Yuck.

It's raining.

When you have a toddler, rain is the worst. thing. ever.

If it's sunny out, I can give MJ a bag of giant chalk sticks and she will happily scribble on the back patio for at least thirty blissful, quiet, minutes while I do all the glamorous and sexy things I enjoy doing, like unloading the dishwasher or staring into the freezer wondering what I'm going to make for dinner.

But it's raining.

We've already built sixteen different block castles and then sent them crashing to the floor, gotten dressed, eaten two delicious snacks of bananas and goldfish crackers, changed clothes when we realized we weren't going to make it to church this morning due to Alex's desperate need for a nap, painted with watercolors, and watched two episodes of Curious George (not back-to-back, good Heavens!).

Usually, Mike is pretty good at entertaining MJ while I clean, fold laundry, etc. but he's tired this morning. He couldn't sleep last night, and stayed up pretty late watching TV, and in a sweet effort to let me sleep in, got up with MJ when she randomly woke up at six. Now he's crashed out on the couch.

MJ knows it's raining and that Daddy is not in his usual rough-and-tumble mood, and is expressing her annoyance by attempting to color on anything that's not paper, climbing up the front of the bookcase, and jumping on the couch.

Must. get. out. of. here.

Busy, busy, busy!

Alex rolled over last week. LAST WEEK, and I don't think I even mentioned it to anyone. Well, I mentioned it to his pediatrician, while he was screaming because she was looking at him (how dare she) and in general, not being cute at all. I also tried to tell her how great he is at holding his head up and pushing up onto his elbows, and how much he loves watching his sister bounce off the walls. He's doing some really amazing things! When I pull on his hands, he sits up (and then usually projectile vomits from the combination of reflux and pressure on his abdomen). He can stand up by himself from this position by arching his back and planting his feet firmly on the floor. He grins and drools ferociously once this is achieved. I think maybe she didn't believe me, because as he lay there, face as red as a tomato, wailing at the top of his lungs because it was his nap time and the staff had kept us waiting waaaay too long and he was nowhere near his beloved crib, he was doing none of his great tricks.

The screaming is an issue.

Alex is not exactly a people person. Some babies are really laid-back, and just kind of chill their way through every day. Pass them around? Sure. Nap spontaneously in a stranger's arms? No problem. This is not Alex's personality. He is regimented and scheduled. Eats at 8:30am, plays until naptime, naps in his crib from 9:30 to 11:30, and then the cycle starts all over again. This continues throughout the day, until he goes to sleep between 7 and 8, and wakes up again at 8:30am. He doesn't like deviations, which makes things like running errands and taking MJ out of the house difficult. So we deal with the crying; otherwise we'd have no life! Sometimes I think I should wear a T-Shirt to circumvent the inevitable dirty looks and often intrusive comments. No, he's not hungry. No, he isn't sick. No, there's nothing wrong with him. No, please, he doesn't need to suck your finger. He's just off-schedule.

While Alex is busy learning how to roll and stand, MJ is teaching me how she sees the world. She asks to play in the dirt every day, and is fascinated by the sound of a stick clanging down the siding on the house. She discovered that when you mix colors of paint, you can create new ones, and she can name them correctly. Yup, not even two, and she knows all the colors (and can count to thirteen, and identify all the letters of the alphabet in both upper- and lower-case. I'm aware that we might have a genius on our hands). Inexplicably, she enjoys naming all the kitchen appliances. She tells me every day which one is the "fer-frig-uh-rator" and microwave, as if I might forget. She spins in circles and sings her own medley of her favorite songs, including "Twinkle Twinkle," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Edelweiss." She points to the floor when she demands I join her in a dance to whatever music happens to be playing, and smacks the TV, calling out "high five, Fish" when The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That is on. She thinks you can't see her if she has a bowl on her head. She pronounces her name "Uh-Kay-la" (which is an improvement over "Ba-geek-uh"). When I go into her room in the morning or after a nap, she sings, "good mooooorning," whether it's morning or not. When she finishes a drawing, painting, or "message," she holds it up, cocks her head to the side, and says, "hmmm. Boo-ful!" Everything she likes, from babies to sippy cups of milk, is "soo key-uuute!"

