Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Everyone!I feel a little bad for saying this, but I'm so glad Christmas is over! I have never been so happy to have it be in the past as I was this year. No matter how hard I tried, I just could NOT get into the spirit this year. As I've been blogging about lately, I started the season too exhausted and stressed to enjoy any of it. I did manage to relax a bit after my last post and watch several Christmas movies which, of course, were about stressed out, exhausted mothers who needed reminding about what Christmas is all about, LOL. . .but my mood seemed to forget the messages not long after the movie would end.

It was special, however, that it was Krissa's first Christmas!!!! (She didn't seem to care that I wasn't jovial; she slept through two-and-a-half of our five Christmas celebrations.)

Here are some things to report about her during this fifth month of her life:

She can get out of her carseat if not strapped in. No more using it for a quick seat. :( It had been awhile since she'd napped in it because she's only wanted her crib for a long time.

For the past month+ she has gotten super upset if anything is taken from her. I don't remember Logan being so possessive. Maybe that's why he adjusted so well to having a sister; I've joked that I can tell his future wife that I don't think she'll have to worry about him being the jealous/possessive kind of guy because he hasn't shown that trait in his first 3.5 yrs. But Krissa acts like anything within her reach is her's and if I take it away...well, the sound of her cry would have you think I couldn't have done anything worse!

She's always been fascinated when Joe or I brush our teeth. Maybe she'll be a dentist. :p (By the way, I'd never known a female dentist before but am going to one with Joe on January 19th for the first time here, to a clinic just 5 min away; the sister of a neighbor.)

She has the same toothless smile that Logan used to have during his fifth month. I had even blogged about how at this point he used to smack his lips together like an old man, haha. Her eyes ARE my color! Apparently, they just took a detour. While Logan's turned my color the second his turned brown, her's were a mixture of brown, blue, and amber for awhile -- now they've stopped on my dark brown (compared to Joe's light brown).On my old blog I gave lyrics to the two songs I sang to Logan as a baby. Ever since Krissa was born I've sung a made-up-song to her as well. It goes, "Krissa-Krissa, I love you. Krissa-Krissa, you are cute! Krissa-Krissa, you're my girl. Krissa-Krissa, you're my world. I love you, yes I do, I love you, yes I do, I am your mama, your dad is Joe, Logan's your brother, we all love you so!"

It's cute because I've heard Logan sing this to her when I'm in another room. :-) He doesn't call her "little feather" anymore, but instead "princess." Uh-oh, haha!

He says to her regularly, "We love you, Baby Krissa!"I forgot to mention in my last post that the last time we had gone to church, Logan & I both took a spill! We were walking to our car after the service and there was one small patch of ice in an otherwise completely clear (and snow-free) parking lot. Logan stepped on it and fell so I reached for his hand and pulled him up and then we both took a step forward and it was like on a cartoon when they slide on a banana peel -- our feet completely went out from underneath us and I landed on my behind, while Logan skinned his hand. He cried for a bit even after we got him strapped in the car and were on our way home - then, out of nowhere yelled, "Who did that?!" Joe and I both laughed that he'd thought someone had pushed him down! We were glad to be able to tell him that it was just the ice.

The other day I saw a woman walking four dogs and pointed that out to Logan. He excalimed, "Wow, she must have a lot of hands!" Haha!

Apparently the Pinocchio story during the autumn didn't work...he's really into fibbing lately. I don't like it because he's saying things to my mom and Sandi that aren't true -- they are yes and no, answers to their questions, so not stuff that is obviously false. Some are easy to recognize, at least: he told me that all he does at my mom and stepdad's is watch bad shows and stand by the door waiting for me to pick him up! If there's anyone who does NOT watch bad shows it's my mom and stepdad, and the pictures of him having fun doing various activities aren't at the door. :p

The worst thing was when he told my mom that I tell him that he makes me mean. I was horrified because not only have I never said that, but I try so hard not to say anything that would hurt his self esteem or traumatize him! Now I'm worried what he's going to tell random people and they'll probably believe him. :( Although, lately I keep saying the wrong things to him and in front of him anyway. SIGH. Some days I just want to get in my car and drive somewhere far away by myself. I want to be the best mom to this little guy but seems like I'm going to give him some sort of issue no matter what I do. (Here we are on Christmas Day.)I had thought maybe he was taking more after me as a child (since I can't imagine Joe ever doing anything wrong - and he and his mother had me believing that :p), until I recently put together dvds for Joe's family. His mom asked me to transfer their 3 home videos to discs and I had a BLAST watching them. Joe was aged 6 in the earliest one and there were sooooo many similarities to Logan, I am now convinced Logan is a mini Joe. They talked the same (both their voice and the way/words they said), had the same mannerisms, expressions, personality, and likes/dislikes. It was pretty crazy! I'll have to post some clips here sometime.

