We’ve come to the decision that we need an extra double stroller… something a bit lighter and not as long as our Graco DuoGlider. We’ve seen several of the newer sit & stand strollers around our neighbourhood and decided that it’s probably just what we need.

Baby Trend Sit 'N Stand LX Stand-On Tandem Stroller

We tried it out at Toys R Us and really liked it. The girls loved it too! Natasha (at almost 3 years) loves walking to most places now, so the back seat is perfect to rest when she gets a bit tired; she could also ride standing up. She really loved that option! I also liked that it had both a parent & toddler tray and a large basket underneath.

We’ll still be using our DuoGlider for longer trips, but I think that at almost 1.5 and 3 years, they’re ready for something new.

I am happy to say that Veronika is done with formula! No more Enfamil Gentlease, just 3.25% whole milk!

I’ve spent the past month gradually transitioning her from formula to milk by mixing the two together until she was mostly taking milk. And today, before her afternoon nap, she took an entire bottle of just milk and drank it like a champ. Way to go, Nika!

The next step is to wean her off the bottle since she still takes 3 bottles each day (morning, before nap, and at bedtime), but I am not planning on it for another couple of months. I don’t think she’s ready for that just yet. Our baby is growing up!

Happy 11 months to our sweet little baby! Only one month until your 1st Birthday! You’re now crawling and cruising and walking if we hold your hand. You’re eating table foods and drinking from a sippy cup. Where did the time go?!

Yesterday it finally “warmed up” enough for me to take the girls to the playground. We’ve been having some awful weather lately, and between that and the girls taking turns being sick, we had to stay indoors for weeks at a time. I think we all had some awful cabin fever.

They LOVED the swing! Natasha did not want to come out (actually threw a fit over it), and Veronika was falling asleep in it LOL. Veronika is easily rocked to sleep and I guess the swing did it for her (even a playground swing!)

So almost everyday, starting at 5pm, Veronika goes through her “witching hour”. Or should I say… two hours? She fusses, whines, cries, wants attention, gets clingy and needy and won’t leave you alone for a moment. *gasp* I think Natasha was the same at this age.

Anyhow… Today at around 5 o’clock Natasha & I were in her room playing on the floor. Veronika heard us in there and started crawling over from the living room, down the hallway, towards Natasha’s room… while whining, fussing, etc the whole way there. When she reached the room, Natasha saw that her little sister was unhappy. She immediately got up, ran towards the baby, got down to her level and goes,

- Hi Nika! Hi Nika!
- Aw, what’s wrong? Are you scared?
- Does something hurt? Your head hurts? Aww…
- Do you want something to eat? Are you hungry?
- Aww, hi Nika! What’s wrong?

She kept repeating it over and over while stroking Veronika’s hair. It was the cutest, funniest thing ever. She’s such a little mommy to her! I felt sad that I couldn’t get it on video, it was precious.

Hopefully I won’t jinx myself by typing this out, but for the past two nights Veronika has slept through the night! WOOHOO. She slept straight from 7:30pm until 6:30am without waking up to eat. What awesome progress… She did wake up a couple times to whine, but it only lasted a few seconds before she drifted back to sleep. This has been wonderful, seriously… She takes 2 naps during the day and only drinks 3 bottles every 24 hours now. Such a good girl!

Speaking of bottles… yesterday I decided to slow start transitioning her to cow’s milk so that hopefully by the time she’s 12 months, she will be completely off of formula. I’ve been mixing her baby cereal with whole milk for the past two days and she ate it without any issues. Hopefully her stomach won’t get upset. Eventually I will start gradually adding milk to her bottles and mixing it with her formula, and slowly decreasing the amount of formula while increasing the milk… ANYHOW, we are 100% ready to stop buying formula at this point.

Veronika LOOOVES real foods (meaning not baby foods…). She will try anything I offer her and she can gum down anything with her 2 bottom teeth. Yep, she still only has 2 teeth, but she’s unstoppable when it comes to food. She gets very upset if she isn’t offered what we’re eating and will scream until we let her try it. The only problem is that Veronika thinks everything is FOOD. And if she sees it, she eats it. *sigh* I keep having to remind poor Natasha not to leave any small items within her sister’s reach and even though she promises that she won’t… well, she’s 2. She forgets. On several different occasions we’ve had to pull out elastic hair bands, stickers, and other small NON-EDIBLE items from the child’s mouth. Let’s just say she wasn’t happy…. :)

This picture makes me laugh :)
Natasha was being her helpful self, except she was a bit ‘too helpful’…
Poor Veronika almost tipped over!

