This Day Was His Own

Friday was hard.    

 We spent all week trying to prepare Noah for pre-school, his first day on his own without me or another family member/friend there to help him through. I'm not sure who was having a harder time? We were all soo excited for this day, secretly hiding our fears, likely not so well from each other.      

 Noah was excited for school, but he was very concerned about being left there. He would keep saying, you are coming right mom? We talked about how school was for kids and that mommies don't go to school, just kids to have fun and teachers to help them learn. When we did our tour, he noticed it was just kids and instantly was concerned. So even when I answered, yes I'm coming, he would then ask "but you're staying right?". This was hard. I didn't want him to be worrying - sorry kid, you got that gene from your mama. We had some tough conversations, but it still came down to the fact that he said he was ready to go, he was excited, but unsettled over just those two facts.      

 Thursday night, he expressed being nervous, just a little scared, but that he was excited. Friday morning he was excited, but once we got in the car, the questions came back.     

 

 I took him in, switched his shoes, he said hi to the teacher and instantly went to go play with one of the other kids. It was great. I finished up some paper work and went to slide out. On my way out another mom stopped me to talk and next thing I knew Noah was running at me. Fail... busted... he told me he was going home. I took him back into the class, we hugged, we talked, he went and played, but kept checking back with me. The teacher began to engage with him, shut the door and then I snuck out. From there on I can only go by what he tells me and his teacher! His teacher is great, she texted me updates, and although he cried most if the tine, he still participated. She showed him how the clock works and when I would be back, she hugged him, encouraged him, reassured him and comforted him.  

 It's hard feeling like you abandoned your child, when yes, in all reality it's good for him, but at a time where he feels he needs you the most, you just leave him and make him figure it out, whether that be relying on his peers or on his own. A good lesson, yes, but one soo hard. A coping skill nonetheless, a necessity in life, but man it makes being a parent hard.  

 

 Parenthood up until age 3 was a breeze and now we are dealing with emotions and feelings and teaching those are hard. Add that on top of this new independence and it gets really tricky!! I think 3 is all about discovery - discovering and exploring emotions, independence, new roles, etc. A lot of big changes in a short amount of time and us parents left to grasp at whatever we can to get by each day and no day is the same.   

 I think one of the hardest parts is the unknown. Yes, he says he had fun, yes, the teacher tells me bits and pieces, but soo much of his day is unknown for me. You begin to wonder - is he still crying? Is he having fun? Is he being a nice boy? Is he using his manners? Are the other kids playing nice with him? Is this worth it?? Yes, I know it's worth it, but it's easy to ask yourself if youeself doing the right thing for him. These days are his own, he will tell me what he wants to tell me, but I won't hear it all and that makes me a little sad. My baby is growing up and is going to have his own experiences, whether good or bad. Who knew cutting the cord could be this hard?   

 

 Yesterday was day 2 for preschool, as we are on an on-call basis for now while we wait for a spot to open up. He had a much better day, he told me about his day, his teacher said he did much better, but still wasn't relaxed. He played and participated, but he was still missing me, but he didn't cry the whole time. It was a bit easier for us both. I know it will get easier each time and ultimately that is the goal we are working towards.     

Weekend Rewind

How is it the end of March already?? Pretty sure I ask myself that every month end, but this month feels a little more rushed and unsettled because April means Em is turning one and that is soo hard on my heart lately. It's exciting and it's a good thing, but it just means she is not so much a baby anymore and that is hard to swallow!!    

 Friday morning we had Em's 1 year photo shoot/cake smash. We managed to get some family shots in as well, which was nice! We did get a couple of sneak peeks:  
     

The shoot went really well!!! Both kids did great and I cannot wait to get the rest back!! 

Friday evening we played outside while BBQing. I did manage to get most of the leaves sucked up. These two are just each other's shadows these days:

 Friday night I had 'book club" except we didn't actually read a book this past month, but it was a fun night out with ladies. I stayed out much to late, for this mama trying to get over a cold.   

