comparisons #3

Alright...here are the comparisons with Daddy. I put both kids in the first one although I think Nathan is really the most similar. For the second two, I tried to find pictures that look like they are the same ages (Ginger wasn't entirely sure how old Matt was). It really took some effort to find a picture of Nathan with his eyes closed, but I had to because the picture of Matt looks JUST LIKE Nathan. He is definitely his father's child!

May pictures #1

Every time I put up pictures of Caroline I feel guilty for not having more pictures of Nathan. So...I intentionally took some of him this morning. This was going to be a Nathan-only post, but I managed to catch a Caroline smile. I can't usually get her to smile and take pictures at the same time (and Matt and I haven't made the time to do it together). So...there is one picture of Caroline included.

new April pictures

Here are a few new pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Nathan is a good big brother. He likes to take care of Caroline. When he "holds" her, he often wants to cover her up (with HIS blanket no less) in case she's cold.


Ok...so she doesn't look so thrilled. She really does love me, though!


Caroline does pretty well sitting propped up. When she decides she's finished, she just leans forward into a face plant. She doesn't seem to mind a bit, though.


I just thought this one was kinda cute.


We recently got out the exersaucer that we bought with a gift card from some people at Matt's office. She isn't playing with the toys at this point, but she seems to like being upright.

comparisons #2

So...here are two comparisons of Caroline and Mommy at about the same age:

comparisons

People ask me all the time if Caroline looks like Nathan. Well, I have pulled a few pictures of Nathan about the same age as Caroline is now. Let me know what you think.

bowling night

We had a "Family Fun" night tonight. We went to Pizza Hut and bowling. This is the second time Nathan has been bowling. He bowled a 53. Most of that he did completely on his own. I think that's pretty good for a 3 year old. (Ok...so he had bumpers to help...) Anyway, here are some pictures:

amn't and long sleep

Matt and I continue to be amused at Nathan's mispronunciations of things. I now have a new favorite, though. Amn't. This would be Nathan's negation of "am." Rather than try to explain, let me give you an example: "Mommy, I amn't hungry anymore." It's so funny to hear!

The last two nights, Caroline has slept 10 and 9.5 hours. It makes me want to try putting her down after her 8:00 feeding. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to make that jump, though. We're definitely headed toward a 12 hour night!

Just so you know, in the first overall picture of Nathan and Caroline, Nathan is trying to "help" Caroline keep her hand out of her face.

the lastest on the littlest

Caroline has become a WONDERFUL night sleeper! She is now regularly sleeping around 8.5 hours at night. Yay! I feed her at 10:00 and then she is asleep by 10:30 or so. She has been waking up around 7:15 or so. On occasion she'll get up earlier (6ish) or later (8ish), but 7:15 is probably the average. I am so glad to not be getting up in the middle of the night. We've already backed the last night feeding up to 10:00 from 10:30, but we'll probably keep heading that direction.

She continues to interact with us more and more. She loves to smile and "talk" to people. She really likes for people to talk to her. I definitely think she's on her way to being an extrovert. Maybe Matt and I can get a video up before too long.

Caroline has found her hand over the last couple weeks. At first she began by licking at her closed fist. Eventually, though, she began to get her fingers or thumb in her mouth. Most often, she finds her fingers. When she sucks on them in her bed, she really smacks on them. It's funny to listen to her. She seems to get comfort from it, though.

As a very simple wrap-up...Caroline is definitely a different child than Nathan...even at this young age.

Here's a new picture:

hunting eggs

Nathan finds and egg and looks to see what's inside.


He also enjoyed shaking the eggs to listen for money.


Here's the money.

the kiddos and their parentos

what a big girl we have

Yesterday morning, I took Caroline to the doctor for her 2 month visit (we delayed it a week, so she's really more like 2.5 months). She's gotten so big!! She is now weighing 12 pounds, 6 ounces and is 23.25 inches long. She jumped from the 25th percentile to the 75th (if measured at 2.5 months rather than 2 months). We knew she was getting big, but it's nice to put a number to it. Can you believe she grew 3 inches in 2 months???

In other news, we have gotten on a pretty good schedule with her eating and sleeping. That has really helped things for me (along with starting back to aerobics). She's a lot of fun these days because she really likes people to talk to her. She does lots of cute smiling and "talking". She is also a strong little girl. She holds her head up very well and does very little bobbling. She can support all of her weight standing and can sit propped up without falling over. It's so much fun to watch all the many changes of a little bitty baby.

brother and sister

here comes Nathan

It didn't take me long to get some pictures of Nathan. Enjoy!

on a lighter note

On a little more pleasant note, Caroline is still sleeping well. About half of the nights she is sleeping around seven hours. I haven't figured out anything different between the nights that she sleeps long and the nights that she doesn't. I don't mind, though. I'll take what I can get!

