Nothing...then lots

Why does it always seem that you have many weekends where you have nothing going on, or very little, then on one weekend you have lots. This past weekend was very busy in the Taylor household & here are a few shots.

Saturday
Here are Brad, his brother & their cousin Scott with their respective children. We unfortunately started this photo session right before we put Jason to bed, therefore he was not in the mood for "look here, say cheese!". On top of that challenge, try to get 5 kids ages 3 & under to all look at the camera.




Sunday

Sydney & I went to Toronto to see Mom at her hotel to have a swim with Aunt Kim & Regan. Mom flies out today for Panama & is definitely leaving a snowy winter day behind. Last night our drive home was an hour & an half, compared to the 45 minutes it should have been. There were no snowplows in sight & the cars on the road were responsible for deciding where the lanes were. Kim & Regan's drive home involved a jerk rear-ending them & then taking off. Both are fine, but may be stiff today.

Monday
I took Sydney to Little Goobers today to play with her friends. Grandma & Papa stayed with Jason & thank goodness for that. Sydney had a blast at the playground, but her height deficiency did require assistance for some of the climbs.

Very Early Riser

Wanna see my teeth???

Too late.

This morning we had a very early bird. Jason started his chatter in his crib at the dark hour of 5:45am. I did not get him until 6:30am & even then I still did not want to get up, so I brought him to bed with me. He was like a baby on speed, he was so hyper. Squealing, lunging, & just not being calm at all. I am glad he wakes up so happy, but wish he would do it around 7am. I have told him repeatedly that if he is not going to sleep through the night, he is not allowed to start the day until at least 7am. Some days, he refuses to listen.

Right now it is nap time & he is sleeping, Sydney is not. She has been in there for about an hour & has not slept yet. He is now waking up & only slept an hour. He is teething again & I believe that is our culprit that is ruining his sleep.

Pretty in blue. Not my first choice to use, but was the only quick-drying polish I have.

Bundled up & ready to go.

Big girl bed is on its way...

Yesterday Jason & I went to Sears to have his portrait taken. I was a little nervous about how our photo session would go considering he did not have a very long nap in the morning & when we arrived for our appointment we had to wait for almost 20 minutes. But, he did pretty good & we got some good poses. I knew the chances of me getting him back home without falling asleep in the van were not great, so I figured we might as well head to Oakville afterwards to order Sydney's (/Jason's future) bed.

I had packed Jason's lunch & we headed to the food court in the mall to feed him & me. Although he is sitting, he is not necessarily very good in a high chair so I was not sure how our lunch session would go. But, he sat way better in the mall chair than he does at the one at home! He was very busy looking around, so I got to eat first (which is a rarity).

The decision about what type of bed to get for the kids was not one that was made quickly. The biggest question was do we get a bed made out of wood & particle board for fear that the kids will destroy it with jumping, markers, stickers, or whatever they can come up with or do we pay extra for one made with real wood. I think Brad's fear of destruction has been somewhat alleviated & we ended up getting one made of real wood.

One of our biggest considerations for the bed was storage options. This bed will go into Jason's room when he is big enough for a "real" bed & his room is much smaller than Sydney's so we wanted to have storage underneath. The next challenge was getting one that doesn't look too much like a kid's bed because hopefully Jason will be able to use it until he leaves for college. So, below is our final choice. The top picture shows the bed & the bottom picture shows what the drawers underneath look like.


It should be delivered in the next 6 weeks, so now we have to get: mattress, bed rail, & sheets. Looks like I have more shopping to do. On the sheet front however, Sydney keeps saying she wants Cinderella sheets- so I may not have too much say there.

Sydney's Children

This is the scene we found yesterday. Sydney informed us that she was feeding her children. If you look closely you may be able to see that they each have food in their lap. We are often telling her to not leave her toys on the stairs, but this one time was too cute to give her that lecture. She is quite the little mother.

Things that make me smile...

Jason's first kiss. Katie is making her move early- get him while he can't get away.

Jumping bean.

Sydney laughing with Logan, rather than telling her to get away.

Sydney doing crafts.

Jason loves his toes. Hopefully soon it will be warm enough that he can see more of them.

Jason moved up to the bath ring last night.

I found Sydney on our bed this morning reading a book to her baby.
Apparently "Baby" is her sister.

Dear Sandi...

Sydney opening up her Valentines in her mailbox.

Sandi, I read your blog yesterday where you wondered if your Valentine's Days will change when you become married. Well, truthfully they will always be what you & Curt choose them to be.

