Sam's 1 year stats!

Sorry we have been so slow to post, but we will try and catch up a bit. Sam had his 1 year check up a few weeks after his birthday. He is 30.75 inches tall (79th percentile for height), 21 pounds and 4 ounces (46th for weight) and 66th for head size. He is doing well over all, and was a very good boy at the doctors!

He is starting to talk, just a few words so far. Honestly, I'm not sure I would have recognized them as words when Josh was learning to talk-because they are more like sounds. He says, "ba" for ball, "mama" for me, "bo" for book, and an "m" sound for more. Around 13 months he has started saying, "Ja!" for josh. He doesn't say these things all the time, but it is noticeable when he does. We know he can say, "Dada" as well, but I haven't heard it lately.

At 12 months Sam had not taken any real steps, but was cruising on furniture and a very speedy crawler. He is now taking steps (13.5 months) and I think he will be walking pretty soon! I know I shouldn't compare my kids, but I think at this age Josh had stronger gross motor skills but Sam has stronger fine motor skills. Sam is able to play with toys that Josh wasn't at this age, but Josh was walking by 12 months. It is interesting to me to see how each kid develops so differently!

Sam has been a pretty picky eater. I talked to the pediatrician, and he basically said to keep offering him food and he will eat when he is hungry. We find that Sam will eat fruit, sometimes vegetables, most carbs, but zero protein (no cheese, no meat). I've been able to get him to eat soy beans (edamame). And I recently discovered this AMAZING soybean spread that Sam LOVES. Don't Go Nuts is the brand, and it has the flavor and consistency of peanut butter, so even Julian will eat it! Sam also will not drink whole milk. He will drink water out of a sippy cup, but shakes his head no if you try and give him whole milk (or even breast milk) in a sippy. This wouldn't bother me as much, except that he will not eat anything else with fat or protein in it. He will eat yogurt, so I give him that every day.

We also had Sam tested for allergies, and we think he does not have any! The cashew test was a light positive, so we are to feed him the other nuts first and go from there. I am supposed to try peanut butter on him, but I haven't quite figured out how to balance a nut free home with feeding him peanuts. We are doing blood work for Josh soon to see how his allergies are doing, so that will also help us decide how careful we need to be.

I'm still breastfeeding Sam, although I think my goal would be to start cutting back soon. It has been tricky to do that since he will not drink milk in a sippy cup. He also won't really take a bottle if I am around at all, so we haven't had luck putting whole milk in a bottle either. Sam seems to be both patient and stubborn, which is a dangerous combination :-P

Overall, he is such a smiley happy little guy! He loves splashing in the bathtub and during water play. And he loves anything that Josh is playing with.

Just playing with a plastic bag at the pediatricians appointment

Selfie of Mommy and Sam in Dr Kulp's chair

Where it all began!

Enjoying a birthday donut! (Krispy Kreme of course!)

Happy Birthday Sam!

Well I think it will be a tradition on Sam's birthday to do something a little foolish and out of character. Julian and I are generally very rational and follow the rules. Having a baby in the car was not at all something I thought we would do. Fortunately for all of you, our mishap for this year was caught on film. When Sam is 30 he will surely wonder how he survived his childhood....

FYI, Sam recovered very quickly and there was no permanent damage...

Video by Ruth Dayhoff....Mom's, embarrassing their kids since the beginning of time....

New bike!

We got Josh a new bike last weekend. We had planned to check him for size at a store and then order a cheap one online. The common sizes are 12" and 16", and we thought maybe he was too big for 12". We started at REI, and they had one style kids 12" bike. Josh had a horrible time trying to ride the bike. He is great with a tricycle, so we were surprised he was having so much trouble. We decided to go to performance bike to see what they had. Josh immediately wanted to try a cute little pink and purple 12" bike, and was riding it all over the store. It was night and day. The handlebars and pedals on this bike were in a better spot for Josh. We had him test a 16" bike as well, but it was too big. After seeing him struggle at REI, we were concerned about buying a cheaper bike that he couldn't test out. We suggested that he test one of the other colors (red/yellow or pale blue/yellow), which he agreed to. He spent 30 seconds on the red and yellow bike before racing back to the pink bike because it was his, "very favorite." We couldn't say no to that, so Josh is now the proud owner of a brand new bike! We hope Sam likes pink/purple by the time he gets the bike ;-)

Awkward REI bike

Gotta make sure there is air in the tires!

