Aurelia's 1st Birthday

 I still have Malakai's birthday to post about, but since it's most fresh on my mind and in my camera card, I'll share how we celebrated Aurelia's very first birthday.

{the coral dress in these photos is the same newborn sized dress}

Aurelia turned one year old on September 5th and I mourned the fact that her baby days are slipping away. I'm still wondering where the last 12 months disappeared to. We celebrated her growing and learning and the joy she brings to our little family. Sadly, she had been very sick the entire week prior with 3 visits to the pediatrician, 2 trips to the pharmacy, and numerous called to the triage nurse. It started the week before when she had been acting fussy and spiked a fever for just a day. It broke on it's own and she didn't really have any other symptoms beside being extremely irritable. On Friday I decided to take her in just to be sure before the weekend hit and we had to resort to urgent care if things got worse. We saw one of the new providers at our pediatricians office and she checked Aurelia's ears, which were my suspicion because of her behavior, and despite no other symptoms she did in fact have an ear infection. 

She was limited in what antibiotics she could take due to previous side effects, so we decided to try the same one she had with her last ear infection in early June. After 2 days and no real improvement in her mood, she woke with a mild case of hives on her belly. That night she vomited shortly after taking another dose of her medicine. The next day we went in to the doctor to chat about her reactions and changing medicine. Then Aurelia started refusing the medicine, she'd spit it no matter how we tried to give it to her. By the Friday, a full week from when we previously took her in we were back for the 3rd visit to see if her meds were doing any good since she was spitting them out. Thankfully her ear was improving, so we kept attempting to get to to swallow as much as possible and prayed for healing. We were able to celebrate Grandma Debbie's birthday that day without too much of a fuss. 

On her birthday she was in great spirits. We went out to one of our favorite places, Johnson Brothers Greenhouses out in Coburg, Oregon. They do a really sweet little kids' event the first Saturday of every month. Then we actually celebrated her little friend who happens to be 8 days younger at her birthday party and ended the day playing at home together.

Sunday after church we threw her a simple little garden party at our dear friend's home and she was just a peach the entire day. It was so nice to have her finally feeling better.

{Mima outdid herself again with a beautiful cake}

We had some light snacks and drinks for our guests and played lawn games and had a good old fashioned visit.

We watched her daintily eat her very first bites of cake and frosting, and play with tissue and wrapping paper as she opened up gifts.

{banana applesauce smash cake}

She watched the big kids play and got passed around from grandparents, to aunts + uncles, to friends and crawled around in the grass with here cousin, brothers and little friends. 

It was a perfect little afternoon celebration for our sweet and sassy little girl. 

Desmond Lee: 3 1/2

Desmond is officially halfway through being a three year old. He's sweet, I'll give him that, but I must admit that we are 2 for 2 in the challenging 3-year-olds department. Maybe Aurelia will give us a break when she turns 3- but I won't be placing any bets on it! It seems that 2 year olds get the worst reputation but 3 year olds are more difficult in my opinion. They're bigger, more opinionated and more capable of mischief than 2 year olds for sure. Maybe it's just my boys, but they are quite strong-willed and it seems to culminate at this age.

All that said, we sure do love our Desmond at any age. At his best he is sweet and hysterical and imaginative. He loves to follow around his big brother, but when he feels wronged by Malakai, Desmond doesn't take it lightly. Lately we've been working on getting him to talk about his feelings with Malakai rather than running to Ben or I for help or just to give us a play by play of what's going on. 

Des is still learning how to be gentle with Aurelia, but he really adores his little sister. He has taken to calling her "Sis-tie" which I do not understand, but it's mostly adorable (except when he yells it in her face or when she's trying to sleep). He likes to make her smile (who doesn't) and whenever she cries he will run to her room to find a toy to bring her.

Desmond knows colors and variations on colors. He even problem solved an issue of he and Malakai both having the favorite color green by saying one of them could be dark green and the other light green. He caught on to that and shapes long ago but isn't as interested in numbers and letters yet. He sings about half the alphabet before making up his own words or just ending the song, but to my surprise he knows most of the letters by sight. He counts to 5 easily and to 10 accurately most of the time. He's great with one-to-one correspondence and much to my relief he is great at using his manners when out in public (I've heard this several times from his sweet Sunday school teachers). Just the other day I tried to give him a cuddle and he said "No thank you mama, we keep our hands to ourselves." Who can argue with that?

