Keeping Track of Lauren & Jack » February 2007 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Wed, Feb 28, 2007 2:37 PM
I keep forgetting to mention this, the other day The Little Mermaid was on and they were both singing "Under the Sea"! Well, Jack sounded more like "unner uh see" but he sang it in rythym and almost in tune! it's very cute to see them singing and dancing around together. Hopefully we can break out the video camera if we get a repeat performance.

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Tue, Feb 27, 2007 11:12 PM
We had a busy weekend. At ballet class Lauren had a fit and was refusing to go into her class despite getting there in plenty of time (at least 10 minutes), and her friend Bianca was there. Jack was with me since Mike had to go pick up his car which was in the shop, so that may have been sort of distracting, that he was there muscling in on her territory. But he was there last week and there was no problem. The only thing I can think is that we need even more time to acclimate. I insisted that she sit in the doorway and watch, and she did join in after about 10 minutes, so maybe it's just a matter of warming up to the whole idea.

Sunday Lauren had two bithday parties for kids from her class at school. The morning one was at a place called MyGym and we've been there plenty before and they do a great job. Mike came too and we brough Jack and he surpised me at how much he listened and participated in the group activities. Lauren just had a blast jumping around on everything, trampolines, ball pit etc. The only thing was they served pizza and she wouldn't really eat any. But she certainly had cake. Then we went home and tried (and failed) to get her to eat something for lunch. I also put her down in a misguided attempt to get her to rest, if not nap, but she wasn't having any of it, she was too excited! We left Jack napping at home with Daddy and headed to the second party. That was at another gynastic gym place, which was fine until right at the end when she pitched a screaming fit about leaving. I was mortified but she did calm down as soon as we were out the door. I think it was just a bit too much all in one day, but oh well, she did have fun.

Monday was a hard day because Ashley couldn't come and Mike was working and it was just a long haul from wake up to bedtime. We did manage a playdate at Taylor's house and it was hilarious watching the three of them run in large figure 8's and circles through all the rooms, with Jack trailing behind with his little bouncy run, with the girls actually lapping him at times!

Today we had a field trip with Lauren's school to the Museum of Science and Industry. I had to bring Jack, and that was sort of trying at times, because he's getting to the point where he wants to be participating in everything Lauren is doing, but he doesn't have the impulse control or listening skills she has, so he's prone to run off ant any second. I hate to confine him to the stroller, but sometimes it's the only way to function with the two of them. Unfortunately I think his stroller days are numbered. The museum is close to Mike's office at the university, so we had lunch with him at a local casual restaurant, which was harried as usual, but important to do every once in a while so they can learn how to eat and behave in public.

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Fri, Feb 23, 2007 11:25 PM
Today we went to a craft event the Mom's Club was holding at Michaels, and it turned out to be painting a ceramic shape. Lauren chose a heart, but we gave Jack a wooden firetruck instead. I understand that he's really too young to do crafts, but he insists on doing whatever his sister's doing, and he just won't take no for an answer. They certainly made a mess, but they had fun doing it, so it was probably worth it!

Something I keep forgetting to mention, Lauren's new favorites phrases are "No way!" and "That's crazy!" I'm thinking it's something she's picking up at school. She's also been insisting on wearing dresses every day for the last week or so. Good thing she has plenty of dresses! But I feel bad because I've been dressing her sort of how I dress, in jeans and t-shirts, and she's probably more of a girly-girl than I was when I was her age.

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Wed, Feb 21, 2007 11:08 PM
This morning I took the kids to Kiz Club which is the playspace where Lauren had her birthday party. It was very busy but the kids had a blast. I noticed while we were there that Jack had a slightly runny nose, but he seemed to feel OK otherwise. He's been getting a strange rash on his legs and diaper rash which is making me think it's the new diapers from BabiesRus. Too bad I bought such a big box. But the diapers I ordered arrived, so at least we have some alternatives. They are HUGE, but it's sort of a relief for them to be too big! Otherwise Jack has also been having a lot more diarrhea than usual, so I'm desperately trying to figure out what's been different in the last few days.

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Mon, Feb 19, 2007 11:30 PM
New Jack words: orange juice (his new favorite beverage). I think his first full sentence may be I wanna see Mama (or Dada) and he even says Daddy now. He said Ashley's name today. The funniest thing is when Jack climbs up on chairs or the learning tower and then gets stranded up there. He says "off" which I take mean "down". He's just a few inches too high for him to get down by himself and you can tell that it drives him nuts!

Today we did Lauren's space project for school. We had to make a moon, so we made some paper mache paste and stuck some tissue paper to a styrofoam ball. That gave it this wonderful texture and we even made a few craters. When that finally dried we painted it in parts a sort of speckled grey. And the finishing touch came from a silver glitter pen, just to add some pizazz. The hardest thing was keeping Jack from getting his hands all over it. When we finished the moon the kids started painting on some paper and Jack was just thrilled to bits to be smushing it all around. I was feeling bad about not doing more crafts with him until he stuck a brush full of blue paint into his mouth! Then I remembered that we didn't really start crafts with Lauren until she was well over 2.

