Playing Catch Up-Davis Eleven Months and One Year!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by friends, family and loved ones. I’ve clearly been away from here for quite some time. Davis is now thirteen months and I missed not only his eleven month update but his one year post. So, here I am playing catch up.
Eleven Months-September 2017
Twelve Months!
Davis continues to be our happy and easy-going little guy. We celebrated his first birthday on his actual birthday-October 21st. We had lots of friends and family gather at our house for a donut themed brunch birthday celebration. Davis didn’t take a good morning nap, so by the time we gathered around for his birthday cake smash, he was not happy. He was in a new high chair and there were lots of people staring at him and singing Happy Birthday and our usually happy boy was crying and screaming. We finally put his cake down on the floor, but the crying wasn’t remedied until he was given his own donut. The photographer who has taken family photos for us since the girls were born came to our house and like always, worked her magic and captured some wonderful family photos and photos of Davis’ special day!
Davis and his big sisters at his party
Not happy with his cake and everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to him
My own donut-I’m happy now!
The Birthday Boy!!!
By his birthday Davis was taking a few steps, and now at thirteen months he is practically running! The girls didn’t walk until around fifteen months, so he is on the move much sooner.
Davis has eight teeth, his top and bottom four incisors, the lack of teeth isn’t hindering his eating one bit. This boy loves his food and pretty much eats everything we give him. He especially loves pears, cheese, raspberries and eggs. The girls were also very good eaters until they hit two years old and now prefer typical kid foods-grilled cheese, quesadillas, chicken tenders, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and mac n’ cheese.
Davis drinks about 20 ounces of whole milk a day, we add DHA and probiotics to his milk. At this point we are trying to transition him to one bottle first thing in the morning and one right before bed and to use a sippy cup when he has milk with meals. He also drinks a fair amount of water and likes drinking out of a water bottle with a built-in straw.
Davis had his one year check on November 10th and had his flu shot booster and four vaccines, he did great and his sisters comforted him when he had some tears.
STATS:
Weight: 21 pounds 5 ounces (45th percentile)
Height: 30.3 inches (55th percentile)
Head Circumference: 47 cm (72nd percentile-big head like sister Jemma and Mommy)
Hubby gave Davis his first haircut last week, he sat on my lap while Hubby used the clippers to cut his hair. We thought he was going to be afraid of the clippers, but he did great and now looks like a little boy much more than a baby.
Davis still takes two naps a day, both are usually only 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. He usually sleeps around ten hours a night, he sleeps quite a bit less than his sisters, Hubby thinks he takes after me more in the fact that I require less sleep than him. The girls sleep twelve hours a night and usually take one 2-3 hour nap.
The first year of my son’s life has been the fastest year yet. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that he is over a year old and isn’t a baby any longer. It’s bittersweet-I love the little boy that he is developing into, but feel a little sad that he will be my last baby. If I were five years younger than maybe a fourth child would have been a consideration, but we are happy and content with three. Five years ago we were in the throes of infertility and weren’t sure if even one biological child was a possibility for us, so to be blessed not only once but three times is more than we ever could have prayed and wished for.
Thirteen Months
This year I am so thankful for my beautiful, happy and healthy family. My children are my greatest blessing and on the days when I feel overwhelmed and frustrated that I have three children three years old and younger, I have to remember how much of a miracle each one of them truly are.
Family vacation to Maui, Hawaii in October-Halloween Parade!
As 2017 draws to a close, there is much to reflect upon. Life in our household has changed a lot this year, but one thing remains constant, how blessed and fortunate we are for all that we have and the love and support of our family and friends.
xoxo
Big Changes
As I mentioned in my last post, my Mom recently “retired” from helping us with our children. My Mom has helped us for the past three years, spending every two weeks at our house. My Dad and her live in Central Washington about three hours away…to say she has been dedicated to our family is a huge understatement. My Mom sacrificed time with my Dad, time with her friends, travel and relaxation all to help us with our children. When the twins were first born she was here for seven weeks straight and soon after, my Mother-In-Law and her starting alternating every two weeks, when Davis was born, she again spent another three to four weeks straight while I was on my maternity leave. And my Mom doesn’t only help us with the children-when she was at our home, she helped me immensely with housework, yard work, cooking, organizing, helped with our cats and just made my life so much easier. She is an angel! Truly an angel!
We feel so lucky and blessed that she was able to help us for three years-the years where we transitioned into parents and when life is so busy. The girls have a special bond with her and miss her dearly. Davis loves his Mimi as well and lights up when he sees her face on my phone.
We are happy that she is now getting the time she deserves to enjoy her retirement (my Mom was an RN for over 50 years and also helped my Dad in their restaurant business for many, many years), she is the hardest working, most dedicated person I know and she-more than anyone, deserves “me” time. We hope that her and my Dad will be able to travel, explore, relax, and get to have “fun” grandparent time.
