"No" and "Meow" are the same thing

Cadence has successfully learned the word "no". So far she hasn't gotten nasty with it. But if I try to spoon feed her or get at her boogers (she's getting over a cold so she has a lot of them!) she turns her head and says "no". And because her "no" has the same cadence to it as her "meow" she'll start meowing as well. I think "meow" is going to be her fallback word for when she doesn't have a word to use. After all, the cats can carry on a conversation and have all their needs met with that one word, why not her?

She also has the word "ow" down as well. She'll hit herself and say "ow". And if you touch her and she doesn't want you touching her she'll say "ow", even though it doesn't hurt. Just to prove it to others, I touched her cheek. When I didn't stop touching her cheek right away, she told me "ow" and moved her face away. We all had a good laugh at that one.

She's struggling with "mouth" and "Megan", they get easily mixed up with "meow", for obvious reasons. She now points to her mouth or her sister's mouth and says "mouth", but sometimes she'll see a cat and do the same thing. Other times I'll point to my mouth or Megan's mouth and she'll start meowing at me. And Megan's just a hard word for her. She's trying so hard. It comes out more like "Meh-kee" or "Meh-bee" or sometimes she gets the g down and calls her "Meh-gee". But never consistently. I think she knows it's not being said right and she's not going to use it too much until she has it down pat.

She's relapsing a bit with words, I've noticed. She's using the words she knows less and less and using fussing more. I think it's just her being frustrated that she doesn't have enough words to convey what she wants as much, even though she knows the words are out there. I imagine it's a pretty normal stage, and that in a few weeks or so she'll start talking more. She does so desperately want to communicate.

Megan's still not quite as interesting. She's growing into a pretty baby just like Cadence was. There are times she looks at me and I feel such a deja vu remembering Cadence at that same age. My daughters will never be able to convince people they're not related.

Anyway, Megan's really close to hitting some milestones, I think. Now that she's 3 months old, she's got decent head control, loves to look around and push herself up when she's on her belly. She's almost ready to put the baby swing away and pull out the jumperoo. Actually, we've already broken "the rules" and put her in it a few times. She loves standing herself up in it and she grins ear to ear when I bounce her a bit. Of course, her head control isn't perfect yet and she gets tired easily, especially trying to hold it steady with the bouncing, so we only do it for a few minutes. As soon as the smiles stop we take her out and go right back to talking to her, which has her all smiles again.

I thought Cadence was a social baby, but Megan is much more of a people-lover. She doesn't even care about toys. If I leave her at her gym for long, she'll get bored enough to fall asleep. She wants people not toys. At least her sister entertains her enough, when she's not poking out her eyes and saying "Meh-bee" that is.

Megan's Blessing

Megan's baby blessing was today. We only went to Church long enough for her blessing because James got a phone call the night before asking him to come in to work on his day off. It's a part of his job, just not one we had to deal with much. But since we had planned to have Megan blessed and James had been asked to be in another blessing circle, he arranged to go after.

Anyway, Megan looked beautiful in the dress Aunt Erin made for her, and the blanket Nana crocheted was beautiful as well (though James forgot to take it up with him for the blessing itself, no biggie, Megan hates blankets anyway recently). It was hard for us in the back to hear James's low voice giving the blessing, but James told me what was said, and I wrote it down in my personal journal so that I can tell Megan when she's older.

On a downer note, Cadence seems to have caught her dad's cold and is not feeling too well today. All stuffed up and a sore throat, poor girl.

Now, pictures (if they'll upload, my computer's on the fritz):

The full shot of the dress (with blanket background)

Adorable close-up:

Sisters (not cooperating):

Daddy and daughter:

With mom (though mom hates the pic, lol):

Got that head thing down pat

Megan is right on schedule with her head control. She ought to be, she's been lifting her head since day 1. Seriously, the first time I held her, I was leaning back in the bed and she tried to lift her little head to look at me. Did pretty well for being so little. Of course, that may be just proud mommy bragging, lol. But now she's got the so called "mini push-up" down pretty well. Supposedly, it's the predecessor to rolling over. Cadence is too obsessed with taking the camera from me to get any nice photos of her recently, which is why 90% of my most recent photos are from the much easier to photograph: Megan. I did get one picture of Cadence, though it's kind of blurry. And I hate how old she looks in it.

