Claire has been sleeping from 8pm until 8am and only waking up once at about 5:30am to eat. Amazing! I didn't even know this was possible at 2 months!
Claire is still on meds, which make it so you can't even tell she has reflux (unlike Lucy where you still knew she had it). She even had a cold when Lucy did and her reflux didn't flare up too much. I'm hoping this means that she will grow out of it in a few months.
Lucy just had two colds with only a few days break in between and she still slept at night! Sure she woke up a time or two, but she went back to sleep easily and considering that in the past she's usually up every waking minute of the night, this was awesome!
Lucy is totally off her reflux meds and has had no reflux for a week or two now, even when she was sick. I think she's finally grown out of this reflux stuff!
Claire turned two months on December 3rd. We love our little girlie. She really is so sweet. This last month she has switched from week-to-week being fussy or content. But I sure do love when she chooses content! Here's a little about Claire at two-months:
As you can see by her stats, she's a big girl! She has awesome chunky thighs and chubby cheeks.
She started really smiling a lot when you interact with her. It's super cute!
Really a great sleeper for this age! She sleeps from about 8pm until 8am and gets up about twice a night, and since I started changing her diaper before she eats (instead of after), she will go right back to sleep. She also does a great job of putting herself to sleep. After letting her cry-it-out for 15ish minutes about twice, she now usually only cries for a minute or two, if at all.
Speaking of sleep, she only sleeps on her belly, which I am positive is why she sleeps so well. We use the Angel Care monitor with her, so I feel comfortable sleeping her that way as it would let us know if she stopped breathing.
She sleeps in her crib in her own room and we all sleep better that way.
She's really trying hard to make intentional noises and sometimes she surprises herself and us with a little squeak here and there.
Loves her baths. She gets so relaxed when she hears the bath water start to run because she knows what's coming. And then, when she gets in her little tub, its like her own relaxing spa.
While she is a pretty content baby, relatively speaking, she has to be moved every 5 or so minutes or she gets fussy (bouncer to swing to up on my shoulder, to being held facing out, etc.)
As I previously mentioned, Lucy's talking skills are not very advanced yet for her age. Something in particular we were told to work on with her are two-word sentences (i.e. "drink water," "read book," "yummy food" etc.). She has actually been doing pretty well lately, and had two funny sentences the other day:
Lucy: "eat momma."
Me: "you mean, momma eat?"
Lucy: shook her head no and repeated "eat momma" and then pretended to eat my arm and laugh at what she just did. haha!
Later on that day she tooted really loud. She looked at me with big eyes and a huge smile and gasped and said: "mama toot!" And then started cracking up. When I said, "no, Lucy tooted!" She just kept shaking her head and saying "momma toot!" She did the same thing today again and blamed it on Ryan. Silly girl.
Lucy absolutely refused to wear any normal clothes a few weeks ago. At first she only wanted to wear was a different pair of footed pajamas. When I vetoed that, she threw a fit and then finally settle on the cat costume. Definitely not a battle I wanted to have all morning and since it didn't really matter, let her be a cat. It didn't last all day anyway.
Does this look like the face of someone who wants to compromise on what to wear? :) No.
We were at a store last week and Lucy found these pink sparkly purses and carried both of them around the whole time. The bottom picture cracks me up because she is also pretending to hold a cell phone and talk to someone. Everyone in line around us was laughing at her. Let's just say she was not a happy camper when I had to take the purses away! At least it kept her busy while I looked around.
We needed to get an updated picture for Christmas cards. We planned on having Michelle do it while they were here and didn't really have any time after that to take them if we wanted to do cards this year. Unfortunately, it was freezing outside, Lucy had a cold and fever, and Claire had a cold as well. Both girls cried the whole time (understandably so) and we really did not get any good pictures of the girls (by no fault of the photographer). But like I said, we needed a pic for cards, and this was the best one we got. So for now, it's our most current family photo.
The day after Thanksgiving, we took all of the kids to see the new Disney movie, Frozen. It was such a good movie! This was Lucy's first movie in the theater, and technically Claire's too. Lucy was a little apprehensive at first because of the loud noise and the dark room, but the second she was handed a cup of popcorn, she was completely happy and sat and watched almost the whole movie and only got a little restless the last few minutes. Claire also did awesome and slept for the first little while, ate, and then sat happily on my lap and watched it as well. It was a fun little outing.
I know this is a terrible picture but I had to document it.
