Nicolas at 2 years 1 month

Nicolas is equally annoying and adorable at the moment. When I love him, I REALLY love him and when he frustrates me I feel like some yelling crazy woman! Luckily he only drives me crazy about 5% of the time and the rest of the time I love him being two.

Literally in the last week he has started to put two words together which is wonderful. He's been able to communicate really well for the last couple of months using one word at a time, but now with two words I really get an insight into his little mind. When he puts two words together he leaves a pause between them which is just a bit too long, which makes me laugh.

We were coming back from TN on Friday and it had been a long drive and they were both winey. Adison started to cry when we were nearly home and Nicolas in his matter of fact little way told me "baby.....noying". The fact that he even knew the appropriate use of the word annoying made me laugh.

Then last Monday we had the family over for dinner and Papa kept the kids busy in the kitchen when we were all talking in the living room, little did we know he was feeding them cookies and giving them coke to drink. Nicolas has never had any kind of soda and now whenever he sees a soda can he says "Papa.....coke".

I love talking to Nicolas now he can reply. We spent the 3 1/2 hour trip to TN learning the more complicated body parts (ankles, calves, wrists etc) and where everyone comes from (England, Canada, SA, America). Since my friend Angie came to stay whenever Nicolas sees a plane he tells me "plane....Angie".
He knows all his body parts, peoples names, vehicles and will repeat any word you say. If it's a hard word he will attempt to say it, but it is usually unintelligable the first time and will involve him sticking his tongue out somewhere in the word. I'm amazed by the things he remembers so it's very satisfying teaching him things now as I know he's learning.

He still climbs on everything and can now open the fridge door, get his milk out and attempt to pour it, usually all over the floor! He definately knows what he wants to do and most of the time I can reason with him and explain why he can't do stuff. He is a nightmare if he's tired though and is just revolting. A couple of weeks ago I was sick, he was sick and we were both tired and I thought I would lose my mind. He knows exactly how to push my buttons and will go from banging on the computer keyboard and then turning it off, to diassembling my phone to throwing stuff off the counter on to the floor and then going in the bathroom and smearing soap and toothpaste everywhere! As Dad once said Nicolas isn't random when he's being annoying, he knows exactly what he wants to do in each room.



He is very sweet with Adison. Now she can sit up he is begining to try to play with her. She just loves him and will sit and watch him run around. I hope they grow up to be good friends and play together sweetly and don't just fight all the time like Jaden and Kirsten.

Adison at 6 Months

Adison has been eating food for a months now. I started her at 5 months and 1 week because she just won't sleep through. I think she is just about there and will normally sleep 11-7am but I can't guarantee it.
She had a strong tongue thrust reflex when I first started to feed her as she was so young, and she didn't know to open her mouth, but now she loves her food and has 3 meals a day.

She definately likes fruit the best but also loves carrots. I put cream in her sweet potato instead of milk which she loves but she definately has to be in the mood for something. Nicolas would eat anything right from the start. She also gags very easily which I don't remember Nicolas doing, although he gags a lot now because he crams as much food as he can get into his mouth at once!

My plan was to start her on more exciting things this week, other than the basic root vegetables and apples, pears and bananas, but we are all sick and she doesn't want to eat much.

She has had a fever of 102 today and been very sad. Most of the time she is just the happiest baby. She just sits in her bumbo and watches Nicolas play or will sit in my lap and chew toys if we are playing on the floor.

Like Kirsten she loves to swing and smiles the higher you push her.

She adores Adam and smiles and smiles for him. He loves her because she is such a good baby during the day, so he only sees the best of her. Even at night she is easy to settle, I just wish she wouldn't wake at all. She likes the baby walker for 5-10 minutes but is incapable of pushing it around. By her age Nicolas could push himself around and hold himself up on his legs. If you make her put her weight on her legs she can only hold herself for seconds and then her legs buckle under her. I definately think she will be like me and walk late, which I'm fine with, unless she gets fat and is too heavy to carry!

She doesn't mind being on her tummy for a bit but as she can't see what is going on, she usually calls out after a few minutes. She can almost sit unaided but she has no ability to roll over. Again I'm not that bothered because it means I don't have to worry about her falling of beds and couches.

She loves her feet, especially before bathtime when she doesn't have tights or sock on and then she loves to suck her toes. She can roll onto her side to get to her toes, so maybe she'll roll all the way over soon.

She loves her bathtime and Nicolas makes her laugh all the time. He also pours water in her face if you don't watch him. He tries to pour it on her tummy but often misses and gets her face instead.

She is very good natured about it though and quickly recovers.

