the end of a good thing

of course as soon as I post that the girls are not crawling very fast they pick it up. within 2 days my life has gotten flipped upside down. ellie and claire are now crawling quicker and trying to pull themselves up on ANYTHING. laura came on tuesday just as they were speeding up and she left this afternoon around 4. after she left I realized how different they were from the day before.  I used to be able to leave them in the living room and run downstairs for a bit or be in the kitchen (which is really in the same room as the living room – just a little half wall separating it) making something and they would all be playing happily. now I step into the kitchen and come out to find them in dangerous situations (ie: standing up on the crooked top of the duplo container with the help of an empty duplo box with duplos that they emptied all around them trying to reach for the book shelf) our house is pretty baby proofed, but the danger now is just that they pull up on anything – including each other. they both head for the entertainer and work their way up and then reach out and try to grab or use their sister for leverage. not a good plan when sister is just as tippy as you. I have a feeling we will be having lots of bonked beezers in the coming days and weeks. I literally almost cried this afternoon as my fussing, teething, super active babies were climbing all over me still not that content. I realized what had become a good normal is now changing. after the kids were in bed I went on amazon (my most favorite shop!) and was researching play yards (basically a big dog cage). we will be adding one to our household soon for the safety of all parties (any recommendations??).

here is ellie showing off her favorite one handed move.

so proud of herself! a bit after this she got so excited she lost her balance and fell over.

getting into the duplos.

claire standing up and almost in the dangerous position I described above.

charlie is an incredible big brother, but he is definitely struggling with jealousy. especially since ellie and claire have started moving more he is more quick to do things he knows he shouldn’t to get attention. he especially notices when the girls are getting pictures taken of things their doing or if I take a video of them so I am trying to recognize things charlie does and take pictures or videos of them so he feel special. today he lined up some cars on the windowsill so I had him pose with his cars.

the other fun thing charlie and I were able to do while bubba was here was spend 2 mornings together alone. we basically got to hang out tuesday and wednesday mornings through lunch and it was awesome. we played at the rac, ate lunch at the rac,  charlie went to music class, we went to barnes & noble, and back to the rac to play. I would like to start a routine where we get to do something alone while laura is here. I love spending time with just him. it allows me to go at his pace and enjoy the world through his eyes. watching him light up when we play is wonderful. even if that means “playing” dome hockey or foosball (which he is convinced is baseball players) in the rac neighborhood for 45 minutes. or getting tons of shocks from sliding down the yellow slide over and over. worth every shock.

lastly, the other thing that has changed with this new movement thing is that there is a new challenge with putting the girls to bed alone. tonight, the girls were both fried, but they are too crazy in the bath tub to bathe together so I had to leave one in the living room with charlie while I bathed the other. charlie was watching letter factory so he was safe. I left ellie in a safe location with her toys and started bathing claire. I could hear ellie fussing around and playing with things and then things got kind of quiet. I dressed claire and then went into the living room to check on ellie. this is how I found her – on her knees holding onto the toy basket and chair stunned by letter factory. she was obviously trying to push up to standing, but got sucked in by the tv. classic.

new besties

the girls had some visitors down this past weekend. eva and elise gunderson came down to visit and to show off their almost 11 month old skills. it was so sweet to see these 4 girls together. ellie and claire think eva and elise are so cool.

here are eva and claire hanging out together.

more eva and ellie playing.

claire hanging out with eva and elise (pink).

all the girls together. I think ryan and katie have a better picture so maybe I will replace the one I snapped at some point, but either way it is a classic picture of 2 – almost 7 month olds, 2 – almost 11 month olds. thanks ryan and katie for driving down. these girls will be great friends!

ellie, claire, elise and eva.

