My Boys Look Nothing Alike.

What do you think?

Happy Easter!

Some

Bunny

Loves

YOU! Have a happy Easter!

Funny Things Kids Say - Part 2

• Whenever Grady does something by accident'he shouts out 'oopsy daisies'! with a big grin. I think of that scene in Notting Hill every. single. time. he says it.... Now he has to figure out that you can't say that when you do something on purpose.


• Grady is in the habit of giving me his boogers. I'd rather this than on the carpet or worse yet, in his mouth. That is beside the point... One morning I walked into his room and he shouts out that he has an eye booger (aka sleep) for me.


• After a long day of potty training he says - I'm so proud of you mom. He continues to say this as if he is telling me he loves me. I wish I could bottle this up for later as it is just so sweet.


• During our first week of potty training he tells me he has to pee while we are out and about. As I pick him up and run to the bathroom he laughs and says 'Mommy running really faster!'


• We went to a friends for brunch and they had bacon. He didn't know what it was since we never have big breakfasts unless we are out and then the bacon is always greasy and fatty. Grady loved the crispy bacon our friend made, he kept asking for more 'bake'.


• When Grady is doing something that he thinks is good he tells me to clap. I of course clap. Then he tells me to clap louder. My son isn't bossy at all.


• We were talking about the pool and the big blue scary slide there. Grady told me that he would go down with Daddy. I asked him if he would go down with Mommy and he said no, mommy is too old. I thought I misunderstood until he told James the same story later that night! Nothing like a child's brutal honesty!


• I told Grady that he had chocolate milk on his shirt and he responded 'Don't worry Mom, you'll wash it'


• Grady told me he saw a digger truck. I told him I missed it. He said 'Don't worry Mom, we'll see another one'


• Many of Grady's friends have been on vacation. To Grady that means the ocean. I told him that we were going to the ocean in the fall. I told him we are going to San Diego. He follows up with 'We are going to see Diego (the cartoon character)?' Ummm not quite.


• We recently bought Cooper a pair of those sunglasses that have a strap that goes around the back of his head. When we were going outside, Grady asked me where Cooper's swim glasses were. I had to think about it before I realized that he thought Cooper's sunglasses were goggles.

Diary of a Potty Training Mom - Part 5

Here we are, 4 weeks after we officially hopped on the potty training train. Grady is still wearing underwear! I would say Grady is 90% 'pee' trained. He uses the potty in public, he tells me when he has to go, and he stays dry when he sleeps.

Don't get me wrong, he still has accidents. Just this week we were at his Brilliant Beginnings class and he peed. He really peed. I had to wipe up and disinfect about 1/4 of the play area. You may wonder how this is possible... He started peeing at one end and I picked him up and carried him across the room while pee dripped from his pant leg. Thankfully I was surrounded by other parents in the same boat and they even helped me clean it up. They helped me clean up my son's pee. I digress....

Overall, in the pee department, he rocks! But poop, oh the poop, is an entirely different story. In 4 week or 28 days, Grady has pooped in the potty exactly 4 times. Now you can guess that he has pooped more than 4 times and your imagination will tell you where that poop ended up as it did not end up in the toilet. These 4 poops happened starting day 17. Day 17. I thought that once he did his business on the toilet once that he would be good to go. Wrong. The only reason he pooped on the toilet is that we had gone to Toys r Us two days prior and let him pick out a 'poop toy'. When he pooped on the potty, he go the toy. He chose an ice cream monster truck from Mater's Tall Tale (a version of the Cars movie). A $25 ice cream truck. All worth it if he was going to start pooping on the potty.

We also got a new Thomas poop chart. We searched high and low for Thomas stickers and they are surprisingly hard to find! We only get to look at the book of stickers while sitting on the potty waiting to poop. He doesn't look at it much. Currently, there are still only 4 stickers on his poop chart.

So we have made progress in a month with pee. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed that we are not fully potty trained. It has been a frustrating experience. Obviously we are not going to put a diaper on him so I continue to change dirty underwear. Two pairs I have just thrown out. Maybe that was too much info.

Pooping aside, I am really proud of my biggest little man. I was so scared to potty train and now that is another notch on my parenting belt. I will likely still fret when it is Cooper's turn, that is just my nature, but I will be more confident in my approach and that it can be done.

Please keep your fingers crossed that my next update will be about a fully potty trained almost 3 year old.

Just Another Day at the Office

Working hard? Or... Hardly working?

The Mommy Diaries

Deena is running a series of posts on her blog focusing a new mom every few days leading up to Mother's day. Yours truly was profiled on the blog yesterday.