There is not a day that goes by that we don’t miss her in our house-but we look forward to her visits.
Jemma and Zoe with Mimi
Davis and Mimi
With my Mom’s retirement, we began to explore options for childcare and decided that an au pair was the best option for us. We have the extra space at our house, have been use to having an extra person living with us and liked the idea of our children being exposed to a new culture. After several interviews, we fell in love with our au pair Karolina. Karolina is from Poland, has a sunny disposition and is so good with children. She is the eldest of four children-younger siblings are twelve, four and a little over a year. We laughed that our family wouldn’t overwhelm her too much! Karolina arrived on August 25th and fit into our family right away. The kids love her and she is comfortable and fun to be around. We matched with Karolina through Au Pair Care, but also explored candidates from Cultural Care Au Pair. We have several friends who have had au pairs from both agencies.
Our au pair Karolina!
We are fortunate and blessed to still have my MIL helping us twice a week and she helps on the days that the girls go to preschool. We have a nice routine now that school is in session and it seems to be working well for us so far. Jemma and Zoe spend extra time with my in-laws on Wednesdays and it gives Hubby and I some special one-on-one time with Davis.
Au Pairs have certain requirements through the program. They can provide up to 45 hours per week of childcare, no more than 10 hours in a day, have a consecutive 1.5 days off per week and have one full weekend off per month. We are lucky to have Fridays off from work and with my MIL’s help we are far under the 45 hours per week and have been able to enjoy a date night every week. Karolina can help with all things pertaining to the children-meals, laundry, and light housekeeping. Shortly after Karolina arrived, we took a wonderful trip up to Whistler BC. It was a nice time to be away from work to get to know Karolina better.
Group selfie in the gondola down Whistler mountain
Another huge change-the girls started preschool almost two weeks ago. They are going to a small preschool three days a week for three hours. They only have nine children total in their class. It’s a wonderful school relatively close to our house and they have handled the transition quite well. I think it’s nice that they have each other, Jemma was a little more apprehensive of the change, but now they go into their classroom and don’t even look back! I still can’t believe I have preschoolers!
First Day of Preschool!!!
Waiting for breakfast on their first day of school!
The girls are also attending a new Sunday School class and are going to a youth church program at my in-laws church on Wednesday evenings. To say they have had a lot of changes is an understatement-but they have handled all of the changes very well!
The girls finally figured out how to crawl out of their cribs, so this past weekend, we finally converted their cribs to toddler beds. We were afraid that they would be crawling out and getting into everything, but it has gone surprisingly well! Zoe is transitioning to not needing naps, but for the most part will stay quietly laying/playing in her bed. Jemma still will nap two to three hours, she clearly requires more sleep than her sister. During our night-time routine, Davis can crawl up into their beds and he is so pleased with himself when he does, he bounces up and down and is happy to be a big kid like his sisters.
There have been many changes as of late, but life is good. We are blessed with healthy children, loving grandparents and family, and a wonderful support system, which includes our wonderful au pair. We are looking forward to spending lots of time with everyone with the upcoming holiday season approaching.
Story time with Mimi last time she was at our house
xoxo
Davis Ten Months
Wow…..double digits! And….I’m only about three weeks late posting his ten month update. This little guy continues to bring us all joy and smiles and he has us constantly chasing after him as he is ON THE MOVE!
Davis is crawling all over the house and does so very very quickly. He is standing, crawling up on his small chair and is starting to do a little cruising. We’ve even caught him standing unassisted a couple of times, which I think he’s done without knowing it himself. The twins didn’t start walking until about 15 months, so Davis is progressing with physical movement so much sooner than they did. I have a feeling that he’ll be walking by his first birthday.
Davis is taking two naps a day, one mid morning around 10 AM and another in the afternoon around 2 PM (about the same time the girls’ take their nap). He is sleeping around 10-11 hours per night and his routine is predictable.
He started out gagging terribly when we started solids, but this boy loves food now! Favorite foods are: avocado, pears, mangoes, and black beans. He’ll eat just about anything as long as it’s soft enough for him. He does also enjoy meat and seafood cut into small pieces.
Typical feeding for Davis:
After waking (breakfast): 6 oz bottle followed by cereal and solid foods
After AM nap (lunch): solid food followed by 6-8 oz bottle
After PM nap (dinner): solid food followed by 4-6 oz bottle
Before bed: Into sleep sack followed by 7-8 oz bottle
Davis now has 8 teeth, 4 incisors on top and 4 incisors on bottom. I’m exclusively pumping because Davis is a biter! I’m winding down my pumping this week, I have enough in our chest freezer that if I’m done pumping when Davis is 11 months, I should have enough of a supply to get him to one year. It’s been hard work, but I’m happy that I can provide him with breast milk for his first year of life, it’s been a big accomplishment since I was only able to give the girls breast milk for about 6 months and that was with supplementing them with half formula.
