Keaton Week 15 / Christmas

So much to update on!  It's been a busy week for us with the holidays.  Keaton had two firsts this week too...one good, and one bad.  We'll start with the bad.

First Illness
Keaton's been at daycare for about 3 1/2 weeks now and has caught his first illness.  I'm not exactly sure what he has but it's some sort of bug.  On Friday when we picked him up from daycare his teacher said he had pooed a lot.  I was also thinking something was up because normally he only goes during the day or some days he doesn't go at all.  But that morning he had gone while he was sleeping and then again when I was feeding him so that was really unusual.  Then at daycare he had gone again 5 more times.  This continued into Saturday and Sunday, and finally today it's lessened up a little.  Saturday he didn't eat hardly at all and he didn't sleep very well Saturday night either so I think that was the worst of it.  He's also been fussy which isn't like him at all so we know he doesn't feel good.  He seems to be on the mend though today so hopefully it was just a quick illness.  I knew he was due for something though so I wasn't completely surprised.  It stinks he was sick for Christmas but at least we were already off of work to take care of him.


First Christmas
So on to the good.  Keaton celebrated his first Christmas!  Since he's so little and wasn't feeling the greatest he didn't really know anything different though.  Lexi opened up all of his presents and will probably be playing with them for the next few months until he's big enough to play with them.  He is starting to get more interested in toys and will even try to swing his arms to reach them, so maybe in a couple of months he'll be ready to play with his new Christmas gifts.  Even though he wasn't feeling great, he did really well at all the family gatherings.  He either slept, laid on his playmat, or just hung out. 

Interaction
He's still not doing much of anything.  He likes to lay on his activity mat but that's really the only thing he seems to like.  I tried the Bumbo and he hates it.  I tried the jumper but I think he's still a little too small.  He's head just kind of slumped to the side in it.  He likes the swing and the mobile but he either falls asleep in it or gets bored with it quickly.  He doesn't really like the bouncer too much.  Mostly he just likes to be held or to lay on the floor and have us talk to him or make silly faces.  We noticed this week that he seems to be interested in the TV.  I was feeding him a bottle the other morning and he was straining his neck to watch the TV.  I think he likes all the bright colors.  I can't remember exactly when Alexa was doing stuff but I feel like he might be slightly behind her.  That's probably typical for boys and he was also born 3 1/2 weeks before his due date so I guess it only makes sense he'd be a little behind. 

Sleeping
Keaton has been a fairly good sleeper for awhile and hasn't been taking a nighttime feeding since he was about 7 weeks old.  He would occasionally get up in the middle of the night and we would have to replace his paci.  He used to sometimes sleep in (and by sleep in I mean until 7:30am) but now he never sleeps past 7am.  Lately he's been waking up a couple times during the night and sometimes it takes awhile for him to get back to sleep.  I think part of it is that he doesn't feel the greatest so I'm hoping that he'll go back to sleeping through the night once he is better.  It definitely makes for sleepless nights.  The past few nights have gone like this:  Keaton up at 3:30am, Keaton back to bed at 3:45am, Lexi up at 4:00am because she heard Keaton crying and needs to go potty, Lexi back to bed at 4:15am, Keaton up at 5:00am (you get the point).  Oh and even though I have a few minutes between when each of the kids are waking up that I could possibly get a little sleep, I can't because I have a dog that snores louder than any human could possibly snore!  Ugh...I'm ready to get a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!  I'm tempted to send the kids to Brian's parents house for the night just so I can sleep in my own bed without being woken up by one of them!

Lexi Update
This is Lexi's third Christmas and each year just gets better and better!  I feel like this year was a little more stressful though because Lexi wanted to open up her presents right away and couldn't really understand that she needed to wait her turn.  I don't think she really understands the concept of Christmas.  This morning when we woke up she thought it was time to open presents again because that's what we did yesterday morning! 

