Teething, Colds, School Starting...We've Been Busy!!

As usual  we are fighting the good fight and winning!!

We have just been so so busy...I guess this is my new normal and I just have to get used to it.  It's kind of nice...the days fly by and I have no time to think about how tired I must be!!

Let's start from the top.,.Teeth-we have a bunch of new ones in our house!!  Ryan now has all four of his first year molars through...which was NO fun and I am not looking forward to the rest coming in!

On a opposite note...Elise has both her bottom front teeth in and I had NO idea she was teething!!  Honestly, if all her teeth come in like this I will be sooo relieved.  Ryan was the kind of kid who teeth's for 3 months before a tooth starts to poke through, infact, he has basically been teething since he was 5months old!  Elise got a low grade fever for two days before they showed up, got slightly fussier the night  before they came through.  Amazing how they are so different in every way!

Colds...grrrrrr!!  We are already on the second one of the season in a months time!!  This one is really throwing them for a loop and I am concerned for my little girls ears.  She has been pulling and rubbing them today.  It is also screwing with my good sleepers!!!  Poor things are just having a rough time.

Although I should mention my sweet little Angel Baby (that would be my previous touchy screamer) slept two nights with 12 straight hours of sleep with NO feeds or wakings!!  Then the dumb cold comes and we have been up twice to eat for the last three nights.  Hopefully after the cold passes, we will go back to the blissful 12 hour sleeps!

Ryan is talking up a storm.  Everyday he seems to have a new word.  It is amazing!!  He also has learned his sign for potty and he even let Daddy know he needed to go potty when he was in the tub the other night.  We so far are just going on the potty right before his bath.  He seems to like it well enough...we'll roll with it.
Other than that Ryan is a dancing machine who is as happy and crazy as ever!  God I love that kid :0)

Elise is not only on the roll, but she also is sitting!  She is already sitting up big and tall and playing with her toys.  She also is on the verge of some sort of Army crawl I think.  She gets on her belly and reaches and tries to get to her toys...we aren't there yet, but we are on the way.  Plus, I can see she just wants to get up and start chasing her brother.  He runs by and I swear to God, she just wants to get up and start running too.

We all started school last week...I actually found a lovely Toddler Group willing to take all three of us on.  So far so good.  It has been good for me to get out of the house even though it is basically a military movement to get all of us to a place on a time schedule.  Good thing I am an anal planner type...I have things in place staged and ready to go at specific times so we are able to be mobile at the precise minute we need to move....this is NO exaggeration.  We really would be able to go no where without planning like that.

Let's talk about eating for a minute...Ryan, not a good eater.  Elise good eater.

I was not willing to go through the pain of having a picky eater again...Ryan and food BLAH is all I can say.  He is by no means the worst, but he is not what I would call a good eater either.

So, in hopes of having a good eater I looked into alternatives to just giving purees and rice cereal because I had a hunch that all of that bland paste was part of why Ryan has issues now.  So, I found Baby Led Weaning.  It is wonderful if you have the stomach for mess!!  Basically I give Elise everything we are eating in whole food form.  She is able to feed herself amazingly big pieces of food, and she loves it!!
She normally has a banana for breakfast, a half of a peach or nectarine also a half of an avocado and then for dinner she has what we are having, for example-the other night we grilled steak, asparagus and mushrooms and she ate all three including gumming apiece of steak!!  The best part is, Ryan sees Elise, Mike and I eating all the same stuff, so he has started to try our food now too.  He likes asparagus and a few other things that I never could have gotten him to touch before.

So not only will I never give another bottle, I will never have to buy another jar of baby food!!  This baby stuff is a piece of cake!!

Well, not really :(  I ran into a case of the baby blues and it sucked.  I was just finding I was getting more and more overwhelmed.  I was not feeling nor acting like myself and I was scared I would never be the same again.  Mike and I decided I needed to get out and do something for myself.  So, after the kids are in bed I go to the gym to run....and it feels great!!  I do not get to go everyday, but I try to go at least 3-4 times a week.  It truly has made me a better mommy as I was getting to be a short fused mommy that NO ONE liked!! But, all it took was a treadmill to lift my spirits once again.  AHHH-exercise does the head good.

Well, my baby is up and I am excited to give her the pumpkin I just roasted for her.  I know there was something else I wanted to share with you, but of course it has slipped my mind.  I'll add some Baby Led Weaning (BLW) photos so you can see my little bean in action.

Love to all

Elise chomping an avocado

My happy eater

Lunch with my babies

Elise with a nectarine

Yum Yum