If you are anything like me, once you have kids you will be planning the day as much for them (maybe more) as you are for your husband. If you read Carrie's entry, you probably saw that the same applied to her "plans".

Taylor Valentine's Recap

Brad & I have not bought gifts for Valentine's Day for a few years. Really, what do we need on Valentine's Day that we shouldn't be getting any day of the year to show how much we love each other? We do however make a point of going out for dinner- but not on Valentine's Day. On this particular holiday the restaurants are too busy & often have a "special" menu that you can't order whatever you want anyway. Now that we have kids, this also creates another hiccup in going out. Who do you get to watch the kids on a "school night"?

Romantic dinner set for three.

So, in planning for Valentine's Day I figured we would have a special meal at home. Since we are going out on the weekend, I wanted the meal to be something special for Sydney too. Rather than waiting until the kids went to bed to have a nice meal together, I opted to plan on us all eating together. I figure for as long as the kids will permit it & not think it is too corny, we will have a dinner lit by candlelight. We all really like crab legs, so for the occasion I figured this is what we would have. I should have remembered that I am usually eating dinner with Jason on my lap since he is often very tired at this point in the day & never lasts through our meal on his own. Since crab legs cannot be eaten with one hand, it was not a very relaxing dinner.

When scooping with your finger is too slow, stick your whole head in the bowl.

For dessert, a heart-shaped chocolate brownie with ice cream was on the menu. When Sydney got up from her nap she helped me make it. As you can see, she was very interested in taste testing the product before it went in the oven. Since the pan would fit I thought I would bake it in the toaster oven & then I didn't need to worry about Sydney getting to close to the hot oven. Unfortunately I learned that the toaster oven is not the best place to bake something & our heart broke coming out of the pan.

Broken heart on Valentine's Day

Brad & I did wait until the kids were in bed to exchange our cards & have our dessert. We did need to have some time alone to celebrate the "romantic" holiday. However, to top off the evening, I went to bed early because the wine we drank at dinner gave me a headache. Poor Brad.

I tried to get a nice picture of Sydney & Jason. Jason was cooperating with a smile, but Sydney was too tuned into DORA. It was a longer episode about Friendship bracelets. I am assuming it was because of Valentine's Day.

Winter Wonderland

Sydney & I did not make it out to shovel yesterday afternoon, but I did go out to take a picture to show how much snow we have. Before "the storm" hit, we maybe had a foot of snow on our front lawn. Well, that has all changed.

I don't think I will be getting into the passenger side of the van for awhile.

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, it sure is a winter wonderland outside. Perfect weather to cuddle up before a roaring fire & spend the evening with your Valentine. Problem is we don't have a fire, but I am sure we can make do with something else. Although, Lost is on tonight. Would it be terribly unromantic if we cuddled up with a glass of wine & watched Lost?

Sydney went to daycare this morning, but I picked her up before lunch. While Jason was napping I shovelled the driveway & sidewalk. Even though Brad had shovelled only two hours before there was another 4 inches of snow. I wanted to get a couple of things at the grocery store for our Valentine's dinner & figured I was only going to clear the way & bundle Jason up once to go out. I don't think Sydney minded coming home early & thankfully was well behaved & Jason also seemed thrilled to have her home to entertain him too. They are both in their rooms right now & hopefully will each have a decent nap so that our afternoon goes as smoothly as our morning did.

I think Jason is cutting teeth again. He has woken up a couple of times in the last two nights. I looked at his top gums & think I see something white under the surface. Although, I may "want" to see it so that I have a reason in my head for why he is waking up again. I guess we will have to wait & see if anything pops out in the next couple of weeks.

I told Sydney that after her nap we would go outside & shovel the snow...AGAIN! However, I think I better go now & remind Sydney that we are only going outside after she has had a nap. I can hear her moving around upstairs & not working too hard at going to sleep. When I picked her up at Jo's she looked like she could go to sleep right then, but of course when I put her down for a nap she decides to play. GRRR!

If we make it outside, I will post some pictures later of our winter wonderland.

A Day at the Mall

On Saturday we met Kim, Pete, & Regan at Upper Canada Mall for lunch. Since we knew we were going to be spending the afternoon at the mall we were trying to coordinate our travel with Jason having a nap. Of course, Murphy's Law, he had a long nap in the morning & we knew that putting him in the van an hour after he got up was not going to result in a nap on the way to Newmarket. So we called Kim & Pete and asked if we could meet up an hour later.

