Summer-Second Half

August 28, 2011: We had a great summer in Scituate. I can't stand the feeling when the final weeks are upon us and it becomes a count down to going back to school. Anyways, here is a little recap of our summer and what the kids have going on. In July we went to Martha's Vineyard for a week with Donna and Lou and Geoff and Heather.


The girls had fun playing with their grandparents and cousins. They jumped off the dock this year and Casey went snorkeling with James for the first time.






She got her own Mask and snorkel, pink of course! While back in Boston we took a few day trips into Boston to visit Grandad at his office, run in the fountains, & ride the carousel. We went to the franklin Park Zoo one day too. The girls went to camp for a few days in August. This was JJ's first drop off experience and she handled it well. I think it helped that Casey was there with her. It seemed from their summaries after camp that they hung out together a lot. We had fun at the beach, doing the slip n slide, going to the farmers markets and dancing to bands. Molly was baptised in August and we had a fun weekend. Schutty was in town for the weekend and we went out on lobster boat with the kids. A friend Brian took us on his boat and showed the girls how to pull a trawl and what it was like when there were lobsters in there. We had a huge one and a tiny one.



They loved, and the adults did too. We had lobsters for dinner that night, which was awesome. One of my favorite memories of the summer is sitting on the porch having a nice dinner and wine with friends and chatting into the night. We were fortunate enough to get to do this a few times with visits from very good friends. We wrapped the summer up with a bang with Hurricane Irene. We had already packed the car and cleaned the house for our renters when we found out that school was canceled for the girls, so we headed to Boston to ride it out with the Duvals. We took the girls to the beach in South Boston and saw some kite surfers getting tons of speed and air on jumps which was really cool. When we returned home to Taft on Monday the girls were so excited to get here, it was nice.


Molly has gotten so many teeth this summer and is also walking around a lot. Since she has gotten mobile she is really more interested in what casey and Julia are doing. She wants to follow them around and get involved with what they are doing. She does not say much..Mama and dada, ball and a sound like balloon. She waves and signs for milk and more. She just started saying nigh-nigh and waving when we are leaving to put her to bed.


Casey is really going through somewhat of a nightmare stage in my mind. She can be wonderful, but also yells at JJ so much, and has started whining and talking back. Sometimes I feel like we have a teenager 10 years too soon. She learned to whistle and snap this summer, also did her first cannon ball. She worked on riding a bike with no training wheels and did not master it but is on her way. She rode a few waves on the boogey board this summer, but does not stick with it because the water is too cold. She is really great with Molly. She takes care of her and entertains her. When I go into their room in the morning Casey has crawled into Mollys pack n play and is laying in there talking to her.


Julia is talking a lot more. She corrected her "f" word speech problem and can successfully pronounce words like florida now. She is as wild as ever. Half the time she is rebellious and stubborn, refusing to listen to us. Other times she is loving, shares well and is so adorable and loveable.

Our Scare With Molly

July 20, 2011:

In mid June, two weeks prior to her first birthday, we started to notice a strange head shaking behavior that Molly was doing. It happened, or we noticed it, usually while we were at the table eating a meal, and she was buckled into her booster seat. She would be acting totally normally and then suddenly, her head would shake from side to side and her eyes would sort of roll back. Then it would stop and she would act as if nothing had happened. There were days when she would never do it, and days when it would seem to happen endlessly during meals. As time went on the behavior seeped into more and more of her day beyond the table. Here is a very short video clip example of the head movement here.