 Saturday morning Noah had his first gymnastics class for the spring term. This was his first class without a parent and well it wasn't quite a fail, because he did everything asked of him, but he cried and called for me the whole class. I felt horrible, but he did it and he says he had fun. Hopefully he will do better next week! There was a lady watching her child and she asked me if the little boy crying for me was mine, to which I replied yes, we chatted about how it is hard to watch him struggle. The best advice she could have given me to make me feel better was, "one day you will wish he loved you just as much as he does today." UGH yes!!!! Is hat why it's soo hard? Because his love is soo strong and apparent and I feel like I am pushing him away with putting him in daycare and now this. I know it's all just a natural progression in life, but it doesn't make it any easier!! Being a parent at this stage and age is soo hard!!

Saturday afternoon was fIlled with naptime for everyone but M - he's not a napper. But everyone else woke up feeling refreshed, the rest of the day was spent playing and cleaning. We made homemade pizzas for supper.

 Before we knew it was bath and bedtime.  Sunday morning the boys worked on putting trim up, but they ran out and will have to make a trip to Home Depot to finish this week.  We did managed to get the mudroom cleaned up though, wall art up, we put away all the laundry and tidied the house. This week I will just have to focus on doing surface cleans. 

This little girl had a rough night, and slept in until almost 9 AM, so she skipped her morning nap, but when she crashed after lunch, she crashed!!! Gosh I love these moments!!  

 I managed to get Gracie's hair clipped and M did her toenails, but he cut two too short... oh my goodness what a mess! It was an ongoing mess, but we did end up getting it under control.  M's parents came over for dinner and we had a nice dinner and family time before it was bedtime. 

 This morning I went to the dentist - the appointment I missed last week! My mouth is like new now and I feel soo much better about that!! Today I was brave and had no freezing, because ultimately I hate freezing and my bottom jaw doesn't freeze properly, so since it was just two small cavities, I got through it. It was at least super quick.   

Emilya - 10 Months

 

 

Eating: Emilya loves food!! She will literally shovel it into her mouth with her hands if we don't moderate it. 

    

 

Food she has has tried this past month: 

Grilled Cheese

Noodles

Pickles

Blackberries

Watermelon

Red Meat

Pork

 

 

Sleeping: Emilya is still a great sleeper. Not much has changed from her scheduleni mentioned in last months post. She did blow our minds isn't co-sleeping all of us in the same room together. She handled it like a champ! 

  

Clothing: Emilya is wearing 12 month everything, with the exception of 12-18 months shirts. Em has a long and lean figure, which makes shirts fit kind of funny. She is in 12 month sleepers and size 3 diapers. 

  

  

Features: Emilya has blue eyes and her hair is definitely blonde!! Her hair is growing a bit more again. Em still has 8 teeth!!! 

 

 

  

Weight:  9 Months:  19 lbs 3 oz     29.75 inches

              10 Months: 19 lbs 10 oz.  30 inches 

                             

 

What The Doctor Had To Say: We didn't see the doctor this month, but we did see our audiologist and ordered Em's hearing aid! We also saw the pediatric eye doctor and found out Em's vision has no impairments at this time, so that was great news!!

  

 

Nicknames: Emma, Em, Ems, Emmy Bear, Emmy Bunny, Emma Hope, Little Miss, Littlest Squish, Baby girl, Baby Bunny, Emilya Hope, Sis

 

       

Big Brother Update: Noah is pretty good with his sister, when she's upset, he's always trying to make her laugh or cheer up. It's so cute to watch the two of them together. He's slowly learning that he can't control what she plays with anymore. She loves to follow him around and "do" what he does! 

 

 

Likes: Swimming! She's a water rat!!! Little people, the dogs, her baby, her bunnies in bed, her brother, bath time, books, eating, Patty-Cake, dancing, playing with the play kitchen and play food.

