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

Welcome to my lame-o monthly update.

This month: Sammy is 16 months and Rosie is still a precocious, independent, challenging three and a half year old.

We had a great halloween, and extended the fun by attending 2 additional halloween events before the actual day. First we went to a halloween trick-or-treat event at Weigand’s nursery near our house. Rosie decided to be a princess and Sammy was a dragon. It was SOOOOO cold, so we hurried through the maze of trees and jack o’lanterns and managed to get one cute photo of Rosie before we left.

The next event was the Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo, we smartly remembered to bring a stroller and wheeled the kids through the designated treat stops, checking out all the displays of pumpkin art along the way (pumpkins put together to resemble animals, TV and movie characters and etc.). It was ok, but kinda lame. Rosie decided to be a black kitty cat for that event, and Sammy was a dragon once again.

For the actual day of Halloween, which is also Joe’s birthday (the big 4-0!) we had an awesome (if I do say so myself) family costume. Rosie was goldilocks and the rest of us were the 3 bears. It was a fun costume, and appropriate for cold weather, so of course the weather had to be unseasonably warm, like 70 degrees that day, so we were all sweating in our outfits. But it was a fun time and we went to Aunt P’s house and hung out with the cousins and Bubby too and had some cake to celebrate Joey’s B-day too. Of course we didn’t get a good photo of all of us together - this was the best we could do.

Rosie loved checking out her bounty of candy, we let her have one piece (she picked out a lollypop), and Sammy had his first piece of candy as well, a tootsie roll.

The next day, Rosie traded in the rest of her candy and “bought” a Strawberry Shortcake DVD from me with it. That way, I don’t have to worry about her eating too much candy, and she gets something she wants too.

The day after halloween, we had a small get-together at our house with some of Joey’s closest friends to celebrate his big milestone birthday. We dressed up as white trash and requested guests dress similarly or as gangsta style and we accessorized with big 40 oz bottles of beer to drink. It was a lot of fun and nice to spend some time with our friends who we see so rarely.

Now, on to Sammy’s new developments:

Sam is slowly but surely making more of an attempt at actual words. He is now making animal sounds - but mostly doing only partial words and sounds.
Cow is “ooo”
duck is “aah aah”
monkey is “oo oo aah aah”
cat is “ooow”
dog is “ah ah”

His word for phone is “ohn”, all done is “aah uhn”, and he just started calling Rosie “sis-a”

My attempts at teaching him sign language to help him communicate has worked a bit, he now signs and says “eat” (sounds more like “ee”) he signs and says “hat (”at”) and baby “bebe”. Some days I feel like he can talk more than he does, and he is just trying to be difficult. He will say something like “nurse” perfectly (as he tries to rip my shirt and pull it down) and I will try to get him to say it again “oh, did you want to nurse? nurse? is that what you want? nurse?” and he just looks at me like “yeah that’s what I said, you heard me the first time, I’m not saying it again”.

Rosie is obsessed with birthdays, knows the order of when everybody’s birthday is coming up, and talks non-stop about how on her next birthday she is going to be FOUR! She has been learning and loving playing catch lately, and is getting quite good at it.
She says the most amazing things like, being asked by Gigi if Wow Wow Wubbzy (”waa waw” to Sammy) was her favorite show - she replied “it is absolutely my favorite”.

She is back to being a real challenge lately, after a few months of being a bit more easygoing. She just wants to be in control of everything, and if I say “ok, let’s go upstairs” she has to have the last word, saying “wait, I just need to run over here first” or some other stall tactic just to be sure that she is the one in charge. She has been stalling and asking for things over and over at bedtime lately too. She needs water, then she can’t find her water, then she can’t find her teddy, then she needs her nightlight off, then she needs it on, then she needs her door open a crack, then she needs me to fix her blanket, then she needs me to take the water out of her room, etc.
I love her, but holy crap is it annoying! I hope this phase ends quickly too…

We had our first real snowfall last night, only a couple inches, but enough to play and make a snowman.



Rosie LOVED playing in the snow and I had to drag her inside to take a bath and warm up. Sammy wasn’t so into the snow, he thought it was too cold and went inside on his own after a few minutes.

Well, that ’s it for this month, have a great Thanksgiving!

Welcome to October! Here’s what my 3 year old and 15 month old are up to….

Rosie, my demanding, headstrong firstborn child, is currently obsessed with being first. She wants to be first in and out the door, first up and down the stairs (instructing Joe and I to wait for her until she is all the way up or down before we can start on the stairs) first to get in or out of the car, etc. It can get tedious to accommodate her every time, but at least she is asking nicely now “mommy, can I please go down the stairs first” - instead of how she was screaming “Nooooooo I wanted to go FIRST!” so it makes it easier to go along with it when she asks politely.