Getting along & Toothbrushes

Quick, pop quiz. Which one's Cadence and which one's Megan? Both pictures are January pictures, just one's a 2010 January picture and the other is a 2009 January picture. ;-) These two little girls look so much alike, and yet they look completely different at the same time. Cadence has grown into such a pretty little toddler. I'm eager to see how Megan's looks evolve as time goes by.

(Oh, and pop answers to the pop quiz: Megan is on the left, Cadence is on the right).

Megan and Cadence are slowly put surely hammering out a relationship between themselves. I'm actually surprised. I expected no attachment on Megan's part for a few more months and I didn't expect Cadence to get out of her ego-centrist toddler phase for awhile. But, they're both have their moments where they seem genuinely happy to be together. Cadence loves to talk to Megan and Megan will sit there and smile at her almost the whole time Cadence is playing with her. Cadence's favorite thing to do is smother her sister's head in kisses, which can be a bit messy if she's eating something at the same time.

The girls take their bath together, since it's usually just me and them. The first time Megan got in the bath with Cadence, Cadence grinned ear to ear the whole time. I got in the habit of laying a wash cloth over Megan's belly to keep her warmer. Cadence has now insisted on doing it for me. If I dare do it myself, Cadence stubbornly takes it off and replaces it herself.

Megan's still too young to be reaching any major milestones, though. She's getting pretty good at holding her head up still. And she's starting to work on those leg muscles, so I try to make sure she gets practice standing every day. She's talking like crazy, laughing a bit, and exploring some of her vocal abilities. It's not uncommon to suddenly hear a strange sound coming from her while she's sitting in her chair staring at her toys.

She prefers being upright where she can look around, and her favorite perch is laying against someone's chest, but only if she's high enough that she can look over their shoulder. If she can't look around, she'll grudgingly settle down against your shoulder and promptly go to sleep. If she's not tired, she'll suck on her fist and sulk. Now that Cadence has mastered running, it's safe for Megan to be on the floor again, so we're letting her have more floor time in hopes she'll learn tricks, like rolling over, on time.

Cadence is learning new tricks every day. Her new word is "Done!". It took us awhile, but now she tells me she's done eating by proudly announcing "Dah!" and holding her arms out instead of throwing her food off of her high chair tray until I notice. She uses the same word at bathtime, normally when she sees me putting the tooth cleanser on her toothbrush (it sings while she brushes, she loves it). By the way, the toothbrush is awesome. If you hold it and it plays the music it sounds kind of fuzzy. But if you actually put it in your mouth against your teeth/gums it's crystal clear. The song is timed to be exactly 2 minutes, which doesn't count in this household, since Cadence turns it on and off as she pleases.

Tonight, she saw the toothbrush as I put her in the tub. As soon as I let her go she was holding up her hands and telling me "Dah!" She wanted that toothbrush more than the bath. I distracted her with toys and got her washed off, but as soon as she saw the toothbrush again she was all "dah" and wanted out. I let her wander around brushing her teeth while I get Megan dressed after bath time, and then I'll trade her a bottle of milk for the toothbrush. She got bored with brushing her teeth this time and started knocking it against my shoulder and telling me she was done. Once Megan was in her dressed I traded Cadence, but she was "dah" with her bottle before I was "dah" getting her dressed, so she kept waving the bottle at me singing "dah! dah!"

Speaking of singing, the singing puppy that Nana got her for Christmas is still a favorite toy. I know every song by heart, naturally. I caught myself singing along with one of the original songs and when I stopped I heard a bit of in-tune babbling singing and was surprised: it was Cadence. She only "sang" a few notes of the song, but it's a new thing, so I thought it was cool. Every new thing she learns is amazing to me.

