The Shertzer Kids: All About Ben, Jack & Emma: Oops... Where did September go?

Hello Fall! Hello cooler weather, and playing outside! And are we ready for Halloween? Oh yeah!

Emma

Miss Emma turned 6 months old last Sunday. She now weighs about 16 pounds and is 26" tall. She is in the 50th - 70th percentile for height and weight. Due to a snaffu in her health insurance, we had to make a visit to the Health Department last month to get her 2nd round of immunizations. 3rd round is on the 18th of this month and she'll be all caught up.

She is now eating oatmeal and baby food 2 to 3 times per day and is still nursing. Similac had a recall of some of their formula because it might contain beetles (!!!!). And what do you know, but the one container we had opened is on the recall list. Good thing we couldn't get her to take a bottle huh?

Emma's sleep patterns were great up until about a month ago when she started waking up every 2 or 3 hours all night again. She was doing 8 to 10 hour stretches before that. Two nights ago she did a 9 hour stretch finally, so I'm hoping it was just teething and she'll get back to good rests soon. She still goes down at nap times and bed time without crying or fussing (hooray!) and goes back to sleep in the night after I feed her, so that makes it a lot easier!

She is playing in her walker a lot now and can get it to go where she wants it to eventually. She seems to get frustrated when she wants to go a certain way and it won't move that way, but most of the time she's really good at maneuvering. I had put the pack-n-play up in the living room so she could play while lying down, but she doesn't seem to like it anymore. The swing has been put away as well. Before long she'll be crawling around I guess. As of now she is not rolling over completely but can roll onto both sides. Hard to believe that in 6 short months she will probably be walking!

Right now her vocalizing is mostly "Da-da-da-da-da" (sometimes just mouthed or whispered) and "na-na-na-na-na". Also growls and giggles and shouts. Whenever I ask "can you say 'ma-ma-ma'?" she shakes her head no and laughs. =-) Oh yeah, and she is shaking her head left and right. Hasn't gotten to the up and down yet.

I went to a local children's consignment event (actually 2) recently and got all the kid's their winter wardrobes. Lots of cute stuff including the Halloween shirts in the picture above.

Emma sporting a new Fall outfit, complete with leopard print hair bow.

We took a trip to Little Rock in September so that Emma could meet her Great-Grandmother (Billie Galloway - aka "Memo")

Jack

Mr. Cutie Pie is picking up new words every day and is getting better at expressing himself. Last month we heard lots of "mine" and "go away". Lately it's "donno" and "turn" and lots and lots of "Hi Emma!". He is also quite the singer. You can't really pick out many words, but he definitely can carry a tune (although he does have the words to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star down pretty well). Currently it's the ABC song which we are trying to learn in our home pre-school.

He likes to help with everything and gets frustrated if you don't understand or don't let him. He always wants to turn the lid of his sippy cup after I refill his juice, always wants to have his hand on the bag of trash as I take it outside, and always wants to help in the kitchen no matter what I'm doing.

Somebody looooves his baby sister!

This past week he has been throwing a tantrum at nap-time to the degree that I have to go in repeatedly for up to an hour and keep putting him back in bed. My solution since then is to let him stay up until noonish instead of 10:30 or 11, and then he is tired enough that he doesn't get out of bed as much. I have also moved his bedtime to 6 or 6:30 from 7:30. He still wakes up between 5:30 and 6:00 am no matter what anyway, and is in a better mood in the morning with more sleep.

Jack got his 2 bottom 2nd molars in last month which made him a bit crankier than usual. I'm on the lookout for those top molars and then hopefully he will stop waking up at night. Rob is getting worn out with the up and down routine.

Chillaxin' with Daddy

Ben

Benjamin is getting better at playing with Jack since I explained to him that he can talk to him and Jack will understand (as opposed to screaming at him or pushing/hitting him to get some kind of reaction).

His vocabulary and annunciation are getting better every day. Currently I am working with him on "S" and "th" - thing instead of sing, anyTHing instead of anySing, Thank you instead of Sank you.

Recently I downloaded pre-school curriculums for he and Jack and we started on Monday. This week we are learning to count to 20, trace and write the letter A, reading consonant/vowel combinations, talking about emotions, and learning safety rules (stop, drop and roll for one). We do pre-school for 1/2 hour to an hour 3 times per week and both boys seem to really enjoy it. We also have a craft once per week (Rob bought construction paper, glitter, glue and safety scissors) and they love that too.

Ben still says a million cute things every month. The other morning he was following me around and when I asked him what he was doing he said "I just want to come in here and look at you. Because you're pretty. And nice." =-)

This morning when we were discussing what to do if a stranger tried to take him away, he said "But if a stranger took me, you and Emma to Mimama's house, then that would be a GOOD safety rule" (complete with finger wagging to punctuate "good").

Last weekend we went to a pizza place in Fort Smith to celebrate Aunt Leslie's birthday and the boys really enjoyed the arcade.