She is still doing the hide under the blanket routine at bedtime, and now several times throughout the day she will say - “mommy, you losed me” prompting me to say “oh no, I lost Rosie, where could she be” and start the game of looking for her. She has recently added a new part of the bedtime routine. After Joe reads her a book or two, she usually requests I come in to sing her a song, it is always “rock a bye baby” but if I start singing it right off the bat - she whines “no, don’t sing that song” and then when I ask her what song she wants, she pouts and says “rock a bye baby”. She also likes to pretend to fall asleep — and makes pretend snoring sounds “just like daddy” while I am singing to her…

It is getting a little frustrating and time consuming to play along with all her little stipulations every night. She is such a creature of habit, the girl loves her routine. I have to watch what I say now, because if I say something once, like “hop in sweetie pie” when we are getting in the car, then I have to say it every time we get in the car now or she says “you forgot to say hop in sweetie pie”. She loves competition, and will bend the rules to have her way and win “first surprise” as she says. When we play “I spy” in the car now, she sometimes disputes our color, telling Joe or me “No, you need to say RED!” And sometimes she gives a little too much information - like saying “I spy, with my little eye, something pink in the car and it is what I am wearing on my legs” and when I guess, “um, is it your pants?” she says - “yes! mommy you got it, you are one smart cookie!”.

She has been doing a weird thing when I take a photo of her now, she hunches down and poses really strangely, usually with one arm out and her head upside down, and when I ask her what she is doing she makes up a name for the pose. It is pretty funny. We have been struggling a bit with having her keep her clothes on, she especially likes to take off her jammies (jams) and her pull-up at night. She used to stay dry all night, but lately has been peeing a lot, so when she takes her pull-up off, it usually means we have to change the sheets on her bed.

She is always on the move and wanting to do something active. She loves to play catch and jump off everything and show me how fast she can run. She puts her shoes on and tells me which ones are her good “running shoes”. I hear “mommy, watch me, mom, watch, mommy, watch me, watch this, mom, watch how I can jump” at least 50 times a day.

Sammy is talking a bit more, attempting to repeat a lot of words, but still not really consistent or understandable with his language. He is getting the tone and inflection correct, even if the consonants and vowels are off - he was trying to say “Go Blue!” (mimicking Rosie) the other day, and it sounded more like “ga dah!” I really need to start making more of an effort to spend some one-on-one time with him and read to him and talk to him more to try to help him learn words.

He has 12 teeth (and has had a full mouth of teeth for a while) and he is currently working on #’s 13 and 14. He is still a screamer, and gets really cranky if he doesn’t get his naps when he needs them, needing a total of at least 3 hours at some point in the day or he is unbearable. He is an awesome sleeper and is happily in bed by 7:30 every night - he starts to melt down shortly after that time if he is still awake. He loves to play chase and tackle with his sister (when she remembers to be gentle) and really loves climbing on me when I attempt to do a little yoga. He has been doing this really cute kind of laid back lounge thing lately, where he will climb up on the couch, chair, or bed and he will lean back on the pillows and spread his legs, put his hands on his belly, and smile and just relax. It is pretty damn cute.

He also likes to help out, and loves to hand me things so I say “thank you” and then he says “tee to” back to me and grins and is so pleased with himself. He also likes to do this when I am going to the bathroom, he follows me in (of course you lose all privacy when you are a mom) and he will rip off a tiny piece of toilet paper and hand it to me and he thinks he is such a big helper, he giggles and smiles. He has been waving and saying “Hi” to everyone lately, he will flirt and wave to the waitresses at restaurants, people in the grocery store, saying “Hi” over and over to the same people, I think he is really starting to realize he can communicate with people and it makes him so happy. Other words he has been saying (or attempting to say) - Tree (tee) open (op) apple (apm) down (dow) and dude (duu).

We are excited that the fall season is here, and we have already made a couple trips to Yates Cider Mill, just down the street a few miles from our house. They have a great trail right near the Clinton River, a petting zoo of sorts so the kids can feed goats and etc. and a pony ride tent. We love to go and get some fresh cider and donuts and walk along the river.


That’s pretty much it for this month - we are excited to celebrate Halloween and Joe’s 40th birthday at the end of the month!

This month, Rosie is 38 months old, and Sam just turned 14 months old.

Rosie is still on imagination overdrive - playing pretend and making up words and games and songs all the time. She really loves playing games, her favorites are playing “I spy” in the car, candyland, chase and kiss (everytime Joe asks her for a kiss, she takes off running and giggling and turns it into a game), she pretends I’m the baby and she is the mommy and she reads me books and puts me to bed, she puts her dolls to bed and we have to be very quiet and tiptoe when they are sleeping. She loves to tell me about the 10 babies she will have and how she will nurse them all

She has finally stopped resisting so much at bedtime, and we have a new fun bedtime routine. After she is in bed, she always needs something, usually water, so I leave her room to go get her water, and when I come back, she is hiding under the blanket giggling loudly. I have to say “gee, where did Rosie go?” as she continues laughing and then I have to look for her for a few minutes and in the end I lie on the bed and exclaim how lumpy the blanket is, then I finally find her and she is happy and goes to sleep pretty peacefully.

Rosie went rollerskating for the first time with her friend and loved it. She had really great balance for her first time on skates. It will be a good activity for wintertime when it is too cold to go outside. And it was nice to see that the roller skating rink decor from my youth has stayed intact.

She loves to play with her blocks and build towers,

and she loves trying to write and make letters. She is getting pretty good, she can almost write her name legibly. I have noticed, in the last month, she has mellowed out a bit. She is not so defiant, and quick to whine and complain about something, she is more patient and sweet. She still has her moments, but it is not like it was last month. I think the difference is that I have been more patient with her and I have been playing more with her and giving her more responsibility. So far, it seems to be working to make her more agreeable and less bratty.

