Category Archives: Reese

4 point 5 and 4 months

Girls…my sweet girls.

Please do your mama a favor. Just stop.

Please stop growing. My mama heart can’t take it.

Rylee…you are so excited to be 4 and a half that you’re telling just about everyone you come in contact with. You even wondered why we didn’t throw a party to celebrate. The other night you chose steamed cauliflower over steamed broccoli. Your favorite meat is still venison, though you love a good steak. You’re a sensitive one…most recently, you cried at the end of Free Willy because you were so happy he was free, but sad that his friend wouldn’t get to see him anymore. Art is still one of your favorite past times and lately you’re really into “making books” and “filling our paperwork”. You’ve started writing just “Ry” on the pictures you color. You’re in the “green group” at school…that means you know all your letters and numbers and can write them well. You’re getting pretty good at holding your sister and you love doing it. You love the Beach Boys. I joke with you at least a few times a week about putting a book on your head to make you stop growing. You giggle every time. You adore your pink sparkly shoes. You’re a little firecracker and you’ve got sass to spare. One of your favorite things to do is take selfies with my phone. The faces you make are priceless. You have become fast friends with the little girl down the driveway, Ruby. You were playing over at her house the other night when her dad called us asking if you could stay for dinner. Your dad & I didn’t know what to do…we weren’t ready for that {especially your dad}. I have a feeling slumber parties are just around the bend.

Reese…4 months. I can’t believe it. You complete this family and we all love you so, so much. The week before last you rolled over…you’d been oh-so-close for week or two and you finally got that arm out of the way. You recently found your thumb. Just last weekend we bought some pacifiers…you’ve been doing pretty well with those. Any time you’re lying on your back you’re grabbing your feet and trying to get your toes in your mouth. You’ve been sleeping through the night since the beginning of October. Your bedtime is about 7:30 PM these days…give or take a 1/2 hour. You just graduated to the “big bottles”. Just last weekend I had to break out the 3-6 month clothes…and I’ve officially packed up your newborn clothes. Girl, you love your groceries! You rarely cry. You are such a happy girl…and so talkative! I jokingly called you a screaming banshee the other night…lucky for you the nickname “banshee” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. You adore your big sister. You’re getting pretty good at reaching for toys and they instantly go straight to your mouth. You’re quite the drool-bug latetly…I hope you’re not teething already. I’m trying to savor every last second with you as a baby because I know just how fast it goes and, unless by some divine intervention, you will be our last baby.

Girls…you continue to amaze me with the way you’re growing and learning. You’re both happy, intelligent, loving girls. I hope that never, ever changes.

I love you both more than words could describe.

xoxo,

Mama

Throwing me for a loop.

3 Replies

This parenting gig is funny. Just when you feel like you’re hitting your groove, something comes up and you’re completely thrown off guard.

Case in point? Ladies and Gentlemen? We have a thumbsucker.

Rylee was never a thumbsucker. Never even took a pacifier. Never. Not even once. Don’t get me wrong, she figured out other ways to self-sooth. At a pretty young age, she developed a habit of sucking on her tongue by folding it in half in her mouth, if that makes any sense at all. Then just around the 1-year mark she discovered the love of blanket she’d never even used before and has hardly been a day without it since.

I get the idea of self soothing. And trust me, I encourage it! The last thing I want to do is use my nipples as a calming mechanism. No.Thank.You.

But since I never dealt with the thumbsucking with Ry, I’m kind of at a loss. As soon as Reese discovered her thumb, we figured we’d nip it in the bud and we started covering her hands with those newborn gloves. No luck. She’d either wriggle out of them or just suck right though them.

A couple of times we kept her from sucking her thumb while she was going down for a nap. Sure after an excruciating amount of time, she eventually fell asleep. Then no more than 20 minutes later when I went in to check on her she was sucking her thumb. In her sleep.

Within the last couple of weeks, we’ve kind of given up.

So now I’m at the crossroads of, do we continue on with allowing the thumbsucking, or do we try and transition to a paci?

There’s pros & cons to both. And there’s definitely not a lack of passionate opinions from people on the subject, either.

To be perfectly honest, I’d really prefer neither, but I feel like there’s obviously a reason she’s doing it. Sucking is the way she’s self-soothing, so at this point I’m just trying to figure out which is going to be the lesser of the evils.

She obviously already knows where her thumb is and has no trouble getting right into her face parts. If she had a paci and it fell out in the middle of the night, the last thing I want to have to do is get up, walk across the house just to stick it back in her mouth. That kind of defeats the purpose of self-soothing, no? Then again, there’s the argument that it’ll be easier to break the paci habit…I don’t want a thumbsucking 12 year old.

Not going to lie, I kind of think the thumbsucking is cute, but that doesn’t stop my practical side from taking over. All I see are dollar signs and orthodontic bills in my future every time she does it.

This girl is growing and changing daily. In some ways, she is so much like her big sister and in other ways, not at all. I’m loving every minute of it, but she’s definitely keeping us on our toes!

As with so many parenting issues/decisions I feel like this one is to be continued…

Oh, and did you see my post yesterday?

Happy Friday!

I just…yea…

Sisters much?

6 Replies

WHY DOES LIFE NEVER SLOW DOWN!?!?!

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. This week has felt crazier than normal. I also feel like I’ve been saying that a lot.

This year, November means two things.

1. I have a 4 1/2 year old. FOUR AND A HALF!

2. I have a 4 month old.

How the deuce does this keep happening!?

A couple of days ago I got lost down the rabbit hole of looking at baby pictures of my girls. Seriously, I could do it for hours and hours. Since the day Reese was born nearly every single person has commented on how much the girls look alike. I definitely agree and I thought it’d be fun to do a little side-by-side comparison of the two.

This one is 6 weeks. Ry on top, Reese on bottom.

Both girls, 6-ish weeks. Ry on top (photo done by Bliss Studio).

Both girls about 7 weeks. Ry on top.

Both girls about 8 weeks. Ry on the left.

And two of my all-time favorites of my girls. Both about 3 months. Ry on the left.

Holy crap we make cute babies, ammiright!?

I’m excited to watch them grow up and see how much they look alike when they get older. When I was pregnant with Reese, I really hoped they’d look alike because that is one of my favorite things about my sisters and me. People have asked us before if we’re triplets.

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday was November 1 and the kick-off to my personal “style challenge”. We’re bringing back Working with Style over on Liberating Working Moms so I thought it’d be fun to try and do a month of no outfit repeats and document it. Repeating pieces is ok, just no direct outfit repeats. Want to play along?? I’ll be snapping pics and sharing them on instagram with the #officefashionshow hashtag.

On another, completely unrelated note, tomorrow Lindsey & I are headed up to Portland for the PNW Blogger Holiday Party! I’m looking forward to some fun with some awesome ladies, some good food, DRINKS and also? Sleeping in past 6:30 AM. It’s making me want to do high kicks and chair dancing just thinking about it!!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Almost forgot.

1 Reply

I was out of the office yesterday for a photo shoot which means I’m playing catch-up today. I have all sorts of things I want to blog about, but no time to do it. Not even enough time for a bulleted list. Then I remembered that I never shared our “keepers” from my photoshoot gone bad I did with the girls.

So, BOOM. Post. Plus cute photos.