She is now well into 6-9 month clothes and measured 16.8lbs (863%) and 27 inches (85%) at her six month check up. She is about a pound heavier than Nicolas was at this age and 1 1/2 inches longer. I wish they were the other way around because I really hope for her sake she doesn't grow taller than about 5'7" but if she does, at least she lives in the basketball capital of the world!! She is very chubby and has the cutest rolls of fat at the top of her thighs. Adam says she is his cubbiest baby and he just loves her to bits.

Her eyes are still blue and about the same color as mine, but I'm not certain they'll stay blue as Kirsten's eyes look pretty blue in photos where she is about Adison's age. I live in hope though as Ben produced 3 out of 4 kids with blue eyes.

Her stranger anxiety is getting much better. She rarely melts down for family members now and is fine in the nursery at church, but I got called out of my first class at the gym today because she was having a crying fit. I think it was because it was new and she was getting sick. I was glad as I would have never made it through the whole class without the break!

I still love the time I spend with her so much, especially when Nicolas is asleep. When he was asleep at night as a baby, it would never have occured to me to wake him up just to hold him, but if Adam is working late or out with friends, I'll wake her up just to snuggle with me in bed until I go to bed. Mom told me that you feel very differently about a girl than a boy, but I didn't believe her until Adison was born. I check Adison's window every night just to make sure it's locked and no one can come in and steal her, but that thought would never have entered my head with Nicolas. I don't love him less than her because he is the minature version of Adam that I always dreamed of, I just love her differently.

The day before my friend Angie arrived from Canada it was about freezing so I bundled the kids up and took them outside while I blew the driveway. Adam came home while we were out there and I think he thought I was crazy to be out in the cold with the kids. I love the cold and I want the kids to get used to being outside in winter. As you can see Adison was perfectly happy in the little suit I bought years ago for Nicole. I never thought my baby girl would get to wear it too.

Hopefully when I do my next Adison blog she will have some hair! I used to think my bald babies looked funny because I always thought I'd have babies with hair, but now I feel they have the rest of their lives to have hair, so why not enjoy their first bald year!

Nicolas' First Stitches and Angie Comes to Visit

We had a house full of kids two Saturday's ago and as Ben and Erin were leaving, Nicolas got under Erin's feet and as she turned to check he was OK, her minivan door caught his head. It bled a lot to start with and Adam and I left all the kids with Ben and Erin and raced to the ER. Luckily it's only 5 minutes away and they have a special ER for kids which was empty.

Health Insurance costs a fortune here, but when you need it, it's wonderful. He had 3 stitches and we were in and out in 1 1/4 hours and that included the 20 minutes it took for the anesthetic to work. If that was England we would have been there for hours!
Unfortunately he then fell the next day and banged his head on the corner of the chair leg and got a huge bruise on his forehead too. So by the time he had his stitches out at his 2 year old check up, he looked like a battered child.

Then last night he and Kirsten were bouncing on a mattress we had on the floor in her room and he banged his head on her nightstand and cut his head again. I think it could have done with a stitch, but it's in his hair line, Adam was out for the night, I had all four kids and it was bed time so I couldn't face taking everyone to the ER. Also we have a large co-pay on ER visits, so I stuck a steri strip on it and a band aid and it seems OK today. I never thought I'd be so relaxed about my child cutting himself open, but he's never bothered by it for more than a few minutes, he's just so brave.

Sometimes Nicolas will be cute and snuggle in bed for a few minutes in the morning, but it's rare, so we make the most of it. Normally when Nicolas wakes up, Adam has been at work for ages, so it's a treat for him to see Daddy in the morning.Last weekend my friend Angie came to stay from Canada. We haven't seen each other since my wedding, so we had a lot of catching up to do. We met in New Zealand and I can't believe we have been friends now for nearly 10 years!

We went up Stone Mountain, which is the largest outcrop of granite in the world. I've not been there for ages and it was fun, but Angie left freezing temperatures in Nova Scotia only to experience not quite so freezing temps here!

Tori used to be Nicolas' favorite person, but now Angie is joint favorite. When he goes to bed he will usually call for Mommy and Daddy, and then after Tori had looked after him for the day he would call out tentatively for Tori. Now he'll call for Angie as well, just in case she or Tori will come and unlock his bedroom door and let him out!

There is a carving of some of the presidents on the side of the mountain which is pretty impressive.

Leo was in heaven the whole time Angie was here. She has a dog Buddy,and I think Leo sensed that she was a pushover and that he could take advantage of her. He spent the weekend overstepping all his boundaries just to be near Angie. As you can see in the background, Nicolas is taking his trousers down to show Angie his cute little legs!

Angie and I refocussed each other and both felt a lot more motivated to fix the things in our lives that were frustrating us.