Mas Fotos!

Taking pictures of Cadence has gotten pretty difficult recently. She's fascinated by the camera and has gotten her hands on it often enough (now that she can climb and get into just about everything...) that she knows how to turn the playback option on to check out the latest photo. As soon as she sees it in my hands, cute photo ops are ruined because she's standing up and reaching for the camera and then throws a tantrum when she does not get her way. However, we did get a few pictures of her enjoying her new favorite snack: Popcorn!

And then, we have a few pictures of Megan. She's not one for posing for the camera either. I keep trying to get her to smile, but like Cadence as soon as she sees the camera she's fascinated and no amount of silly antics on my part can coax her smile out. I feel bad that she's stuck in this chair so often, but if I left her on the floor unsupervised Cadence would (and has) step on her. Oh well, she's still adorable:

New Layout & a Crazy Week

I love that other people have enough spare time to make my blog decorating super easy. While I love manipulating html and playing in photoshop, I simply do not have the time recently. So thank you Cutestblogontheblock! Someone else decorated both the header and the background, I just had to copy, paste and manipulate my own photos into the frame.

Or if you'd rather believe I'm super artsy fartsy and did it all while wrangling a toddler and a newborn, you are welcome to believe I am just that awesome (I really am that awesome, just... not today).

A bit of a crazy week here a the Smith house. Wednesday morning we got the wonderful news that our alternator had gone out. Luckily, family came to the rescue. Aunt Jen drove out to stay with us for a few days so James could drive her car too and from work, and my dad showed up Saturday morning to walk James through replacing the alternator ourselves (saving us $200 in labor costs). Surviving those three days without our van, though, was not fun!

It was a good thing Jen was here, it turns out. She had a flashlight and a working cell phone, two things that came in very handy when we lost power Friday night. The girls and I went to my mom's house, but returned around midnight since Cadence made it clear she would not sleep well at Nana's house. Luckily, power was back on a few hours after we got home, so we woke up with power. And first chance we go, we drove to Walmart and got a flashlight and a few candles just in case we have another blackout with the upcoming storms (so far we have not had a wind storm that hasn't resulted in a power outage in this area that I can think of...).

Saturday afternoon we also had a barbecue get together for some of James's friends (of course, I had a friend show up with them, so it was fun for me too!). Yummy food, good conversation, and three little kids to laugh at (only two, actually, Megan is still too young to do anything laugh worthy).

Oh, and after yet another nonstop fussy day or two in a row that had me about ready to lock myself in my room, I finally found the culprit. Cadence has seven teeth in front. I've been daily checking where the eighth is supposed to pop through with no results. Turns out, her molars decided to pop up before that 8th front tooth did. We already have one cutting through and the other side is just threatening too. Still no sight of that elusive 8th incisor though... A few doses of Motrin and a couple popsicles, and Cadence is back to her charming self.

2 Month Checkup

We have Megan's stats! Our little weed has sprouted even more than her big sister did by this point. Our sweet, smiling, chunky little girl (not really chunky, just like Cadence was, she's in the upper percentile for height and lower for weight, long and skinny)

For your comparing pleasure:

Birth-
Height: 19.25"
Weight: 6 lb 1 oz

1 month-
Height: 21"
Weight: 7 lb 13 oz

Current-
Height: 24" (90th percentile)
Weight: 10 lb 8 oz (40th percentile)

For what it's worth, Cadence's 2 month measurements were 22.5" and 10 lb 11 oz. So, Megan is even longer and skinnier than her sister. Weird. Everyone keeps saying she's chunkier than Cadence. It's the face, I'm sure of it. Cadence never had those chubby cheeks and Megan was born with them. Either that, or everyone's remembering Megan's chicken legs from birth (but what else can you expect 4 weeks early?).

