NILL FAMILY news

Dear Alex (“All-yex”),

It’s National Sibling Day and I just thought I should say something official about it. As everyone knows, I was here first so when you came along last year I had my doubts. There was some significant, immediate fallout following March 16, 2014 (your “birthday”). Parental response time to my every whim drastically increased and you, this tiny “baby” that all of a sudden just took up space in Mommy’s arms, were to blame. But I think I coped pretty well and made the best of my bad situation from early on.

Now you are 1 and as you have gotten older and can at least attempt to keep up with me, things are turning out to be pretty fun. You are a good sport when I rip toys from your innocent little grasp and you sometimes share your snacks. When you don’t I just steal them and you are okay with that because you know what’s best for you. Good little brother. Also, I don’t always mean to push you over but for the times that it was intentional, I’m sorry. But honestly, when I’m pushing my dump truck you should know by now to get out of the way.

So things are good. I’m happy you are around and would say we are friends. I did help you learn to walk by dragging you across the floor. You’re welcome! And when I am sleeping, you tell Mommy to bring you in so you can poke me in the eye to wake me up so we can play. I’m so glad we have each other.

Because today is National Sibling Day, I’ve been reflecting on our time together and luckily for us, our mom does not know when to stop taking pictures so every move we have ever made is documented. I compiled a little brotherly timeline for us out of her ridiculous number of photos, starting from when we first met:

and then on to April…

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

 April

and here we are today, at National Sibling Day. I love you very much. I will make sure and wake you up tomorrow morning by bringing more cars than I can carry into your room so I drop them all about a foot from your head and wake you up. Can’t wait to play!

Love,
Ashton, age “free”

p.s. You know I hate it when you knock down my towers, so stop doing that.

There is no doubt about it: Ashton is only a few feet tall, but he fills the house with his personality. Some of the recent happenings are so ridiculous I have to get them in writing. But before continuing, please watch this video. It’s like, a prerequisite for this post.

In this video, you’ll see that Jason did a totally terrible job of fake-eating Ashton’s beloved Hexbug Nano. You’ll also see the visual definition of one of Ashton’s freakouts; it’s important you know what I’m dealing with here and that you know he will carry on for several minutes whilst plastered to the floor. And it happens anywhere, like the other day outside the playground.

I can’t remember what set him off on that one. I was too busy trying not to laugh while I was taking his picture.

The point is that we all get upset sometimes and for a wide range of reasons. But you might be Ashton if the following things have made you cry or make you want to.

1) Your back seat, passenger-side window does not have its own wiper.
2) You did not receive proper medical treatment for your ankle (and by ankle you meant your wrist, but did not tell me that). Due to complete lack of any visible wound, you received just one BandAid. You needed two.
3) You are “out of power”. This means you are having a hard time moving due to being tired.
4) The sticker is too sticky.
5) The sticker is not sticky enough.
6) You didn’t get to see what was in Alex’s diaper.
7) There’s jam on your toast.
8) Someone is sitting where you want to sit.
9) A package came in the mail that is not addressed to you.
10) The fact that Wednesday does not come after Friday.
11) You really, really, really don’t want a mermaid to come into your room.

12) Dinner is ready.
13) You have closely examined your bowl of multi-grain cheerios and there are no “red ones” in it. Now, this one really got me. I poured him some, put the box on the counter, and went about my business. He kept whining and complaining and needling me that there were no “red ones” in his bowl and he really wanted the “red ones”. Extremely exasperated, I finally said “What are you talking about?” and he pointed to the box.

Of course, he was already crying by the time I was halfway through the explanation that he knew those weren’t cheerios, they were raspberries, they didn’t actually come in the box with the cheerios and haven’t you ever heard of a “serving suggestion” and Mommy doesn’t HAVE any raspberries and even if I did I would not give you any because you are eating in the living room and I don’t want you to stain the couch!

Man.

In case you still have doubts, you might also be Ashton if…

You rush to the potty to pee, but you can’t get your pants down in time because your pockets are stuffed with matchbox cars, so you have an accident.

You think bras are to keep boobs from falling off.

Cows give you nightmares.

You are public about your bodily functions and also very descriptive. “I just pooped one long one and two short ones!” “That one was spiky!” etc etc. Also, baths are especially fun because of “water toots”.

Put your hands over your eyes. Bam! You’re hiding.

You say weird things out of nowhere like “Hey Mommy! Guess what time it is. It’s silly o’clock!” and “Hey Mommy! Stop beating the chickens.” [and then maniacally laugh]

All your sentences start with “Hey Mommy!”

