Shearer/Jollymore Updates

I've started a new family blog at:

 

 

 

It’s a little late to post about Morgan being 3 months old.  The week of the 18^th was the beginning of holiday chaos for our family and I’ve been meaning to post but instead I’ve been trying to keep “notes” on her in my head.  Morgan is at such a sweet stage.  I wish nearly every day that I could freeze time so that I could enjoy more of her sweetness.  She coos and smiles all the time.  She gets excited about pictures in books and flails her arms and legs wildly.  She shows interest in toys.  She continues to love her bath and night time routine.  Her temperament is just amazing.  She is the definition of easy going.

 

Physically, she is growing like crazy.  It seemed as though she was stuck in 0-3 month clothing forever (I’m sure Elliot outgrew those small sizes in a month or so) and then all at once I started to realize that some of her 3-6 month stuff was already getting a little short in the legs or tight in the torso.  She continues to sleep through the night and nurse like a pro.  She’s not taking a bottle as easily as she did in the beginning (probably because we haven’t kept it part of her regular routine) so we’re working on that again.  Morgan had her first cold over the holidays.  It was awful to see her suffer, but she seems to be recovering quite quickly.

  

In terms of appearance, more and more people seem to think she resembles me.  In fact, my dad calls her his little déjà vu baby.  My sisters are reminded of their daughters when they look at her.  Some friends still see Elliot in her, as I do in some of her expressions.  Her hair is wild.  She has started to lose some of it around the back, yet some of it continues to grow long.  It is curly when wet but sticks up, poker straight when dry.  Her eyes are still blue but I believe they will change.  On more than one occasion I have had to take her into the sunlight to check them because I could swear they looked brown.

 

She brings so much happiness to our days.  I’m posting a little video of her cooing.  The day I took it I had music playing and could have sworn she was singing along. 

 

 

  

 Today was Elliot’s 3^rd birthday.  It’s unbelievable how fast 3 years can pass. 

The most amazing part about this age (besides how unbelievably challenging it is, but I’m trying to stay positive here) is watching Elliot become his own individual with his own unprompted thoughts and ideas.  I’ve written before about the imaginative play he engages in, but I’m also excited about the everyday things that he thinks about on his own. 

For instance, last Friday night Dave played hockey and was out when I put Elliot to bed.  When Elliot got up in the morning, he walked into our room and asked Dave, “Daddy how was your hockey game last night?”  He quickly followed that question with “Did you get any goals?” 

A few nights ago, he did a fair bit of talking in his sleep.  When I asked him about his dreams the next morning he told me that he had a bad dream about a bear eating all the zoo apples. 

We had a party for Elliot on Sunday and most of the kids who attended were from our neighbourhood.  Two, however, lived in another area.  When I told Elliot about everyone who was coming to the party he immediately explained that those two would have to drive here but everybody else would walk. 

These are all just random examples of things that have made me stop and think about how fast he’s growing up.  There’s so much more I want to write about my little E (e.g., the never ending “why” phase, his talk about gender, and language development) but I never seem to find the time these days.  I’ll close for now with a little video of Elliot on Sunday.  We didn’t want him to get too worked up about the party so we didn’t tell him it was going to happen that day.  He knew we were having a party “on Sunday” but he didn’t know when Sunday was exactly.  We decorated the house while he was having his nap and taped his reaction when he got up.  Pardon the Bob-the-Builder underpants – this is typical nap attire for Elliot.  Also posting some pics from the event.  Enjoy! 

 

  

 

 

 

Both Elliot and Morgan hit their monthly birthdays within the same week.  Last week, Elliot turned 35 months old and Morgan turned 2 months old. 

 

On Elliot…

 

I can’t believe Elliot will turn 3 next month.  I guess it’s partly that I can’t believe I’ve been doing this parenting thing for that long.  It still feels so new.  That’s probably because the challenges are ever changing.  

 

Let me start with the good…  Elliot has more imagination that Dave and I combined.  He can carry out pretend play for hours.  He pretends he is a mechanic doing something to the car, a doctor or nurse working on a patient., a daddy or a mommy driving the kids to school, doing the grocery shopping, making dinner, etc, a “workman” fixing things around the house, a garbage man collecting the garbage, the list goes on and on.  Sometimes the stories flow into one another and it often gets to a point where I can’t keep up with him.  Not that this matters.  Though I think he prefers it when I play along, he can keep it going all on his own. 

 

His memory is ridiculous.  The other day we were talking about getting his picture taken with Santa and he asked me if he would get crayons from a barrel.. I thought this was odd and brushed it off until later that day when I remembered that last year the Santa at the mall had given out coloring books and crayons from a wooden barrel to each child who sat on his knee for a photo. 

 

He is showing a real interest in letters and words.  He points to words and asks what they say. 

 

He is a softie.  The other night we watched Frosty the Snowman and Elliot burst into tears when Frosty melted.  He was still distraught long after the show ended.  A few weeks ago he broke down when my mother read him a story about a dog who was teased.  I feel so sad when it happens.  It’s awful to see him so upset.  But I do like knowing that he can be so empathic.

 

He’s so resilient.  I’ve already written about the skating and swimming incidents that occurred this week.  I haven’t written yet about the mild concussion he suffered on Wednesday from a fall down the stairs.  What amazes me is how quickly he bounces back from these things and how pleasant he is even when he’s hurting.