About half of Rosie’s friends started pre-school this week, and we are still undecided about if/when/where to send her. I know she would love to meet new kids and have fun activities and learn new things and have some special time away from her brother (and mom and dad). And, honestly I would love to have a little break from her a couple days a week - especially since she is not napping anymore. But, we really don’t have ANY extra money right now and I don’t want to send her someplace that is just a glorified daycare, just to send her someplace. So, we are still calling places and trying to decide what to do.

Sammy has been a handful lately - needing a lot of attention and wanting to constantly explore and get into things. Plus he is still screaming this mind-numbing piercing scream when frustrated (or tired). My sister nicknamed him baby pterodactyl. He is also throwing more mild tantrums now, stomping his feet and either abruptly sitting or lying on the ground and pouting. He hasn’t really learned many more new words, still just a handful of things that he says - but he has really been pointing at everything and I can tell that he wants to learn words.

He is eating more, and will take the matter into his own hands when hungry and he will climb up on kitchen table and help himself to a banana, biting right into it - peel and all. He has been sleeping great, usually only waking once during the night to nurse - sometimes as late as 4-5am. Now, if I could just get myself to bed before midnight, I would be getting some great sleep!

He loves to dance and shake his head when he hears music. This video is from when we went to the Michigan State Fair and Alice Cooper was playing and you could hear his music while riding the rides.

He is at the great age where everything is so new and fun and exciting. He is almost always smiling (when not screaming) and seems so pleased with his new discoveries. He just figured out the Curious George jack-in-the-box the other day:

The weather here is just starting to get cool in the mornings and evenings, you can feel the chill in the air that tells you fall is just around the corner. I love this weather, sunny and nice during the day, and a little cool at night when you open your windows. I am going to try to make sure we play outside a lot in the next few weeks, because I know that I will turn around and there will be snow and I will wish I could just send the kids outside to play. Though, I did hit the new Salvation Army thrift near my house and got the kids fully prepared with winter jackets, snowpants, gloves, hats, etc. The only thing I need is boots for Sammy and we will be set for the cold weather.

Speaking of playing outside, here’s a little video of the kids playing outside on the playset Gigi got for their birthdays.

And a few last photos of the kids enjoying the summer:

Well, it’s been busy around here, what with all the birthdays and weddings and travel and all, but things have finally settled down and I can’t believe we are halfway done with a new month already! Here are some photos from the birthday celebration - and some news on what’s up with my 13 month old and my 37 month old.

We had a mellow get-together at the house for their birthdays - just some family and close friends, we rented a bouncey house for the backyard and had a pinata filled with dollar store goodies and fruit leather that seemed to be a big hit (pun intended). I made homemade cupcakes (with the help of organic cake mixes) and a small individual bundt cake/cupcake for each kid . Rosie’s was strawberry with strawberry cream cheese icing (as requested) and Sammy got chocolate with vanilla icing.

They got a TON of presents and I have actually hidden some away, to dole out at a later date.

Rosie has been quite a handful, alternating between being super sweet and smart and helpful and funny, and then bursting into tears and being bratty and whiny and defiant. The things she has been saying a lot lately are “I just need a little attention”, “I just need to cry a little”, “I just don’t want you to talk”, “I just don’t want you to smile”, “I just don’t want Sammy to look at me”, “I just don’t want to go to sleep”. Her imagination has been on overdrive - she likes to pretend to be a kitty, she loves making up games and songs and dances. She wants to control EVERYTHING, I have been calling her Mary, Mary quite contrary as she always wants to do the opposite of what we say or suggest.

Sam has started to talk a lot more, saying mama and dada, along with: up, all done (uhn), dropping things and saying uh-oh (said in a really deep grunting way), waving and saying hi (in a high sing-songy way), signing and saying nurse “nuh-nuh” (not sure this really means nurse or night-night or both), pointing to diaper and saying something like “dida” or “umpa”. He has started to throw a mild kind of tantrum when he is cranky and tired. He will be whining and crying over something (usually when I take something from him like Rosie’s scissors or take a crayon or pennies out of his mouth) and he will scream and cry and lie down on his side on the floor and give me a look like “see how sad you made me”. I don’t know if the lying down part is because of his being tired, or if that is just to demonstrate how distraught he is - but it is pretty cute.

He is attempting to eat a lot more, but still chews and spits out most of what goes in his mouth (making mealtimes a HUGE mess). He has been practicing and is getting really good at using a fork and spoon. He loves giving kisses- if I purse my lips and make a kissing noise, he comes up and plants his open mouth right on top of mine. He has been climbing EVERYTHING. He climbs up on Rosie’s chair and then onto the kitchen table, he climbs every toy, he climbs up on the back of the couch, he climbs the playstructure in the backyard and knows how to go down the slide (on his belly), he climbs up and down the stairs (he knows to turn around and climb backwards). He is fearless and would climb right off the edge of the big playstructures at the park if I didn’t re-direct him.

The sleeping situations have changed yet again. Rosie is back to wanting nothing to do with sleep, protesting both naptime and bedtime. Sammy seems like he is getting ready to lose his morning nap, as it is increasingly harder to get him down in the morning, even when he is obviously tired. Though he is sleeping much longer and better at night, going down around 7:30-8pm and waking to nurse usually only once, anytime between midnight and 4am.

