Our first story time!

(Wow...I wrote this back in April and forgot to post it...)

I'm always trying to find new things for Alivia to do and experience. She has never been in day care before and has only been taken care of by those that know and love her very well. I think that having family help to take care of her is important, it helps to foster a healthy relationship between her and loved ones. She loves her grandmas and grandpas so much as well as her aunties and uncle. I know that she would still love them if we had her in daycare, however, when we aren't doing daycare and our only option is myself or my husband and that doesn't work out we have to turn to family. And she in turn gets to spend more time with them.

All that said I definitely know that she is missing out on a few things by not being in day care. Interactions with other children, learning how to deal with unfamiliar situations, new adults and other ways of learning, coping, etc. I don't think all of those are necessary for such a young child and we're very fortunate to be able to have family help raise her however I do think it's important for her to learn how to interact with other kids and to be in new situations. So I try my best to get her out whenever possible.

Recently I had a very rare moment to myself roaming through the book store and saw a sign that was for Story Time! Every Saturday at 11:00am our local Barnes and Noble has story time. So I took Alivia and she loved it. She even loved when Arthur came out and wanted to go say hello to him. Which actually surprised me because she's usually pretty unsure of things like that, especially big costume people...what is Arthur anyway? An ant? Chipmunk? Huh. anyway, she'd never seen or heard about him before so it was new to her all around but she still liked meeting him.

After the story they got a little treat from Starbucks and got to color. All things she loves (and she doesn't get sugar often so the treat was extra special to her!)

We'll definitely be going again!

Toddler Fashion: Sometimes it makes sense

OK...today she hit the nail on the head :-)
And LOVE the boots. (thanks mom!)

Alivia 32 months old

My little baby is 32 months old today. It's really amazing to me how much she's grown in just the past few months. I always wanted to do updates monthly on my blog but just never got around to it. So I'm going to try keeping up on it, or rather just doing it, for Alivia and Juliana. Since Alivia was born on the 14th and Juliana on the 1st I'll try doing an update every 2 weeks for the girls. We'll see.

So I thought it was kinda fun to note that 1 year ago today, I was 20 weeks pregnant with Juliana and Alivia turned 20 months old.

Alivia 20 months

Juliana 20 weeks gestation

Big difference 1 year makes! Now we have a crawling 7 month old and a very active 2.5 year old. Onto Alivia! She has SO much personality! I just love it. Pretty much every time she opens her mouth something cute is said, although I'm her mother and I think everything she does is cute so ... yeah. And she talks a LOT. Literally full blown sentences. She can tell us stories, she makes up songs and makes her dolly's and toys talk. Several months ago we started counting how many words she was saying in 1 sentence. Actually...it was about 8 months ago when she turned 2, many time is flying by. Yesterday I gave up counting after 15 words lol. The girl can talk.

One of my favorite things she just started saying this past month is "Whobody" as in "whobody wants to have a snack with me?" The first time she said it I had her repeat it a few times because I just couldn't figure out what exactly she was saying. Then I realized she was combining "who" and "somebody". It cracks me up now every time she says it. I want to start writing down more of what she's saying because it's all day long and I usually forget what it was by the time I can get around to telling anyone about it.

She's been doing really great with potty training. She will be fine in undies all day long, not have any accidents and just wear diapers to bed and for nap. But for some reason she is afraid to poop in the toilet. This may be crazy but I think it's from last December when she got really sick. I was working so I wasn't home with her but Dustin was and she had such a bad stomach bug that sadly she had it coming from both ends. I know she pooped in her undies and I think threw up and she flipped out. Full on freak out. It really scared her because she wasn't expecting it to happen and had zero control. She was sick for a while with that and I think it just stuck with her. I think she's afraid of seeing poop or something, I don't know. But today we started trying again. She told me several times that she was scared so I finally got her to at least sit on the toilet (actually her potty chair) with her diaper on to poop. And she wasn't kidding about being scared, she literally had me hold her hand and then kept checking in the toilet to make sure it wasn't leaking out lol. But I'll do a post another time about this training.

Alivia is doing really wonderfully with her baby sister, really she is awesome with her. She loves her so much, she calls her "my baby", she hugs and kisses her and wants to hold her all the time. She cuddles with her and is such a sweetheart. She even calls her "my little sweetheart'. It's enough to make anyone's heart melt. I love it. She's concerned about her when she's crying and will say "Maybe she wants some mommy milk", she gets excited when she tries a new food for the first time or learns how to do something new. She's her biggest cheerleader.

Juliana is crawling....so....Alivia is having a harder time with the sharing. She will pull things right out of Juliana's hands and no matter how many times I ask her not to do it it's almost like she can't control herself. And really, who am I kidding...she's 2 years old. I know plenty grown adults who have no control over themselves so I get it, she's little. I just wish I knew what to do to help her not be so grabby. Sometimes she will "trade" her things, so she'll take away a toy Juliana is playing with and then try to giver her something else. Which is nice, although sometimes Juliana gets a baby wipe in place of a toy car lol. But if I could figure out how to not have her be so jealous of her playing with her toys. And it's not ALWAYS. There are times every day where Alivia will see her playing with something and she gets excited that she's playing with her toy so I'm not sure what flips the switch!

