Parenting Check in April 20

[karlamo]

Good Monday Morning! 

How was your week and weekend? 

Parenting
kh826
karlamo
jgy
sherminator
mahler5
wittyandwaiting
kona
strings
mrsnorris
2mrsks (mrs&mrsk)
jennicole
amberreva


QOTD:  What was one thing you swore you'd never do when you had a baby, but now find yourself doing?

[karlamo]

R is 14 months.

Nothiing new to report this week. We made it through 3 days and 3 nights without mama around. It was touch and go for awhile but I think this was our my best solo parenting trip yet. I took him to the park twice, music class, 3 walks and 2 baths. I was tuckered out by the Friday.

With Mamosey being gone I dropped R down to 1 night time feeding at midnight. He used to eat twice at night but I used this as the perfect chance to drop the second feeding. If you can even call it a feeding at 14 months! Seriously kid. For the past few nights he still wakes at 4am but we let him cry before going in to soothe. Lately he has been falling alseep before we have to go in. It's not perfect but its progress. For the first time since having him we both feel like we're actually sleeping at night. My hope is with time we doesn't wake at all.

We are really enjoying playing outside and went to the playground 3 times last week. Forget the swings, R loves playing with woodchips and sticks.

QOTW: We break many of our "rules". Co-sleeping is one that comes to mind. A month before he was born we sat down and talked about how we would NEVER CO-SLEEP and we went on and on about how it was dangerous etc. Well at 7 weeks pp, we brought him in bed with us. It just felt right for us. We were both nursing so there was no chance of us sleeping 8 hours straight and forgetting about him. He clearly slept better snuggled between 2 mommies. I don't regret doing it for a second.

[kh826]

William is 10.5 months.

I feel like William's development is totally exploding lately. We joke that he has a new "trick" every day! In the last week he has started signing "more" when eating (like every meal - he is pretty obsessed with it, and he is so proud of himself when he does it and then we give him more food!). He has gotten more steady with his walking with his push toy, and he has let go a few times and just held onto the wall and shimmied along the wall. He took two steps yesterday from his push toy to his zany zoo toy without holding onto anything. He also walked across the room with me just holding onto one of my hands. So unassisted walking is very close! Yesterday he also bounced a ball himself on the floor and he was so proud. I was bouncing it and then I handed it to him and said "William's turn" and he bounced it then started cracking up laughing and clapped for himself. He has added "yum" to his vocabulary. He says it when he is eating and yesterday, we went out to lunch and when they brought our food to the table William pointed at the plate of cucumbers and hummus that we ordered for him and he said "YUM!" really loud HAHA - it was super cute.

He has gotten pretty clingy the last couple of days when he is tired, which is new. He will burrow his head into our chests or pull on our pant legs, etc. yesterday I was at the grocery store with him and he was riding in the cart, and he kept pulling at my cardigan trying to pull me closer to him. It felt like he was saying "don't walk away, Mom" ... it was cute. I will admit that I very much like feeling needed by him, especially since my wife is the SAHM, so it makes me feel special when he does that with me and I welcome it.

We have set a date for moving him out of the pack-n-play in our room and into his crib in his own room! May 1st! It will happen, finally. J is on board, thank goodness. He sleeps really well, so we are just so nervous to mess it up my moving him, but it is time, and we need to start the process of moving him and give us all time to work through it if it is difficult since we are trying to get pregnant again very soon. No room for two kiddos in our room with us!

I feel like I am forgetting so much of his "new stuff" since it feels like he does something new everyday lately, but that is what I can remember at the moment...

We did break down of the weekend and give him his first grains. We had been holding off until his birthday to introduce grains, but he has been eating 3 meals a day and he has dropped 1-2 of his bottles a day (we are NOT trying to wean him - we know he still needs nutrition from his formula, but he is just not wanting it and he is eating 3 balanced meals a day with us and thriving)... anyway, I wanted us to have more options to feed him and I felt like he was ready and J agreed. He had pasta on Saturday and pita bread on Sunday. He seemed to really like both. So far the only thing he isn't really found of are eggs. He will eat hard boiled if you cut them up, but not his favorite. He hated scrambled eggs. I think it was the texture. His favorite food of the moment is raspberries.
He saw me put them in the cart at the grocery store yesterday and he started kicking his legs and clapping HAHAHA

QOTW: I feel like I have a lot of these... and I am sure I will not remember them all...
* We said absolutely no screen time. That was not doable for us. We never put him in front of the TV, but he has been around in front of it, and we did watch a few Christmas-y shows with him over the holidays that were geared toward kids. We also FaceTime with my family a bunch, so he is in front of the computer for that.
* We said we would wait until a year to introduce grains, but we did that this weekend at 10.5 months.
* I personally said that we would move the baby out of our room by 3 months, then it was 6 months, then is was 9 months... now we are saying May 1st which is 3 days shy of 11 months. We shall see...
* We struggle with slipping and saying bad words in front of William on occasion. We really, really do try not to, and I feel awful when I slip up, but I would say J is the bigger offender currently. We both said we would never say bad words in front of kiddos. Since William is such a little mimicker right now, I have a fear that one of these days he is going to drop something and say "Oh Balls!" -- one of J's favorites. Ironically. Definitely not proud of that one!