I've also been wanting to do some "who does Krissa look more like" photo comparisons...so that's another plan this new year (among others I have in mind on this blog - like getting back to regular, short posts) after I'm done crashing since that still hasn't completely happened. Here's what we've been up to:

After my last post, Friday, December 16th we were invited to a neighborhood birthday party which was a nice surprise. It was the son of Shelly (the woman who won city council); his name is Asher and he turned 4. There were a lot of other kids invited so it was nice for Logan to play with them since these are the boys he's going to go to school with and probably grow up with, and Joe and I got to meet their parents. The parents were all super friendly and comfortable to be around, but the boys were much wilder than Logan is! He kept hiding behind me, and didn't want to play downstairs by himself so Joe pretty much stayed down there with him the whole time while I talked to the parents upstairs. Aside from Shelly, I mainly chatted with Elly who is also a writer/stay at home mom and Jamie who works at Wells Fargo.

Elly has a 5 yr old boy named Nolan, 2 year old boy named Rex, and 8 month old boy named Teddy. We introduced Krissa to Teddy; Elly joked, "This is your future prom date." Meanwhile, Jamie has a just-turned-three year old girl named Haley.

They said there are a ton of 3.5 year old boys in the neighborhood (many more than could make the party) so it'll be fun to meet Logan's future classmates in the upcoming months. They said that in the spring and summer there is much more interaction/socialization in the neighborhood -- but for Joe & I, we are already more social here than we were in either one of our previous neighborhoods where we lived 3-4 years!

Anyway, we had to leave early because Krissa was getting fussy. She wouldn't take the pacifier (as I said last time she had only been taking it 3 times a week), so I ended up throwing all but one away after the weekend was over. I kept one just in case of an emergency, which I have used about once a week since. (Here she is with her first doll!)I hadn't had time to get Asher a birthday gift because I'd just noticed the day before via facebook that I'd been invited. (I really dislike facebook so I just deactivated my page again for awhile. I prefer every other source for staying in touch out there.) But Logan did choose a truck card for Asher and put stickers all over the envelope with stickers inside. Hopefully, Logan will feel more comfortable around him and the other boys as time goes on.On Saturday, December 17 we drove to Wilton (Eastern Iowa) for my stepdad's family's Christmas. The kids did excellent in the car - we didn't have to stop at all during the two-and-a-half hours! Krissa slept the whole time (she's been a sleepy head, not getting up until 10 am every day again) and Logan watched his portable DVD player.

My 24-year-old cousin Marcus brought his girlfriend whose name is Andrea :-) -- they made such a perfect couple, I was not surprised to learn that they got engaged on December 30th! They are getting married on June 30th! (They met while at UNI but didn't hang out - were just acquaintances, getting their teaching degrees. Marcus graduated in 2009 and spent his first year out of college doing long term subbing at a couple of different schools, then got a full-time position during the fall of 2010 for fifth graders in Cedar Rapids, IA. The other fifth grade teacher was Andrea! They became friends over the course of the year, started dating at the end of the school year in May 2011, and Marcus proposed in the library of their school (her fav place) after decorating it with roses, etc. He called to tell me the news which was much better than finding out via facebook which is how my brother told me his news. :p)

We had a nice meal and opened presents, then another nice meal before it was time to return home. (We also celebrated my birthday there as you can see in the following picture.)On the evening of Sunday, December 18 I noticed Logan was catching a cold. Aside from a brief one that he had after Krissa was born, he hadn't caught a virus since his pneumonia last year. With all of the touching and kissing and hugging and breathing on Krissa that he does, it was no surprise on Monday, December 19 that her brand new immune system caught it. I had a feeling she wasn't going to make it 8 months like Logan did before his first cold, but thankfully at 5 months old she handled it well. The hard part was that she had diarrhea so I was changing 3 diarrhea-diapers every hour. When I wasn't doing that, I was wiping her and Logan's noses that ran non-stop. Thankfully Joe and I didn't get sick.