You examine your body for instant, measurable growth after eating one bite of one vegetable.

You believe flowers have honey in them and that mommies can’t do everything. Only daddies can. (womp womp)

Old McDonald’s is where you get your happy meals.

Your favorite day is Monday, because that’s when Daddy is home and he builds you race tracks like this 🙂

No need to go on, I should think. Chances are you’ve concluded that no, you are not Ashton: emotional mindfield, lover AND hater of Alex, chatterbox, Mr. Everything-just-so, provider of nearly all my blog material. Can’t wait to see what he does next…actually, I definitely can 😉

I can’t remember if I have told this story here or not. Some 17 years ago, when Jason Nill showed up at Colby-Sawyer for his freshman year of college, he met his roommate who also happened to be named Jason (Lomberg). At some point soon thereafter, Jason Lomberg started going by “Berg” in order to differentiate and to this day, we still call him that and he and Jason are still best friends. You might remember Berg and Karen’s wedding (I was 10 weeks pregnant with Alex!) but you also likely recognize them as regulars here on this blog (they have come for Thanksgiving, birthdays, to Long Island, etc etc). Anyway, Ashton calls them Uncle Berg and Uncle Karen (we are working on the more gender-appropriate title of Aunt), they bought a house two miles away, and are expecting their first baby (a boy!) on 5/15/15. I had the honor of hosting Karen’s baby shower this past Saturday at their house and it was a perfect little party if you ask me 🙂 We all had so much fun.

So, pictures! Her nursery has an elephant theme, I’m so bummed I did not snap a few pictures of how adorable it is. But we carried that theme and her colors (aqua and gray) throughout, starting with the invitations:

I had handmade most of the decorations, Jason blew up the balloons, Berg chilled the champagne, and Karen actually made her famous deviled eggs before heading off to get her nails done 🙂 I had Panera cater the sandwiches and salad and the pastry chef at Brae Burn made the cake and the favor pops. I was so happy with how everything came out! We had lunch, presents, some dessert and a group photo…

and then we played the one game that I had set up:

Link for email readers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVyp6c8srMk

We went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a quick visit this past weekend and Alex officially started walking! And by that I mean, not just a stumbly step here or there, but several in a row and consistently! Our favorite game on Sunday evening was having him walk back and forth between Jason and I with everyone cheering him on 🙂 He still prefers to crawl but he’s getting more sure of himself every day!

This past Monday we had a first birthday in the house! For my little pile of blond hair, a one Mr. Alexander Michael Nill. This year has gone by so much faster than Ashton’s first year, that’s for sure. Where to even begin! I stopped doing his monthly updates about 3 months ago and figured if something huge happened, like he started to walk, it would get its own post anyway. But we’ve more or less been holding steady for these winter months. Let’s take a look at where age 1.0 finds us.

Basic stats:

(3/24 pedi visit)
Weight: 25 pounds 11 ounces (95th percentile)
Height: 30.75 inches (85th)
Head circumference: Jason couldn’t remember but it was 75th percentile
Shots: None because we found out he had an ear infection!

Diapers: Size 5
Clothes: 18 months, 18-24 months is a little big
Hair: Blond and fluffy. It actually defied gravity until we got it cut this past weekend.
Eyes: Blue
Teeth: Uh, six. He has his trademark top two and bottom two, and then one each on the right side on the top and bottom. It’s very odd, like the matching ones on the left side aren’t in yet. See?

Meals: Three a day. His favorite foods are mac n cheese (the shell shape pasta, which he will eat warm out of the pot or cold as leftovers), blueberries, sweet potato fries and veggie sticks dipped in hummus. He also loves canteloupe, watermelon, puffs out his snack cup, and string cheese. He and Ashton are not my favorite dinner guests these days – if they had their way they’d have toast every night. So lately I just tell myself at least I’m offering different foods (like fish, meatloaf, carrots, etc.) and try to take deep breaths when it is immediately thrown on the floor. I’m hoping Alex will master pouches and a straw soon because then I can feed them both my sneaky veggie smoothies.

Milk: Ladies and gentlemen, one of the main things Alex got for his birthday was WEANED! From bottles of breastmilk, at least. My last day pumping at work was last Friday, and we have just finished with the transition to cow’s milk in his bottles. He has not noticed, as far as I can tell. He was getting three 5 ounce cow’s milk/breastmilk mixed bottles a day for a couple of weeks, gradually changing the ratios, and then Monday, his birthday, was his first day with bottles that were 100% cow’s milk. No more pumping for me! I will continue to nurse him at bedtime for a little while but I know we’re almost done. Crazy! I found out I was pregnant with him on July 6th, 2013 (Jason’s 36th birthday – I gave him the positive test as a present haha), he was born on March 16, 2014, and here we are a year after that and he finally doesn’t need me anymore. Growing him and then feeding him has lasted 21 months. That’s like, a lot of months.

