Natural Born Entertainer

This morning at our play group, Riley used Lizzie's fireplace door handle as microphone and sang for us.  She is definitely not lacking in the personality department. 

Exersaucer

While Riley was making all kinds of big accomplishments, Jude was too!  He used his exersaucer for the first time this weekend.  He was more interested in watching us than playing with his new toys...the fact that he doesn't have full control over his hands may have something to do with that.

Riley was very eager to show him how to play with all of those toys.  It's so interesting to me.  She knows what each toy does (or it appears so, because she knows which ones roll, shake, and move), but he has no clue.  Don't they develop so fast?  So she showed him what each one does while he just watched her. 

But 3 days later, he is touching the toys and moving (however coincidental it may be) the toys himself.

Notice the paci in mouth.  We are working on only using the paci at nap and nighttime.  Hopefully that will help with the whole crying- in- the- middle- of- nap- time- and- throughout- the- night- any- time- the- paci- falls- out- of- his- mouth thing.  It seems like parenthood is just a daily renewal of trial and error.  Feel free to comment if you have any suggestions on the sleeping issue.

Even bigger girl

In addition to being in a toddler bed, Riley made some more milestones last weekend.  We went out to dinner Saturday night, SUCH a treat for us.  So for the first time since Jude was born, the whole family (the 4 of us) went out to dinner.  No grandparents, uncles, or friends to help out with the kids.  We were on one-on-one defense at Olive Garden. I shouldn't even use those terms because both of our babies were perfect. 

First of all, Riley sat in a booster seat.  Not a high chair people, a booster seat.  Not once did she tip over/almost tip over or even try to get out of the seat.  Secondly, she sat so nicely and colored the kids menu/coloring sheet with the 2 crayons they give you at Olive Garden.  We ran out of juice for her, so the waiter brought her a kid cup with a straw.  We poured half the juice in her sippy cup.  She wouldn't have it, instead she grabbed the big kid cup and started using the straw!  What?!  Where is my baby?  This girl is a toddler/little girl!

Then the bread and salad came.  This is the reason I go to Olive Garden (and to give my kitchen a break for the night, as well as my overly dish-washed hands).  We cut up the tomatoes and some of the lettuce and put them on a plate for her... Then we realized I not only forgot a bib, but a toddler fork for her.  No worries.  This girl used one of our forks.  Like she'd been doing it for years.  She never missed her mouth or lost a tomato from plate to mouth.  She got NOTHING on her shirt.

At this point, I glanced at Jude who was sitting so sweetly and watching Woody and Riley eat.  What a perfectly behaved family I have.  Then when I looked back at Riley, I almost didn't even recognize this big girl sitting at my table.  Booster seat.  Big girl cup.  Adult sized fork.  Eating real food so well.

She ate a little bit of each of our dishes.  When she was finished eating, she scooted the plate away from her and went back to her coloring sheet.  I was awe-struck, astonished, speechless-which was fine because it was hard to talk through the lump in my throat, proud... I could go on and on.

AND THEN (you thought I was finished huh?  But wait, there's more)...on Sunday I was painting my toenails in the living room.  She came and sat down on my lap and put her feet up.  I thought, 'Okay, we'll try it.  I'll probably end up painting one nail before she runs away, getting pink polish all over the carpet...'  Nope.  She sat still long enough for me to paint all 10 of her toenails.  She did get up immediately and go play, but was very aware of the polish on her toenails.  At one point, she touched one of her big toes, so that one has marks in it, but the others look great!!!! (I just wish I would have cut her nails before I painted them.  Keeping a toddler's toenails clean during the summer is next to impossible) 

It's like she got up on Saturday from the nap in her big girl bed and decided she was a big girl and was going to act like it!  At this rate, she'll be potty trained in a month.  Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, I can hear you all snickering at me now.  But you can't argue that this is a big girl!

Big Girl Bed

So last weekend was a big weekend at the Woody household.  On Saturday morning, Riley got the toddler bar put on her bed.  Woody wasn't even finished with it before she was jumping in the bed and laying down on her bunny like it was nap time. 

We actually had to bribe her out of the bed for lunch time because this was at 11:15.  She wasn't too crazy about the idea, but eventually decided that food sounded good.  That's my girl.  If nothing else gets you out of bed, food will.

Even Jude got in on the action.  When it really was nap time, Woody put her down like he normally would.  She got up about 3 minutes later and came in the living room with a book.  For some reason, this just melted my heart, but it was nap time.  So we kissed her and put her back in bed, hoping she wouldn't get up again until her nap was finished.  Hooray!  She stayed until nap time was over! 

