From the Belly Laughs

Here are some "from the belly" laughs from Alayna. These remind us of our niece Macey - we love her laugh! :) At times Alayna's laughs are even better than the ones in the video - she gets a little camera shy.

Quiz Question

Last night as Brian was playing with Grant outside Grant looked up at the sky, pointed and said..."Rock up high". What do you think he was referring to?

Orange is Better than Green

I am getting much better at eating my cereal. I don't' have to be completely undressed anymore and am better at keeping a larger percentage in my mouth :) You know those vegetable things though? I wasn't so sure about those things when mommy gave me green beans and peas. I wasn't even too huge of a fan of carrots, but these sweet potatoes and squash - mmmm. I'm a fan of those :)

Daddy's Discovery

Guess what everyone! Daddy made a pretty exciting discovery tonight. Mommy was gone to the grocery store and Daddy called her and said "do you know Alayna has a tooth?" Mommy thought for a second he was losing it! "No Way"! Yup! I have my very first tooth at 6 months old. Mommy is telling herself this is why I was not sleeping well the past few weeks. On one hand she would be happy there was finally a "reason" for my crazy nights. On the other hand...if that is how each tooth is going to be - she's scared for the rest to come in :) Exciting stuff huh? My first tooth is my bottom left. This is much different than Grant. He didn't get teeth until he was almost 12 mos and his top ones came in first. Just goes to prove - every kid is different :)

Mommy is in trouble...she forgot to tell you that Grant also has 2 new teeth! Two weeks ago he got his right upper molar and last week he got the left one. He doesn't even have all 8 of his front teeth yet, but thankfully his molars are popping through. Whew! Some day he'll be able to bite all of his food.

That's the excitement over here. Hope you are all having a great week! Love you! Alayna

6 Months

Taken on my 6 month birthday

Alayna is 6 months old (as of the 15th) and I am a bit behind on posting about her dr appt last week. We had her 6 mo appt on Monday (a week ago already!). Alayna weighs 15 lbs - 30th percentile and is 25 3/4 inches long - 50th percentile. So - she is doing great. We started doing cereal with her about 5.5 mos, but were delayed a bit with the first reaction she had to rice. The dr encouraged us to start pounding through her stage one veggies, meats & fruits and then go right into stage 2s. Rather than go 2-3 days between trying something new she said to just do 2 and move on to the next one. So far last week we tried green beans (not a big fan yet) and over the weekend she had just a few peas. She's not a huge fan of cereal and veggies overall. Seems like she is still getting used to the spoon as most of it is still being spit back out at me. Does it really take more than 3 weeks? I guess...she can't be rushed. As frustrating as it is...I just have to laugh sometimes because she pushes her little lips together and will not let that spoon in. It's like she's 6 and I'm forcing her to try beats. I had been undressing her to feed her too b/c it ends up all over her. Especially the sippy cup of water. Oh Well! For breakfast today we braved it and left her jammies on - didn't go too terribly and I think she took in at least as much as was on her bib - so we are moving in the right direction :)

Really Mom - Green Beans? YUCK!

This is what happens when Mommy tries to multi-task...feeding me and making dinner at the same time leads to me trying to feed myself and the chicken turning a bit dark
Silly Mommy - she'll learn not to leave the bowls on my tray.

What else is she up to?

