Ok, so Emmaisms isn’t quite as catchy as Bradenisms.
Dad: “You could have blueberries on your waffle.”
Emma: “Yuck! Silly Daddy”
Braden asks to go watch TV upstairs by himself.
Dad: “You need some alone time?”
Braden: “yeah”
Emma goes up by him and Braden comes out to tell us: “I’m having alone time with someone!”
Braden’s t-ball coach calls him “Rabbit”, trying to encourage him to run fast. Braden: “I’m not a rabbit! I’m a boy.”
Where have all you faithful readers been? It’s been forever since you’ve been here reading my blogs. Err.. I mean, it's been forever since I’ve blogged. My bad.
One of the reasons I don’t blog more often is I try and wait until I have pictures uploaded to make the blogs more interesting. So, it’s not that I’m lazy and don’t blog. It’s that I’m lazy and don’t upload pictures. Actually, it’s even more complicated than that because I also want to try and get videos uploaded to add content to the blog too. And that’s more complicated than the pictures. Ok… I know… what a lame excuse.
So, let’s see, what has happened since my last blog. when was that anyway? Alex is now 9 weeks old. Which, from a developmental standpoint makes him 4 weeks old. Or is that 2 weeks in dog years? Anyway… he has doubled in weight! He’s grown 5 inches. And he’s doing great. He’s really a pretty good baby and rolls with whatever we throw at him. He does really well in his car seat when we go places. He has had some issues with what we think is a milk allergy. Emma had the same thing. I won’t go into the details, but he’s quite often pretty uncomfortable and has some gas issues. But he tends to let us calm him down pretty easily.
Braden and Emma have been great siblings. Braden especially. He really loves Alex and at least a couple of times a day he stops to just admire Alex. Emma has her phases. One minute she wants to help us feed Alex. The next minute she’s throwing a tantrum because we can’t cuddle with her. She’s been acting up a little and we think it’s because she’s a little jealous. But she also has her very, very sweet moments.
Braden started t-ball and soccer. Wow. That’s an experience. He seems to be having fun It’s certainly adds a little chaos to our schedules with t-ball twice a week and soccer once. We also got Braden a big boy bike (with training wheels). Boy is he getting good at riding that! This spring he couldn’t even pedal his tricycle!
Both kids have been having a blast playing with the neighbor kids. Braden really likes playing with Ryan next door and Tyler from down the block. We just wish Tyler had a little more supervision as his parents are never out with him… kind of bad for a three year old, in our opinion.
Braden also started speech and his teacher commented on how funny Braden is. She also said he has quite an advanced vocabulary for his age. Must be all the PBS TV we let him watch :)
We are considering getting a dog. We even applied for a few adoptions online. But we were either turned down (we’re not sure why) or the dogs had already been adopted. We’re kind of thinking about a Great Dane or Mastiff mix. We want it to be a mix so it might not be as large as normal Danes or Mastiffs. And we want the Great Dane or Mastiff breed because they’re great family dogs that have a little less energy than say… a Lab. But, of course, at her last allergist appointment, we found out Emma is allergic to dogs. It’s very dog/breed specific, so we may still be able to get a dog, but we need to figure out how allergic she is and get her exposed to some dogs to fine out what breads are good. Braden is very excited about the possibility of a dog, especially since we' told them dogs we’re looking at are like Scooby Doo. I’m not so sure he’ll be so happy if we actually get a dog because he’s still pretty nervous around dogs. But we hope a dog would be a good experience for him and help him gain confidence. Plus I LOVE dogs.
That’s all for now. I’m sure I forgot a bunch of stuff. I know I’ve left out a lot of ‘Bradenisms’. I’ll try and do better and keep this up to date more frequently.
Great weather this weekend and good times. No, not the big parties or exciting events some people might focus on, but a great weekend in my books.
Today we had a great picnic in the park. Braden is really starting to become an accomplished tag player. Emma can climb playground equipment like no one else. And Alex thinks napping outside is divine.
We decided to stop having Braden take naps this weekend. So far he’s doing very well with it. He does seem to relax and calm down a little while Emma is napping, so that probably helps. But so far he’s done pretty well and an earlier bed time seems to be working out well too.