These babies are the best, crying or not.

All Kinds of New Things

I have been a bad, bad blogger. When I started teaching last year, I just kind of gave up trying to keep up with this thing, and in so doing lost a great opportunity to document all of MJ's amazing milestones. Now, there is a second Baby Rhodes on the scene, and nothing from his first precious four months have been recorded.

Oh, to add a few more hours onto every day.

MJ has become a toddler right before my very eyes. It happened overnight, just as I suspected it would, and now she is possibly the most brilliant, talkative, observant, friendly, hyperactive little person ever created.

Check out those curls. LOVE.

photo credit: Kristin Moore Photography

Our most recent venture has been (drumroll) potty training.

It's one of those funny things about being a mom, that you get excited about things that other, possibly more normal, people would never get excited about. One of these things is encouraging another person, through exultant celebration and the giving of stickers, to pee and poop in a specific location. I decided that I wasn't going to really sweat it. If it was time, I would know, and she would just figure it out. But the more I thought about potty training, and the more I researched it, I realized that deciding to no longer just "go" whenever the urge struck wasn't going to be something she just did on her own. We ultimately chose to follow a specific method, detailed in a book called Three Day Potty Training by Lora Jensen. Mike's cousin and his wife used this method, and their daughter was potty trained, in three days, at age 18 months. Their son was also trained the same way, and dropped his diapers in a mere four days at age 19 months (boys take longer, you know).

This information was enough to sell me on it, and I was certainly tired of having two in diapers, so we bought the book (with purchase, you also get one-on-one mentoring with the author, online). The way it works is that you have to devote an entire three-day period to exclusive potty training. This means you actually throw away the diapers, so that you can't cheat and go back when it gets hard. And it does get hard. You can't leave the house. You really can't do chores. You can't nap, or watch TV, or check your Facebook page. You spend the three days glued to your child's side, so that you can "catch them in the act" of having an accident, scoop them up and run them to the potty. The method utilizes positive reinforcement, which means that when they go, even a little bit, in the potty, they get a prize. The idea is that by the end of the three days, the child is done with diapers, and (hooray!) so are you! So, we started on a Saturday and Mike took off work on Monday so that we could devote the full three days to MJ's potty training. Honestly, I expected her to be trained within the first hour.

For us, the three-day method took eight days.

For all her 22-month-old brilliance, MJ was much happier to let go mid-sprint than actually stop what she was doing to let us know she needed to go to the potty. There were a LOT of accidents (hers) and a lot of crying (mine). Some even advised us that she was too young to be potty trained, which I knew couldn't be true, since so many other children have been trained at even younger ages. We changed the sheets on her crib, on average, three times a night. After six days, I was ready to get a refund on my investment! Then, suddenly, she started telling me "I potty?" when she needed to go. She dropped to two accidents a day, then one. As of today, she has been accident-free since Sunday morning.

Too young. Ha.

(Knock on wood.)

We are, however, doing Pull-Ups at night, which is not part of the method, but I don't think that will last much longer since she has started calling out to go potty when she wakes up and has to pee. Sigh. My little girl really is growing up.

Being a mommy of two is so much harder than being a mommy of one. When it was just MJ and me, I could devote every second of my waking hours (and many that were supposed to be non-waking, unfortunately) to her every need, wish, or whim.

Sometimes I feel guilty, that Alex is getting the short end of the stick somehow.

MJ is, without a doubt, an extremely precocious child. She is interested in everything, from what happens when she sticks her hands into the water of a flushing toilet to what Mommy might do if her colored pencils drag on the kitchen wall. Meanwhile, Alex has to be fed, which is approximately twenty minutes of time for MJ to get into something, which means that instead of lovingly staring into his gorgeous blue eyes while he eats I am constantly putting him on the floor to chase after his sister, to intercept whatever she's gotten her hands on from flying through the screen door, or rescue my (NEW!) blinds/carpet/kitchen appliances/leather sofa/curtains/walls/pantry contents/etc. from certain ruin in her destructive (I mean curious) hands. When MJ was a baby, we spent her hour of wake-time between meals and naps engaged in witty banter, staring at stimulating black and white pictures, practicing holding her head up via tummy time, and listening to a variety of brain-developing music. Alex usually spends his wake-time staring at the ceiling fan, listening to Mommy reprimand MJ for whatever she's spilled, broken, or bitten, or chewing on his hands out of sheer boredom.