He sure does love to do whatever Malakai is doing much of the time. We often have to find him something to distract him to get Kai the alone time he craves. It sure is sweet when Malakai reads to him though. I can't help but snap a picture of them huddled up over a book every single time.

The two of them are getting more rough in their play, which I don't mind most of the time except when it becomes one sided and someone stops respecting boundaries. I'm sure that will only get more extreme as they grow, but I hope they always play together.

Desmond loves to play pretend and pulls anyone around into his world of make believe. He will assign you a character and expect you to act accordingly, which can be especially difficult if you aren't familiar with what he wants you to do or say.

The most recently developments have been his ability to completely tune out the entire world around him. I could be in his face saying his name and he's still focused on something else. He's mastered the art of selective hearing.

Desmond is a total bruiser. Literally 5 minutes after I took most of these photos he ran from the grass to the aggregate driveway and tripped, landing on his face. His poor head has endured quite a few dings (including stitches already) and my poor heart has been through the wringer!

He has also started needing less help at bed time over the last few weeks. This has been a LONG time coming. For the past year and a half he has needed Ben to put him to bed and lay with him until he fell asleep. While he was still napping it could take him up to an hour to fall asleep, and if you got up before he was out you'd be starting the process all over. He wouldn't let me put him to sleep except for very rare occasions, which meant that Ben didn't get to go anywhere in the evenings. Whenever we tried Des would just stay up and torture me until Ben came home. Now Ben will lay down with him for 2 minutes, say goodnight and shut the door and Desmond will be fast asleep in a matter of minutes. It's a small miracle that we are thoroughly enjoying.

We absolutely love our creative and rambunctious little Desmond and can hardly believe he'll be 4 in just 6 short months!

Aurelia Ann: 6 months

Aurelia crossed the half year mark earlier this month and I'm being a total sap about it. She's our last baby and I am soaking in every single minute of her babyness. I'm mourning that fact that the little baby days are gone. However, I'm thoroughly enjoying each new stage as it comes.

Right now Aurelia is an expert roller. She loves tummy time except when she's tired- she'll plant her face down into her hands and fuss until she's picked up. Since she started rolling we haven't been sleeping that well as she wakes frequently and is struggling to get back to sleep because she just wants to roll around or if it's in the middle of the night she thinks she needs to nurse. 

She is the smiliest baby I've ever met. She smiles almost immediately when anyone looks her way. My favorite smiles are when she's so happy that her little body can hardly contain the joy and she stiffens up and wiggles all over with excitement. She does this a lot for her daddy and her brothers. She loves to watch Malakai and Desmond play and they love to perform for her. I hope that lasts forever, it's so sweet to witness.

She recently went through a phase where she wouldn't let me put her down without a fuss. It lasted about 2 weeks and I'm so thankful for the Ergo carrier we were gifted a few years ago, total life saver...or at least arm saver. My big girl is growing fast!

We had her well check last week and she is weighing 17 lbs, 8 ounces and is 26 1/4 inches tall and believe it or not, that makes her our smallest baby at this stage. Malakai was 20lbs 28 inches and Desmond was 22lbs, 22 inches tall by 6 months. Sometimes I feel like she outgrows clothing faster than they did, but now I'm just realizing it's probably because she has more clothing than they did at this stage so we end up with outfits that I set aside or forgot about that she'll wear once or not at all. I've since gotten better at breaking out the next size so it's ready and waiting by the time she's grown into it.

Aurelia has been loving her jumper that we just broke out a month ago and she also sits in a high chair at the table with us now. She tasted her first food last week at dinner, mashed up avocado. She made a few questionable faces, but ate it up pretty easily! We gave her pureed carrots this week and she always makes a funny face at first but then eats it up like a pro!

I can hardly believe how quickly she's grown. I miss the tiny baby stage but am loving this interactive stage of watching her learn as well. She's developing such a sweet personality. 

