Swim lessons

In February, once we got the "back to work with two kids" routine down, we decided to enroll Bryce in swim lessons. He hadn't had lessons since he was in the Diaper Dolphins class when he was about 9 months old, so he started out in the Level 1 class. In the Level 1 class they just cover the basics to get kids comfortable in the water. There are 4 ribbons to be earned at this level before they can advance to the next level. Achievements to be met include: 

Blows Bubbles

Participates in games & songs

Fully submerge face for 10 counts

Sit jump (submerge)

Fully submerged head

Jump off board (edge of pool) to Teacher

Propel forward using arms & legs

Retrieve object in waist deep water

Climbs out of pool alone

10 second supported back float, as he's doing below

During ribbon week (April 7th - 11th) , Bryce was awarded all 4 available ribbons for Level 1 and he was moved to the next class, Level 1 Advanced. 

 At some point during each semester, they have a Canoe and Rescue Skills week, where they learn a little about water safety and rescue.

The kids are put in life jackets and taught a few safety things, and then they get to sit in canoe.

The instructors sink and tip the canoe to help teach the kids what they should do in that situation.

After this class is completed the kids are rewarded with a ribbon!

We still have a few weeks left in the semester and at this point Bryce is able to swim on his own, though it's not the prettiest swimming but it's still swimming! I'm excited to see how he progresses in this next class level.

Five months?!?

At five months, little Miss Blaire is weighing in at 16 lbs 13 oz! So, she's not so little after all! She's still able to wear 6 month tops, onesies and sleep n' plays, however in the pants I've had to move her to the 9 months or 6-12 months size (depending on the brand) because her legs are so fat! She's still in size 2 diapers but I think I've purchased all of those size of diapers as I need since they appear to be getting small on her quickly.

And this sums up her current obsession, grabbing anything she can to get in her mouth!

Funny story about her size...yesterday I took her and Bryce to get some Easter pictures taken. The photographer, who's been photographing newborns and children for probably 20 years, so I would say she probably has a pretty good eye for determining babies ages. So she asked me if she was 8 or 9 months old?!? She was quite surprised when I told her that she was only 5 months...which probably explained why she wasn't able to sit up on her own in the pictures!

Since all the sickness has passed we started spending more time playing, including tummy time. On March 7^th, Blaire quickly showed me she was more than capable of rolling from her tummy to her back…she just hadn’t been able to show us before since she was sick ;). 
 
We've been working on sitting up on her own. She'll do it for a few seconds, but she would much prefer working on standing up. She loves to stand up!
She’s spent some more time in her bumbo and she likes being able to see the happenings of the household. 

She also is getting familiar with the walker and jumperoo...and tolerating brother decorating her with stickers.

 She also gets to go outside when the weather is nice and soak up some sunshine from the stroller.

She spent her first night at the lake on March 29th.

 
She had her first visit to the bowling alley! Somehow she slept through most of it!

We also went shopping at the mall, which is probably a once or twice a year visit for me...I much prefer online shopping!

Getting ready for bedtime!

Speaking of bedtime...she started sleeping in her crib on March 12^th. A normal night of sleep for her is transitioning to be from 7:30pm to 3:30am or 4:00am…which we’ve worked hard to get back after a bit of regression occurring during February and early March. So she’s sleeping a solid 8 hours! Which is pretty fantastic for this Momma! Now if only I could get to bed earlier than 9:30 or 10…hopefully that is in my near future with the imminent retirement of my Medela PISA. ; )

She’s slobbering and drooling like crazy, and is chapping her cheeks and hands from chewing on them so much. I know we all want to assume it’s teething but I’m not sure that’s the case. I guess we’ll know if it was if we start seeing those pearly whites poke through.

She’s also become OBSESSED with blowing raspberries. Bryce, of course, thinks it’s the funniest thing! I don’t remember Bryce doing this, but apparently this is a big milestone in speech development.  

We haven't started solids yet, and I really don't feel she's interested or quite ready. I could be wrong, but I'm going to try to wait it out a few more week until she's 6 months.  We'll see!

Until next time...

 

St. Patty's Day

 Just a quick post to share some pictures of the kids' St. Patty's Day outfits. 

Bryce's shirt says: Lucky to be this Awesome!

Blaire's says: Who needs luck when you're this cute!

Silly face picture with my silly boy!

