Growing Up Nehmer: 2011

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and you are all safe and healthy! We had a great Christmas despite the fact that Benjamin wants nothing to do with Santa! Every time we mentioned his name, he would say, "Santa leave now!" and "No Santa either!" He didn't even want Santa to bring presents! We celebrated Christmas Eve at Bum Bum's this year and for the first 15 minutes of the gift opening, Ben refused to come out of the bedroom to join us. I even brought him a present to open and at first, he wanted nothing to do with it. I opened it for him and showed him what a present is and two minutes later, he joined us for..."more presents, Mommy, more!" He was very impressed with the concept and I was happy that he finally had some new toys to play with!

It's been an exciting couple weeks around the Nehmer household. Emma started sitting up on her own over a month ago and about 2 weeks ago, she just started rolling all over the house, no one can stop her now! Emma's bottom two teeth are also now poking through. And Mr. Benjamin has finally started potty training!! We are almost 2 weeks in and he goes #1 potty at least once a day before or after bed and naps and has gone #2 a couple of times too. I don't push it but I am just getting him familiar with it until he really starts recognizing when he wants/needs to go. I have also started teaching him how to undress himself so he can start to go to the bathroom on his own. He is very proud of what he can do! We are doing all kinds of growing up around here!

Well, our little guy is now a big 3 years old as of January 5th!! We had a small pizza party to celebrate with a Thomas the Train cake and he was so excited to sing Happy Birthday louder than anyone! He has finally gotten the concept of opening presents but now he wants to open presents every day! He is growing so fast and I am sad to say that I think it might be about time to look into pre-school for next year. I don't know if we can afford it but I will see what we can find. He had his 3 year doctor appointment three weeks ago and when the nurse came in and sat down, Ben said proudly, "I'm a big boy now!" He is such my little sweetheart! He did so good at the appointment. As the doctor was asking me questions about where he is at and where he should be, I was able to top everything she said he should be doing in the future and every time I spoke about him, he had a huge grin on his face. She said that by 4 he should be able to count to 5 and I told her that he has been able to count to 15 for about 6 months now. She said by 4 he should know all or most of the alphabet, I said that he has been able to sing the alphabet for a couple months now. She said that he should start to learn his colors by 4, I said that he already knows the colors of the rainbow and can name them and associate them. He was grinning from ear to ear! And as he got his shot, he didn't even flinch and he proudly showed off his Buzz Lightyear bandaid to daddy when he got home!

Ben has discovered "being scared" lately. a couple months back, he started to say that there was a monster in certain parts of the house, typically the back hall and the back of the dining room. I am assuming it is because those are some of the darkest parts of the house. He still runs to me here and there after walking by or being in those areas and says that he is scared. He is also mentioning to us when he is scared of an object so I really think he is just discovering this new emotion and testing it out. I am glad that he has not been "scared" at bedtime yet because I am not prepared to deal with handling that quite yet.

Little Emma is now 8 1/2 months old! I cannot believe that in just over 3 months, she will be a year old already. She is so sweet but I have to say, she is not as smiley as my Benjamin was as a baby. She does smile alot but Ben used to smile at everything, even a lamp, and still does. Emma is a bit more serious and inspects and explores everything with her eyes and hands. She is very verbal, independent, doesn't like me in her face as much as Ben did, and she does not sit still for a second! Now that she can roll around, she does not like to be held for long. After we sit her on the floor to play with her toys, she pretty quickly "falls" backwards so she can be on her way to navigating. And since she puts everything in her mouth (which Ben never did), we have to really watch all the toddler toys laying around! Emma's favorite things to do are to clap her hands and say, "yay" in baby talk, pet the cat and grab his tail, and pet the dog to whom she whispers, "daw daw" whenever the dog walks past. Emma also loves to watch her brother and herself on home movies on TV and clap at them as much as she can. She also loves to snuggle and be held.

I am proud to say that I am still breastfeeding Emma 4 times a day! With Ben, at 6 months he was down to two feeds a day plus bottles. At exactly 6 months, he refused his morning breastfeed. I pumped the rest of the day. At 9 months with Ben, he then refused his bedtime breastfeed. At that point, the doctor had told me to give him formula but I was so close to being able to give him cow's milk. I was able to increase my milk and pump for another 5 months! This time around, since I am not planning on leaving the kids with daycare like I was planning with Ben, I was able to keep her breastfeeding going and skip the bottle altogether. Since Ben is 3 and still taking his bottle so he gets his milk, I want to avoid that with Emma. We are only giving her milk either from me or in a sippy cup. She doesn't mind it but probably takes less from a sippy than she would from a bottle. I am glad she still likes to breastfeed for most of the day. She has cut out one feed after her second nap which she then gets a sippy. I hate the fact that I feel like I am not producing enough milk for her to get full feeds but she doesn't seem to mind and still eats about every two hours.

We have also been very lucky with two very good sleepers still! Thank goodness! Emma goes down around 7pm and doesn't get up until about 7 or 7:30am. At this point, she takes 2-3 naps a day and still sleeps 12 hours at night. Ben goes down between 7:30 and 8 and doesn't wake up until 7:30 or 8:30am. He also takes about a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. I hope the nap god's continue to shine on us for a very long time!

Emma was baptized yesterday at St. Mary's Lutheran church in Kenosha, the same place Jared and I were both baptized and married. It was a very small gathering and the kids did pretty well in church even though Emma started eating the baptism pamphlet while we were up at the alter. I had to dig my finger into her mouth and pull the corner of paper out while we were up in front of the whole congregation!

Well, I am sure you would love for me to go on and on...but, I'll save it for next post! Be sure to scroll down as I have put in a couple smaller posts since November. Thanks for checking in! Stay warm!

Pushing Ulises Gonzalez around in the Big Red Car!