Nov 17-23: 5 Months Old

Elin is 5 months old!!  Wow - she is growing and learning and certainly making her mark on our family!  She has become so expressive lately, which was very evident when I tried to take her Month 5 photo!  She has definitely figured out her tongue and loves to stick it out (a great way to drop drool on anyone holding her)!  I've included some of my favorite expressions that she put on display during the 2 separate photo shoots that I did trying to get "that perfect shot"; I never did get one that I would classify as perfect, but I have some really cute ones. :)  Between the 1st photo shoot and the 2nd, she somehow managed to scratch the top of her nose next to her right eye.  I'm not sure how she managed to do that since we try to keep her fingernails short & smooth to prevent scratching.

One of Elin's favorite smiles!

What?!

Here's my tongue!

This is just too cute.  She was "chatting" during this photo!

picture is a bit blurry, but I love the expression with the tongue!!

Wide-eye wonder!

Erik has had a bit of a rough week; poor kid is going through some serious 2-year old blues.  He is struggling with boundaries, sitting still, sharing and obedience, to name a few things.  All typical issues that 2 year olds deal with, I've been told.  He has also been struggling with a cold this week, but hopefully that will be gone soon.  He loves to be with Kent (Dadda is his very favorite person) and will spend hours "helping" with yard work by picking up sticks, watering the plants (and anything else nearby) and riding the lawn mower.  He will generally scream and cry when he has to come inside; he is definitely an outside boy.  He does also like to help me with some of my indoor like sorting the laundry and picking up toys (he has actually asked to "play" this several times this past week!!).  The picture below was taken when Erik asked for a Lysol wipe and then proceeded to wipe down the freezer, refrigerator as well as nearly have the kitchen floor!  He has lots of sweet moments - wanting to be held, giving Kent back rubs, asking us "Okay? You hurt?" if one of us bumps our toes or pretends to cry.  At his daycare, he has also been super sweet to one of the little girls in his class.  This is her first year of daycare and she has had a rather hard transition and can be nearly inconsolable when she is dropped off.   For the past week or so, once she is dropped off, Erik will sit by her in the classroom, talking to her or bringing her toys, until she has calmed down and is ready to join the rest of the group in whatever activity the teachers have given them.  Erik's teachers say it is super cute & sweet to see him helping out the little girl!   Of course, he can use his sweetness for evil when he knows that he is in trouble or doesn't want to do something - he will look at us and innocently say, "Hold you?" which is code for pick me up.  Or, if we are already holding him, he will put his head down on our shoulder, wrap his arm around us and snuggle into our necks.  He knows that no one can resist a cuddle!

Elin's big physical achievement is that she is getting up on her hands & knees and rocking back & forth, sometimes really hard.  She hasn't managed to actually move herself more than a few inches backwards, but I'm sure that she will be truly mobile real soon!  Watch out, Erik - your toys are in serious jeopardy!!!

We hope that everyone reading this is having a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

Nov 10-16: A Quiet Week

This has been a rather quiet & uneventful week; Kent had to work some long hours to prepare for meetings that he has this next week.  We ended our week by attending the dedication ceremony of our friend, Devin Cochran.  The dedication is held near the beginning of the church service, which was a very good thing for us.  We have not attempted to attend a church service in many months since Erik won't sit still or be quiet in the sanctuary!  Erik did pretty well for about 10 minutes with the quiet church toy that I had brought with me and then he was bored & mobile. I spent our remaining time in the sanctuary picking up all the pens, envelopes & forms that are on the back of the pews and shushing Erik!  We need to start attending church again, but now I know that we will need a rock-solid game plan!!

