Patience is a virtue

Goodness. I'm having to repeat that phrase to our son and to myself ALL the time. He is loving pushing EVERY button right now. And it's funny because most of the time he is a perfect angel. He just goes through these phases a couple of times a day that make you just want to scream. The worst recently has been meal times again. About the only thing that he will eat quickly is PB&J. And I swear that's only because that's what he eats at school. He will tell me he wants something else and then whines when I tell him to take a bite.

The other big issue with him recently has been taking toys from Kaylee. Sometimes it's ok cause he'll give her a different toy and she's fine but most of the time she starts crying.

OH, and we had an EPIC meltdown the other day. I'm going to have to stop taking him shopping for a while. We went to Lowe's because we needed a filter for our fridge. But I wanted to look through the Christmas stuff to see if we could find something new for our yard. (Didn't find anything by the way, their selection is pitiful this year!) So we checked out and went to the parking lot and he starts bawling because we left Christmas. Well I needed to go get a prescription and a few other things from the CVS across the street. I found Christmas music on Sunny 99.1 and that seemed to calm him down a little bit. I completely forgot a previous incident in CVS and I wish I had remembered cause I NEVER would've brought him in there. He found a toy instantly that he wanted and started crying again when we didn't get it.

Now I feel bad. Brendan really is having some great moments too. It's just hard to focus on that sometimes. He is getting so much better at communicating. He still has his babbling moments though. Especially when he gets mad or excited. Be ready for an epic tale or tongue-lashing that you won't understand at all. He's getting better with feelings too! He will actually say something hurts now. He is SO excited about Christmas. Now that our decorations are up inside it's all he can talk about. He's also becoming so polite. He says sorry when he bumps into people (even his sister!). He also says please and thank you.

Potty training! We are doing SO much better. He actually prefers the big potty to his Lightning McQueen potty. And I am SO thankful. I hate that thing. He must've heard me complain about it and decided to switch, hehe. I'm still nervous about taking him shopping or sending him to school in underwear. I did take him grocery shopping recently and he did great! We'll see.

Kaylee is so much different than her brother. She keeps us on our toes for sure. But I suppose that's the way it should be. He is super cautious, she is a daredevil. Brendan would sit still on the couch at this age. Kaylee wants to climb. Brendan still plays in the driveway and never goes past the sidewalk. I had to jump up and run Kaylee down the other day cause she was headed for the street. We've never ever thought about putting Brendan on a leash. Wondering if we might have to put Kaylee on one once she gets more sure-footed. Brendan was constantly falling and hurting himself at this age. Kaylee wobbles a lot and falls sometimes but hardly ever hurts herself. And she just reminded me, she also puts stuff in her mouth ALL the time. I never had to pick stuff out of Brendan's mouth. She's trying to make me into a better housekeeper, hehe.

Kaylee is still pretty attached to her pacifier. I've been trying to keep it away from her when she is awake and only give it to her when she starts to get sleepy before naps. She's still taking two naps a day. Shocking. I'm pretty sure Brendan turned 1 and said, nope, only one nap for me! I'd need to look that up though. At least we never had to wean Kaylee from a bottle cause she never got attached to one! In fact she hated them.

Kaylee's teeth... She is a strange one in this regard. She got her two bottom teeth, then got three of her top teeth. I swore the fourth was coming in and then the progress seemed to stop. In the meantime she was still pretty cranky, drooling, chewing on everything, etc. She cut a molar! I had no idea until one day when I was tickling her and she opened her mouth wide. So that fourth tooth up top still looks like it's gonna come in soon but who knows?

Kaylee seems to be picking up words here and there. She LOVES to say uh oh and oh no. We swear we heard her say thank you a few times. She says yeah a lot, usually with a ? at the end. She claps and dances a lot. She cracks me up cause she points a lot.

With eating, we're starting to push her towards table foods more and more. She likes grilled cheese now. Not too crazy about PB&J yet. I also got her to eat eggs again, off of my plate. I think she prefers food off of my plate rather than her own. Fruits have been rather difficult to switch to table versions since she doesn't have the teeth to chew them (the harder fruits anyway like apples and cantaloupe). So I bought some of the Beechnut 4 cups and she seems to like the Apples & Blueberries one. She likes bananas but won't finish a whole one. She sometimes will eat applesauce and peaches but usually won't finish a whole container of those either. Having a toddler and preschooler makes me feel like a very wasteful person.

We're very happy with our family of four. It's funny cause we used to say we were gonna have 3 kids and adopt one cause we truly love kids. But now that we're actually raising kids (not just babysitting them), we're starting to wonder if we're done. No final decisions have been made yet but Kaylee is just 13 (almost 14) months old. We're in no hurry to make that decision. For now we're enjoying the Christmas season and loving having a kiddo who is really into it this year.

This has been a great year for us, we've accomplished a lot. Our house is getting more organized and less cluttered. We might actually be able to unpack the last box sometime next year. I know, we've been in this house for almost 4 years now. I blame the kids. The adorable, wonderful kids :-) This might be the last post for this year. I'll be pretty busy the rest of this month. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year!