Life with Lisa

My sister Lisa has been staying with us for a couple of months. Her room is down in our basement for the time being. When Lisa is downstairs Bella stands at the top of the stairs and yells down, "Lisa! Lisa! I"m coming Lisa!" She repeats that line over and over until she finally hits the bottom of the stairs. While those two are down there, Bella cooks for her and makes her all kinds of fake food. Lisa's favorite dish was the fish Bella made....AKA Big Mouth Billy Bass served on a plate :)

Other things she does when she's downstairs with Lisa - dancing around to Lisa's music and pooping. Oh yes, she always decides it's a great place to fill her diaper down in Lisa's space. I always hear Lisa say, "Bella - go upstairs and tell your mom to change you!" Soon there's little footsteps coming up the stairs and across the kitchen floor. And then I can smell her!

This is a look Lisa is often giving Bella, because she is so goofy.

Bella loves having Lisa here. She is always asking where Lisa is. They argue like they are sisters! Bella loves sitting by Lisa and looking at pictures of her trip to Disneyland. She steals Lisa's food while she's eating. But the best thing of all is that she plays "Lisa". Lisa has been working at Famous Dave's, and Bella copies her. She grabs her little bunny purse, fake keys, cell phone, and Lisa's shoes. Bella throws her purse her shoulder, waves her keys in the air, and says, "I'm going to Famous Dave's!" She walks out of the room and about a minute later comes back into the room and announces that she is home.

I love when little ones play pretend. It reminds me of when I was younger and we played house with Mr. Clean....ahhhhh....the memories :)

Bedtime Routine

The bedtime routine around here begins with getting pajamas on. Then reading a story....or two or three. Next Bella brushes her teeth. First I get to brush them and then she gets a turn. When it's her turn to brush she makes sure that I put more "poopaste" on the brush for her. Doesn't that just sound yummy...poopaste???

Then it's off to bed. One night in the living room I said to Bella, "Why don't you go crawl into bed? I will be right there." She proceeded to CRAWL down the hallway and into her room. That girl makes me laugh...can you say Amelia Bedelia? Taking things so literally! That was about a month and a half ago, and she is still crawling to bed....every night...in slooooooow motion down the hallway.

Once she is finally in bed we say prayers and a blessing. The blessing ends with "May the Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace." Recently when we were home in Medford, my mom taught Bella to say "peace out" and give the peace sign. Now according to Bella the blessing ends with "May the Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace out" with the peace sign :)

Finally when it is time to turn the lights out she protests by crying out "Snuggle Mommy! Snuggle Mommy!" Sometimes it's hard to not cuddle my baby girl when she wants to snuggle me. Once in a while I give in and snuggle her for a couple of minutes, but I know she is just stalling going to bed.

For a couple of weeks Bella went through a stage when she would throw a tantrum when I turned off the lights and left the room. It would start out minor and should would jump out of bed, knock on the door, stick her fingers out under the door, fling the door stopper over and over. Other times she would cry, scream, kick the door and kick the wall. Now we have added the following list of rules that she recites to me before I leave the room:

1. No crying

2. No screaming

3. No kicking the door

4. No kicking the wall

5. And stay in bed!

Thank goodness the tantrums were short lived and she is going to bed peacefully and willingly.

Greenville Zoo

On Labor Day we went to the Greenville Zoo. It's a small zoo near us, but it has many animals to look at. Bella was so excited to go and see the animals. Almost the whole way to the zoo she talked about all the noises that animals make. After chattering for a while, she eventually got quiet. Andy and I enjoyed the quiet time for a bit since there aren't many with a curious 2 year old. As we pulled into the parking lot we noticed that she was sound asleep! I decided it was worth waking her up since she was so excited earlier. As we walked through the zoo, she was scared of most of the animals. She was afraid of certain monkeys, the lion, tiger, zebra, goat, camel, bears...some animals that she shouldn't be scared of. She wouldn't even let us go near the petting area with farm animals. I thought for sure she would love all of these animals. Maybe she was being just a little emotional/dramatic about it all since we woke her up from a nap in the car. My favorite Bella quote of the day was when we stopped to look at a mama monkey holding her baby monkey in the corner of the cage. Bella yelled to the monkey in a deep scruffy voice, "Come here baby monkey! I will hold you!"

Drew slept the whole time.

Her favorite animal? Chickens! Really? Those stinky gross chickens? Growing up my mom and grandma raised chickens....they smell and you have to tiptoe around their poop....eeewwww. But Bella loved them. Maybe because they were small.

Boy, the Monkey

Today Bella found this little monkey eraser in her toys. He has become her new little friend, and she named him "Boy". Forget the baby dolls, Minnie Mouse, and Puppy Max. She played with Boy all afternoon. The monkey kept pooping in his diaper, so she just had to keep changing him. Conveniently, the monkey just happened to wear the same size diaper as Drew. After she would change him, she would run into the kitchen with the "dirty diaper" and come back empty handed. Suspicious, I went to follow her once into the kitchen and saw she was throwing the diapers away! Unused clean diapers! No!! Of course I took the clean diapers out of the garbage.....diapers get expensive!

Bella and Boy, the monkey

Changing a "poopy diaper"

I think the monkey actually looks like it could be poop in that huge diaper!

Bella had to take a nap with the monkey. He even has his own little bed to sleep in. Boy sat on her placemat as she ate dinner. He just sat watching her eat. Ahhh....I love the imagination she has :)

Invention Anyone?

Drew is a nuk baby. He loves his nuk. There is only a slight problem with this.....he can't keep it in his mouth! When we give it to him he sucks on it so hard and like a crazy little guy. Once we let go of the nuk, it pops right back out and he goes wild. We can't get it back in his mouth fast enough.

After what seems to be countless hours of holding a nuk in Drew's mouth, our solution is to prop the nuk in his mouth with a blanket or burp rag. It looks a little goofy, but I promise he can still breathe....I only do this during the day. Once the nuk is propped up into position, Drew is a happy boy. This propping up solution is not the best solution, because his little hands move the blanket after a while and the nuk falls out. He lets us know immediately though when it does fall out. We prop it back into position again, and again, and again. He will even wake up from sleeping and cry, but he will stop as soon as the nuk is repositioned.

I am sure this problem is common among newborns, so it has led me to an idea for an invention. If this is already invented, would someone PLEASE let me know?!?!? I need to purchase it ASAP!

You know how they make these baby sunglasses that strap around the baby's head so they don't fall off? Well, wouldn't it be the greatest idea to have a nuk on a velcro strap that straps around the baby's head to hold it in position? Not sure about the safety on this big idea, but something needs to be invented!

Drew - One Month

Drew is already a month old already! Here is a little update on the little guy....

Bella continues to call him Baby Drew. In this picture I like how Bella is smiling huge for the camera and not even paying attention to the fact that Drew is crying. Lately she has been trying to be a big helper with him. Today he started crying when I was doing something in the other room. She came running down the hallway saying "I need a nuk!" Drew loves his nuk.

Drew's days are spent mostly sleeping. At first there were some rough nights with him being up often, but he has gotten into a nice routine of getting up only 2 times a night.

During the first month, Drew's fussy time would be somewhere between 7 and 11 PM. A couple of nights of him fussing, and Lisa was telling me, "He is a high maintenance baby!" He wanted to be held and wanted me standing. Babies always know when you sit down....there's no tricking them!

He is 100% boy...

• He is a little grunter. He grunts and wiggles and grunts some more. Sometimes it is hard for me to get some sleep when he is making all that noise. It keeps me up!
• He farts and poops all day long! This boy can pass some gas. Even Andy is impressed with the noises he makes :) I change his diaper and within minutes he is filling his diaper again!
• He can burp some loud ones!
• He is a spitter. There are times I feel like he spits up everything he just ate! After he finishes eating, I have to be prepared immediately with a burp rag or two. This makes for a lot of laundry.

Even though he spits up a ton, he is obviously getting enough to eat, because this boy is gaining some weight. At his one month checkup he was 13 pounds!! What a chunker! It makes for some cute leg rolls. His 0-3 month clothes are getting snug. I just bought my last package of size 1 diapers. He is moving into size 2 already! Bella was always such a little peanut compared to this guy.

The best of all is that Drew is a sweet little boy that likes to snuggle. I think he will be a mama's boy :)