Happy birthday Donovan!

Donovan is a year old.  Holy crap!  How did that happen?  A year can't have passed - I still have baby fat!

My little guy amazes me every day.  His most recent adorable behavior is his intense love of food combined with his walking competence and lack of words.  If Jocelyn gets a snack that she can walk around with (a cracker, cookie, etc.), Donovan chases after her, arms up, screaching.  He sounds like the Conan O'Brian rendition of Frankenstein('s monster). Jocelyn runs away, but she finds it funny.  She does yell, "No No Donovan!"  I crack up.  Seriously, I cry actual tears from laughing so hard!

It's the same with sippy cups.  The other day, Jocelyn had two - one for milk, one for Pedialyte.  And when Donovan saw her, he yelled his "aargh" sound, stuck his arms up, and bolted for her.  Again, she ran off and yelled "NO Donovan!"  

He recognizes when things are food and wants to eat them.  He gestures wildly at anything that looks good and screeches. When he likes something and wants more, he yells, "MORE!"  And he gets to where is about to panic when he doesn't get his food fast enough.   Again, hilarious.  He will occasionally grab for things that are still too hot, and he shoves them in his mouth very quickly, and they usually give him jitters. I always feel bad - I'm the grown up, so I need to do a better job of keeping the hot food away.  But sometimes he just grabs faster than I can shield.

Strangely, though, he had no interest in his cake.  At his cake-smash photo shoot he did not express any interest in smashing or eating the cake.  He ate a tiny piece that I broke off and gave to him.  At his birthday party, he threw his first piece on the floor.  He barely picked at his second piece.  It's weird.  Especially since later on he went to town on a chocolate chip cookie.  

His vocabulary is definitely starting to improve.  He has been saying ball and balloon for a while now.  He has restarted saying cat.  And Mama and Dada, of course.  I just mentioned the more.  I think he says "da" for "that".  And when he pushes cars around (which he loves to do), he says "VRROOMM!"   He doesn't appear to know any animal sounds yet, nor does he love playing peek-a-boo... but admittedly we don't really do those things that much with him.  He is starting to show interest in books, but mostly as toys.  He likes to grab at the pages.  He does love the shape sorter, and sometimes even gets the shapes into the appropriate holes.  It takes a while, and it's a rare occurrance, but it has and does happen.

Right now Donovan is in a major destroyer phase.  He loves to take apart the Sesame Street floor puzzle.  I swear, Mike built it at least 4 times today, and Donovan took it apart every time.  He loves to knock / drop everything on the floor.  And he is a big fan of ripping paper.  We have to keep the paper books away from him. Silly pooka.

But this is not meant to be a milestone list, even though my baby boo has accomplished so much.  It's meant to be an expression of my love for my boo.  He is such a sweet baboo.  He just loves to cuddle.  When I pick him up he usually does one of two things.  One is to bend his knees and open his legs, so he can press his body super close to mind.  The other is to drape his head on my shoulder.  Both are awesome.  Sometimes he combines the two in a super-clingy cuddle maneuver.  That is the BEST!

Parenting two is hard, though.  I feel that I have disadvantaged him in so many ways.  Jocelyn had our full attention.  I remember so vividly how I would nurse her to sleep and sing her songs while Mike sat on the bean bag chair in her room and just hang out with us.  We would take turns walking her when she couldn't sleep.  Now we split bedtime duty, and I nurse him while Mike reads to Jocelyn, and then he walks Donovan while I read to Jocelyn.  Our attention is always split.  And we are just that much more tired, so we have less to give overall, and now it's split between two.  But what he lacks in one-on-one time he gets back in experience.  We are not fumbling our way through it as much.  I wouldn't say that I am a professional when it comes to raising babies, but I am certainly better at it. 

One thing that he has taught me, though, is that my capacity for love is seemingly infinite.  When I had Jocelyn, I was amazed at how much I was in love with her.  I couldn't imagine loving anybody as  much.  And then Donovan came along, and I realize that I can love him just as much, and I can love them both that much more.  I also realize how well I can do on so little sleep.  I am exhausted.  And I have never been as sick as I have been this past year.  But I can do it.  I can manage.  I might not look my best, I might be sicker, and I might have more trouble losing the weight thanks to sleepy hormones making me hold onto fat (and making me think I'm hungrier than I am... artificial energy!).  But I manage it. 

Of course, once we are through the daycare transition to the toddler room, and through this next round of teeth, it's time to work on getting him to sleep through the night.  Once he is weaned off of his morning nursing, it will be much easier.  Right now he wakes up at 5-something with a hungry tummy.  But one thing at a time. 

Back to the mommy part, though.  Thank you, Donovan, for letting me be your mommy.  I love you so much more than you will ever know. 

Christmas Cookies

I know I am a week behind in blogging about Jocelyn, but it's been so hard to sit down and write anything.  I like to keep these blog posts positive overall, and things have been pretty negative around here.  We have been sick a whole lot, so nobody is feeling great.  And as a result, we have all been cranky.  Add to that the fact that Jocelyn is going through some major developmental changes, and you get a lot of unpleasantness.

Over Christmas, Jocelyn decided that she was above saying 'Thank You" for her gifts.  She absolutely refused.  It was like all of the manners lessons we taught her at home and they reinforced at daycare were out the window.  She wanted presents, she wanted to play with things, but she didn't want to say thank you for them.  So our rule was that if she didn't thank the giver, then she couldn't play with the toy.  It worked for a little bit, but not every time or for every gift.  Which really only hurts the giver, because they got Jocelyn a gift to enjoy and it sucks if she doesn't get to enjoy it.  We then made a rule that if she didn't say thank you then no Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes.  And then she went days without watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, rather than relenting her position on Thank You's.

