4 months

4 months, on Pi Day!  OK, he's actually 4 months and 4 days on Pi Day.

Gabby's new word is mosquitios (pronounced like Spaghetti-Os).  Sometimes she even says spagheettios!  She also calls her kazoo "hum" because we told her she has to hum to use it.  Hilarious.  She also went to her first friend birthday party for a little girl at daycare.  It was adorable.  I'm not going to post pictures, because I didn't get the other moms' permission, but she had a fantastic time, and was so excited to see her school friends outside of school!

Video embedding still not working!  Click here for one of Louie!

Louie is such a wiggler now!  He constantly moves his arms and legs when he's in his bouncer (unless he's focused on something) or on the floor.  He rolled over once from belly to back in his crib, but it seems to have been a fluke, because he's never repeated it.  He loves to stand up and look around, and will try to climb me while I'm holding him.  He moves his feet just like he's walking sometimes, and has really good neck control.  He can get anything he can grab into his mouth (including my chin and mouth--ouch), and has gotten so much better at getting his hands to work.  His favorite chew toy right now is his foot (usually rightie, but leftie gets in there too), but anything is fair game.  He goes to town on Sophie the giraffe.  He continues to be a shy baby in public--we went to a baby shower for one of my coworkers, and he freaked out when everyone kept coming over to talk to him.  But he was totally fine with one of the profs taking him outside (and away from me), though!  He had a growth spurt earlier in the week, which meant nothing but eating and sleeping (or crying).  That was fun.

Louie got his first fever this month--102.6!  I took him to the doctor, but it was only a cold.  He looked so miserable :(

But once he got over it, he was my happy boy again.

Really happy.

Sleeping boy.  He woke up about a second and a half after I took this picture.

Cool shades in his Moby

Nerd bib!

Even more fun was when Gabby woke up vomiting Thursday night at midnight.  Brian helped me change her sheets and clean up only for her to throw up again all over the clean ones.  I finally got her settled back down when Louie woke up needing to eat (about 2:30).  I finished with him and "slept" in her room for a few hours.  She woke up at 5, threw up again, and then she laid in her bed talking to me until 6 when she insisted on going downstairs.  I was running on 4 hours of sleep at that point, so I woke Brian up.  He went with her and I got to sleep until 7:30 when  Louie woke up.  To make the day more fun, Louie's 4 month appointment was that day.  Brian stayed home in the morning with Gabby (who'd stopped throwing up, but was clearly feeling poorly), so I didn't have to worry about both of them.  I was half an hour late because I'd written the appointment down wrong.  Fortunately, the nurse likes me, so they still took us.  He got his shots, and was an absolute crank for the rest of the day.  I was so tired that it didn't even occur to me to give him Tylenol until 5:00, so I was dealing with a sick toddler (who did take a 3.5 hour nap) and an infant who wouldn't let me put him down (or even let me sit down) from 11-6 when the Tylenol kicked in and Brian came home.  She's doing much better today, and he is too, but Friday had me wondering why we decided to have 2 kids.

Um, we're cute.  Duh!!

See?

It's not all bad--they are super cute, and (mostly) really good kids.  Louie's getting way more fun, and Gabby is still such a helper.

Speaking of, a little help, please?

I love my kiddos, even when things are tough!  But thank goodness for Brian!

3 months

This one's only a month late!

Louie's still pushing the scales at 3 months, continuing to weigh in almost 5 lbs heavier than Gabby was.  It's really cool to compare their growth.

He loves to chew on his hands (and anything else put near his mouth), and is a drool machine.  He's not moving too much, but can get from his back to his side pretty easily.  He'll grab at anything (and sometimes even get it), so eating and drinking while holding him is becoming more challenging!  He's fallen into a basic eat, play, sleep, just like Gabby did, which is nice since I know what to expect from him.  He's a very chill little baby!

Wut?

Video time!  Here's another one.

