8:00

I hate to say it (in fear of a jinx) but I think I might have hit a groove! Here is our routine: when I get home with the kids, I get both kids ready for the bath. Jillian is usually not happy about it but once I get her in, she is very happy to play in there. Clean both of them, wrap in towels that Jillian gets to pick out. She usually chooses the duck and gives Rocco the alligator. Then I get them dressed in pjs that again, Jillian gets to pick out. Then we climb in my bed and I nurse Rocco to sleep while Jillian either watches "The Beast" or I read her some stories. Once Rocco is down then I take Jillian for some cuddle time in her room and she is off to bed too. (If I can't get Rocco down first then he comes with us to Jillian's room). The point is....that both kids are asleep by 8:00 - 8:15 a.m!!!! I have a little me time for about 2 hours!!!

Also dare I say it, Rocco is pretty much sleeping through the night. Jillian did not sleep through the night until she was a year old. Hello?? What a difference!!! Now, he is not sleeping in his own bed yet, but we will get there!!!

Finally, my little silly Jilly has shown definite signs of jealousy so I basically have given her full use of Rocco's things to try and quelch the jealousy. So here she is fully enjoying Rocco's bassinet. I just hope she doesn't break it!

Welcome to my World

I got to my parents house after school on Thursday and this is what I found.

MDO called again about the splotches I mentioned in the last post. Jillian is sick. Dad took her to Dr. Ear infections AGAIN. Rash is likely allergic reaction to Zyrtec.

I think the apocolypse is near.

Frustration

The verdict is in - Rocco has pink eye. Another Dr. visit. Another trip to the pharmacy. The Dr. said everything else looked fine however I am going to agree to disagree with the Dr. as this morning he was coughing up flem. Grrr!!!!!!

Jillian is still suffering from allergies. She is full of snot. She has a prescription for Allegra however it gives her diaper rash. So I decided to try children's Zyrtec. Well, now poor little bookie has a splotchy rash all over her body. I stopped all medication. She is allergic to the penicillan family so I wonder if Zyrtec has something in it from that family??? I don't know what to do.

I feel like I need to take my family far away to a detox center and get rid of all of the germies that are DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!

Otherwise, last night returned to Monday status and the kiddos went to sleep quickly and easily. God bless 'em.

One final note, my chunky monkey weighed 14 lbs 14 ozs yesterday.

Cryin'

Can you hear it? Roy Orbison singing his famous song. Well, last night, my head was ringing with the chorus...."Cryyyyin' over you."

This week is my first full week back to work. This is a difficult adjustment by itself. Add this factor in - Bryan has to work nights all week. That equals - one Mommy alone with two kids every single night.

Monday night went perfectly. I got both children bathed, pjed, and asleep (without much fuss) by 8:00 p.m. Nothing that perfect can last.

Last night, Jillian was beyond tired. When she goes to MDO, she does not get her full nap plus she is still all crudded up with allergies so she does not feel 100%. She screamed and cried b/c she did not want to bathe. She screamed and cried b/c her new Pinnochio pjs were dirty. She screamed and cried b/c she did NOT want to go to bed. All this time, Rocco was crying b/c.....well, I don't know. He was just crying.

So I forced her to bathe, coerced her into her polka dot pjs and caved and let her have her ba (bottle). The three of us cuddled on the rocking recliner in her room and my two little ones were out within 3 minutes. The problem..... how to get Jillian into her crib?? I ended up just putting Rocco on the floor (he woke up). I picked up Jillian and put her to bed (she woke up). Thankfully, she went right back down asleep and Rocco followed suit shortly thereafter.

Three more nights to go......

Stuff Going on since Saturday

On Saturday night, Bryan and I had a date to the Elton John/Billy Joel concert. It was fantastic!!!!

Actually we double-dated with Sum-Sum and Bill-Bill.

Grammie and Poppy watched Jillian, Rocco and Gavin.

On Monday, I went back to work full time. Geez, it was kind of rough for everybody. I was not prepared for 20 kindergarteners. My fault b/c I did not want to prepare anything over Spring Break. Winging it with 20 k.g.s is very difficult. Things went OK for my Dad. I think everybody cried a lot which is hard. Rocco only had one bottle all day at 3:00 p.m. Dad couldn't get him to take another. I think this will get better with time although today he only had one bottle again. This brings me to today. Rocco has goop coming out of his eyes. GEEZ!!! So back to the Dr. tomorrow. I am really starting to hate the Dr.'s office.

Finally, when I got to G and P's house to pick up the kids, this is what I found.

I guess she is ready for Spring????? She was helping Poppy water the plants and got wet so she took off all of her clothes. Sounds logical to a 2 year old, right??

Finally, Dad reports Rocco rolled over today. Is that possible at 9 weeks, 5 days??? He swears he put him on his stomach and came back and he was on his back. I swear, my kids are genius!!!!!

Spring Break Part 2

We were supposed to go to Se@ World with Ax3 (that is code for Amy, Allison and Aidan) but Jillian's pink eye and sickness ended that plan. But on Thursday, Ax3 surprised us by stopping at our house for a visit. Jillian was SOOOOOO excited to see Allison. She gave her the full tour of her playroom.


Ax3 could only stay for a little while b/c they had to finish their tour of TX before going home but with three parents directing them, we were able to get an awesome shot of our four kiddos. The only one who wouldn't cooperate was Rocco.

Jillian, Rocco, Amy and Aidan - Wait until they get older and we will have Quadruple the Trouble!!


Today we did the zoo AGAIN! Jillian could do the zoo every single day. The zoo was packed full of people so we only stayed for a little while.

Her favorite things are the flamingos. She was so happy to show her Daddy the pink flamingos!! She really loves the tiny minature flamingo (that I am sure has a name besides tiny minature flamingo but I don't know it)!