Sleep: The birthday gifts just keep on coming. He got this one a little early (last week) but it’s a nice little regimen we like to call sleep training. He was still waking up several times a night, which meant I was trudging to his room to nurse him back to sleep, and it was finally taking its toll. With the advent of turning 1, I knew it had to stop. So a week before his birthday we started and Alex immediately served me up a big dish of shock. Not as big as the one Ashton gave me by potty training in five minutes, but a big one nonetheless. He woke up three times, barely cried, and went back to sleep. The next couple of nights he was up just once and again, back to sleep within minutes. I was bracing for all out wail sessions that woke the whole neighborhood and lasted for hours (like with Ashton). And it turned out to be a non-event! So now he sleeps through the night and takes his two naps a day and all is well.

Motor skills: We all thought he was going to start walking long before now. He has been pulling up and cruising everywhere for months. A handful of times he has stood up on his own and balanced there for awhile, and a handful of times of that handful of times, he has taken a step or two, but it’s pretty infrequent. He crawls at warp speed and gets into just about everything – cabinets, cubbies, drawers, book shelves, all of it. We have to watch him all the time, it’s annoying haha. Having two kids is officially hard, because Alex is not content to be in the carseat, stroller or carrier but also is not at the stage where he can do what Ashton is doing (push the dump truck around the block, jump on the trampoline, etc.) So frankly, he gets in pissy moods a lot because of his limitations. He does not point or shake his head but he loves to clap (especially to “If You’re Happy and You Know It”), play hide and seek, and climb the stairs. Oh and “wave”, which is basically opening and closing his hands, and usually backwards.

Favorite toys: Any number of the one million matchbox cars we have lying around, plus his Tolo Ball Run toy, plus his little hide and squeak eggs. We also have a little barn that has little plush animals in it that he loves to take out and put back in. He’s very busy in general just bopping around and exploring – he and Ashton play together a lot in the play tent and crawling tunnel too.

Brotherly love: Alex and Ashton get along great. In the mornings, Ashton wakes up and goes downstairs for some toys (for whatever reason, he will not allow toys in his bedroom), and then comes back up, goes into Alex’s room and they play together for awhile. Sometimes Ashton climbs in with him but often they just shove matchbox cars back and forth at each other through the crib slats.

Overall, Alex is a strong, independent little guy and doing great 🙂

Which brings us to…

Birthday celebration info: I feel really bad. I threw a very big party for Ashton when he turned one and Alex, well…sorry baby. Sunday night Uncle Berg and Uncle Karen (as Ashton calls them) came over to help us sing Happy Birthday and that was the extent. Ashton had helped me bake a cake that morning, which I was feeling guilty about because it was Funfetti out of a box, so I at least shaped it into a star to make it a bit more special. Complete footage of our Happy Birthday chorus can be found here, but this is our little party. The last one is a blurry picture but I think Alex is so funny that I just had to post it.

Then the next night, his actual birthday, he got to open some presents from grandparents and then it was time to give him our gifts. We got him the Leapfrog Musical Learn-Around Playground with the Tube Topper, Ball Shoot and Piano that also has Alphabet Buttons (not its real name).

This was being sold on one of my Facebook mom’s groups for $10. However, it turned out to have been recalled due to children sticking their arms in the ball shoot and getting scratches, so she gave it to me for free. Isn’t this what being a second child is all about? Second-hand toys they don’t make anymore due to safety concerns? For the price of a Lysol wipe, this was Alex’s birthday gift.

Seriously though, don’t worry. Everyone that ever owned this toy (from reviews on Amazon) gave mostly positive reviews, and Alex totally loves it. In fact, so does Ashton. It’s perfectly safe 🙂 And it was free and not to mention good for the environment to be recycled to a good home. Unsurprisingly, Ashton jumped right in to help me wrap it and then help Alex unwrap it. He was so excited that there was a “birfday” and mentioned several times that his was in the summer.

Alex’s next gift was also on the cheap side. All he wants to do, ever, is unroll the toilet paper roll or empty the wipes container. So I gave him a box of tissues and told him to go to town. He pulled every last one out, then started to put them back in, then pulled them all out again. He was so focused on this task that he did not even look up so I could take his picture. It was easily his favorite present.

