Baby Berg!

I can't remember if I have told this story here or not. Some 17 years ago, when Jason Nill showed up at Colby-Sawyer for his freshman year of college, he met his roommate who also happened to be named Jason (Lomberg). At some point soon thereafter, Jason Lomberg started going by "Berg" in order to differentiate and to this day, we still call him that and he and Jason are still best friends. You might remember Berg and Karen's wedding (I was 10 weeks pregnant with Alex!) but you also likely recognize them as regulars here on this blog (they have come for Thanksgiving, birthdays, to Long Island, etc etc). Anyway, Ashton calls them Uncle Berg and Uncle Karen (we are working on the more gender-appropriate title of Aunt), they bought a house two miles away, and are expecting their first baby (a boy!) on 5/15/15. I had the honor of hosting Karen's baby shower this past Saturday at their house and it was a perfect little party if you ask me :) We all had so much fun.

So, pictures! Her nursery has an elephant theme, I'm so bummed I did not snap a few pictures of how adorable it is. But we carried that theme and her colors (aqua and gray) throughout, starting with the invitations:

I confess, Who Sank the Boat is one of my all-time favorite childhood stories. I remember so clearly my mom reading it to me but I brought Karen "Dear Zoo" instead. The boys haven't gotten to Who Sank the Boat yet. But I digress.

Saturday morning Jen came to watch the boys and Jason and I headed over to start decorating party central. I don't have any pictures of that but I do have some of the finished product!

I had handmade most of the decorations, Jason blew up the balloons, Berg chilled the champagne, and Karen actually made her famous deviled eggs before heading off to get her nails done :) I had Panera cater the sandwiches and salad and the pastry chef at Brae Burn made the cake and the favor pops. I was so happy with how everything came out! We had lunch, presents, some dessert and a group photo...

and then we played the one game that I had set up:

Not a lot of rules to this one and pretty self explanatory. Everyone took a guess, even I did not know the answer! Jason had counted them out the night before (196) so we all took turns. I almost had it at 180 but was slightly beat out by the winning guess of 187, which I was fine with because it would have looked a little fishy if I was magically the closest. The guess range was anywhere from 77-300, it was funny to read all the slips haha. Anyway, I share this because if you ever find yourself at a party where you have to speculate how many small objects are in a jar this size, the answer is 196. Write that down. If they are giving out the same prize that I did, you could win a Target giftcard!

Overall, the shower was a big success and I'll end with my favorite picture, which is when I said, "Karen, give me a 'I'm pregnant and obviously loving this cake!' kind of smile" and she did and I think it is just about the cutest shot ever. 

(And one of the only ones in focus from like the whole day. Either my camera stinks at taking pictures or I do, but how difficult can the auto setting be? It's very frustrating.)

Anyway, the Nills can't wait to meet you Baby Berg! You are going to have awesome parents and we all love you so much already! Home stretch!! xoxoxox

Alex walks!

Link for email readers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVyp6c8srMk



We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a quick visit this past weekend and Alex officially started walking! And by that I mean, not just a stumbly step here or there, but several in a row and consistently! Our favorite game on Sunday evening was having him walk back and forth between Jason and I with everyone cheering him on :) He still prefers to crawl but he's getting more sure of himself every day!

Alex turns 1!

This past Monday we had a first birthday in the house! For my little pile of blond hair, a one Mr. Alexander Michael Nill. This year has gone by so much faster than Ashton's first year, that's for sure. Where to even begin! I stopped doing his monthly updates about 3 months ago and figured if something huge happened, like he started to walk, it would get its own post anyway. But we've more or less been holding steady for these winter months. Let's take a look at where age 1.0 finds us.

Basic stats:

(3/24 pedi visit)
Weight: 25 pounds 11 ounces (95th percentile)
Height: 30.75 inches (85th)
Head circumference: Jason couldn't remember but it was 75th percentile
Shots: None because we found out he had an ear infection!