Davis is in 9 to 12 month clothing and size 4 diapers. He’ll have his one year check in early November and we can see how much he has grown.
Ten Months-YAY!
Ok…..he does cry sometimes
Mama and D ready for the Seahawks game last Sunday!
I just can’t with this face!!! Literally cannot
We’ve had a lot of life changes. If you follow me on Instagram , you know that my Mom has retired from helping us with our children and we now have an Au Pair living with us, I’ll be posting next about all of our recent changes.
Until then…..
xoxo
Happy 3rd Birthday Jemma & Zoe!
It’s been much too long since I’ve exclusively written about my sweet girls, Jemma and Zoe! I have two three year olds…..really? I have two three year olds?! It doesn’t seem long ago that our struggles with infertility had come to an end and we found out that we were finally pregnant with twins! Our sweet twin girls arrived safely at almost 37 weeks and we were finally parents on July 14, 2014!
Jemma and Zoe are no longer babies (even though they will always be my first babies) and are growing up to be amazing little girls. They are so full of energy, wonder, love and happiness (95% of the time, 5 % tantrums).
Jemma, my first-born, who truly acts like a first born, is my strong-willed and determined one. She wants to do things her way and will fight to do so. But, she is the first to give hugs and kisses and tell us “I love you forever”. She is patient with her little brother and is the first to help me with him. She’ll bring him a toy if he’s crying, will give him puffs if he seems hungry and will always grab a diaper/wipe/bib, etc if I ask her to. She LOVES to sing and is now getting into dancing also. Her favorite movie right now is SING and it’s been on repeat in our house. Jemma also loves the water, we recently spent a long weekend in Central Washington and she declares the pool was her favorite part of the trip. Jemma has four loveys-zebra, bunny, Sophie and her small blankie. All four go everywhere with her and she is devastated if they can’t be found.
Zoe, the “middle child” is our more easy-going, calm one. She is spunky but doesn’t get as easily upset as her sister does. Zoe is full of giggles and loves to talk, talk, talk! She is also very sweet to her brother, but gets more bothered if he touches her, her toys or crawls towards her-“Davis is getting me!” Zoe also likes to sing and really enjoys coloring and art projects. Zoe loves to run, but she is also our accident-prone child. She is always falling down, hitting her head, tripping, etc. Zoe is boy crazy! And she loves older boys, I told Hubby that we are going to be in trouble with her when she gets a bit older. Zoe has one lovey-lion. She isn’t as attached to him as Jemma is with her loveys, but she still likes to sleep with him every night.
Jemma and Zoe won’t have their three-year check-up until next month-I’ll have to update their stats with another post. Jemma is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches taller than Zoe and about six pounds heavier. At birth they were only 2 ounces apart, but obviously their size difference is more significant now. Zoe wears 2T-3T clothing and Jemma is in 3T-4T, it’ll be interesting to see how tall they will be when they finish growing-hopefully all three kids will get Hubby’s height!
Jemma has been potty trained since we did training last August. She didn’t wear underwear for almost a year, but has been wearing them for at least a few months now. When we followed the Oh Crap method the first time, Zoe wasn’t ready. She had accidents frequently and wasn’t bothered by wet clothing. Since their preschool requires them to be potty trained, we knew it was crunch time. We retrained Zoe after our 4th of July beach trip and it’s been successful-Hooray! We told her the diaper fairy came and took all of the diapers except the night-time pull-ups and she has done awesome. She’s had a handful of accidents, but otherwise is trained. She went commando for a few weeks but is now wearing underwear also. We haven’t nap or night trained them yet since they still sleep in cribs, but I’m sure it’ll happen once they move into big kid beds. Zoe almost always wakes up dry in the AM and after nap and Jemma wakes up dry most of the time. We still keep two potties in our main floor powder room, but they use an added child seat on a regular toilet in their bathroom upstairs. It’s so nice to only have diapers for Davis now!
Jemma and Zoe have been amazing sleepers almost their whole life. They slept together in one crib until about 5 months and were sleeping about 12 hours straight starting at 4 1/2 months. They have continued to sleep about 11-12 hours every night and take a 2-3 hour nap most days. There are some days when the nap time chatting/banter doesn’t quit and we have to get them out of bed after about an hour, but if they don’t get their nap-they are crazy lunatics! They share a bedroom and we had to resort to a large curtain hung on a tension rod in the middle of their room to create a sort of separation for naps. It worked amazingly well at first, but nowadays, if they want to talk and scream, they will do so, even if they can’t see each other.
They use to be great eaters and would eat almost everything-today it’s all about kid food. They love pizza, “cheesy noodles” (mac n’ cheese), chicken nuggets, quesadillas, grilled cheese, etc. They at least love fruit and most proteins (especially fish), but it’s a struggle to get them to consume any veggies. And like Mommy and Daddy-they both love their desserts/sweets! Jemma has developed a berry allergy, so we don’t buy many berries any longer-she is getting tested this week, hopefully we’ll find out exactly what berries trigger her rashes.