*Rolling both ways. She is now a tummy sleeper. She can get there herself and has decided she likes it better. We had to put the bumper in this past Thursday b/c Wed night she woke up crying twice because an arm or leg was stuck between the spindles. (not good)
*Sitting is getting better, but has a long way to go. She leans really far forward still when sitting on her own.
*Enjoys her exersaucer. This is something that she can now play in for 20-30 mins without getting board. It's fun to watch her play in it. She actually "gets" most of the toys on it...where a couple weeks ago she was getting mad at the ones she couldn't get off. :)
*She does not stay sleeping as easily when moving the car seat in and out of the car anymore - nor is it a guarantee that she will fall asleep on a drive (longer drives yes, but around town - not so much).
*Grabs at everything and puts everything in her mouth
*Loves to chew on her toys
*Can be entertained with the TV (my little TV junkie - bad mommy!) :)
*Attended her first movie with mommy and daddy to celebrate their 7 yr wedding anniversary. Since she will not take a bottle - she had to come along while Grant stayed with a sitter. Not the best of plans, but it worked fine and she was a good girl.
*Started taking a bottle about a month ago and did so for about a week, now she REFUSES again! Really - I find it a bit difficult to accept that this 6 month old is calling the shots on this - but what else can I do. I've tried 5 different bottles now, mixing formula and breastmilk, straight formula, straight breastmilk, slightly different temps (not straight out of the fridge though), waiting until she is super hungry or trying before she can get too hungry (and mad)...she's not working with me at all on this one. Oh - I've also had Brian try to feed her as well as the Grandma's...she doesn't buy it. Any other suggestions? Just letting her get super hungry isn't really an option...then she just gets super mad and then...she really won't take a bottle. She's even pursed her lips shut for me...that seems a bit sassy.
*Has started sleeping a bit better (knock on wood). Getting up once a night I can do.
*Still sucks her thumb

Please check out a couple of her 6 mo pics from the photographer's blog...
http://www.marygundrumphotography.blogspot.com/

"Flush It"

Big night Thursday night for Grant (and Mommy & Daddy)...his first time poopooing on the potty. Funny how these things make mommy and daddy soooo excited huh? We find ourselves jumping for joy to make Grant really excited about what he did. He gets a huge smile and says "YEAH!" while putting his arms in the air. After that - he is even more excited to "Flush it". All the way to the bathroom you hear "Grant turn. Flush it." Too funny.

Then it's time for a treat...M&Ms or Fruit Snack...his choice. Way to go Grant! Keep up the good work! We are proud of you!

6 Months

Alayna is 6 months old already (as of Saturday)! I can't believe it - where does the time go! She is growing and becoming such a fun little girl. Last week while we were at Grandpa and Grandma Kok's she really became a master at rolling from her back to her belly. She seems to have forgotten though that she knows how to roll from her belly to her back (she learned that a long time ago) and quite often gets mad when she's been on her belly for a while. She has even started rolling to her belly at night in her crib. We aren't comfortable leaving her to sleep like that yet though. She gets her arms and legs caught between the rails and tonight when I checked on her it didn't seem like her head was really turned to the side like it should be.

We've started cereal and I think she if finally starting to take more in than she pushes back out. So far we've only done rice cereal and oatmeal. Tomorrow is her 6 mo dr appt. I am excited to see how big she is. Alayna is now in size 2 diapers, is still nursing (once again bottles are NOT going well...I thought we had changed this a few weeks ago), wears mostly 3-6 mo clothes and was (but is no longer) sleeping through the night. She loves her playmat and sitting in her bumpo seat. She's starting to like spending time in her exersaucer and will play for 15 mins or so before getting mad at the toys :) We tried the jumparoo for the first time tonight, but she was tired so that wasn't a very fair first try. Her favorite toys are her butterfly, star, links and dragon fly and she also love the mobile on her crib.

She is a very smiley girl and we love that she is in our lives!

Alto Fair

Wow - last week was yet another great year at the Alto Fair. For those of you not familiar with "the fair" - it is located outside the little town in which I grew up. It's held on a Wed & Thurs, is less than a quarter mile long and has no beer tent (some may have thought this was a staple at a fair). I like to go home every year for this fair. It's a great time to spend with family, see friends from high school that I may only see at "the fair", there is great food (and inexpensive) and even if you think I'm nuts - I love it :) It's even more fun now that I get to bring our kids. Brian was only able to join us for part of the day on Thursday before leaving for work meeting in Chicago. A big thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Kok for helping me out with the kiddos.
Thanks to Uncle Marv and Aunt Karen for letting us come to their house to watch the parade.

I loved it when the parade people threw candy! I got to eat this sucker! MMMMMMMM.