Malakai: 5 1/2

I haven't posted an update on Malakai since he started school (he already looks so much older!). I remember when he was just a baby I would do monthly updates on what he was learning and how he was developing. Obviously additional kiddos and other life changes keep me from blogging as much as I did those days, but I want to be sure to document their milestones as much as I can.

Malakai technically turned 5 1/2 in January. These photos were taken December 30th (by b.lovely photography). Since then he has lost his bottom two front teeth and has another loose one!

The biggest leap Malakai has made in the last few months is in reading. He had some sight words down before starting Kindergarten and as soon as he started school more concepts just started to click. He is so very interested in school that for a while he would do his nightly homework sheet and then make up additional "homework" for himself. At one point he was getting pretty burnt out and frustrated and we had to talk about taking a break from "school work" to make sure he was playing!

A few months ago I grabbed The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverley Cleary to read aloud to Malakai and Desmond. Malakai would constantly beg to read it himself, and I would remind him that it's good for him to be read to as well. Plus, there were quite a few longer and more difficult words and concepts in the book so I didn't want to induce any additional frustrations. Once we finished it I handed it to him and said he could read it if he wanted. He devoured the entire book (13 chapeters, 158 pages with a few small pictures here and there) in 2 days time. What surprised me the most was that when he comes to a big word that he doesn't know immediately he sounds it out as best he can and just keeps on going. What truly blew me away was when I handed him the next book, Ralph S. Mouse, without pre-reading it to him and he finished it even faster. Same number of pages, and he could recount the story to me. Words can't express how proud I am that he is reading so fluently and comprehending it all as well! I'm so glad he can read to himself whenever he wants, it's the perfect outlet when he's feeling more introverted.

His social skills are certainly maturing and he's picking up on subtle cues, some good...some not so great. There are moments when he'll say something to me with an impatient attitude and that just does not work for me! We've had more talks recently about how to speak respectfully and make sure that we are kind and treating people how we would want them to treat us. I can hardly believe I'm already into this stage of parenting, it's so fun but it's so much more complicated!

When it comes to his siblings, he is definitely the rule keeper. He surely matches all the tendencies of an oldest child. He and Desmond are the best of friends but can also fight pretty easily...brothers. When it comes to Aurelia he just can't get enough. His face lights up to see her when she wakes up in the morning and when he's home from school. He loves to hold her and play with her and if he finds a way to make her laugh he won't stop performing for her.

Malakai and Ben are such a sweet pair. Malakai loves to help out and beams if he ever gets the chance to work on a project with daddy or spend special one on one time with him. He loves to help in the yard or with putting things together, like a piece of furniture or a new toy.

I'm cherishing that he is still little enough to snuggle up with me on the couch and read together or to needs and want a hug or a kiss when he's hurt, sad, and before bed.

All in all my Malakai has such a sweet heart and is so good natured. I'm totally blessed by him and so proud to be his mama.


>>all photos by the talented b.lovely photography<<

Aurelia Ann: 4 months {w/ a comparison}

{with Gertie, her handmade doll from Mima}

At the risk of becoming redundant, I can't help but try to express just how fast the days are going by. I  honestly feel like Aurelia was born 2 weeks ago, and somehow our lives fast forwarded to today. Our girl is such a sweet and relaxed baby that even at our most difficult moments with her (in terms of fussiness or sleeplessness) it has been a breeze in comparison to how I remember moments when her brothers were babies. Don't get me wrong, I've loved raising all my kids up and the baby stage is one of my favorites (ok, I love all the stages for different reasons) but Aurelia has been...dare I say it...an easy baby. I could attribute some of that to her being the 3rd child; everything is sort of crazy all the time so she just has to go with the flow. Mostly though, I think she just has a pretty chill disposition.

I say all this after over a week of very regular night wakings. Maybe if this was my first time around I'd be singing a different tune. I'm surely used to small chunks of sleep at this point. Des dropped his nap when Aurelia was 2 weeks old so I couldn't do the "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing, but thankfully everyone pretty much goes to bed at 7pm these days. While I'm still wrapping up the day and attempting to spend time with Ben at that point in our evening, it's restful to have a quiet house for an hour or two. 

