.  It's cute.   She recognizes all her colors but doesn't have the names associated with them down yet, but give her the colorpillar and pile of things to sort and she'll properly sort them all.

Little sister does good to keep up with her brother and all his friends.  She doesn't miss a beat in keeping up with them running, playing, or even wrestling from time to time.  It's adorable to see her with all the bigger kids and aside from needing a nap before them, her size and age doesn't slow her down at all!    She loves her brother, but also is quite a standard "little sister" when she wants to be.  She has a banshee scream that can cause anyone to go deaf.  It's impressive that such a loud high pitched noise cmes out of her.   She's got more temper and tantrums than brother did at this age.   She will pout and growl "I'm MAD!" or "I'm frustrated"   It's sweet... sometimes.  :)

Mae got her very first haircut about two months ago.  She was so excited to sit in the big chair and get her hair done and get a lollipop.  She was a good listener and didn't squirm or fuss at all (with the exception of wanting to switch chairs repeatedly to try out a different location.)  

Our little girl continues to grow, be sassy, sound adorable and just be so so sweet and cute.  She will tell you her birthday is in January, she will tell you (and invite you) to her party that mommy is planning for her - and she always talks about being a big girl these day and that when she is bigger SHE will go to preschool, kindergarten, and drink coffee.    We love her and can't wait to see how the rest of her third year unfolds!

A Big Girl Bed

I have to say - I have been quite remiss in journaling Mae's journey toward independent sleep compared to how well I documented Ace's.  Perhaps because this mommy is tired after two littles who aren't huge fans of sleeping.   Nonetheless it is Mae's story and I should write her story and how it plays out. 

And so a bit of back story to go with the post.  :)    When Mae was 11 months old we got her a 'floor bed' - went a bit of the way of the Montessorri line of thinking and found her a 3" mattress and placed it on the floor.  Never having had a crib since we co-slept this was a good height to start out with.    She nursed to sleep the first night and slept the first stint of sleep in her own bed. 

This worked pretty well for a few weeks but she would wake up seemingly quicker and quicker.  I recall that Ace seemed to have trouble staying asleep in his 'bed' when it was just a mattress on the floor and so I went on the hunt for a toddler bed that was low to the ground and when she was 13 months old she got her first (mini) big-girl-bed. 

As she got older, she got wise to the fact she could get OUT of the bed and often that led to a power struggle and so one day I broke out the pack and play and she quickly went to sleep 'on her own' and with 'self soothing' - no tears required, just got bored and slept.   As a result the second half of her second year if she wasn't co-sleeping with us, she was asleep in the PnP and often she'd sleep through the night in there.   Almost always napped there.  

I decided I need to break that habit and she also was starting to grow up enough that she needed the space in her room and the PnP needed to be retired as a permanent fixture in her room and so with much hesitation mommy folded it up and returned to the disciplined efforts of Mae sleeping in her toddler bed and starting in February we started the slow process of total elimination of sleeping in our room at any point in the night.  (Very slow.)    This also meant that when she got sick in March I chose to sleep in her room so that we wouldn't lose the ground we had gained on the effort to keep her in our own bed.   It was then when I decided she needed a bigger bed so there'd be room for mommy too!

Her final nap in her toddler bed.

So the hunt was on - everything was procured and I put her bed together.  She was so excited to have a big girl bed and very much following in suit with her brother - she's slept every night (nearly) all night since she's gotten her bed.   She's growing up and is doing so great!   We are all so proud. 

 

Mae loves to climb on her bed, she's only fallen out once (we put a bean bag down below so it's a soft spot to land) and she's a quick learner to avoid it in the future.   She's adorable and I love her.   Although I already miss looking over at her and seeing her smiling in her sleep, or having her cuddle me as we sleep.   It's one more sign my baby is growing up.  Although to help me not miss it as much I can focus on moments like these that we went through.  Oh sweet girl.

Mommy Escape!

A couple weekends ago I got the privilege to go with my friend B and quite an entourage to go on a dress shopping adventure.   It was a lot of fun but more note worthy was the fact that it was the first time that I was away from Mae overnight.  Yes, a week after Little M turned two I was out of dodge for 48 hours! 

We're all a tad on the sleepy side as the Starbucks run hadn't yet taken place!

We stayed in a nice vacation rental that D found for us and made our stay super affordable,  we ate delish food everywhere we went, and the Bride found a dress after some fun mayhem of massive bridal shopping - and experience everyone should have!  (There of course will be no pictures of that!)

