Briella:
It's amazing how just a few more weeks since my last blog and Briella continues to prove her independence, stubbornness, loving nature, politeness, never ending energy, and recently, trying to assert her authority; which had my eyebrows raised in disbelief. And by the look on my face, I think she knew! And you want to know why she was asserting her authority with me? I was doing her dishwasher 'job'! Yep. I was scolded by my 2 year old for doing her job. She ran over to me telling me, "No, don't do my job Mommy. That's MY job! Don't do MY job, Mommy!" After having a talk with her about talking to me (or anyone) like that, I secretly chuckled to myself that she was that insistent with me to stop doing her dishwasher job. Can I just say that she is not just one handful. She is TWO handfuls!
She is such a ham and usually quite sweet when we are out in public or visiting with other people. I don't know if it's the way she dresses, her cute lisp, or her silly, contagious laugh, but she always draws a crowd and gets tons of compliments, smiles, and adoration anywhere we go. And let me tell you, she is beginning to know it. Just today, while she and I were at Trader Joes, the cashier was gushing over how cute she was, how adorable she looked in her sunglasses (yes, she was insistent to wear them while shopping in the store), and the next thing I knew, she was putting on a spontaneous dance routine for the cashier right there in the check out line. He and the next customer behind us were in stitches over it. So, as we walked away from the check out line she tells me, "I was being cute, Mommy." This is my daughter, the performer, and enjoying every minute to be the center of attention. I'm trying not to think about her teenage years...big sigh...Oh, Lord, help me now; amen. :-)
I have really begun giving Briella more responsibility in the house because, as you read above, she loves it, needs it, and craves it. As of right now, she is unloading the dishwasher with me, putting the tablet in the dishwasher after we are done unloading it, putting a new trash liner in the can when we take out the trash, putting a new roll of paper towels on the wand when it goes empty, watering our chestnut tree, making her bed, making 4 piles of clothes during laundry for each one of us along with folding washcloths (her favorite thing to do), taking Gianna's diapers to the trash can, vacuuming the living room rug, washing the car, pulling weeds, and whatever else she shows interest or asks us to do that's within reason. The chore chart has been ready to print for over a week now, but my computer is not set up with our printer, but it will have three daily chores on it to earn a sticker for each with an outdoor activity reward for each week of completed jobs: 1. Watering the tree. 2. Putting the tablet in the dishwasher. 3. Making her bed. I joked with Jim that she's going to go to preschool and mention all of the things she does around the house and they are going to want to do a home visit to check for child labor laws being violated. Believe me, I don't make her do any of this! She wants to do it and if I do it without her, well, you read what I wrote about the dishwasher. She is not happy about that!
She has been watching a lot of what I do with Gianna and correlating it with what I did for her when she was a baby. She is becoming very interested in what she was like and what she did as a baby. When I change Gianna's diapers she says, "You changed my diapers when I was a baby." When I put cream on her rear end she says, "You put cream on my bottom when I was a baby and I didn't cry, just like Gianna." And the funniest thing of all that she said to me was when I was feeding Gianna. She said, "I ate Mommy's boob-eeeeez when I was a baby like Gianna." Oh.My.Goodness. Where in the world does she come up with this stuff?!!
And that leads me into some of her funny and sincere things she's said recently. We took her to her school playground to play last night (July 28th) and she was really trying to maneuver the swing by herself. I was teaching her to pump her feet and legs. I pump my milk and I openly talk about it and do it in front of her. So, naturally, she heard the word 'pump' and thought of that so her response was, "I'm pumping milk just like Mommy." She's also taking an interest in talking about time. She proudly told me, "I slept until 4-fen o'clock, Mommy". If you ask her what time she woke up, she will make up a random number and add the "fen" after it and say o'clock. That's when I knew it was time to go buy her a play clock and sure enough, I found one at Target for $1.00. She's also taking a real interest in heaven, Jesus, and expressing her love for Him. She says He lives in her heart, her lungs, her legs, her feet, etc. On one particular morning, I was very focused, and must've looked the part, and I didn't realize she was studying my every move. After a few hours of forgetting my phone upstairs, I checked it to find numerous text messages and missed phone call with voicemail. I must've looked overwhelmed or serious or something because I heard her little voice say, "Don't be sad, Mommy." If that doesn't make you turn your frown upside down, I don't know what will!
I've come to conclude that any time I write about how well she is sleeping that I should learn to regret that. Not long after I wrote she was sleeping so well in last month's update, she began having issues with nap time sleep. Then, she began waking up before morning light again, along with a few more than normal midnight wake ups too. This past week, it's been nap time tantrums maybe from what's either been a summer cold or seasonal allergies. She's never tolerated being sick very gracefully & she was very hoarse in her voice, runny/congested nose, & coughing. She would go into her bedroom without an issue. We would read, I walk out, and she's fine for a while. Then, she begins to fight the fact she's tired, and instead of just closing her eyes to sleep, she begins to do anything and everything to not sleep. And it doesn't seem to matter how many times I walk her back into her bed, she just doesn't seem tired and there comes a point when it isn't fair to make her lay in bed when she simply isn't tired (which seems like why she was having her fits because she feels like I am punishing her to try to sleep when she isn't tired). I can't remember the last time she's behaved that way in general, let alone ever acted with such resistance at nap time, but she was doing it and it was strange. Like I said, when she's not feeling well, she's not the "normal" child who sleeps well. She's the opposite. Sadly, she's like me. I don't rest well when I'm sick.
I've said it before, but I have to stop being in denial about the fact that she requires much less sleep than most children her age because she hasn't napped in two weeks and is waking up WIDE awake between 3:30am-6:00am daily. It isn't as though we put her to bed incredibly early either. We begin bedtime at 8 and she's realistically asleep between 9-9:30. That's not a lot of sleep for anyone, let alone a growing child.
As I wrote last month, we have added new foods into her diet. While they didn't seem problematic, I may need to take a break from them and see if there's any change in her because this is how she used to act before we got her diet 'just right'. My suspicion has been a new batch of meat that we don't think was processed the same as the original batch or eating too much rice. As a Celiac, eating too much rice can be disruptive and difficult on digestion and I'm wondering if that is happening to her? Her allergist appointment today, August 1, did not conclude any food allergies, but rather, intolerances/sensitivities.
Briella is such a loving child, though, and freely gives hugs and kisses, says "I love you" quite often. Within the past two weeks, she often tells me "You're a great Mommy" or the cutest thing she said was, "You're a great woman, Mommy." She always gets lots of awwww's, hugs, and kisses when she blurts those things out. It just melts my heart to a puddle. She's really taken an interest in my birth mark on my arm as well as wanting to know about the story of when she was born and "what did I do when I was in the hospital, Mommy?" So I tell her the story and I showed her the scar on her arm from the hospital cords. I told her, "Mommy was VERY upset when I showed up to the hospital and found a huge gash on your arm." Her reply, "I'm sorry, Mommy, you are upset. Don't be upset." as she lovingly put her head on my shoulder. She's beginning to show her vulnerability, sensitivity, and recently, becoming embarrassed in front of other people. It's really quite neat to watch these personality traits unfold in her and watch her become more self aware.
While I must admit she has been more demanding, more needing of discipline on certain days, regressing back to having separation anxiety with Jim (yet again), and not sleeping as well from last month to this month, (and I do believe my usual low blood pressure is a bit higher than normal because of it all), the thing I love most about her is her thankful heart and excitement for the most simple things in life. She has such an appreciative heart and the most simple of things make her happy. Sometimes I wish there was a hidden camera on her when we are in our house.
Her independence both amazes me and sometimes terrifies me. She can be fearless. She has been going up and down the stairs independently for quite some time now, but I still find myself getting nervous over it. She's been potty trained for 8 months now and has recently begun wanting 'privacy'. There's been many nights and afternoons during bedtimes that I will look in the monitor and she won't be in bed and when I go upstairs, she is sitting on the toilet. She's so independent. She's brushing her hair now and loves picking out her clothes for the day. She even took a shower with me this past month and enjoyed it. She completed a puzzle that was intended for 4+ year olds and I was (am) so proud of her. She loves puzzles and figuring out how to take apart and put things together. Sometimes I remind myself that she's not even 3 years old and she's doing all of these things. It's quite remarkable and I am so impressed and she makes my heart happy to see her growth, maturity, and development when she does those things.
I was recently listening to one of my James MacDonald podcasts about parenting and there are three destructive forms of parenting. I sadly found traits of myself in the dominant form of parenting, (It's hard to not make excuses to be this way with a child like Briella because she is so strong willed, determined, and NON-STOP but, Heavenly Father help me, I'm trying!) and while I am working at doing better to get away from that style, I try to remember what he said is the best form of parenting: "Firm and loving." It really did my heart good that after I heard that podcast and used that as a basis for my discipline that day. After receiving a consequence, Briella came up to me, put her arms around my legs giving me the biggest hug and squeeze saying, "Mommy, I love you so much." It felt good to know she still felt loved after being disciplined and there's something to be said about giving our kids boundaries because they not only need them, they crave them. Now my head echoes, "Training her firm and loving, firm and loving" multiple times through the day. :-)
Gianna:
Uncle Jon and Aunt Rita drove all the way from Ohio to visit us! Briella absolutely loved their visit.
The many different and oh so cute Gianna smiles. I don't think I can take enough pictures of these smiles.
July 30th shopping trip with me to Costco and Trader Joe's. Briella had so much fun. I can honestly say she was PERFECT--polite, patient, helpful, and kind in both stores. We talked, we snacked, and I had so much fun with her and she got quite the attention with her outfit choice (with a little help from Nonna with the accessories, hair bow, and boots).
We will caption these pictures as Gianna's reactions to finding out that Briella got to go shopping with me and she didn't get to go. I love all of the different facial expressions on both girls' faces.
As I wrote last month, we have added new foods into her diet. While they didn't seem problematic, I may need to take a break from them and see if there's any change in her because this is how she used to act before we got her diet 'just right'. My suspicion has been a new batch of meat that we don't think was processed the same as the original batch or eating too much rice. As a Celiac, eating too much rice can be disruptive and difficult on digestion and I'm wondering if that is happening to her? Her allergist appointment today, August 1, did not conclude any food allergies, but rather, intolerances/sensitivities.
Briella is such a loving child, though, and freely gives hugs and kisses, says "I love you" quite often. Within the past two weeks, she often tells me "You're a great Mommy" or the cutest thing she said was, "You're a great woman, Mommy." She always gets lots of awwww's, hugs, and kisses when she blurts those things out. It just melts my heart to a puddle. She's really taken an interest in my birth mark on my arm as well as wanting to know about the story of when she was born and "what did I do when I was in the hospital, Mommy?" So I tell her the story and I showed her the scar on her arm from the hospital cords. I told her, "Mommy was VERY upset when I showed up to the hospital and found a huge gash on your arm." Her reply, "I'm sorry, Mommy, you are upset. Don't be upset." as she lovingly put her head on my shoulder. She's beginning to show her vulnerability, sensitivity, and recently, becoming embarrassed in front of other people. It's really quite neat to watch these personality traits unfold in her and watch her become more self aware.
While I must admit she has been more demanding, more needing of discipline on certain days, regressing back to having separation anxiety with Jim (yet again), and not sleeping as well from last month to this month, (and I do believe my usual low blood pressure is a bit higher than normal because of it all), the thing I love most about her is her thankful heart and excitement for the most simple things in life. She has such an appreciative heart and the most simple of things make her happy. Sometimes I wish there was a hidden camera on her when we are in our house.
Her independence both amazes me and sometimes terrifies me. She can be fearless. She has been going up and down the stairs independently for quite some time now, but I still find myself getting nervous over it. She's been potty trained for 8 months now and has recently begun wanting 'privacy'. There's been many nights and afternoons during bedtimes that I will look in the monitor and she won't be in bed and when I go upstairs, she is sitting on the toilet. She's so independent. She's brushing her hair now and loves picking out her clothes for the day. She even took a shower with me this past month and enjoyed it. She completed a puzzle that was intended for 4+ year olds and I was (am) so proud of her. She loves puzzles and figuring out how to take apart and put things together. Sometimes I remind myself that she's not even 3 years old and she's doing all of these things. It's quite remarkable and I am so impressed and she makes my heart happy to see her growth, maturity, and development when she does those things.
I was recently listening to one of my James MacDonald podcasts about parenting and there are three destructive forms of parenting. I sadly found traits of myself in the dominant form of parenting, (It's hard to not make excuses to be this way with a child like Briella because she is so strong willed, determined, and NON-STOP but, Heavenly Father help me, I'm trying!) and while I am working at doing better to get away from that style, I try to remember what he said is the best form of parenting: "Firm and loving." It really did my heart good that after I heard that podcast and used that as a basis for my discipline that day. After receiving a consequence, Briella came up to me, put her arms around my legs giving me the biggest hug and squeeze saying, "Mommy, I love you so much." It felt good to know she still felt loved after being disciplined and there's something to be said about giving our kids boundaries because they not only need them, they crave them. Now my head echoes, "Training her firm and loving, firm and loving" multiple times through the day. :-)
Gianna is truly one of the sweetest babies I know and have ever had the pleasure of being around, but then again, I am her Mommy and she does seem to be a 'bit' attached to me. ;-)
She smiles, coos, talks, laughs, kicks, is reaching out to grab items (and then holding onto them), lifting her head better and for longer periods of time during tummy time, and showing more head control when she's being held. She's about 11.5 pounds and still has dark blue-green hued eyes. She's wearing a size 2 diaper and has an insatiable appetite.
It was exactly a week ago that she had a complete transformation in her sleeping patterns. I had really dedicated myself to eating only steamed white rice, vegetables, fruit, beans, and homemade coconut flour/oil products, and began drinking coconut milk kefir. I felt 'lucky' if Gianna would sleep for 5 hours straight through the night. I say, "lucky" because this only happened 3 times so when she slept for 7 straight hours last week, I just about had a heart attack.
No, seriously. Jim was traveling for work and I woke up at 12:45am in a state of panic thinking something was wrong because she hadn't woken up to eat yet. So, I ran into her room and she was just fine; sleeping like a log. So, naturally, when I should have been sleeping because she was FINALLY sleeping after almost 3 months of complete sleep deprivation, well, I laid there worrying as to why she was actually sleeping so well! Ayy, yiy, yiy...
She's been consistently sleeping 4-8 hours a night ever since then! What a remarkable and glorious change in just a week's time. Now to think of the days when BOTH girls will sleep through the night because if it's not Gianna awake then it's Briella or vice versa.Or worse, last night at 3:30 when Briella was practically running laps in our bedroom from energized insomnia and then Gianna woke up to eat and they BOTH were awake in the middle of the night. Craziness. I think I've only 'scored' 3 days when they both were napping at the exact same time during this month. It seems like, I will put one down for a nap and the other will wake. When the other wakes, the other one is ready to sleep...well, for the first half of the month. This last two weeks Briella hasn't napped. If I'm 'lucky', I will get a 10-15 minute overlap some days when I scarf down some kind of food. It really has been, eat it now and taste it later these past few months.
It's just a season of life because, soon, Gianna will be joining us all at the table too. I truly am not wishing away this time at all. I didn't get to experience exclusive breast feeding with Briella and I'm thankful to have this opportunity. I can tell, though, that Gianna is going to LOVE eating table food. I've recently begun giving her up to a tablespoon a day of coconut milk kefir on a spoon and she kicks, coos, and gets so excited while she's eating it. It's so cute.
As I wrote above, I have been having to completely dedicate myself to eating a certain way for her needs and when I eat that way, she acts, looks, and demonstrates that she is feeling GOOD. When I stray from that, she struggles to sleep comfortably, she vomits frequently, and she has chronic diarrhea. I couldn't have proven this to be more true than when I made a homemade cast iron pizza for all of us last night. She's not slept well ever since I ate a could bites of it. I made Jim and Briella's with cheese and I made mine without. Well, their pizza just looked so much better and smelled so good that I had to take two tiny little bites with the cheese on it. Well, today, she has been vomiting from the moment she woke up and anytime I lay her down to sleep, she begins crying. I go into her room and she's laying in a pool of vomit. Not to mention, that she vomited all over my pants, so I changed into a new pair. As soon as I did that, she vomited all over my shirt. I guess she didn't like my outfit today, hahaha.
It's nothing new. She throws up all over us whenever I eat something that upsets her tummy. Some might say, "All babies spit up." Yes, she 'spits up' every day, but vomits are a completely different thing than spit up! Today's vomits are all from me eating two bites of cheese. So, it looks like I won't be trying milk products out anytime soon for a new food trial and that's fine. If she feels better when I don't eat it then I'm okay with that for now. Once again, just another season of life, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not a bit bored or down about how limited my food is right now.
And beginning yesterday, July 31, Gianna has been practically eating her hands off of her arms. It's crazy to think that she could actually be feeling teeth or she's completely infatuated with her hands? I don't know. Basically, she woke up yesterday eating her hands and hasn't stopped doing it.
Bath time bedtime routine is always something the girls enjoy.
This is what Gianna looks like when I've eaten something that upsets her. My poor baby.
A cheek rash after hugging Papa. She gets this rash all of the time from hugging him or Mom.
We enjoyed a walk around the zoo with them and Briella enjoyed all of the attention.
Flower clip that fits in her hair.
Briella told me, "Mommy, I have a head band just like you." "I look like Mommy!"
Briella wearing the new nightgown Uncle Jon and Aunt Rita got for her and the matching night gown for her giraffe, Raffi. She thinks it's so neat to wear matching clothes with her doll.
Look at her adorable smile and flowing, wavy hair.
Walk like an egyptian...
Briella bringing Kriss Kross back into style...(this is how she dressed herself)
July 30th Mom and Gianna spend time together while Briella and I were shopping at Costco and Trader Joe's.
July 30th modeling new pi's from Costco for Daddy while he was on an overnight business trip.
July 31st. My little beauties are getting so big: 12 weeks old and 2.10 years old!
SMILE time with Mommy while Briella napped (laid in bed).
Oh, you know, just lounging in the waiting room of the allergist...
August 1st Allergist Appointment--Briella did AWESOME!
Friday, August 1st family time of nailing painting.
Personal Reflections
I'd be lying if I continued writing these blogs without admitting my tiredness, but I've hesitated ever admitting that in the other blogs because I don't want to sound like I'm complaining or I don't appreciate my job as a Mommy. I almost feel like I'm breaking some kind of Mommy code to be honest and say this, but I've come to realize that being a stay at home mom is the perfect oxymoron because it's absolutely fulfilling and completely exhausting. Is that wrong to say because I love it, but anyone who thinks a typical stay at home mom is doing nothing all day is so completely wrong. I'm beyond blessed that we are in a position that Jim's job allows me to stay home with our girls. I have the privilege of saying that I've been an integral part in the fact that Briella knows how to count to 20, she knows her shapes, her colors, she's learning household responsibility, home cooked meals and praying before she eats, she can recite The Lords Prayer, I'm teaching her Psalm 23, and is learning how to be a Mommy while watching me caring for Gianna. I love that Gianna can be exclusively fed from me without having to supplement with formula. I love that I get to have that choice and to experience that bond with her. It's not something I could have ever done if I weren't at home with her all day. I'm absolutely thankful for all of these moments I've had with my girls because I'll never have them again. Like I said, they are my world right now.
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