This month, we took a trip to LA to visit with family and attend Brian's high school friend's baby shower (only Louie and I went).  Louie and Gabby were both great on the plane, and had a good time seeing family.  We stayed with Grandma Romo (of course), had lunch with Great Uncle Ron and Great Aunt Del, and hung out with Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Joe, and Audrey and Olivia.  It was a really fun trip!

I don't have baby shower pictures, because it was hard enough handling him on my own with no place to set him down, but I do want to say that I have the first indication that Louie is not a "people baby."  He cried like crazy when he saw all of the people, and only calmed down when I took him to a quiet room.  He's definitely an introvert.   But here are the pictures I do have!

Gabby got this tent from my college friend.  It folds up into a tiny package, so we flew it to LA!

"Sleeping"

Sitting with Grandma Romo

Louie sleeping off the excitement

Olivia holding Louie, under Aunt Jennifer's supervision.

Audrey looking on

Audrey reading the other girls a story

Gabby was fascinated

Big smiles at the airport on the way home.

3 years!

Gabby turned 3!

3 year old stats:  31.6 lbs (55th percentile) and 40 inches tall (83rd percentile).  She's tall enough for the rides at Disney!

I can't believe that my little girl is 3 years old!  She's such a joy to have around.  She's turned into such a little helper (especially with Louie), and is very sweet and sensitive.  All we really have to do is raise our voices when we're upset and she cries and tries to make it better.  If she's crying really hard, she'll remove herself to another room until she's done crying.  She appreciates alone time, but loves to play with us as well.  She gets jealous of her baby brother and all of the attention he gets (especially from me), but loves him so much just the same.

She and her dad are starting to bond more now that Louie's here.  She still insists that only I can bathe her and put her to bed, but she loves nothing more than to play with Daddy upstairs while I'm taking care of Louie.

She took this picture of Brian (although he didn't let go of his camera)!

Selfies

Big smiles

She didn't regress too badly when he was born--the only thing we noticed was her insistence on sleeping on the floor.  She does want to be carried (which I can now manage again) all the time, especially on the stairs, and if Louie's being held, she has to be held as well.  That often means that I put Louie down and pick her up!

Her favorite shows right now are The Bubble Guppies, Doc McStuffins, Sofia the First, Yo Gabba Gabb, and Peppa Pig.  She insists that she's Peppa, Louis is George (Peppa's brother), I'm Mommy Pig, and Brian's Daddy Pig.  She's starting to get more of an imagination, and loves to pretend that she's another person.  She loves books so much.  I never have any problems with drop-off at daycare when they're reading a book!  We read every night at bedtime, and she's started to memorize her favorite stories. She runs in phases with what she wants to read--for a long time it was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, now it seems to be the Little Critter books.  I really love that she has an appreciation for books and hope she turns into a reader!

She is a typical 3 year old and throws plenty of tantrums.  In some ways, 3 has been easier than 2, because I can encourage her to use her words more and express what she wants rather than just scream and yell.  In other ways it's harder, because she knows now that she can ask for and receive things, and her memory has gotten so much better.  I used to be able to tell her we'd do things later and she'd forget.  Now she wants things done later!

She's also an adorable mimic.

She is absolutely doing what you think she's doing.

Since my video embedding doesn't seem to be working, click here for a video.

She fed the bear (she calls it "koala bear"

And put him to bed!

She continues to amaze me with her vocabulary.  She speaks very clearly and in long sentences.  She knows long words that I've taught her (condensation, shmutz) and uses them correctly.  She's just starting to enter the "why" phase--she asked me today why there were trees there--but accepts "I don't know" as an answer.  I'll enjoy that while it lasts!  She still has some super cute mispronunciations.  She says lellow for yellow, calls granola bars "gorilla" bars, still says "Owie Kitty" for Hello Kitty (although that's going away), but for the most part, still says things correctly and clearly.  She's also memorized several songs and can sing them all the way through.  She does get mad when she wants to hear a song and you don't know it (daycare has some weird ones)!

She also got her very first professional haircut.  You may remember that I gave her one that didn't look so good.  Well, it finally grew out enough to require a real one!

