Summer '09 Wrap Up

September 13, 2009: Well the school year has begun and we are in yet another new home. We moved into a dorm on campus and are slowly getting settled. The girls have had a great summer and have both grown and changed. Casey just seems so big to me at times and has become so capable. It is hard for me to remember she is only two sometimes as I feel like I can treat her like a 7 year old. She has done fantastically with toilet training. At this point she only wears a diaper in her bed at night. For the last two weeks she has been napping in her big girl underwear and had only one accident. She has done a really good job with it! Her speaking has always been pretty good and she has continued with that, as her sentence structure has really come together over the summer. She shocks us with the things that come out of her mouth sometimes.
Julia's last check up was over 6 weeks ago but at her 9 month one she weighed 16+ pounds, so she continues to gain weight steadily and has gotten herself up to the 13th percentile after falling to the 1st percentile just 3 1/2 months ago. She grew 2 inches in the last 2 1/2 months as well and is in the 44th %ile for height. We are very happy she is well and on a good growth curve now. She started crawling on her 9 month birthday exactly. For a week or two it was a very herky jerky crawl and she rarely let her knees touch the floor, but now she is doing a much more standard crawl. She started pulling up on things about the same time as she began crawling and really loves it. She is doing her version of a wave. There is no wave to it really but she just holds her hand up still to face you.
Some pictures from the rest of the summer....

Summer '09 Part 1

July 21, 2009: So far this summer we have spent most of our time going back and forth visiting our parents in Boston and Greenwich. When we are in Greenwich we spend most of our time in the pool, and we have taken a trip to the Bronx Zoo and a few trips to the beach. Casey is getting better and better at swimming, just last week she started using her arms and can propel herself faster and farther under water than she could before. On the 4th of July we took the girls to Belle Haven and they went in a parade in a decorated wagon.

Casey jumped off the diving board into the pool where James was waiting. She did it 4 times and it was so funny.

That afternoon the club had a party with a jumping castle, pony rides and a petting zoo. Casey loved everything and went for a ride on both ponies. Julia loved the animals in the petting zoo and was going nuts over the baby goat.






In Boston we have taken several trips around the city.


We took the girls to the Bunker Hill Monument, the Tall Ships, on a ferry ride, to see the seals at the aquarium, in all the fountains of the new greenway in Boston, in the public gardens to ride the swan boats and see the scenes from 'Make Way for Ducklings'.


Casey has started to show some signs of being a two year old. She is more whiney and defiant than she has ever been. Right now she is sick with some summer virus and that makes it even worse. She is still napping well and sleeps pretty well at night. She cries out during the night some times but we just let her work thru it on her own. She is getting so big it amazes me to look at her. Time flies! She is getting much better with her potty training. She will never have an accident if we are inside and she is naked and now she does not want to poop in her diaper. So the other day we went and got her "big girl underwear". She wore it for about 2 hours without peeing then when she got home and was near the bathroom she peed in them. So we're still working on it but progress is being made.
Julia is doing great too. She is on two naps still, an hour in the am and an hour and a half or so in the pm. In the last week she suddenly refused to eat any baby food out of a jar so she is testing the waters with real food. We've given her some ham, turkey and chicken, crackers, American cheese, grapes, nectarine, whole wheat bagels. She does pretty well with everything. She has been in the pool a few times and seems to like it.


She is clapping her hands a bit. When we clap or sing patty cake she will clap. She went thru a stage where she would shake her head very quickly from side to side when you did. I would shake mine then she would copy over and over again. It was always very funny. She loves to put her blanket right on her face when she is sleeping. Some times I will go in and pull it off her face but it always ends up back right on top of her head again. When we go in to wake her from a nap or in the morning she is so funny and cute. She is so happy to see us and in her excitement she pulls her blanky over her face and hides, then pulls it off smiling and laughing. She also lifts her legs up into the air and slams them down onto the crib mattress out of excitement. She is not crawling yet but is getting much more comfortable on her stomach and scoots around in circles but cannot move forward. Sometimes when she is up on her arms she pushes herself backwards. She is slowly learning to get up on her knees but progress is slow. Se goes in for a check up in a week so I will report weight, etc then.