Alayna sat back in the shade with Aunt Sheila

The ride home after the parade was less than a mile but Grant fell asleep after eating a few strawberries

Here are some of the animals...Grant liked to pet the bunny...but not so much when it came to the calf

Then - on to the rides. Grant went down the big slide and on the Merry-Go-Round with Grandpa and cousin Brayden. Thanks Grandpa!

While we were taking some rest time at Grandpa and Grandma's house, Alayna took in some cereal. Well...I don't know how much she really "took in" but we sure tried. We attempted rice cereal for a second time - this time - NO RASH. YEAH! We also tried oatmeal for the first time. That went well too!

Our Angel was Watchin' Us

Last night we were about to head back to Milwaukee from my parent's house. Whenever we are there we stop by the cemetery to visit and bring a pink rose to Briana. Last night we stopped right before we were going to head back, so it was after 9 and dark out. We stopped the car so the headlights were shining by her spot. By Briana's marker people have left a few things - a little lawn ornament of a hands holding a baby and a shepherds hook with a little wind chime hanging off of it, etc. Last night we knelt down to leave the rose, told how much we missed her and that we loved her very much. As we were doing that the little wind chime chimed 4 times. It was a very calm night and hadn't made any noise prior to that, but just at that moment it chimed. You can think what you want, but I think she was telling us she loves us too :)
We Love you Briana!

Corn

Corn on the cobb is SOOOOOO FUN! Mommy bought some corn at the farmer's market last week and made it for summer. She cut some off the cobb for me, but that didn't look too fun. I like they way Daddy and Mommy were eating it instead. I gobbled it right up!

I have some new favorite words - "Hold It" is one of them. I use it for corn, when mommy and daddy are talking on the phone and I want to talk, etc. I've also started saying "Grant turn".

I'm learning lots! :) Have a happy week!

Just when you think you've got it...

Another rough few nights at the Meidam's. Alayna has been sleeping quite nicely for us since May. She had even stretched it to about 9pm to 5pm quite consecutively. Recently she has started to go to sleep closer to 8 so waking up a bit earlier is what I expected BUT...
Remember 3 weeks ago when I posted at 3am...well - we're back to that. We don't know what's going on. She sleeps like an angel from about 8 or 9 until somewhere between 12 and 2am and then it's all over. She cries and cries and cries. We get her to sleep by us and the minute we make a move like we are going to lay her down...she cries. It's a painful cry, not a "hey I don't want to go to sleep" cry. So - what could be wrong? Teeth, ears, belly gas, etc. Nothing seems to really help much. I try Mylicon for gas and give her Tylenol for everything else, but she still cries...breaks my heart. Two nights ago I finally laid her on the floor in her room. She cried for 2 seconds and then settled down. So I got my pillow and settled in for another night of floor sleeping - this time in Alayna's room.

I also thought we had the bottle thing all mastered, but the last two times I tried one she refused. We had some bad luck the last time she had a whole bottle of formula, so I've been wanting to try mixing formula with breast milk and gradually get her little belly used to the formula. It's not working though :( I'm so bummed!

Last Sunday we started Rice Cereal with Alayna. Sunday and Monday -hardly any actually made it in her belly (as it came right back out of her mouth once I put it in) but by Wednesday she broke out in a rash on us. Her skin was pretty blotchy. The nurse told us to stop with cereal for a couple days and then re-introduce the rice cereal...if she has the same reaction - stop the rice cereal and move on to something different. We shall see... Sorry - the picture didn't post perfect, but you can see a bit of the blotchy skin here.

OK - I better be off to bed. Judging by the last 4 or 5 nights in about 3 hours I will be back up!

