Madelyn - four months

Maddie is four whole months old today! Yay, Maddie! It has been a wonderful (and so so tough!) 4 months with her.

Maddie is growing so much! She is about 14.5lbs already (the unofficial home-scale weigh-in a few days ago). She is wearing 6 month sleepers and mostly 3-6 month or 6 month clothes. She is a little doll. We just love her to bits!

Madelyn loves to be where the action is! She always wants to see what's going on and loves it when she gets in on the family fun. Too much action, though, and this little girl tends to get overwhelmed and let us know about it! Though this month has had fewer overwhelmed cries from her. Fewer cries in general, I'd say! She has possibly turned into our smiliest, happiest baby yet!

It's not hard to get a smile from this one. She will give smiles especially easily to me, Nathan, Levi, and Kayden. But on Sunday, we were at a potluck and she was apparently smiling at the grandmas who took turns holding her while I ate. For a little one who seems to play shy sometimes, she sure doesn't play shy at all at other times! I have yet to figure this one out! She also loves to giggle! Tickling and sudden funny noises seem to be the things to get her going right now. If the sudden noise is too loud though, she will look for reassurance. If she can get some eye contact with someone she trusts and we smile and reassure her, she will break out a big grin, even though she was unsure just a moment before. It's pretty amazing to see.

Maddie has learned to roll from back to front this month, just in the past few days actually. I will be cooking in the kitchen and hear her grunting and then turn and look and she's either on her stomach or halfway there, working with all her might to flip herself over. I'm convinced she does it so she can see more than just the boring old ceiling. The other day I heard Levi talking to her, saying, "You really like our ceiling, don't you?" When I asked him why he thought she liked it, he said that she spends a lot of time looking at it! I think it will soon be a lot less time as she starts to do more than just lay there on her back!

Madelyn is learning to sit right now! She loves to be on her bum and able to see even more of the things going on around her. I anticipate she might be sitting on her own within the next month or so. She still has to work on her little ab muscles a bit, and balance of course, but it's coming! And once she can sit, I don't think we will be able to lay her down ever again...

Madelyn has been introduced to the exersaucer and the jolly jumper this month. She doesn't really know what to do with either of them yet but it seems like she likes to be able to be upright and look around more. (Are you sensing a theme?!) She gets help jumping whenever she's in the Jolly Jumper from Kayden, who is quite sure that she'd rather bounce a little than spin in slow circles. It's not unusual for one of the kids to beg me to put up the Jolly Jumper so their sister can go in it. Kayden also had a turn in it this month and boy, did she remember what it was for!

Madelyn is starting to grab toys when we hold them out to her and, of course, they all go straight into her mouth. She doesn't seem to be drooling quite as much lately, but a bib is never a bad idea to keep the shirt from being soggy. She will suck on anything and everything. Toys, bibs, exersaucer seat, our hands, blankets...yup. It all goes into her mouth. She is still working on holding onto toys and manoeuvring them exactly where she wants them (unless it's her mouth), but we've noticed a big difference in how she grabs toys from last month to now.

Maddie's sleep is much improved since last month. YAY!! It's not perfect and just when I seem to think that we're doing well, she will resist sleep for a couple hours before bed again. BUT, it's not every night anymore which is making me feel so much more patient and human! Maddie now naps in her crib in her own bedroom which is much less stressful for me since you can hear almost nothing in there from the rest of the house. With all the bedrooms right off the kitchen, and our master bedroom with doors to both the main bathroom and the kitchen, I spent the first 3-3.5 months of Maddie's life shh-ing the older two and trying to get them not to even breathe next to our bedroom while Maddie was sleeping. I was walking on eggshells ALL the time because you can hear everything from our bedroom and how to you keep a 2 and 4 year old quiet all day long?! So I came up with the brilliant idea of napping her in her own room, since I'm not with her while she naps anyway, while keeping her in our room for nights. It is working quite well. We've also got a nursing-->diaper & pj's-->swaddle-->song-->bed routine going which relaxes her enough for her to put herself to sleep most nights! She is up usually 1-2 times a night to eat and goes right back to sleep. She naps 2-3 times a day and is awake for 1.5-2 hours between naps and 3-4 hours before bed. I feel like we're finally at a good place with sleep. Such a relief!

Madelyn is such a joy to have around. She lights up every time she sees us (even right after waking up!) and gets so excited about interacting with us. She is such a happy baby these days, only crying for food (if I don't respond to her complaints soon enough) or because she's tired or shy. But you know what? Even if she was still fussy and didn't go to sleep that well, we would still just love her to pieces because she's Maddie! Happy four months, little girl. We're so glad you're part of our family!

And because I have two other adorable kids who wanted their pictures taken today...

Levi being a goof...and a pesky fly beside him. 

Beautiful Kayden.

Happenings...

It feels like there has been a lot happening in the past month. It has made life feel a little busy but it has also made August feel quite long so that's a plus! I'm always good with summer feeling as long as possible!

Maddie has been growing and changing. She smiles so much and sometimes it almost sounds like a little giggle coming out of her. Around 7 weeks, she decided to be a bit more challenging in the sleep department and it has continued. She can fight sleep unbelievably well. You know she's tired and yet she manages to keep her eyes (or one eye at least) open so she doesn't quite fall asleep. Bedtime used to be a quick 20 minute change, swaddle, feed, bed routine and now it is often an hour or more before she's actually asleep for the night. She still gives good stretches of sleep at night, though, and I'd rather deal with a baby who has trouble falling asleep than a baby who has trouble staying asleep. She's almost doubled her birth weight at 2 months so she's growing well!

Kayden...we found out she needs glasses this month. They had to be ordered and then they were back ordered so we don't have them yet. I took it pretty hard when we found out she needed them, which I didn't expect. But I have since found out that it's actually quite common for parents to have a hard time adjusting to the fact that their young child needs glasses. Who knew? So she should get them in the next couple weeks and then we can start the fun of seeing if she will wear them. With Kayden we are also looking at potty training. I went through the three day potty training back in January and she caught on decently quickly. So she was doing really well from February to April. But at the end of April we started renos which threw our house and schedule into chaos. It didn't bode well for potty training. Then in June Maddie arrived and Kayden's  accidents just became more and more frequent. By the end of the month, if we didn't take her to the bathroom regularly, she would have an accident because she just wasn't telling us she needed to go anymore. She wouldn't even tell us after it happened. She would just keep playing. Talk about frustrating! So anyway, one day in early August she peed on the couch and didn't tell me and that was it. I put her in a diaper and neither she nor Nathan or I have said much about it. She uses the diaper and that's that. BUT...tomorrow is the day that we try again. My thought is that maybe a couple weeks in diapers will have "reset" her and it will all be fresh tomorrow. Levi will be in school because as much as he wants to help, Kayden just doesn't respond positively to his instruction (surprise surprise!). And Friday is Nathan's day off. I'm hoping that by Sunday we can go to church without diapers. Wish me luck!

Levi has started school! His first day of kindergarten was yesterday. He was excited and then I went to drop him off and he was scared but at the end of his first day he was excited to go back so yay! We have a school boy! 

Pictures

Painting Easter eggs:

Throwing stuff into water is always fun. This is the pond on our yard that shows up every spring:

Cuties getting ready for church:

That's just cute! Can you find Goldbug?

Thankful for two good travellers! This one knows how to entertain herself when her brother is sleeping:

Waiting for daddy to get home from work:

Visiting our sole surviving bunny:

And the latest. I've lost count of weeks. I think I'm closing in on the end of the 29th week? Roughly 10 weeks to go (due end of June):

And the pictures.

Kayden always asks to take a stuffed animal along when we get in the van these days. She likes stuffed animals so much more than Levi ever did. Thankfully she understands that her animals have to wait in the van for her to come back! I don't need animals being left everywhere or falling in the mud and slush outside. Ugh.

 

Me and my girl :)

Snack time! 

