Thursday, September 29, 2011

Life is going pretty good.  We bought Brennan new bikes (yes, plural) from Craigslist.  They are motorcycle-style and very cool.  I'm undecided whether to sell one of them (perhaps put the $ towards a bike for me?) or keep the 2nd one for friends to ride or at Moms house for visiting cousins.  Brennan's old bike is now passed to Asher who was thrilled until he realized how hard it was to pedal.  He'll get the hang of it pretty quick though.  It kind of blows my mind that my 3 year old is riding a size 16in bike though!


Brennan is enjoying school.  He seems to be doing fine being there full day, and I am still LOVING it myself. :)  He started homework this week so it's been actually fun to help him with that.  I wasn't looking particularly forward to that aspect (and I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon enough), but it ended up making me feel more like a "real" Mom.  I've joined the "homework helping club" and it feels pretty good.  Currently I think the plan is to have his homework time start at 4:30 - a little more than an hour after getting home, so he has time for snack and playing first, - and coinciding with when I'm making dinner (or hope to be now) so I'm available to help and it won't interfere with the crazy busy bed time stuff.

Last week Shannon was watching the kids and not 15 minutes after arriving Asher had a horrible allergic reaction.  His face swelled really bad and didn't go back to normal for about 24 hours.  I was suspicious that he should react so strongly to their dog since he doesn't usually react very much, if at all.  I realized that we had had clam chowder for dinner just before he went to Shannon's house.  He saw the allergist today and though we have to wait a month from the reaction to do a reliable skin test, the Dr. agreed that is was suspicious that Asher would react that way in a familiar environment.  We'll have to see.  It would be sad if he became allergic to shellfish, but it also wouldn't surprise me.  I've always thought it strange that he wasn't, actually.
Captain Swollen Face
Hollyn is precrawling.  I know, yikes, right?  Not every day, but several times now she's gotten herself onto her knees and rocked.  The first time she even kept diving forward onto her chest.  It was just after her 5-month birthday.  CRAZY!  I ordered a new baby gate for our stairs because clearly we're going to need one for a longer span than with either boy.  Hollyn can also hold her own bottle now, which is awesome!  Don't you love as they learn to do things for themselves?  Her sleeping is still going well.  She has 3 naps a day, and then sleeps for about 12-14 hours a night with only one wake-up in there.  Very doable.  Brian and I are still so totally smitten with this girl - we just want to eat her up!


"I can hold my own bottle now!"

Happy Baby

Mmmm

Huh?

Monday, September 19, 2011

You Know a Shower has Reached Desparate Need When...

I went upstairs for a minute to throw on some house-cleaning clothes.  Upon descending Asher saw me and exclaimed, "You washed your hair!"  I replied that I had not showered, only gotten dressed and put my hair in a pony-tail.  He looked at my quizzically and asked, "Did you leave the soap in your hair?"  Alright, I get it.  I'll go shower and wash my hair. :-)

Saturday, September 17, 2011

5 Months

Yikes it's going fast!  Brian and I are still deeply smitten with sweet little Hollyn.  We just want to eat her right up.  It's hard to imagine that we could ever be happier then we are right now.  She brings us so much joy!

Hollyn's still shy of 13lbs and hanging around the 11th %ile for weight.  She still seems to be getting bigger to me though.  Filling out very nicely.  Hollyn is our little rolley-polley.  Just recently she's gotten more adept at the tummy-to-back technique so I've caught her rolling along the floor like a log going downhill.  She will also change directions or roll onto her side and twist her body to get a look at things behind her.  It's very cute, although diaper changes can be tricky since she prefers to go onto her tummy at any available opportunity.

Hollyn loves being tickled and will laugh heartily when played with.  I've also noticed her taking delight and even laughing at peek-a-boo.  Brennan is my hero because he often and voluntarily plays with his little sister.  Asher will pay her some attention, but Brennan enjoys talking to her in his best baby voice and will distract her if I'm too otherwise occupied to do it myself.

Hollyn is (of course) still sleeping pretty good these days.  She's not on a clock schedule at all, but I can count on her to be ready to nap after an hour or so awake.  I can't count on her to stick to "nap times" because it all depends on what time she wakes up, which is anywhere from 7:30 to 9:30 or 10am. (The later times are a result of waking up earlier, like 6:30am, and going right back down.)  Actually, today she woke up at 7:30, and I put her back down just to see, and she must have gone right back to sleep because I didn't hear a peep out of her until after 11.





4 months old!



Cool Kid in the Neighborhood

I suppose I never need to worry about Brennan being overzealous to be "cool".  As he's outgrown his bike of the previous couple years, I searched Craigslist and found someone selling 2 motorcycle-style bikes for basically the price of one (used one).  So of course we jumped on it.  As soon as Brian had one reassembled and ready to roll, Brennan excitedly took it out for a spin.  Several minutes later he returned, first smiling, as he recounted how immediately a bunch of friends swarmed him exclaiming how cool his bike was.  But then, he started crying as he went on to tell us that they all kept begging him to ride it and following him around to the point he couldn't shake them.  Ha ha.  The novelty will wear off for all involved soon enough, but Brian and I had to smile about his distressing popularity.