The one with the three month update!

Well, I'm terrible at updating.  Obviously I did not get the seven week update in time ... and now my baby boy is three months old!

What to say about three month old Myles?
He is a pretty big guy.  I had him to the doctor yesterday and he weighs 13bs7oz.  For someone who doesn't eat, that's pretty good!  ;)  He is happy and healthy and that's all that matters.

His eating and sleeping is still nutty.  He doesn't have a whole lot of interest in eating.  He is still only drinking maybe 4oz at a time, every 3-5 hours.  Once in a while, he'll surprise me and eat 5-6oz but that doesn't always happen.  Thankfully, though, he is still growing just fine and has not fallen off his growth curve so I guess he's just doing okay with a small amount of milk.
He goes to bed around 7pm and usually sleeps until around midnight ... and then it varies from there.  Sometimes he will be up again at 3, sometimes he will sleep until 5.  Sometimes he'll go right back to sleep after he wakes and eats, sometimes he just wants to party.  It is a struggle, for sure.  I like my sleep and he, apparently, does not.  I am hoping that as he gets older, he will start to sleep better.  Please, Myles?



He is a very happy and smiley little guy.  All you have to do is look at him and he grins.  He is so sweet!  He loves getting undressed and every time I start taking off his clothes, he starts giggling.  I love it.  He has the most adorable little baby voice and I love when we have conversations and he just coos.  So so cute.
He enjoys hanging out on his play mat, smacking the dangling toys around.  He is starting to reach for items more and will occasionally grasp toys.  This morning, he was playing with a toy and brought it to his mouth!  Exciting times!

He loathes being on his tummy and just sort of sky-dive poses and screams when I try to put him on his tummy.  I'm not too concerned, though.  He can hold his head steady when I'm holding him upright.  He will like being on his tummy more when he is able to roll there by himself.  He will sit in the Bumbo sometimes but prefers to sit on someone's lap and look around.

He still adores his big sister and will stare at her, smile and laugh, and talk to her.  They are adorable together  :)

That's all for now!  Let's be realistic and hope for the next update before he is six months old  :)

The one with the THREE AND A HALF year update...

I know, right?  Three-and-a-freakin-half.  Where does the time go?

She may be getting older but she is still the kind, sweet, hilarious little person she has always been.  She finally hit 30lbs recently (even up to 31lbs sometimes!) and wears 3T bottoms and has moved into 4T tops.  She wears a size 7 shoe (just like Mommy!).  She can put on her own coat and can zip it up as long as someone helps her get started.  She is really getting more and more independent every day.

She loves to paint and draw lately.  She can write her first name and can write out other words if we help her spell them.  She loves drawing rainbows and people and, occasionally, submarines.  She still loves to play pretend but her play situations have gone beyond simply imitating daily life and she creates more complex scenarios and characters.  Her favourite, thus far, is playing "neighbour" wherein I am the neighbour, she is my neighbour, we live in different houses (sometimes it's the snow bank in the back yard, sometimes it's the dining room, sometimes it's her bedroom, etc.) and the entire thing revolves around us saying things like "Oh hi neighbour, my name is Mommy, would you like to come visit my house and stay for supper?" ad nauseum.  She's really good at staying in character, to the point where I ask her to please call me Mommy in the grocery store so people don't think I am some weirdo with the neighbour's kid.

Playing in her "snow bedroom"

She created all these buildings for her characters (left to right) Mommy, Daddy, Charlotte, and Cole's (?) house, the fancy neighbours house, the hospital, the police station, and Grandma and Grandpa's house in the middle.

She still attends the same daycare and has recently moved from the toddler room to the preschool room.  She LOVES it.  She is always so excited to tell me about the things she has done that day and who she played with.  Her teachers are great and there are always really neat things going on.  She has a few friends that she plays with consistently and has been to a few birthday parties already.

She's had a few more illnesses and incidents this year than ever before in her life.  She was very sick with a virus in October and was sick almost the whole month.  She fell in June and needed to get stitches just above her lip.  And in March, she experienced her first febrile seizure and I experienced my first 911 call and ambulance ride.  She is one brave and resilient little girl, though, and she is no worse for the wear at all.  

She still speaks like she is about three years older than she is.  Her vocabulary and pronunciation are outstanding.  She has recently started loving puzzles and can easily put together a 12-15 piece puzzle by herself.  When she has the patience, she will also put together some 20 piece puzzles by herself.  She still loves reading and we think she is starting to read words herself, but it's hard to tell because she has a stubborn side and will not cooperate if she doesn't want to.  ;)  She has moved on from simpler stories and really enjoys longer picture books like The Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Robert Munsch books, Clifford, etc.  We have relented a bit and let her watch some television.  She really likes Thomas, Sid The Science Kid, and The Wiggles.  We have watched a few movies together (The Little Mermaid, yay!!), and we are hoping to bring her to see the new Disney "Bears" movie for her very first movie theatre experience.

