Saturday, January 28, 2006

Church, "Doe" and Spoons!

Church Shopping Might be Over…

We tried a new church on Sunday and both Jamie and I really liked it. It’s a larger church but it reminds me somewhat of Appleton Alliance (the church I grew up in) combined with the church we attended when we were in Nashville. I wasn’t able to listen to all the sermon or participate in the worship (they sang a lot at the very end) because Kian was getting antsy. I took him to the Toddler room and hung around with him – although I could have left because he was so busy playing he didn’t even know I was there! The unfortunate thing is that at snack time one of the kids had a cold and pretty much sneezed on Kian. Monday morning Kian woke up with a cold. Wednesday morning I woke up with it and Friday morning Jamie had it. I guess it’s the gift that keeps on giving! lol


“Doe”


Earlier in the week Kian and I were going about our daily tasks. He was sitting his high chair eating a snack and I was coming back inside from putting some things in the recycling. I said to Kian, “We have to shut the door.” And Kian said to me. “Shut the door.” I think I almost fainted! lol Kian doesn’t say a whole lot of words and for a long time he hasn’t tried a whole lot to repeat things after us. He hasn’t said “shut the door” again but he has said “door” which coming from his mouth sounds like “doe” but the way he says it is it almost sounds like someone is saying “duh” LOL it’s so cute!

We bought Kian a Little People bus with some of his Christmas money. It has two doors and three little people with it. He opens and closes the door and says “doe” every time he opens or closes them hehe I have also started to ask him to say things after I say them. And he seems to be trying a bit harder. For a while I was afraid he was behind with speech. That was until I read an article that said that a child Kian’s age should know anywhere from 5-100 words! That’s a HUGE gap! But Kian fits right in there. And now with all his trying to say more and more it has definitely encouraged me.

Spoons!


This week I started to allow Kian to use a spoon. I had given them to him before but he would be so distracted by it (and not really be able to use it) that he wouldn’t eat. This week, when I was grocery shopping at Traders Joe’s, I was reminded of Yo-Baby yogurt and thought that would be a good thing for him to start out with. (Yo-Baby is an organic yogurt made with whole milk.) I used to give Kian this when he was first eating baby food as a part of his breakfast and stopped when he started to feed himself.

Kian did great with the yogurt! I give him a half container of it for a snack either in the afternoon or before bed time – I like before bed better because I can strip him down and have him eat in his diaper and just put him in the bath to clean him off.

He has been doing GREAT with the spoon! So, as the week went on I started to give it to him with his other meals. I even bought some of those toddler spoons that are shaped like a handle instead of just straight and he seemed to do best with those. He is still practicing and a lot of the times he will try to scoop things up on his spoon but then resort to eating with the other hand lol But, at least he’s trying!

Monday, January 16, 2006

Babble, Babble, Babble

Kian has started babbling in more and more sounds today! Different sounds all put together and sound like they are strung out in a sentence! I wish I could somehow type out what he is saying, but I’m finding a hard time doing it lol

I have a feeling he thinks he’s saying something we understand, so we try to talk to him about what he’s looking at or doing to seem like we are adding in.

He does say some words very clearly though. Right now he is eating lunch. When I sat him down he took a drink from his sippy cup, sat it down, and said “ahhhh.” Then I opened up a container of fresh green beans he said “mmm” hehe He loves green beans! After I put that on his plate I put some mac and cheese next to it and he said “mmm” again and then made a blowing noise. I taught him that hot means (blowing noise) so when he touches anything with heat he blows :) It was just so cute!

I can only hope he will like green beans in five years as he does now!

Speaking of green veggies. I love veggies but the only one I hate is peas. I cannot stand the taste or the smell of them. I buy frozen peas for Kian and he eats them like I put little pieces of Pez on his tray! Sometimes I wonder if he’s mine ;) (just kidding of course!)

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Remembering, Dancing, Cars and Stacking, and Mommy's Little Helper

Remembering...

