Six Months Old

Saturday was Violet's 6 month mark! Eddie and I took her in to see the pediatrician today. She now weighs 18 pounds, 1 ounce (86th percentile) and is 27 inches long (88th percentile). And she has her very first ear infection.

Violet continues to be a joy for us. She is a very happy girl (when she's not sick) and she puts up with a lot of "love" from her brother. She is extremely active and I often check on her in the night and find one or more of her limbs poking out between the crib slats because she rolls around so much. Here are some new things she does:

Kisses

She has started giving kisses, sort of. Eddie thinks it is hilarious to put his face right in front of her so she'll lean forward and suck on his nose or his cheek or his hair.

Dancing

When music starts playing, she gets this look of concentration on her face and starts swaying forward and back. It is pretty darn cute.

Sitting

Violet is suddenly a very stable sitter. Her biggest problem comes when she bends completely in half to reach something and ends up falling on her face instead. Usually she doesn't mind. She just rolls out of it and rolls around the room.

And here are some of her new favorite things:

Eddie's Toys

Luckily, we haven't run into too many conflicts about toys yet, but I'm sure it is coming. Violet has baby toys that she plays with if that is what is available, but if she has her choice, she always goes for action figures and matchbox cars. She especially likes Man (made famous here) and Eddie's blue Batman. She also enjoyed playing with Ken at Grammy's house last weekend. Her current favorite of Eddie's toys seems to be My Pal Scout, a talking, singing dog. When Scout starts to sing, Violet stops crying and starts to dance!

Baths/Swimming

Violet loves to splash. The two times she has been in the pool, she has loved it. She tries to swim away and is not afraid to put her face in the water. In Grammy's pool on Saturday, she sat in the baby float and kicked herself all around the pool.

The Best Parts of My Day

Sometimes, being a mom is hard work. Being a mom to a three year old boy is even harder. Eddie and I have constant power struggles. But I have found that there are certain parts of nearly every day that I treasure. Then when the kids are asleep and I can think about how cute they are, I always remember these special times with them. I thought I should write them down so I'll always remember.

When Violet wakes up

Generally, Eddie gets up before Violet does. A lot of days, he gets through breakfast and is busy watching his cartoons when I finally go upstairs to get Violet out of bed. As I bring her down the stairs, I say, "Hey Eddie! Look what I found upstairs… it's a baby _____ (fill in the blank with a random animal)." Some of my favorites are "alligator," "giraffe," and "pteranodon." Eddie immediately responds, "No, it's a baby Violet!" This is one time of day when both kids are in a good mood and Eddie thinks I'm pretty hilarious. I'm sure that won't last too long.

When Eddie goes to bed

Lately Eddie has become a bit of a Momma's boy. I am okay with this most of the time. I am starting to realize that he is growing up and that in a few years, he will probably want very little to do with me. Eddie seems to love me most at bedtime. We brush his teeth, say his prayers, then he instantly says "I just want you." So we snuggle for a few minutes and I attack him with kisses and we talk about whatever he wants -- what we did earlier or what will happen tomorrow. Then I find him a stuffed animal to take my place and say "I love you." Here's the best part: he usually responds with "I just love you, too."

When Violet is ready for a nap

I love when Eddie is entertaining himself and Violet is ready for a nap. I take her upstairs and rock her until she settles down. We sit and she squirms around, wrestling with me to see everything in the room, then finally ending up cradled in my arms, holding my nose or my hair or my chin. She's getting so big so fast that I am worried she'll soon be too big to rock and I know I'll miss it.

When Eddie lets me read to him

Eddie has always been a bit of a snuggler. When he was a baby, we would sit in the rocking chair a lot, reading, singing, and just snuggling. I'm sad that I don't get to do that much with Violet, but she never wants to sit still, so I don't think she'd go for it anyway. Lately, Eddie has stopped letting me read stories to him as often as I would like. But when he does let me, I think it's great (as long as he lets me stop after a few and doesn't purposely select the longest stories). He is so smart and has pretty funny reactions to things these days. He likes to tell me which random Dr. Seuss illustrations are really him, me, Dave, and Violet (the Beft that always go to the left).

When Eddie plays nice with Violet

Eddie loves Violet a lot. And she loves him back. Now that she's getting through being a helpless, fragile baby, she is a lot more fun. Most of my day is spent saying things like, "Stop touching your sister" or "Get away from her face" or "Don't push her over" or "Let her play with some of the toys." When Eddie stops harrassing her and just plays with her instead, it is really cute. She attacks his face and licks him all over, which he finds hilarious. And she loves to listen to him talk and to watch him do funny things. They also have the same taste in TV shows:

Great Grandparents

Here are some photos of the kids visiting their Great Grandparents on my side of the family. The photos were taken in late May, but I kept forgetting to post them until now. It's been long enough that Violet looks like a completely different girl.

