Roller Derby Summer

This summer, Scarlett has been very much into the Roller Derby. She went to her first game when she was five, and has gone at least twice a season since.

I don't necessarily think that she's interested in the game, as much as she is interested in the women who play. Scarlett's favorite part of the night is at the end, when she goes down to the floor and gets her program and shirt autographed by the players.

They started a junior derby this year, which Scarlett is dying to try. It's pretty expensive and time consuming, but looks like a lot of fun. I personally think she's a little too delicate and sensitive. One little girl at the bout kept getting knocked down by the blockers and spent the rest of the game crying. I can imagine Scarlett doing that.

My favorite player is Kobra Kai. I LOVE her name, because it reminds me of old times. She is one badass chick, with arms full of tattoos and lots of flair. Sadly, this year is her last as a derby girl.

Scarlett's favorite is Flash Gloria. She sports shorts with yellow trim and a lightning bolt on the rear. She used to also sport a lightning bolt on her cheek. Flash is very much the star of the show, so it's no wonder that Scarlett attached herself.



Scarlett and her favorite derby girl, Flash Gloria!

It's a great place for kids. They've got kids-size merchandise and coloring tables. In fact, each time that we've gone, Scarlett has colored a poster for at least three of the derby girls! Kobra Kai put hers up on her Facebook page!

 

Scarlett went to Paint Yourself Silly for Derby Night. All proceeds went to No Coast Derby!

Go No Coast!

The pox

Not just a thing of the past, folks. In the past few weeks, Sully has had a rash (ha!) of bugbites. Chiggers, we thought, since they appeared mostly around the diaper area and around his neck and upper arms/back. Well, when he developed one on his eye, I started to worry. One quick call later and we were on our way to the pediatrician.

Turns out, Sully had developed chicken pox. I seriously didn't think that kids got those anymore! After all, he had been vaccinated! (Or at least he's had the first dose.) The pediatrician explained that even vaccinated children can get the pox, although it's usually much milder and clears up quicker. Even so, he had only seen one case in his 10 years and that was from a Chinese child that hadn't been vaccinated!

Well, itchies be damned, everything is speeding along, as usual. Sully is starting to clear up, Scarlett is thinking about going back to school and we're trying to fit all of the remaining summer still into these last few weeks!

Argh Summer!

Wow, long overdue. I would never have thought that summer would turn out to be busier than spring. In my crazed mind, I was picturing a leisurely summer, dotted with various activities. Scarlett was going to take the summer off from three of her activities, so that would mean more free nights, right? Ha! Scarlett may have more time to play outside with her neighbors, but we have been anything but free. It’s been a whirlwind of traveling, birthday parties, recitals, household projects, library visits, and catching up with friends.

The whole family traveled to Colorado to visit Timmy in June. This was Sullivan’s first big road trip and to be honest, I was dreading it. I love him to bits, but he doesn’t let me hit the easy button on anything. Surely the 8 hour drive was going to be rife with screaming, crying, arching and general displeasure. It really is what I expected. I was genuinely surprised when the ride passed with very few hiccups. We left very early in the morning so that the kids could sleep in the car. After a little mid-morning nap, we did a little eating, reading, playing, singing, movie-watching (Scarlett) and before we knew it, we had arrived! Not to say that there weren’t a few screeches, but they were all for very specific reasons and not just for the hell of it.

 

Sully even tolerated getting in and out of the car within the next few days with little complaint. I didn’t think that he could match Scarlett’s ease, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

Ben, Scarlett and Sully throwing coins into the fountain at Casa Bonita.

Last weekend, Ben and the kids accompanied his parents to Ohio. I’m a little ashamed to say that I was looking forward to a little time alone. Of course I was going to miss my babies and my husband, but the thought of getting some long abandoned projects done put a big smile on my face. (I hope that those of you with children can relate. If not, I’m a total jerk!)

According to Ben and his parents, Scarlett was a phenomenal backseat companion. Sully was pretty good, although he did hone his screeching tones on the long car ride back.

Scarlett and Sullivan with their cousins, Micah and Lucy.

I’m hoping to get back to a more regular blog posting schedule soon. Sorry for the delay!

Bye-bye bottle!

