7 months

Where does the time go?? As Oscar rounds out his first month of school, Olivia turns 7 months! Oscar's newest obsession is Star Wars and guns (I'm sure these go hand-in-hand). He's all about Darth Vader and the Death Star and Oscar got to pull out his old toys and is slowly passing them down to Oscar who gets a kick out of storm troopers missing arms and ships missing pieces :). Seriously, he loves them! As least he's building guns out of things like legos and gears and getting creative. I also told him that I don't like playing with guns or shooting games so he tells me I can play without the shooting! :) Gotta love him!

Olivia is just plowing ahead. Eating a ton - Well, I guess she probably doesn't eat a ton but definitely tries to. She loves feeding herself and it's a nice change from her spitting out cereal at me...We're taking finger foods by storm and she's had a bunch of fruits and veggies. Yesterday was chicken for the first tiem, and I think I may try tofu today! She LOVES hummus too - her father's daughter! She's all over the place and only wants to be standing, pulling, crawling, or eating paper. :) Not sleeping through the night (by a LONG shot) but I'm hoping maybe in the next month??? Ah, I wonder what 8 straight hours of sleep feels like???

We went out to visit Aunt Jenny again last weekend and had a WONDERFUL time picking apples, pumpkins, and hanging out! Oscar was so thrilled to pick the apples - and taste them of course. Jenny wisely picked a bunch of little ones out and they're the perfect size for him! Why don't they sell those at the stores??? He also had a blast in the hay maze turned jungle gym...photos below! Happy Fall!!! I'm loving this cooler weather...but need to remember to actually leave the house with a jacket or sweater. I'm out of practice! :) Ah, Livi wakes...more pics later.

And the black eye goes to...

Olivia! OK, so it's not really bad but she definitely has a little shiner on her right eye! Unless this little lady is strapped to me or the stroller she is off! She climbs/scales everything - chairs, table, table legs, toys, boxes, walls...just about anything that will get her off the floor! Even when she's exhausted she's on the move - thus the black eye. She truly is determined to be able to catch Oscar when she's 1. What's so funny is that once she is up, she looks for you, wrinkles her nose and does this funny little snorting noise with a HUGE smile on her face. So proud of herself!

Oh, and we've pretty much given up on baby food. I try the obligatory cereal everyday, but can only get her to eat it if it's the mush around the finger foods! I may try a few more "advanced" flavors before giving up entirely, but she's definitely not about the mush. I even have to line up cheerios at the edge of oscar's table to keep her from trying to grab his food so she can eat them while she's standing at the edge watching him! [Yes, I'm aware this is a choking hazard but we all pick our battles :)]

Oscar is doing great in school, and also taking a dance class and loving it as well. It's a class only for boys, and I'm worried it will be cancelled since there are only 3 boys in the class now but he truly has a ball. It's mostly just a bunch of movements and running and jumping. He talks about it all week and gets really excited to go see his teachers "Francesca" and "Jim!" We're hoping a few more boys will join in October once they're settled into preschool, but we'll see!

Our daredevil

Big brother being so helpful (truly!)

Fun in a box! (esp with a spyglass)

How sweet is Oscar?? (and I can't believe how tall he looks compared to her!)

The nose wrinkle (imagine snorting sounds to go with)

Reflections

Olivia actually putting food in her mouth.

Getting down to "Life is a Highway"

While the little lady is taking a snooze, and Oscar is off at school (I still can't believe he's at school!) I've had a little time to think... :) It's amazing how different this schedule is! I actually have time to spend alone with little Olivia, and her nap times free me up to do the household things I was always trying to do while Oscar was asking me to play with him. How can you resist the sweet little voice saying "Mama, please play with me!" Thus the reason why nothing got done.

Now don't get me wrong, the house is still a bit of a wreck, but I finally see progress as I clean out the corners and strighten the shelves. However, what I have come to realize is that having more than one baby is not necessarily the hardest thing, it's having a BABY that's hard! Maybe I'm out of practice, but I can't believe how much time is spend changing, feeding, changing, nursing, putting to sleep, bathing, did I say changing?...you may laugh and wonder how I forgot, but it's amazing how quickly you adapt to being able to sit down with your 3 year old and share food or "hang out." Olivia is quite the active baby too. Food always up in her hair and all over her clothes. Put her down and she's off! Her new favorite thing (it seems like there is a new one each day!) is to head for electrical outlets and cords...I swear she knows she's not supposed to and will give me this devilish look and head straight for one...I swoop in to get her and she giggles and gets the biggest grin! She also seems to get bored so easily...bring out one of her "old" baby toys and she barely looks at it, but bring out something new and exciting like one of Oscar's cars and she's on her way straight for it. I have to be so careful about what we leave on the floor...her favorite is paper and I've already found a little piece in her poop... :)

And my dear sweet Oscar. He's making such progress! I brought him to school today and he actually told me when his teacher got there that I had to leave! :) No tears. Barely a goodbye. Sigh. This is a million times better than the crying and grabbing but such a sign of him growing up. He was laying on the couch the other day in shorts with no shirt holding a squirt gun and watching one of his shows and it just hit me...he's such a little boy now and no more baby! He still gives great hugs and snuggles though. Especially when he's suppposed to be going to bed!