Rosie and Sam are playing together much more now. Rosie still gets irritated with her little brother and goes through periods where she doesn’t want to share, but for the most part - they get along pretty well. I love hearing them chase each other and play and laugh. It makes all the chaos and stress so worthwhile.

We will be making one more trip at the end of this month, down to Florida to visit GiGi (and for Joe and I to celebrate our anniversary). Then, hopefully we can be homebodies for a while and just relax as we head into the fall.

So, a family vacation to France with 2 toddlers is quite a bit different than what you would expect from a childless vacation. We had a great time and made a lot of memories, but it was a lot less fancy dinners and museums and sightseeing and a lot more sandwiches and parks and slides.

Here - is a photo essay of France - the playgrounds… Starring Sam and Rosie:

First - Parc de Monceau in Paris (and a playdate with a mommy friend that I met via the internet)

Then - the Carousel de la Tour Eiffel:

Then - the playground in the Jardin des Tuleries, outside the Louvre in Paris:

Then, off to Vendome and the electric carousel:

And the Parc Ronsard, also in Vendome:

We also played on the old swingset at our Hotel/Inn/B&B place, Moulin de la Plaine (with an audience of donkeys):

And we found a really cool little playground right along the river in the tiny town of Troo, France:

And lastly, the awesome playground at the Jardin du Luxembourg on our last day in Paris before flying home:

Did ya notice how awesome all the parks were? They were not the usual big plastic monstrosity things we have around here. They were a little old school - mostly metal and wood still - but really unique and so much fun!

And there you have it - France: A tour of Playgrounds. Stay tuned for our next vacation…

We got back last week from an 11 day - 2 wedding - 2 continent trip, and we are all still recovering from the fun, stress and jetlag.

First was NYC and cousin Jeffrey’s wedding.

NY was HOT - we didn’t do much sightseeing there as stepping outside the hotel resulted in us all being drenched with sweat. We did walk all the way to Central Park on the first day and had fun playing in the water sprinkler playscape.

Rosie was fighting some sort of bug and was running a bit of a fever on Saturday and Sunday. So we spent a lot of time just hanging out in the hotel room with GiGi (my mom - who came to town especially to hang out with the kids while we went to the adults-only wedding) and playing with GiGi and ordering room service was just as fun (probably moreso) for the kids anyway.

Then, off to France with Bubby (Joe’s mom) for cousin Neil’s wedding in the Loire valley - and sightseeing in Paris on the way there. That leg of the trip started off on a sour note when we got to the airport (at 7pm) and found out that our 10pm flight was delayed until 11:30pm - ugh! We were not happy about it - but resigned to the fact and settled down for a long wait. The wait became a lot longer as the flight continually got delayed later and later, and we ended up not leaving JFK until 3 in the morning. With 2 EXTREMELY tired and cranky and screaming and crying children and having waited at the airport for 8 hours - it was not a fun way to start the trip. We arrived in Amsterdam tired and hungry and of course missed our connecting flight - but hopped on the next flight out to Paris - and got a second wind and renewed energy once we finally arrived.

We spent 3 days exploring Paris - the parks and playgrounds mostly - though we did do some typical touristy stuff like take a trip down the Seine River and we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower (only to the 2nd level - the 3rd was closed for some reason when we were there).

Joe and I went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe during naptime one day, saw great views of the city, the Eiffel Tower and Champs Elysses.


Joe and his mom also got to go to the Musee d’Orsay on the first morning there - while I met up with a mommy friend that I met via the internet for a park playdate with her 2 adorable kids.


Our last night in Paris, we walked down and had a picnic along the Seine as the sun set, and it was so relaxing and unbelievable, like something out of a movie, with a group of guys playing guitar to add more ambiance to the scene.

After Paris, we took the TGV (high speed train) to Vendome in the Loire Valley for cousin Neil’s wedding.

We rented a car and drove with Uncle Bob and Aunt Judy to the small town of Troo (known for its caves and troglodyte dwellings).

We explored around the Loire Valley for a couple days, went to Vendome - which was one of the larger towns in the area - and saw a really beautiful church and went to a couple restaurants there.

We went to the small town of Montoire for a couple meals and grocery shopping - and we drove to Amboise and saw the royal castle where Leonardo da Vinci is buried -

and Rosie got a princess crown

Neil and Annabelle’s wedding was beautiful and fun. The ceremony was in a field of wildflowers outside Annabelle’s family home, and the reception was in a castle (moat and all).

There were a lot of other kids at the wedding, so Rosie and Sammy had lots of playmates, and everyone and everything was so well thought out and accommodating and family oriented. It was great, there was so much love evident everywhere!

It was a lot of work with the kids, and I joked to Joe (more than once) that it wasn’t fair that he actually got a vacation from his job, but I had to work overtime on my job for the length of the trip. Aside from a few episodes of extreme tiredness and crankiness resulting in both kids screaming at once, I think both Rosie and Sammy did really well, considering all the traveling and moving around and changes to the schedule they had to endure. We tried to make time each day to cater to the kids and find a park or someplace fun for them to play and run around and just relax and be kids (thus most of the photos of the trip are of playgrounds).