Our big event this week was that Erik pooped in the potty for the first time!!!  Just to be clear, we are not actually actively potty training Erik, but we do talk about going potty & ask him if he wants to sit on the potty.  He normally says no or, if he does sit on it, he just wants to play with the toilet paper or look around!  On Monday, November 11, after his bath, Erik kept touching his bum and telling us that he needed to poo-poo.  We put him on the potty a few times, but nothing happened.  Then, while I nursed Elin and put her to bed, Erik told Kent twice more that he had to go poo-poo.  The first time Kent put him on the potty, he said there was a teeny, tiny drop that came out, but then nothing else.  Kent put Erik back in his diaper & pajamas only to have Erik want to sit on the potty again.  This time, there was a loud splash!!  Yeah, mission accomplished!  Of course, he hasn't wanted to sit on the potty since, but hey... it's a start!

In Elin's world, she loves to grab her feet & suck on her toes!  She has also discovered her tongue this week and is constantly moving it around, sticking it out or trying to use it to slobber all over me!  I spent this week working on Elin's daytime napping schedule. It's hard to have a routine nap schedule for her since we sometimes have to run errands or Erik's schedule intervenes! We've done pretty well by week's end.  She is getting a consistently long morning and afternoon nap with at least 1 short nap either mid-day or early evening, depending on the timing of her afternoon nap.  On the downside, her night time schedule has not been great lately.  She is now waking up at least once a night, sometimes twice.  I have tried letting her cry it out or patting her on back and soothing her back to sleep. Lately, though, I've been so tired, that I just go in and nurse her because it's the fastest way to get her back to sleep and me back into bed!  Guess I need to have a serious refresher on how to do sleep-training. Maybe she is in the midst of a growth spurt and will start sleeping through the night again soon (yes, I know, grand delusions on my part, most likely but a girl can hope)!

Since there isn't much to report on this week, here are a bunch of photos from our recent family portrait session last month.

I do have one funny story to share.  Erik loves to be read to at night before he goes to sleep.  We usually ask him who he wants to read to him and 9.5 times out of 10, he picks Kent.  With all the long hours that Kent has been working lately, this can sometimes pose a problem.  How you ask?  Well, you can only read stories if you are awake and Kent has had issues with this concept on a few occasions!!!  Kent told me that one night, he woke up to find that he was sitting in the chair with Erik sitting quietly next to him just looking at pictures in the book. This apparently happened several times that night - I'm sure Erik was thrilled that his bedtime was delayed while Daddy had a little nap!! Another night, Kent woke up to find Erik just looking at him; his expression a bit inquisitive. Kent doesn't think he was sleeping too long since Erik was still in the chair and he hadn't said anything to Kent to wake him up.  After story time, Erik generally gets some cuddle time before he goes into his bed.  I've had to go into Erik's room a few times to wake Kent up so that he can put Erik to bed; I guess the cuddle time was too much for Kent!!

Nov 3-9: 4.5 Months Old

Elin is now 4 1/2 months old! I've been a slacker and forgot to take her monthly photo until this week.  I didn't want to post her stats from her doctor's appointment until I had the picture.  I've finally taken the picture, so drum roll... Elin is 14 lbs 4 oz (50th percentile) and 25.5 inches (90th percentile)!  She is very long and I may actually have to move her to 9 month clothing very soon; it looks like we are going to have a tall girl!  For comparison, at 4 months, Erik was 15 lbs 0 oz (50th percentile) and 24.5 inches (under 50th percentile).  I was happy to see that Elin no longer is bigger than Erik at the same age! :)

Elin at 4 months old

This past week was relatively quiet, though we did have a few events beyond our normal schedule.  We had a visit mid-week from our good friend, Ryan Reinke, who was in Orlando visiting all his friends for a few days.  It was wonderful to see him and introduce him to Elin.  Erik had a great time seeing Ryan again and quickly warmed up to him.  If Erik starts telling you what to do and where to sit, you know that you are in his "inner circle" - and Ryan certainly has made it!  It can be rather hard to catch up with friends when you have a 2-year old interrupting to rearrange how we are sitting in the living room or to demand that Ryan get down on the floor to play with him!  We also hosted Amy & Addison on Sabbath afternoon at the end of the week while all the Zbaraschuk men were at Adventurer's Camp.  During their visit, Erik got the opportunity to practice the super hard technique of sharing!  Poor Addison couldn't pick up a toy without Erik deciding that was his most favorite toy in the whole wide world and his life would be simply over if he couldn't have it immediately!  Hopefully, Addison will continue to be friends with Erik!