I cannot believe that on the 8th of January, Kian was 20 months old! Time has really flown by! Some friends of ours have recently had children. Seeing the photos of these newborns makes me remember how warm Kian was and how much of that "new baby" smell he had which has all but faded. I remember about a year and a half ago I couldn't do anything unless he was in my arms or he would scream! Now, I can't even get him to sit on my lap for a MINUTE lol Well, I can if we are playing the game of "where's Mommy's nose?" "Where's Kian's nose?" (etc.) Now, I look forward to the nights when I feed him his milk and rock him to sleep. He's so still and cuddley...just how he was when he was a newborn. Gosh, if I could see myself writing this now a year and a half ago I would have thought I was out of my mind! lol How things change as time goes on.

Dancing


Ok...moving on! hehe Kian's knowledge of what goes on around him amazes me daily! His understanding grows more and more everyday!

As most of you know, Kian is a HUGE Blue's Clues fan. When I am busy in the kitchen or with something I need just a few minutes of time with I will ask Kian, "Do you want to watch Blue's Clues?" And he will go running into the room, sit down in his little Spiderman chair and say "Ahhhhh." lol He will sit in that chair for the entire show!

Well, I do have to admit that sometimes he will stand at the beginning of the show so he can do his very excited dance that looks like he's marching hehe He's so cute!

Kian also has learned the dance to Breakfast with Bear where he sings the song "Morning Mambo" where Bear says, "now reach your arms up high, high and touch the sky. Let's do the morning mambo. Let's do the morning Mambo. now bend and touch your toes, yeah, you know how it goes!" Kian does the streching up and down with Bear (inbetween his marching dance and twirls) hehe

Most of Kian's day is spent playing with any car or thing with wheels he can get his hands on! He loves to make a car noise as he goes which is so cute! He has really enjoyed the little Fisher Price Garage that my Mom got him for Christmas....although he tries to put his Weeble Camper on it and the thing is pretty much the size of the top of the garage. What imagination children can have lol

Cars and Stacking

The other thing Kian loves is stacking! He has really enjoyed some blocks and our friend Steve and Lisa got him for Christmas. In fact, a lot of times he doesn't want me to stack with him, he just wants me to hold the blocks as he stacks lol He does the same with his board books that we bring out about a half hour before nap and bedtime to help Kian wind down. I end up with most of them on my lap - not from reading but from Kian just stacking at 29 or so on my lap!

Kian started to give Toby treats too! Toby gets a treat after he eats his food. Well, I started letting Kian give Toby the treat which he LOVES! Toby does take advantage of the fact that Kian is so excited to do it so he doesn't wait for my release command to actually take the treat from Kian's hand! lol We are still working on that one!

Mommy's Little Helper

Kian also started doing things to help me around the house (he has for some time now but I keep forgetting to post about it!) He now turns the light on and off in his bedroom when we go in there to change clothes or diapers. Jamie and I praise him and tell him what a good helper he is! Kian also started to do GREAT putting his bath toys away which helps Mom out but also teaches him too! He has foam letters in the tub and I tell him the letter and the sound it makes as he puts in the net for the evening.

Well, that it on this side of life lol Not a whole lot exciting news to report. But I am trying to keep things updated for all our friends and family that live so far away.

Friday, January 13, 2006

VICTORY!!!!!

Ah, yes! I didn't want to type this too soon to avoid being jinxed, although I hope I am not jinxing myself right now as it's hard to knock on wood and type at the same time hehe....BUT Kian took his name from noon until two yesterday...no crying...nothing...and went to bed from 7:40ish until 8AM! VICTORY!!! He finally got back on track and he's happy for the most part. He's also waking up very happy as well!

As I type he is in the middle of his nap! He went down the same way as yesterday! WOOT!

Now I am going to have some lunch before a load of work arrives at my doorstep!