We are blessed and lucky to have been able to have that experience and share it with our kids. There were probably a lot more practical ways we could have spent our tax return this year, but how often do you get a chance to go to a wedding in the countryside in France? The photos and memories are priceless, and I hope that these early trips will foster a love of travel and adventure in both Rosie and Sammy. Even if the best part about traveling sometimes is coming home and sleeping in your own bed.

Wow - Three years ago today - I became a mommy. Well, not really. I was always a mommy - I was just waiting for my kids to arrive. I never imagined that motherhood would be so great, so fulfilling, so exciting, yet so boring, so frustrating, so challenging and so unbelievably tiring all at the same time…

Rosie has been a bit of a handful lately (to put it mildly). She is definitely asserting her independence. She wants to make her own decisions, and we usually give her the freedom to choose her clothes, shoes, meals, what the activities of the day are (within limits), etc. Somehow, that is not enough anymore. Most of my questions, comments, and instructions are met with a bratty “NO!” these days.

Oh the patience it takes to stay sane. 8am Mama is a completely different person from 8pm Mama.

8am Mama starts the day off so patient and waits for Rosie’s slow-as-molasses walking, takes time to make sure she is engaged in whatever activity she wants - especially when traveling in the car, picking up whatever toys she has dropped (repeatedly), reads the same books over and over, doesn’t complain when she gets 10 different cups out of the cabinet and fills each one up with an inch of water and spills water all over the ground, patiently cleans up the spilled water along with the microscopic bits of paper from when she uses her scissors to cut up her coloring book, then calmly takes the scissors out of Sammy’s mouth while gently reminding her that I didn’t want her to use scissors when Sammy was awake.

On the other hand - 8pm Mama tends to say “come ON Rosie - hurry up” when we are walking somewhere, brusquely tosses toys her way with instructions to stop dropping them, refuses to read books more than once (and has been known to skip several pages to expedite the process), exasperatedly sighs “aaaargh” when cleaning up the mess from several cups half filled with water, yells “I TOLD you no cutting right now” while grumbling about cleaning up paper and how dangerous scissors are.

On more than one occasion, I know I have muttered something about “driving me crazy” which I didn’t realize Rosie heard until she repeated her version of that phrase to me last weekend. I think Rosie was trying to listen to music in the car and Joe and I were having a conversation and laughing - and Rosie instructed us to “stop laughing” and we said “why do you want us to stop laughing?” and Rosie replied “Because you are making me drive crazy”.

She just got her first “official” haircut last Friday - just to trim and even things up (as all I ever really did was trim her bangs and the back to eliminate her mullet look) and her curls are even more evident now. Everywhere we go, people comment on her hair - calling her “curly girl” “goldilocks” etc. The barista at the Starbucks drive-thru said “her hair is so gorgeous - those curls - is it natural?”. I wanted to say - “Nah - I gave her a perm”….

She loves to laugh, sing, dance, play with bubbles, splash in the kiddie pool, play on the swingset, play in the sandbox, go for walks, go to the park, go to the zoo, go to the library. She is a non-stop bundle of energy. She loves to get her fingernails and toenails painted and she is very good at staying “still like a statue” until they dry. She loves to put lotion on and will go through a whole tub of lotion, greasing up her entire body if I would let her. She still wants to wear dresses every day - the fancier the better. Usually I have to convince her to wear shorts underneath, or “park pants” as we are frequently at parks - sliding or doing activities that require some sort of leg/bottom covering.

I watched her sleep the other morning, and I was amazed by her long legs, splayed out across her big bed, looking at her long, lean body - and thinking “wow - that body, that little person grew inside me”. I can hardly remember how it felt to hold her newborn body in my arms. When did she become a child? I can’t believe she is already 3 years old. It seems like just yesterday that she was born, yet I feel like she has always been in my life. It is that weird motherhood time warp where time seems to go by so quickly, yet slowly at the same time.

Happy Birthday my precious, sweet Rosemary. I love you so much!

Wow - Another month has flown by and once again I am surprised when it is (past) time for another monthly update…

First off - Happy Birthday to me! I turned 34 on the first and had the best birthday! I got to sleep in - and had chocolate pancakes made for me for breakfast, and then later I went and got a massage and a pedicure, and came home to a dozen roses and some awesome J.Crew dresses and a new Mac laptop! How awesome is my family!!!

Ok - off to the update…
The big news this month - Sammy is walking! He is not doing it consistently - probably only 50% of the time, but he goes through spurts where he will walk 10-15 feet or so and he will be on his feet - walking and standing- for up to 15 minutes. I have a feeling by next month he will be walking all the time. He is so proud of himself when he walks around - he usually starts clapping and squealing and smiling!

