Welcome, Lydia!

Lydia Mina Kim was born on Sept 3 at 5:52PM. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was 19.7in long. I'm already so tired all the time, but I am loving my tiny little new baby! Big brother and big sister seem to be happy to have the new baby around as well. Noah is not super interested, but wants to be helpful from time to time and likes holding her sometimes. Sarah seems more into her and seems to like holding her and kissing her. We were worried that Sarah wouldn't be happy with a new baby around, but she actually seems to be adjusting totally fine.

First, the birth story. I feel like I need to write this down before I forget what happened. It went fast. I think I started having some contractions here and there on Tuesday (Sept 2), but they were not very strong and not consistent. On Wednesday it seemed the same, although they were starting to happen more regularly. I let Peter know that contractions were happening somewhat regularly, though not very strong, but that he should probably come home soon. After I gave him the update, things started picking up a bit more. When he finally got home and we were starting to get ready to go, it was starting to feel real so I was like we've gotta leave, now. We got to the hospital at around 2:45 and by then it was starting to get hard to walk around but I was trying to keep cool. Probably a little too cool bc all of the nurses were taking their time getting me into triage and checking me. Finally they checked and said I was 2-3cm dilated. The nurse was even talking about having me walk around for an hour, but my OB said to just check me in because Noah was delivered via c-section. So I finally get checked into labor & delivery, the nurses have a hard time getting the IV in, and finally I'm hooked up to my IV by maybe 4:45. The nurses finished all the chart work by about 5:15. Since this is the third (and last!) baby, I really wanted to try delivering without drugs, primarily bc the epidural is scary, not always fully effective (when I delivered Sarah it had to be repositioned and ultimately redone), and comes with its own recovery. But 5 minutes after the nurses left my room, I told Peter to go get them and tell them I wanted the epidural! Since I was only 2-3 cm when I checked into the hospital, I figured I'd be there for a while and there was no way I was going to make it at the pain level I was at for that much longer. But then I needed extra fluids, the anesthesiologist had to be called, things needed to be prepped, etc. Meanwhile, pain level was SUPER high. When the anesthesiologist came to my room about 25 min later, the OB said I was at 9cm, and I was feeling ready to push…so the OB asked if I wanted to get the epidural or just wait and try to push. I was like uh…..has there ever been a more difficult decision in such a short period of time?? And then my body made the decision for me, because the baby was on its way out, no time for epidural. Baby out at 5:52. So in the end, I had my drug-free delivery. I was pretty traumatized afterwards and even a little nauseated thinking about the experience, but now that I'm a few days away from it all, I am really glad I was able to do it, even if it was kind of by accident! The funny thing is that what happened is exactly what my OB had said would happen. For months she'd been saying it would go really quick, and that I could probably deliver without drugs. She said I'd probably want the epidural for the last couple of centimeters, but that it would be over in about 20 minutes.

Recovery has been pretty okay, and Lydia seems to be doing well now that nursing is going better. Today is actually our first day on our own (with Peter…I'd be dead on my own). Peter's mom was here since Wednesday when we went to the hospital and has been watching the older kids a little and cooking all of our meals. She stored food in the fridge for us for the next few meals though, so at least I don't have to go grocery shopping or cook. Lydia doesn't do much other than eat and sleep, but having to keep track three kids' eating, sleeping, and bowel movements is kind of overwhelming! I'm sure it'll get better once we get used to it, but we're not quite there yet. It's nice that Noah started school today though. I have some mom meet-ups/bible studies starting up in the next few weeks also, so even though things will be busy, at least our lives will have some amount of structure and direction, and the older kids will have activities.

Sarah turns 2!

My little lady is so grown up! I barely remember her days of being a little peanut. It's weird, because every so often I look at Noah and I can still see him as a newborn, but it's like I've totally forgotten what Sarah looked like as a newborn. She really has come such a long way this year though. She was on the slow side to hit her milestones, but in the past six months she's gone from walking to running and even jumping sometimes, and is starting to talk a lot more and saying two to three word phrases. She's still difficult to understand, but she's improving every day.

In the past few weeks we've even started some potty training. I was intending to wait until a few months after baby is born, but Sarah's been waking up with dry diapers in the morning and from naps, and has been showing interest, so we've been putting her on the potty a few times a day. In the past week she's been successful on the potty quite a few times! It's exciting, but I'm anxious about dealing with potty training and new baby at the same time. I'd much rather change two diapers than have to worry about accidents.