moving moving moving

claire and eleanore are officially moving forward. it has probably been about 1-2 weeks where they have been moving, but just recently it has been consistently forward. thankfully they are still pretty slow and not very motivated to get to dangerous things. once they figure out they can really explore I am in trouble and will be running out to purchase those playpens (I probably used to say parents who used them were irresponsible, but I will now be one of them). they seem to be happier for the most part with their new found mobility, however, they are also really interested in pulling up to standing. my mom found ellie standing in her crib so we had to drop it the next day. they have a hard time pulling up on the couch, but if you are laying on the ground they will crawl/wiggle their way over and push up on you to stand. ellie is more determined to stand up than claire. here she is starting her ascent on the basket.

so proud! pushing all the way up. after this picture she was picking up one arm and trying to stand more upright. her balance is not great so I thought she was going to dig it.

surprisingly, they still prefer to stand on their tiptoes. it makes them extremely tippy and they often fall over. here is claire against the couch. I rolled up her pants so you could see her tip toes.

 

they continue to be so so so in love with their big brother. he is such a help when they are fussing. he runs over and makes them light up.  here is charlie and ellie.

new schedule

in an effort to create a consistent routine for our mornings I made a schedule with pictures for charlie. I am hoping that by him knowing what is coming next there will be less discussions/challenges/timeouts/me being frustrated, etc. he seems to love it and knows what is coming next. I am also trying to get pictures of him doing the various parts of the schedule so I can put his picture in replace of some random google image.  I took one of him the other morning while he was praying (well practicing praying) and I thought it was so precious. while he sits at the breakfast table he always likes to have the schedule with him. our new schedule is wake up, get dressed, play cars, 8 am breakfast, pray, practice bible verse, chores (empty silverware on days we need it), play trains, get ready to go.

proof

here is some proof of the girl’s teeth and sickness.

claire’s new teeth.

here is ellie showing off her 2 bottom teeth – she popped her first tooth up and then her second followed right after.

this is disgusting, but the reality of my past two weeks. here is ellie. bill snapped this photo of her. I would definitely have wiped her nose and not thought about capturing the moment.

eleanore has a toofer

less than a week after claire got her first tooth eleanore’s first tooth popped up! as we guess it was her bottom left that came in first (claire’s had her bottom right). they have so many mirror image characteristics it is amazing. then to keep ahead of her sister, claire got her second bottom tooth today. we have not been getting much sleep around here with the colds and toofers coming in.

tell me it is just a phase!!!

wow – parenting a 2.5 year old is tough. for the first 2 years of charlie’s life our parenting style was working out pretty good. 9 months – we started managing him. around 1 year we started time outs where he would stand with his hands on the wall and in one place. it was great. I wasn’t frustrated or confused about our parenting style. then he started to refuse to stand up during the time out so we started strapping him in his high chair while facing a wall.  when that didn’t seem to be packing enough punch we had to move time outs into our room where we had a booster seat strapped to our bed and we could strap him in so he would be removed from the action (can you tell we love strapping things). which takes us to now…I have stopped putting him in time outs in our room because he usually starts screaming (which is against the rules and adds minutes to the time out), which just elongated his time out and by the time he gets done screaming the real reason he was in time out is forgotten. in the last month or so charlie is really pushing things. he tests every. single. thing! I am not sure if this is a 2 and 1/2 year old thing or a parenting thing or a big brother who has 2 very need baby sisters thing, but either way it is exhausting. currently my strategy is to try and figure out what is important to him to be able to start taking toys/privileges away when he is not sharing, etc and when he is talking back or hitting i walk him down to his room and he spends 5-10+ minutes in his room. the crazy thing about this parenting phase is that I don’t see a ton of improvement yet. when he was younger after we would start the discipline I would notice a change, but that is harder to see now. obviously, most of the issues are bigger now (sharing, taking toys, anger management, being disrespectful vs. not touching outlets, cords, bookshelves, etc). with some issues he still gets put in time out in his highchair in our room. take tonight for example, he decided to blatantly disobey and throw a piece of noodle on the floor. bill moved his whole chair into our room and as he was going into the room he started his screaming bit. he will do little screams over and over as we increase the time on the timer. he started off with a 18 minute timeout (6 minutes to begin with and then a lot of screaming). bill and I decided to put on CARS during dinner really loud so he would think we were having a blast at dinner (it also stunned the girls down too). when bill went in to check on him and remind him why he was in such a long timeout he told bill he was going to hit him. well that definitely added time to the timer. all in all he spent about 45 minutes in the chair between threatening to hit bill and screaming the time just kept increasing. agh!  