Diapers: Size 5
Clothes: 18 months, 18-24 months is a little big
Hair: Blond and fluffy. It actually defied gravity until we got it cut this past weekend.
Eyes: Blue
Teeth: Uh, six. He has his trademark top two and bottom two, and then one each on the right side on the top and bottom. It's very odd, like the matching ones on the left side aren't in yet. See?

Meals: Three a day. His favorite foods are mac n cheese (the shell shape pasta, which he will eat warm out of the pot or cold as leftovers), blueberries, sweet potato fries and veggie sticks dipped in hummus. He also loves canteloupe, watermelon, puffs out his snack cup, and string cheese. He and Ashton are not my favorite dinner guests these days - if they had their way they'd have toast every night. So lately I just tell myself at least I'm offering different foods (like fish, meatloaf, carrots, etc.) and try to take deep breaths when it is immediately thrown on the floor. I'm hoping Alex will master pouches and a straw soon because then I can feed them both my sneaky veggie smoothies.

Milk: Ladies and gentlemen, one of the main things Alex got for his birthday was WEANED! From bottles of breastmilk, at least. My last day pumping at work was last Friday, and we have just finished with the transition to cow's milk in his bottles. He has not noticed, as far as I can tell. He was getting three 5 ounce cow's milk/breastmilk mixed bottles a day for a couple of weeks, gradually changing the ratios, and then Monday, his birthday, was his first day with bottles that were 100% cow's milk. No more pumping for me! I will continue to nurse him at bedtime for a little while but I know we're almost done. Crazy! I found out I was pregnant with him on July 6th, 2013 (Jason's 36th birthday - I gave him the positive test as a present haha), he was born on March 16, 2014, and here we are a year after that and he finally doesn't need me anymore. Growing him and then feeding him has lasted 21 months. That's like, a lot of months.

Sleep: The birthday gifts just keep on coming. He got this one a little early (last week) but it's a nice little regimen we like to call sleep training. He was still waking up several times a night, which meant I was trudging to his room to nurse him back to sleep, and it was finally taking its toll. With the advent of turning 1, I knew it had to stop. So a week before his birthday we started and Alex immediately served me up a big dish of shock. Not as big as the one Ashton gave me by potty training in five minutes, but a big one nonetheless. He woke up three times, barely cried, and went back to sleep. The next couple of nights he was up just once and again, back to sleep within minutes. I was bracing for all out wail sessions that woke the whole neighborhood and lasted for hours (like with Ashton). And it turned out to be a non-event! So now he sleeps through the night and takes his two naps a day and all is well.

Motor skills: We all thought he was going to start walking long before now. He has been pulling up and cruising everywhere for months. A handful of times he has stood up on his own and balanced there for awhile, and a handful of times of that handful of times, he has taken a step or two, but it's pretty infrequent. He crawls at warp speed and gets into just about everything - cabinets, cubbies, drawers, book shelves, all of it. We have to watch him all the time, it's annoying haha. Having two kids is officially hard, because Alex is not content to be in the carseat, stroller or carrier but also is not at the stage where he can do what Ashton is doing (push the dump truck around the block, jump on the trampoline, etc.) So frankly, he gets in pissy moods a lot because of his limitations. He does not point or shake his head but he loves to clap (especially to "If You're Happy and You Know It"), play hide and seek, and climb the stairs. Oh and "wave", which is basically opening and closing his hands, and usually backwards.

Favorite toys: Any number of the one million matchbox cars we have lying around, plus his Tolo Ball Run toy, plus his little hide and squeak eggs. We also have a little barn that has little plush animals in it that he loves to take out and put back in. He's very busy in general just bopping around and exploring - he and Ashton play together a lot in the play tent and crawling tunnel too.

Brotherly love: Alex and Ashton get along great. In the mornings, Ashton wakes up and goes downstairs for some toys (for whatever reason, he will not allow toys in his bedroom), and then comes back up, goes into Alex's room and they play together for awhile. Sometimes Ashton climbs in with him but often they just shove matchbox cars back and forth at each other through the crib slats.

Overall, Alex is a strong, independent little guy and doing great :)

Which brings us to...