One the move

Although she's not completely coordinated yet, it's safe to safe that Olivia is crawling! She does this combination of of lunging, creeping, bear walking, and stretching and can clear a room in a few seconds, usually headed for one of Oscar's toys that he's less than thrilled about sharing. We do our best to have him choose a toy that she can play with (read "eat") and he's really good about making sure it's big enough and safe enough. He even lets me know if he thinks I've chosen a toy that is "too sharp" or has "little pieces. " :) We also make sure to keep his favorite toys away so he has some toys that he doesn't have to share.

We had a wonderful weekend in Hopewell with Aunt Jenny. We washed the car (a project big oscar loved) and went to the Millbrook zoo (which little Oscar loved). The snakes were his favorite, although I think he had the most fun pointing out rocks (while I pointed out the animals) and running around. He had such a good weekend that he didn't want to leave! Thanks Aunt Jenny!!!! We're hoping to visit our "country home" again soon :)

Oscar is at school for the first full day, complete with nap time. This morning was less than peaceful, and although I know he's fine, a part of me just wants to pick him up and take him home with me when he starts crying! Hopefully this will get easier for the both of us over the next few weeks!

Olivia is still not sleeping through the night, although you would think that she would with all of the energy she's using during the day. She's also decided 6am is wake up time, and that's killing her mama the sleeper! She's getting a little better with eating, as long as she can get her fingers on it and I'm not trying to get it in her mouth with a spoon. She's got the funniest way of communicating - razzberries when she's not happy (which started in Buffalo) and a combination of squealing and thhh-ing to get your attention and to "talk" to you. There's a few other sounds too but I can't figure out how to write them out :)

She's awake! Til next time...

Teeth!

Olivia is truly determined not to be outdone by her older brother. Her first sharp little teeth, the 2 bottom center have finally made their way to the surface as of yesterday. Could that be why she wakes every 2 hours at night? Probably not, but I'd like to think so. :) She had her 6 mo. appt today and is a small pea at 14lb 4oz and 24.5 in. Both around the 25% percentile I think! She has doubled her birth wt but she's def not breaking any records. She's happy as a clam though, and has happily started resisting her table food...let's just say she's not a fan of the cereal and I got multiple bitter beer faces for the sweet potato attempt this morning. Ah, my sweet little girl. Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Oscar is not-napping yet again, and I think we may just be done with that. He will have a rest time at school so we'll see how that goes...first full day is on Tues after a 4 day weekend...let's hope he holds it together! He's doing really well. Although today I guess he had a few off and on mommy moments, linked mostly to washing hands and going potty...I managed to find out he "doesn't like loud noises" and "he heard a big bang" so maybe a stall door freaked him out. We're going to try and go to the bathroom together tomorrow morning and see if that helps.

It's amazing how hard it is to find out information from a little person! I guess this is something I need to get used to. I'm not used to not knowing what he's doing all the time!! He likes to say he doesn't remember what he did in school, and then random things will come out during the day. His first day, at about 7pm he threw out that a little boy hit another kid and his teacher said it wasn't nice. I asked if it was him and he looked at me matter-of-factly and said, "No. I'm not interested in hitting." He really is too cute. He also likes to tell you you're cute now when he's happy! I get a warm fuzzy when I hear him say "Mama, you're so cute!" :)

I can already see little changes in him too which is amazing after only 3 days. He almost always asks me to feed him, but now he says he wants to feed himself!! Let's hope that one sticks around (esp. as Olivia heads towards more regular feedings....)

My personal goal for next week is to try and get Olivia on a better schedule. This week she's decided to wake up at 6am and fall asleep promptly 5 minutes before I need to take Oscar to school and pick him up. This would be fine if strollers were allowed in the bldg but they're not, so she ends up with 20 min power naps! Not enough for her!

Alrighty, time to end the not-nap. :)

Poppy's Stool

So, Oscar is at school and Olivia is napping. My head is swimming with household projects I've been meaning to do since we moved in (including the simple chore of attending to the 2 baskets of clean laundry downstairs...) and I'm on the computer! I suppose it's a little ambitious to try and get everything done the first week Oscar's at school, but it would be nice to cross a few things off my list! Well, updating my blog is on there...

Since yesterday was such a big day for Oscar, Olivia decided she needed a post for herself. So, here she is doing her new favorite thing. She pulls herself to stand and hangs out on Poppy's stool. Since she's such a peanut, it's just her size for testing her legs. Granted, she hasn't figured out crawling yet but this girl just wants to try everything. She says she wants to start gymnastics next week. She's already practicing her somersaults.