Love Love Love

"No one could have told me how hard it was going to be to be a parent" this is a thought that I have had often since Jase turned about 1 year old. And no one can know what each person goes through if they aren't in their home on a daily basis. Being a stay at home mother is one of the easiest and HARDEST things I have ever done or will ever do. I have never had my patience tested like this or felt so much joy from anything. I hope to never judge any parent again by they way their child is behaving. With this said, Jase is so much better and I have so much less anxiety when going out and worrying about when (not if) he was going to freak out. Now I have Zach who cries a lot and lets everyone know if he is not happy. So I go armed with these tasty organic lollipops and fruitabu and some gum (for Jase) and pacifier (for Zach). I try not to get sidetracked by looking at all the new stuff on the shelves and reading all the labels in the Natural foods section. I have to move fast which I don't always do but when I do the experience can be enjoyable. I have to make sure the time frame is doable as well. I have to plan activities fairly early in the morning or I run the risk of Zach getting really, really, really upset with me until we get home. So many mom's group activities are avoided because of this. I had Zach go to one nap a day a LONG time ago so that I would not have to stay at home all day long while each child took their naps from 10am-4pm. I would have never done it with Jase and I would have been disappointed in any other parent that would do that to their child. But for mommy's sanity I went against what I believed at first and luckily he took a super long nap that added up to the quantity of two (or three) naps all in one right in the middle of the day when Jase would be sleeping. Speaking of Jase's sleeping. He is having a hard time falling asleep for his nap and if he does fall asleep it takes him till 10pm to fall asleep. Luckily he does stay in his room and read books and plays with his trains for at least two hours so then I can have some time to myself and to do laundry and dishes. If he doesn't nap then he is able to fall right to sleep but first I have to remind him that he didn't nap and is very tired and needs to stay in bed and if he gets out I will throw Thomas in the garbage. It works because he does not want Thomas to go in the garbage. This is my ammo for many things that I want from him. :)



Zach pulling on his train toy and actually pulled it through the house. He isn't as wild as Jase Jase never pulled a toy across the floor like it was supposed to be pulled. It was usually thrown or ignored. I loved this picture of him because it captures his sweet nature. Which he does have when he isn't crying. He has always loved to lay his head on your shoulder randomly but he loves to hug our necks on purpose and gives kisses often without being asked. It's like he craves them and needs them. I love it!!!

The boys investigating the potty that we have had for over a year without use. Jase is not potty trained and we have randomly mentioned it to him over the last year. Initially he freaked out so bad it was as if we were torturing him with hot needles when we put him on the toilet. When we ask him if he wants to wear big boy underwear he says "put the big boy underwear away!" and if we ask him if he wants to sit on the potty he says "no thank you mommy!" For Christmas he got a DVD that he already had so I exchanged it for a potty DVD where this little girl talks about her younger brother being potty trained. Well that night after watching it we pulled out the potty (which he's too big for) and he wanted to sit on it (with his clothes on). This is huge because before he would totally cry and lose his mind if we mentioned the potty. So now it hangs out in his room to get him used to seeing it. It's still a long time from now that I think he will be potty trained. He much rather wear his diaper for sure. Maybe by this summer I will have him run naked and do that tactic. This DVD has his interest so we hope that it will encourage him a little.

Jase didn't want Zach to mess with his potty so I pulled out another potty that I had and he liked that.

It snowed here in Middle Georgia which is a rare occasion. The boys loved it but it was wet! Here is Zach tasting it on his glove.

Must have been some dirt in it.

Going back for more.

Zach loves umbrella's and knows how to hold them. I saw the neighbor lady with an umbrella and I thought it was genius so we all pulled out our umbrellas so shield us from the wet snow.

Jase mostly played with his umbrella because it has Thomas as a handle.

Not too many pictures of me so here is one from the snow. Jason had the camera so there wasn't one of him. Of course now I wish there was one of us both and one of all of us.

Our humble abode. You can see the track marks in the yard from Jason having a hay day on the golf cart.

Jase loves to read books still and now that he can sit still for longer than three seconds he likes to sit on the couch with us.

I just love this mischievous look on his face.

I was playing with my camera and trying to figure it out a little but my subjects had to be really still. So my dad was trying to hold Jase still for me.

When it was snowing Jason tried to build a snowman for/with the boys. Jase was in total disapproval and was screaming and crying. We don't know why because he can not communicate that type of thought so we can only speculate that he didn't like the snow to be rolling off the ground into a ball. Jason had the snowman halfway built and Jase came rushing over screaming and knocked it over. The next day before the snow melted my mother built three snowmen in the shade of the backyard for Jase to enjoy for the next few days. He did want to kick them over but here he is helping put the nose on the one on the back porch.

For the last couple weekends we have been wanting to do a treasure hunt with the boys. I could not find treasure chests to save my life so I bought some boxes to paint. Jason spray painted them and I added the skull and crossbones. Jason made up the map and it worked out to be a Valentine's treasure hunt.

Off we go to find the clues along the way.

Zach with a fruitabu in his mouth and umbrella in hands (it was not raining or snowing). Jase wanted to wear my mother's scarf.

First clue was in the mailbox...what could it be??

Lollipops!

Now to the second clue which were some fruit snacks.

They thought it was fun.

Wait a second...Jase had to check the map to make sure we were going in the right direction.

I see some treasure chests hiding.

Fun presents inside. Look Abuelita!

Jase had to take a moment to look at his new books. These are the best books ever! It's the Tag Junior system and he loves them and I highly recommend them to your toddler/preschooler. This is what he does in the mornings before we come to get him and during nap time and also at night before he goes to sleep. What a good, smart boy!