No More Nukie

Ahhhh...Grant has now accepted he no longer has a nukie when he sleeps anymore (well kind of). Remember, Brian cut the nipple off last weekend. Well - for the first couple nights he cried when he went to bed. So to help him get to sleep we would have to lay on the floor or rub his back or something for both nap and bed times. Well - the crying got shorter and shorter and tonight - No Tears! I could be completely jinxing myself right now - but we are very proud of him!
So - he still holds it, but doesn't suck on anything anymore. If that is his "security blanket" - that's fine. I'll worry about getting rid of that when he understands more about throwing something away and it not coming back.
Way to go buddy!
PS - This week we have been averaging about one pee-pee on the potty per day. He sits on it more often and today I think we got it twice. YEAH!

21 Months

WOW - 21 Months! Time is flying! Our little buddy is almost 2! He is doing sooooo much these days. His vocabulary (which was never small) seems to have really increased over these last couple weeks. He is putting two words together more and more. We have realized we now have to really watch what we say and notice we are spelling more and more these days to communicate with one another. :)

Grant loves to play outside. His favorite thing is going on the swings. He will swing for 20 minutes - easy. Tonight at the park he would say "all done" on one swing and when we asked what he wanted to next he would point to the swing next to him and say "swing". Crazy kid!
He finally gets the hang of sitting on one of those little cars and pushing with his feet to move it forward. I'm sure they seem a lot more fun to him these days! His other outside favorites are water, broom, birdies, puppies and lawn mowers (the real ones of course). Those words are repeated endlessly when we are outside with him :)

He is even identifying a lot of things. When he sees a bus or motorcycle outside - he points and says what he sees. It is hilarious to hear him say motorcycle. Ask him next time you see him :)

Over the weekend he moved from using the highchair at every meal to eating in his booster at the table. Big Boy...giving his sister the highchair from now on! This is going fine - not a big change since the booster has been used repeatedly when we go places.

This is "Thumbs Up" Grant Style
A little pancakes, sausage and toast - for DINNER! YUM!

Hi Five ya'll

We got the potty chair out last weekend. We haven't started "hard core" "training" yet, but it is now out and he is interested. I'd say he has gone about once a day on it since we got it out. We simply have him sit on it when we change his diaper, when he gets up, before naps and bed, etc. He likes to do it - so so far it's a "fun" thing.

A few other LOVES of Grant right now - "keys" and "drive". Everytime we walk past or get into one of our vehicles Grant wants our keys and he wants to drive. Sometimes getting into his carseat goes smoothly and yet others I find myself fighting (almost having to pin him down to get him in his carseat) with an almost 2 year old over who is driving to the store. I laugh when it's done, but man - he's a strong little guy.

Oh yes - his size. Well - he is still off the charts for weight :( Topping the charts SLIGHTLY over 21 lbs at the doctor yesterday. What did we find out? Well - with all of our calorie adds to everything we can and mixing Carnation Instant Breakfast to his milk - it averaged out that Grant is gaining about 4 grams/day. A child's gain should be between 4 and 10 grams/day. SO - Grant is on the low end of this chart which is good. BUT since he is behind as it is, they would rather he be at the high end of this chart (closer to 10) so he is making up some of the weight. At first they told us to give him more milk (with the Carnation mix) in a day and come back and see us in 4 months. WHAT? Brian and I were not sure what to think of this. Is his weight a problem or not? We are tired of being told - add calories to his food, etc when we have been doing just that for the last 6 months. If there truly is an issue - we just want to try something or test something to know for sure. It is completely fine with us is Grant is just a "little boy" - we just want to know. SO...thankfully Brian asked what they would do if we were at the same point in 4 months when we come back and basically asked if we could start doing what they suggested for then - now. They didn't have a problem with it - so starting tomorrow we will be giving Grant some meds to help stimulate his appetite. Right now I would say he is an OK eater. He has 1 (at times 2) meals a day where he seems to eat really well and the others he just picks his favorite things and eats them (usually the lowest calorie items of course - ha). This to me is just a typical toddler - so it will be interesting to see if these med really do anything. We don't want anything crazy to happen. We'd just like to see him back on the right growth chart for his age. That's where we stand with that.

A few other things about Grant at 21 months:

- If you ask him to put his shoes on - he does great at getting is own Crocks on (it's wonderful!). The other day he even put is own red boots on.