I responded to her email within the hour. Maybe that is why I got to be first? I responded so quickly because I though it was a great idea.... and because I knew I would forget if I didn't do it right away. Oh and because when my BFF asked me to do something I do it. That is what makes me her bff :)

Thanks Deena for giving us a glimpse into so many different perspectives of motherhood. I can't wait for the next one!

Sleep

We let Cooper cry it out last weekend.

There. I said it.

I debated for a long time whether or not I was going to write this post. I am a Mom trying to do the best for my babies and fear of being judged by other Mom's who may not agree with the decisions that we have made for our family.

Then I met this new Mom while in line to pay at Mexx kids with her 3 month old son. She was shopping with her own Mom who started talking to me about Cooper's sleeping habits. I told her the truth. They were terrible. She looked at her daughter and said 'I told you'. At first I thought that her baby also slept like crap and that they were having sleepless nights to. I was wrong. Her Mom was reassuring her that if she hasn't let her son cry it out her son would still be waking at night and not sleeping through like he how is. As I talked further with the daughter she confided that they were up for hours at night with their son that just couldn't figure the sleeping thing out which is what prompted her to sleep train. I told her that we had used the same method with our older son but hadn't' made the leap with Cooper yet. She told me she felt that no one else let their babies cry and she was feeling guilty. I told her that many people do it, most people don't volunteer the information. She thanked me for talking to her and telling her my experience. I walked away feeling like our 5 minute conversation made her feel more confident with her decision.

I hated that she felt ashamed for teaching her son to self soothe and fall asleep on her own. No matter what method she used. What I hated more is that I had felt those same feeling over letting Grady cry it out over 2 years ago. Why should I be ashamed or embarrassed over a parenting choice that I made and planned to make again? I am not saying that it is for everyone. It isn't. I'm not saying that it is foolproof for every baby. It isn't. But did it work for our family? Yes. With that being said, this is how we went from short naps and a restless baby sleeping in our bed waking every 2 hours or less to a baby getting up once a night and naps I never knew existed.

It is no secret we struggled with Grady and sleep. If it wasn't the number of times he was getting up, or the fact that he needed to sleep on me, it was the 5am start to the day. When Cooper was born I wanted nothing more than to be blessed with a sleeper. I wanted to do everything possible to ensure that he slept in the bassinet or crib and learned how to fall asleep on his own. That was the dream. Then there was reality. He started sleeping with us on night 1. Night 1. Then there was the soother. The rocking. The holding. Before we even realized it, we were using every prop possible to get our little guy to sleep. We knew early on that we were going to need to 'sleep train' to get Cooper sleeping in his crib for longer than 30 minute stretches.

A typical day of Cooper's sleeping a mere 2 weeks ago was a short morning nap of up to an hour on our bed and an afternoon nap of up to 2 hours. On our bed. Depending on the length and time of the second nap, he sometimes took a 30 minute nap right around supper. We then put him down for the night around 9 in the crib. Before we went to bed at 10 or 10:30 Cooper would have already woken up and would be waiting for us. In our bed. Through out the night he would wake up and need his soother, a few ounces of milk, or a pat on the back to fall asleep. It wasn't that it took long to get him back to sleep it was the frequencies of wake ups that was hurting me. I was waking up angry with him. Angry with a 5 month old. I knew it was time.

The first night was rough. I expected to be. Cooper cried a lot. We do the method where you shut the door and don't go back in until a pre-determined time where he gets a bottle. In our case that was 2am. I still caved and went in at 1am because I needed to hold my little boy. He had much more stamina than Grady did and had one stretch lasting well over an hour. In total his crying on day was 4 hours. Ouch. Since I wrote every thing down with Grady, I knew he also cried the same on day one. As funny as it sounds, that made me feel more reassured.

It was hard to listen my baby cry, but I really hoped that one bad night would lead to many good nights of sleep ahead. I thought it would be easier with Cooper but I found it harder. I was naive with Grady and secretly hoped he would only cry for 10 minutes and that he would learn really quickly. With Cooper I went in with much lower expectations. I knew it would be a sleepless night for both of us. I knew it would break my heart to hear my happy little man cry.

The second night is the moment of truth where you find out if it worked. And it did. I put Cooper down at about 7:30 after an exhausting day for everyone (except Grady who wasn't affected at all by the crying) and we didn't hear a peep. Not a peep. He slept until 2:30, had a bottle, and stayed sleeping until 7:45. Score. The rest of day 2 was filled with shorter (but still awful) crying spells and longer naps. Cooper took to it much much better than Grady. He just seems to get it.