Tuesday, December 20 I was happy that Krissa woke up without a black line/spot on her tongue that had appeared the day before. It had kind of freaked me out and so I had wondered if I should call the doctor. I hadn't given her any medicine or anything (I'd read online it could be a reaction to medicine but all that she's had in her life is oragel and that was only a couple of times at 4 months old), and it seemed weird to suddenly get a birthmark (which happens to some people at a few months old), so that left only a couple of other options: a fungus due to her being sick or a cut from a toy. Joe thinks the latter, I still have no idea, but all that matters is that it didn't bother her and had disappeared the next day.Wednesday, December 21 was my birthday! I turned 32 years old. I felt young this year. Thirty-two seems better than my last few birthdays. Once I got to 28 I felt I was old because I was at the end of the decade (same with 29), and then 30 & 31 was at the beginning of "the next" decade, but now at 32 it seems like a long way to 40 (my next old). :p

When Joe got home from work we went to Bravo's for a nice Italian dinner. My stepdad had picked up Logan on his way home from work so Joe and I "sort of" had the evening to ourselves (although these days I feel I need more of a break from Krissa than Logan since he gives me plenty of space since he plays on his own every day and is self sufficient).

Joe gave me some nice gifts, including the Something Borrowed DVD which we watched that night since he hadn't seen it. It felt like forever since I wrote this post and watched it at the theater in May. He also gave me my annual chocolate extreme blizzard cake from DQ. Although, do you see what's wrong with this picture? :-)I was like, "Joe, my name is spelled wrong!" Yeah, after 11.5 years together and 8.5 years of marriage, LOL.

On Thursday, December 22nd Joe got off work early and we picked up Logan at a halfway point, then went on to Newton to Joe's mom's house. We ate their annual Christmas meal of potato soup with Joe's mom's friend Sue and AnMarie's HS friend Mindy and then decorated the big tree. We were going to spend the night, but that week Krissa had started getting up again (after two weeks of sleeping 11 hrs straight through) since catching the cold and I just knew it would be a bad night if we stayed. (She recovered after a week of catching it and has since woken up at 3:30 am for 10 minutes to nurse until she's up for good at 10 am. She nurses again at noon, then at 2 pm before taking a half-hour nap, nurses again at 4 pm, then at 6 pm before she takes another half an hour nap, nurses again at 8 pm, and finally at 9:30 pm she falls asleep for her bedtime - so that answers my question in my previous post about her nap and eating schedule: still nurses 8 times a day and takes both an afternoon and an evening nap.)We got up early the next morning, Friday, December 23, to drive back over to Joe's mom's house (we took the dogs - by the way, Bella had gained an entire pound since starting her vet prescribed food the end of October but thankfully has lost half of it. :p She was sneaking Cosmo's food in addition to her's but we've been watching her closely.)

It was a good thing we hadn't spent the night there because Krissa wouldn't nap the entire time we were there! She kept acting like, "This is not my house, how can you think of putting me down?" Seeing how she is with needing me all of the time, I am just thankful that at home she doesn't do the same thing because she could make the nights pretty bad if she wanted to! The closest she came was dozing off for 10 min on my chest.

But we all had a great Christmas celebration there. Logan's favorite gift was a real truck for him to drive! He's been having a blast with it since it was not a white Christmas.We snacked all day, then ate supper at Maid Rite and headed home. Oh, we also stopped for 5 min at Grife's house to "carol" because Sandi had some gifts for them. So now I can say I've gone caroling. :p

Saturday, December 24 was Christmas Eve. AnMarie was flying back to San Francisco (her partner Jewlia didn't come this year) so she and Sandi met us for lunch at The Pizza Ranch (where I still have an addiction) and then AnMarie saw our house for the first time. (The pic below was Krissa on Christmas Eve.)That evening Joe and I wrapped our Christmas presents and we tracked Santa for Logan. Even though we always tell him each year that Santa is pretend because we want the main focus to be Jesus' birth and don't want to lie to him/have it be upsetting to learn that Santa is not real, so far it has not taken the fun out of it. We still put out milk and cookies and he gets excited. (I think his fibbing lately shows that he doesn't quite get the difference between real and pretend.)It was cute, he saw that some toys were near the fireplace and so he wanted to move them so that Santa wouldn't trip and get hurt. Then, he actually hurried to bed.

On Christmas morning, Sunday, December 25, he got up at 7:30 am and so Joe, Krissa & I did, too. Logan was disappointed that Santa left some bites of the FIVE cookies that Logan had set out for him, LOL. It was fun opening presents and nice not having to go anywhere the rest of the day. I made the cheese bread for my third time, yum yum. We ate that with lasagna for our meal.

