Motto

“If you get caught up in the worst case scenario and it doesn’t happen, you’ve wasted your time. And if you are caught up in the worst case scenario and it does happen, you’ve lived it twice.” -Michael J. Fox

6.19.2018

23 months

23 months






Height- Will find out next month

Weight- 33 lb (98%)

Diapers- Size 6 nighttime diapers. Size 6 daytime diapers! Daycare has been asking Wes for a couple of months now if he wants to sit on the potty and he is not interested in the least bit.

Wes is super cool


Milestones- Wes "counting" things. 1, 2, 3, 5, 10. He really likes to say 2 and 5 especially. He is getting better about walking down stairs without holding on, although I did watch him fall down two steps outside just today trying to do this (he popped right back up!). He is getting faster on his tricycle and loves riding around on it outside after dinner and before bed. CP and I were pretty excited to give away our high chair and Wes has officially moved into a booster seat at home. While at restaurants we sometimes still put him in a high chair, sometimes a booster, or other times just let him sit on his knees (especially if he is sitting in a booth). He does a pretty good job staying in his seat.

He loves to help by bringing stuff to put in the garbage, putting his milk cup in the sink, or setting down the cat bowls with food.

Riding his tricycle


Language- Wesley has officially switched over to saying "Daddy" and "Mommy" instead of "Dada" and "Mama." He is also talking in long sentences, mostly talking about what is happening at the time- "Wesley sit down with fire truck." He uses colors a lot when he is describing things- it's not just a flower but a yellow flower. Often things like airplanes, cars, trains, dogs barking are "loud."

One of the cutest things he has been doing recently is giving us a surprised look, putting his hand over his mouth and saying "Oh no!" He also will point to something and ask "dis?" wanting to know the word for the object.

Exploring South Haven, MI


They must be working on the ABC song a lot at school because when we sing the song, Wes gets most of the letters. He can sing a bunch of songs including his favorite, The Wheels on the Bus. He can also sing part of the Paw Patrol theme song which is sort of shameful because clearly he is getting more tv than Izzy was at this age.....at least it is only on the weekends.

Favorite Toy- The Brio trains at my parent's house in Michigan. Oh man was he OBSESSED with playing with them! At home we have them too just down in our basement and we aren't down there very often because of the nice weather.

Wes in heaven


Favorite Book- Knuffle Bunny. I don't remember Izzy loving this book so much but Wes wants to read it every night! When Trixie (the kid in the book) starts crying over losing her bunny, Wes gets upset and will say "crying" (he also gets worried when Izzy cries, telling me "sissy crying.")

He did this to himself (Izzy did literally the same thing at this friend's house as well)


Sleep- Bedtime is more like 7:45/8pm these days and he doesn't go right to sleep like he had been doing, but he has slept through all of the thunderstorms recently so he still is a great sleeper in my book. On the weekdays we wake him up around 6:30am and he generally is not very excited about waking up....usually throwing his blanket over his head to block out the overhead light. He still sleeps about two hours for his naps.

Wes' other silly thing recently is having us put socks on his hands so that he can giggle and say "sock hands!" while holding them up. He keeps them on all night and is filled with joy when he shows us his sock hands in the morning.

Wesley hiding under his blanket

Giggling about his sock hands

Clothes- Still in 2T clothes. I washed 3T clothes but they are still slightly too big on him. Size 8 shoes.

Eating- I'm still impressed that he is eating all of the veggies that he does so hopefully that will continue. His favorite is definitely corn, but cherry tomatoes are a close second. If CP takes him shopping and Wes is hungry he will easily eat half of a package of cherry tomatoes during the trip.

Eating pho (!) and loving it


Teeth- No two year old molars quite yet, but he has continued to drool and stick his hand in his mouth like a champ.

Illness- Wes had a tough month. He hurt his finger at school which then became infected. He then got a bunch of mosquito bites at a BBQ and woke up with a swollen eye which took a few days to get down to normal. Fingers crossed this month is a better month for him!

He kept thinking that these were train tracks. Someone is obsessed with Thomas...


Misc- Nothing this month



6.11.2018

Keeping our doctors busy

I thought that over the summer the doctor's visits would slow down but the kids (and me with my physical therapy appointments for the plantar facsiitis) have been keeping our insurance company busy!

