Stephen is speaking so much!

His first word was "Kitty", followed closely by "Mama" and "Dada". This weekend he's started saying "there", "more", and "thank you"! The "thank you" is so cute!

Jason and my mother are also pretty convinced he's said "grandma" a couple of times too, but I haven't heard that one yet :P

I realize it's been ages since I've posted, so I'm posting and backdating to keep everything straight in my mind. Be forewarned of many posts to come!

Stephen's bottom left lateral incisor broke through last night!

Background:
I am currently co-sleeping with my son, Stephen, in my bed (due to him waking frequently in the night), and my husband is currently co-sleeping with our daughter, Alex, due to lack of room in our bed.

4am - I am awoken by the sound of Alex screaming. It seems she has puked. Jason is taking care of this (seeing as how he was puked on), so I go back to sleep.

5am - Alex puking again.

6am - Alex puking again.

10am - Alex puking again.

I'm meeting a friend for brunch, so I get to escape the insanity.

12pm - I get a call from Jason. It seemed that Alex has somehow armed our security system which was a part of our house when we bought it (which we never use) and alarms are going off, and do I know where we may have put the manual? Of course I don't. That would require a level of organization in my house, that just doesn't exist. Yet :)

12:30pm - I get a call from Jason tell me that he's ripped wires out of the walls in efforts to get it to stop, but was unsuccessful, and that he doesn't know where the baby has wandered off to, and that somehow Alex has sprinkled pancake mix everywhere upstairs. I suggest that maybe he should find the baby, and try calling the alarm system people.

1:30pm - I get home. There is chaos. Alarms are going off. Children are running wild. There is the faint odor of puke and poop permeating through-out the house. First thing's first... I get the baby to sleep and Jason continues to fuck with the alarm (Jason had ripped the wailing siren wire out of the wall, however we still had all the door alarms going off). Next thing is to get Alex to bed. We side-step the pile of pancake mix on the rug, because frankly, that does not even register on my priority list at the moment.

2pm - Alex falls asleep. Jason gives up, and lets me try to deal with it. I call the security company. Of course it's Sunday and they're closed, but there's the 24-hour monitoring number. I call and get directed to an after-hours residencial number. The nice gentleman on the phone calmly explains how to remove the back-up battery, and specifically which wire needs to be ripped out in order to shut the system down.

The whole thing takes about 10 minutes. Jason's been struggling with this for 2 hours.

I really don't understand why he didn't just call the security company and ask for help.

I really think his problem solving skills need a bit of work.

In other news the phantom pisser has struck again.

Next on my list - clean up the pancake mix once Alex wakes up; see if I can't remove the puke/poop/cat-piss smell; and take a nap myself.

It's hard to believe the day is really only half done!

Ok, so this week hasn't sucked. I actually really like my job; I forgot just how much I like it. I also like getting a break from the kids. I don't like being away from them quite as much as I am though.

My ideal situation, would be as follows:
Work 3 days a week.
On one of the other days, take the kids to daycare late, have the day to myself to get things done/do errands/have "me" time, and pick them up from daycare early.
On the other day, keep the kids home with me, and schedule one fun outing with me and the kids.

That would be my ideal situation. Hands down.

To accomplish this, I need the University to give me a 25-50% raise.

I can dream, can't I?

Jason and I were sick all week. The kids were vastly improved. Today was my last day as tomorrow is an EDO. We pick up Stephen from daycare and he's got a fever. He's pretty much been crying non-stop since we got home, except for the nap. It's 10:45 and I just found Alex in her room in the dark putting on her summer sandles and playing on the floor. I'm so pissed that she won't just go to sleep. She's making my life a living hell in the mornings... will not get up, but she will not fall asleep at night.

I'm completely exhausted. I'm sick of hearing screaming. I hate that it seems we're starting another round of sick, and that my day off tomorrow is apparently going to be to parent a sick child, rather than get some much needed things done around the house.

And for those of you that pray, pray for my friend. She was 15 weeks pregnant and just found out the baby died. I believe this will be her fourth loss in 2-3 years.

