21 months

21 months

Here's Wesley!

Height- We checked Wesley's height on our wall chart this past week and he has grown 2.25" since December- wow! Talk about a growth spurt! He is now 34.25".

Weight- 31.5 with clothes on at our house.

Celebrating St Patrick's Day at a friends house

Diapers- Size 5 diapers during the day, Size 6 nighttime diapers.

This month he successfully let us know when he had pooped in his diaper by pointing at his butt. But when asked "Wes do you have poop in your diaper?" he would reply "no." LOL. We are a ways off from potty training this one. :-) He does know to point to his penis when you ask him "Wes, where do you pee?"

Wes got food in his hair at school and his hair was so stiff I could fashion it into a mini-Mowhawk. Reminded me of Cameron Diaz' hair in "There's Something About Mary" LOL

Milestones- Wes is getting better about drinking from an open cup and not spilling. He is now correctly pointing out and saying yellow, orange, blue, red, purple, and black. Can't quite say green yet but will do a "grrr" sound instead.:-) He is also getting better at pointing out shapes- star, heart, oval, and circle.

Wes loves music and started to play the piano at a friend's house

Wes is starting to climb more than Izzy did. He wants to pull himself up on the kitchen counter, he wants to climb the outside of the banister, etc. It might get interesting around here...

Wes is starting to want to do things himself...like push the grocery cart even though he can't see where he is going.

Wes asks to be picked up a whole lot, but will also often ask to "walk" or "run" himself which I am perfectly happy to let him do. While Izzy is riding her tricycle in our neighborhood he loves to run after her while pushing his dinosaur. It's a great workout for him!

Running while pushing dinosaur

Language- Wes seems to learn a new word a day! The most exciting one this month was Wesley. He ends up saying "Wesley's milk" or "Dada's orange" which is something Izzy did right around the same time. He is also saying "Izzy" but it comes out sounding like "sissy" which is pretty cute. Wes recognizes a lot of songs (like the ABC song, Row, Row your Boat, etc.) but will only really sing the "Clean up song." Works for me!

Showing off their "muscles" at the dinner table

Favorite Toy- Honestly, books. The bottom two shelves of the bookcase in our kitchen are full of kids books and every night, Wes pulls a bunch down and looks through them. Sometimes he will read them himself, other times he brings them over and wants you to read them.

Every. Single. Night.

Favorite Book- Recently he has been enjoyed "Those Darn Squirrels" and "Dragons Love Tacos."

Sleep- Wes is a great sleeper from about 7:30pm to 7 or 8am. He is down to one nap a day, generally starting around 12:30 and lasting for about two hours.

Passed out after only a 5 minute drive after the Easter Egg Hunt

Clothes- Solidly in 2T clothing but could see a move to 3T soon because of his growth spurt. Size 7 shoes.

Eating- Wes has been a rockstar with food as he will still try ANYTHING. Last night he tried my cioppino soup that CP made (Izzy tried it and liked it too!), this week he ate Lebanese food (chicken in a sauce with pomegranates, hummus, lentil soup). He actually is helping Izzy become a better trier of foods which is great! He will devour broccoli and cherry tomatoes before eating anything else on his plate. I'll be sad when he gets pickier but I'm sure it will happen soon.

The kids enjoying Soba noodles at a local Japanese restaurant

Wes also learned this month with Easter that he LOVES chocolate. :-)

Pre-friend Easter egg hunt

Excited to get so many eggs!

In-home Easter Egg hunt because it was too cold outside!

Teeth- No new teeth this past month.

Illness- Another ear infection in the other ear. I saw his blue tube in his ear canal one morning (you usually can't see them) and by the afternoon it had fallen out so he only has one ear tube at this point.

Opening Day for the Cubs!

Misc- Wes has a girlfriend at school! Okay not really because he is two, but he loves to say "Emma! Emma!" when he gets home and when we ask about Emma he giggles. The teachers say that they are super cute and Wes wants to hold her hand or have her sit next to him when he is reading a book (he gets sad if she doesn't want to). I ran into her mom during dropoff one day and I guess Emma says Wesley's name a lot at home too. Adorable!

I guess Wes likes to hold hands- he got so excited to hold Izzy's hand....although it's not Izzy's favorite (at least this night)

Check in on 2018 goals

We are now quarter of the way through the year so I thought that I would check in on my 2018 goals to see how I am doing.

1. Continue our part vegetarian lifestyle through the year. 

On Track! I really can't take much credit with this goal because it is really CP that cooks most of our meals, but we have continued to eat meat only a couple nights a week for dinner (mostly Friday and Saturday). I have been trying to eat more fish when we are out at restaurants instead of eating red meat. We have significantly cut down on the amount of meat eaten in our household.

2. Continue to send paper cards to friends for their birthdays. 

On Track! 

3. The usual lose weight goal.

On Track! As I mentioned before, I was slow in making changes so January I saw a 1 pound weight loss, the same in February. However, March was a better month and I lost 4.5 pounds so I am down 6.5 pounds so far. If I can keep up even just losing 4 pounds a month I will definitely hit the weight that I wanted to hit by my birthday in December and even more! 

4. Be more consistent with working out.

Working on it! Last week I took almost a whole week off of my Beachbody workout because...well, I didn't reallyhave a great excuse. But on Friday and Sunday I was back at it for week 3 and feeling fairly good. My heel pain hasn't lessened with the inserts so no running anytime soon, but I will continue with my workouts as there is a low-impact option. 

I will say that a local mom's group did a pushup challenge for the month of March and I faithfully did my pushups EVERY DAY in March. On the last day we were up to two sets of 31 pushups which meant that I did 62 pushups on Saturday (on my knees of course)! So at least I was consistent with that. This month we are doing a combo of moves every day- situps, planks, leg raises, crunches, and pushups. :-)

5. Continue monthly dates with CP.

On Track! I think that we may have missed going on a date in March, but CP was in Ireland for two of the weekends and we were quite busy the rest of the month. We are going to make up for it by going out two weekends in a row this month. :-)

6. Pay down our credit card debt.

On Track! We are watching our spending and we are so close to paying off our credit card debt. Our work bonuses should be hitting our accounts soon and CP gets three paychecks in the month of May and I get three paychecks in the month of June so between all of those things we should be completely set and may have some money to put into our savings account.

7. Continue to be politically active and contact my elected officials when necessary.

On Track! Since joining the local Moms Demand Action group I have been busy contacting elected officials and going to marches. I also wrote a bunch of postcards for the Postcards to Voters group.

8. Create a better and more consistent bedtime routine.

Working on it! I really am a night owl at heart so I enjoy going to bed later on the weekends...but then it messes up my schedule for the week. Unless I am out and having fun with friends, I need to work on getting to bed on time.

9. Run in at least two races this year.

Not completed yet! I'm still not running yet and had to drop out of the Ragnar Relays (the race from Chicago to Madison, WI) in May. However I am signed up for a Tough Mudder with mom friends in August and there is always the local 5K that runs past our house and the 5K that I do with coworkers in September. Plenty of time to get back into running shape and hopefully with less weight on my body I will be able to run faster than last year!