Bragging

I'm pretty sure I got the cutest kids ever. They're well-behaved most of the time even, but really they're just so freaking cute that they astound me on a very regular basis. This photo courtesy of nephew Ethan, who is as enamored with my kids' eyes as I am. :)

Felix is totally potty trained, although he will sometimes wait just a little too long to go and then get stuck with his pants and have an accident. At church one day he peed all over his new tie because it was a little bit too long. He does still pee at night, although most of the time he wakes up to go (some day he'll be able to get up by himself and go by himself, but for now he needs help).

Neither Felix nor Amelia sleeps very much. That is a constant source of frustration for me, but they're mostly very healthy so I don't actually worry. I'd just like more sleep myself.

Both kids are little meat eaters. They adore eggs and hotdog-type foods. Felix totally got into a steak on Sunday. Amelia loves jerky. Thankfully, they also both really like vegetables.

Felix has really gotten into role play lately and will jump around and say he's a rabbit. Or he'll crawl around meowing and saying he's a cat. He also likes to growl.

Just now he said he wanted to go upstairs and when I said he could go in a little bit he said, "But I want to go upstairs a whole bunch!"

Felix especially loves his grandpa and will spend every moment he can with him. When grandpa goes to work, Felix begs him to stay. Felix also loves his cousins. This morning he requested that Rachel come over to play with him, which will free me up and allow me to get some housework done.

Amelia has just a ton of little mannerisms that crack me up. She's so darn cute and I'm pretty sure she knows it. When she wants to be sad or angry she squints her eyes and gives a fake little cry. She always holds the back of her hair with one hand when she's drinking a bottle, which looks totally poised. She scrunches up her nose to grin. And she talks constantly. When she wants you to follow her, she'll half look behind the whole way to make sure you're still following, often running into walls and corners.

Amelia has a very strong opinion on many things and we're trying to break her of the "Mine!" habit.

More than anything, Amelia loves her big brother. She follows him around everywhere and if she can't find him she'll go looking, crying out, "WeWe! WeWe! WeWe!" For a while in the mornings she would come to me first, asking, "where's WeWe?"

Amelia is typically the first one to bed and the first one awake - usually by a couple of hours on each end. It's tough when my body wants to be asleep till at least 8 and she's wide awake at 6 and wanting to play.

She also dances. Like to everything. Give her any kind of tune and beat and she'll be wiggling all over the place. She LOVES music and dancing. Super cute.

And then there's water. I wish I had some pictures. The kids are both madly in love with any kind of water. This is bad sometimes because the kids don't ever want to leave. Or get out. Or stop playing in the sink. But it's a really easy/guaranteed way to entertain. I would really love to have a little wading pool for the kids to play in out back. And a trampoline. The kids both love those too.

All in all, my little monsters are about the cutest things ever. I'm actually kind of worried to have a third because I can't imagine another one could measure up in cuteness. Of course, that's a silly thought. It's like we've won the jackpot twice already. Odds are good little Oscar will be just as beautiful and lovable.

For now, however, I'm seriously enamored. Most of the time. They really can be monsters with a specialty in mayhem and destruction. But dang! they're cute! :)

Update - again

Okay, so we're having a boy. A little bundle of energy already. The kid is super active and I feel him a lot. I had a dream last night I could see his little hands pushing my skin out. Quite surreal.

Everything is going well with the pregnancy still. I do have quite a bit of back pain, and my sacro-illiac joint is totally on the fritz to where sometimes I have a really hard time standing or walking, but otherwise everything is on course. To hopefully prolong the pregnancy, I'm getting weekly progesterone shots from my sis Anne. When she first saw the needle she said, "Oh, that's the kind of needle the nurse uses when she's mad at the patient!" Apparently progesterone is really thick. She has to get the stuff out with one needle and then switch to the skinnier needle. Even so, the skinny needle isn't super pleasant. I did figure out yesterday that it hurts more to get the shot in the arm than it does to get it in the bum.

We're still going through plenty of sickness, but we're healthy enough. Amelia is quite the talker. She says a lot of words very clearly and she's using a tiny little bit of sign to augment. Her favorite is the sign for "all done" (kind of jazz hands) and she says it too: "ah none!" Super cute.

Felix and Amelia are finally sleeping in their own beds - at least mostly. Brent and I moved the big recliner into the kids' room so I could help them sleep there and so I could have a more private place to sleep. It works well enough, but I can't wait to be able to sleep in my own bed again. I'm sure it'll have to be in the fall when Brent is done sleeping with a fan (it just dries me out way too much to be comfortable).

Both kids wake up in the middle of the night a lot. Felix often does it because he's coughing and then he has to go to the bathroom. And that leads to the next milestone...

POTTY TRAINING!!!

I don't think I've said anything about this yet, but Felix is now potty trained. He does have occasional accidents, but he's more upset about them than I am. It did take a while to convince him to wear his underpants correctly. He wanted the big picture in the front so he could see it. :)

Night is a slightly different story. He will pee in his sleep so he's still wearing a diaper at night. But if he doesn't drink too much and you take him to the bathroom kind of late, it's very likely that he'll be dry in the morning. I've wondered if the tossing and turning about 3 am has more to do with going to the bathroom than with coughing, but I can't tell. Either way, he much prefers peeing in the toilet. Yippee!

The fun thing is that Amelia wants to pee in the toilet too. We haven't pushed it and she doesn't see much of a connection yet, but she sure likes to sit on that potty chair and try. I did get her to go once, but it was immediately after she woke up from a nap. She seemed surprised. heh

Yesterday at church Felix had to go to the bathroom so he went into the little nursery bathroom. Sadly, his brand new tie was a bit long and he peed all over it.

Amelia is also in the nursery now, but she's a bit different than Felix. She has turned into quite the mamma's girl and even if she gets distracted, she'll look around for me and have a fit if she doesn't see me. Brent is the only one who can calm her down (although her grandma and aunt Anne and a few girl cousins have had some luck). This week we had a relief society activity to make some craft things. Brent had a presentation at a friend's class so I took the kids with me since they had a nursery there. But the men who were helping in the nursery weren't successful in distracting her and she got super upset. I heard her screaming and got there just in time to get majorly thrown up on.

Yep, Amelia has turned into a puker like Felix.

Oh, we have also discovered that Amelia has lots of allergies. Looks like she's allergic to most nuts. She can do almonds without throwing up, but has fallen victim to peanuts/peanut butter, cashews, and even sunflower seeds. Felix has thrown up pecans and pistacchios as well. So it looks like only almonds - at least for a long time.

Sometimes I feel like my kids are missing out by not having peanut butter and jelly. :)

One last update - financial. So I got a garnishment on my checking account and they seized the whole thing. We're still trying to fight it, but Brent's brother John said we don't have a case against the lawyers. Sucky, eh? I still want it to go to court. We tried getting a loan to pay off everything and because the judgment had Brent's name too, it took a full 100 points off his credit score and now we don't qualify. Super sucky. Those lawyers essentially made it impossible for us to pay them back. Super idiots. Right now we're trying to file an official motion to get the case reheard so I can access my money again. And we figure our only options are to get a co-signer for our loan or to declare bankruptcy. Sucks either way. But that's where we are.

In other words, pregnancy is going well while we're taking precautions, Felix and Amelia are progressing and impressing, and financial woes stink. That's our spring, in a nutshell. :)