Friday, February 29, 2008

My Well-Baby

Weight: 20 pounds, 10 ounces (25%)
Height: 29 3/4 inches (50%)
Head: 18 3/4 inches (???)
It's bigger than Easton's if the measurements are right!!!

Dalton had his well-baby visit today. We had to reschedule the time because the doctor was off delivering a leap year baby. But it's all good...we were seen and he's doing just great. There are no concerns about him, he's completely on track. It was an overall positive visit.

She is not as worried about his weight anymore as he's gained 10 ounces in the last six weeks and he is sticking to his new 25th percentile curve. I'm glad about that.

I asked about him not sleeping through the night and if I should try to "fix" that. She actually said no. That is when he does his best eating and because it doesn't bother me (it really doesn't) then I should let him keep going. I do worry about not teaching him good habits. I do not want a non-nursing child later on who cannot sleep through the night on his own, but honestly, he can and does put himself to sleep currently. He's not nursing in the night because he's lonely or can't put himself back to sleep (I don't nurse him to sleep), he doesn't do it at the same time each night out of habit...he's friggin' hungry and just wants to eat. So I'll keep letting him. Because my doctor said so. It's only once occasionally twice a night. I am not dependent on caffiene or naps to make it through my day. I'm not exhausted all the time. He nurses for 10 minutes and we both go back to sleep. Not a big deal. I'm sure that when I am finally able to sleep I might go, "Man, I didn't realize how tired I was back then" but for now, I'm just fine, thank you.

Oh and I want to say that the subject of weaning and when and all that never even came up. Woot!

I like this doctor MUCH better than the old one, even though they're in the same practice. Not just because of this issue. And she's always very nice to "Ethan" (she's close!) when he's tagging along and trying to get attention from her too. She doesn't tell him to be quiet like the old doctor did. Poopy head. Anyway...

The doc did say "And now you can turn him around in his car seat because he's a year old and he's hit the 20 pound mark" and I was like, "Yeah...we're gonna wait on that" (proud of me, Jess?) and she said, "Oh why?" and I said, "Because it's safer!!!" Jason and I just don't feel like D's ready just yet. Although when Easton was 18 months we were chomping at the bit for him to gain that last teeny bit of weight. Funny. Easton just seemed stronger even though he also seems less "sturdy". :)

Oh, and I took Easton over to the Peds unit and asked someone I used to work with if I could put him on their scale. He was 26.5 pounds with no shoes. Not sure if that's right or not, at his well-child visit last month he was only 24.5. But he did eat a TON on our vacation so maybe...

Diddles had to get 3 shots today. 2 of the 3 were supposed to be especially painful (sting going in) but he didn't cry much. He's a trooper. The chicken pox vax and the MMR are also more likely to cause reactions such as a high-ish fever that we'll probably have to treat with meds. He's napping now (as is Easton, actually) so we'll see how he does later.

Afterwards we did smoothies with J as usual. Dalton ate his sticker.

He Signs Now

I don't think I'd updated that..."milk" is the sign he's really got down:



Don't worry, I gave him some:
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And then Eastie cleaned him up for me:
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I'm training him to take over some of the dirty work for me.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Not Much to Show, A Few Things to Tell

From the morning:



Notice that on Dalton's head in the video? It's a "D". We put it on his head since he'd eat it off his hand:
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"E" got his on his hand.
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Oh goodness, the things we find entertaining around here... :)

After Dalton's nap I took the boys to the zoo. Easton wanted to "visit my monkey friends because I really really miss them". We also had ice cream and rode on the carousel. But my camera batteries died right when we got there.

It's okay...we've been before and we'll go again.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A Busy Day

It felt like it's been awhile since Easton and I had done any real art projects so we were due. As Easter and spring are coming I thought we could make a fluffy white bunny.

I drew E a bunny head outline and he glued on some small cotton balls to fill it in:
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Then we glued on some googly eyes and some construction paper ears, nose, mouth, and whiskers:
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Ta da!
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Easton and I then went to play in "Easton's living room" and I showed him how I can put my legs behind my head. He took a few pictures. This one is sadly the most flattering of them all:
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Easton trying:
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Then we had some lunch. Easton wanted to eat it on the kitchen floor:
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He took a picture of me and instructed me to "make a sad face":
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Then we mopped the floors, he's such a great helper:
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It'll be weird when Dalton's only taking one nap a day. We have lots to do during D's morning nap. Wonder if I'll still get it all done?

At least I've got a helper in feeding one of the boys:



I love watching my boys be brothers. Warms the heart.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

New Names

Easton has assigned us all Toy Story character names. He is Buzz as you might guess. I'm Jessie. Daddy is Woody. And Baby Dalton is Rex.

He sticks with it sooooo well and calls me Jessie just about every time. No more "Mommy". We got something in Target and he said, "Thanks, Jessie!" He heard Jason's ringtone on my phone and said, "That sounds like Woody!" He'll ask "What's wrong with Rex?" if Dalton is cranky.

