Pretty Girl

Bailey's Eleventh Month

Our lil active boy has turned into such a sweet snuggler this month. He will often run into our arms, lay his head on our shoulders and snuggle us while making sweet 'mmm' noises. Sometimes he'll flings his arms back behind him, thrusting his head and body as close to us as possible and sometimes he wraps his arms around us and gives our backs a little pat. He is just as precious either way and each time it just melts my heart to pieces. But naturally he's gone as quickly as he arrived, running off to tackle something else. After many failed attempts, these two pics were the best blanket shots I could get. He is not at all interested in being still - not even for a second! :)


Along with being so, so busy, this little guy is the toughest wee one I have ever seen!! He always has a bump and bruise on his forehead, a busted lip, a scrape on his chin, or a scratch on his nose or cheek. It is amazing - and terrifying - to me the spills he takes and how little he cries during them.


Here are some other things I want to be sure to remember about Bailey at 11 months:

• We have caught him using our leather couches as a teether on several occasions.
• He's chatting a bit more, making G-sounds, and some D- and R- sounds.
• LOVES music and is such a cute dancer. We started him in music class this month.
  
• He can be quite the naggy younger brother and sadly gets great delight out of pulling Ainsley's hair or stealing her hair bows to chew on.
  
• But his world revolves around Ainsley and will run at her with eyes closed and arms open wide to give her big hugs around her belly.
• He is absolutely obsessed with shoes!! He'll spend quite a while emptying his and Ainsley's shoe baskets, playing the the laces or velcro on each shoe, and then carrying them to random locations around the house.
  
• Loves, loves, loves to flip through pages of books and to be read to.

• He does almost everything with his right hand, esp. eating, and every night I scrub stains out of the right arm of his shirt.
  
• He hasn't shown any real attachment to the loveys in his crib but loves to play with Ainsley's whenever given a chance. Ainsley's loveys are sacred to her so his attraction either causes her to scream or she sweet says, "sure baby, I share them with you."
• He is already amazingly athletic and can scoot himself on a bike, climb all the way up the stairs, and can climb up the ledge on their outside play gym and almost go down the slide on his own.
• Bailey is SO determined which makes him kind of naughty. And when he doesn't get his way he throws himself down and has a fit. Yikes. I see this requiring a lot of patience in the future.
• Trys hard to push anything that will move, even if it shouldn't move, like furniture.
  
• Has a big, raspy, open mouth laugh that sounds fake. "HaaaHaaaHaaa"

• He loves meat and his definitely not going to be my vegetarian son!!
• He has the sweetest smile in the world that lights up his whole face and melts my heart. It is just so hard to catch!
• He's just the perfect mesh of wild and sweet.
  

I still just can't believe how big our little baby boy has gotten. I'm so impressed and surprised by him every single day and I can't believe that the invites have already gone out for his first birthday party!! I can't believe my little boy is almost one! One of my fondest baby memories is the sweet smell that hits you when you open his nursery room door. It's a mix of dreft detergent, clean diapers, and just newness and I can almost smell it just thinking about it. I remember it with Ainsley too. I guess because their bedroom doors are shut so much at first with them napping all the time that all that baby freshness just gets locked up in the room with them. Well, with Bailey getting older, you can barely smell that baby smell when you open his door. :( I know it is a little thing but it just makes me feel like he has just grown up already. Between his demanding big sister, all the junk with my back, and him just being a precocious lil boy, I feel like all his baby moments have flown by. It's also a good reminder for me to live in the moment as much as I can and cherish each second with this lil guy. We love you baby Bailey!!

Father and Son

(notice Bailey's busted lip and chin. Sigh. Just another day in the life of a lil boy.)

Big Foot

A few weeks ago we went to get Bailey's foot officially measured and fitted for real shoes. With him playing outside more, I felt like he needed a shoe with more of a sole than those leather soled baby shoes. Well, my suspicion was confirmed - Bailey has a HUGE feet for his age! At about the same age Ainsley was wearing a size 2-3 and Bailey is in a 5 of the same shoe!! We didn't buy Ainsley a 5 until she was over 18 months old!! Granted, Ainsley is a girl, but still! Here is one of Ainsley's first real shoes as compared to Bailey's. Whoa!


