2-1/2 Years, Garrick

TWO AND ONE HALF!!

It's happened again. Seemingly overnight my baby seemed taller, older, wiser.

"An o-plane!" (airplane)

Garrick loves:

• Planes, Trains & Automobiles....firetrucks, rocket ships, motorcylces, tractors, four wheelers..pretty much anything with wheels and a motor peaks his interest
• MICKEY MOUSE! & just a general obsession with cartoons
• Being outside with dad working on "projects," Playing outside, going to the park/nature center/children's museum/GOLF COURSE/any new place is exciting
• "Twinkle-Twinkle" before bedtime and naps. He also still sleeps with "blue blankie" and his pink and purple sparkle kitty 
• Garrick loves Zeke. He loves to give him hugs, help feed him, bring mom diapers/wipes..he also loves whatever toy zeke might be playing with. He loves to copy Zeke too and they mimic each others noises back and forth

New skills:

• Can name over 50 animals
• Has learned how to swim with his water vest
• Can count to ten and knows 11-20 but not always in order
• Knows some shapes- circle, star, heart, triangle, and square & all the main colors
• 
  

Garrick-ism's/Phrases

• "Toodles, I need your help!" The Mickey mouse obsession is outta control 
• Although I've been told kids are either hitters, biters, or screamers--When Garrick is angry he will hit, bite, scream, AND kick.  When he is happy he says "i love you" over and over, gives big hugs, lots of kisses, and tells everyone that they're happy too
• "You need to stop!" is something he tells his mom
• Pronounces "jammies (PJS)" as "gammies" and it's adorable 
• A new thing he's been doing is saying "rawr" a lot...seemingly when he is nervous/feisty/doesnt know what to say..."RAWR..my's a tiger!!" 

9 months

8-9 Month highlights: 

suffered a minor bout of hand-foot-&-mouth disease

has 7 teeth
can wave

loves to eat with the family at mealtimes
can go back and forth from his belly to a sitting position 

loves to play with his big brother
says "maa-maa," "da-da," "ba-ba," etc

loves splashing in the bath or pool but did not like the lake

gets in screeching contests with Garrick

thinks its funny when he is told no (for putting things in his mouth)

can crawl a little ways on hands and knees but is faster army-crawl style

loves crawling up stairs and going for cords

likes to stand and pulls himself up

This is Zeke's new "CHEESE!!" face when he sees a camera light!

4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 Months

Four Months

Highlights:

First Tooth
First Ear Infection

Five Months

Highlights:

Rolling Over both ways

Can scoot on belly- backwards and in a circle
Started some pureed veggies and fruits

Six Months:

Highlights

Sitting up on his own

Loves to play and watch other kids

Seven Months

Highlights:

Army Crawling

Very Vocal and will mimic sounds

Eight Months

Highlights:

4 Teeth

Trying to transition from sitting up to crawling

Can "walk" where he wants to go in rolling walker

Trying to pull himself up to standing
Loves food & can self feed

3 Months

Am I really 3 months old?!

At 3 months Ezekiel has fallen into a nice routine of naps/feeding/playing throughout the day and is mostly sleeping great for his age.  There have been a few times he's only woken up once to eat in a 10 hour period and we were overjoyed by this surprise. Zeke is a very happy boy and is content observing his surroundings, focusing on his hands, or looking at bright toys/books.  He loves being looked at, sung to/talked to and will coo & try to giggle back. Zeke continues to be notorious for reflux, but has earned the term "happy spitter" since it doesn't upset him too much--usually some light fussing at moat.  He likes to sit in his bouncy chair or swing and shove 1-2 hands in his mouth and has started to suck on his index fingers too. He is still a champ at bottles and will occassionally take a pacifier.

Our baby is almost always happy! His smile brightens our days. He has started to smile a lot at Garrick when he talks to him. Garrick continues to dote on Zeke; he expresses concern and love for him all hours of the day and it is truly heartwarming. Garrick will pat his little brother's back, kiss his head & cheeks, mimic his little baby sounds, and laugh uncontrollably when Zeke happens to reach out and touch him.

Of course, toddlers aren't always made of gumdrops. Some less-than-desireable interactions include when Garrick "bops" him on the head for a reaction from adults, refuses to let me rock/nurse Zeke without a loud meltdown, & other random "too rough" moments.  There is also a little occasional jealousy as illustrated by big brother wearing the 3 month sticker above.

2 Months && 23 Months

Christmas happened this month!

Garrick loved helping decorate the tree..."pretty tree!"

Opening presents at home Christmas morning

Christmas gift from Dad: Mater from Cars. The kitty is the toy he chose from Toys R Us

Zeke changes so much every day

Highlights from Zeke's 2nd Month:

• Found his hands and loves staring at them, trying to bring them to his face
• Staring at toys-especially likes to stare at the toy bar on his rocker/bouncer
• Weighs 13lbs5oz and has grown over 2 inches
• Started to smile :) 

Started napping in his crib this month!

