Fits and Starts

December 16, 2011: Man, having three kids this young and this close in age is exhausting; mentally, physically and emotionally. I feel like I spend my entire day putting out fires...if one is in a happy mood another is in a rotten one. They push each other's buttons, annoy one another and inevitably it escalates into a whining or yelling match. The sound of my own voice makes me cringe by the end of the day. This is not to say it is all bad right now. When I am worn out by the kids, I remind myself how short lived this time is and how this innocence will not be here for long. So that's the "fits" of this entry. Someone in my house is always having a fit, myself included. "Starts" is the more positive side to what's been going on lately. All the things the different girls are starting to do. Casey has been a late bloomer in terms of potty training. She's been all set in the day time for quite awhile, but has continued to wear a diaper at night. She has to wear the most absorbent diaper on the market and often she would still wet through it to her sheets. Then, all of a sudden, she started keeping diapers dry 3 nights a week, then 4, and now almost always. She has started wearing pull-ups and it's so great. She is so happy about it, and so am I. Casey has also started hockey officially. Well, really it is the Watertown Youth Hockey's Learn to Skate program, but every Saturday and Sunday morning, off we go to the rink.



And so begins the rest of my life I guess. She has to wear shin pads, elbow pads, a helmet and skates. At first she was very unsure and did not like it. I cannot blame her either as it was totally chaotic and she was used to going skating at the rink when it was just us. Now there are 60 kids with two parents there each and the place was a zoo. It is not the best run program but she enjoys going and it is a good social experience anyways. We are fortunate that we can take the time to skate with her and teach her on our own. She is enjoying it more and participates willingly and happily. Besides that Casey is doing well. She is emotional and sometimes cries at the drop of a hat. She loves writing notes to people. She is always having us spell things and putting notes in envelopes to people here at Taft. "I would like to have a play date, Love, Casey". When we were in Florida Casey was so good at swimming. She learned to really snorkel in the pool and could do it well.



She is also a big helper to me. She watches out for Molly a lot and helps do things. She wants to help her put on her socks and shoes when we are getting ready to go out. She will help give Julia a push when she is stuck on her bike. Casey has gotten so good at her two wheeler. In Florida we went for family runs and she would bike along with us. This is something that James did with his Dad as a boy and I know it makes him happy to do it with our kids.



I don't have too much of an update on Julia. She continues to be a fashion crack up. She loves layering and does it to no end. She will put on tights, a skirt, and a sweater, then just to top it off, she'll throw a dress on top of it all. It is a riot. This past week she has been saying she does not want to go to school everyday which is always upsetting to me. I tell her fine but that she has to come to drop Casey off and inevitably she wants to go in her classroom. In Florida we really tried to work on her swimming with her. She can do short spurts, and she is not afraid of the pool at all, but she did not make too much improvement. Julia is just not willing to put the time in that Casey is.



Casey is a smart and capable but she is also a hungry student in everything we do with her. Julia is also very smart and competitive but she just wants to do things on her own time. She is not patient enough to give it the time just yet. Another example of this lack of patience...this Christmas the girls have chocolate Advent calendars. Casey patiently opens one square a day. I found Julia hiding one day having eaten the whole calendar in one sitting! She has been excited to move from a tricycle to a big bike with training wheels. Another crack up is when she is using the bathroom to go poop, she will make us all leave and tell us she "needs her privacy". Here is a pic when JJ and Molly got in the shower with all of their clothes on still.





Molly has been exploding with developments. She is getting a ton of teeth right now. She has always had her hair flopping right in her face, it is just the way it grows and she has always refused to keep a bow in. Now, all of a sudden, it annoys her when it is in her face and she does this adorable thing where she brushes it out of her face. She has finally been letting us keep bows and elastics in it. Molly is talking much more too. She says Casey and JJ in a very cute way. She likes pointing to things and saying the name if she knows it. She will come up to James and I and pull on us to get us to do what she wants. She will pull us off the couch to the floor and say "play". She loves doing her baby puzzles right now, she has gotten more interested in books and she is also climbing all over the place. She can blow her nose in a tissue when we hold it for her which is great and this past week James has been experimenting with potty training with her. We let her run around the house with no pants on and she will often say poo-poo when she needs to pee or poop and we make it to the toilet successfully. There have also been some accidents.

Early Fall 2011

October 14, 2011: It has been awhile since I've written about our daily routine. Lately, the kids are up around 7am. On school days we eat breakfast around 7:30. The kids generally eat a huge breakfast. Everyday it is waffles, yogurt, 2 hard boiled eggs, and fruit. Then we rush about the house brushing hair, teeth, and getting dressed. We are out the door at 8:35 and into the car to school. I try to take turns with who gets dropped off to their classroom first. The kids don't seem to mind or have a preference. But it is so cute because they hug each other when they part. Molly and I head home after school and she goes right to bed for her morning nap. I've been trying to take advantage of this new free time to get things done around the house and to start getting in shape. I've been waking Molly early from her naps some days and take her out in the jogging stroller. At 11:15 she and I are back in the car to pick the girls up. They are always so excited to see me at pick up and I am genuinely happy to see them too. they always look so adorable to me when I pick them up, it makes my heart swell every day.



We all head home and go down to the dining hall for lunch. Lunch is peanut butter and honey for JJ, turkey and jelly for Casey, and who knows what for Molly. She is a picky eater and would like to live on bananas and grilled cheeses. The kids get sides of american cheese, peas and a few chips. After lunch we head home for nap time. JJ and Molly nap at 1pm for two hours. Casey has stopped napping. Some days I nap and Casey will be happy doing a project on her own, otherwise we read books or play games that are best played when the younger kids are asleep. After naps we usually head outside to find some buddies to play with, or we go for walks, bike rides, or just wander around campus. Dinner is usually around 5:30, followed by a shower and pjs, books and bed. Casey and Molly go to sleep at 7 and Julia usually goes to sleep around 8pm.