He is eating pretty much everything now - including the stuff you are supposed to wait on - like eggs, fish, honey and nuts. He has had scrambled eggs, tuna fish, salmon, honey bunnies cereal, peanut butter bumpers cereal and some pad thai noodles with traces of peanuts on them - so I think we are pretty sure he has no food allergies. He basically just eats off our plates, sometimes he eats one meal a day, sometimes he eats all 3 meals with us - some days he eats only dry cereal - it all depends. Some days his meals are chosen because they are the least messy things to eat - (i.e. dry cereal, cucumbers, apple slices) Mostly it depends on how much cleaning I want to do

Also, we have finally seemed to come upon a peaceful sleep solution for Sammy. I spent about a week lying in his room every night at bedtime- just being present while he went to sleep to get him used to sleeping in his crib and going to sleep on his own without needing me or needing to be nursed or rocked to sleep. I would nurse and rock him until he was almost asleep, then put him in his crib and tell him “good night, go to sleep” and I would lie down on the futon in his room and just watch while he fussed and squirmed and played and settled himself down to sleep. Sometimes he would stand up and cry and I would get up and gently lie him back down and say “lie down, go to sleep”.

At the beginning of the week, he would scream bloody murder if I left the room - and I spent about an hour and a half in the room with him until he finally fell asleep. The time progressively got shorter and shorter -and now I can leave the room when he is still awake and he (usually) goes right to sleep on his own! Yippie!!! He has been sleeping in 4 hour chunks (though I got 7 hours straight out of him one night!!!) and I have been bringing him in to our bed to nurse when he wakes up the first time and co-sleeping after that. But I think our co-sleeping relationship may be just about over as the last few nights he has not settled down in our bed - he has been sitting up and babbling and crawling all over Joe and I. So, I have been putting him back into his room after nursing - and he has been going back to sleep fine in his bed without fussing or whining.

If is interesting because it seems that Rosie and Sam had opposite sleeping struggles. Rosie was sleeping from 8pm-6am in her crib starting at around 10 months - but naps were such a struggle! I could not get her to nap without me and spent hours every day lying in bed with her to get her to nap. Sammy, on the other hand, goes right to sleep in his crib for naps with (pretty much) no problem - but he has still been waking a ton at night. I am hoping (fingers crossed) that the new trend is Sammy sleeping 7-8 hours straight now that he is walking and has gone through that developmental phase that was keeping him from sleeping soundly.

Rosie is still napping - and we have settled into a good naptime routine with both kids. Sammy takes a morning nap around 2-3 hours after waking up , and during this time, Rosie and I get to have some quality mommy-daughter time. We play candyland, or paint, or cut paper with scissors, or paint her nails - the things that we can’t really do with Sam around because he gets into everything. Then, both kids usually nap around the same time sometime between 2-5 in the afternoon. This is HEAVEN for me and the only way I really get anything done.

We have been playing a lot outside with the beautiful weather we have been having. We got a kite recently and Rosie thinks it is so cool to fly a kite in the backyard.

Both kids love to climb the slide and swing on the new swingset, they love playing in the sandbox,

blowing bubbles,

digging in the garden and picking strawberries, and splashing in the little kiddie pool I set up on the deck! Sam loves to get water in his mouth and then spit it out - he thinks it is hilarious!

Rosie has been very into pretending lately - and her new activity is pretending to write stories. She will take a pen and a notebook and scribble all over it and tell me she is writing me a “good morning story” or “good night story” or some other story. I will ask her what the story says and it is usually something like

“It is about us, and you and me and daddy are singing me a good night song and it was really pretty and I love it and it maked me feel better and then I went to sleep like a big girl and you and daddy were sooooooooo happy and then I waked up in the morning and said good morning mommy and daddy and my baby brother and his name is Sammy the Wolf and he is getting bigger and bigger like me and soon he will be a big sister too!”

She doesn’t quite get the whole “sister-brother” relationship. When talking about how she is Sammy’s sister and he his her brother - she told her Bubby “and mommy and daddy are sister and brother too!” - um - no.

She also likes to come up with solutions to problems on her own and pretend to fix things. She had a toy that wasn’t working the other day and she had a very serious look on her face and was telling me “I am just trying to figure out what’s wrong - I think it is out of batteries - but that’s ok because we can fix it! Because I am a good fixer and you are a good fixer too mommy”.

She still is just a chatterbox and talks almost non-stop, coming up with things out of the blue like we were just talking about them. Here are some things she has said out of the blue recently.
“And Gigi likes scrambled eggs too!”
“And Dora was at the beach like we go to the beach”
“And when I was a baby I would say “mama” like that”

She still loves rhyming things too - and it amazes me the words she knows - just this morning she told me:
“Coat and moat rhyme! Tool and stool and pool rhyme! And dog and log, and heart and part and frog and log, and hat and mat and couch and pouch and cat and pat, and ball and wall!” Can you tell we have been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss lately?

She has been practicing writing her name, and is getting pretty good at the “R” and she can do the “O” and the “I” no problem, but she always needs help with the “S” and “E”. She is still really wanting to read too. She can read some familiar words, and likes practicing sounding out the individual letters - but still struggles when trying to put all the sounds together. Sometimes she surprises me with “reading” and I think she is good at guessing words that are somewhat familiar. We bought some books at a garage sale the other day, and one was called “Fish out of Water” and had a big picture of a fish on the front - and I know we haven’t read it or seen it before. Rosie pulled it out of the bag and said “and this one is called Fish out of Water!

We went to a local carnival/fair at the end of May and Rosie loved riding all the rides. She is so brave she rode the kiddie roller coaster all by herself and was laughing the whole time!

Last week I took the kids to a portrait studio to get some photos taken for Father’s Day for Joe. They turned out really great.

