First night away from Emmalyn

I had been able to avoid any overnight travel for work until this point but I couldn't avoid it any longer.  I finally had to spend my first night away from Emmalyn (hey, I made it 7 1/2 months).  I had a team meeting with my entire team and my clients that would require 2 nights away.  It was incredibly hard to leave.  I had planned to pump the entire time so that my milk supply wouldn't be affected but once I got into that hotel bed, I lost all drive to get up in the middle of the night and pump when she would normally eat.  A good night's sleep totally won out.  Luckily when I got back, my supply was still okay.

The first night we had an appreciation dinner right off the river front in Cincinnati at the aquarium.  

This is the cute pic Peter sent me of Max ready for bed.  I missed him so much!

They brought in a penguin for us to pet.

I tried it.

One of my clients, Ted was all about it.

Mike and Dave (client contacts for another client) presenting an award

Ted's commonly used phrase

Britt sent me this pic the next day of my cute baby.  It was nice to get pictures of what my kids were doing even though it made me miss them.  I tried to Facetime with them every night.

After a long day of meetings, the next night we went out for another team activity.

These characters were excited to wear the Kool-Aid shirts we all got

I thought this centerpiece was festive, pretty, and super simple.  I need to remember this!

Facetime with Emmalyn.  She was so happy to see me.

The meeting went well.  The clients were pleased, my team was pleased, and I was pleased.  AND I was super excited to come home even though it was nice to get away from it all and have a little break.  I really do enjoy work travel but I don't enjoy it enough to sacrifice time at home unless I have to.

This is what the clouds looked like on my way home from the airport.  It's like someone up in the sky was watching me....kind of creepy.

Yeah for being back with my kids!  Here's some of what they are up to lately:

Max is certainly keeping me doing what I "should" like when I am driving with one hand he will remind me to keep two hands on the wheel.  Or, if I cough he will tell me to cough into my elbow.

He's whiny more and more and has started throwing more fits (with tears!).  His whining really gets to Peter.

He continues to shock me with what he remembers and will bring up something from awhile ago.

I don't like his hair short but you do see his dimple more when it's short...

He will make comments on the weather.

He knows when his birthday is.

He still hasn't learned how to recognize a compliment and so I have to prompt him by saying" so and so just paid you a compliment, what do you say?" and then he will say thank you.

He is really polite.

He has no interest in being pushed to play with someone or pushed to play a certain way if he doesn't want to.  He is stubborn in that.

His independence is growing.

We make Maxwell only use the big potty now, where before we would let him pee in the little training potty and poop in the big potty.

He's not tall enough to reach light switches yet.

He's a timid boy.

I love them I catch him singing to himself.

He really wanted us to put up the Christmas decorations, which was fun.

On the plane right home from Utah he asked then the girl was going to bring him food (He was referring to the flight attendant...we might regret having him fly first class if he expects flight attendants to always bring him food!)

Since we got back, Maxwell has been really focused on Utah and says things like, "I want to go to the other Utah" or "Are we still in Utah?" or "We have a Utah car" - - referring to the rental car with the Utah license plates.

Emmalyn is moving all over now.

She will pull up to standing on me.

She has big smiles for everyone but that doesn't mean she wants them to hold her.  She was super clingy to me in Utah.

I learned, in Utah, that she really needs time to just play by herself with her toys rather than having to engage with people constantly.

She is banging things.

Emmalyn does a great job swallowing pureed food.

She HATES it when other people are eating and she isn't.

She wakes up multiple times every night but usually I can pop the binky in and she will go right to sleep.  She has been getting up to nurse at 11 pm and 4 am every night.

Third week of November

Another fun and busy week... It's interesting to me as I am going back and blogging to see how much we do EVERY week yet so often I feel like we just sit around the house...

My baby in her little winter cave - this time around I got the car seat cover

Max's graduation picture on the board at swimming lessons

Nice guns!

We enjoyed a date night of wine tasting and treats made by my friend Tida.  I enjoy the treats but mostly we go for the chance to visit with Tida and Jason.  (The fancy treats are crazy delicious though.)

Max was invited to Sadie's 5th birthday party.  He wouldn't pose for pics but Emmalyn would...

super cute idea, right?  the kids also went swimming which was super fun

My Little Mermaid

Crawling around at the party

This is how she plays with her activity table now

It's snow!

It might have only been a dusting but Maxwell still went outside to check it out.

These two boys love their Emmalyn

Look how big those PJs are on her.  They are the correct size for her age but she swims in them.

Landen loves his Emmalyn

We had some fun painting.

Video - The depth of his vocabulary cracks me up.  I love hearing him use new words all the time.

Peter and I went to a surprise party for our friend in our neighborhood, Erica.

Peter and Jake

The cute couple - Erica and Jake

Some of the girls

Jenga - - who knew it could be so much fun as an adult?

I am so grateful to have such great neighbors.  We have a great time!

Peter is not getting up in the middle of the night to change Emmalyn anymore.  It's now just me.  She's only getting up once in the evening around 4 am the past few nights.  That's super nice but it's been hard to get her to go to bed originally.  She keeps waking up and needs her binky and also doesn't want to be in her crib.  So, a few nights have been spent completely in our bed.  Not good, but sometimes you just need to be able to survive.

She is starting to pull up to her feet.  Like, if I am sitting down she will crawl over and pull up to her feet on me.  

She is saying "guh guh guh" so her baby sounds are growing.

