Miller Family Blog

The Kids

And onto my favorite subject.... the kids! I just did some "un-official" measurements on them yesterday with my scale and yardstick. Emily is 25 pounds, 32" tall. Andrew is 20 pounds, 28" tall. Now... onto the fun stuff!

EMILY

Emily gets smarter overnight I think (oh stop rolling your eyes... you know you brag about your own children like this too!) She has so many words now and she is really easy to talk to! We can actually understand each other (90% of the time at least). She loves to really work on prounouncing her words lately and making sure she gets ALL the sounds out like apple is "Ap-pool", shes ask for "pay-por" (paper) when coloring or writing and last night she loved saying "booK" and really emphasizing that she knew the "K" sound. Her two favorite words to use daily have to be "coo-KEY!" (cookie) and "cayyye" (cake). Help! I've created a sugar monster! LOL! Honestly, listing her words is kind of pointless at this point because there aren't too many she won't say or at least attempt... She always says "peas" (please) and "tank-too" (thank-you) when asking for something. She asks for "milk" or "juice" when she is thirsty, "ish" (fish, as in Goldfish) when she wants a snack. She loves to say "cwacka" (cracker) when asking for oysterettes or graham crackers and she'll pikc up a phone (real, cell, toy, doesn't matter) and jabber away. She loves saying "NO"! She'll wag her finger and tell you "no no no no" a bazillion times but if somethings is a yes, she'll say "ya! ya!" Oh and she even sings! HAHA She loves dancing to the Mama Mia! soundtrack at my Mom's house and now she even says "Mama Mia" when it comes on (with the right song and everything). She'll also try to sing some of the chorus words to "Dancing Queen". She calls me "Ma", her Daddy "Daddy", her brother "B" (we still haven't worked on this one!), my Grandma "Na-neee", my Dad "Pa" and my Mom "Ma" (like me!) We've heard her say the whole sound for "Grandma" before I think because I always call my mother "ma" that she hears me say it so she calls her that too. She can say "Matt" for Uncle Matt, "Nella" for 'Aunt' Daniela and she calles my brother Andrew "Unk" because we call him Unkie. :)

She is great at taking instruction which makes my day a lot easier. She can "please throw this away" (into the trash), "bring this to B" (take a bottle to Andrew and actually stick it in his mouth until I get there), "take one more bite & then you can have ____" (she understands that she must finish her meal before dessert/snacks), "give this to Daddy/Grandma/Papa/etc".

As far as activities go, she still loves Blue, Bear (in the big blue house), Sesame & Barney. She sings and dances with them. Barney has taught her her a TON of dances with hand movements ("Mr. Sun", "The Wheels on the Bus", "If You're Happy & You Know It", hula dancing.....) but I just caught her doing something from Blue's Clue's the other day- she points to her head and taps it when they sit in the thinking chair and "think...think...thiiiinnkkkk..." :) She still loves to dance! She has a bunch that I have mentioned before ("shake your butt", "hula" (this is hysterical!), "tap dance", "take a bow") but her newest addition is... BALLERINA TURN! She puts her hands on her head and spins around and around. Broadway... here we come!!! She also loves to color and play with stickers! She sticks them all over the paper and usually colors on top of them. In fact, we just made her Daddy a Blues Clues sticker project with a new coloring book and some glitter Crayons we picked up at Target this week. :) Oh and she spends daily walking around in one shoe. I have no idea what it's all about but usually, that's her preference. Just one shoe. Odd.

She's definitely a climber - the couches, my bed, all of our toys, Andrew's walker and she has been practicing stairs by herself! She usually climbs up and knows to "turn around" when she needs to get down but recently, she has been so excited to take that last step down without holding on.