Before reading the story of Baby Jesus together, Logan made a yellow-with-chocolate-frosting birthday cake for Jesus. :-) That is something I've always wanted to make a tradition with my kids. Next year I hope to add volunteering to that list. Whether it be at a homeless shelter like the couple that introduced us to their church, or buying a bunch of toys for children in need which my cousin Bridget organized this year -- those are how I always want to be celebrating Christmas and every year I wish I was doing that. There's always been something in the past that has prevented me from doing those things -- usually because I'm committed to other people's schedules or my kids have been too little. But now that we're living in Iowa (less traveling/commitment to other's schedules) and I'm done having kids (and they're old enough to participate), I don't see why I can't start making that my Christmas tradition!

Monday, December 26 Joe didn't have to work and so he took Logan to his mom's house to set up some things Sandi got for Christmas. Logan ended up staying there for the night and then she brought him back over on Tuesday, December 27.

On Wednesday, December 28 I went to my dad's house to water his plants because he'd been in Michigan for a couple of weeks. Afterward, I met my mom at a place called The Playground in Ankeny. It is similar to Bounce-U in Omaha, only even bigger with other types of indoor playground equipment in addition to the bounce houses. I was really looking forward to having an afternoon with just Logan. As I had recently blogged, I have been really missing our one-on-one time lately. He has just been so incredibly loving (as usual) and I just don't want to miss out on any second of his life! I have tears in my eyes as I write this because it seems like every time I look at him, he's older than the time before and I'm so afraid that someday I'll wake up and he'll be gone. (Okay the tears are flowing now.) I can't believe how much he matured between the summer and now. He's almost like a different person. Having two kids really does make them BOTH grow up faster. (I can't believe Krissa will be 6 months old in two weeks.)Unfortunately, it was so incredibly crowded (due to it being winter break), that Logan did not want to play much. :( He was so frightened by all of the rowdy kids, just like he'd been at Asher's birthday party. :( He's always been so comfortable being around kids his entire life that it's a bummer, but makes sense since he hasn't had as many interactions since quitting preschool and leaving our Omaha playdates in July. I hope that he will get his confidence back because it broke my heart to see him start crying because some boys pushed by him as they ran up a treehouse he was climbing. A little girl had finally gotten him to come along with her (after I had asked him if he could pick one thing to play on, what would it be; he'd chosen the treehouse so I'd been encouraging him for almost the whole hour we were there). He didn't get hurt, he was just overwhelmed. Even after he'd stopped crying, he didn't want to play anymore and insisted we go home. It used to be that nothing and no one ever bothered him.

By then Krissa was crying as well (she'd done well for my mom, otherwise, though which is better than a few nights prior Joe had watched her while I'd gone to the grocery store and I came home to find him using the words "stressed" and "depressed" which he never does. I admit a small part of me wanted to laugh: "now you see!" :p). So, even though it was almost $8 and my mom had paid, I said we could leave but suggested we go to a park since it was a nice day - or the library. But Logan was adamant he didn't want to do either. He wanted to go to KayKay's (my mom's house). I informed him that I wasn't going there, that he could either come with me or he could go there by himself. He said he wanted to go by himself.

So he did, and then I spent the evening depressed because instead of getting breaks from Krissa, I just keep getting breaks from Logan (opposite of what I want). I was also having cramps like I was going to start my period, which I'd been having off and on for the past 2-3 weeks. But they were really bad that evening - I took ibuprofen for the first time - so Logan ended up spending the night at my mom and stepdad's house. That's when I realized that the following day was equivalent to when I'd started my period with Logan! (It had been 14 days after he turned 5 months old.)

Well, Thursday, December 29th came and went without it -- but guess what? I started on Friday, December 30th (15 days after Krissa turned 5 months old)! I was so happy! For the past month I had felt my mood take a total nosedive. Most recently everything about me has resembled the month that I stopped breastfeeding Logan which basically means everything is at its worst. I was worried that if I felt like this now (since I'm still exclusively nursing) then maybe this would go on for the next 6 months!!!