After the dress was found, we enjoyed shopping around Portland in the Pearl District for a while.  Back to the house for a screening of Bridesmaids and then a late dinner!  We sat down to order our food at 8:30, ah to be kid free in a restaurant and dine at whatever hour you feel like!  After we got home we watched Pitch Perfect and headed to bed.   We rounded out our visit with a bit more shopping, some more yummy food and then an easy drive home! 
 

1. Starbucks Pre-Dress Extravaganza, 2. Pear Cider at Savoy Tavern, 3. Photo booth!, 4. My crazy colorful bed, 5. In line for the bride, 6. Out shopping around PDX, 7. More shopping!, 8. A dress shop we determined B's dress was better than anything there! Success!!, 9. Ombre hot chocolate at Equinox

It was a great time with friends and Mae didn't miss me at all.  Ace missed me a little more and it was sweet because before I left I told Mae to hug Piggy and Ace to hug his tiger if they missed me.   Ace upon my return said "Mom, I hugged my tiger a lot but I still missed you and it didn't help at all."  Glad I was missed.  It was good to be away, but even better coming home to big smiles and hugs.  A big thanks to Loving Husband for taking Friday off of in order for me to go in the first place!!

Two Years Old

My baby girl is growing up and with fresh snow on the ground she turned two a two weeks ago.   It's been quite the year of joy, advances, and challenges.    Overall it's been a wonderful year.

Firsts for the 24th month: Lots of sentences!  Fully weaned from mama milk, and sleeping through the night, early stages of potty training.

Yes, I'm calling it -  Mae is sleeping through the night.   Now that said it's not every night and often she still fusses enough that we have to go in and hug her once or twice - but she has stayed in her own room almost every night.    She's been sleeping in the pack-n-play and she loves it in there - must simply feel more secure than her little bed.  I'm happy with it - it creates confinement.  :)    So sleep is slowly coming to our house.   Hooray!!

Mae herself has also began to show interest in potty training - this mommy isn't quite ready to go fully force into the adventure - but Mae shows signs of being ready.  Like a week or so ago she stripped off her diaper, went potty in the little potty, and then came and told me that she had gone potty... and she had!!  Much rejoicing and many more times attempted but we haven't repeated this awesome spontaneous event.    She is pretty adorable and will sit there sometimes for a while and repeat what I've told her "takes time"  which just sounds so cute coming from her.    Mae also is happy to sit there while we sing Row Row Row Your Boat and play Patty Cake.  :) She does the motions and it's so cute to watch her try to 'roll it'!

Over Christmas we went and visited her  Aunt and Uncle and she fell in love with Uncle Kai!  Yes she is in love with Uncle Kai and when her birthday got closer I asked what she wanted for her birthday and she said "Uncle Kai...come here... come home!"   she also was very specific on what she wanted for her birthday cake:  "Purpul cake!" Our little princess got what she asked for in a quite birthday party themed to My Little Pony and family.  :)  A post to come on this specifically.

Mae's vocabulary has expanded a lot and she's doing great communicating to us what she needs, wants, doesn't want.  :)   It's nice to understand her with most things - although occasionally she still has her own language squeaked in there.     She and her brother love to laugh together and in the car they've very recently started to tell knock knock jokes to each other - there is nothing that is legitimate that anyone else would label these as jokes - besides "Knock Knock... Who's There"  but they enjoy saying weird things - most often Mae says "Cookie Monter" in response to 'Who's there' - somehow Ace works that out and doesn't tire with it.  Although he does tire with the Knock Knock game and will attempt to change it to "I Spy" which Mae doesn't engage with and so then the two of them are in the back simply saying "knock knock... I spy"  back and forth over and over.    Depending on my tolerance level, their volume level, and the length of the drive that tends to be stopped by intervention.   They also play pretty well together at home and Mae has gotten very good at playing hide and seek - which is great because then they can entertain each other when I'm trying to cook dinner!   They enjoy each other's company most of the time.  Most of the time.  ;-)

Health wise - Mae has had a pretty good run the last few months.  In general her 2nd year of life was an adventure.    She no longer has a food allergy though and we're quite thankful about that!!   She's itty bitty like her mama and weighs in at 19.4lbs and 30.3" tall (if you're wondering that's just a tad bigger than Ace was at 1.   However, I weighed 19lbs and was 30" at 2 as well - so I'm not concerned with her tiny stature.  :)