Aurelia is really developing a sweet and happy little personality. She is smiley and cooing as soon as she wakes for the day. She brightens up when she sees us and giggles easily for her brothers. Malakai and Desmond are always trying to make her laugh, they'll literally do a song and dance just to make her smile. She is ticklish and just started belly laughing when we play peek-a-boo, it's the best sound ever. 

She's been grasping at things for a while now, putting toys and clothes and whatever else is in her reach straight to her mouth. She won't take a pacifier or a bottle yet, but she'll chew or suck on her teethers all day if you let her. She is also in the distractible phase as she's learning more about the world around her, she loves to nurse but will take her time if something catches her eye while she's eating.

{Mima made this dress too!}

Baby girl will often tolerate my "playing dress up" as Malakai calls it. She lets me take her in and out of outfits and accessories pretty regularly while staying fairly happy. I appreciate this about her because at the rate she is outgrowing clothes, I'm constantly trying to figure out what still fits and what bigger clothes I should be getting out before she outgrows them. I made the mistake of saving a couple outfits for special occasions and she's already outgrown them. I snapped a couple pictures of her barely fitting in them and sadly put them away.

{2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months}

Aurelia is a chunky baby but nowhere near as much as Desmond was. Since she's not as heavy she seems taller. She measured 24 1/4 inches (49%) at her well check on Wednesday and 15lbs 3 oz (85%). I was surprised when I found Desmond's 4 month stats and he was 26 1/4 inches (85th %) and nearly 19lbs (over 95%). First I thought Aurelia was our tallest (she was at birth but she's actually the shortest at this point) Second, I was shocked at how much heavier Des was at just 4 months. I knew he was a chunk, but whoah! At 4 months Malakai was 17 lbs 8 oz (88th %) and 24 3/4 inches (43%).

Other than a little eczema she is a perfectly healthy little girl. She hates her shots though. At 6 weeks it was almost unbearable. I had Ben come this time and she took her first shot like a pro, but then the 2nd (which the nurse said stings) she lost it. Her brothers were so sweetly concerned, they'd never seen her so upset and weren't sure what to do about it. She's been fussy the last few days since and it's obvious her little legs are sore so sleep hasn't been as great as it had been. As usual we're rolling with the punches.

We are waiting to introduce any foods until 6 months. We started at 4 months with Malakai and waited until 6 with Desmond and from their first feeding we noticed a big difference in the ability and interest in eating solids.

So that's our little Raeli in a nutshell. Growing faster than my heart can stand.

Our 3 littles...

With a new baby and my oldest being 5 I'm seeing first hand how fleeting the baby days are. The saying, "babies don't keep" is painfully true. So I'm not only holding on tight to every little moment with Aurelia, but also each small interaction with Malakai and Desmond. They are growing so fast, too fast, and I want to make sure to remember all of it before I'm longing for these days, no matter how hard they seem (and are).

Aurelia is already 2 months old. It blows my mind that it's possible that we've been a family of 5 for 9 weeks. It seems like she just got here. Malakai is in his 3rd month of school, something that also seems impossible. Desmond just turned 3 last month and keeps us all very busy each day. Watching the 3 of them interact with each other is by far the best part of each day. The boys are sweet + gentle with "baby sister" and ask for her all morning until she's awake, then they clamor to see her and be the first one to make her smile.

Aurelia is cooing and gurgling and just making the best baby noises. She started smiling at 5 weeks old and I swear she's going to bless us with a giggle any day now. She's impossibly ticklish, but she just wiggles and grunts in response for now. She is growing like crazy and the number 1 compliment she gets these days is in reference to her sweet chubby cheeks and her little dimples. Her eyes are a bright blue but we would be pretty shocked if they stayed that way. The boys have Ben's hazel eyes (although Des' have a little green in them like Mima) and since her hair color already favors daddy's, I'm guessing her eyes will be the same. Only time will tell. 