Kent, Ryan & an entranced Elin!

Trying to add an uncooperative Erik to the picture!

Elin's big achievement this week is that she is now MOBILE!  Yes, you read that correctly.  She is on the move.  Granted, so far her mobility is achieved by rolling across the floor, but oh my, I'm not sure anything is safe anymore!  On Monday, I put Elin on her play-mat while I put Erik down for his afternoon nap.  I came back out to the living room a few short minutes later and was shocked to realize that Elin wasn't where I had left her!  I took a picture (see below) and sent it to Kent - his response was "Holy Smokes; she's mobile!"  I don't know what book she was after, but she was one determined little girl to roll all the way across the living room and around the ottoman to get to it!!

Random Photo of the week - Erik "helping" Kent put together a child-size table and chairs (an early Christmas gift from Nana & Pops)!  Erik is very particular about mastering new skills; even after he has successfully completed a task, he will break it back down and start over.  A great character trait I'm sure, but when you are trying to get something done and marked off a super long to-do list, it can make you grit your teeth!!

Erik "helping" or as he says "Erik do it!"

Oct 27-Nov 2: Star Performer

We started our week with a birthday party at a friend's house - Victoria Fulbright turned one.  I've been friends with Rob & Yvonne Fulbright for over 15 years (since I moved to Florida) and it is wonderful that they have a baby that is the same age as my little ones (they have 3 older daughters).   Victoria had a Bo Peep themed party, complete with live sheep!  All the kids were encouraged to wear costumes; Erik was a fireman and Elin was a ladybug.  Of course, since Erik is 2, he refused to wear any part of his costume, so no pictures.  I drew the Erik straw when we arrived at the party, so I spent the entire party trying to keep Erik contained and alive!  The Fulbright's have a wonderful yard with a tree house, barn, swing set, etc.  Erik wanted to try out everything and climb up on everything.  He didn't want to touch the sheep at first, but after a little bit, he was chasing them around their pen.

Kent and his little Ladybug

Erik and the sheep (pardon the light/shadow issues with this photo)

Erik & Addison discuss who's turn it is!

I generally dislike the week of Halloween (and frankly, the weeks leading up to it) due to the scary billboards, commercials, costumes, etc.  This year, we discussed the potential of joining the throngs of trick or treaters, but decided against it.  Our neighborhood is literally besieged with kids for over 2 hours and neither Kent or I wanted to be left by ourselves at the house while the other tried to cart 2 kids around.  Erik actually loves to come to the door and see all the kids "visit" him.  This year, I learned another reason to dislike Halloween - our mail was stolen during the festivities.   I had peeked in the mailbox earlier in the afternoon while out on a walk with the kids, but decided against carrying all the mail with me while on the walk since there was quite a bit of it.  I, of course, forgot to pick it up at the end of our walk.  By the time I remembered to ask Kent to go get it, our mailbox was empty!  I still feel rather vulnerable knowing that someone took our mail.  I do know that there was a package from my parents (a CD of sermons - ha, ha) as well as our retirement account statements in the box that day.  I don't remember what else was in there.  Why couldn't it have been a day of junk mail like the day prior to Halloween?!  We signed up for LifeLock that night!

Erik achieved a milestone this week - he had his on-stage performance at his daycare!  He goes to a part-time program 3 mornings a week at the local Jewish community center.  On Friday morning, they always hold a Kabbalat Shabbat service to welcome in the Sabbath.  Erik's classroom were the Shabbat Stars this week!  All the kids got up on stage and sang one of their favorite songs, "Ahhh".  The lyrics are similar to Happy & Know It - "I'm gonna clap my hands, I'm gonna clap my hands, I'm gonna clan my hands, I know I should, 'cuz it's Shabbat and I feel good.  Your turn - Ahhhh" and so on. Both Kent & I were able to attend the event.  As we suspected, when Erik saw us, he immediately wanted Kent to hold him and then cried when the we told him to go up on stage with his classroom.  His teachers were so proud of him (as were we) because as he climbed the stairs to the stage, he pulled himself together and didn't cry at all! Kent was prepared to go up on stage with him (the teachers had warned us that some parents may have to make their stage debut as well); he was very thankful to be part of the audience!

