11 months old!

One more month until the big ONE!  (sniff, sniff!)

• Clothes: wearing 9-12 months and 12 months
• Shoes: size 3

• Getting 1/2 breastmilk and 1/2 formula 4x/day in sippy cups (she won’t take a bottle, which is fine), anywhere from 3 oz to 6 oz at a time.
• Eating all kinds of things, but I think she could live off of mac and cheese and bananas.
• Napping 1-2x/day.  Sometimes she takes a morning nap and sometimes she doesn’t, but she’s not really ready to drop it, because she is exhausted and cranky when she skips it.
• Sleeping from 7:20 pm – 7 or 7:30 am.

(She was pretty interested in the sticker this time!)

• A couple weeks ago, Meredith got her two top front teeth – so now she has 4 teeth!  It’s funny, so far her teeth have come in in the same order and at about the same time as Russell’s did.
• Meredith has started talking!  Her first word, of course, was Kitty (she says “key”), for her lovey.  She also says “da” for dog (she LOVES dogs).  I’ve heard her say “mama” a few times and I think she’s talking about me, but it’s hard to tell.  And she tries to repeat other things that we say.
• She is now regularly standing on her own, cruising, and walking holding onto our hands.
• Meredith is both Miss Independent and Mommy’s girl.  There are many times when she’ll entertain herself for long stretches of time doing all sorts of things – playing with toys, pulling her books out of her book basket and flipping through them, climbing in the little chair.  But she very much prefers me to anyone (including Jason) and if anyone is putting her to bed, feeding her dinner, reading her books, etc, I’d better not be in earshot or she’ll cry for me to do it.
• She has gotten MUCH better in the last month or two regarding separation anxiety.  There was a short time (a few weeks or so) when she cried almost the whole time I dropped her off somewhere.  Now when I leave, she’ll cry for a minute and then get busy playing. 

I guess she’s barely a baby anymore, but I’m still calling her a baby (not a toddler yet) for at least the next month!  Love that sweet sunshine girl!

Meredith’s Favorite Chair

We have a little wooden chair that used to be Jason’s when he was little.  Russell loves to sit in it, and now so does Meredith.  One of her favorite activities lately is climbing into and out of that little chair.  She’s very determined and doesn’t get upset when she doesn’t quite make it – she just quietly tries again.  (Very different from her brother!)

Getting into position:

Climbing up:

Tada!  She loves to sit Indian style (criss-cross applesauce – whatever you want to call it) on this chair.

Yes, I know she’s hanging off a bit – that’s why Mommy is right there!  Meredith can spend 30 minutes just on this little exercise, and she’s so proud of herself!

Naptime

Russell’s “naptime” is from 1-3 pm (or 4, if he sleeps longer).  I put naptime in quotes because then there are days like today, when he flips on his light and his radio and plays in his room.

At about 2:45, it got pretty quiet, so I had a feeling he fell asleep.  When I went to wake him up a little later, I found him like this:

sleeping in his armchair, with his overhead light and radio still on. 

You have to know Russell to understand that this never happens – he sleeps in his bed, with the fan on and an assortment of animals/cars.  That’s it – not in the carseat, never at church, not in our arms, even as an infant.  So I had to document it!

Wordless Wednesday

Day in the Life

If anyone is interested in a typical day in our life, here it is! And if no one is interested, then this is just for me so I can look back and remember how exhausted I was and why!

6:47 – Meredith wakes up. I throw her in bed with Jason and go pump. (She refuses to nurse, but she still gets half breastmilk, half formula.)

7:31 – Russell’s awake. Everyone gets up. I give Meredith her sippy cup of milk and take Russell to the potty against his will. Russell sees Meredith’s milk and informs me that he wants his pink milk. I make him some strawberry milk and leave them to their own devices while I make breakfast.

(this photo is the only one in this post NOT from today!)

7:57 – Breakfast! Today is ham, cheese and egg sandwiches on whole wheat bagel thins. Jason reads a Proverb from the Bible to the family and we discuss it while I make sure Meredith’s food is going in her mouth, not her hair.

8:15ish – Jason out the door. I clean cups, table, plates, and pans from breakfast.