Jemma and Zoe definitely keep us entertained-they say the funniest things!
“Candy makes me crazy”-Zoe
Jemma growling one day:
Me: “where did you learn to growl?”
Jemma: “From Daddy”
Me: “Daddy doesn’t growl.”
Jemma: “From Mommy”
“Mommy is the boss, Daddy is the worker” or “Daddy is the boss, Mommy is the worker”-Jemma and Zoe
“I love Johnny”-Zoe about the gorilla from the movie SING
“Don’t look at me!”-Zoe (she is so bossy!)
“Mommy-you are a woman?”-Jemma
My friend bought me a book called My Quotable Kid-it’s been great to write down all of the funny things the girls say.
Jemma and Zoe had an ice cream themed 3rd birthday party. They LOVE ice cream, so they were very excited to have ice cream sundaes for their birthday dessert! We had my Mom and in-laws over for a small family party on their actual birthday and then had a kids party the day after. We missed Papa at their parties since he was home in Yakima. The girls received balance bikes from us for their birthday-they aren’t too interested in them yet, but hopefully they’ll get the hang of them soon.
My sweet three-year olds!
Everyone but Daddy in their ice cream shirts
Ice cream sundaes-3 times 2!
We all scream for ice cream!
Balance bikes
Last weekend we enjoyed a long weekend with most of our twin friends from our multiples group at a resort community in Central Washington called Suncadia. We rented a big house and had 4 families all together-it was so much fun and a little chaotic at times. Davis was the odd one out being the only singleton!
Pool time!
Four sets of three-year old twins! Fun and crazy!
My heart keeps growing and growing with how much I love my twin girls. They drive me crazy at times, but they also fill my heart with so much joy. When life gets a bit hard, I just have to remind myself how much I prayed and wished for these two amazing little ones. I hope they continue to love life and see the world with so much wonder!
I love you Jemma and Zoe to the moon and back!
xoxo
Davis Nine Months
I can’t believe another month has gone by…..seems like I was just typing Davis’ eight month update yesterday! We are loving our summer, the sun finally came out here in the Pacific Northwest and it has been nothing but sunny, warm, gorgeous days! I’m sad that next week is already August, summer is flying by much too quickly!
Davis is all over the place, he is crawling non-stop and you can’t turn your back for more than a second before he is all the way across the room or getting into something. And oh my goodness, he pulled himself up to standing last night! Everyone was upstairs for bath time and then next thing I know, he is standing up holding onto the side of the tub. The tub is the last place I want him to lose his balance and conk himself on the head!
Davis is continuing to enjoy eating solids-still loves avocados best, but also enjoying some fruits. We’ve tried pears, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarine, banana, watermelon, and cantaloupe.
Most meals/feedings are four to six ounces of breast milk with 1/2-1 pouch along with either multigrain cereal for breakfast or solids/finger foods for lunch and dinner. Bedtime is still a six to eight ounce bottle that he usually starts dozing while drinking.
Davis is consistently sleeping through the night. He is usually down around 9 PM and sleeps until 7-8:30 AM. Naps are less predictable, but most days he takes two naps. Usually a shorter morning nap-45 minutes to an hour and an afternoon nap (most days at the same time as the girls) for about 2 hours. Davis naps in his crib, we gave a borrowed rock n’ play back to our friends and the swing will be moving up to the attic soon. In fact, we are moving his bouncer and jumper up there as well (not for any more of our babies, but for hopefully cousins down the road).
Davis is in 9 month clothing and wearing size 4 diapers. He has his 2 lower incisors and the top 2 central incisors are almost through with the top lateral incisors shortly behind. Davis does still bite on occasion when I nurse him, so now that the upper teeth are almost through, I’m quite anxious to nurse him. Most days I exclusively pump, however, my milk supply is starting to go down, so the ol’ milk factory may be shutting down soon.
Davis LOVES our cats, he literally crawls around chasing them and will tackle them if he gets the chance. Maya, our 14-year-old tabby, seems to be just as fond of Davis as he is of her. Bode, our 6-year-old Maine Coon is less fond of the chasing and tackles.
This boy is ALL smiles!
I know I sound like a broken record-but I can’t get enough of my baby boy!
xoxo
Davis Eight Months
This little guy is growing up too fast-crawling, sitting up, eating…..he’s hitting so many milestones!
A little after seven months, Davis was up on hands and knees and rocking back and forth, he only army crawled for a day or two and since then has been crawling like a champ. He manages to get around very quickly and especially likes crawling on the hard floor where he can make a little more progress. He often stops and then sits up. He is sitting up very well and rarely tips over. We took down on our baby gate at the bottom of our stairs, but it’s going back up very soon. The girls have been good about putting their small toys away, it’s easy to forget how infants like to put EVERYTHING in their mouths.
