I know I still haven’t gotten to Thanksgiving or other events, but I’m going to put up a few days of pretty Christmas photos for you all to enjoy because I want to, it’s quick, and they’re of my beautiful girls.

Friday was Celia’s two month birthday and the poor girl got to celebrate it of course by going to the doctor and getting a shot. Our baby is a pile of smiles and cuteness these days. She sleeps a lot still by my Josie-set standards and eats even less frequently, including falling asleep without nursing. We will continue to knock on wood that things like this continue.

She’s getting stronger, her head control is very good unless she’s really tired. She wants to spend a lot of time upright and looking around and loves getting to move around and see new sights. She complains about being put in the carrier face in, and so I’ll humor her for a few minutes of facing out in the wrap even though it’s not great for her. She loves to watch Josie and blow raspberries at us. She also loves to look at Josie’s toys. I don’t think Josie has particularly noticed yet but I’m sure we’re going to have some major toy sharing issues in our future.

She loves toys which again is completely the opposite of Josie who found them pretty boring most of the time unless they were being moved. She will sit on her mat for 20 minutes and play or in the bouncy seat and coo and smile at the animals. She loves people too, but sometimes she really just wants to be left alone to stretch her legs and not be touched so much.

The doc measured her almost exactly the same size that Josie was at 2 months, she’s 11 lbs 6 oz and 23.5 inches long. Just a few ounces heavier and a quarter inch longer. Looks like we’ve got another tall skinny one which works out great for sharing their clothes.

For diapering right now we’ve been using prefolds and covers. Josie’s old bum genius 3.0’s were having problems with the velcro curling and not sticking well and since they were under warranty the company took them back and are sending me brand new version 4.0’s. This time I chose snaps to avoid the velcro problem all together. They’ve been slow getting them and returning them, almost a month, but I can’t be too upset about new diapers. These combined with the ones I’ve already got should mean no more diaper purchases for the rest of Celia’s diapering time.

All in all she’s a happy healthy easy going baby. Up a normal two or three times a night, sometimes giving us a long 5 hour stretch lately. I know this time to appreciate that!

Busy life these days, thanksgiving needs to be updated and such, but right now Celia’s got a cold, last week Josie had a cold and of course the holiday season of parties and shopping is upon us. Josie has decided to try out some new behaviors like ignoring me or shouting ‘no’ and running away as well as refusing to participate in gym class or basically do anything other than stay at home and play with her toys. We’re working on it, a few tactics may be helping which definitely includes cutting back trips out of the house to the bare minimum.

Celia has been waking up more and is generally happy except when wet, hungry or tired. She’ll play on her activity mat for an amazingly long time happily and as of about two weeks ago can bat at her toys and occasionally grab them (although that’s a reflex still we’re pretty sure). She loves her naked time and I took some pictures which I won’t post here, but if you come over I’ll show you the funny pictures of her adorable newborn body with the huge belly, tiny bowed legs and wrinkled bum. She also is showing the same desire for standing that Josie did at an early age. She’s getting strong fast! Can’t wait until she can sit up and play with toys a little, she looks like she’ll be great at entertaining herself a little bit. She definitely likes to watch Josie too!

We have a mat for Celia to hang out on with toys hanging above her head. She loves the Octopus. Winks at it, coo’s at it, and makes all sorts of faces for it. Here’s a small glimpse into her silliness.

Fred has once again rediscovered his love of our bouncey seat for the girls.

Someone flipped some switches with Josie here at age 2.5. She’s started the ‘why’ phase, with lots of them, thankfully not usually more than two or three in a row though yet which makes them mostly answerable. She’s also decided that ignoring mommy is a fun game to try out. I’m not so pleased with that one, but it is developmentally appropriate. We’re trying to let the natural consequences stand, such as when she chose not to show up for lunch today, she just didn’t eat and we went on with our routine and she went down for nap. I expect she’ll be hungry later, but she won’t starve in a few hours so it’ll be ok.

She wishes Celia would be awake more often, and doesn’t seem to understand that I can pay more attention to her if Celia is sleeping. That is the time she picks to play quietly by herself. She likes art projects but sometimes seems to be unsure of what to do lately, I’ve probably been structuring them too much for her lately to make some fun decorations, but she likes those too.

She’s very interested in understanding time, days and schedules. Today we worked on making a calendar for her so she can see the days of the week and the different activities we have planned for each one. Hopefully this will also help with the bedtime and naptime routines.

She’s taking her big kid gymnastics class now and she loves it. It’s the only time she’s under the authority of non-family adults at this point and she does well. Although I’ll often see her telling the teacher many random things about her life during class (“I got a shot from my doctor last week”, “I have a new baby!”…) The class is all older kids (3-5) and at this point she mostly watches them to see what to do rather than seeming to follow the teachers directions directly. She is definitely in awe of some of the bigger girls and follows them around to be near them. Thankfully they’ve taken a liking to Josie too.

At this point I’d say Josie is day-time toilet trained, we still have an accident a week or so randomly but mostly because she’s in ‘ignoring mommy’ mood and wants to prove she can ‘hold it’ when she just can’t anymore. We’re doing diapers still for naps and bed time. I can’t wait to ditch those too, but they’re clearly needed still, and I’m already washing diapers, so two extra a day is no biggie.

Basically we spend the day socializing with her friends (and mine) in the morning and then free play in the afternoon after nap. We do lots of reading, but just getting through the basics of the day takes a long time because she is very slow to transition and switch activities. She is very easily distracted and keeps changing her mind as to what she wants. Just trying to focus on reconnecting with her now as she has big big emotions when things go ‘wrong’ in her eyes and is also pushing the limits to see what she can do to us. When she’s happy she continues to be a joy to be around, very silly, funny and affectionate. She’s also very kind to Celia and wants to hold her and help with her too.

She also doesn’t walk much. It’s all running. Even across the room, she runs. Kinda funny!

• Size/weight: 3T and 4T, 30 lbs and 38 inches tall
• Favorite food: breastmilk, cheese, pasta – fairly wide variety, willing to try most things
• Favorite toy: baby dolls, doctors kit, baby toys
• Favorite books: Elephant and Piggie books, Clifford books, Dr Suess, and what do people do all day
• Favorite activity: Acting out scenarios with her dolls
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:30; 1:30pm ~1.25hr naps; gets up ~7am
• New skill: ignoring mommy, zipping her own jackets
• Teeth: 16. 8 on the top and 8 on bottom
• Vocalizations: Voracious story teller

Today Celia is one month old and went in for her 1 month checkup. She’s 9 lbs 9 oz now and 21.5 inches long according to the measurement today. At two weeks they had her at 22 inches, so someone messed up somewhere. We’ll see what next month’s checkup looks like for length. Healthy as a horse and gaining weight quickly. She’s getting a bit fussier, but she still smiles frequently when she’s awake. Gas and needing to go #2 are her usual complaints, or that I’m trying to get her to go back to sleep when she’s just wide awake. When she’s awake there’s not much to do but give her something to look at that she finds interesting, like the blue bucket or something made of wood, or her baby gym octopus. She’s got some baby acne now, doc says that will clear up in a few weeks. She’s got a LOUD piercing scream when she feels I’m misinterpreting her signs, but generally that’s because I’m trying to do something for myself or Josie before sitting down to nurse.

Josie likes to play doctor a lot too, we’ve thankfully got a month now without any appointments for the kids.

Here’s the girls talking and wiggling around on the floor. Celia is still very sleepy, but wakes up a couple of times a day for half an hour or so. I aim for those not to be in the middle of the night.