muscle man

here is a picture of mason 'flexing' in his onesie of the day. this was the one matt selected as the winner during the baby shower - because i wouldn't pick one. love.

first tub bath and rolling over?

it was nice to be able to give mason his first tub bath on tuesday night. i think that he missed being wrapped in a towel like for his sponge baths, but he didn't hate it. he was really happy once i got to his shampoo - almost like he is just relaxing in a spa. i have also noticed that he seems to fall asleep more quickly when he has a bath, so we might start to do that every day instead of the every other day that the pediatrician recommended.

sleep is still going okay. he doesn't sleep like madelyn did, but he does give me 3-5 hours at a time. the main difference is that he stays awake at night. he goes down around 10:30pm and sleeps until 2:30am before needing to be fed. its the after 2:30 part that we are working on. sometimes he doesn't really go back to sleep until 4:30am or so - instead he wakes every half hour to eat or be changed. i finally figured out last night that he needs to be rocked and burped more than madelyn - which was none. once he is down again he sleeps until 8 or 9am. this morning it was 7:30am because madelyn went in and turned on all his lights because she wanted him to wake up. at least i don't feel tired. well, not all that tired anyway...

madelyn is very interested in my pumping after the morning feed. yesterday she said that she was going to "pump too first". the funny thing was that she was trying to pump her belly button! mainly she reads books in mason's room and talks to/pets him in his crib until she can cheer that i am done pumping.

mason rolled over yesterday! from his stomach to his back (over his left side) and the picture is where he ended up. i didn't actually see him roll, but i left him on his belly so he obviously did. and it wasn't a momentum roll from when i flipped him over either. he has been able to roll up on his side since the day he was born and has an extremely strong neck (with surprising head control) so i think that he was just turning his head over to look up and must have just gone with the weight to his left side. i tried to get him to do it again, but just got some video of him getting up on his knees and moving his head around. it is not the most interesting video, but i thought that the grandparents might like it since they haven't gotten to see him in person yet. he is also sucking his hand at the end. we have seen him suck his left thumb many times now, so maybe he will be a thumb sucker like madelyn. he will take a pacifier, but not very often.

now, i know this was not a 'real' roll over, but he still rolled over so i am documenting it. love.

the first day of school

yesterday was madelyn's first day of school and i am happy to report that we made it there on time. in fact, we were ready to go an hour earlier than we needed to be. everyone was just cooperating and we were able to get up, fed, pumped, showered, dressed, packed, and loaded in the car on time.

as you can see, madelyn was not interested in having her picture taken on her first day of school. i was able to sneak this shot while she was distracted by putting on her shoes all of the other pictures i took were of her screaming "no want pictures, mommy!" and showing me the back of her head. it was less about having her picture taken and more about it delaying her getting to school. you can see that she is holding her lunch box. she would not put it down - even after we got to the school - i think she was most excited about her lunchbox.

what i couldn't believe is that when we pulled up to the building (which is like an industrial type building - generic) she remembered it from when we went to visit around easter. she told me that she was going to "play with eggs" which is just what she did when we visited - she played with plastic easter eggs.

madelyn had no problem with going to school, not that i am surprised by that, but she did ask for "mommy/daddy/mason go to school too" on the way so i wondered how it would go. her teacher said that she did really great and had no problem with the schedule or playing with the other kids. there is a white board outside of her classroom that has all the things they did during the day posted and it looks like she was really busy! they were learning about circus shapes yesterday and today they are learning about circus clowns (there is a circus parade here this weekend - more on that in a future post). they cover math, reading, art, and science as well as playing outside and inside.

she was very excited to see me and immediately showed me where she had slept for her nap. i heard about her day the whole way home. apparently she met a boy named ethan and she didn't share a train with him ("didn't" was a new word she was trying out). other than that, she said that she read books, ate popcorn (their circus snack), and had fun.

we were early this morning because madelyn could not wait to go back for more fun. and she just lit up when her teacher came out into the lobby which made me feel good.

now for some non-school notes - i was singing "jesus loves me" while getting ready to change her diaper and madelyn said "maddie get book first" and quickly found her "jesus loves me" book that plays the music for the song just by looking at the spines! i would say that it has been at least a month since we have read/looked at that book (i asked matt about it last night to make sure that he hadn't read it to her more recently). i had read that a toddler's memory was much better than an adult's, but she really amazes me!

when madelyn and daddy got home from swimming last night, madelyn came in whining for me to kiss her head. after matt came in he explained what had happened. apparently she was hugging her friend dylan at swimming and they both fell down with madelyn on the bottom. she fell like a tree and landed with the back of her head on the pool's concrete! she has a little mark, but not too much of a bump so she is fine. i guess it just really scared everyone because it was on concrete and made a very loud noise before madelyn broke into a scream of pain. she was a little fussy last night, but other than that she was playing and speaking normally. this morning she told me that her head didn't hurt any more when i asked her about it. (when i would ask last night she would start crying/whining again.) that girl and hitting her head... it is a good thing that i am so relaxed about that kind of stuff or she would give me a nervous breakdown. love.

