Kicks and Giggles

Anytime that we drive and the sun gets in Chloe’s eyes, she cries.  I have used sunshades, but they tend to fall off the window and they also don’t help when the sun is coming in from where the rear view mirror is.  In an effort to prevent 7 hours of crying as we drive home, I bought her sunglasses.  I bought some for Jacob as well, since I want to have them if we need them and he’ll need them come summertime anyway.  I put them on Chloe and she cried, so using strategies that have worked in the past, I am going to get her used to them.  One of these strategies involves her seeing them on Jacob.  (It works, she has asked me to put hers on a couple times, although she still takes them off right away).  He looked so cute that I had to take a picture.

Today, my baby boy is officially 6 months old!  Where has the time gone?  I can’t believe how big he is already.  He sits up pretty good by himself, although I do use the nursing pillow just in case.  He is so close to crawling and does move around by rolling and turning in a circle.  He spends a lot of time on his stomach attempting to perfect these skills.  He plays with toys now and his favourite seems to be a cloth book that we have. 

He is so smiley, and loves to laugh just watching Chloe.  He is such a joy to have, and I am so blessed by this little suprise that was given to us!

My sister gave both my kids a gift package for their birthday (the original one when they are born), and absolutely insisted that Jacob have overalls.  Today, he wore them for the first time, so Christy, this pic is for you.

and Dad, I’ve figured out the settings and changed them back so you should be able to pull decent sized pics off here again 

Brian and I often read while we are eating.  The other night, we sat down to eat and were both reading our books, when Chloe decided to do this,

I also have been trying to catch up on my scrapbooking lately and redoing some of Chloe’s baby book.  It looks like I may have to share my tools in a few years

I am unsure as to why reality shows are called reality shows.  Non-scripted shows I would be okay with but reality?  Since when is a group of beautiful people stuck in a house or stranded on a desert island together reality?  Since when is famous people going about their lives or experimenting with different environments reality?  Since when does reality end with a large amount of money in a certain number of days?  For the majority of people, that is nothing even remotely close to reality.  For the majority of us it is dishes, laundry, diapers, cooking, vacuuming, sweeping, bills, groceries, gas, budgets, cranky children, working 40 hours or more a week, waking up in the night, having to get along with people that we may not see every hour of every day for 40 days, but will see almost every day for the next 15-20 years, tidying, repairing, errands, husbands who leave their socks on the floor and dishes on the counter, and trying to do it all without burning yourself out or driving yourself insane.  Thousands of women deal with these things all the time and that, my friends, is reality!

On Saturday, despite Brian’s rule that there is no Christmas decorations or Christmas music allowed until Dec. 1, I decorated the house. (I’ve also been listening to Christmas music for about a month now).  Chloe helped.  She was so excited by the tree.  She helped put ornaments on and quickly figured out the lights (since I plugged them into a power bar by themselves so they were easy to turn on and off).  I love turning just the Christmas tree lights on before opening her door and watching her face light up when she sees the tree.  She also loves to play with the nativity scene that is under the tree.  She especially likes Baby Jesus and his manger (which is now MIA) and has learned to say Jesus.  She was sitting by the tree the other day, reading a Christmas book that had kids doing a Christmas paegent and she was playing with the nativity pieces on top of that page.  I love the way she is so easily excited and the joy that she has when she sees things like the tree, or the first time we had snow.  This year, I am going to enjoy Christmas with her and try to experience it the way it was meant to be experienced, with the easy, simple joy of a child!

Christmas is coming soon and so we have started with Christmas preparations.  One of these things is Christmas baking.  On Wednesday, Chloe and I made sugar cookies.  They are already gone, due to our discovery of Brian’s huge affinity for sugar cookies.  I very seldom wear an apron as what little bit of flour that gets on me can be brushed off quite easily.  When you are baking with a toddler this is not so, especially when she falls off the chair she is standing on four times because of all the flour on the chair and so you pick her flour covered body up off the floor for cuddles.  While it was incredibly messy and I think I spend more time cleaning up then I did actually making and baking the cookies, it was a lot of fun and she definitely enjoyed it.  Next time, I will just have to make sure that both of us wear an apron.

I always heard that people weren’t as focused on their second child and swore that I wouldn’t be one, but I am noticing that with the time and energy that it takes to look after two children, I am not taking as many pictures of Jacob, and he often plays on the floor by himself.  I also don’t write as much about him and didn’t mark down his developmental milestones as much, so here are some updates.

Jacob has GER (gastroesophageal reflux).  This isn’t really a big deal and he should grow out of it but it results in a lot of drool and a lot of spit up.  We go through about 3 bibs a day, so I had to buy more.  But even in his bibs, he sure is cute

Also, I cut his hair for the second time.  It’s a little short, and looks kind of military, but I think it’s really cute.

He really likes to suck his hands, especially his thumb, but will take a soother as well when I give it to him.

He has started solid foods.  So far he has had apples and oatmeal cereal.  He likes them both, although I find that I have to move his hands to get food into his mouth as he tends to put them in his mouth.

Despite me trying to get him on some kind of schedule, he is still very sporadic with his eating times, although he is sleeping on a relatively regular schedule.

He smiles and giggles all the time.  I think he must be one of the happiest babies around.

He has the cutuest, pudgiest, little thighs ever.  I love to pinch them and watch him giggle.

He is tipping the scales at 15 lbs.

He’s currently crying and needs to be tended to, so I’m going to look after my second child, who I love just as much as my first, even though he doesn’t get the same amount of attention, pictures and notes.

Last night, Chloe was sick.  So, this morning, despite baths at 11:30 and 1:00 in the morning, I gave her a bath, because she still kind of smelled.  I decided to put bubbles in it, which made it her first official bubble bath.  When I first put her in she cried a bit and wouldn’t sit down, so I started playing with the bubbles and she became interested in them.  She then played in her bubble bath until she was a prune.  At one point, I put them on my chin, and she started copying me.

She also decided that eating bubbles was a good idea for a stomach that had spent all night regurgitating.

Last night, I put Jacob to bed at 6:30.  He slept until 7:30 this morning!  I feel great!  I’m not counting on it, but here’s hoping it becomes a trend.