Julia News

June 11, 2009: The last week or so has been full of changes for Julia. She is sleeping in a crib now (she has been so small that she still fits just fine in her bassinet). She also got her first two teeth, one about 10 days ago and the second one today. She had a few rough nights due to teething. One night was particularly bad as she cried a little bit almost every hour of the night. Julia also rolled over from her back to belly for the first time on Monday. She did it about 4 times and is not a baby who is suddenly rolling all over the place but we are happy she at least can do it now. She is also sitting up on her own now.

She gets stronger and stronger at it every day. For awhile she was able to sit up but would fall over if she leaned left, right or back. Now she is much stronger and I am pretty comfortable leaving her in the sitting up position as long as she in on something sort of soft. In general she is just full of beans, likes to jump a bit in her jumping chair and is getting very wiggly sometimes. It is so fun to see all these positive developments in her after such a hard beginning.

A Rough Patch For Casey

June 8, 2009: Man, it has been a rough few days here at our house. Casey has been having a string of really bad luck in terms of getting hurt. They are all small injuries but here is a roll call of the bumps and bruises on her body at this moment...
Two different pinches on her finger tips, one from a clip and one from the hinge of a jewelry box.
One pinch mark on her cheek from the clip her pacifier is attached to.
A bruised toe from dropping a small dumb bell on it.
A scraped elbow from a big wipe out on the dirt road.
Scraped knee from any number of falls.
A cut lip from falling off her fort and biting her lip.
An egg on her forehead from falling off the bed.
And here is the real kicker... cuts on her wrist and chest from getting bitten by a horse! We went to feed these horses and donkeys in a field in Greenwich on Sunday. We had fed them a cut up apple and afterwards Casey was standing on a stone wall with James holding her. Seemingly out of nowhere the horse nipped at Casey. It caught James's finger, Casey's wrist and her chest. It was terrifying, but she is OK and none of the cuts were serious at all. She may not want to go see any horses any time soon, but we are lucky that that is the only "scar" she'll have. Here is a picture from moments before the biting incident and one of her very first ice cream cone. We decided to treat her to a special ice cream after the horse bite.

Spring News Update

May 26, 2009: I have been a bit delinquent with the blog in light of that fact that so much has happened lately. Biggest news is that Casey celebrated her second birthday almost on month ago. We had a party with the girl son James's hockey team and also made her a cake on her real birthday.

She nibbled on it each time but is certainly not a cake lover! Seemingly overnight Casey realized she should start doing some whining and saying "NO" to us so that she did not miss out on any time in her terrible twos. She is still a very nice little girl, she is just very independent and strong willed. She has started using her little toilet and having a lot of success with it. When we are home in the house we keep her naked on the bottom half and if she is naked she will now always use the toilet for both "pee pee" and "poop poop". We made a big chart on the wall where she gets to put stickers if she uses the toilet. She went to the doctor and weighed about 23.5 pounds which is the 10th percentile and was in the 56th percentile for height. She is very loving towards Julia which is so nice. She loves being my helper and always wants to get Julia a new diaper or throw the old ones away. She eats pretty well, breakfast is by far her best meal. She will typically eat 3 hard boiled eggs, a pancake, a cup of yogurt, and a bowl full of fruit. Lunch she eats a little less, and dinner hardly anything. Her vocabulary continues to amaze me, besides mixing up "my" and "your" it is like speaking to a normal person. We've loved getting outside in the spring weather. Casey held her first frog recently and also went to her first fair where, much to her parent's delight, she went on a few rides by herself. At bed time now she is always bargining for extra time awake.


















































Now to Julia's update.


