It's so hard to really believe that Brooklynn will be two years old next month!! The days seem to pass by slowly sometimes, but the weeks, months, and years are flying by. This is one of my favorite stages so far. She is SO SO sweet and SO hilariously funny! She LOVES helping me do pretty much everything, especially helping with Madison and anything she can in the kitchen. She now pushes a kitchen chair all over the kitchen to "help" whoever is in there, and she doesn't seem to care who or what is in her way=) She has also started to want to do things herself, which is really fun for me!(sense the sarcasm) She'll say "I do it, I do it!!!" and wants to get dressed herself,(which she can't really do yet, but I'll say"ok you can do it" and then I'll sneakily try and help her) put her own socks and shoes on(which she can't do yet either) and she wants to do her own hair, among many other things. There are many times a day where I hear her say with a lot of emotion and determination "I do it, I do it!!" I just have to take a deep breath and step back and let her attempt it.
We are trying to break her of her binki, except for when she sleeps, so we've been having her put them in a cute little bowl every morning and after naps. She loves collecting them all, and then I'll lift her up so she can reach the shelf in her closet where we keep the bowl. She really got attached to them, and would pretty much want to hold one in her mouth almost all the time, and she'd just end up drooling all over our furniture and needed to have one everywhere we went. It's overdue, but I wasn't ready to take it from her until now with all the new changes with having Madison join our family. I felt like we rocked Brooklynn's world enough. Now she, and we, couldn't imagine our family without Madison, and it's time to rid ourselves of the binki=)
She is big enough now where I can open the car door for her, and she can climb up into her carseat by herself while I'm getting Madison situated. That has been nice. She is learning so many new things, it's so fun to watch her. She's learned to count to ten, and a lot of times when I give her a treat, like an m&m or something, I'll say"ok, you can have two and that's it" and then when she's finished the two she'll say "seven, eight, nine, ten" which means she just wants like seven more. So funny!
She LOVES going to church now! She asks several times during the week if we can go to church, and whenever we drive past it during the week she gets super excited and yells "Church!!" She'll just walk right into nursery without any problems now. She loves "color time, bubble time, snack time, singing time, and play time" as she says it. I'm so grateful that she loves being in there now. She'll always run to me so excited after church to show me the picture she colored that day. It's so fun to see and hear about the new things she's learning. The other day she started twirling around on the carpet and was singing "ashes, ashes" so I started singing Ring Around The Rosie, and she got THE biggest smile on her face! I have never taught her that, so I know it's something she learned in nursery. Same with "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" She must have just learned that too. She LOVES when I sing her the new songs she's learned. She'll shout "ALL RIGHT" instead of Hooray when I sing "If you're happy and you know it shout hooray!" and it's so adorable! I love that she loves to learn and I love watching her put the things she's learning into practice. Last week in sacrament meeting she even opened the hymn book during the opening hymn and acted like she was following along. I had to chuckle when she closed it before we started the final verse, then when she realized it wasn't over she opened it back up like "whoops, it's not over yet." She is so cute! I have been told multiple times by ladies with kids Brooklynn's age, that she talks A LOT for her age. It's funny because Joe and I joke that we tried getting her to talk for so long, and now we can't get her to ever be quiet. She's always talking!
When I get ready, she's right by my side. Sometimes it makes me want to scream because everywhere I turn, she's right there and in to everything, but most of the time she does okay. When I get out of the shower she'll get out my deodorant, toothpaste and face creams and say "Here you go mommy." Then when I'm doing my makeup she's right there beside me using my brushes and makeup blender on her face, like she's doing her makeup. It really is so cute! She likes to open my lip glosses and put some on. She'll grab one and say "lips, lips!" Sometimes she gets into my eyeshadows and makes a mess, but I've learned to keep one eye on what I'm doing, and one eye on her.