Since then (which has only been 4 days), she has done really well with the new bed.  She has only gotten up twice when it wasn't time.  Once was Sunday morning at 6:15, then at 7.  I'll do 7, I will not do 6:15 on Sunday morning. 

However ready she was, I'm not sure that my planning was the best.  It seems that Jude has decided that he needs a growth spurt (because he's only 3 months ahead of schedule on clothing right now), or that he will not sleep without his paci.  Either way, Woody and I have been making multiple visits to his room each night.  Normally, we might let him cry for a little bit to see if he'll sooth himself back to sleep.  But with Riley able to get up whenever she wants, I feel like I have to get him to stop crying before it wakes her up.

Yesterday I attempted to be proactive in the growth spurt by feeding him every 2 1/2 hours instead of 3.  Not much of an adjustment, but it gives him one more feeding a day.  AND I woke him up at 10 last night to nurse him too.  I was pretty pumped when I went to sleep because I was just SURE he would go 9 hours without a feeding and I could sleep until 7am.  Right.  And then I was humbled.  He nursed at 2, then at 5:30 (not to mention the 3 visits he got from us other than those times to replace the paci).  Seriously!  I sure hope that boy gains 2 pounds in the next 2-3 days.  We are also working on crying it out without the paci.  It hasn't been too bad yet.  YET.

I hope with all of my heart that he gets through this growth spurt and wants to sleep for longer periods of time, AND sleep without his paci.  I know we went through this with Riley and now she sleeps through the night...so eventually he will, right?  All I know for sure is that I haven't slept through the night since I was 4 months pregnant.  If you are counting, that would be since DECEMBER.  I am fully ready to sleep all night long.  Bring it, Jude.

Sleeping Beauty

When Riley started sucking her thumb and holding Kitty this morning, I asked her if she wanted to take a nap.  She ran to her bed and stood there until I put her in it.  She immediately fell asleep... or at least closed her eyes.  This girl loves her beauty sleep, much like her mom.

This begs the question, would she just climb into her bed for nap time when we put convert her crib to a toddler bed?  We are thinking the toddler bar may make it's appearance this weekend.  Wow she is growing up so fast.

On another note, today is the first day of school.  Facebook is full of moms commenting on taking their children to school for their first, second, and so on school year.  I am not missing it.  I am loving the fact that I am able to stay at home with my babies.  There will only be a few of these years left when I am not carting children off to school.  I love it that we are sitting at home together right now.  I love that our current curriculum for Riley is learning body parts and trying to pronounce words. And for Jude we are focusing on holding a rattle and batting at objects.

Have I ever mentioned how blessed I am?  Thinking about changing my middle name to Blessed.

Action shots

Riley used to pose for pictures for minutes at a time.She loved getting her picture taken. No longer. She is WAY too busy and has WAY too much stuff to do that is WAY more fun than standing still and looking at the camera. This makes it very hard to get a picture of her and Jude together...much less a family picture. I guess that's just out of the question until she can sit still for longer than 2.4 seconds. Case in point, we tried to get a picture of them a few mornings ago (hence the PJs)...

Riley:  Don't you want a picture of me kissing him?  But it's soooo cute when I do that.  Jude: why is she always trying to kiss me?  At least she isn't trying to poke my eyes right now.

Riley:  Maybe I can just pat his head.  You always say how cute that is.  Jude:  Oh my gosh, would someone stop her?  I am not a dog to be patted on the head.  She messes up my hair when she does this.

Riley:  Hold on, I see I toy I need to get... or a sippy...or a book.  Anything but being still.  What do you think I am, a statue? This is torture.  Jude:  Hey!  Mom!  Did you see me sitting still AND looking at the camera.  I really like that light that flashes.  Can you do it again?  I'll try to talk to Riley and reason with her to be still for one second.

Riley: Dad, I need to get down. There is a great song on that I really need to dance to.  Jude:  Sorry mom, my pep talk didn't work.  She really wants to dance to this song.  See me sitting up so big?

Riley:  FINE!  I'll sit here for just long enough for ONE picture...one without the red-eye reducer, because that just takes too long, and I'm not going to look into the camera, and I'm not going to smile big either..  I'll look at Daddy instead.  Are you done? Can I please get down now?  Jude:  I told you I could probably talk some sense into her.  Your welcome.

New Names

I've complained that Riley has a name for everyone but me.  At least she makes sounds similar to the real word that coordinate with those people.  When you would ask her what my name is, she would just smile, but would call other people by their name (or her sound for it).  That is, until a couple of days ago.  I finally have a name from her and it's better than I could have expected.  Are you ready for this?  She calls me "Momoo" (mom mooo).  Aww, it is the sweet thing I think I've ever heard, especially when she sings it.