Alex is doing great! He’s eating like a champ and is growing very quickly. He’ll sleep somewhere between 5 minutes and 3 hours at a time. Although right now he’s going on 3.5 hours… SHHHHH…. Alex… go back to sleep. Well, time to go get a bottle! Good night!
I started to write ‘Happy Memorial Day’, but then thought better of it. Memorial Day is intended to remember and honor the soldiers who have given their time, talents and in some cases, lives or health to server their country and protect our values and way of life. I’m not really sure ‘Happy’ would be right in most cases.
So, I’ll simply say thank you to all those men, women and their families who have sacrificed so much for all of us.
I think the Happy part comes in too much for a lot of us ‘civilians’ who see Memorial Day as just a long weekend. I hope we can all take some time out of our festivities and parties to thank these heroes.
The new Miller Lite commercials are annoying. You know the ones where the Sopranos characters come in and offer ‘protection?’ They’re annoying to me for two reasons:
Ok, maybe it’s Braden and Emma that are annoying there? Nah… we’ll blame the writers at Miller.
We’re changing Alex’s name to Billy Rueben Ehlke. Ok, not really, but I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t.
But we had some good news today! His levels went down from 9.7 to 8.8. So we’re headed in the right direction without any light therapy, other than sitting in the sunlight.
Ok, get off my back already! I mean come on… I know I haven’t blogged in like two weeks, but is the hate mail really necessary? :)
Yeah, right.
Anyway, I’m tired. Kathie’s tired. Emma’s tired. Braden never stops talking, but he’s probably still tired too.
Alex is doing well. He’s already gained a pound and was up to 5lbs, 9 oz when he was last weighed. He is off the Billiblanket, but his billirubin levels are still pretty high. They don’t seem too concerned, but we have had to get his blood tested every day this week. That’s a major drag.
But he’s a good little baby. He’s eating like a champ and sleeping pretty well between feedings. He tends to get a little gassy, but who doesn’t?
Braden had his end of the year school program with the preschoolers and kindergartners last night. Wow, that was fun! Braden did GREAT! We were a little nervous: they put him front and center, pretty much by himself in front of all the other kids. Kathie and I were wondering if he was going to do a solo, but we think maybe it was so the teacher could prompt him or keep an eye on him better that way. But what a difference from the last programs he’s done. He would just stand there and not sing. You could usually here him sighing or yawning very loudly and that was about it. But last night, he was belting out the tunes, doing most of the hand gestures and generally performing to the level you’d expect to see on American Idol. I was very proud of him, even we he’d yell out “Hi Dad!” right in the middle.
Grandma and Grandpa helped out for a couple weeks and we greatly appreciate that! But I think they’re probably happy to be back in the relative peace and quiet of their own home.
That’s about it for now… back to work.
I am back at work. Grandma and Grandpa are here helping out.
It’s been pretty hectic, but things are slowly settling into place at home. I even got the lawn mown and the bushes trimmed yesterday. Happy Mothers Day!
Alex is doing great. He has a blood test today to see how his billirubin levels are doing. Hopefully we’ll be able to take him off the blanket! He’s eating well, sleeping well and has now found his ‘voice.’ He doesn’t really cry hard, but definitely is getting more vocal.
The kids and I planted flower seeds in a mini green house kit on Friday. They’ve already sprouted and Braden is amazed by the fact that they grow towards the sun. And then grow back when you turn them around.
Baden an Emma helped with Alex’s first bath at home. Braden was impressed that his umbilical cord had fallen off… because now he has a penis, and it’s so long! We had to explain that the umbilical cord was where the belly button was. But of course, Alex picked that moment to start peeing… and Braden added his color commentary by saying “It’s like a sprinkler.” Video of the event is coming.
We got a Moses basket to make it easier to move Alex around the house with us and even to go outside. I was reading a story about Moses to Braden and explained why it’s called a Moses bed. He looked at me and said “No, Dad. We should call it an Alex Basket Bed because his name is Alex.”
We think Emma has some more problems with allergies. She has no major symptoms, but she’s been very cranky and rubbing her nose a lot and coughing. Then again, it could be just because she’s two.
Sorry for the rambling… I’m just blasting this out there just to get it out of my head :)