Finally Veronika has figured out how to sit herself down from a standing position. I thought this day would never come…

Seriously though, I think Nika learned to pull herself up onto everything about 3-4 weeks ago and only yesterday have I noticed that she learned to sit down without smacking her face against something. Well either that, or yelling out for me to help her. She is getting so independent. Where did my baby go?

Way to go, baby!!

p.s. Laura, if you’re reading this – the purple onesie might look familiar to ya! ;)

Last night was CIO Night #1 (see my previous post for details). Matthew and I decided to stay in our room and just let Nika CIO instead of picking her up and attempting to feed her or carry her, etc. Well, she woke up numerous times last night but we just didn’t pick her up. Honestly, I have no recollection of last night at all, but according to Matthew, she was crying on-and-off for about one hour at some point. I don’t remember this. I just remember her standing up, sitting back down, etc. over and over. Falling back asleep, waking up, back to sleep, crying, waking up. And then it was 6:30am???

NICE. So she did make it through the night without eating. I knew she could do it. Babies don’t need their night-time feedings at this point. Tonight will be CIO night #2 so we’ll see how she does. But at least we’re making some progress here.

On a different note, Veronika had her 10-month check-up today. She’s doing wonderful.

She’s 19 lbs 10 oz (8.91 kg), 30.3 inches tall (77cm). She’s very tall for her age and the paediatrician said she’s much different than her older sister which is very true, since Natasha only weighed around 16 lbs at this age, but was even taller than Veronika. The bad news is that she has a minor cold. Sigh. We don’t have to go back until she’s 12 months at which time she’ll receive her vaccines.

Veronika has been sleeping awfully the past few nights. I don’t know what’s going on with her, but she keeps waking up multiple times a night and crying or fussying. I initially thought she might be teething again, but Tylenol won’t help her and Tylenol has always helped relieve her teething symptoms. So we’re really coming to the conclusion that she’s just waking up because she’s used to waking up.

This is all new to us because Natasha spoiled us silly and slept through the night by 5 months. Veronika is 10 months (TODAY!) and is still waking up. In my book, that’s unacceptable, LOL. And since she’s sleeping in our room, I know it’s hard on Matthew to go through these interrupted sleep sessions and still function and concentrate at work.

So what’s next? Well, we’re thinking CIO (crying-it-out). We CIO’ed with Natasha twice at two different time periods when she stopped sleeping through and it worked like magic – only 3 days later she was sleeping a full night again. It wasn’t easy, far from that. But it was SO worth it. The difference this time is since Veronika is in our bedroom, she can see us when she wakes up which will not work with CIO. So we might be spending a few nights in the living room to get her under control and sleeping. We haven’t decided yet, but we do agree that it needs to stop. I want her sleeping through by the time she’s one.

Wish us luck! And happy 10 months to my beautiful baby girl! Aside from your annoying sleeping habits at night, you’re a wonderful, happy, cuddly baby, and I really couldn’t have asked for anything else.

Ah, updates.

The past week has been rather hectic – it snowed in again and we’ve been cooped up indoors pretty much the entire week. I hate winter, I really do. And to top it off, the girls haven’t been themselves this past week either. Natasha has been throwing a tantrum on top of a tantrum non-stop and Veronika’s been clingy and needy (I think she might be getting more teeth).

Veronika also learned to pull herself up to a standing position; she can only do it in the playpen right now, but she’s been trying to pull onto the couch and coffee table as well. She’s very very determined and into everything. On top of that, she turned into a little copycat. I shake my finger at her, she shakes it right back at me. She can now wave and say bye-bye, but it sounds like “bee-bee”, it’s very cute. And then each time she drops a toy or makes a mess, she exclaims “uh-oh!” The child is growing way too fast.

And Natasha… well, Natasha doesn’t stop talking. She turned into a complete chatterbox. It’s, “what’s that?” and “who’s that?” pretty much the entire day and I must acknowledge her or she won’t stop asking. Sometimes I wish she had a mute button. And I am sure the “why?” phase is just around the corner. But besides that, she’s been really expanding her vocabulary and can say pretty much anything she wants. She’s also developing some preferences… if I put her in a shirt that she approves off, it’s: “oooohh, nice, I like!”, but if it’s a not-so-nice shirt, it’s: “no, not nice, don’t like!”

*sigh* I am looking forward to the spring.