The final addition to what was the most affordable first birthday ever: Alex wore Ashton’s hand-me-down onesie.

Birthdays are not without speed bumps when you are 12 months old. It’s a lot to take in.

So there you have it! My little sweetheart Alexander Michael is

We’ve got a birthday in the house! Alex turns el numero uno today! We had a mini-party for him last night and he gets more presents tonight so his official 1 year post will likely be tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean I can’t blog about a very important milestone! It happened yesterday, there were a few tears, but he successfully had his first haircut! There’s some old wives tale about waiting until a child turns one before cutting their hair, I don’t know the science behind it (haha, like there is any) but regardless, I abided by it.

It was $13, he got a First Haircut certificate and I took a few snips of his locks home in a baggie. Success! Look at this handsome new baby.

This post is going to be kind of pitiful. It’s really not newsworthy at all but I just wanted to share that we finally did something about our little foyer. Not it’s fault, but it has become the play area for lack of anyplace else to put toys (besides the sideboard table, and besides the built-in cabinet, and besides the other built-in cabinet, all of which are, um, full already).

Way back when, Jason made a toy box for Ashton. And I had nothing better to do so I painted all the letters. Time has gone on, Alex was born, and we have accumulated more and more colorful small plastic playthings  (“toys”). The toybox was overflowing and looked like this.

While it was good for easy clean up in that you could just toss everything in, there were toys on the bottom that never saw the light of day. Plus it looked messy and there was no lid. Especially now that Alex is in the thick of things, I knew it was time to come up with a better and more attractive toy storage solution that was also not personalized to favor our older child.

I took to Pinterest, where someone has always thought of something good. It saves a lot of time not to have to come up with original ideas of your own. Most of the search results were of the cubby-with-basket variety, either DIY or IKEA, but some of the especially handsome wall storage units were…Pottery Barn Kids. I drooled. I got on their website. I spent way too much time going through the different arrangements for their Cameron storage system until I had it:

Nicely covers up most toys, still room for a couple cute baskets, and tons of space. The best part was that this beauty is 87 inches wide and the space I was working with? 87.5 inches wide. Llllllllike a glove. Excuse the terrible rendering, but it was to go something like this.

But with all the surrounding toys nicely inside and not visible. And if a toy could not fit? It was headed to the basement. I was not messing around; I wanted my foyer back.

So it would have fit perfectly. Totally a sign that this PBKids unit was the solution. Price tag? Expensive, but it was on “special sale” and I had a 15% off coupon.

So I said, I’m just going to go up to Pottery Barn Kids in the mall to see the pieces in person before I order it. Make sure the white is a good white and all that. But in my mind, the store visit was a formality. This puppy was as good as bought.

And then I got there. They didn’t have the exact set up but they didn’t need to. I prepared myself to be in love and get out my wallet.

Hmmm. We’ll say it was a quiet introduction. My heart did not somersault. I opened and closed the cabinet doors and slid the drawers in and out. I stepped back and stared at it and all of a sudden, it was like someone brought out the smelling salts. I blinked. This unit was well over one thousand dollars. Plus shipping, plus tax, and plus the totally BS “delivery surcharge”, which was yet another $120 (courteously knocked down to $75 due to the sale). I was really looking at more like fifteen hundred dollars after all was said and done. For this! It wasn’t even that great! Oh how I wanted to love it, to tell Jason “Oh my gosh, it’s so well made, 100% solid wood and worth the money, I promise!” but it wasn’t! I could not believe how fast reality came into focus.

I stood there staring at it for another minute and then picked myself up and walked out, irrationally angry at Pottery Barn Kids for such an outrageous, downright offensive price tag.  I was so mad. Mad because I was ready to invest in something high-quality and PBKids is supposed to deliver that, but it was so unbelievably overpriced I just wanted to yell at someone about the injustice. I guess that someone is you haha. To this day I remain loathe to order from them. You would have had to see it and touch it in person, but that storage unit was not worth it, and there was no denying it, no matter how much I thought I wanted it.

So what did I end up doing? Naturally, the answer was Ikea. Basic cube storage, a few baskets, and the added fun of using tools with Daddy while wearing his special watch. (Sorry, this video is too funny not to link. “What time is it?” “Forty-five minutes.”)

After way too long a post about this…

You know what’s funny? There is virtually no difference between the two. And the toybox is somehow still full!

We call this a fail, people. Big time. I am the official loser of the fight against toys in my house. The kitchen usually looks like this by dinnertime anyway.