Mommy was a bad Mommy b/c she forgot to bring Rocco a hat so he had to borrow Daddy's.

We had to stop and visit our favorite goats. Jillian was so excited b/c the goats did NOT knock her down. She spent a long time brushing their coats. They looked beautiful when we left.

What is wrong with this picture??? We brought a huge double stroller for the kids and no one is sitting in it. Poor Daddy is having to use his Superman strength to carry everybody around.

Finally, we ended our trip with a picnic lunch in the park. We waved to the train passing by our table. It was very windy so we ate quickly to get the kids back into the car. Of course, Jillian got to feed the squirrels her leftovers.

Spring Break Part 1

We started Spring Break 2009 with a bang. We have been busy visiting lots of friends. We went to two parties this weekend at Jillian's friends' houses. We stopped by Jillian's godparents' house and Jillian had TONS of fun playing with her three good friends - Abby, Emma and Corban. They even had fun in the tub.

The weather has been fantastic, Bryan has had the entire week off and we took a trip to Schertz Park. It was perfect. It had a ton of new jungle gyms with LOTS of slides....just what Jillian likes.

It has been so much fun having Daddy around!!

Mommy is fun too!

Our monkey hanging from the monkey bars.

Rocco had fun eating (of course) at our picnic lunch.

Then on Tuesday, things took a sudden turn for the worse when MDO called and said Jillian's eyes were swollen. Swollen is an understatement. Jillian's eyes looked AWFUL and we took her

to the Dr.'s office immediately. Dr. diagnosis - double ear infection AGAIN and a wretched case of pink eye. This is the worst case of p.e. I have ever seen. It looks like someone has punched her in both eyes with huge pink/purple bruising all around her eyes and the goop, of my goodness the goop. When she woke up this morning, her eyes were glued shut from all of the goop. It took us a good 30 minutes to get all of the goop out of her eyes. She is on 1 antibiotic and eye drops so let's hope for a speedy recovery.

Finally, last night I put Rocco in the bouncy seat as I was cooking dinner. I looked over and laughed and grabbed the camera. Do you remember in high school when the "cool" football players would cut off the bottom half of their jerseys to show off their abs? Well look at my football player....

Not quite a six-pack just yet.

Coming soon.... update with s.b. part 2

GI-NORMOUS

I made up a new word for Rocco - ginormous! We had his two month well baby visit and the word is out - he is huge in basically every way possible.

Weight - 14 lbs 8 oz (90th percentile)
Height - 23 1/2 ins (75th percentile)
Head C - 42 cms (90th percentile)

Dr. said he is looking very healthy and if he continues this way, maybe he'll be a fullback for the D@ll@s Cowboys in the future!

2 months old

Rocco has hit the two month mark and he is looking good! We are close to St. Patty's Day so I dressed them in green!!!!



A close up....





Jillian got a new haircut so we took a family photo



We have been really busy this weekend visiting our friends and we are TIRED!!!!! My babies are sacked out!

Last Day

Today is my last day of maternity leave. I go back to work for one day tomorrow, Friday the 13th, and then I get a week off for Spring Break. Pretty cool, huh?

Jillian declared mutiny this morning and refused to wear her clothes.

We actually had rain this morning after an 18 month drought. Jillian wanted to watch it dropping without her clothes.

Finally, I got some clothes on her and she wanted me to take her picture with them on.

This was Rocco's first time to see rain and he thought the whole thing was pecuilar.

A big thank you to Aunt Masure for watching the kiddos tomorrow. Let's hope she survives!!!

Not a Fluke

Well, I caught it again...Rocco's smile, that is.

Bryan and I both love Elvis and I am glad to know Rocco is already giving us his best Elvis impersonation. Thank you, Thank you very much.

This morning we woke up to some cold weather (in SA that means anything less than 80 degrees) and Jillian was totally prepared. She did rock the one-glove Miche@l J@ckson look.

This was our actual conversation this morning:

Jillian: Mommy, I want to go to Poppy's house. I want to see Grammie and Poppy.

Me: Remember Grammie and Poppy are in Italy. They are on vacation far away. We can't see them right now.

Jillian: What were they thinking?

Cracks me up!!!!

Random Stuff

Well, the weekend is over. Grammie and Poppy left for Italy for 10 days. What is Jillian going to do? She already had a crying fit yesterday b/c she wanted Grammie to kiss her boo-boo. We have 9 days left until they come back.

Jillian is recovering from her double ear infection except now she has developed a cough. Grrrr! I always know when she is getting sick b/c she becomes so flushed. Check out the cheeks during nap time ....

Rocco has also developed the cough. This next picture cracks me up. Jillian thought it was so funny that I put Rocco on his tummy. She wanted to do it too.

I finally caught Rocco's smile on camera. Such a chunky-monkey smile!

Last week, we went to a birthday party for Jillian's favorite cousins, Gavin and Roy. She got to swing with Gavin, sing happy birthday and help open their presents.

Last night, Jillian was entertaining Rocco in his bouncy seat. (Notice she has on her sparkle lipstick. This is b/c she is back using the big girl potty. YAY!!!!)

Then before I knew it, Jillian was entertaining Rocco in his bouncy seat.

I am so glad the seat can handle almost 40 pounds of baby/toddler!!! Way to go Fish*r Pric*!

Chins

Seriously, how many chins can this kid have?

In other news, sickness has hit our house AGAIN. This time it is Jillian. She has a double ear infection, sinus infection and an eye infection b/c she has so much snot it is coming out of her eyes. She doesn't like the medicine so she has been spitting it out. I have had to come up with creative ideas to get her to drink it which include putting it in her bottle and water cups. She totally can taste it and makes comments that she doesn't like it BUT she will drink it when I refuse to give her anything else. Mean mommy!