Messy Situation

Ugh...Natalie has been digging poop out of her diaper during naps and at night and throwing it outside of her crib.  Disgusting!  She has done this 3 times now.  Each time it has gotten gradually worse. The thing about it is, she does not cry or make noises to let us know through the baby monitor that she needs changed. Instead, she digs it out, throws it out of her crib, smears it on her crib and today it was even on the wall. Then, she falls asleep...gross!

I looked up what to do about this problem and read several times that this is a major sign to start potty training. Other suggestions were to safety pin their clothes together (unsafe!), put their sleepers on backward (couldn't figure out how her feet would go in then), etc. It doesn't seem to matter if she has a sleeper or pants on because she knows how to get both off. So...I guess we will go to round 3 of potty training this weekend. Tonight, we went to the store to let Natalie pick out her own "big girl" underwear.  There were 4 we had her choose from, Bobby held up 2 and I held up the other 2: princesses, Dora, Elmo, Thomas (Natalie's pick from the cart so we held it up). 

And she chose...

 

Elmo did not surprise me at all, but Thomas was a shocker for both of us!  We do not watch Thomas, we don't have any Thomas books, we never ever see anything Thomas (nothing against Thomas, she just hasn't been exposed to it at home)...so, she must have picked that up at daycare either through books or another kid because they don't watch TV there either.

Anyhow, I guess we will see how this weekend goes with Elmo (girl) and Thomas (boy) underwear.  

Happy 8 Months, Aubrey!

A day late in getting this up, but what a week it has been!

This is what I get when trying to get them to lay down next to each other to take their picture :)

Looking up to her big sis 

Trying to crawl

What Aubrey is up to at 8 months:

1. Getting closer to crawling.

2. Wearing size 3 diapers, but still fits in the size 2 for now anyway.

3. Recovering from RSV.

4. Sitting up on her own and controlling her falling most of the time.

5. Loves playing in Natalie's room...I think Natalie might like it more since she is always saying Aubrey's name and wants her to wake up and play.

6. Still no teeth.

Here is a 6 month face comparison of the girls...

 

It was nice of Bobby's mom to head down to watch the girls on Wednesday and Thursday so I could work and the girls were able to get their breathing treatments every 4 hours during the day. 

Aubrey hasn't slept the greatest at night, getting up at 10:30p (as usual), but then not going back to bed well. Wednesday night was rough with her getting up about every 2 hours. Then, last night she was up at 10:30p, 11:30p, 12:30a-1:30a, then finally went to sleep. She slept for 10 hours straight...she has never done that! She even took a long nap this afternoon, so I'm hoping she is sleeping so much to get rid of the RSV!  Aubrey still has quite the cough, but Natalie is doing much better. 

Surprisingly enough, Natalie has done awesome at taking all her medicines...a little bribery with M&Ms and we haven't had to pin her down at all, she just drinks it right up! She also holds onto her own breathing treatment and sits still the entire time!  Aubrey on the other hand hasn't been taking her medications too well, but is getting them down and taking to her breathing treatments fairly well. 

RSV

Took the girls to the doctor today...thank goodness they were able to get us in this afternoon!

Due to Aubrey having the worse sounding cough, they did the flu/RSV (a respiratory virus) test on her instead of Natalie. They took a very long q-tip type swab and took a nasal swab. I couldn't believe how far they had to push that up. Aubrey was a trooper though and only cried while they did it and then she was fine.

Natalie enjoyed playing with the toy and the child-sized chair in the room. The doctor examined both girls and said that Natalie was wheezing more than Aubrey even though Aubrey's cough was the worst. Aubrey's test came back positive for RSV, so they are treating Natalie as though she has it too, which she probably does!

The girls are now both on a steroid, antibiotic, and breathing treatments...yippee! Natalie actually did awesome with taking all of her medicine and got an M&M for being so good. She sat still and took her breathing treatment well too, as long as she was sitting on her Daddy's lap!  Aubrey fell asleep during her breathing treatment.

The nebulizer for the breathing treatments is cute at least...it's a penguin and it's bag looks like an igloo!

We have decided to keep the girls home for the rest of the week even though the doctor wrote a note and said they could go back tomorrow. Bobby's mom is coming down tomorrow so I can work in the afternoon and will be here until Thursday afternoon/evening so Bobby and I can both work a full day.  It was nice of her to rearrange her schedule to come down and help us out since we both needed to work and wanted to keep the girls home.

At least I got to see how much the girls weigh:

Natalie: 26lbs (between 25 and 50 percentile)
Aubrey: 17lbs (25 percentile)...at Natalie's 9 month appointment she weight 17lb 3oz, so Aubrey will probably bypass Natalie's stats by her 9 month appointment!

Please pray that we have a healthy rest of the year!  I am so sick of all the sickness in our house!  I sanitized all of Natalie's toys tonight, Aubrey's will be up next!

Meeting Cadon Coffman!

On Friday, I decided I wanted to "try to" potty train Natalie. So, I got out the big girl undies, but just as I did that Bobby called to remind me that the internet guy was on his way to our house. Yippee!  I completely forgot he was scheduled to come and after having Natalie sit on the potty for awhile with of course nothing happening, I put her in the big girl undies, got distracted, and she peed on her bedroom floor (well half on the floor, half on very large blanket I put down in her room. 

So, from there I changed her into another pair of underwear and locked her into the kitchen so if she had any accidents, it would be easy to clean up. Of course, that resulted in poop on the floor and then Rusty puked on the floor. Even with having her potty chair in the kitchen/dining room, she did not want to sit on it. Bobby thinks I'm going to traumatize her because she whines when I try to have her sit on the potty (regular or her chair). I only sit her on it when she answers 'yes' to wanting to sit on the potty. 

