six months in and we're doing fine

Well, hi.

I have been itching to get an update on the blog about the two little ones that keep me from having time to blog. Ha. (I don't really blame them...entirely!)

It's been a couple of months, and I have to agree it's mostly true about what they say how the second child is not quite as "well-documented." I do give myself some credit because I believe I have taken nearly the same amount of photos as Maisy so far. But her baby book is looking quite scarce, and we can all see the amount of time since I last blogged about her. I don't feel too bad about this because I am instead pouring all of my time and energy and brain power into spending time with her and her brother all day, every day, and then using my last bit of energy and coherence at the end of those days to hang out with their father. 

So, when you look at my blog one day, Maisy Kate, I am sorry you may not read as much about yourself when you were a baby. When you were a baby, Mommy gave up blogging most of the time because she was trying to rest and sleep instead. That way, when you were awake and it was impossible to blog entirely, I could play with you and Graeme and we could have lots of fun. I do love you so. And you were a super cute and fun baby.

My best girl

To try to make up for it a little bit, here's some updates about our Maisy girl...

She's almost seven months old now! I remember when I was very early on in my pregnancy with Maisy, a lady at PDQ (a restaurant kind of like Chick-fil-a for those who don't know) with kids similar in age difference to what we would have told us, "Just get to six months. It's all going to get much easier after six months." I don't even remember why we talked to her or how it came up that I was pregnant.

We've received much advice as we have embarked on this "two young children thing," but for some reason I've remembered random PDQ lady's words. Maybe it's not true for everyone, but for me, YES. I can't even really say the first six months were bad or anything, but in the past month since Maisy has turned six-months-old, everything just seems better. I'm sure it's due to many reasons.

• I'm getting more sleep now. This is probably the main cause of my fog being lifted. Ha. Both kids are in their beds asleep for 11 hours every night. Praise to God.
• She's on a four-hour schedule now. She eats breakfast and lunch at the same time as us. Her dinner time is earlier but then she's happy to eat puffs or Cheerios while we eat. And she still takes three naps. One of her naps coincides with Graeme's nap. Hooray. The four-hour schedule is like a billion times better than a three-hour schedule as long as they're ready for it! The hard part is being patient enough to wait to switch to it!
• She's eating several foods now and the pediatrician's all like, "She can try almost anything. The allergy people are wrong again." (Still no honey, or milk, or choking hazards, obviously.) So I'm not panicking about her accidentally eating something she shouldn't as much as I was with Graeme. She's had peanut butter several times already and it's one of her favorite things! She loves food and is way more interested in what we are eating than Graeme ever seemed to be at her age. 
• She can sit up on her own and play which makes her so much happier. She wants to get moving, so we will see how much longer before she does. I have a feeling it won't be long!
• Graeme finally acknowledges her existence! He even tries to play with her sometimes! And I think he is really starting to like having her around. It makes my heart so happy! He tries to get her to say "Da-Da" and "Bye-Bye." She says those sounds often, but we don't think she associates them as what they are yet. And he also loves to get her to clap.
• She "talks" and laughs and her personality is really adorable. And dramatic. She might be a bit more like her Daddy... She has always been a joy, but there's something about six months going by and now she is at a stage that's so. much. fun. 

Since Maisy is able to follow along more with Graeme's schedule now, we are getting back to a routine that doesn't require us to split in half all of the time. For the first six months, they never ate at the same time, never took a bath at the same time, never went to bed at the same time, etc. The bedtime routine was especially not very fun because we had to split them up to get everything done. Now, we can all sit down for dinner together and it's not as rushed as it was before. They play and take a bath together (we are even conserving more water!) before pajamas. And then Maisy can have her bedtime bottle while we all sit for some books together. Aaron and Graeme read a few more books while I put Maisy in her bed. Then Graeme gets one more potty break before he goes to bed. It's still a lot of work, and it's definitely still more of a two-person job, but I can verify that it's a lot more fun than it was before!

And the firstborn...

Graeme is getting close to being 2.5 years now! Crazy! He is still our little talker and he is hilarious. I can't even keep track of all of the funny stuff he says everyday and I know it's probably only funny to us because he's our kid. His imagination is growing too. The other day he was playing with his Disney castle and using a giraffe and a dinosaur who were "best friends." Graeme, playing with the giraffe, kept saying, "Where's my best friend dinosaur?" So, obviously, he cracks us up.

He loves reading books and we have made a point to use the brand new library by our house quite often. We have found lots of books he likes and we check them out when they are on the shelf. He memorizes books after hearing them a few times and helps us "read" them.

