Brody Lawrence: 7 Month Update

I'm writing this as I write the 6 and 8 month updates as well, so it's likely there could be some overlap and I'm not 100% sure when exactly everything happened, but who is going to tell me I'm wrong?? :)

Weight: Completely unsure but when I step on the scale with him it looks to be about 18-18.5 Pounds

Length: Not a clue.

Head Circumference:  See above.

Physical Milestones:  Brody officially starting "true" crawling this month.  I didn't think he would but he's a fan now.  We moved into our new house and he's a HUGE fan of crawling up the stairs.  Time to buy some baby gates ASAP.  He also started pulling to stand towards the end of this month.  He really loves standing but has a really hard time getting down from standing.  This is leading to a lot of fussing.

Eating:  Still feeding him 3 meals a day of purees, but he is showing more and more interest in our food and less and less interest in being a passive part in the feeding process.  He's developing a pretty great pincher grasp.  He's not a huge fan of sitting in his high chair at all and feeding is turning into a big struggle.  He is still nursing 5 times usually a day/night.  

Sleeping:  He was doing pretty good right before we moved and for the first week or so of being in our new house.  As you know based one the 2 blogs I have actually written since we moved that the move was extremely difficult and stressful with sleeping and new day care.  He was waking up once to eat and then typically sleeping until at least 5:30 am.  Towards the end of this month, he has been waking up about every hour or two screaming at night.  We are exhausted and unsure what to do.  We aren't convinced letting him cry is what is best for him at the moment so we are just going to try to do what we can and get through this bad phase, which is difficult enough.

Other:  He's doing great at the new daycare (Kayla is in a different room as he is).  The teachers LOVE him and he's always flirting with all the ladies in the room.  He is a GREAT eater at day care.

I realized I could never be a photographer because I have the hardest time narrowing down photos...I guess it might be different if it wasn't my own kids.  They just have so many facial expressions I want to keep them all!

Brody Lawrence: 6 month update

This post is ridiculously late, but now that we are somewhat settled into our new house and t.v. shows are wrapping up for the summer, I have some more time to try to catch up and get back to my blog.  This blog is very important to me because it's my documentation of my kids growing up so I really want to try to dedicate more time to writing/posting.

Weight: 17 lb 9.7 oz (50th%)

Length: 2' 4.5" (also known as 28.5 inches if you can't do the math) (100th%)

Head Circumference:  43.8 cm (60th%)

Physical Milestones:  Brody started army crawling EVERYWHERE, and FAST.  He really didn't seem too interested in true crawling as he was getting everywhere he needed and wanted to go without problem by doing the worm.  He still isn't a big fan of sitting.  Pretty much whatever position you put him in he immediately gets to his stomach and starts scooting all over the place.  He will get up on all fours still and towards the end of this month started moving one leg or one hand.  He will play with a toy with one hand while on all fours, so maybe he will start true crawling soon.

Eating:  We began giving him pretty much three meals of solids foods every day, usually some form of fruits or veggies mixed with oatmeal.  Some times he eats a ton and other times he's not too interested.  He still really loves nursing and we are nursing about 5 or 6 times a day (usually still one time at night.)  

Sleeping:  So I honestly can't remember back this far (I'm writing this currently as I am WAY behind on writing Brody's updates...which makes me feel like a total failure to him.)  I can tell you with 100% certainty he wasn't sleeping great.  Putting him to bed earlier at night (around 6:30 or so) seemed to be helping some.  He would usually sleep until 1 or 2 and then until 5:30 or 6 am (which is apparently his morning time...not mine.)  but honestly, our biggest problem with trying to sleep train him has been that he has not been consistent at all.  One night, he'll wake up 3 or 4 times and then next he will sleep until 3 or 4 and eat and go back to sleep.  It's super frustrated but he's learning a lot in a short amount of time.  Oh well...cest la vie.

Random 6 Month photos:  (All taken around St. Patty's Day which was around his half birthday :) 

Blog Silence

Since moving into our new house, I have felt like 3x as busy as I was before (which was pretty busy if you ask me.)  I literally have barely had time to think about my blog.  But I've been dreaming about getting back to it and documenting my kids lives and how important it is to me, so I'm making a very concentrated effort to post 3x/week.

I had big plans to upload some recent phone and Instagram photos to this post to show how much we are enjoying our new home, but it turns out, I literally can not add more pictures to my computer.  Leading me to another task on my long list of crap I want to do.  I have slowly been putting photos onto our external hard drive, but I've been hoarding all photos from our wedding forward so I can create some online family "yearbooks," so I guess I better get on that.

Anyways, besides the major sleep issues still going on, the difficulty with our new day care and the sickness that is still invading our home, we are SERIOUSLY enjoying getting our new house ready.  We love being so close to the park and everything we could need.  Wish we had a bit more money to decorate and furnish, but for now, it's perfect.

