Parenting Check-In 1/26

Jazibel · January 2015

Good Morning Everyone!

How was your weekend? Any new milestones, successes or challenges to report?

QOTD: A serious one first: Do your kid(s) have Godparents (in either the traditional or secular sense of the word)?

QOTD #2: If you had $10,000 to spend on your child's next birthday party what would you do? (If you have multiple kids feel free to envision one for each of them, or a combined party - sky's the limit).

doodah1013 · January 2015

Still doing well here. Hayden had her 1 month checkup and had gained a good amount of weight and was doing great! She still is not an everyday pooper, but the doctor doesn't seem concerned. She is staying up longer when she gets up at night to feed... which A and I are doing pretty well at waking up for evenly. Last night she woke up at 5... and the snow was falling and we had a bottle and snuggled. I feel lucky to not be so tired that I couldn't enjoy it

I have my 6 week check up tomorrow with the midwife who delivered H. I am stupid nervous about it... even though I know she has been all up in my business, I was in a totally different headspace. Send brave vibes my way if you have a chance!

I went out of the house 3 days last week with H, and it was hard every time. But I am glad to know that she is home with her Mama... I think that makes it easier. A sends me loads of pictures while I am out and that is very helpful.

QOTD: Hmmmm.... this is something we struggle with. We are church going folk... and will have H baptized, but haven't settled on God parents. My sister will be heartbroken if we don't "pick" her... but she is VERY Catholic, and we are very not Catholic. So we may forego God parents in the church sense...

QOTD2: We would have a wilderness weekend... sailing, fishing, hiking, s'mores, campfires, etc. in a nice area with cabins that have hot tubs and swimming. We would invite EVERYONE and pay for their lodging!

jennicole85 · January 2015

DS is 18 months old.

We don't really have much to report. DS FINALLY cut two of his eye teeth. I'm so happy I could cry! These teeth have been torture and took forever to come through (seriously, I think they took almost a month!). I'm not sure if I want the other two to cut now or if I want a mini break before going through all of this again.

I think we're on the brink of a language explosion. DS is slightly behind when it comes to speaking but I can see certain things starting to click. He did this last month too. Suddenly he picked up six new words in only a week! We've been working on body parts (specifically the face) and animal sounds. He's catching on so quickly and it's so adorable!

QOTD:
We originally had two good friends set to be godparent (non religious) however in the 18 months of his life neither of them have made any effort to spend any time with him (or me, for that matter). It hurts a bit since we were all so close before we started our family. I understand that they don't have children and are on a different path but I (naïvely) thought that they would be around more than twice a year. I'm sorry, I'm a tad bitter about the whole situation.

QOTD #2:
Wow that's an absurd amount of money to put toward a birthday party! I would go all out! Bounce house, petting zoo, crafts for kids AND adults. I'd have an obscenely large and beautiful cake for guests and an adorable smash cake for DS (you can have a smash cake a a 2nd birthday, right?). I'd rent food trucks for the afternoon to provide fair type foods (think corn dogs, fries, pop corn, cotton candy, etc). Maybe have a balloon artist and other entertainment. Finally, I'd hire a photographer and videographer to capture the whole event. Did I hit $10,000???

Jazibel · January 2015

Kaden is 2.5 years old and Owen is 8.5 months old

We had a good weekend. I worked yesterday and had a friend come and watch the boys for a few hours because EV had to work from home. Our friend E has spent a ton of time with the boys (and even the puppy) and handled it all in stride. Owen ate food but didn't take his bottle. 3oz down the drain... We don't give him a bottle often so I think we kind of ruined things for ourselves. I keep meaning to start - but lo and behold he's almost at sippy cup age.

Owen was up for a good portion of the night last night. I was so tired that I think I didn't quite handle it effectively, which meant he was probably up even longer than necessary. He did eventually around 2:30- 3am go to sleep in the swing. Needless to say the prospect of starting work on our taxes today does not inspire me ;-)

Our daily struggles often revolve around training the puppy and toddler to coexist. They love each other and are often sweet to one another. But Sienna jumps, "bites" and tugs on Kaden's clothes and Kaden sometimes swats at her to keep her at Bay... Sigh. There's surprisingly little advice online but I've started to apply what I've found and it does seem to be helping.