As this behavior continued and we took note of it more and more we started to film it and called our pediatrician. He was concerned about its seemingly involuntary nature as well as how often it was happening. Whenever you can provide video it means it is happening enough that you can easily capture it. We had a MRI scheduled for 2 and a half weeks away and would meet with neurologists at that time. This behavior continued and continued and when my emotions boiled over we decided we had to take action sooner than waiting for that appointment. Our pediatrician told us that this head shaking was either absolutely nothing but some silly behavioral thing she latched on to doing, or else something very serious, such as a mass in her brain or epilepsy. When I couldn't take the waiting any longer our pediatrician suggested we get a cat scan to rule out a mass, and the easiest way would be just to go to the ER at Boston Children's (since we were close in Scituate). We met with a team of neurologists there and she checked out very healthy, but they agreed upon seeing the video that it was strange behavior, and nothing that they had seen before. She did not exhibit signs of having a mass, such as pressure behind the eyes or swelling. She had no loss of motor skills and no vomiting (all signs we had to look out for). We had doctors coming in non stop to look at the video, "I hear you have an interesting video, we're all taking bets as to what this is, etc" She had an EEG done and it came back normal, so we were able to rule out seizures. They basically said we had to wait for the MRI and go from there. We waited ten more days and finally had the MRI. It was an emotional day for me as I was very anxious and the build up was tremendous. We got there around 7:45am, Molly was not allowed to eat anything since her bottle the night before. I thought this was going to be a nightmare as she often wakes up asking for her bottle. But she was relatively good about it and easily distracted by the scene at the hospital. She went back to the MRI area and had her vitals done and we did some paperwork. Picture here...


When it was time I took her back and we were unable to find a vein easily for her IV because she was resisting and wiggling. So we had to put her to sleep using gas and then find a vein for the IV to keep her sedated. As the doctor came from behind with the gas mask, I held her hands and watched her fall asleep. It was tough to take, and with my emotions brimming over anyways, it was not long before I was crying. Once asleep I laid her on the MRI table, gave her a kiss, and had to leave. We had to wait about an hour and 15 minutes and they called us back to recovery. She was loopy but just waking up. I held her and we stayed there to be monitored for about 45 minutes. She ate some crackers and drank some juice and then we were cleared to go home. As I was alone to drive the two hours back to Scituate, I turned her seat around so I could see her easily and she slept the whole way. We had to watch her carefully as she was working the sedation drugs out of her system that day. She was not as coordinated and more sleepy. It was a difficult day waiting for the results. Around 5pm we got the news that her MRI was normal. The biggest relief I have had in my time as a parent! So now we are in a wait and see mode. The biggest life threatening issues have been ruled out and chances are that this is just a behavioral thing she is doing. We will watch her carefully, meet with neurologists in the Fall and go from there. We feel very fortunate to come out of the Children's hospitals in Boston and Hartford with nothing but good news. You count your blessings when you leave those places. These are hard things to go through with your children but we have been lucky to come out on the winning end this time around. Thank God.

Happy Birthday Molly

June 29, 2011: My last baby is 1!!

Molly has been a busy little baby. She took her first steps on June 1st at my parents house when we were not there. The next day James saw her take what we thought we her first steps until Casey said, no she walked yesterday at Lala and Eddies. Molly is going through a period of being very attached to me. If someone tries to take her from me to hold her she will turn away and grab my shoulder for dear life. As this summer has gone on though it seems to be lessening, she at least is very attached to James now as well. In early June Molly started getting more and more personality. She is laughing more and more. She loves pointing at things that she notices; birds, flags or anything. When she is sitting in her chair to eat, if she sees James walk by through a window she points at him and so excitedly waves and says Dada. The week right before she turned one Molly started walking much more than just a few wobbly steps. She learned how to stand up on her own in the middle of the floor and that prompts her to try walking more and more. She's got 6 teeth now, 2 on top and 4 on the bottom. (as of July 10).

End of School Year & Start of Summer

June 27, 2011: This post will be to play catch up...Casey finished her first year of school and loved it. We went to the end of year celebration which was a riot. Here's a shot of Casey with her teacher, Mrs. Pietro.

One day in the late spring Casey went with James to the barber. She sat in the chair and watched while he had his hair cut. She promptly came home, found some scissors, and lopped off her hair in front and gave herself bangs, without knowing what bangs are. I was upset but actually she did a pretty god job. It is funny how it changes the whole look of her face with bangs. Casey has had a funs tart to the summer. She went to a little day camp one week, three mornings.



JJ is so excited to start school in the Fall. She is going to go to the same camp as Casey when she is old enough in August. She has been having a ball at the beach this summer. She has gone in the ocean and jumped off the rocks into the water at the beach.