Valentine's Day

Since Nic had to work Valentine's Day, I spent the evening with my other two Valentines. Of course I had to spoil them with gifts!

Bryce's gift.

Blaire's gift.

1/3 Birthday AKA 4 month

I had every intention of posting Blaire’s 4 month old update a few weeks ago, but time has continued to elude me as it always does. I’m hoping one day I’ll have more time to update this blog more than I do now. There’s so many things I want to keep track of so that they’re not forgotten, and I feel with once a month updates there’s so much I could still miss. So for this post I will limit pictures and details that occurred up to March 5th.

Unfortunately on Blaire’s actual 4 month “birthday” we were at the doctor for a sick visit, which was our third within the prior 4 weeks! Of course when I tried to take her “official” 4 month picture, she wasn’t quite up for the activity so here’s the best shot I got.

Then I fondly recall that Bryce's 4 month picture was pretty similar to this one.

Pretty much Blaire’s 4th month of life can be summed up as sick! BOO!

On Wednesday February 12th, the daycare called me and said that Blaire was running a low fever. She had been coughing a little up to that point so I was afraid she had RSV or even the flu considering Bryce had that a couple weeks prior. So I took her into the doctor and the doctor was so confident that she had RSV. They did a pulse-ox on her, where her oxygen was 97% and then they ran the flu and RSV tests which were both negative. So we chalked it up to being a cold and he sent us home with an Rx for a steroid to keep the inflammation in her lungs suppressed. On this visit with clothes on she weighed 14 lbs 7 oz!

We went through the weekend and she started to show some signs of improvement but then it seemed to get worse again. I took a picture of her in her cute little Valentine’s Day Outfit, but you can tell my baby girl still wasn’t feeling better. 

The next week we kept her out of daycare. Her appetite still hadn’t returned and she was coughing so bad that she was throwing up at least once or twice a day. It was obvious she was losing weight, I could see it in her face! So on Thursday, February 20th I call the doctor again and I took her back in. She weighed 13 lbs 5 oz on this visit, which was more than a 1 lb loss from the prior week. They tested her again for RSV and the Flu, but this time she was positive for the Flu plus she had an ear infection! Since she was kept out of daycare for more than 7 days at that point, we can’t figure out how she got the flu unless Nic or myself carried it but never got it, since it had been 3 weeks since Bryce had it. She was treated with Tamiflu, Amoxicillin, and eye drops.

We went almost two weeks without any doctor’s visits. YAY! By this point the coughing was completely gone. She still would experience a little congestion here and there, but she’s had that pretty much since she was born. Of course it couldn’t last too long. 

On Wednesday, March 5th daycare called me and said Blaire was running a fever. When they took it under her arm it was over 102 degrees, so I guess you add one to get to the actual…which meant it was over 103!! I panicked and called Nic since he was close by where he could get her. Then called the doctor who was closed for lunch. Then called daycare back to see if they would give her some Tylenol to try and bring it down. Then I was able to call the doctor back after they returned from lunch and get her in within the next 30 minutes. 

Nic met me at the doctor’s office with her. On this visit, with clothes on, she weighed 15 lbs 1 oz; that was good she had gained back what she had lost and then some. Her temperature was still over 101. They tested her, yet again, for RSV and the flu. At this point I just knew she had RSV! But both were negative! He looked at her ears and determined that she still had an ear infection in the same ear…so more antibiotics we got. This time she was prescribed what the doctor called a baby z-pack. It was a once a day dose for 3 days. When we got home, we gave her the first dose…which she spit-up within 5 minutes. 

All evening and throughout the night we kept her on Tylenol to try to keep the fever down. It seemed to stay over 100, and spiked again to over 103 in the middle of the night, but by morning she was back to her normal temperature. We gave her the second dose of antibiotic, which again she spit-up! At least she acted like she was feeling a little better, as long as we kept Tylenol in her every 4-6 hours. The next day I gave her, with her bottle, the third and final dose of antibiotics. This time she kept it down…but then when I picked her up from daycare she had broken out in a rash! We had a little bit of the antibiotic left that I would have liked to have given her since the first two doses didn’t work out so well, but at this point we were not going to do that.

That was all the happenings for the majority of her 4th month of life, for which she was sick most of the time. She had been sick for about 25% of her life up until that point…can’t you tell I’m a numbers person! 

Thankfully I still managed to catch some good pictures of some new things she did during the month

Getting some love from brother! She's thrilled, can't you tell?

