3 years old

My baby is 3.  And now I understand why my sister in law cries every year when her kids blow out their birthday candles.  I took turning 30 in stride (probably because I was drinking on the beaches of Mexico), but somehow my little guy turning preschool age has me all sorts of emotional.  Becoming a mom has made me weird, well weirder than I was.

Oh Zach. He is all boy. If there is dirt to dig or rocks to explore he will find it. His favorite things to do are go to the library and go hiking....this will be an interesting combination through the years I'm sure.  He asks almost everyday if it is time to harvest. Farming and tractors may always be his first love.

Currently trains, specifically Thomas the Train, are the bees knees. We have trains everywhere. Train bedding on his big boy twin bed, train movies, train toys, and as a special birthday surprise from Nana & Papa, we got to ride the real Thomas. 

The kid is hilarious. He never stops talking and has some gems come out if that loud mouth. He likes to ask (with a giant ornery smile), "Are you tricking me?!".  We have been also getting, "hey mommy/daddy.....I love you."  He lik3s to talk to strangers in restaurants.   He will just turn around and start yelling, 'hi, I'm zach, I'm eating pizza".  His favorite phrase is, "Oliver, you're ok buddy, I love you!", whenever Oliver cries.

Zach loves Oliver so hard.....literally,  so hard. There are some full contact hugs & kisses I have to supervise.  These brothers light up each others world. I know it won't always be like that, so I'm trying to savor it now.

He just got to move up to preschool at daycare. He still goes 2 days a week currently. He is smart.  He knows his shapes, colors, most letters & numbers, how to spell his name & normal 3 year old stuff. He already cries to go to school on the big bus like his niece & nephew. 

Turns out Zach grew a few inches over the summer & all of his pants are too short. He is in 3T shirts & 2T/3T pants. He is a skinny guy still, but getting better about trying foods. He tried broccoli the other day & the face he made, one would think we fed him dog poop covered in burnt hair. His favorite food is pizza.

3 has come with some attitude. 2 had its tantrums, but he was generally a lovey, happy guy. I saw someone else refer to their kid as a 'threenager' & I couldn't agree more. I get way more sass, eye rolls, and fights now.....those with real teenagers feel free to laugh at me & how much worse it's going to get.

Even with the new attitude,  I'm loving this age. His independence is growing, but he still will hold my hand & snuggle up. We have real talks about school & everything else. He does not forget or miss anything, I have to watch what I say always. We love this little spitfire so much & cannot believe it has been 3 years since he made us way more than we thought we could be, mommy & daddy. 

Zach loves the ladies

It's already mildly disturbing that Zach gravitates toward older girls. It never fails.  We'll pick him up from school and he'll be with 2 or 3 older girls.

Then he told us he wanted to dress as Izzy,  the girl pirate from a cartoon,  for Halloween.

I raised my eyebrows, but I'm all about not conforming and all that hippy goodness, so sure.  I asked him here and there over the next 2 days and sure enough he stuck with Izzy the pirate.

Finally I asked him why he wanted to be Izzy instead of Jake or Buddy?

"Because I really like girls mom"

I'm going to need Xanax when this kid hits high school.

6 Months Old

Oh Oliver, I can't believe your already 6 months old, but I also can't remember our little family without you.

You are 19 lbs 15 oz and 28" long...confirming you are indeed one solid boy at 85% for both. And just as a comparison, Oliver is just 1 ounce & 2 inches off of where Zach was at his 1 year check up.

You are growing like a weed and are going to eat us out of house and home. You're in 6-9/9 month clothes and those are starting to get snug. Your size 3 diapers seem to be fitting still. You blow through clothe sizes at an alarming rate.

You love food. You take 4 bottles a day, each one 7 - 8oz for 28-32 oz a day.  We also do rice cereal in the morning and night and have added fruits and veggies to try. You hate peaches. That is the only food you have rejected. You love rice cereal and bananas.

Big guy is sitting up on his own. He sometimes tips, but he's doing great. If he tips he giggles the entire way down like it's a game.

We've got a decent little schedule down....or we did until the last 10 days when you decided sleep was over rated. It's hard to be too mad at your 2-3 am party sessions because you are so darn happy. You just want to be awake to laugh and smile at me. Usually you take 2 naps & 1 cat nap, go down at 7:30 & sleep until 5:30am at the earliest.

