What are your kiddies up to?

cocojack10

We haven't had one of these in a bit... what are your kids (born, unborn) up to these days?

cocojack10

First and formost, they are as healthy as can be!  At their one year appt, Alex was a whopping 29lb 8oz, and over 33in long!  Yup, off the charts in height.  He's on track to be as tall as daddy (6'5").  Mikey is a little behind in weight at 27lbs, but 33in tall, also off the charts in height. 

Mikey mostly loves to test his boundaries.  He doesn't care for the word NO even though he knows exactly what it means.  He's not a huge fan of milk, but loves his yogart, cheese and ice cream.  He says more understandable words than Alex.  He's very caring, and loves to give hugs, even when not requested.

Alex, oh Alex.  He's a character.  His smile melts hearts; he's a bit more shy, but loves to sing Happy Birthday (starts off with "hhaa" with a very wide mouth, and says "day" and "you" during the song, and ends it by blowing out the candles).  He's not into sweets, but loves his milk.  He's more daring on the walking front, but has only taken a couple of unassisted steps, but has great balance when stands alone (even bends down to grab things unassisted).  He also loves to sleep.

Neither are walking unassisted (just walk around the playroom along the couch or wall) and we aren't too worried as we know that will be a headache!  LOL  They will with time.

Albah

So glad the boys are doing great! It must be so interesting to see both of their characters develop and see how different they can be. 

Evan's speech has flourished since starting school. In just 3 months he has learned to not only understand English well, but he speaks in phrases. It's amazing how fast he has learned...it scares me a bit though because I don't want him to lose his Spanish so I've made an effort to speak strictly in Spanish at home. He loves school! He's such a good boy in school and then comes home and goes crazy. We enrolled him in Soccer and he enjoys it so much...he's become quite good as well. He is a picky eater but he eats what he likes super well (i.e. mac n cheese and chocolate chip cookies haha). The night time potty training we held for a while. We spent  2 months cleaning the sheets every single night so we went back to night pull ups for now...he was just not ready.   Our 31 pounder has been pretty healthy up to this point. We battled a bit of reactive airway disease a while back but he has gotten better. I recently noticed he has eczema but I think we've got it under control. Evan is an actor and he is just so carefree and loving. He does have his temper though and he tests the waters more than often. But for the most part he is a very sweet boy and really has us all wrapped up in his little heart.

Ethan is more of a character. He shows emotions so well that it is easy to tell when he is mad, happy, etc. He recently started giving real kisses and I am just in love. He is such an eater...he eats everything and wants to eat as fast as possible. I literally have to have like 3 spoons ready because I cannot feed him fast enough. The teachers at his preschool are amazed that he eats like such a big boy. We are still BFing twice a day but I'm hoping we can wean in the next month or 2. He has mastered walking well and he is right in that explorational stage. He entertains himself super well. He is becoming quite the talker as well; in just 1 month he is saying words that I don't remember Evan saying till much later. He says about 10-15 words at this point. Health wise, he is 22 lb and about 30 inches. He's my husky little dude. lol His anemia is better and almost at the normal range which is such a relief . He's been sick often because of daycare but he's such a trooper. He loves daycare and has adapted so well. 

cocojack10

Laura, so glad both boys are doing well!

southmiamiwifejen

Loved reading about the Es and the twins All four of them are such beautiful boys!

Emma's doing super well. She'll be turning TWO YEARS OLD in about two weeks! How is that possible?!?!?! I really thought the first year went by quickly, but it was a lifetime compared to how fast the 2nd year went. I was always so sad about my little baby growing up (and still am!!!), but I've come to see how each stage only gets better and better, so instead of being sad all the time, I've learned to actually get excited about her growing up and all the fun things we have to look forward to as the years go on.

She started school in September...goes 4 times a week for about 2.5-3 hours a day, and she loves it. The only drawback is that she's getting colds all the time but everyone (including her doctor) keeps reassuring me that it's normal and luckily she hasn't gotten super sick (knock on wood).

Her verbal skills are off the charts. At this point she is speaking almost exclusively in complete sentences and speaks English and Spanish about equally. The most recent development is asking a lot of "Why?" questions and also answering "Why?" questions ("Emma, why are you crying?" "Because, Mommy..."). She annunciates even long words really well and overall just has really good "tone" for lack of a better word (she sings various songs in the perfect key, raising and lowering the tone of her voice perfectly). She can also identify all the letters of the alphabet (in random order) and say what sound they make. She loves books and has an AMAZING memory...after reading her a book only 4 or 5 times, she will remember certain lines and recite them when we flip to the appropriate page. She will also flip through a book and narrate the story as she goes along based on what she sees in the pictures. It's such an incredibly exciting time in her development and I love watching how her reasoning skills work and how she is learning to make sense of the world.