Birthday celebration info: I feel really bad. I threw a very big party for Ashton when he turned one and Alex, well...sorry baby. Sunday night Uncle Berg and Uncle Karen (as Ashton calls them) came over to help us sing Happy Birthday and that was the extent. Ashton had helped me bake a cake that morning, which I was feeling guilty about because it was Funfetti out of a box, so I at least shaped it into a star to make it a bit more special. Complete footage of our Happy Birthday chorus can be found here, but this is our little party. The last one is a blurry picture but I think Alex is so funny that I just had to post it.

Then the next night, his actual birthday, he got to open some presents from grandparents and then it was time to give him our gifts. We got him the Leapfrog Musical Learn-Around Playground with the Tube Topper, Ball Shoot and Piano that also has Alphabet Buttons (not its real name).

This was being sold on one of my Facebook mom's groups for $10. However, it turned out to have been recalled due to children sticking their arms in the ball shoot and getting scratches, so she gave it to me for free. Isn't this what being a second child is all about? Second-hand toys they don't make anymore due to safety concerns? For the price of a Lysol wipe, this was Alex's birthday gift.

Seriously though, don't worry. Everyone that ever owned this toy (from reviews on Amazon) gave mostly positive reviews, and Alex totally loves it. In fact, so does Ashton. It's perfectly safe :) And it was free and not to mention good for the environment to be recycled to a good home. Unsurprisingly, Ashton jumped right in to help me wrap it and then help Alex unwrap it. He was so excited that there was a "birfday" and mentioned several times that his was in the summer.

Alex's next gift was also on the cheap side. All he wants to do, ever, is unroll the toilet paper roll or empty the wipes container. So I gave him a box of tissues and told him to go to town. He pulled every last one out, then started to put them back in, then pulled them all out again. He was so focused on this task that he did not even look up so I could take his picture. It was easily his favorite present.

The final addition to what was the most affordable first birthday ever: Alex wore Ashton's hand-me-down onesie.

Birthdays are not without speed bumps when you are 12 months old. It's a lot to take in.

So there you have it! My little sweetheart Alexander Michael is

Messy Hair Don't Care (Alex's first haircut)

We've got a birthday in the house! Alex turns el numero uno today! We had a mini-party for him last night and he gets more presents tonight so his official 1 year post will likely be tomorrow. But that doesn't mean I can't blog about a very important milestone! It happened yesterday, there were a few tears, but he successfully had his first haircut! There's some old wives tale about waiting until a child turns one before cutting their hair, I don't know the science behind it (haha, like there is any) but regardless, I abided by it.

The last month or so, Alex's hair had gotten particularly bad, in a constant state of "every which way".

It was in his eyes, covering his ears, and the back had a weird flip thing going on. Saturday afternoon, I took him and Ashton to a children's concert and in 30 minutes, had three different comments.

"Oh, your baby! Look at his hair!"

"Your baby is so cute...wow his hair is crazy!"

"I can't believe his hair..."

These were not entirely compliments. They were prompts for me to explain myself, and all three times I said, "Oh I know, he actually turns 1 on Monday and we are taking him for a haircut..." Sigh. Poor Alex. But in fairness, he WAS a mess. So was Ashton at age 1:

(For the fun story of Ashton's first haircut ---> click here).

So yesterday at 4:30 pm I loaded Alex up and off we went to SuperCuts. Nope, 30 minute wait. Next, Glenn's Barber Shop. Nope, 15 minute wait (Alex has not been very patient lately - I thought, are we literally going door to door begging for a haircut??). We finally landed at the Hair Cuttery. I asked a random lady to take some pictures and although Alex cried a lot, his head didn't move much, so we were good!

It's probably obvious, but the before is on the left ;)

And the in-betweens, finishing with a flourish (er, scowl).

It was $13, he got a First Haircut certificate and I took a few snips of his locks home in a baggie. Success! Look at this handsome new baby.

Just in time for his birthday cake :) I'll say it my next post, but Happy One Year to my sweet Alexander! I could squeeze you to pieces!

p.s. his hair was back to crazy this morning, but at least it's now a shorter crazy!