 

 

Dislikes: her face being washed, and her brother taking toys from her 

 

 

Personality: Emilya is super laid back. She had her first airplane ride and family trip down south. She travelled great! She has swam in the ocean. Little Miss loves the beach and the pool, I really look forward to this summer with her!! She is officially crawling on her hands and knees now since St. Maartin. She is also pulling up on everything. It doesn't take much to get a smile out of her!! Emilya is super snuggly and really is the best addition to our family!!                 

 

 

Weekend Rewind

Wow, mid-March already, time just doesn't slow down anymore does it?? I guess it is true when they say time flies when you are having fun!    

I took Noah in the hot tub for the first time and he LOVED it!! He could also touch, which was a big bonus and made him very comfortable in it. 

 Friday night I went to hang out with my girlfriends to celebrate her moving date!!! I'm soo excited for her, her journey hasn't been easy, but there is nothing better than seeing someone soo deserving get a fresh new start. Soo excited for you K!! Love you!!    

 This cold I have is making my nights rough, so when I woke up on Saturday, showered, pumped- which was a joke, now that do not pump anymore I hardly get anything and well let's just say I don't miss that AT all!! But I was planning to be away for the day at my Moms with my sister. Em still nurses 3 times a day (before naps and bed). So after I wasted my time pumping, I played with the kids for a bit before heading out to pick up my sister and head to moms.    

 We helped Mom out by going through paperwork and what not, came across these goods:    

 Leaving the kids is never fun, but coming home was awesome. The warmest welcome from everyone!! Loved it!! 

 

Sunday morning included a sleep in, and then a Sunday morning play session with these three of course after a snuggle in bed!! Love our Sunday mornings! 

 

We pretty much just work on things around the house, I had to run into town to get cash for our neighbour who made us a custom cabinet for the mudroom and we needed a few groceries, so I grabbed that too. 

 

Em is totally into the clumsy baby stage and of course we have her 1 year photo shoot booked and I fear she will be covered in bruises!! 

After the neighbour came over to finish the cabinet, we headed to the farm for some family fun and dinner!! Us girls took the kobota and the boys were on the quad.

We left Grace in the house with Grandma and Grandpa because we knew there was no way she could run along and keep up while we toured to the back of the farm. Maggie had no problem keeping up and when we did offer her a ride, she would superman off of the back of the kobota (not moving). 

 

They sure did have a lot of fun in the puddle. I shared a video of Maggie wiping out while running through - priceless!  

 After supper Em figured out how to climb into this chair and get seated all by herself and she sure was proud! I was too! But on a more serious note, how big is she getting?? Gosh these weeks have flown fast into a year and I can hardly believe it!! 

 
 After supper, Noah and Grandpa went out to play and before leaving I'm sure Noah hit up every muddy puddle he could find! 

 Today I'm off to the dentist for my last appointment of repairs. My mouth is pretty much new again! Hopefully our house hold will get on the mend this week, I'm soo over this cold!!  Scratch that... my cold has me feeling too rough and I don't want to share my germs... I have no sense of smell and likely no taste either... ugh. You can call me grumpasauras....   

3 Things Thursday

1) Pink eye sucks... no I haven't got it yet, but Noah did share his cold with me and not being able to take cold meds, all while dealing with cranky kids makes me want to quit breastfeeding on the spot. But I won't, because that would be crazy, but I am going crazy and not feeling great!!  Not to mention the whole disinfect the whole house, including all the toys... can we just call in the haz-mat?? I will start tomorrow when M gets home from work. We are just past the whole goopy, yucky stage, so I will give it tomorrow and then it's going down! I'm excited to try my new on guard cleaner!!

   

       2) We were able to break quarantine last night, technically we were only under quarantine for the first 24 hours after we started antibiotics, but we gave it an extra day and noticed a big change in Em yesterday. Noah seems to just have the cold, as his eyes aren't really weeping, but we are treating him anyways just to be safe.    