I am excited to say that she is a nice, happy normal baby now!! She does not cry anymore and is smiley and so lovable. I cannot even tell you what a relief it is after 5 and a half long months of crying. Once we put her on formula (I only took about 10 days to wean completely) her weight shot up and she became so much happier. I'm sure she was still colicky because in the old days she would cry even right after being fed. But as the colic subsided I think she was hungry too. After having gained only 1 ounce in a month we put her on the scale during Casey's 2 year visit, and in one week of formula she gained a pound and a half! At her 6 month check up which was really like6 and a half months she weighed 13 pounds 14 ounces, so in one month had gained 2 pounds 10 ounces. She is back on the growth charts and her weight is now 7th percentile. All her growth curves took a huge turn back onto the charts so we were so relieved that nothing was wrong with her. Not to mention how amazing it has been that she is no longer so miserable and crying. Our doctor continues to tell us she is fine developmentally. She is talking quite a bit. She says 'baba' and this weekend added 'da da' to her repertoire. She still loves to growl and also likes dong raspberries. She is not doing anything that Casey was doing but I just have to keep reminding myself how Casey was doing stuff way ahead of her time. Julia has only rolled over from her back to belly one or two times. She can do the other way just fine. She sits up pretty well, but definitely not on her own, if she leans any direction she would topple over. All in good time, for now we are just happy that she is healthy and happy. She was baptised a week ago and was a very good girl for it. Her God parents are Mark and Jen. We had it done here in Watertown and all our families we re able to come.



As for James and I things are going well. He is in the final push, and school will be completely finished in about 2 weeks. We are still waiting to hear where we will be living next year and should be finding out fairly soon. Unfortunately we have to move out of our house because it belongs to a faculty member who was on sabbatical this year. Most likely we will be moving into a dorm apartment but we are just waiting to hear which one. I took a road trip to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago with Robin to see Game 3 of the Penguins/Capitals game and got to meet Frankie Adams who was just born the day before.


Trying to get our summer plans figured out too. James will have to work a few hockey camps and do some recruiting and we hope to take some real vacation time.

JJ The Tiny

April 23, 2009: Julia had her 5 month check up today ( a few weeks late). She is doing fine developmentally although I had been worried she was behind. I am just comparing her to Casey who did everything extremely early so I was worried about Julia but the doctor assured me she is just fine. The problem however is not in her developmental milestones but in her size. She gained only 1 ounce in the past month which has her in only the 1st percentile for weight. Her height has also plateaued. The doctor said that if she does not gain weight by her next check up a month from now then we will have to run some tests on her thyroid and growth hormone levels to be sure that everything is OK. I am hopeful that she is just a petite baby like Casey was and that she will find her own growth curve eventually. She has been on solid food for a few weeks now, eating rice cereal in the morning and cereal and veggies at night. Today I gave her a bottle of formula for the first time. She has never had a bottle so it was a difficult adjustment for her but she eventually took it. I am going to start weaning her off of breast feeding and onto formula sooner than planned in the hopes that it will help her gain weight. Besides that, she is doing well. She does this new thing where she likes to growl all the time. We find it hilarious. She is sleeping better, usually from 7pm-7am with one feeding around 4am. She naps at 9 am and 1pm for anywhere from an hour to two hours. Her stamina to stay awake and content is getting better, although she still does not like to be left to entertain herself in the excersaucer, or on the floor with toys, she really prefers to be held. I think that is a result of the 4 and a half months with colic where she was held to be soothed for so long. Anyways, overall she is doing much better but now we must focus on getting her to gain weight.

Easter & First Hair Cut

April 17, 2009: Here are some pictures from Easter. We went down to Mark and Jen's house for breakfast and an Easter egg hunt. Jen also gave Casey her first haircut!

Spring Break

March 30, 2009: Today is the last day of spring break. We had a great trip to Florida.

The girls both slept and napped very well down there which was great. Casey is like a fish in the pool. All she wants to do is go under over and over again.

She just dives off the steps and lays face down. We're trying to teach her to get herself to the edge of the pool by kicking and reaching for the side. It is a mixed blessing that she is so comfortable in the pool. It makes it a lot of fun but you cannot turn your head on her for one second. We had her going under to get pool toys at the bottom of the steps, jumping off the side, doing a cannon ball when we throw her and lots of fun stuff. Check out the little video clip below here...