Loving his new bike!

40 weeks

I saw someone else post when their child hit 40 weeks, and loved the idea. I'm very behind in doing Sam's 40 week post, but better late than never. I wrote a similar post for Josh [link] and reflected on my thoughts from pregnancy through Josh's first 40 weeks, and I wanted to do the same for Sam.

Babies grow from a ball of cells to a living, breathing, moving baby in 40 weeks of pregnancy. In their first 40 weeks on the outside, babies must learn to eat, sleep, roll, crawl and experience the world. 40 weeks for Sam was the end of January, and he was just past 9 months old. He is a very physical baby, crawling and pulling up as often as possible. He loves being held and looking around. He is such a happy easy going baby, and very playful. Josh's personality has pretty much stayed the same from the get-go, but it has been great to see how it manifests as he gets older. I'm excited to see how Sam is as a toddler, considering how easy going he is as a baby.

I think one of my big fears this time around was how would I love another baby as much as I love Josh, and how would being a parent the second time be as exciting as it was the first time. Man I was totally wrong on both fronts. I sort of knew that it was common to wonder how you would be able to have space in your heart for two kids, and the practical side of me knew that I would have no problems. I fell completely in love with Sam from the get-go, and now can't picture our family without him. I also have been just as excited by the little tiny milestones this time as I was with Josh. Sam and Josh are so different, so while each milestone is similar, they both approach them differently. Plus you sort of start all over, and forget some of the milestones, so they are just as exciting :-P

Pregnancy was overall much harder the second time for me, particularly with all the illness and injury. I had really hoped that recovery from delivery would be quicker, and that I would lose the weight quicker. Sadly I was wrong. I re-injured my tailbone during delivery, darn 9+lb baby, and it is only just starting to finally feel better. It still hurts if I sit the wrong way too long, or on a particularly hard chair for too long. I'm also still struggling to lose the baby weight. I gained less weight this pregnancy (and more of the weight was Sam!) so I thought it would come off faster. By the time Josh was 9 months I was almost 10lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight, which is certainly not the case since having Sam. While I have been exercising, I have intentionally not watched what I'm eating while breastfeeding. Hopefully the weight will keep coming off slowly, otherwise I will wait until I'm done breastfeeding to get serious about it.

Overall, I have LOVED being a second time Mom. The first time was really hard for me, I had a really hard time adjusting my expectations and Josh was not an easy baby. This time I have so much more confidence, and I have been able to let go of things that would have bothered me with Josh. A friend who also just had their second said that the second time around you know that if you manage to shower and keep the kid alive, it has been a good day. I completely agree with that! I no longer have an unrealistic expectations of all the things I can get done, and I'm happy to just "be" with Sam. I really enjoyed my maternity leave with Sam, and I've been enjoying working 3 days a week and having a little extra time with him. It is rare to get so much one on one time with your second child, and I feel so lucky to have gotten the opportunity :-)  I also think because I get extra time with Sam during the week, I don't feel guilty prioritizing Josh on the weekends.

In the past 40 weeks I have also changed a lot, I've learned to face challenges and be creative in ways to care for two kids. I'm not totally sure I understand why, but I feel like a better Mom to two kids, than I was to one kid. I still loose my cool sometimes, or have a bad parenting day. I've been struggling to make time for some of my favorite hobbies, and to make time to see friends. For now I'm ok overall with the way things are, and I'm sure that I will start adding things back to my schedule at some point.

I'm not ready to admit that Sam is almost one, I want him to stay my baby forever :-)

Almost 40 weeks on the inside!

40 Weeks on the outside!

40 weeks on the outside!

Year in review

I started this post back around New Years, and I've decided to finally finish it and post it. Even if we are a bit late, I love looking back at old posts to remember what we were up to and how I was feeling about everything.

As 2015 comes to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the year. As our life has gotten much more busy, we have less time to post here and even less time to post our general reflections instead of just events that are happening. It has been a very challenging, although also rewarding year.

Obviously the big news of the year was Sam's speedy arrival, and our family of three becoming four. So far we are loving being a family of four, and Sam has fit right into our lifestyle. All of my cousins were right though, after the first kid you can still pretend you have a life....but once you have two, your kids are your life. I'm not sure we would want it any other way though :-)  We have really been enjoying doing fun kid friendly things most of the time. We have lost any desire to go out to eat someplace with kids where you can't throw food on the floor, because it is just too stressful. We like to prioritize having both kids nap in the afternoon so that we can get things done, so we tend to keep our weekends low key. I hope in the next year we will get out a bit more for date nights, particularly now that Josh has been better about being left with someone.