She's actually smiling during tummy time! 

Slept in her bassinet for the last time! 

Slept in the pack n' play for the first time in an effort to transition into her crib. She actually started out in the middle of the pack n' play lying perpendicular to how she ended up.

Started enjoying bath time!

Playing!

Got acquainted with her bumbo seat.

I did move her into size 2 diapers on the 1st of March, though it probably could have happened sooner but I was determined to use every last size 1 diaper we had, even if they looked like a skimpy bikini bottom on her.  

Hopefully, I can post her 5 month update this weekend!

Quarter Birthday

 Oh Blaire…our little chunky monkey! Or as Daddy first earned the nickname of “Tubs”, some are now calling you Tubs Jr.

Today my baby girl is 3 months old! 

Last night I weighed her in fear that I would forget to do it today…according to Baby Stats on Wii Fit Plus she now weighs 13 lbs 14 oz! We kissed 0-3 months clothes goodbye two weeks ago and she is fitting very nicely in 3-6 months, though if she grows much longer anytime soon she won’t be able to fit in the sleep n’ plays. We’re STILL in size 1 diapers, mostly because I’m trying to use up what I have left. As soon as they are gone, or if she starts having too many blowouts, I’ll move her into size 2. I think it helps that she carries most of her weight in her thighs and head…which could be why she still doesn’t have complete head control! LOL!

She has continued to sleep REALLY well, thank goodness! She normally sleeps from 8:30pm to 4:30am, give or take 30 minutes on each end. When she wakes up, she eats and goes back to sleep until around 7:30 or 8am, or earlier if we wake her up.

So what has Blaire been up to. 

She’s giving us some laughs here and there and can give some REALLY big smiles! 

She seems to have really good control of her head, though she can still be a little wobbly here and there…see note above ; ). 

She’ll tolerate a few minutes of tummy time, but sometimes just lays there in what looks likes defeat. 

She really, really loves her brother and his wild faces. He can always solicit big smiles out her.

She’ll follow us with her head and eyes across the room. 

 For the past week or two she’s started chewing on her hands and slobbering a little…maybe a precursor of teething and sleepless nights? 

She especially likes to chew on my shoulder and leave me a nice little slobber spot on my shirts. 

She’s started grabbing the rings on the toys hanging in front of her and holds on to them for a while.

So we're a quarter of the way to her first birthday...sigh!

January Recap

Wow wee! January was a hectic month!

I returned to work on the 6th, and I think now on February 2nd we now have a pretty good schedule down. Of course it’s the start of my busy time at work so my days fly by almost as fast as the evenings and weekends do. At work I have access to a lactation room, so it’s allowed me to continue “breastfeeding”. I’m still overproducing by A LOT! In fact, my weekly average is 85 ounces while Miss Blaire eats 30-35 a day! This weekend I reached the halfway point to my 6,000 oz freezer stash goal. If it keeps as it has been I should have no problem reaching that goal by the time Blaire is 6 months…then I can wean and have enough milk to get her to a year or very close to it.

Unfortunately, on January 13^th Nic’s paternal grandmother passed away, leaving him with one living grandparent. :'( After a week where we spent most of our time with the family, we laid her to rest on January 17^th. She was 83 years old and had Alzheimer’s for several years. I couldn’t help but be overcome by the amount of love and devotion Nic’s Grandpa has shown her through these past several years, even when this awful disease made her not act like herself. Most of their lives she took care of him, but gradually that transitioned to where he took care of her. Considering divorce has ran rampant in my family starting with my maternal grandparents, it’s nice to see a lifetime of love like that and it makes me want to make sure Nic and I achieve that level of lifetime love and devotion in our marriage. I’m so glad we were able to get the picture we did at Christmas, the last with the entire family!

Speaking of lifetime love…we made it one year closer to that goal on January 18^th when Nic and I celebrated our 11^th wedding anniversary! Given the recent events, all we managed to do was sneak away for a quiet dinner (sans kids) at Osaka.

Throw in a couple of birthday parties and we could pretty much kiss January 2014 goodbye...oh until Bryce came down with the flu...even after receiving the flu mist in November! So far no one else has gotten it in our household, and most importantly Blaire, though my Mom did end up with it after keeping him on the day he came down with it. 

Speaking of Blaire...I think I'll save those photos and details for my next post which will be her 3 month post! Eeek!