29 months / 7.5 months

Our dynamic duo

This post is a week late, coming off the heels of a bunch of crazy work weeks.  I just came back from LA - my first trip without my baby girl. Although I had some mixed feelings leading into it, I was too engrossed with work once I got there to really miss the fam back home. And I'm not gonna lie...not having baby-duty at night and getting to attend events at nice restaurants and Universal Studios weren't bad consolation prizes at all. But even with that brief taste of freedom, I still missed my hubby and kids and wished they were with me to enjoy the fun and sun!  I guess "freedom" and "fun" are never easy to achieve as a mom!

At home, our dynamic duo are doing well, but just going through the expected sibling phases/pains together. They generally play well together - Josiah shows affection toward "Baby Sa-man-ta" and will ask about her when she's away in her crib.  And Samantha is constantly watching her brother, both out of interest and self-defense, perhaps. Despite limited motor skills at this age, she always seems ready to kick or scratch at all times.  I'm actually quite impressed by her reflexes and strength at such a young age!  Uncle Ed would be proud by her martial arts potential.  And I don't know if it's deliberate or not, but she only wants to play with (aka suck on) Josiah's toys!  If we give her a rattle, she will throw it down and reach for his legos or puzzle pieces instead.  That's usually followed by his scream and her growl back.  These little tussles remind me of my brother and I growing up.  And like her, I was the sneaky and annoying sister =P

Sammy burrito

Speaking of our little "munequita", Samantha has transformed into a DIVA this month!  She literally went from calm/angelic/easy to hyper-sensitive/loud/demanding in just a matter of weeks! She's still a sweet baby, but definitely has her bouts of screams, growls and "jjing-jjing" whines to make us crazy.  I'm not sure if something like teething pain or moving her into Josiah's bedroom prompted the change, or if she's just more aware of her place in the world.  In any event, our spoiled days of just dropping her into the crib and walking away are long over.  Instead, she wants to be held constantly and will freak out if she spots us walking away even for a second.  Our saving grace is that she still effectively self-soothes with her fingers or with a paci (but only likes the silicone kind).  She has certainly found her voice, and is not afraid to use it! On the flip side of these angry screams, she also laughs more heartily - with a snort and squished face too!  She gives the biggest grin when Daddy swings her around.

Perhaps she screams because she's just hangry? :)  She's still fascinated by our food but doesn't seem keen on her own. She still struggles at drinking milk and will push the bottle away roughly when she's had enough. However, she actually holds the bottle when she drinks, which Josiah never did!  We are still not too far into solids and are still early on in the canned food rotation (I never ended up making my own...sigh).  She will barely open her mouth for purées so it's frustrating to feed her.  And peas just make her heave, which I totally don't blame her for. I wonder if she wants to just skip to the good stuff?

She's got two little teeth on the bottom of her mouth....one of the reasons I decided to wean her completely this month. It was a tough decision, but with work demands and this business trip, I couldn't balance it all. Luckily, Samantha (like Josiah) seems to like formula better anyway! Maybe because we're using "Gentlease" formula, which has been working well with her sensitive/gassy tummy.  It is nice to be off the hook for feeds, but the expense and process of preparing formula is annoying.  And the poop is worse...but at least more frequent. Ironically, I was juuuust starting to enjoy the bonding moments with Samantha during nursing (particularly morning), but I'm trying not to look back. 

Jiggy, our mad scientist

Josiah is still my sweet-talking, silly, little man. He still sounds like a minion and will literally talk to anyone and anything...when he's not moody, that is.  He often says to strangers "Hi Friend, I'm Josiah.  What you name?  What you doing?" He continues to pick up funny lines from TV, like "hold onto your hats", "that was gross", "I'm a superhero", and "that's what I'm talking about!" Beyond just being a parrot, he can actually carry more of a conversation these days.  Some of my favorites: "I'm ok", "What about me, what about Josiah?", "I'll do anything" (when he wants something), "that's not scary, that's a (name of object)", and most recently "how about sleep together?" when he didn't want to go to bed alone. And of course my favorite is when he spontaneously tells us "I love you Mommy and Daddy.  Group hug!"

He sure knows how to work us.  He's equal parts sweet and sneaky.  Recently, he curled up onto my lap to cuddle and then quickly grabbed my phone on the other side of me and tried to run away with it.  That rascal!  He still loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Veggie Tales, and Baby Bum music videos as long as we'll let him.  He constantly asks for me to "press the red one" when he wants YouTube, but we are trying to limit his video watching as much as possible.

The great part of this conversational phase is he's able to tell us when he's hungry or tired.  For a few weeks, we would simply put him in his crib around 8:30 pm, turn on the mobile, give him water, and he would go down without a fight.  As I've learned, the easy phases don't last long.  Now, he's protesting sleep, screaming for us to stay with him, rolling around the bed, and eventually going to sleep after an hour or more of back-and-forth....only to wake up in the middle of the night screaming again.  The worst is when he wakes up Samantha in the process.  We are in the thick of it now.  We initially thought he was ready to move out of the crib, but it's not working for us.  Having a mobile child at night is not a good thing!  So, I'm pushing to put him back in the crib and pray that we can drag out out as long as possible.  He'll stay there til college if I have it my way!

Behaviorally, he's been good.  He whines and demands things like any other toddler, but his tantrums are few and short-lived.  I think he watches too much TV to want for anything.  Haha.  We need to get him some new toys because all he has are his same-old legos and kitchen/food pieces.  And rather than really play with them, he tends to just move items from various bags, boxes, and other containers.  He's quite the hoarder and organizer it seems.  The other day, I even found Samantha's red shoes in his pile.  Funny boy.

I'm looking forward to work slowing down a bit for the rest of the year until 2015 picks up again. And now that Josiah seems to have a better understanding of Christmas, it'll be fun to see how he takes it all in this season.  One thing's for sure, he loooves ornaments and managed to take them each off the tree (and into his bag, of course).  

Merry Christmas everyone - peace, joy, and comfort to all!

Family pile-on during Thanksgiving