Teeth! April 15, 2013

I’m really sad that it has been so long since either of us posted.  I got a new position and went up to full time in March.  It’s been good and luckily it’s mostly manageable, but so far it hasn’t left enough free time to keep up with blogging (and then the longer you go without blogging, the more there is to write about, and the more daunting it seems to start posting!).  So I don’t really know where to begin, so I’ll start with the face that our (5 year old) baby boy has started to lose his teeth!  He lost the first, heart breakingly, when John and I were in Cozumel on vacation and the kids were with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days.  It wasn’t really even that loose, but it decided to pop out while we were gone.  I remember when I lost my first tooth, and the second one fell out the day after the first, so I thought Hayden’s second would come out quickly, but it took until 2 days ago which was 5 or 6 weeks later.  It was pretty loose for a while, but he doesn’t really seem to bother with his teeth when they are loose (I remember I was a big time tooth wiggler when mine were loose) so it took a long time to come out.  I picked him up from a birthday party on Saturday, and it was gone!  He didn’t seem to realize, nor did anyone else who had been at the party.  So with both of the teeth it seems like they must have come out when he was eating and he swallowed them or something because we’ve never seen them once they’ve come out!

The Things They Say August 15, 2012

I know this is a common theme in my posts (what are you going to do, stop reading?  Wait, come back!), but the kids just crack us up with the things they say.  They sound so grown up sometimes without even realizing it.  I thought it was funny enough that Hayden throws “actually” into his stories regularly, but I was floored when Layla started doing it.  “I walk down stairs.” “Oh, you want to walk?”  “Actually, carry me.”  She says actually quite a lot, actually.  Funny.

When the babysitter was here while I was working and she couldn’t figure out how to get a DVD to work, Hayden would come into the office and tell me that Natalie was “having a hard time with the movie,” and I needed to come help.  Or he’ll tell me he’s “having a hard time” buttoning his pants.

Layla has been sticking her fingers in her mouth and biting them a lot lately, so we think her last molars are coming through.  Yesterday I gave her some pain medicine, and I put it in a little medicine cup like what Hayden gets his allergy medicine in every day.  She was pretty excited at drinking out of it like she sees Haddy do every day, even though she didn’t like the taste.  Well, I could have written the script myself this morning at breakfast.  I gave Hayden his medicine and no sooner had I set it on the table than Layla is telling me, “My teeth hurt.”  What a little rascal!  (I am impressed, though, that her language is so far advanced that she says things like, “My teeth hurt,” “I’m thirsty,” “I’m hungry,” instead of directly saying what she wants [medicine, drink, food].  She makes the connection between those feelings and what they are associated with.)

Hayden’s also been calling Layla “Lay” a lot which I love.  John and I (and many others, “actually”) call her “Lay” for short, and I think Hayden has really been enjoying using her little nickname lately.

Layla at 19 (oops, 20!) Months January 19, 2012

I thought I would just take a step back and catalog some of the funny things Layla is doing at 19 20 months.  We haven’t had loads of time to blog lately, so I know John did something similar recently but I don’t think there will be too much overlap.

The kids are usually with me as I am getting ready in the morning.  Hayden will sit on the bed and watch cartoons, and Layla will watch cartoons for about 1 minute and then get down to see what needs to be done with her babies.  When it comes time to brush my teeth, lately she will look at me, point to her mouth (well, really she actually puts her finger in her mouth), and walk off down the hall.  If I don’t make the connection of what she is trying to tell me, she will walk back into my bathroom and make some sort of annoyed noise, turn around and walk down the hall.  She goes into her bathroom and waits by the sink for me to hand her her toothbrush.  Then she “brushes” her teeth for quite a while (while tending to her babies).

The girl knows what she wants, and she definitely knows what she doesn’t want.  She has been doing this “no” head shake thing when she says no, and she is really getting her head going back and forth and whipping that hair all around.  Recently I was at Grandma’s trying to get her to lay down with me for a nap, and every time I said, “Layla, lay down and close your eyes” she would just shake her head and get that hair swinging.  I think after a while she actually forgets she is saying no and she is just enjoying watching what her hair is doing.

She really likes juice, and she’s getting good at saying “orange juice.”  It kind of sounds like, “ajjjjjjjce,” but it’s clear as a bell to us what she wants.  Her favorite word has to be apple, though.  She can’t walk into the kitchen without saying apple, and without doing her darnedest to get her hands on one.  I never thought I would tell my kids they couldn’t have any more apples for the day, but she would always have one on the go if I would let her. Toddler hands have to be clean and dry at least some of the day!