Two weeks ago at daycare I got a call in the morning that Wes had done something to his finger while outside. They weren't quite sure what and they weren't requiring us to pick him up, but he was bleeding through band-aids and wouldn't stop crying. I won't post the picture but he somehow managed to shave skin off of the top of his left ring finger and lose part of his fingernail in the nail bed. I picked him up early and decided not to take him to the doctor, instead cleaning the wound myself and putting a band-aid on it, but of course between Wes putting his fingers in his mouth constantly from what is likely teething  and taking the band-aid off constantly, the finger became infected and necessitated a trip to the doctor. No biggie, he is put on antibiotics, we continue to put neosporin and band-aids on, and the finger starts to get better.

A week later, Izzy is acting like a maniac. I mean, she's 4.5 so she is not the best listener right now, but this was BAD. Actively doing the exact opposite of what we were telling her to do, refusing to do certain things, etc. Then also having pee accidents after being trained for two years now. CP finally takes her to the doctor and it turns out that she has strep or similar infection. Last time she got hives, this time it was a swollen lymph node (which we didn't see until it was pointed out to us), pee accidents, and defiance. I'm not sure what it will be next time! Now that she is on antibiotics she is doing much better.

Fast forward to Saturday night when we went over to a friend's house for a BBQ. I put bug spray on Wes, but could see that he was getting bitten so I stayed inside with him for half the night. However, the damage was already done. Poor guy had bites on his neck and face and looks like he has some exotic disease. 




He woke up yesterday from a nap with a slightly swollen eye....





.....then this morning he woke up with an eye that was completely swollen shut! 





Of course CP is in Italy for work so I called the doctor and they wanted to see him to make sure all was okay. For now he has some topical antibiotic to put on the bites because despite giving him a bunch of Benadryl, he is still itching and has opened up the bites. :-(

I'm ready for all of the doctor's visits to stop!



FYI- For anyone that uses Blogger comments are NOT getting emailed to your inbox (if you have turned that setting on). Hopefully the fix happens soon!

6.01.2018

Caffeine hunt

In my never ending quest to ingest enough caffeine into my body to stay awake during the day, I have found some new products that work great AND are low in Weight Watcher points.

If you have been reading long enough, you know that this has been an ongoing quest for quite some time. When Starbucks came out with the Refreshers, I was instantly smitten because soda and chai lattes were simply not enough caffeine. I have been drinking those for a while, but they don't have THAT much caffeine in them and it turns out that they are 3 WW points each.


So what can I recommend?


I was recently down in St. Louis for a work trip and was looking for something to keep me awake during very boring meetings. I happened to see this at the grocery store and picked it up in the hopes that it would help. This is good for the afternoon pick-me-up when you don't need a huge jolt of caffeine, but something to wake you up. I like it better than powdered stuff because you just squeeze the liquid into water- no need to stir! Pro tip- I also tried the Blue Citrus version and I like the Orange Tropical Fusion better.

Zero WW points!

Randomly a sorority sister reached out to me about this product after seeing me complain about caffeine on Facebook. Advocare is a MLM company so the annoying thing about this is that I have to order online and get it shipped to my house instead of finding it in the stores. However, it has tons of caffeine (120mg) and is great for hot days when you don't want hot coffee. I like the Fruit Punch or Mango Strawberry flavors.

Zero WW points!

The next product I happened to taste only because they were handing it out as samples at Union Station in Chicago as I walked to work. I took one thinking that I would absolutely hate it because it was going to taste too much like coffee and it was cold. However, when I got to work and tried it, I actually liked it. Good before long car rides as it doesn't make you need to pee 10 minutes after consuming it. The only drawback is the price- I have been able to find them for 2 for $5 which is pretty steep.


Two WW points

Finally, the best and lowest point creamer that I have found has been the one below. Coffee Mate's Sugar Free French Vanilla liquid creamer (the powder creamers are gross in my opinion). I can put 3 tablespoons of this stuff in coffee and it is only one WW point!




What is your favorite way to ingest caffeine? :-) Have you tried any of these products?


***As always, I have not been asked to review these products OR compensated for blogging about them. Just wanted to let other caffeine-challenged folks know about them if they are interested!***