Gerritt is 2 years old!!!

On October 1st Gerritt turned 2 years old. His birthday happened to fall on a Thursday, so we've celebrated with my husband's Mom the weekend before & with Chris & Gerry on Wednesday. On the weekend we had dinner with my husband's Mom & I baked a carrot cake with cream-cheese frosting. It was one of my favorite recipes from the "From the Bastyr Kitchen" cookbook & included honey & maple syrup instead of sugar & all organic ingredients. Gerritt enjoyed it & even attempted to cut himself another piece when we were not looking. So the leftover cake was full of holes. :-) On Wednesday Gerry & Chris traveled from Wenatchee to celebrate Gerritt's birthday with us. They presented him with a beautiful Radio Flyer tricycle. We blew up many balloons & Gerritt had fun kicking & throwing them up in the air. Gerritt also received a BPA-free, recycled-plastic truck, 2 dinosaurs & a hunter from Judy & Jerry Lawson & a gift certificate to Target from Diane & Greg Olshavsky. Gerritt really enjoyed the singing happy-birthday Elmo card from Judy & Jerry & kept playing it several times a day. We've decided not to make as big of a production out of Gerritt's 2nd birthday as his 1st one since he is too young to fully appreciate it.
Sophia is already 4.5-months old. She is definitely more vocal than Gerritt. She loves to bubble & talk; in fact, she can get pretty loud at times. She loves to look at herself in the mirror & smile (it used to be Gerritt's favorite game too). She likes her baths & her long naps afterwords. We've been putting her to sleep on her sides instead of her back to prevent a flat head (Gerritt's head is still slightly flattened from all on-the-back sleeping he did as a baby). She is always propped up with rolled towels so the possibility of her rolling onto her tummy is slim. She sleeps better when swaddled, so I recently broke down & bought a few more of my favorite Swaddle Designs blankets. They are soft & large. I initially received my very first Swaddle Designs organic cotton blanket as a gift from the Group Health Hospital after Sophia's birth & was hooked.
Sophia recognizes people & cries when she sees someone she doesn't know. She takes multiple naps during the day. Usually she plays for an hour (1.5 hours would be really pushing it) & then gets fussy & rubs her eyes. So about every 2 hours I swaddle & put her down for a nap. Another lesson learned from raising Gerritt... I remember thinking he was such a fussy baby during those first few months until I read how much sleep small children needed. Sophia is only starting to sleep longer at night & usually wakes up to eat every 4 hours. She slept 5-6 hours straight only a handful of times (usually after a day full of activities). She outgrew her bassinet, so she's been sleeping on a bed with one of us for the past couple of weeks. I put her in a perpendicular to my body position so I can feel her feet touching me. She doesn't even have to wake up fully. She starts to hyperventilate & smack her lips & then I know she is hungry, so I get up & feed her.
Sophia is already fascinated with our eating process. She literally turns her head & follows the spoon with her eyes as the food travels from my plate to my mouth. Less than 2 months to go before I can start giving her solids! I let her suck on a ripe banana a few times & she enjoyed it so much she was grabbing the banana with both hands. We will not be rushing into feeding Sophia anything else though. There are many reasons to delay the introduction of solids as outlined in the Kelly Mom. The main one I remember is that babies younger than 6 months have "leaky" guts, which means the spaces between the cells of the small intestine are large enough to allow food proteins & pathogens to enter the bloodstream predisposing her to food allergies & diseases later on.
Sophia is getting better at grabbing & holding things & started to use a Jumperoo a few weeks ago. One of her favorite things to chew on is the BPA-, phthalate- & PVC-free teether from the BornFree. During her last check-up, Sophia's doctor recommended we dilute her formula or feed Sophia less frequently since he thought she was gaining too much weight. I've tried diluting the formula & Sophia proceeded to demand feedings every 2 hours instead of 3. So, we are just going to disregard Dr. Yam's recommendations & let her determine how often & how much she wants to eat. I took Gerritt's health record out & compared it with Sophia's. He was a big baby as well (in the 95th percentile for weight & height during his 1st year). Sophia is actually smaller.
Our parenting life is much easier this time around since we just did the newborn stage less than 2 years ago. I honestly can say I am enjoying Sophia much more than I did the first few months with Gerritt. I am more confident, relaxed & content as a parent. I've learned not to "sweat the small stuff" & cherish those little moments. Sophia is a content baby & hardly ever cries. The only time she gets really loud is when she is hungry. She is like a baby bird: she leans forward, opens her mouth looking for a nipple & her body becomes spring-like & rigid. She recently learned to put both of her hands on the bottle - so cute!
We've been so fortunate to keep her out of daycare so far. She is at home with my husband on the weekends & goes to her Korean grandma when I have to work during the week (every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). Ironically, I get more rest when I work since grandma watches her BOTH days & nights. The first time we did it I felt so guilty, like I was a bad Mom sending Sophia away for several days in a row. However, she always came back clean (grandma insists on bathing her every day), powdered, well-fed & happy, so now it is our routine.
Gerritt goes to daycare 3 times a week, so on the days that I work I have all mornings to myself. I mostly cook, clean the house, do laundry (almost daily), sleep in, run errands & read. I got hooked on watching the HBO's True Blood this summer, so I've read all of the books the show is based on. The series are about Sookie Stackhouse, a young pretty barmaid & a telepath, & her adventures involving vampires, shapeshifters, maenads, werewolves & other supernatural beings. I didn't think I would find anything as enjoyable as the Twilight books, however, the Sookie Stackhouse novels came a close second. Since I can't travel now (I could but I don't want to put myself through such torture with 2 kids), a good book is like my little getaway.