Ivy at 22 months

I haven't written anything on here in months....just been busy. Being a single mom is exhausting, and I feel like I have slacked off on a lot of things lately. However, we are all doing well, and I am happy. The kids are happy!
Zayden is Zayden. He is still quirky and funny and sweet and smart! I love him to pieces.

I wanted to come on here to write about Ivy, because she has evolved into a little person, and a wonderful little person! She will be 2 in 2 months! Wow....I can't believe how big my baby has gotten.

She is now talking soooo much now!! She started off a little slower than Zayden with the talking, but at this point she is talking as much as he was at this age. She is now able to speak in long sentences. She speaks conversationally. She still will sometimes give a one or 2 word answer or will see a dog and just yell "doggy" rather than "There is a dog", but more and more she just talks to me like a 2 or 3 year old would. For example, last night during dinner, she turned to me and said, "Mommy this cottage cheese is good. I love it!" ;) She also asks many questions now, which I find very cute....for now. Our next door neighbors have a son who is 6 weeks older than Zayden. His name is Ethan. Zayden and Ethan are great friends. Most evenings when the weather is nice Zivy plays with Ethan while us mom's chat. Last week Ethan's mom told me, "I think Ivy speaks as well as Ethan." I told her "no way....yes Ivy speaks well, but not like an almost 4 year old." She continued with, "She doesn't speak as clearly as Ethan, but her sentence structure is about the same as his." I felt proud to hear this grade school teacher compliment Ivy....even if it isn't completely true.
Ivy also has taken on an obsession similar to Z's obsession with guys. She loves BABIES. Real and fake. I guess it's a girl thing. Since, I haven't had a girl before, I didn't know. I didn't encourage it, but my goodness Ivy could play with babies all day long!! She mostly just likes to put them to bed and cover them with blankets and then pick them back up and repeat. She also likes to push them in strollers.....each baby has to have it's own blanket though! It is so fun to watch her rock and "sing" to the babies as well. Our other next door neighbor has a 4 month old baby named Riley, and a dog named Abby. Ivy can't get enough of either of them. All day long I hear, "I see Dabby and Riley!!" (I think Dabby is Doggy and Abby combined...Ivy coined the nickname and now all the kids call her that...and so do I). Dabby and Riley come out to play in the evenings too with their mommy to Ivy's ultimate joy! Ivy also will ask over and over to hold Riley which I'll help Ivy do briefly. Ivy's greatest love after babies is probably dogs! So after holding Riley she loves to play with Dabby. And I swear she is probably going to be talking me into getting another dog someday soon. ugh!
Ivy also totally loves her brother. She wants to do whatever he is doing, and repeats what he says ALL the time!! She is like his little parrot. They play well together now....when they aren't trying to kill each other. ;) ha!
She also is just so wild. I hear so many people say that boys are always the wild ones....um not at this house!! Zayden is much more cautious than Ivy. Ivy will climb up anything, will run out into the street, run from me, go flying down the street or driveway at full speed on a ride toy, will run non-stop for 10 minutes around our neighborhood. Z never was that crazy at 1. Oh, and her fits.....HUGE. Much bigger and much more dramatic than Zayden's ever were. She does the whole stomping of the feet and throwing herself on the ground. Sometimes it's hard not to laugh.
However, when she isn't being crazy or throwing fits (which aren't that common) she is the sweetest girl with this smile that just melts me. Often when I hold her, she rubs my back. She gives the best hugs. One day when I picked her up from school, she hugged both teachers and then every kid in the class (there were about 6 or 7) good-bye.
It's fun to look at her now and try to get a glimpse of what she will be like as a teenager or an adult. I think she will be a challenging girl, but also an amazing and wonderful person. I feel so grateful to have her in my life. (I could write about her (and Zayden) all day if I had the time...right now Ivy has woken up from her nap and is yelling, "Mommy and Zayden!" I hope to update more often in this blog).