Thanks for the prayers and thoughts you all sent for us!! I am sure they really helped!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Update to Creature of Habit Gone Awry

Well, we are still trying to get Kian back on track. We would put him to bed and finally had to resort to making him cry it out :( That is not something we have ever done - mainly because before he was sleeping through the night he was having night feeds - he basically learned to fall asleep on his own. He only cried for about 15 mins before he fell asleep and I have to say those were the longest 15 mins I have experienced (and at 12:30AM when we decided this was the only thing we knew would work).

In the mornings I have been getting up at 8AM to wake Kian up so he's up at the time he normally would be. The last two days he's been my alarm clock at 8AM so we are ok there. Now he's not crying to sleep anymore (that only happened for about a day and a half), which is good! Now we need to get naps nailed down. Today he just played and played and played for about and hour and a half. He was very tired when I did his nap time routine though!

Jamie and I gave this whole thing two weeks and then we would reevaluate, but I have to say that having to deal with a cranky toddler all day and with little breaks myself has really been draining! I have a lot of work to do (I work for my mother-in-law) and finding not a lot of time to do it or to have time to just sit down and relax. On top of that my house is in dire need of attention and there are some other personal issues I am dealing with that are not very pretty....nothing like it hitting you all at once!

Oh well, this too shall pass...hopefully things will be better tomorrow.

My Other Blog :)

Yes, I have two...one is for family and friends and the other is for just my ramblings lol

I have created a trivia game for us all to have fun doing! :)

You can get to my other blog by following the link that is on the right hand side of your screen - it's the last one called "Sarah's Random Thoughts"

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Creature of Habit Gone Awry

Babies thrive on schedules. At least that is what I have read in many books and some even have different philosophies. This includes the same bedtime, nap time, eating times, what is done to help them know it’s time for bed in the bedtime routine (which even includes reading the same book). I read all of this to help Kian learn to sleep through the night. That was a little over a year ago, and it seems that I had forgotten all the things that I had learned from those books.

Our little “creature” has been thrown off kilter. Kian started to no sleep very well around the time that Christmas came and we had a lot of visitors coming and going. Also, Jamie had off for two whole weeks so Kian saw him a lot (when he’s used to about 10 minutes a day during the week). (Side note: Please don’t get me wrong! We love having visitors and want people come out and spend time with all of us!)

Earlier this week Jamie and sat down to figure out what we should do with him. Kian wasn’t falling asleep for about two hours after he went to bed, but was napping well during the day. We thought we should move his bedtime – bad idea since it was the DAY before Jamie went back to work (which was Tuesday). Kian woke up and hour and half later than usual and Jamie was already gone – when I put him to bed Jamie wasn’t home yet and he was still staying awake. Then his naps got bad and he would fall asleep at the time that I would be feeding him lunch – when he would wake up I would end up giving him lunch at 4PM! I was at a loss for what to do and very frustrated – since a lot of times I plan to do things that I can’t necessarily do when Kian is awake.

Finally, I went onto one of my message boards for Mom’s with babies born in May 2004. One of the mom’s posted that she was having problems with her baby sleeping. She listed off all the possible things that could make a baby not sleep: doing something new, growth spurt, teething, over tired… She said her baby was not doing any of those things right now so she couldn’t figure out why her child wasn’t sleeping. Later she came back to post that she figured it out! Her husband had gone back to work and that was the only thing different in their lives! Once I read that I told Jamie. He said that Kian is such a creature of habit and we just changed his schedule all around on him – not to mention all the other changes going on around him!

So, we decided to start just doing things for Kian at the time we would normally do them. And instead of letting him sleep later than 8-8:30AM (this is the first time ever that he has slept later than that!). The last few days Kian has not taken a nap but I get him out of his crib at 2PM like normal to feed him lunch. He has been really tired the last few days and has gone right to sleep at 7:30 when his bed time routine is over. He’s actually been asleep before I lay him down in his crib which is very unlike him!

