Blog Archives

Birdie Webcam - Up and Running!

4/28/2012

Good News! John is amazing and set up the webcam. We had a free extra camera from Staples (as a rewards gift or something), and a USB extension, and that's all we really needed. The nest is REALLY close to the roof-line of our patio, so it was tough to get a good angle. Even now we can't tell if there are any eggs in there. If Lady Robin decides to vacate for part of the afternoon I'll see if I can go get a still-shot of whatever is going on inside. I want to know if we are expecting!
This morning she is flitting in an out of the nest with more materials. Sometimes you can see she fluffing things and sometimes you can see her big beady eye. I think once the babies come we will have a very cute view of their open beaks.
Enjoy!

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From Mommy - A nursing journey

4/25/2012

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Dear Preston,

The last time we nursed was Monday, April 23 in the morning. You were a little over 15 months old, and like every other morning for your whole life you woke up and came to snuggle in bed with Daddy and me before we all got up for the day. We were down to only nursing once every other day, and the milk was just about gone. The past 2 days you have wanted to nurse, and you got a little sad when I told you that the milk was all gone. But we snuggled instead, and you seemed to understand that it was ok for us to be sad about it together. Then we came downstairs and ate a banana and forgot all about being sad.

Someday when you are a Daddy of your own, I hope that you are supportive of whatever your wife decides to do. And if she decides to nurse the baby, I hope that you encourage her, wake up in the middle of the night (7 times a night some nights), and tell her how special she is like your Daddy did for me.

I love you so much, and I will always remember our 15 months of nursing with pride and warmth. You won't remember it; and that is ok. We'll build other beautiful memories together, and we'll eat a lot of bananas!

Love Always,
Mommy

I loved nursing. The first 6 months were really challenging. Preston was insatiable and refused to find any other way to self soothe. I had to pump up to 18oz of milk at times, but I never had to supplement. I feel so blessed about that, because I know that many moms struggle. After 6 months it got easy! Pres was a nursing champ. He could drain a boob in 3 minutes, could latch without assistance in the dark, and basically knew what he was doing. I know they recommend to nurse for 6 months, and I was ready to quit so many times in those first 6. When we finally made it we had no reason to stop. Right around his first birthday I decided that I needed to think about weaning. He was the sweetest, loviest boy for everyone but me. I got the whiny, sad, clingy boy, and I wanted a better relationship. I cut out the daytime nursing sessions first, which was pretty easy, because we were only doing it on the weekends anyway (he was getting bottles of breastmilk at daycare still). I just offered a sippy cup of milk instead, and that went pretty well. It was my goal to totally wean by the end of February. At the end of February he was sleeping through the night and still nursing bedtime and morning. He didn't ask for it during the day anymore. I guess through March and April my supply slowly started to diminish, and we quietly and slowly came to a rolling stop. That was the best way to do it. And although it is bittersweet, I know that we did great and I can be proud of us.

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We're Moving!!

4/22/2012

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Web addresses that is. Gotcha! Since I'm becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler, it's time to change it! Mommy also wants to tell you about some of the fun things that we do around the house, and include more about our family, so we are building a new website. We are now: The "Things To Do" Family and you can find us at www.thingstodofamily.com. Right now it looks just like this blog, but it will change as we do some more designing.

Laundry: One of our many "Things To Do"

Since we finished growing the grass for my easter basket (you can read about that HERE), Mom and I needed a new project. We have been working on getting our garden's weeded, planted, and growing, so we decided we would try to grow some plants to add to them. Mom has always loved the look of Sweet Potato vines, and they are a fun "grocery store" project that anyone can do. Just go to the store, select a few small sweet potatos, poke some toothpicks into them, and put them in a cup of water. After a few days they should sprout some root, and a few weeks after that they grow leaves! Then you can plant them in your garden and watch them flourish. They are currently decorating our dining room:

And our final piece of news is that I went to the doctor on Friday for my regular check up. I weigh 25lbs 10.5 oz (Mom is like super woman for carrying me around all the time) and I am 32 inches tall (too tall for my baby car seat). I'm right on track with my growing, and the doctor was impressed with my vocabulary and communication skills. I need to work on chewing food when I eat it as opposed to swallowing it whole, and I also need to work on self soothing. But I can still be a baby sometimes. I had 2 shots, and then got to eat a lollipop!
Yesterday we had a giant family reunion at Mema and Poppop's house so that we could take an updated extended family photo. It was a lot of fun to see everyone again, and I got to hang out with my long distance Aunties in person! I also got to see my cousin, Liora. She's getting to be a big girl and loves to play with all of the things that I liked when I was her age (the bouncy-bounce, zoomy-zoom, and mesh teethers, etc). And now that I have outgrown my baby carseat, she gets to use it for a while!

The "Things To Do" Family had a lazy Sunday today, but we'll have a lot of fun things to share in the near future!

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Gray What?

4/18/2012

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From Mommy:
I knew this day was coming.
The signs were all there
But I just wasn't prepared
FOR MY FIRST GRAY HAIR!

The pesty little strand
Is in the middle of my head
I discovered him last night
When I was getting ready for bed

There is no one to blame
And pulling him out will be fun
But I can't help but think
This has something to do with PRESTON!

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15 Months

4/17/2012

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I'm a day late this time! Preston is 15 months old, and here is his snapshot in time:

Favorite Foods:
Bananas, noodles,cheerios, potatoes, grapes, cheese

What I had for breakfast:
Cheerios, pears, milk

Lunch:
Noodles, chicken, mandarin oranges, cottage cheese, juice

Dinner:
Pierogies, veggies, fruit, milk

Favorite books:
Snuggle puppy, the Gingerbread Man book, The Belly Button Book (now called the "duck" book), whatever grown-up book Mommy and Daddy are looking at, because I need to be the center of attention

Favorite Animals:
Dogs, Cats, Ducks (all birds are ducks), Fish, Lions

Favorite Activity:
Going for walks

Favorite Toys:
Sticks (light sabers, sticks, brooms, toilet plunger, etc), drill, pull along telephone, balls, tick-tocks, puzzles

New words
Brush, duck, fish

Random Fun Facts:

-Pokes his fingers in wagon wheel noodles to eat them, but also loves to use a fork
-Still likes to pull you around by the finger
-Follows directions: please put that back, hold hands, find your high chair/juice/shoes/etc, time to clean up, close the door, blow on it,
-Makes car and truck noises
-Can ride the firetruck all by himself
-Ducks: birds, anything yellow (including fire), rabbits
-Blows on candles/food/when the wind blowing

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Jumbles in the Subwoofer

4/15/2012

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There are at least 2 jumbles stuck in Daddy's sub-woofer, and I have no idea how they got there. It might have been the gremlins that live in our house and turn all the lights on while we are gone, or it could have been the kitties. But it definitely wasn't me! Even though my hands and arms are the perfect size to fit inside the hole in the woofer, and I'm the one who likes to throw the jumbles down the stairs, I do not recall putting any jumbles in the sub woofer. I may also be the guy who likes to put the remote in the printer and the xbox controller down the heating return, but that in no ways makes me the guy who put the the jumbles in the woofer! I generally like to assume that if there is a hole, something needs to go in it, but the sub woofer hole doesn't apply in this case. In fact, I'm the guy they hired to try to get the jumbles OUT of the sub woofer, because I'm the only one with a small enough arms to reach in there to get them. They are pointy little buggers and get caught on things in the speaker, so I have yet to retrieve them.

I rest my case.

Jumbles in the subwoofer

Getting frustrated retrieving the jumbles.

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Mommy's Daycare Homework

4/10/2012

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From Mommy:

Daycare gave us homework. By "us" I mean me and John, but it was me who did it. I had to decorate a paper doll to represent Preston and answer a few questions about him, like what makes me proud, laugh, etc. I cut out a bunch of pictures from magazines (I KNEW there was a reason I saved those - against John's better judgement) of things that Preston loves, and then made a collage of them to put on the paper doll. Can you guess the types of things I cut out? You got it: Tick-tocks, dogs, ducks, bananas, snacks, etc. It was fun to find things that remind me of him. Of course, my obsessive self took FOREVER to find the perfect pictures for his facial features, and I got worried when I forgot to include Cherrios! He's practically obsessed with them. Have no fear, I found a good way to incorporate them *wink.* Here's a picture of my final project!