a lot of people will say - he is 2 and a half it is just a phase. i have a hard time with that-what are we supposed to do just ignore his misbehavior? i dont think so! it is really hard to watch your sweet, mostly obedient boy turn into a sometimes angry, disobedient boy. it is so confusing! anyone with insight please share. we are going to keep being consistent and continue to remind C that we are in control. it is definitely challenging to try to figure him out.  I can’t even think about having 2 – 2.5 year olds yet or I start shaking. hopefully eleanore and claire won’t be as strong willed as charlie. I can dream right?

sick

ever since bill came home from greece our family has been sick, sick, sick. it started out with a little cold that morphed into what we call “the sinus” around here. it is just a really horrible head cold with congestion and tons of snot. that grew into a heavy chest cold with hacking and more hacking and today 2 of the 3 chitlins woke up with pink eye. fun times. what makes it even more fun is that we had family pictures scheduled tonight for the first time ever (you can’t even think about rescheduling when you know there is no way to predict bill’s coming home time and the weekends were booked up). so when you get our christmas card this year and you think charlie looks cute, but just a little off…you can recall this post and remember that he had pink eye in his right eye that made it puffy and red. claire also will look a little off because of her left pinkeye and ellie will look serious because she was so stunned by all of the new sites she refused to smile (claire was stunned too). hopefully photoshop can help us out a bit with the pinkeye issue.

when you have one kid that gets sick you have to miss out on a few things here and there. I am now realizing with 3 little ones I will be missing out on lots of things and will be housebound for weeks this winter because one of them will have some illness lingering. thank goodness for bubba. laura came down today to help out and it was a lifesaver. it makes taking care of 3 sort of sick kiddos a lot easier. thank you bubba.

our badgers

we couldn’t resist getting our honey badgers some badger gear.

so funny that when claire smiles she pulls her head back a bit to emphasize her double chin.

totally in love with their brother.

bill’s master piece

saturday we loaded up the crew and headed to the apple orchard. it was abnormally hot out – in the 80’s. while there we picked up 2 huge pumpkins. bill had a vision. while there we took a tractor ride.

charlie goofing with dad.

how cute are his TOMs.

weyam and eleanore.

at home bill got serious about carving. charlie helped out here and there. he was mostly interested in trying to get his mitts on the carving knives.

so proud. can you tell what they are supposed to be?

ps. bert and ernie

toofers

claire got her first tooth on saturday! it is her bottom right tooth. e & c seem to do almost everything in sync  - they often poop in sync, they get fevers in sync (same temp at the same time), etc. so we were convinced eleanore was going to get her bottom left tooth (they have many mirror image traits) any minute, but she hasn’t gotten it yet! anyway, claire is going nuts over her teeth. I think it is super annoying when people use teething as an excuse for any fussiness, sleeplessness, etc. charlie was never really bothered by his teeth coming in – he just drooled like crazy. claire has a cold (we all have it) and is obsessed with chewing on things. today she was only happy when I was holding her on my hip and helping her chew on this vibrating star thingy.

the end of research & more

sadly we have come to the end of bill’s research block. these past 6 months have flown by. he started research the day the girls were discharged from the hospital (praise God!) and ended it last saturday while he was in Greece (more on that later). this has been our first week back to real life and luckily I knew what to expect. we are back to his 7 pm arrival time on most days (he leaves well before we are up for the day), which means he will miss the girls bedtime every single night of the week (since they start baths at 6 pm). that also means that I will be putting the girls to sleep alone most nights except for when bubba comes and stays over or becca is loving enough to spend her dinner time with us. the hardest part has been watching charlie really miss bill. he thrives when bill is around. I am thankful for a husband who works hard and is present when he is home. we definitely enjoy the moments we are all home together.

in other schmitt news - I am done pumping every day – yeah! I am slowly weaning the girls and I am down to nursing them 3 times each day and the rest of their feedings they get bottles. I am loving it. I have my emotional moments of when I think about missing nursing them, but then charlie runs in and interrupts the feeding and I remember why it is better for me, the girls and charlie to stop.

