2014 State Fair Fun

This past Sunday we made an impromptu decision to head to the Minnesota State Fair. We’ve gone on a weekday the past couple years and we hoped that the crowds wouldn’t be too horrible. The forecast for the day was supposed to be HOT. We lucked out again this year and had a couple hours of overcast to keep us cool. It did warm up shortly before we left but at least we didn’t roast the entire time there. We also lucked out in the crowd department. It didn’t seem a ton busier than during the week but we also went in the late morning and were gone by early afternoon.

The kids had a great time on the bus. Cohen and Sevea hammed it up for the camera and enjoying playing together. Brynna totally took in all the sites she failed to see last year at a couple weeks old. It is crazy to look back at how much she has changed and even more crazy to watch her take in so much more this year. Next year she might just be able to ride some rides with her siblings. Ahhhh!!

Sevea and Cohen had a lot of fun on the rides. The entire ride experience reminded me that we may have gotten the best possible big sister ever. Sevea was only concerned about Cohen. She pointed out all the rides that he might like. She didn’t complain when she saw a ride she liked but he couldn’t go on. Even though we told her she could still do it, she only wanted to do them with Cohen. She rode in the red car Cohen picked out (not surprising for him since he loves Lightning McQueen) instead of the pink one she said she wanted. Her attitude makes things so easy when doing things with the two of them. Not that Cohen would put up much of a stink either but it is just nice to see her care about someone other than herself.

Now the kids may love the rides and we love watching them on the rides but Troy and I always think about the food when we think of the state fair. However this year we didn’t indulge in as much as we would have liked nor planned to. I think we need to go back to dragging the Zimmers along so we can try more. There’s always next year right! Cohen’s cookie crumble ice cream cone is definitely on my list.

I’d call the day a success. The kids had fun. Each snagged a souvenir (Cohen is really into Spiderman lately) and us parents felt ready for a nap. Too bad it was only Cohen who conked out minutes after starting to drive home. We’ll be back next year ready for more fun!

Cohen, 3 years old

We’ve had the pleasure of being parents to this little guy for 3 whole years now. He’s changed so much in those three years. These past six months we’ve seen so much change in Cohen. So what is Cohen up to lately? Let’s dive into who Cohen is at 3 years old.

First Cohen’s speech has improved so much. One big thing we worked on with Cohen was him initiating communication. We started small with getting him to tell us what he wanted to eat. Then he just took off from there. He uses words for everything most of the time. He likes to copy a lot too…especially his big sister. Even though we have seen a huge improvement from him he still has some catching up to do. He’ll have a lot of help come this fall when he starts preschool. He qualified to continue services through the school district. He’ll be attending five days a week in the morning for 2.5 hours each day. It will be a big change for Cohen (and mom) but it will be so good for him.

I just hope those preschool teachers are ready for Cohen. He has become the stereotypical little boy. He loves to wrestle. Which I blame his sister for this since she likes to play wrestle with him. He loves to run around screaming and just recently added screeching to this fun activity. I’m really happy he learned that one. He loves being rough and tough. He is always hitting cars into things or banging on things or jumping around or throwing something. Thank goodness we can still turn the tv on to get a little break from all the non-stop action.

Even though he has become quite the handful at times with his new way of playing, he continues to be a sweet loveable little boy. He still really likes to sit close to us when we’re on the couch. He gives the best hugs and kisses. He has really opened up socially lately too. He once would shy away from almost everyone to now giving hugs and kisses without coercing. He used to shut down and sort of go in his own little world when he was shy with new people. Now he just ignores them but isn’t bothered that they are there. He’s playing more and more with the other kids which probably contributes to his rough play (kids love rough housing together plain and simple).

I feel like overnight Cohen changed from my little baby boy to my big boy. He just seems older. He looks older. He acts older. I’m continually surprised by the things he’s willing to try and do. Now don’t get confused that he’s willing to try new foods or anything. He is still very picky but we have been successful in getting him to eat fruit again. He will now eat bananas again!! He’ll eat strawberries and peaches and pears and pineapple. We just had to put our mean parents pants on and said he had to eat one piece of fruit before he got another serving of the item he wanted. And it worked! It was risky because with Cohen he’d just rather go without. Try it with a vegetable and that is exactly what will happen. Try it with anything but fruit and that is what will happen. But baby steps are better than no steps.

The kid still likes to eat just not what we would love for him to eat. His stats prove he is getting calories somewhere. He weighed in at 32 lbs (54%). His height was something we need to check again in 6 months. He only grew .25 inches this past 6 months putting him at 35.75 inches (13%). This was a concern for the doctor not because of the height itself but because his growth rate stalled. So we’ll go back in 6 months to see where he is at.

The stats comparing Sevea and Cohen were really interesting this time around as well. Sevea was 31 lbs and 34.75 inches. So she weighed only 1 lb less but was 1 inch shorter than him. He really seems to have thinned out but I think his big head just makes him still seem chubbier than what I remember her being at this age. His big Buddha belly really is disappearing.

This little guy is truly a delight to be around. Sure I want to pull my hair out (mostly just during daycare when he seems to turn off his listening ears) but I also can’t give him enough hugs and kisses. He makes us laugh each and everyday. We know this next year will be one full of new adventures for Cohen. We’re excited that we get a front row seat to see it all!

