First Day of School of MDO - 2011

Today was John's first day of MDO for 2011. It started out a little touch and go, but once it was game time, he walked in with a smile. Such a difference from the first day last year.

This year he is at a new MDO and I have the warm fuzzys about this place and I think he does too. His best little buddy Garrett is in his same class, so I think that helps easy the transition. They expect a lot of them in this class and they keep promising that they are probably more responsible and capable of doing more things than we give them credit for.... we shall see... :)

He looks like such a big boy to me. I still have 2 more school-years at home with him, but I know I am going to turn around and those 2 years will be gone. I hope to do my best to soak it all in now while I can.

I missed him so much today. Just being away from him for a few hours while he was there, I could not stop thinking about him and what he was doing and if he was making friends and talking to the teachers and having fun and saying thank-you and...and...and...

Here is a quick picture:

Letters to my loves: Dear John

Dear John,

You are going through a rough time right now and all I want to do is make it better and help. You are almost 3.5 and a lot of changes are happening; you are not a fan. you have reverted back to potty problems, baby talk, insisting on being carried and fed and needing help with things you have mastered long before.

I know that you love us most and that is why you take out your frustrations on us. I am perfectly fine with that and I hope you will continue to always tell us how you feel. You will flat out say if you are happy or excited or mad or sad, even though your facial expressions are all anyone would need to see to know how you are feeling. You are not good at hiding emotions. (not that you should be I guess. :) )

No matter what though, you still are the sweetest little boy I know. Your heart is so good and you have so much love for the world.

If you had it your way Daddy and Matthew and I would be upstairs playing 24 hours a day. You love when we are all together, but are not afraid to ask Daddy or I to leave when you are enjoying some one on one time with the other.

Arts and crafts are one of your favorite things to do and you are an incredible artist. I hear compliments all the time on what a good colorer you are for your age. You should be considering how much you do it at home!

Right now you love to make and watch home videos on my iphone, you could do it for hours. You also LOVE to go swimming and you have gotten really good at it. You love your noodle, but will swim all around the pool without it too. You are working on diving to the bottom of the pool to get your toys right now. Getting you out of the pool continues to be a struggle.

Thank the good Lord you have not totally given up your nap, but you are well on the way. You take a nap about 5 out of 7 days, but those 5 days are SO much more pleasant in the evenings. :)

You love Matthew and are generally very concerned about him and ALWAYS want to help, but I think you are still pretty annoyed with him when I have to feed him or carry him, etc.

I truly miss you when we are apart and my heart instantly smiles when I see you. You give the best hugs and kisses and say the sweetest things at the most random times. You make laugh and cry harder than anyone else can. You are my sunshine!

Letters to my loves: Dear Matthew

Dear Matthew,

You are a very easy baby and I just want to cuddle with your cheeks! Every time I lay eyes on you I want to SQUEEEEEEEEEZE you! You are beyond adorable and have an absolute contagious smile. My favorite thing to do with you right now is to lay you down and get within in gripping distance of your hands.... you immediately smile and start talking and rub your slobbery, fat fingers all over my face and in my mouth and occasionally up my nose, but I don't care, I love every second of it (less the hair pulling).

You have found your feet, but instantly forget where they are when I try to take a picture of it...stinker! you have a grip like nothing I have seen and you kick like a mad man when you are excited or have something to say.

I love to watch you watch John. You will contort yourself every which way to get a glimpse, but he is a little fast for you to follow sometimes. You would give your right arm if he would sit still long enough to grab hold of his cheeks and talk for awhile. If you are fussy about something, John is almost always an instant cure (assuming I can talk him into singing or dancing for you).

The pacifier is a MUST the first time you lay down at nap/night, and you like it okay when you are in the car seat, but I think you could care less for it most of the time. Nap and night time are so easy with you (compared to John that is) and you like baths. I think God threw me a bone on those two things as your brother was a bit of a nightmare in these areas. :)

You started foods this month and are a champion yet messy eater. Still slouching quite a bit in the high chair, but we are working on it. Your neck strength is much more on track, but you still have a STRONG preference to look to your right. We do "exercises" every time you are awake and it is getting better, but far from normal I think.

You are a Mama's boy, but will warm up to others after awhile. Part of me loves this, part of me does not.

A perfect stranger could not pick out you and John as brothers in a line up, I think you got my side of the family and John got the Jones' physical traits. Which means you will have abnormally long fingers and toes and possible prone to some chubby legs. :)

Life with you in it is just better! I love you little bubba! 

3 months

Hard to believe he is 3 months old, but at the same time, I feel like he was born years ago and there was never life before him.