You are loud!  We think it's because you have to be to be heard over your brother. You get to squealing and making noises & don't worry, everyone can hear you. I swear I heard a mama in there, but it was probably wishful thinking.

Your favorite thing ever is your brother. You stare and laugh at Zach. It's a good thing Zach has decided he likes you too & always wants to hold your hand. Anytime you cry Zach is sure to come up to tell you it's ok, and then you start laughing. You boys love each other so much & it makes my heart burst with happiness.

You also like the jumper, but really you like everything. Oliver, the happiest baby ever. You smile at ladies in the store & make their day. You're such a happy round guy with those blue blue eyes and white blonde hair.

You have been sticking out your tongue and making fart noises all the time, much to the delight of your older brother.

Weird enough, you always giggle when you're getting a poop diaper cleaned up. I'm glad you think it's hilarious I have to wipe your butt.

You're gearing up to crawl and I'm slightly terrified.  You already wiggle and move around a little.  Tummy time is hit or miss since you just roll over.

We love you, our happy little guy.....even though the sound of the camera on my phone terrifies you...

7am

I have fed the baby and got the little chubbers back to sleep, fed and let out the dog, paid bills and watched a movie all by 7am.

There are perks to being up by 4 am. I am way more productive in the morning when everyone else is asleep. Want to do some calculus or discuss the situation in the middle east?  Catch me at 6am. Want to do basic addition or small talk at 8pm?  Nope, not going to happen, I'm already shutting down for the day.  The best you'll get from me are some fart jokes.

It always boggles my mind what a morning person I've become out of necessity. I was the girl skipping doing my hair or any sort of make up,  or changing out of my pajamas really to get just 5 more minutes of shut eye before school.

Maybe someday I can learn to love exercise and stop having such a smart mouth.....nah, let's not go that far.

This happy guy is worth getting up for....

Breakfast Conversations

Some actual words spoken this morning...

Me: "please stop biting the table, we talked about this yesterday"

Zach: making fart noises
Me: "do not make fart noises at me please"
Zach: roooaaarrr
...I guess dinosaur roars are better than fart noises.

Zach with dirty hands: "my hands are dirty, mommy lick it"
Me: "no, I'm not licking your hands clean"
Zach: "why?"

Ollie fussing
Me: "I'm sorry Ollie I can feed you any faster"
....this one is going to eat us out of house and home.

Zach about 2,000 times since going to the local fair on Wednesday: "I want a cow mommy....we're going to get a cow, a dairy cow, I need a cow..."

It's only 8am.  Someone send a cow and a bloody Mary stat. 

So we meet again Thomas

Oh, you think Thomas is a random friend....you clearly do not have small children. If someone brings up the name Thomas in conversation I assume they're talking about Thomas the Train...don't mind me if you talk about your coworker Thomas and I ask if you work at Sodor Steamworks.  I would then laugh like crazy at my lame toddler cartoon joke.

Ahem, anyway, Zach has clearly revived his love for Thomas the train. We had a brief window of time where he was into other things, but it was short lived, much to my dismay.

I thought tractors had taken the top spot in Zachs heart until we picked out new sheets for his new big boy twin bed. I should have just gotten what I wanted and not given him a choice because now it's going to look like Thomas the train threw up in his room.

Zach also refused to put the sheet set in the cart and instead carried it through the store. It doesn't seem like much, but that's bulky and heavy for an almost 3 year old. He just kept saying "I do it" and hugging them closer and making train noises.

But the cherry on top of this ridiculous trip is when I heard him whisper to the sheets he was carrying, "I love you Thomas".  Well dang it Thomas, I guess I love you too for making my big guy so happy.....I still think I may have a seizure from all the train patterns in his room.

This picture has nothing to do with his bed or Thomas the Train, it's just hilarious. You don't play in the sandbox in your undies?

3 Months and 2 & 3/4 Years

*I'll add pictures tonight once I figure out how to get them off my new phone....I miss my iphone :)

I had grand plans of keeping up with monthly updates, which would have worked out perfectly for 2 months and 2 & 1/2 years for the boys.  Well life happens and we're still trying to figure out our routine around here, so here we are at 3 months and 2 &3/4 years.

