Two little monkeys

Both of the kids have been really interested in climbing lately.  We were at the park a few weeks ago and while we were talking, Elise scaled a rock wall that was taller than me.  We have a used Step2 Woodland Climber in the basement that she really enjoys, and we recently got a used Step2 Kangaroo Climber for Jack's birthday for him to grow into.  Of course, Elise loves this too.  Craigslist is so great... I paid $80 total for over $400 worth of climbing fun.

J is close to completely climbing up the slide and he LOVES to slide down.  Elise loves climbing the sides and going through the holes. 

Thanks for the early birthday present, Mom!

Focused!

Excited to slide down

6 teeth now

E either looks at camera or smiles, rarely both at the same time unless there is a bribe :)

J practicing his standing

Gymnastics

Elise had a gymnastics "performance" a few weeks ago and I wanted to share some pictures for the grandparents.  It was nice to have an active indoor activity during the cold months and we'll probably do it again next fall/winter.  Her favorite gymnastics "events" are the trampoline, uneven bars, floor exercise, and the foam pit.

  

Elise is 3 years old! (2 months late, oops!)

Happy 3rd Birthday, Elise!



Sweet big girl, we adore you, even the strong-willed side of you, and can't wait to see what God has planned for your life.  You are beautiful, smart, entertaining, loving, and oh so much fun.


Stats:  At 3 years old, Elise is almost 39 inches tall and weighs 33.5 lbs, which puts her in about the 80th percentile in both height and weight.  She wears a size 9.5 shoe, size 3T pants and 4T everything else.  (Since I wrote that part in January, she's grown almost an inch and outgrown a lot of clothes!)


Sleeping:  Elise LOVES to sleep.  I have to pry her out of bed almost every morning and for almost every nap. I can usually get her out of bed in the morning if I ask her to come cuddle in our bed .  After nap time, she likes to rock and cuddle before she does anything else.  Though it is inconvenient at times, I will be so sad when she outgrows this!  She goes to bed between 8-8:15 and I wake her up between 7:45-8.  She take a nap from 2-4.  I don't let her nap longer than 2 hours or she'll be up talking for an hour after she goes to bed.  She never fights nap time and it is common for her to initiate nap time on her own and admit that she is tired.  Once or twice a month, she will never fall asleep and just talk in her crib for the two hours.  If that happens, she definitely goes to bed early.  If we are running late for bed time, she can be a challenge to put to bed.  She still loves her crib and also loves sucking her thumb when falling asleep.  I think that is going to be a hard habit to break.  We're planning to convert her crib to a toddler bed sometime soon, but we think the transition will be smoother if it is HER idea... so we're waiting :)  
    

Eating:  Elise is still a great eater, especially for her age.  She is more picky about green vegetables than she used to be, but she will usually eat broccoli, asparagus, and peas with no problem.  Sometimes we have to bribe her with fruit or her vitamins :)  She's been eating a TON the last month or so and is always hungry.

Here are some favorite foods, in meal order:  dry cereal (Kix, Chex, Cheerios, or Kashi), scrambled eggs, waffle, bagel, pancake, pumpkin muffin, french toast, any fruit (except will not eat a banana by itself), yogurt, sliced turkey and ham, cheese, crackers, granola balls (oats mixed with peanut or almond butter, honey, and flax seeds, she LOVES this), cucumbers, grilled chicken, steak, sweet potatoes in any form, corn, pumpkin, beans, grilled cheese or quesadilla, nuts, dried fruit (raisins, etc), squeezy packs
Dislikes:  bananas, tomatoes (except for salsa), green beans, avocado, soup, anything that resembles a casserole or something with sauce.  We do require her to try everything, whether she wants to or not.

She'll eat anything that comes out of a squeezy pack or the Sili Squeeze.  I often make purees for her and Jack that include fruits and some green vegetables that she won't eat by itself, like spinach.  

(Sili Squeeze and granola balls... favorite lunch!)