QOTD #1: My BFF and her husband are our Godparents (in the secular sense), but their desire to not have kids permeates everything they do and I feel like it might not be a good fit. They have the resources (financially), but if two kids were sprung on them I'm not sure they would be happy about all the lifestyle changes.

QOTD #2: For Kaden I would have an "All things with Wheels" party, and have lots of fun activities (motorized motor cycles, scooters, bicycles, etc.) for the kids to play with. I'd also have performers doing sportsman like tricks. None of this is my preference - but he loves Motocross, motorcycles, bicycles, trains, cars, etc.

For Owen I would have a pool party with jumpy houses, petting zoo, cute decorations (maybe Zoo themed), face painting and a show/magician, etc.

KH826 · January 2015

Will is 7.5 months old!

He is starting to try to pull himself up on things -- the couch, toys, etc. This is scary!!! He is also crazy strong, which scares me a bit. He will stand up for pretty long periods of time holding on to just our hands, or holding onto a piece of furniture. I feel like he gets better at it every day...

Still no crawling, but lots of rolling scooting and just generally being all.over.the.place. We seriously can't contain him.

This weekend was fun. We went out to lunch to a place we hadn't been in a long time on Saturday, and he was such a little ham. He sat in a high chair up at the table, and I gave him slices of pear out of my salad to chomp on. He made friends with the waitress and other kiddos walking past our table. It was hysterical. Then we went on a big Target trip and stocked up for about a month. He loves riding in the cart, and he kicked his legs and squealed as we pushed him around. Sunday we met my MIL out for lunch, then went to Kohls and the grocery store, then home for some family floor play time. He ate baby carrots while we were out at lunch. This weekend he also tried pureed prunes (poor bugger was constipated, so we thought we would try them), and he loved them! Overall it was a really good weekend.

He has a total of 7 teeth (4 are all the way through and 3 are poking through but not fully in yet). He still totally loves bath time and is really digging being in the big boy bath tub. He is ticklish under his neck and his arms. Sometimes he loves peek-a-boo, but other times he seems un-phased by it. He seems to like the dog's toys better than his own 1/2 the time.

OH, we transitioned to the Convertible Car Seat this weekend! That felt like a milestone HAHA... he seems to like it. It was a real *#*! to get into the car though. I thought my wife was going to have a stroke in the process.

QOTD #1: We are not religious, so we did not have a baptism, and do not have official "god parents," but in the practical sense of the word, my BIL and his wife would take Will (and any future siblings) if something were to happen to both my wife and me. We have Wills set up for that.

QOTD #2: So, I honestly cannot imagine ever spending that kind of money on a birthday party. Ever. Regardless of it being lottery money or a gift or anything else.... So, I would say in the future I would use that for a big family vacation that would be a birthday gift for the kid/kiddos, and then have a cookout with family when we got home! Or, we would have a low key at home bday party for $500 and put $9500 in the college fund! I know this answer is kind of cheating by not answering the question, but I just can't imaging spending that much on a bday party. Perhaps after I actually throw a bday party I will change my mind a little...

ATXmommas · January 2015

Ash is 14 months, and I'm happy to report that I have my happy baby, um, I mean toddler, back! Three of his molars came in at once, making all of us miserable for a bit, but he is back to his happy, charming self.

Our biggest news is that we seemed to have turned a corner with his sleep. Although we have better/worse nights every now and then, he had consistently been waking twice a night and nursing at least once. We have had great success with sleep for about 5 nights in a row now. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I let him cry/whine himself to sleep the first night. While we've dabbled with CIO here and there, it never worked and we never went very far with it. After nursing Ash forever until he was sound asleep, he woke and cried when I transferred him to his crib. I gave him a hug, told him I loved him, and I left the room - I planned to go back if he didn't settle down, but within 6-7 minutes he was out! Then, he didn't wake until 4:30am or so. We've had some variation of this (just one night time wake up) going on for the past 5 nights - this is huge for us. Oh, AND, my parents put him to sleep on Friday night while Z and I were out to dinner without a bottle. So, I'm feeling better at the prospect of Z being able to put him to sleep without nursing sometime soon.