She loves Elmo still. She'll watch Elmo's World from Sesame Street, but she just watches that part. She won't watch the entire episode. She has some Elmo books that she's obsessed with. The latest craze is "Using the Bathroom" book that talks about using the big potty and taking baths and brushing teeth and stuff. She wants to read it ALL THE TIME. And she still loves "Llama llama Share" and usually has to have that read to her at least once a day. We bought her a little book called "My first Book of Mormon Stories, and Joe will read from it every night. If we get busy and forget she'll always remember and say "Scriptures! Scriptures!" She also points out in several of the stories that the men or boys are "nakies" because they don't have shirts on. Sometimes she gets so stuck on that, that I don't think she hears much of the story that night, but at least we are attempting it every day with her. =) She also loves Family Home Evening. We've been teaching her out of the Gospel Principles book for the last several lessons, and she loves just flipping through and looking at the pictures. She has also started to love saying the prayer, which completely melts my heart. One night she said the opening prayer for family home evening, and hearing her sweet little voice talking to Heavenly Father brought the sweetest spirit into our home. She loves doing Ring Around The Rosie(which she calls "Ashes ashes" and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes after the lesson.
Last week she helped me make chocolate chip cookies, and she colored an Elmo picture for her best friend Evan. He loves Elmo too! Evan got Shingles a couple weeks ago and was really sick. When we got the okay that he was doing better and wasn't contagious anymore, she was so excited to go see him and take him a treat. She has talked about it all week. She'll say "cookies for Evan. Picture" It was so sweet watching her hand him the plate of cookies. I just love my sweet girl.
She's always trying to help with Madison. If I'm busy and Madison starts crying of fussing, Brooklynn is the first to try to attend to her. She'll help her get her binki in, or show her a cartoon video on the phone, or take her a toy. She loves her little sister. She's always wanting to hug, hold her, or give her kisses. She also thinks is so fun to take a bath with her every night. I'll put Madison's tub in our big bathtub, and then fill up our tub a little bit and put Brooklynn in at the same time I bathe Madison. They both LOVE bath time so much! Brooklynn has started taking off her own diaper at night before she gets into the tub. Luckily she doesn't do it during the day. That could be a nightmare come to fruition to find that.=) She will also come and tell me when she's poopy now.
She LOVES the water, and would really play in it anytime. She loves turning on the tub and "washing her hands" whenever she gets anything on them, or after she helps put mousse in her hair. She'll push the chair over to the sink in the kitchen and stand there and wash her hands or "wash Madison's bottles" or help with rinsing the dishes, just so she can play in the water. She always wants to go "swim with daddy" as she says it. There's a little rec center in Angleton that we've been taking her to because it's pretty cheap, there's a lazy river, a fun kids area, and it's never really super crowded. She LOVES that! If you ask her during the week what she wants to do, she'll usually always say "swim with daddy." It was warm yesterday, so Joe blew up this blow up pool I bought on clearance at the end of the summer, and stuck her little slide in it so she would slide down right into the pool. The child was absolutely in heaven! She's going to be SO excited tomorrow when I pull it out again for her. I could also send her outside with a big plastic cup full of ice and she would play with that for a long while too. She's so funny!
Every day when Joe gets home Bookie usually screams "Daddy!" and runs to him and then he'll take her in our room and they wrestle for a few minutes before dinner. He'll also read to her every night before bed. He's taught her how to do big things at the park, and she can climb up on things on her own now. Sometimes I think I hold her back because I don't feel like she's ready for things, but Joe just teaches her how to do them and then lets her go for it. Sometimes it results in some bumps and bruises but she'll usually get up and try again.
So that I don't forget them, some other things that Brooklynn says, does, or is loving right now are:
"Daddy tooted", "Thank you VERY much,"( I wondered where she got that from and then realized I say it a lot!) Joe will "burp" her after she drinks her milk before bed, like I burp Madison, and she'll fake this huge burp and then say "Excuse Me." She loves the Children's Museum and going to see the baby chicks before we leave. She's just gotten interested in Mini Mouse because she found this Mini Mouse doll that Serena and the girls gave her that sings "hot dog, hot dog," and then I put the show on tv the other day and she smiled so big when they sang the same song. She loves doing airplane after I finish my exercises and am stretching. She loves when she sees school buses on the road when we are out and about, because she loves watching "wheels on the bus" on youtube. She loves reading "Elmo Potty, Elmo Big Bed, Llama Llama Share. She loves watching nursery rhyms on my phone, or watching UP.
Madison is already 4 Months Old! I just can't believe how quickly she's changing and growing. I just want to keep her my tiny little baby for much longer. It seems like just yesterday Brooklynn was that small, and now she barely fits in my arms. I'm just trying to cherish every moment I can. Things are different with two kids. With Brooklynn, I could attend to her every need when she was Madison's age. Now I am juggling the needs of two kids, and sometimes that means that one is upset and crying while I'm attending to the other. I've kind of gotten things down now though, and try not to overschedule myself, because that's when things get really stressful. If I can just play off of the girls and what their needs are, our days usually run smoothly. I try to get them out of the house at least once a day, and I try to always do something that's fun for them(mostly Brooklynn at this age) at least once a day. Whether that's the Children's Museum, the Aquarium, the park, going to Pets Mart to look at the fish and birds, or going to Bounce Town to let her play, or even riding on the merry go round at the grocery store, I find that everyone is happier when she gets to do something fun for herself out of the house once a day. Sometimes it doesn't happen every day, but I try hard.
Madison's little personality is really coming out, and she is SO fun! She's still sleeping with me, and I love waking up to her jibber jabbering in the morning. She is THE MOST smiley little baby ever. All you have to do is smile at her and she will give you a huge smile right back. She has also started laughing every now and then, and it is absolutely the sweetest sound. Every now and then if you catch her at the right time and say something she thinks is funny, or tickle her just right, she just lets out the cutest little laugh. I can't wait until I get to hear it more often. She's such a good baby. She's happy unless she's hungry, tired, or poopy. I feel like I know her needs so much better than I did with Brooklynn. Obviously I have gotten better with age and practice, and now know how to take care of children better=) Madison will usually eat about every 3 hours or so during the day, and take little 30 minute naps every 2-3 hours or so. She used to sleep for hours, but now she just doesn't do that anymore. She sleeps really well at night though, so I can't complain. I'll usually feed her right before I go to bed, sometime around 9 or 10, and then lately she's been sleeping all the way until about 6 or 7! Hallelujah!! This momma needs my sleep! If she does wake up randomly at night I can just give her her binki and she'll go back to sleep. She's such a good baby, and I feel super blessed!
She absolutely LOVES bath time. She's started flapping her arms and kicking now when I put her in the water. She hasn't really ever cried except for her very first bath at the hospital. I'm so glad she loves the water, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she does at the pool this summer.
She has started grasping on to things. She has a little ball she loves to play with, or she'll grab her blanket and just suck on it, and when I pick her up from her swing she's usually got a toy or her blanket with her. She's pulling my hair now or holding on tight to my finger or my shirt. Sometimes if she's unhappy in the car, I can just reach my hand back and she'll grab hold of my finger and calm down a little bit. She hasn't been a big fan of the car lately. I think it's mostly being strapped in to her carseat, and then since she doesn't nap super well anymore, she's usually tired when we try to go somewhere in the afternoon. I can't just sit home all day though and let her nap when she decides she wants to, so a lot of the times she just has to nap in the car or wherever I take Bookie that day.
She likes to suck on things all the time now. Usually it's her own fist, or her blanket, or binki, or sometimes the back of my hand. She's also super drooly now, so I feel like she's totally teething. I can't feel anything yet though. I think I kinda sorta feel some teeth coming in on the bottom, but nothing definite yet.
She loves having her diaper changed. It's the funniest thing! When I unsnap her jammies, or take off her pants, she just kicks and gets the biggest smile! She just melts my heart so many times throughout the day. She can also get super upset and just fuss and do this mad yell/scream until I swear I am going to go crazy. I feel like I don't get much done in the day, but it's probably more than I think. If I can keep up on the laundry, keep the fridge stocked, and get dinner on the table, I feel like I'm doing pretty well! Sometimes I feel like I did was feed, change, and rock kids to sleep, but then I think about how much I longed to be a mom for so long, and I have to pause and give thanks for the opportunity I have been given. Being a mom is BY FAR the absolute hardest and most selfless thing I have ever done. There are days that I just want to sit in a quiet, dark room, all by myself, but that's not really an option. I have had several meltdowns to Joe and he's been really good about helping me to get back on track. Sometimes I just need a good cry to relieve the stress that I feel. And I have felt a lot better since I started working out on a regular basis. He'll also watch the girls every Saturday for about and hour and a half so that I can get away and go to the gym by myself, and I've been able to also sneak away for a pedicure and some time to just relax. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful husband.
No comments:
Post a Comment