She drinks water about 95% of the time and has milk or diluted juice a few times a week.  We still think she is sensitive to milk.  She loves milk, but she understands that it makes her nose run and accepts 'no' for an answer.  We aren't milk drinkers and we eat at home almost all the time, so she usually just gets milk once a week when we get a kid's meal at Chipotle, Jason's Deli, etc.


Playing:  Elise has gotten much, much better at playing independently.  She also loves playing with Jack and is generally very sweet with him.  We're working on the appropriate way for her to redirect Jack when he tries to mess with something that she is playing with, but she is doing better than expected.

Favorite things to do at home:  ride her trike in the basement (this was her birthday present from us... huge hit, even 2 months later!), play with her duplos, play with Jack and his toys, read books, play with her "It's a Match" game from Discovery Toys, listen to music, watch a "movie" (limited to a few times a week, usually while I'm preparing a more involved dinner)

She built this Duplo store all by herself!

Favorite things to do away from home:  go to the zoo, children's museum, or aquarium (we have a membership to these places... gotta take advantage of living in Baltimore!), go to Barnes and Noble and play in the kid section/ride the escalator, go to the park (she loves to climb these days), go shopping at Trader Joe's with a miniature shopping cart  

Learning:  She's very good with recognizing letter sounds and picking out the first letter of a word that she hears.  Conversely, she can also identify a given word from a book or something by figuring out the first sound and then looking for the word with the correct first letter.  If she's in the mood, she can list off a few words that start with a given letter.  She's also become proficient at recognizing 3 and 4 of something just by looking.  She can count by 10's to 100 but needs a little assistance to count beyond 20 (well, 29 really... she always gets stuck there!).  She knows the order of days of the week and months of the year.  One thing that has been very interesting to me is that she still has a very vivid memory of things and experiences in Alabama.  She will often bring up a particular event or place from that time period (8-16 months ago) and describe it in great detail.  She's also very, very conscious of daily and weekly routines and always knows what comes next.  She'll often give me the order of events, like, "Okay mama, Jack can play for a few more minutes before his morning nap, but then he needs to take a nap.  You don't need to feed him now, but when he gets up, you can feed him for 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other side.  Big girls only take one nap but not right now.  Then after you feed him we can change his diaper and go to _____.  And then we can come home and eat lunch and read books and go potty and take our naps.  Okaaaaay?"  She was very confused by daylight savings time because we went to the earlier service at church, got lunch early, and then she tried to get ready for her afternoon nap 2 or 3 hours early.  Haha.  She generally dislikes coloring and crafts, so I'm constantly trying to come up with ideas to work on her fine motor skills.  She is right handed, but tries to imitate me with her left hand when writing, so Mike is going to have to work with her on holding a pen.  I know I am biased, but I think she's very smart :)  We're starting to do "school activities" with Mommy and I'm hoping to establish a regular, organized routine in the foreseeable future.

Potty:  She's still not a huge fan of public potties (ESPECIALLY the ones with automatic flush), but this is probably because we rarely have to use them.  If we do, we have to make sure to cover the automatic flush sensors with a paper towel and then wait until she is out of the stall before we flush :)  She always goes right before we leave the house, before nap, and before bed.  She has never used the potty at preschool, but she's only there for 2.5 hours.  I know she's not holding it because she typically waits an hour or two after we get home before she asks to go.  I did promise her that she could have a granola bar whenever she decides to use the preschool potty, so we'll see!  About half the time, she goes by herself on the upstairs potty (with the Baby Bjorn toilet trainer seat on) and the other half she asks me to help her on the downstairs potty.  I know that some of her friends can hold it for 11.5-12 hours a night, but I don't think that she is physically capable of doing that yet.  There have been 5-10 days over the last 10 months where she has woken up at night every time she needs to pee, but that is the only way she can keep her pull up dry.  Mike and I are unwilling to start a routine of getting up to help her go to the potty once or twice at night, so we don't encourage her to keep her pull up dry.  Whenever she starts waking up dry or consistently nearly dry, then I'll know that she's ready to work on that.