So happy that Daddy came to school!

Erik just before being called on stage - how do you separate these two?!

Erik wiping his eyes, being brave

Erik and his class singing the chorus of "AHHH" - Erik is on far right next to his teacher, Ms. Lyons

Actions for verse "I wiggle my hips"!

Elin's big achievement this week is that she has found her toes (October 25) and has also learned that she can suck on them (October 31)!  Elin loves to put anything and everything into her mouth.  I think she is much more of a "learn by tasting" baby than Erik ever was!  She is also quite the drooler - the shoulders of my shirts are usually quite wet by the end of the day.  She drools so much that I've taken to checking her gums for teeth every few days!  Nothing yet, thank goodness.  Elin also loves to grab onto my arm while I'm changing her diaper - Erik did same thing at this age. She has a pretty strong grip and will try to pull my arm to her mouth.  She usually laughs & giggles while she does it.  She is always reaching, touching, and moving her hands - she is a very active baby.  She has such soft fingers; one of my favorite things is the feel of a baby's hand on my arm.  Another random item about Elin - she has these lusciously thick, beautiful dark eyelashes!  They are amazing!  I'm super jealous as both of my kids have lovely eyelashes while mine are rather thin & stubby.

We ended our week with a visit on Sabbath afternoon from portions of the Cochran & Zbaraschuk families (the dads and older sons were at Adventurers).    We had lots of fun watching the kids run around the house and play with all the toys that we've managed to collect in 2 years!  We attempted a photo shoot of the kids, but as you would expect, we never got all the kids smiling & looking in the same direction at once!  I'd like to point out that the Cochran's are super lucky with Devin - notice his angelic smile and still posture in both pictures below.  That was how he looked in all 20+ pictures that I took!!  Not the same story with the other 3 kids, however!!!

Elin, Erik, Addison & Devin

Elin, Erik, Addison & Devin

Addison & Elin - future best friends

Cute Erik phrase this week: (When he is asked a question such as what he might want for lunch) He will put his finger on his chin and say "Hmm...", then his hand goes up in the air with his index finger pointing up "I know!"  No other answer is given to my question, but he is super cute while ignoring my question!

Oct 20-26: Fall Festivals, Dentists and Zoos, Oh My!

We started the week with a fun family day at a fall festival held at a local church this past Sunday.  There was potential rain in the forecast for the afternoon, so we decided to brave the mid-day Florida heat.  Thankfully, “fall” has come to Florida; a Florida fall means that the temperatures usually don’t go above 90 degrees and there is a teeny, tiny chance of a cooler breeze.  Still not sweater or jeans weather, in my opinion, but a bit more enjoyable than before!  Sadly, Erik was just an inch or two too short to go on most of the rides at the festivals, but he was able to do a few rides.  He had a great time running from one activity to another, trying to see everything.  He and Kent rode the carousel, a train and a wiggle worm.  Erik also tried one of the carnival games and won a HUGE inflatable baseball bat; this thing is nearly as tall as I am.  Erik loves it, but I’m secretly hoping for it to get a mysterious puncture wound!!

Erik & Kent waiting for the train

The train! Does Kent look a bit cramped?!!

