Time well spent

We have had an amazing last few days. Aimee, Glen and baby Eliseo have been in town. They stayed at a great resort in Scottsdale so the kids and I went up on Wed and had a pool day with Aimee and the baby. We had dinner that night at BJ’s. I got to have some mommy fun time on Friday night. Ah good times with karaoke and drama! On Saturday the whole family made our way back up to Scottsdale for some more pool time with the Lyon’s. Dakota told us that it was time to see Aimee and “Leseo” because “Aimee loves me”. It makes my heart so happy when Dakota loves my closest friends. It never matters how long a time it’s been she always falls in love with the same women who make me a better person: Aimee, Julie and Stormy. Dalton was of course his normal anti social self, as long as he is near mommy or daddy and gets to explore that world (and eat everything in it) he is a happy baby. He does tend to get his fingers stuck in drawers and cabinet doors though. He is always opening everything and then gets his fingers smashed, but he won’t give up. He just sits there yelling while still opening and closing the door. Such a funny kid. His newest thing is finding one of Dakota’s small chairs and pushing it around the kitchen walking behind it. I keep trying to convince him that he doesn’t need the chair to walk, but he doesn’t believe me yet. I hope he’s walking next month. In other news Dakota is currently sitting on the couch and feeding Sue the horse. She has her blanket on her lap and a pillow to help hold Sue to her and she is nursing him. She has also announced that Sue is her little brother. I was told by several other moms not to be surprised if she tried to nurse her baby dolls, but Dakota has never really been into her baby dolls so instead she is finally showing some maternal instincts towards her stuffed horse. It is definitely amusing Graeme and I.  

Talking babies

There are so many marvelous things about being a parent. One of my favorites is watching my kids learn to talk. Granted, all Dalton does right now is babble and giggle. But even those sounds are the precursor to words. You can hear when he is mad or frustrated or delighted with a toy through his little sounds. All too soon those sounds will turn into actual words. One of Dakota’s favorite words to say when she was learning to talk (other than no, mama and dada) was thank you. It was one of the cutest things I have ever heard. For awhile she would ask for something by saying thank you and pointing to what she wanted. This lead to statements like: thank you ball, thank you cookie, thank you sue so on and so on. She has since progressed to actual full sentences and uses the word please instead of thank you (some of the time) ***kids need me, I’ll try and continue more about the wonder of communication a little later***

Imaginary Food

I have a magazine that is full of fun food ideas. I told Dakota to look at all the cakes and cupcakes and pick her favorite. She picked just about all of them of course. My favorite part was watching her snatch at the pages then pretend to gobble down the treats. Her favorites were the clown, butterfly, swimming pool and beach party themed cakes. I think I’ll be picking the butterfly for her birthday party. Graeme and I picked out either the dump truck or the barnyard cake with accompanying pig and duck cupcakes for Dalton’s party next month. Graeme really likes the truck and says he will help me make it. The funniest part about tonight was right after looking through the magazine I asked Dakota if she wanted steak for dinner. “No Mommy. I want cookies for dinner” she seriously replied. I think I might have confused her by showing her pictures of all those amazing goodies then not actually making them right then for dinner. Oh well, maybe some other night I’ll surprise her with cake for dinner. 

Social butterflys

Once again the Bingham family has brought out the social side of our children. Back when Dakota was around a year old Stormy got her to blow a kiss for the first time. Last night Dalton waived bye bye to Ben and Stormy when we were saying our goodbyes after spending the evening with them. It’s such a small simple gesture but I love it. It is the beginning of a lot of new communication developments coming along. I can’t wait to see him learn even more.

Who the kids are

14 months ago I talked alot about writing a book, well still no book- I do have a 10mo old son to show for it though, so at least I haven’t been totally idol. Really though once again I’ve been beating myself up for not spending time writing. Forget all about my grand book idea, now I’m just bummed that I’m not keeping up with the events of motherhood. As I’m writing this Dalton is sitting in his highchair which should buy me another few minuets and Dakota was outside playing in the mud (we got a ton of rain today and my little girl loves a good storm just like her mommy). She has come back inside and is mad at a toy camera for singing instead of making the click sound. The house is once again a total disaster and I have been putting off cleaning it, therefore it will just get even messier. This of course leads me to feel depressed and trapped in my own home. I also tend to feel like a giant FAILURE during these times. I must be a bad wife and a bad mother and a bad woman because I can’t keep the mail sorted, the carpet vacuumed, the dishes clean or the laundry folded. Even as I type this I can feel my blood pressure climbing just thinking about the mess and that I’m doing this instead of cleaning.