Super blessed that he is an incredible night sleeper...typically asleep by 8:30 and I do not hear from him again until 5 or 6 the next morning...then back down until 8:30 or so. However, this is translating into three 30 minute naps a day! Whaaat?!?!? Guess I can't have the best of both worlds. ;)

My favorite thing in the world is when he talks and laughs at me. He has an absolutely beautiful smile!

Pretty typical 3 month old with a 3 year old brother, not a lot of activity outside my arms, the swing, bouncer, floor blanket and car seat. I do have some concerns (I know this comes as a surprise to most of you). I do not believe his neck strength or mobility is where it should be. After some self diagnosis on web-md I think he may have Torticollis. I am taking him to doctor this morning to check him out. Nothing serious that some physical therapy can not help, but I would like to catch it early. The boy WILL not turn his head to the left without some heavy enticing or moving it with my hands. More to come on this...

Despite the little day time sleep he is a very happy baby. He is really only cranky when he is tired or hungry. OR if you are holding him in a position that he does not like he will let you know pretty quick. He list of preferred holds is pretty short!

Here are some cute pics:

Summer ideas

Okay, so here it goes....my attempt at keeping John stimulated this summer....(note: these are outside of our everyday playing and things around the house, just some things to make each day "special", even if only for half an hour)

Places we can go:
- Zoo (we have a membership, so this is free (excluding gas for the car)
- Neighborhood pool (yes we have one, but it is fun to change it up)
- Indoor Safari park; i.e. play area with trains and animals (I have a coupon to go twice to this place)
- Friends houses (now accepting invitations)
- A Park tour (trying out a new park each week around the area)

Things to do:
- Arts and Crafts (I have these little decks of cards with ideas on them that are coming in handy)
- movie days (saved maybe for rainy days)
- Swim in our pool (could be tricky with Matthew)
- Alphabet days. Each day will be a different letter of the alphabet and will have a theme/activity that will start with that letter. I will try to incorporate colors and food and other things that start with that letter as well. Here is where I am soliciting specific help. As you can see, some ideas are lame and I am missing some letters... any ideas on ANY letters would be appreciated

A - Art
B - Books or Board games
C - Camera or computer
D - Drawing or Dancing
E - Eating
F -
G - Games
H -
I - Insects
J - Jungle
K - Kitchen
L - Love
M - Music
N - Nature or Numbers
O - Outside
P - Plants or pictures
Q -
R - Reading
S - Swimming
T - T-ball
U -
V- video
W - water
X
Y - Yellow
Z - Zoo

Last day of MDO for 2010-2011

Here is a picture on his last day of MDO:

Followed by a picture on his first day of MDO:

Notice he is wearing the same shorts. When I realized this, I almost changed him for pictures, but decided that I would leave him because it is such a telling story of how much he has NOT grown in his waist this year.

I am pretty nervous about summer. Entertaining a 3 year old all day long is A LOT of work.... then multiply that times 7 days a week for 3 months....PLUS an infant to care for....EEK! I have decided that we are going to have to have something
to do or focus on everyday to keep me sane and keep him interested. Even if that something is running errands. I have some ideas up my sleeves...will do a separate post on that soon, I will also be soliciting feedback and ideas at that time. :)

G.W. Exotic Animal Park

We vistied the G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. John loved it, it was right up his alley. They have countless tigers that they have rescued, but they also have bears and lions and monkeys and pretty much everything. The stories are sad, but they are at this park and being taken care of which, although may not be ideal (totally runs off donations), is much better than the alternative.

We got to play with a 10 week old baby tiger cub. His name was Orlando. I did not filter the pictures, so stay tuned for the tiger cub ones at the end.

Happy 2 Month Birthday Matthew!

In some ways, these past two months have flown by... in others... they have crawled. This age is so easy and so hard all at the same time. You really do not realize it until it is your second.

His 2 month well check up was good. Doc wants him out of the swaddle and swing. I started with the swing and the intention of dropping the swaddle tonight, but he got a 100.1 fever from the vaccinies, so I could not let him cry like that. He is up there swaddled and sleeping soundly.:)

So....he has a third nipple...yep...in the EXACT same place that his Daddy does (ooohhh I am in trouble for publishing that information). :) Pretty common apparently, I did not even notice it until he pointed it out to me. Changes from when John was 2 months old, they no longer give Tylonel with the vaccines. There was a study done that basically said that more vaccines were absorbed when no tylenol was given. BUT...he got a fever, so we gave him some tonight.

Nurse said that his eyes will not be brown, that they will be "colored"... I guess she has seen a lot of babies, but MAN do they look brown right now. We shall see.

