Rowan is TWOOO

Rowan has been so hyped up about his birthday for the last month. He has particularly been excited about turning TWO! He exclaims it loudly whenever the topic comes up and adorably tries to hold down his other fingers so just two are up. He learns so quickly! He also has the memory of an elephant, particularly if whatever he is remembering involved food of some sort. He's for sure my child. 

What does two look like on Rowboat? 

He's still a tall kid. He was in the 96% at his two year appoint for height and the 75% for weight.

He loves to eat. Our previously picky eater has morphed into a child who will try almost everything we ask him to. Remember when 70% of his diet was cheese? No longer! His favorites even include vegetables right now. He's gotten so good at at least trying a bite of something on his plate. He even tried lettuce the other day which is not exactly easy to eat for someone who would jump in front of a train for a piece of chocolate. He loves cauliflower (but hates broccoli), applesauce, guacamole, OATS (he is crazy obsessed with oatmeal right now. It's what he requests for breakfast every single morning) bananas, those fruit/veggie pouches, pop pops (puffed cheetos) still hearts cheese, chocolate, ice-cream,  blueberries apparently (he scarfed down about half a pound while we picked them the other day), watermelon…you get the picture. A better list would probably be things he doesn't eat: 

* broccoli

* beef ( can't blame him there)

* beans (he will try one or two at a time. I think he has the hardest time if the food we are eating is a blend of multiple groups aka chili. Once I separate it into just black beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, etc he will attempt to try it)

Rowan never. stops. talking. He's always been a babbler, but now that he is gaining massive amounts of vocabulary that people can actually understand, he talks nonstop. We even hear him talk in his sleep most nights. I've been less able to devote my entire focus to him lately so there has been a dramatic increase in saying "mommy! Mommy! MOMMY! LAUREN!" lately. I can't believe he resorts to my first name when he's getting extra ornery that I am not meeting his demands. Who is this kid? It's even been moments where I am actually looking him straight in the eyes, on his level and patiently asking him "yes? What? How can I help you? WHAAT?" and he will still just say Mommy! Mommy! over and over. I've gone to bed the past few nights swearing I can hear him saying my name over the monitor only to be told by Mike that I am hearing things. It's incredible how many words he can learn in just 24 hours. At Lyra's one month, I told the pedicatirican we would see her again in a few weeks for Rowan's appointment. She smiled and said, "Of course! We will see you for his 3 year? Wait, 2 1/2?" When I said it was for his two year appointment she was floored. She told me she was so surprised he could speak so well for a two-year-old and I told her if she only knew what car rides with his mouth are like. 

Rowan still loves his binky. I am completely unwilling to give it up right now. I mentioned his non-stop talking? When I am about to lose my mind while driving, I just shove a binky back to him and it will sort of keep him quiet for a minute or two. He usually starts to talk around it though which makes it almost worse because I can't understand him which upsets this feisty kid of mine. They also are the only reason we are getting some sleep. Speaking of sleep, he's still sort of a disaster. He will have 3-4 days of sleeping through the night and then will be up once for 3 nights. We haven't been able to pinpoint what keeps making him change. He has been resisting naps lately. Resisting sounds stronger than what actually happens. He simply talks to himself and other unseen friends for two hours. It's nice that I still get the break, but it's also frustrating that he isn't getting the sleep he pretty obviously stands in need of by the end of the day. 

We baked cookies for our neighbor whose husband passed away. Rowan really, really wanted to eat all the cookies. 

Every morning I get Rowan dressed in his room then bring him into ours to help me get Lyra dressed. He always gets so excited when he hears her from his room while we are getting ready and will run into our room the second he can saying " Hi sister! Hi Sister!' in the cutest voice you ever did hear. 

He still my little empath. He is really affected by my mood and it reminds me to try and keep my emotions in check to make everyone happy. When mom is happy, everyone is happy, right? He is kind of ridiculous when it comes to crying about things. We've taken to going on family walks after dinner and Rowan will just run around the whole neighborhood. Two days in a row he fell hard on that sweet knee of his and barely shed a tear. Contrast his obvious physical pain, to the waterfall of tears he cried when a friend pulled on his shirt. We are working on being a little less sensitive. He is such a tender, sweet little soul though. I don't think that part of his personality is going anywhere soon.

We go to the zoo about once a week. He loves riding the train, riding the carousel and playing in the splash pad. 

His picture that they have of him in nursery. At some point in the past few months, he decided that when we tell him to smile it means open your mouth as big as you can 

He is such a storyteller. He will say a few key words and we are usually able to string the rest of the story together. He has told the shirt pulling story quite a bit. He also talks nonstop about trains, the inflatable men in front of car dealerships, ice-cream, sister and his favorite friends. He still loves basketball, but has recently been deterred from playing quite as much by his newfound love, the train table. His Grandma Didi (not sure on what the spelling of that might be) and Papa gave it to him. He plays happily with it for at least 30 minutes a day, usually more.

He adores his little sister so much. His role as big brother melts my heart. 

He got his arm stuck in a chair at our friend Tutu's house. We had to resort to using Vasoline to getting it out despite her insistence that it was fine for us to just cut the wood. 

He is so, so SO handsome. I still can't get over how beautiful he is. I would kill for his hair. Those soft waves of his have me swooning on the daily. He also lucked out big time with such gorgeous eyes and long, dark eyelashes. His smile is incredibly contagious and charming.

Speaking of family, Rowan is so spoiled. He adores his family members and talks about them constantly too. We celebrated his birthday this weekend and it was four fun filled days of partying. My aunts and parents came up on Friday night were we dined on a huge failure of a dinner I made. He was so excited to see everyone. Saturday we packed all possible fun a two-year-old could dream of into 24 hours. We went to breakfast where J and J bought him some humongous chocolate chip pancakes and his favorite breakfast food item, sausage. We then went to the mall where he got to ride a train, ride every single motorcycle/car thing they had, and pick out a bag of candy from the candy store. After nap, we went to the hotel pool where he got to "swim". Rowan doesn't really care for actually swimming. He would much prefer to just kick a ball into the pool or hot tub. Less anxiety to be had about him drowning, but so much more for him slipping and banging his head. He picked Red Robin for dinner since they have fries and would sing him happy birthday. Row was a bit of a monster during dinner. I think he was so overwhelmed by the whole day and was pretty tired too. Mike made an awesome looking basketball cake for after dinner that made Row's whole year. He was absolutely drunk after eating cake. He was so tired and kept toasting to his birthday. It was hysterical!
Monday we had his friend party and he had a blast again. A bunch of his cute friends came over for pizza, ice-cream cones, a piñata and general playing with the bajillions of toys Row has. It was so hot outside at 7:30pm which I hadn't really thought it would be. Fail. I also started feeling really dizzy and sick which made me a terrible host. Poor Mike had to do it all. Turns out my illness was mastitis which is a story for another time. Mastitis doesn't mess around though. Wow. Such a bad way to end is birthday by spending seven hours wide awake in the ER. He didn't seem to mind and has been weirdly happy and fine today despite sleeping four total hours last night.

Riding one of the mall machines that his Aunt Jojo kept hemorrhaging quarters for

His face seemed to say "Who let HER into my party?!"

He's so funny! This awesome Darth Vadar chair was a birthday present from his Mimi and Papa and he love to lounge in it like this. 

I LOVE this picture. We have the absolute best friends here in Toledo. 

It's incredible that within 60 seconds I can go from believing Rowan might be the most difficult child that ever lived to being the sweetest, smartest, most perfect human being. Sometimes when Mike asks how the day went, it's hard to really say because there were so many moments of chaos coupled with peace and joy. Rowan is like my own little sun (son - haha). My whole world revolves around that incredibly happy, spirited kiddo. He brings so much warmth and joy to our home and I marvel everyday that I get to be his mother. Happy Birthday Rowboat!

Lyra 1 Month

My little girl is 1 month old! We made it! We survived! We deserve a badge or trophy or something. The real people deserving an award are our families. I don't think we could have done it without them. I remember a few weeks before Lyra both our poor moms were sounding like they wouldn't be able to come help due to some health problems. We then were looking at my sister leaving before Lyra was born if I wasn't induced. We. Would. Have. DIED. Seriously though. I remember telling someone that people have new babies all the time without help and are fine. I don't know who those people are, but they must be from Mount Olympus. Or at least have a summer cabin there. After all our family left, Mike had a week off of work and he was the only way I am still standing (ahem, is the only reason). 

I make it sound like it's been rough, but it luckily hasn't. Lyra has been a great sleeper. She has been pulling four hour stretches since my milk came in and has done three six-hour stretches in a row. Bless her beautiful self. She's a great eater too! We had a run in with blood blisters and thrush, but it luckily cleared up after a week. She's already pulling in at 11.5 lbs, in 3 month clothes and barely fits in size 1-2 diapers. I was really hopeful in the beginning that she would grow at a more reasonable pace than Rowan, but it seems these two babies of ours are intent on becoming giant as quickly as possible. She's crazy strong. She's rolled over TWICE! I thought the first time was a fluke, but she did it again a few days after. She's keeping me on my toes. 

She's also an extremely mellow baby. Rowan was definitely more smiley and interactive from the beginning whereas she seems less amused by most things. She's undeniably sweet, just less interested in people than her brother. Speaking of, Rowan adores her. She has a pretty rad big brother. 

I haven't been able to tell ultimately if she's an easier newborn than Row was or if it's just that we've been to this rodeo before. It's also different to have a newborn to compare to a toddler who is infinitely harder in essentially every aspect. 

The "hardest" part so far is that Lyra has clogged tear ducts. We were going to bless her a few Sunday's ago while all of our family was here, but she woke up at 4AM with a river of what looked like pus down her face. I panicked thinking our daughter was going to be blind. Of course it happened on a Sunday when we couldn't just pop over to the pediatrician's office and ended up at the ER where they tested her to see if she picked up an STD on her way out of the birth canal. Luckily none of my many venereal diseases were passed on. Now she just leaks gunk from her eyeballs every five minutes. It makes me sad because I get nervous when people want to look at her and think they are going to be horrified by her crusty eyes. The worst part is that it could go on for up to a YEAR before they would do anything about it. 

Little Lyra Rose is waking up. We sure love our littlest Warden! 

We had to go back to the ped office for a weight check a few days after she was born. It was so stupid because my milk had come in on the Sunday night after she was born and our first appointment was Monday morning so of course she wasn't back up to birth weight yet. 

Her poor little eye. This was 1/16 of the puddle that was originally pouring down her face

What my mornings look like these days 

Why So Serious?

This was right before our family/newborn shoot. She cried more during the one hour we were there then she has in her four weeks of life. It was a blast

Double swaddles. Row loves doing all the baby things

Her first three hour Sunday 

She's already really good at grabbing onto us. She's an adorable little monkey