Interview with Zayden (age 3)

I copied the interview questions from a friend, because I loved it so much!! :)

1. What is something Mom always says to you? I Love You

2. What makes Mom happy? Me Hugging You

3. What makes Mom sad? When I do things wrong

4. How does your Mom make you laugh? By saying funny words

5. What was your Mom like as a child? Me and Ivy

6. How old is your Mom? 9

7. How tall is your Mom? *Stands on ottoman* This Tall

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Put Ketchup on your head (Starting to get silly with some answers)

9. What does your Mom do when you're not around? Clean Up

10. If your Mom becomes famous, what will it be for? I don't know

11. What is your Mom really good at? Ice Skating (He's never seen me do this yet)

12.What is your mom not good at? Pulling Hair (another silly response)

13. What does your Mom do for her job? Go to work

14. What is your Mom's favorite food? Chicken a la King (I have never eaten that and have no idea where he got that)

15. What makes you proud of your Mom? Your Happiness

16. If your Mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Silly Lady Gaga

17. What do you and your Mom do together? Play Jousting and Candyland

18. How are you and your Mom the same? We both play fun games together

19. How are you and your Mom different? My eyes are dark brown, and your eyes are light brown

20. How do you know your Mom loves you? Because it's so true

21. Where is your Mom's favorite place to go? The museum

LOVED HIS ANSWERS

New year, new decade, new start!

I am excited about all the newness, and look forward to all the great things that will come. I am embracing this new life I am living, and I have a feeling this next year and decade will be pretty spectacular.
10 resolutions for 2010:

1. I will finally lose all that baby weight. I now weigh less than I did when I got pregnant with Ivy, but still have 15-20 pounds to lose from my pregnancy with Zayden.

2. I will strive to keep a cleaner house.

3. I will stop texting and playing on my phone while I am driving. (bad habit)

4. I will not spend so much time on the computer or messing with my phone when I am with my children. Instead, I will enjoy THEM.

5. I will exercise regularly. I will work out for AT LEAST 30 minutes 3x/week.

6. I will eat healthier, and make sure I eat more fruits and vegetables.

7. I will pay off my credit card debt, and not acquire any more of it.

8. I will finally do something with the zillion pictures I have.

9. I will take my children on a vacation. I won't let this single mom thing keep us from still experiencing a great and fun-filled life.

10. I will be happy in the moment. I won't spend so much time looking forward to: my kids sleeping, my kids coming home, me going out to dinner with a friend, my work day to be over, etc....... Instead I will just be happy in the moment that I am currently living.

AND 10 resolutions for the next decade:

1. I will be in excellent physical shape, by exercising, eating healthy, and living an active lifestyle.

2. I will buy another house that will give us more room for all of our "stuff".

3. I will be in a healthy relationship with an honest and respectful man who loves me, and I will be madly in love with him as well.

4. I will have a habit of maintaining a clean home.

5. I will be much more organized in all aspects of my life.

6. I will raise my kids to be unbelievable little people who are very kind and compassionate.

7. I will enjoy cooking regularly, and cooking healthy family meals.

8. I will travel to Europe again.

9. I will get involved more deeply in a charity that is meaningful to me, by doing a mission or something similar.

10. I will be kind to everyone in my presence.

Ivy Brag

Ivy has earned some bragging moments. I cannot help but compare my 2 kids. They have many similarities but more differences. Both seem to have picked up their communicative skills quickly which is nice. However, in the past whenever I talked about Ivy's language I would always say something like, "Yes, she has a lot of words, but No where near as many as her brother did at this age." Poor Ivy. She has so many other strengths, that hopefully someday she won't mind that I said that.
And now, her language is just exploding. She amazes me every day with all that she says, and at the same time it kind of makes me sad because it just means she is growing up so fast. She is 17 months old. She has well over 100 words now. I lost track somewhere in the 90's and she has said MANY more since then. I lost track with Z at this same age (must be when the vocab exploded for both of them), but he had about 200 words then. ;)
However, I think Ivy is superseding Z when it comes to putting words together and sentences. If I remember correctly Z didn't really start independently putting words together until 18 months, and Ivy is now doing it all. the. time. Her favorite word is "I" (LOL), and she has many I phrases that she uses appropriately. Here are some of her sentences/phrases:
I do
I love you
I do too
I too
I cold
I strong (my most recent fave)
I potty
I poop
I done
me too
no way
Look Giraffe (yesterday when she wanted to show me her toy)
I like blue (blueberries)
I want mommy
Where are you
I don't want
and once said all together: I want mommy. bye daddy. bye pawpaw. <3

I'm sure I am forgetting some, but those are the ones I hear most often. Also her understanding amazes me. She understands the concept of 2. She knows hot vs cold. If I say One, she will say two, three, four. She is starting to try to say her abc's, sing old mac donald, and I have even heard her say a few words of twinkle twinkle little star. If she sees toy letters, or a large letter in a book she always points to it and says E or O. LOL. The point being that she at least recognizes what letters are, even if she thinks they are all E's and O's.

