Three and Two

3 months old!

As to be expected, things are crazy around here.  :)  Evelyn will be 2 in 10 days, and Avery is 3 months as of a week ago.  Watching these kids grow is just overwhelming!

"Sit next to Avery"

Evelyn loves to swing!

Evelyn is just overwhelming on all fronts right now.  I remember her preschool teacher saying at the beginning of the year that their language skills would just explode this year.  She really has too!  She is speaking so well, starting to say sentences that make sense and has fairly good grammar too!  :P  I really need to get a video of things she says, but she tends to want to take over the camera every time I get it out!  Some of my favorite things she says are "Okay, do that!", "Misser Avey" and "I wuuuuuuuuv yeeew!" She amazes me with how much she knows.  She knows most of her letters and numbers. She calls them all numbers though! She can count up to 13, but sometimes skips a number or two.  She typically says "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 13, 13, 13..."  Haha.  If I remind her, she adds in 6, 9, and 10.  It's funny that she has a hard time saying eleven, especially since it's so close to Evelyn.  However on that note, when she says "Evelyn" it sounds more like "Evan".  She knows most of her letters, but what she calls them is really funny sometimes.  Our street name is Birch Brook Court.  We have an address plate in the front yard, and last week Evelyn started reading the letters: "B, L, Robert, C, H, B, Robert, Zero, Zero, K".  My mom bought us some letters to put up in Avery's room with his initials.  Evelyn always wants to play with them, and before I put them up, she had her hands on them constantly.  Avery's middle name is Robert, so that's what we told her when she was playing the the R.  And it has stuck.  It's very funny.  I try to tell her that Os and 0s look the same, but they're different.  That hasn't really kicked in yet though.

Nerd-in-training

I will say that we have had battle of wills in this house.  Evelyn is definitely two, and unfortunately, we've had more bad days than good ones lately.  I feel like the less I do around the house, the better our day is.  It takes so much just to keep two kids happy that cleaning the house takes a back seat.  It's sad that with my free time in the evenings, I try to clean or straighten up.  It doesn't last long, but it makes me feel better.  Anyways - Evelyn wants to be running the show all the time, and it's hard for me to let go being in charge too.  ;)  Evelyn really loves going outside, and the weather hasn't cooperated with that much lately.  I don't like taking Avery outside when it's too cold, so if he doesn't nap, we don't go outside when it's cold.  And we've had quite a few rainy days, or really wet and muddy days, so we haven't gone outside then either.  It seems like once a week or 10 days we have a beautiful sunny, 60* day, but then the day after it's 40 and going to sleet or something.  Yuck.  I'm so ready for spring!  I'm trying to be more patient with Evelyn lately, but so often, she doesn't know what she wants.  I'll ask if she wants to do something and her first response is almost always "NO!", but then 30 seconds later she's begging to do what she just turned down.  She gets frustrated easily which leads to her getting mean.  We've had more than a few timeouts lately, but at least the threat of time out stops her bad behavior more frequently now!  She also fights going to sleep - both naps and bedtime.  I'm usually still feeding Avery at bedtime, so Carl gets the brunt of the bedtime fights, but nap times are just as tough some times.  She used go down easy for naps, even if we were at Grandma's house, but not so much anymore.  I almost have to start trying to get her down 30 minutes or more before she really needs to be asleep.  We've had quite a few late naps lately where she doesn't wake up until dinner time.

Evelyn and her snowman

Giving her snowman a kiss

I don't know if I mentioned it in my last post, but Evelyn totally gave up potty training.  She did really well for a month, then one weekend just decided she wasn't doing it anymore.  It seems like when we put the potty away, she wants to use it, but when it's out, she has no interest.  But she does know what she gets if she uses it - she tells me daily!  Oh well!  I'm in no rush for her to potty train, so I am just fine waiting until she shows more interest.

Playing in the water table at Marbles

Now Mister Avery is 3 months old.  Crazy!  He has decided he doesn't really like to nap.  Makes life interesting.  Today has been good, but he has napped on me, either in the wrap when we took a walk this morning, or now, when he's still in "nursing position" although he finished a couple hours ago, and I've got the laptop propped up on the boppy!  My arm feels weird, worse than falling asleep, but at least Avery's napping and I'm getting *something* done!  Sleeping at night comes and goes.  Some nights he wakes up 2 or 3 times, and others, he sleeps 10-12 hours.  Usually though, he will wake up once around 5:30, take an hour to nurse, then sleeps another hour or two.  I was reading through the blog to see what Evelyn was doing at this time, and her sleeping patterns still SUCKED.  :)  Evelyn never slept through the night once until she was 8 months old, so I know how lucky I am that Avery does, no matter how infrequently!

 

We've given Avery a few solids here and there.  We're definitely more low-key than with Evelyn (and I think we were pretty laid back with feeding her), but he gets whatever we've got around that he can gnaw or suck on.  He loves bananas and graham crackers.  Applesauce and avocado, not so much!  I did buy some baby oatmeal, but we haven't tried that yet.  Maybe tonight!

Sitting up in the high chair

Yummy Banana!

Avery is such a sweet boy.  He is so smiley, and likes to "talk" to me when I'm changing his diaper or making faces at him.  He definitely doesn't get as much floor time as Evelyn did, let alone tummy time.  I try to put him down on the floor once a day, but it's usually only 20 minutes or so.  It's just easier to hold him, sit him in the bumbo or bouncy seat, or put him in the swing with Evelyn running around.  But this morning, I laid him down on his play mat so that I could do something with my hands, and decided to put him on his belly.  He cried and fussed for about 5 minutes, then just rolled right over.  He kind of shocked himself for a minute, but then started crying again.  Silly boy!  He has done it another time or two, but he doesn't seem as impressed as I am!  :)  Although he doesn't get down much, we have started putting Avery in the Johnny Jump Up and he REALLY likes that.  He usually slumps down and just chills for a while.  He's usually quiet for at least 20 minutes.  He doesn't bounce too much yet, but he does twist and turn a bit.  The hardest thing about the Johnny Jump Up is trying to keep Evelyn from swinging him!

Little Man loves his Johnny Jump Up!

Anyways, although things are difficult at times, we really are having fun with the kids.  It's amazing to see them learning so much so quickly, and they both make us laugh and smile so much!

My happy 3 month old!