On the way home from Newmarket we were going to stop at a furniture store to look at one more option for Sydney's big girl bed before making our final decision. So to be sure that we still had time to do it we decided to stop on the way. After the furniture store we were going to find a Tim Horton's (not a difficult task in the Golden Horseshoe) so that we could feed Jason before heading out for Newmarket.

Well, our little pit stop turned out to take a little longer than planned. Miss Sydney was drinking her milk & tipped it a little too far resulting in a spill that mainly landed on her pants. She of course started to freak, because this is what she does when she gets her clothes wet (unless of course she is playing with water in the sink). Brad took her into the bathroom to see if he could get them a little dryer using the hand blowers, but of course that was pretty much a wasted effort. When he brought her back out to the table she was still upset about the state of her pants & proceeded to try & take them off! Thankfully her Pull-up provided some resistance so she did not get them down before we could explain to her that she can't take her pants off in public. I thought this little "obsession" only applied to wet socks, but apparently it is all clothing. We told her that when we got to the van we would take her pants off & Mommy would hold them over the vent during our drive so that they would be dry by the time we got to Newmarket. Thankfully this worked.

Our little drama put us behind schedule & we had a couple patches of freaky weather that slowed down the driving- therefore we arrived late. I don't think Kim & Pete minded too much except that Regan was getting rather impatient for her cousins to arrive. We had a very nice lunch (although the service wasn't impressive), I got to exchange some Christmas presents, found something for Jason to wear for his 6 month portrait, and Sydney & Regan had fun playing on the indoor playground. The Dads also put the girls on the mechanical rides that they have for kids & we learned that those rides "soak" you even more now than when we were kids. It was a loonie per ride & the ride lasted for maybe 45 seconds. Brutal!

But, all in all, it was a nice day at the mall with family.

Picnic in February

Sometimes you need to do things to remind you of nicer weather. Although today was not the blistering cold that we have been experiencing lately, it was still winter & made you wish for warm, sunny days. On warm, sunny days it is nice to go on a picnic so why not pretend & have a picnic indoors with your friends?

Sharing of the horse has resulted in tears before, but not today! No Sydney is not wearing a belly shirt, she just doesn't have her pants pulled high enough.
Although, the sweater could be a little longer.

Today had its trying moments with Sydney, but thankfully she played well with her friends, shared her toys, & did not cry once (during their stay). Jason had a great day & made me almost forget the fussy days he has had of late.

Since it wasn't too cold we made sure we got outside for a little bit & did Sydney's favourite outdoor task...shovelling.

Jason watching Sydney & I shovelling.

Off to pick up the mail.

First Pearly Whites

Well Jason has cut his first teeth & they have not come quietly. Like his sister, the bottom two teeth have cut at the same time. Unlike his sister, he has not handled them coming in that easily. The last few days with Jason have not been a treat. He has either been OK or the very opposite of OK. I don't think that I can think of a time in the last three days where I would describe him as "happy" for a length of time greater than 20 minutes, but he has not always been miserable either. When he is miserable, you are constantly being his taxi & it doesn't necessarily do much to improve his mood.

Surprisingly enough though he did not wake to be fed until 5:55am this morning!!! He woke up about 3 or 4 times through the night, but I would hear him just talking to himself & then either he or I fell asleep after about 10 minutes. So maybe there is hope that by 7 months he will be going through the night consistently. I talked to the doctor yesterday about his night feeding & she said that until 9 months it is normal...so hopefully he drops it before then.

He was weighed & measured for his 6 month visit yesterday & weighs in at 17 lbs 4 oz and is 67 cm long (approx 26.5 inches). I am not confident in the length being correct since we wouldn't straighten his legs out for the nurse.

Content may not be suitable for all readers

The last week has been a trying one in the Taylor household. The week started with Sydney's fever last Monday & she just wasn't herself all week. Jason treated us (me- I seem to be the only one who cannot sleep through it) to three nights in a row of an hour's crying around 1am. I am thinking that his pain tolerance is not what his sister's was & the teeth that are starting to push up were causing him some discomfort.

On Friday, Sydney finally had a physical symptom that confirmed our beliefs that she just wasn't feeling well. Diarrhea. Brad unfortunately learned of this condition the hard way. This is the scene, I am in the kitchen getting dinner ready, Brad is in our room changing his clothes & Sydney starts crying out in the bathroom. Brad yells from the bedroom for Sydney to use her words to tell him what is wrong. Meanwhile he has finished getting dressed & heading to the bathroom to see firsthand what is the matter. Sydney had to go to the bathroom, but didn't quite make it & he found a foot diameter of poop on the floor (not counting the splatter as he would tell you).