Favorites for Mae include at the moment: Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (she'll stand perfectly still and engaged (zombied?) for a solid 10 minutes just watching it.)  She loves Printhesses, Ponies!!!, and her babies.   She's quite girly and loves to carry around her purses, wear hats, and change her clothes often - although her favorite outfit is simply a diaper.  It can be freezing cold and she'll be content (yet cold) wearing only a diaper - no matter how many outfits or layers we try to put on her - she'll strip them off quickly.  I hope this is a short lived phase.  She loves to read and some of her favorites still are Good Night, Moon,  Good Night, Gorilla, Fancy Nancy books, and the "Princess Book"  which is His Little Princess: Treasured Letters from Your King -  she loves to sing and clap and her dance is adorable.   She loves to say prayers to Jesus and has started to be repetitive in prayers.  She currently loves to touch my tummy as her go-to comforting option.   She's a joy.  

She eats like a bird, but can jug milk from a cereal bowl in no time flat.  She is adorable and we love her joy, her laugh, her smile, her scowl, and her strong willed personality.  :)  We can't wait to see what Year Three brings us!  No diapers is on this mommy's bucket list!   Happy 2nd Birthday, Mae Mae!

Twenty Two Months Old

Goodness gracious!  How have we ventured to this point?!   We are two months away from Mae turning TWO.    Time goes so fast and it's such a fun adventure.   

Mae's first for her 22nd month included:  trick-or-treating, sleeping through the whole night*, lots of new words and phrases.

Yes, Mae's vocabulary is really exploding and aside from being quite the parrot for anything her brother or the rest of us say she's doing great coming up with things all on her own.   It's really cute because after she poses for a picture, takes medicine, anything really she wraps up with 'gud job' which is often what we tell her.    She love to say prayers now and she will offer up prayers in one word sound bytes that then she wants us to say "Dear Jesus, thank you for..." "dad"  "Thank you for dad"  "bruder" "Thank you for brother"  and if we don't pray and thank Jesus for what she has said she repeats it until she does.  Her prayer list typically always includes:  Dad, Bruder, Mom, Pehul, food.   Others that aren't as consistent include: bed, nap, sad (not to be sad), kind, lov-u (loving), Pop Pop, Grammie (I think she's lumped all grandmas into this prayer), piggy, printhesses, diapers... and the other day she was stuck on needing to pray for butt and poop.   It was one of those I tried to skim past, I know I'm editing her prayers, gasp!  But we prayed for them once... I figured it was enough.  No we prayed for them several times.   This went on for a few days - who knows if it will return.   It's adorable and I love that she wants to talk to Jesus every time she lays down for a nap or to go to bed for the night.  

Speaking of sleep this is where the * comes in.   Yes, I know I have blogged once upon a time in Mae's existence that she slept through the night... but it's been soooo long I feel we've reset and so I am going to happily celebrate the fact that she was asleep last week for 12 hours straight.   Put her to bed and she talked to herself for a bit and then she was asleep and I awoke before her to by an hour - insured she was breathing and went back to lay in bed for another free hour!   BLISS... looking forward to when that ever becomes consistent.  Most nights she's awake every 3 to 4 hours.  No milk breaks but still very much wanting it and so the wake ups are often more time consuming then when she was nursing.    She's slowly getting there and heck even if she's on her brother's time line of independent sleep we only have 14 more  months to go.  I think I can, I think I can...

Mae has really started to take a liking to certain things - she for a while was very much in mommy-mode and was loving on her babies and feeding them a lot.    This month she has been very attached to 'printhesses'  which is cute.  She does NOT like Cinderella (not sure why)  and she isn't a huge fan of Merida - but she loves Rapunzel, Belle, and Aerial.   It's cute she lugs around her 20" stuffed princesses and loves them.  If she sees one on tv or in a book - her eyes get wide and she screams "Printhess!"  it's cute - and as Loving Husband pointed out an expensive love.  :)   We'll see.   Her main focus might shift once again.  :)  We haven't even begun to explore My Little Ponies!