She is starting to exhibit a sense of humor and likes to play this game with James where she says two certain words incorrectly so that he will correct her. Out of the blue she'll say to him "sleep SLACK" and he'll teasingly say back, "no, no, no sleep SACK" (a sleep sack for those w/o kids is like a wearable blanket they sleep in). After going back and forth on that word for a minute she'll say "back wheels" and he'll correct her with "backwards". She does it intentionally to get a rise out of James and she thinks it is hilarious. The third of her two-year molars has just popped thru her gum so we are almost in the clear in terms of teething for Casey. Her last one will probably come in near when Julia's first does. While we were in Florida Casey had her first bite of ice cream. She licked her lips, and softly said 'that's good'. It was so cute.


Julia had her 4 month check up (which was really at 4 1/2 months of age) a few weeks ago and weighed only 11 pounds 3 ounces which is just the 4th percentile for weight. She's around the 50th percentile for height. Just like with Casey the doctor was not concerned about her weight, it just seems that we grow 'em long and lean. We have been doing some sleep training on Julia to try and make some improvements in her sleeping habits. About three weeks ago we just lay her down in her crib at 7 pm and let her cry. She is usually pretty good about going to bed at 7pm b/c she is pretty tired by then. The first night she cried for a total of 3 hours in the middle of the night. The second night it was only 50 minutes and continues to get better. I only go in now to feed her if it has been 4 hours since her last feeding. So as of now nights go like this, asleep at 7pm, feed usually around 11 pm and 3 am and then up at 7am. Most nights she goes right back to sleep and there is little or no crying in between feeds. Right now she is sick with a cough and very congested so it has not been great. I've stopped helping get her to sleep for her naps too and just let her lay in her crib and figure it out. Usually she cries for a maximum of 15 minutes or so before getting to sleep. Despite the improvements in her sleeping habits she is still a very difficult and high maintenance baby. She really cries a lot still and requires so much of my attention. She pretty much wants to be held all the time. We are starting her on solid food again today. We had tried it earlier when the doctor advised it for her reflux but only did that for a few days. Today we are starting up for real with some thicker rice cereal and we'll try some veggies tonight. Today she was leaning in for the cereal and seemed anxious for the next bite.

Julia still is not rolling over. She has done it a few times from her belly to her back but not the other way. She loves grabbing her toes now and if I recall from Casey that might mean she'll use her legs to swing into a roll over before too long. She has also started drooling a lot and putting her fingers in her mouth so I think she is starting to teethe. Julia also discovered her thumb and is officially a thumb sucker. I was not thrilled b/c it will be a habit I have to break later on, but with this kid I will take any help I can get, and she can find her thumb in the middle of the night without me having to go in and give her the paci.

Baby J

March 1, 2009: So all of the tests on Julia came back negative. She is therefor off of her reflux medication and now we just have to wait it out. Part of me wanted a diagnosis so that we had something concrete to treat however I guess this is better. Our pediatrician said he would rather observe her for a few more weeks rather than subject her to more testing at this point. He firmly believes we just have a fussy baby and that there is not some serious underlying problem that we are overlooking. Around four months a lot of fussy babies tend to turn a corner for the better, so if she remains very fussy long after that point then we will move on to blood work. When I suggested taking her to a chiropractor her was supportive of it. It is a method I have read about a lot in helping colicky babies. At this point we'll try anything!
Another thing on Casey...right now she loves imitating James's morning routines in the bathroom. She always wants to use "armpit" which is deodorant. We gave her an old one of ours that has nothing left in it to use. She also gets up on the toilet, leans over to the sink to turn to the water on, and puts water in her hair like James does sometimes. We find it very funny. Casey still loves hockey and wants us to take her skating all the time. Here is a shot of her from this week, she gets on the ice with James at the end of practice. She loves the girls on his team and they think she is adorable too. Also there is a picture of Julia with a mean scratch she gave herself with her fingernail. Delinquent mom didn't get to them in time.