 

Then there’s the mildly annoying…

 

My little Elliot sure has a lot of wants.  Sometimes it seems as though he is never satisfied.  I must hear “I want…”, “I need..”, or “Get me…”, at least 60 times a day.  Nine times out of ten these words are followed by “How do you ask nicely Elliot?” or “What’s the magic word?” and then “What do you say?” after I deliver on the request.  Most of the time, one of whatever (e.g., piece of toast, cookie, drink, book, song, tv show) is not enough so that request is followed by another and another.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t begrudge him the right to speak up when he wants something…it just makes me shake my head at times.

 

And then there’s the truly ugly…

 

Discipline is pretty much a daily struggle.  Time-outs are abundant in this house and god do I hate them.  If I could find a way to carry them out like they are described in books it would be a different story but time-outs never go that smoothly around here.  Elliot can be quite stubborn, so often letting him out of time-out is more difficult than getting him in.  He will shout “NO – I’m NOT ready Mommy!  More time-out!” just to be disagreeable and a vicious cycle follows.  Ugh. 

 

 

On Morgan…

 

It’s almost unfair now to talk about Morgan.  Her needs are so much simpler than Elliot’s and I know she will come out looking like the favored child when that’s simply not the case.  It’s just that we’ve been through the newborn challenges before – she doesn’t have to “break us in” as parents like he does.

 

Morgan is now regularly sleeping 7-9 hours through the night.  Actually last night it was 10 hours (is this normal?).  It’s absolutely blissful when I don’t wake up, ready to feed her, and wait for her to make a sound.

 

She is vocalizing much more, smiling a ton, and just interacting so much more than the last time I wrote.  She is getting interested in some little toys – rattles and whatnot – though she can’t quite grasp them without help.

 

She rolled over for the first time at 7 weeks.  The first time I had no witnesses other than Elliot, the second time just my mother.  She didn’t repeat the feat for several days and Dave missed it that time too.  Today I finally got it on video.  She seems to be quite a strong baby, lifting her head quite high during tummy time and kicking vigorously in her playgym.

 

Sometimes things are so hectic around here that we don’t fully appreciate how easy she really is.  I’ve been trying to make sure she gets most of the same interactions (reading, singing, playing) with us that Elliot did at her age but I know that sometimes she doesn’t get quite the same amount of attention.  Part of that is because we are spread more thinly than we were nearly 3 years ago, but it is also partly because she seems so content to just sit back and watch whatever’s going on.  I am so grateful for her pleasant temperament every day.

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

  

 

 

 

Structured activities are good for kids.  At least that’s what research says.  That’s one reason we have our not-even-three-year-old enrolled in lessons.  This week, however, we’re having our doubts just how “good” Elliot’s activities are for him.

 

At Saturday’s skating class, Elliot took his debut face-first fall onto the ice.  Up until this week, he had had few falls and all of them had involved mainly his rear-end.  I sympathized with even those falls as he has less padding this year than last because he no longer wears diapers.  When I saw him whisked off the ice with blood dripping from his face, however, I knew those tumbles on his bum were nothing.  Thankfully, it was just a bloody nose – no lost teeth or split lip – and he was back on the ice in time for class to start.  But I was nauseous for the next half hour from the adrenaline rush I experienced in my haste to find out if he was okay.

 

Tonight’s swimming lesson brought more drama.  They were doing underwater drills and telling the kids to blow bubbles while submerged.  Poor little Elliot sucked in instead of blowing out and ended up with a tummy full of pool water.  What happens when a toddler with a strong gag reflex and a tummy full of water surfaces, coughing and sputtering?  You guessed it – that toddler barfs all over his father and in the pool.  As if it’s not bad enough to be half naked in a toddler swim class covered in barf, pool policy dictated that the pool had to be evacuated and drained.  Poor Dave had to get himself and Elliot cleaned up in a locker room full of disgruntled swimmers who had to miss their class or recreational swim because of the mishap.  Although Dave was mortified, Elliot recovered quickly and told us on the way home that next week he will keep his mouth shut under the water.  Good idea, sweetheart.

 

In the end, I guess structured activities are good for kids – I’m sure that in addition to the benefits of physical activity and socialization with peers, Elliot learned a little something about perseverance, abilities and limitations of his body, and problem solving through these events.  I’m just not sure how “good” all of this is for the parents J

 

 

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween.  We certainly did.

 

We'd been asking Elliot what he wanted to dress up as for some time.  His response in recent weeks was consistently "a garbage man."  Elliot loves garbage trucks and watches our trash collection nearly every week.  We thought this was an interesting idea for a costume, but really didn't know how we would pull it together.  There are no prefabricated garbage men costumes in the stores.  Dave put in a call to Waste Management and dropped by their local office to request any stickers/badges they could provide.  He walked away with some logo stickers and some with Danger/Caution messages.  This was a start.  Trash collectors usually wear safety vests, so that was the next step.  Funny thing - they don't make safety vests in size 3T.  So I had to make some modifications to one that Dave had for work.  Next we figured that although trash collectors around here don't wear hard hats, they really should, so Dave covered Elliot's toy  hard hat with WM stickers.  Voila!  Instant garbage man.  Elliot loved his costume, and while we answered the door to many a Disney princess and prefabricated monkey, there were no other garbage men to be seen.  Elliot came home with quite a bag of loot.  At least half of it has been stowed away (and will likely be disposed of given the adult level of self-control in this house).  He's been surprisingly good about it, only asking for a couple of things.  The sugar does seem to affect him.  Unfortunately, his favorite thing (Kinder eggs) seems to make him most wacky.  Oh well, it will be over soon.

 

As for Morgan, well she dressed festively as well but did not partake in trick-or-treating.  Maybe next year.