Her father's daughter

Tom has been known, on many occasions, to stick his tongue out when he is really concentrating on something. And apparently he concentrates a lot because he sticks his tongue out a lot. Reese has taken on this part of his DNA and is flaunting her cute tongue to us all the time the past few weeks. Here is the view we often get of her.

Sticking her tongue out and looking at the fan.

Sticking her tongue out and looking at me.

Sticking her tongue out and looking surprised.

Letting it hang out inside her mouth with she smiles for a few seconds.

And..... right back out of her mouth. Soooo silly.

Picasso...

must have gotten his start eating his finger paint too, right?

Reese's 2 month docors visit and stats

Reese's 2 month stats are as follows:

Height: 24 1/4 inches (96th%)
Weight: 12lb 6oz (83rd%)
Head circumference: 15 3/4 inches (77th%)

Reese was her normal angel baby at the doctor's today. Since the place was crazy with back to school physicals we met with the office's nurse practitioner instead which at first I was not happy about but after today I am very impressed with her. She came in, very relaxed and before she started her exam asked "What questions do you have for me?". Perfect. Reese smiled and talked to everyone she saw at the office so she was a big hit. The nurse practitioner had no concerns for us and since she has been doing well with her reflux ever since we switched her to Pepcid, neither do I. Well, aside from her reluctance to take bottles. I asked her if there was something we could be doing that we aren't and she said it sounds like we were doing everything right. She is just stubborn. Reese had to get 2 shots and one oral vaccine today. She was brave but definitely did NOT appreciate the pokes. She has been sleeping more today as a result and is much fussier than she normally is, which is still 10 times less fussy than Donovan was on a normal day so we can handle to occasional day like this.

As far as what she is doing as a 2 month old now, well we will start with the flirting. Home girl is a flirt! She gives out the smiles very easily and is very social for a 9 week old. She talks and tells you about things in her life. As a matter of fact, I think she is having an affair with the fan in our living room as much as she looks at that thing longingly and tells you about it. Joking aside she loves fans, lights and windows and is now looking at closer things too, like the mobile above her swing and bouncer. And speaking of swings, we have two in the house and I am pretty sure I am no longer leaving the house without one of them. Our saintly neighbor friends let us borrow their larger, electric swing which at first I thought was overkill. But now, I thank God for that thing. We would be running out of batteries weekly if not more on our smaller portable one without it. She Love's her swing so much and Tom and I get to eat almost all of our meals together while they are hot, which is quite amazing if you ask me, because of it. Sometimes, like tonight, she will even be fussy in your arms, but if you swaddle her and put her in the swing she calms right down and usually falls asleep pretty fast. I try not to abuse the swing but it does allow us to have our hands free and get a lot done. This child is nothing like her brother. He probably spent 10 minutes of his whole life in a swing, thank the lord she is not the same.

On other news she is still hating the bottle. She refused it tonight and Tom gave up after an hour of struggling. Oh well. She will get it eventually. I just hope she gets it before she makes her dad's blood pressure go up any more. She has just discovered her hands in the past week and in the past few days she has really found her love for them. She sucks on them hard core and I am happy she has found something to soothe her when she is mad in the car. I can't remember if I have written about this before but she is quite the back seat driver. If the car is moving, she is happy and quiet (95% of the time). If we are in traffic or at a stop light, she is mad and is yelling at you to "drive!!!". She also loves the changing table like her brother did at this age. That is where she does much of her flirting and smiling at you. She is also very good at tracking you and I notice it as I am moving around her changing table when she is up there (on the pack and play one where she cannot roll off of of course, not the regular one). She is still rolling a fair amount with tummy time but she doesn't do it every time and even when she does I just roll her back so she still gets a good amount of time on her tummy.

She also loves her baths and tries to eat the water when we pour it on her chest to rinse her. It is too cute. For the most part we have a nice routine down. She wakes up, has happy play time for a little, then when she gets fussy she eats. Then more happy play time and then when she gets fussy again, it's swaddle and nap time. Then repeat all day long. It is so nice to know that is her pattern because it takes all the guess work out of parenting. She doesn't really fight before she goes to sleep anymore like she used to but on occasion she still does have the "storm before the calm" as Tom puts it.

Reese is eating about 6 times in 24 hours and has gone as long as 8 hours between night time feedings, which is great! She gets up at least once over night, but lately that one time has been around 4 or 5 which is awesome. She still has nights where she gets up at 2 or 3 but I'll take the good with the mediocre. I think that about rounds up the latest with Reese. She really is just an awesome baby and we know how lucky we are to have her. I will leave you with a couple pictures of Reese and Grandpa B, who has officially moved out of our basement and into his very own house, (along with my mother) that is a mere 30 min away!!!!! Yippie for no more 12 hour drives to see them! We are a little sad that Donovan does not get to see Grandpa B every night anymore. He lived with us for 8 weeks while my mom was selling the house and getting back here and we all benefited from his company. Tom and I got an extra set of hands to help with the kids and the meals and Donovan got to have another person to play downstairs with. I miss Donovan running to the door every night when my dad got home saying "Gwan-pa Bee! Gwan-pa Bee!". It was fun while it lasted but now we get both sets of grandparents close and that will be awesome for all of us!