Potty Training has also pretty much stopped.  Once in a great while I can convince her to sit on the potty, but in general she has lost interest 100%.  So I bought a book on-line today.  It's called Diaper Free by Age 3.  A friend of mine had success with that book, and got their not-quite-two-year-old potty trained.  So we will see.  Hopefully a good incentive / reward structure will be effective.

That is not the only place she is reverting.  She will often not use her words, and instead point and grunt.  I think that she sees Donovan doing that, and sees the attention that he gets, so she does it too.  She also makes a bee line for the nursing chair when I say I am going to nurse Donovan, and wants to be held by whoever is holding him.  So it has been hard. 

But beyond that, she still amazes me every day.  We went to the mall the other day, mostly to play at the playground.  But we did go to the toy store to get a birthday present for Donovan.  When we got to the bookcase, she exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, look at all these books!"  I nearly died!  It was full of cute!  She can do so much, too.  We went to a bounce house birthday party where there were big, bouncy obstacles.  She was scared to do anything alone, but she was able to do all of it. I didn't have to help her, but she wanted me by her side.  She was such a great climber, and had so much fun sliding down the bouncers.

And outside of the no thank yous at Christmas, she was very cute with everything about it.  She had a blast making and decorating cookies for Santa. The icing and the sprinkles were way overdone, it was so funny!  We did the place and bake cookies, so she was able to help out by putting the cookies onto the cookie sheet.  And then on Christmas Eve, she put a few cookies onto a plate and a cup of milk out by the tree for Santa.  She loved listening to Christmas songs, and having us sing them to her.  She also wanted to hear Santa and reindeer stories.  It was really sweet!  

Poor boo did have some drama over the holidays, though.  She got sick, spiked a very high fever, and actually wound up in the ER on Christmas night.  She was fine, they gave her mega doses of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, and declared it was just a virus.  But since her fever neared 104, I'm glad we brought her in.  Donovan started it a few days later, and we started treating the fever immediately rather than waiting until it got bad.  

She is quite the fashion plate, too.  She is very picky about what she wants to wear, and has a fun sense of style.  She likes to mix patterns and dress in layers - tank tops over long sleeved shirts, dresses over pants, etc.   It's adorable.  Unfortunately, brushing and washing her hair is still a chore.  But she always looks cute, even with messy hair :-P. 

So it's not all bad.  In fact, it's much more good than bad.  It's just hard to remember that when we all have the flu (again).  

Donovan's first Christmas

I cannot believe that my little guy is 11 months old now.  Wow!  And this past month has been a big one.  We went on vacation and Donovan had his first Christmas.  He didn’t really get the opening presents part much, but he did enjoy ripping (and eating) paper.  So there was that.  He also enjoyed his toys very much.  And Jocelyn’s toys.  And she enjoyed his toys.  Yes, it’s a double-edged sword having kids who are so close in age.  On one hand, they enjoy the same toys.  On the other, they fight over said toys.

His favorite toy had to be his soccer ball. It is a squishy ball, small enough for his stocking, and cost me $1 at Target.  It was a last-minute add.  Wouldn’t you know that it was the best dollar I spent?  He just adores it.  Holds it, chews on it, walks around with it, etc.  Just loves it.

Oh, you read that right… I said he walks around with it.  In that he walks.  And not just a few steps, spanning a few feet.  No, Donovan can actually walk.  He walks around the house.  He can go from room to room and back again without stumbling, falling, stopping, etc.  He still does the whole baby waddle /  toddle, but he is really quite competent.  He can almost stand up without pulling up on something.  He does fall down a lot – usually just onto his butt.  But sometimes he flips somehow and gets a bit more hurt than that.  But he is getting the hang of it.  And he is getting really good at chasing Jocelyn around and generally annoying her.  Baby brothers are SO annoying!

His vocabulary is also increasing.  In addition to Mama, Dada and Cat, he now says ball (ba, baw, bow… he tries lots of different ways), balloon (also ba, with a gesture toward the balloon) and bye bye (ba ba, with a wave).  I am pretty sure he tried saying Jocelyn and a few other things that are escaping me at the moment.  He ‘sings’ too.  We have these musical books, and when we play the sounds he sings ‘ah ah ah.’  He also makes a clicky, tsk sort of sound for when he is hungry.  He also claps a lot, and can give high fives.  And he is the smiliest little guy there ever was J. 

The past month, including our vacation, was sort of a rough go from a health standpoint, though.  First of all, Donovan got the flu!  It wasn’t his fault, I had it first… probably picked it up on the airplane back from Topeka.  He was on Tamiflu into the start of our vacation, and so was Jocelyn as a preventative. Which was awful.  Then he sprouted his 8^th tooth while we were on vacation.  Which meant that he used my nipples as a teething ring a few too many times, and I am still trying to recover from it.  Then he spiked a fever later on, but we started to treat it much earlier than you are supposed to in order to keep it under control (since Jocelyn had just gone through it and it spiked really high and was hard to control).  Now that we are back from vacation, he is super clingy and seems generally down.  I think he misses all the people, or maybe he is still just off.

But in more fun news, we did have an early first birthday party for him while we were there.  He was a champ and walked around / played with people for most of the time.  He ate his cupcake like a champ, and was not nearly as messy as I would have expected.  His cake was Elmo, but we did not let him have any since there is too much dairy, eggs, etc.  He passed out for a nap right about the end-time (which, of course, nobody left at, so we didn’t get to enjoy his nap at all!).  We are also in the throes of planning his real first birthday party, which is coming up quickly, which is crazy. 

I can’t believe that his first year is almost up.  My big boy!