Lydia and the Couch, Danton and the Banana

We rearranged the living room a week or so ago, and the couches are next to each other. Lydia likes to play on the arms of the couches, but she is not suppose to. Yesterday she found out why.
She started crying so I looked over and started laughing. I already had the camera out from taking pictures of her just a few mins before, so I grabbed the camera before I helped her. But I think that embarrassed her, cause when she saw the camera she covered her face.

And I know Danton is a little young, but he was being kinda cranky yesterday and Lydia was eating a Banana. I wondered if Danton would like one, so I took just about an inch off the tip and mashed it up. Oh my goodness that boy LOVED it. As soon as it entered his mouth he started licking and licking it and he got real quiet. And it all stayed in his mouth. he figured out how to swallow it instead of spitting it out. I didn't want to give him too much cause I wasn't sure how his tummy would handle it, he handled it just fine. And in between licking his lips he was smiling at me.

"smile, say cheese" she says

Lydia wanted me to take a picture of her, so I told her to smile. This is what she did.


Then she smiled for real.

Then she wanted a picture with Danton

Bustin' my Chopps

Note to self: Put chop sticks pointy side up in the dish washer so when you pull out the rack the tips don't break off on the door, making them useless.

WIC

First let me say that I love the WIC program. It's nice to get the formula and milk and eggs and cheese and all the other lovely stuff you get from WIC. But I gotta say they can be a little crazy at times.

Nursing. Everybody knows they encourage you to nurse your baby as long as possible and they have a library of pamphlets to give you on it. I have never had them be rude to me and tell me I should have nursed longer, but I know people who have.

Sippy cups. Did you know that if your child drinks from a sippy cup instead of a real cup after they are 18 months old they will have a speech impediment? Yeah, neither did my kids DOCTOR. What's the difference of drinking out of a sippy other then a straw? So Finally I started telling them we totally got rid of the sippy. Which we didn't. Lydia can drink out of a cup just fine, but her FAVORITE thing is to PLAY IN IT. I give her sippy cups cause I don't want to add to the messes I am already cleaning up.
Now the last time I went in I got the REAL kicker. Since Danton is on formula she started talking to me about bottles and making sure I knew not to leave them out and let the formula go bad. You know pretty common since. And THEN she surprised me.

Nursery Water. She told me I needed to buy nursery water to make his bottles instead of using regular tap water. Well she said to buy just distilled water, cause it was the same thing and it was cheaper. She is all about the cheap stuff. Yeah, me too only, I'm all about the free stuff. And you can get water right from the tap for free. She said that it has bacteria or something like that is not as gentle on babies tummies and the nursery water. Since it dosen't bother Danton's stomach and it poses no threat, I continue to use tap water.

I knew WIC could get a little weird about some things, but that one surprised me.

cooking again

So after making crackers on Sunday Lydia thinks she knows how to...no let me rephrase that. Lydia KNOWS how to cook and she need to help every time I make something now. Yesterday I was making biscuits for dinner and Lydia came in to help. Well I had all the dry ingredients in a bowl and I didn't really want her help after that. But I let her observe. Well right away she observed that there was sugar on the top of everything so in the fingers went. She started dipping her fingers in and licking the sugar off them. So I thought it was harmless so I turned around to get the shortening, and as I came back to the bowl I noticed she had grabbed a cereal spoon and was "mixing" everything for me. And when I say mixing what I mean is she got a big spoon full of what she thought was just sugar and put it in her mouth. Well what she didn't know was that just under all that yummy sugar there was even MORE baking powder. She got a big mouth full of baking powder and I turned around just in time to see her shudder. IT was so FUNNY! But the funniest thing was she went back for more! I had to stop her, I was afraid she was going to eat everything but the flour from the bowl, and you need more then just flour to make biscuits. :)

Also yesterday she was suppose to be taking a nap (and she usually poops when we put her down for a nap and that keeps her up so I have to go change her after 30 mins to an hour so she will go to sleep). She had been in her room for 2 hours and still had not fallen asleep. I already changed a poopy diaper but Mark thought she might have pooped again, so I checked her and she was clean but she asked to go potty. I knew she probably didn't have to go, but I'm trying to encourage the potty so I let her go anyway. (sure enough her diaper was wet)So I tried to encourage her to be done, this is how our conversation went:
"Ok Lydia, go potty"
"Ok Mom" (then she grabbed her knees and squeezed them with her hands and pulled the corners of her mouth down and squinted her eyes, she wants it to be convincing I guess)
"Mom, it's hard"
"Ok, then lets put your diaper on"
"No Mom, a potty"
"Ok then go potty"
"Ok" (squeezing)"*sigh* Mom, it's hard"
"Lets put your diaper on then"
"no Mom, a potty"
"ok then go potty"
(squeezing) "mom, it's hard"
" Ok then we need to put your diaper on"
"no mom a potty"
"Ok, go potty"
(squeezing)"It's hard mom"
Well I think you get the idea. That conversation went on and on and on and on. We were in the bathroom for 3-5 mins. And that little conversation can be said a LOT in 3 to 5 mins. :)Finally I just pulled her off the potty, put a diaper on and put her back in bed. She was in her room from a little after noon till 3:20 ish, and no nap. Never did figure that one out.

