20/52
Jordan
Talia
The weeks are flying by. Posting these weekly photos and marking them with the passing time makes days gone and never to return very real. They are a good reminder to cherish every day and moment and experience with your children and the people you love.
This weeks pictures are what my girls look like when they have head colds, or allergies, I can’t tell one from the other. But the poor things, they don’t sleep well so they wake up early and are tired all day. They can’t breath through their little noses and don’t know how to blow yet, so they end up drooling all over. I say blow your nose and hold the tissue and they blow a big puff of air out of their mouths. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. Any tips on teaching your little one’s how to blow their noses? We give them allergy medicine before nap or bed, and they get the Hylands homeopathic cold tablets during the day to help, maybe they do a little, maybe not, I don’t know, but they like them and it makes me feel like am I doing something to help them feel better. They get juice and a vapor rub on their chests, warm baths and plenty of time outside. Other than that there’s not much you can do but wait. Colds seem to last forever, even though it’s only a week maybe a few days longer, and then as quickly as the runny nose started, it’s gone and everybody is back to themselves, still not sleeping till 7 am like they should be but I’ll take 6:30 over 5:15 any day.
Have a happy weekend.
Evey, enjoy the video.
I’ve been a little absent lately …
19/52
Talia
She Loves avacado. She eats it straight up then licks the shell clean.
Jordan
The queen of highchair naps. She won’t close her eyes if she thinks she’ll miss something interesting. On our walk that morning of Mother’s day she stayed wide eyed the entire time, Talia on the other hand slept at least half the way. Jordan made up for the missed sleep at dinner.
DIY Simple Toddler Game
I know I’ve mentioned before the attention span of a one year old before, it’s about two minutes. As the months have passed the girls attention span has grown slightly, to about five minutes. They will sit and color a page , a little longer if I sit and color with them. But I can’t always be sitting with them. In the mornings while getting ready for work they play in my room. The toys in our house are rotated from room to room and in and out of storage to keep things interesting and not too cluttered and I always keep a few toys in my room for this time of the day. But sometimes no existing toy is more interesting than my attention, so I have to create a new one, on the spot and fast. This one is called toothbrush tunnel. it’s simple , save the empty toilet paper rolls and hand each toddler one roll and their toothbrush,
show them how to drop the toothbrush through the middle.
Talia in Purple.
This silly little game teaches all kinds of lessons – hand eye coordination, cause and effect. If you are lucky they will play with it long enough to finish you hair or make up. Oh, if you don’t have an empty toilet paper roll, you toddler can empty a full roll in about a minute.
A portrait a week will be here on Monday. Have a great weekend
Crib Placement in the Nursery
If you don’t have a little one yet you probably haven’t given much though to where in your future nursery you would place the crib. If you are pregnant you probably thought about it for a bit, decided and are happy with your decision. That’s what I did, remember this post from way back when I was deciding where to place the cribs. I took into account things like the air vent, the curtains and blinds and how the two cribs looked in the space. What I did not consider was the loud banging of little feet kicking the wall for fifteen minutes or longer every night. Until this started happening about four months ago I never understood why someone would place the crib in the middle of a room, it’s a pretty unrealistic arrangement is most peoples homes.
I particularly like the giant windows on at least two sides in this nursery, that is very conducive for a sleeping baby. And why do cribs need a solid back or sides?
I now understand. If a little one can’t get their tiny feet through the slats of the crib then they can’t kick the wall for fifteen minutes. Mystery solved. Maybe that’s why there are so many new cribs out there like these with solid clear panels.
Too bad the cost of a peaceful evening is around $3000 with these Lucite beauties. While space is probably most to-be parents biggest factor in crib placement, keep in mind that there will be a lot more to keep in mind down the road. And while we probably won’t get a new crib if and when another baby comes along, nor will we have the luxury of an over sized nursery to place the crib in the middle of, at least I can warn my sweet readers of this lesson learned.
A summer time sneak peak
The weather here is Georgia can’t make up its mind. A couple of weeks ago it was warm and sunny and we spent the whole weekend outside barefoot and coated in sunscreen. Now it’s chilly and rainy and really windy and has been for too long. I moved to Georgia from New York for the weather. No really I did, that and to be closer to my family. When I first moved to Georgia it NEVER rained, really, never. People joked about it but it was actually quite scary. It was the middle of a three year drought. The past three years have been a very different story, Atlanta is now ranked as one of the rainiest cities in the US. Even still the weather is better than in the North. For the most part our winters are mild, spring is beautiful and warm, fall is the same and the summers are sweltering, which I love. We spend our days outside every chance we get.