Erik and the Giant Bat

Erik’s not-so-fun adventure this week was his first trip to the dentist.  I want him to get familiar with a dentist working in his mouth before his first official teeth cleaning.  He enjoyed the part of the visit where we were in the waiting room, but he was distinctly less than pleased with the rest of the visit!  We did what is called a lap exam, where Erik sits in my lap facing me and then I lay him back over my legs and his head is on the dentist’s lap, who is sitting knee to knee with me.  He screamed, and I do mean screamed, during the entire exam. The dentist & her assistant told me that crying was good actually (something about being to see more of their mouth), but that Erik was one of the more persistent criers that they had seen in awhile.  Yay for us!  Due to the extreme meltdown, the picture I’m sharing isn’t that great.

Erik in the dentist's waiting room.  He wouldn't hold still for longer than 2 seconds at a time

Our last big adventure this week was a visit to the Sanford Zoo.  We hadn’t been there in over a year and we thought that Erik would better understand and appreciate what he would see.  Unfortunately for us, the zoo was hosting a Halloween event and so Erik got to see alot of scary costumes, gravestones, ghosts hanging from trees, ghouls and skeletons.  Kent & I tried to steer away from the Halloween stuff, but it was everywhere!  Thankfully, after asking about the hanging ghosts a few times, Erik didn’t pay them any attention.  He did enjoy the small children’s petting area and seeing all the different kinds of monkeys that the zoo has.  His favorite thing, though, was the bouncy house slide that was set up near the rhinoceroses!  Erik & Kent went on a train ride and the carousel (I’m sensing a theme here) while I fed Elin.

We ended our week with a visit to the Isidro household for a feast of Indian food!  It was so nice to be able to catch up with them and introduce them to our little Elin.  We have only seen each other in passing at Sabbath School for the past few months.  

Madelyn, Elin & Tangie

Little Miss Elin is continuing to grow & learn new tricks at an amazing rate.  This week (Oct 23) she learned how to roll over from her tummy to her back.  She finally found her feet on Friday, Oct 25!  She has been grabbing onto her thighs when lying on her back, but hasn’t seemed to realize that there might be more to her legs beyond her knees!  When she is on the changing table, especially, she loves to stick her legs straight up in the hair and then either grab her thighs to pull them in for a big stretch or sling them to the side.  We may actually have to use the changing table belt for Elin!  Elin has been giggling for a little while now, but this week, she really started to laugh in earnest with a belly laugh.  I got her to do this trick while she was on the changing table (she does love that spot oddly enough); I put my head down on her chest and she just started laughing and laughing.  Her laughs sound a bit like “Ah-Ha, Ahhhh-Ha”.  I’ve not yet managed to get a good video of her laughter, but hope that I can soon so that I can hear her great laugh forever!

Erik appears to be her favorite person; she constantly watches what he is doing and she will always smile at him!  Erik has also decided that Elin may be a good person to play with and has recently started telling her to “sit ‘ere”, “stand UP!”, “throw it” or “baby, sing”!  How do you convince a 2-year old that his baby sister can’t do any of that stuff yet?!

Erik playing "Night, Night" with Elin - against her will, it appears!!

Elin laughing at Erik

Other interesting things to know about Elin is that she loves to go to sleep by tucking her head into the joint of my neck and shoulder.  Her daytime sleeping schedule appears to be evolving in the last few weeks with her morning naps rarely exceeding 30 minutes.  However, I’m not sure if it is a true change or if Elin is just trying to fit in a nap whenever she can around Erik’s activities or my errands.  Elin still nurses every 3-4 hours.  Lately, she has started to express her displeasure if she gets disturbed while nursing! If there is too much going on, she will continually come on & off and give me looks of puzzlement or indignation.  On the other hand, she will sometimes use her nursing time to fine tune her teasing skills.  She will lie there quietly until I realize that she has stopped nursing; when I look down at her, her eyes light up and she grins or giggles and then starts to nurse again.  A few days ago, she added a new variation to this game by moving her fingers to her lips and when I looked at her, she laughed and shoved them into her mouth (our family refrain is “no fingers in mouth” since Elin has been gagging herself when sucking on her fingers)!  She is turning out to be quite the funny, little girl!