Two kinds of help

We have two kinds of helpers in our house:

One that will help Brynna EAT the food

And one who helps FEED Brynna the food. They both serve a good purpose I suppose ;)

2nd edition of potty training

With each kid you have, you know the time will come when you have to help them learn to use the potty/toilet instead of a diaper. With this you get excited about changing one less diaper, especially when you have another one in diapers. But you also dread actually going through the process of potty training again. This time around I was more than okay changing diapers and forgoing potty training. Cohen certainly wouldn’t mind being 15 in diapers right? Well I figured we better at least try potty training just in case.

Cohen was not a fan of the toilet at all. He would fuss/whine/cry about having to sit on it. This was not a good sign. We decided to jump in feet first and just go for it. Being it is summertime and we wanted to get the process started enough before school started, we choose to start potty training on Sunday August 10th. Only thing mom was out of town with the girls the night before. So father-of-the-year Troy took the lead on potty training that morning. I couldn’t have done better myself because Cohen totally surprised us both in how great he did. (Not only did he potty training him by himself, he took pictures including ones of the great setup he provided Cohen.) We used the same bare butt method sitting often that we used with Sevea. He had one accident in the morning but was successful in going multiple times. Troy and I couldn’t believe that this little boy of ours was actually doing this well. He’s had plenty of accidents since but at the 1 week mark things seemed to truly click for Cohen. We initiate for him to go potty and he readily goes. Like sit down and start going right away. So he totally gets what he is supposed to do. And his accidents are becoming less and less when it comes to pee. If he does have an accident, he doesn’t really pee his pants but more tinkles. He’s getting better and better at peeing everything at once though and that has almost diminished those accidents.

Now the part that we dreaded and almost kept him in diapers for…poop. We knew this would be the most difficult part. It can be hard for any child but Cohen already had issues in this area. We talked with his doctor at his 3 year well check and he suggested we try Miralax again. My fear is we’ll have the same amount of accidents just runnier ones :( But we’ll give it a shot and maybe we’ll be surprised again by Cohen. Until then every time I deal with a poop accident I’ll remember Dr. Suess’ saying, “In my world, everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”

Brynna 12 month update

One by one each month passed by and we have officially gotten through the first 12 months of Brynna’s life. Each month brought changes, some big and some small but all of them helping to develop Brynna into the fun sweet loveable 1 year old she is today.

It has been so interesting to see her personality develop over the past year and especially even more this past month. Brynna has a very sweet loveable side to her. She loves to cuddle. Not only with us adults but with other babies and kids alike. She smiles often and laughs easily. She is a real joy to be around…unless she is in her diva mode. She certainly has some attitude in her as well. For only being a year old she certainly is perfecting her tantrums. We have a feeling she’ll be our tester and our opinionated one. Let’s just hope the other two don’t wear us out and we have enough energy left to fight the battles I am sure we’re up against!

Those tantrums seem to correlate a lot of times with illness or teething. She does okay for the most part with teething but sometimes those pesky teeth take their toll on her. She’s working on some molars and canines. Looks like she will get 2 teeth pretty soon giving her a mouth full of 13 teeth total.

Brynna is in a really adventurous stage right now. She loves climbing the stairs. Which mommy wouldn’t mind if she would learn how to go down them. She’s still not walking but that doesn’t stop her from climbing all over anything and everything. She is very into walking with things lately. Doesn’t have to be a walker, she’ll push around any toy or chair. One more method to get her closer to wanting to walk. She is getting better at keeping her balance and will stand for a couple seconds on her own here or there. Only when she wants to. Which goes the same for her wanting to walk. She will now walk with you holding just her one hand but only when she wants to. She also decided this month to stop army crawling and to now crawl on her knees. You don’t even know how happy mom and my washing machine is. So long incredibly-difficult-to-get-out-tummy stains!

She’s definitely proving to us that she is no longer a baby but fully into toddler mode. She weaned from breastfeeding easier than I thought possible. After making it a full year (which I never thought possible with my track record) the weaning was harder on me than her I believe. All she cared about was that you gave her food. She likes most fruit with blueberries being her favorite. She is getting pickier about vegetables but LOVES green beans. She eats pretty much anything just depends on her mood at the time. We always say give her something to eat or drink if she is crabby. She does really well with the sippy cup and we’re slowly transitioning her from frozen breast milk to regular milk which she now seems to be fine with. She loves to throw her sippy cup A.L.L. T.H.E. T.I.M.E which is irritating but hopefully we’ll be out of that stage soon. She is getting really good at signing more recently and maybe she’ll catch on to other signs soon to help with communicating. If not more signs hopefully she’ll learn some new words soon. She babbles quite a bit and will mimic sounds others make but no new words. We still just hear momma and dadda and other babble.

We definitely know she is eating well by her stats at the doctor. She weighed 20 lbs 8.5 oz (62%) and was 28.25 inches (19%). This month was very interesting to compare to Sevea and Cohen. She was almost a pound and a half heavier than Sevea but also .5 inch longer than her. Now compared to Cohen she was the same height as him but he weighed over 4 1/2 pounds more than her. Haha! He definitely was our tub tub.

She is still a huge huge huge fan of playing in the sand. It is by far her most favorite part about being outside. She likes to play with a lot of things inside but I think her favorite is probably when we play with kitchen. The variety of things she can bang and then put in her mouth is endless.

That’s our Brynna B in a nut shell. 12 months to go from a itty bitty newborn to a toddler getting around. I can’t make time stand still but I can certainly remember to cherish the time I have and think back on all the fun we had this past year. We’re ready to make this next year a great one!