Another milestone - we actually packed away all the bottles and pump parts. He hasn't had any bottles since around his first birthday, but we've officially stored everything away. I love having my counter and cabinet space back, but it feels a little surreal.

Otherwise, Ash is just loving life. He LOVES Bama and gives her the sweetest hugs. He also gives me kisses when I ask - those huge open-mouthed ones. They are wet, but so, so sweet. He can get a little upset when redirected or I take something away from him, but he is able to move on quickly. We typically just don't engage the tantrumy behavior so as to not reinforce it with attention. He loves being outside and we were fortunate to have gorgeous weather this weekend to indulge him.

QOTW #1: No godparents. My sister will be his guardian should something happen to both Z and I, but we haven't named godparents. I don't have godparents, so it's not something I think about. I am a godparent to one of my nephews, which I think is odd since I"m not religious (he's Catholic), but I think it's mostly ceremonial. I don't treat/feel differently for him than I do my other niece/nephews.

QOTW #2: Geez louise, I have no idea. I can't imagine blowing that kind of money on a birthday party even if I had it to spend! Perhaps I would use that money to fly us and our immediately family somewhere fantastic to celebrate! Since Ash will only be 2 on his next birthday, Disney doesn't seem like a great option. I don't know - a nice beach front vacation at a tropical location? That sounds good. Definitely sounds like it is would be more for us than him, but he'll only be turning 2 in my defense!

ball.and.chain · January 2015

B is almost 7m!

You GUYS. Ben slept 12 hours without waking last night. 6:30-6:30. By morning I was sure he was dead. But no, he was totally fine, and in fact woke in a great mood, smiles for everyone. I'm not expecting this to happen every night, but it's still pretty awesome. He's "STTN" before in the sense that he's slept as long as we slept (maybe 7 hours), but since he started sleeping 12 hours on his own in the crib, he's never made it all the way through without a bottle. We got him a new winter-weight sleepsack so that might have helped!

Otherwise, chugging along. Had some health challenges last week -- B got diagnosed with double ear infections on Tuesday. I stayed home with him on Wednesday and started feeling cold symptoms. He's had a cold for a while so I didn't think much of it, but after he went to bed on Wednesday I started having chills, achiness and a fever. Turns out I had the flu! B never got it from me so we're actually wondering if he had it before and I got it from him -- we attributed his crankiness and fever to the ears, but it could have been more than that. Anyway, I'm back at work and other than a lingering cough I am fine. B still has a cough but otherwise is fine and my wife somehow managed to stay healthy through it all.

Moving ahead slowly but surely with solids. I gave him a banana in a silicone feeder thing and he LOVED it -- not sure which he liked more, feeding himself or the banana itself, but he was all smiles. He also tried mango puree and brown rice cereal, both thumbs up. Today we sent food to daycare for the first time so I am interested to hear how that went. We've been trying to feed him at home but he's too tired when he gets home from daycare and it doesn't go that well. When I feed him in the middle of the day on weekends he loves it, so I think we just need to let daycare do it. They were happy to.

QOTD #1: We are not religious, B will not be baptized and we are not naming "godparents" in any religious sense. Though we aren't calling her a "godmother" per se, we did decide that B will go to my sister if anything were to happen to us. Our parents are too old, my other sister can't really afford a child, and my wife's family is all out of state. My sister adores him, is responsible and financially stable, and shares a lot of our values.

QOTD #2: I'd hire a venue and caterer so we could enjoy his birthday without having to cook or clean up, and I'd hire a pro photographer to capture the day. My sister would probably still want to make the cake.

If there was any money left over, I'd use it to rent hotel rooms for any out-of-town family who wanted to make the trip. At one, the kid would probably be thrilled with a cardboard box to play in so I'd rather put it toward family time than entertainment.

2MamazInSeattle · January 2015

Simone is 5 months!

The weekend was ok - miss thing is teething and just a moody little baby as a result. She's still fighting a bit of a cold and we are taking her in to her pedi today at 3:30 just to check her ears to be safe, as she's been snotty/coughing with a range of severity for 2 weeks as of today.

