A Real Life Princess

Naomi woke up a little after 8 this morning, super cranky and dragging her feet. We were in a little bit of a rush to get ready this morning since Austin took the day off from work and we wanted to get to the Natural History Museum in the city. While she was drinking her milk, she sauntered into my room, where I was trying to unsuccessfully to get Mikaela to take a bottle, while watching the Royal Wedding. She asked me what I was watching and I told her I was watching a real life princess get married. That put Naomi in an automatic good mood. Needless to say, she was mesmerized and couldn't stop watching whenever Kate was on screen with her beautiful wedding gown. When Kate and William kissed, she giggled, BOTH times and had the biggest smile on her face. Then she went back to her room and looked at her own tiara. She was all smiles from then on out. Thanks Princess Kate you made Naomi's day!

34 Months

Little Miss Sassy is 34 months. And sassy she is. She is a chatty cathy who knows what she wants when she wants it. We're working on the whole patience thing...sometimes we get through to her, and sometimes it's like talking to a..well a 2 almost 3 year old.
She still loves wearing dresses. She loves being a big sister, and she really is a great big sister. I say it over and over again, but I'm amazed at how well she has adjusted to having someone share the limelight.
She does struggle with a lot though. She doesn't like to walk when we're out, yet refuses to sit in a stroller. The board on our bugaboo has helped a lot since she likes to "ice skate" on it. But there are times when she'll just collapse on the ground and exclaim that her legs don't work. She's still resisting the pottty and wearing underwear, despite the fact that she KNOWS how to use the potty and can completely control when she needs to go. Case in point, when we're swimming, she knows she won't be allowed to swim anymore if she doesn't tell us when she has to potty. So she tells us. We get out of the pool go to the bathroom, then come right back. She gets it. She did it. But other than that? She fights it. She's getting better though. Yesterday while playing down in the basement, she took off her diaper on her own (yea a clear sign that she needs to be out of diapers), walked over to her potty and declared she had to pee. Then she peed. This afternoon after church she decided she didn't want to wear diapers and asked to wear her undies. She was accident free the entire day. Maybe she just needed to take things at her own pace. We're getting there.
She's getting really good at peddling her trike. She can finally get off the ground when she jumps. She loves running and racing. She loves swimming, clearly. But mostly, she's our girly girl. She loves to brush her hair, look in the mirror, have her nails painted, wear stick on earrings...oh and did I say she loves to wear dresses?

She's transitioning into Pre-school at her daycare. The other day she came home with a sheet titled, "My favorite part of spring is...." The sheet had a list of what each pre-schooler said was their favorite part of spring. I had to laugh when I read through it, not only because of the cute responses from all the pre-schoolers in her class, but because of Naomi's response.

Here's the list:

My favorite part of spring is:
Sienna: the dolphins
Stella: outside
Aldo: snow
Valentina: flowers
Travis: spiders..cool
Matthew: ovals
Connor: no, Mommy
Naveen: flowers
Aaakshi: flowers
Nichole: butterflies
Adima: Easter
Alex: flowers
Naomi: wearing dresses
Kate: flowers
Nate: picnics
Drew: pink
Sydney: having grow
Johnny: Johnny

Happy Easter

Florida Week 1

At the end of March, the girls and I spent two and a half weeks down in Leesburg and Palm Coast Florida. Austin travelled there for the weekend, came back for work, and then came down to pick us up. It was an awesome two weeks. We loved the warm weather, even when it rained. Naomi and Mikaela loved spending time with their grandparents. I loved spending time with my parents obviously, but loved having help with the girls during the day. It was snowing in Jersey while we were gone, so it was definitely a great escape. Even now, in late April, it's still ridiculously cold in Jersey.

We celebrated my dad's 70th birthday the first week we were down there. My brother Chris came down to Florida as well and spent half a week with us. Naomi basically attached herself to him while he was there. So cute to see how much she adored her Uncle.
Naomi loved the excuse to be able to wear dresses every day, especially since she didn't need to wear tights. I made the mistake of packing shorts and pants for her. What a waste. She refused to wear anything but dresses the whole trip, and would have major meltdowns if I tried to get her to wear anything else.
She also loved playing outside with bubbles, water balloons, water guns, and loved that we could use my parent's neighbors pool. It was still a little cold to be swimming, so we kept our swim excursions pretty short. We definitely have a little fish on our hands.
Mikaela started sleeping better at night, going to be regularly by 10pm and waking up once or twice to feed. She easily won over both my parents, and everyone we met while down in Florida. She's such a happy baby, you just have to make eye contact with her, and she'll smile at you.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our first week down in Florida. More to come.

Mikaela vs the Bottle

At around 4 or 5 weeks, Mikaela stopped being willing to drink from a bottle. I tried to get her to drink a few more times over the next couple of weeks and months, but seeing as I was on maternity leave for awhile longer, I didn't push the issue. We had gone through this with Naomi. I remember how stressed I was about going back to work, knowing that Naomi wasn't going to be getting her full feedings since she stubbornly refused to take a bottle. She would refuse to drink for hours at a time, finally only drinking enough just to satiate her hunger, wait for me to get home, then nurse and nurse. This went on for a few days til she finally just accepted the bottle.
Knowing how hard it was on me and my mom, who was at home taking care of Naomi, Austin and I decided to get Mikaela used to taking a bottle this weekend. At 7:40, Mikaela woke up (After 7 hours since her last feed!!), but she refused to take a bottle. We tried for awhile with little breaks in between. She finally fell asleep at around 9:30 while I was out getting my foot x-rayed. (a whole other story). When she woke up, we tried again for a few hours. Finally at around 12:15, with a little bait and switch action...(don't ask, just think about it, if you don't get it, you don't really need to know), she drank a full bottle. Success. She was sooo happy afterwards and coo'ed up a storm, smiling at everyone, for about 5 minutes, then she passed out, completely full and happy. She's still sleeping now, so we'll see how bottle #2 of the day goes. Hopefully from here on out it just gets easier.