Malakai is reading like crazy these days. He devours any book you give him almost immediately. The words he is able to read and the concepts he understands surprise me often. Ben + I are sad to see the days of spelling things to keep secrets in front of the kids go by, but we know Malakai is much too smart for us to get away with that anymore. I got to visit his class for their fall party on October 30th and I loved being a "fly on the wall" so to speak. Watching him interact with his friends and work on activities throughout the afternoon was such a joy. He loves school so much that he can hardly wait to get to his homework and he will make more "school work" for himself regularly. He's constantly writing letters to people and drawing pictures. He loves learning, but we do have to be careful he doesn't get too much of a good thing because he will get frustrated if he doesn't get it right or do it how he wants it done sometimes. 

Desmond is our imaginative little buddy. He is the best at playing pretend and making friends with strangers. He is talking all the time and any willing participant is a perfect playmate. He loves to make forts or pile blankets into "cars" to drive or  "airplanes" to fly. He loved being an astronaut with Malakai for Halloween and continues to play with his costume. Like Malakai he will quote movies and shows and recite books easily. If you aren't familiar with what he's been reading or watching lately his dialogue can be pretty confusing. Three has proved to be the hardest age in this household for the 2nd time around. Desmond has learned how to be defiant and throw a master tantrum, but boy can that kid snuggle!

These three are keeping us on our toes and the days are flying by faster than ever before. Sadly Malakai had a reoccurring double ear infection recently and we are waiting to hear back from insurance on whether they will authorize his getting tubes to prevent having the doozy of a winter we did last year. If they won't authorize it we may have to wait to see if he gets another infection with his next cold (because sickness is inevitable with kids of this age) and perhaps they will then see a need. We are hoping that won't be the case, so we can avoid him having to endure more pain or any hearing loss. 

Other than that and the boys having a mild cold earlier we've been able to stay fairly healthy so far this fall. I'm so thankful that Aurelia hasn't yet gotten sick but I'm sure we won't make it through the season unscathed. I can honestly attribute much of our healthy days to essential oils. I felt a cold (sore throat) coming on and used some On Guard/Shield/Thieves oil right away and felt better the same day. The boys' colds were relatively short lived and Desmond fared better than he ever has, as he's susceptible to breathing issues when he has any type of respiratory symptoms with a cold. I'm honestly so thankful to Amy for getting us started with eo's. If you have any questions about using essential oils, she's a wonderful resource...find here HERE.

So there's our little update, hopefully I'll be back to post sooner rather than later but only time (and my kiddos) will tell. 

I love being 4!

A few days ago we started counting how many more "sleeps" until Malakai's 4th Birthday. It was an easy way to put it in to terms he could understand and he enjoyed talking about how his birthday was getting closer each time we went to bed and woke up.

Last night Ben + I put streamers over his doorway to surprise him when he woke this morning. For my own amusement I made this little sign.

{4-year-old in progress. Do not disturb until 7.16 @7:20am}

 I also put a happy birthday sign across the hall that he'd see when he came out. When he woke up I stood in the hallway to watch his reaction. He poked his head around the corner, looked at me with a smile and said "what is this?". Once I explained it was a surprise for his birthday, he kept saying "I love my surprise!" He also said "I love being 4" and my personal favorite "Can I be 4 all the time?"

We headed out as soon as we could for our traditional birthday breakfast at the Original Pancake House. We started going for each of the boy's birthdays on Kai's 2nd birthday. It was a fun way to commemorate the day, start a tradition, and include daddy in the fun when it was a workday. 

The best part is having pictures of the same scenes but just a year later. Like Malakai and his straw. Last year it was a bit of a new thing to get a cup with a straw at a restaurant. This year he was a pro. 

It was apparent this year how engrained our tradition has become. Malakai sat down, looked at the menu and then promptly addressed our waitress "excuse me, I would like pancakes with a candle in a strawberry please." We are not restaurant goers, the boys get to get out to eat maybe 5 times a year, maximum. 

The boys enjoy coloring while we wait. They are pretty good at waiting on their food. 

{Malakai wrote out the alphabet twice on the back of his sheet after eating}

The best part is watching him get the birthday stack and blow out the candle after we sing...

The excitement I captured when he was 2 will probably always be my favorite. That picture is still my desktop background on my laptop. Pure joy. 

I'm also quite surprised at how little he has seemed to change from 3 years old to 4 years old. I think he did most of his growing in his legs this past year. He and Des are both quite "leggy" these days. 