This summer has been much more relaxing in Scituate since we don't have so much work to do on the house and we don't have a colicky newborn to deal with.

What's Happening

May 16, 2011: I've been so busy or tired with the kids that I forget to blog. I don't like when I forget for too long because too much piles up and I think I forget funny or pertinent things about what the kids are up to.




Molly- she is all over the place. She is crawling fast and loves exploring our apartment. I find her in funny places all the time; in the shower, half way up the kids slide, in my closet chewing on shoes, etc. She pulls up very easily and can cruise a bit from place to place. She can let go and balance standing up for quite awhile. She is waving now and clapping. Her sign language is not quite what I taught her but she is working to communicate. Instead of tapping her finger tips together for "more" she does a little clap. She basically does it for anything, milk too. As soon as she wakes up in the morning or from a nap she will clap and start craning her neck to look around the room for the prepared bottle that she knows is coming. She is eating a lot of table food, a lot meaning quantity, but not variety. She loves turkey, american cheese, bread, bananas, cheerios. But I can't get her to eat many different fruits or any real veggies. All her veggies are the baby food kind right now. She has continued to have ear infections and we went to a specialist at CT ear nose and throat. They say she may be a candidate for tubes but did not want to do them at such a young age. We are hoping that cold season is near its end and hoping she will make it to next winter before we need to do anything drastic like tubes.



JJ- my nut bar. She is as devilish, defiant, yet still incredibly lovable, as ever. She is doing this new thing where she looks at you with her head cocked, eyes looking up at you as wide and round as saucers, and saying something to you in a very serious delivery. I don't know how to capture it on camera but I wish I could. She is talking more and more. She struggles with her F + consonant words. For instance, she pronounces frog like schrog, and floor like schloor. I asked the speech therapist at Casey's school about it to see if I needed to work on anything with her and she said not at all. She said the f Consonant combo is a developmental things and one of the very last to develop. She is just fine and that her jaw will earn to move correctly to straighten that sound out.



Casey- Casey seems to be turning into a little girl, no longer a toddler. She is taller, more mature, and more capable in every sense of the word. She plays differently than Julia now, she is getting an imagination and likes creating more elaborate pretend play games. She can easily play children's board games with us, she rides her bike (with training wheels) well. She taught herself to whistle, she discovered it one day and was so proud. One recent development is that she has been getting scared at night lately. Every few nights she will come into the living room or to our bedroom crying saying she is scared and does not know why. It has resulted in a few night sin our bed, which leaves all of us tired in the morning. Her school had a parents visit day and I had a ball peeking in on her life there. It just cracks me up watching her stand up to say the Pledge of Allegiance, sing her school song, participate in her circle/meeting time and go about her routine. One little thing that cracks me up too is the routines that Casey gets herself into. For instance, sometimes we take a nap together while Molly and JJ are sleeping. She will get into my bed with me, pull James's pillow right up next to mine and while I read my book with a book light she has to read a certain book, "If you give a pig a pancake" and has to have her own book light like mine. It has to be that book and with a book light otherwise she might as well not be in the bed at all. It's so funny to me.

Spring Break 2011

April 3, 2011:



Before I get into our recent spring break trip I want to discuss Molly for a bit. When she turned 8 months old it was like a switch flipped and she was a new baby. She had colic when she was young but once she out grew that she was still a fussy baby. Fussed a lot, very needy, over all not the easy going third child everyone kept promising me. She also spit up A LOT! At 8 months that basically stopped too. The last month has been amazing! She has been so happy, she has been developing rapidly, growing well and it has just been so fun to be around her. She had her 9 month check up a few days ago and weighed 18 pounds 13 ozs and was 29 inches tall. I forgot to ask about percentiles. While we were in Florida, just a few days shy of turning 9 months old, she crawled for the first time. It was an exhausting, jerky looking thing but she made forward progress. She has gotten much more efficient over the last week but it is still not smooth. She loves pulling up on things now too. She is quite strong and sturdy on her feet. A few times in the past few days she has let go and stood alone for a few seconds before falling onto her bottom. She started clapping in the past couple days too. The first day she was waving one of her hands around and then figured out how to get the second one in on the act. It is cute. She loves watching her sisters, she laughs and gets excited watching them dance and play around. She flaps her arms and legs in excitement. She has started tubbing with them without her baby seat in the tub so she is just 'one of the girls now'. They have to be a little more careful of her but it works well and she also gets a huge kick out of splashing around with them.


