Hellobee

Olive turned 8 months old last week, and she’s a happy, crawling, eating machine! Here’s what’s been going on in her little baby life!

left: her first two teeth; right: chomping on a bagel

Eating

We’ve been doing baby led weaning for a while, and it’s been going great! Olive’s manual dexterity is still so poor however, that she can’t really pick up small pieces of food and put them in her mouth. So I typically hold a piece of food in my hand, and she moves her mouth forward to eat it. That way she controls how much she wants to eat and can stop whenever she wants. She can hold onto big pieces of food, so we’ll give her mum mums, bread at restaurants, croissants, or mini bagels (although that isn’t recommended).

I think Olive is going to be a better eater than Charlie. She opens her mouth like a little bird whenever we put food in front of it. So far she’s had chicken, beef, sausage, pasta, and tons of various breads, fruits and veggies. Her favorite foods are chicken, croissants, and asian pear. I was so conservative with solids for Charlie, but since he doesn’t have any allergies (other than a mild milk allergy), I wasn’t worried about Olive having allergies.

left: eating a banana; right: grabbing mum mums and unsuccessfully getting them in her mouth

Milestones

Olive now has three teeth. Her upper front tooth came through this month. She likes to test out those new teeth because she’s bit me a couple of times while nursing! She’s also started to belly crawl and wiggle her little self halfway across a room. And though she can’t get to a sitting position by herself, she can sit for a minute if we put her in a sitting position. It’s interesting to compare Charlie and Olive because he hit his physical milestones so much faster than Olive. But even though she is on the slower side when it comes to hitting milestones, she’s continuing to make progress so I’m not too worried.

According to our home scale, she weighs 16 lbs 10 oz (between 10-25%). She’s not a chubby baby, but I think she is on the longer side as she’s outgrowing her 9 month clothes and currently fits into 12 month sized clothes.

left: playing with a whisk (one of Charlie’s favorite toys as a baby); right: a rare picture of me with Olive

Sleep

To sleep train or not to sleep train. That is the question indeed. Olive’s night time sleep can be very unpredictable. She wakes up anywhere between 2-4 times at night, and her first stretch of sleep can be 1 hour, 3 hours, or 5 hours. She takes 30-40 minute naps — sometimes they’re longer, sometimes they’re (painfully) shorter.

We could night train only, and naps often improve on their own after night training. We could nap train only, since her night sleep is manageable, but she really needs to take longer naps. We could night wean only and see if that improves sleep overall. We could also try waiting it out and hope her sleep gets better. She may make the decision for me however, as she’s recently started waking up at 6 (or earlier) when she’d been waking up at 8 (or later) for most of her life. Given that I go to bed late, wake up at night with her, and now wake up early, I’ve been pretty tired lately and it’s taking its toll.

With Charlie, I felt like we had no choice but to sleep train because he was so exhausted. Since it’s a completely different experience with Olive, I see how parents can get by without sleep training even if they don’t have a great sleeper on their hands. Sleep training Charlie was so worth it and I always vowed I’d do it again with my second child… but why is it so hard to bite the bullet this time around?

As far as Olive’s schedule, she typically takes her first nap after being up an hour and a half, and she’s up 2 1/2 hours between her second nap, third nap, and bedtime.

left: Olive looking intense; right: resting her foot on her stroller toy bar

Personality

Like her big brother, Olive is a happy baby. But while Charlie had some pretty bad stranger anxiety and is still shy around new people and big crowds, Olive is a total extrovert. She smiles at everyone, let’s anyone hold her, and she wakes up happy no matter how long (or short) she naps. But she also has a strong personality, whereas Charlie was pretty mellow. When Olive is displeased, she will let you know! Circumstances that cause her to get mad include – taking away a toy, taking away food, and getting dressed after her bath. You can see her intense look above!

Olive is just becoming more and more fun. Her smiles melt my heart every day! It’s hard not to love her because she’s such a happy baby!

left: Charlie climbed into the glider with the boppy and asked me to put Olive on it; right: sitting on Mr. Bee’s stomach

C H A R L I E – 3 0  M O N T H S

Charlie turned 2 1/2 or 30 months last week. And what a big month it’s been!

left: Charlie begging for my chocolate cupcake; right: my mom tied his long Brooklyn hipster bangs with a rubberband

Milestones

Charlie’s biggest milestone for the month is…. we started potty training and it’s going very well! I’m probably going to devote an entire post on it so I’ll just touch on it lightly here. He doesn’t wear diapers at home anymore except at night, and though he wears pull-ups at daycare, he uses the potty all day there too. Pooping has been more of a challenge because of his constipation issues, but he is doing well with pooping on the potty as well. He hasn’t had an accident in the past couple of days (and very few accidents overall), so I’m excited to share our potty training story!

left: obsessed with glasses; right: feeding his doll a muffin

Talking

We’re constantly writing down Charlie-isms in our My Quotable Kid journal. He constantly cracks us up with his observations. I know they’re really only funny to us, but it’s interesting how he interprets things we say:

Mr. Bee: I’m Papa Bear and you’re Charlie Bear. (after reading The Berenstain Bears)
Charlie: We not bears. We people!