He will smile and coo at us pretty good, but he is not grasping things all that well. Other than that, no major developments this month. I am going to do a seperate post on the sleeping later this week. That is really the biggest thing with him right now.

Here are his stats:
Weight: 12.3 (62%)
Height: 23 1/4 (61%)
Head: 15 3/4 (51%)

Compared to John at 2 months he is almost exactly the same. Matthew seems a lot chunkier to me, but maybe they carry it differently. I am projecting that John has more of Carl's body type while Matthew will have more of mine (poor kid).

Here are a few pics:

A Week in the Life: 3YO and 6WO - Sunday

much shorter post below - we all get the idea by now. :)

10:45, 1:30, 4:15, 6:15 - feedings - a bit more snacking going on last night, could not really wake him up enough to eat a full meal. He was teh one who woke up, not me...we'll have to have a talk about that this morning. :)

6:35 - 7:45 - Shower, coffee, get ready time for me.

7:45 - 8:15 - Carl works out and I get Matthew up and talk with him upstairs.

8:15 - Get John up and open his Easter basket! He liked the Dinosaur sticker book the best at first, but I think he will really like the music CD as soon as I can play it for him. The candy... no big deal. :):

8:30 - Make breakfast (dino oatmeal and an orange) while Matthew is in his swing (awake).

9:00 - feed Matthew, get John ready, Daddy get ready, leave for Nana's

10:00 - 6:00 - At Nana and Da's for Easter Sunday. Matthew slept in Nana's arms, Da's arms or in his swing the vast majority of the day. With the exception of eating every 3 hours on the dot and then for about 30 minutes while we were outside playing.

We had a great day dying easter eggs (3 dozen!), decorating easter eggs and hunting easter eggs. John laid down for a nap, but we woke him up after an hour becuase the weather was set to be bad, and wanted him to swim and hunt eggs.

Lunch was a shrimp salad with avacado, tomato and cucumbers (McDonalds for John) and dinner was BBQ chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and garlic bread. YUMMY!

6:00 - Feed Matthew and then head home for bath and bed. MAtthew did not want to give it up, so he slept in his swing until 10:00 and then we all went to bed.

A Week in the Life: 3YO and 6WO - Saturday

1:45, 4:45 feedings

7:15 - 9:00 - Feed Matthew and then cuddle for a while until I hear "Mama, I am ready to wake up", the kids will NOT get out of his bed on his own. Matthew and I go up and play on John's bed for awhile, then head downstairs for breakfast (toast with PB and honey, banana and carnation chocolate milk).

9:00 -  10:00  Daddy wakes up and we eat breakfast and drink coffee. Matthew is in his swing and Daddy and John head upstairs to play. John just has this mischievous attitude this morning... could be an interesting day.

10:00 - 11:00 - Feed Matthew and then all four of us upstairs playing in the playroom. Daddy and John rough housing makes me nervous. :)

11:00 - Nap time for Matthew. Daddy hangs out and John and I go upstairs to do excerises! This is DAY ONE Of P90x for me! YIPPEE! I am ready to have a full wardrobe again.

12:00 - down stairs for lunch. Daddy and I have leftovers and John has chicken nuggets, soy beans, cheese, crackers and blueberries.

1:00 - nap time for the whiny baby that is John. Eating time for Matthew and work out time for Daddy.

1:30 - 2:15 asleep almost instantly in the swing but just for a short nap.

2:15 - 2:45 - play on the floor, with LOTS of yawns. So back in the swing.

2:45 - 3:30 - shower for me, swing time for Matthew. John is up at 3:30! Daddy went to the store to get ingredients for a dinner he is making tonight! WOO HOO!

3:30 - 5:00 - play with John upstairs. When Daddy gets home, John and him clean a WHOLE lot of mussels.

5:00 - 7:00 Feed Matthew, eat dinner (whole wheat spaghetti with tomatoes, zucchini and mussels in a white wine sauce for us and carrots, yogurt, blueberries, turkey and bagel with honey for John), spend an hour walking, rocking, laying, swinging, playing, sitting, dancing and anything else I can possibly do to make Matthew happy. Not a great evening for him. Quick bath for John, downstairs to do chores, and then he got his wall fish stickers because he did his chores all week long.

7:00 - 8:00 Matthew's bedtime routine, he did the whole screaming thing again while he ate, so I am not sure how much he actually got. He was asleep by 7:45 or so. John went to bed, Carl got the truck inside for more bad weather, I fed the dogs, went back to comfort Matthew two times, etc.

8:00 - 8:30 - clean the kitchen, make Easter basket, have an evening.