So thats our day to day at this stage. Here is a little blurb on recent developments of each kid.



Casey is just developing all the time. She has learned to whistle and snap and loves practicing and showing off her skills at any chance she can. This Fall she has shown a new interest in skating and has self motivation to do it. She asks James to take her to the rink almost every day. She is now willing to wear a real hockey helmet with a cage. She uses a pusher and over the past few weeks has gotten faster and more comfortable with it. She will do a few minutes without the pusher and likes to shoot pucks on the little net. We are happy that she is having fun with it and has shown the initiative on her own to try and learn to skate. Her other big skill is her training wheels have just come off about a month ago. She can now start by herself without us running behind and has very good control on the bike. She does not have the confidence to ride all around like she used to with her training wheels but it will come with time. Casey is very nice and caring with Molly. She is nurturing and responsible with her. She and Julia remain hot and cold. They get along beautifully sometimes and annoy each other to no end at other times.








Julia is doing better and better with school. She used to say, 'I don't want to go' every single day, but just recently has stopped saying it. Her teacher told me she has become more outgoing and bubbly lately so that makes me feel good. She talks about her friends in school, a girl named Maya and a boy named Andi, which she pronounces On-dee. I asked the teacher about this and she told me Julia was correct. Besides that she went through a phase of needing to sleep with the lights on (which has since ended). She mixes up the use of am/are, she always says 'I'm are'. When she hears crickets outside she says 'who turned on the crickets?'. She calls the song Yankee Doodle...yankle doodee. It kills me every time.



As for Molly, the Moll-Doll...she had her 1 year birthday check up last month (a few months late). She is doing great, she is tall, in the 90th percentile and 50th for weight. Throughout September we continued to see a number of doctors in our search for the reason for her head shaking. We saw a neurologist at CCMC who diagnosed it as spasmus nutans which is a rapid movement of the eyes from side to side. He thought the head shaking was a result of it, trying to catch up with the eyes. He sent us to a pediatric optomologist who told us her eyes were fine and he did not agree with the neurologist's diagnosis. We also saw an ear, nose and throat specialist but there is no way to know if she was shaking her head at the time due to ear infections or unusual pressure changes in her ears at the time. So after seeing all the specialists and getting nowhere I had another phone call with the neurologist. He is content now to just observe her and if the behavior begins again then we will run a full day EEG and make sure again about seizures. For now it is being chalked up to a behavioral thing. Besides all that scary stuff Molly is doing great. She points up to the sky every time she hears a plane, she loves bending over and putting her head on the floor. She looks through her legs and will stay like that for a little while.


She loves dancing to music, it is almost instinctive, she can barely keep herself from doing it. She is not talking much at all. Sometimes she is more "talkative", and babbles a lot, other times she is quiet. I worry about her lack of vocabulary sometimes but I'm sure it will come along. She says hi, bye, ball, balloon, mama and dada. She calls her blanky mama and is so attached to it right now. She is like Linus and carries that thing everywhere. She is into everything right now, we have had to break out all of the child proofing again. She loves dipping into the toilet, so the lid locks are back on, we find boxes of tissues unloaded, rolls of toilet paper unrolled. Molly is sweet and I love watching her. I feel sentimental watching her toddle around the house, knowing it is our last "baby". I think I try to relish it all and hug her a little tighter. She is in such a different stage than the other girls, less independent which has its pros and cons, but not getting any attitude from her the way we do from the other two makes her so enjoyable all the time. She can still be fussy and difficult. She has a temper and is a fussy eater which is tough. She gets frustrated with her lack of ability to communicate and her sign language gets mixed up. She does not like the car seat and that can be a pain when we're on a trip. One thing that calms her down in the car is holding hands with Julia, it is so cute they reach out and hold hands from their car seats.



Little tid bits pop into my head all the time about the girls and I do my best to jot them down so they end up here in the blog. This is basically going to be their baby books some day, as poor Molly does not even have an attempted one yet. The picture above is the girls looking out the window to watch "the carboard truck". This is a highlight of their day when the card board recycling truck comes to the loading dock outside out window. The older two have been to the dentist now, which is a riot. They go in the same room at the same time. They are so tiny in the chairs. they wear sun glasses and there is a tv mounted on the ceiling above them with sesame street playing. They were both very well behaved and are obsessed with teeth brushing and flossing now. Julia goes through so much toothpaste because she reapplies just for the taste of it and rebrushes about 6 times per session at the sink. They love listening to music in the car. We went through a HUGE sound of music phase where that was the only thing on, we now are doing more Raffi and other kids music. James has gotten them to love some of his favorite rock music including Guns n Roses, Knockin on Heavens Door, and Ozzy's Ironman. Casey know all about Axle and Slash and wants to go to a concert to see them. Better that than Justin Beiber or the Wiggles I guess! In early Fall we went to the county fairs around here which the kids absolutely love.






We went to our good friends the Carrolls house one day and the girls got to go tubing.



It has taken a long time to type this up...photos will come another time! Stay tuned

First Day of School

September 2, 2011: Today was finally the first day of school for the girls. Monday and Wednesday were canceled because of no power in town due to Hurricane Irene. I was a nervous wreck again taking them in. Casey seemed more nervous than Julia but once we took her into her old classroom she jumped right into it. At pick up Mrs Pietro said she was great and was a helper. Julia's drop off was not as easy, for me. She seemed fine but I wished the teachers in her classroom were more hands on to distract her and get things going. Anyways, there were no tears but the teacher told us she did cry once during the day for us but they were able to quickly calm her down.

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.