Mr. Bee: I can’t guilt you into feeling sorry for me? (after Charlie woke up early)
Charlie: You can’t kill me. I’m not an ant! (because we kill so many ants)

left: fresh summer haircut; right: hanging out in his sandbox

I’ve recently changed the way I talk to Charlie. I realized that I was dumbing down the way I talked to him using words that I knew he understood. Part of this is habit because I’ve always been around people who speak English as a second language, so I’ve been doing it my entire life. But lately I’ve been reasoning with Charlie and it’s been immensely effective. For instance when he doesn’t want to take a nap, I tell him about all the fun things we can do after the nap, but we can’t do it unless we have energy from taking  a nap. It’s worked every single time! I even explained that Charlie came out of my stomach as a baby when he asked me where I got the boo boo on my stomach (my c-section scar), and now he says that he came out of my stomach all the time. I think I really underestimated his comprehension, and that’s something I’m not going to do anymore!

left: so happy to get more sand! right: drawing with chalk in our backyard

Sleeping & Eating

It’s interesting because so many friends with kids that are around Charlie and Olive’s age are having similar sleep issues that we’re having. We are still laying down next to Charlie until he falls asleep. That part is not that bad, but he’s also started waking up once in the middle of the night some nights, and waking up at 5:30am. Now that we’re potty training, he’s even been waking up in the middle of the night because he wants to go potty! We’re going to have to wean him off needing us to fall asleep at night, but for now we’re enjoying the extra snuggling and bonding time. Poor Mr. Bee since he’s had to deal with the early wake-ups.

Feeding Charlie is still a constant battle, but this was a good month because he wasn’t sick. Unfortunately his noneating ways have caught up with him. The formerly smallest child in Charlie’s daycare, who is a couple months younger than Charlie, is now taller than him. Charlie is now officially the shortest kid in daycare, even though he’s not the youngest.

left: feeding Olive sweet potatoes; right: feeding Olive “soup” that he cooked in his play kitchen

Personality

We went to a community gardening event last month, and since then Charlie has been obsessed with digging. We’re cleaning out all the weeds in our backyard today, and setting up Charlie with a little garden of his own. But his favorite thing to do lately is play in his sandbox. From building sand castles, to playing with his bulldozers, and burying our feet — Charlie wants to play in his sandbox every single day. Other things he’s obsessed with lately include building with blocks, and he still loves to paint and draw. We love that he is so into art and sensory play!

Charlie has been such a good boy the past month. It reminds me of what he was like before he turned 2! But I think what’s had a big impact on his good behavior is that he hasn’t been sick for a while! He was pretty much sick the entire winter, and this is the longest stretch he’s been illness-free since last summer. He’s had more than his fair share of sicknesses, so hopefully it’s toughened up his immune system.

left: Charlie Brown; right: Charlie Brown’s bestest little sister!

Month 8 and Month 30 were great months. Most notably, Olive started crawling and is eating like a champ, and Charlie started potty training and has been illness-free.

I really think Charlie and Olive are going to be the bestest of friends as they get older.

And on a final note about the pictures in this monthly update and the last — I haven’t touched my dslr in months because when you’re leaving the house with two small kids, you have to carry a lot of gear! I’ve really become a huge fan of my iphone to take pictures of Charlie and Olive because:

1) I always have it on me and it’s lightweight.
2) It has video!
3) It’s easy to take self-portraits of me and the kids with the reverse camera feature.
4) It’s easy to share pictures on social networks like Instagram, or text them to grandparents.
5) There are tons of apps that make your pictures look better in an instant.
6) The iphone 4s takes pretty darn good pictures. With my iphone 3g, the picture quality wasn’t good enough to warrant giving up my dslr. But I’m hooked on iphone photography now so if the camera on the new iphone is improved, I’m selling mine and upgrading!

Since I’m always the one taking pictures and I always look like a bum, I have almost no pictures with Charlie and Olive. So I recently made a resolution to take at least one picture with my kids each week. With the reverse camera feature, I really have no excuse!

Well that’s all I have to say in this super duper long monthly update. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!