Great Grandma Barton

Great Grandpa Barton

Great Grandma Jones

Great Grandpa Jones

Goodbye, Combover

Violet's hair has always been one of the first things people notice about her. Unfortunately, it has been falling out on the sides, and the new hair coming in is much lighter than the stripe of long, dark baby hair she still has on the top.

This has led to a rather unfortunate combover. Kristen has been talking about giving Violet a haircut to even things out a bit, but was hesitant to go through with it. After more waffling over the issue this morning, I assured her it would grow back, and she decided to take action.

Violet is much younger than Eddie was when he had his first haircut, and didn't really have any concept of what was going on.

She was quite indifferent for most of the process before breaking down near the end. But I think you will agree that the final result is a considerable improvement.

Summer Time

I guess summer has officially arrived. Just before the weather turned hot, we learned that our air conditioner needed repairs before it would cool the house. We have been waiting for the right parts to arrive, so we have been without A/C so far. The past week has been pretty hot, sometimes getting into the low 80's on our ground floor. Violet and I do not handle the heat well, so we have been doing what we can to stay cool. I mist the kids with our spray bottle. We let the kids go without clothes while we're in the house. Last Wednesday, I gave each kid a damp wash cloth to play with. Eddie thought it was weird, but Violet liked it.

Don't they look a little overheated?

Tuesday night, Eddie woke up soaked in sweat at 10 PM, so we decided to have a slumber party in the living room. Eddie slept quite well downstairs and when he woke up the next morning, he had no idea he had been sleeping downstairs with everyone all night.

Luckily, our A/C should be fixed tomorrow so we can return to normal life.

Another indication that summer has arrived is Eddie's last day of toddler class. Today was his last class and I think that he will be sad not to go any more. Violet and I went to class with him for his last day and he had a blast. His teachers loved having him in class because he says the funniest things. He even had this month's story memorized and kept reciting it along with Teacher Lisa as she read it to the class. Here is today's art project:

(Hint: it's an octopus)

Violet has been growing up a lot over the last couple of weeks. She is getting pretty stable with sitting. She is much more interested in toys than she had been. When she drops a toy, she tries to get it back instead of just moving on to the next one. She is learning to clap and to wave.

Unfortunately, this was the best photo I could get of the two of them today.

Violet's Five Months Old

Violet is five months old today. She is growing up fast. Here are some fun facts about Violet:

Likes

Baby food. We started her on solids about three weeks ago and she seems to love it. We skipped rice cereal and went straight to fruits and veggies. She especially likes sweet potatoes, peaches, and pears. She is pretty good at eating, too, but drives me crazy because I can't shovel it in fast enough for her. She shoves her hands in her mouth between every bite, which makes the whole exercise a lot messier than it would be otherwise.

Spitting. I don't remember Eddie being much of a spit-bubbler, but Violet sure is. She blows raspberries at every opportunity. Just last night, Eddie exclaimed, "she has a bubble beard!"

Tummy time. Violet loves to be on her tummy... most of the time. She rarely rolls from her tummy to her back, but frequently rolls from her back to her tummy. She likes to play on her tummy and often falls asleep on the floor that way.

Most people. There are only a few people that drive Violet to huge frowns and tears (Not through any fault of their own. Sorry Grammy and Papa). Most of the time, Violet loves when people look at her and talk to her. She smiles. She laughs. She blows spit bubbles and coos. Her biggest laughs so far have been for Eddie, her cousin Caleb, and her aunt Cheryl. I am happy to say that even if I can't get her to bust a gut, she seems to prefer me over everyone else at the moment. I'll enjoy that while it lasts.

Dislikes

Being hot. Violet will not sleep when she's too hot. Fortunately, it hasn't been too hot yet this year. Unfortunately for all of us, it is now hot and our air conditioner is broken. Last night was bad enough that we slept over in Cheryl's basement. When Violet is hot, she screams and writhes around and cannot be calmed down. Hopefully the A/C will be fixed by the middle of next week. In the meantime, we're leaving town in search of cooler temperatures... for all our sakes.

Sleeping through the night. Violet has slept over 5 consecutive hours once. Yes, once. Usually she wakes up at least three times each night. I only feed her once each night, but she insists on waking up several more times just to make sure I am not getting any real sleep.

As you can see, Violet is a pretty happy baby.

Cute Kids

Our kids are really cute. Whenever they begin driving me crazy, I just try to remember that. Over the last week, we've gotten a lot of cute photos of them that I thought I ought to post (since I'm getting a bit behind). So forgive the randomness and enjoy the pictures!

I decided to start Violet on solid food. I opted to start with sweet potatoes and Violet loved them. After her initial confusion about what I was putting in her mouth, she did her best to gobble them up. She tried some bananas, too.

On Sunday morning, the weather was lovely, so we took a walk around the neighborhood. Then Dave took photos of the kids in front of my black tulips.

Violet makes great faces and especially likes to stick her tongue out these days.

Yesterday, our day started off a little rough. In an attempt to fix that before the entire day ended up in shambles, I decided to take the kids to the splash pool. As soon as I mentioned it, Eddie was ready to go. He had a blast splashing in the pool and putting his face in the water. And it was fun for me because he is big enough now that I don't really worry about him drowning himself like last year.

We've learned over the past few days that Violet does not like to be hot, so she was really fussy as I tried to get her ready to go. She was not happy about getting her cute new swimming suit on, so I wasn't able to get a good photo of her in it. Here she is as we were getting ready to come home.

She liked sitting and kicking in the shallow end for a few minutes. Hopefully the next time we go she'll be in a better mood so we can get a nice photo of her outside the car seat.

On a side note, the day did end up in shambles after I found Eddie (while I thought he was napping) pants-less in his bed covered in poo. It called for an emergency bath, an emergency load of laundry (or two), and all the patience I could muster. Luckily we all survived...

Don't Say That

Eddie loves to watch movies. He goes through phases where he will only agree to watch one or two different ones, then later, he'll move on to one or two others. I really appreciate Pixar and the way the writers try to make them appeal to adults as well as children, but as Eddie has begun to memorize and repeat his favorite lines, I have realized that there are a lot of things in their movies that are not really appropriate for a three year old. For example:

"Do I look stupid to you?"
Hopper // A Bug's Life

"Did you all take stupid pills this morning?"
Mr. Potato Head // Toy Story

"You stupid, pathetic waste!"
Randall // Monsters, Inc.

"SHUT UP! Just, SHUT UP, you idiot!" Woody // Toy Story

"Oh would you just shut up?" Nigel // Finding Nemo

"Turn on your lights, you moron!" Peterbilt // Cars

"I'm in hillbilly hell!" Lightning McQueen // Cars

"Welcome to hell."
Chef Skinner // Ratatouille

"Hey! Turn your butt off!"
Francis // A Bug's Life

"I told you kids to stay out of my butt!"
Mr. Potato Head // Toy Story 3



That being said, there are many quotes from the same movies that Dave and I think are hilarious and use as often as possible:

"We'll get there when we get there!"
Mr. Incredible // The Incredibles

"Oh, this is just too good."
Syndrome // The Incredibles

"Oh dear, seems I'm off to a poor start." Doc // Cars

"No, no! Don't just hork it down!"
Remy // Ratatouille

"It's a disaster." Remy // Ratatouille

"The rat! It stole my documents!"
Chef Skinner // Ratatouille

"Let's do this thing!"
Linguini // Ratatouille

"Have you seen a bird?"
Dug // Up

"Who cares? Who cares? Sequins are tacky!"
Ken // Toy Story 3

"The Groovy Formal Collection, yes!"
Ken // Toy Story 3

Violet's Four Month Stats

Violet is now four months old! Today, Eddie and I took her to visit the pediatrician. She weighed in at 15.4 pounds (86th percentile) and measured 25.7 inches (93rd percentile). Before the doctor saw the stats, she said she thought Violet looked skinnier. Then she looked at her percentiles and said, "never mind!" We just have a healthy girl on our hands. Luckily, she is still a friendly girl, too. She smiled at everyone we saw at the doctor's office right up until about 3 seconds after her first shot.

I decided today that if Violet slept better at night, she would be the perfect baby. She doesn't cry needlessly. She isn't stingy with her smiles. She doesn't hold a grudge against her brother. She is strong and doesn't get sick often. She eats well (and efficiently). But she still wakes us up 3-5 times each night. So as soon as I get the nerve, we will be doing some sleep training.

After our visit to the doctor, we also took a trip to the Living Planet Aquarium with some friends. We got a sweet deal on a year membership, so we'll be going a lot over the next year. I was a little concerned when I saw five school buses in the parking lot, but it turned out to be less crowded than I expected. Eddie and Hailee were especially excited to see all the fish that look like Nemo and the big sea turtle.

Weekend Fun

Last weekend was pretty crazy. We had our yard sale (which Dave posted about here). In the midst of all that chaos, we still managed to get some fun photos of the kiddos.

Eddie has an evil look in his eyes because he is always about to dump Violet on her head when we let him hold her like this.

At this point during potty training, we have given up on pants if we are just in the house. He got his boots for his birthday from Grammy Andrews and his vest from Grandma Barton. The hat is from my witch costume, but it was the closest thing we had to a cowboy hat.

Eddie spent a solid hour putting "new tires" (chocolate cheerios) on his McQueens with Dave.

Violet is not very lady-like when she sits in the swing. Eddie used to throw one leg over the bar when he would swing, but Violet took it up a notch by putting both legs out.