10 Months as a Party of 5!

Our Party of 5

It's been a very long time since my last post but our sweet Alyssa's beautiful, little face brightened our family 10 months ago and things have been pretty chaotic ever since. (FYI - I just posted a bunch of postings that I typed up but never got around to posting, so enjoy those). When our family grew from 2 kids to 3, our family went from (somewhat) organized chaos to an all out circus. Luckily, Brian and I are both grew up in large (3 and 4-kid families), so this is really what we're used to anyway. I think things are going as smoothly as they possibly can and it's a lot of fun. It really is a Party of 5! Unfortunately, dealing with an infant while caring for, entertaining, playing ref for, teaching, policing, and chauffeuring 2 extremely active little boys has left me with little or no time to blog. After all, I have a hard enough time just getting things done around the house between feedings, pumpings, naps, and the boys' activities. A lot has gone on over the last 8 months.

5 people = mountains of laundry

Alyssa is such a sweet, smiling, happy, easy-going, loveable baby girl. She's been truly an amazing baby as she is very easy going and honestly hardly ever cries at all (not even when she's getting hungry!!). She does, however, spend a good deal of time in her car seat and baby carrier being shuffled around as we take the boys to and/or from school, appointments, and other activities. I was the 3rd child so I feel extra guilty about this with her, but she really doesn't seem to mind. She's always looking up at us with a huge grin and seems as happy as can be with her. Alyssa (aka Baby Cakes as Brian and Dominic call her) is growing and changing daily. She started smiling very early on (3 weeks although Brian will say it started at 2 weeks) and is extremely interactive with everyone. She wants to be held and around people all of the time, which is both fun and challenging when I'm juggling 2 active little boys as well.

Alyssa at almost 6 months old. This is the face she makes most of the day.

These days Alyssa is moving around all over the place. However, she wasn't "technically" crawling until she was about 8 1/2 months old and instead moved like a seal throughout our downstairs level. One morning she woke up, it just "clicked," and she finally began coordinating her arms and her legs with each other. Now she moves much faster and obviously loves it. It's interesting because the boys both crawled on the early side (around 6 1/2 and 7 months) , and I've always heard that the 3rd child does everything earlier, but I'm thinking that it has more to do with girls not being as active as boys. I've enjoyed not having to chase a 3rd child around as soon. Alyssa started pulling up on the boys' train table (how appropriate) just before she started crawling and quickly began cruising on and between furniture. Around Thanksgiving she started climbing stairs too. As a result, she's now on the middle level of her crib. It's hard to believe that she'll be walking before I know it! 

Alyssa has her two bottom teeth (getting her first at around 6 1/2 months and the other within a week of the first) and is wearing 9 to 12 month clothes. She's in size 3 diapers. At her 6 month checkup, she measured at 27 inches tall (80th percentile) and weighed in at 17 lbs 4.4oz (65th percentile). Alyssa began eating solids at 5 1/2 months just like her brothers did. She is a great eater, not picky at all (yet) unlike her brothers. She started finger foods at around 8 months old. She has continues to drink 4 8-oz bottles of breastmilk a day along with her 3 solid meals a day. I'm feeding Alyssa and the boys all day long. After drinking her bottle, she follows it with 4 oz of pureed/baby food and then a bottle at bedtime.

Here is her current schedule:
9:00 - wake up 
9:15 - breastmilk 
9:30 - breakfast solids
11:30 - nap
1:15 - breastmilk bottle
1:30 - lunch solids
2:30 - nap
5:45 - breastmilk bottle
6:30 - dinner solids
7:45 - bedtime bottle
8:00 - bedtime



Just like her brothers, Alyssa has been a great sleeper. She slept in our room in a bassinet for over a month before moving to her crib in her nursery. She plateuaed for a while at around 5 hours between feedings at night. I think I enabled it because I would hear her wake up and go feed her before she started crying because I worried that she would wake up the boys. It's crazy but we never even were close to "crying it out" with Alyssa because she never cried in the middle of the night. We would do a pre-emptive feeding around 1:00 before we went to bed, so would only have to wake up once and Brian was sweet enough to help. Around 8 or 9 weeks she was sleeping 9 hours straight and then after getting sick and therefore she started sleeping 13 hours at 14 weeks. She's been amazing ever since. She's also been a good napper. Being the 3rd child and on the go, her morning nap has always been in the car seat or in the Bjorne/Ergo and only about 20 minutes (around 45 min in the crib). Her afternoon naps are 2-3 hours in the crib...at the same time as the boys! Over the summer, after exhausting them at the pool all morning, I had all 3 kids napping at the same time for 2 hours a day, sometimes 3! Once school started, the boys wouldn't always actually sleep, but for 2 months in the summer, it was pretty amazing. 

Separation anxiety has begun for Alyssa in the last month as she cries when I walk away now and cries when I leave her in her crib at bedtime. Thankfully, it lasts only until I've closed the door. Alyssa is quite the Daddy's girl already. She truly gets the biggest smile on her face whenever she sees him. It's precious. :) Her other favorite person is Dominic and I know Dominic feels the same way about her. She loves Blake too, and he loves her, but Dominic loves playing and interacting with his baby sister and most of all making her laugh. Speaking of her brothers, the boys are doing great with their baby sister and adjusting wonderfully to life with a 3rd child in the mix. 