3 Month Check Plus Other Stuff

February 24, 2009: Last week we took Julia in for her 3 month visit, which was actually when she was 3 1/2 months old. Normally I don't know if you do a 3 month visit but we are spacing her shots out so we go in every month. She weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces which is the 12th percentile and was 23.75 inches long which is 47th percentile. Another peanut! My biggest concern to discuss with the doctor was how bad her "colic" was and how our nights had been getting worse instead of better. While we were in Florida I was up every hour with her, it was brutal. He now thinks it sounds more like reflux than colic so he switched her to a new medication and has her started on rice cereal early to settle things in her stomach. I feel so terribly that I have been listening to her cry for so long under the assumption that it was colic and waiting for her to grow out of it when I could have been doing something for her all along. Anyways, after 4 days on the new meds and no noticeable improvement I called again and said we need to do something more aggressive. So tomorrow morning we are headed to the children's hospital in Hartford for a barium swallow test which will confirm if it is in fact reflux and allow her to begin a stronger medication. So I feel good that we are hopefully on the right track towards helping her be a happier baby and making life easier for the rest of us because it has been a long four months. More to come on this subject after tomorrow's trip.

Casey is still great. Here are some tid bits on what she has been up to lately: When I give her a snack I will put goldfish in a bowl and she loves transferring them to other places and/or receptacles. For instance, she will carry them one by one and drop them into the little hood compartment of her plastic car. Then for days she has a secret little stash. Her two year molars are breaking thru her gums on the bottom set, no sign of the top ones yet. She is into eating sandwiches now instead of just ham or turkey on the plate. Her favorite sandwich is turkey and jelly. Who wouldn't love that combo?!

A little update

January 29, 2009: Casey turns 21 months old tomorrow. Casey's newest thing is "I do it myself". She's putting her socks on, tries to get her pants on, her boots on, her hat and mittens on. It is funny and definitely consistent with her strong, independent personality. Sometimes it is helpful when she can do something herself, but sometimes it just makes the process longer.

One thing I love about Casey is when she has woken up from a nap but is still sleepy she hooks her thumb into the edge of her blanket and rubs it on her other palm or her feet, arm, neck or cheek. It is very cute. She is in such a great time of her life. She can be a handful, but I worship her.

The fall season for her monkey business class ended last week. We decided not to sign up for the spring session and are going to try out a swim class instead. This morning we went to the first one and it was a riot. It is in a hotel pool and there are 4 other moms and daughters in the class. The teacher is great and sings songs and plays games with the kids that encourage them to put their faces in the water, blow bubbles, lay on their backs, etc. Casey seemed to really enjoy her self and so did I. We have a fun little weekly schedule set up right now. On Mondays and Wednesdays a group of moms at Taft bring our kids up to the gym and we put the kids in a squash court. We take turns working out and watching the kids, its fun for them and nice for us to get a chance to work out. Tuesdays the moms at Taft started a little music class. We figured why do we need to pay someone else to tell our toddlers to shake this, or sing itsy bitsy spider when we can do it. And now Thursdays we go to swim class.

Julia is doing well I guess. I cannot believe she is 12 weeks already. Colic is a tough time to go through. She really has very little routine and there is so little time in her cycles to get much interactions and developmental stuff in. I used to spend so much time with Casey hanging toys in front of her, doing tummy time and all sorts of things. With Julia it is just eating, sleeping, and crying (or trying to keep her from crying). There are getting to be more and more moments when she is happy so hopefully we are on some path towards the end of colic. I really think it will make things so much easier when she settles down and gets herself into some sort of routine. She is smiling a lot more and makes cute cooing sounds during her happy times. She is really into staring at her hands and also sucking on them. She has started raising her head up like she is doing crunches. She has started batting at the animals that swing above her head on the activity mat and will reach out to grab toys a little too. At my parents house she loved the floral print on the couch and would reach out and scratch the cushions. We spent the weekend in Greenwich because I was sick with mastitis and our heat was out on Saturday morning (a bad combo considering I was shaking to death b/c of my fever).
People always ask if she looks like Casey and I don't know the answer. I dug up a picture from when Casey was about 12 weeks. I see similarities but Julia definitely has her own look. You can decide for yourself...

2 Month Check Up

January 8, 2009: Julia had her two month check up today. She weighed 10 pounds 3 ounces. I didn't even get the chance to ask what percentile that is. Normally I might have called the office to ask them, but since I talked to them on the phone nearly everyday over Christmas break I felt I shouldn't call anymore :) Julia is doing fine, but we need to do more tummy time with her. He said her head is getting a teeny bit flat in the back. Not a problem yet, but that we need to watch for it. I could have seen that coming. Julia gets hardly any tummy time. She is so fussy all the time and she hates being on her belly, so with that combo it is hard to find an appropriate time to put her down.

