17 weeks- 2 days late... Friday Grace was 17 weeks! She will be exactly 4 months on Tuesday and it just breaks my heart! It feels like just yesterday she was born and so teeny tiny. I spent some time this weekend putting away her NB clothes that I really can't stretch onto her anymore. A lot of her 1-3 month stuff still fits. I think she's going to be shaped like me- short waisted and long legs. Her onsies and pants each fit fine but her footsie jammies are a bit short. I was getting a little panicked that nothing fit when I remembered I had two Neely bins in the basement to go through. It was like a shopping spree! I still have another hand-me-down bin and our own bin to go through and I have a large laundry basket FULL of clothes 3-6 months. I put her in two new outfits yesterday for her trip to the cabin and she was so cute. I was thankful that when I looked at her my first instinct was that she looked so adorable and my second one was to cry that her baby newborn stuff doesn't fit. It litterally caused me pain to put that stuff away in the bin in the closet. I just can't decide if I should keep just a few things to pack away to keep forever and just donate the rest to friends or sell it or save it on the extremely rare chance we'd have another one. At this moment the thought of another child in this household makes me want to cry in terror but the thought of never holding my own newborn again makes me a little sad... I suppose I'll get over it. She's found her hands and likes to sit and stare at them and move her fingers and fold and un-fold her hands. She's also found her feet when sitting up. She grabs at toys and trys to bring them to her mouth and has also figured out that she can remove her pacifier with her hands...however she can't get it back- this causes a great deal of frustration! She naps pretty regularly now and is doing much better at taking a bottle. I'm considering trying her on formula this week... or maybe I'll wait until 5 months...I don't know. She's still not sleeping through the night regularly but I guess that's a small price to pay for all the joy she brings us. Tyler is doing well too. He'll be 3 in less than 2 months. *insert sobbing mother sound effect* He's learning to drink from a cup with no lid and likes the straw better but is learning to use it the "real" way. I know... we're way late on this... I HATE Spills ok...We're working on learning his phone number- I don't think it's sticking but I have it up on the wall and he at least can identify all the numbers and 'read' them in order. We've worked on letters a little bit too. he's doing better holding a crayon correctly and drawing fairly straight lines which is huge since he hates to color so he only does it a couple times a week. he's still really consistant on his shapes and colors and now his big thing is the difference between silver and grey. He will not accept the answer that "it doesn't matter". He's also the past couple weeks really started sitting for longer books to read rather than several short ones which is SO nice because I was getting very tired of the short ones! He's doing really well with his bible verse- Genesis 1:1. He's been able to say it for me since the end of August but he's getting better saying it to others. I need to find a new one for him to learn but I thought since we are working on so many things at once I might wait until October for a new one. We've also cut way back on his daily TV viewing. I"m trying to get him to watch only one 20 minute show before his nap and then one before bed. Some days, to be honest, I need for him to watch more but I really feel like I need to allow him to run around and be crazy and be a boy more and not get him too into screen-time. Who knows what the best thing is but we're trying. I also know that the TV time of the year is fast approaching so I"m trying to start better habits now... If we are watching something in the evening before he goes to bed he's watching that too so he's still getting a lot... Grace is absolutely obsessed with the TV. If it's on she will strain her neck to be in position to see both Tyler and the TV- she does not allow those two things out of her sight! Thursday was workout day and I helped Melissa make borders and punch out pieces so others could make them at her crop on Sat. Turns out that simple math is not a good idea with the two of us... especially after Hip Hop Abs. Oh my... that video was so awesome. We spent half our time laughing at the gay guy and the wacko's behind him and the other half trying not to dance into each other. My legs were so sore that night I had to take Tylenol to fall asleep. As hysterical as I'm sure we both looked- we both felt it and at least we did something healthy for our hearts... Friday we did something but darned if I can remember at the moment... other than the baby clothes thing I can't remember... I swear my mental age is like 88. I learned yesterday that I can call that "Second child syndrome". I"m SO stealing that phrase! Saturday I woke up after 7 straight hours of sleep to feeling horrid. Turns out that when you are used to so much less- getting woken up from a deep long sleep makes you feel like you got beat up. Thankfully Grace ate and went right back to sleep and unfortunately so did I. Unfortunately my thoughts that Gary should get up with Tyler in the near future from that did not pan out and since Tyler is such a good kid he just stayed in his bed till I woke up and came and got him.... at 10:00! Oy! bad mommy strike one! He went to work with daddy in the morning to do a few things and I tried to get Grace and I ready for the day and do some light cleaning while Ionly had one then realized I only had one and headed for a nice LONG HOT shower. Ahhhh.... this of course put me behind the clock on getting things ready to get to the crop at 1. Turns out Gary got back at about quarter to 12 and decided he wanted to go to the cabin and take both kids so I had to pack extra diapers and clothes and several bottle options for Grace. She's gotten better at taking them from me but she senses the fear in Gary I think so you never know which kind of bottle she'll take from him. We also had to break out the hats and gloves and fall jackets. That totally upset me. As beautiful as fall is in Ohio- I Hate To Be Cold. A slight lunch flaw led to me being late to Melissas. Thankfully it was a come and go type thing. I really am one of those "on time is late" people and I really really do understand the importance of being on time places and not making other people wait and not ocming across as selfish and all that jazz.... i swear.... yet I've never been a punctual person. I just get too distracted I guess. The crop was wonderful and fun. I sat with another stay-at-home-mom so we both talked a mile a minute the whole time and it took me about an hour to do a layout for Tyler's first Christmas morning. When I got home- Tyler was tired... and crabby... so we endured about an hour of crabby crying and whinning then got him to bed. I went to sleep last night at 11:30. Grace woke wanting to eat at 1:30. I woke up with nightmares at 2:30 and 3:30. She woke again at 5 to eat and I held her off till about 5:45, fed her and just got up. And now here we are. I've got to get the house cleaned b/c the in-laws are coming over this afternoon to watch the kids so Gary and I can go out on a date. I'm very excited but I want to just take a nap! Actually what I really want is to get pizza delivered and just lay in bed and watch movies and nap all afternoon.... someday! Gotta get these grandparents retired!!!