Taking a break to eat lollipops and enjoy the gifts.

Look mommy, no hands!

Off he goes with his new Caterpillar.

Abuelito loves his grandchildren. (Jase is now 38 months and Zach is 16 months)

i heart kisses

The blog "i heart faces" is having a photo contest this week that is about kisses. I am entering a photo of Zach's first day of life. I LOVE this picture. Head on over to iheartfaces to see other entries and maybe enter a photo of your own!

Rascals

As always it's been pretty busy in our house. We have been concerned with Jase's communication skills and looking for resources and options. I have contacted the county school system and they will be testing him. We had his hearing and vision tested and he passed those both. We are on week 4 of getting Jase to be on a dairy/casein free diet. I have been reading about how our diet affects our behaviors and our development. Of course being totally organic, no processed foods, no food dyes, toxic free home is the ultimate goal but one step at a time. I found on a website www.generationrescue.com that removing diary from children's diets can help them with their behaviors and communication skills. You would have to read more about it since it's all new to me about the details. When I read what other parents were saying about their children and how they had improved, I thought "why not give it a shot?" He is now able to answer many questions when I ask him, whereas before he would just look at me and repeat the question. He is now starting to be able to answer "yes" or "no" to some questions. It's still a work in progress but he is improving. He is more calm and has less fits, which is huge because it was a daily occurrence for him before. I need to learn more about it and wish there was a course or something I could take because by the end of the day I just want to veg out in front of the TV. I will keep you posted on his progress.

Jase normally doesn't like to color or paint and almost always never participates at school art activities. So I thought I would give it a go and sure enough he painted a "rainbow" for me. I gave him the paint and he went at it. I asked him what he was painting, not expecting him to answer me, and he said rainbow. I almost cried.

Examining that paint before mixing them all together, which made a rainbow colored affect. Doubt he intentionally did that but it was neat.

Zach thinking he is so big eating his cereal with a spoon. It has been a week since I stopped nursing Zach and we both haven't even looked back! I was nursing him twice a day and it just seemed that I wasn't making much milk and he was getting really angry when the milk took to long to let down. So I pulled the plug and did us both a favor. Looks like my body may not produce milk past 16 months since this is when it stopped when I was nursing Jase but I thought it was because I was pregnant with Zach.

It is hard to get him to smile and look at the camera at the same time. Usually he closes his eyes because he thinks it's going to flash in his eyes.

I am not sure what went wrong with my Chocolate Mousse pie that I was making with dark chocolate tofu. Maybe I beat it too long and too high? Well this is what it looked like. Sunken in and quite awful looking. It went straight to the garbage.

Zach loves to feed himself and many times gets very angry and refuses to eat if you try to feed him. He is a stubborn little guy. See that bottle? Well, I nursed him exclusively and right before turning one I thought I would occasionally give him a bottle to just make sure he was getting enough fluids. I probably used up about two canisters of formula total. I stopped doing it for a couple of months and then one day he found a bottle in the pantry and pulled it out and was grunting and handing it to me. I filled it with warm milk and he drank the entire thing. So now when I get him up first thing in the morning and after his nap I bring him a bottle. This is the only thing that keeps him from crying and kicking when I lay him down to change his diaper. You would think that after 16 months he would realize that he has to have his diaper changed no matter what. Nope, I guess it's a habit to get angry and cry and kick when I change his diaper. What happened to my chill baby?

As you can kind of tell by this picture his front is turning grey. He was trying to play with his new big wheel and was rocking back and forth real fast and bumped his mouth on the handle part. It wasn't until about two weeks later we saw it getting grey. We took both Jase and Zach into Jason's office and had their front teeth x-rayed. We are almost certain that he will lose that tooth. Root canal on Jase?! I can't even imagine it. The x-rays were so cool though, you could see the permanent (adult) teeth sitting right behind the baby teeth waiting to come out. This may be something you know but for me I was shocked! I yelled out "it's like a shark!" Too cool.

Playing in the pine straw is tons of fun for them.

Jase loves playing with his "Christmas Thomas" in the dirt. He will do this for as long as you let him and boy does he get dirty.

I could keep this hat on him all the time. I wish I would have bought one in every size when I originally bought it for Jase. Zach is still not talking and I am only giving him his pacifier at bedtimes. He babbles but he has a lot of catching up to do. He does sign though and actually uses them to get what he wants. It is so cool when he is grunting and wanting to tell me something then sticks up his hand and does the milk sign. He shakes his head no when he doesn't want to eat something, which cracks me up because I don't remember Jase doing that at all.

Look at those sweet BIG little hands.

Jase is so much gentler with Zach since removing dairy from his diet. He actually offers him toys and food, where before he really had no interest in him except for pushing him or knocking him over.

Jase has been sick with diarrhea and some throwing up the last several days. This photo was taken yesterday afternoon. We went to the doctor and they checked for Strep but it came back negative. They then wanted me to get stool samples to be tested for parasites, E Coli, Salmonella and some other things to rule out if it wasn't a virus. When I went to get him out of his room yesterday there was throw-up all over his bedroom floor and he was covered in poo. Poor guy didn't even cry for us and I found him all curled in a ball on the floor in his Thomas tent. I have no idea how long he had been up but he was so pitiful with sunken eyes and pale skin. He still has bad rings under his eyes but seems to be feeling a little better and ate breakfast and some lunch. Hopefully his body can get rid of this and he can gain some weight back. He has lost 4 pounds.

Zach fell at school and chipped his front tooth. They called to tell me that he had fallen and weren't sure if it had chipped. Well, let's put it this way, 1/4 of his tooth is gone....uh YES he chipped his tooth!!! So now both boys have chipped front teeth.