He still loves trucks, but has in the past couple of months taken an extreme interest in trains. Namely Thomas and Friends, much to Aaron's initial horror. Aaron very much disliked the idea of Thomas "because he's creepy-looking", but he was out-ruled seeing as Graeme loved watching it and his Mimi kept buying him different Thomas engines. Aaron has come around to Thomas, and you can often find him playing at the train table with Graeme. Graeme's train vocabulary is also hysterical as it consists of phrases like "Oh, the indignity!," "Sir Topham Hatt was very cross!," and "The troublesome trucks pushed Thomas into the buffer!"

We are also still big Disney/Pixar Cars fans too. But not so much sports. Seeing as Graeme yesterday saw his soccer ball outside and said, "Here's my basketball!" Haha.

Graeme is a pretty picky eater. I am hoping he outgrows it. Some days he surprises me like when he devoured broccoli last week. But of course when I made broccoli on Monday he refused to even put it on his fork. Good grief. He finally has all four two-year molars in and he loves brushing his teeth with his "brush teeth."

I am loving this stage we are in right now. Yes, I'm definitely tired, and no, there's not much time for sitting and blogging. But I would highly recommend this "two children" thing. It's double the work to get out the door, double the tears and crying, double the dishes, double the laundry, double the worrying about something and checking the internet to scare myself further, double the tired-feeling. But overshadowing all of those things is double the laughs, double the hugs and kisses, double the snuggles and books, double the cuteness, double the smiles, double our hearts loving them each so much, double the fun, double the thankfulness that we have these two little humans entrusted to us.

Maisy is four months! (And some stuff about Graeme too)

Now that Maisy is almost five months old, I figured it would be a good time to get some sort of post up about her turning four months. Time flies and I haven't made time to sit down and write until now. Oh well.

Happy (belated) four months to Maisy on the blog!

She had her four month well-visit and she weighed 13 pounds, 2 ounces and was 25 inches long. She has gained exactly 5 pounds and grown exactly 4 inches since birth. Her height is up there in the 76% but she's pretty lightweight and only in the 26% for weight. Graeme was already over 17 pounds at four months, so Maisy feels so small to us! Haha. We are so thankful that she is healthy and growing right on track.


Maisy had a busy third month of life in April.

1. She slept through the night. (Hallelujah!) She doesn't sleep all night every night, but she has done it several times and I think by the time she turns five months she will be pretty consistent with it. Of course by "sleep through the night," I mean we dream feed her, so she is sleeping for 12ish hours but still eating once before we go to bed late at night. Aaron is a true gem and usually does this feeding as I can barely stay awake past 9pm. On the nights she has slept all night, she does wake up for comfort maybe one other time, but will go back to sleep with a pat on her back or her pacifier and doesn't need to eat. I never know what nights she will sleep all night and what nights she won't, but when she does, it's glorious.
   
2. She rolls from back to tummy, although I still haven't seen her do this. She has done it twice during the daytime (both times I was occupied with Graeme), and she has done it a few times at night in her crib. At night it causes her to wake up crying because she apparently does not like to sleep on her tummy. This is funny to me because Graeme slept on his tummy as soon as he could and has never stopped.
   
3. She laughs! It's just the best thing ever to hear a baby laugh. Maisy is super ticklish and her giggles usually come out because we are tickling her. But she will also laugh at something we say or a sound we make every once in awhile. She thinks Graeme is the most hilarious of course, seeing as he is the only one who has no interest in making her laugh. Ha!
4. She is getting quite efficient at reaching and grasping toys and chewing on them. And also throwing them when she loses interest. A lot of her toys are passed down from Graeme, who actually got almost all of his toys from Bensen and Keyen. But we have bought her a few pink, girly toys of course.
   
5. She has developed a little bit of separation anxiety already. Depending on her mood, she may or may not want to be out of my arms. She is pretty obsessed with her Mommy. I do not mind this.
6. She is super observant and does not like to be left out of what's going on around her. You can already see the desire in her to move and be in on the action. Maybe she will crawl early.

She will be five months old in just a couple of weeks, crazily enough! She is so pretty and her eyes make me swoon. We are so in love with this little princess.