This week, my goals are to post "before" photos of our new house and do some updates on Brody (6 AND 7 months, I'm way behind) and Kayla.  Until then, we are enjoying the spring weather which is hopefully here to stay!

What happens when I become overwhelmed...

I am generally a very motivated, driven person, but the past 2 weeks in our new house have really taken their toll on me.  I know I haven't written and the reason is that when I become overwhelmed, I tend to shut down and just do what I need to do to get through each day.  Which has been hard in and of itself as now I'm getting so little sleep that I'm sick.

Kayla is really not a fan of new day care.  Both kids were sick week 1 and not sleeping great at all.  Brody started to get better, while Kayla started to get worse.  I'm pretty sure Kayla was feeling abandoned.  Then Brody get really bad, like waking up every hour literally bad.  I ended up taking them to the doctor because I was desperate for some help.  The doctor didn't help much.  Although we now have a referral to an ENT for Kayla's constant ear infections.

The mess in the house is driving me crazy but, like I said, when I'm overwhelmed I do the bare minimum.  I can feel that pesky post partum depression creeping up.  If we had any money to spare right now, I'd be paying for the best sleep consultant there is.  They wake each other up, Brody screams bloody murder at night for no reason.  Kayla is sleeping better, but how can we let Brody "cry-it-out" if he's going to wake her up?

I'm starting to feel like I'm just inadequate at mothering babies that sleep.  Why do I have, not one, but two of the worse sleepers ever?  Anyways, just letting you know I'm here and overwhelmed and hopefully will be back shortly.

Sickness and Sleep

Too much of the former and not enough of the latter.  

So 2.5 weeks ago at Brody's sixth month check, we found out both kids had double ear infections.  Ugh.  I thought we were past this.  Ok, so fine, they both get put on Amoxicillin (good thing this is SUPER cheap with my prescription drug coverage.)  

Fast forward 4 days, Brody got a fever of almost 103.  After 36-48 hours we ended up at the doctor's office because she was worried the medicine wasn't helping his ear infections.  Which it was.  He apparently had some other sort of virus causing him to be so congested he literally couldn't breathe at all through his nose (which makes for very annoying nursing relationship, chest congestion and upset stomach.  He also decided he wasn't interested in eating solid foods anymore.  At all.  After four days of a fever of around 103 despite regularly giving him Tylenol, it finally broke.  Then he was SUPER cold and clammy for a few days.

So for Easter, we were all healthy.  We went to see the Easter bunny, enjoyed some time at our favorite appliance store in preparation for our impending move.

Come Tuesday when the kids went to daycare, I got a text at work saying Kayla had a fever.  So now Kayla has whatever Brody had.  (She actually threw up when she woke up from her nap today which is why I totally lost my train of thought on this post.)  We are sure if it's a virus, a concussion or a combination of the two since she got a huge goose egg on her head at my parents house on Easter Sunday.  She was in the laundry room and quickly turned and (we think) her her head on the door handle.  Honestly, she isn't great about watching where she is walking so I have a feeling we will have a lot of goose eggs in our future.  Needless to say, we are monitoring her closely to make sure she doesn't have a head injury.  We still aren't convinced.  Hopefully all will be well once we move into our new house this weekend.

My little man and me Easter weekend.

Kayla in the bubble machine at the appliance store (yes the appliance store is AMAZE-BALLS)

Kayla's fresh goose egg...the other picture my mom took was significantly funnier but I'm not mean enough to post it. 

Little man is very very mobile now and enjoys exploring his new environments.

This is what Kayla looks like EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. we leave Gigi and Papa's house.  I probably have about 15 photos just like this.

Yesterday, on the way home from daycare after picking up the kiddos, I was very concerned about Kayla's blank stares and not responding to me.  But I couldn't help but chuckle a little as I drove and heard quietly in the backseat the "zzzzziiiiiiipppppp"  and "bbbbzzzzzzzzzzzz" of Brody pulling on this zebra vibrating car seat toy.  He crawls to his car seat to try to pull it while at home too.  :)

What's New?

So I know I've been light on the posting.  I have a few things in the works such as:

• Brody's 6 Month update
• St. Patty's Day
• Easter
• Sick baby update
• NEW HOUSE!

We are set to close on Friday on our new house, so look forward to hopefully some before and after updates on some of the new rooms.  I'd especially like to work on the kids rooms first.

Until then, enjoy a few photos from our February play date with some of our great friends from college and their adorable little girl who's about 1.5 months older than Brody. :)

(Sidenote: I made the mistake of exporting these photos from iPhoto to my photos in a smaller size/quality than normal to try to save space...I guess I see the repercussions of that mistake now.  Katie if you want any photos I will redo them so they are better quality, just let me know!)