You are one amazing guy! When we found out you were on your way we were nothing but surprised and excited. We had waited for you for so long and had finally come to terms of not having our own little ones. But you decided to come into our lives not one month later. God was so good to us!

You decided you liked your little home inside mommy and no matter what I did you decided to not make your debut. I walked and walked and I ate a whole pineapple. I ate spicy food and followed any advice I could to have you come out to join us, but to no avail.

You finally decided you wanted to join us the day after Easter, the day before your official eviction notice. But there were some scary moments when your heartbeat dropped into scary ranges so we decided to have you come into the world via c-section.

You have been an amazing boy to watch grow physically, mentally and spiritually. You are so smart, so talented and so loving!

Your first year we loved to see and enjoy your firsts. Rolling over, learning to crawl, your first smiles, first steps, and first words. Even then we could see your personality blooming into something wonderful.

You are so athletic and love to kick around the rugby ball with your uncle pat. You love to toss the ball and we have no idea where this came from. As both your daddy and I are not athletic at all and never even have sports on the tv.

You also love music like no one I have ever seen. You had one cd in particular that if I played it in the car no matter how tired or hungry you were you would just be quiet and listen. You love having your music and have learned many songs on your own. And again your mommy and daddy did not give you this talent. Mommy barely listens to music and Daddy is tone def, pretty much everyone on his side of the family is.

You are so very loving and this year you truly showed us how much at the arrival of your baby brother. The first experience with this was our first attempt to try and figure out how to get both of you out to the car. We decided to take you out first and suddenly you started crying out “Zarek” and grabbed his carseat trying to drag it out behind you. And even after getting to know him better and realizing you were going to have to share everything now you still love him. As he started to crawl up the stairs you grabbed ahold of him and cried out to granny to come and save him so he wouldn’t fall down the stairs. You are an amazing brother!!

Your daddy and I love you and so does Zarek. You are the star of our lives and we adore you and can’t wait to see what year 3 has in hold for you!

We have had so many big milestones hit in our house, it’s so amazing and joyful! I love my little boys they are such a blessing and everyday is a reminder of this.

Zane decided two weeks ago that he wanted to go potty in the potty. From there on we have been going potty in the potty 90% of the time. Just today he decided to start taking himself with no reminders into the bathroom and go potty on the big potty.

He did really good until he tried going #2 on the big potty and missed. I was on a chat with a new client and had to drop everything. He came out of the bathroom with toilet paper streaming all around him saying he needed to clean up. LOL I went in and helped him clean up and just tried to explain to him it may be better to go poo poo on the little potty.

Zarek has been making his own big steps this last week. Literally. He has started walking. He had taken a few steps here and there a few weeks ago, but this week he started taking more and more. And today I am pretty sure he walked more than he crawled. You could tell he was thrilled with himself as he would giggle as he walked around the room.

It has also been a great week to watch the boys interacting. Zane is starting to have fun with Zarek. He is starting to look at him more and more as a playmate. They run/crawl up and down the hallway. Zane calling out behind him, “Come on Zarek, let’s go!” And Zarek of course is thrilled to be included in the games and is happy to chase after Zane. Earlier today Zane started getting really upset that Zarek was taking his nap because he wanted to play with him

February is Freebie month here at PepperScraps so here is another fun valentine freebie! These are labels you can print, sign, cutout and tape to the lids of play doh to make some really fun Valentine’s Day “cards”. Click the links below. Choose All Sizes. Choose Original. Download and print.

You can kind of see it here, but only if you are looking for it. Zane has never been able to stick his tongue out. In this photo you can see he cannot lick the beater very well. He had a tongue tie. The tip of his tongue would not go past his teeth. See the telltale heart shape?

My mother had a tongue tie and it was never taken care of until she was 11. It effected her speech, eating and more.

Zarek also had his tongue tied and had his cut at the doctor’s office 3 days after he was born. We actually left the hospital a little early so we could go and have it done, because it was effecting breastfeeding. It was a quick procedure faster than his circumcision and it did help the breastfeeding.

