Reid Isaiah: 2 Month Stats

Reid is doing great and just how I expected!

Weight: 14 lbs. 13.5 oz. (97%)
Length: 24" (84%)

Girls Bedroom Makeover: Phase 2

It has been on my mind to revamp the girls bedroom. Gwen is now big enough to get in and out of the top bunk and seems to be a little bit less eager to climb into the top bunk at every possible opportunity. I was very tired of trying to get to the girls sheets and comforters. Changing the sheets on bunk beds is a pain, and it is hard to imagine something even more difficult, but the previous configuration was even more challenging.

It will be interesting to see how sleeping tonight goes. The girls enjoy sleeping in the same room but the newness of the top and bottom bunk may be more thrilling than they can handle.

It is AMAZING how much more space they have in their room now. We brought up the baby cradle that we were given from a friend and now they have room to play house in their room.

Hopefully this baby girl has sweet dreams tonight. And hopefully she doesn't fall out of bed since she is not used to no side rails.

Reid Isaiah: 2 Months

Mr. Reid was 2 months old yesterday. His well child check is tomorrow. I am mighty curious how big he is going to be. I think he is going to stack up somewhere in between Andrew and Zane in weight and length. Here are their stats from 2 months old:

Andrew 25" and 14 lbs. 7 oz
Zane 24.5" and 15lbs. 4.5 oz

My Blue Eyed Babies

No Sliding!

Tonight at Andrew's baseball game he was the last batter for his team. Which meant that he got to hit a home run every time he was up at bat. By the time he made it to home base the catcher had the ball and tagged him out.

Eric asked Andrew, "Why didn't you slide?"

Andrew said, "I didn't want to."

Eric persisted, "Why not?" We both thought Andrew would say he didn't want to get dirty.

Andrew replied, "I didn't want my underwear to fall off my butt cheek!"

Decisions, Decisions

Morning with Lucy can be quite the roller coaster. She is opinionated. Very, very opinionated. Almost everything is a struggle if it is not her idea. Usually I do not engage her unless absolutely necessary. The past two mornings have been a perfect example.

Yesterday I asked Lucy if she wanted to go potty and get dressed. She said yes to the potty and no to getting dressed. No problem. I would just get her dressed later. An hour later it was time to go take Andrew to the bus stop. Lucy wanted to come but since she wasn't dressed and Andrew and I were literally walking out the door, I told her no. Lucy proceeded to melt down and try and leave the house with us anyway. I took her back in the house. She came out again. I took her back into the house and made it to the bus stop with Andrew. When I came back to the house I told Lucy that if she wanted to go to the bus with me she needed to get dressed in the morning when I gave her the chance. She nodded that she understood and we went on with the rest of the day.


This morning I asked Lucy the same thing. Did she want to go potty and get dressed. She looked at me and said NO! Then I saw her pause and think through the implications of saying no. Then she said YES! I want to go to the bus with Andrew. All went well and she got to come to the bus stop. It is such a fun process to get a girl to want to be compliant.

Reid Isaiah: 8 Weeks

Reid is starting to smile and coo regularly. It is the sweetest thing ever. He is such a special little boy and a major snuggle bug.

Some would call him a momma's boy.

I just think he has good taste.

How to Make a Clay Sloth: by Andrew

Andrew got his paper back for his sloth project and I wanted to share it with you all. Mostly because I am going to throw the actual paper away and it is just too cute to get rid of without saving it in some way. Man I love my scanner and blog!






I know it can be kinda hard to read so here it is retyped by me! Spelling, punctuation and capitalization as written.

How to Make a Clay Sloth
By Andrew Werner

Making a clay sloth can be difficult. Right now I'll tell you how I made mine. First my mom bought Crayola air-dry clay. Next I got my hands damp and massaged the clay. Then I molded a body, head and four legs. Well a couple of days later a foot fell off. We were going to superglue it on, then it disappeared. Good we had extra clay! Before the foot fell off we used toothpicks for claws. Remember this is before! Now this is where the painting came. Color number one is tan. Tan is the coat. I did dark brown for patches. The next color I didn't agree with my mom but I did it. It was Antique White and that was for the mask. Before the dark brown and the Antique White was on, the head fell off, I started to cry. My dad screwed a toothpick in the head and the neck and dropped superglue on both. Accidentally my dad superglued his index finger and thumb together. Our friend put nail polish remover on a Q-tip, slid it around and poof the superglue was gone. The next day I made eyes and a nose with a sharpie. It's pretty easy from here all you do is slide the sloth on if you are doing a project like me. That is how I made my sloth.

