9 months!

Brynn is 9 months old! Okay, so she was a few days ago. But my excuse (other than being a slacker) is that I was waiting on her stats from the doctor.

• She is 18.5 pounds (about 40th percentile) and 28.5 inches long (about 75th percentile). I don't really see her as being skinny, but I guess in baby terms maybe she is


• She is crawling like crazy these days. It started about a week and a half ago, and she is a changed baby. And a dirtier baby (thanks to dust and dog hair).


• She finally started saying "Da da" the other day (just the sound, not about Braden). Says "Ma ma", "Ba ba", and "Pa pa" too


• Loves sticking her tongue out recently


• Still has only 2 teeth


• Eating lots of things and chunky things - small pieces of bread, spaghetti chopped in food processor, and lots of pureed menu items at school. It's nice because I'm not buying much baby food these days!


• Finally found her pincher grasp and can pick up "puffs" and feed herself. Buys me more time with her in the high chair feeding herself.


• Loves riding in the baby backpack. Stroller - not as much


• Very entertained by her big brother and big sister, though still a little scared of her big sister because she's just a little overboard sometimes (or all the time)


• Loves playing with Ethan in the mornings. Ethan goes in her crib almost every morning and brings her toys and jumps in her bed, narrowly avoiding jumping on Brynn.


• Doesn't like Mommy to hold her quite as much these days since she discovered crawling


• Still sleeping great at night and takes 2 naps most days (not today - just 1 hour this morning)

There's a reason...

why Blythe's middle name isn't Grace.

Crawling video

Here's the video proof of the one-step-forward-one-step-back

She's like, "hmmm....I WAS right next to the white bear. Til I pushed myself way back and sat up".

Coming Soon - baby gates

Brynn can now make forward progress while crawling. I've tried to get video proof, but to no avail. I'm sure she'll be all over the place in no time and video proof won't be too hard to capture. For now, she can crawl about 3 feet forward. She doesn't so much like being in the crawling position though, so after that she then wants to sit. Problem is, she will push WAY back to where her feet are and get into a sitting position, which is usually in the same location she started from. One step forward. One step back.

I did, however, get some pics of Blythe and Ethan over the weekend.

Dry, Dry, Dry!

Whoop, whoop! No more pull-ups! Or at least no more pull-ups for Ethan. He's been potty trained since last March or April, but we've continued to put him in pull-ups at night. His pull-up is almost never dry in the morning, but really I have no idea if he was going during the night while sleeping hard, or in the morning after he woke up and was too lazy to go to the potty since he was wearing a pull-up. Plus we were too lazy to jump out of bed as soon as we heard him up and take him potty.

So anyway, waited almost a year until he had mastered going potty by himself and getting past (sometimes) not announcing to us EVERY single time he needs to go potty. Last night, we gave it a try to sleep in underwear and no pull-up. He went pee before bed, then went to sleep (well, not really). I dried Blythe's hair, put her to bed (or said goodnight and left her to read books on her own), then went to dry my hair. Ethan came in and said he had to go potty. Totally procrastinating going to sleep. I told him "then go potty and go back to bed". But of course, he can't go to bed without screaming "MOMMY!" every night, so I had to put him in bed and say goodnight again and leave while he screamed "MOMMY!" in his bed. Went back to drying my hair. He came back a few minutes later and said he had to potty again. Such a terrible liar he is. Whole process again...screaming "MOMMY!"...go back to drying my hair. Finally he was quiet.

Went downstairs to watch TV. After a little while, Braden said he heard a conversation going upstairs, so he went up to intervene. Ethan was standing in Blythe's room playing her Leapster by her bed, while she lay there with one eye barely opened, clearly annoyed Ethan was in her room. Ethan said, "Blythe asked me to come in her room". I'm telling you...terrible liar.

Oh, it was going to be a long night.

But it wasn't! Ethan slept in this morning. We thought for sure there was no way he would be dry. He had slept too hard and it had been too long. But we were so wrong! Woke up dry, then went potty. He was so proud of himself! So no more pull-ups. I'm sure we'll have accidents, but hopefully they are few and far between.

A little rant

I suck at blogging recently. I've entered the stage of being too tired to blog. Too tired from working non-stop all day to be able to get out of the door by 4 o'clock so I can go get Ethan and rush him over to a swim lesson (where he says in the car he's going to have a great lesson, then gets on the pool deck and hugs my legs for 15 minutes refusing to get in the water while I count off 50 cents per minute that he's wasting playing his stupid little game), then go back and get Blythe and Brynn from school. Or get out the door by 4:15 so I can go get all the kids and take them to gymnastics (and put Brynn in the baby backpack while I "participate" in Ethan's class....and get there early enough to get Blythe dressed for gymnastics so she can do her class as soon as Ethan's ends...and remember to bring snacks and paper and markers or Blythe will have a complete meltdown...yes, she is 5, but she's a drama queen). After said activities, we get home and Brynn is tired, so I can't put her down, but the other 2 immediately want more snacks (because dinner isn't ready, because I haven't even thought about dinner, because I have to hold Brynn and then get her some dinner). Then dinner still isn't ready, so they want even more snacks, then I yell at them to stop bothering me so I can feed Brynn. Then I turn on the TV (aka the babysitter) and hope that suffices at least for a little while. Once Brynn is fed, I take her up to get a bath and Braden is home, so he tries to feed Blythe and Ethan dinner and gets mad at them for not eating their dinner because they've had too many snacks. I get Brynn bathed, fed, and then in bed and then can finally go downstairs to eat (of course, not as a family these days because of utter chaos). I can't have a conversation with Braden because Blythe and Ethan like to interrupt and talk really loud only while Braden and I are trying to talk. Finally at about 7:30, we have some time to spend with Blythe and Ethan and we play a game, or color, or work on letters. Then it's time for more baths (Blythe can bathe herself, but still needs help and needs her hair dried). Then bedtime, which is a fight with Ethan every single night. Every single night he goes to bed screaming "MOMMY!" in his room. I can't go in there after I've put him down and left the room, because the vicious cycle will never end and then it will just suck away even more time.

At this point, I could blog. Or I could pour a glass of wine and watch a TV show or 2. As you can see, option 2 has been more appealing.

Hey, how's the weather?

Ethan and Brynn had an official "conversation" this evening. If only I could speak "Charlie Brown teacher" language, then I might know what they are saying.