And because I hate to leave him out entirely, here's a quick update on Graeme Grayson:

1. He's really and truly potty trained! Woo hoo! His accidents are becoming few and far between. He still wears a Pull-Up for bedtimes, and sometimes he will wear one out and about depending on where we are going and how long it takes to get there. I am so, so, so glad we decided to potty train him this early. It's wonderful.
2. He moved up to the two-year-old class at church. This transition probably would have been hard and we would have had a few weeks of tears as we dropped him off in a new environment, but lucky for him, his grandparents and aunt and uncle are the teachers in his new class. So, of course, he's in heaven. In his previous class, it was mostly just free-for-all playtime, and now he is in a class where there are no toys. They have structured activities and crafts and a large group time. Since I have the inside scoop from my mom, I know he only had one little moment of panic his very first day. Now, he loves it and he is learning so much. Tonight, randomly, he said "God made the birds!" I concurred that was right and said, "Yeah! God made everything!" And he followed up with "God made my trains!" Oh, how I have been praying for these moments since he was born. We are witnesses to his little mind first learning about the inexplainable power and love of God. 
3. He loves the library and we have been checking out about 20 books every time we go. If it's a book about trucks, it's pretty much a guarantee he will love it. We have been to story time a few times. He likes the songs the most. And the bubbles at the end.
4. He knows his full name, who's in his family, and how old he is. It took a few days for him to remember that he was two. At first, when I would ask him his age, he would say, "Strong!"
5. We are biased, but he's so stinking smart. I wish I could record him all he time because I can't even keep track of everything he says anymore. But every day, at least once, I think to myself, "How in the world does he know that?" Like in the bathroom the other day, he pointed to the bathroom fan on the ceiling and said, "Is that a smoke alarm?" I was surprised at how well he formed a question, and that he remembered about a smoke alarm from the one book we have checked out of the library that mentions it. He blows my mind.
6. He's sweet, and I hope he always is. Today, he said, "Thank you for walking with me, Mommy!" and also, "I love Cheerios!" out of the blue, and "That's a good idea, Mommy!" at my suggestion of where to put something. 

And, thank goodness, he will finally eat ice cream!

Me and my two kiddos.

adventures in potty training

When I was pregnant with Maisy I thought to myself how nice it would be if Graeme was potty-trained before she arrived. Well, I'm sure it would have been nice. But it didn't quite work out that way.

He is, as I've said, very smart and verbal for his age and I thought he would catch on pretty quickly. When he was around 19 months old I tried the 3-day potty training "boot camp" of sorts where you can train them in just one weekend. He understood the concept and for awhile that first morning he was excited to pee in the potty. But things took a turn and we didn't even make it all the way through day one because he started to sob and scream and cling to me for dear life when I would try to put him on the potty. He was overwhelmed and we both ended up in tears. We clearly needed to wait.

I thought we would put the potties away for a few weeks and try again and still have time to train before Maisy was born. But when a few weeks went by and I was then just a few weeks away from having a baby, I was miserable and the thought of wrangling a toddler to the potty a bajillion times a day and cleaning up accidents off the floor sounded like unneeded torture for everyone.

I knew it was definitely not the end of the world to have two kids in diapers for awhile and when he was ready and I was ready, it would happen.


Fast forward...

Maisy was born January 4th and all was wonderful and happy. Potty-training moved way down on the list of things that needed to happen. Graeme was already dealing with enough transitions and a newborn requires quite a bit of attention.

After a few weeks of her being here and as his second birthday approached, the potty started to come up in conversation again. Like all little boys, it was pretty much a guarantee that he would start peeing as soon as he got in the bath every night. Aaron thought it would be a good start to try letting him go on the potty right before his bath. Graeme liked this idea and he would sit there and talk about "His pee pee coming," and "Push it out!" and clearly he understood what should happen. But night after night he refused to actually ever pee on the potty and when we finally gave up he would go in the tub while saying "Pee pee in the tub!" We would *face palm* and say, "No, Buddy, pee pee goes in the potty! Where does pee pee go?" "In the potty!" he would exclaim. Oh the mysterious minds of toddlers.

He began to take notice of the underwear in his dresser (that I had purchased for our previous potty adventure) and pulled it out almost daily. I would tell him that it was for when he didn't wear diapers anymore. So he would say "Wear underwear when I don't need diapers anymore!" "Yeah Buddy! Do you want to try going to the potty?" "No." *face palm*

He also started to complain about having his diaper changed all of the time and I would tell him "You don't have to have your diaper changed anymore if you go in the potty. Do you want to go to the potty?" "NO!" Another *face palm*

So, it was clear that he would need a little push to get this thing started.

At the beginning of April I worked up my nerve that this was the month that we would try again. I had to wait until this past weekend because we had already scheduled plans for the first two weekends of April. I set up a sleepover for Maisy with my parents so we would be able to focus even more on the task at hand.

I didn't want to do the intense "boot camp" again, although I figured I would use parts of it. Graeme doesn't do well with a lot of pressure. Or a lot of change. I definitely didn't want to scare him away from the potty again so I figured we would try to keep our day as normal as possible. I bought him a few cheap little "prizes," as well as some "Cars" stickers to put on a "Potty Chart" that I made on computer paper (Because he clearly can't read nor does he care about my lack of fancy chart abilities). I knew we also had some Easter candy in the pantry for extra reinforcement.

Spoiler alert: the chart is full so we did have success!

I bought Pull-Ups too. The book I had read before said there was nothing wrong with Pull-Ups per se, but that they could confuse kids because they basically feel like a diaper. I bought them with the intention of using them on outings for awhile and plan to mostly use them over a pair of regular underwear so he will still feel the uncomfortable wet when he has an accident. And I knew it was also completely normal and expected that he would still wear a diaper for naps and at night. The book also said to just use your pure excitement as motivation for them to go on the potty. For Graeme, I knew the tangible motivation would work way better.

We started on Friday morning. I knew as soon as we could get him to go on the potty for the first time we would be getting somewhere. But until then, it would be a bit tricky. He sat on the potty after I got him out of bed that morning, but wouldn't pee. That's okay...I literally have no expectations for how this day will pan out.

I put a pair of underwear on him and we headed downstairs. My sister-in-law gave us a few waterproof mattress covers that we covered the couch with so he could sit on it like he does every morning. (He is a routine kid through and through.) I turned the TV on for him and got him his milk and sat him on the little potty that we put in the living room. Nothing. We moved on to breakfast.

The morning went on and he peed in his underwear a few times. We kept reminding him that pee pee goes in the potty and that he could have lots of fun things if he would do it. Finally, we got him to sit on the potty long enough that he peed! We made a huge deal. "Here's a new little Hot Wheels truck! Here's two Skittles to eat at 8am! Let's put a sticker on your chart!"

He was so happy and from then on he had a much better idea of what he needed to do. We kept up the stickers and candy that first day and would give him a little toy every few stickers he added to his chart.

Unfortunately for Aaron, I had a doctor's appointment that morning that I really needed to go to. I had to leave him with Maisy and Graeme on potty patrol alone for almost two hours. Aaron somehow survived, and Graeme had a few accidents but also went on the potty a couple more times while I was gone.

When I got home, it was nap time, and we could all regroup for a bit. I put a diaper on him before nap (which he immediately pooped in of course). After a little bit of lamenting the fact that I was changing yet another diaper on this kid, I put a clean diaper on him and he was sound asleep right away from all of his hard work that morning.

After nap time, Aaron took Maisy to my parents and Graeme and I stayed home to keep on potty-ing on. I started to implement a new strategy of reminding him literally twice a minute to "Keep your underwear dry." And lo and behold, it worked. He didn't have another accident the rest of the day. I just made sure to also make him at least try to pee every 20 minutes or so.

Friday night, when he was snug in bed with a diaper on (at that point, a diaper I was relieved to put on), Aaron and I crashed on the couch with Chili's Take-Out and celebrated a good, hard day's work. And it was just the beginning!

There were still five dry pairs after that first day...out of like 15!

Graeme continued to do really well all weekend. Saturday he only had two little pee pee accidents in the morning. We decided that an outing was in order for the three of us. We haven't had a day to only spend with Graeme in months so we wanted him to have fun and not just be sitting on the potty all day. We drove to the grand-opening of the new library. Graeme had a Pull-Up on over his underwear. We brought the little potty in the van and we tried to get him to use it before we went inside the library. He was not interested. Oh well, at least I knew it was pointless for me to lug that with me everywhere.

Once inside, we let him run around for a few minutes while we constantly reminded him to stay dry. I wasn't sure how he would react to going potty somewhere else besides home, let alone on a big potty. But, there's a first time for everything. I took him to the bathroom and he went with hardly any trouble. I was SO proud of him! He went one more time at the library before we left and then we went to Chick-fil-a for lunch. He used their bathroom twice! I was really quite surprised by how easy his first outing potty-training was.

We went home for nap time after lunch and celebrated that he kept his underwear dry the entire time we were out.

He did really well the rest of Saturday with no more potty accidents.

On Sunday, I figured church would be an interesting experience for him. I took him potty before I dropped him off at his class and he peed. I wasn't going to make his teachers mess with wet or dirty underwear so I put a Pull-Up on him. We laugh with his teachers because every Sunday he goes in the little tent in his class to do his "duty." His classroom is so busy I knew that it really wasn't possible for them to take him potty because he still won't tell anyone when he needs to go. I definitely didn't expect or want them to have the job of trying to take him to the potty every 20 minutes either. Sure enough, when I picked him up, his Pull-Up was full. Oh well. It wasn't wet, so that was something! He peed on the potty again and we made it home with dry underwear.

