4 Month Update

Nina is now FOUR. MONTHS. OLD. What the hell, Father Time, why are you stealing my baby?

She is almost sitting.

She LOOOOOVES food. She has had:

Avacado!

BANANA!

Carrots!

Peer pressure: sibling edition (AKA Jealousy)

Can anyone think of a D food to try next?

She rolls! Or, rather, she has the ability to roll. She has done it twice and we've yet to see it happen again. She gets about 3/4 of the way over now and just chills on her arm.

At today's 4 month appointment, she weighed 15lb 12.5oz. I seriously wonder if this is off because she weighs 16 pounds at home, and certainly feels like she weighs more. She is 24 inches tall. She got two shots and was a champ for both of them. We go back in a week for the next two. I am absolutely pro-vaccine, we just split them up by a week because I think 4 shots at once is a little excessive.

Swingin'

She smiles, laughs, coos, and will intently stare at you while you speak. She likes to chew on her weird looking teether, her bug beads, and her binky. She really doesn't like the binky except for when she's sleepy. She prefers to chew on her fingers, hands, Mommy's finger, or Daddy's knuckles.

She loves her big brother. Even when he bounces up to her, pokes her eyes, tells her she has a mouth, ears, nose, and butt and pokes and prods her various appendages, she adores him. Jack willingly gives Nina hugs now and OMG I die just a little from happiness whenever he says "I wuv oo, Een!"

She is still sleeping through the night.

I think we'll keep her, for realsies!

Edited 3/27: Nina popped her first tooth today! It's her bottom left tooth. Jack was 8.5 months old before he cut his first teeth, so I really wasn't expecting such an early teether! Yay! Nina!

Lack of Photographic Evidence

While I was pregnant with Nina, people warned me about second child syndrome. That I wouldn't have as many photographs, as many documented memories. I was even told not to start a scrapbook for Jack because by the time e second kid comes around, I'd be too burnt out to scrap for him or her.

I can see where people get caught up in their lives and neglect documenting the second child's life. However, I'm having the opposite problem. I feel like I'm not sharing as much of Jack's life. And the issue is that he doesn't stop moving. He won't be photographed unless he is in control of the camera. The front camera on the iPhone and iPad suck. It's not as good as the outward camera. This results in many grainy, blurry photos. Nina is so easy to take pictures of because she just lays there. Compliant. And squishy. Also, my phone is constantly within reach and taking photos is a million times easier for my generation!

My interactions with Jack are so different from a year ago. We can hold mini conversations. His life is much harder to document because it is in constant motion. By the time our day ends, his cutisms are all jumbled up in my brain. I try to share them on Facebook as they happen, but then I feel like I'm updating too often.

With Jack's third birthday quickly approaching, I'm still trying to comprehend that my tiny 7lb baby is no longer a baby, but is now a little boy. I know that he won't feel neglected when I explain that he has few photos because he was too busy enjoying life. He was too busy playing choo-choos, petting Zelza, and watching Einsteins that I just sat back and enjoyed watching him love being a kid.

Jack's sentence structure is amazing. I'm always shocked when I hear kids talk in grammatically correct sentences. I don't know why, but when little kids use pronouns I just get a kick out of it. Using "your" instead of "mommy's" is adorable in Jack's little voice. Yes, I'm bragging about my kid's brilliant use of pronouns. Deal with it!

There are so many things that just are photo worthy (or, more accurately, photo appropriate) like when Jack repeats my words, good and bad, or announces "I haffa go pee pee on the big potty!" I wish I could capture every moment of his life on camera, but it's impossible. I hope he understands this when he's older.

My neighbor almost burned down our building

I wasn't sure how to title this post in a way that expresses how scared and nervous I am for our elderly neighbor...

My neighbor across the hall is a sweet, lonely old woman. The truth is, I don't know how old she is. She could be a poorly aging 50s or in her 70s. It's hard to tell. She's very kind and has only the nicest things to say about my kids.

That being said. I can't stand talking to her. It's sad to admit this, but when I have crying babies or am on the phone the last thing I want to do is chat about my cats, or her depression, or how she is getting so old that she can't remember certain things.

Todd and I are always willing to help. Yes. Sometimes we do it reluctantly because her house is literally an episode of Hoarders and it feels dirty to experience her home. It's sad to see someone you know deteriorate over time like that.

My point is this: twice, she has come to us regarding an unfortunate stove accident. The first was a while back. I can't remember if we'd had Jack yet. For some reason she pulled all the knobs off of her stove and they were put back on the wrong posts. She had her oven and a burner swapped. She claims she never did that, but someone had to. Either way, she couldn't figure out why one of her burners was on. Surprisingly, we went over that time to check on her television, which wasn't working because she'd flipped the breaker to turn off the stove (our condos weren't wired the smartest...)

Today, she knocked on our door frantically asking if Todd could look at her stove because it was smoking. You could smell the burning before I even opened my door. She innocently told me that maybe it was her oven, she didn't know because she doesn't use it. After opening the oven door and being assaulted by plumes of smoke and the smell of burnt plastic I fished out a box of Ziplock storage bags that had melted and burned. There were also a few different colored puddles, which I'm assuming were plastic bowls of some sort. She also had a spare burner in the oven. She claimed the cleaning lady must store them there.

A couple of things were wrong in both situations. Her stove was not cleared off. There were plastic bags, dishes, plastic and paper packages all over the burners. After the first stove episode, Todd and I discussed the dangers of her being on her own, but really, what could we do about it?

I still don't know. I now have the phone number of her sister. A while back she'd mentioned a sister but they didn't seem to be very close. I'm not sure how much help she could be here. My other option would be to call social services. I worry about the latter because I'm afraid they'd put her somewhere where she'd have to surrender her cat. Silly, yes, but I've seen firsthand the improvement of her cognitive well being the cat brings her. She had to put her previous cat to sleep and I was worried about her mental state.

I just don't know where to go from here. I worry about what would happen if Todd or I weren't home. I worry that I'll drive up one day to fire trucks, or worse, that she'd start a fire while we are all still home. I can't imagine wrangling both kids and three cats out of a burning building. I know if it came to it, I'd have to let the cats go, but even thinking of making that decision kills me.

I wish we could afford to sell. I wish our mortgage weren't under water and we had more options. Maybe I should start playing the lotto. We don't need much, just enough to pay off to be able to sell. At this point, we don't even want to make money off the stupid place, we just want to be able to get out.