A typical day for Cooper now includes a 12 to 13 hour night with 1 wake up per night around 5. He cries for up to 30 minutes, but on average about 10, before naps but once he is sleeping he has a 2+ hour nap. I still can't believe it myself. Grady took weeks and weeks of crying himself to sleep and having a 30 minute nap or less. It was exhausting and that was what I was expecting again. We are still working on creating a schedule as we need to move Cooper's bed time earlier so he gets up earlier. He has slept as late as 9am this week which really throws our whole day off and makes it hard to get 2 naps in. But if that is our biggest problem we aren't doing so bad.

It feels really good to share this. No longer will I avoid telling people why my son sleeps or how we 'taught' him to sleep so long. I will remember that woman in Mexx and how I felt when she felt guilty telling me why her son slept through the night as such an early age. I can't say that I am proud to tell people how we got Grady and Cooper sleeping through the night, but I firmly believe that we are a happier family because we are more rested than we were before.

I dedicate this post to the woman in line at Mexx.

Cooper - 5 Months

Dear Cooper,

April is here and there are still no signs of spring. I feel like this is the longest winter in history. I am just so excited to go on walk, to the zoo, and the park and Mother Nature is just not cooperating! With that being said... we have managed to keep our selves busy just the same!

You have rolled a few more times from your belly to your back but still not regularly.

You rolled over from your back to your tummy for the first time during your nap on April 2. Daddy put you on your back to go to sleep and Mommy found you on your tummy when she went to check on you! Grady and I have been waiting for weeks for you to roll as you have been so so close.... We think you are sleeping better now that you can roll onto your tummy to sleep.

You found your voice this month. It is so nice to hear you squeal with delight and babble to yourself.

You have found your hands!! You reach for toys and I have even seen you transfer toys from hand to hand. I just love watching you look at your hands and figuring out how to control them. I hope to catch a video but by the time I get the camera you have moved on.

You LOVE the 'olly jumper' as Grady calls it. You happily stay in it for 20 minutes or more.

You have long eyelashes. Nearly everyone who meets you comments on the eyelashes. I like to think you get them from me :)

More and more people are saying you look like me. It isn't a 'WOW he looks like you'. It is more of a 'I can see you in him'. Whatever. I'll take it! No one ever told me Grady looked like me. He was always the mini Daddy. I am so happy that some think we resemble each other. I think you are more even tempered like I was as a baby (or so I have been told). Nana tells us your Daddy was much like Grady temperament wise as well as looks!

You have noticed yourself in the mirror.

You are napping 2 -3 (but usually 2) times a day. As of last week you are sleeping exclusively in the crib. You did not like it at first but you are getting the hang of it. Once you fall asleep your nap is anywhere from 1.5 to 3+ hours! We are guilty of waking you up so that you will go to sleep for the night at a regular hour. Now that you figured out how to get to sleep on your own it is like you are catching up for lost time.

Now that you are in the crib, you sleep 12 to 13 hours each night with one wake up for a bottle between 4 and 5. What a difference the sleep training made for us! We put you down between 7 and 9pm and you get up between 8 and 9 am. We still have to work out the kinks in your schedule as your brother continues to wake up early and you sleep sometimes 2 hours longer. We want to try and get you to bed for the night around 7pm, but your long afternoon naps are interfering. We are confident we will work this out over the next few weeks.

You had your 4 month vaccinations on March 15th. You weighed 17 pounds, 6 ounces (90th percentile) and were 25" long (50th percentile). You cried hard during the shots and then for a bit after. Overall I was really proud of you. As hard as vaccinations are on you mommy, I quite enjoyed the 4 hour nap that you had that afternoon.

We also had your 4 month check up. When the doctor left the room for a few seconds, you filled your pants. That is one way to keep the doctors away!

While Nana is on vacation you and I are going to Grady's Brilliant Beginning and Gymnastic classes. You love watching the bigger kids and have been so well behaved. You can't wait until you are old enough to join in the fun.

You are up to 6 ounce bottles every 3 to 4 hours during the day and 1 bottle at night. Total is usually 5 bottles a day.

You still wear a size 3 diaper .

You are very much into your 6-12 month clothing .

I hope by the time next month rolls around the snow will be gone and we will be enjoying true spring weather! No more teasing Mother Nature, we are ready for the real thing!

Love,

Mommy

Wordless Wednesday - Home Alone Edition!

Making the Most of a Snowy Weekend

We spent some time outside today while Cooper napped. The end product is we have another snowman despite me telling Grady wouldn't get another until next year.

I may be mad at Mother Nature... but my son sure isn't :)

When I came in with a wet bum from making snow angels with Grady, I wasnt' so mad at her myself.

A Typical April Day in Calgary

And just like that my girls trip to the the spa in banff was cancelled. Thanks Mother Nature. Thanks a bunch.