Sunday was another good day and he even accomplished pooping on the potty after dinner for the first time. Oh, the things we celebrate as parents! I had no idea how proud I could be of someone's bodily waste in a toilet. I decided it was time to make this officially official and take the changing pad out of his room. Hallelujah. Although it made Aaron cry almost!

It's just a dresser now!

And here we are today, Monday. He went to Marbles with Aaron this morning for a little bit and then went to my parents for the day. He had a little accident this morning but it was the "number 2" again that tripped him up. I think it will just take a little more time for him to figure that one out.

He's doing so well and I am really, really proud of him. I think the reminders to keep his underwear dry will be important for him for at least a few weeks until he can remember himself. His only other set-back is that he sometimes has a hard time stopping the fun thing he is doing to try to go potty and he will just sit there on the potty and cry instead of just going and being done with it quickly! If only toddlers could understand that logic! Ha! We'll just keep on singing that good ol' Daniel Tiger toon and see what else this potty training adventure has in store for us...

"If you have to go potty, STOP and go right away! Flush and wash and be on your way!"

Graeme turns two

He's two.

Where do I even begin?

My little firstborn is not so little anymore. In fact, he's grown from 8 pounds, 6 ounces to 30 pounds, 2.5 ounces. Even more astounding is that he's gone from 20.5 inches to 37.5 inches (he's always flying right off those charts for his height!). In two years he's gone from being a little baby that basically only slept, ate, and cried (sometimes he cried...I mean he was basically an angel) to a little boy that can run and jump and imagine and talk and do so many things! (And still does his fair share of crying too!)

Graeme Grayson started off his third year of life on a bit of a downer...he had a stomach bug on his birthday. Thankfully, it came and went quickly. We will for sure never forget his second birthday (as much of it was spent cleaning up vomit), although I'm glad he will.

Even though his actual birthday was not as fun as we had planned, he did have a super fun Curious George birthday party the weekend before. For the second year in a row, a whole week of super warm days ended in a chilly day for our party at the park. It didn't rain though, so that was good.

It's hard to believe that he wasn't even walking at his first birthday. He's changed and learned so much in a year...

Since his first birthday, Graeme has...

• Started walking...and running and jumping and climbing! 

• Given up all bottles. This happened pretty quickly after his first birthday since he was only having one at bedtime at that point. He also gave up the pacifier around 15 months without much of a fight since he was only allowed to have it when we were out and about.

Sippy cups only...but only the ones with straws are allowed according to him!

•  Added hundreds and hundreds of words to his vocabulary. He can repeat any word you ask him to and carries on coherent conversations with us. He is constantly cracking us up with things he says. Lately, he adds "honey" to the end of random sentences. "Thanks, honey!" "Let's go, honey!" He can count to 10, knows his shapes and colors, and he can help us read most of his books.

• Travelled to Florida, Tennessee, Myrtle Beach, and Carolina Beach

• Become a big brother! 

• He's done a lot of other things, but I think we'll move on...

Graeme loves...

• Trucks
• Trains
• Watching TV (Curious George, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and most recently, Cars)
• Going to the park/playground
• Playing outside with chalk and bubbles
• Playing with Playdoh
• Baths (especially bubble baths!)
• Reading books (he has many of his books almost memorized)
• Going to his grandparents' houses. And he loves his grandparents. He loves them all so much and I'm so glad he is close to them.
• Helping work at Journey (and getting chocolate every time he is there from his various "chocolate dealers" that hook him up)
• Milk and "Juice" (it's mostly water, unbeknownst to him)...I think he would live on liquid if that was an option
• Cheerios (I feel like it's the most boring cereal ever, but he LOVES Cheerios and will often choose it over something more fun such as cheddar bunnies)
• Changing the food he likes daily to always keep me guessing (Cheerios might be the only constant)
• Playing "Run" (running up and down the hallway downstairs) and "Hide-and-Seek" (he almost always cheats and peeks though! Ha!)
• His cousins and his neighbor Joseph...those are his friends that he is always asking for!
• Penny (We are still unsure if he completely realizes she is a dog...the relationship between Penny and Graeme is too adorable. Right now, he still loves Penny more than Maisy. Ha.)
• Maisy (Deep down, we know he loves her and will only love her more and more as they both grow. Every once in awhile, when he thinks no one is watching, he will be so very sweet to her.)
• Daddy (he still doesn't pronounce the "ds" in the middle, so "Da-ee") Graeme and Aaron have bonded especially since Maisy was born. It's super sweet. His favorite thing to do with Daddy is read books!
• Momma (every once in awhile he will say "mommy," but I'm still "momma" mostly). Graeme is a momma's boy through and through. And as much as he loves me, I love him so very much more. He is my little buddy and I wish I could bottle up all of his sweet hugs and smiles and the thousands and thousands of times I've heard "Momma!" this year.