I think for Zane it effected breastfeeding. It was even hard to get him to eat from a bottle. We were pretty sure it was effecting his speech his ts and ls were not coming out right even when we worked hard on them. I was also wondering if it was effecting his sleep.

When I saw that he could already tell he was different when he saw his brother stick out his tongue I knew I wanted it taken care of.

I wish it had been caught earlier because unlike Zarek’s procedure this was much more of an ordeal. He had to be taken into surgery to have it done, because he had to be put under for it. (Imagine scissors, tongue and a two year old the outcome probably would not be good if he was awake.)

After it was done he was fine besides not liking to come out of the anesthetic. He could already stick out his tongue at us. We have seen an improvement in his t sounds and it was fun to see him able to roll food around in his mouth. And of course we got him an ice cream cone so he could lick it!

What is a tongue tie? What are the effects? Want more information. Here is an interesting site I found that goes into more depth about the tongue tie: TongueTie.Net. Or see what WebMD says about it.

To do this I marked the 9th of each month down on the calendar as Picture Day. Zane was born on the 9th, so this was a special day in my mind already. Each month the 9th was a mini-birthday and I would always stop and think, “One month older.”

I wouldn’t necessarily take pictures on the 9th, but I knew if I didn’t have any photos for the month yet that I needed to make a point to take some.

Sometimes I would do cute little setups, like put him in with tons of stuffed animals or put him in red, white and blue for July. Sometimes I would just take pictures of him doing his new feat of the month, like rolling over or walking.

One of the things that grew from this was that after the 9th I started emailing the photographs to friends and family. I would write about what was happening this month in his life. Now I make a goal to get photos of both boys and send out my emails about their different stages and their interactions with each other.

It is really fun to look back at Zane’s photos and be able to compare them to Zarek’s and see how much different and alike they are.

Do you take a lot of photos of your children or just a few? How do you keep your photos organized?

As soon as Zane could say “Amen” he would say it at the end. Sometimes he refused if he was grumpy, but soon learned that prayers always happened even if we were grumpy so I now always get an Amen.

Recently though I realizing that if he can recite twinkle twinkle and bits of ABCs he should be able to say his own prayers. So now we are working at teaching him how to say his prayers. He doesn’t say the sentences fully. But he can say, “Good Night Jesus, Take care Me, Good Dreams, Take Care of Mommy, Baby Zarek, Daddy Home Safe, Amen.” It’s been fun watching him feel proud as he says his own prayers.

Tonight though he took off, which made me smile. I had been afraid it may become a little just repeating the words but tonight he said a great prayer. “Good Night Jesus, Take Care Me, Good Dreams, Take Care of Mommy, And Baby Zarek…Zarek Sleeping…Zarek Good Dreams Firetrucks.” I asked him if he wanted baby Zarek to have good dreams about firetrucks and he said yes.  I started him back to bring daddy home safe. And he added “Granny Safe” Oh yes and granny safe too. And he gave a big Amen at the end. His little boy prayers just warmed my heart and brought a big smile to my face. And I am sure baby Zarek will have good dreams about firetrucks tonight.

Zane just loved the little peices and started dumping them out. We started distracting him by pointing out the different animals on some of the tiles and going over animal sounds. Then he took the tiles to Zarek and would show him an animal, tell him what it was and tell him what it says.

“Sheep, Baa, Baa.” As Zane holds the little picture of a sheep under Zareks nose. Go put down the sheep tile pick up the pig tile and say, “Pig, Oink, Oink.”

It was so sweet and special to watch him try and teach his little baby brother.

Zarek Maddax was born 3/9/09 @ 12:57PM, he weighed 8 pounds and 1 ounce and was 18 1/2 inches long.

Two Zees in a Pod

Zane loves his baby brother. He came to visit us every day in the hospital and he would come running into the room going “Baby, Baby” and go straight to the bassinet. He loves to help with him. When Zane finds a binkie for him he tries to give it to him and when Zane finds a blanket he puts it on Zarek. He’s good about bringing a bottle over if we ask or a spit up rag.

