Syd's first hair trim

I finally broke down and decided to get Syd's hair cut.  Not really cut, just a trim.  I guess I wasn't THAT brave. :)  I wanted her to still look little.  No bangs or anything just yet.  I'll save that for when she's older.

I took her to the same place that I took Landon for his first haircut, Family Fun Cutz.  It's a place here in Omaha that is geared just for kids.  They get to pick from a plethora of different fun cars to sit in and they get to watch any movie they want.  Funny, but when Sydney saw all the different cars to sit in, she originally went for the princess car.  After she looked around, she actually decided to sit in the Lightning McQueen car.  The same one Landon sat in 4 years ago!

Before:  Shaggy little Sydney checking out all the buttons on Lightning.

She watched Cinderella.  She sat still and really didn't move around that much.  The girl cutting her hair was so patient and sweet.  She even gave her a pretty braid and some "fairy dust" when she was done.  Sydney loved it and talked about the fairy dust to anyone that would listen.  It couldn't have gone better. :)

Thank goodness for the movie, right?? 

Here you can see the "fairy dust" aka glitter.  It took a couple of baths, but it finally came out.  Whatever makes them happy, right? ;)

After:  I couldn't have been prouder of her!  She even got her favorite thing for sitting really still...a lollipop!

Our Little Ballerina

As I showed you in my previous post, Sydney LOVES pretending to be a ballerina right now.  Mason gave her a tutu for her second birthday.  After a couple of weeks of not wanting to have anything to do with it, she has finally embraced her inner ballerina and wears it pretty much all the time.  She calls it her "ballerina".  I even had to set rules with her on when she could and couldn't wear it:

1.  You cannot wear your "ballerina" when you are eating.
2.  You cannot wear your "ballerina" when you are going potty...for obvious reasons. :)
3.  The "ballerina" cannot go to bed with you. (Although I've caught her with it on when she's "napping".)

This is the picture that started it all.  I asked her to pose like a ballerina not really knowing if she knew how a ballerina posed, and she came up with this.  Apparently she's paying attention more than I think she is. :)  After that, I decided I was going to look into getting her into classes if I could.  I wasn't sure if dance studios took kids her age.  My good friend, Elissa, has a daughter that takes all kinds of dance classes at a nearby studio.  She told me that there was an introductory class she could get into, so I signed her up!  For $27 a month, she gets to go once a week into a class where they just do the basics.  Tapping your toes on the floor, waving your hands in the air, and maybe a little turn every once in a while.  I get to go in there with her to encourage her to do the movements.  It's actually a pretty fun bonding time.  :)

This was right after we got back from her first class.  She had so much fun!  There is only one other little girl in her class and they became fast friends.  She was glued to me at first, but after she warmed up to what they were doing, she started joining in and giggling and running around with the other little girl.  She (of course) wore her "ballerina" to class.  Couldn't leave home without it!

Last week, when I took her to class, we ran into Elissa's daughter, Natalie.  Sydney loves "Mad-alie" (as she calls her) and Natalie is so good with her.  Here is a sweet picture I took of the two of them together.

 Sweet girls.  Maybe one day Natalie will get to teach Sydney...who knows?  :)

Needless to say, I think dance will probably be Sydney's thing (hopefully for a long time).  She comes up to me after she puts on her tutu and says, "Mom, look at me!  I'm beautiful!" and does her original dance move (the one in the first picture).  She's so cute, I just can't stand it sometimes! :)

G-button woes.

So, I know that being extremely busy is no excuse for not blogging, right? ;)  Well, life has been getting in the way of me keeping up with this writing thing.  I've finally gotten a big sigh of relief where I can sit down and catch everyone up on what has been going on with us.  I think it might be easier for me to start with the most recent and work my way backwards.  Here we go:

In the past week, Landon has come down with this mystery cold that no one else caught.  He had a fever (with the shakes that almost landed us in the ER), runny nose, and a cough.  I took him to the doctor where she seemed to think it could be his ears and gave me some stuff to clean them out with.  His scary fever happened the next night.  He woke up around midnight shivering and shaking in his bed, but the thermometer read around 102.  I'm always weary about wrapping him up in a blanket because I've seen his fever get to super scary levels before, but Braydon trumped my decision and wrapped him up.  Around 3am it finally broke and Braydon and I could finally get some sleep.  He's doing much better now, and hopefully we won't have to do that again anytime soon!

Yesterday we went to see Dr. Zapata for a check-up/follow-up.  As much as I would like to say it was a good visit, it wasn't that great.  There isn't any wonderful news that came from it.  He actually told me that Landon wasn't growing as fast as he should be and was actually staying the same as he had been before.  On a growth chart, this doesn't pan out well.  He's supposed to be moving with the growth curve, and right now he's staying the same as the growth chart is showing that he should be moving up.  No bueno.  So, I got a call today from the dietitian in his office that we needed to up his calories by 300 a day!  So, that's an extra 6 ounces of formula a day.  Right now, he's getting 14 ounces of formula and now he'll be receiving 20.  That's a drastic increase.  I have to say that I was a little worried when Dr. Zapata was showing me the growth charts. I kept it to myself, but I have noticed that Landon still fits into his 4T clothes almost perfectly when he is getting closer to being 6 years old.  Apparently his lack of nutrition has affected his growth.  A lot.

Don't I feel like a jerk.  Once again, I've been so driven to get my kid off of this g-button, that I've been a little blinded by the fact that he is very much dependent on it.  Most of his nutrition comes from it.  He does eat meals, but he doesn't eat enough or as productive as he should for a kid his age.  To give you an idea, he eats about as much as Sydney does right now, sometimes less.  And he doesn't drink hardly anything.  He'll drink an ounce or two from his cup at dinner, but that's after me and Braydon have a war with him about it.  I guess right now he just doesn't understand the importance of it.  So, I guess I've come to the realization that this is going to be a longer road than I expected.  It's not a quick or easy fix.  I've gotta step back.  It's more important to me that my son is healthy and growing the way he should, than getting a g-button out.  I've gotta learn to look at the big picture.  Just because he has to have more formula right now, doesn't mean that in a year from now he will.  Big picture, Dawn, big picture.

So, although I didn't have any really good news in this post, at least I have cute pictures to show.  That really makes up for it, right? ;)

Landon's teacher gave him a dice "game" for him to learn how to add.  He LOVES it!  He really likes dry erase markers right now.  I don't know.  Sometimes the most random things make him happy. :)  Sydney loves her tutu right now.  She doesn't like to take it off.  She calls it her "ballerina".  I don't think these kids could be any cuter!