She had done so well all day getting to the bathroom in time, but this one time she just wasn't quick enough & Daddy was the lucky one to help her out. I was really impressed with how well she did Friday, because with that nasty condition it can be difficult for an adult to make it there in time let alone a little girl. Saturday she was a bit better, but she essentially laid around all day & would eat nothing but dairy products. Therefore, when she went to the bathroom last night & had a banana-shaped poop (her words, not mine) it was also the colour of a banana. I have never seen something so disgusting.

You probably didn't really want to hear about that, but I thought it was at least humourous enough to share. When you have kids, your topics of conversation often change. However, I know of many guys that have poop conversations well into their...adulthood.

Six Months

Well that time is here, the halfway point in your first year. Although you have had many milestones already, the next six months will include changes that will give you more control in your environment. You will become a more active member of our family- hope we are ready for it!

The midpoint of your first year is bittersweet. Although I anticipate each milestone to come, I also know that as each day goes by my return to work is also getting closer. Six months from now I will be back to work, you will be at daycare (probably being smothered by your sister), and we all will be adjusting to having less time together. I truly look forward to going back to work, but leaving you in the hands of someone else to "raise" you 8 hours a day is hard. Hopefully you will adjust as easily as your sister did & will love going to Jo's to spend time with her and the other kids.

In the last month you have gained a lot of strength. You are very strong on your legs & your back has gotten very strong. Although you cannot sit on your own, I think you would be capable of doing it if you chose to work on it. You are such a wiggle worm that you do not sit still or move slow enough to master any skill of balance.

You have been rolling over onto your tummy for the last few weeks & you can now master getting back onto your back. However, you can only roll one way. Therefore, once you meet a barrier in your journey you cry out in frustration. The meaning of our efforts to show you that you can go in multiply directions has not yet registered.

Last week you treated us to a couple of full night's sleep. You were in bed by your usual time of 7pm & slept through until 5am one morning (although I think it was your sister that woke you) and 6:15am the next morning. This was very exciting for Mommy, but you have not done it again since. I am hoping to see more repeat performances of this over the next month so that hopefully by your next "month's" birthday it is a common occurrence. You are still a little tricky on napping as well. For your morning nap, you started waking up after only 20 minutes so we had to do a couple of days of "tough love". Now you are back to napping 30-45 minutes in the morning & about an hour and a half in the afternoon. You need a nap in the late afternoon, but that does not always happen & when it does you hardly ever go longer than 20 minutes. Therefore, you are more than ready for your bed by 7pm. You typically sleep until 3:30 to 4:30 & then wake up for a quick feeding before going back to sleep until 7:15am. One of the best changes in the last month has been that you almost always wake up in the morning & just chat to yourself for awhile. It's nice to be woken up in the morning to the sound of your chatter, rather than your cry.

Another welcome improvement over the last month is travelling with you in the car & shopping. You no longer cry as soon as you are put in the car seat & when I watch you in the back of the van, you are just looking around at your surroundings. Same goes for when we are shopping. It took almost six months, but we finally made it. If you are tired though, we are still treated to quite the cry. You are definitely a little boy with very little patience. When you get it in your head that you want something, you want it NOW!

On the weekend we started giving you cereal & although you were not sure at first, you definitely love it now. This is also an area where you have very little patience. It is not always wise for me to put you in the high chair BEFORE I have your food ready for you. The other day I had to get you out & walk you around to settle you down before I could feed you. You get SO upset. You have now had rice cereal, sweet potatoes & today we tried green beans. You didn't really want the beans, so we will need to try those again to see if it was a timing problem.

On Monday we went to Diaperfit for the first time. This was your first time in the pool & I think you did great. During the exercise class you float in a duck & you seemed content enough for at least half an hour. After that you had enough & wanted out. Again, tiredness &/or hunger could have been the problem. We will have to try again and see how it goes.

You are becoming freer with your smiles. When we are out, you are a more social little boy. You will look around at people & reward them with a smile when they talk with you. However, you are always very aware of where Mommy is & will often fuss for me to hold you when someone else has you. There are lots of people out there besides Mommy who would like to get to know you better, so give them a chance!