She left on Monday afternoon, and she treated us to a visit to the aquarium in the morning. Nicolas loved it and then we went to the CNN center and around Centenial Park, which is where the 1986 olympic opening and closing ceremony was held.

Adison loved it too and it's amazing the difference in how interested she is in things in just the month since we were at the aquarium last.

Angie got some practice in looking after Nicolas and making sure he didn't run away.

You can see the windows that still have to be replaced in the circular Westin Hotel after the tornado that hit downtown Atlanta.

So after Angie left I had a nice relaxing week. I took a meal to a Mom at church who has just had a baby, made tea at church and then went to my MOPS meeting. I was so proud of myself for saying NO when they asked if I would consider running the group next year. It felt good to be asked and a large part of me wanted to say yes, but our current leader would be a very hard act to follow and I promised myself I wouldn't say yes to anything else.

We got our new wills signed on Wednesday and by the time I got there my truck was smoking and had steam coming out of the engine. The radiator had blown, so Adam called the guy at the garage (the same one who ran the truck into the wall after he fixed the wheel bearings), and he said he would fix it for free because of all the hassle we had been through to get it repaired. We need a tune up, but other than that it should be OK for a while, but who knows what unexpected thing will go wrong next.

I don't think I'll like 2009, it's been very sad, expensive and full of lots of injuries for Nicolas. I've just had to spend $645 to have my green card renewed, so who knows what could get messed up there!!!

We have the kids for the weekend and Ike and Lilli are having a sleep over, so once again our house is full of children. I'm so used to having a house full of people that I've pretty much got used to it and I really enjoy it, but Adam and I have promised that next weekend we are doing NOTHING!! It will be our first weekend with just Nicolas and Adison since the middle of November. I can't wait.

Around New Year's Eve

We had a busy few days after Nicolas' birthday party. My Australian cousin Andrew was travelling around the USA with some friends and they stopped in for the night on the way to Miami. We haven't see each other since Adam and my wedding 3 1/2 years ago so it was great to catch up.
We joked that we only needed one other Australian in our house and they could be the Wiggles!! I think they are somewhere near the west coast by now, I'm sure if I checked Facebook Andrew would have posted something.

I took the kids to Mardi Gras which is a bouncing place near us. Mom, Dad and I had taken Nicolas there before, but Jaden and Kirsten were much more fun.

Jaden is so sweet with Nicolas and Nicolas just wants to do everything he does.

On Nicolas' actual birthday (Dec 30th) he opened his present from us and from Mom and Dad. We got him a bounce back racer remote controlled car but he's still a bit too young for it.

Mom and Dad got him clipo (modern 'stickle bricks' for those who remember them!) at Adam's suggestion, and he loves it. Jaden and Kirsten regress everytime Nicolas gets new toys and have to play with them too, so they loved the clipo as well.

On New Year's Eve we went to Ben and Erin's. I was so tired as Adison had been up lots the night before, so I didn't know if I would make it to midnight. I didn't know how Nicolas and Adison would do as well, but in the end we had such a good time that we stayed well past midnight. Nicolas stayed up until about 1am when we were in the truck coming home and then when we got home still found the energy to cry and bang on the door everytime we tried to put him to bed.

The kids all played Guitar Hero and Jack really got into it. Nicolas just like holding the guitar.

They were fun to watch.
Nicolas tried to be like Daddy on the drums with a bit of help from Bowen!

It was my first New Year with all the Woodall brothers together and James' girlfriend Sarah joined us too. Adam's Mom Teresa, stepdad Mark and little sister Dana came from NC so Ben and Erin had a house full.

Obviously on New Year's day we got the awful news of Russell's car accident, so we tried to keep the kids busy and baked some cookies. Baking cookies is their favorite thing at the moment. I think icing and decorating them is actually more fun for them than eating them!

Jack turned 4 on Jan 3rd but Erin brought his party forward so we could all be together to support each other and remember Russell. It was such a sad time, but it made us all appreciate each other and what we have so much. The kids all had a great time and weren't that aware of the subdued atmosphere.

Then Adam's Mom, Mark and Dana came to stay with us for the weekend. They spoilt us with wonderful gifts and did so much for us so we could focus on helping Sam and dealing with our grief.

Both kids were so happy to have Dana to stay as she is one of their favorite people. Nicolas was just happy that there were lots of people in the house.

Teresa showed me how to make her legendary venison cube steak and I felt bad making her cook, but then as I watched her pefectly at home in my kitchen, I realized that of course she had cooked a thousand more meals in our kitchen than I ever have!! New Year was filled with tragedy and more sadness than I've ever experienced before, but there were still many moments of fun and happiness and I think we are closer to our family and friends as a result.