We only had one sand (snow, slush, mud, gravel) shovel this spring which became a problem now that we have TWO kids who want to dig ALL the time!  So we picked up a couple new shovels when we were at Ikea last week. Well worth the $3 investment to not have to referee shovel fights anymore. Here's to picking your battles! Hurray!

 I feel like this shirt suits Kayden perfectly!

Our little gamer!  Monopoly, Game of Life, Uno, Blokus, you name it, he will probably like it. 

Belly shot - 23 weeks (3 weeks ago) Boy, I didn't realize how tired I look! I don't feel that bad most days...honest! 

Belly shot - 23.5 weeks

Belly Shot - 24.5 weeks (I think I have so many because I took so few in the first half of this pregnancy that now I feel like I need to take a shot every time I'm wearing anything other than yoga pants and an oversize bunny hug (hoodie). And then I look through my phone and realize that I have a shot every couple days for a few weeks! haha) I just noticed that in this picture it looks like Kayden is pushing out her belly to join me in the big-belly-ness of this photo! ha!

Belly shot (see? There's lots!) - 26 weeks - this is the most recent shot...I'm now 26.5 weeks.

Lots and Nothing (at the same time)

So, I wouldn't start by saying that life has been crazy lately. It really hasn't been too too crazy. We've had our weeks of crazy busy-ness for sure, but most of the time I'd say we maintain a pretty manageable pace. That said, that pace for our family is different than my own personal pace. (does life as a mom to young kids ever really slow down??) Between potty training, cooking meals, keeping the kids entertained, keeping the house at least semi-clean and tidy, plus doing a bit of work with my business in the evenings...it keeps me going with, what feels like, very little truly free time! But it's good! It's really good!

With our 10 year anniversary coming up in May (and bundle #3 due in June), Nathan and I took a couple days to get away together to celebrate last week. My mom came and stayed with the kids while Nathan and I drove 6-7 hours to Edmonton AB where we hotel-ed, restaurant-ed, and relaxed! Together. Without kids. This isn't something that happens often for us...we probably average one kid-free getaway per year, not including the years I'm nursing the latest baby. So, this was probably our third kid-free getaway in the last 4.5 years of being parents? Yup. It was so nice. As we were driving there, though, we (mainly I) realized that we really had no shopping list for the big shopping attractions (Ikea and West Edmonton Mall) so we could have driven half the distance and still felt like we'd gotten "away." But we enjoy road trips too, so Edmonton it was. And in our super-duper 2000 Toyota Corolla, we only paid about $60-70 in gas for 15 hours driving so I'd say it was worth it...even if we could have stopped in Lloydminster and had less hip pain driving time. Bonus for the trip was that the day we left was Dairy Queen's free small cone day! So you better believe this preggo made her hubby stop in both North Battleford AND Lloyd for a cone. There was also a DQ in the same parking lot as where we went for supper in Edmonton so I was tempted to have a third free cone BUT...hours of driving was catching up with me so I decided to spare my stomach the extra (in)digestion and leave it at two cones for the day. But free is free! Oh my Mennonite will was tested...

I feel like I've found a great balance with my business lately. I can't remember if I've talked about this already here so I'll just repeat myself if I have. In December I took the month off, and then in January I announced that I was closing my business. I felt peace about that decision but the more time that went by, the more I missed it and wondered if I could find a better way of doing it so I could keep it and still enjoy it. I've stopped taking custom orders - orders where people show me a picture and ask if I can make something - and only offer the designs that can be found in my etsy shop. It has meant less local business, because I've also been doing less advertising in town, but I've had steady business online since starting back up! There's always something I'm working on for someone but I never feel rushed or frustrated because I just don't have time. It's been a lovely balance. I'm enjoying the pulled-back version of what I love doing!