Sarah's still developing interests at this age (unlike Noah who was already becoming obsessive at this time), but we're definitely seeing a lot of "girl" attributes. She loves to play with cars and planes and trucks, since she sees Noah doing that all the time, but she also loves to dress up, which she's picked up on her own since there's no one else in our house putting on tutus and shoes. She got a Tinker Bell outfit for her birthday and a pretty charm bracelet and she was besides herself. She also got a little puppy stuffed animal that came with a carrier and vet accessories and she's enjoyed taking care of the little puppy giving it hugs, and putting it to bed at night. Sarah's also really into music. She's been into music for a while now, but we continue to see her trying to sing along to songs, play the various musical instruments we have at home, and just really enjoying all toys that play songs. Finally, Sarah seems to be obsessed with Elmo (what 2 year old isn't?). She gets so excited whenever she hears Elmo's voice and can spot a picture of Elmo from like a mile away. She doesn't even really watch Sesame Street since she isn't really into TV in general, so I'm not sure where this obsession is from.

Sarah is such a rascal and can be so naughty, but at the same time I find her to be so charming and cute. Haha. So dangerous. You ask her to do anything and the first thing she always says is "no," very matter of factly. You can't get her to do anything that she doesn't want to do without having to endure her screaming. I spend a lot of time bargaining and negotiating with her to get her to do things. She almost never does what she's told, unless I count to three. I'm starting to feel like she thinks it's a game, where I count to three and then it's go time, like a race or something.

Overall it's been a fun second year of life for Sarah, and she reeeeally enjoyed celebrating her birthday this year. She was finally somewhat aware of what was going on and is now obsessed with singing happy birthday and blowing out candles. She hasn't been in school or daycare or anything, so she hasn't been exposed to the singing and candle blowing and was totally blown away by this ritual on her birthday. I've said this when Noah's birthdays come around too, but seeing their faces when the candles come out and the singing is going on is the best. Well, here's hoping for another good year and not too much terrible-ness!

23 Months Old

One month away from the big 2!! Things are getting quite terrible though. I feel as though Sarah spends half her waking hours whining or crying. Yes, a lot of the time it's because big bad Noah is tormenting her, but there is a good deal of whining because: I didn't let her put her shoes on herself, I didn't let her open the door (which she actually can't do), I didn't let her use hand cream when I was using it, I didn't let her take 15 minutes to climb into the car seat, she couldn't get the sticker off her finger and onto the paper, I didn't turn around while driving to pick up whatever toy she dropped…and the list goes on. And once she gets upset, she just keeps on crying until either I give in to her request, or I turn on some music she likes to listen to. I keep telling myself that it's just a phase, it's just a phase… 

She's also started to become really grouchy after naps, just crying for no reason other than the fact that she is awake. This is a little bit less annoying though, because all she wants is to snuggle with mommy for 20-30 minutes, and I have to admit, it's kind of nice since she's otherwise on the run the rest of the day. You ask her for a hug or a kiss at any other time of day and she shouts, "no!" and runs away laughing. 

Not much else to record here this month other than general news. We went camping for the first time as a family this past month (just for one night, and only 20 min away from home), and took a trip to NY for about a week and a half. Basically that translates to a lot of sleeping in the same tent/room. It's amazing that we've finally gotten to a point where something like that seems feasible. Except that in a couple of months we'll be resetting the clock again with the new baby. We were all very tired after both trips and needed a few days to recuperate afterwards, but we made it and had fun! No trips this next month, but I'll have birthdays to plan and a new baby to prepare for. Yikes. 7 1/2 more weeks to go until my somewhat comfortable life right now is turned upside down. 

22 Month Update

I totally forgot about this past month's update. Summer is in full swing so things have been much less…structured. But fun! Now that Sarah is almost two, she's old enough, and interested enough, to participate in more activities. We've been to a carnival, the farm, various parks, swimming with cousins, Rocknoceros concert, and just today went out for a bike ride with the kiddos in the bike trailer. I used to dread the idea of having the kids at home with nothing to drop anyone off at, but I was actually looking forward to the summer this time around, and so far I've been having a good time with my two babies…even if they can be quite a handful at times. We've gotten into a good routine (even if the activities vary day to day in the summer)…and then I guess it'll all change in a few months with baby #3 in the picture. Also, I'm already thinking about how Noah is going to be in kindergarten after this coming school year, and will be gone all day, every day, and it's kind of sad. 

Anyway, about Sarah. She's become more involved in day to day things and more capable of doing things for herself, like feeding herself, not spilling water all over herself, climbing into the carseat on her own, putting on and taking off her shoes, etc. This is all great, except for when I'm in a rush and we really need to get going. She throws a fit if she can't do things on her own. It's starting to feel like I'm negotiating with Sarah all day long about every diaper change, car ride, trip up or down the stairs, and spoonful of yogurt to be eaten. I have to convince her to either do whatever the task at hand is, or I have to convince her to let me do it for her, or she gets upset and is inconsolable. Even naps and night night time. If she isn't ready to lie down and say "bye bye" I simply cannot leave the room or she will cry and cry and cry. I'm hoping that this is a phase and that it is over soon. I do vaguely remember Noah having a similar need to do everything on his own…now it can be such an ordeal sometimes to get him to pick up a spoon and put it in his mouth. Sigh.

Sarah is talking more these days. Yay! Still not very clear what she's saying all the time, and a lot of her words sound the same, but she's getting better every day I think. A good thing, because she really has been relying on her whining to get what she needs/wants a bit too much. My daily mantra with her is "use your words, stop whining." Not really working that well, but I'm still hoping. She's also putting some words together like "bye-bye mommy" or "bye-bye daddy" and sometimes will even say "milk peese." 

Sarah has developed some very clear likes and dislikes. She loves to put shoes on and walk around the house with them. She loves to push around strollers while carrying around an old wristlet of mine. She loves to do puzzles and is very proud of herself when she gets a piece to fit. She loves music and dancing. She also loves Asian foods - she wants rice with everything, and always eats a lot when we eat Asian (or Asian inspired) food. She doesn't eat much pizza, hates pasta, won't even chew sandwiches, but will at least eat chicken nuggets sometimes. Quite unfortunate because Noah loves these things and they're so easy for me to get on the table. She also doesn't really like TV much…also unfortunate because it is such a convenient "babysitter" for me with Noah. I relied on the TV so often to keep Noah occupied when Sarah was little. Now what?? I have yet to find something that can reliably occupy her and keep her in the same spot for a long period of time.

Finally, Sarah is totally a little charmer. Or at least I think so. She's always flashing smiles and waving at people, and everyone seems to love it. Noah was not like this. Even now, when we meet people in the elevator, she's smiling at them and being all cute, while Noah starts shouting things like, "This elevator is just for us! Not you!!!" or roaring at people (not in a friendly or funny way). They really are such polar opposites sometimes. I wonder what this third one is going to be like. I hope she's somewhere in the middle!

21 Month Update

Little Sarah is growing up! She'll be two soon, and every day she is becoming more and more independent. It's so strange how she used to be so content to sit with me or in the stroller, or be carried in the Ergo, but now she is always wanting to walk around by herself. She's starting to pick up more words, which is a big relief to me. She's still having a hard time saying full words, for example she'll say "o" instead of "no," but it's clear that she mean's "no," but she's using the same words for the same things consistently, so I'm pretty happy with that. She likes to say "down" a lot ("dow"), so that she can walk ("wah"). Actually a lot of times that's how I get her to put her shoes on. She loves taking off her shoes in the car and sometimes gets really upset when I try to put them back on (which is odd since one of her favorite things to do at home is put shoes on), so I'll tell her she needs her shoes to walk, and immediately she relents. Then insists on walking. Other things she's saying these days are water ("wawie"), smoothie ("ooie"), rice ("rie"), milk ("muh"), yep ("up"), uh uh, uh oh, and she uses "babbuh" for a lot of things: bubble, apple, pineapple, grapes.. Basically anything that sounds like bubble or looks like a bubble. Also exciting is that she's starting to say "here go mama" when she wants to give me something. She's been saying "here go" for a while, but just recently started directing that at people.

Because she's been slow to talk, and is the baby, I feel like she's become quite a bit of a whiner. A lot of times the whining is somewhat justified, because Noah has just taken something from her and she has no other way of expressing unhappiness, but it seems that she's recognized that this is a very effective form of communication so is really starting to over do it! I am definitely struggling to figure out how to get her out of the habit though. On a side note, I really don't know how I'm going to handle a third baby. It's not the taking care of three at a time that worries me (though it probably should), but it's going through all of this for a THIRD time. Even a second time is already so tiresome, and I wasn't even really around to get Noah through this stage since he was at daycare most of the day. I think about where Noah is in terms of talking, learning, potty training, reasoning, etc. and I just get so overwhelmed thinking about getting Sarah to that point. I feel on a daily basis like I'm failing with Noah all the time and often get so frustrated with having to tell him for the thousandth time to sit on his bottom, to eat his food, to share his toys, etc., but when I look at Sarah I'm just like wow, you have such a long way to go. Haha! And Sarah isn't even going to be in preschool until she turns three!! Noah has at least been in some form of school since he was one and has had so much exposure to other people, routines, and general academic things. Sarah's life is just one of getting dragged around to Noah's things and my daily errands. Well, at least she usually does it with a smile. :)

20 Month Update

Once upon a time, I had a quiet, agreeable little baby named Sarah. Now, I just have a little terror. Where once there was peace and smiles, there is now craziness and whining. I can't take her out anymore. She whines and screams at just about every meal. What makes it worse is that Noah thinks this is all hilarious so he starts mimicking her and then I have two screaming kids on my hands. Sarah recently discovered an interest in coloring though, so the past few meals out have gone a bit more smoothly with crayons in her hands. 

On the plus side, when Sarah isn't terrorizing the public, she's generally very friendly and is always saying "hi" to people. Because she's been so slow to start talking, it still surprises me sometimes when people say hi back and comment on how sweet and friendly she is. In addition to saying "hi" and "bye" to people, Sarah also loves to say juice ("joo") all the time. She loves her joo…and cookies, crackers, rice, yogurt ("go-go"), and beef. Haha. She also seems to like shrimp and fish from time to time. I haven't quite figured out exactly what she likes, but I think as long as it's salty, sweet, and/or garlicky, she'll eat it. She likes things that are tasty…unlike Noah who likes things that are plain, sweet, or made of chocolate. Sadly, she doesn't like vegetables or fruit all that much. But overall, she seems to enjoy eating. Whenever I'm cooking dinner, she likes to wander into the kitchen to check on the progress…and if she sees me eating anything, she'll run over and go, "Ahhh…ahhh…" Sometimes she'll just hang around in the kitchen and hover until I'm done cooking, or insist that I hold her while cooking.

Sarah is also very much on the move. She's still so small that she can't really ride any tricycles yet, but that doesn't stop her from trying. She alternates between trying to ride, pushing the trike, and complaining very loudly about her difficulties. When Sarah tires of the trike business, she moves on to her other fave, BUBBLES. That is another one of the few words in her vocabulary - another "b" word. She loves bringing out the bubble bucket, trying to blow a few bubbles, and then walking around carrying the bubble wands. I end up just having to blow lots of bubbles until I'm dizzy, but it's totally worth it to see her running around excitedly while shouting, "Bubble, bubble, bubble.." 

Sarah is in that stage where the emotions are such a roller coaster so there is never a dull moment. She can be screaming/whining one second about something, and then the next be so excited and happy about something else. I don't know if maybe I'm just desensitized at this point, but whenever she cries, the look on her face so sad and yet I always just think it's so funny. When she's happy though, her laughing and excitement is so infectious. In the mornings, Noah always goes into her room to play and their time together alternates equally between giggling and crying. Despite the crying, they seem to really enjoy each other's company (so far)!

Some pics of the two rascals hanging out:

 

Sarah is 19 Months Old

Sarah is 19 months old now and such a fun little munchkin. The once laid-back baby who wasn't really into moving around is not either of those things anymore. Sarah loves to move around and explore. She often just walks around to walk around. When we had that nice warm day about a week ago, all Sarah wanted to do was walk around - no toys, no wagon ride, just walking and feeling the different surfaces under her feet, like the grass, the concrete, the sand, the leftover snow. As I've mentioned in the past, if she doesn't get what she wants, she's quite vocal these days. Even when walking around, if I try to change her direction, she gets really upset and starts barking at me.

Sarah still loves her music, and even has a few favorite songs. She sings/hums the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle song a lot, as well as Baby Beluga. I think she's also started humming The Wheels on the Bus and Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music. When we're in the car, her face always lights up when John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt comes up on the CD we have there. When it comes to music, she becomes totally animated and excited. I'm interested to see if this actually leads to an interest in music in the future! I don't want to sound like a tiger mom or anything, but I'd totally love that. :)

Sarah's also starting to show more interest in books and having a slightly longer attention span for listening to them. She'll often go to her bookshelf, pick out a book, mosey on over, stick her butt out at me in preparation to sit in my lap, plop down, then shake the book up and down while going "ee ee ee." After the book is over, she will get up, get another and repeat the sequence. I'm not sure what she's absorbing when we read these books to her, but she definitely has her favorites. If I pick up a book that she's not into, she'll whine and keep trying to close the book while I'm reading it.

At long last, Sarah is speaking. Not a lot, but she's definitely improving. She says "here you go" a lot when giving us things. Some random words she's been saying are: mama, dada, baby, bee (she has a bee lovey that she has recently become extremely attached to), box, book, juice, hi, and bye. She seems to be really good at the "b" words..haha. Even with animal sounds, she's always very emphatic when I ask her what sound a sheep makes - BAAAA!!! But when it comes to other sounds, she kind of only gets the vowel parts. For example she'll always respond consistently when I ask her what sound a cat makes, but instead of saying "meow", she'll go "yeow" instead. Or if I ask her what sound a goose makes, instead of "honk" she'll say "onk."

The only other thing I can think of for this month is a lot of teething. Sarah's teeth have been reeeeeally slow to come in, but in the past month it seems like all the teeth are coming out at the same time. She has swollen gums everywhere, and I see a couple of teeth starting to make their way out already. Ouch! Hopefully it'll be all over soon by the 20 month update and not too painful!

Noah is 3.5 Years Old

Noah hit the 3.5 year mark a few days ago so I figured it was time for an update.

The biggest recent news is that he is starting to drop his afternoon nap. He's napping right now actually, but for the past couple of weeks I've just let the nap go - and it has been amazing. Before, I would have to fight with him to nap, then he'd be grumpy when I woke him up, and then not tired enough to fall asleep at night. I'd have to fight with him again to get to bed at night and he usually didn't fall asleep until 10:00 or 10:30. A couple of weeks ago he seemed to be doing pretty well after lunch and too energized for a nap, so I just let him hang out in his room for a bit without napping. Then later at night, he was out by around 8:30. Amazing. Even though I let go of that little "break" during the day when his nap would have been, the extra 2 hours at night is totally worth it, plus no more fighting about sleeping (and no more grumpiness after nap). He still needs a nap every few days, like today, but otherwise this new change seems to be going well. The only hard part is getting him to take that nap every few days. Now that he's had a taste of just playing all day, he doesn't want to go back! And quite frankly, I don't either. In addition to no more sleeping issues and grumpiness, because Sarah is still napping, I also get a huge chunk of time just to spend with Noah during the day, and I think he really likes that. He starts to unravel a bit sometimes, especially in the evenings, but overall we haven't really had too many issues with meltdowns.

As Noah gets older, his personality continues to develop, and it's fun to get to know him through relationship, not just observation. He's really into movies and TV (yes, we kind of let him watch a lot) but he's always so interested in what happens between the different characters, especially the bad guys. He is always asking questions about why this person did this, why this other person did that, or just making connections with what he sees in the shows to what he sees in real life. He watched Frozen yesterday during the snow day and this morning was non-stop asking questions about the snow monster. Is he bad? Is he mean? Why does he throw people? Why does he throw the snowman? Was he trying to hurt them? Why couldn't he walk? Why was the snow man on his leg? He only is mean to people who shoot at him? And then he moved onto the wolves. Why were they chasing them? They were hungry. Did he want to bite them? Why were they hungry? Did the other animals not want to share their food? Different animals like different food. Like bears like fish? But some bears don't like fish? Etc, etc… It can be hard to answer these questions while driving on half-plowed roads, but at least he hasn't reached the stage of Why? Why? Why? after every answer. I think he was really stressed about this snow monster though because his questions kept circling around why this monster was being mean to people, and then right before nap time today he asked me if it was okay to hurt people sometimes. It's so interesting to see him forming these ideas of what's right and what's wrong, what's fair and what's not fair. He's also doing a lot of categorizing. There are a lot of questions like only boys do this? Only girls wear this? Only men do this? Only babies do this? Like he's trying to piece the world together, one question at a time. Hahaha..

18 Month Update

Sarah is 18 months old now and getting to be quite a handful. She still isn't really talking, but her personality is still coming through. If she doesn't like something, she will definitely let you know! But on the other hand she is also very smiley and cuddly so it's also apparent when she is happy. She's finally walking, and almost running, pretty comfortably, but still falls quite a bit. She's so tiny and has such a big head that I feel like it's hard to keep it all balanced! Sarah was weighed and measured at the doctor's the other day and she is in 25-50%ile for height and weight, but almost 80th%-ile for head circumference! In general she enjoys eating (when she isn't teething - two molars are working their way out right now), playing on her own with toys, pushing things around, and exploring my kitchen cabinets. Even though she tends to be mostly into what Noah is into, like cars, planes, trucks, etc., every once in a while her girl-ness comes through as well. She loves walking around carrying handbags, and she had a lot of fun running around in a pink dress at a friend's house recently. Sarah also loves music. One of her favorite things to do is pushing the buttons on toys that play music and then dancing to it. She also hums the Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star tune a lot. At first I thought she was just humming random things, then I kept hearing the same note progression so I thought maybe...and then as she got older she started humming more of the song so now I can say with certainty that it's that song. Another random thing that Sarah does is whenever she farts, or if she hears someone else fart, she always goes "hm?" with a smile.