We went on a handful of adventures after breakfast (see photos on Instagram!). We stopped at Skinner's Butte Park, then Eugene Public Library- after which Kai claimed to be very tired, so we headed home and after lunch let Kai veg out in front of a show while Des napped, then we took him outside to finger paint and he played with the neighbor boys. Once Desmond was up we walked over to the park near our house, after some play time we came home and read library books for over an hour. Everyone was really worn out so we let Kai pick a movie to watch, he picked Mary Poppins and we watched half before and half after dinner. Then we sang happy birthday and ate green cake in the shape of a 4. Baths, stories, bedtime and the day quickly came to a close. 

While Malakai finger painted outside I did ask him a few questions as sort of a "yearly interview". Lately he's not really into answering questions. His favorite reply is "nothing"...which I don't find all that amusing. I'll ask him what he did in Sunday school, what he wants to eat, etc and if he's not in the mood that's the answer I get. That, or he'll answer with whatever is around him...which is how this interview turned out...

Malakai, on your 4th birthday {interviewed by mama, while sitting under a tree + finger-painting}

What is your name? Malakai 

How old are you? 4

What is your favorite thing to do? (several "nothings") paint. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? painter. (he's such a stinker. later he said "I don't want to grow up."

What is your favorite food? pancakes.

Who do you like to spend time with? Charlie + Jacob (the neighbor boys, he was facing their house at the time...see what I mean?)

What do you do really well? (he had moved on from painting and was hitting the ground with a stick) bamming bees and spiders. 

What makes you laugh? When someone tickles me, like you or daddy. 

What is the best time of day? rest time, when I get to play.

What are you afraid of? stinky breath trees (I have no idea)

Who is your best friend? Charlie and Jacob. (these kids are 6 and 8 years old and he rarely plays with them, haha.)

What do you like to do with your family? play chalk.

What do you love to learn about? Trees and stuff. 

Where do you like to go? The restaurant to eat pancakes. 

What is your favorite book? Jake and The Pirates (a book from Grandma Debbie)

If you had one wish, what would it be? a tree to be big and giant. 

So, in retrospect, I should have asked these over breakfast when he wasn't so tired. Still, his answers are a funny snapshot and for me that's the point. Now here are a couple more things about Malakai according to mama...

Favorite colors: green and brown, in that order. 

He loves to play at the park, with puzzles, and listen to music. His favorites are the Jake and the Neverland Pirates soundtrack and Owl City. 

He picked his birthday party theme this year- "Rockin' Birthday! with guitars."

He likes to watch a handful of different shows: Special Agent Oso and Fireman Sam top the list lately. If we had more seasons of Jake, he'd be all over that. 

He loves to eat cheese pizza and hamburgers. 

He enjoys a lot of books. We checked out "Blue hat, Green hat" by Sandra Boynton today and he laughed hysterically, even after a dozen or so readings in a row. 

He loves to help with dishes, laundry, washing the car, watering plants. Anything that he gets to work on with daddy. 

He loves to wear shorts and T-shirts. He isn't very fond of pants and refuses to wear any shirts with a collar or buttons, even polos. He can dress himself well, but sometimes gets too grumpy and asks for help. 

He has a list of morning routines that he loves to follow, but he'll often ask if it's okay that his bed is a little messy. It's a twin size and quite tall so he has a hard time making it totally straight, I don't mind it at all. 

He adores Nate from down the street and is more gentle with his baby brother Luke than he ever has been with is own brother. He also loves playing with Justice, Titus, Liam, Kylan, and Jacob. He is also quite sweet with Jacob's sister Kacie, who is the same age as Desmond...brothers. Most of his playmates are within a year of his age but he also really loves to play with the big kids (under our supervision of course). He has a great memory and often talks about his friends Henry and cousin Caleb who he has only played with a handful of times recently (Henry he grew up with until about 2 years old). 

Malakai knows all about letters, reads handful of sight words and is getting better at sounding out new words all the time. He is pretty eager to read, but also gets frustrated easily. He hates to be in the sun for very long and always has to wear his sunglasses or he squints like crazy. He used to be shy about playing in water but can now swim with the help of a life jacket, but he does tread water and can swim the entire length of my parents in ground pool repeatedly. 