Jamie and I decided to give the schedule that Kian has been on before a chance for the next two weeks and see if things are better. I have a feeling Kian will do well once we help him get back into the swing of things. Until then I am trying to keep myself from going insane with the lack of time I have to do things during the day.

Freezer or Mixer? We finally made a choice!

Well, I had this HUGE delima after Christmas....do I get a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer with the money I had left over or a freezer. Yeah, I know what you might be thinking...a freezer with her Christmas money! LOL Well, it's something that I have been wanting for almost as long as I have wanted that Mixer...AND since it would benefit the whole family Jamie and I decided that we would use money from extra pay checks we will get in March (our budget is for four week months and not five...the rest of the money is put on debt which is AWESOME!). BUT we saw that the freezer was on sale now so we thought that it would be more beneficial for us to get the freezer now and for me to use the money in March to get the Mixer (although in my mind, I am getting the Mixer with my Christmas money as it sounds better LOL and it's just for me :)

Here is a photo of the Freezer we got:

We originally were looking at getting a chest freezer but I talked to my mom earlier today and oddly enough their freezer (that was like 35 years old) stopped working and they decided to get an upright so that they could save space and that things wouldn't get lost in the bottom of the freezer. I am so glad I talked to her before we left for Sears because after I looked at the chest freezers I realized that I would probably fall in the freezer getting something from the bottom (and that I am not joking about!) This one was only $70 more than the chest freezer and we figure that we will have it for a long time. And we don't have a whole lot of space in our garage for the freezer so this will actually work out a lot better than a chest!

It won't be available for pick up until Tuesday but I am SO excited to get and start filling it up! We are going to be able to save a lot of money being able to buy things on sale. It was frustrating when I would wait for something to go on sale again and have to buy it at full price! (ok, most of you should know I am the coupon queen - I am also the bargin shopper too).

Watch out Costco! Here I come! hehe

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Last teeth, Jamie's project and vaction is over

The last TWO!

Kian is cutting the last of his teeth! FINALLY! The last are the top “fangs” (as Jamie likes to call them) and they are some of the most painful to come through. He is doing pretty well with it though except when it comes to nap time – he usually needs some Tylenol and teething tablets to get him through. I don’t think his molars are all the way in yet but at least they have broken the surface of his gums.

Back to the Same Old – Same Old

Kian and I were pretty spoiled over the last two weeks. Jamie was home on Christmas vacation during that time. Unfortunately, I spent most of it in bed sick with some odd illness. But that gave Daddy and Kian some great time together! We did enjoy having Daddy home with us though!

Today was the first day back as “me and Kian” in the house. To be honest, it seemed a lot quieter – which is odd because most of the noise comes from Kian lol! I guess it just seems quiet because to be honest, it’s hard to carry a conversation with a 19 month old!

Next week Gym Kids starts back up – which I know Kian is looking forward to (and so am I because I think we got into classes with our favorite teacher starting on the 19th – we have one more class with the teacher we have now on the 9th). Other than that, we are back to our weekly shopping trips and hopefully weekly visits from my friend Angela. Nothing too exciting around here – just the same old stuff.

Jamie’s new Project!


Well, we can’t reveal much but we can say that EA now has the rights to make games based on The Simpsons…you know Bart, Homer and Maggie….those Simpsons! Jamie should be moving to start on that project in the next few weeks – which also means he gets a real desk!!!! Right now he’s stuffed into a small conference room with about 6 other guys! It’s pretty cramped in there! Anyway, I am so proud of him and he is very happy to be going there soon (I am too since that means that he won’t be crunching for a while hehe)

Rain, Rain Go Away!!!!


It’s been raining cats and dogs here lately! It’s been so rainy that Allie (our cat) has refused to go outside during the day. In the morning, she usually cries at the door for me to let her out into our fenced in patio area! Today she finally did go outside as the rain had let up. In fact, I couldn’t get to come back in this evening after Kian went to bed! She loves being out there – which is great because Kian LOVES her and she does not like him at all lol