Jessie is walking

Just a few days ago I talked with our grandma about Jessie. We agreed that he's cautious. He loves walking while somebody holds his hands, but he didn't want to let go. Not even standing alone. Just a few seconds next to a bed or chair, but no longer than 5 seconds in a row.

So on Saturday as my sister in law arrived for a visit we spent nearly whole day outside. It was finally lovely weather and when the sun was out it was really hot. Except there were some clouds, so from time to time the cold wind with the clouds created unpleasant temperature change.

My hubby took care of the growing grass in the morning, so we could sit down on a picnic blanket later that day and enjoy the family time. Alex was running up and down the garden, watering flowers and trees and Jessie was crawling around.

I took him on the blanket and asked him to stand in front of me. I just wanted him to let go and stand there for a while. He usually grasps anything around or sits down. 

He didn't do either. He was just standing there, looking around. Jessie was on a walk with granddad, so they didn't see it. I asked Jessie to walk to me and he did two steps by himself. Nobody was holding his hands. So I just tried again. Placed him in front of me and asked him to walk. He repeated two steps again and again until he managed 4 steps in a row before falling at me, I always catched him. 

So here we go....Jessie is walking. I know it's not such a big deal, because he does only a few steps and then sits down or fell, but for him it is definitely big thing. We are now practising every day and he managed even 6 steps once, but two or tree are standard now. In a few weeks he'll be maybe running :D

Alex will be in a trouble then....he will follow her everywhere. Crazy and exciting time begins!

First workout group meeting

So I have first workout group meeting with my local No Excuse Moms.

It was Wednesday afternoon and I drove there only with Alex as I had a little bit of admin work with the NEMs before we could start working out.

The weather day before was gorgeous. Sunny like in summer, warm and even the wind was comfortable, but the Wednesday was a different story. It was much colder, 10 degrees Celsius less and cloudy.

I arrived earlier and went to the playground with Alex. She played a little, but was really shy. When other NEMs arrived, we had to introduce ourselves, sign some paper work and start with the workout.

Alex was sitting in a buggy, I took it in case she will be tired and want to sleep and to carry all my stuff.

Other kids where running around, so some moms had to chase them, that's why we decided to go from the field right into the playground where we could close the gates and keep the kids inside. The only thing there was checking them when they decided to use sled or swings.

We laughed a lot and people were looking at us as we were crazy, but every comment they made I turned back at them and asked them to join us.

After the workout we played there with kids. Alex still didn't want to join the other kids there, but eventually she did and went to a sled. She loved it and didn't want to go home, same as her new friend. Well I call him friend, but she only smiled at him a few times, no talk though.

I know our kids live in a great place, with lot of nature and animals around, but they need other kids to play with.

I'm really happy I can get them meet others this way and shape up a little. Just can't wait for next meeting.

Alex wasn't play for that long there, but when we were nearly home, she fell asleep in a car. Hubby picked her up when we arrived and took her to bed, she was like a puppet. We woke her up, gave her dinner and half an hour later she was in bed again, sleeping like a little baby.

Jessie didn't go with us this time, but will join us next week. That will be even better fun.

Our Christmas

So tomorrow is the last day of 2015.

I believe this year was a good one for us, even though we were really busy with the move, and of course after Jessie came to our little family :)

Our Christmas were the first in a new country for me and our kids. I was so happy that we could share it with my husband's family. There was 9 of us at the dinner table. 

Alex of course didn't want to wait and wanted to go to the living room before anyone could get dessert or coffee after the Christmas meal.

In here we share Christmas presents after the dinner and so we couldn't allow her to go back there by herself as all the gifts were already on a huge pile under our hanging Christmas tree.

We took her out for a moment to light up sparkles and give everyone else a little time to get ready to move out of the kitchen.

When we walked in Alex was surprised but didn't  know much about what is going on. 

My hubby's sister started to sort out the presents. Of course our kids got all of theirs first. Alex was so busy with her first one that she didn't even realised how many others were placed next to her. Daddy opened all Jessie's ones with him. Jessie didn't know what was happening, and to be honest he didn't even touch anything. 

Alex opened everything and helped her granddad to open his as well. It was funny as he got a bottle of alcohol and she tried to open it for him. That evening she didn't play with anything much. But she checked every single present even Jessie's ones and before she went to bed, she looked through mine and hubby's ones too.

The following morning she tried everything and played with most of her new toys. The one she unwrapped first she didn't like at all. It's the pop up pirate game. She was scared when the pirate jump out. So she complained when I was testing it with my sister in law. It took her 3 days, now she's able to sit with it for hours and play all by herself. 