On the less bright side, her eating and sleeping continue to be a pretty big struggle. I can't get her to eat healthy proteins for the life of me. The only way she'll eat a piece of chicken or fish is if its fried. The only vegetables she'll eat are broccoli (when it's mixed in with mac and cheese) and carrots (when they're dipped in ranch). She loves fresh fruit and eats a ton of them, loves dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt) and gets plenty of grains (whole wheat bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, etc.), but I am constantly anxious about the fact that she doesn't get enough healthy protein or veggies. Part of me gets really stressed out about it but another part of me feels like there's only so much I can do. I read over and over again about how common it is for toddlers to be super picky eaters, so I am just hoping and praying that eventually she grows out of it and becomes better at trying new things. On the sleeping front, she still doesn't sleep through the night in her own bed or fall asleep on her own. The routine lately is that she'll fall asleep in her bed with her dad next to her, and then 3 or 4 hours into the night she wakes up and we end up bringing her into the bed with us for the rest of the night. It's frustrating, but at the same time, for all the complaining I do, we haven't been super proactive about changing the situation, so I know it's in large part our own fault. For now it more or less works for us and our family and I figure that the day we get really fed up with it and decide that we need to change the situation, we will.

Overall I am just enjoying the last couple of weeks with my 1 year old and trying not to get too sentimental about her turning two She is such a sweet, loving and happy little girl. Very affectionate and loves to give us hugs and kisses. Has a great sense of humor and overall is just an awesome kid.

cocojack10

Aw Jen, that was so sweet!  Miss Em sounds like a beautiful growing girl.  You made me more excited for what is to come for us.

As for the sleeping, I know it!  The day the boys turned 1, they started sleeping the night, all on their own (we still rock to sleep which I'm ok with, but slept whole night in their crib)... and then they got sick about 1.5 wks later, and we are back to square one... cosleeping.  Fun times.  Eventually, they will sleep on their own (we hope), so if they need us now, who are we to stop it IMO.

southmiamiwifejen

cocojack10:

As for the sleeping, I know it!  The day the boys turned 1, they started sleeping the night, all on their own (we still rock to sleep which I'm ok with, but slept whole night in their crib)... and then they got sick about 1.5 wks later, and we are back to square one... cosleeping.  Fun times.  Eventually, they will sleep on their own (we hope), so if they need us now, who are we to stop it IMO.

That sucks Jackie I'm really sorry to hear that. It can get so frustrating with one so I can only imagine with two. Sorry I never had a chance to respond to your facebook message, but as you can see I relly have no good advice because we're still in the same exact boat Like I said, I get super frustrated with it sometimes and it's definitely not the ideal situation, but I figure at this point might as well ride it out until she grows out of it. My brother and I slept in our parents' bed until we were about 4 years old and then when my parents put their foot down and kicked us out of their room for good, we started sleeping in each other's beds lol. So I figure at some point when Emma is old enough she'll sleep on her own or with a sibling and we'll finally have some peace and quiet at night. In the meantime, I'm just trying to enjoy this phase while it lasts because it does go by super fast!

MrsJOSEnADRI

I love hearing all the updates!

Like the twins, Elise is mostly walking assisted by furniture, her little stoller, or us.  Ithink she's mostly just being cautious because she can walk just holding one of our fingers from one hand.  She also took off running after a ball without holding onto anything the other day. I think she was so excited she didn't realize she wasn't holding onto anything, lol.  Like Emma, she loves books and can orient a book to the correct position.  She babbles while turning the pages.  She is learning new words on almost a daily basis and it's so interesting to see her learn to communicate.  I'm also impressed by how much she understands when we talk to her.  When we call for the dogs, she looks for them.  She's also started interacting with them more.  I find it funny that she likes to chase them with her stroller and she tries to crash into them.  I gotta work on teaching her to be gentle, lol.

She loves being out and is a social butterfly.  She turns to other people at restaurants and babbles to them and makes funny faces at them to make them laugh, lol.  Today, a cashier mentioned that I must take her shopping A LOT since she likes to take my credit card, place it on the swipe machine, and punch the numbers.  Then, I open my purse and she throws it in there, lol.  She's my little buddy and I take her everywhere with me. 

As far as eating, she is fussier at home.  When we're out, she eats everything.  I guess she knows there are more options at home.  She's pretty good at eating some protein and veggies.  But, she doesn't like how I cook chicken, but she'll eat chicken when we're out... I don't get it, lol.  She's still a pretty good sleeper atat nibut short napper.  I'm trying to transition her to one midday nap, but she still gets really sleepy between 10 and 11.  She's also a great sleeper in her crib, but it makes for a difficult time when we were on vacation.  She would NOT sleep in her PNP unless we went to bed, too.  We tried watching a movie while cuddling with her thinking she'd fall asleep.  She watched the entire movie without dozing off at all, lol.  So, I guess we'll have an 8 o'clock bedtime on our next vacation or have to get a room with a separate bedroom, lol.

I can't believe she is one and I can't wait to see what the next year has in store!