What happens if there's ever a third?

I distinctly remember watching a series of home-videos with my best friend, Kristen. They belonged to her family, and had captured some of the milestones of her and her two younger brothers. The first video was of Kristen, maybe a year-old or so, taking her first steps. Family members hovered over and around her. Toys and furniture were cleared out of the way as her chubby little legs wobbled through someone's living room. Collective gasps were heard as she nearly fell, although she wasn't actually near anything that could have caused her any harm. Her dad manned the video camera and narrated every move. Soon, the video fast-forwarded several years, and showed Kristen and her brother, the second child, climbing a tree as the baby, just within the screen and not really the focus of this particular video, munched happily on some leaves he'd managed to collect in his chubby little hands.

That's what happens. The subsequent children become the independent ones, I guess, left to their own devices and to entertain themselves, at least while they aren't yet mobile. Austin certainly figured out a way to feed himself. ;) (I'm sure someone was watching him, even if from afar.) But really, people used to have way bigger families than they do now, and somehow managed to keep everyone alive, well-fed, and well-nurtured. I think about Memaw, who is a mom of five kids. Or Mike's mom, mother to six. Or Michelle Duggar, mother to nineteen.

Maybe Alex won't be too damaged after all.

Really, he does have special time with Mommy. Usually I try to get both babies to nap at the same time, so that I can get some things done (or sometimes just take a nap myself), but Alex has figured out that MJ's naptime is a great time to be awake. He also gets solo time with me in the evenings, when Mike is giving MJ her bath and putting her down for the night.

While Mommy feeds me, she looks at me, and talks to me, and makes me smile. She doesn't keep tossing me on the floor and running away. She sings to just me. She snuggles me. She dances with me. She tickles that goofy spot on my neck that makes me chortle. She kisses my cheeks and strokes my forehead. Sometimes, she nestles me under her chin and I can hear her familiar heart beat as we drift off to sleep.

I know what he's thinking: MJ should sleep more often.

photo credit: griffin photography

First Words

I'm just as bad as everyone else at this blogging thing. Things get busy and writing about my precious baby's life slips down the priority list. Yikes.

MJ has changed so much since July. In fact, my mother swears she might as well be a different baby since she saw her last (two weeks of vacation = baby withdrawal). She chews her toes, rolls over from front to back and back to front, giggles uncontrollably, eats oatmeal cereal, sweet potatoes, corn, and carrots, shifts items from one hand to another before shoving them mercilessly into her mouth, weighs at least 20 pounds, and most wonderfully of all, says "Mama."

That's me.

Typically, babies say "Dada" first. It's not because they like their daddies better; the /d/ sound is just easier for those little mouths and vocal chords to say. /m/ is hard!! I was fully expecting MJ to say "Dada" first, and I wasn't going to take it personally. I was even encouraging her to say it, just to hear her say something, but her first word was "Mama," music to my ears.

She's been vocalizing the /m/ sound for quite a while, probably since she was four months old. It wasn't until a few weeks later that she really started stringing those /m/ sounds together, making a sound that sounded like "muhmuhmuhmuh." I knew she was just making noise, and didn't read into it.

Last weekend, Mike & I decided to break MJ's pacifier addiction. After weeks of waking several times in the night just to have her "nippy" returned to her mouth, we'd had enough, and were looking forward to a full night's sleep. I saw an old friend at a wedding who told me she and her husband had taken the pacifier away from their daughter at four months, so I knew we could do it. We just had to be strong.

The weekend that MJ and I returned from Nags Head with Kristen & her family, we put Operation Break Nippy Habit into effect. We put her into her crib, nippy-less, and waited for her to fall asleep. Surprisingly, she did fall asleep without the pacifier (for the first time since she was 10 weeks old) without even one minute of crying. We were shocked, yet gleeful, and congratulated ourselves on our accomplishment.