Hanging and watching TV with her grandpa B.

Reese 2 month pictures

I'll write all about her 2 month info after tomorrow's 2 month doctor's visit. And for the record we did take these pictures on her two month birthday but I have been too lazy and busy to post yet.


And a tummy time for good measure.

Reese... on a chair...with a friend...

who happens to be a wolly mammoth.




In other news Reese is NOT, I repeat NOT a fan of the bottle. We found that out the hard way when Tom's mom was watching her for a couple hours while I took Donovan to the pool. I came home to a screaming baby who had refused to drink any milk. She had successfuly taken a bottle on two seperate occasions but that was probably a month ago so lesson learned, we should have been giving her more bottles to make sure she kept up that skill. So to combat this, we have been giving her a bottle a day since Wed. (skipping friday when we bought a couple new kinds of bottles to try). So far she did not take it at all for the first few tries (we only gave up after at least 30 unsuccessful minutes), then my sister, like the angel she is, got her to take all 2 oz of the bottle she tried on Sunday. It took her forever to drink it, but drink it she did! Tom has gotten her to take a bottle both yesterday and today as well. Yesterday it took her 54 minutes from the first time the nipple touched her lips until she finished her 2 1/4 oz bottle and tonight she shaved off 15 minutes of that time. She still fights, gets worked up, cries, swallows air, and has to be calmed down and burped multiple times but they manage to get it done. It is hard for me to be around while they are doing this because I know it would just be easier if I just breast fed her but I know she needs to learn and practice because I go back to work in a week and a half and I won't be able to help then. Tom is a great dad and is very patient with her. I am one lucky girl.

Switching subjects, Donovan and I have been swimming 3 times in the past 2 weeks. A local public pool has a "tot time" for 2$ a person from 10am-11:45am for parents and kids under 5. You can only swim in the kiddie pool but it is pretty big and has lots of fun things for the chil-rens including a cool slide that shoots water down it and Donovan is brave enough to climb up on and slide down on his own. He also loves to lay down in the water and "swim" by kicking his legs (occasionally) and pulling himself around the pool by walking his arms on the bottom of the pool. The deepest part is only 1 ft deep so it is a nice area for the little guys. I taught him that trucks and other things make a beeping noise when they back up so when he swims backwards he says "beep, beep, beep". He's great. Reese went to the pool one day with us when my neighbor and her mom could help me watch her and she slept the entire hour we were there like the little angle she is. Next year both kids can go swimming and it is going to be so much fun!

Ice cream face and a cutie

Head tickle

We have been talking a lot lately about giving Donovan a buzz cut. There are two main reasons for this: 1) he hates getting his hair cut and it would give us more time between cuts and 2) he is such a sweaty mess with his thick head of hair when he is running around outside playing, a buzz would hopefully help him stay cool in the summer. Well today was the day we finally broke down and did it. We have been prepping him for it for the past week but I still didn't know if it was actually going to happen. So today we borrowed our neighbors trimmers and Tom and I took him out on the deck. We showed him the trimmers and told him it was going to cut his hair and it wasn't too thrilled about it. Then we told him it wasn't going to hurt, but rather tickle, and I turned on the trimmers and touched them to my neck, then arm. Then he held out his arm and I "tickled" his arm. He thought that was nice and he asked me to tickle his other arm, then leg, then we tickled his foot and cheek. Then I made the mistake of saying we were going to cut his hair then and we were right back to square one. So then we learned as long as we didn't say the words "hair cut" but rather head tickle everything was A ok. So I tickled a few more things and then he asked me to tickle his ear and then I said "tickle the head" and there I was cutting his beautiful blond hair off. I almost cried but I was trying to keep as happy as I could to encourage Donovan to keep doing as well as he was doing. He did so well! He never cried, only whimpered towards the end when the cut hair was tickling him too much. But as far as the trimmer was concerned, it never bothered him. So it was a large success! I am sad because he doesn't have his gorgeous hair anymore and he looks even older but I know that this will be much better for him as far as heat control goes during the summer. And I know it will grow back. So far he seems not to care too much either way. He says "short hair" and he looked at it in the mirror a few times but nothing more than that. And it has been good so far because tonight he played outside with his friends and he did not get the red cheeks he usually gets right away and he was much, much less sweaty. But enough of the talking, on to the pictures.

Before:
After:
His beautiful hair.
I swept it into a pile but then I had a hard time sweeping it off the deck. I just wanted to put it in my hands and cry into it. (I'm very emotional right now in case you can't tell).
The happy boy after a bath eating his promised ice cream treat.
A couple more close ups of the buzz.

Even Tom tonight admitted that Donovan's buzz cut makes him sad. He peeked at him while he was sleeping and said that he went from being his little boy to being a little man. They are growing up too fast!