The week after school ended for summer break, Dominic started reading!!! He has been sight reading since he was two years old, but he was finally able to put together the letter sounds that he sounded out. After a fun summer spent mostly at the pool, Dominic and Blake started at a new preschool in September, and it's the greatest school! Dominic LOVES school this year, begs to go back every day, and will even cry on non-school days. We are seeing a completely different attitude from him, which is wonderful. He's in the Young 4s class (although he's the oldest) and goes 4 days a week (from 9am to 1pm giving me a much-needed extra hour of productiveness compared to last year). 

Dominic with his self-portrait 

On his "day off" he has occupational therapy (OT), which is a HUGE help with his sensory and fine motor issues. Dominic could barely write and all of a sudden is drawing people and asking to draw (he wouldn't even do this for candy last year!). Dominic tells me about his day, his "friends" from his class, and sings me songs he learns in school all of the time. He also participates in an after school gym class activity and loves it, and Brian or I try to walk to school with Dominic - just over a mile each way - once or twice a week to help meet his sensory/physical activity needs. I'm hoping to add Blake to the walks on his days of school soon too. Swimming is still Dominic's favorite activity. He did Junior Swim Team over the summer (practices but no swim meets) and loved jumping off of the diving boards. I continue to take the boys regularly (as regularly as possible, at least). 

Jumping off the 3 meter. Over and over and over and over.

At 4 and a half year old, Dominic still has daily "rest time" where he either naps, rests, reads, or plays in his room quietly for about an hour and a half to 2 hours while Blake and Alyssa nap and I get things done/take a break. He still naps a couple a couple of days a week but usually needs the time to just decompress and reset. On days when he actually naps, he takes a long time to fall asleep at night, so I honestly prefer that he not nap. 

Between OT, his new school, new household procedures (such as sticker charts and the rule of no more than an hour of TV a day for both boys), making physical activity be the priority for the boys every single day, and just typical maturing and development, Dominic has made huge leaps from last school year. We still struggle with him being more physical with other kids (more so with the less activity he has) and other social skills, but he has made major progress with these things. He enjoys being my helper at home especially with Alyssa and keeps becoming more and more independent, really wanting to do everything himself these days. He's also still as silly and funny as ever. I hope and pray this this progress continues!

Blake has become a little boy right before my eyes! He happens to be the cuddlest little boy I know, but he's also the most mischievous one. Blake enjoys exploring, climbing, and getting a reaction out of me, so those things together often lead him into trouble. Towards the end of my pregnancy, he began acting out a bit for attention but seems to be doing better. He loves hugs and kisses and is extremely friendly and outgoing most of the time.

These days Blake is about to turn 3 but looks like a 4 year old although he is looking less and less like a toddler and more and more like a "big boy" the slimmer he becomes. Blake naps most days although he has gone through periods where he refuses to nap, which is oh, so much fun for me. These days he's napping 2-3 hours in the afternoon and sleeping 12 hours at night  in the bottom bunk (a full) of his bunk bed. We hope that he gets a roommate (Dominic) soon! Blake is the pickiest eater ever and is also the most stubborn child ever, so these create major stress and struggles for me. He's in the process of being potty trained (he unfortunately caught a stomach bug while he was in the middle of potty training, setting us back quite a bit). Blake goes to school 2 days a week also from 9:00 to 1:00 in the afternoon. Blake  is counting almost to 20, can identify most of the alphabet and numbers 1- 10, and knows all of the basic colors and shapes. He stays home with just Alyssa and me Mondays (when he has his playgroup) and Fridays and along with Dominic on Wednesday mornings. I love getting to spend what little one-on-one time I can with Blake. As a middle child myself, I am extremely cognizant that the middle child is the one who ends up receiving the shaft so much of the time. Plus it's always interesting to see how different Blake is when he's not around Dominic (and vice versa but to less of an extent). 

Over the summer, Blake literally took off with his swimming. The first week, he wouldn't leave my hip but he had to keep up with his brother and started jumping off of the diving board and swimming to the side (all completely on his own - no water wings, etc.). By the end of the summer at just 2 and a half years old, he was swimming across the width of the pool! This made for a much more relaxing summer for me. :) Blake is also very into counting, building with blocks, Little People toys, balls, anything vehicle related especially trains. Playing outside is Blake's favorite activity. This can include running around like a crazy person (usually chasing after his big brother), playing in the dirt, hanging out in the playhouse, or mostly playing in his "cave" aka under our deck. Shortly after Alyssa was born, we fenced in the backyard to contain Blake aka the escape artist and now he can sit outside for hours. He loves it!

When I first had Alyssa Blake hardly acknowledged her - something that I considered almost a good thing in a lot of ways because I didn't have to worry about him attacking, smothering, or even touching her, but after about 5 months, he slowly started giving his baby sister more and more attention. Now he absolutely adores her. Sometimes this will include riding his sister but for the most part it just includes kisses. :)

Meanwhile, Blake and Dominic continue to be best friends and each other's favorite playmates, but I would say the last few months and especially the last several weeks, the two have been fighting a bit more...luckily with a lot of laughing in between. Dominic finally started going through a selfish phase and now they fight over toy after toy. Plus they have developed typical sibling roles where Dominic is the older brother and instigator always pushing Blake's buttons trying to annoy him, while Blake is the younger sibling and dramatic victim always screaming and crying over the littlest thing that Dominic does to him. Luckily, they entertain each other and have so much fun with each other more often than fighting, so that outweighs the fighting (mostly). The other day I looked at our three kids laughing and playing together and commented to Brian how lucky we are to have children who honestly love each other so much. They may drive each other crazy - as well as drive Brian and me crazy sometimes too - but I know they are each other's best friends, for which I can't be more thankful.

Our 3 little monkeys :)