Van @ 12 Months
Growth & Appearance: People keep asking us if you have red hair. To me, it appears brown on top and blond in the back.
You have four teeth on top and four on the bottom.
You love wearing shoes on your feet which is funny because I have yet to put shoes on your feet. Instead, you’ve picked up on the fact that we all wear shoes and in an effort not to be excluded, you come crawling up to me often with your brother’s shoes in your hand pointing at your feet.
You’re wearing size 4 diapers, size 18-2T clothes. You seem incredibly tall.
Eating: You’re still a champion eater, but you’ve developed some preferences. Some days you simply eat more than others. And you may refuse something you loved just the day before. When you don’t like the food sitting in front of you, you like to swipe your hands from one side of the table to the other making food fly everywhere. Sarah loves this.
You’ll eat, or at least try, everything. Your current favorites are watermelon and bananas.
I’ve cut our breastfeeding sessions in half with hopes of weaning, but then I got emotional about it, so we’re sticking to four feedings a day plus 1-2 bottles of frozen breast milk. You’re able to drink from the bottle on your own.
You have a serious desire to use silverware. You’re always wanting to be just like us. Your ability to do so, however, sucks. It does keep you entertained, so oftentimes we give you a spoon.
Sleeping: You are officially attached to your blanket. It’s funny how that happens. You love to snuggle with it and often point and whine while you’re on your changing table until I grab the thing out of your crib and put it in your arms. Then you like to put it over your face and play peek-a-boo. You’re quite the peek-a-boo fan these days.
We had to move the noise maker out of your crib because you not only figured out how to turn it off, but also how to reach your little arm out of the crib and unplug the cord from the wall.
Breastfeeding puts you to bed most nights, but some nights you’re still awake when I put you down. When this happens, we can hear you playing with your activity center. Eventually you fall asleep on your own, without a fuss.
You wake up around 8am, nap from 10:30am to 1pm, nap from 4:30pm to 6pm, and go down for the night around 9:30pm. When we’re out and about, we forgo the second nap. Sometimes we pay the consequences, but most of the time you function off of whatever sleep you get in the car.
Talking: More than words, you point and whine. You point at everything and expect everyone to obey your commands.
You’re good with D’s and are able to say “down”, “done”, and “dog”. You say “hello” whenever you have a phone in your hands. “Boon” is “balloon” and “ka” is “car”. And, oh yes, you say “mama”.
Development: You dance anytime there is music on. In fact, one of your favorite things to do is to crawl over to the record player, pull yourself up, and turn the music up as high as it goes while you drop it like it’s hot.
To say you’re still crawling is kind of a lie. You’re more like motor-crawling. You’re faster than all hell and often crawl up on all fours without your knees touching to get wherever you’re going as fast as possible.
You’re able to stand without holding onto anything, but it always has to be on your own terms. Anytime we try to put you down on your feet, you drop to the floor. But when you’re playing, you’ll let go of whatever you’re holding onto and stand without a problem. You’ve taken a couple steps on your own.
You like books, especially the touch and feel books. You’ll grab a book and bring it to me to read to you.
I have little doubt that you are right handed. You do most everything with your right hand.
You’re a climber. You love climbing onto chairs and rocking back and forth. It’s totally safe and not scary at all to walk into a room and find you on top of a chair rocking back and forth. The other day Papa found you in the bathroom; You had climbed into the empty bathtub and were playing with your toys.
You suck your thumb, but not on a regular basis and not for any real length of time.
The toilet paper is almost always unraveled from the roll and the baking supplies are almost always strewn about on the kitchen floor. We ought to childproof the kitchen cupboards, but there’s not much in there that can cause anything more than a mess.
You’re still ridiculously strong. You love pushing your highcahir all over the house. And when your arm comes down on my chest when we’re playing on the floor, there is definite force behind it.
You love to laugh.
Favorites: Hands down, the four wheeler is your favorite. You spend the better part of the day on that thing and have got quite good at maneuvering around every corner of the house. You’re on that thing so much that when you opt to get down, we comment that you’ve chosen to “de-saddle”.
You love using a pen and paper. I think you got this from Hooper. My pens are constantly missing from my desk. You also love playing with the plugs; unplugging the record player is a daily occurrence.
My computer mouse is always on your wish list. And you love balloons.
Breastfeeding
photo source
I’ve completed my goal of breastfeeding for a year and, despite huffing and puffing at times, it’s been an enjoyable experience. Endings are always that way, aren’t they? Endings make you forget the struggles and remember the good times all for the sake of the positive memory. I gather that’s why many of us go on to have second and third children; because we forget what being pregnant in those last few months feels like and we forget how it feels to have every organ in your body feel like it’s going to fall out of your vagina after giving birth, choosing only to remember the joy of seeing the plus sign on that stick you just pissed on and the complete and utter elation in holding a freshly born baby, your freshly born baby, for the first time.
The memories of my hair being constantly pulled on and living my life in two hour increments is beginning to fall to the wayside as I start to enter the mourning phase of the fact my baby is no longer, well, a baby and that the days of him crazily crying when I get home after a day a work, eager to connect with me again, are also going to fall to the wayside.
Having Van was never a debate for us. We knew we wanted a minimum of two kids, maybe three. Now that we have two healthy boys, having a third has become a debate. I want a third. I didn’t hang on each moment of pregnancy and babyhood like it was my last. And now, it saddens me to know that I may never breastfeed another child.
My relationship with breastfeeding is nearing an end not only because I’ve reached my goal but because I physically cannot go much further. Van loves solids and ever since he started embracing the idea, my milk supply has decreased. There was a time when I pumped 14 ounces in the morning, then it plateaued to 8 ounces, and now I’m lucky to get 5. I have decided to trust that what I make is what he needs and now that I’ve reached my goal of a full year, I’m less neurotic about my supply.
I started to wean last week and got emotional about it, so my plan at this point is this: I will leave the weaning up entirely to Van. I will not stress about being away from him and I will allow the stress of maintaining my milk supply show it’s way to the door. And I will hold on to these last few weeks, or months, knowing that it could be the last time I have this privilege.
Currently I’m breastfeeding four times a day and supplementing with 1-2 bottles of breast milk from my ridiculous frozen stash supply.
When did you decide to end your breastfeeding relationship? Was it difficult? Do you miss it?
You can read my other posts on breastfeeding by clicking here.
Happy Birthday, Van
Dear Van,
I sat and watched you play this morning as the morning light poured in through the family room window and painted a glow around your bare naked body. Frustrated that the phone you were playing with closed shut (it’s a flip phone, something you’ll probably describe as ancient in ten years), you looked toward me with furrowed eyebrows and mouth open in disarray. I flipped it back open and you kept playing.
It’s summer and the days have been reaching the triple digits. We’ve been running the air conditioner even at night and despite the all-encompassing heat outside, it’s comfortable – if not cold – inside. So, before your morning nap, I put a shirt on you.
Today, I chose a green one with a dinosaur on it. It was neatly folded in your drawer, waiting to be chosen as it sat on top of all the others. It’s the first time you’ve worn this shirt. I moved it from your brother’s drawer, straight to your drawer, just a few days ago.
And that’s how life has been as of late — fast.
You turned one yesterday and I love you like you could never believe.
Mama
Side note: I’ll be announcing the winner to the Little Sweet Pea giveaway tomorrow. Remember you can get free shipping with coupon code StorkFreeShip.
Hooper @ 32 Months
Growth & Appearance: Your hair is growing longer and is often in your eyes. You don’t seem to care what-so-ever, so we’re letting it grow until you can tuck it back behind your ears. You’ll be the girl we never had and a pretty one at that.
You hate brushing your teeth as of late, especially the top front teeth, and thus they are yellow every now and again. You have no one to blame but yourself. The neighbors probably think we’re torturing you every night before bed.
You’ve grown out of all of your size 2T pants both in the waist and in the height. It’s possible that this happened a while ago, but we haven’t been wearing pants due to the triple digit heat and when I tried to put them on you the other night… well, it looked like you were ready for a flood.
You’re tall and thin.
Eating: Grrr… the dreaded topic of eating. Some nights you are just a downright pain in the ass. Feeding you is rarely easy. You’re not motivated by food at all. I made you try a bite of watermelon the other day and you pocketed it in your mouth until I asked you to spit it out 20 minutes later. It was watermelon, for goodness sakes. Even at a birthday party the other week, you carried around your cupcake until the thing nearly fell apart from being carried around for so long. I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’m still making you smoothies and you do eat well, but the struggle is unbelievable at times.
Sleeping: Your naps have been hit or miss as of late. You either nap for 2-4 hours, poop your pants and then refuse to nap, or refuse your nap from the get go. It depends largely on what you did the day prior. You missed your nap two days in a row, for example, and on the third day I woke you up after 4 hours of napping. Your schedule looks like this: wake up around 8:30am, nap around 11am to 2pm, bedtime around 9pm.
Talking: You add a lot of plurals to things that aren’t pleural. We kinda like it, so we don’t correct you. For example, you brought me a toy and referred to it as “brokens”. You saw money in a tip jar and referred to it as “monies”. And when you saw us walking with Van, you said, “brother walkins”.
You have a lisp with all of your S’s. You Papa mentioned taking you to speech therapy, but I think you’ll grow out of it. I guess you can blame me if years from now you’re still thrusting your tongue into the back of your front teeth.
I heard you having a full on “conversation” with your brother but I couldn’t understand exactly what you were saying.
Comparatively, I think you’re a little behind in speaking than other kids your age, but you’re constantly adding words and saying new things so I’ve never thought twice about it. You’re able to communicate all your needs and wants, even if it’s just through whining, which happens often.
Development:
You can catch a ball. I ask you to put your hands out, you do, and then I toss you the ball and you catch it. This leads to a touch-down type celebration and almost instantly Sarah joins in the fun and then things just get out of control.
You like to march. Not sure where you learned this or how you know it’s called marching.
You started swim lessons. You definitely don’t love it, but you don’t refuse to do it either. Instead, you sit there with your bottom lip out and awkwardly say “hi” over and over again. You don’t interact with any of the other kids.
You started horseback lessons on the days your Nina has you. I hear you like it.
You like to draw and are starting to pay attention when I tell you what shape is what.
You’re a spitting machine and like to spit on everything. Initially I ignored it, hoping that if I didn’t pay it any attention it would go away. It did not. Ask your Papa, he got it right in the face. It’s your new thing.
You play a game your Papa calls “magic hand” before bed. This is when your hand hasn’t popped through the sleeve of you pajamas and you pretend that it magically appears, thus “magic hand”. Then you hide your hand behind your back and play it all over again.
You flap you hands wildly by your side and refer to them as your fly-fly wings.
In general, you’ve been sweet as can be lately (minus the spitting). In particularly, you’ve been extra loving toward me, greeting me with big hugs when I come home and coming up to me randomly throughout the day for unsolicited hugs. You’ve also been sweet to your brother, asking to “pet him” often.
Favorites: Your favorite books are “Wacky Wednesday”, “Go, Dogs, Go”, and “The Bike Lesson”. You’re still obsessed with watching Curious George and I’ve welcomed it as a nice reprieve for when I need a moment of silence. We started some crafts, like painting, and you have artwork on the fridge to show for it. You love playing with the “nah-der” (water) outside. And, oh yes, your cars are still a big hit.
Brothers
Dear Hooper & Van,
And just like that, you like each other. Well, some of the time at least. Van, whenever you’re napping, Hooper wants to see you. Like really wants to see you; as in he pulls at my leg and tugs at my arm until I get up off my butt and walk toward your door. Hooper, you’re always disheartened when I tell you Van is sleeping.
That little tidbit is first and foremost.
Hooper, you’re learning to share you toys and your space. Not that you have much of a choice, as Van is constantly in your space and constantly wanting to do whatever you’re doing. Your answer to this is to move him out of the way. I’ve caught you trying to drag him from underneath his armpits until he’s out of your path. You need to eat some more protein, however, because more times than not you are not able to move him and you’re left having to ask for help cuz’ he’s “heav-vee” (heavy).
Loving how you love each other… at the moment, anyway.
Mama
A Sponsored Giveaway, from Little Sweet Pea, Inc. {CLOSED}
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You can enter any of the following ways. Please leave a separate comment for each entry to increase your chance of winning. As usual, the winner will be chosen in two weeks (on 7/25/13) using Random.com and will be announced here on Friday, July 26th. An email will also be sent, so make sure you email address is valid. This giveaway is open to US + Canada residents only.
-Visit Little Sweet Pea‘s etsy shop and an item to your favorites. Tell me what item you chose.
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July Fourth
All of the images above were taken from some of my favorite photographers, bloggers, and/or instagrammers. Please click on each photo to be taken to it’s beautiful place of origin.
When I was little, my dad used to tell me the fireworks were for me (my birthday is tomorrow).
Happy Birthday, America. Happy Birthday.
And a little jam to get the celebration started…
Brothers
Motherhood has such a way of slapping you in the face, doesn’t it? I mean I’ve found myself wishing for something one minute, only to get it the next and curse it through and through regardless. Like the day Van was born and I “couldn’t wait” for him to get to know his brother. Now he knows his brother and you know what? His brother’s one big bully. Now I find myself eager for the day Van can stand and balance, and well, fend for himself. Though I know I’ll be cursing those days where they’re here too.
Anyone have any helpful hints on building a friendly sibling relationship? I can practically hear my mom laughing through the computer screen.
Side note: You have two more days to enter the giveaway for a $50 gift card to Sweet Threads. You can enter here. And don’t forget about their grand opening in Long Beach (see post for details). I’ll announce the winner on Friday. I consider Shella, the face behind Sweet Threads, so thank you for supporting those close to me.
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newest contributor. You can read an interview they did with me here and check out my new feature, Widdle Wednesdays, here.
Van @ 11 months
Growth & Appearance: You hair is getting lighter and I’m wondering now if you too will be blond. The hair in the back of your head is significantly lighter than the hair at the top of your head, though it all seems to be in transition.
You’re wearing size four diapers and I’ve been meaning to go into the garage and get the next size up in clothing because I think it’s a little overdue. You’ll be wearing 18 month clothing as soon as I can get my shiznet together.
Your right leg is almost always black from dragging it around when you crawl.
You have four teeth on top and four on the bottom. We just started brushing them, which is more than we could have said for your brother… we waited until the doc pointed out that they were yellow before we started brushing his (hash tag: first time parents). You’ve started grinding your teeth, something I learned to be associated with teething. For you, teething also includes weird diarrhea, extreme fussiness, clinginess, and decreased appetite.
Your hair is all over the place in that it’s several different lengths. We have yet to cut or trim it and due to the the patches of hair you lost as a newborn, the hair in back is longer than the hair in front and it’s all just kind of wonky looking. 
Eating:You like drinking water from a sippy cup. You can drink out of a straw. You can hold your own bottle. You also like the idea of using utensils, but your coordination is, um, not quite there yet. You did, howver, grab a piece of food, place it on the spoon, and bring the spoon to your mouth… but I’d be lying if I said the bite actually made it to your mouth. In any event, you want to be just like us… in every aspect of daily life. You’re in such a rush to grow up.
You have more of a preference; you know what foods you like by simply looking at them. If you prefer something that’s on my plate over what’s on yours, you communicate that very clearly via whining. In general, however, you still like just about anything we put in front of you; it’s just that you love somethings and simply like other things.
Foods you love: bread, peas, avocado sandwiches, chicken, pasta, strawberries, cheerios… Who am I kidding… You love everything.
You’re still breastfeeding 8 times a day, but it’s getting harder to squeeze all those feedings in between naps and meals. I’m worried that if I start the weaning process that my milk will suddenly disappear completely and I’d really like to make it to a year, and perhaps then some. So I try to squeeze in all 8 feedings.
You went through a period of time where you were totally distracted while feeding. It has since gone away, but I spent that period only feeding you in your room with the light off and the door closed. It’s difficult to breastfeed you when we’re out and about or in the car because you’re much more interested in what’s going on around you. It’s hard, some days, to spend much time away from the house because I know there will be missed feedings. Part of me can’t wait to be done with breastfeeding so I can let it all go, but another part of me knows I’ll miss it and wonders if this could be the last time…
You also went through a period of biting me. Hard. I yelled at you quite a few times and it has since stopped. That made me want to throw in the towel. When you’re older, I’ll be sure to return the favor. For the record, nothing has made me want to throw you across the room more than when you bit my nipple. You’re lucky I worry about holes in the wall.
