Emily: 7 Months

We are now closer to Em's birthday than to her birth day. Crazy how time flies! So what is she up to? She has mastered sitting....until she starts rocking that is. Her rocking caused her first bloody nose. She rocked herself right over onto a toy. Thankfully the blood and tears were short lived. Em's babbling has really taken off. I'm trying to get her to say "mama" but I don't have much hope for it being her first real word. The other day I said "say mama!" and she looked right at me and said "bubba"... Waving is her newest talent. She just does it at random times, not to say hi or bye. She's getting so expressive! We've been moving right along with solids. She loves trying all the new food. Unless it's pureed. She prefers to be able to pick it up. However, her favorite snack is by far her own toes. ;-) After her 6 month check up we tried bananas again. To our surprise, there was no rash. She has had bananas several times since then and not a single rash. Then earlier this week out of nowhere, she got the same kind of rash. The only common element was that she was in just a diaper and daddy had just given her raspberries on her neck. I did a little investigating and a little experiment (only because the rash didn't bother her) and it looks like daddy needs to go back to the soap he had been using. His new soap gives his baby girl a rash! 

 A couple of pictures from instagram: 

This picture of Em eating avocado cracks me up!  --  Toes are tasty too!

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Learning From Failure: Gardening, Composting and Frogs

Mistakes are only good if you learn from them. Well, it seems we've made some mistake with gardening and composting.

Worm composting - Great idea but semi-fail. It was going great! Until the summer humidity hit. I didn't realize the drainage catcher needed to be emptied so much more once the humidity started. It makes sense. I just didn't think of it. We have a bin with a really good amount of wonderful (wet) compost but no worms are left. Black Soldier Fly maggots took over the bin. It's not a completely horrible thing since they break down food too. They also don't mind the really wet conditions unlike the worms. Our plan is to let the maggots take care of what's left, let every thing dry out, harvest what is there and then get new worms and start over again (learning from our mistakes).

The Black Soldier Fly maggots were the cause of mr frog's death too. Our first tadpole had finished it's transformation to frog and he needed food. We caught flies that made their way into our house. We bought little crickets from the pet store. Then I discovered the maggots. I tried feeding them to the frog. He immediately ate it. The next day I tried again. I didn't see him eat it but didn't see it in the tank. I eventually noticed a bulge in mr frog. It looked like he ate a maggot that was a little too big. The bulge slowly started moving up until it punctured through his skin right by his front leg. Over the next few days the maggot worked his way through mr frogs's skin..or really, the frog's body pushed it out since it was dead. Mr frog died two days later. :( RIP mr frog.

Gardening- Our garden started out so strong! We had such ambition!

Here's how the garden started out:

We got a handful of strawberries, blueberries and peas earlier in the season. We're still getting lettuce and tomatoes. But that's about it. We've managed to kill a lot of what we planted. I think the main reason that lead to our failure is the location. Where we put the garden was great for sun light. However, that was the only thing over there. I can not see where the kids play in the yard from the garden. That majorly reduces the time available for me to work in it. That also increased the chance of us forgetting about it. We only go to that side of the house for the garden. Lack of water and weeding is just a recipe for failure. My butterfly garden is right outside our huge window in our living room. I see it all the time and am able to tend to it while the kids play in the yard. It's thriving. I think we just need to scale back some on the veggie garden and move it's location. If at first you don't succeed, try try again!

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Check ups: 6 month and allergy

The girls had check ups this morning....bright and early this morning. Our pediatrician is awesome! We had to miss their original appointment two weeks ago. When I tried to reschedule I found out the doctor was booked for the next month! Our awesome pediatrician agreed to see us today before the office opened! Not only that, he didn't charge us the $50 late cancellation fee ($25/appointment) for canceling the original appointments so late.

I had made an appointment for Maddy because it seems she has some issue with dairy. We just can not get a definite answer with just changing her diet. Whether it's an allergy or sensitivity, whether it's casein or lactose, I don't know. All I know is I want definite answers. The pediatrician gave us a referral for an allergist. The allergist, however, is booked until October. So, Maddy will go then and have testing done then.

Little Miss Emily.. She looks so much like her brother and it seems like she's going to be a little peanut too.
The little one's stats:
14lbs 10.5oz
26.5in
...almost the exact weight Sean was at this age and just an inch taller than he was.

I had two things I wanted to talk to the doctor about today. First was her reaction to bananas. I brought a picture to show the doctor and he thanked me. He says that it wasn't the classic allergy reaction (hives) so he's hesitant to say she's allergic to bananas. He says that it's more likely to be a contact reaction or a reaction to something that could have been on the peel. What he suggests is to try bananas again but just a little bit and for me to feed it to her so that she doesn't wear it too. He did say to make sure we have benadryl on hand just in case. The second thing I wanted to talk about was the spot on her left arm. It started the beginning of June looking like a bug bite. About a week or two later, it looked like a blister. Now it's barely there. The doc said he could feel a little scar tissue so he thinks that it was a bug bite that she probably scratched quite a bit.

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Bedtime Battles

If your kids are like mine, bedtime can bring on some big battles. Things were just getting worse here. Something had to be done so I combined two ideas: one from a friend, one from Super Nanny. Things still aren't perfect but things have gotten much better.

First thing we did was set our bedtime routine in stone. Bedtime routine and a set bed time has been difficult for us. That's our fault not the kids. Last week I sat down with Sean and Maddy and had them brainstorm a bedtime routine: what should be included, and in what order. What we came up with was: snack, change into PJs, brush teeth, story time (they each get to pick a story and they are read on mommy and daddy's bed), *small* sip of water, potty, go to bed. We then made this chart so they could see the routine every night and move their little puppet as they do each item.

That solved the first part of the problem. The second part was the million of times we're called back to their bedrooms. Usually it's just small request that wouldn't normally be a problem. The problem is how many times they call us back. A friend suggested bedtime coupons. They each get five coupons. Every time they call us back, we take a coupon. When they are out of coupons we will not answer to requests for another stuffed animal, or to pull the blanket back up, etc. They've been told they may get up whenever without calling us back if they need to go potty. This has worked well for the most part. The main problem is Sean thinks he has to use up all his coupons. So tonight, we're starting a competition. Who ever has the most coupons in the morning will win a surprise!

We still have some work to do. I've put the book, Sleepless in America, on hold at the library. I'm anxious to read what it has to say because I've seen several recommendations for it lately. We also have some work to do about making a consistent bedtime. They have a bedtime. We just need to stop being so lax on it. My hopeful solution is I've added an alarm on my phone for the time we need to start our routine. I'll write an update post once I've read the book.

How do you handle bedtime battles?

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