The doctor was impressed with her head control, though she stubbornly refused to show it off when he made her do the sit-up/pull-up. She was too fascinated by the wall behind her and looking around. So he flipped her onto her belly and sure enough, her head instantly went up and stayed up for the entire time he had her on her belly. Comments about "you're ready to crawl" got a groan from me that made him laugh. Our apartment feels cramped enough with Cadence always underfoot. Not sure how I'll handle Megan being underfoot too.

And she got her shots, poor girl. She was already fussing from being fed the first stuff, so when they put the needle into her poor leg she just took it up a notch. Well... several notches. Luckily, mom has the magic touch and a little bit of bouncing, a few kisses, and some comforting sounds had her relaxed enough to even smile at me while I got her redressed.

Still, can I say "holy cow" about Megan putting on almost 5 whole inches in 2 months? Even Cadence only stretched out 3 by this point. Eeks! Megan may catch up and pass Cadence in height if she keeps this rate up...

Photacular Updates

Cadence was twilighting after her nap and Megan was in a good mood, so I set Megan next to Cadence. Every time we said Cadence's name, even when she was half asleep, she'd smile. Eventually she woke up and grinned big when she saw I had the camera out. She was blissfully unaware her sister was at her side, as we discovered when she almost rolled over on her in her attempt to wiggle herself off of the couch. We quickly rescued Megan before her sister made a pancake out of her.

Megan is exactly 2 months old today! And she has gotten so big so quickly. Cadence's growth has finally slowed, so I'd forgotten just how quickly they sprout up when they're so young. She's smiling like crazy, as well. And last night she treated me out to six hours of uninterrupted sleep. Of course, she didn't go down until after midnight and I didn't get to bed until 1 (spoiled myself with a long, hot shower), but when I woke up and the sun was peeking through our window at 7am, I was thrilled. Fingers crossed for a repeat! It's the first step to several good night's rest for me.

Cadence is still being the most exciting of the two. This morning, we had to go drop Uncle Jon off at the church parking lot for the youth temple trip. We were literally the first ones there, so Cadence had plenty of time to run around. I sat in the front seat of the car as she did so (parked along the curb so she could play in the grass, rather than the parking lot). Every few minutes she'd run back to where I was and start babbling. She wasn't just making noises though. Her intonation followed almost perfect sentence rhythm and the like. She even asked questions and would pause for my response, then laugh and run away to think up another story to tell me. It was cracking me up.

Last night, James had the craving for cake as we went shopping to pick up infant's tylenol (Megan gets shots Tuesday morning, so we wanted to be prepared). I saw the rainbow chips frosting and got that one. James stubbornly insisted on carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. So we got both. However, as he left me in charge of actually making the cake, I made the Funfetti cake and left the carrot cake for later. Naturally, Cadence got a piece for snack this afternoon. We gave her a fork,which she's gotten pretty good at using, but she promptly threw it on the floor and picked the cake up with both hands.

And I have no story for this last pictures. I just adore Cadence's curls and I am crossing my finger she keeps them (and with her dad's genetics, it's likely, or so I'm told; James has yet to grow his hair out long enough to prove to me that it curls. His beard curls, though...):

Oh the places you will go!

Cadence has reached all sorts of milestones... rather quickly. And they're not the fun ones like first smile, or first laugh, or first shaky steps.

She's mastered climbing. Mastered it so well she kept getting mad when the pews at church were a smidge higher than our couch and chair at home and she couldn't get her leg high enough. All she needs is another 1/4" and I'm sure she'll have even that down. Unfortunately, the bookshelf with our paperbacks and the cat food is tucked in the corner with our chair blocking it. Or rather, the chair was blocking it. Now that Cadence can climb, neither the books nor the cat food are safe. We have to look into rearranging (though with how little wall space we have in our living room, I don't know how!).

