5 Weeks Away

I left my babies for 5 weeks.  In those 5 weeks...

Hannah -
Learned to crawl.
Says "bao bao" when she wants to be picked up.  Or rather... "bo bo" like how Ryan says it.  :) 
Says "ze ge ze ge ze ge..." repeatedly.
Can pull herself up.
Learned to eat complete solids.  Apparently she loves peas. 
Shakes her head when she doesn't want something.


Alex -
Got to spend 3 weeks with her grandparents down in Georgia. 
Learned how to jump off the side of the pool and blow bubbles in the water. 
Talking so much in English now, although I think she lost some of her Chinese. 
Learned to "try it" when given something new to eat.  

Thanks to Ryan for taking such good care of our girls.  I couldn't have gone away w/o your support.  I love you!

Oh.  And since being back, I've noticed that Hannah has a mischievous streak.  We'll have to watch out for this one. 

Turtle Power?

Current project. It needs to be bigger. Maybe make the green part wider. But I have the concept down and it looks cute!!

10 Month Checkup

Height 27" - 25%
Weight 18lb 12oz - <50%
Head 17" - 75%

Potty Training... It's Bound To Get Messy!

We started potty training yesterday.  After breakfast, Ryan took Alex to the playground and run some errands.  So we didn't start until the afternoon.  Off came the diaper and on went the undies.  I don't like this... at all.  I've been dreading this for months.  Alex loved it.  She got to run around in a shirt and undies all day.  She even went in the potty each time.  It was more fun for her than for me.  She got to unroll tons of toilet paper and "wipe" herself.  "Wipe" in quotes because this really only involves her shoving wads of TP down into the bowl.  She has to lift the seat herself and lift the bowl to dump into the toilet.  No help from Mommy allowed.  Mommy lets her do it while cringing each and every time.  She even got the tapping the bowl on the toilet to dislodge the wet TP at the bottom down.  Of course this just sprinkles pee everywhere on the big toilet.  At least she lets me rinse the bowl out before putting it back into the seat.  We only had 1 accident yesterday and that was poop.  She completely dropped the ball on that one, didn't even let me know that she went in her undies. 

Today... well...  We had a few accidents.  None while she was outside playing with the neighbors.  She even came home with  me half way through to go to the bathroom before returning outside.  First accident involved her just going on the couch.  No warning, just watching TV and the next thing I noticed is the puddle on the couch cushions.  I quickly picked her up and ran to the bathroom... meanwhile leaving a trail of pee on the hardwood and myself.  Damage was done.  We deliberately bought couches where the cushion covers comes off for kids and animals... unfortunately, the back cushion was just completely filled with uncontained batting.  WTH.  I hate that.  I took me 3 garbage bags to hold all the stuffing.  A couple incidents involving poop.  She's getting better at letting me know about poop, but she's letting me know AS IT IS HAPPENING.  And another incident involving pee, but that wasn't too bad. 

We're still using diapers at night.  I'm not even going to tackle that front right now.  Especially since she's still drinking milk before going to bed.  That potty training in 3 days booklet thing suggested that you should wake the kid up an hour after they fall asleep to make them go to the bathroom and again an hour before their usual wake up time.  First of all... WHAT PARENT OF A LITTLE KID WANTS TO WAKE THEIR CHILD UP AFTER THEY GO TO BED AND BEFORE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO GET UP?!?!  That's complete BS.  I was all excited about the method until I got to that part.  So until I wean her night time milk, I'm using diapers. 

Alex loves this whole potty training thing a lot more than I do.  I try keeping her in a shirt and undies, but whenever I leave her to her own device for a few minutes, she's running around butt naked.  She loves it.  Oh well. 

And oh.  Potty training one kid, giving a bath to another kid, and having stomach issues myself does not make for a good experience... lol  That was poop incident #2 today. 

Where are mommy and daddy?

Dawn: Where is daddy?
Alex: Daddy is at work.
Dawn: Where is mommy?
Alex: Mommy is sleeping.

>.<

Sleep Regression

We are having a sleep regression in the house. Ever since daylight savings day, we haven't had a normal night. Each night has been a battle getting Alex to sleep. She's crying, screaming, singing, talking, whatever, everything but sleeping. Before that fateful Sunday, Ryan would do the night time routine and she would turn over, hug Pooh and fall asleep. There may be a couple minutes of fussing, but only a couple minutes. Now we're going on hours... 2 usually. It's 10:33PM right now... Once she's asleep, then it's all good. Hannah hasn't been sleeping through the night either. She wakes up about once somewhere between 4:30-5:30AM for a feeding, but we were going 12-13 hours straight for a long time! I think the change in her is due to eating habit during the day. The child does not like the bottle! My kids need to go back to their good sleeping selves. Mommy is tired.

Hannah vs. Alex

Every baby is different. Hannah is definitely different than her big sister. She's smaller than Alex was at this stage. At almost 7 months, she's in the 25% for height, 25-50% in weight, and 75% for head. Alex was consistently in the 50-75% for both weight and height and 95% for head. Ryan said Hannah will be fat, squat, and smart. :) Alex will also drink milk, but didn't like baby food very much. It is always a battle getting Hannah to drink her milk... and it has to be fresh, never frozen. (I have hundreds of ounces of frozen milk in the freezer. Now what?) She loves her baby food and will down that like no other. She's also a great sleeper and has been since 2 or so months. She's now doing 12+ hours straight. With Alex, putting her down to bed was a nightmare. It usually involves lots of screaming, crying, sometimes puking, and a few trips from Mommy or Daddy. It still happens once in a while now. With Hannah, we have yet to have a crying episode... not one. It has nothing to do with me as a mother, it is all her. She's so easy going. The only thing she doesn't like is crowds. Lots of people freaks her out. Alex was also the happiest baby, always smiling and laughing. I think I can count on one hand the number of times that Hannah has laughed. But her smiles are the sweetest thing... they're so shy and sweet.

Cutie

Beary cute