I'm so grateful for my smart lil babies. (Although the fact that they are happy and healthy is what makes me MOST grateful) :) Okay brag done for the moment.

Hopefully I'll update on Christmas and such next post.

Newest milestone

Ivy now totally understands the concept of ..............pooping. :)
She has been saying poop while or afterwards for a couple days now and reaching back to her bottom. Today she was reaching back and saying poop, so I checked and there was nothing.
I put her on the toilet for her first time. She sat there happily for a minute but nothing happened. I put her diaper back on and about 5 minutes later she came up to me and said "I poop". And she sure did! The the whole time I was changing her diaper she kept sayin "I poop".
Only a mom would think this was absolutely adorable. :-).

Thanksgiving day funny.

Me: Zayden, I love you. I'm thankful for you.
Z: I'm thankful for God.
Me: that's nice. And why are you thankful for God?
Z: because I love him.
Me: that's really nice zayden. And why do you love him?
Z: because he gives you toys to give to me.


Today and everyday I am eternally thankful for my amazing children and their good health.

It is a Glorious Day!!

Zayden no longer has a dairy allergy! I am ecstatic!! The past couple of years have been difficult because of his allergies. I am so thankful that life will be a little easier now for all of us.
I won't have to spend so much extra time at the grocery store reading EVERY SINGLE LABEL. I went grocery shopping tonight, and I didn't realize it could be soo fun!
I won't have to make a big deal about every thing he eats at a restaurant sending servers back and forth to the kitchen to talk to the cooks and management about ingredients!
I won't have to worry about playdates, and him accidentally eating dairy.
I can cook anything I want for all of us for dinner. I can pull out all my old yummy recipes that ALL have dairy in them, and start making those meals for us!!
I could go on and on about how it benefits me, but I am most thankful for how this will benefit Zayden. He now can eat/drink what everyone else around him is eating!! He can experience a much wider variety of foods. He won't have to worry about having separate snacks at school or birthday parties, etc... He can just be like all the other kids. :)
I also am so happy that Zayden has done soooo well the past few years with his allergies. He never complained. He never tried to eat something that had dairy in it. In fact he would often ask if something had dairy before eating it, and if he saw cheese in his meal (this happened accidentally once) he made sure to let me know, so that I could get rid of it. He was GREAT!!

The allergist thinks Z grew out of his allergies because we were so diligent about the complete avoidance diet. It worked!!! I really liked our Allergist, but I will be happy if we never see him again. :) Although, he won't let us go completely. Actually he is putting together a website about food allergies. He asked if I would send in a picture of Z eating something with dairy in it, and write a little note about our experiences and successes!! He told me he wants to post that on his home page of his site. So Z will be a little celebrity maybe in the virtual allergy world. ;)

Although dealing with the allergies was rough, I was reminded today how LUCKY I am to have such healthy children!! I was driving to Riley Children's Hospital, and right before I drove into the parking lot I started to say a little prayer. I was going to ask for Z to grow out of his allergy, but then stopped myself. Instead, I told God that Z could have allergies for the rest of his life and the rest of us could all develop them too as long as he just keeps Z and Ivy healthy, and then I thanked him for their health. I am so grateful!!

Then while we were waiting for our appointment we saw a fountain with change in it. I got out penny's for both Z and I to make a wish. Again I had planned to wish for him to grow out of the dairy allergy. I changed my mind again right before throwing in the penny, and then made my wish much more important!

Luckily Z grew out of the allergy anyway!! When we left I did a kartwheel in the parking lot. Z got in the car and I screamed and screamed. Z screamed and screamed too.....not because he was excited about the allergy thing, but because he was excited that we were both screaming so loudly without consequences!! We scared a man walking by our car. ;) I got home and downloaded the song Celebration by Kool and the Gang. We all danced to it, and I did more Kartwheels. It was a glorious day!!