Here are a few of 3.5 year old Charlotte favourites!

Book:  She has a few go-tos that she likes: Mud Puddle, Going On A Bear Hunt, The Highway Rat, and Mouse Soup are a few current ones that we read a lot.

Activity:  Playing with her cars.  She brings out her car mat, sets it up, sets out all her cars in their specific "houses" on the mat, and then they interact with each other like people.  It's really interesting and it's usually the very first thing she does after breakfast.

Food:  If you ask her, she will tell you that broccoli chicken is her absolute favourite.

Toy:  Charlotte Bunny is still her baby.  She also loves her cars, specifically her "black Pontiac".

Colour:  Still purple, but with pink and red thrown in occasionally.

Word/Phrase:  "Are you serious?  Are you kidding me?"  haha

I love this sweet girl more and more every day.  Every age gets better and better!

The one with the importance of play

Charlotte loves to help me cook.  Every time she sees me get ready to cook, she starts to drag a chair over to the counter, saying "see!  see!"  Tonight we were going to make shepard's pie, so she dragged her chair over, and began to watch me peel potatoes.

Well, peeling potatoes is only interesting for a short while so after about two potatoes, she lost focus and started playing with the small bit of water in the dirty dishes in the sink.  I gently removed the dishes and started filling up the sink with warm water, a squirt of dish soap, and tossed in a couple of measuring cups.  The scene was set.

First, she spent some time scooping the bubbles and only the bubbles.  She would scoop them gently with one measuring cup and dump them into another.  She did this over and over until she made a hole in the bubbles and saw the water below the sudsy layer.

She stood at that sink for a half an hour while I continued to cook supper.  She scooped water.  She poured water from one cup to another, from a cup to the sink.  She slid her arms in all the way up to her elbow and said "cold, cold, BRR!"  She waved her hands around and watched the water swish.  She stuck her hands into the flowing tap.  She smooshed the suds in her hands and said "washing!"

















As I watched her, the early childhood educator in me came out full force.  I watched my toddler completely engrossed in what some people would discourage - playing in the sink, making a mess, getting water everywhere.  Instead of scolding her, I encouraged her.  This was a prime learning opportunity and I was not about to squash it.  Learning?  What learning?

Well, let's see.  During the half hour of water play, Charlotte (19 months) said the following words (many times):
bubbles
water
cold, cold, brr
happy
warm
cup
on
off
in
sink
Gram
soap
washing
oh no!
dripping
cloth
big
fun
WOW
tall
heavy
towel

This play experience encouraged an explosion of language!  She had so much to say about what she was doing and had the opportunity to let the words flow freely.

Not only did the experience encourage her language development and help increase her vocabulary but she also learned about a whole slew of concepts:

force -- she felt the difference in the water flow when I turned the faucet on full blast vs having the faucet gently drip water into the sink
temperature -- she noticed the temperature of the water ("warm!") and played around with the concept when she said the water was cold ("cold, cold, brr")
wet/dry -- the kid was soaked by the end of it  ;)
space -- she filled her measuring cups and dumped them; she moved the bubbles and noticed the water underneath; she swished water around and watched it ebb and flow
size -- she noticed the size of the tea towel that she put into the sink near the end of the experience and shouted "big!"; she looked at a mountain of bubbles and said "tall"
density -- as she squished the bubbles in her hands, she experimented with the density of the suds; she also explored this concept as she deliberately scooped ONLY the bubbles when she first began to play
weight -- she filled her measuring cup and said "heavy"
relationships -- as she played in the sink, she made many mentions to "Gram" - she often sits and bathes in the sink at her Gram and Grampie's house
emotions -- throughout the play experience, she exclaimed "happy!  happy!  fun!"
self-control -- she wanted the faucet on all the time but I could not leave it on the entire time or the sink would overflow - she played on despite this - she also kept the water in the sink quite well

All this from playing in the sink?  You bet!
Sometimes those things that you think are messy, annoying, frustrating, inappropriate, a pain-in-the-neck, or purposefully meant to drive you nuts are the things your babies really need the most.  Let them play.  Let them learn!  Trust their abilities to learn and let them explore their world.  Messes only last moments; lessons last a lifetime.

"Be careful what you teach; it might interfere with what they are learning"
~Magda Gerber