Look Who Finally Has Teeth!

Madison now has her two top, front teeth. After being beyond miserable for days, they finally started cutting through on Monday.

She beat Callie's record. Callie got her first tooth (also her top, front tooth) a week before she turned one and then the other top one came two weeks later.

I didn't anticipate this day coming while still nursing and the thought of nursing a baby with a tooth and all of the potential pain that entails scared me! It was uncomfortable and, at times, a little painful for the first few days, but we're good now and we haven't had any biting incidents...yet (fingers crossed).

Sisters Get-together

On Friday, I took the girls to my sister's house to play with all of their cousins, who were on Spring break. Callie was close to falling asleep on the drive over so she was very cranky once we got there. Madison wanted to nurse and Callie just wanted to be held. For the next hour I had Callie and Madison both wanting to be held, neither wanting to play or be held by anyone else. This has been happening a LOT lately. Madison is teething and mostly just wants me so she is extra clingy and Callie gets jealous and wants me to hold her. When I hold them both they usually start fighting, not wanting me to hold the other child. It makes going places very difficult and frustrating. I keep reminding myself that someday I'll miss them being so clingy.

We also went to the park with everyone for a picnic and play time. Callie was really excited about that and she finally left my side to go play. Madison even let Andrea hold her for a while. When we went back to Melissa's house all of the little ones, except for Callie, took a nap while the big kids played outside. Callie was in heaven playing alone with her cousins' play kitchen and babies.

My oldest niece, Abby, is 13 now. I can't believe it's been that long since that little 1.5-pound baby fought for her life in the NICU. Childhood is so short. I'm so glad that we live so close to my sisters. When I lived in Utah I was so sad to be too far away to go to things like baptisms and baby blessings, but now I'm finally close enough to be a part of those special occasions in my nieces' and nephew's lives and it makes me so excited! It always meant so much to me when my aunts and uncles were a part of those important points in my life and I really want to do that for my own nieces and nephew.

It's so amazing that we all live so close to each other. I wish that we took advantage of it more often. Here we all are at this time in our lives with young kids and living within minutes from each other,  yet it's so easy to just get caught up in our own lives and not take the time to get together as often as we could. Who knows how long it will last or if we will all ever even live in the same state again. Anyways, I'm going to try to be better about reaching out to them and getting together with them more frequently, because this time is precious and, in the words of my mom, will soon only be a memory.

While Callie's Napping...

Maddie likes to play with her sister's beloved babies. 

Shh, don't tell Callie ; )

Tot School

A few weeks ago, I started doing a preschool with some other toddler mommies from church. There are six kids and we rotate who's teaching/hosting each week. It has been great fun! The kids love getting together with each other, there's structured learning going on, and the mom's get a break when it's not their turn. Here's Callie all ready for preschool with her backpack on.

Preschool gives her a distraction from some other things she's been doing lately, such as:

1. Biting her toe nails. Eww! I told her, "biting toe nails is icky" to which she replied, "it's yummy!" How do you keep a toddler from biting nails? I figure she won't be flexible enough to bite her toe nails for long, but she bites her finger nails too...

 

2. More locking of doors. We're getting creative, experimenting with putting baby-proofing door knob covers and taping over the hole for the lock. It's worked so far.

3. Parking her cars. This is one of her favorite places to park them.

4A. Emptying the silverware drawer.

                    

 

4B. "Washing" the silverware.

5. Climbing to get things I tried to put out of her reach. I'm running out of places to put things...

Okay, here's one story today about Callie. After preschool today, Callie was trying to write her name on the top of her paper like I had done. She said, "A, L, Peach, I, N." Pretty funny and pretty close! I guess she's heard me spell it for people a thousand times and is catching on.