8:30ish – Playtime! We play with puzzles and match Easter eggs (which I just brought out today - novelty is always good!) There are a few skirmishes and “no, Sissy, no”s, but overall playtime is going well.

8:48 – Time to get dressed – similar to herding cats. Meredith flips like a fish out of water and Russell thinks it’s hilarious to run away when I get his clothes out. Oh, and I manage to get dressed too.

9:19 – Russell is pushing Meredith’s buttons and she’s crying easily now. Must be her naptime!

9:21 – Time for school with Russell. Today we’re learning the letter J: on Starfall.com, with a couple YouTube videos, reading some books about Jesus, and coloring a few pictures.

10:40 – Meredith’s awake. Time to get ready and go to the gym. Diaper change, potty trip, sippy cup and lovey in diaper bag, coats on, shoes on. In the bustle, Russell is all over Meredith again and she’s crying. I pick her up; he says, “Mommy, I want my sister back.” Too cute – but I don’t know if she wants you back, buddy!

10:54 – at the gym! Drop the kids off in childcare and Meredith is crying…oh well! I head upstairs for a run and some crunches.

11:35 – Pick them up (Meredith did well – only cried a few seconds!) and head to the library to return some books, play, and read a little.

12:24 – leaving the library – yikes, behind schedule!

12:45 – in the door at home. Coats off, shoes off, potty trip, wash hands, I rush to get lunch on the table while Russell whines.

12:54 – lunch on the table. Meredith has some black-eyed peas and Russell notices. “Mommy, want Sissy’s jellybeans.” I explain what they are but give him one anyway, and he eats it. Not sure if he understood me until he announces, “Boys and girls, we have no jellybeans today. And no hot rods, too.”

1:16 – clean up from lunch, another potty trip for Russell in which I beg him to poop on the potty (vs in his pull-up during his nap, which has become a bad habit.) He repeats, “if you poop on the potty you get M and M!”…but still no poop.

1:25 – everyone in bed. Ahhh. I pump again, make a couple phone calls, and generally relax – the only time of day I get to do this.

3:40 – Meredith up! We play on the couch a little until…

4 pm – I wake Russell up (don’t want to mess up his nighttime sleep). Unsurprisingly, he did poop in his Pull-Up. Change him, put him on the potty (he always goes again).

4:15 – I put on Lady and the Tramp for 30 minutes while I start laundry, do some picking up, get Meredith another sippy cup of milk, and take a shower.

4:46 – Get a call from Grandmother – she is home and would love for us to stop by for a little bit. Pack the diaper bag and head out the door.

4:54 – At Grandmother’s! Snack, watch her fire, play the piano, build a road out of shells for Russell’s cars, and play with her plastic fruit.

5:59 – oops, late again. We head home and see that Jason is already there – he is normally home around 6. He plays with the kids while I prepare dinner.

6:36 – dinner! Veggie burgers, baked beans, and corn on the cob.

7:02 – some clean up.

7:10-7:20 – another sippy cup for Meredith, change her into PJs, her bedtime.

7:25 – Jason and I take turns playing cars with Russell and finishing the cleaning.

8 pm-Russell’s bedtime! Time for us to talk, do our Bible studies, for me to prepare for photography sessions or edit photos, blog, sometimes run errands, do more laundry, etc! Oh, and sleep eventually!

Walking behind a toy!

Meredith has loved Russell's walk-behind Toy Story car for months now, but never actually walked behind it (or anything, for that matter) until today! She was doing a better job walking before I turned the camera on - story of my life :)

You do what you have to do

Both kids have been sick since Saturday.  And everyone gets fussy when sick, but one of the actual symptoms of this illness is fussiness.  So you can imagine how happy our household has been!

Today, though, we had the highlight of our day, when both kids were really happy for 30 minutes (!) and it was very accidental.

Can you tell what Russell’s doing that made his day?

As he put it, he’s “watching the digger digging a deep hole!”  Across the (busy) street from our doctor’s office, a big extension is being build onto the hospital.  So we ran across that busy street to watch the diggers for 30 minutes.  I’m sure Russell would have stayed longer, but the workers stopped for the day.

Meredith didn’t care a bit about the construction, but she is happy as a clam anytime she can play with my car keys.

So if you happened to pass us on that street today, now you know what we were doing!  You do what you have to do!