Mommy's Memories:

Having never experienced a toddler on a day-to-day basis before, I get really excited when Preston starts to do something new. I'm not even sure what toddlers his age should be doing (developmentally), but he nevers ceases to amaze and inspire me. Lately he has been using my hands (or any other adults) to experience things in different ways. If he can't get something to work he will grab my hand and literally show me what to do with my hands to accomplish whatever it was he was trying to do. This is something I didn't know toddlers did. It's seems like it is his creative way of getting something done when he can't do it himself. He'll do it for just about everything, too. I think he helps to alleviate some of his frustrations, although he still throws his fair share of toddler tantrums!
We are experiencing some separation anxiety right now, too. It comes and goes, but some days it is hard for me to leave him at daycare because he clings to me and cries when I leave the room. It’s been ok lately, but I’m not sure we are totally out of that phase yet.
He is really fine tuning his motor skills. I’ll see him trying to put a small stick in the tiny hole in the door knob an actually accomplish it! Crazy! And he loves to “fix” things with his tools. He’s also started to actually ride on his trucks and make the sounds to go with them.

I’ve estimated that he has spoken somewhere between 20-30 meaningful words. Some he uses all the time, so he used for a week and hasn’t really said since. But I’m proud of him for picking up on words and honing his communication skills. I should also mention that many of his words are food related, and he has no problem saying cheese, juice, cheerios, fish, goldfish, cracker, and banana. But he has yet to call me “Mama” to my face. I guess we know where his priorities are!
One of the more frustrating things for me right now is bedtime. Thankfully he has been consistently sleeping through the night (10-12 hours) for a few weeks now, but I still have issues getting him to go to sleep. Almost every night he cries himself to sleep, although he is asleep in under 5 minutes. I hate to leave him, but I haven’t found any other way. If I stay with him and try to rock him to sleep he fidgets forever because he can’t get comfortable. If I put him in his crib and pat or sing to him he keeps standing up and trying to play with me, even though I can tell he is super sleepy. I worry that he is going to get my terrible sleep habits and have insomnia when he is older. I’m going to talk to the pediatrician about it. We have an unwavering bedtime routine; he just doesn’t take the cue. It might also be me. John can sometimes get him to calmly go to bed, and when we have a sitter she can often get him to sleep without crying. It’s struggle, but I’ll keep searching for a solution.

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Happy Easter

4/8/2012

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I guess you could say that the theme of this Easter was Tick-tocks. It’s kind of the theme of my life, so today was just an extension. The Easter Bunny must know that I love them, because I got my own little tick-tock to wear on my wrist, and a tick-tock pillow that I can cuddle with at night! I got a few other treasures, too, like some books, a new lunch box, some tools for my sandbox, and eggs filled with Cheerios. The best part of my Easter Basket was the real grass in the bottom of it. Mom and I grew it on the window sill for the past month, and later this week we are going to pick a spot to plant it in the yard. Mom says we can make it a tradition to grow the grass for my Easter basket every year.

Last night we dyed some eggs (both raw and hard boiled), and the morning when Mom used one of the raw green colored eggs to make waffles, the waffles turned out green, too! That was a fun surprise.

This morning I went to church in my seersucker jacket and looked supercute (if I may say so myself!). Then we went to Mema Lockers house for Easter dinner. We had so much fun playing outside!

