Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Life as a mother to a toddler and a baby

Being a mom has been rough lately. We're still having issues with Ethan which makes the days long sometimes. I hope we can resolve it soon, but I fear it'll take awhile to make it better. Ethan screams, spits (mostly to be funny and when he's blowing raspberries), he throw things, sometimes at people, and he basically runs our house. His mood changes the whole house. When he's in a great mood and cooperating everything is peaceful in our house, but when he's in a bad mood we all suffer.

Lila is still waking up in the middle of the night once or twice to eat. We've tried giving her less to eat when she wakes up, but it hasn't worked yet. We still have a ways to go with that before I think we'll see results. I don't think there's a reason she wakes up and I don't think she's really hungry. I guess we need to just let her cry. I hate doing that especially in the middle of the night when everybody just wants to sleep. Thankfully she's only up about 5-10 minutes with a bottle and right back to sleep. I'm so tired from not sleeping all night.

Life as a mother of a toddler and a baby is not a walk in the park. It's difficult and any mom who tells you otherwise is lying. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful too. However, it can have horrible moments mixed in with the good sometimes. Am I a bad mom because I don't love being with my kids every waking second? No, I know I'm not. I want so badly to enjoy more of my days with the kids. I know they will grow fast and I'll miss it because I'm wishing the day will be over so we can start new tomorrow.

Well, I hope I haven't made the wrong impression on people. I do love being Ethan & Lila's mommy. It's just a struggle sometimes. A struggle that I'll keep fighting because I love my kids and know they are worth the effort.

Ethan & Lila - If you ever read this know that mommy loved you even on the bad days.




Friday, July 19, 2013

Lila's almost crawling!

Lila has begun to show signs of wanting to crawl. She can make her way around the room. She turns around by using her arms to army crawl side to side to find toys. We had to put away her activity mat because she never stayed under it. She would roll right off of it. She is into everything and I'm sure once she begins crawling there will be some baby proofing going on here. The gates will be going back up too!


 7 months old on July 6th.
 She's sitting up very well too!
 All smiles. She's one of the happiest babies.
 The lower lip has begun to curl especially when she cries.

On all fours but not going anywhere...yet.

I think Lila is about 20 lbs now. She was a little over 18 lbs at her 6 month check up 6 weeks ago but boy can that girl eat. She's eating about 32 oz of formula a day and eating baby food twice a day with yogurt and cereal. She's also getting better at picking up puffs from her tray.

Lila is also down to taking 2 naps a day usually a 2-3 hour nap in the morning and an hour and a half to 2 hours in the afternoon. She's almost sleeping all the way through the night. She's getting up at about 4am most nights but has made it through the whole night about 5x since turning 6 months old.

She's getting big fast!


Potty training & such

At the beginning of July we finally started potty training Ethan. He will be 3 1/2 in August and it was time. We used the 3 day potty training that my sister used for Ella. The first day I thought it wouldn't work and we should switch to a reward system but by the afternoon he was getting the hang of it and even woke up from his nap dry in underwear. 

Basically, the program says that you asked them if they need to go to the bathroom but don't force them to go. You don't make them stay any longer than they want on the toilet and you praise them every time they go. He did very well and by day 2 we were definitely making progress. On Day 3 we were good to go. He still wakes up sometimes during nap wet, but he's having very few accidents and telling us when he has to go. Here's a photo of him "cooking" with his big boy underwear on.

 Reading with Grammy's glasses on.
 Ethan's now loving fruit, especially cherries and peaches. 
This is something he would never touch before. On this day he ate more fruit than sandwich.
Ethan loved this bumblebee costume that my mom picked up at a garage sale for $4. It's not even for him, but he insists on wearing it around the house. It's hot, but it makes him happy so whatever.

Ethan's speech is really improving. We now can understand almost everything coming out of his mouth even the commands. I swear this kid thinks he rules the house. He kind of does and we're trying to change that. Discipline is still a problem but we're hoping to get some help very soon. Ethan still loves garbage trucks and wants to be a garbage man when he grows up. Friday is his favorite day since the garbage truck comes.