Eating was a bit of a struggle at first, Davis gagged constantly and spit up often if things got too far back in his mouth. However, he is now enjoying foods.
Foods we’ve tried:
-avocado-he loves it
-nectarines-likes it but can be a little fibrous
-pear-he likes them
-steamed carrots-he likes them okay
-peanut butter mixed with water-he loves it
-yogurt-only tried it once, he thought it was okay
-baby cereal-he likes it best mixed with breast milk, but I’m mixing it more with water now since I prefer to give him my breast milk for his bottle feeds
-baby food/purees-he prefers the fruit ones to the veggie ones
-baby puffs/mum mums-he loves them!
We feed him in a high chair at home usually first with solids and followed up with a 6 ounce bottle. It’s been nice when going out to eat that we can put him in a high chair also, he loves to sit at the table and be with the rest of the family. He gets around a 7-8 ounce bottle right before bed, I use to nurse him after his bottle, but a lot of times he is already asleep after the bottle.
Bottle after eating in his high chair at home.
Sitting at the table when we were on the Oregon Coast over the 4th of July holiday
Davis is in mostly nine month clothing and size 4 diapers. He sleeps through the night, usually from nine PM to six AM, he woke up around 12:30 AM twice and woke up at 5:30 AM when we were just on vacation, but that was out of the ordinary. We have him in a larger sleep sack now and just like the girls-he sleeps with a fan and a white noise machine.
Davis still only has two teeth, his two lower incisors, well behind the number of teeth the girls had at 8 months. I can’t complain, as he likes to bite on occasion when nursing and I can’t even imagine how much it would hurt if he had more teeth.
I’m mostly pumping at this point, Davis rarely nurses these days. I was thinking of actively pumping until Davis is nine months, but then I go back to pumping until I know that he’ll have breast milk until one year. I have a good amount of frozen milk, but now that he drinks more per feeding (usually 6-8 ounces) I’m having to dip into my frozen supply. I’m currently pumping about four times a day and it’s a commitment. I do think the thought of “Fed is Best” helps.
Davis loves to be held, he is happy as a clam if he’s being carried around. He LOVES to be in the Baby Bjorn and squeals with delight when you first put him in. He continues to be happy and calm, we just could not ask for a better baby.
Official 8 month photo
Beach time-loving taking in the views
Sleeping on Daddy-I just love his lips!
Hamming it up at his 7 month photo session
The twins turn three next week! Time is going so fast, we are loving every minute of it (well, almost every minute of it, minus the tantrums). We are back to potty training Zoe, it’s round two for her. I’ll post on how it’s going soon.
Hope all of you had a great Fourth of July! We had a great Oregon Coast getaway and are back in Seattle enjoying the sun with a few more days off this week!
xoxo
Party of Seven to Hawaii
In April we ventured with the three kiddos and my parents to Maui. It was our first vacation with all three kids, so inviting my parents along was a great help to have extra hands.
We always fly Alaska Airlines, but flew Hawaiian Airlines this time, the seating arrangement was perfect for us. The Airbus plane is two seats by the window, aisle, four seats in the middle, aisle and two more window seats. Hubby and I sat in the middle area and sandwiched both girls and took turns holding Davis. My parents sat in the two seats by the window across the aisle from us. I don’t want to jinx us for future flights, but this was our best flight to date! The girls are old enough now to watch movies and Davis is young enough to sit still and nap on the plane. I debated about taking my Boppy pillow to Hawaii, but I am so glad that I did. With the Boppy I was able to nurse Davis on the plane and have it to nurse him while we were in Hawaii. It was a little cumbersome to travel with, but much easier than trying to prop him with pillows. I also brought along my Medela pump and pumped while we were in Hawaii.
We again stayed in the Kaanapali area of Maui and rented a condo along the beach boardwalk, it was the perfect location for access to the beach and to walk to the Whaler’s Village shopping and restaurant area. The girls slept in one bedroom in their Guava travel cribs, Davis was in our room in a rented crib and my parents slept in the open den area. We again traveled light……just kidding…..3 large suitcases, 3 carseats, 1 stroller, 4 carry-ons, plus my parents luggage this time! We have it down traveling with twins, so adding 1 more wasn’t too bad.
The girls really enjoyed the pool and beach and Davis enjoyed the pool as well. The condo complex had a great kiddie pool that was only about 1-2 feet deep, it was the perfect place for our family to hang out and enjoy the sun. We enjoyed lots of good food while there and were so thankful to have my parents there so we could enjoy a date night! Hawaii continues to be our happy place, we love spending time with our family and taking time to relax, we really have no agenda while there except to soak up some sun and eat lots of good food at our favorite spots.
We only had one mishap while there and that was when I shared an acai bowl with Jemma one morning. We have known that Jemma has a berry sensitivity (she is actually going to be tested for allergies at the end of this month) but I didn’t realize that acai is a “berry” and shared bites with her, later that day she broke out in an angry rash and soon it was head-to-toe and she was itchy all over. Poor girl was so irritable due to the itching and had trouble sleeping. We tried a Hylands natural remedy, but finally had to go to Benadryl to give her some relief.
