Mothering Munchkins: Munchkin Update

Babies change and grow so quickly it's almost necessary to keep a daily log of their developments. I was reminded of this by Shiphrah today when she and I were able to carry on a mini conversation at the dinner table this evening. It went something like this:
Shiphrah: Daddy? Daddy night-night?
Me: No, Daddy's not sleeping, he's at work.
Shiphrah: Brudder brudder night-night?
Me: Yes, Kirk is sleeping right now.
Shiphrah: (notices a fly buzzing around the table) FLY!! Fly, shoo-doh (sandwich) NO! Bye-bye fly!
Me: (Shiph becomes increasingly bothered by the fly so I get out a flyswatter and kill said fly.) The fly is gone, Shiphrah, eat your food.
Shiphrah: (decides she all of a sudden likes the fly, holds her sandwich out in front of her) Shoo-doh fly eat!

Ah, I love that girl. :) She's really been starting to talk a lot lately...stringing words together and trying to carry on conversations with us. Although she gets SO frustrated when we don't understand what she's trying to say.

She has twelve teeth now with four more coming in. I will be soooo glad when she's done teething...it'll be nice to see what her normal personality is. Still not much hair, but the one ponytail in the back keeps getting longer. She's still growing very slowly, but I just know that one of these days she'll hit a growth spurt and shoot herself onto the growth chart. She's still hovering around 20 pounds and hasn't hit 30 inches yet. She's 20-months-old and is still in 12-18 month clothing, but Mama's not complaining...means less clothes shopping for her!

She still sleeps like a champ (13 hours at night and a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon) and is still the pickiest eater in the world. Her foods of choice are canned carrots, grapes, cheese, and PB&J sandwiches. She'll eat fruit like there's no tomorrow, but only bananas, strawberries, grapes, and watermelon. No luck at potty-training yet but she's pretty good at letting us know when she needs her diaper changed. (Lately she's been telling me that Daddy needs to change her poopy diapers, not me. :) Haha, fine with me!)

She's still stubborn, obstinate, and opinionated. We're working on obedience, but that's going to be a long, tough road. I have a feeling her "Terrible Twos" will be sticking around for several years to come.

And here's our little drama queen posing with her crown. (Sorry about the clothesless state...it's South Texas, y'all, and it's HOT!)

Kirk Micah is nearing 5 months old and is developing quite the personality as well. He's a bright and cheerful little boy as long as someone is paying attention to him. He's really started "talking" as well...he oohs and ahhs and blows bubbles with his mouth constantly. He also seems to have quite the short temper as he can go from grinning one minute to screaming bloody murder the second if I dare set him down and walk away. His little face turns dark red and he looks oh-so angry. He also fusses/cries himself to sleep most naps and nights, as much as Mommy hates listening to his pitiful cries.

He still isn't sleeping through the night, but he usually sleeps about two 4-hour stretches or a 5-hour and a 3-hour stretch which is an improvement from the every-3-hour routine. He takes two to three naps a day, his first around 11 in the morning and his second around 2 in the afternoon. If his second goes long (which it often does) there's not usually a third nap since bedtime is around 8:30.

Kirk is growing out of clothes in a typical baby fashion, which throws this Mama for a loop because she's not used to having to pull out the next size up so fast. He's just under the 50th percentile so he's fitting into most of his 3-6 month clothes. Thankfully we had two other moms give us hand-me-downs from their little boys so we're pretty set for his first year.

No solids for the boy yet...I've given him rice cereal on a few occasions but he's not too keen on it. He likes sucking on fruit, so I'm sure he'll love the pureed foods when I start him on them though. Since he's doing so well on breastmilk though and seems happy to eat every 2 1/2 hours, I'm not in a hurry to add solids. We'll wait until he's 6 months and then only add a feeding or two a day. Shiphrah was too eager to stop nursing and I don't want to run into that problem with Kirk.

Here's my boy on his first day in the jumparoo. He loves it as long as he has his sister to watch while he's in it...he's not much for playing with toys unless there's no other option.