Adrienne is 6 months old!

My little (big) princess is 6 months old - breakout the half birthday kazoos! She's doing very well and is right on track developmentally. Size-wise, she's an overachiever. She's tipping the scales at 19 lbs and is 27.5 inches which puts her in the 95%ile for height and weight. I wonder if she'll even out or if she just takes after Matt? We've started solid foods and so far she has had AND likes: avocados, sweet potatoes, bananas and oatmeal. She really likes food - go figure. Today, I sent squash with her to daycare so I'm anxious to find out what she thought of it. I've been making all of her food in the magic bullet which is fantastic for making purees. The pediatrician wants her to be on meats at about 7 months which I think is a way to get her extra iron.

Luke is Adrienne's favorite entertainer - she laughs the most when Luke is playing with her. He's very good to her and even calls her "sweetie." The other day we were leaving G-ma and G-pa's house and G-pa was holding Adrienne when we were ready to go...Luke informed him "G-pa, we need Adrienne!"

We're getting ready for Christmas which is no small feat. We've enjoyed all of the holiday decorations that have come home from preschool and daycare. Yes, even Adrienne made an ornament this year - an angel, made out of a picture of her face, her foot print and hand print as part of the body and wings. Luke came home with a graham cracker house and a snowman tile ornament.



We are so excited to watch Luke open his presents this year as we know he will be extremely excited. I'm sure Adrienne will be equally excited to chew on some wrapping paper. We've got our reindeer food ready to put out and I'm sure Santa would enjoy some cookies and eggnog (his favorite!).

Wish us luck in our final week of Christmas prep - the most wonderful time of the year!

Lots of things

The 2010 holiday season is in full swing and Amazon is my new best friend. I'm a pretty social person by nature and I love shopping but I hate holidayshopping crowds. I went to the mall yesterday and it confirmed my love for Amazon. Matt gave me the green light yesterday to spend the whole day shopping *by myself* while he took both kids to Luke's gymnastics class and to his parents house. Of course (and I knew this would happen), while at gymnastics, he wore Adrienne in a baby carrier and all the other moms talked his ear off. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw giant Matt with a baby strapped to his body and handling a crazy toddler at the same time.

Lukey and Adri are going to get some pretty cool toys this year as if they don't already have enough. I now know how hard Santa worked all these years! Actually, today we got all of Luke's baby toys out of storage for Adrienne and it already seems like we've had Christmas! I'd forgotten about all the itty bitty baby toys and it makes me so happy to hear the little songs they sing again. Ah, they bring back such fond memories. So far Adrienne is most interested in the chew toys and the laugh n' learn table. Those darn teeth are giving Adrienne such hard time. I have a feeling they are about to start giving me a hard time as soon as they pop through!

I'm happy to report that Luke is still enjoying pre-school. This morning he woke up at 5:45 am and his first question was "Is Lukey going to go school today?" I told him that we all stay home on Sundays and his second question was "why?" And we are definitely in the "why?" stage. One of his teachers at school told me he asks the most questions - go figure! I can tell he's learning all kinds of things and he's also mimicking his teachers. He was playing Picasso the other day and I suggested he paint me a lake and he said, "That's a great idea!" Another school phrase he repeats often is "Why don't we try..." Anyway, we are really thrilled with his school and think that the Montessori philosophy is suiting him well.

Well, we are looking forward to Christmas and I'm sure it will sneak up very fast. There are sure to be many stories from Christmas morning from my little comedian, Luke! I'll try to sneak a post in before that though :)

Fridays

Upon my return from maternity leave, I started a reduced schedule at work. I work Monday - Thursday and have my Fridays off. I LOVE this schedule and the one day off makes such a significant difference in my work/life balance. In fact, I'm a little miffed at the over achiever who, way back in the day, decided we all needed to work 5 days a week. Because I've only been back to work for about 8 Fridays or so and because I've traveled about 5 of those Fridays, I don't have a real "plan" for how I'm going to handle my day off on a regular basis. And I should make the point now that while it is a day off from my career, it is not a day off from "work" because I "work" harder on Fridays than I do M-Th combined!

Hurry! Both kids are sleeping at the same time! Hurry!

