Big Girl Beds & Big Girl Panties!

Ella is officially a “big girl.”

Around her birthday we tried unsuccessfully to potty train her. Mentally she was ready, she completely understood what was going on and how to go to the potty, but physically her body wasn’t quite there. About a month ago we decided to try again and she responded much better. Instead of going 30 minutes in between bathroom trips like her little bladder forced her to before she was now able go about 2 hours or more in between, which was much less frustrating for her! Though something strange happened. Ella has been going to the potty off and on since she was about 18 months old, but for the first time ever she developed a fear of going #2 on the potty. We aren’t sure what triggered this. After about a week of her saying she had to go #2, sitting on the potty, then saying she didn’t have to go #2, then running behind the blue recliner to do it and leaving me with a mess to clean up I finally got sick of it. One morning we woke up and I put a diaper on her and told her that if she couldn’t be a big girl and poop on the potty then she had to wear diapers. Then later I told her that she couldn’t get her big girl bed (something she has been VERY excited about) until she learned to poop on the potty. That day her fear disappeared!! She sat on the potty, did her business, then said “I want my big girl bed!” I admit that I will bribe my child when the situation calls for it. :)

Ever since then she has had no problems and is now potty trained. She’s been in panties for the last few weeks but on Monday she passed our "test". The only place that I was still making her wear diapers (aside from nap time and bed time) was the YMCA because she had been getting upset when we would go there. She has gotten over her separation anxiety so on Monday I took her in panties. I expected to pick her up and find her wearing the spare shorts that I put in her bag. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was still wearing her original shorts, and was very excited when the worker told me that she had just gone to the bathroom about 10 minutes before and had told them that she needed to go…she didn’t even wait to be asked!! We are so excited and proud of her!

A few months ago we purchased a new bedroom suite with a twin bed for Ella, but we have been waiting until we felt like she was ready for the new bed, and waiting for her to be potty trained. Last Friday we decided to set it up. Ronnie had 5 days off in a row so we thought this was the time to do it. I definitely didn’t want to go through those first few nap and bed times by myself with a 2 month old! She was soooo excited as we were setting everything up. Then came nap time and everything changed. We didn’t have the problem of her running out of her room with newfound freedom, she was just absolutely freaked out and scared to sleep in the bed by herself. The first couple of days we had to lay down with her or stay in the room until she fell asleep, but ever since then she has done great and sleeps in her bed just fine! The funny part is that she still hasn’t realized that it’s ok for her to come out of her room AFTER she wakes up. This afternoon I was downstairs feeding Kendall when I heard Ella jabbering to her baby dolls. Then she started yelling for me to come get her like she would in her crib. I yelled back that she could come downstairs and it took about 5 minutes of us yelling back and forth to convince her that she could come out of her room!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Celebration Time!

On June 10, Ronnie and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. Ronnie had to work that day but he picked up our favorite Mexican food on the way home for us to enjoy. My parents came up to visit over the weekend and we got to go out on our first post-Kendall date on Saturday. We had a blast. We went to the movies and saw Ironman 2 (fun fact – we saw Ironman on our first post-Ella date) and then ate at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Then we walked around the mall for awhile. We have had a wonderful first 4 years of marriage. At dinner we talked about some of the things we’ve experienced in the last 4 years – we have 2 beautiful, healthy daughters, Ronnie has finished up medical school and is one year away from completing his residency, we bought our first house, bought the first car we’ve purchased together, found a church in Louisville to call home, and we went on a fun vacation to Hilton Head, SC last summer. God has truly blessed us.

On Sunday I celebrated my 26th birthday. Ronnie gave me a fantastic gift – tickets to HullabaLou – a music festival held at Churchill Downs in Louisville next month. Our tickets are for the first day, when Bon Jovi will be performing. YAY!!!! That afternoon we went to a new ice cream shop that opened near our house – The Comfy Cow. It was delicious!

Next up - Father's Day!

Ronnie & I about to go on our date

Me & my girls on my birthday

Silly girl...

2 months old!

It's hard to believe Kendall is already 2 months old! Her checkup with Dr. Bindner was Tuesday and went very well. Ronnie was off work and was able to go with us. That was a nice treat since I normally have to take the girls to their appointments by myself.

So we’ve always known that Kendall was a big girl, there is no denying that. But we were shocked to see how big she actually is! The nurse measured her, then when she went to plot the length on her growth chart she said, “This can’t be right.” She went to measure again and told us to watch her to verify. Yep, 25 inches both times. Her length is >97% on the growth chart!! Then came the weight…drum roll please…Kendall weighed in at 13 lbs 14 oz. Also >97%. She wasn’t quite “off the charts” because her head circumference was ONLY 95%. Dr. Bindner looked at the growth chart and determined that, at 2 months, Kendall is the size of an average 5 month old. Wow!! (This goes without saying but we are now in 3-6 month size clothing and size 2 diapers.) Our poor buddy then had to get 3 vaccinations….2 shots and 1 orally. She was NOT a happy camper after that. Ella enjoyed it though. She loves going to the pediatrician’s office and is intrigued by everything they do…especially when it’s not to her! Shots are cool when you aren’t the one getting them, right? The rest of the day she was very concerned about Kendall's bandaids.

