My First Days By Myself with All Three*
*I don't want any of this to sound like complaining, but I do want to remember these days as they were.
So Monday was going to be my first day by myself with all three and I cheated, but let me start from the beginning.
Monday I was showered and dressed! This had only happened two other times in the week and a half since Blair arrived and is crucial for helping me think like I can do this. Sorry, pjs. I am sure I will see you again really soon, but for now I have to keep you in the drawer.
So I cheated because I had Chelsie over to meet Blair. Any mother knows that it is easier to watch kiddos with company than by yourself. Thanks girl!!! She also invited Bailey over for quiet time and dinner, so I was off the hook with watching all three. That's okay. I am not trying to prove anything and this three gig is harder than it looks, so I will happily and readily accept help.
Tuesday brought it's own set of challenges. To get Bailey to preschool on time and then to Blair's appt took 2 hour prep work to get everyone dressed, fed, clean diapers on and in the car with everything they need. Part of the problem was that same day I heard Blake outside my bedroom window as I was getting ready. I thought he was just playing in the front of the house, but that's when I realized that he not only can open the front door, but will head outside too. Add to that the fact that he let Blue out and she was gone for an hour. Thankfully, Blue showed up 10 minutes before we needed to leave for preschool. We now have a baby latch on the front door to prevent this from happening in the future.
Tuesday I also heard first hand the "trifecta" as Kyle and Ali call it. It's when all three are crying at the same time. The first time wasn't so bad as Bailey had hit her head doing a roll, Blake was just grumpy from being woken up from his nap, and Blair wanted to nurse, which two of the three were eased pretty quickly. The subsequent times have been worse.
Wednesday's most commonly heard phrase from me is probably: "Be patient or hold on, your next on my list." The challenges of three are just that there isn't enough of you at any single moment. Seriously, I feel like I keep a running list of what needs to happen next.
Wednesday, I also feel like my kids took a messy pill. Blake decided to play with the syrup from breakfast and get it everywhere, Bailey spilled her lunch all over the floor, Blake dropped his cup of milk twice, Blake also pulled the mostly folded laundry onto the floor, Blair had two blowout diapers, and Bailey decided she wanted to build pride rock (from Lion King), which meant all the couch pillows were off. I had to take more than a couple of deep breaths.
Thursday's thoughts- Bailey has reached the point I called a train wreck when I was teaching. It's when the student was so far behind in assignments or the behavior was so out of control that there wasn't anything I could do, either because there wasn't time left in the grading periods to do all the assignments or the punishments had all been used up or weren't working. The train was just going to crash. Thankfully in school we had 9 weeks grading periods and I always let everyone start over with a clean fresh slate at the beginning of the new 9 weeks. I think Bailey has just gotten to the point when she can't turn herself around, so last night as I was putting her to sleep we talked about starting over. Luke joked that we were giving her a "parental bailout" think government bailout, but he has agreed to preceed with it. All toys in time out are back in their spots & movies will be brought out this afternoon. I ask her why she was wasn't obeying mommy & daddy and she answered honestly "because I just wanna do what I wanna do". We had a good talked about authority, prayed together, and Luke and I are going to try to a new approach of ignoring all bad behaviors (but direct disobedience), and praise, praise, praise our little girl. Back when we had cable and I could watch shows like 19 Kids & Counting (and yes I watched it). I heard Michelle say what they do in their household and that is they strive to praise their kids ten times more than they correct them. It sounds so easy to praise more than you correct. It makes complete sense because we all respond better to praise over correction. However, this has been difficult for me to put into practice day in and day out with Bailey. There seem to be so many things that need correction and it's not that I don't praise Bailey. It's that we praise ten times more (or just more) than we correct. So when I hear something that makes sense I am usually quick to action and I am going to again make a conscious effort to praise more. One specific thing I used to do more and still do every once in awhile is each night at dinner I intentionally praised her in front of Luke or had her tell daddy about how she did something with a good attitude. I would love some more ideas about this. How do you praise you children?
Friday (today) I signed Bailey and Blake up for Christmas camp at preschool so I only have Blair till 1:30. Right now she is sleeping and there is peace and quiet in the house. Ahhhh. Time for mommy to recoup.
Kid Update
I realize these days are going to go by too quickly, so here's what I don't want to forget.