Earlier in the day, I thought to myself that I'd surely take a nap if I won the sleep lottery and both kids napped at the same time. Well, here I sit, updating my blog because instead of a nap, the line above beginning with "Hurry!" crept into my mind and took over my nap time! All the to-do's need to magically get checked off the list and I have to do this in a ridiculously silent fashion. I feel like a muted tazmanian devil swirling about my house.

Whew, I am tired with a capital T! My day started off at 6:00 AM and with Luke around, there is no ramp up time. We've been go, go, going since the Luke alarm wrang and my feet hit the floor. I think it was around 8:30 AM when I thought it must be getting close to lunch time only to be in disbelief when I saw the clock. Today's lineup: match box car carwash (2x), wooden puzzles (x3), guitar and drums, hide and go seek, haircut, Wegman's, browning making, cleaning and nap. And that was all just for Luke, throw in taking care of Adrienne and that's a partial description of my day. Ah, I wouldn't trade it for the world!

We've got a great weekend ahead of us and we're looking forward to all of it happening in one city, Canandaigua! Last weekend we were in Richmond, VA for my cousin, Anna-Suzanne's Bat Mitzvah. We had a great time and the kids were angelic the whole weekend, included both 8 hour car rides. Luke had a blast at the dance parth, aka, the reception. He was leading a pack of about 6 older boys running circles around the reception with helium balloons in tow. About every 5 minutes, the Luke "commet" ran in and out of the main room like a flash.

One last little note...big girl is now rolling both ways :)

First Parent-Teacher Conference

I never realized that parent-teacher conferences were as much about the parents as they are about the child. Well, maybe this is more specific to pre-school but none the less, I kind of felt like we were being evaluated in addition to Luke. If you're wondering, we passed with flying colors, phew!

Luke's conference needed to get it's own post in the blog because there were so many things his teacher said that I'd love to relay to Luke in the future. Luke's teacher, Mrs. Robinson is clearly in love with Luke and it is also clear, that Luke only uses his best behavior at school (he saves some other behaviors just for us at home). Here's what she said:

-Luke has such a sweet personality and is always very caring toward other students
-socially, he's very outgoing, everyone enjoys him
-he's very intelligent (woot woot!)
-He acknowledges every adult when they come in a room with a greeting
-he's very curious - asks the most questions out of the kids in the class
-he's very persistent

Somethings to work on:
-pulling up his pants before he comes out of the bathroom (I was about to pee my pants when she said this)
-working independently ( he likes to do what the next kid is doing)

We talked a lot about Luke's behavior/personality as it relates to our parenting style. Mrs. Robinson and I talked a lot about Luke's curiosity and the way he expects to have an answer for everything. I told her that we let Luke be included in everything we do at home and that we don't "dumb" things down for him because he's a child. She said that because we are always giving him reasons for things, he expects to be given correct answers to his questions - which is a good thing. We also talked about his unwavering persistence. I told her that we have a very child-directed household - she giggled. Hey, some might call us crazy (or pushovers), but I think we are fostering the development of his leadership skills :)

All in all, Luke is doing very well at school which is a relief to me given all the transitions in his life in the past 4 months.

4 months

Well, my little princessa is 4 months old now and I feel like we are in a 'honeymoon" period. She's so sweet, well behaved, and 16 round pounds of pure heaven. She could improve on her sleep patterns but other than that, she's pretty much perfect, if I do say so myself.

In honor of her four month milestone, I've composed a haiku:

Her ways are so sweet
Her face I cannot resist
oh sleep, I miss you

As mentioned above, Adri is little bit of a porker and I mean that in the most endearing way. She's still topping the charts for height and weight. Her new pediatrician, having never met Matt, looked at me with strange curiousity and asked, "well, how big is her dad?" I told him, and he said "well, that explains it." I still have a feeling she might end up more on the other end of the spectrum like her mama.

Oh, the best thing happened today - my girl laughed! I was lifting her high in the sky, think Dirty Dancing lift, and when I brought her back to my lap she let out her first real giggle. The look on her face said "Again, again!" And because I wanted to hear more laughter, I probably made her dizzy with the amount of times she flew back into the sky.