Eating is the same. Three meals, a bunch of snacks, a bunch of drinks. I don't think anything new has really been added to our menu. She still has pancakes or French Toast with jelly and syrup for breakfast, milk or Orange Juice and a side of fruit. Sometimes, she has yogurt, sometimes eggs, sometimes cold cereal like Apple Jacks or Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. She has turned away from cereal bars. Too boring for her tastes I guess! Lunch is either grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, little hotdogs, a Lunchable with ham or turkey meat.... fruit on the side, a veggie, maybe some crackers, maybe some cheese.... Dinner can be what we are eating (but we usually eat too late), pastina with butter (only like once a week now because it's SO messy), chicken, Italian (she likes raviolis and my meatballs), soup, breakfast for dinner (last night was scrambled egg night!) She gets dessert everynight because her meal isn't complete without it! As long as she eats good all day and has veggies and proteins, I am fine with cookies and cake after meals. Her usual snacks are Goldfish (both plain and Burstin' BBQ), graham crackers, fruit snacks, an M&M here and there (when she sees me eating them).... She drinks juice all day (half water or else her diapers get bad!) and milk (plain or chocolate). As a treat, I might give her lemonade next door when it's made. She's still never had soda and probably won't, since I don't drink it. She feeds herself EVERY meal.... it's messy but she has gotten awesome at keeping everything on her utensil.

Emmie's sleep schedule has been later for the past few weeks but it works out perfectly for us because it goes along with her brother's (and allows her to join me for IDOL nights! HA!) Usually, we stay up together & watch our shows - either Idol next door or kid's movies if they are on, and she goes to bed between 9 & 9:30. That means a 9am wake-up call which is Heaven to me! (sooooo NOT a morning person here!) It's also a lot of fun because we get to spend some time with Emily doing "non-baby-ish" things. Like the other night, Toy Story 2 was on and since she stays up later now, she sat on the couch with Vinny and I and the three of us watched a movie together (while "B" was peacefully snoozing in his crib). She takes a 2-3 hour nap around 1pm daily.

ANDREW

Hands-down Andrew is the happiest kid I know. I have never in my life seen a baby smile and laugh out loud this much (and everyone who sees him has to agree). He has the biggest grin and charms us with it all day, every day. :)

He is a biiiig baby! Not too much in a fat sense (although he does have some impressive rolls), but he is just tall and thick. Him and Emily share diapers and a clothing size, so that tells you something! He wears 12 months but really could stand a few 18 month items (Emily's size). He is so strong that he started rolling months ago and just the other night, I got pictures of him standing near the couch! Sure, he was wobbly but all around, he is a lot stronger then your average 5 month old. He would be crawling if it weren't for these belly rolls dragging him down! LOL!

I think he's teething b/c he spiked a fever 2 weeks ago and bites EVERYTHING in his site. I just started using teething rings (I freeze them because let's face it - it works better, in my opinion) and he LOVES them! He stares for endless minutes just eyeballing it and then slowly drawing said ring to his mouth. Really, he isn't into toys. I guess because he still can't play with them unles it's a floor toy but the fact that Emily steals them all from him might have something to do with it! His daily activities are swinging in his swing (which he will only stand in 15 minute increments), laughing, biting rags, blankies and teething rings, watching shows with his sister, laughing, smiling, laughing some more! He also gets lots of belly time on the floor because he really wants to move and doesn't have too much rolling room in his crib. We are so excited for him to finally get his own room and big boy crib. :)

Andrew loves his food! I just recently started a 3-meal a day schedule which is easy because it follows Emily's. When she is eating in her high chair, he goes up on the table in his Papason and gets his meals at the same time. We started the Stage 2 mixes so his recent additions have been Banana/Blueberry, Pear/Wild Berry and Butternut Squash/Corn. He seems ok with everthing but apples (belly ache). Sometimes, I'll make a bowl of oatmeal and stir a fruit in to change it up but not often because he has cereal in his bottles. I ran out of oatmeal the other day (when you use it in every bottle, you tend to go through boxes per week!) so I used Mixed and after only 2 bottles, he stopped going to the bathroom. He just can't stand rice - it binds him terribly. I believe he's tried everything out there in Stage 1 - green beans, squash, sw. potato, peas, carrots (these are kind of iffy with him too), pears, apples, bananas, peaches and then a few Stage 2 things like blueberry, corn, drawing blanks here......

As far as sleeping goes, he will take 2-3 small naps (or sometimes one really bad nap (i.e. 45 minutes) and then a long 2-3 hour one) which are always un-predicatble throughout the day. Bedtime is pretty routine with him; bed between 8 and 9pm, wake around 8am. I must say above all else, I am blessed with great sleepers.

posted by Gina M @ 1:29 PM