[jgy]

G is 2 years plus a little.

Well, he finally came to the realization that he could climb out of his crib on Saturday morning. He's been physically capable of it for a while now, I just don't think it ever occurred to him. And he's generally super happy in there, singing to himself and talking to his stuffed animals, so we've really had it soooo good for a while now. But it was a bummer and a new wrinkle for us. We spent Saturday afternoon making sure to do the final babyproofing in his room that we had put off (anti-tip straps for the dresser and hutch).

Naps are significantly more difficult now, but nighttime still seems to be going okay. We are waffling back and forth about whether to convert the crib to a toddler bed right now or not. I think the crib is still enough of a barrier to keep him in there at night and in the morning, and I fear that if we go toddler bed he'll just be in and out of it non-stop. Some friends of mine were able to convince their son that the bed is an island and he can't just climb in and out without falling into the water (or some shit like that). That WILL NOT WORK with my kid, he'd be like "Let's go swimming" and would likely dive out head first.

I had a big fat parenting fail on Sunday. S and I have been having some tension about getting out of the house as a family and doing fun stuff. She's just a huge introvert with such a busy schedule. I don't blame her for wanting to stay home when she finally has the opportunity to BE home, but I feel like we're losing touch with a lot of friends and also that we could be doing more to expose G to different situations and experiences. And then we have the complicating factor of needing/wanting to spend time with the dog. Anyway, I'd been talking up this event WAY in advance to get S used to the idea that we would go. It's called Rock the Cradle, is held at a local museum that's very close to our house, and is basically a giant music festival/dance party that is specifically for kids. I was SO excited to take G. So we get through all the typical grumbling associated with leaving the house, and G was especially crabby right after his nap (who knows why? teething maybe?). We park (amazing) and start walking there and I see no kids. I check my phone and yep, we're definitely at the right place! We get to the front door, still no kids and not 1 piece of signage. I check my phone again. It was LAST weekend. Mother Effer!!! I turned to S and totally started to tear up. Thank god she just took G and went inside and let me sniffle in the lobby for a few minutes. I finally got over myself and went inside and we walked around an exhibit or two and then grabbed coffee and hit the family area. It was fine, we still got out of the house and got some fresh air, but it was not at ALL the experience I was hoping for. Sigh.

QOTW: We break all of our own rules. We coslept some, we supplemented with formula, we've had a VERY hard time integrating him into OUR lives (rather than changing our lives to suit his). I'd rather focus on one of the things we've stuck to ... nutrition. I feel like we've really busted our buts to keep strong on our nutritional philosophy. He doesn't get much (if any) processed food, his plate is always balanced even if he doesn't always partake in everything on it. He gets VERY limited sugar in his diet. And all of this is good practice, because I fear he will be a classic ADHD-diagnosed kid (like Mommy) and we will want to do as much as we can diet-wise to control that as possible. I do have to add that we get a lot of help from daycare on this front. They do a fantastic job feeding those kids, and he eats everything there because peer pressure. So that sets us up well at home.

Have a great week everybody!

[jazibel]

Owen turns one on 5/2 :-) He's walking now and can regularly cover the distance of a room before falling It's super cute because he tends to lift his arms in the air for balance and waddle away. I'm planning a small birthday party with a hungry caterpillar theme on Saturday 5/2. It's been fun to plan and get inspired (and overwhelmed) from Pinterest. Developmentally he's sleeping better at night, and falling asleep more on his own. We finally weaned ourselves from using the swing as our crutch when needed because it broke. But sleep is much better for sure. We're nursing less, still on demand but since Owen eats several meals a day he nurses around bedtime, in the morning and sporadically at other times. He's happy, and very independant. He seems to be an even bigger dare devil then Kaden. He signs more now, may be saying Mama, and Aya - but we could be hearing things. ;-)

Kaden is a couple months shy of turning three (I sent out save the dates for his pool party in July and reserved 80 tickets, that might be overboard but we realized 20-30 families would be that many people at least...).
He started tot sports lessons (they cover soccer, basketball and baseball) in 9 weeks. It's so cute to watch 2 & 3 year olds play and run all around. Developmentally he's inquisitive, head strong and loving. He recently starting asking "Where'd Daddy go?" We explain that not all women are mommies and not all men daddies, and tell him a little about who his family is.
We're also working on potty training and offering yogurt covered raisins as a reward.

Parenting as a whole has actually gotten a little easier (knock on wood). We definitely have moments where I literally want to pull my hair out, but compared to 11 months or even 6 months ago things are in a good rythmn. With Kaden having language to help explain things, set boundaries and have consequences has made all the difference.

Can't wait to catch up on your LOs!!