And her she is:

3 Months Young

As you can see, Adrienne was a little upset about turning 3 months old. Or maybe it was just that she needed a new diaper!

You'll notice that she's rockin the retro style in these pictures. That little number last saw action about 30 years ago when her *clears throat*style idol wore it.

No surprise here, but Adrienne continues to host parties in the middle of the night. Sometimes, she even invites Luke. Otherwise, she's very easy going. She loves to cuddle and coo and smile - she has such a sweet pesonality. As I end this post, she's waking up from a brief snooze :)

1st Day of Preschool

My baby goes to school - ack! This officially makes me old - ack! I know I'm ridiculously smart and all but I thought that Luke might be able to learn a thing or two from other people as well. Little bucky is off to Montessori preschool 3 days a week and in a class with 7 other little buckies. As this is Luke's first time in a structured environment (and, um, he's not a very structured kid), I (Matt was in on it too) thought that the Montessori philosophy and style would be a good match for him. As usual, I was right! I guess it's a good sign that he wants to keep going back to school, otherwise I'd have to hide him under my desk at work and let him color on my shins.

In a Montessori classroom, the children get to decide what they want to work on instead of being directed towards a specific curriculum. So far, Luke has continued to choose the "life skills," activities such as pouring, squeezing, cleaning, etc. I'm grateful they don't have any automobile driving activities in the life skills section or Luke would never learn anything else. As it is, he has advanced skills in that category:

Me: Luke, are you excited to go to school tomorrow?

Luke: yes!

Me: Mommy and Daddy are going to drive you there and drop you off, ok?

Luke: Can I drive myself there?

Me: No, Daddy's going to drive the car

Luke: I don't want Daddy to drive the car, can I just drive my blue truck? (his power wheels)

Me: Uh, no. You've got at least 13 more years of waiting buddy.

So you might be wondering where Adrienne's been spending her time while Matt and I are at work and Luke's in school...she has started at a germ center, oops, I mean daycare center. Little sweetpea was there for 2 days before she came home with a cold :( So far, she enjoys hanging out with her baby friends, eating and sleeping. All of the teachers at the center have stopped in her room to see "the baby with a lot of hair."

Here she is on her first day:

2 months

Whoa, where have I been the last 2 months? Oh, that's right, I've been constantly feeding one child and constantly entertaining the other.

Today is Adrienne's 2 month birthday and we celebrated by getting her 3 shots! I give awesome gifts. Poor thing, she didn't mind the first one, disliked the 2nd one, and outright hated the 3rd one. Lip quivering crying is never pleasant. Nor is the crying where you are waiting for the sound to come out but it hasn't yet because she's crying so hard. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...WAHHHHHHHH!

We've been calling her "big girl" ironically, since she was born because she was on the smaller side of birth weights. Well, now big girl is not longer an ironic nickname because she is, just that. Strange that I could have produced a child who at any point in their lifetime would be in the 95th percentile for weight (12 lbs, 12 oz) and 90th percentile for length (23 and 1/4 inches). I mean, when I look at her, she looks big to me but that isn't based on anything other than the fact that she's working on a 3rd chin...now the medical community says she's big based on the charts too. I guess all of that feeding hasn't gone to nothing! Now if she could only share some of her appetite with her brother who eats like a bird.

My cutie is also sporting a faux hawk these days...

Call me Crazy, because I am

I have a lot of haphazard and unconnected happenings and thoughts going in my life these days and I thought I would share them with you! Yes, I'm sleep deprived with a bad case of baby brain!

-I consider chocolate covered strawberries to be health food
-Major accomplishment this week in laundry: I folded a fitted bed sheet into an actual rectangle instead of a garbled heap
-I wish I invented the wubbanub: www.wubbanub.com or some other silly baby product and got rich off the desperation of moms with newborns
-The wubbanub has allowed me some freedom from my sweet little thing who would nurse all.day.long if I let her...I love her but it's hard to move around with a child hanging off you
-In a battle of wills, I lose to Luke and the baby 100% of the time. Like when Adrienne spits out said wubbanub in quest for the goods. Or like when Luke asks for, well, pretty much anything.
-Everyone tells me that Adrienne's hair could fall out and come in blonde like her brother (and therefore look like her dad). Is there something wrong with the way I look? Why can't they say, oh, love her hair, she looks like her mama?
-I've contemplated cutting Adrienne's hair but I don't want her to end up with a mullet - what kind of mother would I be then? Her crazy spike is part of her newborness and I'm just not willing to part with that yet!
-I admit that I have 2 small battle wounds (also known as stretch marks) from being pregnant with Adrienne and I love them. It's sort of like a tatoo that reminds me of her :) I kinda wish I had one from Luke
-I'm secretly happy to see that I've passed my OCD gene onto Luke. He throws fits when we won't let him clean. There is no doubt this gene came from me and not Matt.

