THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

So, Sammy is 5 months old and Rosie is 29 months old now.

The big news this month is that Rosie is now wearing big girl panties all the time - only wearing diapers at night. YAY! She has only had 3 accidents in the past week - and we have been on the go a lot, so she has had to hold it while we look for gas stations or other places to stop at for her to pee. She is really excited to wear her new Dora panties, and we got her some really cute days of the week panties with Christmas/winter animals on them. She still gets excited about her new skill. She will usually tell me “I have to go potty” and then she runs to the bathroom, pulls her pants down, climbs up on the toilet and as soon as she hears the pee hit the water - she gets all wide eyed and yells “I’m doing it!”, usually followed by “Do you hear it? Do you hear the pee pee?” It is the same pattern when she has to poop - but sometimes she needs my help, especially when wiping. But there is always some investigating of what’s in the toilet afterwards. Sometimes she tells me “It looks like a carrot!” And she has loved going pants free lately - to show off her fancy new panties. When she is wearing clothes, she is always pulling them down or up to show people her panties.

I think our relaxed attitude with the potty helped her to just come to the realization on her own. We had been leaving one of her little potty chairs in the living room, and let her go naked as much as possible. When she was naked, she would go on the potty all the time, but when we tried panties, she would have an accident, so we would put a diaper on for a day or two, then go naked again, then try panties, and eventually she started keeping her panties dry. It has been 2 weeks now of no diapers during the day (not even for naptime) - and occasionally her nighttime diaper will be dry in the morning too! Yay - less laundry for mommy!

Happenings this past month: We had a great Thanksgiving at Aunt P’s house, we ate a LOT of great food and got to see the majority of Joe’s family. Rosie loved gnawing on the big turkey leg with daddy.

We also made another trip to the cider mill over the long weekend, and got Rosie’s favorite treat, apple cider and doughnuts.


Rosie loves visiting the cider mill and walking by the river with her daddy. We usually feed the ducks, but I think they had all flown south for the winter by this point. I think that was our last cider mill trip for the season, as it was a bit too cold to be walking around outside for too long.

Then, we went and got our Christmas tree on that Saturday after Thanksgiving, and had Aunt P, Bubby, Marisa, Noah, Cory and Ari over on Sunday to help us decorate the tree.

The tree turned out beautifully, and it is always fun to share the decorating duties. Though, the kids usually start out with a lot of enthusiasm, but after a while they abandon the decorating and decide that it is more fun jumping and playing with Uncle Joey in the basement instead.

We had a couple mild snowstorms, enough to put a few inches of snow on the ground and go outside and play and build a snowman. Rosie loved playing in the snow and trying to throw snowballs at me.

I put her to work helping me shovel the driveway - she thought it was fun to be such a big helper!

Sam didn’t know what to think of the snow, he watched us shoveling and playing from the comfort of his jumparoo in the garage. It was a little cold, so we just brought him out to experience it for a few minutes - but he seemed to like it.

Just this past Sunday was the family Chanukah/Hanukah party, also at Aunt P’s house. Rosie had SO much fun opening presents! And Sam nursed himself to sleep right before present time, so Rosie was lucky enough to be able to open all Sam’s presents too! Rosie had a huge stack of presents and actually climbed to the top of the pile and sat on them while she was waiting to open them. Rosie has really loved lighting the Hanukah candles at night (on the nights when we remember). She doesn’t really know WHY we light them, but to tell the truth, neither does her daddy, so I guess its ok.

We also have a little calendar countdown to Christmas on our refrigerator. Every morning Rosie gets to move the little snowflake into the pocket with the current date on it - and she knows when she gets to the last pocket - then it’s Christmas! Rosie has also loved looking at Christmas lights. We have driven around several times at night through the neighborhoods close to our house just so she can look at Christmas lights before bedtime. In the years to come, we will have to get a little more in-depth on what the holidays actually mean - and why different people celebrate certain holidays - but right now - it is just all fun!

Lately, Rosie is all about doing things herself - “No I’M doing it!!” She has also been really interested in how others are feeling, always asking us “Do you like it?” “Did you take a good nap? “(when we get up in the morning), “Would you like a bite?” (sip, taste, etc.) “Are you happy?” She talks non-stop all day long now.

This is our typical exhange from a couple days ago - with my input being an occasional head nod or shake:
“This is my milk?” “Can I drink it?” “Would you like a sip?”"Mmm, that’s good milk”
“I like milk, do you like milk mommy?”
“Are you making coffee?” “Is that your coffee?” “Can I have a sip?” “Is it hot?” “You like coffee mommy?”
“See my magic wand” “I love my magic wand” “Do you like it?’ “Would you like to hold it?” “Oops, I dropped it” “Can you get it for me?”
“Hi baby Sammy” “See baby Sammy mommy?” “He’s my little brother” “I love my baby brother sooooo much” “He’s little, but I’m big” “You’re big too mommy, and daddy is big too, but baby Sam is little - but he’s getting big like me”
“Can I read this book?” “I love this book” “You wanna read it with me?” “What’s it says?”
“Let’s cuddle on the couch mommy”
….and on and on, seriously non-stop, changing subjects, but keeping talking and asking questions.

As for Sammy - he has 2 teeth now - and is blowing raspberries and making hard consonant sounds like “b” & “p” His first tooth came in on Dec 3rd - the bottom right front- and the second one (bottom left front) came in during the Hanukah party on the 9th. He has a couple other teeth that feel like they are getting close to coming in too. He has been non-stop chewing on his hands and mine. He has also been sticking out his tongue a lot - it looks almost like a cartoon character licking his lips - his little tongue gets all pointy and he holds it on his upper lip near the corner of his mouth a lot.

He is also really distracted during the day, so much that he only nurses for about 30 seconds at a time, which means he is reverse cycling, and nursing all night long instead. NOT fun for mama…

He is still growing and is now too big for most of his 12 months clothes! Last time I weighed him, he was 21 lbs - I have no idea how tall/long he is - but I think we are going to take him in to see our family doctor in January for a 6 month check up - so I’ll finally get an accurate weight/height measurement.

He still loves jumping in his jumparoo, and cracks up everytime he sees his sister. He is so cuddly and fun and loveable. He can sit up on his own for longer and longer stretches, and is really good at grabbing things now and bringing them to his mouth to chew on. He can stand up and support his weight on his legs when only holding on to my fingers. He is growing so fast!

Both kids have been sleeping less and less lately. It has been a struggle to get Rosie to take a nap at all, and if she does nap it is sometimes as late as 4pm - so I never want her to nap too long, as it will throw off bedtime. Even when we start the bedtime routine around 8pm - Rosie usually doesn’t actually get into bed until 9-9:30 and sometimes I hear her talking and reading and singing to herself until almost 11pm. But she is always up around 7:30-8am. Sammy used to take several long naps during the day, but lately - he has only been napping for 30 minutes or so at a time, and only 2-3 times a day. He also isn’t sleeping as much during the night, waking to nurse sometimes every 2 hours - and always getting squirmy and fussy and wanting to get up around 7am. I have been feeling so tired lately, never getting more than a few hours of sleep at a time, and rarely getting a cumulative of more than 6-7 hours.

Rosie still loves her little brother, and can always make him smile and laugh by squeezing his cheeks and saying “chubby cheekers” - which she does quite a lot.

Happy Hanukah, Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!