Molly has gotten more talkative, and babbles quite a lot. She can say Mama and Dada now but not necessarily for us. She seems to understand a bunch of things, if she is in her excersaucer and I say jump she jumps up and down, when she hears music she dances, when we ask for a kiss she will open her mouth and kiss us. It is so cute! She loves eating turkey, bread, some american cheese and cheerios. She still eats baby food too for fruit and veggies.



So now onto our Florida trip.



This year we decided to drive down. We knew it was a crazy proposition with three young kids but it went as well as we could have hoped for. On the way down we left Greenwich at 12:30pm and arrived in Florida at 6:45am. It took 18 hours and 15 minutes exactly. We hit two traffic jams, we let the kids run around for about 30 mins once and stopped three times for gas. The kids slept all thru the night, waking only when we stopped for gas but they went back to sleep each time. We had 14 full days there and the weather was perfect. We swam so much this time, went to the beach, went sea kayaking to see sea turtles, saw manatees, hit the play grounds, rode bikes, went to a carnival, saw lots of sunrises.




It was a great trip. The kids were healthy, slept well, and had a great time. Casey continued to improve her swimming. She can dive to the bottom of the deep end to retrieve pool toys. Julia made some good strides as well. She would put her face down in the water and swim using her arms and legs for one breath of distance.





That is how Casey started out. If we can get some pool time in this summer she will be swimming. Molly was such a happy baby that we were able to put her in the excersaucer under the umbrella next to the pool and we could all swim. She did not like the beach, the touch of the sand seemed to freak her out. All around it was a great trip. On the way home we left at 6pm and arrived in Milford, DE to visit James's grandmother at 8am. The kids were perfect again. We would do the drive again as long as we had enough time down there to make it worth it.

Stuff

February 28, 2011: Molly is 8 months old today. Whoa. She is really trying to crawl but not quite there yet. When she is sitting up and sees something in front of her that she wants she will lunge forward for it until she is on her belly. But once on her belly she uses her arms to push up and them scootches backwards. She can spin around though and get around the room a little, just not in the direction she always wants to go. We have to totally change our habits now and make sure all the little things she can choke on are not on the floor. This is a very difficult task with the other two, especially with Julia not being consciencous at all.

Julia got her first haircut yesterday. I cut way too much off by accident because she would not sit still but in the end I like how it looks. The girls started gymnastics, Julia is in a Mommy and me class so I am in there with her. They both love it and look forward to it. They also do a little dance class here at Taft with the Taft dance teacher.

Casey is getting so good at her coloring. It is funny to watch her go from scribbles to being able to stay inside the lines and work hard on a coloring book page.

Our Creature of The Night

February 7, 2011: Julia has been a handful lately when it comes to going to bed and staying in her bed. A few weeks ago she discovered she could crawl out of her crib. Since then she has been getting out several times at bedtime and doing all sorts of things. Sometimes she will come out to see us in the living room several times, sometimes she just plays in her room which is a problem because Casey is in there and she is exhausted. Last night I heard noise and when I went in she was in the bathroom next to their room she had taken off her sleepsack, pjs, and diaper and had gone into the laundry basket and totally dressed herself in Casey's clothes (tights, a skirt, a long sleeved t shirt with a t shirt over it). She was back in her bedroom standing next to a sleeping Casey and staring at her. Sometimes it is hard not to laugh, but also, at the end of a long day with the kids and what feels like sleepless weeks I can lose my mind too. She has also been hopping out of bed at 5:00 in the morning almost every day. Some days she comes and wakes us up, some days she just plays in her room and bothers Casey. Either way the rest of the family is up hours before they want to be and are all tired by mid morning. After last nights adventure (getting into a different outfit) and then waking Casey up at 5 this morning (I went in and the lights were on and Casey was already getting dressed for school) we decided it was time to finally do something about it. So we moved Julia into Molly's room and moved Molly in with Casey. We are having JJ try out the big Queen sized bed in her new room and we put a bunch of toys in there so she can entertain herself when she wakes up with the rooster. We'll probably lock her door and hopefully everyone will get a little more sleep. We'll see...

