Raspberries

I'm sitting in Piper's rocking chair in the dark, listening to her blow raspberries and lull herself to sleep, making the sweetest little noises. And all I can think about is how truly thankful I am for little baby noises and toes and pigtails and giggles and teasing and rolling over and jumping up and down and all of the joy I have from two very sweet, thriving, growing, affectionate, passionate, vocal, cuddly girls.

4 Months

I'm struck again by how fast it goes. How even faster time has seemed to pass with Piper than it did when Emberly was small. Maybe because there are two and each day feels like a blur at the end. Or maybe because it's a little easier this time simply because I have a better idea of what to expect.

Whatever it is, I'd like to capture it in a little box. The sweet baby smell, fresh out of the bath, the little fingers floating up in the air to grab a dangling toy, the first time she rolled over (today!), the giggles and smiles, learning to blow raspberries and make new sweet baby coos, sitting in the bumbo and putting everything in her mouth.

She is my Piper and a new heart has grown for her. I'm deeply in love with this sweet babe and it makes me think all the more of our Father's love lavished on us.

This picture is old now... I had every intention of capturing 4 months in words with a picture too, and the words just never quite came.




Sweet Baby P is 14 lbs and 14 oz, 14.5 inches as of Monday. She is squarely in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. She fits perfectly in 3 month clothing, and may soon be moving up. She sleeps 10 or so hours through the night without waking most of the time, but occasionally nurses once in the early morning. She is precious and smiley and so much more content than her early newborn days. I am entirely smitten.

Fun Stuff

E had a sleepover with G&G Johnson last night. First one ever. She did awesome, had a blast, and came home and took a 3 hour nap. :)

Jordan and I got to go out to dinner, do some Christmas shopping, and even make a post-bedtime run to Walmart. Aren't we exciting? Piper even let us sleep until 9am. Shazam!

And guess what else. E had potty success on the potty chair twice. I hope we are on to something bigger and better than spending dinero on diapers for Miss E!

And guess what else. Piper has discovered how to scream. Just for fun. Cuz there is no other noise in our house ever.

Oh, and I found spit up in the hood of my sweatshirt today.

And J and I bought matching footie PJs for the whole fam last night just because we could. Here is a preview...




Our lives are awesome.

Moms of kids with allergies...

Dear Moms of kids with allergies...

OK, I'll be honest... every time someone told me that their child had a sensitivity to certain foods the mom ate while breastfeeding, I secretly thought they were maybe slightly over analytical and had invented this in their brain.

And then Piper was born.  And every time I eat dairy she literally suffers for days.  I drank a half a glass of milk the other day because I was convinced that this was all in my head... and Piper was a fountain of spit up for over a day.  And then not thinking about the fact that ice cream is in fact dairy, ate a rather large bowl, and Piper spit up for over two days.  So... I'm not just kind of sure.  I'm really sure.

So I can cut out dairy, sure.  No problem.  {Actually... I want ice cream and milk and cheese and yogurt in a way that I've never wanted them before in my life...} 

But that's not the problem.  The problem is that I don't know where to go from here.  When E was about 4 months old we started giving her some baby food and rice cereal.  And instead of pumping I used formula for the maybe 2 times a month that I left Piper with someone else. 

But from what Google tells me, babies with food sensitivities while breastfeeding are more likely to develop allergies to those foods and others.  So does this mean that I should wait to introduce any baby food?  And what about formula?  Does this mean that if I give her a cow milk based formula she is more likely to be dairy intolerant for the rest of her life?  I am confused.  Please, if you have experience in this area... help a mama out.  :)

The end. 

Quotable

{Coloring with Emberly and I just finish writing her name...}
E: Congratulations, MOM!  You're an author!!


{Not napping Emberly... on the third or so time I've been in her room to remind her that it is time to sleep...}
Me: Emberly, it is time to sleep.  Lay. down. right. now!
E: Oh, sorry mom!  I forgot!


{Walking over to her nativity set...}
E: Hey sheep!  What's going on??

Sigh... it's a good thing she's so cute... or it might be super frustrating that she's been trying to nap for almost two hours!  ;)



{After getting her whole body stuck in the bars of her headboard.  Again...}
E: Emmy no put her head through the granola bars again!

The things that come out of her mouth...

E woke up from her nap. She was obviously 'hupset'. That's what I call it when E turns upset from being hungry. So I offered her some applesauce. Told her she could even put the cinnamon on top. She suggested yogurt instead. I asked if she wanted blueberry or strawberry. She whimpered. I told her to use her words. And then my just 26-month old child said to me. "Emmy just feeling frus.ter.ated."