On TJ’s first try to get them both in the car. He tried to get Zane to go out first and Zane wouldn’t leave without Zarek. He even ran over to the car seat and started dragging it along himself.

Here are some pictures of Zane and Zarek together:
Z+Z PICTURES

Zaney Update

Zane is doing really well he is learning his colors and he can count up to 5 really good and sometimes up to 10. He can also recognize squares, circles, triangles and his favorites stars. He is now set up in his big boy bed (a toddler bed) because we realized I would really be able to lift him in bed once TJ went back to work. He is adjusting to the bed really well and rarely gets out when he isn’t supposed to. He actually seems to be sleeping better.

Here are some pictures of Zane from January:
Zane Pics

As I was writing this up though I considered not posting it and just hit save not post. Then I came across this little post and I thought you know I should share this.

Zane’s Top Ten Words:

1. “Nigh-NIgh” (Night Night) - Good Night or I want to go to bed.
2. “Oosh” (Shoes) – Look at my shoes.
3. “DaDa” – Mommy or Daddy.
4. “Uice” (Juice) – I want milk, water or juice.
5. “Ease” (Please) – Please, I want that.
6. “BooBoo” (Animal) – Look an animal or look it’s Morgil. (Our bunny is named Boo Boo)
7. “Itty” (Pretty) – Isn’t this pretty.
8. “H-ot Da” (Hot Dog) – I want a hot dog.
9. “Ju-dah” (Judah) – My lovey.
10. “Ca” or “Cruck” (Car or Truck) – Both mean the same thing, anything with wheels.

Pictures:

Milestone chart*:

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

• Plays with ball
• Uses three words regularly
• Walks backward

• Zane loves pushing the ball back and forth and we have just started to learn to catch the ball.
• I can think of at least a dozen words Zane can say off the top of my head.
• Zane has pretty much mastered anything considered walking. The hardest thing is to get him to go backwards down the stairs, he wants to do it the way we do it.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Scribbles with a crayon
• Runs
• Adopts “no” as his favorite word

• Just the other day TJ watched Zane pull a pen and notebook out of my purse. He opened the book to an empty page and started drawing. He really enjoys scribbling.
• Zane has been running as soon as he could walk.
• Zane hasn’t started saying “no”, but I don’t think this is a bad milestone to miss.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• “Helps” around the house
• Puts his fingers to his mouth and says “shhh”

• Zane is his Granny’s boy. He loves to sweep. He loves to use his washcloths to clean his highchair after a meal.
• He doesn’t “shh” us but then we don’t do this to him.

*This list is from babycenter.com. One of my favorite sites.

We went out emergency shoe shopping today. Zane outgrew his sandals and the new summer clogs I bought him were hurting his little toes. So we were sandal-less and with the Fourth tomorrow I had to find him something.

I took pictures of some of the shoes we were looking at and I was going to post them but my stupid computer refused to cooperate. So just pretend you can you see the cute blue Carters strappy sandals and the cute little off-brands that had the little flashers on the side and the cheapy flip-flops that were very cute. I even had a cute pic of the flashing one on him as he ran up and down the aisles.

We ended up choosing the little flashing shoes and a pair of the cheapy flip-flops. After I made my decision I tried getting him back into the stroller . After being free for so long that was not going to happen easily. Zane went into full meltdown. He arched his back, started screaming, and cried real tears.

I knew I could try and bribe him into being good. I couldn’t opt to just leave the store, we needed those shoes. But I chose to ignore the behavior not doing anything special. I gave him love and told him I understood he was upset, but I didn’t make a big deal about his behavior one way or another. I just let him throw his tantrum as we stood in line to pay. I didn’t let him get out of the stroller as much as he wanted to. And by the time I was paying he had been able to calm himself down.

I don’t know if this was the right thing to do but it really was the only option I could come up with at the spur of the moment. And I think I did pretty good for my first experience with That One Mommy Moment.

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