Excerpts of the Craig Chronicles: January 2015

Friday, January 23, 2015

3 Months Old (Elizabeth)

Dear Elizabeth,
I have gotten out of the habit of writing these because your sister is much older and I don't do this nearly as often as i should.

You are getting so big. You love to smile and coo and laugh. You love watching Sydney. You love watching the dogs.

You love to be naked, which I should do more often but usually its only long enough to change your diaper.

You love baths. You just relax and they sooth you. In fact you usually want to be asleep or are asleep within a half and hour. And I say usually because there has been two exceptions. One because you exploded and needed a bath in the middle of the day, and two because we were at Nana Lydia's house.

You love to be laid down on your play mat and watch your hanging butterfly.

Tummy time is different everyday. Sometimes you don't mind it. Sometimes you start off screaming and scream til I flip you.

About a week before you turned 3 months old you were able to grab a toy and hold it all on your own. Yay. I'm so proud of you for this.

You love to smile when you first wake up and of course after you eat. Your smile is so big and wonderful and I love it. Your laugh is absolutely adorable to. You are talking a little (cooing) and its so fun to try and get you to talk more.

Sydney is such a big help too. She always gets you your binky. She helps get the diaper when its time to change you. She always to be there to help when you are crying. And she loves to play with you while you are on the play mat.

You have been such a joy to our family. We love you. Your daddy has enjoyed having you around. And it's different with you because he isn't working graves and so He isn't always trying to sleep like he was when Sydney was a baby. It's been good for him.

You were told at your two month appointment that the right side of your head is flat not round and that in order to fix this by your four month appointment and not need a helmet that you need to basically always lay on your left side. And you were really good about this for a few weeks and now its like you are refusing to be on your left side (you are always trying to look right. Even if your toys and everything are on the left.)

You only sleep well when you are swaddled so tight you cannot wiggle your arms out of the blanket. You cannot sleep with your arms out (and the few times you have were an absolute miracle). Swaddling you is a huge ordeal and your dad has it perfected. It's quite the show. Although you now have the strength that when you fight the blankets you loosen the so much that you can move your arms out of them.

You actually have a lot of troubling falling asleep these days. You'll eat, then be awake, and then after an hour you're ready for a nap which takes a few times of me putting in your Binky and then you only sleep for an hour. So by the time bedtime comes you are so tired you are screaming and only fall asleep in daddy's arms. (Last night -1/14- you were so tired you screamed for 15 minutes before daddy could calm you down enough to get you to take your Binky and by then you were fast asleep. Unfortunately you were bundled, so you woke back up when I tried to put you in your bed, so you slept on me until it was time to feed you, and then I swaddled you and put you in bed and you slept for 6 1/2 hours. What marvelous sleeping hours those were.)

You apparently detest any kind of schedule because I cannot for the life of me get you on one. You sleep different lengths everyday. Nap times can go anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours. So getting you to eat every 3 hours has been some what of a challenge. And because you don't take consitent good naps you are so cranky at bedtime, and take forever to fall into a deep sleep and stay a sleep for a long time. Once down for the night (which lately has been anywhere between 10 PM and 2 AM) (talk about sleepless nights) you will sleep for 4-7 hours at a time.

I love you baby girl. Even on the most sleepless of nights.

Love,
Mommy

While you can hold your head up, you don't have the strength to hold it up straight yet, so when you're in the bumbo your head falls back a little and we use blankets behind your head to give your neck some more support.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Sydney 3 1/2 Years Old

My dear Sydney,

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love you. You are my bright light. My days are never boring with you around.

In the last 6 months since we have lived in Sandy you have just blossomed into this beautiful and wonderful and entertaining little girl.

You love to watch movies. In fact first thing every morning you ask if you can watch a movie.

You don't eat breakfast anymore (not really, you just snack until lunch time).

When Elizabeth was first born you were watching a lot of TV because I was trying to get into a routine and I was always tired, so now daddy and I are trying to get out of that routine and trying to get you to play with all the many toys you have which you don't seem to want to do. Telling you to go play with your toys usually gets you upset and you say you don't want them and to take them all away. In fact you even through some of them across the room once to make your point.