We think Caroline is going to find her fingers or thumb soon. She has started licking at her closed fist. It's really cute!

Nathan is so smart! He is picking up things at an incredible rate. He knows how to spell all kinds of things and can commit random stuff to memory easily (he gets that from Matt). He can look at a map and tell you where quite a few states are. He has some concept of adding and subtracting and he has a very vivid imagination! My mom wants to start reading him the "Dick and Jane" books. She thinks that he could be reading soon. We'll see.

Here are some new pictures of Caroline (I'll get some of Nathan soon):


Caroline looks at Daddy after a bath.


She's so strong!


Here is a smile of sorts.


If you look closely you can see her little fat rolls on her legs.

a trip to the er

Last night we had to take Nathan to the ER.

Yesterday Nathan was doing some coughing on occasion and had a little bit of a runny nose. Several times during the day he made a funny grunt-like sound and I asked him "Why are you grunting". I didn't really think anything about it, though. After Matt got home he noticed that Nathan was making a strange whistling sound when he was breathing. It wasn't too bad, though...you had to get really close to hear it. His coughing had also gotten worse.

After Matt left to go to church for Passion Play practice, I decided to go ahead and call the nurse with the doctor's office to see what she thought. She asked me lots of questions and had me count his respirations. She said that he was breathing more often than he should and that, given his symptoms, we should take him to the emergency room. That wasn't the answer I was hoping for, but I also didn't want to take chances.

I have a friend from church who is a pediatric nurse. So, I called to see if she would mind listening to him. She said she didn't so I told her we would come over after Matt got home. My dad went up to church to tell Matt to come home (I couldn't get Matt or Mama on their cell phones). Well, when I took him over to see her, she said that we should probably go ahead and take him to the ER. She said that he was was wheezing on both sides of his lungs but that he was real borderline...if he were a little worse, she would say definitely go...if he were a little better, she would say wait it out until the morning.

By the time I took him over to see her, he was coughing more and stopping to breath when he talked. By the time we went home, he couldn't hardly talk without coughing. So, we left Caroline with my mom and headed to the ER about 9:30. When the triage nurse checked him, she said that he wasn't moving much air on his left side. They gave him a breathing treatment and some kind of steroid. They also put in an iv...poor Nathan. They did a chest x-ray as well. The ER doctor said she could see some congestion, but it mostly looked ok. After the breathing treatment, he was breathing much better so they sent us home (eventually)...with three prescriptions medicines to have filled. We left the hospital about 2:00. After I got the medicine, we woke Nathan up to give them to him.

Best I can tell this morning, he is breathing better than he was last night. I say "best I can tell" because he is still sleeping (with his worried Daddy sleeping on the floor next to him). We have to take him in to his pediatrician this afternoon so they can check him out some more. Hopefully, this will all pass and we won't have this sort of problem again. We're guessing that it's either some sort of infection or a severe allergic reaction to the very high pollen count.

Anyway, please keep us in your prayers. I'm not worried at this point, but you never know.

cherry blossom festival

Last Saturday, Nathan, Caroline, and I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon with Grandma and Granddad (Daddy was helping somebody move). We had a good time at Central City Park. Nathan, Grandma and Granddad watched the bengal tiger show while I fed Caroline in the car. Then, we wondered around enjoying the various activities including the Home Depot build something for kids table, the disc dog competition, and the playground. We also attempted to win some things. Nathan spun an Applebee's prize wheel and won a $25 gift certificate. We also won a Geico t-shirt. We found out afterwards that Nathan's name had been drawn to win a pair of skate shoes. We'll go pick them up tomorrow...and see if we can trade them for something he can actually use at the moment. It was a nice day and very profitable. :) Afterwards, we headed over to the Macon Downtown Airport for the airshow. I will soon be posting airshow pictures on my blog page...so check there later today. Here are a few pictures from our day:


Mommy and Nathan at the Home Depot table.
(we ended up taking our project home)


Nathan at the airshow.


Caroline at the airshow (about the only time we saw her face all day).


Grandma and Granddad at the airshow.
Yes, Grandma is holding Caroline...that was her spot for hours!


Granddad was teaching Nathan how to throw the frisbee.

six o'clock and all's well

Six o'clock...the time that Caroline has gotten up the last two mornings. The important part about that, though, is that she went to sleep at 11:00 and 10:45. Yay! I sure hope that she keeps it up. I like being able to get seven hours of sleep all at the same time! Previously, I was getting more like 6.5 in two or three pieces.

So...you might ask...why might she be sleeping longer? Well, my best guess would be that we have finally gotten on a good 3 hour feeding schedule. For a while, I was really trying to be lenient since she was having reflux problems. We've been almost right on for close to a week, now. That's also helping me since I have a better idea when she'll be eating and can do a little to plan around it.