Graeme Grayson, happy second birthday! Momma loves you too much to even say! I am so excited to watch you grow more and more this coming year, and I can't wait for all of the adventures we will have. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, Buddy! I am so glad God gave you to me and me to you. I love being your mom. Always.

two kids

So, we have two kids now. 

I am trying hard to document Maisy as well as I documented Graeme. Haha. It's definitely busy around here these days! Priorities are a must, and sadly, blogging is not a very high one right now. I am enjoying experiencing Maisy as much as I can which lends to less time to write about it. It's the better choice though, for sure! 

Maisy is already almost two months old and the days keep flying by. We've fallen into a nice routine for the most part and our days move along quickly as it seems it's always time for someone to eat, sleep, or get their diaper changed. I am definitely a schedule person, and thankfully, Maisy seems to be too. Graeme is already routine oriented (almost too much so sometimes!), so we all will get along just fine.

Tonight was the first night I had to do the bedtime routine all by myself. I was half dreading it/half excited for a new challenge. Well, everyone made it to bed on time and without too much trouble. It required quite a bit of prep work and a rock-n-play in the bathroom, but we made it work.

I really am loving having these two young little ones. For every hard moment, there are so many more incredibly fun and sweet moments. Yes, we are tired, but it's a very good tired. 

I feel like I should definitely tell you more about our Maisy Kate though! There's a lot to catch up since you've really only heard up to her being born. So...we will maybe try a list-type fashion?

• The day Maisy was born (a Monday) was of course wonderful and amazing. But it did turn a bit scary for awhile. About 12 hours after her arrival our nurse noticed her looking a little yellow. I knew not a whole lot about jaundice because Graeme never had it at all. A quick scan of her forehead gave her a bilirubin reading of 14. We were told that was extremely high for a baby her age, and they needed to do blood work right away. The electronic scanner always reads it higher than it actually is, and the blood work came back a little lower with a score of 11.4. This was still way too high for such a young infant and they immediately wheeled in a light bed and an overhead light. In an overwhelming whirlwind she was taken from our arms with instructions to not get her out of the lights under any circumstances. She even had to eat and have her diaper changed on the bed! It was pretty scary until we were finally able to talk to a neonatal doctor and she explained more clearly the situation. We learned that my blood type (O+) and Maisy's blood type (A+) did not agree well with each other (apparently this is common in moms with O+ blood...who knew?!). The antibodies Maisy received from me were attacking her red blood cells and causing her to be unable to flush out the bilirubin fast enough. The doctor told us that if the numbers didn't steady soon she would need to be taken to the NICU and worst case scenario would be a blood transfusion. Well, thank God that never had to happen. (But thanks for the scare, guys.) Maisy was under the lights for about 36 hours total, although we were able to take her off for 30 minutes here and there on Tuesday. Finally, on Wednesday evening, her blood work came back at a low enough number that we could be discharged. They continued to check it at the pediatrician's office for the next couple of days, and by that Friday, it was stable enough that she didn't have to endure any more heel pricks! Yay!
• Maybe something a little happier now, yes? Maisy was born with a head full of dark hair. This was a bit unexpected as her brother has always had blonde hair as well as both of her cousins on the Bauer side. Aaron and his older brother were both blondies until they were older kids. We figured Maisy would follow suit, but so far she has beautiful brunette hair that takes more after my always-has-been-dark hair. There is a chance it could turn blonde still so we'll see! My mom had bought her a custom-made baby doll with blonde hair before she was born. It has since been replaced with a brown-haired doll. Ha.
• We have learned quickly that Maisy is LOUD. Now, she is almost always completely happy and content. But when she wants or needs something, she literally goes from being quiet to screaming bloody murder in an instant. There's no warm up. We tell her she's quite dramatic. It's pretty comical actually. I guess she's a typical girl. Already bringing the sass.
• Much to my delight and sanity, Maisy instantly fell into a 3 hour routine with barely any straying from it since. After the first couple of weeks where we had to wake her up to feed her during the night every 3 hours, we got the ok to let her go 4 hour stretches at night. Then at around 5 weeks we were able to let her sleep as long as she would. She's been a pretty fabulous sleeper at night, thankfully. The longest she's gone is 8 hours, but typically she goes 5-6. Some nights we can time it with a late feeding before we go to bed (well, let's face it, I crash while Aaron does this feeding), and then she will sleep till about 5:30am which is basically our wake-up time anyway.
• This past weekend she started giving us some real smiles. Melt my heart to the floor. She's kind of stingy with them still, but oh my goodness they are the sweetest. Every new stage I am reminded of just how fun each new stage is. Babies grow and learn so much the first year. And we are only in the first two months still!