Well thanks for reading my random thoughts. Soon I'm going to start posting all of the entertaining conversations I have with Luke for your reading enjoyment.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

1 month

Ok, so I'm late at posting this but better late than never. The little princess or as we affectionately refer to her as la princesa (we've been watching too much Dora) is 1 month old already * sad sigh*. She's plumping up nicely, she's quite the eater and not quite the sleeper. At her last weigh in, she'd gained 2.5 times the amount of weight the average baby gains at 1 month.

In the last month, I've learned a few things:
-how different two children of the same parents can be
-how difficult it is to walk by the children's section at Target without buying any baby girl clothes
-why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture (must be I forgot about this part)
-that pre-schoolers are really interested in breast feeding gadgets, products and process

Certainly I've learned other things but my brain isn't functioning today so I can't think of anymore!

We are headed to NY tomorrow for the Adrienne revealing. Just kidding, we're really going to NY for a whole lot of reasons but the little miss will be meeting lots of admirers. Maybe I'll try to tame her tresses for the occasion!

Happy One Month Birthday, Adrienne!

Fast!

Ok, I'm going to try to type really FAST because I have a feeling a certain someone is going to be waking up in the next ten minutes to eat!

So speaking of fast...Matt and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary yesterday...those 5 years went by FAST, OMG! I guess it's a good sign that it doesn't seem like it's gone by slowly, huh? That wouldn't be good. Anyway, it was also Matt's 29th birthday! I like it when it's Matt's birthday because that means for the next 6 months or so, our birthdays look only one year apart instead of 2 :) Yesterday we went out to lunch at a famous Mexican restaurant in the city where we've been trying to use a gift card that we've held onto for 5 years (literally, it was a wedding gift). We've called at least once a year since we've been in Chicago to get a reservation at this place but we've never been able to get one when we wanted to. So alas, yesterday we walked in for lunch, didn't have to wait and got an awesome table. The stars must have been aligned. This particular restaurant as gotten even harder to get into since theowner and executive chef, Rick Bayliss is Obama's favorite. Too bad I had to watch Matt down 2 margaritas while sipping my fruit cooler.

Later in the evening, we dove into Matt's birthday present which was a bouquet of chocolate covered strawberries from edible arrangements - YUM. I'm embarassed to say that we ate the whole thing in one sitting. Birthdays and anniversaries are great excuses for over-indulging!

So an update on the products of the last 5 years:

Luke is the most ridiculously cute kid ever - his antics make us laugh all day long. He's been parallel parking his cozy coupe car all over the condo. He actually lines up furniture so that the parking spot is tight and backs in his little car. It's amazing how much he picks up from us when we don't even know he's paying attention. This is clearly a blessing and a curse depending on what he picks up. He's been really into the baby lately - he tells her "it's ok" whenever she's crying but has yet to learn that his flailing limbs need to be reigned in in her presence. I finally got him away from my breast pump-which he was turning the speed up and down on as I was using it - uh, not cool!

Little miss Adrienne continues to be a sweet little thing. She's so sweet and cuddly that at night she only likes to sleep on top of people, and if we're lucky, next to people. She generally sleeps in 3 hour segments which isn't too bad. She's quick to let us know when she's hungry or wants to be picked up - let me tell you, she isn't shy! She's very strong and can hold her head up for quite a while. She'll be giving Luke a run for his money before too long!

Alas, some photos!

Sitting pretty:

Flowers we got for our anniversary:

Watering the plants:

The chocolate covered strawberries:

Playing in the front yard:

Hanging out in the front yard:

A small snooze in the swing: