So Begins the Chaos

Micah is officially rolling over from bak to tummy and from tum to back. We were practcing going from tummy to back this mornign, and ly dit again. Hooray! And now we have to put up the gates! ;)

Here are some pics. I included some of our new kitchen.

4 Months

It's past four months for Micah at the moment, but he had his checkup last week and weighed in at 14 pounds, 10 ounces. He's actually only in about the 60th percentile for weight, so he's fairly normal, but he just seems so huge to me, especially when it took her over a year to even appear on the growth chart! He is almost 25 inches, and the doctor said that he appears to be entirely healthy. We've taken him off of the medicine, and there have been a few times when I think he could have used it, but mostly he seems to be fine without it, which is very nice.

He has been a handful the past few weeks, though. He has decided that he wanted to start getting up multiple times in the middle of the night again, so we're working on that by ignoring him. Sometimes it's the only solution! For instance, last night he woke up around 1:00 and I heard him, but I had already decided to let him cry for a little bit of he woke up around that time, and he cried briefly and then went back to sleep until early morning. We'll see if that happens again tonight, but hopefully we can help him break the cycle.

He started to eat rice cereal last week, too, and today he's going to try some veggies. Yum! He is much less upset on his stomach now and likes to push himself up to see the world. I also think he's getting very close to rolling over. He easily puts himself on his side when he's on his back, but most babies roll over from their tummy to their back, so we've been working on that. He laughs a ton and gets a big smile on his face when he sees us or when people play with him. And he continues to grow out of his clothes, although I think that's slowing down somewhat.

Alexis is also a handful. She has turned into a woman of extremes, which simply means that she's two and shows it. She's having a hard time learning patience, which is normal for her age, and is very intense about everything. It means that she is incredibly adorable and incredibly exasperating all at the same time, but she's learning and we're leaning how to handle her. One of her favorite things right now is to have us spin around the room with her at night and have her put her blanket on as a cape and fly her around the room as SuperAlex. (Right now she's eating a banana from earlier and is looking at it saying, "That's got bad on it.") We are personally amazed at her vocabulary, but that's how it goes for all kids, right? I love how she knows how to use words like "other" correctly; that seems like it would be a hard one for a kid. Jason has also taken to calling her riff-raff, and she'll say, "I'm not riff-raff. I'm Ala!" Ala is because she can't say Alex correctly most of the time. Then we'll say "Hi Ala!" And she'll say "I'm not Ala. I'm ALA!" And that just makes us crack up every time because there's such a distinction in her brain but not in her vocalization. She still doesn't want anyone to sing to her; I'm going to be really sad if she doesn't like music. In other news, she has such sensitive skin! Now that the weather is turning colder, she's getting the same dry spots on her face that she got last year. Her bangs are still growing out, so her hair is always in her face, but I think it will start to look better soon, and it will be nice when she starts keeping her barrettes in her hair instead of pulling them out.

We decided to spend Thanksgiving at home this year, and it was wonderful! My parents came up and we had crab cakes, fresh greens and green beans from their garden, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and homemade hush puppies. I have learned some Southern cooking from Jason's family! (I made the casserole and hush puppies. I haven't mastered the huch puppies yet, but they were still pretty good.) I also made a bunch of desserts, so we had mint chocolate chip cookies, homemade ice cream, apple pie (frozen), and dirty red velvet cupcakes. By "dirty" I mean that they weren't actually red because the food coloring for the recipe would have been SEVEN DOLLARS! Ridiculous. Anyway, I think it all turned out pretty good, and I don't know if I'll be able to go back to having turkey for Thanksgiving when my mom makes crab cakes. And she made greens and I actually liked them, which is a first for me! Alexis actually didn't eat with us because by the time we sat down to eat, she was exhausted and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Micah was asleep as well, so we ended up being abble to just sit around the table and have a really relaxing meal. While we missed family, it was great to spend Thanksgiving at home and to have a really relaxing time. Jason and I just decided that we're going to make ice cream sandwiches from our dessert ingredients.

I started class this week and my students have their first assignments due today, so let the grading commence! I have a few lectures I need to record for the second session by the end of the day on Sunday, and we'll take Jason to the airport on Sunday after church. He'll be in Bolivia for a week and get back next Saturday night. I'm still working on Mondays and Tuesdays for Smarthinking. My schedule is five hours a day dispersed throughout the days, which is too much right now, so next semester I should be cutting back. (We knew when I got hired that I would need to work a few more hours than I normally would, so its worth it because we know it's only for a limited period of time.) Next semester I should only be working six hours a week. What's great is that I'll have a break for Christmas from both of my jobs because Smarthinking breaks for Christmas and the Eastern class is split by break, too. (This means that I'll have extended time to prep for the two weeks of class after Christmas!) We should also be getting our kitchen counters replaced in a few weeks, which is going to be wonderful; they're in really bad shape, along with out sink, which is rusting, and our water faucet, which decided to officially break last week. We're hoping that's the last major thing we need to do to the house, although things are always coming up, like the fact that we currently have a fairly large hole punched in Alexis' bedroom door and really just need to replace all of the upstairs doors. Little by little, though, right? Jason and I have declared next year the "year of saving" for the Edgerton family, so hopefully nothing huge will need to be done next year.

Fall Pics

The Christmas Edition

Yes, it's that time of year again! I can't believe Christmas is in less than two months. Time is going way too quickly these days. Micah is sitting in my lap, wearing pajamas meant for 6-month-old kids, and Alexis is struggling to fit into 24 month clothes. Such is life!

Well, Jason and I both have our normal wishlists, and the kids both have wishlists at amazon attached to my name. (You should be able to find them if you go to the left of my list.) This may sound crazy or picky, but here's some information:

1. Alexis understands presents. And while presents are great, we don't want to overwhelm her and have her associate people with presents. So, in light of that, we're hoping that we can convince everyone to limit the amount of gift-giving to maybe around three presents. I know that things like clothes and books can be different, but when it comes to toys or thiings she can instantly ply with, hopefully maybe about three would be good? I hope everyone can understand that we're trying to make CHristmas about more than presents. And we also don't want everyone spending lots of money, either!
2. A bunch of places have a lot of great ten dollar toys this year. We also don't mind used stuff. If you take a look at the wishlists, we have some notes about where you can get things for a better price than amazon, and amazon now lets you mark something as purchased, even if you didn't get it there. Games are a ridiculous price at ToysRUs this week.
3. For clothes, Micah is probably going to be in 9 month clothes for Christmas, or shortly thereafter. Alexis is a good bet at 2T or 24m. However, one piece pajamas with feet tend to run really, really long on her, so those don't work very well.
4. Books are also great for either of the kids, and used books are wonderful! We have quite a few, but some classics that we don't have that would be great for either of them are:
Goodnight, Moon
books by Ezra Jack Keats (other than The Snowy Day and Peter's Chair)
Where the Wild Things Are
Corduroy
The Runawy Bunny
5. The listed items are just ideas, so if you see something that you think would be great, that's wonderful! Big things might be hard for us to get home, though.

Delinquent Updates (not children)

Let's start with Alexis. Her favorite new phrase is "be quiet!" As you can probably assume, we're not overjoyed about this. She has hit that 2 1/2 year stage, the one when every six months a kid gets especially difficult. She definitely wants her own way, and I am constantly having to tell her to watch the tone in her voice, something that is difficult to figure out how to phrase for a two-year-old. However, she also busts out with hysterical stuff, like walking into her room when Jason and I are both already there and saying "hey guys!" Or trying to figure out how to say Periwinkle, the name of a cat, and saying "pinkywiggie" instead.

Potty training is going decently. I know that people have these stories of training their kids in three days, but that's just not Alexis. Or maybe I'm not dedicated enough. She has, however, peed in the potty at least once a day for about a week, and she pooped once last week, too! This is exciting news for me. Cleaning it up is not my favorite thing, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to pass them along. One great tip is to use a coffee filter when she's pooping, but it's a big pain when she's just peeing.

She's also still growing, but she's still so tiny! She barely fits into 24m or 2T stuff sometimes, and I just bought her an 18m dress a little while ago. But she's so cute in her petiteness! I chopped all of her hair off the other day. She now has a very short bob. Her hair was touching her shoulders, but it was so thin, especially at the ends, that I just decided to cut it off. Hopefully it's thickening up some. She's doing so much big girl stuff, though, like climbing the stairs at Chick-fil-a to go down the slide, or climbing up the swirly purple slide at the playground. She still wants to help with Micah a lot, which is nice, but she tends to get in the way a lot, too, so we try to find the balance between letting her feel free to express herself and do what she wants AND restricting her and pulling her back when necessary. It's quite a task.

Micah is just HUGE! I was so sad because yesterday I put him into some six month pajamas for the first time. And they fit. Where is my baby time? In a year they're going to look like they're twins... He has started to sleep through the night about half of the time, and by that I mean he goes in his crib around 9 and gets up at 5 or 6. The other half of the time he gets up around 2 or 3 and then I feed him again in the early morning. He lets me sleep more than Alexis ever did. I suppose that huge belly of his can hold a lot more food at a time.

He's a lot mroe interactive now, too. He likes to grab things and bring them to his mouth, he's playing with his fingers a ton and is learning how to suck on his hand and his thumb, and he smiles and laughs so much! I actually really like changing his diaper because 1. he usually only poops about once a day (Alex pooped ALL the time), and 2. when I start taking off his clothes, he gets this huge smile on his face and will usually start laughing because he knows what's coming. And then if I tickle his belly or kiss it a lot he'll laugh even harder, and it's so adorable!

The kids are doing well, and our life is getting really crazy. Jason has been working a lot lately because he's acting as a field office director for Bolivia for a few months, and I just finished training for the online tutoring company I'm going to be working for. I imagine that I'll start next week or the week after. I'll be reading and giving critical feedback about papers that students submit to the company. A bunch of colleges pay for the service, so it's not like it costs the students anything, and I'm supposed to do about one paper every 30 minutes. That part will be a challenge at first, but it will get easier as I progress. We'll see how it works; right now I have to work ten scheduled hours a week, which is a lot. I'm also going to be teaching another Eastern class in about a month. While it's not the ideal time and will make things really hectic, it's a great opportunity, it's a grammar class (I couldn't handle a writing one right now), and the pay is too good to pass up. New kitchen counters, here I come! Actually, my current house project is painting the grout in our kitchen, which is a dificult task. It's not going to look perfect, but it's going to look a whole lot better than the black, dirty grout that we currently have that will never get clean.

We're off to the park this afternoon. :) Pictures. Soon. I promise. Maybe.

It's a PARTY!!!

Yesterday I did some more "decorating" in Alex's room. I got a bunch of ladybug wall decals and put them all over the place. I was trying to get it all done before she came in, but she wanted to come upstairs so I let her see it. She walked in, looked around, said "WOW" and "it's a party!!!" This is her phrase for her new room - IT'S A PARTY!!! I think that's pretty hysterical. We've been trying to start potty training her, but so far she's not very into the idea. We sit on the potty a few times each day, and she'll SAY that she needs to poop but hasn't done that yet. The strange thing, though, is that every morning she wakes up talking about needing to poop in the potty. It's the first thing she says. Last night she was sitting on the potty and she grabbed her clean diaper, saw a green puppy, and said goodnight to the green puppy, kissed him, gave the diaper to me, and then kep saying goodbye to the green puppy and blowing him kisses, all while sitting on her potty that she won't use.

Micah had his two month check-up last week and weighs 12 pounds, 1 ounce, so he gained 1 1/2 pounds, which is a much more normal amount of weight to gain. He also had three shots, poor kid, but was very brave. He's still on his medicine for thrush, but if he doesn't stop needing it before, he shouldn't need it by the time he starts eating solids. I also got my flu shot while I was at the doctor because since Micah's too young, he recommended that I get one. He definitely still needs the medicine, though, because when he doesn't have it, he gets crankier and spits up more, etc. Recently, the kids have been letting me sleep in later, which is great! WHen Micah has his early feeding, he usually doesn't go back to sleep immediately after that, but even if he fusses some, I've learned that he doesn't need to eat again and that I can leave him in bed and he ends up pretty happy. He loves to watch the animals on his mobile go around and the pictures go by. (It has a projection thing on it; it's pretty cool.) But he loves that, and on his bouncy seat he just started trying to reach out and tough the little toys that hang on the bar. It's so exciting! I can't wait until he can truly push up on his elbows when he's on his stomach, although then he'll start rolling over and crawling and I'll never have any peace at all!

Jason left for Bolivia unexpectedly last night due to a work situation there, so we're flying solo for a little while. I have a whole list of things that I want to do around the house by the end of October, but we'll have to see if I actually get those things done. I think the first priority is to finally paint the kids' bathroom. I did some cutting in the other day as motiviation to get the rest done. We won second place in our neighborhood's landscaping contest, which is supposed to come with a Home Depot gift card. (We heard the news through neighbors who were at the HOA meeting but haven't heard anything personally, so we're still a bit tentative.) And I still haven't heard back from them about what is wrong with the tree in our front yard that is in viloation.

I am now going to rescue my son from his misery. (He still hates tummy time, but he's got to do it. Hopefully, he'll be much happier when he can push up.)

It Doesn't Get Much Better

I woke up this morning a little before seven. Micah was upset because he had spit up badly all over his bed and was pretty uncomfortable. (And he had a really full dirty diaper.) However, as I was changing him I heard Alexis say her adorable "heWWWOOOOO!!!" She was still in bed so I opened the door, and a moment later she ran into Micah's room and spontaneously said, "I love you." And right now she is giving me a huge hug. And THEN, to top it off, Micah gave me a HUGE smile right after that. Being a mom is pretty cool sometimes.

Yesterday Micah finally mastered turning his head from lef tto right AND right to left while he's on his stomach, which was pretty cool to see. He's getting so big! I'm going to miss the trembling chin when I pick him up sometimes, the way that he pats me with his hand sometimes when I'm burping him, like he's trying to burp me in return, and his general "babyness" because it's not going to last for long!

Yes, He's Still a Meatball

Micah still seems huge to me, and he's getting more and more adorable, if I do say so myself. While he still has his fussy moments, he remains a pretty chill kid. And very strong. He still doesn't like tummy time, but he can push himself up a little bit and change the direction of his head from one side to the other (right to left, if I recall correctly). He is also eating at longer intervals, which is really nice. At night he has started to go at least 3-4 hours most of the time. (On Saturday night he slept from 10-3, which was incredible, but unusual. He didn't sleep much during the day, though, so I'm sure he was exhausted.) He's starting to get the hair loss ring and has a small bald spot on the back of his head already. Sadness, but it happens to almost all kids, right? The biggest thing, though, is that he has started to smile! I first noticed it a week ago, and they've been becoming more frequent, and he even gave one to Jason the other day when he walked through the door!

Alexis is more and more communicative and remembers everything. And repeats everything. They say kids at this age are simply a sponge, and that really is the truth. She has started to get out of bed sometime when we put her to sleep at night, so last night before prayer we told her that she needed to stay in bed and she wasn't allowed to get out. When I asked if she understood, she said, in her toddler speak, "Understand. Stay IN BED." It was pretty cute, and she did stay in bed. She's starting to say yes ma'am and sir on her own, and she has finally picked up your welcome. And she gets her pronouns entirely confused, but that's normal. (She always says, "MY TURN" when she wants me to do something.)

Other than that, we had a great time in Wilson over the weekend, but traveling with two kids is a bit exhausting. It's more Alexis that's the difficulty now, but that's because she no longer automatically just goes to sleep in the car. I think we're going to look into getting a used or refurbished portable dvd player that we use for just the car on trips. If we can find one for a reasonable price, we think it will be worth it. We've slowly been putting more final touches on the house, like I finally replaced the blinds in the kitchen above the sink, and we finished the front yard landscaping. The three of us just got back from the playground, where it was absolutely beautiful outside. Who would have thought Virginia would see this kind of weather in the first week of September? Bring it on, fall!

Micah's First Month

Pictures are posted in the provious entry...

Micah now weighs ten pounds, nine ounces. I was astounded! He truly is our little meatball. He gained two inches and is now twenty-two inches. The doctor said that he looks good and that I don't need to be concerned about the weight gain, especially because he's breastfed, and breastfed babies are almost never obese. It's just so strange to think about the difference between Alexis and Micah because she wasn't that big until almost six months.

He has a little bit of cradle cap, has been breaking out a lot recently (probably due to a little bit of heat rash), and has some thrush, so we are going to put him on some medicine to see if we can resolve that. We suspected that he had some reflux issues and the doctor thinks he probably does, too, but we're not putting him on anything for that because it's very manageable. (Alexis' was a lot worse.) The thrush medicine will also, hopefully, help with it as well.

Overall, though, he looks great. It's just shocking how huge he is. Alexis continues to be hysterical and adorable with her brother, but she does have her moments of despair and tragedy when I can't come to her and spend time with her. Overall, she has truly adjusted wonderfully. She is currently obsessed with her Elmo socks and reading about chickens in Spanish.

We finally fnished the landscaping for the front yard. There was a small patch to the right of our steps that needed a retaining wall and a maple, and it actually ended up taking a LOT more work than we thought it would, especially considering that Jason had to pull up a 1 1/2 foot by 1 foot concrete slab, but we finished it late Saturday morning and now have, what I think, is the best looking front yard in the community!

I'm doing well. It's been great having Jason work from home on Wednesdays and off on Fridays. I try to keep the house reasonably clean but don't stress about it too much, and even though I have to get up in the middle of the night, I still feel incredibly well-rested for having a one-month old and a toddler. (I have Jason to thank for a lot of that, especially for letting me sleep!) Micah is starting to go longer between feedings, which is very good news for me, and it's been nice to have some down time the past few weeks.

Just the details this entry. :) That's it for now.

Pictures