We also made some cool hand and foot print paintings for Joe for Father’s day. Sam’s hands and feet are just barely smaller than Rosie’s!

I still can’t believe that next month I will have a 3 year old and a 1 year old!

Happy Mother’s Day to all my fellow mamas! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to talk about my wonderful kids and share with you the joy they bring to my life.

We have really been enjoying the spring and spending a lot of time outdoors. We have been to the zoo a few times, and we took the kids to a Tigers game at Comerica Park- it was the first time for Sammy.

It was nice to spend a sunny afternoon at the ballpark, eating peanuts and hot dogs, and Rosie insisted we all go on the baseball ferris wheel!

Sammy is now 10 months old - I can’t believe how fast these months have flown by. He looks like such a little boy to me now with his mouth full of teeth. Speaking of teeth, sometime last month he chipped his left front tooth! (you can see it in the photo below of him snacking of a purple crayon)

I didn’t even notice it until days (weeks?) later - he falls so much with all of his standing and cruising and getting into things, he has bumped his head and mouth more times than I can count. I was actually nursing him when I noticed it because his tooth felt sharper, and sure enough - he has a tiny little sliver missing from the bottom of his left front tooth. He has also been making a noise almost like a mix between clearing his throat and a woody woodpecker laugh - “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh”. He loves putting things in and out, opening doors and closing them, and putting hands and things in our mouths. He is still not eating a whole lot - chewing and spitting things out - just tasting mostly. His favorites lately are blueberries and black beans. He also loves eating books, paper, crayons, chalk and dirt. He loves the vacuum, and chases it around whenever I am cleaning - trying to bite it and using it to hold on and stand up. He is just so dang cute (most of the time).

The bad news is that he is still SCREAMING a lot. I know he is just frustrated because he can’t talk and he is trying to communicate - but HOLY CRAP - it is so piercing and annoying and Rosie has started covering her ears with her hands when he starts up. I am trying to teach him some simple signs for “nurse” “book” “eat” “more” “diaper” and etc. in the hopes he will start to be able to communicate and stop the screaming. He is also still nursing all night long. I am hoping once he starts walking and talking and finishes up with these developmental milestones- he will hopefully start sleeping better. He is like an alarm clock - regardless of what time he goes to sleep - he wakes up every morning at 7:30 on the dot. He has started saying “mamamamamamam” a lot lately - I think he means me as he does it mostly when he is grumpy and tired and wants to be held…

He is still on the verge of walking. He’s just not quite ready to do it on his own, but he walks while just barely holding one of my hands and stands on his own all the time. He hasn’t gone from the floor to standing on his own without holding onto anything, but when I put him down he stands up by himself and when he pulls himself up to stand, he lets go all the time and stands on his own for 30 seconds and more. He took his first tentative step yesterday - but could only manage one step before he lost his balance and fell down.

Oh, and I gave him his first haircut (just a trim really) a couple days ago - and it seems I cut off most of the darker hair color - his hair looks much blonder now and fuller and it is starting to curl up like Rosie’s hair too…

Rosie has been her usual precocious almost 3 year year old self. She is learning to swing on her own, with the help of the new swingset/playstructure in backyard that was an early birthday present from GiGi.

She is counting all the time, wanting to practice counting to 100 - still needing help with the 50, 60, 70 numbers. She is really making strides with learning to read. She knows what letters start words, and she is learning to sound out words and she can read certain words in books. She is always saying things like “Hey- chip and dip rhyme!”

Lately Rosie has been saying things that I have heard come out of my own mouth - things like:
“Good job sharing mommy”
“Aww - come here and give me a hug, thank you for sharing with my little brother”
“Come on cars! Let’s go!”

She has had a very active imagination lately. Putting her dolls to sleep, making food in her play kitchen, pretending to be a butterfly, etc. She said to me the other day “Remember when I was a mommy pig?” and I said “you were a mommy pig?” and she said “Yeah” and she proceeded to tell me all about her life as a pig mommy and how she used to nurse her babies and play.

She is really so smart and I forget how literal she takes things (or how silly some common sayings sound).
She has had a rough patch of sharing with her brother and has pushed him down quite a few times in effort to get him out of her way or away from her toys. In the heat of the moment on one such occasion, when she had pushed Sammy down and he had a bleeding lip and was crying I looked at Rosie and asked the rhetorical question (as has been uttered my many moms through the years) “How many times do I have to tell you to not push your brother?” - Rosie looked at me with her serious face and said “Nine. You have to tell me nine times mommy”. I barely could keep a straight face when I told her that I am sure I have told her at least 10 times now, so she should know not to do that.

She has also been singing and making up her own songs a lot. At dinner the other night, she started singing ‘Uh oh dudes, I dropped my cauliflower, that’s ok, I’ll pick it up.”

Oh they are so sweet, my pride (Rosie) and joy (Sammy).

Here are some videos I took recently - just so you can get a glimpse into my life:

Sammy playing peek-a-boo:

Rosie talking to me while having lunch at the zoo:

Rosie blowing raspberries on Sammy to make him laugh:

Happy Mother’s Day to all, and especially to Tess, my loving mommy who still inspires me daily and has been a wonderful role model for my life - especially for motherhood. I am so very lucky to have such an amazing family.