The kids have been really thriving in this warmer weather! We spent a sad amount of the winter inside this year. With being in the country (fewer destinations means less motivation for me to leave the house every day like I did in town) and getting progressively bigger and more out of breath as the winter wore on, I found less and less motivation to head outside with the kids. Now that it's warmer and the kids have been able to spend more time playing outside, they have been less whiny and bored which has made my life SO much more pleasant! I was about ready to throw in the towel and move south. Those of you with young kids in a warm climate...you have no idea how nice you have it! Though I  remember days when we lived in California when the smog was so bad that it was recommended kids play inside. I remember breathing in clean Canadian air after living down there for 10 months and truly, it felt like I could breathe deeply for the first time in a long time! So I guess each place has advantages and disadvantages. But warm winters...what I would give to not be cooped up inside for 4-5 months of the year!

Kayden is such a talker, even more now than at Christmas! Her vocabulary expands every day and she just chatters away. She's not as shy as Levi was/is so more people get to hear her voice when we go out. We often get the comment that she looks like she's really young cause she's quite small for her age (about the same size as many one year olds) but then she starts talking and she's just like a little doll. You don't expect her to say much because of her size and then she just chatters away! She is now fully potty trained (daytime), though still has the occasional accident. She caught on really quickly when I started training in January. She still wakes up wet most mornings but stays dry during naps and most days. So we'll either work on nights or just wait and see what happens with time. I'm not totally decided on this one so for now we're just not doing anything special and seeing what happens. Our going away last week has made for more accidents since coming home but I think we're getting back on track now that it's been a couple days. I kinda expected that to be the case so it didn't catch me off guard or discourage me. With Levi, whenever he would regress, I would get discouraged and wonder if we had to go back to diapers, but truly, if you just stick with it and give it a couple days of being more intentional again, they just slip right back into routine. It's pretty normal to start having accidents again after no accidents for even as long as months at a time!

Levi is such a wonderful four year old. I hoped when he was three that four would be an easier age and so far it definitely is! He loves to learn and be challenged so near the end of this winter I started teaching him to read a bit and he has been sounding out words EVERYWHERE! It's so fun to see. He's also been practicing his writing, which he didn't care about at all just a couple months ago. And drawing! He's never liked drawing before and suddenly he will spend long periods of time with just markers and paper drawing pictures and writing words! And when Kayden sees him drawing, of course she wants to draw too. So fun :)

Pregnancy is going pretty well. I go through days of feeling like I'm stretching and growing way too quickly - today being one of them! And then other days I feel just like my non-pregnant self until I look down. I do notice that I get out of breath more quickly than normal. And obviously things like stairs and sleep are becoming more of a challenge with the extra 15 lbs and 10" around my waist! I'm 26 weeks now so about 13-14 weeks to go! It still feels so far away but I guess it'll probably go quickly! I feel so much movement...this kid is really a mover! Not significantly more or less than either of our other kids, though, so I wonder if that means we'll be blessed with another kid who isn't hyperactive? I'll love them either way, of course...!

Well, Nathan just walked in the door and that means it's time to get supper on the table! I'll try to add a couple pics from my phone when I have a few minutes but I make no promises!

A tasty lunch of...my words

Kids always have a way of making us eat our words, don't they? Remember how I mentioned that Levi was giving us a run for our money? That he was just being difficult and stubborn and strong-willed? Guess who has been an absolute delight since then?  This kid:

He has been agreeable. He has been helpful. He has been polite. He has been kind to his sister. It hasn't been PERFECT behaviour, but I'd say it's about as close as a four year old can come. 

Maybe something just had to give. Maybe there's always a calm after the storm. Maybe we wore him down and he figured it wasn't worth the fight. Maybe he had a couple restful nights of sleep. Maybe I'm just feeling more patient, which makes him act out less, which makes me even more patient, and him act out even less. Maybe it's the fact that I finally feel a bit more caught up on orders and have a bit more time/energy for the kids. Maybe it's all of you who were praying after the last post. Who knows. I don't really care what the reason is. All I know is life has been so much more pleasant these last few days. I feel like he's back to his "normal" self now. Happier. More kind. And much more fun to be around! 

I absolutely love this boy and guess what?? I actually really LIKE him too!

"Mom, I don't really like white (President's Choice) apple juice..."