Up first, the little guy....

Oh man Ollie is still one happy guy.  He wakes up smiling.  We're getting full out giggles and a lot of cooing and talking back at us.  He loves sticking out his tongue lately and chewing on everything.

He did roll over from his tummy to back for the first time today.

We think he is getting a tooth already.  He is a drool monster and slightly less happy than normal.  It is looking like the bottom left tooth is ready to cut through soon.

Size - still a big boy.  People ask how old he is and I follow up 3 months with 'he's just a big guy'.  He is in size 2 diapers and size 3-6 month and 6 month clothes.  It works out great since Zach was such a small guy and Oliver is such a big guy they should be able to wear a lot of the same clothes even though they were born in different seasons.

Stats - Not sure since we don't go back until 4 months for a check up, but at 3 months he was 14 pounds & 3 ounces, up an impressive 6+ pounds in 2 months.  He was 23 & 1/4" long, up just under 3" from birth.  His head is big, like his big brothers.  He was 90th + percentile for weight and head size, and 75+ for height.

He takes 5 bottles a day 5-6oz for 25-30oz of formula each day.  Luckily he does not have the stomach issues we faced with Zach and is on normal Similac Formula.

It is hard to tell what he really likes because he smiles at everything.  He likes tummy time ok, until he is over it and tries to eat the blanket or mat he is on.  He has little patience for books.  He is liking his bumbo seat and bouncer.

We usually get 1 long nap a day, timing depends on if Zach is home and how loud he is at that moment.  Night time sleeping has been great.  He sleeps 7-10 hours.  We swaddle him and go up for a final bottle in his room around  7:45pm and he is usually passed out cold in his crib by 8pm.  He gets up sometime between 3am and 6am usually.  We're getting more and more of the 6am and less 3 am wakings so that is awesome.

At his 2 month appt I mentioned he always looks right.  Turns out he had kinked neck muscles, probably from how he was in my belly and the starting of a flat spot since he was unable to turn his head all the way.  We've been turning his head and stretching out his neck muscles, as well as more tummy time and other things to hopefully help round out his flat spot.  We'll see how this pans out.  I freaked out, but Matt is ever the voice of reason and said if this is our biggest problem, we're very fortunate people.

Oliver has been such a blessing and a pretty easy baby so far.




On to the terror....I mean Zach.

Oh Zach, such a big boy these days.  Zach is all the way potty trained.  He even sleeps at night and at nap time with big boy undies.  We bribed him and it worked.  He likes to stand up and pee which is only a little gross and I clean the bathrooms a lot.  He also thinks it is acceptable to pee outside anywhere, like at daycare, outside on the playground.  We are getting good at catching him starting to pull down his pants and intercepting before he pees outside at inappropriate places.  With potty training his pooping issues have improved.  We still use miralax daily, but not nearly as much and could probably go without.

He calls me mom now instead of mommy.  I asked him why and he said that 'babies say mommy and big boys say mom'.  I may have cried a little.

He knows his ABC's, how to count to 20 with a little confusion between 16 and 20, he can count to 10 in spanish, and can almost spell his name.  He loves to have dance parties and play in the sand box.  He is such a smart little guy.  He can recite a few of his favorite books, and even some of his not so favorites.  I was surprised when they told me he recited Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? at school since we haven't read that one in awhile.

He was into Frozen for awhile, but is getting back into Thomas the Train hardcore again....I'm not super excited about this.

Zach is hilarious or super frustrating without much between.  He has decided the last week or 2 to give up nap time, which has been hard to me to accept.  We're working on a new plan around this no nap mentality.

His big thing lately is 'it's the same' and 'that sounds like a good idea'.  He'll ask for a popsicle for lunch and I'll tell him maybe after lunch, so his response is 'I have a popsicle before lunch and after lunch, it's the same mom!'.  Or 'let's play outside and have a popsicle, that sounds like a good idea!'

It is amazing what he picks up.  He has started asking us how our day was, which is super cute.

He is always always moving and talking.  If it is raining and we can't go outside he thinks I am torturing him.

He is hilarious and a joy to be around usually, but sees time out on a regular basis.

We've already decided Zach is going to be the fiesty smaller brother who counts on his easy going, giant little brother to back him up when his mouth gets him in trouble.