We watched Daddy get his done first, and then she sat on his lap.

She was very brave.

She did a great job and held super still.  She got a lollipop as a reward!

We had her birthday party on Super Bowl Sunday (go Pats!), and invited our friends to come over.  We figure this is the last year we can have a party that's really more for us than her--we've already gotten an invitation to a daycare friend's party at Art Beast, so next year we know we'll have to do something similar.  We all had a great time hanging out.  It was kind of a madhouse with all of the kids (10 of them!), but so much fun.

She picked the theme.  And the hats.

Thankfully the weather was nice so the kids could play outside

Gabby's ball tower got some use!

Phoebe the unicorn.  She cracks me up.

The fullest the room got was during the halftime show.  I was feeding Louie and missed it!

Gabby and Phoebe loved playing together.

Video of us singing Happy Birthday.  Alcohol played a roll.

And some stills from the singing.

She loved every minute of it.

She did get a bit shy on occasion.

But really loved it!

And the cake was delicious too!

 I'm so proud of my big girl!  One more video.

2 months

Better late than never, right?

I got in huge trouble for not including Daddy on this sign.  But, really, he barely even knows Gabby is here.

At Louie's 2 month appointment he was 13.5 lbs and 22.5 in long.  That's 72nd percentile in weight and 23rd in height.  I can't believe his weight!  Gabby was only 9 lbs 3 oz at her 2 month appointment, and didn't hit 13 lbs until she was almost 6 months old!  My boobs definitely got the message this time around, and I couldn't be happier.  Louie seems much easier to feed than Gabby was, but that may just be because I'm more experienced and can help him along more.  I was also super aggressive about breastfeeding and pumping in the very beginning, which definitely helped the milk come in.  I'm just so relieved that we're not going through the weight gain issues with Louie that I went through with Gabby.

Louie's pretty much still just a big lump at this point. He is very alert, though, and loves to look around at everything.  He's especially into studying my face and hands--I had to go to urgent care with pink eye one day, and he sat in his carrier staring at my hands until he fell asleep.  Good thing too, since I really didn't want to take him out while we were there!  He's super portable and enjoys going places.  Unlike Gabby, he'll usually cry in the car for about 5 minutes and then go to sleep.  Gabby never actually went to sleep.  Overall, he's a really chill little boy.

Sleepwise, he gives me a good 5-7 hour stretch at night, followed by a couple 2-3 hour ones.  I'm usually only up twice a night and then up for the day with Gabby at 7:00.  He's really good about eating and then falling asleep.  He's still in the Pack n Play in our room, but we hope to move him to his room soon.  During the day, he stays awake for about an hour before needing a nap.  We've fallen into an eat, play, sleep routine like I had with Gabby, but I do nurse him to sleep at night.  Brian puts him down, and I put Gabby down at the same time.

We had some adventures this month, and here are a few pictures!

Gabby the spider

Selfie with the almost-3 year old at the zoo.  I can't believe Louie's cheeks, or how big of a ham his sister is!

I want to toot my own horn a bit--I took both kids by myself to the zoo.  It was MLK Day and Brian had to work.  I felt empowered.

She loves to hold him.

He's indifferent

Jabba baby

2 months old

I credit the onesie with the Pats winning the Super Bowl

On Gabby's bed

She's pretty good at being gentle.

This month we also had a visit from Auntie Amy and Uncle Ryan.  They came out for about 5 days, and we had a great time together.  The adults and Louie went to a brewery in town for some beer tasting while Gabby was at daycare, and we all ate out together on the weekend.  Amy and Ryan went to the Winchester Mystery House (so it wasn't all baby-related), and Amy loved on both kids.  Gabby had a blast playing with her and Ryan, and it really made me wish we all lived closer together so we could hang out more!

Amy loved Louie!

Laughing at picture time.

Smiling pretty

Louie was trying to eat Amy's hands

And succeeded!

Sisters!

And again

Gabby cheesing it up.

Holding the kids.  Poor Gabby gets jealous.

My first baby.