Surprisingly, it's not Stephen who's having a tough time with me going back to work... it's Alex. She's acting up unbelievably. Very surprising since she's been attending daycare part-time almost my entire mat leave... I haven't been back to work long enough for her to notice a difference in terms of time.

The only thing that is different though, is the sense of urgency in the morning. It used to be much more relaxed... we got up when we got up. Now it's more like, "Ok, you've got to get up now!"

I suspect that may be what she's reacting to.

I go back to work March 09. My heart is breaking.

The last two days I have been taking Stephen to daycare and sitting there with him so he can get to know the daycare lady without freaking out.

I don't see how this is going to work out positively. I'm praying it will, but I just don't see how it will.

Last week he started crying "Mama" when he wanted me, or when something was wrong (which meant he wanted me).

Stephen sleeps in our bed, because he won't sleep in the crib and was getting up too frequently for me to have any desire to fight with it. I can't sleep beside him, because he senses I'm there, and wants to snack constantly all night, so Jason sleeps with him in our bed, and I sleep with Alex in her bed.

Last night, Stephen was absolutely beside himself if I wasn't there when he woke up, so we switched, and Jason slept with Alex while I slept with Stephen. I woke up early this morning for some unknown reason, and came on the computer to putz around, and get some "me" time before the family got up. I heard Stephen wake up and could tell he was happy and playing, but it didn't register that he wasn't penned in, and would probably roll off the bed.

It wasn't until I heard the "thump... *wail*" that I realized I should have gotten him off the bed a long time ago. He was there playing for quite a while. He now has this lovely bruise just above his eye.

Go mommy.

Ever since the week of Dec. 20th, Stephen has been waking up once-an-hour-ish due to teething. It has been painful, for he and me both. Yesterday we were pretty certain we saw tooth #6 - his top left lateral incisor, and tonight he only woke up twice. YAY!

I finally got a decent night's sleep, and I have hope that I might actully start feeling human sometime in the next week :)

I have been bitten, more times than I can count, in the last 48 hours.

Stephen is biting. He's biting everything he can sink his little fangs into. He looks over at the arm that is holding him, and chomps down. This is not just restricted to arms or fingers, he also goes for boobs, knees, elbows, legs, cheeks, noses, and necks.

My litte vampire drew blood yesterday :/

I can't really believe it, but Stephen spoke his first word today!

He's been saying dada for a long time now, but it's not been obvious if he knows what it means, or if it's just another one of the syllables he's saying.

Today though, Jason looked at him and said, "kitty". Stephen looked at him back and said "ditty". Pretty cute! Still though, it was just imitation... doesn't mean he knew what it meant. Except later that night, when the cat meowed and walked by, Stephen got all excited and kept saying "ditty!" "ditty!" "ditty!"

He's made the attempt, he's associated the sound with the object, and it sounds something like the actual word. I think that qualifies!

He's been rolling for a while, but tonight he figured out how to roll across the room to get where he wants to go. He's still not crawling, but that's ok. I don't think it will be too long now that he's discovered the joys of freedom.

Last night, for the first time since Stephen was born, Jason and I went out for dinner without any children!

It was fantastic... we went to this place called Taverna Italiano, and had a delicious meal and adult conversation (it was Jason's workplace Christmas party)!

We got home, and the house wasn't completely destroyed either! My mother had been the babysitter, and all went fairly well. She couldn't get either child in bed, but meh, who cares? I mean, it was nice just to get away for three hours! With Stephen refusing a bottle and being a frequent feeder, it hasn't been until recently that we've felt comfortable going anywhere without him, but now that he's starting to eat more regular foods, life is starting to get a bit less complicated :)

This Sunday we have another evening planned as we're doing an adult dinner out with some of our friends. It should be good!

We just have to get some cupcakes to bribe Alex into not screaming the whole time that we're gone...

After hovering near the gumline for almost a week, tooth #2 finally broke through on Sunday morning! It's his left bottom incisor. I noticed he's finally sleeping a bit better, so all of this fuss this week must have been that damned tooth! And that was one of the easy ones! I think I'm going to be in trouble when the fangs and molar teeth come in :/

Yesterday Jason could see the beginnings of a tooth start to show through the gum... but we couldn't feel it. Today we can feel it!