Happy Birthday Brad

On your birthday you should be able to come home and relax, put your feet up & be catered to. Well, if this is what Brad was hoping for he sure didn't get it.

Sydney is running a fever of 102 & is a little out of sorts. Although she had not been crying before, she cried for reasons unknown for about 5 minutes after Brad got home. He did get the joy of her running to him & giving him a hug & starting to sing "Happy Birthday", but somewhere in the middle of the song things changed for her. She did not eat any dinner (however did ask if she could have some cake) & was in bed by 7:10pm.

Jason had a great day (we finally made it to Diaperfit! Yeah!), but was pretty tired by suppertime & had a 5 minute crying fit before he ate his dinner. Thankfully we got the picture taken before he decided to have his mini meltdown. Jason was already in bed when we had cake on Saturday night, so I wanted to be sure we got the picture tonight. Jason was in bed by 7pm. So although things were not exactly smooth from 5:30pm to 6:30pm, the kids are in bed early & it is quiet. Very quiet actually, because the birthday boy is out the door to hockey.

Hopefully his game is more relaxing than his supper hour was.

(In case you are wondering, no I did not make the cake. Brad's mom is still in charge of cakes- thank God- and each cake has to have a theme. This year's them was "When pigs fly" and had the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup)

At last, real food!!!

Last night Jason slept through the whole night. He was asleep by 7:30pm & slept through until 6:15am. The night before he may have done the same if his sister hadn't cried out at 4:50am & woken him up. To celebrate these mini victories we thought that we would give Jason his first taste of cereal. It was a very amusing affair.

We remember Sydney making some funny faces the first time she was given cereal, but she definitely was not as animated as Jason.

At first he was leaning away from me not sure what was going on, but once he realized that there was food on that spoon he was trying to grab it away from me & feed himself. Sydney of course also was a good big sister & helped us during the big event. At the end of the bowl, Jason started to cry because he was not happy it was all gone.

Black-eyed Sydney

The swelling is gone, but the colour is in. Most of the bruising is on her eyelid, so when her eye is open you can't see it as much. I tried to have her close her eye so I could take a picture, but of course that means she is squinting. Therefore, I had to get her to lie on the steps and look at me. That was the best vantage point for the picture.

We did not make it to the Y today because Jason was having a weird nap, so I didn't have to worry about a bunch of strangers looking at me like I beat my daughter.

Our happy girl seems to be back

Obviously this picture is from the weekend prior to the fall.
Her brother is snuggling up with her on the couch.

For about 2 months before Christmas Sydney was not her usual happy self. We would have "happy" days here & there, but nothing consecutive. However, I have noticed a shift over the last few weeks & last night I said to Brad that it is nice to have happy, smiley, chatty Sydney back again.

Who knows the reason why she was the way she was, there are so many possibilities. Top three being: little baby in the house to share spotlight with, little baby in the house interrupting her sleep, or she may have been just demonstrating typical 2-year-old behaviour. We still have days where she is overly "sensitive" & she is still not as social in a crowd as she once was, but there is a definite improvement.

Her eye doesn't seem to be bothering her too much now, but it is definitely a dark shade of purple. When she has her eye open you don't notice it too much because most of the bruising is on the eyelid. Tomorrow morning we are going to go to a playgroup at the local Y, & I am sure that she will cause a few heads to turn when they see her. Hopefully no one calls the authorities.

Hopefully Sydney is still interested in showing things to Jason when he starts to swipe them away. We keep telling her that Jason loves to watch everything his big sister does & that there is lots for her to teach him!

On the move, but it's a one way street

Jason has figured out how to get from back to tummy & tummy to back, however he has not yet mastered the art. This skill of his only goes one way. Therefore he is travelling, but only in a straight line until he meets a barrier.

We are still wedging him in the crib to be sure that Jason & the rest of the house get some sleep. I am sure that if I now took the wedges away & he got himself pressed up against the rails of the crib, he would figure out how to get back sooner. However, last night for an unknown reason he had me (& probably Brad & Sydney) up for almost an hour so I am still not ready to take my security wedges away from him.

You would think that after being awake from 1:45 to 2:30 he would then sleep through his 3:30am feeding, right? Wrong. He woke up at 3:30am chatting away & was pretty bright-eyed when I was feeding him & fretting that I was not going to be able to get him to go back to bed. It took a little extra rocking, but he was back in bed by 4:15am.

Eye Update
The swelling is still not gone on Sydney's eye, but the shiner is definitely starting to develop.