I do know that Alivia HATES things to get wet. And of course Juliana sticks everything in her mouth so I do know that's part of the issue. I've been telling her that if Juliana gets anything wet I'll make sure to wipe it off when she's done. It's sorta helping. And this "wet" thing goes well beyond Juliana and her infant drooling. If Dustin or I wash our hands and don't 100% dry them off before we touch Alivia or something of her's she has a melt down lol I don't mean to laugh but man...it must be hard being 2.

She's still my snuggle bug. She loves having mommy milk still and loves when I do her nap time and bed time. (which I've been doing all of lately) She loves all of her family so much and asks about each person during the week "What's Uncle Ryan doing?" "I haven't seen grandpa Bruce in while" "When will daddy be home?" She loves when I make up stories about what they may be doing or where they are when she asks. Oh and speaking of Uncle Ryan, she also is talking in her sleep. A LOT. It's freaky sometimes. And my brother is known for talking in his sleep. She always cracks up laughing when I tell her she's talking in her sleep like Uncle Ryan. <3 p="">

This summer I've been babysitting my 3.5 year old niece 2 days a week and Alivia loves it. She's learning how to hang out with another kid older than her on a regular basis, she's learning new things and really just looks up to her. Almost every night she says "Purity coming over tomorrow?" Since we don't have her in day care it is nice to have another kid for her to play with and spend time with and it's even better that it's family. She also loves hanging out with my best friend and her two little ones. I've written about them before, Coltrane is also 3.5 and he has a new little sister Quinn that Alivia just adores.

Lets see, what else is new with Alivia. She's a great eater and will try just about anything. I contribute BLW to that and the fact that we're always offering her new foods to try and have been since she was 6 months old. She loves reading books. OH yes, I have to mention she LOVES Curious George. We have to check out a new one every time we go to the library. She loves that little monkey.
She loves playing outside, watering our tomatoes, picking basil out of our garden and eating it, going for walks, playing at the park. This girl does it all :-)

She's healthy and happy and just such a sweetie.

Birth Without Fear

Last week I attended a Birth Without Fear conference and had a wonderful time. It was so nice to be surrounded by people who were so caring and sweet and had the same opinions I do about pregnancy, birth and pretty much all things parenting. January Harshe is the mama who started it all and you can read a bit about her here on her blog, Birth Without Fear. She also has a Facebook page that you can follow https://www.facebook.com/birthwithoutfear?fref=ts. I've always felt like she has been a great resource and advocate for having babies your way. She's had 6 children and each pregnancy and birth was very different. She went into detail about them all during the conference and it was so amazing to hear her stories. I hope that people continue to learn about her and the good work she is doing to help families take back control over their own bodies. And no...she's not all about home birth's in the back woods, without any help. But you know what, if that's what you want to do then you should be supported. She's all about birth YOUR WAY.

I never needed a c-section with my two babies so I can only imagine how tragic it could be. And one of my biggest fears while pregnant was that I would have to have one. The thought of having my arms tied down to a table and not being able to move or hold or touch my baby when she came out, it still scares me and I'm not having any more children! So what a surprise and a relief it was to hear a woman talk about gentle cesareans. This is another thing that I hope spreads like wild fire. Unless there is a serious medical condition with the baby or the mama, why can't the mama hold and touch her baby?! Why can't baby be placed on mama's chest? And if she wants to watch her child be born why can't she? It's still a BIRTH! All control has been taking away from families when it comes to this procedure. And yes it's a major surgery and not something to be taken lightly but people... it's a baby, and a mommy and this baby still needs it's mother. Keep the baby in her eye sight, give the baby to her as soon as it's possible. Keep them together the entire time. Sadly it takes a long time to update hospital procedures and not all doctors are willing to change their ways, but you know what? Until they do we can all stop supporting them and find the doctors and will support us. :)

Like I said, I'm not having any more children but I'm still happy to be an advocate for healthy and positive pregnancies and births that put the mother and the family back in charge. Because that's how it should be.

The conference was so much fun and I loved all of the speakers and all of the wonderful mom's that I got to meet and spend time with. I took Juliana with me and Alivia stayed home. It wasn't too difficult having her there the whole time. She napped in the Tula and I was able to openly breastfeed her without any judgement from anyone. Isn't that a relief in itself?! I have ZERO issue feeding my babies where and when they want to eat, I don't use a cover because neither of my girls have liked it and frankly I wouldn't want to eat with a sheet over my head either. But it was refreshing to KNOW that I was in a "safe" place and that no one was going to make snide comments or looks or even give it a second thought. And that made my heart happy.

Along with the amazing company we got to experience, we also were all sent home with some goody bags, and who doesn't love that!? They did have a ton of giveaways as well. I didn't win anything but was happy to see so many people take home some great gifts! This has become quite long so I'll post another time about the goodies we all got. (Remember I'm trying to post during naps and one little one is already stirring!)

If you ever have a chance to join one of these conferences I highly suggest you take the opportunity. you won't be sorry you did. And if you're not able to attend one definitely look it up. There is so much support on the website and Facebook page, plenty of people to talk to and learn from!   

Toddler Fashion: Rainbow Broncos

Today she was sporting her love for the Denver Broncos...though we don't really watch football in our house ha. My mother bought her this shirt last season and she loves it. The leggings I got from a Birth Without Fear conference last weekend. And she chose a diaper cover for undies...that we did change before we left the house :)

I promise that's a baby DOLL with the bag on it's head!