Highlights from Garrick's 23rd Month:

• New phrases in rotation: "what happened?," "what't that?" "come on!" "Zekie puked." "Roscoe/Remmie come!" 
• Garrick has become super interested in nursery rhymes and will usually request either "wheels on the bus," "twinkle, twinkle," or "1, 2, buckle my shoe.." I am amazed by him every day... by what he remembers and is able to communicate. He has some parts of his books memorized as well. We love how interested he is in books!
• He has become very particular with clothes.. and prefers not to wear any. We have a hard time getting him to wear pants of any kind! He usually does not want his diaper changed or to wear a diaper in general. We are still a long ways away from potty training though I think.
• He knows "1, 2, 3!" and has a habit of assigning numbers to things..for a while it was always "two"..."two puppies, two cars, etc." lately it has been "six....six mommies, six spoons"
• Garrick is occasionally very possessive and demanding. He has an aversion to the rocking chair and does not like for Mom to sit in it alone, with Zeke, or with Garrick. He will say "No, rock! Couch!" 
• Garrick's language is progressing but we usually still have to translate most of what he says. Some words include "Memmie"-->"Remmie"..."Bock"-->"Rock"..."Sax"-->"Fruit snacks"..."Bopper"-->"Diaper"

One Month && 22 Months

Our first month with Zeke was a whirl-whind as I'm sure it is for all parents of newborns. Today marks Z's 8th week earthside, and I am only just recently able to breathe and consider things like the blog and the outside world in general.

Some highlights of Zeke's first month:

• While Easy-E maintained a relatively calm demeanor, he did develop some pretty intense acid reflux, which I could assume by his screaming and thrashing, caused him some pain. 
• Additionally, he became quite congested and therefore had difficulty sleeping considering his laborious breathing.  I was informed that acid reflux can cause chronic congestion but there was also the possibility of a respiratory infection causing the drainage.. begging the question, what came first, the reflux or the congestion?
• Despite the reflux/throwing up copious amounts of milk, Z was gaining weight well.  Thus his practitioner determined he was what is called a "happy spitter" leading me to stare at her blankly. My poor baby didn't seem happy when he was screaming from tummy pain.
• I finally got in to see the Dr who gave Z a round of antibiotics.  After a few days, his congestion started clearing immensely.
• Aside from the congestion and reflux, Z did pretty stinking good his first month. He slept a lot during the day which helped me recover and spend some time wrangling an active toddler. 

Garrick's first month as an older brother went fairly well! I was pretty nervous that G would have lots of negative emotions/behaviors when we introduced him to Zeke but it was love at first sight.  During the first few weeks of Z's life, older brother, G, seemed to finally comprehend what Mom & Dad meant by "nice," "gentle," "soft," that we'd been coaching him for months without progress. 

Current highlights in the world of Garrick at 22 months:

• Garrick continues to prefer the floor in his bedroom over his bed, causing me some distress.
• Seemingly overnight, G turned into quite the chatterbox!! After Zeke was born, Garrick had a lot of daddy time spent reading books and talking. They would spend hours alone together. I would wake up from a nap and could barely believe my ears as I heard Garrick naming new animals & things around the room.  
• Our new chatterbox has troubles with the letter "R" and to my dismay calls "Remmie" "Mommie." This has been pretty confusing at times and got even more annoying when he shortened "Remmie" to "Rem" aka  "Mommie" to "Mom."
• Garrick has started getting into "coloring" more than ever and enjoys short periods of time with crayons, markers, stickers or stamps. We think this has lots to do with time spent with his older cousins at Grandma's house!
• The haircut: G has the fastest growing hair ever! What was supposed to be a cute stylish haircut turned into a disastrous and uneven buzz cut when we sat down this 22 month old and he threw one of his biggest tantrums to date.
• Garrick got to really play in the snow for the first time! We got a huge snowfall in November and G liked following Alex around as he shoveled, falling in the snow and rolling around, and eating snow chunks. 

Introducing Ezekiel James

Baby Boy Ezekiel James Guggenmos was born on Thursday, November 12th 2015 at 1:48am.

Huge Thank you to Emily and Lou for the newborn photos of Ezekiel. I can't stop obsessing over each and every one

Our first impressions:

• He's so tiny!! Probably due to lugging around a 25b toddler around, but our 8lb4oz, 20" bundle seemed so miniature to us. 
• He is BLONDE!? This was almost as shocking to me as Garrick coming out having tons of dark hair. Zeke has the most velvety soft blonde peach fuzz-thus making him look like his brother right away.
• He's amazing. Ten fingers, ten toes. Perfect as can be.
• What a good baby! Unlike Garrick who came out screaming and rarely stopped, Zeke was incredibly calm for the entirety of his first couple weeks.  I was amazed as I looked at my minutes-old baby calmly observing his surroundings and eventually sleeping soundly in 4-hour stretches for the first couple days. 

Garrick's first impressions:

• Baby? Brother? Requests to "hug," "hold," & "kiss" then began and haven't stopped 
• Garrick immediately liked Zeke but gave me the cold shoulder for weeks after Zeke was born. He didn't want me to hold him and wouldn't even say "mom." When asked "do you love mom?" he'd say "no." Lots of daddy time ensued to his delight!