She got lots of new toys, outfits, and other goodies from her aunts and uncles, cousins, GG & Pa, Nana, and "Santa".  She has so much stuff I don't even know what to do with it all!  It should keep her occupied for a good week :-)

With us having the past few days at home together she's had lots of opportunities to say some pretty funny stuff!  Here's some of my favorite phrases and antics from the past week:

"Not me!" - The other night Keaton farted and I said, "eww...somebody farted."  At the same time, Lexi and Brian both responded "Not me!"  Then I said "somebody farted" again and Lexi said "Lexi did it."  Even though she didn't because I knew it was Keaton!
"Nothing" - Lately if I ask Alexa what she's doing she responds "Nothing."
"Just calm down" - She has been telling Oscar (and occasionally me or Brian) to "just calm down". 
"Not you!" - Sometimes she's very particular about who helps her with stuff, like going potty.  If she wants me to go with her instead of Brian and Brian tries to go with her she'll point at him and say "No, not you!"
"That's enough!" - This morning she told me she had a "boogey" so I attempted to get it.  I couldn't get it so I kept trying to wipe her nose with the Kleenex, when she shouted at me "That's enough!"  I couldn't help but laugh :-)
Taylor poopied - Tonight Lexi, Aunt Nikki, and cousin Taylor were goofing around and Lexi came up behind Taylor and pulled down her pants, underwear and all!  Then a few minutes later she sniffed Taylor's butt to see if she had poopied!  We were all dying laughing!

Pics from this week:

Liked the Bumbo for about 1 minute

Trying out the new jumper, still a little too small

Daddy and his mini-me

Lexi's new toolset

Keaton Christmas morning

Oscar got some gifts too!

Lexi walking in her new high heels...she was actually running in them!

Keaton Week 13 & 14

I'm a little behind on this week's update but with Christmas I feel like I've been busy doing stuff every night until it's time to go to bed!

Sleeping
Keaton still sleeps through the night but every once in awhile he will wake up as early as 3:45am.  Sometimes he'll go back to sleep right after replacing his paci but sometimes I have to go in there 3 or 4 times before he finally gives in.  I haven't quite figured out if there's any pattern or trigger on the nights this happens.  For the most part though, he's a pretty good sleeper and will go from 7:30ish to 6:45 or 7am.  He seems to be a little better than Lex was at sleeping in occasionally...and when I say "sleeping in" I mean until like 7:15am :-)  We are still swaddling him but he tends to break out of it by the morning.

Interaction
He is more and more alert each day and is now entertained by toys and the playmat.  This makes life so much easier :-)  He still loves being held and loves being carried around in the Baby Bjorn but he really likes his playmat too and will lay on it for a good 30 minutes looking up and smiling at the lights.  He is such a happy baby too!  Brian and I say all the time "Thank God for Keaton" because he is just such a good baby!  He smiles at us all the time and it's contagious!

Daycare
Daycare is going pretty well for Keaton.  I really like his teachers and he seems to be adjusting.  He's taking better naps there but still not as well as he does at home.  I think part of the reason is they have a rule against swaddling.  I also noticed a sign they had up with some other rules, like they can only be in the swing for 15 minutes at a time and they have to be held every so often.  I think that's a good thing though!  They let Lexi come in and see him every once in awhile and I really like that.  She has been such a great helper in the morning carrying in his bottles for me and then giving him a kiss goodbye. 

Carseat
Lately Keaton has been hating his car seat.  Lexi also hated her car seat but her hatred of it started much earlier so I was thinking we were in the clear with Keaton.  I was wrong!  Luckily he does alright on the car ride to daycare because it's so short but anything longer than that and he freaks out.  Even on the interstate he doesn't fall asleep.  This made this past weekend traveling to family Christmas parties extremely stressful!  I can't remember how long this lasted with Lexi but I sure hope he gets over this soon!