I think Sarah's starting to make some progress in talking. Other than "mama" and "dada", she recently started saying a few words here and there like "cooking" (goo-goo) and poo-poo. Interesting that Noah's first word was "ball" and Sarah's is "cooking". Otherwise she's mostly been imitating sounds, like "moo," "baa," "beep beep," "vroom," and other animal and car sounds. Haha. Primarily because we've been reading a farm book and truck book to her a lot. I've been trying to read the same few books everyday in the hopes that she'll start picking up the words in the book. I think it's sort of working? We went to the pediatrician a couple of days ago and she doesn't seem to be overly concerned with the no talking…she said she's a little delayed, but not seriously so. I really hope things start to pick up in the next month or two! Not only so that I can finally stop worrying about it but also because her whining/grunting every time she wants something is so irritating!

Sarah also loves playing with Noah. She always wants to be a part of what he's doing, and for the most part he's into playing with her too, but it has to be on his terms (no touching his toys). It's so cute to watch them enjoying each other's company, but it is a pain to have to be the referee all the time.

That's all for now. Hopefully the next post will include photos of Sarah playing outside, because I'm tired of the cold weather!! It's crazy to think that the last time it was warm outside, Sarah couldn't walk yet. A few months makes such a difference in the lives of babies!

17 Months Old

Okay, this is super late, but I figured it would be better late than never.

My little Sarah has grown so much in the past month. She has seven teeth now and is more or less holding her own when it comes to eating. Depending on how much she likes the food, she often eats faster than Noah. She's also starting to use a spoon to feed herself. She actually prefers to feed herself and will often refuse what I'm trying to feed her…then eat the same food happily when scooping it up on her own. It's great that she's so into feeding herself, but sometimes I just want to feed her because the food is so messy (like soup)…but she is so stubborn. Screams and cries and fights with me to do it herself. I'd like to say that in the end I usually win, but I think it's really 50/50. But in general, I'm glad Sarah's starting to eat on her own.

She's also gotten much better at walking, and even is starting to "run" - particularly when I'm trying to change her diaper or take her upstairs for bath time. If she sees me holding a diaper or if I say it's time for a diaper change, she'll look at me with a rascally smile and then turn and run away. Sarah was really  late in moving around, even when it came to rolling and crawling, so it's a bit strange to see her just walking off on her own now and interacting with other kids. With Noah, I remember I was always looking forward to the next milestone, but with Sarah, I've been more content to hold on to her baby-ness as long as possible. But now she's running away! Like Noah, she loves pushing things around. Anything that can move and has a place for her to hold on to, she'll push around. Also because she's becoming more active, she's playing with Noah more and it's been fun to see them interact in that way, even though it often ends with Noah knocking her over. She may be physically weaker than him, but when he gets her upset, she shouts at him and hits him. I know that the responsible thing to do is to curb this kind of behavior, but I just find it to be so entertaining!

Sarah isn't saying much, beyond "mama" and "dada" like before, but she seems to use "mama" for lots of different things. Depending on the tone, and how many times she repeats the "ma", she can mean "mommy", "milk", "more", "food", etc. Haha. She also knows what sound a sheep makes. Haha. Whenever we ask her what sound a sheep makes, she goes, "BAAAA!!!" with a great deal of emphasis on the B. Even though she isn't speaking much, it's clear that she understands a lot. When I suggest that we go down to the basement, she walks right to the door and starts trying to open it. When I say it's time to wash hands and eat, she walks right to the bathroom and up onto the step stool with her hands in the sink. When I say it's time to eat, she goes over to her highchair and tries to climb in. Even when I take out the hand sanitizer, she sticks out her hands and starts rubbing them together in anticipation. Now that she's starting to understand things, she's very good at following instructions…I'm just wondering how long this will last before she decides to join Noah and mutiny. She may be cute and compliant now, but she's already showing signs of mischief.