Category Archives: toddler

Sleep, or lack therof

I’m beginning to wonder when kids hit that magical age where you can just put them to bed and then not worry about them until a reasonable hour in the morning. Someone please tell me it’s sooner rather than later. We had a brief stretch where both the kids were doing great, and then things changed. Enzo stopped easily going to bed and now we’ve had to put a gate up to keep him in his room. I can’t remember when it started, but I remember finishing up in the kitchen and turning around to suddenly see Enzo just quietly standing there looking like a creepy child of the corn.

These pictures only sort of have to do with this post. :p

We haven’t a decent bedtime and routine for the kiddos, which can be difficult because we get home a little after 5:00 and then need to get dinner made and if it’s bath night, baths need to be started by 6:45. Phoebe goes down first around 7:30 and is usually out pretty fast. We try to be out of Enzo’s room by 7:45, which used to be fine, but lately he’s been having trouble falling asleep and will open the door several times usually saying that his tummy hurts (it doesn’t) or that he needs a hug or a kiss or a high five or he wants mommy to sleep with him. Lately he hasn’t been falling asleep until after 8:00pm and usually closer to 8:30. He’s been then waking up at around 5:30-6:30 every morning (weekends included), which doesn’t seem like enough sleep, especially since he does seem to get cranky and on the weekend will take 3 hour long naps.

You’d also think that when the kids do wake up earlier than usual we’d get out of the house sooner, but no. Instead, there is often chaos and some mornings I sit them both on the bed with one of Enzo’s shows so that I can get ready. Granted, now that Phoebe is more mobile the bed thing doesn’t happen often anymore. Instead one distraction after another must be found all while trying to keep the stinker away from her brother’s breakfast.

Can I just tell you how much I’m looking forward to one day sleeping in on the weekends and waking up to find that the children have gotten up and gotten their own cereal and are quietly amusing themselves? I may or may not be a tad sleep deprived lately. There just always seems to be so much to do and rather than going to sleep, we find ourselves staying up and watching one of our shows or reading because it’s the only time to really unwind. There must be time hiding somewhere, I just have yet to find it.

Visitors from Colorado

Without a fail, the weather will never cooperate when you have family visiting from out of town, so my dad and stepmom got to experience some blustery fall Minnesota weather while they were here at the beginning of the month. The kids could have cared less about the weather, though. They were simply happy to have Grandma and Grandpa visiting.

We stayed pretty close to home for their visit, which was fine for all of us. They braved the wind one afternoon and went for a walk, while the rest of us stayed in jammies… which is kind of just what we do when we aren’t planning on going anywhere – guests or no guests. Ha ha.

There’s nothing quite like having grandparents around that makes kids get extra silly for some reason whether it be in person or on a phone call. Both of the kiddos were eating up the extra attention and Enzo would wake up in the morning and immediately want to know where Grandpa and Grandma were… alas, he did that for a few days after they left as well.

We did get at least one nice day out of the weekend, though, and decided to go to the zoo so we could walk around and get some fresh air. It could not have been a more perfect day. The animals were loving the cooler temperatures and were being more active than I’ve ever seen them before. I also didn’t get the camera out once… it seemed like so much work as we had once again schlepped way too much stuff with us and I didn’t want to dig it out from under coats and who knows what else. Anyhoo.

The animals were all in a playful mood and it also wasn’t super crowded, which was even better and meant we could linger at a few of the enclosures just a bit longer than usual. I mostly wore Phoebe so we could pile stuff up in the stroller, but the stroller was nice when it got chilly looking at outside animals and then I could put her in her puffy coat. She loved watching the fish, as did her brother, so we are probably due for another aquarium visit soon. Maybe that will be her first real walking adventure too!

One of these days we’ll hopefully end up closer to Colorado and in a more central location to all of the family on both sides. It’s always been the plan, the puzzle pieces just haven’t matched up yet. I’d love for my kiddos to be able to get to know my side of the family a little better, though, before they get too much older. On an unrelated note… kids are so uncooperative and hard to photograph. I don’t think I have a career in child photography ahead of me. Ha ha.

And…. Surprise – everyone look surprised!

Ha ha. Outtakes are so much more fun, right?

Miss you guys already!

Photo Dump

There isn’t a lot going on right now, and I’ve got a bunch of random photos that never made it into posts either because other pictures were used instead or they never worked anywhere (which would explain why they look familiar), so now seems as good of a time as any to put them somewhere. If you only knew just how many photos were on my computer… soooo many. When you’ve got two kids constantly moving the best thing is to just keep snapping and just hope for a decent shot or two.

Still obsessed with cars and trucks.