Watch out Mom, these big 'ol feet are made for playing! :)

Roly Moley

Ainsley has such a tender spirit towards animals and it is really precious to see. I have to admit that it has even made me feel guilty for not having some sort of pet because she always sadly comments on how the neighbor cats that sometimes come to visit always go away. But we just can't handle anymore craziness in our life right now.

So anyway, the other day we were on a walk and she found a roly poly and was jumping up and down in excitement. I remember how much fun roly polys were to play with when I was little so I let her carry it on our way home. There was a constant commentary: "Oh he's so cute. He's really so cute. He's the best roly moly that I never seen. See his little legs walking. Really really cute." Naturally she dropped the poor guy a few times and when we were a block away her comments started to change: "Why he in a little tiny ball?"
Me: "Maybe he's going night-night"
Ainsley: "Oh. He must be really sleepy. He's just in a little ball. He not walking anymore. I think he really night-night."

Oops. Still, she carried him all the way home and then we set him next to one of our flowers for night-night while we had lunch. Here she is telling me all about him.


Sweet girl.

Fast

His world must be a constant blur. He's always moving so fast.

Potty Training

We took advantage of a week off from school for Spring Break to tackle potty training Ainsley. Because you know, when you're in college you go to the beach or skiing for spring break... and when you're the mom of a toddler and actually need a vacation, you lock yourself indoors, talk only about potty behavior, ask the question "tell mommy if you have to go potty, ok?" a thousand times, and clean up a lot of messes. Seems fair, right? Ugh. Truthfully it has been exhausting but so rewarding at the same time. She is just so, so proud of herself when she goes potty and that is so sweet to see.

We used the book '3 Day Potty Training' and weren't expecting to be done in 3 days but knew it would get us off to a good start. Ainsley was showing most of the physical signs of readiness but hadn't really shown much interest until about a week before when we really started hyping up how awesome big girl panties are. She took the bait. I had a basket of panties waiting for her and each night the week before we started she would go through them and get so, so excited. Below she is waving around the first pair she picked out to wear on day one! She is beyond thrilled! My girl loves clothes.


Day One: This felt like the longest day because it was all so new to her. We woke up, ate breakfast, let her pick her first pair of big girl panties to wear, "threw away" all of her diapers (she was so meticulous that she even took away all her baby dolls diapers and threw them away too!) - although they are really just in the closet, put her potty seat on the potty, and then proceeded to remind her to tell us if she had to go potty ever few minutes. Here she is throwing away all her diapers.


From the start she did well recognizing when she needed to go but had trouble making it to the potty. Her first success was at 11 am and I was just as excited as she was. Literally jumping up and down and screaming and clapping with her. The look on her face was priceless - pure pride and joy! We rewarded her with a gummy bear and sticker on a chart that counts up to a magic hat grab bag (full of $1 Target finds). After this initial "click" she did really really well the rest of the day, making it in the potty almost every time!! She even stayed dry throughout nap! The first day she also did a lot of checking out her new panties. She would also check out her reflection in the mirror, stove, and glass door! Ha!


Day Two: More pantless fun and felt pretty encouraging again even though it took all morning and several accidents for it to "click" again. But like the day before, around noon she got it again and did really well for the rest of the day. She managed to stay dry for her whole nap even though it was much shorter than normal and she had several of her first small poos in the potty this night!!


Her potty chart in the middle of day two!


Day Three: She woke up dry from the night and seemed to get it right off the bat this am with no accidents, which was huge! But she wiggled and wiggled and refused to sit on the potty and then had a big poo in her panties this afternoon. The sweet girl said that pooping in the potty was hard, as in difficult.


So not accomplished in three days but still awesome. The rest of the week felt soooooo long as I didn't leave her side for more than a few minutes. I was so thankful for the warmer/dry weather so that we could be outside. And we were successfully able to venture out for swim lessons and a few small errands towards the end of the week. She has peeing down great and will go without being prompted but going poo has had its ups and downs. She went once in the potty on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and Sunday night I was bragging on her that I thought she had it. Then of course on Monday she pooed in her pants three different times. Arg! But she kept her panties dry all day at school today and then pooed in the potty twice this afternoon and evening, so who knows. Do I dare say that maybe she's getting it afterall. :)


And just to embarrass him in years to come, Ainsley isn't the only fan of her new panties! Bailey has been quite fond of them as well. He has had lots of fun pulling them in and out of their bin and has even tried to put them on his head. Silly lil guy!

