Sleepy Head

In the mornings I have to wake Tessa up (most of the times). She is usually pretty tired and I carry her to the bathroom to go potty. This morning in her half-sleep stupor as she was sitting on the potty she asked "Where's Daddy?" I said "Daddy's at work" so then she said "Well, let's go see him! Come on, let's go. Let's go, Mommy." Like it was no big deal to drive to Mobile to go see Daddy.

Roly Poly and Water Bug

Ellis is rolling his little butt all over the place. Several mornings I have gone into his room and he is asleep on his tummy (SCARY). Whenever I put him on the floor, he just starts rolling. He also talks/coos so much now also. He was talking up a storm at the pool and just had a blast. It was so cute.

Tessa, meanwhile, has developed a total obsession with swimming. She loves going to the pool and swimming or "Playing in the water" as she calls it. I'll try to get some video next time. I got her this swimmie device called a Puddle Jumper and it has done wonders. She just floats around and swims and kicks and wants to explore the entire pool. It's great because swimming really wears her out. I think next weekend we may attempt jumping off the diving board. She just stares at the big kids when they jump off. I think she is going to be one of those water bugs.................just never wants to leave the water.

Wow

OK, I knew going back to work would be hard, but I am fried! Two kids+full-time job+no husband during the week+still nursing/pumping= ONE WORE OUT MOMMA! I know it's only my first week and hopefully it will get better as I get into a routine, but I'm exhausted. I feel like if I blink longer than 2 seconds I may fall asleep.

I warned my female coworkers if they go to the bathroom and hear me pumping to check and make sure I'm still awake. I could totally see myself falling asleep and pumping for hours. Luckily Katie is preggers and has to pee all the time, so she can check on me frequently.

Bed Time

Tessa, as most kids, will use several different delay tacticts at bed time. One of her favorites right now is "Mommy, I go peepee". This is particularly effective as we are in the throws of potty training and it is unwise to ignore ANY reference to potty. So I usually scoop her up, plop her on the potty, 50% of the time she actually pees, and then immediately put her back in bed. I do have a gate at her door that she can climb, but one day she tried to climb it and got her little toe stuck or something (it was during Mike's watch so I did not witness the incident). But since then, she has not tried to climb the gate. She will open the door and dangle or throw stuff over the gate. When she decides to use the peepee tactic, she will also remove her diaper herself. It's good that she can do that, it's bad because.....she can do that. I have to be extra diligent on getting there quickly and going potty.

The other night as I was walking down the hall she was saying "Mommy? Mommy! Mommy I go peepee". What was hilarious, is that she had taken her diaper off and all I could see coming down the hall was her little arm sticking over the gate waving her diaper, as if signaling her distress. I couldn't help but laugh. One night when I went to check on her she was in her bed fast asleep, with her diaper and pants down around her knees and her little naked booty sticking out. Not so sure about this lastest obsession with disrobing.

Milestones

Today is my first day back at work. I was a little late this morning, but overall it went fairly smooth. It's a little wierd getting back into the work routine and pumping at work SUCKS (but the liquid gold is worth it). Ellis is doing great at day-care and drinking from a bottle three times a day. One of his big milestones is that he has started rolling over. He did it for the first time up in the mountains, but seems to be getting better at it now. He still gets his little arm pinned under him sometimes and although I think he physically can, he hasn't rolled back onto his back yet. Finally, Tessa went to school in big girl underwear today (with Minnie Mouse on them). She has been doing great peeing on the potty, but we'll see how it goes. She seems to pee very frequently, so I'm a little nervous that maybe her bladder isn't quite developed yet, but her teacher felt she was ready and I'm all for it. I would be less nervous if I could get her to poop on the potty, but that is something she seems VERY determined not to do just yet. Wish us luck.

Bear Feet

As mentioned in my previous post, Tessa is obsessed with her new bear feet slippers. She wanted to wear them to school this morning. They are her new favorite accessory.

Mountains with Kirsten & Jenny

We had a GREAT time up in the mountains. On the way up, we stopped at Goat's on the Roof. It's this silly place right before Clayton where there are goats living on the roof, and they have these walkways between the buildings that the goats walk on. They also have several silly ways to feed to the goats (zip-line; pedal a bike to move feeder to roof, etc.) Tessa liked petting the baby goats. She also LOVED the bear feet slippers we bought her there. We have several funny pictures and videos of Tessa in her slippers. She wore them all the time and even slept in them.

We went to Mud Dabbers again and of course went to Heinzelmannchen to get some more beer. Tessa had her first taste of home brewed root beer. I don't like root beer, but Tessa loved it. Kirsten and Jenny took Tessa into Highlands one afternoon and she got her very own milkshake from Kilwin's.

By far, my favorite part of the week was picking wild, fresh, blackberries. There were a ton along the road up to the cabin and we hit the MOTHER-LOAD at the Kirk's property where most of the blackberry pictures were taken. See attached link for some more great pictures.

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