I wonder if we’ll have a musician on our hands… she LOVES all things musical.

Ack, that grin.

So glad her eczema cleared up with age!

Hey, look! Food! Remember when I used to take pictures of what we were eating? Ah, the days before kids… now I barely have time to compose any shots at all… good or bad.

Still working on getting this kid to try new things… we’ll get there.

Will her eyes stay blue like Enzo’s? Hard to say.

Tutu.

Are you having more?

There are days when the kids are just so cute/hilarious/awesome that I try to convince Josh that we should have at least a dozen more. Okay, that would be ridiculous, but how can we just stop at two when we make such cute babies? It would be a tragedy to stop now!

Girl hormones will tell you crazy things and make you completely forget all of the sleepless nights, the pain of childbirth, the fact that your body is totally different then pre-children. Admittedly we did go back and forth over having a third for a while… but ultimately have decided that two is a good number for a variety of reasons.

Let’s be honest, kids are expensive and having three kids in day care made us both cringe, and I don’t know that I’m the type to be a stay-at-home mom. Plus, we wouldn’t wait until Enzo was old enough to leave day care/pre-school because that would mean we’d be that much older and that would be a fairly big gap (to us) between Phoebe and a potential third baby.

We also thought about travel and the fact that right now while our cars don’t have a lot of space, at least we aren’t being forced to buy a bigger vehicle. One day we will because we have lots of plans to go on road trips, and it would be nice to have extra seating, but for now I really like my car and would like to keep it for a while longer.

Ultimately, we looked at our ages, and while we aren’t old by any means, Josh will be 50 and I’ll be almost there when Enzo graduates from high school. We have plans to have a life once the kids graduate and go out on their own, and we want to still feel fairly young when that time comes.

Sure there are days when a little part of me taps on my shoulder and tries to convince me that we shouldn’t stop, that I’m not ready to stop, but this was always our dream… since before we were married. We talked about having a boy and then a girl, and that’s exactly how it worked out, so I’d say our family is complete. As Phoebe gets older and more independent, I treasure these lingering days where I still get to feed her a bottle and snuggle her before bed, but definitely get excited as she gets closer to being done with bottles entirely.

While I wanted to keep them babies for as long as possible, now I love watching these new toddler milestones happen as Enzo gets older. He has such a great imagination already and he also knows exactly how to break me – I can only resist the dimples and whispered “Please” so many times before I cave. Yep, I’m ready to be the mama of a toddler and a preschooler – I’ll leave the babies to someone else.

At Como

So far this Fall has seemed fairly mild, and I’m okay if that is a continuing trend. It just gives us that much more time to get out and do things before the cold weather sets in and all I want to do is hibernate.

A few weeks ago we decided to go to the Como Zoo for a change of scenery, and managed to get there early enough so that while still busy, it was manageable. We didn’t get many pictures of the day, however, and have kind of decided that Como would be better off charging a small admission rather than relying strictly on donations. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but it also could use work in areas.

The last time we went we were childless, so a lot of things we were kind of oblivious to. This time around, though, we stumbled upon bathrooms with wonky changing tables that weren’t in very good shape. More importantly, though, some of the habitats just seemed too small and sad at times. We also had a run-in with some hornets that swarmed us for whatever reason… this happens on a regular basis, and poor Enzo is terrified. We were setting up lunch when suddenly Enzo started screaming and I saw several hornets flying around him and his sister and hanging out on their food. The last thing we wanted was a kiddo being stung, so while Josh tried to grab everything, I quickly tried to shoo the hornets away from Phoebe’s food (which she was still trying to eat) and quickly lead Enzo away. We finally found a table that seemed decent , but little man would have a meltdown whenever a hornet came to investigate. Considering I have my own phobias when it comes to wasps and hornets (I am okay with bees), it was incredibly hard to sit still and try to carefully guide the kids away from them or to cautiously shoo them away from us in a calm manner while comforting Ezno when inside I was having my own mini freak-out.

Seriously, though, what is it with hornets and us? Are we just genetically more appealing or something because wherever we go they just hone in on us while other people are just happily eating or hanging out. They must smell fear.

Anyhoo, the day wasn’t a complete bust… it was absolutely beautiful and the kids got to see a few different animals than usual. We didn’t really stop in Como Town (the game area for kids) even though Enzo might have enjoyed it. At that point we decided a nap was probably in order for both kids, considering Phoebe fell asleep while strapped to my front in the Ergo and Enzo had only had a short nap in the car on the way there. Will we be back? I’ll think about it. I do like the conservatory, which we didn’t see and I think the kids would enjoy all of the flowers, but considering what a long drive it is we will most likely stay closer to home.

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures