Ava Grace Leptuch VonTickle

We have many nicknames for our children. One of Ava's nicknames is Tickle. It somehow managed to morph to VonTickle, so her name is Ava Grace Leptuch VonTickle. Here is the video of her saying her name.

Sleep Today, Gone Tomorrow.

Today.
Noah is getting so big. Ava is growing too fast :(  Here are some pictures from the other day. It is Noah's smiley face and Noah's serious face.

 

Here is Ava, all smiles and not her cheesy smile.

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This is Ava playing with her blocks. It is her new favorite thing. Her and daddy like to build BIG towers. She also has some bristle blocks, thanks to Aunt Nancy and Uncle David, that she LOVES to play with. She always wants to build houses or airplanes

Hi mom.... What's not to love.

Love this picture. I have one posted in an earlier post that is similar. I love when Ava watches Noah or tires to help him. She will also show him things as well.

What have we been up to?

Noah's Sleep:  We are getting better night sleep out of Noah. He seems to be responding well to his new formula. It isn't as expensive as I thought it would be. Our insurance pays 80% of it, so that helps. It is probably a little bit cheaper than buying Similac. We are putting rice cereal in his bottle to help thicken them up. Not every night is perfect, but we are getting better chunks of sleep at a time and he is really only waking once for his bottle and then he is an early morning riser, so sometime between 4:30 and 5 am and that is when I usually put him in the swing to get another hour out of him. He pretty much is up by 5:45am. He is still sleeping in our room, but that is about to change. Next week, he will be in his room. I am ready and not so ready at the same time. I am ready because I hear all his noises and I want my room and my time back. I also want the fan on high so I can stay comfortable. We keep it off because we run the AC fan at night for the white noise for me and that keeps him pretty cool in our room. I am not so ready because when he does wake up and I put him back down, he does cry for a good 10 minutes until I can get him settled. His room is right next to Ava's and I don't want to have 2 kids awake at night, but I guess that is part of the growing pains.   

His naps are still tragic. He can't seem to get from the first sleep cycle to the second one. He wakes up anywhere from 25 mins to 35 mins after I put him down. I usually go in and pat him back to sleep, for him to wake up 4 minutes later (not sure the significance of the 4 minutes, but it is always 4 minutes later). I can spend an hour to an hour and a half going back in to try to get him back to sleep. OR I give up and put him in his swing in which case he will usually go back to sleep and I then have to wake him up for his next feed. He can sleep forever in that thing. I like it because he gets sleep,but he can't sleep in it forever and when he finally out grows it, I am going to have to help him learn to sleep, so I struggle with this all day long. I also worry that he will then have night sleep issues again. So some days, I give in and some days, I just get him up for his first nap and then move him to his swing for his second nap. Once he moves into his room, I will have to use the swing for sure for his second nap because it is the same time that Ava naps and I can't have 2 kids up. I NEED my time!! I always just hope that each nap is the nap  that he will finally sleep and each time it isn't. Someday soon, I hope!!

On a positive note, he has been without his paci for a week now. That is part of the reason I think his naps are hard. He was used to having them to soothe himself. He is trying to find his fingers, but he can't quite get it so it isn't as soothing as a paci, but if I try to give him his paci, he was always pushing it out. Why should I force it? I really didn't want him getting used to it anyway, because I remember with Ava, I had to go into her room a couple of times a night when she woke up and realized she didn't have it. That went on for a good year.

Ava's Sleep: Well, with Noah getting ready to go into his room, it means that Ava is going to have to give up her crib and move to a big girl bed. YIKES! I am really nervous about this. Ava isn't great at listening to us. (i.e telling her she can't get out of bed until we come to get her). I don't know how this is all going to go. We currently have her mattress in our office and it has her new bedding on it and we tell her that it is her new big girl bed and we play on it for her to get used to it. We even tell her that she is going to start sleeping in her big girl bed and no more crib and she says "ooooo, i like big girl bed, mommy", but I don't think she really knows what that means. We are going to ease her into it. Starting with a couple of naps. Noah will move into his room with his pac'n'play for a week until we think Ava is ready. I will update you on how it goes. Pray for us. But, I guess we are already sleep deprived, what is a couple more weeks of no sleep to get through this growing pain.. 

                                                    



Ava Sings her ABC's

Ava just learned her ABC's. Just one day she started singing them. It is too cute! She misses some letters espeically when she goes fast.

Noah is 3 months old.

I just love his smiles! He is such a calm and happy baby when he is awake. He will sit on my lap and just look around. He definitely knows his mommy and gets a little bit cranky when other people hold him that he is not used to. If I can reset him, he is ok after that.

We had a follow up with our GI specialist on Wednesday. Since we have seen a small improvement, but not a 100% improvement, she has him on a special formula to rule out any milk/soy allergy. He is on Elecare, it is a prescription formula that is amino based. The proteins are completely broken down and easy to digest. He has to be on it for a week to see if there is any change. He still wakes up quite frequently at night and that is really all we have to go on at this point, although, the night of the wedding, he slept 8 hours before he woke up at 5 am and I just gave him his paci and he fell asleep until 6 am. The only reason he slept is because I put him in the swing. (At least that is what I am going with). I had vowed to not use the swing, but at this point, I have to do what is going to make our family sane and get us the most amount of sleep. Last night he actually slept 6 hours in his crib and around 4 am, I put him in his swing and he slept until 6am. Maybe the formula is working or maybe he is just coming around. Anything is better then him waking up EVERY. SINGLE. HOUR! We have been busy the past couple of days, so maybe he is exhausted. We will have to see how this week goes with sleep. His daytime sleep hasn't changed, but I heard that nighttime sleep comes first. He still only sleeps about 35 minutes. I will spend about 15 mins trying to get him to go back down and when he doesn't, I put him in the swing and he will sleep until I wake him or else he would sleep forever. I am hoping that one day, I will look at the clock and realize that he has slept an hour and then two hours. I don't want him to get used to the swing, but we need some sanity here and as long as I can get some good stretches of sleep at night with him in the crib, I will let him nap in the swing.

He weighs 14 lbs 9.2 oz and is 25" long. He is a growing boy. He is still in 6 months clothes and size 2 diapers. He has discovered his hands and will lock them together and look at them. He has started to bat at the toys on his play mat too. He doesn't really enjoy tummy time anymore, but we do it often anyway. He has rolled over a couple of times, but I know it is by accident, so I am not really counting it.He generally wakes up happy. I have to really listen into the monitor, because he will sit there just sucking on his hands for a while before he starts to fuss. I can't wait to see more of his personality as he seems to be the complete opposite of Ava.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Walters

On April 8, 2011, my little sister, Jaclyn married Nick Walters. It was a beautiful ceremony. Here are some pictures from the evening in no particular order.



Candy Table.



Ava and her Auntie Jackie and Bobo, of course.

The happy couple and the bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls and ring bearer.

Ava, Gramme, & Papa Dee.

The Leptuch's





Nick, Jaclyn, Dad and Patty

The first dance

Father/Daughter Dance

Jaclyn and her mom and dad

Ava and mommy. She did not want to wear her dress. We had to bride her with candy. After she had her first tastes of the candy, she wanted it all night long, which lead to sugar high meltdown and early departure from the wedding.

Mike, Noah and dad



Grandma/pa DeArmond, mom and us.

The Cake

Jaclyn's beautiful hair.

It was a beautiful wedding and the place was gorgeous. Unfortunately my kids were over sugared and over stimulated that we had to leave really early. We wish them a lifetime of good fortune, happiness and love.

Ava and Noah.

Ava.

Ava's new favorite saying is "I go outside now". All she wants to do is play outside, specifically in her sandbox. She loves her sandbox. We don't love all the sand everywhere.

She is so vocal about telling us what she wants. She tells stories even though sometimes the words are out of sequence or the pronouns are wrong or she says what we would say to her. For example, when a picture is taken, she will say "I show you now," because that is what we would say to her.

She is in a climbing, jumping stage. She wants to get on her stool and jump off of it and when she is does it, she says, "I did it." My thoughts are "yes you did, now let's hope this doesn't land us in the ER"
Here is Ava jumping off her stool...

Ava walking to her stool

Ava standing on her stool.

Ava jumping off her stool.

She loves to watch TV and I have to admit, with Noah not sleeping, she watches WAY more than I would like to admit. As soon as we get Noah's sleep thing down, she will be limited on TV watching or brain rot as Mike calls it. Calliou is still her favorite show, but she also likes Curious George, Chuggington, Barney, Peep and Sesame Street.

She has a stellar memory. She will remember things from weeks ago and talk about them.  We have taught her that Gramme lives in the mountains and Grandma Nini flies away in a plane.

She is becoming more adventurous in her food, but she will let you know if she doesn't want it.  If we don't put it on her plate and ask her to try mommy's and daddy's food, she is more open to it.

She still battles washing her hair. I hate to admit it, but we are only washing it once a week because she ALWAYS cries. I have at least gotten her to let me, not Mike, brush her teeth with the bribe that she will get some floss. She loves floss. One day, I was flossing my teeth and Ava wanted to do it, so I gave her a piece and she put it in her mouth as if she were flossing. She soaks up everything. 

She loves to go for car rides, but I don't think she would like it if it were a "real" car ride. When I drive, she says "go fast". She likes to say it when I am at a stop light.

We are still amidst the "me do" or "Ava do it" stage. She wants to try to do everything. I usually let her try and then once she can't do it, she will ask for help.

Noah.

Well, Noah is having a hard time with his sleep. I made the mistake of letting him sleep in his swing too many times and now he doesn't know how to settle himself when he wakes up. I have vowed to not put him in it again for sleeping and work on getting him to sleep in his crib. It is not an easy task. It takes a lot of time and energy. I started this weekend because I have some help. I have to spend a lot of time in there, holding his hands down and keeping the paci in so he doesn't wake up. It usually takes about 30 minutes to get him through the first light sleep cycle. Then I have to go back in. If I can't get him to fall asleep on his own then we will continue to have nights like the other night where he woke up every hour from midnight on. I am exhausted. We only get 25 minute naps now and then he wakes up. Some days, I just have to get him up for an hour and then put him back down.

When he is awake, he is all smiles. Here are some pictures I took the other day.

He is very calm too. He will just hang out with everyone. He doesn't really get fussy unless he is really tired.

He has discovered his hands. He will lock them together and look at them. It is amazing to watch him discover things.

He will be 3 months old on Saturday, which is supposed to be about the time babies "figure it out" in terms of sleep or that is what everyone keeps telling me. I will believe it when I see it!

I love both these kids regardless of the sleep problems and the "two's". I feel very blessed to be able to be home with them daily.

It's Been a While....

It's been a while since I have posted. It is getting more difficult to find time to Blog.  Why you ask? Mostly because Noah is not a great sleeper. I spend most of my day going into his room trying to get him to go back to sleep. He will nap 30-40 mins and then he is awake. Then I usually spend 30-40 mins trying to get him back down and then he may sleep another hour or it is just a lost cause. If I put him in the swing, he will usually sleep. I was trying to not do that very often as I would like him to learn how to sleep on his own, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We have had many visitors helping me out. I am so appreciative to have the help because I have been a bit overwhelmed with Noah's lack of sleep and Ava's terrible two's. 

My dad came this past weekend to meet Noah for the first time.

We hung out at my sisters house. Ava is finally warming up to her cousin Sophie. I hope these two will be best friends. Here is a picture of them playing in the backyard.

They were looking for bugs and rocks...

My mom came down during her spring break. She brought Ava some new books.

Noah had his Modified Barium Swallow test this week. It is a test where they swallow the Barium and while they do it, they take x-rays to see what is going on. They were looking to see if he was aspirating into his lungs while he drank and he is not. That is the good news. We upped his reflux medicine about 2 weeks ago and that seemed to really help him out. He is on Soy formula and we are going to keep him on that for a month to see if that will also help him out. The only downfall is that it constipates him. That only adds to his sleeping problems. Poor little guy can't catch a break.