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Friday, November 25, 2011

My big kid

Romelie is 4 years old!

We'll start there.

Romelie was very happy and excited for her 4th birthday. We had a few outings prior to her actual birthday. We went to the MN Zoo the Saturday before. The weather has been unusually warm, which has been amazing, so we hit all the outdoor exhibits while it was still enjoyable. The night before her birthday, we went to the Mall of America to get our annual photo with Santa and to let Romelie use one of her free ride passes. I love our mall Santa, just for the record. He rules at getting kids comfortable and taking a good photo. This year Romelie was just fine with Santa, but Cori was not having any of his presence, so after a couple of tries, we ended up with this pose. Look closely. Notice anything odd?

...Did you see it?

Yup. Those are my feet, my legs, and my hand in the photo. The only way Cori would do the shot is sitting on my lap, with me leaning back out of the picture, which Santa snuck into the background. Hey, it worked, so I'm happy with it. And Rom had a good time on the rides afterwards.

For her actual birthday, we did the same low-key style celebration as Cori's birthday 2 weeks earlier - cake, presents, playtime. "Wow, that kitty cake is amazing!" Thank you. I know. "No, seriously! It looks professional!" Oh, stop. You're making me blush. Romelie loved her gifts and has been playing with each of them in turn ever since. She actually requests naptime/quiet time these days, sometimes as early as 9:30 am; I have to remind her that she can sit in her room and quietly play with her toys anytime she wants!

While on the subject of Romelie's room...we decided to change the kids' rooms around. Cori's room was bigger than Rom's, but it also holds a full-sized bed, so it made sense to leave Rom where she was when Cori was born. However, Rom just needs more space to play. It's hard to keep her room clean, especially during naptime/quiet time, and the bigger space makes that much easier. We still have the full-sized bed in Cori's now-smaller room, for now, so Cori's space is very limited, but she mostly crawls around and plays downstairs anyway, so we're good for now and will eventually get rid of the bed to give her a playspace, too.

Jumping ahead, we had Thanksgiving yesterday with my dad's family. My dad makes an awesome turkey and the best stuffing in the world, and there's always leftovers, so I'm looking forward to more delicious turkey-themed meals in the next few days.

Jumping back...Cori has teeth! Five or six of them! It was crazy...one day I'm thinking, wow, my kid is 12 months old, is she ever going to get teeth? A few days go by without me thinking about it...and then I go to check and there are 3 on top, 2 on the bottom, with more clearly on their way! She definitely is in some pain from time to time, but she actually seems to love using a teething ring (I could never get Romelie to go for one), so that helps a lot.

Cori has also switched over to cow's milk, which has created some serious digestive issues for my poor baby. I don't want to go into too much detail, but her poos are horrifying. Too hard and too large, and she cries for 30 minutes trying to get them out. Aw-ful. Dr. Dukinfield recommended some Miralax, and that seems to be doing the trick - normal baby poos for the past 5 days. Keep those fingers crossed they stay that way, cause otherwise I'm going to continue to blog about baby poop, but in more graphic detail.

Speaking of Dr. Dukinfield, both girls got in their well-kid check ups with him in the last couple of weeks. Cori is 28 inches and 19.4 pounds, so average-to-small for her age (not in a concerning way, of course). Romelie is 46 inches tall and just under 40 pounds, which makes her long and lean. Both of my girls are higher on the height percentage than on the weight percentage, but they do have my genes, so I'm sure that'll change as they get older. For now, they're exactly where they're supposed to be.

And speaking of weight (check out these seamless transitions!), I'm actually on track for my new year's resolution/weight loss goal! If you'll recall, one of my resolutions was to blog an average of 3 times a month, or 36 times in 2011. This...probably won't happen. But I did better than in 2010, so there was at least improvement. I had said my other 2 resolutions were more personal. One, while still none of your beezwax, has been reached successfully. The other I'll go ahead and share cause I'm proud of myself - I resolved to lose an average of 3 pounds a month, or 36 pounds in 2011. On January 1st, I weighed in at 197.6 lbs. Yes, I had just had a baby...2 months earlier. That was a lot for me. My goal, for those who don't care to do the math, was 161.6. As of Wednesday morning, I weighed in at 165. I'm nearly there! A big boost came in the form of a weight loss challenge at my gym. Bally's gave us 6 weeks of free bootcamp (with a $10 entry fee) to lose weight, and the person with the greatest percentage of weight loss won 8 free sessions with a personal trainer. 15 pounds later (lighter?)...I won! Yay. I'll let you know my final weight on December 31. I'm hoping for the high 150s; I can't remember the last time I was in the 150s (middle school? Probably).

And on that note, I'm wrapping this up, because I need to get ready to pick up Grandmommy Diane from the airport! to see you!!

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