Alannah

Alannah Caileen

2 1/2 yrs

just one of her curls........ just cause they are so cute

Mama-in-training

This is a familiar sight with Alannah around, she is often carrying her baby, Molly, or another one of the dolls, or a stuffed animal of some sort, around with her. Just going about her everyday life, sometimes actually playing with them, but just as often playing something else. Like below, she and Charlotte are having fun in the dirt filling and dumping and whatever else little girls play in the dirt, but there's Alannah, playing and carrying her baby. Since I am often carrying a baby around while working around the house, I am guessing she figures it is part of life. I figure it's good training to know how to do things well with one hand or carrying a baby, so she might as well start early ;-) 

Boys and trees

The boys haven't had much tree climbing opportunity..... they discovered yesterday though they can climb this one in our front yard. They had fun going up and down and back up again. I guess climbing trees is part of life with boys and they're going to enjoy it! The first time Caeden went up he called me over and told me he was stuck, I told him "well, there's no way I am coming up after you, so you got up there, you can figure it out and get down!" Didn't take him too long to figure it out. Colm, on the other hand, is a bit more of a dare-devil then Caeden is and throughly enjoyed seeing how high he could get! 

Alannah

These are Alannah's friends - aptly named Bear and Bunny. She loves to sleep with both, or either ;-) Unless she's in a grumpy mood she's usually happy with at least one. Though she's pretty good about keeping track of them and knowing where both are. Every now and again, she "has to have" one or the other. Bunny is most frequently found wandering with her. It's rather cute since she's had Bunny in her bed since she was just tiny, but until the last couple months was not overly attached to it. Bear she got for her first birthday and she attached to that pretty soon after and has been her sleeping companion consistently since then. 

Not shown is her "best" friend, the paci ;-) She still takes it to sleep, or whenever she can sneak it. Though we work pretty hard to convince her to keep it in the crib, she often tells me mid-morning she wants to go sit in her crib for awhile...... just to have it. 

Yep, they love each other!

for posterity sake.....

I keep remembering this story and not writing it down.... so for the sake of posterity... it is recorded! 

A couple months ago we were driving somewhere and Colm - totally out of the blue - announced that he was going to change Tiny's name to Buck. For those that don't know, Tiny is his blue bear, the one sleeps with and is a best friend bear. Not sure how he came up with the name Tiny, but he named Tiny quite some time ago and he is quite the fixture in Colm's life. 

Anyway, I guess he thought Tiny sounded a bit too... something.... and Buck would be a better name for him.He said Buck was a "tough" name. We told him that was fine and moved on. We maybe used Buck as his name a couple times and a few days later Kieran asked him when he asked for Tiny, or referred to him as Tiny, "I thought his name was Buck". Colm said "Oh, I changed my mind, I'm just calling him Tiny now". So, Tiny it is and I guess it will stay ;-) 

Updated.....May 25, 2011.... it's been 3 nights now Colm has slept without Tiny. We had a garage sale this weekend and he "found" a stuffed moose I was getting rid of and he wanted it. Kieran told him he could keep it if he gave up Tiny in return. He agreed. That night he asked for Tiny back. I told him he wanted the moose and not Tiny. After confirming that we weren't SELLING Tiny, he went to sleep. I told him I put Tiny in a safe place to keep him always. He hasn't asked about him again. And though the moose is still in his bed, he's more attached now to a giraffe..... I think mama is more sad about Colm growing up then he is!

Updated again..... May 28, 2011..... Colm is back in possession of Tiny. After him being hidden for the week we pulled out all the garage sale stuff again yesterday and it prompted him asking about where he was. I told him I had put him away safe and I wasn't selling him. This morning he asked Kieran for him back again and Kieran asked me if I wanted to buy Tiny from Colm, he was asking $6 for him. I bought him for $6. Kieran then bought him from me for $7. Colm then asked to buy him back, Kieran had him pay him his original $6 and the moose ;-), Kieran then sold the moose to Caeden for a $1 so he at least broke even ;-) I told Colm when he doesn't need Tiny to sleep with anymore, I can put him up on a shelf in a safe place and we can keep him around. 

9 months

Tadhg Conor

9 months

~in the last 2 weeks you have cut 3 more teeth, the 2 top, either side of the center two and one of the top centers - I'm guessing the 4th top tooth will show up in the next couple weeks ;-) 

~You now have 5 teeth, 2 bottoms and 3 tops

~You will gum/chew/eat just about anything we give you

~You love yogurt, veggies, rice & eggs - you often try whatever we are eating for dinner and throughly enjoy it - you've tried alot of new foods lately and done great with them

~I'm pretty good at "forgetting" that you need food too - I often cook up a little bowl of frozen veggies for you to eat. 

~you are sleeping thru the night, still getting fed just before I go to bed and then nothing till morning

~Your definition of morning and mine are about an hour apart...... hoping you soon learn mama's right on this one! 

~You are still napping 2 times a day, about 90 minutes each with an occasional longer nap here and there. 

~I've started moving you in with Alannah while sleeping, at the moment just a rare nap or overnight after I feed you the last time. You are both doing great with the arrangements. 

~You weaned completely about a week shy of 9 months, we were down to 1 feed a day, first thing in the morning, for about 2 weeks and then 2 mornings you refused to nurse, when you started playing and biting, I decided you weren't getting anything and stopped offering.

~You give yourself your bottle most of the time, it's rather cute and as we weaned to the bottle I found you usually took it better on your own then in my arms. Depending on the time of day and how hungry you are you are taking between 4-6 oz, sometimes closer to 8 oz in a feed. 

~You are crawling everywhere - fast, Love climbing the stairs. Love pulling up and anything. You've just started pushing a little box or something around to walk with or walking along the edge of the couch or table. 

~You weigh 19 pounds this month (not bad compared to Alannah's 21.5 pounds!)

~You love your Da, when he walks into the room you either fuss and pull to go to him or crawl as fast as you can to get there. If Da's around it's hard to keep you away from him!

Love you little fella!

(I love his "just about to cry" look here - he was laughing a few minutes later ;-))