I sat down at my computer to find he had put his Jessie figure right where I go:
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I think he's so fun!

Pretty Painting

Easton asked to paint with Dalton's paints. So while D napped and I computed, I set Easton up next to me for some art time:
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He had some paint on him already so when he asked if he could paint on himself, I let him. When I looked up again he was painting his toenails!
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I stuck him in the shower after that. What a goob!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Purposeful Steps

Dalton took his first "on purpose" steps today!

(Remember that this post is old...from 2/25)

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Professional Birthday Pic Post

The day after Dalton's birthday was his professional photo shoot. With Easton in years past I always wanted to do it on the actual day, but it takes up quite a lot of time so we opted for the next day for D and I liked it much better. With his little party and 2 naps plus swimming we just couldn't have worked it in easily...or happily.

In fact, with doing it the next day, we had time to clean the house, go to lunch, and check out some HDTVs at Sears Grand before the appointment. His pictures did not go that well, however. He was totally in the throes of his separation anxiety and did not give us many smiles at all for the times he actually stayed still. It's a big bummer because I sort of felt the need to order basically the same amounts of pictures we got after Easton's 3 year shoot that turned out almost too many good pictures but gosh, there just wasn't enough good pics to do that with for D's. Oh well.

Plus the chick gave him the wooden words to spell out "I am 1" but she never ended up finding the one and we therefore wasted all this time taking pictures of him we'd never buy because what the heck am I gonna do with him holding the word "am"? Actually we did buy one of them--not "am"--because the way he's holding the "I" makes it kinda look like a "1". Shhhhh. :)
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We "had" to get one since Easton had one with the 3:
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The rest...
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Doesn't this look like something we could do at home? The only close up she took. Grrr.
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I LOVE this one, just wish he wasn't wearing that chef's hat and wish that we had planned on J being in a few pictures so that he would have worn a better shirt. :)
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His first baseball card. :)
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That night we took a funny movie at dinner:



And this silly picture:
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Gosh I love those boys!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Diddle's Birthday Recap

Here he is at exactly one year old, 7:57 a.m.
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"Don't tell me I'm looking older"
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He had banana for breakfast. His favorite. We let him take a stab at feeding himself with a fork. He didn't do too badly.
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Video proof:



While Dalton napped we got ready for his little birthday gathering. He has no friends of his own so we just invited my mom and sister and then my grandparents. Jason made chicken quesadillas. Easton and I picked up balloons. You remember how that boy loves balloons, don't you?

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I have to confess that we did not let Dalton eat birthday cake. Instead I made him a banana chocolate chip muffin. I wanted to let him eat cake, but at the same time I don't want to deal with the years of possible reprocussions. We let Easton have a cupcake at his first birthday party. We can look back and pinpoint that exact (no joke) moment in time as when he became a very picky eater. Not that it might not have happened anyway, but we wanted to do what we could to avoid it for Dalton in the future. The one moment in time, while great fun for us (and him) and great memories to look back on is just really not worth years of struggles. I'm sorry. It's just not. Call us party poopers but whatev.

Plus, Dalton loved his muffin and still made a mess and banana is his favorite.
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The rest of us had brownies:
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After cleaning up that whole mess it was time for some presents! Easton got to help:
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But Dalton knew he could handle gift bags on his own:
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Gramoo and Lauren brought him a "It's fun to be one" birthday crown, I just wish they'd whipped it out earlier:
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(He's showing off his standing skills there.)

More present opening:
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Lauren was acting as our guest photographer there.

And here too when I made sure to pose so I knew I'd be in a birthday picture:
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Dalton received a very special gift from The Alabamaws:
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G-Ma painted and personalized the stool herself. We love it!

We gave Dalton a music table, you can see how excited he is to open it:
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"It's just like the one I love at Baby John's house"
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Checking it out:
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Big brother likes it too!
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Me making sure I'm in some of the photos again:
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Party-goers:
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After presents we showed the video of Dalton's First Year. Touching:
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Then Dalton beat up on his brother because it's the one day I told Easton, "We have to let Dalton do anything he wants because it's his birthday."
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Our guests left after that. Dalton showed off his new trick:


And then he took a nap. We had more special plans for him when he woke up: Swimming!

We went to one of the nearby rec center pools and had fun for awhile. Easton, Jason and I even got to do some sliding. Easton is so brave. He was going down BIG slides (disapperaring from our view briefly). Dalton had fun watching and my little Pisces is a splasher.
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We opted to each take a kid to the locker rooms with us to get dressed both before and after swimming. Jason picked Dalton. He's the tougher one so Easton and I posed while we waited on them:
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For dinner we went to Sweet Tomatoes simply for the variety of new foods for Dalton to try now that he is one: eggs, cheese, macaroni, plus old favorites like beans, peas, and noodles. He went to town:
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He even tried the table:
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Can't forget about big brother who ate well as he usually does at Sweet Tomatoes:
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I think my Diddles had a pretty special birthday. He seemed happy!
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