Ah yes, Cadence can also climb into the computer chair. I downloaded a program called "Toddler Keys" that locks the cd-drives of the computer, the power button, and you can quickly lock the keyboard and mouse. It's a simple program. Once I lock the keyboard and mouse it switches to a black screen that displays random pictures and sounds I downloaded and put in a special folder with the program. Cadence loves it. She'll sit in the chair and press any key she wants. It's like the kneebouncers.com I raved about a little while back, except she can't accidentally press a key that messes things up. Nor can she touch the power button on the keyboard or tower and shut off the computer. The only way to do that is to use the start menu, which she hasn't mastered... yet.

She can, however, turn the TV on and off. And she loves practicing this skill. I almost have to have the remote nearby if I'm watching TV while feeding Megan, or my TV enjoyment is decided entirely on the Russian Roulette of when Cadence grows bored with the button. Fifty-fifty shot she'll leave it off as she runs away cackling.

And the one that has me the most nervous... she's figuring out doorknobs. I'm not sure she's ever successfully opened one. James suspects she has, as she has somehow gotten into our room when we're sure the door was closed. But none of the doors in this apartment close properly without a little effort (except Cadence's. Her closes very easily and she loves closing it), so I suspect she just had to push to open it. However, I have seen her getting onto her tippy toes and reaching for a good grasp on the front door. She's a little too smart, my girl is. We need to get in the habit of locking the deadbolt. Even during the day, it seems.

And final milestone: She's transitioned into her toddler bed. I thought we might have some issues, but she didn't. Only day 3 and she's sleeping in it like a pro, perfectly content. This morning, she did discover she can get herself out of bed and go play instead of waiting for me (previously she had to sit in her crib and wait for me). Hopefully, this doesn't become a 6am issue... I guess tomorrow morning will tell for sure! If she continues to sleep until 7:30-8am and then gets herself up, that's fine.

Oh wait, there's one more milestone: We're down to only one bottle a day, and that's only 4oz at night, right after bath time (keeps her calm while I get her dressed) and before bedtime. She gave up her naptime bottle without a fight and I recently dropped her morning bottle and went straight to breakfast. She's not too fond of the change yet. She's used to getting a bottle while I change her in the morning, but she'll figure it out soon and be happy with it. So yes, we're almost off the bottle entirely. Which leaves me with eight cans of formula in my pantry, hmm... Any readers formula feeding their kids?

On to Megan...

Megan's less of a terror, but becoming more of a handful. She's very much a people person. Toys and such do not hold her interest. She wants faces and voices and warm skin. She is smiling like crazy. And we have semi-successfully hammered out a schedule of sorts. Normally I'm all about baby-led schedules. Cadence always set her own schedule, but, then, Cadence slept well at night from day 1. Megan didn't. But a day or two of not letting her rest too peacefully during the day, and she slipped right into a routine that works for both of us. She's even sleeping well at night! The past three nights, she's slept for 3-4 hours straight from the time I put her down to when I carry her out into the front room in the morning, so only two feedings (and one of them is right before wake-up time, so if she could just sleep a little longer, we could possibly be down to only one!). Hopefully, the past 3 or 4 days haven't been a fluke.

ETA: For what it's worth, I started this entry about 7 hours before I actually published it. Unfortunately, I've been having computer problems that came to a head in the midst of writing it. Normally a restart, and 10-15 minutes of patience, is all I needed to get it up and running, but this time, the whole system just crashed. I used up my whole arsenal of tricks, with no luck. So I called in my dad, who came over. Ended up reformatting the entire thing. Luckily, I'd been expecting it and had everything backed up already. Now I have to redownload programs and the like, but hopefully the computer will function again!

Sparkly and new: 2010 (and some 2009 pictures)

We'll start with the only reason people even stop by this blog. Recent pictures (well, New Years Eve day recent):

A week of silence... It was not on purpose. Naturally, the night before New Years Eve, my modem up and dies. I called first thing the next morning. But between the holiday and the weekend the "3-4 days" delivery took about a week. Can't complain too much, I suppose. Could've happened on Christmas when there'd be 2 holidays to contend with! Anyway, I'm back and ready to blog.