Now that my body has returned to normal, I'm hopeful that the rest of me will straighten out now rather than later. For whatever reason, it appears my hormones decided to do that terrible dance NOW instead of after I'm done breastfeeding. (Thankfully, my cramps stopped as soon as my period started. I was disappointed because I didn't have any during the 3 or 4 periods that I'd had while nursing Logan, so hopefully they won't get worse once I stop breastfeeding. I've decided I'm totally fine with making 2 kids permanent, but first we'll be doing research to find out whether it'd be better for me to be the one to make the move rather than Joe, considering my history. We'll see how things go for me over this next year.)But back to the 29th -- so I went to Ankeny to pick up Logan and this time he did want to go to the library, so my mom watched Krissa while he and I spent an hour at the library near her house and had a great time. He showed me the train table, lego table, cars, and we read books. It was another nice day out so then we went to the park. We held hands as we swung our arms...it was a perfect afternoon with my little boy (and Krissa survived).

That evening I FINALLY worked out (did the eliptical) for the first time since Krissa was born! It felt great to start exercising again. That, and eating healthier, are on my list of new year's resolutions so I plan to do a strict schedule starting tomorrow, Monday, January 2nd. I can tell my metabolism has started slowing down (I think that happened after I started having periods again after having Logan, too) and I don't want to gain all my weight back!

On the 30th, my stepdad didn't have to work so he and my mom came over here to celebrate Christmas. Logan and I were going to go to the play area at the mall and have lunch, but they didn't end up getting here until 1:30, and since Joe was able to arrive home at 2:30 to watch ISU in the bowl game, we are saving that for another day.

ISU lost that final game of the season, but we had a nice time opening gifts, and we ordered dinner from a new BBQ place near us (Jethro's). New Years Eve (Saturday, December 31st) we were going to start Krissa on cereal, but my dad and stepmom called to say they were on the road home from Michigan and wanted to come over the next day to celebrate our final Christmas. (Unfortunately, I had JUST taken down our tree and decorations -- never have I done that before the first week of January since we always celebrate Christmas into the new year, but they hadn't been sure when they were coming back.) Our house was disaster (and Seb had never been here before) so, instead, I focused on cleaning all day. But we DID put away all of her bottles in storage since she hasn't had one since that one day that Logan fed her, and there's no point in having her take any now that she's nearing six months (she had about 20 in her life but never loved them). Logan doesn't need straw or sippy cups even when we're on-the-go anymore so I am giving ALL of his to her from now on! I also was able to return my hands free pump since I could never get comfortable with it. I only pumped 2 oz at most each time I used it!!! I was convinced it was defective, so thankfully Medela let me send it back to them with a full refund for my mom who bought it for me.

Joe and I watched The Help after our kids went to bed - I'd read the book in Sept and it's been my new favorite book ever since, so Joe's mom got the DVD for me for Christmas (I had given her the book for her birthday). We watched the ball fall and then went to bed.

My dad and stepmom came over at noon on Sunday, January 1st and we went out to eat to the Cheesecake Factory, then opened presents and hung out before they headed home. (The Bears finally won again!) Joe gets tomorrow off from work so that will be the day that we start Krissa on cereal -- I'll post a video to show how she does!

Until then, I'll end with the posts that I wrote at this point with Logan. (By the way, today I decided - after a year of when I concluded that blog - to take it out of search engines and make it private like this one. I am happy for the success and recognition that it received over the years, but also with that has come spam comments that aren't necessary anymore since I'm no longer receiving compensation.)

Not Allowed To Bring My Son To A Wedding? (This was actually about the couple who I wrote about who had their baby in October after two days of labor. I found out the reason their daughter was in NICU for 5 days was because her lungs weren't working at birth. She didn't get air for awhile and was not responding well once she did, so they rushed her to a different hospital to be on a cooling blanket in order to heal her brain. She had to have an MRI after 3 days of being on a brain monitor but thankfully has been fine since. They, of course, have been in absolute love with her. Anyway, I remember several people had said that they thought she might understand my POV once she had a baby. After hearing that story I have a feeling that she would be more sympathetic nowadays to my having a five month old and not wanting to leave him in another state to attend her wedding. Even if it happened now (living in the same place) with Krissa it would be impossible since she doesn't take a bottle! It's funny how many people have come to that post because they've searched things like, "can you believe I can't take my baby to a wedding?!" Others have come by searching, "Should I allow babies at my wedding?" Who knows, maybe my blog post helped change one soon-to-be-bride's mind.)

Logan Vs Me

Feeding Solids Won't Help Your Baby Sleep Better (I hope this doesn't happen to Krissa)

April 18 (I would like to do this same thing for Krissa's July 15th -- coming soon!)