As I’ve already alluded to, the girl loves her babies.  Before bed we are always searching around the house for wherever her babies might have ended up last, because she can’t go to sleep with fewer than two babies, and a blanket.  She loves to push her babies in her little stroller that she keeps upstairs (she will also load that sucker up with anything she can find from our bathroom drawers, and seems to have equally as much fun moving it back from the stroller to the drawers, thankfully).  She also loves to put her babies to sleep, and what I find so funny is she will put them to sleep face down, and then pat their backs.  She likes to sleep on her belly (with her legs pulled up under her usually), so she must just think that’s how everyone does it.  That’s fine, but to the untrained eye it looks a little like she’s trying to suffocate them.  😉

6 teeth August 29, 2011

Layla had six teeth for the longest time. This was a little different for us because with Hayden they just seem to all burst through at once. If you go back to pictures of Hayden around the age that Layla is now you will notice that he always seems to have a bib on! He was a drool monster! We don’t seem to have that problem with Lay, she is a one tooth at a time girl. The bad of that is that is prolonging the teething process, the good thing is I don’t think it hurts or bothers her as much and also she doesn’t have to have bibs every picture….only when she eats! and that is pretty normal, I think grandpa still wears bibs and he is just a little bit older than Lay!

However six teeth has suddenly turned into like 12 without hardly noticing. From nowhere they just popped through after it feels like 3 months of 6 teeth. I can’t call her 6 teeth anymore – I will have to come up with a new nickname for her now! Maybe “Princess Boo!”

Happy 1st birthday, Lay! June 1, 2011

Layla turned one!  The year really flew by – it’s hard to believe it was already a year ago that she was born.  We had a nice party for her, and it got to be on her actual birthday since it happened to be on a Saturday.  We had all her local family here – grandmas, grandpas, great-grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Even a special guest from London, Nanny, was here to celebrate!  We also had our neighbors over.  We had great weather so we were able to be comfortably outside for most of the party (which was noteworthy because of all the rain we have had, and it did rain when the party was over).   Layla got some fun presents including a few dolls which she gets excited over and likes to kiss, and plenty of food-related gifts to go with her big present from Mommy and Daddy of a play kitchen.  It has been fun watching her and big brother play with that.  Hayden has been good about the fact that the new toys are her presents and trying to get her to play with them when he wants play so they are sharing.

It’s been a great year.  Layla is a really sweet baby.  She has never been much of a crier.  We know something really is wrong when we hear her cry.  She is getting more and more communicative.  She still only says Mama, but she jabbers a lot and seems to really be wanting to be heard when she does that.  The other day it was so funny because John came home and she just started jabbering so loudly!  She seemed very excited to be seeing him and had all sorts of things to tell him! I am pretty sure she won’t crawl.  She’s got her scooting down pat and she can get everywhere that way, so why make the lateral move to crawling?  She pulls herself up onto her knees, but hasn’t worked up to a standing position yet.  We are working on that with her.  She loves the animals.  She will often be seen leaning over to give the dogs or cat kisses.  She has six teeth now; two on the bottom and four up top.   She is a great eater.  I call her my bottomless pit at least once a day.  Before she goes to sleep I will stand by her crib and bounce her a little, and she will lay her head on my shoulder and it melts my bones.  She is a very special little person; I couldn’t be happier!

Tooth April 7, 2011

In future news, Layla will have gotten her third tooth tomorrow (or the next day or the next).  I can see some white just under the gum on her upper middle left tooth.  (Since it’s been hard for me to find time to blog I am just getting this on here while I have a moment, even though it hasn’t broken through yet!)  It’s amazing to me that she still only has 2 teeth, because Hayden got his first 2 teeth, what, 5 months?  And then he got the next 6 shortly after that, all at once.  Layla has taken much longer and it doesn’t seem like she is getting a lot at once like he did.  As such, she doesn’t seem to be as uncomfortable as I remember Hayden being when he was teething.  They are alike in many other ways though.  I was commenting to John a few days ago that Hayden has always been really solid in the middle, and for a long time I remember thinking how whispy Layla felt when I picked her up.  She just needed some time to catch up, because now when I pick her up I feel that same solidness in her that Hayden always had.