When it did finally warm up enough to play outside I found a great new toddler activity, ICE!
I emptied the ice from the catcher into a large bowl and set it out on the deck. The girls played for ever, until the ice was melted at least. When in does warm up again we will be playing the bowl of ice game again and again.
18/52
“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013.”
Talia – my little helper. Stuffing diapers into the changing table storage
Jordan – wants everyone to be included, even for bath time.
Have a great weekend! Vote for us for Top Baby Blogs! Thank you!!!!!
Toddlers Are Scary
It’s like they are on a mission to hurt themselves and it scares the day lights out of me, like heart skip a beat, I suddenly learn how to fly, scared. The first time one of my children fell down the steps it was my fault. I left the gate from the deck to the yard open – first mistake, and next thing I knew Talia was standing on the second of seven steps. 
I screamed her name – Second mistake, it startled her, made her loose her balance and I watched and screamed in horror as she rolled down the remaining steps and landed face first on the stone pavers at the bottom. She rolled like a log rather than head over heel, but still, scary. I picked her up as she was screaming, barley a scratch on her and cried myself, for a while, longer than she did. Since then both Talia and Jordan have fallen more times than I can count, on their hands, heads, ears, mouth, face, knees and arms. They walk into things with out watching where they are going, they hit their hands on door frames, they trip and fall, they roll off the couch, stand up under the table, try to squeeze their hands into drawers that are child proofed and get them stuck, slip on wet floors (because they dumped their water out), and get scared when they climb up too high to get down themselves.
While I still get mini heart attacks every time they play on the couch and try to prevent falls and bumps as much as possible, I have learned not to react. Usually they cry out in pain, and quickly get up, shake it off and move on. Every once in a while they come to me and need a hug. Recently I saw Talia fall while out on the deck, not down the stairs, just on the deck. I was inside watching from the window so I went to the door when I saw her coming and got down on the floor to give her a hug. She sat in my lap for a minute. I said “you ok?” she said “kay” and nodded and was off to play. Jordan got the first real scrape of the two, on her knee. 
It was the first time in shorts for the season, she was running on the driveway, tripped and scraped it. For scrapes or cuts we just clean it with water if necessary and put Neosporine on a few times until it starts to heel, then we switch to vitamin E, I learned that from my big sister, it helps to reduce scaring. Vitamin E is good for pregnant bellies too, it helps reduce getting stretch marks. Her knee is almost healed now. And just yesterday while I was changing Talia’s diaper on our family room station Jordan close by stepped on a toy and hurt her foot. I told her to come here I’ll kiss it, so she hobbled over and did a standing split so I could bend down to kiss her foot while changing Talia’s diaper. While I know it’s unlikely, hopefully scrapes and bumps will be the worst we ever have to deal with.
A family photo
It’s a little dark but it’s probably one of the best candid family photos I have ever been a part of. It was a great day about a month ago. My husbands family was in from overseas and his brother from the west coast. Unfortunately his sister wasn’t able to make this visit. We were spending the day at a friends home by the river, it was a sunny and beautiful spring day, not too hot, perfect really. We cooked out, fed the ducks, played in the grass and watched the water flow down the river. I’m glad the warmer weather is hear, I’m looking forward to more days spent outside watching the world go by.
Polka dot dresses
I really don’t know how it happen but Talia and Jordan went and got big before they were invited to enough fancy events to wear all their pretty little dresses. So my sweet nanny dresses them in their finest for outings to the zoo, play group and dinner with the family. Sure I get sad when they get greasy food on the fronts, but it’s a lot sadder when they grow out of all these dresses without ever having a chance to wear them. Se la vie if a stain is meant to be then it’s meant to be. I can’t save every little dress for a special occasion because, seriously, how many special occasions does a one year old have? not too many, so why not make everyday y a special occasion, hey it’s a good life lesson any way. I use to live in New York City, while I was there I was invited to a party, just a regular party at some ones apartment, but this party had a theme “Black Tie”. I think getting ready with my friends and walking through the streets in a fancy gown was half the fun of the night, we all felt so good being dressed to the nines. Try it some time, get all dressed uopand go to waffle house at midnight, no one has to know you didn’t come from from swanky party.