When It Rains It Pours

January 26, 2011: We've had a rough stretch health wise at our house. We moved Molly onto a soy based formula to help constipate her and it worked, stopped the diarrhea and then her bottom healed, but after I moved her back onto the regular formula her diarrhea started up again. Apparently infectious diarrhea can cause a milk intolerance so she has to be on soy formula for awhile. We'll test out regular in 6 weeks. Anyways, shortly after that problem was solved Casey came down with the stomach bug. She threw up all night on a Wednesday and was sluggish for two days after. Julia threw up all night Saturday night and Molly on Sunday. James and I caught it Monday night and it was awful. Molly has diarrhea again which I think is part of this bug.



Molly is sitting up now, she still needs some pillows around her as she will topple over if she leans too far in one direction. She got her first two teeth on the same day last week. She licks them with her tongue all the time. Also, I tried some solid food again and she took a little sweet potatoes the other night. She certainly did not devour them like Julia did when she was a baby, but at least she did not cry and spit them back at me. I have backed off since b/c of the stomach upset but I hope she will start taking it again.



Julia continues to crawl out of her crib endlessly. She does it at night and in the morning. Every morning for about two weeks she would crawl into our bed at 5 am and wake us up. It was not fun. We've gotten her to stay in a little later now thankfully. Julia wears nothing short of four different outfits a day. She switches clothes all the time. It is funny but also I end up doing way too much laundry. Julia is potty trained now though which is great. She still wears a diaper at nap time and night time. She also does a funny thing where she asks, "can I?" all the time. For example..."Can I get this puzzle out Mamma, can I?" It is very cute in her little voice.






We've had tons of snow this month. Casey has missed a few days of school. The girls do not love going out in the snow. They just get too cold. Casey is just getting to the point where she will tolerate it and have fun for awhile. Also Casey really only wants to wear dresses now. First it was pink, then skirts and now she only wants dresses and her "party shoes". It is really amazing to me. Today there is a snow storm and she is wearing a little Lily Pulitzer pink dress (same one she wore yesterday).

Always Something...

January 8, 2011: Molly had developed diarrhea almost two weeks ago while taking the ammoxicillin for her ear infection. It has not stopped and the other day I noticed some bloody mucus in her diaper. I spoke with our pediatrician around 6pm and he was worried about the symptoms and sent us to the ER at the children's hospital in Hartford to rule out the worst case scenario, intussusception. This is an intestinal disorder that I actually had as a child. It was one of those nights when I was so exhausted and could not wait to put the kids to bed and veg out on the couch but the night had other plans. At 7pm Molly and I headed off to Hartford and did not return home until just before 1am, fortunately with the ultrasound revealing that it was not intussusception. We also ruled out another dangerous infection and her diaper was sent to a lab for further testing. Now that the two worst things are out of the picture we are going to wait a few more days and see what happens. In the meantime Molly's poor bottom is in the worst shape of any diaper rash I have seen in my time as a mom. It pains me to see it.



JJ started climbing out of her crib two days ago. She sauntered into the living room after nap time the other day and James and I both asked if the other had gotten her. Now in the mornings she takes her sleep sack off, takes her pjs off to get rid of her wet diaper, puts them back on, and climbs out and comes to wake me up. I decided to lower the crib rail and we put a gym mat under her bed to lessen the chance of injury. Casey never climbed out of her crib so this is new for us. We're going to stick with the crib for now and wait to move her into a bed as long as we can. One thing about Julia I have to mention...she can be a real handful, but she is so nice and so sweet too. She will come up to James and I seemingly randomly and say, "I love you so much". It is so cute. Casey was crying the other day and she went and got a towel and came up to Casey and said, "let me dry your tears Case". She always shares her things with Casey and is just generally a very nice girl.