Not quite as bad as biting, but still annoying is your obsession with tweaking the nipple you don’t
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have in your mouth. Even if I have a shirt on, you seem to wiggle your little hand in there. Before you even latch on, you’re hand is searching for that free nipple to tweak. Sadly, I’ve gotten used to it. When you’re in a more aggressive mood, I have to find something to cover myself with that you can’t get through because it hurts too bad. 
Sleeping:When you wake up in the morning, with your tired eyes, I think you look most like me. There have been numerous days this past month that I have actually woken you up. Sounds crazy, I know, but our breastfeeding schedule gets all out of whack if we get started too late and we all know what a lunatic I am about breastfeeding. I’m eager to be done to celebrate the days I wake up long before you do. With that said, most days you wake up between 7:30 and 8:30. I don’t let you sleep much later than 8:30, though some days you would.
You become a little nuzzler when you’re tired, burring your head in our laps or snuggling up with a warm load of laundry straight out of the dryer. You’re fairly adaptable when it comes to sleeping in different places and/or falling asleep anywhere.
Breastfeeding puts you to sleep most nights, but not every night. Either way, you don’t have any trouble putting yourself to sleep.
You’ve learned how to turn your white noise maker off. We keep it in your crib and most mornings it’s either turned off or unplugged. If it’s the latter, this means you’ve reached your little arm out and around your crib and pulled the plug out of the outlet. What a little skeezer you are.
Talking: I’m not quite sure starting this “talking” category is justified quite yet… but… you’ve made your first attempt at saying your first word, “hello”. When we give you the phone, you hold it to your ear, look at us and say, “high-yah”… But in all honesty it sounds more like a high squeal that ressembles “hello”. What I’m trying to say is it’s not quite a word, more like a sound, but it’s clear what you are trying to say. So, “hello” is your first attempt at a word. And we’ll leave it at that.
Also, you wave when people say “hello” and when people say “goodbye”. And we’re both fairly certain you’re trying to say “car”.
Development: People describe you as “mellow”. I agree to some extent. You definitely make it known when you’re not happy or when something gets taken away from you, but the majority of the time you’re cool, calm, and collected.
You still bear crawl, up on all fours, when crawling on grass or dirt. The other day you bear crawled all the way under the car.
You can stand unassisted. The other day you pulled up on me and let go, distracted by something your brother was doing, for about 10 seconds. Then you realized you were standing and plopped back down to your butt.
You can walk with a push toy all the way down the hallway. You g’pa swears he watched you take your first two steps, but you have yet to repeat.
You are rough n’ tumble, reckless, all systems go; the kid that will make me look 45 by the time I’m 35. You’re shaping up to be a climber, an explorer, a limit-pusher, a boundary ignorer.
You’re incredibly physical. When I lay you down to change your diaper, you kick. When I breastfeed, you bite. When I lift you up off the ground, you kick your legs. Each time you are around a baby smaller than yourself, you pounce. And by pounce I mean all that baby sees are your hands on their face.
You climb on and over everything. You do this thing we call the “sumo stance” where you climb onto something (yesterday it was a suitcase) and stay in the squat position like a frog. The other day I found you on top of a chair.
You’re starting to take to your Papa more and more. That time when you leaned toward me no matter how far away I was, is fading. It’s bittersweet.
You have a lot of pride and you wear it well.
You follow simple commands. You give us big wide open mouth slobbery kisses when we ask.
You love to laugh and are very ticklish.
You like to be chased, crawling away from me as fast as you can but stopping every so often to take a peak over your shoulder to be sure I’m still chasing you. This 11 month mark is the start of real personality and I’m loving every moment of it.
Favorites: You still love the remote controls. You also love phones, both real ones and toy ones. You play alongside the sofa with your brother, each of you moving cars from one place to another. In general, you love learning from Hooper and are quick to mimic anything and everything he does. You still love putting everything in your mouth. It’s hard to play outside with you because nothing is off limits… dog poop, rocks, dirt… you’ll try it all. You like to grab the mouse down from my computer and then find me to show off what you “found”.