Our glee lasted until about 3am, when MJ woke up expecting someone to rush over and put a pacifier into her mouth. Sigh. I reminded Mike (his turn) that he just needed to reassure her and then go back down the stairs, turned over, and returned to dreamy bliss. I awakened the following morning to an empty bed. As it turns out, Mike denied her the pacifier, lay on the floor to see if she would fall asleep, dozed for 15 minutes, and then finally gave it to her when she wouldn't stop crying.

Night one: fail.

The next night, it was my turn to test my strength. She again fell asleep with no problem, only to awaken at 2:30am wanting the pacifier. I stumbled up the stairs and peered over her crib to find her opening and closing her mouth as she turned her head back and forth, searching for what she wanted. She didn't even open her eyes. I kissed her little cheek, stroked her hair, and patted her tummy to let her know she was okay. At my touch, she opened one eye, peeked at me, and clearly said "muhmuh!" I gasped, but then decided she didn't really mean it. Then she opened both eyes, looked directly at me, and said again, "muhmuh!" When I still didn't give her the pacifier (as I stood with mouth open, staring in shock), she raised her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders, and pleaded, "muhmuh, muhmuh!"

Obviously, I gave her the pacifier.

The next morning, Mike said I was weak. Like he would have ignored that sweet request!

The next night, we decided to hold our ground together. We went up to check on her when she inevitably woke up in the middle of the night and then returned downstairs right after. She mumbled some cries for only eleven minutes before going back to sleep on her own.

Ever since, she's slept through the night sans nippy. Tomorrow will mark one whole week of full sleep for everyone.

Victory.

Since she's been saying "Mama," I think Mike's been a little jealous. I overheard him shamelessly repeating "Dada" to her for five straight minutes after he pulled her out of the bath tonight. Poor Dada.

Additionally, MJ has been at her baby sitter's since Monday. I thought it would be extremely hard for me to leave her, but with everything I've had to do to get my classroom ready in time for school to start, I've been so incredibly busy that I've hardly noticed I'm alone. I think it's been easier for me because she is with someone that I trust. Diane is my mother's cousin, and between babysitting and rearing her own three children, she has close to 30 years of childcare experience. Also, she's amazing with kids. I remember when I was little and going to their house to play, and feeling like I was in a world built for children. Sleepovers included piles of pillows and blankets all over the floor, movies rented, and fun snacks. There were toys and games everywhere, and because she cared for kids, there were lots of them to play with! The transition for MJ has been so easy for her too. I know she loves watching the older children play, and they love taking care of her as if she's their little doll. All in all, good things.

Baby Machaela is fast asleep after a fun day of play, strolling through Olde Town, watching her father and grandfather build her mom's classroom easel, dinner with good friends, flinging corn and sweet potatoes all over her high chair (and mom), and a relaxing bath with Dada.

What more could we ask for?

Trying New Things

The Rhodes girls have been busy lately.

I'm doing a little online article writing for a company that outsources such things, and when I'm not doing that, now that I've taken the VRA, I'm busy studying for the Virginia Praxis II. These are the last hurdles between me and a Virginia teaching license, so I'm pretty stoked. On top of all that, we've decided MJ needs more stuff.

We just bought a new baby carrier. Isn't it beautiful?

After taking MJ to the beach several times lugging her stroller, car seat, umbrella, beach bag, tent, and diaper bag (not to mention our own beach bag and towels!!), we decided we needed a better system. So, my bright idea is to strap her to one of us and pile the rest of the junk into a beach cart! This is a fabulous idea. Unfortunately, it involves buying more things. Like the afore-mentioned carrier, and a beach cart. Considering the time we will save, not having to have someone carry the stuff, someone to carry her in the heavy car seat, and someone to wait with the stroller and other junk . . . it's worth it. Now I just need to find the cart and we'll be all set. I tried the carrier out today with MJ in it. I strapped her in, pulled out the vacuum, and started cleaning. It worked so great! She got to watch everything I was doing, and I got to get something done before naptime. Why have I not done this sooner?

I'm not the only one getting things done. MJ has been busy checking off milestones over the past few weeks. On top of all the other marvelous things she can already do, lately she's been practicing grabbing both sets of toes, rolling from her back to her sides, strengthening her torso by sitting up and leaning over, and sucking her thumb. She also folds her hands together, and bending her elbows slowly brings her fists back and forth above her head, staring at them intently. The best trick, however, debuted yesterday. We were sitting behind her play mat, the square one with arches dangling brightly colored jungle animals stretching from each corner. Lately, MJ has been doing some great standing. She supports her own weight with her legs as I simply help her balance. Yesterday, I was helping her stay balanced as she was standing, when suddenly, she reached out with both hands, grabbed onto the arches, and balanced herself as I let go completely! It was amazing! MJ, at only 4 1/2 months old, was standing on her own. I never thought she'd be trying to stand before she could even sit up by herself. It's going so fast!

I'm totally obsessed with the show Modern Family, but couldn't watch during the regular season because it came on at the same time as two other things I already TiVo, so I'm catching up this summer. Today's episode featured Claire and Phil's oldest daughter, Haley, getting her driver's license. As she pulled the van out of the driveway and waved to her family standing on the lawn, her mother took several deep breaths (following the advice she gave to Haley earlier in the episode, before the driving test) and let her go. I totally lost it. I guess the take-home point is that fear is inextricably linked to parenting. Can you have parenting without fear? Where does faith come in? When I'm calling the pediatrician at 9pm to ask about a rash that has popped up out of nowhere, or in a panic because she has been crying for my parents for three straight hours, faith is often the furthest thing from my mind. I worry about everything, from how long she's been napping to why she's pressing so hard on her gums to whether or not we should start solids. Mike does too; he has asked me for reassurance at least a dozen times that her head will eventually round out and her bald spot will grow hair. There is a Laurie Berkner song that goes: "One day, I'll be a year, then I'll be two, then three, then four; but as for now I'm sittin' here, just five days old and no days more." I think that's my fear. That I'll blink and she'll be all grown up, heading out the door to start her own adventures. We worry. about. everything.

Because we love her so much.

Really Excited

It's amazing what thrills me these days.

We've been cloth diapering now for quite a while, and I still love it. I love it so much, in fact, that I realized I needed to buy some more. I went online, and found a great deal on a pre-order of the new BumGenius One Size 4.0 diapers. That's right, I'm practically shaking in anticipation of the arrival of a brand new set of cloth diapers. How my priorities have changed.

Something I do want for myself is a Kindle. Not even the Kindle DX, with its fabulously large 9.7" display, just the regular, latest generation Kindle. Not that I have time to read, but it holds something like 1500 books! Luckily for me, with the introduction of the Apple iPad, Kindle prices have dropped significantly, and there really might be one in my future. Like, in August. I do have a birthday coming up.

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment. Most people would be annoyed at having to take time for one of these visits, or maybe slightly nervous, but I look forward to them like Christmas. Going to the doctor = ALONE TIME. I actually get to spend precious minutes by myself in the car, and then time having a conversation with another adult which doesn't revolve around poopy diaper counts and the possibility of teething early. Mike's sister, Caroline, came over to babysit, and I practically sprinted out the door. Not to mention Mike called me and invited me to lunch at Hell's Kitchen with him and an old college friend. Thank goodness for getting me out of the house!

Speaking of early teething . . .

MJ's pediatrician thinks that MJ is "advanced." She's having separation anxiety whenever I leave the house. The last time Caroline babysat, the little genius screamed for a solid two straight hours. Poor Caroline. Thank goodness she's patient - and tough. The last time Mike and I left her with my parents, she screamed from 6pm - 9pm, and we got called home from our date night. Dr. Ballard says that separation anxiety is a six to nine month skill, and since she's already experiencing it now, she's "advanced." Couldn't she be advanced in a different area? Like, sit up and stack some blocks already. Screaming incessantly . . . not fun for anyone. At four months old, she's also beginning to teethe early. Poor baby is whining and groaning as she gums everything to death. She looks so miserable! Orajel to the rescue.