Family dinner at Hula Grill, clearly Jemma was very happy to take this picture!
Pool time! The kiddie pool that we loved!
J & Z with Mimi and Papa
Daddy and Davis
Our date night to Mama’s Fish House in Paia, one of our favorite restaurants that we had gone to on our honeymoon!
We are enjoying the weather here in Seattle now that it is warming up a bit and the rain is less frequent, it’s nice to spend time outside and the girls can burn off some energy running around. Davis is up on his hands and knees and is starting to crawl! Our twins didn’t start crawling until around 9 months, so he is definitely moving early, trying to keep up with his big sisters I’m sure!
The girls are turning 3 in exactly one month!!! Where has the time gone? I love the little people they are developing into, but miss my babies. The saying “days are long, years are short” is so so true!
Happy upcoming summer!
xoxo
Davis Six and Seven Months
Well hello! I’m only a month late posting Davis’ six month update and a few days late on his seven month update.
Six Months in Hawaii
Official six month photo when we returned home from our vacation!
The little guy is getting so big and hitting some developmental milestones so quickly. I feel like he’s moving past his “baby” stage pretty quickly and that makes me both happy and sad at the same time. I’m glad that he is growing and developing so well, but since he is likely (99% likely) to be my last baby, I’m holding on to every moment because I know it’ll pass and he’ll soon be a toddler.
Davis still has only his two lower incisors and he is biting me somewhat frequently when nursing, I yelp (because man, it hurts!) and then he just looks at me and giggles (little stinker!), I hate to think of what he will be able to do once he gets his opposing upper incisors. The nursing days may be ending when that happens. On that note, I’ve had to dip into my frozen supply, Davis takes about six ounces per feeding and my pumping/nursing doesn’t quite keep up with his appetite. I thought I would have started tapering down my pumping by now, but I think I’m going to continue on a little while longer. The nursing and pumping has been so much easier with a singleton versus twins that I don’t mind and I’d love to give him breast milk for as long as possible. I’m also not waking up in the middle of the night to pump, so that makes things much better.
We’ve tried introducing some foods to Davis. We’ve tried rice cereal mixed with breast milk, some Stage I baby foods, mum mum crackers and some cut up soft fruit (more as finger foods). When you look at our chunky baby, you’d think he would LOVE to eat, but to our surprise he gags very strongly and even spits up if things get too far back on his tongue. The more we’ve tried things, the less his gag reflex is occurring, but he’s still not into food as much as we’d hope. His pediatrician isn’t too concerned and said to keep trying foods out with him.
Davis is now in size 4 diapers, which the girls were wearing at nap time until just a couple of months ago! They had a box of size 4 diapers that we opened up for Davis once they started wearing Pull-Ups exclusively for nap time.
Davis wears 6 month, 6-9 month or 6-12 month clothing depending on the brand. I don’t get as excited about boy clothes as I did with the girls clothes, but they still have some pretty fun stuff for boys.
Davis sleeps about 9 hours most nights, however, in the last week he’s woken up in the middle of the night and takes a few ounces before going back to sleep. He’s still not a great napper, especially compared to how well the twins napped. We had the twins on a very strict schedule and I think it really helped them nap well and sleep 12 hours a night starting around 4 1/2 months. Davis is definitely not on a strict schedule and I think it affects his sleep patterns. However, with having two toddlers, it’s just not realistic to stay home and keep him on a strict schedule.
Davis had his six month check-up (almost a month late) and his doctor said he is growing well, has a very calm and easy going disposition and since we aren’t first time parents, he said we could skip his 9 month appointment and he would see Davis at his one year check!
Davis’ Stats (30 weeks):
Weight: 18 lbs 12 ounces 64th Percentile
Height: 27 inches 61st Percentile
Head size: 17.64 inches 72nd Percentile
Seven Months
Davis is easily rolling from front to back and back to front, he pushes up on his hands and can scoot himself all over, I think crawling will be coming very soon. He is starting to put everything into his mouth and has a good grasp and is constantly pulling and tugging things. He looks when we say his name and loves his jumper. He LOVES our cat Maya and she loves him back. He pulls and tugs on her fur and she doesn’t make a peep. She loves to lay on the Boppy when I’m nursing him. Jemma and Zoe are getting a little more possessive of their toys since Davis can reach for them now. We will need to re-baby proof everything very soon!
Davis continues to be a sweet and happy boy. He’s definitely a mover and gets a bit more fussy when hungry or tired, but overall, he makes being a Mama such a joy!
Davis was baptized this past Sunday at our church. He wasn’t his usually perfect self and actually cried almost the whole time he was in front of the congregation, he was only quiet when the pastor was placing water on his head. We chose Joshua 1:9 for his life verse.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.