I intended to do a section on challenges/solutions based on our experience as the parents of a strong-willed toddler, but it just isn't going to happen right now.  I'm sure you'd rather read about some funny sayings instead.  I'm sure that I lost several pieces of paper that had sayings on them.

Funny sayings:

(said 8 weeks after her birthday, true story)
Me:  "When is your birthday?"
E:  "Well, I already had my birthday.  It was on a Monday."
Me:  "How do you know?"
E:  "Did we go to the children's museum and it was closed?"


E: "Look, these two triangles make a square!  We need to sing the Mr. Square song."
Me:  "Where did you learn that?"
E:  "Well, I learned it in high school in Alabama."


"Oh Mom, come!!  Jack just drooled!"


E:  "The squirrels can't get my band aid because it's in the trash can and my boo boo's all well."
Mimi:  "Write that down."
E:  "Why, did I say something funny?"


E: "Mom, do you know what a 'pent' is?  It's a pen in a tent!"


(after not wanting to eat chicken at dinner)
E:  "My tummy hurts.  I think I ate too much chicken."


E:  "Is John John's last name... what is it?"
Me:  "John John's last name is Schuchard."
E:  "When I marry John John is my name going to be Schuchard?"


(holding her LeapFrog text and learn)
E:  "This is my iPad.  But Daddy doesn't have an iPad anymore because he gave it back to the Army in Alabama." (10 months ago!)


(while waiting for Jack to wake up from his morning nap so that we could go to the children's museum)
E:  "Do people that just have babies in their tummy get to go earlier because they don't have to wait for the morning nap?"


(while playing in the playroom before bed)
Me:  "Elise, go check the clock and see what time it is."
(runs off to "check"... no, she can't tell time)
E:  "It says there is one more minute to play before bed time."
Me:  "What numbers does the clock say?"
(runs off again)
E:  "It says 2 more minutes before bedtime.  It says FORTY TWO more minutes before bedtime!"
Me:  "What clock are you looking at?"
E:  (points to air conditioner control dial)


(she swam at the pool at Bryan and Michelle's condo once 8 months ago and randomly brought it up the other day... can't believe she remembered this and the details!)
E:  "Bryan and Michelle have two pools and one of them has a waterfall and the other one has a fountain."


(refusing to say hi to the cashier at Toys R Us... she DOES NOT like to talk to strangers or people that she doesn't know well... I guess this isn't a bad thing)
E:  "I'm not shy, I'm just not talking right now."

Wrestling with Jack

New haircut - March 2012

Jack is 10 months old!

Oh my, sweet boy, where has the time gone?!  You are getting so big (waving to the camera in the above picture) and you are such a delight!

This has been a big month for Jack.  He started pulling up on everything, cruising, waving, standing alone, pushing a walker, eating lots of finger foods, and even saying a few words!

Stats:  At his 9 month appointment (when he was 9.5 months), Jack weighed 18 lbs, 5 oz (no diaper) and measured 28.5 inches long.  The little guy is in the 10th percentile for weight and 50th for height and head circumference.  He has 5 teeth (plus 3 coming soon), wears some 6-12, 12M, and 12-18 month clothing, and wears a size 4 shoe.

Sleeping:  Jack continues to be a great sleeper.  He had a stretch of 10 days or so in the middle of the month when he was waking up once at night (due to teething or a cold), but thankfully, he would go right back to sleep after a little milk and some Boiron Camilia (if the wake up was due to teething).  He (and we) got sick twice this month but he is a little trooper and hopefully we're done with colds for the winter.  Since daylight savings, we've adjusted our schedule by about 30 minutes.  He sleeps from 7:30 pm - 7:30 am, and takes his morning nap from 9:30-10:30 or 11 and afternoon nap from 2:15 - 4:45.  

(his poor gums turn PURPLE right before the tooth comes in... he currently has two on the top that look like this.  poor baby!)