Christmas 2010

December 27, 2010:





This year was the first time we stayed home and had Christmas at our house. We visited LaLa and Eddie in Greenwich for a few days before and will head to Boston tomorrow for a few days, but I wanted to start our own traditions at our house now that the kids are getting older. Christmas as a parent is tough...you do so much work and put in a lot of time and effort to try and create a "perfect" christmas morning, and it never plays out that way. The kids hate some gift you thought they would love, they love everything for what seems like a minute and then its back to whining and arguing. On top of everything everyone was sick this Christmas. Julia and Molly have double ear infections, all three have conjunctivitis in both eyes, colds, fevers, etc.






Before Christmas Santa came to Taft and the kids were excited. They did not want to sit on his lap but ended up doing it. Casey is so fun this Christmas as she is fully believing and buying in to the whole thing. She asks me a million questions about anything I tell her, such as, "can the elves just see us or hear us too?". We made Christmas cookies and Casey is really the best age for this sort of stuff. Casey got a princess outfit and she has not taken it off since opening it. Is she really my child?!

What's Going On

December 17, 2010: Just a quick update on the girls...Molly had a check up today, it was her 5 month although she is closer to 6. She weighed 15 pounds 5 ozs. keeping her on the 50th percentile. She is rolling over now and can sit up a little bit with support, if she starts leaning in any direction she will keel over though. I've been trying to give her solid food for many weeks now and she refuses to eat it. I started out trying rice cereal a bunch of times, then I tried something sweeter with sweet potatoes and she would not take those either. So then I moved to the real sweet stuff, pears, and she still clamped her mouth shut or spit out anything I snuck in. Our doctor is not concerned at all and said to just try again every 4 weeks. He said if she is over a year and still doing it than we will figure something out. It's always something with these kids.



JJ bounced back very well from her sickness and stay in the hospital. She is totally addicted to her blanky right now. It has a hole in one corner, that she loves to put her hand through and rub that little part. The hole has gotten bigger and bigger and she calls it "hole", as if it is a separate entity from the blanket. She'll ask, "where's my blanky, where's my hole", as if they might be in different places. Also, Julia is using negatives in her sentences so often right now. She'll hold up a shell and say, "This shell is not black", or "I'm not jumping right now". It's a funny little phase. Also she loves dressing herself again, just this time with more success. She'll disappear and come back having raided Casey's dresser and come out wearing the funniest combos, sometimes inside out, sometimes backwards, always funny. Here is one from today that she was very proud of.



We went to Florida for Thanksgiving. It was fine getting all three on the plane. The tvs on Jet Blue help a lot. We still do not let our kids watch tv so they think it is very novel. Casey did a great job swimming while we were there, she can dive down and get things off the bottom of the pool and bring them back up. Julia continues to get more comfortable each time we swim and she did a lot of good work towards learning to swim too.

Casey continues to love school. She knows her school song, the pledge of allegiance, and God bless america. It is so cute. It's also fun to hear the things she picks up on at school. The other day while getting dressed for school she told me, "Mom, some kids in my school wear a long sleeve shirt with a t shirt over it", she was very intrigued by this look and waned to try it that day. I thought it was so cute.

Excitment

November 15, 2010:


This weekend was one for the baby book. Friday morning began with Julia throwing up in her bed at 6am and proceeding to throw up all day long. This included once while she was riding on Molly's stroller as we took Casey into school. Throw up right onto Molly, luckily it went onto the sleeping bag thing and not onto her. We got her down and I stood there with her doubled over throwing up over and over in the middle of the school parking lot. By Saturday morning she was completely weak and I was worried. Our pediatrician told us to go to the ER so off we went. She was admitted to the hospital for severe dehydration and they also found she had walking pneumonia after doing a chest x-ray. Getting her IV in was not fun and keeping it in was the worst. She had to keep her arm straight and that was a challenge. All night I slept in her bed and had to hold her arm down so she wouldn't try to suck that thumb, this bending her arm and cutting off the flow of the IV fluid which sets off an alarm and brings the nurse in.(this happened about 6 times in the middle of the night despite my best efforts). Julia was a wreck on Saturday, crying so much. She was weak and exhausted from the sickness and not napping. Sunday morning I woke up nose to nose with her in bed singing 'wheels on the bus' at 5:00am. She was much better and by the end of the ordeal she was helping the nurses do her vitals. We were there on fluids for about 30 hours. She is on the mend now, just struggling with stamina, she gets cranky and tired very easily. Our pediatrician said to expect it to take 6 weeks to recover from it completely.



Casey's newest thing this week is burping. She sits at the table and chugs her milk and burps as much as she can. Her drawing and coloring have gotten so much better lately. She works hard to fill things in drawing and works to stay in the lines. She also drew a picture totally on her own of Little Miss Giggles the other day and it was a huge circle for a head with two eyes, a nose and mouth, two ears and two stick legs and arms. I was so impressed! She continues to just leak small bits of information about school out to us. I will hear her reciting part of the pledge of allegiance when she thinks no one is listening and that is the only way I know they say it and that she knows the whole thing. She also has a school song which they sing over the PA after the pledge each morning. I need to be a fly on the wall there one day!

Molly is sick right now with some cold. I hope it passes before we head to FLA on Monday. She is so cranky and not napping well because of it.

Triple Check Up

November 8, 2010: This morning I was at the doctor's office alone with all three kids. A few months ago James and I both took them all together and swore we would never do it again, but somehow there I was. Casey was in just for the flu shot and Julia had her 2 year check and Molly her 4 month check.







Casey is doing well. A week ago she turned 3 1/2 and we had a big build up to that day because we told her she could no longer have a pacifier. If any parents out there are worried about how their child will give up the paci, take heart. Casey was as attached to that thing as any kid could be and we waited a long time to make her get rid of it. I was dreading weeks of bad nights and break downs but she has shocked me and been much better than we could have hoped for. She has whimpered for it a little and really would like it when she is exhausted but she is managing well. She has quit napping entirely in the last two weeks. It is disappointing for me because I really look forward to a little break in the day and the chance to get some things done. Usually she will still go in her room and have some quiet time. But the lack of naps mean that she is breaking down around dinner time and with no paci to calm her nerves she sometimes gets very upset. She used to stay up until about 7:45pm. Now that she is not napping she is in bed around 7pm and asleep quickly.






Julia has given up her morning nap finally but still loves her afternoon one. She now goes to bed the latest around 7:30pm. The other night I was awakened around 12:30am by the sound of her crying in the next room. I went in there and found her completely naked, she had taken off her sleep sack, pjs and diaper. She was crying because she was so cold. Hopefully she will have learned her lesson on that trick. She has only one more tooth to come in which I am expecting any day. She is talking more and more every day. She knows the words to songs and books and surprises me with her memory. She was healthy at her check up, still skinny at around the 12th percentile. Casey and Julia seem to play together better and better as the days go by. Whenever I am trying to get something done in the house, if it is too quiet I know I am in for trouble. This morning that happened and Julia was using scissors by herself and Casey had found the stash of Halloween candy I had hidden. But besides getting up to no good occasionally, it is really nice to see them interacting and getting along better. They are both very good with Molly. Julia always says, "Molly's nice" and Casey always says , "Molly is so cute". Casey knows the limitations for the most part of playing with Molly but Julia does not at all. She tries to stick her fingers in her mouth or put a toy in her mouth. I have to watch out very closely.




Molly is doing great as well. Last week we were at the cardiologist and the hole in her heart closed up. That is a relief to me and great that we no longer have to go back there to get it checked. She is still gaining weight nicely and comes in around the 50th percentile still. She is sleeping much better. We moved her into her own room and it has helped a ton. Every night she goes down without a peep at 7pm. She sleeps until around 4am at which point I just give her a few ounces and she goes right back down until 7:30 or 8am. She has slept through the night a bunch of times and we are excited for it to become consistent. Things got much better with her nights when she found her thumb. She rarely needs a paci at all anymore, only sometimes during the day when she is fussy. I'm in a terrible stage where I feel like I hear crying in my head all the time at night. I'm constantly staring at the monitor wondering if it is turned too quietly, it's not fun. Molly drinks 4x 5oz bottles a day and the Dr said we can boost the number of ounces and start some rice cereal/baby food soon. I am not really looking forward to that stage of eating, it is so messy. It is really only fun the first time around. She is rolling around a lot on the floor. She can roll from her belly to her back fairly easily and she rolls 99% of the way from her back to her belly but gets stuck on her one arm. She loves having her feet up in the air and holding her toes. She always has her hands or fingers in her mouth. She has begun bucking when she is seated in her car seat stroller. We've tried her in the forward facing one a few times now.





