I’m sorry, Fuzzy

Each of our children has a lovey.  And each of them is very attached to their own lovey (and actually, they are both quite fond of each other’s lovey, too).  As I’ve mentioned, Russell’s lovey is named Fuzzy and Meredith’s is named Kitty. 

Fuzzy is well-loved.  He has slept with Russell for every nap and every night since he was 5 months old. 

(Russell and Fuzzy in January 2010)

Fuzzy had to have an emergency arm amputation 4 or so months ago.  Russell used to chew on Fuzzy’s arms.  Inside each arm is a little bag of white plastic beads.  Russell had chewed a hole in one of Fuzzy’s hands, and chewed another hole in the bag, so the little white beads ended up in Russell’s mouth – not safe!  As I have somehow lost my sewing kit and time was of the essence (I couldn’t have Russell still chewing on those beads, but I couldn’t really stop him without taking away Fuzzy), I had to cut Fuzzy’s arm off.

(Russell and Fuzzy in June 2010 – better days, with 2 arms)

I explained to Russell what I was going to do.  He was very calm about the whole thing, watched me do it, took Fuzzy’s arm to the trashcan and waved bye-bye.  No problems.

Fast-forward 3 months.  We are all in the car driving and Fuzzy is there.  Russell is talking in the backseat as he often does.  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Russell says, “I’m sorry, Fuzzy.  Took your arm off.  Fuzzy have too many arms.”

Well, I never did explain why Fuzzy’s arm had to come off.  Apparently he thought I had to take an arm off because Fuzzy just had too many!

(Russell, Meredith and Fuzzy: Sept 2011)

We still love Fuzzy, even with one less arm!  However, I am contemplating finding a “back up!”

Big Boy Bed

We decided to move Russell into a big boy bed this past weekend.  I was very nervous, thinking he might be scared, or get up in the middle of the night.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  He loves it! 

Now I just need to get my act together and transform his room into a big boy room!  The decorations are all still from his nursery and aren’t really suitable for a 2 1/2 year old.  The new theme will be football – hence the football toy box next to the bed!

Hiding

When I left Russell and Meredith in Russell’s room today, Russell was playing on his bed and Meredith was playing with toys in the middle of the floor. 

A few minutes later, I came back (from doing a quick chore) and found them like this:

Hilarious! 

When I first went in, only Meredith’s little legs were poking out from underneath the table, and I didn’t even see Russell.  So I said in a surprised voice, “Oh my gosh, Meredith, what are you doing?!”  That’s when I heard lots of little giggles and Russell said, “Oh my gosh, Russell, what doing?  Hiding!” 

These two crack me up!

7 months old!

{Photos were tough this month – she wanted to crawl right off the chair! T-R-O-U-B-L-E!}

At 7 months, Meredith is:

• Wearing 6-9 mo clothes and 9 month clothes
• Wearing size 3 diapers (they are too big around, but 2s were too small lengthwise)
• possibly transitioning to 2 naps per day
• Sleeping from 7:30 pm to 6:30 or 7 am – through the night consistently!
• Eating solid food for breakfast (at 8 am) and dinner (at 5:30 pm). She has gotten a little pickier and now will spit the green veggies back out at me if she has several bites in a row, so I have to trick her by giving her a bite of fruit, then a bite of veggie.
• Nursing 5x/day - at (roughly) 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 3:30 pm, and 7 pm.
  

• Sleeps on her side or tummy, sucking 2 fingers now (instead of her thumb like last month), but still keeps Kitty right next to her face.
• Army crawls (as I have mentioned)
• Prefers to play with anything that is not a toy (computer cords, remotes, phones, shoes) or her brother’s Matchbox cars
• {those two previous facts mean that I have got to find some time to better baby-proof our house! I constantly find her with something she should not have in her mouth!}
• As of her last doctor’s appointment (Friday), she weighs 15 1/2 pounds.

A comparison: Russell at 7 months (left) and Meredith at 7 months (right).

Happy 7 months to our Sissy girl!

Big Kids Now

Our little ones are growing, learning, and changing so much! 

We have done a couple of family devotionals.  Russell seems to really like them, and seems to be learning.  I know there’s only so much a two-year-old can grasp, so really, we’re just setting a foundational routine in place.  But he does say the Bible verses occasionally of his own initiation, so that’s something.

Last week, our devotion was about King David, so we made a crown.  We painted a paper plate yellow, let it dry, decorated with “jewels”:

and then cut out the points:

This week, our devotion was on the fruits of the Spirit.  We talked about being nice instead of mean, loving instead of hateful, etc, and then put fruit stickers on a person’s heart.  I wrote a fruit of the Spirit on each fruit sticker.

As for the “growing and changing” part – look at these two big kids!  Meredith is sitting in the high chair/booster seat to eat now (after a falling-out-of-the-Bumbo-almost-Mommy-heart-attack incident) and Russell had been asking to sit in a big chair, so:

And now Meredith is sitting straight up in the stroller, so Russell is on the jump seat (I think that’s what it’s called)!

And just because she’s so cute – look at this sweet girl

Now if they could just get well…we are currently working on cold, ear infection, thrush (Meredith) and cold (Russell) and a missed trip to visit family because of it.  I know in my heart that I should just be grateful that none of those are anything serious – and I truly am.  What a blessing these two children (and their (relative) health) are to us!

I guess you would call this army crawling

Meredith, stop growing! 

Our little girl is on the move!  Well, she’s been on the move since she could roll at about 2 months old, but within the past few days (or maybe the last week) she’s been using a very slow army crawl as her mode of transportation.  I caught it on this video.  Like I said, very slow, but she gets where she wants to go!

First Pics

First photos from my new Nikon D5100!

Which are also the first photos of Meredith trying out a sippy cup – big girl!

She did great for her first time; she knew exactly which part to put in her mouth.

Russell wanted to point out that he knows how to drink out of a sippy cup, too. 

I love my sweet kids and my new camera!