Before Sam's arrival, we spent a lot of time fixing up the house to get ready. It has been great this winter that we have new windows, because they really keep the house much warmer. We have also loved having Josh on the main floor. I would still consider having the boys share a room once they are on the same nap schedule, so that we could get a bit of extra space on the main floor--but for now it works well to have them separate. We have a few things on our to-do list for this year, the big one being to redo our front walkway and steps. We have some drywall repair to do, and I would love to do some painting. But we have been having a hard time finding the motivation to get started on something big.

We managed to do a few fun trips this year. Atlanta before Sam was born, then the beach, Lancaster, PA and Nashville over the summer, Landsdale PA for my cousin's Bat Mitzvah, then Florida for Christmas. Traveling as a family of 4 requires much more careful packing and planning, since we have to be able to manage all our stuff. This year we are planning a trip with extended family to Costa Rica, which will be the first trip out of the country for boy boys. We have been thinking about a few other trips, but nothing planned yet. Both Julian and I wanted to get through the winter to see how much vacation time we would need for sick/snow days before planning much.

In a bit of sad news, this year we lost our cat Jeter. Julian's family rescued her as a kitten 19 years ago (we think), and she has been living with him since he graduated college. She was my first ever cat, and she was a good one! We took many many naps together :-) She had a rough last month health wise, so her death was not unexpected. I started a post about this, but never finished it-hopefully this will be a reminder to find the post.

2016 has already been very busy, and filled with snow :-)  We are excited to see Sam growing into a toddler (ahhhhhhh) and Josh growing into a preschooler. He has learned so much in the past year, and while the millions of questions gets annoying sometimes.....we love how much he is understanding and learning.

Off to Florida 1/1/15

Happy 2nd Bday Josh!

Pregnant!

Welcome Sam! 4/25/15

awww <3

Brothers!

Family fun!

Florida 12/28/15....Can't wait to see what the next year brings!

Stats for both kids!

Well we have been so slow to post, that we are going to combine Josh's 3 year stats and Sam's 9 months stats.

Josh weighed in at 33.6lbs, 70th percentile and was 38.35 inches tall, 71st percentile. Pretty much what we expected. We were a bit surprised that at 3 years old the pediatrician wanted him to pee in a cup. This was a particularly unpleasant experience for all of us. Overall Josh is doing very well. He was being a bit difficult at the appointment, which did not go unnoticed. We talked a bit about consistency for discipline and such with the pediatrician, so we are working on making sure we stick to that. We figured out that Josh was being particularly difficult that week because we had him doubled up on nebulizer drugs, as soon as we stopped over the weekend he was in a much better mood. Julian and I are also working on recognizing what behaviors Josh can control, and what he can't--particularly since we know there are side effects to the asthma meds he is on.

We have been so impressed with Josh's cognitive reasoning lately. He has gotten very sophisticated in his thought processes, and can remember complicated details. He has learned all his letters and numbers and can spell his name. He can write JO_H, but still has some trouble with the S. He can write many of the other letters too, but Josh is the most important :-)  These days he loves playing outside, arts and crafts, emergency vehicles, any vehicles, animals, and cooking. He also loves reading books. He can mostly dress himself, although it is faster and more accurate to help him.

Sam is 19lbs 12.5oz 52nd percentile, 29.25 inches long, 84th percentile. 71st percentile for head circumference, which is not something I cared about until all this talk about microcephaly.  Tall and thin, which is pretty much something we expected as well. He loves solid food these days, and has gotten more picky about refusing a bottle. He won't take a bottle from anyone at home, and we hear he is picky at daycare about which teachers he will take a bottle from. I've been working on him taking a sippy cup, and since he will eat plenty of solid food, we don't think it will be a big problem.

Sam crawls very fast, and pulls up on everything. He is cruising along furniture these days, and I've caught him standing for a second without holding onto anything before sitting down. He has started saying consonant sounds, Bababa and Lalala. I think I've heard others, but not consistently enough to call them. We are still waiting on Dada and Mama. He tends to be quiet when Josh is around, and will be more chatty one on one. Perhaps he is more like his Daddy :-)  He also has very good hand eye coordination already, he can eat peas and other small foods by himself with great accuracy. He is very smiley and happy :-)

His sleeping lately has left much to be desired. He has regressed a bit and is waking up about 50% of the time. He has been getting teeth and was sick, so he had some excuses, but pretty soon we might need to start doing a bit of CIO. Hopefully it won't come to that. His bedtime is around 6:45-7,  and his napping has been relatively good lately. He takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap. As long as I don't run any long errands, they will each be about 45-90 minutes--usually one longer and one shorter. If I run errands and he falls asleep in the car, then his naps get thrown off for the day.