Maxwell will talk to her and calls her "Emmowhen" or "missy" or he'll say "pretty girruhl" (girl).

Max now stays dry during his nap at school - whew.

We had Maxwell's first parent teacher conference.  I was really excited to go and hear more about what he was doing and how he was doing.  I was so frustrated after it because I felt like what the teacher shared about Maxwell didn't fit the kid that I knew.  It was almost like she didn't know him at all.  She shared specific things he would do or say and it just didn't fit.

She said that he gets upset easily and doesn't want people to think he's silly so he won't participate in some group activities - like when they take turns dancing in the middle of the circle.  She also shared that he gets really upset if he has to get his hands dirty like when he's supposed to finger paint or if he spills his yogurt.  

Her comments were way more negative than positive.   She pointed out that he wasn't able to jump on one foot.  (not sure I'm super concerned about that).  Then she went through a bunch of points of evaluation and he didn't get one "above average" ranking for his age.  Even when it came to reading - he was just average for his age.  I wanted to call BS on her.  Are you telling me it's typical and average that kids read at 3 years old!??!  Argh.  It ruined my morning because it felt so impersonal.  She certainly didn't seem connected to Maxwell at all.

First Week of November

I am having fun finding ways that Maxwell can "help" me lately.  Since being in preschool he will notice when he's made a mess and will go get stuff to clean it up himself.  (Yeah for the Montessori method that also teaches life skills!)

Helping me make cookies - he helps me dump the ingredients into the bowl.

Maxwell and Landen help fold laundry

We went to Maxwell's friend Blake's birthday party.  He only knew 2 of the kids and spent most of the time playing in the backyard by himself.

He went inside when it was time to play a version of pin the tail on the donkey.  I was so excited to see he wanted to play a game!  However, once he saw what the game was he quickly decided he wanted none of it and went back outside alone.  :(  I am glad that he's so clear on what he wants but wish he wasn't so timid and wanted to do group things too.

That night the adults got to go to a party too!!  It was the annual Halloween party (a day after Halloween but who cares?) put on by our next door neighbors.  We talked Britt and Joe into going this year too.  So, we got a true babysitter for the first time ever in our house.  She was a daughter of a lady I work with.  Peter and I put our kids down for the night before we left so all she really had to do was watch Hayden and Landen and listen for our kids.  (I did get a text from her after awhile that Emmalyn was upset and not calming down.  Poor girl woke up, when normally she had been sleeping well, and was super upset.  So I came home and got her back to sleep.  Then I was worried about her and came home about an hour later and she was screaming upset again but this time the babysitter was upset with Britt's boys and didn't even hear her screaming.  :(  So I took care of it and left again without letting the babysitter know.  I didn't want her to feel bad about not hearing the baby even though I was annoyed by it.)  Overall it was fine and I was glad we had someone so all the adults could go to the party.

He still likes me

Hanging with some of the ladies

 

Britt and Joe were a pacman game and Peter and I wore our German best.

Herr and Frau Millar

All the ladies.  What a crazy bunch!

Video - Emmalyn is full-on crawling for real!

Peter and Maxwell playing soccer in the backyard

Video - Now they switched sports and got in a little batting practice.  Max got some good hits!

We met up with Andrea at the park.  Emmalyn and C hung out together.  He's only 2 months older than her but is so much bigger!

Max and S

Slide static!

Love this darling shirt from my dear Monika (was my nanny when I was young) who lives in Germany.  It says mum + dad = me

Sometimes after she nurses in the middle of the night, I let her fall asleep on me just so I can cuddle her longer.  She's just so sweet delicious.

These boys have fun during the day together - today they were all ninjas!

We went out for a family date night - bowling!  I had hoped that she'd fall asleep but that was silly of me.  Too much noise and loud music to fall asleep!

He had a great time

Awake and watching

My little bowler.  He likes bowling and then wants to play at the arcade after.  That's a Millar thing.  Whenever I went bowling, we just went bowling.  However, with Peter's family, it seems that the two go hand in hand.

Just so I'll remember - -

Emmalyn crawled for real on November 1st

Her second tooth (her bottom right tooth in the center) popped through on November 3rd

Emmalyn loves to give and get kisses from momma, she "receives" with a big open mouth and "gives" by sucking on my face.  :)

She is cooing herself to sleep again and sleeps either rolled onto her side or on her belly.  Either way her head is cranked back.

She wants to be by Maxwell or playing with whatever he's doing.  He isn't too happy about her wanting to be close to him and will normally scoot away from her.  While he doesn't want her bothering him, he doesn't mind bringing her toys.

When Emmalyn is in the car seat and upset, Maxwell doesn't want me to give her a binky and instead he wants to try to calm her down.  He will sit there and say, "Emmalyn, it's okay.  Emmalyn, it's okay" over and over.  It's super sweet.

Emmalyn has started growling.

She will crawl over to be by you, like when I come home from work she comes to get me.

Changes I've noticed in Maxwell that I attribute to stuff he's learning in preschool - he's much more polite (not that he wasn't before but it's a real thing now), he's also much more independent for example he got the wiping his bottom thing down (boy was that stressful for me - you can remember my stress here), he can shower by himself other than turning the water on and off, he is starting to be able to do buttons and snaps.  

His teacher gave me feedback that he likes to sit by himself at school and she will have to prompt him to not sit at the table with only one chair but to move to a table by the other kids.  She says he doesn't play with the kids and isn't as social.  She said maybe it's because some of the older boys might be too rowdy for Max.  I hope he becomes more social!