Quite the day

We had quite the day today after quite the night last night.  

Big thing #1:  Foster is officially learning to put himself to 

sleep at bedtime & at

naptime. 

Last night Foster WOULD NOT stay asleep. 

 We had friends/family here

 (Ken Wright and his daughter, Kendra and Rusty) and I wanted to see them!  It was so frustrating!  I tried for a very long time, rocking him, nursing him and every time he'd fall asleep and when I put him down, he would wake up.  I made the decision that he needed to learn to fall asleep on his own.  So, last night he did it.  I left his room and he cried for 15 minutes, then slept for a few, then cried again, then slept... for about 45 minutes.  Then he was asleep.

For consistency's sake, we decided we should take this route with naps and bedtime the "rule" being we would let him cry/lay in his crib for an hour at naptime and pretty much unlimited at night.  So today I tried three times to get him to take a nap and three times he lay in his crib, mostly crying.  No nap.  All day.  Tonight I nursed hi

m and he promptly fell asleep, only to wake up (as usual) when I put him down.  So I gave him a kiss and his blue bear, told him I loved him and 

left.  He cried off and on for 45 minutes and then fell asleep.  :-)

Big Thing #2:  SYDNEY LOST ANOTHER TOOTH!!! She and 

Andy were in the car and out it came!  She is VERY excited!!  The Tooth Fairy should be making an appearance tonight!!

Big Thing#3: In between no naps today, Foster OFFICIALLY turned over from back to belly.  He had done this on the couch with the help of the cushions, but this was his first unassisted turn from back to belly.  Andy witnessed it and we happened to be on the phone with PopPop at the time.  Very big stuff.

Big Thing #4:  At bath time Foster was fussing away and I noticed that he cut his first tooth!  In fact, he cut the tooth that Sydney lost!  Finally!!

Very big day at the Grignon house.

Crab-Apple

Foster has been a wreck all day.  He woke up early (5:45) and tried to put a stop to my plans to go for a walk at 9am with my friend, Angela.  I pushed through and he slept the whole walk (after screaming in the car all the way to the trail).  Since then, he's been a mess.  I think a tooth may finally be making an appearance soon.

After dealing with Mr. Man all day (and a few issues with Syd not cleaning up her art supplies), I decided to take a trip to the park with the kiddies (Foster in his stroller, Syd on her scooter) and sent Andy on a motorcycle ride.

Everyone was happier at the park.  Foster looked at the leaves, Syd ran around and I watched them (with lots of interaction with both, of course!).

Andy joined us for a bit after his ride.  A nice way to end a rough day. 

This evening our friends Anne and Scott are bring us some dinner (which they share with us, of course) - brisket that they smoked in their new smoker!  :-)  THAT will be a nice way to end a rough day!

Oktoberfest

Today was a full day.  Foster and I ran a 5k this morning to kick off Campbell's Oktoberfest.  Ok, I ran it, Foster slept in the stroller.  We had fun, though.  Afterward, we met Andy and Syd downtown (they had a breakfast date) and Andy bought beer tickets for later.

After lunch and Foster's nap, we walked downtown  with our friends Anne, Scott & Nitin.  Sydney rode her scooter and Foster rode in the stroller again.  Andy spent a good part of his time standing in lines & Syd, Foster and I spent most of our time in the kids area (jump houses, small rides, etc).  Foster was mostly in the Ergo baby carrier (sleep part of the time), Sydney playing.   On one jump thingy, Syd fell off the slide.  It looked like she was doing a cartwheel with no hands!!  Scared the crapola outta me!  :-)  She was fine, though, and recovered with a beautiful butterfly face painting. 

Foster did great until I left him with the guys while I got some food.  He was a little upset while I was gone, but once I got back life was good again.  

Ah, such is the life of a 5 month old.

Another day..

I had to pick out a picture of Sydney when we joined our Las Madres group (@ 6 months) and her most current picture (her kindergarden pic) for a "Yearbook" that my Las Madres group is putting together.  I thought the comparison was pretty cute!

The Tooth Fairy, for the record, brought Sydney $5, a High School Musical thing and a glitter super bouncy ball.  AND, the tooth fairy managed to get all of that under her pillow without waking her up!