Enough of this “oh poor me BS”. It’s time to focus on the two people who make everything better (at least most the time). Dakota is almost 3 and Dalton will be 1 in October. Time has flown by and I can’t get over my disappointment that Dalton won’t be a baby for much longer. I just adore these two. First off let’s talk about Dakota: She started pre-school just last month. What a huge emotional roller coaster that was for me. When I dropped her off she went straight inside and looked around. She had a nervous look on her face but she had been there during the tour and during the info meeting so she was familiar with the class room. I stepped inside and yelled my goodbye to her. I got a small smile for my efforts, but she was too absorbed with checking out the other kids to pay me much attention. I walked back to the car carrying Dalton. I made it to the rear end of my car before I started sobbing. Not just crying, but sobbing. I felt so ALONE without her. I felt like she had just grown up in less than 15 seconds. I held tight to Dalton and got myself under control. Luckily Julie was available to talk my ear off for the next 2 hours. Her teacher Miss Monica says she loves Tues and Thurs because she knows Dakota will run into the room and say “HI ONICA!”.  Miss Misty (our head teacher) says that Dakota is their little cheerleader/helper/shadow. She follows them around telling them “Come on Miss Misty, Come on Onica let’s go!” I love to pull out her folder and look over her art projects and papers that come home with her. I am not ashamed to admit that I have every single one of those papers filed away. She is stubborn and funny and loves animals and has a vivid imagination. Lately that imagination is making bed time a trial sometimes because she comes out of her room to tell us that there is a monster in her bed. We think this is part imagination and part a genius plan to postpone bedtime. Watching Dakota play with her brother is sometimes an amazing joy and also the bane of my existence. In the same 15 minuet time frame she can be the worst big sister and is pushing her brother and yelling “NO IT’S  MY TOY” then she is saying “Hi Handsome” and telling me Dalton wants to play and she is going to share. She has an awesome ability to crack her brother up. She also makes me laugh out loud all the time. She is communicating with me more and more every day. If you would have told me 3 months ago she would be speaking in complete sentences and would know all her colors and describing objects by their colors I wouldn’t have believed you. I just looked up to discover her holding a handful of dry spaghetti which I made her give back to me. I told her she could have one and she told me “I don’t want one, I want lots of ones”. Oh yes this is my daughter, won’t just be happy with one she wants them all or none at all. This is a perfect example of that stubbornness (let’s call it a strong will) that Graeme and I have the opportunity to help guide.

Dalton is my little love bug, also called my attachment baby. He is just a bundle of giggles and he has an adventurous nature (as long as he knows mommy will rescue him). He is a much more difficult baby than Dakota was but he is also offering to me his heart wrapped up in his big grin and big brown eyes so it makes up for it. He is my super nurser and eater. This child will eat the world if we let him. The funny thing is he is still such a little guy. His last weigh in put him in the 10^th percentile. I love to nurse this little guy. He looks at me mid nursing to smile around a mouth full of boob, it just melts my heart. He loves to be held in the baby sling on my hip so he can see everyone around him but not be taken from me. As long as he has easy access to a boob and doesn’t have to be passed around to friends and family he is an easy going baby. Oh but he does have a temper and wants what he wants when he wants it! His sister may be strong willed but she is also a patient person. Dalton doesn’t seem to have a patient bone in his little body. You can even see it in the way he crawls. He is super fast and loves to chase Dakota around the house. He will crawl full speed at me and try to climb me to have a quick snack. I love to watch him attack daddy when he gets home from work. Dalton will speed crawl and then stand up using Graeme’s legs then start to try and climb his legs. He will yell at him until daddy finally picks him up.  I am waiting (a little impatiently) for him to start walking. He will pull himself up to a standing position (sometimes while nursing) but has no interest in actually walking. If you try and hold his hands and walk behind him he immediately sits down to start crawling. I do know that his time will come. He is trying to wave though and is slowly putting that action into use when I tell him hi. He also has some great hand eye coordination. Graeme loves to use him as a baby crane, putting him upside down and letting Dalton pick a toy up from the ground. He’s been sleeping through the night since he was around 7mo old (Thank GOD! I never thought he would). At his 6 month appointment his doctor recommended letting him just cry it out but I knew that wouldn’t work for this baby. I told her we would give him another month or so to figure out that he didn’t need to eat in the middle of the night and sure enough a month later he was sleeping. He has even got to the point that I no longer need to nurse him to sleep. Last week was one of the best bed times ever. I was in the recliner nursing him and he started laughing at me and flirting and smiling. He would just stop nursing and start giggling like I was tickling him. I tried to get him to nurse a bit more but he just wanted to play. So I told him good night and laid him in his crib. He laughed a bit more then took his pacifier into his mouth, turned over and got comfy. I closed the door and didn’t hear a peep out of him until 7am the next morning. Now that is my kind of bedtime! Some parents may swear by the cry it out method but I much prefer the giggle it out method. I am sad that babyhood is ending and that he will be a toddler very soon but I’m also looking forward to see his personality blossom and develop.

I know one thing, my house is dirty, but my home is full of love and happiness and laughter!

 

 

Well Hello There

I've been playing around with the idea of the family blog for awhile now. My issue has been very silly, it just seems a little vain to me to have my own personal blog, I have however gotten over that and I'm just going with it. So today is January 22nd 2013 but for the sake of continuity I've published this with a past date since my blog will actually start back in Sept of 2012 since I have some journal entries which will add some flavor to this history of the QBerry kids. I hope you enjoy.