Making a Penguin

This afternoon Andrew decided to be crafty. He was originally going to make a rocket ship out of this plastic bottle. But the rocket ship was going to require using a pocket knife and that would more than likely result in either Andrew or I slicing our fingers off.

So. In lieu of making a rocket, Andrew decided to make a penguin. We had red tissue paper laying around so that is why it is stuffed red. He is such a crafty type of boy!

Something That Works

Reid is not fond of the swing. At least not the swing that we have. There is a swing at the gym that moves in a gliding motion that apparently he absolutely loves. Great for the gym childcare workers and I suppose great for me since I am getting a full workout most days, but not great for being at home. The other day it finally dawned on me that we should maybe try the vibrating seat with Reid. Possibly he may like that. Much to my surprise Reid does enjoy it and will sit quite contentedly while I am able to get some stuff done. It has been nice to find some stuff that works with him since he has been so cranky for so long.

I am also seeing an improvement in Reid's sleep the last few days. Ever since he was born something has been off in his little world. First I was making him miserable with all the dairy. Then Gwen decided to share her cold with him and get him sick. Now the cold seems to be clearing up and as it does we are seeing a whole new side of Reid's personality. Yesterday I even nursed him and then put him down drowsy but awake in his crib and he fell asleep on his own. I love it when they start associating their crib with sleep. It really is a beautiful thing.

I Shouldn't Know How to Spell Pneumonia

Gwen has had a horrid cough for several weeks. It was part of her last cold and it just would not stop. Friday night she started running a fever (or at least it was finally noticed by me) and it has been pretty constant since then. I decided last night that if she woke up with a fever again in the morning that I would take her in to the doctor and see what was up.

Sure enough Gwen woke up with a temperature and I took her in to see our wonderful pediatrician. After her initial checkup we discovered Gwen had an ear infection. The doctor also heard crackling noises in Gwen's lungs. So off to get an x-ray we went. Gwen was terrified of the x-ray. A very nice nurse held Reid and watched the rest of the kiddos while I went in the room with Gwen. I was so thankful that I was not pregnant because I don't know if they would have gotten Gwen to cooperate at all or if they would have had to pin her down to get the images. She screamed and sobbed any time anyone came near her. She didn't even want me to do anything with her but I at least got her in the gown and the lead drape around her tummy. Two quick pictures and we were done. Gwen a little traumatized and me just thankful that I had taken her in.

The eventual diagnosis was bacterial pneumonia. We were given a stronger antibiotic to combat the ear and the pneumonia. I will take Gwen back in a couple of weeks to get rechecked. Part of me is a bit nervous about the whole pneumonia thing. I mean Andrew had it and that was a horrid experience with the c-diff and all. I know it had nothing to do with the pneumonia either. It was all the antibiotics but still my crazy momma mind is going in circles. I am just very thankful that Miss Gwen will be feeling better soon. And I am praying we can be done with pneumonia at our house for a LONG time!

A Sloth Project

Andrew is currently learning about the rainforest in school. One of the things that the class did for homework was a research project on a rainforest animal. Andrew chose the sloth as his animal. For the project Andrew had to make some type of representation of a sloth. He wanted to use clay.

I found some very cheap Crayola clay that just air dries for Andrew to make his sloth creation. It was a fun project to make and Andrew loved doing the arts and crafts portion of it.

The project also required the kids to write a paragraph of at least 5 sentences explaining how they made there animal. Andrew waited until the very bitter end to write his paper. In the end his paragraph was 25 sentences long. He had a lot to say about how he made his sloth. It was a very, VERY long day yesterday. Thankfully though the paper is done and it is all getting turned in on time. I hope that in the future Andrew will not put the writing part off to the end though. It really was a horribly long day of work for him.

