What's next? Trees?

Ronnie is climbing the furniture. Literally. It happened quite suddenly to my mind. I was home sick last Tuesday and not being particularly observant of either of the kids and I realized that she was hauling herself up onto the couch. She seems to do better in the corner of the sectional, probably because she can get a better grip having an angle instead of a straight line. She has been quicker and quicker and has been trying – so far unsuccessfully – to climb the ottoman as well.

Last Monday was her One Year Well Baby (90% height! 85% weight!) and Doc B warned us she would be a climber if she was as much of a menace as we were describing. I just didn’t expect his prediction to come true the very next day.

ONE!!

We all have summer birthdays so it was weird trying to prep for an indoor party. Moving the ottoman to the side opened things up nicely.


Ronnie menaced plenty while we were trying to get organized.


I think we put out a pretty decent spread of food!


Mr. b picked out a separate slice of cake for Ronnie to menace. I was surprised that he got chocolate since he hates messes!


This mess was a doozy.


We had to strip her bare and give her a bath in the middle of everything in order to clean her up!


She wore her third outfit for the day to open presents. She got tons of cute clothes and some really great toys.


She was definitely overwhelmed by it all.

Two by Two

My appetite has been reduced greatly in the last week or two. I think I’m on the last leg of the weaning process. Ronnie has been more and more frustrated with the lack of milk when she does nurse and I usually end up giving her a bottle even if I do put her at the boob first. I’m basically down to three times a day: when I get home from work, before bed, and in the middle of the night. And all of those are hit or miss now. Just holding her and carrying her around when I get home seems to be enough mama attention. She’s starting to fall asleep sitting in my lap before bed on more than just the rare occasion. And she usually just wants to be held in the middle of the night, not really wanting anything to actually drink.

So now I have to figure out if I should switch my pills to the regular hormones or stay on the “nursing pill” for one more month as a buffer period. I’m leaning towards the latter, just so there’s a little more time for us to gradually get used to it. Veronica has her 1 year well baby visit on Monday so I need to decide before then and make sure I get a prescription.

I also need to remember that I don’t need as many calories as I’ve been ingesting. I don’t think I’m going to have the problem I had with my failed attempts nursing Kirk where I gained weight because of how much I was eating. I’m actually physically getting full but still ordering/taking proportions for nursing calories. I can think of at least three instances in the last four or so days where I had just plain too much food in front of me. Even a month ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to eat it all. Which means now I need to get back to an exercise regimen.

Coming upon Bundle’s one year birthday has also made me realize that I think I am happy with “just” two kids. Sure, three seems “right”. But there were also so many problems with three. It was always two against one. Times where all three of us were happy together were so rare that I can’t come up with more than one or two specific examples. Even now there’s always one of us as the odd man out. I want Kirk and Ronnie to enjoy spending time together. I don’t want sibling politics to be involved anymore than simple older brother versus little sister. I want them to have closeness because they have each other. And frankly, the idea of being pregnant again sounds terrible to me. I really, really, really don’t want to do that again.

C is for Cooperation

Kirk spent nearly all of Saturday in time out. He had a dentist appointment Saturday morning and wanted his daddy to take him. Fine by me, I got to sleep in longer and not get dressed. But while I was chilling with Ronnie, they got home much earlier than I expected. Kirk was so naughty and uncooperative that ultimately the hygienist was unable to do anything. Mr. b was pissed and frog-marched the man into his bedroom for an all-day grounding.

Now, we happened to be quite busy that afternoon so Kirk got let out for stuff like going to book club with Mama, but he knew he was in Big Trouble. We decided that this behavior needs to be treated as a symptom of him getting away with baby stuff that we just haven’t bothered to fight yet. So since he is now big enough to have appointments – doctor, optometrist, dentist – he has to act like he’s a Big Boy. And Big Boys don’t use sippy cups. Yep, we finally got rid of the damn sippies.

Kirk was pretty distraught when he heard the announcement his precious sippy cups were going away. He tried arguing but knew he wasn’t going to get away with jack shit this time round. In fact, by the time lunch was over he had turned it around and was excited to participate in the tossing of the hateful plastic bastards into the recycling bin. And he’s been proudly requesting his drinks “in a Big Boy Cup” all weekend, as though he had any other choice.

One nice side-effect of this all was good behavior in church yesterday. He sat quietly until the children were dismissed, and drew and didn’t make noise or screw around, even as his best friend was decidedly not behaving himself sitting next to him on the pew. And during the social hour after service, his Sunday school teacher came up to me and told me about how well behaved Kirk was and what a great sense of humor he has. The lesson she was teaching? Cooperation. HA!!

I’m not sure how long we can milk this. Kirk knows his blue blankie is the next on the line. For now though, I’m enjoying having so much space in the cupboard, now that the sippies are gone!