Well, there's a few more things about sweet Maisy. We do love her so!

And Graeme Grayson?

I am due for a post on him too. Can you believe he's almost two?! Because I cannot. For now, I'll say that his sister grows on him a little more each day and if you ask us he's a total genius and HI-LAR-I-OUS.

To close this post, a recent conversation with Graeme:

(Maisy is napping. Aaron and I are getting ready in our bathroom. Graeme is playing in the play room.)

Graeme enters bathroom.

"Somefing in my mouf, Mama!" as he sticks his tongue out with a disturbed look.

I look and see nothing. "I'm sorry, buddy, what's in your mouth?"

"Somefing in my nose!"

"In your nose too?"

"Boogie in my nose!"

Laughing, "Oh, no! Do you need a tissue?"

"Uh huh! "What's in my mouf?" he asks with a curious expression.

And we will never know.

Graeme is 20 months old!

Even when time seems to drag pregnancy-wise, the time it takes Graeme to turn another month older flies by.

On Monday he turned 20 months old and somehow we are just four months away from his second birthday. I feel like I JUST planned his first birthday party! And I feel like he will turn two before I can even blink.

At his birthday party!

Our little (but very tall) Graeme Grayson is as adorable as ever and has grown so much, so fast. Yes, he is still tall for his age, and we are still at a loss where his height comes from! I'm thinking one day he will even out, but who knows...maybe he will tower over us by the time he's in middle school! He's been wearing 2T clothes for a few months now and certain things he wears are 3T to be long enough for him.

If this is our future...we are clueless.

His speech and vocabulary blow my mind every day. I recently found a video of him saying "Batman" when he was only ten or eleven months old, and that was not his first word. It's hard to remember a time when he wasn't talking. He hasn't stopped since he started and seems to add at least one new word every day. He says or tries to say anything we ask him to and speaks in little sentences a lot of the time. His memory is amazing as well and he will randomly bring up something that happened a couple of weeks ago.

For example, one day he and I were sitting outside watching cars and trucks drive by. A truck drove out of the neighborhood and when it hit a bump, a hard hat fell out of the back. Well, this was very intriguing to Graeme. Over and over he said, "Red truck drop hat!" We talked about whether the truck would come back to get it when after a few minutes a car stopped next to it. A boy got out of the car and took the hat. This was even more interesting to Graeme. "Boy took hat!" And then we wondered whether or not he would give it back to the red truck. Even now, weeks later, he will sometimes bring up the red truck, hard hat, and boy.

I would just love to see inside his little brain sometimes.

What do you think about, little one?

Sometime in the last month he suddenly went from saying "Dada" to "Daddy" (except it sounds more like "Dah-ee"). So very cute. He has a similar way of pronouncing Penny ("Peh-ee"). I am still "Mama." One of my favorite new things he says is "Hi, Buddy (Buh-ee)!" I say "Hi, Buddy," to him all of the time, and one day he said it back to me. And now he says it to me a lot. Every once in awhile he will say it to me before I say it to him. I so wish I could get it on video. I love that we are buddies.

What else? 

He has all four one year molars in and accounted for and is working on the two canines on the bottom currently (the top ones are in). Teething is never too bad with him although it does cause some very early morning wake ups...5:00am is never fun to see.

We tried potty training for one day, but decided to hold off as he was becoming a bit scared of even sitting on the potty. He gets the concept, but now I am at a point where it sounds like way too much work for the ninth month of pregnancy. Oh well. Diapers for everyone for a bit longer!

And little diaper butts are adorable.

We've learned that he is not a fan of change. At all. (He may get this from me...and by "may," I mean he totally does.) I made him something to hang on the wall above his crib. He hysterically refused to get in bed until we took it down. And then he was scared to go to bed for a few nights afterwards. Goodness. A week later I converted his highchair to a booster seat thinking a "big boy chair" would be exciting. He cried and cried big, sad tears and wouldn't let me pry him off of me to sit in it until it was back to "normal."

He did not appreciate the cuteness at all.

I figure neither of these things are at all worth fighting him about right now. Eventually, he will not be terrified of hanging yarn above his bed or a big boy booster seat. What a funny, interesting boy he is.