Oh yeah, and Jack is now insisting on getting candy when Lauren gets hers (a reward for going potty). Most of the time she forgets to ask, but lately she's been wanting lollipops. So now I've been giving Jack a Dum-dum if he really can't be distracted away. I'm worried that I'm creating another sugar fiend! I've tried to put it off as long as possible, but it seems like he's going over to the dark side!

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Sun, Feb 18, 2007 11:12 PM
Well we survived the weekend without Daddy. Saturday we actually managed to get to Lauren's ballet class 20 minutes early, so she had plenty of time to get acclimated. Her little friend Bianca was there, and that seemed to make all the difference. I didn't get a chance to peek into the room at all, so it's hard to know how it was going, but Jack was just keeping me entirely too busy running up and down the hall. Then we even ventured into the library, but Jack was a little too adventuresome in there so we couldn't stay long.

This morning I had a really hard time getting going, but I told myself I would finally get it together when Ashley arrived and go run errands. Then Ashley called in sick, so I bit the bullet and took the kids after they woke up from naps. We actually got a lot accomplished, Michaels Craft store, LinensNThings, and finally the grocery store. The kids did very well until we were checking out right at the end when they were both screaming! I think they were just getting hungry. Note to self, bring more snacks for times like these!

Jack is doing very well in the booster seat and Lauren likes her new cushy one, so I think I'll go ahead and get rid of the high chair. That will free up some space around our kitchen table! It feels sort of final, like I'm really admitting that we're not having any more kids. I've been slowly getting rid of baby gear, but somehow this makes it seem more real, because it's a piece of gear that you use so much every day. Ah well, I guess it was inevitable.

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Fri, Feb 16, 2007 8:48 PM
Mike is off to a conference in Boston (brrr)so I'm flying solo til Sunday. Ashley is coming every day so I don't think it's going to be too difficult. But we miss you already Daddy!

I think that Jack is ready to move out of his high chair and into a booster seat, so I bought a new one for Lauren which is cushier and we'll try strapping Jack into Lauren's old one. Jack has been climbing up in her chair and checking out her seat. I think he wants to feel included at the table. We'll try it out in the morning and see how it works.

Since I was at BabiesRus I decided to try their brand of Supreme size 6 diapers, since we're about to run out of Huggies and the other ones I ordered online won't arrive for a few days yet. The search for an acceptable diaper continues!

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Wed, Feb 14, 2007 9:29 PM
Happy Valentines Day!

You would think with all the build-up to the big day I would have thought to get stuff for Lauren to give the kids in her class, as well as a present for her teacher, but for some reason it didn't occur to me. I did get her little Valentines which they all exchanges, and they had a little party where they decorated heart-shaped cookies etc. They all got SO MUCH candy which is ridiculous because we're still working our way through Halloween, let alone Christmas candy! I made the executive decidion to not go to the party with Jack in tow since he would have just torn the place apart, and I took him to his playgroup instead where he made a card for daddy and had his first real experience with foam stickers! Most of them he just wanted to tear apart, but he did better than I thought he would. I'm going to try to take him to more craft activities.

I am dismayed to realize that even the regular Huggies leave blue marks on Jack's legs, so I finally ordered a few new kinds of diapers online. It's an experiment because they have these bigger diapers for larger kids with incontinence, so I may have to use those for the time being while we work on getting potty trained. I can't believe theat with all I hear about kids being so hard to potty train, especially boys, that there aren't bigger diapers that are more commercially available. They go by waist size and Jack's waist is 21 inches!

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Sun, Feb 11, 2007 8:44 PM
The satin pillowcases arrived and I have to say that it does make a difference with the tangles in Lauren's hair. It doesn't completely eliminate the frizzies, but it gets a lot less ratted than before!

We've been trying to get outside to enjoy the beautiful weather which is blissfully cool (for here), in the 60's and 70's, and perfect weather to play in, before the temps start ratcheting back up into the 90's soon along with the humidity.

New Jack symbol: the number 9. He still insists that any other number is 2, especially 5 for some reason. He was also sort if singing along to the alphabet song, not really so much the letters, but the tune and the rythm.

Cutest moments from today: 1) when they were both dancing together to the Wiggles Concert dvd, and 2)when they were covering each other with bubbles in the bath as well as smearing colored bath paints all over each other.

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Wed, Feb 7, 2007 11:23 PM
The Pull-up diaper experiment with Jack was not very successful overnight, in that it leaked even though we used an overnight one which is supposed to be more absorbant and a Poise pad stuck in there too. So tonight it's back to diapers and a diaper doubler. Pull-ups work much better during the day though. He seems to find it ticklish when you're trying to close the tabs on a diaper and it's just been impossible to change him. I've put him on the toilet a few times and he seems to thoroughly enjoy sitting there and he says "poo poo" while he's up there and waves "bye bye poo poo!" and wants to flush, but he hasn't done anything so far.