Reid Isaiah: 6 Weeks Old

Baby boy was 6 weeks old yesterday. Crazy how fast time flies. He is getting super big. I am still waiting for consistent smiles but he did give me a couple on Mother's Day.

Taking Care of Business

Lucy has been quite a pill today. She doesn't feel terribly well and has been running a fever most of the day. Not that it excuses what she did but just thought I would mention it. The kids were having a snack today and Lucy grabbed Gwen's milk cup (hers was in the fridge) and started to drink it. Gwen understandably flipped out and went to grab it.

This resulted in Lucy running and Gwen chasing her into the living room. I told Lucy to give Gwen back the cup. Lucy did return it. By slamming it on Gwen's head. I got after Lucy, made her say sorry to Gwen and give her a hug. Lucy headed back to the table and I snuggled with Gwen for a bit. She calmed down and wandered off.

The next thing I know Lucy is screaming her head off at the table with Gwen right next to her. Gwen had decided to take matters into her own hands and took a chomp out of Lucy. Apparently my scolding Lucy was insufficient in Gwen's mind. At least I am pretty confident that no one is going to push Gwen around in this house. She can hold her own.

Sweet Gwendalyn

No Training Wheels for Zane

Zane decided he wanted to learn how to ride his bike with no training wheels. Several of his friends are riding without the training wheels and I know Zane is feeling a bit left behind.

Eric took the wheels off and very quickly tried to teach Zane how to ride before Andrew's baseball game. It is going to take some more work but I am sure Zane will pick it up quickly. He is quite determined to be able to ride just like Andrew.

Now we are in the awkward stage of "can't ride without mom or dad to help" and "mom and dad won't keep taking the training wheels on and off." Sometimes it is tough to be a boy!

The Battle of the Ponytail

Lucy is extremely hot and cold about getting her hair done. It is just one more area of her life that she and I clash on. I remember loving to get my hair done. I would bring my mom hair ties and a comb and ask for all kinds of stuff. French braids, ponytails, pig tails. You name it and my mom got it done. And this went on until I was in high school. I just got taller.

Lucy occasionally will go on a streak where she wants me to do her hair in the morning. Which is great! It keeps the hair out of her face and mouth and it keeps it cleaner and above all, less tangled. Most days though it is a struggle to get her to let me brush it at all. I have been known to wrestle her to the ground and brush her hair but it is certainly not my favorite thing to do.


This morning was another day that Lucy did not want anything done with her hair. I hadn't done anything with it yesterday and since we were going places today I wanted to get it done. I told her to pick what she wanted. She was silent. So I put it up in one small half ponytail just so it wouldn't be a bother and it would stay out of her face. Usually when I do her hair these days I use one of my hair elastics. They are softer and don't grab the hair. But they are also very easy to pull out which Lucy will do when she is grumpy and opinionated about her hair. Pretty much the mood she was in today. I didn't want to do her hair over and over again so I used an elastic of Gwen's. These elastics are much closer to real rubber bands. They grip the hair and are difficult to get out pain free.


I finished Lucy's hair up and left to go get something done with Reid. I came back and this is what her hair looked like. I can only imagine that she was trying to pull it out and it didn't work. I asked her if she wanted me to fix it and she said no. So I left it. We got in the car to go to class and suddenly she wanted it fixed. I pulled it out and redid it quickly. It looked sloppy but at least better than whatever she had done. I don't really know who won that fight though. I think it is entirely possible that neither of us did.

Oh the Nicknames

Never in my life have I had more "negative" nicknames for my baby. Reid is affectionately known around our house as grumpy Gus, grumpy Guster, Sir Grumps a lot, Mr. Cranky pants, the crankapotomus, crankalicious, fussy butt and sweet baby boy. Ok, that one isn't negative but I think you get my point.

The first little grin that I have managed to catch with my camera. I still haven't gotten any interactive smiles but they are going to be here soon! He is just quite a stoic little man.

I am getting this whole no dairy thing down and I am seeing a huge improvement. Of course as my family is inhaling pizza while I eat something different and far less appetizing you might as well call me all the nicknames because they certainly will fit.

A Milestone

Now that Zane is officially a reader we took the next step and got him a library card today. He was very proud and excited. Zane checked out 3 books to read and I can't wait to sit and listen to him discover what they say.