J and I alternate night duty based on who is working (early) the following day. I have 3 nights and she has 4 nights - mine include both Friday and Saturday, since I don't work weekends. Well, Saturday night had a 90-minute 1 a.m. - 2:30 a.m. baby be a mess session! She was just so uncomfortable - I did all the tricks, then finally caved with a 1/2 dose of Tylenol. Then she slept 6 hours (!!) to which I woke up fearing she was dead and shook her awake in a panic (#neverwakeasleepingbabyWHOOPS). She was fine. Basically it's just been happy baby/sad baby off and on with no warning or apparent reason. She's still eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping just fine so we figure most (if not all) is well.

QOTW#1: We haven't thought about this really! I know a candidate or two, and my sisters are just all in with her regardless of a title. We aren't religious so no church-based activities for us.

QOTW#2: Um, me, J & Simone with a little cake and an envelope with a $10K check to be deposited to her college fun...followed up with us all cheering YAY!

CageyMack · January 2015

How was your weekend? Any new milestones, successes or challenges to report?

Oh, my goodness-gracious, what-have-we-done and how-amazing-is-this?!

Yes, we have officially survived the first week of three children. I can't even believe that we have lived. Sure, sure, they say it is hard, but I was all, "yeah, but we have a 12 year old! That hardly counts!"

This weekend: Thursday night William was up screaming until 2:30 in the morning. He has been spending the week being "quick to fire," saying "Mine, mine, mine, mine!" about everything (wipes, his shoes, a fork, etc.) and "No, no, nonono!" accompanied by vigorous head shaking. He was also super clingy to me, standing on my feet, climbing on me all the time, etc. I really thought he was just kind of wrecked from the separation when Audrey was born and then having distracted parents in the house, plus the 12 year old sleeping in his room, plus his grandparents in the house. But on Friday daycare said he had a horrible day, popped a fever and so, in fear that he had the flu, I called the doc from the daycare driveway and they took me right in. EAR INFECTION! No wonder he was miserable! He has not had one yet, but I know he is very sensitive to pain and body issues. Phew! Antibiotics started Friday night and by Saturday morning he seemed to show improvement. But he was still up every hour that night. So I had the big baby in my arms and DW had the little baby in hers.

Meanwhile, on Sat. morning the 12 year old and I go to volunteer at a thereaputic riding stable. I teach, and DD gets a lesson; it is kind of a special thing for us. End of the lesson and DD's normally sedate horse goes BERSERK and bucks like a maniac and dumps my kid in the dirt. It was very impressive, not a little crow-hop, but proper hysterical explosive bucking. DD is teary, muddy and has the wind knocked out of her. Her hand hurts a ton and I wonder if it is broken. I make her get back on the horse for a five minute walk around, which she is okay with. Back at the barn, everyone seems suspicious that it is broken. So we make a trip to the Emergency room! Everything was fine.

I feel suspicious that this three-kid thing is a whole different game.

What.

Are.

We.

Going.

To.

Do?

QOTD: A serious one first: Do your kid(s) have Godparents (in either the traditional or secular sense of the word)?

No Godparents. 12 yo DD will go to her Dad if something happens to both myself and DW. If it is just me, DD will stay with DW. The little babies? We have a lesbian couple we are going to ask. It is a big ask. Our parents are too elderly to care for two busy little people, and I know that the couple will raise them well, involving the grandparents a lot. We have good life-insurance, so money would probably be okay.

QOTD #2: If you had $10,000 to spend on your child's next birthday party what would you do? (If you have multiple kids feel free to envision one for each of them, or a combined party - sky's the limit).

Wow. A trip to Australia to visit friends, go on a Man From Snowy River riding camping trip and see Sydney. I don't care which of the kids' birthday it is; the little ones could have a cake and a nanny while the rest of the family did that.