I think some people are more excited about MJ's toys than she is. Dad persistently danced MJ's little glowing seahorse (Seamus, I named him. How's that for a moniker, Uncle Brad?) in front of her for almost an hour yesterday. She just jabbered and chewed her hands, pretty much ignoring his attempts to entertain her with the seahorse. He then moved on to pretending to sneeze in her face, which gave her endless delight. Why even buy her toys?

MJ and I have a playdate tomorrow. We're really excited. Well, I am. Playdates are obviously more for the parents than for the babies, who typically just lie on the play mat and jabber, giving one another a cursory glance every now and then. Playdates are another of those saving graces where I get to be out of the house engaging in adult conversation. Playdate hooray!

Mike and I are church shopping. We've visited a couple since we've moved here, but we're looking for something similar to the church home we left in Ohio, which we absolutely loved. We maybe found it. The pastor just started a new series on Sunday (perfect timing!), and it's exactly what we need to hear. Funny how God does that, giving you exactly what you need even before you realize you need it. We'll definitely be back!

Baby MJ is sleeping, and I need some vitamin D. Let's see if she'll let me sit outside for an hour while she naps. I would catch up on some reading . . . if only I had a Kindle.

Gifts for Mommy & Daddy

Have you ever been so proud of someone you could just cartwheel right out the door?

Some people know how much we've been struggling lately with MJ and her sleep issues. She was doing so well in Ohio since we started Babywise: two hour naps, 10-12 hour sleeps through the night . . . how could we ask for more?

Then we moved.

Suddenly she wasn't napping at all, and had started this odd pattern of waking at 2, 4, and 6am, just to have her pacifier replaced (which had never been an issue before). Over time, her naps became more and more regulated, and she began napping longer and longer, until this past week, when she began reliably taking two 3-hour naps per day. Usually I wouldn't let her sleep that long during the day, but since she wasn't sleeping at all at night, I wanted to let her catch up a little so she wouldn't be so miserable.

Then came Wednesday night.

She went down happily at 9pm, and slept until 2:30am. Then woke again at 3am. And again at 3:30am. And again at 4am. Finally, she stayed asleep, but kept making these weird humming noises that drove me out of the bedroom and onto the couch. The monitor wasn't picking those up, so I ultimately drifted off around 4:15am.

Until 4:30, when Dad was up for work and decided that my sleeping on the couch must mean that something horrible had happened, and woke me up to ask if the baby was okay. Really?

Uuuuuuuggggghhh.

I mumbled something probably incomprehensible, and tried to fall back asleep, until then Mom was up and stomped through the house to reach the kitchen, where I swear she picked up a spoon in both hands and began spinning as fast as she could to bang as many objects as possible.

Double uuuuggghhh.

I stumbled back up to bed and managed to sleep on and off with the baby until around 9.

I think I slept a grand total of 15 minutes. Poor MJ didn't get much more.

So yesterday I decided to get tough with the naps. Even if she seemed like she was going to sleep longer, I woke her up after two hours. I also upped her formula intake, because she still seemed hungry after her usual six ounces.

She took three 2-hour naps and all of her feedings were 7oz.

Last night, she slept ten straight hours.

I, however, woke up every hour, wondering why I wasn't hearing someone demanding her pacifier be popped back into her mouth, so unfortunately was unable to take advantage of this gift of sleep. Tomorrow is another day.

In other news, cloth diapering is going GREAT. I absolutely love it. I just wish I had more of them! Six isn't enough, even though I wash every day (really, I need like ONE more), and I wish I had more covers so that when they sometimes get slightly damp (after a marathon nap, for instance), I had others ready to go. Surprisingly, even after her ten-hour snooze last night, the cover wasn't wet. Shrug.

Also, when I went back to disposables the other day because I ran out of cloth, she almost instantly got a diaper rash. I don't know if it's the chemicals in the disposables or the absorbant gel or what, but as soon as we switched back to cloth, it disappeared (with a little help from the creamy Desitin in the blue box - best stuff EVER). Maybe circumstantial, maybe cloth is just amazing. I'm going with amazing.

So, what have I learned? Babywise is the baby sleep bible, and should be followed exactly for a happy baby and happy mommy. If your baby seems hungry after a full feeding, you should probably feed her a little more. Cloth diapers are the best things ever, and I can't wait to buy more. What else is there to know?