[2mrsks (mrs&mrsk)]

Rory is 7 weeks

I think we are out of our little crazy temper spurt. the gentlease and a little water (per dr instructions) seemed to work. we had a better fri pm & saturday and a normal sunday... and dw said today is good too. YAY! I think he just messes with us on our first weeks home alone- did to me, now to DW !

My mom came over yesterday. she works in early intervention for the county. sometimes i feel like she is testing and judging R/us when he doesnt do what he is "supposed" to. sometimes it's just his mood!! anyway she was like this when we were young and she was in social work/DSS. stop bringing your work home!! lol (sorry if i've already bitched about this last time she came over LOL)

We went to church yesterday! we met w/ the pastor last week for R's baptism and he said we have to come for 2 months. I think we both hadn't gone for many years mainly because we are catholic and they arent always so accepting. well-- this church is!! our friends had their girls baptised there and there were other ss couples at mass. the church was also not STUFFY/ formal like most i've been to. the father actually knew peoples' names and greeted everyone and had like an intro session where he asked for shout outs of special happenings for the week (birthdays/ anniversaries/ etc). We really had a nice time and are excited to be a part of the church!

QOTW- not sure yet since R is so young!

[jazibel]

QOTD: We've broken almost every rule I think. Screen time we use sometimes, especially working at home I need an hour to play catch up with emails. We don't put shows on for Owen and try to monitor what Kaden watches pretty closely. He loves Curious George.
We co-slept, have used food as rewards (yogurt raisins for potty training), etc. All in all though I don't feel guilty of our compromising because these are things we've agreed too and thought through before breaking the rule.

[mahler5]

C is 14 months!

Her sporadic temper tantrums have gotten longer now. She is saying Momma a lot more. She even called me Monmy today for the first time I think as opposed to Mom or Momma. She has said a few more words this week but not consistently. She still says her standard ones a lot. "Uh-oh" is a favorite after she drops something (on accident or purpose). Since she dropped her first nap she is falling asleep earlier and sometimes it ends up happening in the car on the way home before lunch. So I need to get used to that and get home earlier.

I want to start music and swimming lessons for her. I play a lot of music for her and sing to her bit I think a class would be fun. We are going to the park all the time now. She is climbing all over the place. She is able to get on some of the furniture now which is scary because she then tries to climb up to the top of the sofa and over! She gets down from the seat levels ok though, so that's good. I still have to watch her around steps but she is also getting better.

So, has anyone here had to rehome their dog? One of my dogs bit the other yesterday. She has food aggression sometimes so we feed them separate. But yesterday L left a bone out she thought the docile one had eaten and he hadn't. So when the other dog saw it she came over to him and went ballistic. Something similar had happen years ago but not this bad. She bit him. Definitely more than a scratch.

Anyway, we obviously cant keep her. There was another incident with C where she growled at her and knocked her over. After we found out she was in really bad pain from a ruptured anal cyst we talked to our vet and made some adjustments to our home set up that have the dogs space.
But we can't keep her completely separate. Right now we are leaving her outside when we are in the main rooms and bring her in when we are in the bedrooms or gone. She is whining all the time.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm just really upset about it. I don't want her to end up euthanized. I'm trying to find a rescue place to take her or someone. But it's going to be hard.

C is awake now. Gotta go

[wittyandwaiting]

DS is about 160 months old.

No really - today somebody told me that their LO was 42 months. I've been laughing about it all day; I may be a jerk and perhaps this is an but I think that once your child is over 2...ish, you can drop the months unless it's relevant to development. Okay. I'm done my rant.

I have nothing new to report here, I really loved last week's discussion though. This week DS is definitely working on improving in the area of sarcasm and has introduced a seriously dramatic sigh which is driving us crazy but I guess that's what it's like to be a 13 year old navigating the world. He's still wonderful and a much easier teen than I was so I'm still a happy mother.

QOTW: Yikes. We co-slept sometimes, he ate peanut butter too soon and then broke into a jar of Nutella, he played a video game rated teen when he was 10 years old (no nudity) and he's definitely heard a few swear words. That's all part of what makes him generally happy and well rounded kid as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry to hear about your dog mahler5, a friend of mine recently re-homed her dog and it was tough on them. I'm sorry that you are faced with this difficult situation.

[kona]

O is 8 months

We had to get a baby jail this weekend. A huge play yard now takes up most of my living room. With the open floor plan it was going to be crazy expensive to get enough gates. She had been over at the stairs twice and into lots of things she shouldn't be. She pulls to stand and wants to stand ALL the time. We thought she would hate being confined but she's ok with it and we only use it when she needs to be safe while we tend to dinner or dishes etc.

I signed her up for swim lessons, I'm so excited to take her. They start next week. She loves the music class that M takes her to. After the 6 months of reflux she has really turned into a happy social kid.

QOTW- The big 'rule' we broke was co sleeping but we agreed that at that point in time we needed to sleep. I don't regret it at all. We have stuck to our other decisions so far but she's only 8 months!