Before and After: Toy Storage

This post is going to be kind of pitiful. It's really not newsworthy at all but I just wanted to share that we finally did something about our little foyer. Not it's fault, but it has become the play area for lack of anyplace else to put toys (besides the sideboard table, and besides the built-in cabinet, and besides the other built-in cabinet, all of which are, um, full already).

Way back when, Jason made a toy box for Ashton. And I had nothing better to do so I painted all the letters. Time has gone on, Alex was born, and we have accumulated more and more colorful small plastic playthings  ("toys"). The toybox was overflowing and looked like this.

While it was good for easy clean up in that you could just toss everything in, there were toys on the bottom that never saw the light of day. Plus it looked messy and there was no lid. Especially now that Alex is in the thick of things, I knew it was time to come up with a better and more attractive toy storage solution that was also not personalized to favor our older child.

I took to Pinterest, where someone has always thought of something good. It saves a lot of time not to have to come up with original ideas of your own. Most of the search results were of the cubby-with-basket variety, either DIY or IKEA, but some of the especially handsome wall storage units were...Pottery Barn Kids. I drooled. I got on their website. I spent way too much time going through the different arrangements for their Cameron storage system until I had it:

Nicely covers up most toys, still room for a couple cute baskets, and tons of space. The best part was that this beauty is 87 inches wide and the space I was working with? 87.5 inches wide. Llllllllike a glove. Excuse the terrible rendering, but it was to go something like this.

But with all the surrounding toys nicely inside and not visible. And if a toy could not fit? It was headed to the basement. I was not messing around; I wanted my foyer back.

So it would have fit perfectly. Totally a sign that this PBKids unit was the solution. Price tag? Expensive, but it was on "special sale" and I had a 15% off coupon.

So I said, I'm just going to go up to Pottery Barn Kids in the mall to see the pieces in person before I order it. Make sure the white is a good white and all that. But in my mind, the store visit was a formality. This puppy was as good as bought.

And then I got there. They didn't have the exact set up but they didn't need to. I prepared myself to be in love and get out my wallet.

Hmmm. We'll say it was a quiet introduction. My heart did not somersault. I opened and closed the cabinet doors and slid the drawers in and out. I stepped back and stared at it and all of a sudden, it was like someone brought out the smelling salts. I blinked. This unit was well over one thousand dollars. Plus shipping, plus tax, and plus the totally BS "delivery surcharge", which was yet another $120 (courteously knocked down to $75 due to the sale). I was really looking at more like fifteen hundred dollars after all was said and done. For this! It wasn't even that great! Oh how I wanted to love it, to tell Jason "Oh my gosh, it's so well made, 100% solid wood and worth the money, I promise!" but it wasn't! I could not believe how fast reality came into focus.

I stood there staring at it for another minute and then picked myself up and walked out, irrationally angry at Pottery Barn Kids for such an outrageous, downright offensive price tag.  I was so mad. Mad because I was ready to invest in something high-quality and PBKids is supposed to deliver that, but it was so unbelievably overpriced I just wanted to yell at someone about the injustice. I guess that someone is you haha. To this day I remain loathe to order from them. You would have had to see it and touch it in person, but that storage unit was not worth it, and there was no denying it, no matter how much I thought I wanted it.

So what did I end up doing? Naturally, the answer was Ikea. Basic cube storage, a few baskets, and the added fun of using tools with Daddy while wearing his special watch. (Sorry, this video is too funny not to link. "What time is it?" "Forty-five minutes.")

After way too long a post about this...

BEFORE

AFTER

You know what's funny? There is virtually no difference between the two. And the toybox is somehow still full!

We call this a fail, people. Big time. I am the official loser of the fight against toys in my house. The kitchen usually looks like this by dinnertime anyway.

In the end, I have two boys that play and leave toys and snack crumbs in their wake. Our walls are dented, our finishes are chipped, and there is pee all over the place every time Ashton goes to the bathroom. I could have shelled out $1,500 for that storage system, but these truths would have remained.

