Things Eli Won't Do....

I obviously ruined picture taking with Eli in his short, first year. These days getting a picture of this child requires that he be engaged in something else or asleep. For the love, he will not just sit and smile for 1 millisecond. This is the thing he won't do that I wish I could change more than anything.

The back of his head...of course...

Coming in at a close second, Eli won't nap. Well, he won't nap mid-afternoon...He waits until about 5 o'clock and naps until 8 and then wants to stay up until 11. I don't know what to do. He doesn't do this every day, usually just about once a week. But still... it's rough on Daniel since he insists on his dad being the one who puts him to sleep and he has to get up about 6 hours later for work.

Grocery shopping was too daunting of a task for the poor boy...

Number 3...he won't watch any other movie except for Cars and Cars 2. I can't tell you how many times I have heard Mater say, "Shoooot" or Lightning McQueen bust out a, "Ka-CHOW!" But what makes it really precious is that he gets out all 20 of his "Cars" cars and makes them race and do the things that are going on in the movie. He has characters from both movies and usually keeps them separated if they aren't in both movies. And they all must stay in a straight line, bumper to bumper. His obsession for Cars has resulted in a Cars themed "big boy room." He is so extremely proud of it and shows it off whenever we have guests.

4...The boys won't turn down food. This excludes actual meal times except for breakfast. Lunch, and dinner it's hard to get him to eat...mostly because he eats ALL. DAY. LONG. Somehow he has managed to stay a little bean pole and eat all day long.

I would like to point out that in both these pictures, it is an actual meal time. But guess what. Both meals are take-out...Burger King and sushi. Maybe it's my cooking?

And the final thing he won't do is my favorite. He will not let me cook alone. He sits on the counter just about every night and helps me cook... which is usually just sampling biscuit dough, cake batter, or noodles... It's precious though. There will be one day when he will only come into the kitchen to grab a snack and leave... (heart is breaking right now)...

Tubes...

So next month Mr Eli is getting tubes. This makes me so sad, and also a little relieved. Sad that he has to be put under anesthesia and relieved that I am not crazy for always insisting to doctors that Eli is having issues with his ears. Developmentally, Eli has always been pretty ahead in the game. Motor skills, height, weight...etc. All except for speaking. When we went in for his 18 month appointment the pediatrician was asking about his vocabulary. And I was like... what vocabulary?!

At 18 months old, most kids have about 50 words they can use. Eli had about 5, max. The doc then referred us up to the ENT, they ran some tests and voila... His inner ear has received so much trauma that it isn't working. The last ear infection he had was the Thanksgiving before last. So my poor boo has been walking around hearing everything like the adults from Charlie Brown.

After his appointment today, we had to run a few errands. Eli was obviously exhausted from sitting around a doctor's office and having lunch at BK and just could not handle the daunting task of grocery shopping. And I hate the cart we had to use but it was the only one that was big enough to shop with both boys.

I so wish that I had something interesting to blog about. It's already mid-January and this is my first blog of the year...I was really hoping I would be doing more. We have been in and out of Dr's offices and the ER about 6 or 7 times since the new year began, so maybe that's where all my time is going... along with breathing treatments every 6 hours and antibiotic and steroid administrations. Can you tell it's been a BLAST over here? I am SO ready for warmer weather. We are going crazy staying cooped up in this house! But staying in has forced me to do LOTS of organizing, purging, playing and laughing with my babies (not forced), and somewhere in between having supper started and cooked when Daniel gets home. Which brings me to this... we have literally only eaten out about 4 times in the past month and a half...most of those meals have been either Burger King or the pizza place here on base, actually all of them have been! Daniel and I are SO bad about eating out. We use to eat out at least once a week after Eli was born. Before he came along...it was more like 3 or 4 times a week. Yikes! I have definitely noticed that cooking at home (even when you aren't cooking "healthy" meals) you are still eating a lot less calories than you would at a restaurant. And last night a friend and I started working out... OMG, I am sooo out of shape. I ran about a quarter of a mile to meet up with her and was totally out of breath. We walked a little and then started running again and I KNOW she was probably thinking my fat a** was slowing her down. No...probably not, she's really nice. But I know she probably felt sorry for me. We ran to the gym got on the ellipticals, got our fitness on and when I stepped of that machine, holy crap. I probably looked like a drunk person trying to walk sexy. Jell-o legs. We worked out on some weight machines, clashing the weights with every rep... And got some ugly looks from muscle guys. A guy who stands about 5'2 wearing those toe shoes asked if we minded sharing a machine with him... We just gave it to him. Oh and btw, he had gel in his hair. Who does that? Bleh... anyways, I have told you all this to tell you THIS:

I. Am. So. Sore. Today.

I love my babies, but holy cow. Being pregnant did some horrible things to my body. Things that they should show you in sex ed in HS... That's the kind of stuff they need to be showing these young girls. Then they wouldn't all be graduating with a newborn on their hips. But then again... Those young girls bounce back quick. Maybe that is the way to do it... OK, I am rambling now.

In less than 1 month my little Eli is going to be 2 years old! It seems just like yesterday he was Andrew's age rolling around on the floor. He is growing so, so fast. I'm going to go hug him now...and change his diaper. I am so ready for potty training. Diapers were not meant to hold some things....

Oh, goodbye 2011

For the happiness of my dear fans...err, my mom... I am writing one final blog for 2011. I hope that I do much better in the upcoming year. I'm not really going to go all into everything that has happened in the past 4 months, but to sum it up we:

Welcomed Daniel home from his deployment.

Spent Thanksgiving with family and had Christmas with them.

Got back to England on Dec 1.

FINALLY unpacked all of our boxes and have pretty much settled into our house.

Had a very special Christmas with our sweet little boys.

And hit the terrible twos like no ones business. Yowza...

It's amazing how quickly Eli warmed up to Daniel after he got home. Literally took about 30 minutes and they've been inseparable since. Andrew of course loves EVERYONE so it was no surprise that he took right up with his daddy. It's so funny seeing Eli & Andrew/Daniel & Eli/Daniel & Andrew play with one another.

Speaking of my boys, Andrew is rocking a solid 20 lbs and Eli is at about 25/26. They are both wearing the same size diaper and it's pretty funny. Pretty soon Andrew is going to be roughing up Eli and we won't be able to do anything about it.

I was going to try and sum up the past few months in pictures but blogger thinks it would be best not to. Oh well, chances are you're my friend on Facebook and you've seen them all anyway. Goodbye 2011. I wish you all lots of happiness, love, and good health in 2012.

SSMoTBUT

In case you're not up on all the abbreviations you find on online discussions boards and mommy blogs the title of this post is "Semi-Single Mommy of Two Babies Under Two." It took me forever to figure out what DH, DD, DS and LO stand for. In case you don't know either- Dear Husband/Son/Daughter and Little One. I know that no one like to read the "today we (insert long list of boring things you did today)" type posts but today has been such an accomplishment. It started out AWFUL with Eli waking up like the Tazmanian Devil on steroids after losing all his money in Vegas. My precious mother decided to go in to work a couple hours late and helped me tame the beast. After his belly was filled he was a whole other child. He was placing dropped pacis in the babies mouth, throwing away wet diapers (I'm afraid he would play in a dirty one...) and just being a ham. We dropped my mom off at work and headed to the Health Dept to pick up Andrew's birth cert and I'll be darned if Eli didn't sit in his chair like the champ of a big brother I always knew he would be. He got up only to flirt with the clerk and hold Andrew's bottle while I paid. As if that weren't enough, he ate a whole Rice Crispy treat on the way home while keeping the part he was holding in the wrapper. NO STICKY FINGERS! E haaaaaates sticky fingers. He passed out about 2 miles from the house and is currently still asleep in the bed. Am I dreaming? Can it really be this easy to be a SSMoTBUT? If I can get 1 good day like this every 3 weeks it's totally worth it... But then again, it is only 11 am.

It's been one week

since you looked at me...

Or rather since the number of lives I am responsible for has doubled. It's been really easy and really hard at the same time. Eli came home from his grandparents Sunday evening and he was not prepared for the transition he was about to make. After two or three hours he finally decided he would cooperate and be the good little Eli he always is.