Anyway, my goal of wanting to have her potty trained before her 2nd birthday may not become a reality!

This weekend we headed up to South Bend (just the girls and I) after swim lessons on Saturday. My friend, Jill, had her baby and I had planned to head up that way one weekend after she had him.  While we were at my parents house, Natalie spiked a fever on Sunday...grr! I am so sick of sickness!!  Aubrey ended up getting one after we got back on Monday and they both have awful coughs!  Going to the doctor today, so we will see.  

Natalie slept in a big girl bed at my parent's house and did awesome both nights!

Here are a few pictures of my visit to see the Coffman's!  It was so nice to catch up with Jill and made me wish I lived so much closer! I didn't grab my camera until the end of my visit and Cadon was not having it, but I got a few cute ones!

Big brother, Jax 

Cadon Christopher...such a little guy

I know Jill hates having her picture taken, but I just love these candid moments!

 

 

Short Update

No pictures in this update, but I thought I'd share a little bit about what each of us are up to...

Bobby:

~Working a TON lately, which is really stressing him (and me) out!
~Started up church basketball every Tuesday and will start Road Runners soon to train for the Mini in Indy
~He has several home improvement projects to tackle, but with all the working he's been doing it's difficult to get them completed
~Bobby cleaned up the basement so we had room to put Natalie's Play Land downstairs, which I put together and consists of an 8'x10' rubber tile flooring area with her roller coaster, slide, sit and spin, t-ball, and basketball hoop (as soon as I bring it down from South Bend since it didn't fit with all of our Christmas stuff)

Brandi:

~I joined 2 weight loss challenges that will both end in March I believe. I fell off the bandwagon when daylight became short at night and got cold, so it's time to get back on!
~I'm trying to order healthier things at restaurants and watch what I eat, but that is my definite weakness
~I signed up to run a 7K in March
~Working on trying to be nicer to Bobby and as he will tell you, it's a big work-in-progress
~Planning Natalie's 2nd birthday party

Natalie (1 more month until she is 2):

~When she drops something lately, she says "Oh, man"...it is so funny, but I have no idea where she learned that
~Starting to count and say ABC's
~Loves "reading" in her room sitting with her giant bear
~Started up swim lessons again for 6 weeks...and of course loves it
~Often gets in your face and repeatedly says "Play" or "Stairs"until you either go play with her in her room or take her downstairs to play on the slide
~Starting to put 2 words or phrases together well

Aubrey(almost 8 months):

~Loves chewing on blankets or any fabric, which seems to soothe her and put her to sleep often
~Sitting up good with more controlled falls
~After sleeping well while being sick, she is now back to her every 3 hour schedule at night...yippee!  Hopefully it is just another growth spurt
~Found a food she will not eat other than meats...stage 2 1/2 apples and prunes
~Started swim lessons and she didn't cry once!  She even went underwater and had no problem with it. I couldn't get any pictures though since Bobby and I are both in the water with each of us having 1 of the girls

Jump, Jump, Jump

Today we met my girlfriends in Indy for breakfast then jumping at a place called SkyZone. It is the coolest place...trampolines everywhere!  They have a specific timeslot for toddlers under 5 on Fridays, so we went to check it out. Obviously Aubrey couldn't do anything, but Natalie had a blast and I wish I could have jumped too, but was holding Aubrey, so that wouldn't have worked out well. Surprisingly enough, our breakfast consisting of 5 kids under 2 and 4 adults went better than expected. I think when restaurants see us coming, they cringe a bit!

Thanks to Cassie for taking the majority of these pictures since it was pretty hard to capture the kids jumping while holding Aubrey and my camera. I can't wait to go back to SkyZone...what a fun day!  I even got to hit up Target while we were there...I love that place, so it's probably good we don't have one in Terre Haute even though I wish we did!

The 3 amigos: Natalie, Kevin, and Gavin

 

The whole gang

After Bobby got off work, we headed to the park since today was unseasonably warm for January...high of 60 according to the car thermometer!  That's crazy...makes me want spring so much sooner!  It's supposed to be nice one more day, then cold again...blah!  Natalie should sleep good tonight with all the jumping earlier in the day, then all the fresh air this afternoon. Aubrey enjoyed the swing, it really relaxed her and she almost fell asleep. Natalie enjoyed running, sliding, and swinging!

Someone didn't want to leave!

"Slide?!"

Sick Day

What do we do on a sick day?  We play!

Natalie came down with a fever last night and still had it around 5:30a. It hasn't come back since, so I'm not sure the reason behind the fever, but fever meant no daycare today and another day off work for me. I feel like lately with the holidays, snow, and sickness, I've barely worked at all.

When the girls are sick, those are the days I often think about how I should be a stay-at-home mom because it would be so much easier than trying to figure out our work scheduled and me calling and canceling patients.

Natalie didn't wake up in a good mood since I woke her up around 11a so we could take Bobby's cellphone to him at work since he forgot it, but her tune quickly changed after she ate almost an entire 4-pc chicken nugget happy meal with a little bit of fries and apples. I think she only had 1 nugget left, but after I went outside to get the mail, I couldn't find it and I think Rusty had a lot to do with that!

My sick little girl

It didn't take her very long to figure out her new Tag Jr.

Taking care of her baby

Some tidbits I don't want to forget.

Natalie's chronic runny nose is back and here to stay for the season I'm afraid. Her poor nose over the holidays had to be super sore, but she was very polite when getting it wiped by saying "Thank You, Welcome" even if she was crying. I think she was saying this as her word for 'Mercy.' She was probably thinking by saying 'thank you, welcome' we would stop :)

Aubrey is trying to crawl, but she more or less digs her face into the carpet. I'll have to try and remember to get it on video.