Foster has been up a lot the last few nights and then today napped all of 20 minutes.  He fell asleep tonight around 6pm, so here's hoping for a long night of sleep...

Big News!

Can you guess what happened to Sydney at school today?!

two videos

Thought I would post two videos today since I don't feel like complaining about the horrible night we had with Foster...  

One video is of Sydney from Labor Day weekend when Christan was visiting.  Christan helped Sydney learn to ride her bike with no training wheels!  This video is of the first time she rode with out those extra wheels.

The video of Foster is from yesterday... Andy fed him his first Applesauce! Think he likes it?!

First Ride

First Apples

Dentist

We went to the dentist today to fill that cavity and it was, in a word, traumatic.

Or maybe I should say, "dramatic".

She did great until they had to give her the novocaine.  Then she screamed.  And screamed.  We got through the numbing part and she wanted them to stop.  

"I WANT TO LEAVE NOW!  I DON'T LIKE THIS!!"

So we explained that we could stop, but if we did that we would have to come back another day, go through the numbing again, just to get where we are now and that the part that was left was painless.  

The dentist was trying to talk to her about "sugar bugs" and basically not giving it to her straight.  So I had to just explain to Sydney that the pinching was to give her medicine to make it not hurt while they fixed her tooth and that part was now over and what was left wouldn't hurt.  That made sense to her, I guess.  Plus, I made it very clear that if she didn't let them finish today we would definitely be coming back to let them do the job.  

She thought about that and after several deep breaths, she agreed to continue.  Syd pulled it together and let the dentist finish up.  

Did I mention I also bribed her?  Hence the new scooter in the picture...  :-) 

two kiddies

Foster's new toy!

Silly Sydney!

What a crazy couple of days it has been.  Foster has been sleeping like a champ at night (knock on wood) but has been a WRECK during the day.  Hardly napping at all and pretty much I need be holding him from 3pm on.  It has been wearing on my nerves a bit.  Sometimes a mom just needs a break.

Sydney has a dentist appointment tomorrow - cavity!  It is her second.... she definitely has her mama's teeth.   She brushes and flosses twice a day, but still - CAVITIES!!  So Kirsten is coming tomorrow (instead of today, which meant no break for me today) to watch Foster so I can focus on Syd.  She'll be getting the laughing gas again.  She had a cavity filled a few weeks ago and while she was breathing in the gas she said to me:

"Mama... I don't know where I am!"

We got a new "exersaucer" for Foster this week.  We had one for Syd and it has been stored in our little attic above our utility room.  I've asked Andy for weeks to get it down and on Saturday I told him that if it wasn't down by Sunday night, I was buying a new one.  So I did.

He informed me that it was most definitely worth the $70 to not have to get up in the storage to get the old one down.  So there you go.

Twins?

Sydney - around 5 months

Foster - 5 months....

Maybe twins separated by 5 1/2 years.  Cute, eh?

Last night Foster slept from 6:30pm - 6:30am.  It was wonderful.  I woke up, fed him, got Sydney's breakfast made, woke her up, made her lunch, woke Andy up and felt wide awake the whole time.  There's just something about uninterrupted sleep!

Today our part-time nanny, Kirsten, comes to take care of Foster while I work at Syd's school.  I work an hour in the classroom, then lunch/yard duty, then with another parent I run a drama center.  It is pretty fun and Sydney is always happy to have me there. I think.

Andy has  work dinner tonight so I'll be dealing with both kids until bedtime.  Hopefully Foster will cooperate and go to sleep at 6:30pm again so Sydney can get some undivided attention for a while!  

Cereal

Today was Foster's first time eating cereal.  His first time eating anything other than Mommy's Milk.  A very exciting day, indeed.  In addition, I (Mandy) got to sleep for 7.5 hours IN A ROW.  It was awesome.

Foster is a very happy baby and a very big baby.  :0)

Sydney was very excited to sit next to him, eating Lucky Charms.  She didn't know his cereal wouldn't have marshmallows in it...

First Time...

This is my first blog post on here.  After years of using Apple's iWeb software, I have grown wary of it.  I don't want my updates to be tied to software on my computer. Cloud computing is where it's at, baby.