Lil Daredevil

We love Bailey dearly but lately he has become such a daredevil and nightmare!! George and I feel like we are constantly on accident watch with him whenever he is playing. This has sort of been the story of his life but recently he has been taking it to a whole new extreme. After falling off the slide and cutting the side of his head, and almost falling face first off the steps that lead to our garage, we look over at him and he has climbed on top of the kids picnic table. AHHH!! How does he do these things so quickly!

This weekend in the house, after George stepped away for a second, I hear Ainsley saying, "Look! You're doing it! Come on up baby boy. You can do it." When I heard the word "up" I got scared and ran around the corner to find Ainsley at the top of the only stairs in our house that don't have a baby gate, sweetly coaxing Bailey up the stairs. He had gotten half way up in literally a few seconds!! My heart was racing because I knew that we had just gotten SO lucky. A fall down 8ish hard wood steps onto a hard wood floor would not have been pretty. Needless to say, we will be gating that area soon.

And these are just a few incidents that make up our everyday with this wild man! Ainsley was such a cautious child - even learning height boundaries (eg. could leave her on the bed and she wouldn't venture off) at an early age - that George and I are quickly realizing that we are WAY out of our league!! No wonder I have been getting stress headaches lately. :)

Will you be my (belated) Valentine?

Ok, this post is seriously belated but for memories sake I wanted to include a few pics from the valentine's party we had for a few of Ainsley's friends the week of Valentine's Day. It was just something small and more of a glorified playdate but I just couldn't let the holiday pass entirely without doing something festive. :)


The idea was cookie decorating... which when you're 2 or 3 really means excessive amounts of sugar in the form of icing, m&m's, marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles, gummy bears, and cookies, etc... all in the name of LOVE! :)


Speaking of love... here is Ainsley "helping" her love with his cookie. After several occasions where Ainsley greeted Finley with a kiss on the lips, we had to have the "it's only ok to kiss mommy, daddy, and baby bailey talk". Her response was "But I really want to kiss Finley" What!? Already!?! But she eventually said ok and I don't think it's happened again.


Ainsley didn't even attempt to decorate her own cookie. She just concentrated on eating toppings.


Ainsley showing me her empty toppings cup. Guess that means she thinks that she needs more.


Sweet Bailey was in complete awe of how his world changed while he was napping. And this was before anyone came over. He had so much fun seeing playing with so many friends.


The table was full of lots of yummies!


Streamers for running through... although not much of that happened until after everyone left. :) There were lots of balloons scattered on the floor which provided at least a weeks worth of entertainment for my crew.


We gave out heart-shaped crayons that say "You color my world" as valentines. These were the same ones that she gave to her friends at school. Too cute, right!


Then after the party ended, Ainsley and Finley had a musical parade to work off some sugar.




Sweet siblings and such a tolerant lil brother he can be! Anyway, Happy very belated Valentines!!

This Week

Here are some random happenings from the week...

There's a monkey on your head! And he's going after your nose!!


Ainsley wins the battle over her wardrobe about half the time. She can be very opinionated and likes things to "match" even though her definition and mine differ quite a bit. :) But honestly she doesn't really fight me about it and we usually come up with good compromises like I get to pick out her school/church clothes but she can pick out something different when she gets home. It just makes for a lot of laundry!! Below she is very proud of her "so pretty" outfit that "matches"!


Eating must be hard work for our lil man because towards the end of meals he often lays his head down. Sometimes while still putting pieces of food in this mouth. Ha!


Here's Ainsley playing dolls, which are a more sturdy magnet version of paper dolls. This is one of her treasured activities that she does when Bailey is napping or in his high chair because the pieces are so little.


No, Bailey's eyes aren't closed because of the flash from my camera. He simply enjoys awaking around with his eyes closed now and then. It is kind of a dangerous habit but it gets him so tickled!!


Pushing the limits seems to be the theme of Bailey's life and this week was no different. He has mastered getting on this lil car although he can't really push himself forward yet but I'm sure it won't be long. He also spends a great deal of time crawling in and out of our other toy wagon and after a whole morning dedicated to trying, he just mastered getting in our magazine basket which comes up higher than his waist! He is so stinking determined!


I sure do love these lil munchkins!!! They brighten my every week!