11 Months Old

I have to pinch myself… Wesley, sweet, tiny, baby Wesley is WEEKS away from turning ONE!!!!! How can that be? How is it that my little boy is growing up so quickly? He is 11 months now, and there is no stopping him. Today he took two steps, paused and took four more before plopping over. He thinks it’s wonderful and will clap for himself whenever he is happy or proud of what he has done. He grins like a cheese ball and laughs at his sister all day. He has 5 teeth (the sixth is coming). He is SUCH a momma’s boy it’s not even funny (almost frustrating at times… if he weren’t so cute about it). He has added a few more words… momma, dada, ba (for ball… which he is OBCESSED with), mo (for more), do (for dog) and anything else is still referred to with grunts and reaching. He loves to reach up and grab his ears when things are funny/excited, to bury his face in anything soft (especially our fluffy couch blanket or Mallory’s stuffed animals and cuddle into my chest and suck his thumb when he gets sleepy. Peek-a-boo and ‘find the ball’ are his favorite games, followed very closely by ‘catch’. He (and Mallory) are soooooooo perfect, they are making us doubt if we want more (why mess with perfection)?????

Oh and if you are wondering what happened to his forehead and left eye… he got in a fight with the garage step… it won.

Bries Visit

The wonderful and amazing Scott family blessed Sonoma County with a much anticipated visit! Poor Brie was practically torn to pieces from all of us Brie-starved friends vying for her time. She looks as beautiful as always, and her kids are growing into such sweet, funny, creative little people!!!! Her visits always go way too quickly, then it’s back to counting down the days until we can see them all again… but MAYBE this year I’ll have to go visit her!?!?!?
 

No Pressure

Since Christmas life has been fun, exciting and very full!!!! So I’m sorry about the lack of posts. For the past 5 or 6 months Mallory has had a favorite game that she made up…. It’s called ‘Lets Fix Tigger.’ In this game she is a doctor (along with Dr. Pig and Dr. Lion… which are little finger puppets) and we/they all fix Tigger. Sometimes Tigger is just sick, other times (like today) she says that he was bit by a fox on his leg. The back-stories that she comes up with of why Tigger is in the hospital are always really funny . So, for Christmas mom made her a Doctor coat and gave her a ton of doctor toys (stethoscope, thermometer, bandages, cap, masks, suction device, medicine bottles, reflex hammer, gloves….). Since then you can find her all scrubbed up and going into surgery to ‘Fix Tigger’ every day!!!!! She also LOVES to hear about my work. Every night when I get home, while sitting at the dinner table she’ll put her elbow on the table, rest her chin in her hand and lean towards me and say “Momma, lets talk about your day at work.” she wants to know about every case that I saw, how they got hurt, what test I ran, and how/if I could fix them. Not that I am pressuring her to be a doctor…. But she does have a innate love and interest in it. :)

Humpty Dumpty

Mallory and I were saying poems this morning... I would say a few words and then pause and she would fill in the gaps. She was getting all of them right, but apparently thought Humpty Dumpty needed a rewrite. This is now how it goes;
Me: Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a...
Mallory: great opportunity.

10 Months

10 Months old already! Time is zooming by. Wesley is growing like a weed, I think he around 22 pounds but I’m not sure how tall he is (sorry). He is now anything but stagnant! This boy is into any and everything! Don’t even dare think about leaving something within grasping-reach that you don’t want him to play with, because he’ll find it… and try to eat it. He takes a step or two without holding onto things, but he prefers to cruse/walk. If he’s in a hurry though, he’ll drop and crawl like there’s no tomorrow! This boy is FAST! Too fast. Thankfully he is (almost) always close at Mallory’s heels.  He says Daadaa, Momma and Baba-baba (bottle, I think). He has two cute little bottom teeth that he likes to rub on everything. We’ve been working on the sign language thing, but he is not having it! He is a grunter… and boy does he get his point across! He has different grunts/pitches for ‘more’, ‘water’, ‘done’ and ‘Hey, I want whatever it is that my sister is playing with/eating’… its sooooooo funny! He has had two really nice little bruises on his head all within the past 3 days (since when he’s going into ‘supper-speed’ crawl mode, he tucks his head and doesn’t look where he’s going)… BAM! Right into the wall/door/toy box/table /dog … you get the picture. He loves nothing more than having someone get on the floor with him. He’ll laugh hysterically, inches closer to you, than high-tails it in the opposite direction (giggling the entire time). If you don’t crawl-chase him, he’ll turn around and give you the cheekiest grin and then crawl back and rub his face all over you. This boy just kills me! (oh and is you are wondering what happened to the cute foam letters/numbers… a little busy-handed little girl found where I had hid them and has lost most of them… not to mention it would have been virtually impassable to get Wesley to leave them alone.)