I can't believe our boy is already 4 and I have one short year until he's off to Kindergarten. He's growing up all too fast, but I couldn't be more proud of the boy he's becoming.

oh yeah, potty training...

It's totally not my thing to talk about my kids and their potty training (learning, etc...whatever you want to call it). I don't particularly enjoy facebook status updates about other peoples' kids and what they've done in the toilet...so I don't share about mine.

However, I do want to talk about the process a bit for sake of keeping record (as that is the primary reason I blog) and for those wondering what it's like for others. Especially in difficult situations like ours.

A tiny bit of back story- Malakai showed interest in going potty at 18 months. (Desmond is doing the same). Unfortunately he had a hernia and we had to quit until after his surgery to correct it 5 months later. We tried again after he turned 2 but he just wasn't interested, and our pediatrician advised us that if he wasn't able to stay dry through nap time, that he wasn't physically ready anyhow. She also said that if he didn't care about being clean, we'd also be wasting our time. 2 strikes against us, so we waited.

Once Kai turned 3 we tried several times but backed off once it became a power struggle, and it always did. We did charts with stickers and treats for using the toilet. None of it lasted for more than a week. He filled up a chart with stickers for using the toilet while still in pull-ups but it went nowhere after that.

Then we went straight to underwear a few times and he did better, but the power struggle would still come into play. Another big issue is that he wouldn't want to stop playing to go potty. We tried reminders and songs and setting timers and none of it helped for long enough to matter.

I listened to an MP3 audio at the height of my frustration a couple months ago, by Love and Logic. It was only $5 and I highly recommend it. Way quicker than reading a whole book and more realistic and helpful than any blogger who promises you can train your kiddo in a weekend.

I learned to back off, use empathy when he had accidents, and let him be in control of the process. I took deep breaths through some really frustrating accidents and setbacks and loved him no matter how badly I wanted to stop spending money on pull-ups... and he did it. He owned it and is doing so great. When he did have accidents during that time we'd just simply say "what a bummer, you can help me clean that up and we can try again." or "that's too bad, maybe you aren't quite ready for underwear yet, and that's okay." Those phrases seemed to motivate him more, especially when the alternative was having to wear pull-ups during the day (he didn't always care about wearing pull-ups but finally grew to prefer underwear).

He still needs an occasional reminder or incentive, but 90% of the time he manages it himself with no problems. For incentives, I don't mean a treat or a sticker, but just simple things like "I'll get out the markers after you take a potty break!" or let's pause your show and you can finish after you go potty." Works way better than chocolate chips for us.

Next is tackling staying dry overnight. He's in pull-ups at night, even though he wants to be in underwear, because I know he's not physically ready. I let him know that he can get up to go potty any time after bed and that once he wakes up with a dry pull-up in the morning he can wear underwear the next night.

So, if you find yourself in a rut with potty training, back off...let go of control and let your kiddo show you what he/she is capable of!

Desmond Lee: 18 months

Desmond is officially a year and a half old as of April 10th. He's such a big boy in so many ways! I thought it would be fun to do a comparison with Kai at this age (since I haven't done one in a while).

In these photos the boys are wearing the same hoodie, jeans, and boots. Des is slightly bigger than Kai was at this age, but not by a ton. I can't find Kai's 18 month stats to compare though. Malakai is on the left and Desmond on the right. I didn't pose Des, I just snapped pictures and then found the ones of Kai that looked the most similar in pose...

{picking up things and investigating them}

{walking around on the deck}

{squatting to reach things: not easy to do in boots}

{carrying things around and loving it}

Desmond is 33 inches tall (62%), 26lbs 11.5oz (63%). From memory I'm pretty sure Kai was not in the 60th percentile for height at this age. We often wonder if Des will surpass Kai in height, much like Ben and his younger brother.

One of the most notable things about Desmond's development is his speech and comprehension. (I'm in no way bragging here, just documenting). When the pediatrician asked how many words he could say, we had a really hard time answering. I explained that he can say almost any word you ask him to. She asked how many words he is not just repeating, but comprehends. What's funny, is that it's often evident that he comprehends them almost instantly based on his use of them again in reference to the object not only right then but in the future. I'm totally crediting Ben with handing down these skills as he is able to understand things quickly as well. Me? I am super visual and pretty hands on so I need examples and trial + error to really learn most things.