Happy Spring Everyone!

Yeah, I know it is a month late, but Spring has FINALLY arrived here in MI and we have been really enjoying the nice weather.

Sammy is now 9 months old and he is just got tooth #8! (Rosie had just cut her second tooth at this age… ) He is cruising and crawling all the time and getting into everything - tipping over plants, putting everything in his mouth, pulling and trying to chew on wires and plugs - all the stuff that Rosie never really got into. He is getting very close to walking and he can stand on his own for 10-15 seconds at a time when I put him down.

My little guy is an attention hog and wants to be entertained ALL.THE.TIME. And, if he gets irritated or bored (or tired, or hungry, or has a dirty diaper) he SCREAMS bloody murder. He loves to bang things together, chew on books and walk holding on to my hands. And he is fascinated with doors, he loves to sit next to a door and slowly swing it open and closed- giggling and cooing to himself the whole time - and he always tries to climb into the refrigerator and the dishwasher.

He loves it when Rosie hides under the coffee table and he goes to find her - they both end up cracking up. It is so great to see them really play together.

He is getting close to actually making coherent words - mostly saying “Dat” but also di, wa, ra, bap, puh, etc. And his tone of voice and inflection is changing so he sounds like he is talking even though the words are nonsense.

He has been pretty gassy at night - and I thought maybe he wasn’t ready for solids, so we went back to breastfeeding only for a few days. I didn’t really see any improvement - so I went ahead and added food back into his diet - but I am holding off on wheat for the time being - sticking to just fruits and veggies and beans (and the occasional handful of dirt from one of the plants).

Sleep has been REALLY difficult for Sammy lately - he has been gassy, and teething, and developmentally on the verge of talking, walking, etc. - so he has just NOT been sleeping well at all. If I don’t get him to sleep right away when he first gets tired, he will be cranky and overtired and just won’t go to sleep for hours. Then, once he is asleep, he usually wakes up several times (every 20 min to an hour), whining and fussing and kicking and needing to nurse again (I think he is still reverse-cycling a bit as he is too distracted to nurse during the day). I have been nursing and rocking him to sleep around 7:30-8pm and putting him to bed in his crib - he usually wakes up a few times between 8-10pm and most of the time I can pat his back and put him back to sleep. Then, when he wakes up around 11ish, I usually bring him into bed with me and nurse him and we both go to sleep - at least until his next wake-up. I think I have been averaging about 4-5 hours of constantly interrupted sleep every night - which makes for one tired and grumpy mama.

On the flip side - Rosie has been much better about going to bed - only occasionally doing her - “get out of bed constantly and ask for tons of random, non-essential things before going to sleep” routine - and now she has been sleeping in until 8-8:30 in the morning! She has been really resisting naptime, and she still occasionally wakes up crying in the middle of the night - but some of her night waking has been because she is gassy a lot lately. The waking up crying thing really is maddening - because she can’t tell us what is wrong (of if she is hurt or just had a bad dream) and when she screams and cries, it inevitably wakes up Sammy as well (usually right after I have FINALLY gotten him to sleep). Note to other parents: Do NOT put your kids in bedrooms right next to each other if you can help it…

Her appetite has come back really strong after a little stomach flu at the end of last month. But she gets distracted a lot at mealtime, and sometimes doesn’t eat a lot, then asks for food 5 minutes later. I have been trying to keep snacks to a minimum (she loves pretzels, matzah crackers, and yogurt) to try to make sure she will be really hungry when we sit down to the table to eat.

She has started calling us Mom and Dad (sometimes Chels and Joe) instead of Mommy and Daddy - it makes her sound so old. She has also been really cuddly and telling me “You are the best mommy in the world!” She makes up her own nicknames for things - she calls her pajamas “jams” and I have heard her refer to her blanket on her bed as her “blank”. She always wants to know who I am talking to on the phone and always has to get on the phone and say “hi” and describe what we are doing or what she is wearing (thinking the person on the phone can see her).

We have been trying to cut back on her daily television watching (it was getting a little out of control for a while). We are now allowing 1/2 hour in the morning - and occasionally another 1/2 hour in the evening (either while I am making dinner, or while I am putting Sam to sleep). She loves The Little Mermaid lately, and has a couple pair of Little Mermaid panties, we were talking one morning about how her panties have Little Mermaid on them and she looked down at her panties and said “But I don’t have crabs!” - I thought I was going to fall off the couch laughing. I told her, Yes, you only have little mermaid on your panties, but no Sebastian the crab…

We had fun celebrating the spring holidays. The week before Easter, cousins Noah, Cory and Ari came over and helped us decorate eggs, and Rosie had a pink hand for a week or so after reaching into the dye with her hands for the eggs she was dying. On Easter morning, we dressed up a little bit and went to brunch at our favorite restaurant Zingerman’s Roadhouse, and then we went to visit Aunt P, Uncle Lime, Bubby and cousins Marisa, Noah, Cory and Ari.

Then, just this past weekend, we had a lovely Passover dinner with all of Joe’s family (poor Joe had to work) and Rosie loved eating the gefilte fish and matzoh ball soup! She also had fun finding the Afikoman and running around and playing with all her cousins.

More next month - I’ll try to keep these updates coming - but, MAN - having two kids sure keeps me busy!