Both boys have been mostly getting along well. They always want to play with the same toy. As Sam has gotten more and more mobile, he likes to steal Josh's toys, or eat them, or knock them over. I understand how Josh feels, because Sam also likes to steal my phone and my diet coke. We mostly try to give Sam a different toy to play with, but then inevitably, Josh wants the toy we just gave Sam and steals it. Josh has been dealing with a bit more jealously lately, as he gets older and more capable of those feelings. We try to make sure to do something with Josh during Sam's morning nap, so that he gets some quality time with us. We've been trying to talk very openly with him about his feelings, so that he at least understands that it is ok to be upset, and then help him understand that he gets special time with Mommy and Daddy too. But overall Josh just loves Sam, and Sam thinks Josh is the best. Josh loves to help feed Sam and make him laugh. He is looking forward to being able to play with Sam, although I think it will be longer than he would like. Sam LOVES watching whatever Josh is doing, and just smiles at him all the time. We hope they will be good friends :-)

And for the most important....cute pictures :-)

Getting ready to play in the snow

Obligatory check up picture

This way Sam!

Quick get a picture before he moves the blocks!

Little bear is having a wonderful time

Snow selfie!

Deep snow!

Chasing after Sam

Getting ready for a bath

It's hard to always look your best!

Driving in style

Fun in the snow while Sam naps

Potty Training

In general we try not to post anything on the blog that would greatly embarrass either boy.  We'll see what Josh and Sam have to say about that when they eventually find it.  So with that in mind I'll try to keep this a PG rated version of potty training.  We have decided that Josh is officially potty trained.  That doesn't mean we are done with diapers and we are a long ways away from that point but Josh spent the past two long weekends entirely in underwear (8 out of 11 days).  We are still doing nap time and bed time in diapers but even when we went out, Josh was in underwear and he did a great job!

We started potty training over the summer which was a bit later than we wanted.  We didn't want to do it when Sam was born or when he had a new teacher so we delayed it a bit and we think that made it more difficult because Josh became more afraid of new things.  We gradually got him to use the potty more and more and after a few months he had no trouble doing it but he didn't want to wear underwear.  He was initially excited about it, but then realized it was scary and refused.

There are many tough parts of parenting but so far Julian is putting potty training as his least favorite part.  After several miserable weekends of trying to force Josh to wear underwear, we decided to take a break.  Everyone said not to force it and take a break.  Unfortunately we didn't see any signs of change.  When asked Josh always refused to wear underwear.  He would occasionally use the potty but we didn't force it on him.  With the new year we tried again and after an hour of arguing got him into underwear.  Then we tried something we had never done before - we left the house!  This was a breakthrough moment for us.  Our outing was not a complete success but Josh overall was more confident in wearing underwear.  We realized that it was likely sending a mixed message that he had to change into a diaper to go out.

The next weekend we had to fight a bit to get him into underwear, but he didn't want to take them off once he was wearing them. So we did more outings in underwear. We also got the great tip to stop making him sit on the potty every X minutes. Then before the MLK weekend, he said he wanted to wear underwear on the weekend and when the time came he didn't argue at all. Since then he has worn underwear anytime is he at home or with us.

Our work is not done - he refuses to wear underwear to or use the bathroom at daycare so we have to work on that.  We aren't really sure how to approach this one, tips are welcome. The pediatrician said to let peer pressure work, but there are only a few kids that are 3 in his class, and only 1-2 are not in diapers. He is a pretty stubborn kid, so we aren't sure he will randomly decide to wear underwear to daycare without being forced. We have offered him several good bribes, and no luck. I think it is time to try a new strategy.

I had been dreading potty training since before Josh was born. And I can say it was nothing like I expected. For us, all of the challenges so far have been emotional. I expected some manipulating and stalling, but not the level of fear and controlling the situation. Hopefully in a few weeks we will be done, but we'll see!

Playing!

One of our first outings with underwear, failed trip to the library...

Off to Home Depot!