Wilder's September 2016

Wilder's September 2016

The fall is my favorite time of year. I could go on and on about my love of cool mornings, specialty coffee drinks, sweaters and foliage, but since 2013, fall is my favorite because it's the time both of my babies were born. Wilder is two months away from being three years old, and this week we put him in his pants from last winter... but they're all too short. They fit in the waist, but they're short. Granted, they're 18  month old pants, and he's 34 months old... but he's growing in height for sure!

The biggest things I'm noticing about Wilder this month are the ways he's understanding his world. He's loving our homeschool preschool. He has picked up on phrases like "Let's talk about___" and "Let's learn about___" and inserts them into his own conversations. He knows so many colors, shapes and letters and numbers, and really enjoys reviewing them and pairing them with things like stickers, or objects to match. It's been really fun!

Some of the things he has said this month:

Sitting at the dinner table, he likes to direct everyone to be happy... which is great, but usually the adults have mouths full of y'know, food. "Want mama and dada and Felicity and mimi and papa all laugh with Wilder!" ::FAKE LAUGH FROM WILDER:: over and over. It's so funny. We get him to make his sister laugh, and she thinks it's so great when he interacts with her.

discussing his jacket: "It's so chilly outside. I need a jacket. Is there a snowman?"

After seeing workers put together our fire pit patio outside, he wants to play with his construction toys in that area. "Ima gonna bring my excavator and Snort (his name for his bulldozer--from Are You My Mother?) and Ima gonna work SO HARD."

Going to bed with his priorities in order: "Want Mama to lie down next to you? Ima gonna go to sweep and when I wake up, Ima gonna play SO MANY trains."

He got a haircut this month, and we talked about it a lot on the way there. He's very much a routines kid. He likes to know what is going to happen, and in what order, and he is better about scary things. He didn't cry at all getting his hair done. For the first time EVER!

It's so much fun to spend time with Wilder. He still narrates his life, but you can have conversations about it, and the things he says are a window to what he's thinking. I love it.

We're working on a new round of him testing his independence. He's able to take on more chores and practice being obedient, and while he's a pretty compliant kid most of the time, he does have his moments. But he's really intuitive, so everything has to be done with sensitivity to reach his heart.

Loving this new season with the babies. Wilder is just a sweet part of our family, and we are loving watching him grow up!

Here are some photos of Wilder from earlier this week. Felicity learned to climb up the stairs and she was so proud!

We saw a helicopter

climbing the stairs for the first time!

Felicity 11 months

11 months old

Where has this year gone?? I'm having so many flash backs of this time last year, doing all these concerts, trips to the zoo, outdoor fancy dinners and state fair outings... In the last month of my pregnancy! And now, we have this lovely, vivacious, sunshine of a little girl who lights up our lives and makes us smile all the time. Felicity is such a wonderful part of our family.

She's 29 inches tall and about 18 pounds. She's wearing 12 month clothes. She has 5 teeth, all broken through within the last two months. It's been rough with teething!

She goes to bed by 8 pm and either sleeps till 6:30 or 7 am, or wakes once sometime in the night...sometimes twice. She consistently takes one nap right after lunch for about 1-2 hours. She is still tired around 10 am but doesn't always nap. She's ready to go to bed sooner than when she's going at this point and I think it's because she doesn't nap long enough.

Felicity is a big fan of food these days. She still breastfeeds on demand, but she's started chowing down at meals. We are avoiding dairy right now in hopes of improving her digestion, but she loves all meats, oatmeal, blueberries, strawberries, cucumber, rice and noodles.

She can say dada, mama and bye-bye with a wave. She claps when we say "yay!" Pretty sure she said Ellie and she's tried to say Alfred, but mostly she happy-screeches at the pets as she tries to love them.

The big news this month is Felicity can crawl now! She started pretty much the day after we got back from our girl trip to New Jersey to visit our friends the Beavers. Maybe it was watching the two older girls run around that motivated her, but she's really got it down now. And this week she has discovered the pantry and the one cabinet reserved for kids in the kitchen and she makes a beeline to explore and pull everything out. It's so funny to see her examine things.

Our trip was super fun! We flew just us two girls, and she was happy as can be (with distractions, toys, books and snacks) but especially because our seat mates each way were kind and interacted with the social bug. She smiled and had a great time... and took naps in the Tula! Visiting the Beavers was a lot of fun. The two older girls (3 and almost 2) took care that Felicity had her paci and toys and just loved on her. Felicity had so much fun with the big girls, and I had a great visit with Alicia.

If I was to try to describe baby Felicity's favorite things, it's pretty much books, her baby dolls/stuffed Elmo and dropping cars down Wilders parking ramp toy. She really likes just looking through books, and being read to, for quite a long time in a sitting. Today she carried a book around, flipping pages, for more than an hour!

As she gets older, we love watching her personality develop. Felicity smiles so much. She's pretty easygoing. She loves any attention from Wilder and she eats up time with her daddy. She's my little sidekick. I take her with me to run errands whenever I can because she's just such a fun baby. She loves people and parties and life! She's a bit opinionated now and will get mad if we take something away or thwart her plans. Don't we all get a little bit annoyed when we can't do what we want? I am loving seeing her grow more and more into herself. Lots more fun ahead!

Here are some more photos from today!