In the end, I have two boys that play and leave toys and snack crumbs in their wake. Our walls are dented, our finishes are chipped, and there is pee all over the place every time Ashton goes to the bathroom. I could have shelled out $1,500 for that storage system, but these truths would have remained.

So this is my little public service announcement: Just say no to Pottery Barn Kids. Because even if you have the money, nothing can help you 😉

This is one of those posts that is really for me to look back on and reference some day. Like I’m very glad I documented last year’s allergy appointment so I could compare the two.

Basically this is the time every year where we go get Ashton’s back pricked and wait for the magic to happen. Besides looking at his reactions, we get a blood test done and then a week later, get the lab results. Last year I was so hopeful as our allergist said he looked like he was going to be a candidate for the egg challenge at the appointment, but his bloodwork said otherwise. One more year of avoiding eggs, sesame, peanuts and treenuts…so what is the latest now that he is 3.5?

.

To give you an idea, the sesame number in last year’s labs was 46! So you can see how much more severe that allergy is than anything else.

The note the doctor sent me along with this was “Peanut, tree nuts, and egg were positive.  He should continue to avoid whole and uncooked forms of egg. He is a candidate for challenges to peanuts and tree nuts.  There is a moderate risk of reaction therefore these challenges need to be done under monitored settings.  Let me know if you have questions about this and if you are interested in going forward.  He would need to eat about 2 TBSP of peanut butter in these challenges.”

YAY! Last year he was not a candidate for food challenges and this year he IS! This is a very scary thought but of course we are going to do it. Allergy therapy these days is very big on exposure and in extreme cases, allergies can be controlled as long as the individual has daily intake. Seems counterintuitive but it’s true. And to that end, Dr. Lee advised me I should absolutely be giving Alex eggs and peanut butter, and that I’m doing him a disservice by not introducing these foods at an early age. I’m so conditioned to avoid that I made Jason do the eggs one morning while I was at work. I couldn’t watch! But Alex did fine besides spitting them out. No reaction – phew!

Let me tell you, Ashton knows he can’t have eggs or sesame. So when it was time for his appointment, we talked about it on the car ride there and how we were going to see if it was time for him to be able to eat these things. 

After the first round of pricks, he asked if he could eat eggs now. 
After his flu shot (which thankfully they went ahead with), he asked again.
After they took blood, he asked again. Can I eat eggs now? Like Daddy? 

I found different ways of explaining to him: no, not yet honey. As we were leaving he told one of the doctor’s assistants that he looked like a dentist. The style of his glasses, maybe? I laughed and said, “Sorry, I don’t know where that came from!” and he laughed back and said, “That’s actually not the first time a kid has told me that.” 

On the way home Ashton was still going on about the eggs and said, “After my long nap I want you to make me some eggs for brequist so I can eat them.” [pause] “And taste them. I want to eat them and taste them!”

Unfortunately he won’t get his wish this year, but I’ll definitely keep you posted on his peanut/tree nut food challenges. Hopefully we can cross those off his allergy list!

What is this a picture of?

Ok it’s not that obvious so I’ll just tell you. This is a picture of my preschooler (squinting because “It’s bright Mommy”) holding a bag of diapers. Not just any diapers, no sir. They are his leftover ones. The ones that his school sent home today because he doesn’t need them anymore because…you guessed it…at the tender age of forty three and a half, he’s

Sunday afternoon, February 22, was warm (well, “warm” at 37 degrees) and sunny. All week everyone had agreed on the forecasted temperature but that it was supposed to rain all day. We, like many others, had been preparing for the certainty of a basement flood due to all the melting snow. I took the boys to Home Depot last week and we bought a sump pump and downspout extenders, so Jason could get the water flowing out and away from the foundation. He then spent Sunday morning getting the last of the snow off the roof and chipping ice out of the gutters while I got as much off the basement floor as possible.

Then, around 2 pm, the sun came out. I can’t even begin to tell you. Along with the pleasant temperature, it was just so, so, completely wonderful. We could go outside! And play! It was a much needed end to school vacation week aka the longest week ever in the history of my life. So we suited everyone up, packed up the snowtube and sled, and drove over to Beaver Brook. We had a ball!

There are a lot of smiles in those pictures. When we finally got home we enjoyed some good old après-sled time. Jason whipped up some Moscow Mules (notice my new copper mugs!) and he and Ashton relaxed in front of the fire.

It was a great winter day (FINALLY!)! Oh and this is a funny video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX__Bn0xZs