Then the next day we went to Easton mall to see Santa. Claire was down with that, Lucy wasn't. But I didn't expect anything different. Someday...
The Rasmussen family came to visit us for Thanksgiving, which was nice of them considering we were with them in Florida a few weeks prior. They arrived on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving and left that Sunday. So it was a somewhat quick visit, but it was fun visiting with them again and spending Thanksgiving with family. We got a lot of cooking done the day before Thanksgiving and by "we" I mean mostly Ryan) and then did the rest the next day. It's amazing how much time goes into one meal and then how quickly you eat it and it's over. But at least there's leftovers for days!
Ryan made an apple pie, 2 berry pies, a pecan pie, and an apple crisp. He doesn't mess around with his Thanksgiving pies.
My aunt came to visit after we got back from Florida to meet Claire and to do our usual shopping and relaxing. It was fun, as usual! She brought some cookies and treats to make with Lucy and we did a quick shopping trip because the girls were both a little crazy. I love having company come visit!
Lucy turned two on November 16th, which was our last full day in Florida. Let's just say that birthday #2 was a million times better than birthday #1. Not only did she sort of get what was going on and that the day was about her, but she wasn't sick and didn't have reflux. We blew up 30 pink and purple balloons the night before, so that when she woke up in the morning, it would be fun for her and the kids to play with. Then later on in the day, we did the presents, singing, and cake. We just love our Lucy so much and are so happy to have her spunky, fun, stubborn personality in our little family. Here's a little bit about Lucy at age two:
Height: forgot, but somewhere between 75th and 90th percentile
Weight: 27 pounds, 50th percentile (this was quite a jump from like the 25th or wherever she was before!)
Started sleeping like a champ shortly after Claire was born- 12 straight hours through the night without me having to go in at all. She was decent before that, but she has never been so consistent as she has the last couple months. It's amazing.
Still a good eater, but definitely getting a little more picky and always wants "deet" (treats)... like mother like daughter. Getting her to drink is like pulling teeth. I've constantly got a sippy cup with me to try and get her to drink more. Her favorite foods are pasta, cheese, veggies dipped in ranch, lots of fruit, fruit snacks, etc.
Loves riding bikes (little tricycles and such) and being outside. Always wants to be outside. She also has made good friends with all of the little neighbor kids, and gets so excited to play with them when she sees someone else out as well.
Lucy also likes to go to story time at the library. She is familiar with and loves the songs we sing there and dances/jumps around and gets so into it.
She is doing so much better with being around other people! Thanks goodness. She will let other people hold her and she will play with and around other people. She's still very attached though and refuses to go to nursery by herself or be left with someone.
Lucy has tons of personality and makes the funniest faces and always has a ton of expression.
Loves to lay down on the couch snuggled up to me while we read books, especially in the evenings.
Always wants to "drive" the car. She loves to just sit in the driver's seat and steer the wheel and look around. I don't love her doing this, but when I need to make a call to someone or get something done, I just sit in the passenger seat (while the car is off, of course) and do what I need to do.
Holy tantrums and meltdowns. Enough said. Good thing she's cute and has some pretty funny/cute moments in between. The whole time-out concept has really started to sink in more and is helping.
Favorite part of the day is probably when dad gets home. As soon as she hears the garage door open, she hits the ground running to the back door and knocks on the door until Ryan enters.
Going to the store with her is a battle. She hates riding in the shopping cart and just wants to walk next to me, but as soon as I let her do that, she's running around/away from me, knocking things off shelves and basically wreaking havoc in the store.
Has a bunch of words she says, but she doesn't ever make two-word sentences, which the doctor has said needs to improve by mid-January or we will need to do some sort of speech therapy.
Lucy loves shoes. She walks around all day in my or Ryan's shoes and will go from pair to pair until she's tried them all on and goes and looks in the mirror at herself.
Well, that's about all I can remember right now, but I'm sure I will be coming back to add more things. I just want to be able to remember exactly how she was at this point when she gets older. Also, I like to go back and compare what Lucy and Claire did at certain ages... it helps me to remember what to expect.
These pictures crack me up. Here she is fist pumping for her birthday.
And now she's clapping for herself.
So much excitement that she has to stand up and run to me while clapping.
Still clapping...
Pure happiness right here:
Minnie Mouse shoes that light up when she walks. Favorite gift right there.
Pretending to take a bite out of the cake. Where does she learn this stuff from?
I love how at the end of this video she yells "more!"