In Mae's 22nd month of life and Pixel's 6th month - Mae broke the dog.   I sound dramatic?  No really... she broke the dog.  Fractured his left knee at the growth plate - so to be fair it was a softer bone area that is more prone to injury - but Mae has once again proven she's freakishly strong.  The thing is that she wasn't trying to hurt Pixel.  She was trying to get him up on the couch... by his hind leg.  It didn't work out.   Pixel is on the mend after xrays, a visit to an orthopedic team of doctors and some good narcotics for the pain.  No major intervention was required and we now have pet insurance as he's proven to be a tad too fragile for Mae.     NO hard feelings are left between the two of them - in fact much to our dismay - Mae and Pixel like to enjoy kisses.  She sticks her face down close and puckers her open mouth and says "kuuusssss' and Pixel licks her and then she covers her mouth and giggles and says "Awww coote'  (cute) over and over again.   It would be sweet if not totally gross.  ;)

Mae and her brother are doing well and more often than not are a great pair - she misses him when we drop him off at school and often requires giving him a hug and a kiss before we leave.  In fact she just assume stay and often toddles over to a table or the play bins and just joins the fun with out a care in the world as to what mommy is doing.  :)   Ace and Mae still have the more traditional relationship of siblings where Mae has found her voice (read screaming high pitched yell) and her brother screaming "That's hurting my ears, sister!!!"   It's delightful to discuss patience and lovingingness and kindness in those times.      They play well together and she of course wants to do everything that Bruder is doing.   Including going down the stairs on a broken down cardboard box... "Watch this sister!"   Oh boy!   

Size wise M is growing and getting bigger each day it seems - although she's still super tiny.   We love to watch her grow and develop today she even said a compound word (sunshine) and we were so proud as often any phrase that we say to her she often only repeats one of the words.   She's really getting quite the personality and is adorable.    We love her and I can't wait to see how she enjoys the holiday season this year!

Twenty One Months Old

It's hard to believe that my little girl is speeding towards two at such a rapid pace!   She's gaining such a vocabulary, expressions, beauty and amusement as her personality develops and every day is fun.     She has her first doosy of a cold of the season but she weathered it well.  

 

Firsts this past month:  jumping, first midnight snack, yes she woke up in our bed and her father was eating fritos and so M enjoyed a few and eventually returned to sleep after her request for more was sadly denied because they were all gone, finally letting us leave her bedroom after saying good night.

 

Yes, the sleep department for Mae is trending very similarly as it did for Ace.  For months we've had to sit for close to an hour sometimes until she finally falls asleep and we can creep on out of the room.   Still waking at the end of one sleep cycle 3-4 hours later.   Finally in this past month she's been willing to let us leave the room and sing her a song at the door.    She still gets up 3-4 times to request another song but rarely protests our telling her to return to her bed.   The freedom of my evening is a sigh of relief and a sign that there is light at the end of the tunnel for this conundrum our children call sleeping through the night!   This past month she once returned to wanting Piglet around all the time at bedtime - the month prior she wanted nothing to do with him.  She also attached herself to 'Bear Bear' a teddy bear and both have been required at night.  'Piggy' also occasionally accompanies us during the day places as well.  

Mae loves to play 'wee wees' (This little piggy went to market) and 'cake' (patty cake) and very recently asked me to do 'knuckles' and she showed me her fist.  hehe silly girl.   She asks to have her picture taken and LOVES to give hugs.   It's so sweet.  She's gotten really good at them too with the bear hug around your neck.    She LOVES her dada and spending time with him, but mama still reigns supreme.  She loves to hug her brother and spend time with him as well.

Mae loves to color and 'ride bikes' even if riding the bike involves someone pushing her, as she cannot yet pedal.   She loves to do anything her brother does and loves to watch shows.    She learned to jump this month and is full of energy.   She loves her baths and finally is feeling comfortable enough to even lay on her tummy with her brother in the tub too (which often is like a simulated wave pool with the him in there as well.)    She is pretty fearless!

Just before her 20th month we cut out mama-milk at nighttime and she's been doing pretty well with that.   She still wakes every 4ish hours asking for it but most nights is content to have a sip of water and return to sleep (usually in our bed after that first stint every night.)       She has entered the "broken record" phase which we are praying is short lived - you know the phase where she just says one word over and over and over again - yah it's super not fun for those that have to hear it ;)  but there are worse things and we assume she'll out grow it and we won't be left too scarred by it.

She loves to read, brush her teeth, and color.  She is growing up so fast and it's so much fun to watch her change and advance.   She loves to have her hair brushed and loves to have bows put in her hair - but they never stay there long.     She is a joy and we love her.