madelyn's gallery

here are some pictures that madelyn has taken over the past week or so. i have done nothing to alter them and she is definately getting better about getting her fingers out of the shot and holding the camera steady. enjoy her first showing! love.

presents!

so we were talking with big pop and grandma on sunday with skype (video conferencing) and talking about how they were coming to visit this week. grandma asked, "madelyn, can we come to your house?"

madelyn's response? "yes. i get presents!"

while this is funny (and a little sad - its not just big pop and grandma that are equated with presents either), madelyn has definitely been in a period of increased presents. every package delivered is identified as "presents for maddie" or as "toys!" between her birthday, mason's arrival, and madelyn becoming a big sister, we have had a lot of gifts coming to the house and madelyn loves it.

i have actually had to start going through her toys and sorting them for a goodwill donation because we are running out of room! she just has so much that she (and i) can't remember what all she has. and she definitely does not play with most of it. i have handed some things down to mason so that he can have a chance with them before they go to goodwill. we are going to be moving to the one in, one out philosophy soon.

speaking of gifts... at my baby shower for mason my friends made bibs and onesies for him. he wore his first of many today so i will document them - much like i did for madelyn when she wore the onesies made at my shower for her. they are in no particular order. this one says, "i get my...from my daddy."

mason lost his 'stump' today so we can move to real baths. yea! it is so much easier than sponge baths. he was kind enough to pee and poop on me during his last sponge bath, so i am really happy to see that the stump is gone and we can move up to his tub now.

my mission for tomorrow is to get madelyn, mason, and me all dressed, feed, and out the door by 9am. considering that i had to wake mason up at 9:30am this morning (he was up from 1:30 - 4:30 eating and being awake this morning, but then slept from 4:30 - 9:30) and didn't have time to shower before madelyn's music class at 11:00am, this is going to be difficult. she is really excited about starting school tomorrow. i think that it helps that we know they are going to be painting clay tiles tomorrow. madelyn loves to paint! while she is at school, mason and i are going to run several errands near her school. i am looking forward to having a day away from the house. love.

last day of daddy's leave

today we went to the zoo as a family. mason slept through the whole trip except for one feeding. matt took madelyn to a "zoo music" class that lasted an hour when we first got there and mason and i waited at a picnic table. it sounds like matt and madelyn both enjoyed the class. she made a drum, a book about animal sounds, and painted a picture.

madelyn's animal of choice today was snakes. she could not get enough of them! she was particularly interested in their size - the smallest and the biggest she could find moving.

after the zoo we had a nice family lunch at panera.

madelyn took a nice long nap (about 4 hours) and got up just in time to go to the first of her swimming lessons for this session with daddy. again daddy reported that fun was had by all. madelyn was very happy to be home to see mason. i think she said hi to mason before she said hi to me when she first came in the door. and after dinner she really did some big sister-ing.

as we were finishing up dinner madelyn was getting upset that mason was crying a little. she would just say "mason" in a very sad, pouty voice and looked to us to do something to comfort him. we told her that mason was fine and she said, "i want to talk to mason first." ("first" and "today" are very common at the end of sentences these days - especially for negotiations.) then she wiped her face and hands clean with her napkin before going over to "talk to mason." i can't remember exactly what she went to talk to him about, but there were hugs, kisses, pushes in his swing, and other conversation/questioning.

she went to play with her mr. potato head in the playroom and came out after she had built a monkey one. she was coming out to show it to mason. it was so cute to see her telling mason that it was a monkey and then making the noise that monkeys make ("oo-oo, ah-ah"). she tried to give mason the monkey potato head but i told her that it was too big for mason and she put it on the ground next to his swing before running off. she came back with a smaller potato head for mason. she is just too smart sometimes. she posed the potato head in the swing with him and then told us that she needed to take a picture. maybe tomorrow i will post some of her pictures. you might be able to make out the little potato head under mason's elbow.

after her photo shoot with mason she went back to the playroom to "be a doctor" with her little doctor kit. there is an otoscope for looking in ears and matt said that madelyn was checking out his ears and declared that there were "no birdies in there". this was hysterical because madelyn's doctor, who she hasn't seen since she was 18 months, always says that she is looking for birdies and whistles while checking out madelyn's ears. matt asked, "how does she remember that?!" i keep warning him that she remembers everything so be careful what you say/promise. she remembers.

tomorrow we get back to a normal sort of schedule because daddy is going back to work. madelyn has a full week because she is starting pre-school on wednesday and then grandma and big pop get here on friday night. love.

street fight

i mentioned madelyn's 4th of july injuries in the last post, but wanted to get a picture today. i have been joking that it looks like she was in a street fight. she has two scratches running parallel to each other on her cheek and temple. and then there is a mosquito bite next to her eye. she also has a mosquito bite on the other side of her head near her temple. the scratches are not deep or anything. in fact, she didn't even cry about them. they just look bad, hence my street fight reference. i am expecting that they will heal quickly.

and she is still cute despite the injuries...

and not to leave out mason, here he is sleeping in his swing. that is really all he does besides eat and dirty diapers. love.