B-Day Gal

Yesterday I turned 25 again… for the 7^th time. It was wonderful! I honestly think it was one of my favorite birthdays ever!

Saturday morning Joyce and John came over to watch the kids, while Matthew and I drove to San Francisco for a wonderful overnight stay. It was heaven. We first went to the San Francisco Academy of Science and then bought lunch from a fancy traveling/tuck lunch-place that had killer clam chowder and calamari. Then it was off to the Hotel Griffon. I had found a deal from living social and it was well worth it! This place was awesome! Super fancy and all that I could have hoped for…. robes, chocolate on our pillows and a beautiful view of the bay. We had dinner at a way up-scale place called Butterfly (Thanks again to living social), then we walked down to pier 39, then walked back to our hotel. Being the party animals we are, we are asleep by 10:30!

Sunday morning we didn’t roll out of bed until 8:30 (it’s amazing how long you can stay in bed when there aren’t kids to take care of or work to run off to), and then headed out for brunch followed by a 2 mile walk to and up Coit Tower. What a view. We walked back to the hotel (randomly met up with Carrie for a second) and then headed home. That evening Mom, Dad, Joyce and John all came over for an amazing dinner and dessert that Mom made. It was such a wonderful day(s). Thank you to all, it was perfect!!!!

Thanksgiving

I feel like I have been in a constant state of catch-up.
Here are some of the pictures from Thanksgiving. It was our year to spend it with Matthews family, so we went to Forest Hill for a few nights. It was really nice.... different, but nice. The biggest difference was that we have kids, so it's not just a get together and shoot the breeze sort of time. Its now a try to entertain/feed/care for the kids, make sure they aren't tearing someones house apart, and try and say more then just a passing 'hi' to family that we haven't seen in months sort of a time. Traveling with kids is EXHAUSTING! They are off, I am off (which makes Matthew feel off), NO ONE sleeps and yet the entire time I'm trying to tell myself 'relax, enjoy yourself, you're not at home/work,' which just stresses me out more because i KNOW i need to relax...(I need to remember self-pep-talks don't work for me). Any way, all in all it was a really nice time. Maybe next time we'll just leave the kids at home to fend for themselves so we can gets some adult time.  Just kidding.

Baby Crack

Pretty sure toilet paper is like crack to a baby! I mean seriously! The more they play with it, the more they want it. It all starts with just a innocent little swat of the roll, then before you know it they are crawling down the hallway with the entire roll trailing behind them.  Just say NO to T.P.

 

Remember this one? Mallory was the same age when she started dabbling in T.P. Thankfully she kicked the habit shortly there after. ;)

 

Trifecta

Today was a day of firsts for Wesley.

His first steps! Yep, at 9 1/2 months this boy is ‘walking’! Our life is about to get drastically more insane… just as soon as these two kids start running in opposite directions.

His first fat lip! Matthew as playing with him and Mallory out on the stone patio and Wesley was standing up or trying to walk and instead fell face/lip first into the stone. Brave boy didn't cry for more than 10 seconds.

His first visit with Santa! He was actually pretty cool with Santa. Mallory, on the other hand, all day couldn't stop talking about him, yet the second she saw him she didn't say a word or crack a smile (not even for a candy)!

Ice Cream

 We went out for ice cream the other day. It was some fancy place with CRAZY flavors (rose petal, hay, corn, avocado, chili... and then all the 'normal, boring' ones too). I think Mallory got mint chip, Matthew got Elvis (chocolate/peanut butter/banana) and some chocolate espresso one, and I got Vanilla Chai Tea. They were good! It was Wesley's first Ice Cream experience... I think he loved it! No surprise there! ;)

9 Months

Wesley has now been growing in the outside world, as long as he was growing in my inside world! I can’t believe he’s 9 months old. He is a wonderful little man. Full of joy, laughter, contentment and just the right amount of neediness to keep us from forgetting about him and we chase after Mallory. From the get-go I had pegged him as a laid back, don’t want to rush sort of fellow… I was wrong (so much for mother’s instincts). He wants to play and follow Mallory so badly that there is no holding him back, staying put or tying him down! This past month he has started doing so much… He says Daada, and will have a conversation with you (back and forth) if you ‘aaaaa’ at him. He ‘zips’ around the house doing what I have termed ‘Monster Crawling’ (since he drags himself around with his arms while on his belly like a zombie with missing legs)… most normal people call it an Army Crawl. Anyway, as a result you should check out the shoulder muscles on this boy! Dang! Wesley pulls himself up on everything and has started ‘cruzing’ and just tonight started using the push/walking toy and was taking lots of little unsteady steps forward. He has even started pushing himself up to a standing position from the ground (without holding onto anything) and standing there for 5-10 seconds before toppling over! So despite my hope of having a baby that wanted to remain stagnant, it seems that Mallory is too much of a temptation and he is determined to run after her (sooner rather than later). He’s a total cheese ball, and has grins like a mad-man when we take the camera out…these grins are so big that he practically goes blind in the process. It cracks be up! Oh and he FINALLY has teeth. Two cute little bottom ones. And no shocker here, he still loves, loves, loves to eat! I only am nursing him once a day (in the mornings). It was a joint decision between him and me. As his distractibility went WAY up, my milk went WAY down. I have tons and tons of frozen breast milk though so we don’t have to worry about buying formula ever!  Oh and he is weighing in at a whooping 21.2 pounds! There you have it.

Daada

 

Wesley LOVES his Daddy. I mean he totally and utterly adores him...(but don't take that to mean that he's not a Momma boy, because he totally is). But Matthew walks into the room and Wesley wiggles, giggles and beams. So it's no wonder that today he started saying "Daada, Daada, Daada"!!!!!! I'm not sure if he knows what he's saying, or who he's saying it to, but it's darn cute. And since Mallory said 'Momma' as her first word it's only fitting that Wesley said 'Daada' (besides, you should have seen the glow on Matthews face today!!!!!)

Happy Halloween

Halloween was fun. Wet, but fun.
Mallory wanted to be a Spider (don't ask me why, I still haven't figured that out), and Wesley was a Raccoon. It rained all through trick-or-treating, but it made for great memories. Mallory pretty much 'got' Halloween this year. It was fun to watch. She would stomp up to the door in her purple rain boots and umbrella and say "tick-or treat" to the closed door. "Mallory," we would tell her, "you have to wait until you knock on the door." She she would then knock on the door and immediately say "trick-or-treat." "Mallory, you have to wait until someone opens the door." Then when someone would open the door Mallory would shyly mumble "trick-or-treat." But as soon as she was given candy she would excitedly want to move on to another house (and the entire process was repeated). Good times.

Pumpkin Time

Happy Halloween!

Last week we went to the pumpkin parch and carved pumpkins.

 

 

What a blast!

Our Lucky Charms

Way to go Giants! Another World Series won!

Good thing we aren’t superstitious.

You’re probably wondering how the giants wining and us being superstitious have anything to do with each other. Little did you all realize but Matthew and I apparently are the KEY to their successes! Honest, I have proof. In 2010 Mallory Rose was born, that year the Giants FINALLY won the World Series (they hadn’t won since 1954)… now in 2012 Wesley Robert was born and once again the Giants won. I see a trend developing. Pretty sure that if any of the die-hard fans or the owner of the team catch wind of our little sure fire way to have a winning season, we might be propositioned to keep popping these kids out!

Another Mallory Moment

Mallory was standing outside eating her popsicle (because everyone wants to have a popsicle when it’s cold and rainy, right?) Any way she poked her head inside and told me, “Momma, Sonny has no hands, hes gots only feets.” I told her she was right and held up my hands and asked her, ‘who does have hands?’ (Thinking she would obviously tell me that I did). She replied with “Moose have NO hands, silly momma.”

What was I thinking?

Mallorys Mind

  Mallory has been cracking me up lately, the way her mind works and the things she says are priceless. The other day we were invited over into our neighbors backyard so that Mallory could see the HUGE, beautiful spider that was living on her tomato plant. We oooo’ed and ahhhh’ed at it and then our neighbor asked Mallory if she wanted to name it. So Mallory looked and looked at the spider as if trying to pick the perfect name, then said, ‘yes, her name is Piss!’ My neighbor and I died! We were laughing so hard. I don’t even know where she heard the word piss. In the end I had her re-name the spider and she chose the name ‘girl’. A much more appropriate word to come out of a 2 year olds mouth.

The other night while driving home Wesley started coughing/gagging, so I asked Mallory ‘is Wesley ok?’ Without a moment’s hesitation she said ‘yeah Wesley’s fine.’ Then she thought for a moments and said ‘Actually momma, it’s dark outside so I cannot see him.’ That killed me. It’s like she realized that her previous statement wasn’t really true because she didn’t really know if he was fine. Sweet girl.

Lastly, during that same night-time car ride she saw the moon and said in her sweet, husky, sing-song little voice ‘Moon are you coming home with me?’  Once again she was quiet for a few seconds (will wonders never cease) and then told me ‘momma the moon has no mouth so it cannot answer me.’ Love this little girl.

8 Months Old

I can’t believe another month has gone by in a blink of an eye! My little man is already 8 months old! He is just the most wonderful little guy. He is turning into a little busy-body, wanting to touch any and everything that anyone is holding. He has managed to pull himself upright from a sitting position all on his own twice in the past few days. He loves to stand and really wants to walk and chase after Mallory (even though he isn’t even crawling).  When he’s sitting up he’ll move into the crawling position and rocks/reaches, then always flops forward onto his belly. But when he’s on his belly that’s when the trouble begins… he twists, turns and wiggles (almost like an army crawl) and evens climbs over things (legs, books, toys, pets) as long as he can grab it he’ll yank himself over it… nothing is technically ‘out of his reach’ any more.  He started waving last week! It’s sooooo stinking cute. He’s clapping too (and is even doing it in him highchair which confuses me because I don’t know if he’s just clapping to be happy or if he’s trying to tell me ‘more’ in sign language).  This little man is a TALKER! (Granted he’s spent the past 8 months listening to Little Miss Chatter-Box so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised). He squeals, coos, ‘baaaabaaaabaaaaa’s’, gaaaaaaa’s, blows raspberries, and screams (like a high-pitched girly yell).  He eats solids like a champ and would rather have a fist full of meat/veggies then anything puréed on a spoon. He’s gotten great at pinching little pieces of food then proceeds to shove most of his fist in his mouth when he goes to eat them. I weighed him a few days ago, he was 19.8. What a tank. (Looking back, Mallory was 21 pounds at 9 months… looks like we have another moose on our hands).

Woo Hoo

Great news…. I don’t need surgery! I spent the morning at the doctors and learned a ton about my knee. First off, when I got there they sent me over to get a few radiographs done. I had had an MRI done already, but the doc wanted some views of what my knee was doing in a standing/weight barring position. Then I headed back over to the doctor’s office.  He then informed me that back in 98 I not only had I had ACL reconstruction on my left knee but also PCL!!!!! I didn’t know that. Apparently tearing both your ACL and PCL is fairly rare and takes TOTAL dislocation of the knee and about 40-70 degrees of rotation. No wonder it hurt so badly. He then went on to ask a ton of questions about how often there is pain, swelling, immobility of my knee(s)…  all of which was vertically never (besides this injury now, and occasional stiffness when the weather changes).  He manipulated my knees and we chatted about my hyper-flexibility. He even did a few tests/checks to rule out Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (since having hyper-flexible joints is the number one sign). No worries I’m ‘normal’ just very ‘bendy’. He watched me walk and then we went through my MRI and radiographs. They look GREAT! The surgical repairs are perfect, the meniscus is clean and I have only one little arthritic change. Which according to him, is unheard of. Apparently when people tear their ACL and PCL, without fail, by the 10 year mark there is significant (and painful) arthritic changes at the ventral attachment of the PCL… I have NONE! The fact that I haven’t had swelling or pain on a daily basis since my surgery is unheard of, and the fact that I don’t have degeneration of the meniscus and am not riddled with arthritic changes is mind blowing to him… and according to all the ‘texts books’ I should not be able to run like I do. It’s as if my body never had an injury… let alone a MASIVE, potentially physically limiting injury! All wonderful news. The injury that I am currently dealing with has nothing to do with past issues! It just is a patellar (knee cap) injury that will improve with rest!!!!!!! I asked him if I should stop running and he said, “you never should have been running, but since you have been for the past 15 years and your body doesn’t mind it, take some time to let your knee heal and then go ahead and get back into it…’!!!!!!! WooHooo! He did recommend some inserts that should go into all my shoes and potentially some quadriceps muscle exercises… but that’s it! Cool Huh?!?!?

Oh and apparently the bendy-joint gene is hereditary and bendy people who play sports almost always tear their ACL, so we’ll have to watch and see what the kidd-o’s are like…. We might have to get them to strengthen their quads before playing physical sports. (Pretty sure Mallory can already squat as much as I can…. This might be frightening)

Another Stiller Parenting Moment

Pretty sure this goes against just about everything 'they' recommend to reduce the risk of SIDS. It's truly a wonder that Wesley has survived 8 months of Mallory-filled-life. Between being climbed on, pushed over, picked up by the head, buried in blankets/toys/book etc. he is bound to be one tough little man!
Oh and by the way, the MRI results were sort of 'inconclusive'... so I'm going to see a sports medicine specialist Thursday morning. Still no running. Sigh.