early milestones

my girl is amazing. and beautiful. though i wonder, everyone says she looks just like me, so is it vane of me to say that she is beautiful? if it is, i don't care. :) she looks like emily to me, just the way noah looks like noah. i see the similar features between the two of them, and features that resemble ben or i, but when i look at them, i just see my beautiful babies.

emily was six weeks old this week, and right at the six week mark, she started giving me big cheesy smiles. of course, they're still somewhat inconsistent. she has to be alert, content, and willing. i usually have to open my eyes really wide and raise the pitch of my voice, and with a little prompting, she'll get wide eyed, smiley eyes, start poking her tongue out of her mouth, and ultimately give a wide, open mouthed grin. i've yet to catch the toothless grin on camera, but ben and i know these are no longer gas smiles.

this week was also big because emily started consistently "sleeping through the night". i put that in quotes because sleeping through the night at this stage is pretty subjective. she is started to get on a more regular sleep schedule where she wakes around 7 or 8, eats, "naps" for an hour or two, eats, is up for awhile, naps mid-day (2ish), is up for awhile, naps early pm (6ish), and then falls asleep around 10pm, but wakes to eat around midnight. now there are good nights and bad nights. the good nights, she eats once at 12 or 1 and sleeps til 6 or 7. the bad nights, she wants to eat like 3 times around 12, 1, 2 ish and might sleep til 5 or 6. still, not bad.

we also booked our trip this week to the west coast! emily's first airplane trip will be to southern california in just under two weeks! we fly february 11th to california where we'll spend a few days with ben's sister sarah, before driving to phoenix to spend a few days with my college roommate, amanda, who just had her second baby, a little boy named jett, two weeks ago!

another big milestone is that noah is practically potty trained! it's been probably three weeks now since i decided one saturday that noah was going to wear underpants and pee on the potty. now, we've had several false starts on this. noah's been sitting on the potty for a looooong time. he's been pooping on the toilet every night for ages, but to get him to acknowlege when he has to pee and actually sit on the potty was another story. we tried underpants when we were on vacation at piatt lake this summer, but stopped for fear of giving noah a complex, since he would scream everytime we tried to put him on the toilet. we tried again around thanksgiving, but he didn't care that his undies would get wet when he peed. finally, we decided to try pull ups. that last a few days before i basically became frustrated that they were just expensive diapers since noah didn't care that he was wet, and developed a rash from wearing them for a few days.

the first day in undies, i bribed noah. i gave him choices of snacks, chocolate or candy corn. he chose candy corn. i told him he could have one candy corn for sitting on the potty and trying to go, or two if he actually went potty. bribery is an amazing thing! there were a few minor accidents in the first couple days and fewer big accidents, and the big accidents weren't even that big. whenever he would have an accident, we'd rush him to the potty. he probably got sick of it, but part of our routine became - "noah, remember to tell mommy when you have to go potty. do you have to go potty? what are you going to say when you have to go potty? always tell someone when you have to go potty."

we're at a point now where noah wears undies 100% of the time he's awake. we've never had a major mess outside of the house, and this past monday, even went to the museum of science and industry with no issues. though, on the drive home, noah was acting like he had to go, saying he was uncomfortable and his butt hurt (??) so we stopped at a burger king to use the bathroom. it was a false alarm. he still wears pull ups at nap and bedtime, but in the last day or two, he's woken up almost completely dry. he knows wearing undies is a big deal, and we praise him big time every time he goes and every time he remembers to tell us without being prompted.

still need to finish up the birth/hospital story, but trying to enjoy each moment with my little one. the weeks are flying by. i can hardly believe it's almost february and my maternity leave ends in five weeks.