- In general he is a very good boy - however at times we see a glimpse of those "terrible twos" starting to pop out. Swatting/hitting when he gets mad about something. Saying "no" really sassy like when we yell at him or won't let him have his way. Screaming/Crying when he doesn't get his way. These things are not things I look forward to seeing more often. I hope they stay away!

- He loves reading books. 3 books before bedtime and naps. His favorite book is currently "DOG". It's a great read! His favorite line of the book (and even one he can say the last words to) "all dogs poop and all dogs PEE!" One I like to read with him is "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" because he does the actions. It's great to watch!

- He likes eating ice cream cones (the cone is the best part of course)

- He loves his sister and gets her toys when she needs them

- Is starting to sleep without his NUK. This is a bit of a long story - but we will tell the sort version. Grant has always used a Soothie Pacifier since he was little. Long ago we started only letting him use it for naps and bedtime. Well - we're moving closer to age 2 thinking we should really figure out how to get rid of that thing. We think timing is just working out perfectly. Friday night Grant somehow injured his lip with his sippy cup. It wasn't anything we could see Friday night but by Sat morning (after sucking on his nuk all night) it was all swollen. Sat night was awful - he woke up in the night crying b/c his lip hurt but then couldn't fall back to sleep without his nuk. Oh - what a cycle. Finally - Sunday night - Brian cut the nipple off of Grant's nuk. This seems to be working. He still has the security of the nuk being in bed with him (in the past there were times where he would have one in his mouth and one in his hand when he fell asleep) but he can't put it in his mouth. I think his lip is now healed - but the "good" nuks will not be finding their way back out of the cupboard. NICE WORK BUDDY!

What is up and coming?

- Toddler bed. We need to get a gate for his bedroom door first.

- More serious potty training...not likely to happen until Alayna is done nursing.

Love to all!

What's New With Alayna

Alayna is getting so big on us. I know with Grant I had the excersaucer out before this, but we are running out of room. This weekend we finally got some of Grant's Christmas presents out of the attic to be put together and (I kid you not) at one point I had a big red wagon, a tricycle, an activity house and the excersaucer (oh - and a potty) in my KITCHEN! Then moving to the living room you find - another little ride on bike for Grant, his little tool bench, a kick 'n play for Alayna, her playmat and bumbo seat and Grant's red Cars chair. Somewhere aroun the house (it travels frequently) you will still find the bouncy seat and the swing is almost ready to head back up to the attic (just waiting on its' final washing). SO....that was a really LONG way of saying - Alayna may have done a thing or two in here a bit earlier, but we simply didn't have room to get it out. SO - now is her chance.

Actually, it may be perfect timing. She holds herself up really well in here and will sit in here for about 10 - 15 mins (at the longest). At times she has a hard time realizing these toys don't come off and just gets mad that she is in there - so then she doesn't last long at all. I'm looking forward to the days when this brings a good 30-40 mins of solid entertainment :)

Yup - it's CEREAL TIME! Crazy! I can't believe she is starting cereal already. Sunday night, at 24 weeks old, Alayna had her very first taste of Rice Cereal.

It went OK. I think the majority of it was pushed back out of her mouth by her toungue, but that's to be expected. Adding new things to her diet lately (formula and cereal - both in small bits) have been messing with her belly. She's been really gassy and had an upset tummy the last few days. Poor girl!

On to rolling!!! She didn't roll completely over in this picture above, but she did lay sleeping like this for a while. She has only rolled back to front twice now, but it makes me nervous when she starts doing this in her bed. The other day she started crying and I went in her room to find her stuck (because she can't get the one shoulder to completely roll) with her face in the mattress and her leg stuck between two spindles. AHHHHH!

She is back to having rough nights again. Like I mentioned - upset tummy and added to that the last few days she has had a bit of a fever....GRRRR... The doctor said it is just a virus - let it play through. That is hard to do when you can clearly tell she feels so crummy. Hopefully we will have our smiley girl back soon!