Karlamo · January 2015

Flygirl1228 said:

Twins are 6 months old!!! We started food with them. Quinn loves bananas and hates everything else. We kept feeding her other things and couldn't figure out why she was crying every time she was eating. I had an idea to try banana again during that meal and she stopped crying and opened her mouth and ate happily. I guess Quinn will be my picky eater. Weston on the other hand will eat everything and Quinn's leftovers!! He will even eat it if he obviously doesn't like it. We also started to kind of sleep train and get them into their own room and cribs. The first two nights were a nightmare! The first night they were in our bed by 9pm because they went bolistic! We also moved into their room with a mattress on the floor. Lol Well, it's been about a week and a half and it's safe to say that they sleep in their crib most nights. Sometimes they get in our bed around 5:30am. They are asleep in their crib by 9-10ish, wake at 1:30-2:30ish, then wake at 5:30ish, and last are up by 7:30. Next goal is to get us out of their room. I also went to the doctor last week for my annual and to see the chances of me having a bio child. I have endometriosis and cyst. She basically said it will be difficult with IUIs and maybe should just go the IVF route. I told her I didn't want to do IVF because of money and that we still have three embryos in the freezer. I think all I really wanted to hear was the final confirmation that it will be hard and lots of money to conceive a bio child. I wanted to finally let it go and to use Ally's embryos. I am ok with this but there was and kind of still is the little sadness that I won't have a bio child. It was getting a bit harder too because Ally's family was asking when are we going to have a little Rebecca running around. I am lucky for my babies and the fact that Weston looks so much like me anyway. I am lucky that I will be able to carry a child even if it isn't a "little Rebecca", at least I get to experience carrying a child. It's just a little sad.

Hugs for this. While my wife is madly in love with R, I wonder if there is a part of her that will always imagine what her own bio children would look/behave like. When we used my eggs she needed time to grieve for own IF issues and for feeling like her body was "broken".

We've talked and I said if we ever came into money and all our expenses were under wraps I would love to do one more try with her eggs and give it everything we got. She seems to have made peace that her babies have come to her in a unique way and feels fullfilled with that.

Karlamo · January 2015

Quick check in for me today..

R turned 11 months yesterday.

In BREAKING NEWS, R slept in his own bed the past 2 nights! It was strange waking up in the morning without being slapped in the face or having my hair pulled. Dare I say I missed him.

He is getting more interested in solids, which is great. We have confirmation that he has a dairy sensitivity/allergy. We will need to see how this shakes out with introducing WCM. Perhaps R will get his wish after all and be breastfed for life. With all this talk on the board today about donor's, we changed donor's so many times that towards the end we were like, "Do they have a pulse?, ok that's the one" So when we got pregnant with R, we ordered the extended medical history and low and behold our donor has a milk allergy. Whomp Whomp Whomp...

Other than that, life is good with him

:x

QOTW: #1, We know we want to have religion in their lives and have plans to baptize them both in the fall. We are making Christening gowns out of our wedding dresses. We have a few names of who the Godparents will be. Our Godparents are not the same people named in our will. We see those as two seperate roles.

#2, Gee only $10,000 I guess a nice oceanside lobster/clam bake with all our friends and family in tow. I do realize R's birthday is in Feb, but this is a fantasy right?

JGY · January 2015

G is 22 months. Holy. Shit.

This will be pretty quick, as work is not my friend right now.

First of all, I don't think I say this enough here: I really love my kid. He's pretty amazing and I think that a lot of the behaviors that I find challenging right now will help to make him a really successful person in his adult life.

We had a bit of a marathon weekend, but everything really went pretty well. He even rolled with a 2 hour delay in his nap on Saturday and didn't get cranky or fussy. I was pretty proud of him. Yesterday I took him to my choir rehearsal as I do every week, but this week we had an additional practice session beforehand, for which we didn't have any care set up. Well my little super-active guy sat happily in his carrier while I sang for 25 minutes. I couldn't believe it! Finally he came out of his stupor a bit and then wanted to try to sing along. So I took that moment to take him upstairs and transition him to the daycare area. But really, it was so SO cute.

We seem to have had no negative ramifications from the Tubes surgery last week. All is well there.

QOTW 1: Ugh. Not religious (well, I'm not. S is, but does not go to church on a regular basis) so G will not be baptized and a "Godparent" would be more in the guardian category. That being said, we still have not decided. We avoid the conversation because it's emotional and it's hard.

My Sister desperately wants to be designated. She is a wonderful, amazing person and she's fantastic with G. But she is an artist, has no structure or schedule, no money, and basically lives a life that is not at all condusive to having a kid/s. Don't get me wrong, there are some really amazing things that she could provide to and for G, but we have serious doubts about getting the day to day stuff done. Like getting to school. Or just waking up. Or eating something (anything) with sufficient protein.

