Update time!!

Where to begin? Cole is now 21 months old. My baby is almost 2. Where did time go? A concern I had been having was Cole's verbal skills. He has awesome motor skills, but by 19 months he still really had no words. The typical mama, dada, dog, duck....ya know. Well, within the last month his vocabulary has exploded. They say boys talk later, and I guess that's true for Cole. His favorite thing to say right now is " WOOOOOOWE" (he somehow adds an "e" to the end). Why you ask? Well, the kid is fascinated with Christmas lights and decorations. It's seriously so stinking cute. When we first put up our decorations, he would walk around to everything and say " woooooowe, woooooowe, wooooowe." I love it. We will be driving down the road and every house that has lights he points at while saying "oh woooowe" over and over. He calls his binki baa baa, yeah he still loves his binki. He tries to repeat everything we say. We have been practicing counting and when we get to 5 he always claps. The other day I was getting him into the car and he wanted a snack. I told him "Cole, you need to wait 1 minute" and he goes "oooonnnnneeee." Ha. I couldn't help but laugh.

He is awesome at puzzles and putting shapes into the shape toys. He LOVES crafts. Doesn't really matter what it is, he likes it. His favorite is finger painting. If he sees the finger paints, he goes crazy! Only problem with this, is he gets VERY upset when it's time to put crafts away. He also loves helping us do the dishes. It's so funny when he "washes" Eva's bottles. He knows exactly what to do. Cracks me up. I have a video of it I will post sometime.

On to Eva. Baby girl is already 3.5 months old! WOW! She is starting to get this cute personality. Girlfriend can talk!! She is a jabber jaws. She just goes on and on and on. I love listening to her. Sometimes she gets going for so long and hard her eyes just water. She is a very determined little girl. She holds her head up great! She loves tummy time and is super close to rolling over. When we put her in her swing in her room, we always come in to find her leaned over to the side. She tries to sit up and flops over, but can't get herself back up. She just looks at you like " a little help please." When she is in her car seat I can see her in the mirror trying to sit up. She lifts her head up and down and finally gives up. Too funny.

She is definitely a mama's girl:/ If anyone is holding her and she hears me, she cries until I hold her. I went to the movie a few weeks ago with some friends and I guess Eva cried for 1.5 hours. Luckily Cole was in bed. I felt awful, but I need to keep doing it I guess. I don't want it to get to the point where I can't do anything because she will cry if I'm not there. BUT, on a plus side....her acid reflux seems to be under control (ha, I know that has nothing to do with her separation anxiety from me). She is happy a majority of the time, when I have her:)

So far she sleeps so good. She has gone as long as sleeping from 9pm-8:15 one night. A majority of the time she is sleeping from 8:30-around 7:30 (or earlier if she hears Cole being loud) up only once to eat at night. I can handle that. She is a huge cat napper. She usually only lasts staying awake about an hour to an hour and a half and naps for about 45 min-an hour. I'm letting her determine her sleep schedule. I was such a by the book napper for Cole. I kept him up for 2 hours and made him nap no matter how hard he fought it. Which leads to Cole's sleeping....

I'm at a loss on Cole's sleep. He will go periods of time where he sleeps from 7:30pm-6/6:30am. I would love for him to do that every night, but my almost 2 year old is still not consistently sleeping through the night. Everyone says he needs to cry it out without me going in. That would not fly with my very strong willed child. He would end up climbing out  or puking. Let me tell you how I know this. Last Sunday night his monitor stopped working in the middle of the night. It's done this before but we usually catch it before he wakes up. Not this time. I woke up to hear this screaming in the distance. It took me a minute to realize it was Cole and his monitor had shut off (I've since called graco and am getting a refund, so recommend your monitor. I don't have a video one, but am open to different options I guess). I went running in. I had no clue  how long he had been crying but by the time I got in there he was shaking and gagging and screaming, I had to bring him to bed with me. He was petrified to go back into his room. At nap the next day, he screamed for an hour. Not a "get me out of here" scream. It was a "I'm terrified to be in my crib" cry. I went in in intervals, even took him out and changed his sheets thinking that might help for some reason. He wouldn't even lay down. I finally got him up and called the dr. I thought maybe he might have an ear infection.

I took him to the dr and his ears were fine, but he is cutting all 4 molars. She said to let him cry and not go in. I just can't do that. When we told him it was time for bed, he started getting really scared and crying. He cried/whimpered all through bath and getting ready for bed. When I brought him into his room to rock and pray with him, he threw up all over me. He had that much anxiety about going to bed that he threw up. I knew I needed to put him in his crib after we cleaned up because if I didn't we'd be doing the same thing every night. He only cried for a little bit, but was up quite a bit. I went in as soon as I heard him so he knew I could hear him. It took all week to get to where he didn't freak out when we told him it was time to go night night. I felt awful for him. We even showed  him how his monitor was working and what not:( He slept through the night on Thurs and Fri but was up for 2 hours in the middle of the night sat. I ended up having to bring him to bed with me. I know most of you will say, just let him cry. But after seeing how he reacted to me not coming in when his monitor broke, I really can't do it. I'm praying he starts sleeping good on his own. I don't run in when he cries, but I do eventually go in. I must say, for as little sleep as he gets he has so much energy:) Wish I could have some of it:)

Cole is starting to interact with Eva a little more and I am loving it. When we are reading to them at night he will sometimes reach over and hold her hand or foot and then get so excited with himself. She loves to just watch him. She could lay and watch him all day I think. When Cole gets excited and laugh, Eva gets a smile on her face. The other night when I was getting Cole ready for bed, Jared had to set Eva on the bed next to us. Cole crawled over to her and just leaned over her, looking at her. They stared at each other for a minute, then Cole just started giggling. Melts my heart. He was making her laugh last night. He would hide behind her play mat while it was flipped up on it's side. I would throw a little pillow at it and it would crack him up and every time he laughed, Eva would.

Here's a few pics of what we've been up to.

Thanksgiving 2011

Cutting down the tree (we left Eva with Grandma)

Decorating the tree

I'll have to post all the pics in this series of trying to get a picture of the two of them together:)

Playing in the bathroom

Play group at the rec center