21 months and 7 weeks

I don't even know where to start. My life is full of blessings - even in the moments that don't quite feel like a blessing and I hear myself complaining. Stop me would you? I have so much to be thankful for.

Our little girl is growing fast. Seven weeks has gone by in a flash. She has filled out her 3-6 month clothes and most tops need to be 6 months to cover that chunky belly. :) She is still a very content baby and sleeps quite a bit during the day making most days with two babies very manageable. MJ eats A LOT (hence the chunky belly) and I find it hard to stretch her past 2-2.5 hours between feeds. (I must say that as a direct result of her frequent meals, this little girl goes through a ton of diapers... I know most babies do, but... she REALLY does.) Her average sleep lengths at night have been 2.5-3 hours at a time with a few longer (and shorter) stretches here and there. But while I am up more in the night, it's not for a long time - she eats for about 15 minutes max on average, usually have to change her and then she's right back to sleep. No fighting her back to sleep which is great! And because this just happened the last two nights (I know it's a gift and likely not the norm yet), I want to shout from the rooftops that MJ gave me SEVEN hours two nights ago, and 5 hours + 3.5 hours last night! I wish I could say I feel more rested, but... ;) While we're told infants should only sleep on their backs, I must say my longer stretches of sleep have been when MJ has been on her stomach... *sigh*

MJ had pretty bad baby acne that seemed to take ages to go away. It's only this past week (a 7 wks old) it seems to be clearing up. She gets heat rash quite easily, so I wonder if she will be sensitive to the sun/heat as she gets older? Not good news for this beach lovin' family. Her nice darker olive skin seems to be lightening up lately too... she's looking more and more like all of us! ha :) 

Lately we are getting more precious smiles from MJ... even AJ gets excited when she graces us with one! He also squeals when he finds her with her eyes open looking around; does that say something for what a sleepy baby she has been?? I'm not complaining. really. Like her big brother, MJ is becoming good friends with the birds on her bouncer and swing - not sure what it is about them, but the babies love them! They get talked to more than Dad and Mama :)

I'm so thankful for a little boy who is the best big brother and loves his little sister... when she's in the room, he's doing his best to be close to her (or on top of her) and to bring her into his activities. She gets covered with his toys as he tries to engage her... she is often found with a sticker on her - as are the rest of us! ;) When we're getting ready to go out, AJ is very concerned that MJ might get left behind... and when it's time to leave the car to go into the house, he makes sure she's not forgotten! Of course, it's not all happy bliss as AJ is used to being the centre of attention... and sometimes he is shaking his head and pointing to the bouncer seat -- a sign he thinks we should put baby sister down and focus on him. ;)

(This one particular time, he pulled her little bed/seat right into his corner to be close)

It seems like ages since I tracked any of AJ's development stats, so I will try to put a few here to help me remember down the road.  You likely want to stop reading here, as the rest is more like "baby book" info :)

At 21 months:
Weight - 26 lbs
Height - (to be filled in later when I actually know!)
Words/Sounds - While he still doesn't talk much in a recognizable language, he is trying a lot more words since Christmas. And when he's not trying a REAL word, he's chattering away in lots of different sounds/syllables. But for the record, here are the few consistent words he says that WE understand: Dada, Mama, Hiii, please ('peesh'), come, geese ('geesh'), baby, home, beep beep, no, yes (pronounced as 'kah' for some reason), juice, shoes, ball, cheese, clean, noodle ('noonal'), keys ('keesh'), star (misses the 's'), choo choo, bye bye... he'll repeat other words after us, but they haven't come out on his own yet. He also does many animal sounds: dog, cat, mouse, cow, rooster, crow, lion, bear, monkey, gorilla (with the chest beating action), donkey, pig, fish (yes... he thinks he knows what a fish says).
Body Parts - He knows his head, hair, eyes, teeth, tongue, mouth, fingers, hands, arms, belly, belly button, legs, knees, feet, toes, chin, cheek, back
Actions - lots of kisses and blowing kisses, waves for "thank you", does random summersaults (yikes!), can *not* jump on 2 feet yet, throws well, likes to climb, can turn the round door knobs and open doors (now we are required to lock the bathroom door when we're inside!)

A few other fun facts. He knows when we're in the general area of "home"... we could be out all day, and then when we're within 4 or 5 minutes of our house, he seems to recognize the area from any of the directions and starts saying "home, home!"  He also recognized his little friend's house when we were out driving... we were coming from a different direction than usual, and on our way to another place, but when we came to the stop sign at their intersection, he started squealing and pointing at their house. I was impressed! Sorry for the "proud mom moment".

His sleep has changed a bit lately. Instead of waking up between 7:30-8am, he's often up anytime between 6am - 7am... usually closer to 6am. aaahhh. I miss my 8am morning starts with him. :) He always had 2 naps, though his second one was very late in the afternoon. He's still very tired then and would sleep if I put him down, but the past 2 weeks it seems he can cope through that tiredness and goes with an earlier bedtime. So far he needs a good quality morning nap to cope with his early rise and long afternoon... if he doesn't get it, he can be a bear.

AJ still loves his books and loves to sing. Most of the time, he will sit quietly with us as long as we either read books with him (he loves the various kids bible books we have, as well as anything with animals in it!) or sing to him. I definitely find myself singing a lot more these days! Glad it's only the 2 kids home... ;)

He has more and more energy these days... but still not very coordinated. I don't think we have an athlete on our hands... ;) He's still a bit top heavy (big head!), so frequently nosedives if he gets running too fast. AJ's pain tolerance is still crazy high, especially when his head is involved... I don't baby his hurts much, though he enjoyed a bit more sympathy when Gram/Nana/Grammie (we're still trying on names for my parents!) was here for 4 weeks... and he milked it for all it was worth!

While for the most part AJ's a pretty easy kid for us, he is definitely testing his boundaries with us more and more lately. Makes for some frustrating days, but we're working hard on the whole "listening to Mom and obeying" concept. Dad gets a much quicker obedience response, so I have to learn his trick.

That's about all this tired brain can remember at the moment. Hopefully it leaves me with a good idea of what life has been like with a 21 month old and a 7 week old! :)

Just a fun closing video of AJ at the sink yesterday... don't worry - we don't usually let him run the water like that!