Lucy 13 & 14 Months

I decided to stop doing monthly updates after 1 year of age for Lucy because, well, it just seemed like a good time to stop and I didn't know how sustainable monthly updates will be once we have 2, 3 maybe even 4 little ones running around here! Heck... maybe the blog won't even be around by then. But I did want to do an update about the past couple months because they have brought tons of new changes as Lucy moves into full swing toddler-hood. I want to make sure to remember what 13/14 months is like so that way when future babies come along I won't be thinking, "well, Lucy never did this" or "Lucy always slept so well, what's wrong with this new baby" - I want to remember that things weren't always perfect, by the book, or on schedule!

So these past two months the biggest change (that has then affected every other area of my life) has been Lucy's sleep schedule. I started noticing that when we got back from the cruise (and right before), Lucy was being a little finicky about going down for 2 naps, sometimes just playing in her crib until I would get her after 45 minutes or so. She also started playing for about an hour every night when we laid her down for bed. So finally about 3 weeks ago I decided we'd move to one nap even though I wasn't ready for it and I don't think Lucy was really ready for it, I was thinking we'd have two naps for at least another couple months.

The great thing about moving to one nap is that we are able to do a lot more of the fun kid stuff, like go to the library, make play dates, go to the pool, etc. because I'm not rushing from one nap to the next. Lucy also takes a solid 2 hour nap and typically goes down pretty good at night instead of having 2 shorter naps and a rough bed time. Unfortunately, I'm just not used to this new schedule - so while I'm excited to do some of the fun new stuff we are able to do, we haven't really yet because I've been so used to having to be at home for 4 hours of the day. I also can't quite figure out when to get anything done, especially because not only did I lose a good chunk of mommy-alone time by getting rid of a nap, Lucy also wants to be held almost the entire time she is awake (part of why I don't think she was fully ready to give up the second nap). The days are getting better, and I've found certain things that keep her happy (like being outside, going on walks, reading), but all of those things involve me and don't allow me to get things done around the house.

Some days are ok, but it seems most days, this is the face I usually see...



Lucy seems frustrated about most things, and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what it is she wants to make her stop crying (i.e. she wants a cracker, but I can't find which one she wants so she throws a "tantrum" until we get the right one, and oh yeah I can't hand her the cracker, she needs to be able to get it out of the box herself, I figured that out after another "tantrum".) These days most of her communication involves, crying, whining, hitting, and pushing.

And it seems as long as I'm around, nobody else is as good as mom. I'll leave to volunteer on Saturday mornings and Ben says she won't cry at all. But as soon as I get home, the crying (or should I call it whining because most often it's a fake cry) begins...


It seems, around everyone else Lucy is a completely happy baby, who doesn't cry. But around me she is only happy if I'm holding her.

I haven't quite figured out this new schedule either - some days Lucy is exhausted by 11:30 and passes out in the car (I never mind this though, mostly because its so precious, but also because she usually transitions to her crib no problem)

But some days I lay her down at 12:30 (her usual nap time and she plays for a while). Same with night time, some nights she goes down at 7:30 no problem, some nights she plays for an hour. It's nice that it's playing and not crying - but I just wish I could figure out when this girl is supposed to be sleeping!

So that's what I've been busy doing lately - fortunately, I know in time, this phase too shall pass, and we'll get back into a routine and things will be grand... I just need to survive until then!

Ok, how about some fun updates... Lucy talks up a storm these days - "momma, dada, cracker (this is her favorite word), bapala (or something like that, she says the same phrase every time she wants a banana), baby, quack, dog, grandpa, JJ (jadyn), ball, paci, no, hi, bye"... and maybe some others I can't think of now. She also knows where her nose, ears, head, belly and toes are. She's able to go up and down the stairs on her own, and loves climbing on top of and standing on top of just about anything. As I've mentioned before she LOVES being outside. We spend most of our days swinging, walking, pushing things and playing in our sandbox. We also spend a good amount of the day reading books, so I try to take a trip to the library about once a week to refresh our collection. She's super, super outgoing and waves at literally every person she sees when we go out (expect if they wave at her first, it's funny, she has to initiate the wave, otherwise she gets shy), and loves playing with other children. I've enjoyed having my niece and nephew over to play because that is one time Lucy seems to stop caring about me and wants to be off and playing with the kids.

A couple fun pictures from the past two months...


Playing in the sandbox with dad...


Brushing her teeth...

Summer Days

It has finally been warming up around here, so Lucy and I have been taking full advantage of the nice weather and playing outside a lot! This is Lucy's absolute favorite thing to do - she LOVES being outside.

My mom gave her this baby doll stroller and she loves to push her baby around in it. It's pretty cute to watch.


Although we've had a couple moments when the stroller was not cooperating with Lucy and so the baby got tossed. These are the times when I realize that we are in full swing toddler-hood, as Lucy tries to communicate something with me, and then gets irritated when I can't figure out what she wants.


Finally she was happy to sit in the stroller herself! I think she's practicing to be a big sister...


And of course, with the weather heating up, we had to break out our kiddie pool. I tried to get more pictures of this day because we had a lot of fun playing in the water and eating Popsicles, but I realized a lot were not internet appropriate. But here's our back yard set up... I was concerned about Lucy getting too much sun, so I rigged up a little backyard oasis for us.

Big Sister

We have some news to share...

Lucy's going to be a big sister! I am 12 weeks pregnant today - we've told most of our family and friends, but now that I'm officially done with my first trimester I thought it was time to share the big news on our blog.

We found out around 5 or 6 weeks - I had come home from volunteering and told Ben that, "I may be crazy, but I feel like I'm pregnant." I had woken up that morning feeling kind of dizzy in the shower and nauseated before I ate breakfast. Then while I was down at the Shepard clinic I started getting hungry again (I always had to eat 2 breakfasts when I was pregnant with Lucy). And to top it all off, I had driven by a McDonald's the day before and had this strong desire for their fries (my favorite food while I was pregnant with Lucy). Granted, all these things could have just been in my head, so I told Ben I was going to take a test, but I was 95% sure I wasn't pregnant.

Boy was I wrong! We were both so excited to see the positive result on the test, and I was personally so excited that getting pregnant had been so easy this time around. It had taken us about 6 months to get pregnant with Lucy, so we just assumed it would take that long this time around. In fact, I had made an appointment to see the doctor to talk about why my period hadn't come back after stopping nursing. Well... turns out it hadn't come because I was pregnant! Needless to say we were planning for the babies to be closer to 2 years apart, but since the pregnancy came a little faster they will be more like 20 months apart. Baby 2 is due November 24th (Thanksgiving).

I plan to take some pictures of my belly to post along the way - probably not as many as with Lucy, but I'll probably do a monthly update. And of course share how I'm feeling... more on that to come in later posts. For now, we just wanted to share our excitement. We can't wait to meet our new baby in 6 short months!

Mini Marathon

This past weekend Ben ran in the mini marathon! I was so proud of him for not only getting a great time, but also for all of the training he did leading up to it. There were many mornings that he would wake up at 5:30am go to the gym and run, just so he could get home and hang out with Lucy and I during the evenings.

Not only did Ben do the marathon, but 3 of his brothers and his mom ran as well. Lucy and I went to watch, but unfortunately only caught site of Ben and Ross (although Luke and Nick ran by while we were standing there, some how we missed them). Here are all the boys after the race (we missed seeing Mom Wehner because it had started raining and we needed to head to the car before she crossed the finish)


Lucy and I tried to catch Ben at the 4 mile mark (which also happened to be the 10 mile mark) but I think we just missed him. I was so bummed, Lucy and I had rushed out the door, and rushed to the 4 mile mark, but Ben was able to get to the start line faster than we had planned so I think I was about 10 minutes to late. We did get to see him at mile 10, we just had to wait about an hour till he came back around.


Katy and Brandon were in town for Katy's graduation so they met up with us at the finish and then we celebrated with Ben at Taste in Broad Ripple.

Mothers Day 2011

Last year we planted a tree on Mother's Day - Lucy was almost 2 months old. Here we are with the tree last year...


And here we are this year! Lucy has definitely grown! I'm not so sure about the tree... at least it looks a little fuller. Maybe in about 10 years we'll actually have some shade in our backyard!


A couple more shots of mom and baby...


We had trouble getting both of us to look...


I tried to get a couple of shots with Lucy by some flowers in her pretty dress from Heather and Christian... but couldn't get her to look here either! I think there was just too much going on outside!




At least I got one look by her sandbox...


And one with her daddy...


We spent the morning relaxing - Ben was going to get me another tree to plant, but I decided I wanted to go shopping for clothes instead (maybe we'll just plant one for each kid or something.) We were getting ready to leave for the morning, but Lucy was getting fussy so we laid her down and she ended up sleeping for 2 hours... thus, no shopping trip that day (although I did some online ordering instead!) It was nice to just sit around though, Ben made breakfast and cleaned up (what a treat!) and after Luc woke up we headed to my moms for a family get together.

Rainy Days

It has been raining, A LOT, around here lately, so Lucy and have been spending a lot of time inside. During these days Lucy has read a lot, run around the house a lot, gone up and down the stairs a lot, and emptied out as many things as possible. I'm not going to lie, I've been going a bit stir crazy - but fortunately, somebody has been keeping me on my toes...

This was a fun mess to clean up!

Lucy has also likes to climb in and out of our stove drawer. I especially liked these photos because she and her baby doll look like twins!






Kisses for the baby...


Fortunately I don't think it can continue to rain for much longer, so I'm looking forward to warm outside days playing in the yard, going to the pool and taking lots of walks!

My favorite chair

Recently, Lucy has figured out how to climb up onto things. She is so proud of herself when she does this, shouting, clapping and hopping up and down whenever she is pulled herself up onto something - it's pretty adorable. One of her favorite things to climb up on to is a chair we have in the corner of our family room. It's probably my least favorite item in our home (a chair Ben's had since college), but now I've found a new love for this chair as I watch Lucy climb up onto it and sit, completely content, for at least 10 minutes (which is like and hour in toddler world).

Here she is with some of her friends (baby and big bird)...




I took shots over a couple days to show just how much she gets into the chair... it's a daily ritual. This time I saw her rocking her baby in the chair... just like her momma rocks her...


We've also had snack time in the chair- it makes me feel like she's so grown up. I give her a cup of crackers and her milk and she sits still to eat them.

Easter 2011

Now that Lucy has been alive for a full year, it's exciting to experience each holiday a second time around with her (ok, so Easter was the first time we experienced this, but I'm excited for all of the holidays coming up to compare this year to last year!) Here's a look at our sweet baby girl one year ago...


And now all grown up!




Showing off our Easter dresses... even though it was cold and miserable here, we dressed for spring!


We started by decorating some Easter cupcakes at home (ok, only I did that, but Ben helped make a casserole while I was hard at work making icing "grass)


Then spent the rest of the day with family, first at Grandma and Grandpa Wehners for a big Easter lunch (and the best shot we got as a whole family)


Then to Nani and Poppi's for Easter baskets, an Easter egg hunt and dinner. Here's a shot of Lucy finding her basket...


And then moving along, totally uninterested in it


Ok, maybe the egg hunt will be a little more interesting... She's spotted one!


Reaching for it...


Victory!


In all actuality she wasn't that interested in this activity either, she was more excited about being outside and watching all her crazy cousins run around. This was the one egg she actually went after, the others she just walked right by!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Even though she is a little young, I thought it would be fun to dye Easter eggs with Lucy this year. She didn't really get what we were doing, but I think she had a good time trying something new! Here are a few pictures from our adventure...

Getting our supplies ready...


Inspecting all the materials (love that serious face)


Dropping the eggs in (Lucy was not that interested in this part, so that was mostly fun for mom)




Waiting for the eggs... so we snagged a quick picture with dad after his 9 mile run! (he thought it was pretty cute that they both didn't have shirts on)


Pulling the eggs out - Lucy actually liked this part a lot, so I think we re-dunked all the eggs twice so she could pull them all out again!




Ta-daa!