Big brother

Last night, I took these pictures of Trevor and Charlotte.

When she was in the Johnny jumper, it was like he was giving her a little pep talk.

Then later, Alec and I were finishing up our dinner and I asked Trevor if he could help feed Charlotte. He grabbed her bottle quickly and went to work. After a minute he asked for his own milk and then multi tasked.;) While he was feeding her, he would look up at us like he was so proud of himself.

(Please excuse the house mess and half dressed children, pretty much the norm here until they are both put to sleep!)

Like mother, like daughter?

I found this baby picture of mine today at my grandparent's house.

The only similarities I see are the length of hair and a happy child. Otherwise, I think she's looking more like the Gill side, just like her brother.

Charlotte can roll!

Today I randomly decided to put Charlotte on her tummy and video her doing tummy time. Well about 20 seconds after placing her on her belly, she was really starting to rock. I thought I might get some good roll over attempts on camera. But after about another good 30 seconds of straining, Charlotte turned completely onto her belly. I wanted to see if it was just a fluke, so I placed her right back on her belly and she did the same thing! So, she is 3.5 months and did her first roll over! Looking more and more like her sweet big brother!

And luckily I got to see and catch the first two rolls on video! I will upload it here someday once our computer dilemma is fixed.

Go Charlotte!

Yeah....

So, as I've mentioned before (old blog) our little Trevor is a slow talker. At 20 months, his expressive vocabulary is still very limited. Because he fell below the standard 5-15 words at 15 months, his old pediatrician recommended he be evaluated and after the evaluation, because he was at least on target or even ahead in all other areas, therapy wasn't recommended at this point so we are just patiently waiting for more words! We do have a service coordinator- free service from Guilford county where they come in once a month to assess his progress and make sure we aren't missing anything. So far, they've been extra reassuring that they aren't worried about him and some children are simply slow to talk. From what I've read and choose to believe, some toddlers are extra interested in motor skills (he was walking at 8 months-have to always throw that in there when I discuss his strengths and weaknesses;)) which can coincide with a delay in speech and that some toddlers choose to talk later (2-3) when they have passed the frustration stage of learning and can just start speaking in sentence form. So, we'll hope for that explanation!!

While we don't get to hear a new word everyday, we can easily tell big changes in his receptive (understanding) vocabulary. I love being able to actually give him instructions and watch them get carried out. I'm sure this is not abnormal behavior for this age, but maybe just seems more interesting to me because he can tell exactly what we are saying, yet just doesn't say it back.

What he loves to do is continuously point at everything and say his own version of "what's this?" until we answer him. Then we quiz him on any items or people and he points correctly at everything. He also seems to have his own language with lots of babbling and attempting mimics of what we say. Although he doesn't say many English words, he is always making noise and different sounds. He recognizes all of his friends and family names, just doesn't typically attempt to verbalize them. We do use some sign language and that has been helping with the verbal communication road block.

Anyhow, the point of this long rambling post was too remind me of his speech, both receptive and expressive at 20 months. And to say, that it is clear that Trevor now uses the word- "yeah". He loves to answer questions correctly "yeah" which I'll gladly take over "no!"

The words he commonly uses...

Truck
Cat
Dog
Got-tiger
Char- Charlotte
Gof- Golf
Cocoa
Uh oh- lots of times this is used in advance of an accident
Sock

While I am definitely ready to communicate more with my little boy, the one word that I can't wait to hear is MOMMY! We'll get there one day!

Bad Trevor

I had been thinking that I needed to devote a post to Trevor soon. He's been a pretty good big brother and I haven't written about him solo recently. However, tonight he did something that I won't soon forget.

Our last lap top in the house... Thrown to its death. Yes, I'm writing this post from my phone.

Instagram

I've been in a blogging lull and I think I've determined the reason... Instagram.  I downloaded this app and I decided to post a pic per day this year of something going on in our lives.  This way, I'm trying to hold myself accountable to document our year, but not completely bombard everyone on facebook with daily photos.   The problem is that I feel like the instagram pictures do enough to capture anything I would write about, so I end up writing.. nothing. 

http://instagram.com/elizgill

 And here is my most recent instagram pic of my main man

Charlotte- 3 Months!

So, I don't have any official stats for Charlotte because we don't see the doctor until 4 months. But unofficially, she is growing:).

Weight- 12.5 (home scale)
Height- no clue
Diaper Size- 1
Clothing size- Quickly growing out of 0-3 and moving into strictly 3months
Favorite Food- Milk- Still around every 3 hours during the day, but eating more than last month- 4 ounces.

Personality-  She continues to be a very laid back baby as long as she is fed on time and burped well.  She is waking up more to hang out during the day and  reminds me of her big brother with her big smiles.  At right at 12 weeks, we got to hear her giggle out loud.  Nothing can make me much happier than hearing her or Trevor actually laughing.  As for bonding with her brother, she is doing great at "rolling with the punches."  She is extremely tolerable with him and he still seems to only love on her for the most part.

Sleeping- She usually wakes up just one time to eat during the night which I'm amazingly grateful for.  She generally goes to sleep around 7:30 and wakes up to eat anywhere from 4am-6am.  However, she will wake up occasionally earlier like at 2:00am to eat, but then tends to go back to sleep until about 8:30.  I feel very lucky for these sleep patterns.  I'm pretty sure I'm doing the exact same things with her that I did with Trevor as a newborn so it is interesting to see just how differently babies behave when the outside factors are similar. 

Loves- Wubba Nub Pacis, bouncy chair, developmental play mat, car seat, and Bumbo.  I put her in the bumbo seat this week fully expecting her head to fall over, but she did great.  She will tolerate tummy time for a few minutes here and there, but she loves to nap on her belly.. so hopefully that counts for something?? 

Hmm in other news, it has been 3 months and not a single diaper rash.. YAY!  Big deal after dealing with her big brother's perpetual rashes that began at week 1.  Charlotte is still on Zantac and I'm still not sure how much it is helping, but the doctor said it wasn't hurting anything so we will continue it for now. 

Chilling in my Bumbo-

And to finish with a Little Giggle Video-