kwa-kwers (crackers)

Lydia made crackers on Sunday. It's the recipe for hard tack really. But Lydia dumped all the ingredients in the bowl and stirred it. All I did was roll the dough out on the pan and stick it in the oven. That was the first time she has helped me cook something and she had a lot of fun. Especially when the crackers came out of the oven and she got to eat what she made.
Danton is sleeping like a mad man at night. He is not sleeping like a baby because babies tend to wake up several times at night. Which is something he is not doing. He has been switching from mostly nursing to mostly bottle fed now. He just gets frustrated after 3 mins of nursing and wants a bottle. Which is FINE by me. Who wants to nurse in the summer when it's hot, and you have to hold a baby next to you under a blanket. AND he sleeps longer when he has a bottle before bed as apposed to nursing before bed. Last night he slept for 7 hours straight! Now I got 5 hours straight cause he went to be at 9 and I went to bed at 11. But still 5 hours! Wahoo! He woke up once last night. I think I got a total of close to 8 hours. (thanks to Mark of course)
Mark has been the most incredible Daddy. He has done so much to help me since Danton was born. Lydia is crazy and thinks the day starts between 6 and 6:30 AM. So Daddy gets up with Lydia when she wakes up. I never even asked him, he just did. But when He wakes up he can't go back to sleep, she wakes me up and I'm so tired I just ignore it and I go back to sleep. We put the gate up in her door way before we go to bed at night so she can't wander around the house. So she opens the door and calls for Daddy, then it wakes him up and he can't go back to sleep, so he gets up with her. Plus I get really cranky when I haven had enough sleep, And I think he tries to avoid that. :) Sometimes Danton wakes up to eat around the time Lydia wakes up for the day, and I try to let Daddy sleep when I can. Some times he will get up and fix me breakfast, or start dinner so I dont' have to, or take Lydia out to play when danton takes a nap so I can take a nap or just get some quiet. Like I said, He has been Great.
I love you Mark. Believe me, nothing has gone unnoticed, or unappreciated.

Lets see, where to start. Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Well ok, it's not the very beginning, but mearly the beginning of the time that has elapsed since I last posted. But to be totally honest I'm not really sure I can even tell the events in chronological order, I just wanted to see how many times I could say beginning in one paragraph. I'm not sure if I'm loopy cause it's me or cause of a lack of sleep, but actually I have been getting a little more sleep lately, so it's probably just me. But we will get to that in a minuet.
Danton has been smiling a LOT now and starting to talk to us too. IT's so fun. The first picture is my favorite.


AND Lydia (as you can see from the ring of sugar round her mouth) has been getting a lot of arm candies lately due to going potty on the toilet. 5 times yesterday. We are so proud. Now if we can only get her to remember to go number 2 on the potty then we can start putting the underwear on.



Saturday was the Easter egg hunt in our apartment complex, it didn't take Lydia long to figure out what was going on.





And the thing I'm most excited about is Lydia and Danton are now sharing a room. He turned 2 months on Sunday and is out growing his little laundry basket that sits next to my side of the bed. So we moved Lydia into a big girl bed and put the rail back on the crib and raised the mattress for Danton. Monday night was the first time he slept in there and both kids did GREAT. I sleep better with him in another room cause I don't wake up every time he stirs and I think he sleeps better in another room too, he has only been waking up twice at night, and he goes right back to sleep. Lydia sleeps through it all. And during the day Danton sleeps in his crib and we leave the door open and the light on so Lydia can come and go in her room as she pleases. He is use to sleeping in the living room where she runs and screams anyway. So it's been nice.

My Birthday

I had a good birthday day, I could have use a little more sleep. :) Mark did let me sleep in though (he does when he can anyway) he took both kids in the morning for me. But i had a bit of a sore throat and a runny nose so I didn't feel 100%. But he made me a great breakfast sausage bacon, eggs and toast. Yummy. Then we cleaned a little. We pretty much stayed home all day. I got a few phone calls and some notes on facebook.
I havent been back to my tap class since Danton was born so I took the kids in yesterday just to say hi, and I figured Lydia would enjoy watching the people dance. Everyone was surprised that I had Danton already, and they all just loved him. We stayed for a few mins to lydia could watch teh tap dance and she didn't want to leave. I didn't plan on staying the whole time for one cause we would have gotten home past Lydia's bed time and for 2 we had angel food cake and strawberries at home. So I convinced her to go home for cake and strawberries (even thought she didnt get any before she went to bed) It was so fun to watch her, she LOVED it.
I am however disappointed about one thing. I signed up on the Schlotzky's e-club cause they send you a coupon for a free sandwich on your birthday. i got one last year and I have been looking froward to it for a few months, and guess what, they didnt send it. :( I didn't get my free schlotzky's sandwich. Other than that my birthday was a success, I even blew out one candle (though I forgot to make a wish)