 So anyways, I had made dinner reservations two weeks ago for dinner with the Paw Patrol at Boston Pizza. Sky and Chase were there, Noah was excited, but honestly our last dinner at Eastside's was way better. We waited over an hour for our food, they screwed up my order, my lettuce was not fresh. The kids did pretty good considering we didn't start eating until after 6 PM, which just doesn't work for us! I only managed to get one dark photo of Noah giving Chase a hug. And they just disappeared without announcing they were done, which really annoyed me, considering how long we waited and we told Noah he could see them when he was done.

3) The time change has been great for the most part, with only one problem going down... this girl hasn't napped good ALL week. Now yes, we are dealing with pink eye and hopefully that is the culprit, but I'm thinking we may begin to try dropping the morning nap! She is sleeping in until 8, and if she naps too late in the morning, than she doesn't nap well in the afternoon and Noah naps in the afternoon, so clearly I would rather her nap while Noah does! Hello-Mama-time!! So we will

 likely give that a try? I don't love changing the kids schedules, I overthink it and chicken out. 

In the meantime, I will soak up the snuggles and cringe through the screamfests, and hope that we will get a solution figured out soon!!

 
 

Quarantined

Yes, you read that right... we are officially under quarantine! Pink eye is the culprit... both kids... Em is way worse than Noah somehow. Noah has a bit of a cold, but yes, pink eye... soo not fun!! I will give kudos to the kids for being generally happy while under the weather. 
   

 

 So our weekend was pretty low key.

      Saturday morning Noah had his last swimming class, at this point we thought Em's eye was just a blocked tear duct. We quickly went to Walmart to make some returns and I ended up spending exactly what I returned, coincidentally- probably couldn't do that again if I tried!!

     We spent the rest of the day getting the mudroom put back together - the good news is, our custom cabinetry will be installed tomorrow night!! We played together, and did some household chores. Before we knew it was bath and bedtime.    

 Sunday the kids slept in!! Thank you time change!!! We were smart and let them stay up a bit later on Sunday and then they slept in until 7:40 this morning... amazing!!!     

 On Sunday we got the dining room back to order, finished decorating Noah's room:

 I promise a post on this to come, now that it is mostly done for now. 

Mikes parents came home from St. Maarten on Saturday night, so we had them over for a roast beef dinner. 

Yesterday I too Miss Em to the doctors to confirm the diagnosis and then to pick up meds. We are treating Noah for it as well, although his isn't as bad. Can I just say how hard putting eye drops in our little girl is? It's a two man job, Noah screams when we do it - trying to protect his sister. It's just all over drama and chaos. I'm dreading cleaning all the toys. Luckily Noah takes the drops like a champ!   

Noah's First Day of Preschool

 

He did it!!! He survived. It was not easy, but I managed to get away without witnessing any tears.

 

Right now we are on an on-call basis, so he will go when they have an opening at this point, which works for us. As soon as a day opens up, we will get Noah in once or twice a week at this point. 

 

We are hoping that this will help with his separation anxiety, all the while giving him some time away from the house and my care, letting him play with friends, outside of our regular play groups we attend, not to mention it gives me one on one time with Em and time to get some stuff done! 

 

The program runs from 8:30-11:30 AM and it just around the corner from us. I love his teacher soo far and the program from what I could see. I think it is a good match for us all together. 

 

I love that the teacher sent me text updates, as well as photos, so it did help my wandering mind and gave me peace knowing he isn't crying the entire time. He did cry off and on for the first part, but still engaged with other kids. The teacher explained the clock to him, and she said that really seemed to help him. When it came time to go play in the gym, he was super happy and having a blast!! 

 

When I picked him up, he came running, soo happy to see me, he did tell me he was crying, but that he did have fun and he does want to go back! I'm glad to hear they worked it out! 

 

While he was at school, I managed to get Em down for her morning nap and organized the pet cupboard, vacuumed, and tidied up a bit before Em woke up and we played together. It was a nice morning. Of course, I missed Noah and constantly wondered if he was upset, or having fun, but it worked out! 