Davis’ Baptism
Sweet Davis on his baptism day!
We had a first family vacation with three kids in April with Mimi and Papa in tow. I’ll post soon about our adventure!
And Happy belated Mother’s Day to all of the Mamas and Grandmothers out there. Also, thinking of those of you hoping and praying to be a Mom, continue to have hope…….Hugs to you.
xoxo
Davis Five Months
Happy Spring! We are waiting for our spring weather here in the Northwest, still lots of rain and gloomy days. Even though Daylight Savings is kind of a pain, I’m loving the longer days and can’t wait for the weather to warm up so we can get back to our evening walks and trips to the nearby park.
Little guy is five months old and continues to be such a joy to our family. He continues to give us lots of smiles, tons of laughs and giggles and just warms our hearts. Jemma and Zoe are wonderful big sisters to him and are always willing to help when it comes to taking care of “baby Davis”.
Davis is now taking around five ounces at each feeding and when he is hungry is the only time he really fusses and cries. We switched him to the Playtex bottles and are using the drop-in liners with the medium flow nipple. It’s so much easier than washing all of the million Dr. Brown parts and he isn’t having much issue with air intake. We are continuing on with one ml of DHA and probiotics daily.
Davis has started having more frequent BMs, he use to have only one every 7-10 days, but now he’s having several a week and even had two in one day last week. We still have him in size two diapers but a box of size three are on their way!
He is almost primarily in six month clothing, although he still has some three-month clothing that fit on the snug side.
Davis is in a sleep sack at night and is sleeping in his crib now! I give him a four to five ounce bottle in our room after we’ve put the girls to bed and if he’s still hungry, I nurse him until he falls asleep and then I take him to his room and put him in his crib. He’s sleeping from about 9:30 PM until 5-6 AM every night. I usually wake up around 3-4 AM to pump and with this pump session I fill a bottle so that it’s ready to go when he wakes up.
Davis is getting his first tooth, his lower left central incisor is just coming through, he has been chewing his fingers and drooling non-stop, but didn’t really fuss as it was coming through.
Davis is continuing to easily roll from his back to his front, he can go from both right and left sides. However, he has yet to roll from his front to his back.
We are taking our first family trip since Davis has been born in late April. We are headed to Maui and my parents are joining us this time since we will definitely need extra hands. We are very excited to head to a sunny location and are looking forward to my parents joining since they haven’t been to Maui in a very long time! We are staying in a condo in the Kaanapali area that we haven’t stayed in before, it’s located closer to the boardwalk and beach than in the condo we normally rent, so it’ll be nice for everyone to be able to walk easily in the area. We are planning on introducing solids to Davis on the trip, we had done this with the girls when they were six months on vacation in Hawaii. Wish us luck on packing and getting seven people easily to the airport and on the plane!
And lastly, my Mom has let us know that she will be “retiring” from helping us with our childcare at the end of this upcoming summer. We are so blessed that she will have helped us for over three years and are going to be sad to see her go. With the arrival of Davis, three kids has been a lot for her to take care of on a regular basis and since she lives out of town, when she helps us, she is away from home for over two weeks at a time, leaving my Dad home by himself. Also, when she is at our house, she is helping us on evenings and weekends, unlike my mother-in-law who gets to go home every evening and has her weekends free. My Dad and her want to do some traveling in their retirement and are looking forward to new places to explore. I’m sure my parents will continue to visit regularly and all of the kids will really miss their Mimi!
With my Mom retiring, we are beginning our search for an Au Pair, we are working with two agencies-Au Pair Care and Cultural Care Au Pair, which were both recommended by friends who have used both agencies. We are planning on interviewing a few candidates this weekend. With my Mom staying with us half of the month, we are use to having an extra person in our household and have extra room for an au pair to have her own space. My mother-in-law will continue to help us two days a week, which we are very happy to have her do so. We compared hiring a nanny for three kids to getting an au pair, and the au pair seemed to make the most sense for our family. We look forward to learning about another culture as well and think it’ll be a great experience for our children.
Five Months
Zoe (L), Davis and Jemma (R)-the girls love their little brother
All smiles!
My favorite little guy!
Hope you are all having a nice spring!
xoxo
This Year’s 411 so far….
I’ve been dedicating most of my blogging time to Davis and haven’t updated anything with the twins since the holidays.
Jemma and Zoe are growing up so fast right before our eyes-they melt my heart, make me laugh and drive me crazy all at the same time! Both girls are so sweet on Davis, they love to give him kisses, show him things they are playing with and make sure that they sing to him or give him a lovey if he’s crying. They are wonderful big sisters and I hope that they will continue to be. They haven’t shown any jealousy towards him, and tend to pick on each other instead. We hear a lot of “so and so pushed me”, “so and so took my toy”, etc.