Elizabeth asked about how Caroline was doing on milestones. Well, here is a link to a milestone chart on babycenter.com. She can do most everything listed as both one and two months. The only things that I haven't specifically seen her do are "Notices his hands" and "Lifts head and shoulders when lying on tummy (mini-pushup)".

Here are two recent pictures of her sleeping:

March pictures #2

Nathan looks cute (with a big big smile) in his Thomas pj's.


I tried to get some smiling pictures...but here I got a cute tongue.


...and here I caught a crooked smile.


...and here the mouth open laughing-type smile.


Don't worry...I'll keep trying.

buttons and smiles

Nathan has learned to undo buttons. Yay! Progress toward dressing and undressing himself! I dont know if Matt has been teaching him, but I havent.

Caroline has been smiling for the last week. Yeah, there were involuntary half asleep smiles before, but these appear to be voluntary and happen when shes awake. Its so cute! I love them! I will try to catch one in a picture before too long if I can.

(sorry for the lack of apostrophes...my browser is bringing up the "find" box when I try to type one...crazy)

March pictures #1

We finally put together the basketball goal that Nathan got from Nana and Granddaddy for his birthday. He really enjoyed playing with it!


Here's a new picture of Caroline from today.


Sweet Feet.

a crazy day

Last week was a rough week for me emotionally. Luckily, this week has been much better. It's a good thing, because I'm not sure I would have handled everything that happened this week otherwise. Specifically, Tuesday was a crazy day. My mom says that it was "a day of being a mom". Here's what happened:

We decided to meet Matt for lunch. He wanted to get back to work by 12:00, so we were going to go just a little before 11:00. Well, while I was talking to him on the phone making final plans (about 10:25), Nathan was talking to me from his room. This is not an unusual occurance. Well, once I got off the phone I asked what he was trying to say. I couldn't understand him, so I told him to come to the living room and tell me what he needed. Well, he came around the corner from his room and said "I told you I needed to go pee-pee." I looked over and he was wet down both of his legs. Yuck! On top of that, he had dripped all the way from his bed, down the hall, around the corner, and towards the living room. Again I say "yuck"! So, I sent him quickly to the bathroom. I got him undressed and into the tub. Then, I went to get supplies to clean the carpet. After cleaning for a little while, I called Matt to let him know that we might not be able to make it on time. I gave Nathan a washcloth with soap on it for him to clean himself. Once he finished with that, I gave him a towel to dry himself. When he finished, I sent him to put his underwear and pants on (while I continued to clean pee from the carpet). We ended up making it to eat with Matt around 11:15 or so. It only took me about 30 minutes to get the carpet cleaned up! :)

At lunch, Nathan got spaghetti all over his shirt. So...we changed him when we got home. After going down for his nap, Nathan decided that he needed to go poop. Well, we have been really trying to get him to keep his diaper clean at naptime...and especially free of poop...so I definitely wanted him to go. Well, when he finished he proceeded to wipe himself (again, something we're working on). Unfortunately, he got some on his shirt. So...we changed his shirt...again...for the fourth time.

Caroline has had a rash on her face. I called and talked to the nurse Tuesday afternoon and she thought I should bring Caroline in to have it looked at. Well, I ended up making an appointment for 4:00 (this was at 2:30). Luckily, I have family who helps me out when I need it. My grandmother came over to my house so I didn't have to get Nathan up from his nap or take him to the doctor's office with all the sick kids. After getting the doctor's office, we waited for an hour. We NEVER have to wait that long. I was hoping to be back home by then. Well, since we were there so long, Caroline had to eat. When we were finally called back, I proceeded to feed her while we waited for the doctor. Caroline was not only interested in eating...she was also interested in pooping. So, she ate a bit and pooped a bit and ate a bit and pooped a bit. After several of these rotations, I decided that I better change her. Unfortunately, it was too late. She had a blowout. You know, the kind that goes all the way up the back. Of course, about the time I got into it good, the doctor came in. I asked if they had some wipes I could use. She looked for some. She asked somebody for some. And then she told me that they didn't have any. What is a pediatrician's office doing without baby wipes??? Anyway, after I finally got her cleaned up, I realized that we only had some toasty-warm clothes...and it was a bit warm outside. I dressed her anyway. I proceeded to talk to the doctor. It turns out that Caroline had cradle cap on her face...crazy! I also talked to her about adjusting Caroline's Zantac dose. Afterwards, I asked if we could weigh Caroline. The doctor said that her nurse had gone home and she didn't know if anybody was available. She checked, but there wasn't anybody. I was a bit disappointed to be at the doctor's office and not be able to find out how much she weighed. Pitiful! I was nice about it, though, because I could tell the doctor was a bit stressed. Anyway, when we left, I took Caroline's clothes off and covered her with a burp cloth...and that's the way she travelled home.

So...that was the bulk of the day. It was just crazy!