With Mimi and Pops in our matching red and green...
Finley in her Christmas dress - nice camera skills mom...
Eating pears in our Christmas PJs in our new high chairs...
It was our babies' first Christmas. I bought eight outfits- four changes a piece- for the occasion. I had the best intentions to capture every moment on film. Really, I did. We got home on Christmas at around 9 o'clock with only these two pictures to show for it...
The babes moments before donning their first festive get up...
Mo, their great grandmother, who was worn out with all the activity...
Let's hope next year mom and dad can get it together to capture the unwrapping of gifts and all the other festivities that go along with Christmas...
Finley is constipated. Parker is not. You thought since we were four months in with no talk or mention of poop on the blog that you might have escaped it. I too was hoping I wouldn't be one of those mothers who discusses her children's bowel movements ad nauseum to anyone willing to listen (i.e. the passive readers of our little blog). Then it happened. Prunes to be exact.
We started feeding the babes banana and rice cereal for breakfast only to find out after two days with no bowel movements that these two foods were the top to cause constipation. Figures. They really liked it too. After scouring the internet for a solution, the top 'treatment' for infant constipation turned out to be diet. Every website I visited informed the worried mother with the stopped up babe to feed their child foods with a high fiber content. Well, what higher in fiber than prunes. Out I went. Scooping up all the prunes that Kroger had on the shelf (I didn't even mind they weren't organic. I was desperate.).
Within minutes of arriving home the twins were covered in brown goo. Finley flatly refused hers and went so far as to spit them out at us. Literally spit them out at us. A habit she now finds amusing at all meal times. Parker, on the other hand LOVED prunes. We couldn't get the spoon to his mouth fast enough. It was a chore to get him to eat 5 bites of peas and here he is wolfing down his prunes like a little old man.
I wish that was where the story ended. That was yesterday. Fast forward to today- poor Fin is still constipated. As I mentioned previously, Parker is not. Finley was taking her afternoon nap (which Parker decided he didn't need) and Parker was in his Johnny Jump up. I thought he was really getting it...he had started jumping around in the thing. He was having a great time and then I heard a few juicy farts. Now this is pretty normal for Parker and usually I just wait about five minutes (to make sure he's done- I've made the mistake of changing him right away and boy did I pay for it) and then change him. I had my back to him checking my email and turned around to find him giggling and slipping around on the wood floor...
Slipping around you say? Well it turns out the prunes did what they were intended to do. Just so happened Parker was in the Johnny Jump Up when the event occurred and poop ran down his leg and onto the floor where he happily played it...
Yes. It doesn't look sooo bad, but again the story doesn't end there. I was in such shock at what was going on that my first instinct was to grab the Clorox clean up wipes. While he was still in the damn Jump Up I'm cleaning the floor and trying to disinfect his feet only to have him jump and fling more poop all over the place. Brilliant. After a few more poop-jumps I wiggled him out of the contraption (which is not easy to do with a clean baby, let alone one encrusted with their own excrement) and ran him into our bathroom where I found this...
Poor kid must have really been stopped up. I've never seen so much poop in all my life. Keep in mind the other 3/4 of it is still in the diaper... As I'm going through wipe after wipe, I realize how futile my efforts are and quickly start up the tub. This is where I discover poop under all of his toenails...mmmm!
Did I mention that Brian is on call again, I'm in the middle of making all of their baby food from scratch, trying to clean my house because I'm hosting Christmas Day brunch for 8, and packing to go to St. Louis for the weekend...don't my children know I don't have time for this?! Ah, prunes. Tis the season you know....
It's official...our babes are now eating solid foods! Cereal in the morning, and (for now) peas at lunch and dinner. Finley LOVES them. Parker, not so much. They say to give one food at a time for 3-4 days and then introduce something new...we'll see in a few days if the Parker man likes his carrots any more than the sweet peas.
Little Finley is still in the 50% in weight, weighing in at 13 pounds and 11 ounces. She must have gone through a growth spurt though because she is now in the 75% in height (she has always been in the 50%). Fin is still wearing size one diapers. Her brother is now in a three.
Or at least brother and sister anyways...
In our matching outfits from Grandpa
When Brian got home yesterday from his 32 hour day we thought it was the perfect time to go get our Christmas tree...brilliant timing, I know. After my morning run to Starbucks with Parker screaming his head off in the back seat because he had to wear his snow suit we decided to try an alternative for our ride to the Christmas tree lot. My aunt gave us one of those bundlers that you put around the top of the car seat to keep your babes warm in the winter. I thought it was the perfect solution to our problem...until I saw Parker in it. I seriously could not stop laughing. 
I cannot stop laughing now looking at the pictures I took. Look at his face. He totally knows he looks like a complete idiot. He is mortified that his mother would put him in such a thing...unfortunately for him he didn't mind it near as much as the snow suit and faces many more winter days underneath it! Let's hope I can keep the tears from rolling down my face next time we bring it out...
We keep waiting for Fin to 'discover' her thumb like her brother did- she is constantly eating her hands! For now she seems content with her blankie...she loves sucking on it! When she's fussy it's the only thing that will calm her down...
Why do we think we can say anything through a computer? Men feel they can hit on young girls, young girls think they can say and post promiscuous things, people feel they can trash talk their teachers or bully other students...what is this phenomenon and how do we stop it? It has become so pervasive in our culture to belittle (including ourselves- have you seen some of these profile pictures people use?!) and bully people online that researchers have given a name to it, "Internet Shaming." Once upon a time parents taught their children not to take candy from strangers, where do we begin with the internet? How do we protect our children from loose lipped online strangers? Or worse yet, their friends?
Perhaps it is naive, but I believe that you CAN monitor and protect your children from predators like 'Josh Evans.' My children will never have a computer in their rooms and as far as I'm concerned, in my house they will have NO SPACE. I'm all for technology but, like anything else, you must set boundaries for your children. Call me old fashioned but what happened to friends calling your house and speaking to your mom or dad first? Now it's laptops at age 4 and cell phones at 6- and we as parents we wonder why we don't know any of our children's friends or act shocked that they would have an online boyfriend without our knowledge.
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