Excuse me?!?

{trying to hide my surprise at her accurate labeling of her feelings...} "oh really? What's frustrating?"

"Just want chicken nuggets. Not yogurt."

Yup. That's my two-year old. And in case you're wondering, no, we did not eat chicken nuggets for an afternoon snack.

She's a gem.

E

Emberly has a cold. She slept awful last night and is refusing a nap today. I have been in her room multiple times over the last hour to put her back in bed, and she's been spanked for not listening and continuing to get out of bed. A moment ago when I went in there again, she turned around in her bed, stuck her little tush in the air, and said to me, "just spank me mommy. not sleeping."

Um...

What do I even say to that??

New obsession

Emberly's new obsession is play-doh. All day every day.

I can't say that I mind... such a peaceful craft!

Piper

My sweet Piper stopped sleeping through the night and pooping. We took her to the chiropractor and she has resumed both activities. Praise the Lord!

Finds

Found a booger in my hair today. It most definitely was not my own. Found my two-year old playing in the water of the toilet. And found a pacifier tucked under my pillow when I crawled into bed.

Behind

I'm hopelessly behind with documenting the true life of the Wobbema girls that I live with each and every day.  Probably because Emberly shouts "that's my job!" every time I try to help her with anything.  So something like getting dressed takes... oh... a half hour or so.  It is a true exercise in patience.  I'm not kidding. 

That combined with Piper's needs to meet, and our daily tasks pretty much consume our entire day. 

I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Except maybe a slightly less independent Emberly and slightly more independent Piper.  And since that isn't going to happen... I wouldn't trade it for anything.  :)

Yesterday I sat down at Emberly's little table with her for a moment and she shared her snack with me.  I sat back, crossed my legs, and folded my hands on the table.  I looked over at Emberly, and she was trying to lift one leg over the other to cross it.  Once she kinda figured it out, she sat back, (nearly falling off her chair) and folded her hands on the table.  She smiled at me and said "this. is. fun."

And those are the moments I want to remember forever.

Here are a few other moments from the last month that I want to remember forever...

Piper turned 3 months old!  She is super smiley, but I just could not get her to smile for these pictures... she was too busy eating her hands. 

 



Emberly is super interested in all things sorting, colors, and counting these days.  She can count to ten unassisted and sort colors by herself.  Here she was using a medicine dispenser for some fine motor/gross motor practice.  

 

We pretty much make "projects" out of anything... like washing pumpkins.  This was at least an hour of fun. 

E also had her two-year checkup about a week ago.  She is growing like a weed - almost 80th percentile for height, and 95th percentile for weight.  At one point our doctor said "now watch for her to start putting two or even three words together at a time."  Jordan and I laughed to ourselves.  And then E got excited about something and counted to ten.  And then later she said, "Emmy have Dr. Vetter's flashlight please?" 

 



 

We've also been exploring a little with sensory bins.  Such a language rich activity!  The teacher side of me absolutely LOVES it.  This apple cinnamon sensory bin with little red jewels, pretend apples, baskets, cinnamon sticks, and oatmeal cost me maybe $5 to make and was at least two hours of fun.  We've only used it once so far because I need to be mentally prepared for the mess.  But I just read on a blog of a mom who purchases $1 shower curtain liners and makes her kids stay on them when they play with sensory bins... and then just shakes the shower curtain outside when they are done.  I will most definitely be doing this next time!

 

 

 

Emberly often says "Ooooh.  Baby Piper.  Cute.  Just little.  Love her so. very. much."  Makes my mama heart melt.

 

 

 We hit up Buffalo River State Park and had a blast picking out pumpkins, going on a little cart ride, and checking out all of the fun fall activities. 

 

 

And the fun continued when we got home and got to paint our pumpkin...

 

 

Emberly's favorite Uncle Mike gave E her first dental exam.  She was a gem.

We visited Grandma Clara in Hatton.

 



We hit up the fire station for a little field trip with my Exhale group.

 



 

And my sweet, smiley Piper... practicing tummy time, smiling at anyone who will look at her, and just growing like a weed. 

 

 

(Not loving the bumbo seat here... but I just had to take a picture!)

 



 

 

 Playing with kitties at Auntie Kendra's House.

 

 

 And visiting Grandma and Grandpa (and Baxter) in Bismarck.