Naomi-isms

While playing tea-party. "Mommy, would you like tea, coffee or a latte?"

The day before we went to Disney World: Me: "Naomi, where is your favorite place in the world."
Naomi: "The Mall!!!"
The day after we went to Disney World: Me: "Naomi, where is your favorite place in the world".
Naomi: "Disney World!!!!"
Austin: "YES!!!"

Naomi to her baby sister: "Mei-Mei, would you like some ice cream? ...YOU CAN'T HAVE ICE CREAM!!!....You have no teeth".

Naomi in the car: "Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to sit up front and drive you. And when you grow small, you can sit in my baby seat".

Naomi in the car: "Mommy, when Mikaela is gone, can you sit in the back with me?"
(note - this was fairly early on when Mikaela was just a few weeks old and Naomi hadn't quite grasped the fact that Mikaela was here for good)

3 months

Mikaela turned 3 months last week. I'm trying so hard not to countdown the days I have left on maternity leave, but as I see how quickly the girls are growing, my return to work weighs more and more on me. I do miss the adult conversations, being able to get dressed and not expect to get spit up, snot or tears wiped on me for at least a few hours (not including my own). But I've had such an amazing time with both the girls that I don't know how I'll be able to go back to work and leave them for so many hours of the day without my heart breaking into a million pieces. Everyone says they'll be fine, it's good for Naomi to be in daycare, Mikaela will be with my mom and well taken care of yada yada. Yes that I know. My girls are in good hands. They are well loved regardless of whether or not I get to spend every waking minute with them. It's me that I'm worried about really. Ok but back to Mikaela and the fact that she's 3 months old.

Somewhere in the past few weeks, she has transitioned from being a somewhat high maintenance newborn, to an easy going, loveable, smiley baby. She smiles whenever she sees a new face. She loves to watch Naomi whenever Naomi is within her sight. In fact, Naomi has the magical capability of being able to calm Mikaela whenever she is crying. Physically, she's getting a lot stronger, gaining weight well and starting to sleep well at night. She still wakes up 2 times or so to nurse at night, but on occasion we've had nights where she's only woken up once, and even 2 times is a huge improvement from when Austin and I had to hold her well into the middle of the night, or sleep with her tucked into our chests. She still refuses to take a bottle, which is something she'll quickly have to get over when I do go back to work.
She coo's and is starting to laugh and is just incredibly social. She loves to be able to stare into your eyes and will often cry in protest if she's not able to see anyone in the room. She'll happily sit in her highchair watching us eat dinner each night, content to be close to the rest of the family.
She's really close to being able to roll over, as soon as she's lying on her own, you'll find her struggling to roll onto her stomach. She probably would have figured out how to roll over if it weren't for the fact that we've been visiting family for the last 2.5 weeks, and everyone pretty much wants to hold her all the time!
Needless to say, her constant coo'ing, smiling and adorable big eyes pretty much melts the hearts of everyone she comes into contact with.

Here are her stats from her doctor's visit. (which by the way was the first doctor's checkup for both girls where we were totally tear free (up until Mikaela got her 3 shots that is..and that doesn't count)).

Height: 23 inches (I don't think this is that accurate, more like 21 or 22) (20th percentile)
Weight: 11 lbs 8oz (20th percentile)
Head circ: 40.4cm (70th percentile)

Her doctor said everything was on track with Mikaela and said she was the "perfect" baby. I couldn't agree more.
And in case you're curious...I thought it'd be fun to compare MIkaela's stats to Naomi's at this age: Naomi's 3 mth stats

Messy

We are totally packed (except for my laptop) to leave. Mikaela decided it was time to have a major blowout of a poop. Requiring a quick rinse, and a complete wardrobe change. Messy messy.
On top of that, Naomi somehow managed to pee through her diaper (yea she still refuses to wear underwear these days, although on vacation I'm not really going to fight that) into her shorts, onto my parents carpet. I think it was her way of getting out of shorts into a dress. She hates wearing anything but dresses these days, and was so mad when I told her she had to wear what I picked out for her this morning. (I'm going to chalk this one up as an accident and not some conniving scheme of her to get what she wants...I mean she's only 2..that would be just scary).
So now we're ready to go, all packed with a plastic bag full of dirty clothes for each girl. Nice.

Flagler beach

For our last night in Palm Coast we had dinner out at Flagler Beach. It was a little chilly after a day of thunderstorms, but the beach was still beautiful. Dinner was yummy ( baked chilean sea bass). I almost wish we didn't have to go back to the other house in Leesburg.

Naomi at Flagler Beach

Random picture of Mikaela just because.

In an hour, we're driving out to Leesburg where we'll meet up with Austin who flew out from jersey. Tomorrow we'll relax for a day, then head over to Disney World on Friday.

Florida

We've been in Florida staying with my parents for over a week now. Austin came down with us last weekend, then flew back on Sunday for work. He'll be coming back down tomorrow, taking a few days off to spend time with the girls and and enjoy some warm weather.
We've had a great time so far, I can't believe I we have less than a week before we head back. We've spent most of our time at my parent's new house out in Leesburg, FL. It's so beautiful and is right by the lake with it's own dock. There's no tv or internet though, hence the lack of blogging. We came out to their other house in Palm Coast yesterday so we could go to the beach, and for some doctor's appointments they had lined up. Tomorrow we had back to Leesburg to meet Austin. On Friday we're taking the girls to Disney World for a day. We head home on Monday. Hopefully it'll have warmed up a bit.