I ordered diapers for the girls this week for the FIRST time since before their birth! I had ordered lots and lots of newborn, size 1 and size 2 diapers prior to the girls arrival with loads of coupons and had estimated the number I would need per size and I was right on. no idea how it worked out so perfectly, but it was awesome.

no words

ok – I have a few words. if you haven’t noticed our girls don’t wear any headbands or bows. bill is against them (i should clarify - against them only when they don't have enough hair to warrant them) and I am too lazy to add an accessory. that doesn’t mean we don’t have any around though. we were going through ellie and claire’s shoes the other day and found a bag of headbands and were having the girls model them. charlie couldn’t resist being a part of the action. I was dying laughing.

he is such a boy – even with a bow on his head.

claire modeling her headband and flower.

first job

charlie has his first job. emptying the silverware from the dishwasher.

it is so sweet to see how proud he is when he finishes.

it’s official!

bill and I are real adults now. we finally have a headboard!!!

we have been wanting to purchase a headboard since we got married, but have never found one we liked and could afford. so glad we finally found one. I love it!

how do we love auntie suz

let me count the ways. she…

1. took vacation days to come and visit us and help me out while bill was in greece.

2. helped me in the middle of the night with ellie and claire when they had 102 fevers from their 6 month shots (and all of the nights when they decided to stop sleeping most of the night).

3. came to an appointment with me to help me manage all of the children.

4. brought charlie, ellie and claire gifties.

5. every morning she would make coffee and often emptied the dishwasher (this is a HUGE one because sometimes I feel like all I do is empty the dishwasher).

6. worked out with me a couple of mornings (the only days we were both guaranteed a shower).

7. stayed home with the girls one morning so that charlie and I could have a “date” to the rac where we played on the climbing equipment, golf, basketball, etc together.

8. navigated the apple orchard with me and the kids.

9. watched the movie bridesmaids 3 nights in a row with me. it is hysterical!!!

10. mastered making charlie’s lunch and feeding the girls.

thank you suzanne for a great week. I loved your company and help. i am looking forward to bill’s next trip so that you can come and visit again (or come again whenever you have recovered from this trip). I am so blessed to have a sister like you! love you!

charlie and auntie suz with charlie’s new shirt on. it is perfect for his king in the castle chair in the stroller. thanks auntie suz!

claire and ellie with auntie suz. ellie is sporting one of the gifts from suzanne – a missoni sweater from target (that were so hot they were sold out instantly). suz also got a pair of leggings for when they are older.

we were trying to get a picture with suzanne and the kids, but it was not working.

kind of describes our week. charlie not doing what I want him to do and the girls being distracted.

cuddling watching cars before bed.

I love my sweet boy.

saturday morning we made it to the orchard.

I swear I have a picture just like this of him last year. so crazy to see how much he has changed in a year.

another picture of me and charlie. oh how his unique smile always makes me giggle.

a laydle kiss.

charlie likes to really dig in when he gets somewhere. within minutes he had handfuls hay all over.

after getting up from their little cat nap in the car and cleaning up claire’s blow out we got the girls into the stroller and set up with their bottles (this is the great thing about doing bottles at their 9-10 am feeding – so much more convenient than nursing them in the car!).

charlie was so happy to be free. the orchard had some animals and lots of space to run. perfect for my busy boy.

then we ran into our wonderful friends the dufendachs (unplanned!). charlie and addison were delighted.

the boys loved climbing all over these hay bales.

what sweet friends these two are.

nicole even snapped a picture of suzanne and I with claire and charlie. ellie was sipping on her bottle in the stroller.

phew! what a week!