 

He did break my heart a little when he woke up from his nap with a nightmare. He was just screaming "I want to go home, I want Mommy", so we talked about it a bit and I told him how proud I was of him for being such a big boy, but it was soo hard to hear him soo upset, just as I imagined he would have been. I know it will get better with time. I am soo proud of him. 

St. Maarten - MANEV Winter Vacay 2017 - Part 1

Vacation is never long enough, and this trip was no exception! Although, as sad as were to see it over, we all welcomed our separate rooms and beds, as well as all our fur babies when we did get home!!   


Let's break this vacay up into bullet form:  


Tuesday: - we left the house at 6:30 AM - the kids were amazing in the airport and the airplane, so that was a big win! Our flight was quick and we landed early!!

- Noah didn't nap, so we had a tired boy on our hands, but he snoozed a bit on the way to our apartment, as that seemed to take forever, but I think we were all just tired and hot by then! Our rental car was a Ford Explorer, this is the vehicle I thought I wanted as my next vehicle, but after having one for a week, it is not big enough!!  


- We went for a quick swim before dinner. There is an hour time change, which threw the kids off a bit when it came to bedtime and meals 


- we rented a studio apartment and it only had a shower with no tub, so we made showers work for everyone, which Noah was used to because of last time we were here, but we were super nervous about how bedtime was going to go with all being in the same room! But it couldn't have gone better!!! It did take time, as one of us laid with Noah until he fell asleep and one of us rocked Em to sleep, but once they were down, they were down and we were able to go sit outside, relax, play cards, etc.   


Wednesday:
- was an early start... both kids were up before sunrise. Luckily M is a morning person and could handle waking at that hour, because I certainly cannot, so he took the kids outside with their milk and they had quiet time outside. I had not slept well at all.   


- after Emilya's nap, we decided went to visit friends of Mike's parents. They were such a sweet couple, their rental was gorgeous, the kids had fun swimming and they got the cutest little gifts from them, along with some yummy snacks.

- we headed to the grocery store next. I was able to buy me some sugar cane syrup, something you can't get here, so I brought 2 bottles home!!  

- we pushed naptime again, but they managed to get a small nap in. We learned that the kids really had to eat no later than 5:30! The time change and early start were not our friends. 

- Noah went to bed as a two year old for the last time!     


Thursday:
- Noah turned THREE!!! 


- the kids woke up extra early again, but after Em's morning nap we headed to the beach!!!

- it really was not the best beach day, but Noah requested going to the beach in his birthday and well how often will he get to do that in life?? So we made it happen!!! 
 

- it was crazy wavy, and a strong undertow, but we made the best of the morning. I will say Noah had fun and that is all that matters.
   
- after nap we threw a little birthday party up at the pool, with decorations, balloons, presents and cake!

- our dinner plans of pizza was a bust, because none of them opened until 5:30, so we would be looking at a late dinner, which we knew wouldn't work, so M's Mom threw something together quickly. We did cake up by the pool.  Check out this birthday sunset:

- I still can't believe he's 3!!!     


Friday:
- we had a morning by the pool.  

  - after nap, we got ready to go out for dinner! M wanted lobster!  

Yes, the boys all had to dress in matching shirts. The people staying above us were soo sweet and gave Noah this orang shirt to match Grandpa's for his birthday!

The first picture was too funny not to share...

  - we walked the strip, but most of the shops weren't open yet. So we found a little restaurant right on the beach, I enjoyed ribs  

- seriously they KNOW how to make ribs in St. Maarten, Noah had chicken and Mike had his lobster.   

  - on the way back to the car, we decided to be spontaneous, as Noah wanted nothing more but to go in the water on the beach. Of course we only had the clothes we were wearing, but we all went in the water, but we had fun. It's these little moments that I love, the look on Noah's face when we said sure was priceless! These are the memories I hope he remembers, because I certainly will!!