A Crazy Month

January 7, 2008: Poor Julia, she is already a classic, neglected second child. She has practically no photos, video footage, no baby book, rarely gets a bath and no regular blog action. The Last month has been very rough. The girls have been sick constantly for 5 or 6 weeks now. It started on Nov 22nd with Casey vomiting/stomach bug for a week, then a cold, then pneumonia, then Julia got RSV, then Casey went back for a second round of stomach bug which was much worse because she became so weak. On Christmas morning she was like a drunk doe bumping into walls when she was walking on her weak little twig legs. Poor thing. Anyways, it is now 2009 and I think (fingers crossed) that we are healthy. Julia has a slight sniffle. If this were my first child I would probably be at the emergency room but now I don't even think twice about a little cold.
Julia has grown a lot. I will find out exactly how much tomorrow when she goes in for her 2 month check up. We have come to realize she is a colicky baby, which is just one more thing to throw into the mix of having two kids under two. Just when you get Casey down to bed at night and feel like you survived another day and get ready to put your feet up Julia kicks into high gear with crying. It peaked at Christmas with two full days of nearly inconsolable crying. We took her to the doctor in Boston to make sure nothing was wrong and thats when they uttered the word colic. Luckily it did seem to get a little better and most babies get rid of it by 3 months so hopefully only a few more weeks to go. She has gotten better though and has definitely increased her awake and content times. She has really started smiling and interacting with us which is great. I am constantly comparing her to Casey and she is not where Casey was developmentally at this stage. I think Casey rolled over for the first time at this age and Julia is not close to doing things like that. It is hard not to compare your kids but everyone is different and we just need to get used to that. Also Casey set the bar pretty high because she did do (and continues to do) a lot of things very early. Sleep has been so so with Julia. Some nights are great, she will go to sleep between 10-11pm and wake up between 4-5am, then go back down until 7 or 8. But some nights are not so good, she will wake at 2am to eat and then take an hour and a half to get back to sleep. Those nights are not fun. She still spits up quite a lot so I will have to ask the doctor about that tomorrow.

Casey is going thru a bit of a rough patch right now. I think it has been sort of a perfect storm of events on her life. With her continued sickness, Julia's arrival, being cooped up in the house due to Julia or the weather, and vacations disrupting her routine. She has been acting very cranky and I am nervous it is the start of the terrible two's. She whines a lot more than she used to. My parents keep telling me it is because she was sick for so long that it took a huge toll on her. So I am hoping they are right and this will go away soon. Besides a little more whininess, Casey is still a riot. She loves singing songs and seems to have an amazing ability to memorize lyrics. She knows her alphabet, twinkle twinkle, all the songs on this Raffi cd we have, row row row your boat, and a bunch more. She continues to be very nice to her sister.

We spent a week in Boston over Christmas, then a day in Greenwich. We came back to Taft while James did some recruiting for a few days and then headed to Florida for a few days. Florida was nice but Casey was still sick and cranky and not as fun as we would have hoped. Anyhow, we are back at Taft now and starting to get back into a routine. Now that Julia is two months old she can go out in public more (the first two months are crucial for keeping them well), so we have been to the dining hall for lunch. People are still bringing us dinners as baby gifts every other night so that has been helpful. As for me, I am hanging in there. I have moments where I can manage things well and moments where it is stressful and exhausting. The worst part for me is feeling like I can't give either girl enough of me. If I am paying attention to Casey and giving her what she wants (someone to play with constantly and romp around on the floor with) then I am ignoring Julia. But when Julia needs me, for instance this morning she was crying a lot and needed to be held a lot. I would start a game or book with Casey and need to say, 'sorry, I need to pick up your sister'. Julia does not get a fraction of the attention that Casey got at this age and that worries me as a mom, but as James says, you just have to do your best for them and let the chips fall as they may.

Here are a ton of pix from December, Christmas, Florida, etc.