S's Sister and BIL would be amazing guardians of our guy, and I do think they'd be willing. They are wonderful, caring, loving parents to two boys already. But they are struggling financially as well, and while I have immense respect for the religious views that help to govern their house, I am not all comfortable with that being G's upbringing.

Yikes.

(I should add that our insurance is pretty decent. So I don't worry too much about the expense of "Adding 1 more kid to the household." However in both situations, it would require a whole new house/apartment in order to accomodate the extra kid. That's a lot.)

QOTW 2: Airplane, beach, family (both sides), together. Done.

Mystjava · January 2015

First of all, thanks for being here.. I just need a place to vent for a few minutes.

LB is 4 years and 3/4 of the way to becoming 5.

We had a horrible afternoon today because the bed liner in our truck flew out and hit another car. I'm still shook up about it. Washington has a strict law about securing your load. Yes, I did get a ticket for not securing my load (even when I was under the impression that the bed liner would not fly out.). I feel worst for the other car - their window and parts of their nice car got damaged from a bed liner.. I hate that thing..

In other news, we're working on transiting LB to his own bed. At first, I thought that sleeping in his room would work, but nope. Instead, we're having him sleeping on his bed at the foot of our bed. He climbs over and joins us in the middle of the night - sigh.. I just don't have the heart to get him back into his bed.

Plan to keep working on it so that he can learn to sleep alone, but he just doesn't like to be without us. It is so cute to see him turn around and snuggle with Mummum S, then turn back and snuggle with me. Aww, but what surprises me is that Mummum is sleeping better than she thought (or so I think.) She hasn't been in the bed with us since she started the sleep machine when LB was 9 months old.

LB needs me, so I'm off the computer for a while. Hang in there friends.

redrockmama · January 2015

A day late as usual...

M is 7 months old and he finally rolled from back to belly for the first time (awake) on Sunday night! Of course he acted like it was no thing and he'd been doing it for ages. He's been doing it more and more since then and each time it's easier for him. He goes from sitting to kneelingish too. Crawling is sooooo close. He's really good at standing holding or leaning against something but still doesn't understand that is how he is staying up and lets go all the time.

He is finally feeling better the antibiotics helped a bunch. It's great to have our normal baby back. I just love him so much. He has recently decided that he wants to try out for the breastfeeding olympics and tries to nurse in the most ridiculous positions, including sitting up. It cracks me up. He also likes to grab everything nearby while he is nursing, my face, flicks my nursing tops and straps, he's started biting again and giving me niplash, it's hilarious. Especially when he looks up at me afterwards with he shy little grin.

@KH826 I can't believe Will has that many teeth! M doesn't have any and none are even close to coming out.

QOTD 1: We aren't religious so don't have religious godparents. We have discussed guardians and have yet to come to an agreement on it. I would prefer my younger sister and J has no clue, and would rather pick a friend. My sister isn't financially stable and doesn't want kids (biologically) but she LOVES M and shares most of our values. I'd consider my step brother and his gf as well, but who knows. We should probably decide soon though, because you just never know and it's better to be prepared right?

QOTD 2: Family trip for sure! I would take us all to a nice beach and have a super fun time.

shelly2314 · January 2015

Good Morning Everyone!

How was your weekend? Any new milestones, successes or challenges to report?

QOTD: A serious one first: Do your kid(s) have Godparents (in either the traditional or secular sense of the word)? They have two sets of godparents b/c we couldn't decide between to couples.

QOTD #2: If you had $10,000 to spend on your child's next birthday party what would you do? (If you have multiple kids feel free to envision one for each of them, or a combined party - sky's the limit). Twins girls here. Ummm, since it would be their first birthday I think a vacation to Hawaii for M and I would suffice LOL. Other than that, definitely have animals there. We are big with animals and volunteering at a shelter. I would love to have a carnival type thing with games, etc. BUT THE VACATION FOR M AND I WOULD BE AT THE TOP OF THE LIST

JGY · January 2015

@winstan1 Yes, our greatest hope. And not at all surprised that you face the same issues and challenges. Our boys seem to but cut from a smiliar cloth. A really awesome one.

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