Night 1: (@ home)

A sinch. Andrew woke up twice. Ah, such a perfect baby.

Night 2:

Hell. Andrew woke up every hour on the hour and nursed for about 40 minutes. That means I was getting about 20-30 minutes of sleep at a time. Not cool, Andrew... not. cool.

Nights 3-5:

They have gradually gotten better, he is eating at a predictable every 2-2.5 hours. Much better

So let me just say... Daniel is the best daddy ever and he is sorely missed this time around. He would get up with me in the night and change Eli after he ate and heat up bottles or anything else I needed. My mom... she is a heavy sleeper. But she does keep Eli entertained during Andrew's meal times so I am always thankful when his 30 pound self isn't jumping on me and slapping my very sore chest when I'm feeding the baby.

On Monday we took Andrew back to the Dr for his first check-up and his weight was only 2 oz away from when he was first born. He lost 8 in the hospital. I told the Dr that he wakes up in the night sometimes like he is gasping for air. I either thought it may be because of reflux or he truly wasn't breathing. They sent us to home health and for the next week and a half Andrew will be hooked up to a monitor that keeps up with his heart rate and breathing. If he quits breathing an alarm goes off. Last night it went off... I'm not sure what the next step will be when we get the results but please say a prayer that it isn't serious or even anything at all.

Now that I think I'm caught up on all of our exciting news I've got to go love on my babies.

Day 4

It has been 4 days since sweet little Andrew has entered into the world. It seems like these past few days have been a whirlwind and lasted forever at the same time.

I went in Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at midnight for the induction and was all hooked up and ready to go at 1 am. And can I please just ask, is it just me or does everyone always get stuck with drop dead gorgeous nurses when it comes time for the most embarrassing and exposing thing you will ever do in your life? Why can't I get the old fat lady? Why do I have to be the one who has to make the skinny, gorgeous nurse feel even better about herself?

Anyways, around 2 I was really feeling the contractions so I got some pain medicine via IV and it helped...for about 45 minutes. Not wanting to get my epidural just yet, I asked for another does of the apparently Tylenol strength medicine to course through my veins. I waiting 20 minutes and it never kicked in. I called the nurse and told her I would like my epidural NOW and I was all kinds of jacked up around 4 AM when I was numb from my chest down. At 5:30/6 I was checked again and I was only at a 4. I called my MIL and FIL who were on their way to let them know that it would probably still be a while and since they were in Sylacauga not to worry about speeding. My inlaws arrived a little before 8 AM and then my Dr came in shortly after asking everyone to leave so he could check my progress. Everyone walks out and as soon as he checked me my water broke. Even still I figured I was at a 7 at the most. My progress with Eli was extremely slow so I wasn't getting my hopes up this time around.

Well guess what, it was time to start pushing. My mom and MIL came back into the room and were informed to get into their battle stations. We got Daniel on Skype and I started pushing. After barely 20 minutes later, the greatest feeling I had ever expeienced only 18 months ago was back. I was a mommy to a perfect little 6 lbs 15 oz little boy with lots of black hair. Daniel was able to stay connected for over 2 hours and experience everything with us. We are barely ever able to stay connected for 20 minutes so it was such a blessing that there was no interruption with the not so dependable Skype.

My dad was at home with Eli, who normally is up with the sun. At 8 am my dad was still trying to pry Eli out of bed. They got to the hospital just after Kangaroo time, which was really awesome and something I didn't have with Eli. E was not too impressed with the newest addition to our little family but was pretty upbeat about all of his new Big Brother prizes waiting on him. BY THE WAY, this was the FIRST time that Eli and I had EVER been apart over night. And to make matter worse I wouldn't be coming home until Friday and he went home with my inlaws Friday night and will be coming home sometime this afternoon.

I have missed that kid SO much. I have gotten a little glimpse of how sad it is for Daniel not getting to hug and kiss him every day like I am blessed to do. Only 3 more months until he is home with us and we journey back to the mother land. By the way, Andrew will be the same age Eli was when we first moved.