 

Rock-a-bye

I'm drinking in Piper's sweet scent and heavy breathing while she's deeply sleeping in my arms. It's intoxicating. I feel like I missed this with Emberly. Everyone told me how I shouldn't rock my baby to sleep because they wouldn't learn how to go to sleep on their own and you'd still be rocking them to sleep when they are leaving for college and yada yada yada. So I tried to be so careful. And looking back, I feel like I missed out. Cuddle time with Emberly is limited to injuries and sickness and an occasional insecure moment. And I wish I had soaked up every possible cuddly moment.

So new mamas, cuddle that new sweet bambino with no reservations. It goes way. too. fast.

Doctor, Flu, and Library all in one day

Dear Life,

Piper had her two-month appointment today. At two and a half months old she weighs 12 lbs on the nose (50th percentile) and is 21 and 3/4 inches long (15th percentile). The doctor questioned how accurate the height measurement was... but whatever.

Piper handled her shots like a trooper, but has been extra fussy all day. I'm praying she'll sleep long and hard tonight.

It was kind of an exhausting day. Jordan started working nights last night. Came home, slept most of the day, and then woke up with the flu. A really un-fun case of the flu.

So we tried to avoid being home as much as possible. We spent a lot of time at grandma and grandpa's house and took our first trip to the downtown library.











It was almost magical. I've been waiting to share the library with Emberly since she was teeny tiny. And today she went to the wiggle room and played with all of the toys and then we picked out a few books to check out. Made my mama heart so so very happy to see her enjoy it and bury herself in her new books on the way home.

It was nice in the midst of the rest of the chaos of the day.

And now I am chilling on the air mattress in the middle of the living room so I don't catch whatever Jordan has. I think I'll call this camping. Air conditioning. No bugs. I'll take it.

Gem

My little gem of the morning:

Piper was fussing and I picked her up and was patting her back and bouncing. I look in the living room and Emberly has a burp cloth on her shoulder, is patting her baby's back and bouncing up and down saying "ok sweet baby. Ok." And then she said "burp! play now?" and put her on the play mat and got right down in get face and started talking to her.

Ah sweet child. :)

Bedtime

E just could not fall asleep tonight. And seriously there was crying from one or both children in my house from 7pm to 8:30pm.

But after going back into Emberly's room to see if I could settle the sobbing one more time I explained to her that it was very late and it was time to sleep.

And she stopped crying immediately and looked at me with understanding and said "ooooooh! late! Eight nine two o'clock mommy??? Soooo late! Sleepy time now!"

Where does she come up with this stuff?? :)



Molly

Cookies

Emberly tripped on some toys tonight and took a huge fall. I try to hide my reactions so Emberly doesn't react based on my reaction, but I couldn't help but gasp and ask if she was ok.

She stopped and looked at me, and then looked at the floor and explained that no she was not ok because her (pretend) cookies had spilled. All over.

So we picked them up together and blew them off and it was all ok.

Oh Mr. Sun...

Grandma Go-Go saw this hat and just thought Emberly needed to have it... :)

Sleep

Last night piper slept from 9pm-8am and Emberly went to bed at 7:30pm and is still sleeping. And I am just so thankful for babes that sleep. What a blessing!

Piper 2 Month

My favorite Piper is now two months old.  I have to say, I grow more in love with her each and every day.  Her little smiles and coos (and yesterday her first little giggle!) have me melting and oozing with love.  I cannot get enough of her sweet little scent and snuggles.  I love how she rubs her little nose on me when she's tired and that she prefers to be held and snuggled by her mama and how her little eyes just roll right back into her little head when she's being rocked to sleep.  Sigh.  She's perfect in every way.  Ok, now that I'm done gushing, here are a few pictures...

 

 

Miss Piper is still wearing a few newborn outfits, but mostly fitting comfortably in size 0-3 month.  The outfit above is 0-3 month and it is plenty big in the body, but just right in length. 

 

My guess is that she weighs somewhere between 12 and 13 pounds.

 

And she is sleeping like an angel!  It's been a little more than a week of 8-10 hours at night without waking up.  Is that unheard of, or what?  Go Piper Go! 

 

Emberly is loving her a little sister even more now that she smiles and makes noise too.  She often brings her toys and gives her kisses when she's laying on the floor.  Then she looks at me and says "Oooo, Piper cute."

 

Here's a little Emberly throwback at two months old...

 

 

 

See any similarities?  I see... none. 

Except they're both pretty cute. 

:)