We've finally done it! Our house is void of bottles, bottle-washers, bottle drying racks and cooler bags! NO MORE BOTTLES!!

Can you tell how excited I am about this? Having said that, though, I want to point out that it was far from seamless.

Between day care and our house, the bottle had become a crutch. Sully is upset, get the bottle. Little bit of a fussy-pants? Get the bottle. I've got to trim his nails and clean his ears - get the bottle! As you can see, we had to learn new methods of coping to accompany our lack of bottles.

My plan was to wean down the bottle feedings to morning and night only for a while, and then go from there. Well... that didn't really happen. How could it when we were using it as a bandage to fix every little issue? I would say to myself, "Sullivan is only one; we've got plenty of time. I won't let him suck on a bottle when he's two." It's probably true. The clincher, though, was hearing my co-worker talk about weaning her son off of the bottle within a week or so. With no fight and no fuss. What? He's not even one-year-old!

Okay, we're doing this. Cold-turkey, the bottles were gone. We didn't wean and we didn't temper down, we just thrust a sippy cup in his hands and let him figure it out. We did it that way with Scarlett and she was fine. But this is Sully we're talking about. Our boy, our fusser, our whiner. The one who never does ANYTHING the easy way. Nope, he wanted nothing to do with it. He would willingly drink from a sippy cup, unless it contained milk. Sully pitched that crap right back to us, literally pitched it, in an often violent and emotional throw.

No worries, we've finally reached a comfortable stage. Sully started drinking milk again within a week, this time from his sippy cup. He doesn't love the idea of waking up to no bottle, but I rest easier knowing that he will soon forget that he even had a bottle.

One-year goals: An update

Well, things are chugging along. Our first goal, with Sully's one-year birthday come and gone, was to establish a good bedtime routine that wouldn't involve us lulling him to sleep each night. I have to say that things are going better than I thought they would, although it is far from perfect.

Sully has milk anytime between 7:30 and 8 p.m. If he falls asleep while drinking, we usually let him be and just carry him up to bed. If he is still awake, we carry him upstairs to go to bed. A book is read, the light turned off and his musical monitor is on for one song. We leave the room, regardless of whether he is standing in his crib and crying or ready to sleep. For the first week or so, there was a consistent 5-8 minutes of crying, although it was the whiny crying, not the scream my head off, trouble breathing crying. Within two weeks, we were down to 2-3 minutes of crying and occasionally not at all. Now, we can consistently put him down without tears.

Like I said, it's far from perfect. He does sometimes still cry. He does sometimes still wake at night, although we usually got 3-5 days of full nights of sleep. I'd like to chalk that up to teething or some other random issue, but I just don't know. However, I can handle this. I'm a lot less tired during the day and a much happier mommy!

Bring on the bottle!

The official one-year stats

 

 

Height: 33 in

Weight: 30 lbs.

Head: 19 ½ inches

All in the 97^th percentile

 

 

 

Our to-do list is to phase out the bottle and heavy-duty sleep training (establishing a strict bedtime routine). The doctor suggested phasing out the pacifier too, but I don’t think anyone in our house in ready to give that up.

This all is very new territory for us. We did very minimal sleep training with Scarlett and at a much earlier age. She seemed to get it after a few nights. I know that it won’t be that easy with Sully, which is one of the reasons that we’ve been putting it off. Eliminating the bottle was equally easy. I gave her a sippy cup with milk in it on the day after her first birthday. After handing it back to me a few times, she just accepted it and moved on. Lastly, Scarlett was never into binkies – as much as we wanted her to be!

I’ll keep you updated!

Happy First Birthday Sullivan Patrick Coleman!

Yesterday was Sully's first birthday! I can't believe the long and hard year it's been (insert joke here)!
In the scheme of things, this first 12 months was just a little hill in the very long and winding road of life. I know this is true, as I experienced it with Scarlett, so I tried to remind myself as often as I could to stop and smell the roses. I took time to gaze at Sully, remembering every line, crinkle, crease, and dimple of his face. I tried to sigh a little less every time I extracted him from the stairs, knowing that in a couple of short months, he'll be able to climb the stairs by himself. Most of all, I try to enjoy when he won't let me put him down. I'm sure the time will come when he won't even want hugs from his uncool mom!

Here's a little photo blog of the last twelve months.