Blair
2 weeks have flown by! Wednesday we had her check up and she weighs 8 lbs, 14.5 ozs (75th percentile), is 20.5 inches long (50th percentile), and head circumference is 35.5 cm (55th percentile). Right now she is sleeping longer stretches during the day and nurses every 2 hours at night, which means that by the time we are done nursing and I have her back to sleep it's an hour till she wakes up again. She is also consistently (the last 4 days) been up and fussy from 2ish to 5:30ish. Very soon we need to figure out how to switch the days and nights and also figure out the fussy period, so mommy is more rested. She seems to love to be swaddled and her favorite position is still sacked out over your shoulder. Thankfully, she seems to be patient with me (atleast for a time) when she wants to nurse. When she does cry I think I could pick it out of a crowd as it's a pretty unique cry- "eh-eh, eh-eh, wah, eh-eh, eh-eh, wah". Oh, and everyone seems to think she resembles Bailey at this age and we agree.
Blake
20 months old and already such a big man. This picture was taken while my mom was here. I am trying to get Blake to do more activities and this activity was putting all the clothespins in a milk jug. After he was bored with that, Gigi invented this game where he tried to take them off quicker than she could put them on.
He is probably in one of my favorite stages of childhood. One thing I particularly love is the cute way they say things at this age. Three of my favorite phrases are mon mama (come on mama), ets go (let's go), and any time he sees he sees football on t.v. now he says whoop. He continues to LOVE his giraffe pillow (fa), but has added a giraffe lovie and a lamb (mimi) to the mix too, which means a very full bed. Sleeping in his big boy bed continues to go well, especially at naptime and Luke has taken over the early morning stay in bed/sleep training. We are trying to teach him to stay in bed until the clock turns green at 7 a.m. This also means we are trying to teach him the color green. Bailey has had a couple of sleep overs lately and we had to hear "where's sissa?" about 20- 30 times. He really likes sharing a room with her, but sharing toys, not so much, but that comes with his age, right??? We are definitely having sharing lessons and discipline lessons, but despite that he is still a snuggler and wants kisses on any hurts. As far as interests go, he is into Bob the Builder and choo- choos (trains) and pretty much anything he can push and make a noise to. He is also surprisingly into babies and can copy alot of what I do with Blair with his baby doll. He likes to hold Blair, but not for very long.
He is a good helper about getting me a diaper and wipes if I tell him that baby Blair has a poopy. Speaking of poop, Blake has started telling us when he has a poopy, which can also mean that he has a diaper full of pee, but it's got to be a good sign that he can start to tell what's going on down there. No potty training in our near future, but maybe this will make it easier when the time does come. One huge thing is that all my hard work having him practice walking instead of me carrying him has paid off and he is quite the hand holder now. This doesn't mean that he doesn't still want to be carried sometimes, but those times are fewer and farther between. This is kinda sad, but Blake is a big boy. For such a big boy he sure doesn't eat like it, plus he has a sweet tooth and is pretty picky. The one exception to the rule is if Bailey has left her plate on the table and Blake will always climb up in her chair and eat/drink what she hasn't. He loves her chair and we are hoping Bailey will be willing to give it up soon, but we will see. Something I don't want to forget is after a big drink he will say "ahhh".
One last thing is that he is totally in the monkey see, monkey do phase. Look what I saw as I was sweeping the floors the other day and Luke was cleaning out the gutters.
As soon as I knocked on the window, Bailey came down AND
Blake started to go up.
Bailey
Such a big girl, not size like Blake, but more in self- sufficiency and independence. Starting around her 4 year old birthday we started her chore chart. A couple of things that came out of that is that she can now fully dress herself (still needs a little help with right foot and left foot for shoes), takes her plate to the sink after meals, buckles her carseat, packs up her backpack with her lunchbox and waterbottle, and cleans up her toys at nighttime!!! This has been huge around our house (granted that we are there to remind and make sure they happen).
Not much has changed as far as interests: climbing
Cars
She still loves Toy Story too, riding her bike & scooter, and has taken to rolling head over heals. She has quite the set of bruises to go along with that last skill.
Have I mentioned before that I love her preschool teacher this year? Ms. Ruthie is awesome in so many ways and she is very good with Bailey, so in turn Bailey loves Ms. Ruthie. One of the ways Bailey shows she loves you is by bringing things to you that she finds and pictures. It seems like every Tuesday and Thursday we are bringing Ms. Ruthie something we found on our bike ride to school or have a picture for her. Here she is this morning painting a picture for Ms. Ruthie.
Bailey has dropped alot of the cute ways she used to say things, but not this one. Can you guess what a "rice Christmas tree" is? It's a rice crispy treat and is a favorite treat of Baileys.
Bailey also just learned the "I love you" sign language sign and it's a favorite to flash to loved ones as they drive away.
One other thing to note is that she is now potty trained at night. She had always woken up wet in the morning, so we never attempted night time potty training. We actually didn't do much, but Emmy (with Joel & Katie's help) did it. Emmy just recently got to go ice skating with her daddy because she can now stay dry at night time and guess who else wanted to have an ice skating date with their daddy? We are now almost 3 weeks of being dry at night and ice skating date is soon. : )
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