Halloween was fun again this year. Casey really enjoyed it and liked running around with some of her friends trick or treating. Julia liked the idea of things and wearing her costume, but she was unsure about trick or treating and wanted James to carry her. We didn't end up dressing Molly up as it was a cold night so she stayed home with LaLa. Julia also had a fun birthday. On her actual birthday Mark and Jen came up with their kids to have cake with us and so did Eddie. Then we went to Boston the next day and Julia had cake again with cousin Emily. They liked to sing over and over and blow out the candles over and over again.

Mr. Moon by Julia

Fall 2010

October 4, 2010: The school year has been under way for just about a month and things are going smoothly for us. We've been playing outside as much as we can, gone apple picking, to the play grounds and of course the annual county fairs around here.








Casey absolutely loves her school. She can't wait to go each morning and is always asking me if today is a school day or not. Casey has been riding her bike with training wheels a lot lately. She really seems so old to me sometimes now, I guess it is just comparing her capabilities with the other two. She loves the color pink and would wear head to toe pink everyday if I let her! She likes to pick out her own school outfits and I try to let her do that as often as I can, usually only stepping in if she is wearing shorts and its only 60 degrees out or something like that. She is still a handful right now in terms of temper tantrums and being disobedient. We'll ask her to help pick up the toys in the living room before bed and she'll scream, NO! and throw something. It is very exhausting and hard to deal with. I'm reading a few books on positive discipline now to try and come up with a solution.



Julia is growing like a weed, and so is her hair. I've really enjoyed the time at home with her on the mornings when Casey is at school. She still loves her blanky, but no longer calls it "packy" like she used to. It has a hole in one corner that she loves to play with and put her hand or foot through. She loves brushing her teeth. She is such a messy girl. Meals are so incredibly messy with her. Her food ends up all over the table, chair and floor around her, and not to mention her clothes, face, hands and hair. Even food that is not normally messy she will find a way to make it so. When we go out biking in the afternoons she has this funny quirk right now that she does not want to ride her bike, she likes to push them around. So she'll walk next to or behind her bike and just push it. Julia and Casey are hot and cold, they can get along very well at times and laugh with each other, and other times they annoy each other and take things and hit. Overall, Julia is becoming better behaved though, not quite as defiant as she was. She is slowly giving up her morning nap, only taking it on days when she is very tired.



Molly is wonderful right now. Her colic is totally passed and she is only fussy at normal baby times, hungry or tired. She is very alert, she has been cooing and making nosies for awhile, she will smile and laugh when we tickle or play with her. She is a big baby, our first to grow out of a pice of clothing before the age range on the tag. She goes in for a check up on Thursday so I will know more then. She likes playing on her mat and banging away at the toys hanging down. Sleep is so so, depending on the night. Last night was great, She slept from 7pm to 5 am, a record for her, I fed her and she went back to sleep until almost 8. When I went in to get her at 8am she was laying in bed awake and happy. Other nights she'll wake around midnight and I put the paci in a million times until she falls asleep again and then usually wakes for a bottle again around 3:30. In the past week or so she has found her thumb and sucks on it in her bed. It doesn't seem to soothe her enough yet to replace the paci. I can't wait until it does, because hopefully that will help her soothe herself back to sleep in the middle of the night. James and I feel so happy to have a happy baby because we missed all of these moments with Julia who basically just cried or slept for the first 6 months of her life. Molly also took her first swim at LaLa and Eddie's house on one of the Indian summer days in late September.