It's his bottom right tooth :)

Alex just got into one of my bags, took out a pen, and wrote all over Stephen's baby book.

This time, he was on his back, trying to reach a toy that was just above his head on the floor. He arched back and flipped himself over so that he was on his stomach (left side). He hung out there for a while, then laid down and flipped back onto his back!

I haven't seen him repeat this, but yay Stephen!

It's been a crazy week.

We didn't end up going to the lake as planned... Jason felt like crap, and the weather was supposed to suck, so we stayed home.

I almost wish we would have gone, because then Alexandra wouldn't have stolen my scrapbooking pens and used them on my 320 threadcount, Egyptian Cotton sheets. We are all seriously lucky that she wasn't home when I found the sheets. It took quite a while for me to calm down. It took over three hours of scrubbing to get the ink "somewhat" out. "Shout" works wonders, but even it failed where she had held the pens down and let the colour bleed onto the sheets.

Monday was a gong show, where Alex decided to skip her afternoon nap completely. She's never done that before at all. Although apparently she just saved it up for today, because today her afternoon nap was 4 hours! Now if only Stephen could fall asleep at the same time, it would be lovely! You would think the day would have gone well with her taking a four hour nap, but truth is that she was an absolute bear all morning, and Stephen refused to take his morning nap until just before lunch, so he was a little bear too. I haven't actually had this bad a day since before he was born.

Stephen is doing really well at sitting up, although he's still pretty wobbly. We put him in the jolly jumper yesterday... so cute! It took him a while to get going, but once he figured it out he was full of smiles and giggles. He's also been enjoying the exersaucer lately... really started playing with the toys. He's started to get to that age where he definitely needs some stimulation... not just content to watch the world around him anymore, now he's going to take a bit of work.

It's been a while since I did a decent post, and this one my not be decent, but it's going to be all about Stephen.

This last weekend, and the first part of this week we went to the lake. I was afraid at how the kids would do at the lake, but it turned out great. While we were there, Stephen started to do the cute scratching thing... the thing where he's feeling different textures with his hands, and checking out the sounds he can make when scratching different fabrics. Totally cool.

He's been grabbing at toys for a while now, but he's really starting to grab specific items. Like my nose if I don't notice he's going for it, or my cheeks. We have this little baby swing that has a fish mobile on top, and he's been going crazy over the fish. I finally took one dow today and gave it to him, and he thought it was just the best thing ever! He's getting cuter by the day, and I can't believe he's 5 months now.

The downside to the whole "taking him to the lake" thing, is that he got used to sleeping in a real bed next to me. We got back, and he doesn't want to sleep in the Moses basket anymore. Now granted, he's been too big for it for a while now, he was happy in there until he got spoiled in a big bed. Unfortunately, things aren't quite ready to move his crib into the office and move the office downstairs yet.

Tonight, in desperation of trying to get everyone some sleep, I put him in his crib which is still in Alex's room. This means that both he and Alex are asleep in the same room. He is an insanely light sleeper, and she is an amazingly heavy sleeper. It might work. Maybe. If I'm really really lucky.

Keep the fingers crossed for me!

Can any of my less naive and more worldly friends tell me, what is XIX (besides the Roman Numeral for 19)?

Apparently it's involved in upsetting my pseudo cousin, who seems to be going through a rough time right now.

Went to the lake this weekend, and had a great time. Both kids travelled really well... slept most of the 4 hour drive. Stephen basically just hung out in the car. Alex read books when she was awake, and dutifully stayed on cow and train watch.

"There's a cow! There's another cow! There's a train! There's another train!"

At the lake, Alex was a bit of a terror. That's the last time we ever open the cabin with the kids there, unless they're old enough to start helping! Stephen refused to sleep in the play yard, but was quite happy to sleep with me in the bed.

This is the first week I've got both kids at home with me. Today went well. We'll see how the rest of the week goes. Tomorrow we've got plans to hit up the local spray park.