So- his most common used words and phrases are:

"Malakai" or "Kai"
"Mama"
"Daddy"
"nana" (banana"
"bagel"
"milk"
"cup"
"water"
"cookie"
"cracker"
"snack"
"pizza"
"sammich" (sandwich)
...noticing a trend here? Our boy likes to eat.
"up"
"hold you"
"help you?"
"no"
"yeah" or "yes"
"Cooz, Cooz" (Blue's Clues)
"ponies"
....just about every animal and their sound.
"my turn"
"thank you"
"welcome"(often said as "thank you- welcome")
"peez" (please)
"all done"
"more"
"cereal"
"I want it"
"I need it"
"have it"
"nuggle" (snuggle)
"read it"
"legos"
"wub you" (love you)
"happy" (how he refers to the "You are my sunshine" song/book)
"window"
"i-pod"
"cuh-yuh" (color)
"baff" (bath"
"nuh-night"
"cars"
"truck"
"Bye-bye"

and the list goes on.

He's becoming more and more independent, which has caused some obvious problems when it comes to playing with his brother. They start off okay at sharing most of the time, but it always turns into a struggle or a fight.

He is still enamored with climbing (as he has been since 6 months of age). He is obviously much better at it. We had to start using a sleep sack at 15 months old because he was climbing out of his crib on it's lowest setting. The sleep sack has already bought us 3 month and we're hoping for 2-6 more before we have to make the toddler bed transition. He often climbs to the top of our dining room table, always in 2 seconds flat.

He is super interested in potty learning. I'm sure it's from watching Malakai learn. He has actually used the toilet a handful of times. One day he went 3 times. We have him go every night before bath but we aren't putting any pressure on him, we've learned (the hard way) to be laid back about it.

We started cloth diapering really recently and I'll be sharing more on that soon. So far Desmond hasn't even seemed to notice a difference, thankfully!

Des is our snuggler. He loves the song/book "You Are My Sunshine" and asks for it by saying "happy?". He blows kisses whenever anyone says loves you or kisses.  He miraculously puts himself to sleep for 2-3 hours at nap time but struggles to do so at bed time. So much so that over the last 3 months he refuses to let me put him to bed at night, and will only sleep if Ben cradles him to sleep. He adamantly refuses to go down "drowsy but awake" and often struggles to soothe himself when he wakes in the middle of the night, although that's improving.

He loves pointing out animals and saying their names and the sounds they make. He is obsessed with Kai's room and trying to stand on the bed to look out the window. He loves to "read" and be read to. He's mastered the art of building a lego tower and he loves to color with crayons and markers. He knows a handful of signs, and always says the phrase while doing the signs.

Like I mentioned before, he LOVES to eat. His favorite is bananas. He will often ask for cookies because I shared one with him ONCE. He gets super cranky if we are late on snacks or meals and then is instantly happy again when he gets to eat. The only foods he isn't fond of lately are meats, which I think are a texture thing. If he's anything like Kai in this regard, I don't know if he'll ever eat chicken.

He's fairly mellow but is starting to exert himself when he wants something. He's been known to throw his weight around when throwing a fit, which is not a pretty sight. Otherwise he's super sweet, and I can't get enough of watching him grow.

Desmond's 1st haircut

I'm still behind on some things but I couldn't wait to skip over those for a moment and post some shots of Desmond's first haircut which just happened yesterday.

Here is our boy before his much needed haircut. I think he's precious, but admit that it was about time to get the hair out of his eyes.

 I must say, I do NOT recommend cutting a 10 month old's hair yourself. It was so difficult and in my opinion a bit of a disaster with all his wiggling around. He got pretty fussy and I had to call it quits...

I feel like he's nearly sporting a "Dumb and Dumber" style here...yikes. It was the best I could do with all the moving he insisted on doing. My heart stopped a couple time when he swung his face or a hand toward the scissors. 

Today after nap I let him play with some bath toys and did my best to correct some of the funky spots. It looks better and he is looking much too old!