Here We Go Again

Happy Birthday Little Princess! Today you will wake up to a room full of pink and purple balloons, make a "Princess Pea" cake (from your favorite show "Super Why") with Mommy, put on your new lavender princess dress and have a wonderful day. Then, when Daddy gets off work, you'll have a "Princess Test" (like Princess Pea does in an episode) that will will include going through a princess tunnel, doing a princess puzzle and finding a little pea under a whole stack of pillows. And when you pass (which of course you will), you'll receive a beautiful new princess crown. Today is your day to become a "real" princess and you have been SO excited about this! Of course, you have ALWAYS been my little princess...

Happy 3rd Birthday Ellie!

Wow! Josie is now 3 months old! It’s been crazy around here and only just recently do I finally feel like I have this “two children” thing figured out. The logistics of just leaving the house has been tough to figure out, along with how to get around once we get somewhere (Combi side-by-side stroller), how to entertain Ellie while feeding Josie (an embarrassing amount of new toys), how to do their baths (together), bedtime (my wonderful husband helps), which safe but SEPARATE places to leave them both while I shower (a completely childproofed loft), what to do with Josie when I must do other things (bouncy seat or sling), and several other things that seem simple enough but is now so much harder with two! Now that I’m “Super Mom” (ha-ha), I say bring on number 3! I’m so kidding…

Now on to my incredible 3 month old. I must say, the first 2 months with her were really hard. She was very fussy, very gassy and did not sleep or eat well. She always had to be in the sling or held by one of us or she just cried and cried. I tried cutting out different things from my diet, supplementing with different formulas, gas drops, gripe water, colic CDs, you name it. It wasn’t until her two month appointment that the doctor recommended trying medicine for infant reflux. I thought that if a baby had reflux then they vomited all the time (and Josie only did occasionally) but I was wrong. A baby can have reflux with no other symptoms besides being very fussy. The medicine was a God send! She is now on Prevacid and has become a whole new baby! I really dislike that she has to take an adult medicine (especially one that contains aspartame) but the results of it make it impossible to not continue. She immediately became less fussy and over the last month has become the most smiley, happy baby ever. She has even started sleeping some 8 hour stretches at night! Now I just feel terrible knowing, that for the first two months of her life, she was in pretty much constant pain.

Fun things that she can do now are:
Smile- 6 weeks
Laugh- 10 weeks
Reach for toys (and Daddy’s goatee!)- 10 weeks
Roll over- 11 weeks
Sleep through the night!- 11 weeks

Her favorite places to be (besides someone’s arms) are in the sling, the bouncy seat, under her play gym, and some short periods in the Bumbo seat. She does not, however, like the swing or her carseat at all. She loves being talked to and especially loves any attention her Big Sis gives her.

Speaking of the Big Sis, she has really taken to the role. She now tells me whenever Josie is crying (like I can’t hear it as well as she does!), and then proceeds to tell me very matter-of-factly what she wants ("She wants a pacifier Mom"). She also likes to hold her and sing her lullabies that she has made up. It’s so wonderful to watch their relationship blossoming!

Ellie will be 3 next month. She just recently became potty trained and is now my potty super star! She has been in underwear for two weeks now and has only had 3 accidents total (all in the first 2 days). I thought I had waited too long to start, but now I’m glad I did…it has went so much easier than I thought it would. Now we still have to get her moved to her big girl bed (she loves her crib!) and get rid of that nighttime pacifier. One thing at time…

She also started preschool in October and goes Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 ½ hours each day. She LOVES school and acts so independent when we go. She tells me “You can’t go Mommy.”. When I ask how she is going to get there she says “Okay, you drive the car…but you can’t go in!”. Of course I have to walk her in. You think she is embarrassed of her Mom already??

She is also so darn smart!

*Warning: I’m about to overly gush for a few here so don't say I didn't warn you...I just want to be able to look back and remember what all Ellie could do before age 3!

She now knows all her colors, shapes (even the hard ones like trapezoid, parallelogram, octagon etc), recognizes all upper and lower case letters and even know their sounds, recognizes numbers 1-10 and can count to 50. She is really interested in learning to read and write. She can read very easy words like cat by sounding them out and recognizes a few sight words. We are working on blended sounds now and she just loves it! The only thing she can write by herself is her name but we write all kinds of stuff together. We are also working on cutting (finally got her her own scissors made just for left handers), patterns, matching, concepts such as similar and different, opposites etc. We have this really great book called "Get Ready for Pre-K" that I highly recommend. It’s bright and colorful and Ellie loves it! I only work with her when she asks and only as long as she is having fun. She has also mastered all her 24 piece puzzles and now does the 40 piece and even one 60 piece. She has become quite proficient at using a mouse and loves playing on the computer. And, she is learning piano! I bought these decals that stick on the keys and hand wrote out the letters to simple songs such as “Row Your Boat” and “Twinkle, Twinkle” and she just follows along the letters to play. It is so cool!
Her favorite toys to play with are Legos, those big cardboard bricks, her little bicycle and this stop sign on a pole, crayons, playdoh, anything and everything that makes music (she has lots of instruments- even an accordion!), My Little Ponies, Matchbox cars, Little People, her toolkit and her dollhouse.
She is so imaginative and I love listening in on her elaborate conversations that her and her dolls have or that she has when making imaginary phone calls. She still loves everything Dora and her new favorite show is “Super Why!” on PBS HD. She also loves to dance and sing and just plain be silly.

Whew! Guess I had a lot to say about Ellie! Most importantly, though, she is sweet and kind and so loving. And she is growing up WAY too fast!!!

Sorry for such a long post. I know it's mostly my friends who read this so I'm sure you don't mind! :) This is mainly just for me, anyways (and someday Ellie and Josie), to look back at and remember how it was when they were so young. I only wish I had time to write more!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pics...