So this is my little public service announcement: Just say no to Pottery Barn Kids. Because even if you have the money, nothing can help you ;)

Allergy update 2015

This is one of those posts that is really for me to look back on and reference some day. Like I'm very glad I documented last year's allergy appointment so I could compare the two.

Basically this is the time every year where we go get Ashton's back pricked and wait for the magic to happen. Besides looking at his reactions, we get a blood test done and then a week later, get the lab results. Last year I was so hopeful as our allergist said he looked like he was going to be a candidate for the egg challenge at the appointment, but his bloodwork said otherwise. One more year of avoiding eggs, sesame, peanuts and treenuts...so what is the latest now that he is 3.5?

.

As everyone knows I love comparison pictures so here they are side by side.

A few notes. First, they didn't even bother to do sesame this year. They knew it would just blow up and cause him discomfort. That is likely going to be a lifelong allergy. Second, egg was even bigger this time around. Last year the wheal measured at a 4, this year it was a 20 :( 

They also threw in some environmental tests - the upper right quadrant of his back for 2015 was dust mites, pollen, etc. which were all negative, but you'll see dog got a small reaction as well as all the tree nuts. 

Here are the bloodwork results (again, mainly for me!):

02/18/2015 11:20

    Hemoglobin                               12.4 g/dL                 11.0 - 12.8  

    Pb (Lead)                                <2 mcg/dL                 0 - 5        

02/18/2015 11:22

    IgE                                      240 units/mL        H     0 - 200      

    Allergen, Almond                         1.13 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Brazilnut                      0.83 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Cashew                         0.82 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Hazelnut                       1.32 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Pecan                          <0.35 kU/L          NA                 

    Allergen, Pistachio                      1.29 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Pine Nut                       <0.35 kU/L          NA                 

    Allergen, Walnut                         0.40 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Egg White                      5.31 kU/L           NA                 

    Allergen, Ovomucoid                      <0.35 kU/L          NA                 

    Allergen, Peanut                         1.40 kU/L           NA        

To give you an idea, the sesame number in last year's labs was 46! So you can see how much more severe that allergy is than anything else.

The note the doctor sent me along with this was "Peanut, tree nuts, and egg were positive.  He should continue to avoid whole and uncooked forms of egg. He is a candidate for challenges to peanuts and tree nuts.  There is a moderate risk of reaction therefore these challenges need to be done under monitored settings.  Let me know if you have questions about this and if you are interested in going forward.  He would need to eat about 2 TBSP of peanut butter in these challenges."

YAY! Last year he was not a candidate for food challenges and this year he IS! This is a very scary thought but of course we are going to do it. Allergy therapy these days is very big on exposure and in extreme cases, allergies can be controlled as long as the individual has daily intake. Seems counterintuitive but it's true. And to that end, Dr. Lee advised me I should absolutely be giving Alex eggs and peanut butter, and that I'm doing him a disservice by not introducing these foods at an early age. I'm so conditioned to avoid that I made Jason do the eggs one morning while I was at work. I couldn't watch! But Alex did fine besides spitting them out. No reaction - phew!

Let me tell you, Ashton knows he can't have eggs or sesame. So when it was time for his appointment, we talked about it on the car ride there and how we were going to see if it was time for him to be able to eat these things. 

After the first round of pricks, he asked if he could eat eggs now. 
After his flu shot (which thankfully they went ahead with), he asked again.
After they took blood, he asked again. Can I eat eggs now? Like Daddy? 

I found different ways of explaining to him: no, not yet honey. As we were leaving he told one of the doctor's assistants that he looked like a dentist. The style of his glasses, maybe? I laughed and said, "Sorry, I don't know where that came from!" and he laughed back and said, "That's actually not the first time a kid has told me that." 

On the way home Ashton was still going on about the eggs and said, "After my long nap I want you to make me some eggs for brequist so I can eat them." [pause] "And taste them. I want to eat them and taste them!"

Unfortunately he won't get his wish this year, but I'll definitely keep you posted on his peanut/tree nut food challenges. Hopefully we can cross those off his allergy list!