You don't keep your room clean. So when I tell you to clean it or your toys are mine you always promptly tell me to take them away because you don't want them. So I put them in a garbage bag, sometimes for a couple weeks and you don't even seem to notice that some of your toys are gone. (Maybe its because you have so many.)

You are really good with your ABC's. Listening to you sing that just brings a smile to my face everytime.

You love to paint. Drawing and coloring not so much.

You love to play hide and seek. Especially since you think covering your eyes makes you invisible.

You love to cook/bake. When i say lets make something or come help me make something you are usually right there getting ingrediants you think we'll need. When you say lets make cookies you always go and get the recipe book. In fact you say to me "I get the recipe book."
Ingredients to you mean milk, water, flour, oil, and butter, because anything we cook has at least one of those.

You love nursery rhymes. I am part of this company called Usborne Books and they have this nursery rhyme book where you push a button and the music for they rhyme starts and the words are on the page. So you can sign Humpty Dumpty. Ba Ba Black Sheep. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Ring around the Rosies. I'm sure there are others I just can't think of them.

You love to watch Mickey Mouse or Scooby Doo. While you'll watch other things on Netflix, those two are always a hit with you.

When a song is playing and you are trying to sing, you will sing words you know after they've already been sung or at least sing the oooo's that are in the chorus. You're very good.

You love to laugh. You laugh about everything.

When you're in trouble you always say I'm sorry. You say I'm Sorry for anything-if I've stubbed my toe, or baby Lizzy dropped her binky or anything. It's so cute.

You love treats. You could eat them all day. But when it comes to brushing your teeth you fight me 95 percent of the time. So if I get a good 30 seconds of brushing in (which includes all sides, top, and bottom) then I count it a success.

You got your own camera for Christmas, so if I'm taking pictures then you want to take pictures.

You have been completely potty trained for a few months now. But since Lizzy came you have had accidents in your bed quite frequently.

You also don't fall asleep til after midnight 90 % of the time. And if you fall asleep before midnight then its because you didn't take a nap that day because you woke up so late in the morning.

You have a friend named Kahlan who lives in our apartment complex, and during the summer you two would play and have so much fun outside at our little park. But now that it's winter you don't see much of each other; and when you two play together inside there is usually a lot of fighting and no sharing.

Whenever we don't have something you want you always tell me that we'll "get it from the store."

You can count your numbers really well (but for some reason lately you skip over 4 and 5 when counting).

You had a cavity in one of your back teeth on the left side. So after we moved up to Sandy, I spent time looking into dentists. You went to 3 dentists before I found one that was affordable and could take of your cavity. They gave you this drink that made you loopy and have no control over your motor skills. You couldn't even hold your own head up. After that went into effect they put you in the chair and numbed your gums with a needle which you fought, they also put some equipment in your mount to hold it open. And then they took a drill and dug out the cavity and filled it in. Daddy had to hold you down. And mommy cried because you were screaming. It only took like 5 minutes total so it wasn't that long. The drink medicine they gave you though is supposed to make it so you don't really remember what happened, which I'm okay with because I don't want you to be terrified of the dentist.

You love swimming. I wish they had a cheap community swim pool option here like they did in Cedar City because I'd take you a lot then. For some reason here in the city I feel like driving ten minutes for anything is a long time (which is how long it took to get to the pool in Cedar, but the city feels different.) So starting February I'm planning on signing you up for swim lessons.

You love to copy your movies. Like when you were watching Jake and the Never Land Pirates and they were doing a treasure hunt, so you started doing a treasure hunt. Getting items, having me draw a map. It was so cute.

You say I don't know for everything, even if you know the answer.

You love to be read to. And once we've read a book a few times you can tell me for the most part what is happening on the page (of course the pictures help).

You love Grandma and Grandpa Arnold (you love all your grandparents and great-grandparents) but every-time you see them you get a big smile on your face and run up to them. It's so cute.

We were grocery shopping the other day, and when dad comes he takes you and goes off to get a few things he needs and then takes you to go pick up things off my list. Well you were helping me get some apples and daddy went to the checkout stand. But you couldn't see him so you started asking and looking and saying I can't see him. But when you finally spotted him you ran full force towards him. It was so cute. (Also, when dad takes you to get something and then you come looking for me to put your items in the basket you yell mom and I can hear you from really far away).