Lexi Quotes/Antics
"Shoot man" - It's more the way she says this that makes it so funny!
"I done playing with you" - She's said this to Brian a couple of times!
"I being good" - She says this all the time now when she wants to watch a movie or open a present.
"Oscar's sad" - The other night she kept saying Oscar was sad and had the most concerned look on his face.  Then she was petting him so softly.  It was so cute!  Then about 2 minutes after that she said "Oscar's being bad".
"Be careful angel" - I have no idea where she got this from.  A few times when I said be careful to her, she would respond "be careful angel."
"I'm hiding" - This means she's pooping
"I don't want to be here" - We were at my family Christmas party yesterday and she got sad all the sudden and said "I don't want to be here" and hung her head down.  It was so sad!  I still don't know why she said that because 5 minutes later she was back to playing.
"Ewww...gross, what a mess!" - She said this on Friday night when Nikki and Stacy were watching her.  Then she said it again Saturday when I was changing her poopy underwear.  They must say this to her at daycare when they change her diaper!
"I love it!" - She said this for every present she opened up last night at my family Christmas.  It was so cute!
Jingle bells - She's been singing a lot lately but this is one of her favorites!  One morning we were hanging out in bed and she jumped up and started belting out "jingle bells, jingle bells!"
Seeing Santa - Every year at my family Christmas Santa comes to visit.  In prior years Lexi was either too young or scared of him.  This year she was soooo excited to see him!  She was completely mesmerized by him and couldn't even wait her turn to sit on his lap!  

Keaton Week 12

First week at daycare
The first day at daycare seemed to go okay.  Dropping him off in the morning was actually harder on Lexi than it was on me!  They are in rooms right across the hall from each other and Lexi came in his room with me to drop him off but she didn't want me to let the daycare teachers have him!  She put her leg on the carseat so I couldn't take him out.  And then when I told her to give her brother a kiss she kept saying "no! my brother!"  Eventually I convinced her to let him go and the teacher told her she could come and visit him a couple times throughout the day.  Cute!  His sheet said he only slept about 45 minutes in the morning and 50 minutes in the afternoon so he was super tired when he got home.  He also only ate 3 ounces of his afternoon bottle.  He didn't seem super fussy when he got home though.

Days two and three at daycare went well too.  Lexi was better about letting him go on day two.  He's still not sleeping much there but I don't think he's used to all the noise.  His room is dark and quiet at home so it's probably going to take some adjustment.  The lack of sleep doesn't seem to be affecting him at home although when I put him to bed at night he seems super happy to be in his own crib :-)

Other Updates
No significant changes in the last week other than that I've moved him to exclusively formula.  I think this must be more filling than breastmilk because he went from eating 6oz at every bottle to sometimes only being able to finish 3 or 4 oz for his afternoon and nighttime bottle.  It doesn't seem to be affecting his sleeping though so I assume he's getting enough to eat.

In the last couple of weeks he's been smiling more and starting to giggle.  One thing that's almost guaranteed to get a giggle is patty cake.  He just loves playing this!  He also likes when we say "So big!"

Playing patty cake

Lexi Update
I'm sure Lexi did some funny stuff this week but since I'm back to work now I'm not doing a great job of writing it down.  Off the top of my head here's a couple phrases I can remember:

"Oh man" - She uses this in the right context too.  Like if she drops something she'll say "Oh man, oh man".

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes - On Saturday morning Lexi woke up around 6:30 and we were hanging out in our bed when she randomly stood up and starting singing "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" and then commanded me to sing it.

"I being good" - I've started putting presents under the Christmas trees, which is dangerous I know!  Lexi's been pretty good about not messing with them.  We got out the Elf on the Shelf when we put up the trees and I told her that the elf, "Fred", would be watching to see if she was being good and if she wasn't being good, she wouldn't get any presents.  Last night I had wrapped some more presents and put them under the tree and she noticed them today.  She said "Mommy, presents!"  And I told her, "yes, but you can't open them until Christmas."  Then she said "I being good."  I'm such a sucker, I almost let her open one because she was just too cute!  Later today she came up to me and said "Mommy, I need to watch a movie."  I said no movie and she said "I being good."  Ha ha!  She's already a little manipulator!

We're still working on potty training.  I just feel like it's impossible to be really dedicated to it though between daycare and having another baby to take care of.  On the weekends if it's just Brian or I by ourselves with both kids it's difficult to keep reminding her to go potty and to then take her in the bathroom.  This week at daycare we're going to try sending her in underwear and see how that goes.  I've got a stack of extra pants for them though because I'm sure she'll pee her pants several times!  I don't know how other people potty train their kids and make it seem so easy!