New Jack phrases: "oopsie!"(every time he drops something) and "Okay". This morning at playgroup he pointd to a picture of Cinderella and sayed "princess". He's trying to say fish but it sounds more like shush. And airplane still sounds like airmail, but he gets incredibly excited when he sees one up in the sky. In fact this afternoon he fell over from leaning back so far to look up in the sky. It was fairly hilarious! Of course, where is the video camera when you need it?

Pocohantus arrived from Netflix, so that is quicky becoming Lauren's newfound Disney obsession. She also saw that Taylor has Cinderella III, so I think we're going to have to break down and get that one too. Part of me is a little worried about encouraging this whole princess ideology, but I think it's just a phase that a lot of girls go through.

Oh yeah, I found the satin pillowcases I was looking for online, which is a big relief that I won't have to make my own. I'm starting to wonder why I bother shopping for anything in the stores anymore! I'm hoping they will help with the tangles, which get worse every day as Lauren's hair gets longer and fuller.

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Mon, Feb 5, 2007 9:17 PM
Funny story from yesterday. We took a walk to the playground with Allison and Taylor(Allison just days from having her baby, looks great and not like the 4 months pregnant I looked like at the same point! She was also remarkably relaxed about leaving the baby with her husband for an hour or so! I was impressed.) Anyway, as soon as we got there Lauren said she had to go potty. I got her to agree to squat behind a bush and she actually managed to pee without getting it on her pants or shoes. That is no mean feat, because Taylor had to pee later and tried the same thing and got it on her ankles! Luckily at that point we were just about to go home. Maybe I should invest in one of those travel potties, because there are plenty of times when we get stuck with no bathroom in sight.

Speaking of potties, I think am going to start the begginings of potty training with Jack. First of all, the lining of the new Huggies Supreme diapers make Jack's legs blue. I can't find another diaper brand that fits as well. And anyway, he's growing out of size 6 which is the largest any of them make. Plus he's getting impossible to change, he kicks and twists and turns and that boy has some strong legs! Add all of that to his interest in the whole thing, and I think he's getting ready. I'm going to start putting him on there every time Lauren goes or I go. I may try out pull-ups and see how they fit. It may be a long road, but we've got to start it sometime.

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Sat, Feb 3, 2007 6:00 PM
It's been cold and rainy and we've been stuck indoors all day, except for Laurens' dance class and our weekly excursion to the library. We got 3 dvds this time, so hopefully we'll actually watch them all. We found a Dan Zanes video, so that should be fun.

This afternoon Jack said french fry, fish, feet. I guess he's on an F kick! He also said baby very clearly, he usually says baba. I think Mike figured out when he says ha ha, he means that he wants to have something, which makes sense. He says it all the time! Oh yeah, and he said cookie. Or something close to that.

I'm trying to find a satin pillowcase for Lauren in the hopes that it will help with the tangles in her hair in the morning. I'm giving up hopes of finding one for her little memory foam pillow, but I'm starting to think I'm going to need to make one, which is daunting for a person who really doesn't sew very well. But it might be easiest to just get a yard of fabric, since it's just straight hems. Hmmm, we'll see.

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Fri, Feb 2, 2007 2:18 PM
Today I attempted to meet another Mom from Mom's Club at a local cafe to have book club, but since we both had our youngest kids with us, it was a short-lived discussion. Still it's been good for me to have some motivation to read some new authors and to have a due date to actually finish by. Maybe my brain won't go into completely attrify after all!

Jack has been biting every now and then, and WOW does it hurt! Really hope we can nip that one in the bud, (pun intended!) Not quite sure what to do about it except reprimand severly with a stern tone. He actually started crying at my response today, so maybe he's learned his lesson.

Today there were just 4 girls including Lauren at her school, so they did girly activities and played hairdresser. Lauren had her hair up in a ponytail when I got there, and it was a way I'd never done it before. It was so cute!

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Thu, Feb 1, 2007 8:49 PM
Wednesday I kept Lauren home from school becasue she had a really bad night coughing. It was a good thing, too , because she slept until 10AM! AND she took a 2 hour nap later on. I guess she really needed the rest. Mike agreed to stay home with her for a few hours so I could take Jack to his playgroup. It was nice to not have to rush off early for once to pick her up from school. Jack walked by our host Mackenzie's bedroom and pointed and said, clear as day "pink!". I nearly fell off my chair! He also played independently the whole time and only checked in with me once or twice.

Today we had Lauren's playgroup which was outside at a local playground. They have a little rock climbing wall there and Jack went right up it, no problem. He's also very intersted in going up and down stairs, probably because we don't have any in our house.

Today Lauren looked up at the clock right before bedtime and said "Look it's twenty to eight!" We looked up and sure enough, the little hand was on the eight and the big hand was on the too. I don't know where she learned that, but I was impressed. I think it must be school, because I certainly don't recall teaching her!

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