You can see the rest of the Easter Photos:
Easter Basket
Easter at Mema's

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Duck

4/7/2012

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Today I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a little bit, while Mommy got her hair cut. Daddy wanted to do some uninhibited yardwork (meaning I’m too much of a handful for him to get anything done). Grandma and Grandpa have a GREAT place to see some ducks, and because “duck” is my new favorite word (I put the “k” on the end any everything) they thought it would be fun to go toss some Cheerios to some live ones. Now, tossing Cheerios seems to be fun for grown-ups, and the ducks seem to appreciate it. But I don’t understand the concept. I mean, why would I want to throw those yummy guys into a stream? I would much rather eat them by the fistful, and so I did! Don’t worry, the ducks got plenty from Mom and Grandma; I didn’t feel like I needed to share!

Here are the pictures from our duck adventure this morning.

BONUS:
If you didn't see these already on Facebook, here are the two videos of Preston's Favorite things to do in Williamsburg

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Williamsburg - Part 2

4/4/2012

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We have been home from our vacation for a few days now. Mom and Dad are back at work and I am back at school. I missed all of my friends, and I’m having a good time catching up with them. I have a few more pictures and memories to share from Colonial Williamsburg, and our journey home was really long. We had a lot of things to fit in.

We had to leave the hotel on Friday morning, and we didn’t have anywhere to be until that evening. Dad had a short agenda to get the car washed and get haircuts for him and me. We went to Colonial Carwash, and then to Duke’s Barbershop for Men and Boys. I would say that was the perfect place for a haircut, and they even had a giant tick-tock on the wall.

Having completed Dad’s short to-do list we regrouped and decided to check out the nearby York River State Park. They had horseback riding trails and mountain biking trails. So with me in tow on the back of Daddy’s bike we all went on a mountain biking adventure. We started out with a pretty easy trail, and finished it in about 10 minutes. Then Daddy wanted to try something a little more challenging. So we started out on a pretty intense unmarked trail that probably should have been classified as a Black Diamond. Imagine this, Daddy zooming through the woods, zigzagging down ravines, flying across the edges of a leaf strewn cliffs, and dodging rocks and roots with me in the kid seat holding on to the back of his shirt and giggling away. And then Mommy, slowly coasting down the hills saying “John, I can’t believe we are doing this! Don’t you think we should turn around? How is the baby; are you sure you should be doing this with the baby?” and walking the bike up the hills and across the leaf strewn paths, carefully steering clear of roots and trees. Daddy said that she should just go fast, that it was easier that way. We did complete the whole trail and we all made it in one piece, although Daddy’s bike needed a few adjustments!

After that we treated ourselves to lunch at Wendy’s and started on the way back North.

We got to Aunt Kim and Uncle Chuck’s house at about 7, and had a delicious dinner of meatball subs. I got to play with Oliver again. It’s fun to have a dog that is my size! I liked his tennis ball and carried it around with me. Oliver seemed to want to follow me around and I couldn’t understand why? Mom said he wanted me to throw his ball, so I did and he chased it! She was proud of me that I figured out how to throw the ball. In the morning we had breakfast and then drove over to Emily and Kevin’s to FINALLY see their “new” house. We had lunch with them, played on their nearby playground, and then, way past my nap time, we hit the road again for our final stop: Phil and Holly’s house.

When we were about a mile from Phil and Holly’s house we hit a bad dip in the road which dislodged the bike rack from the car! Catastrophe! Luckilly we could pull over, get the bikes to safety, and Mom stayed with them while Dad and I went to get Phil’s truck. Mommy and the bikes were rescued, we borrowed Phil’s bike rack to get the bikes the rest of the way home, and then we visited with Phil and Holly and little Gavin for a while. He’s not so little anymore, and getting to be pretty good at sitting!

We got home late on Saturday night with our hearts full of good times with our friends and family! On Sunday I took one of the longest naps of my life while Mom and Dad watched a movie, and then, of course, it was back to reality on Monday.

That was our trip home, but lets go back another day to Thursday! We visited Yorktown, chased some more chickens, took a nap on a battlefield, and watched a cannon demonstration! That was Daddy’s favorite part of the whole trip, and boy was it loud! We also took a trolley ride around Yorktown and Mommy and Mema got massages.

You can see more pictures from our day in Yorktown HERE

And here we are with not-so-little Gavin. I was serious, he was perplexed, Mommy thought the whole thing was hilarious.

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