Oct 13-19: Rolling Over

I'm going to start this week's post with a funny story that happened on Friday afternoon at the end of our very long week.  After Erik had woken up from his nap, he and I went outside to get the mail.  We pulled out his wagon and just walked around for awhile.  I decided that I should check to see if Elin had woken up from her nap, so I made Erik come back inside with me.  He was NOT pleased by this and threw a tantrum by the garage door while I got Elin up and changed her diaper.  Erik's tantrums generally consist of him crying or screaming while standing in front of whatever he may want at the time and pawing at it - whether that is a door or your legs.  I got Elin ready and took her outside with Erik, along with her boppy & a pillow so that she could sit in the wagon while Erik pulled it around the driveway.  Before going into the house to get Elin, he had thought this was a great idea.  However, once I got the Elin & her support system set up in the wagon, Erik threw another tantrum.  Crazy kid.  I decided we were done with being outside and gathered up a screaming Erik & a bewildered Elin - only to realize that Erik had locked us out!!  Sometime during his tantrum at the garage door, he had managed to flip the lock on the handle.  AAHHH.  I didn't have a key to that door on me, but thankfully I did have my cellphone.  Kent had to come home a bit earlier than he had planned to rescue us!  What's so maddening is that I had checked the lock on the door when I went outside with Erik the first time to make sure it wasn't locked, but didn't think I needed to check it the second time!

The boy does love his sunglasses!

Erik likes to tell us to "C'mon, c'mon" while wiggling his fingers at us to follow him!

A closer look at his "c'mon" hand motion

Elin ready for her wagon ride that never materialized

Okay, back to the earlier part of the week.  Just as I finished writing last week's post about Elin "sitting" up by herself, she showed me her latest trick!  I had her lying on the floor next to me as I worked on my laptop and she rolled over from her back to her tummy!  I was able to grab my phone & get a few pictures of the event - they are a bit blurry, though!

She is attacking all her milestones with a vengeance.  She taught herself how to sleep through the night about 2 weeks ago.  I was going to do "sleep training" on her while Kent was on his business trip the first week of October (that way only 1 parent has to listen to the baby cry).  She must have heard Kent and I talking about it because the night before Kent left, she slept through the entire night.  No effort required on my part!  Since then, she has consistently slept 9-11 hours each night; she has only woken up a couple times around 4:30AM but after squawking for about 2 minutes, she is back asleep!  What an amazing baby!  So far, girl babies are definitely easier than boy babies!!

This week has been a very busy one with Kent working long hours.  I've also had to go into the office to assist with some work projects as part of my resignation agreement.  There have been a lot of late nights for Kent and I.  Unfortunately, the stress this week was compounded with both kids getting colds and then I got a nasty 24-hour flu virus.  I was completely miserable from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday; it really is not fun being sick and having to take care of 2 kids.  I hope not to do that again for a long time!

To end on a happy note, Erik has decided this week that he wants Elin to play with him.  He has started asking (or rather telling) Elin to sit next to him, to stand up, to walk to another chair, to hold certain tosy, etc.  It is very cute, but I'm not sure how many times I'll have to explain that Elin can't do anything of those things yet before he will understand me!!  Erik is a very sweet little boy most of the time.  He can be very solicitous of our needs.  The other day, I made a noise when I walked into another room and in just a few seconds, Erik had come running into the room after me, asking "Are you ok? Ok, Mama?"  He walked up to me and gave me a pat on back, while looking at him with deep concern.  It was too cute.  He will also ask if Kent or I have any owies and will want us to kiss it better - even if the owie is on ourselves!

Other cute sayings that he has been saying lately:  "Uppa-side-down" (only Kent can do this for Erik - thank goodness);  "C'mon, C'mon!" (see pictures above for a visual of this one); "Two more, two more" (he says this when he wants something like snacks or Curious George videos.  He says it in a sing-song voice while wiggling his fingers trying to get just the first 2 to stand up.)

Erik trying to be like Curious George & use his feet to hold food.  Thankfully, he didn't attempt this trick with actual food!