It's funny, I've been such a slacker with taking pictures over the past year, but now that I have a decent camera, I've gone and taken 75 pictures this past month alone. Granted, we had Christmas and Christmas parties to bring a camera to, but still!

Cadence is learning words like crazy and doing even better at making up her own. Her favorite thing to do is meow everytime she sees a cat (picture or real). "Yish" is yes; "Da" is done; "Addy" I think is Daddy. She's taken to dancing whenever she hears music now, which is cracking us up. I thought she'd never hit that stage, but she has hit it with a vengeance and dances all the time. She'll laugh when you laugh. She immediately claps her hands and says "yay" when she hears other applause. And since I'm too busy to read to her every time she gets the whim, she's starting to read to herself as well! She'll plop in the middle of the floor and flip through a book and talk to herself. It's absolutely adorable.

Her next big step is to move into her toddler bed. We're buying it this weekend. We're giving ourselves about a month to get her transitioned to it. Hopefully it doesn't take much longer than that. From what I've heard, the transition should be pretty smooth, but we're still working on some last minute sleep training and she is a little young for the move, but she's starting to climb everything, including attempts to climb out of the bathtub. The crib is still a touch high for her for it to be a real problem yet, but she's sprouting up so fast (I swear she's shot up 3 inches since her first birthday) we're following the "better safe than sorry" parenting mantra.

Megan is dedicated to taking up all my spare time. She refuses to set her own schedule. Probably my fault. It was easy to recognize Cadence's natural schedule and go with it, since she was all I had to focus on all day when she was littler. Poor Megan. I'm so distracted by Cadence half the time I don't remember to watch for her natural schedule so I can go with that flow. Still, she's spending a lot more time awake and she's been giving out sleepy, crooked little smiles for a couple weeks now. She has no interest in the toys and books I shake at her. She's more intrigued by the pictures on the wall, her sister, and my face. She's a noisy little girl too. She talks, grunts, and whimpers in her sleep almost nonstop. She already has a strange throaty squeal that she uses to talk to us when she's awake and wiggles as much as she did before she was born. She wiggles so much keeping her covered is a pain. Hopefully over the next week or two I'll be able to understand her schedule and we'll all be much happier for it. I can't believe she'll be 2 months old in a week!

As far as updates on James and myself, there is little to tell... so far. We're waiting on big news about James's future that will have a drastic effect on our family. We were expecting the final news yesterday, but turns out we have to wait a big longer. The biggest change in my life, other than my children's milestones, is that I've started an exercise routine that's kicking my butt. Only been 2 days, so I'm probably whining prematurely. But if it's a success, I may be bragging about it in a month or so. If it's a complete failure you won't hear another word about it.

I guess I should get a little sappy sentimental about the new year before I end, this being the first post of the year and all. It's funny how much can happen in only a year. Every January you look forward, but you can never really see where you'll be a year from now. This time last year, I was debating having another child so soon, but wouldn't have dreamed it would happen so quickly for us. This time last year, I was anticipating financial comfort, instead we limped through a year harder than the year before. Oh yes, 2009 was not what I expected Written last year:

"I don't see 2009 bringing quite as many life-changing events, but I do have high hopes of it being a rather pleasant year. Pleasant in a quiet way. Nothing too monumental happening, but I hope I'll be able to look back a year from now and feel a sense of peace and contentment."

Funny... 2009 brought just as many changes as 2008 did. And looking back, there is a bit of peace and contentment, but it was not quietly pleasant. It was stressful, strenuous, and daunting. The peace and contentment is my being pleased that we survived it as strongly as we did. Of course, I'm hoping for big changes here in 2010, so who knows? Maybe this'll be my "pleasant in a quiet way" year that last year was supposed to be when I wasn't expecting any big changes...