First tooth! January 6, 2011

Layla got her first tooth on Monday, Jan 3!  It was her lower, middle left.  She’d been a little drooly but not too bad or overly fussy so I was surprised to see it was already breaking through (well, I should say I was surprised to feel,  as I could feel it a couple of days before I could lay eyes on it).  Although, the afternoon/evening before she and Hayden had been at Grandpaman’s and Grandma G’s while we were at the Colts’ game, and when we picked them up she was crying and had been for about an hour. 😦  But she hadn’t seemed to be suffering up until then.

So it’s been three days since the first one came through, but I don’t feel the other one yet.  I remember with Hayden they seem to appear in pairs.  She has been really drooly this week and gets pretty fussy when the pain reliever wears off. Hayden teethed quite early at 5 months, which was good because he had all his teeth including 2 yr molars by about 18 mos.  So he was constantly drooling and wearing bibs for the first year and a half of his life, but then he was all done early.  The good thing with her starting later though is that I can give her Motrin since she’s over 6 months, which lasts longer and thus she can sleep longer before the pain wakes her up and it’s time for another dose.  It’s very plain to see when she’s hurting because she is typically such a happy girl, but when the relief has worn off she changes into a little fuss butt! 🙂

He vants to suck your bloooood… May 19, 2008

In addition to the discomfort Hayden is experiencing with his ear infection (which doesn’t really seem to bother him, apart from the drops that have to go in twice a day), over the last couple of weeks he has also been working on cutting six more teeth!  Two of them have actually broken through already, and the other 4 are just under the surface.  The first one to cut was his second from middle tooth on the top left side.  That is unusual because usually the order is bottom 2 middle first, then top 2 middle, then the 2 middle side ones on top, then the 2 bottom middle side ones.  The other one that has already come through is the left side middle on the bottom.  We hope his top middle ones break through before the top right second from middle, otherwise he will be a silly vampire baby! 🙂  They all look like they could break through any minute, so even if the side one comes through before the middle ones it won’t be long until they are all through.  He is going to look so different with all those teeth!  He got his bottom 2 so early that we thought the others would come through sooner, but it’s been 4 months with just those bottom 2 teefers.

Poor little lad February 1, 2008

Well, Hayden has had a rough few days.  His first two teeth have finally pushed through, so he seems to have a bit of relief from that, but now he is suffering through his first illness.  Sunday he developed this terribly phlegmy cough.  Monday he still had the cough and a low-grade fever, so I kept him home with me while I worked.  The fever and cough have continued, so he ended up staying home all three days.  Yesterday his fever shot up to 100.9.  I got him into the doctor, and he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis.  There is really nothing they can do for it, but it is highly contagious and takes a while to go away.  So I have already told his day care that he will not be coming in next week, either.  I don’t want any of the other babies to get sick, even though he probably got it from them (I even know which one, the little bugger 😉 ).  John is going to try to work from home one day next week and my mom is going to watch him another day – typical that I have a really busy couple of weeks workwise coming up.

Anyway, so he is soldiering through that.  He is really sleepy from it, but doesn’t want to take naps on his own (not that he ever does – but when he cries you can hear the strain in his voice so I am trying to keep him from crying as much as possible), so during the day he just snuggles me and sleeps most of the time.  He was sleeping really well in the evenings until last night when he was up most of the night.  I was up several times cuddling with him to try to soothe him.

Yesterday the doctor gave me some signs to watch for which meant that Hayden was struggling to breathe and told me to call if I saw that happen.  This morning he was showing those signs so they had us come in right away.  Luckily he was getting enough oxygen through his system according to a machine they read from his toe.  It sounded like if that wouldn’t have had a good reading he would have had to go to the hospital.  They have me a nebulizer machine to give him some medicine via vapors that he inhales.  He also has an ear infection today, even though yesterday his ears looked good.  I feel so sorry for him.  He’s not been in good spirits, either.  Hopefully he will start to get better next week.

Daddy’s Thoughts January 21, 2008

Kara stole most of the cool things that have recently happened but I felt I ought to blog and write about munchkin.  He has started to become quite serious this week.  He is starting to get content sometimes to just sit and stare at things.  Today for example he was just looking at my face like it was the most interesting thing in the world, normally he just laughs when he looks at my face!!  He is still addicted to TV.  Especially any football which is great news for me as I’ve got a good excuse to watch it!! 🙂

I like to teach him to be tough and typically give him little or no sympathy when he fusses but I must admit with all his teething this week I have really felt for him.  You can see his little toother that has come through and see there are two or three more pushing through and really hurting him!  Poor little fella!!  He still loves bath time though!! and that’s my time!!  He can be really moody – but get him the bath and everything changes to happiness!! 😀