Eating:  Jack has made a lot of progress in the finger food department this month but is nowhere near as adventurous as Baby Elise.  He generally eats all finger foods for dinner, but still enjoys purees or yogurt for breakfast and lunch, with a side of Cheerios :)  I've tried tons of different finger foods but he has so far refused all fruits and most vegetables.  He does like chicken, ham, turkey, sweet potatoes (cut into strips and baked with some olive oil and cinnamon), cheese, and probably a few other things that I can't think of right now.  I still make a lot of baby food with the Babycook and try to replicate the combinations found in squeezy packs.  I usually do some combination of orange vegetable (pumpkin, squash, carrot, etc), green vegetable (spinach, peas, broccoli, etc), and fruit (apples, pears, blueberries, bananas, etc).  I bought the Sili Squeeze with Eeeze pouches last month and we love them.  I make one for both kids several times a week... it works great for lunch at the park or a snack while on the go.  Jack also LOVES drinking water or milk out of a straw.    

He still nurses 5 times a day, but I think we are about to drop the late afternoon feeding.  He hasn't been very interested in it this week and has no problems waiting until 6 or 6:30 for dinner.  Other than that, nursing is going well and I expect to continue through the summer.

Playing:  Jack is happy almost all the time.  It is unreal.  He is such a good independent player that it almost makes me feel guilty.  He doesn't even mind being gated in the playroom or living room by himself.  His favorite toy this month is the B Parum Pum drum/music set that John gave Elise for her 1st birthday.  Every time I get this out, he will sit and play with it for 30 minutes without getting distracted by anything else.  We went to a music class at the children's museum last week and he sat in one spot for the ENTIRE class, just shaking the instruments.  He was mesmerized and the teacher was amazed.  He also likes playing with the Chicco baby activity walker and still enjoys his Fisher Price musical table.  He loves putting the balls and shapes into the hole at the top of the walker.  He's also interested in anything that Elise is playing with.  One of his favorite activities is pulling up on something, letting go to stand for as long as he can (up to 10 seconds), and then grabbing it again.  He has no fear of falling and will just let go and lunge for someone if they're close enough.  If he's playing by himself, he'll just stand, let go, and plop on his bottom.  He's just now getting interested in pushing a walker and walking with our hands.  He will cruise to something specific but won't just cruise around for the heck of it.  I remember that Elise used to cruise laps around the coffee table and couches just for fun :)  

     

Learning:  Jack has been inconsistently signing 'milk', 'more', and 'all done' for over a month now.  During one recent meal, he used all three!  He was in the playroom and it was almost time for lunch, and he signed 'milk'.  Then, in his booster, he signed for 'more' Cheerios, and when he was finished, he raised both hands in the air for 'all done'.  He understands a lot of language and will usually respond to a command like "crawl to Mama" or "go get the ball/table/walker/drum/book/whatever toy".  He also started waving and playing peekaboo this month.

He still doesn't babble a ton, but he does talk in his own language ALL the time.  It really sounds like a different language, complete with inflection, pauses, gestures, etc.  It's so cute.  He really tries to communicate and will study my face after he says something, like, "Did you get that, Mom?".  In the past few weeks, Mike and I have both thought that he's been saying a few words, but now I am positive.  I have a few videos to show it.  They include:  dog (gog), duck (uck or guh), Boss (bah),  book (ook), hi, and yay.  Today I heard him say "sssss" several times when looking at Elise and "gar" several times when we were walking through a parking lot (he was in the Beco so I could hear him), so those might be the next words.  After the parking lot, we entered Barnes and Noble and he kept looking around saying "ook ook".  He waved and said "hi" to Mimi on the webcam.  I also think he said "gog bah" today, which I often say in the adult version when Boss joins us.

I need to take some 10 month photos this weekend while I have Mike home.  It's getting harder and harder!  Here are some from the past month.

:

Oops, mom, you forgot to close the gate!

Trying to restack his cups

 

Anything that Elise has is fair game, right?