The first two months have been fantastic. I was worried how everything would go with 2 babies - how Ella would handle it and how I would handle taking care of two kiddos all day long on limited sleep, but it has been great. Ella still loves her baby sister and has adjusted better than we could have ever imagined. We’re all sleeping pretty well. Kendall still gets up once or twice at night to eat, but she nurses and goes right back to sleep so we are usually only up about 15 minutes or so. She will usually give me one stretch of about 5 hours. Hopefully that span will increase soon. I started going back to the gym about 2 weeks ago and that has been awesome. The first few visits were rough with Ella as she has been going through another round of separation anxiety, but she is doing much better now. I don't know what we would do without our Y. I'm glad that Ella is able to have some time to socialize with other kids...and with other adults besides me being "in charge." And being able to run and exercise again makes me feel great. It's also nice to get a little time to myself!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ella loves corn!

Ella loves corn, especially corn from grandma and grandpa’s garden. The other night I decided to cook some corn on the cob from their garden with our dinner. Mom recently replenished our freezer with corn and it had been awhile since we’d had some and we were quickly reminded of how much Ella loves it.

The ears of corn were pretty big and I tried unsuccessfully to cut one in half for Ella, so I just gave her a whole one. I gave her the plate, went back into the kitchen to make myself a plate, and by the time I got back to the table she said, “I want more corn, Mommy.” She had already eaten the entire ear of corn! She ended up eating two whole ears and would have had more if we hadn’t made her stop because we were scared of what it would do to her tummy (and what disgusting diapers I might have to change the next day).

Here are some pics of Ella enjoying her corn.

Kendall's First Photo Shoot

Last week we had Kendall’s first photo shoot. A good friend of ours, Jason Dilday, recently started doing photography and he came to the house and took some newborn (well, technically she had just turned one month old) photos of Kendall.

The photos turned out fantastic!! I believe this was Jason’s first newborn shoot so as you can see he is very talented! You can check out his work at http://www.stillblissphoto.com/.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mother's Day

I realize Mother’s Day was almost two weeks ago, but again I am behind and didn’t get a chance to tell everyone about my great Mother’s Day! Ronnie was on call the night before and was still at work that morning so I had to get the girls and myself ready for church. This was my first time doing that by myself and it was a lot of work but we made it! At the end of the service Pastor Ron asked the kids to come to the front to get a gift for their mothers. Big girl Ella marched right up to the front and brought a cute pad of paper and pen set back for me. She was so sweet!

After church I got the girls loaded into the car and when I got in the driver’s seat there was a card on the dashboard for me. I tried to remember if it was possible that I had missed it on my way to church, but then remembered that Ronnie had been at work all day the day before and I had probably been in my car five times since then and there’s no way I overlooked it that many times! Thankfully he was off work and had just dropped the card off so we all went to Buckhead to eat a yummy lunch. I really wanted a Hot Brown and they make fantastic ones! We got home and I opened my presents. I got a Starbucks gift card, and a new pair of running shorts and a running shirt. I have been super anxious to start exercising again so Ronnie wanted to get a new cute outfit to get me started! I love it! And what better gift to go with running clothes than a gift card to get my favorite…double chocolately chip frappucinos. :)

God has truly blessed me with an awesome mother and I feel so honored to have such a wonderful, caring husband and two beautiful girls who have made me a mother.

Me and my girls!

Ella wanted to try on my new shorts

Big Girls, Vomit & Road Trips

We can’t believe it but our baby girl is already 1 month old! Time is flying by! We’ve had a blast watching Kendall grow and change in the last month, but then we look at Ella and get sad because we feel like it was just yesterday when she was this age and now she seems so big! But it’s also exciting as we remember all the fun milestones and stages we have to look forward to with Kendall, and we're having a blast with Ella as she gets older and is able to do more fun thing and says things that absolutely crack us up.

So anyway, our “little” girl isn’t so little! Kendall had her 1 month checkup yesterday with Dr. Bindner. She weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs 12 oz and was 22 ½ inches long. Her weight, height and head circumference are all 90th percentile! What a big girl! Needless to say, she has no issues eating and nursing has gone very well. Considering the stomach virus she just got over (more about that to come) and her frequent spitting up, we didn’t expect her to weigh so much! Everything else went well at the checkup. We discovered at her 2 week weight check that her clavicle (collar bone) is fractured. That commonly happens to big babies during birth and is not a big deal because it usually heals fine on its own. Dr. Bindner thought it was healing well. She received one vaccination yesterday – her 2nd dose of Hep B. She received the first dose in the hospital when she was born.

The rest of us are doing well. Last weekend the girls and I made a trip to Scottsville. It was Kendall’s first trip to visit the grandparents and my first trip home since getting the Pilot. It sure made for a better ride than the Malibu! A few days before we left Ella had her first experience throwing up. She woke up really sick one night but was such a tough girl. When I heard her crying for me I went to her room and she said “sumping happened” and pointed to the middle of her crib where she had vomited. She didn’t know what was going on! It ended up being a stomach virus because shortly thereafter I caught it, then poor Kendall got it too. (By the way, Ronnie’s profession has started to come in really handy. I was really, really sick one afternoon…ready for someone to just put me down…and Ronnie was able to call in a prescription for me that thankfully helped me stop vomiting.) Kendall was still having symptoms when we went to Scottsville but everyone insisted that we come on anyway, and I was looking forward to having some help since Ronnie had been working a long string of night shifts and wasn’t around much. One of the reasons we went down that weekend was for Andy Stewart’s wedding to Amber Murley. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time, though Kendall decided to show everyone how cute she was by projectile vomiting during the reception. Poor buddy. Unfortunately we didn’t get out of Scottsville without making someone sick – my poor mom ended up catching the virus and unfortunately was much sicker than the rest of us were. I’m still sorry, mom!

Our big 1 month old!