She got puzzles, books, alphabet letters, other little games and toys. Jessie got a book, some fluffy toys and a set of cars. And same as Alex he was afraid of one of the presents too. My favourite: set of 4 cars. He couldn't be nearby them, but now he's crawling to get them and what's interesting he loves to play the pirate too, even though he can't stick the sword to the barrel, but he's trying :D

So far so good. All gifts accepted and kids are happy to play with them. This is what I wanted.

We still have a little bit of our cookies and a lot of other food in the fridge. Funny how much do you buy and get when the family should come together and then everyone is too full to eat anything :p

Now we are alone. Somebody would say, time to rest, but with our little angels rest is a word we don't know. 

Unfortunately the sleep training we did with Alex a few times and worked that worked with her perfectly is not working with Jessie, so we might need to try something different. He has good nights when he wakes up once around midnight and second time around 5-6am, but after a good night a bad one comes when we could go there even 8-10 times. 

I'm really tired and I fell asleep two days ago when both kids slept in the living room. This little power nap made me good, but it's rare to have it as Alex usually doesn't nap anymore.

So I call it tonight and go to bed, my eyes are burning, my body aching as I started working out after two weeks without regular exercising and tomorrow is the last day of 2015. I will need to prepare good lunch, dinner and a little bit for the evening as we might not go to sleep that soon.

Next post will be in 2016. So I wish you all the greatest end of the year and all the best in the new one. Most of all a lot of love, health and luck :)

BTW Jessie has a tooth!!!

Just a few weeks until Alex's 2nd birthday

Alex's 2nd birthday is coming soon. I already checked some tasty recipes for her 2nd cake. I am really excited to bake it this year. If it will be nice and tasty, I'll share the recipe here with you. But because I didn't make it yet, I'll wait.

She will get another cake from her grandma, also home made. 

We have the gifts already sorted. Including the Santa's ones. We contacted the head elf ;) 

Alex is getting big and more communicative. She's not shy, it takes her 5 minutes to get use to somebody new. And how she talks now, it's amazing. She's making sentences with 3-4 words and they make sense 90% of time. :D

She loves reading books, playing with stuffed animals and exercising. She can recognise some letters, so there is a few presents which should help her learn even more. 

I can't wait to give her those. 

She found one of them by mistake in our wardrobe. I wasn't pleased with that, but it was my fault, I didn't hide it well. She was so excited to see it and wanted to open it, but she couldn't open the plastic bag. So she looked at it for a few minutes, turned it from one side to another and when she went to bed, I put it back to the wardrobe to a higher shelf. The following morning she didn't even remembered she found something new. 

So I hope she'll be excited to get it in a few weeks, but it won't be the only present we have for her. There is one more which should make her happy too.

The time goes by so fast, that it feels like yesterday when Alex was born and now she's nearly two and Jessie is 7,5 months already.

Jessie's development

Just a few weeks ago we went to the doctor to get development check and vaccinations.

Jessie was really skinny and tall. Did what he was suppose to do. So all good.

But just two weeks later he changed so much. He's stronger, taller, bigger, more active. He's rolling so fast, that he has to be on the floor all the time, or under constant supervision if somewhere else.

He started to do push ups, planks and even rocking on all 4. It won't take long and he'll be crawling like pro. He's moving already, but most of the time to the back.

He's really trying to communicate with us. Is babbling, shouting, screaming, etc. He's not crying much, he's happy baby, only when he's really tired or hungry he can get angry and everyone knows about it. 

He loves having same lunch as we do and he enjoys the food.

Yesterday as I was reading my mails he was on the floor playing with toys around him. There was also my old wooden flute. Alex is playing with it. Suddenly I heard the sound of it. I tough it was Alex but when I lift my eyes from the screen she was next to daddy talking. I checked Jessie and he was playing with it. 

I was so surprised. When Alex played the flute first time she was 1,5 year old and everyone was amazed she could do such good job with it. Jessie is 7 months old and he can do it too. I can't say Alex wouldn't be able to do at that age, because we didn't have it home when she was that young, but I believe both of them will be musicians. At least I wish for it :D

Alex is singing and is even trying to sing alone now. Not just one word in rhyme, but whole songs.

Some news about Jessie

Jessie is 4 months old already. The time flies. 

He loves his tummy time. His neck muscles are really strong. He's even trying to crawl a little. Was able to move on a bed a little bit. He is sometimes turning to his side as well, but wasn't able to roll over yet.

He's such a good boy. If he's not teething he's full of smiles, feeds well and sleeps great.

He's up only once or twice a night, if I give him soother, he goes back to sleep and feeds around 6am. So it's around 9 hours night sleep as we are aiming for bedtime around 8-9pm.

We already tried a bit of baby rice, he didn't spit it out much, so I presume he likes it. I have a plenty of milk for him, so there is no need to push it too much with the solids, but I want him to get use to new textures and possible tastes. 

It's summer time, we'll have a lot of healthy vegetables, home grown, so I would like to use this opportunity.

We went even swimming with him and we are trying to get him use to water in our garden swimming pool. It's a small one, but there is enough water for him and Alex. Even for me ;)

Jessie is growing really fast. He's strong boy. I'm waiting to go for development check up with him. I believe all is well, but it's always nice to hear professional opinion. We need to get his vaccines done as well, but that has time.

He's very alert and loves to look at pictures, toys and books. He's reaching for everything what is close.

After the morning feed he usually wants to talk to me, he's smiling, singing etc, which is not too good as he might wake Alex, so I take him to bed and try to calm him down and get him back to sleep.
Some mornings are luckier than others. It's 50-50 chance he falls asleep after a few minutes.

Funny thing is that if I turn my back to him, he reaches to me and starts poking me with his fist or pulling my hair, but he's always gentle.

I want him to be strong and crawl already as it's difficult to have one baby on a blanket outside and the other running around the house. I hope he will follow us around when he'll be able, but I'm sure he might start running to the other direction to keep me even busier. We'll see ;)

6 weeks here we go

Our Jessie is nearly six weeks, he's due to have Dr. check up.

All is going well. He's growing so fast. Gained 1kg in 3 weeks and grew 6 cm from the birth. He's getting strong. His routine is getting better, usually feeds every 3 hours, sometime 4. The only thing we are struggling with is my milk flow. It's too fast. We have to use only two positions for feeding. One is the rugby ball position and another of me on back, so I'm feeding against the gravitation.
It is working so far. 

Jessie had a few bad days when he was pushing me away. He was hungry, trying to get milk, but after a few seconds he stopped and pushed me and fought with me. It usually happened when he was tired or the flow was really too fast.

He is still struggling with the wind but there is not much we can do. We do baby massage, I watch what I eat and sometimes, when it's really bad we give him two teaspoons of fennel tea (not more than once in 3 days).

He's currently falling asleep in the Moses basket next to me. It's great that we got him use to falling asleep by himself so early. I know people who need to walk with baby, rock it, drive around in a car, but that's not good. 

Yeah, we are using soother now, and that helps with the sleeping as well, but what we found out is that Jessie doesn't want it during the night, only during a day, when he's sleeping.

Alex is a different story, she's still adjusting to our new family situation, it looked great a few weeks ago, but it's getting more difficult now. She's trying to help, but sometimes she's too quick. She wants to give her brother soother, even when he's asleep, which will usually wake him up, and once she manages to give it to him, she will pull it out again, so he's getting more irritated and tired as he doesn't get much sleep. Luckily past few days was better and she just ignored him while he was sleeping.

But she loves him, would love to change his clothes all the time, so I have to stop her from opening her brothers pj's or nappies if it's not necessary. She also wants to hug him, cuddle him, but he's quite heavy for her, so she needs to sit down and I can place him on her lap, but have to hold his head and make sure, she won't push him away when she get bored with him.

Alex is sometimes not sleeping that good, but she's able to tell us when she wants to go for her day time nap and that goes without crying.

To be honest, it's a lot of work at the moment, but I'm really looking forward the summer and autumn when Jessie will be stronger and more interactive, so Alex will enjoy some plays with him.

People around are telling us that we are brave to have to babies with such small age gap. I think we didn't realize it could be difficult some times when I was pregnant. But yes, I think we are brave, not stupid as other thinks. All is settling and I believe it's going to be better every day.

With me it's nearly all back to normal. I had a few moments with some baby blues, and I am more snappy at my hubby at the moment as I need more support from him, but it's not that bad. I thought the body cleaning was faster this time, but I was wrong. The first bit was faster (the heavy bleeding finished sooner), but the other part took ages. My body adjusted to the new me just last week. I hope the first post pregnancy period will come after I stop breastfeeding ;) But great news is that I lost a lot of weight just with breastfeeding. I gained nearly 20kg during this pregnancy and I have only 6 kg left to loose to be in my pre-pregnancy weight. I didn't do any exercises yet, but planning to start from Monday. With the labour I lost about 7kg, so 7 more was the breastfeeding so far, which is not bad. I still need to get my body to shape, as I can't fit to any of my jeans yet, but that doesn't matter.
Well it will matter in a few weeks time when I will go to a party, so I hope, I'll fit in some clothes :D

Alex in the garden

The weather was great. It's like summer here.

We spent a lot of time in our back garden and we went for some nice walks with our double buggy.
The buggy is great, so easy to push, feels lighter than our single one and Jessie can sleep there nicely.

We had to buy Alex new shoes again as her first ones are too small now. She's growing so fast.
As we had only boots for her and it was too warm for them in this weather, we decided to left her barefoot for a while in a garden. It was soooo funny. It took her about 5 minutes to move from the picnic blanket and walk on the grass. She's ticklish. We also thought she won't be going to the house as there is a half a meter before the step which is covered by stones, but she managed to get over these too. Well now we have a sandals for her so she can walk where she wants.

That day her butt was little bit red so we let her walk in her body suit and track suit bottoms without nappy. I was waiting for her reaction when she pees first time. I was feeding Jessie when we heard screaming from the bedroom. 

Hubby went there and found Alex with wet pants, he washed her, changed her body suit for T-shirt and let her go out to the garden to play again. When I finished feeding Jessie and he fell asleep again I went to play with Alex. Reading book on the blanket, she walked towards me and peed again. Started to scream. She didn't like it at all. That happened once more before we went home to play and put a nappy on. 

I though she might like the unrestricted movement, but it seams like she prefers to have nappies now. I don't want to push her too much to go on potty as she doesn't like it and I don't want her to feel bad about it. We will wait for her to decide when she'll be big enough. I just hope it will be before her 2nd birthday. ;)

Well she decided to sit on her potty this morning, but she had her nappy and pants on. I explained her, that we have to get her pant off. She was sitting on a potty for a while, but nothing happened. Then she stood up, walked away and returned. That happened a few times until she walked away to the kitchen and peed there. I'm glad we have lino there ;) the mess was cleaned fast.

Alex absolutely loves being outside. She's trying to taste everything. Especially stones, sticks, flowers etc. When she sees some insect, she wants to play with it. Everything is so interesting for her. I love to watch her exploring things around herself.

It's a pity that the weather changed so fast. Yesterday morning was so sunny we thought we'll go to the sea and enjoy some time on a beach, but 3 hours later started to snow!!!! And today it's raining cats and dogs. We still need to take Alex out for a short walk so she can sleep better during the night, I hope afternoon will be nicer.

Alex is walking

Alex is walking already

We started to train her during her playtime. I usually sat down in front of her, put her up standing and told her to walk to me. She did two steps before falling to my arm. She loved that, I always made a big deal from it, when she reached me. Laughing with her, cheering her etc. Then we put her a little bit further away from us or ask her to walk between me and hubby. 

She managed 4-6 steps before we had her in our arms again. This went like that for a few days and suddenly last weekend she just turned from one sofa by herself and walked to the other one without holding a thing. It was just 3 steps away, but she did it all by herself and it was also her decision to let go. From that moment it went fast. 

While preparing dinner for her, I handed her plastic bowl where she usually has her food. She walked with that towards me. 5 steps this time.

She was very cautious, didn't want to let go if she wasn't sure she has something else to grasp on the other side, but she was trying more and more.

Yesterday she walked across her bedroom in the morning from bed to the changing table. I haven't seen it, my hubby was there alone, but I can just imagine how many steps did she have to take. 

She made it up for me. When I came to the living room, she walked from a kitchen to living room. That's even further away and she continued for the rest of the morning like that. 

So we decided to get her first outside walking shoes, so she's not limited to walk only on flat surface of our floors in her socks.

The shopping for the shoes was a little nightmare. We couldn't find the shop first, then nobody was in, so we had to call the phone number on the door. As I spoke to some lady a gentleman came back to the shop. 

Wow, so many kids shoes!

First baby shoes shouldn't have the sole too hard, they should be high, towards the ankles, so they keep the foot in a safe place. If you go to a proper shop they should be able to help you choose the right one and will not recommend anything that can hurt you baby's feet. They still need to develop.

We decided to try to get her first leather shoes as it's quite wet here. She was screaming, didn't want to try them on, not even let the man measure her foot size. I know in some shops, they won't let you buy shoes for baby if you don't show them, that they can make at least 5 steps alone. Alex didn't want to even sit alone. 

When she put the shoes one she was scared. When we put her down on the floor to try them, she became a sculpture. Didn't move an inch. Well it took a while and she tried to do some steps while holding hubby's hands.

We gave her 4 more pairs of house shoes on the floor to choose one. She did and actually wasn't that scared to put them on. We still want her to walk in the house barefoot, but we need her to get used to wearing the shoes, so we will give them to her a few times a day for a few minutes to try it.

Yesterday when we arrived home, we changed her and put them on. She tried to walk, but the rubber sole got stuck to the lino and she felt a few times. She needs to get use to lifting her legs a bit more, but so far it looks very good :)

I'm very happy with our purchase and I believe Alex will be in a few days too.

BTW her sleep improved a lot. She's waking only once a night or sleeps through, it depends probably on her excitement from the day before, but it's much better and easier now than before.