Anyway.

Graeme is pure joy and I am so excited to see him become a big brother sometime in the next few weeks. Even if he has a hard time adjusting, it will only be for a season, and eventually he will not remember a time without having a sister. 

We, on the other hand, are definitely cherishing all of the time we have and have had with only him around. I am so thankful for the 20-21 months we have had with just him. He has set the bar pretty high as far as being an absolutely amazing kid!

We love you, Graeme!

my time change cheat plan

Normally, my "blog days" are Wednesdays. Aaron and I meet my parents at Starbucks, and they take Graeme with them. And we have a coffee date before work.

However, today is Thursday as we sit in the Starbucks. I had my last day of "work" last Wednesday. It never really felt like work to me because I loved doing it. And I still plan on doing a lot of the things I did at Journey as a volunteer.

My mom might lose it if I kept Graeme (and eventually Maisy) with me every day now that I'm not working, so the plan is for him to spend Thursdays with Mimi and Grandy. This will allow me to have a day to get housework, laundry, shopping, and other things done that are easier to do when I don't have a toddler tagalong. It works out for all.

And Aaron and I still get our weekly morning coffee date, which we love and look forward to. Right now, I am writing this and he is reading. So we aren't talking much or anything. But just sitting here with each other is a really perfect date sometimes.



Anyway.



Our due date is less than two months away now! We are getting excited about our baby shower in a couple of weeks. Maisy's room is coming together and my goal is to have pretty much everything in order for her arrival by the time Thanksgiving gets here. I want to be able to focus on enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas with Graeme, as it will be the last time when he is our only little one!




Aaron and I were able to sneak away last weekend for a last getaway before we have two children. It happened to fall on the weekend that I had scheduled Graeme's flu shot AND the time change. He stayed with my parents, and I apologized for leaving them with two "inconveniences." Ha. There's not much I could do about the flu shot. He needs it and it takes two seconds and then he's fine anyway. But, I did try to help out with the time change.

I'm sure you've heard that when you have kids, young ones especially, the "extra hour" we get in the fall is a big joke. Example being:  Graeme goes to bed at 7:00pm and sleeps until 6:00-6:30am. So, when the clock shifts back an hour in the middle of the night, his little internal clock does not. And he therefore wakes up at 5:00am. If you're thinking, Just put him to bed an hour later that night and then he'll sleep an hour later in the morning, you would be mistaken. At least for my child. Typically, the later he goes to bed, the earlier he wakes up.

I realized this dilemma last year and decided to try to beat the system. And it worked. So I did the same thing this year. And it worked again.

It requires a bit of planning and adjusting the week before, but I think it's worth it. It makes the hour time change much easier on Graeme and doesn't have us (or my parents this year!) waking up an hour earlier on Sunday. If you are curious for next year, here's what I do:

This works for us because Graeme is on a (fairly) consistent schedule. I'm sure you could make it work for your child even if they weren't necessarily on a schedule too!

The Saturday a week before the time change is when I started. I shifted everything 15 minutes ahead, starting with breakfast. That meant 15 minutes later for all meals. 15 minutes later for nap time. And 15 minutes later for bedtime. I did this exact same schedule for Saturday AND Sunday.

On Monday, I shifted everything 15 more minutes. This meant it was 30 minutes later than what his normal schedule was. We did this for two days as well, Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, his "wake up for the day" time was starting to catch on, and he slept in until 7:00am.

On Wednesday, we did another 15 minutes shift, putting us 45 minutes later than a normal day. This is when the day started to seem really long! He was adjusting fine, but a 7:45 bedtime just seemed really late to us! Another two days of this (Wednesday and Thursday).

By Friday morning, we had reached the beginning of "Phase 4," the final 15 minutes that put us an entire hour later. This meant he slept in until 7:30am. He ate lunch at noon. He went down for a nap at 1:00pm. He ate dinner at 6:00pm. And bedtime wasn't until 8:00pm. My parents took the torch and finished off the time change plan on Saturday using this same schedule.

Therefore, by Saturday night, he was an entire hour ahead of time. If that even makes sense. Ha. And when time fell back an hour that night, he fell right back to normal. I texted my mom on Sunday morning, "DID IT WORK?!" And I was happy to receive, "He slept until 6:30!" back from her. Back to normal. And no trouble at all from then on.



So, if I seem entirely crazy to some of you, you may be right. I try not to be "schedule nazi" too much, but yeah...I am pretty reliant on our nice routine we have going for us most days! There's a time to flexible, and a time to want sleep, right? Right?!