The girls are so funny, they say and do the funniest things. When I have to pump in front of them, they love to chime in “Mommy’s boobies are moving”. My reply, “Yes, yes they are!” They are so observant and point out everything. Sometimes I think I’m doing something without them noticing (shoving that cookie into my mouth in the corner of the kitchen), but nothing escapes them, they see everything. They are starting to “read” book themselves, Jemma especially remembers all of the details from each page and almost says it verbatim. Zoe tends to make up more of the story, but it is amazing to see them sit quietly and flip through books. They are also getting more into music. We listen to a lot of music at home and in the car. Jemma’s song right now is “Don’t Wanna Know” by Maroon 5 and Zoe’s jam is “I Feel It Coming” by The Weeknd. They love to sing along, I know it won’t be for long that I can enjoy the music I like and not have them picking up on inappropriate lyrics, haha! We also have an Amazon Echo Dot in our house and the girls love to yell things at Alexa. “Alexa-how old is Pooh?”, “Alexa-stop the timer!”
I think the tantrums hit a peak in the weeks following Davis’ birth and I’m hoping they won’t come back like that again. However, Jemma has been having more lately, but hoping they are related to irritability. In early January we noticed small raised bumps on her torso and back, soon after it was widespread over her whole body and starting to get raised and red. At that time she wasn’t complaining of any itching. We took her into the pediatrician on call and he said that it was likely from a virus and would pass in five to seven days. The redness and widespread location of the rash dissipated, but it soon got itchy and she was scratching her scalp, neck and upper back and chest like crazy. At this time she was so irritable and fussy and having almost daily tantrums (but I could hardly blame her since I’m sure she was going crazy with the itchiness!). Since this was past the five to seven days since her Dr. visit, we started to think that it could be a food allergy. My MIL and the acupuncturist I see both said that kids tend to love what they are allergic to. So, our first food to eliminate was berries. Jemma LOVES berries and will eat them for every meal if she can. We eliminated all berries but didn’t see much improvement, I was worried we’d be onto wheat next! Since it appeared to be isolated to her head and neck we started thinking more about a contact dermatitis from shampoo and soap. I also started doing the family laundry all together and switched the kids’ detergent from Honest to Tide. Just last week I switched all of the kid’s laundry back to Honest and we started using only Dr. Bronner’s castille soap for baths. I also bought some calendula ointment and started rubbing it on her affected areas. Low and behold-the itching has decreased dramatically and the rashes are almost totally gone. We did have her regular pediatrician take a look when we took Davis in for his four month check and he agreed that it could be from soap and detergent. He took a vaginal swab to check for Strep but it came back normal and he also though a food allergy would have presented itself much sooner that at age 2 1/2.
With all of her irritability, she was waking up a lot at night due to the itching, we’d usually have to fix her snap on her jammies, rub her back, give her water, etc and were getting up a few times a night. Sad that our toddler and not our newborn was keeping us up at night. On Monday night she cried out “Daddy water!” for almost an hour and after he went in and said that we took her cup downstairs she then cried out “Mommy water!” We knew this behavior could not go on, so we prepared them all day yesterday saying that Mommy and Daddy are very tired and need to get a good night’s sleep. We told the girls they can have a drink of water right before bed, but that we can’t drink in the middle of the night so that we don’t have to go potty and everyone can sleep peacefully. It seemed to work and Jemma only woke up once last night to go potty. I’m hoping for our usual restFUL nights soon! Especially since Davis is such a great sleeper already.
We’ve been having lots of fun playdates with friends. My girlfriend who has twin girls who are about six months older than Jemma and Zoe came over last weekend and we drank wine and ate food while the girls all played together. We joked that we knew we’d be at this place at some point!
The girls got into the preschool that we were hoping they’d be accepted into. Starting in September they will go three days a week from 9 AM until 12 noon. We will need to get Zoe potty trained by then, I think she is capable, but prefers the convenience of a diaper right now.
We had the first week of February off, it was a great week to be off, we had a big snowstorm the Monday of that week (which we would have had to cancel work most likely), so we stayed home and had a snow day! The girls had so much fun playing in the snow and building a snowman. The girls also got hair cuts that week and we had fun catching up with lots of friends!
Hanging out at home on our staycation
Z ready for her haircut!
J ready for her haircut!
Post hair cut doughnuts!
The girls loving the snow!
Family snow day!
D bundled up for the snow
Valentine cookies
Day at the Zoo with Mommy!
I really must stop and say “Life is good!”. The other night when we were up listening to constant whining, having to get up to rub backs and missing out on some much-needed sleep, my husband says “Four years ago we would have agreed to staying up all night listening to crying and whining because it would mean that we have children.” And that is so true, our three children are truly blessings and blessings we weren’t sure we’d ever receive, so with all the good comes the bad and it means we get to be parents to these amazing miracle babies!
xoxo
Blogs I Follow
Liebster Blog
Bakin’ Friends
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hopefulandhungry 