No More Binky!

At 21 months Maddy has finally been weened off the pacifier, AKA binky. 

No more binky!

A Family Reunion

As you all probably know, Maddy and I are huge fans of Rachel Coleman of Baby Signing Time.  As far as mentor, Rachel Coleman is a wonderful mentor to mothers like me after learning what she is going through as a mother.

Anyway, I was nearly in tears when I read her blog tonight about her family reunion.  Tears of joy.  I hope you'll spend time reading her blog entry "Laura's Story" because it touches upon family adoption and her experience of having a family reunion.

Two Kids, We CAN Do this!

Milestones.  I gotta celebrate the little milestones that my kids are accomplishing.  I'm so thankful that they're both healthy and happy kids. 


Wonderful.  I feel wonderful knowing that Nick has finally gotten adjusted to living outside of my womb.  He's such a good baby.  He went from keeping us up all night with his crying to peacefully sleeping through the night.  I only get up to feed him at 3am and 5am.  Once he's fed, he goes back down without any fuss.  Thank you so much, Nick!  I love chatting with him after he is fed.  At 3 months, Nick is such a chatterbox, just like his Ate Maddy.  Best thing about him is his smile--those dimples have me swooning!

Our little toddler has way too much energy.  Maddy has such a fascination for climbing and standing on chairs to reach for things placed high up on shelves.  There are plenty of times when she almost causes me to have a heart attack, the way she takes risks.  I have to keep an eye on her, but not be too much of a helicopter mom.  It's really hard to let go of some control. 

One cool thing I see her do is matching, stacking and arranging.  She also loves to arrange water bottles in a single file line.  Maybe she'll end up working for Trader Joe's grocery store?  She also loves to put shoes on our feet.  Funny thing about Maddy is that she knows who's pair belongs to who--Lolo's shoes, Mommy's, Daddy's, Baby Nick's.  Pretty observant little girl! 

Erwil and I are getting much better at getting the kids out the door.  We use to take 3 hours to get ready.  Now it's just under 2.5 hours.  If Nick doesn't poop or throw up all over his clothes right before we pull out of the driveway, or if Maddy decides to let us buckle her down in the carseat, we can probably make it out of the house in 2 hours.  Getting these kids ready to go anywhere has been a challenge, but we try to do our best to get them out of the house to explore--our latest excursion being the California Science Center.