Kiersten’s Blog

I love being a mother.  I’m so blessed to be able to stay home with my children and not have to work outside my home.  The last six months have been rather difficult for me, and as a result, our whole family.  I can gladly say that things are much better now.  There have been many days in the past when I wondered about my sanity when I decided to have another child (or any at all for that matter).  I’m sure I’ll have days like that in the future.  But today was good.  I honestly enjoyed staying at home with my children, playing with my baby, and playing games and doing puzzles with my pre-schooler.  I didn’t feel like I was trying to just make it through the day, or just play games because my daughter wanted me to.  I did it because I wanted to.  Life is good.

I put this shirt on and London thought it would be fun to dress alike. It was all her idea.

I’ve been hearing the term “reality star” a lot lately. I just don’t get it. The person stars in reality? I star in reality. They are TV stars. They’re not reality stars. They don’t live in reality! Thanks for listening to my gripe.

I think the little guy is so funny.  It’s strange to see how different my children are.  I’ve noticed him drooling for the last couple of weeks and I figured he was teething.  His favorite thing is stuffing his hands into his mouth.  He could care less about anything else in there (besides his bottle).  Sometimes he even tries to suck his thumb while he’s eating.  Funny guy.  I have tried to give him teething toys.  I stick them in his mouth to show him what they are and he just gets this weird look on his face, as if to say, “You think that’s better than my hand?  Crazy Mom!”  I wonder now how long the hand chewing will last.  He also likes to stuff my fingers in his mouth.  Today when he did, I noticed something sharp.  He cut his first tooth!  No wonder he’s been upset the last few days.  Shots yesterday and teeth today.  I’d be upset too.

I know it was just yesterday that I was whining about how we’re never going to find a house.  Well, we found one!  We have had another offer accepted.  I’m pretty sure this one doesn’t have a foundation that’s sliding down a hill.  It’s a townhouse in a large complex.  It’s in a good area with good schools.  Here’s to hoping things will go better this time around!

I took the kids to the doctor today, both for well appointments.  They were both due for a plethora of shots and a routine checkup.  I opted out of about half of London’s shots for another year.  I’ll give her some time to recover.  I warned her that she would have to get shots and it would feel like an owie.  I told her that after we went to the doctor, I would take her to do something really fun.  She wanted to go to Ikea.  Because of her “prize,” she was the best little girl ever!  She got three shots and didn’t cry at all.  She didn’t even say “ouch.”  I was so proud of her.  She was great at the doctor, but has been complaining about sore arms for the rest of the day.  Anyway, we went straight to Ikea, where she got to play in “Smaland” while I browsed with a sleeping baby through the store.  Then we got some lunch.

London with her face painted by the clown at Denny's and sitting on her new "Mater" that we found at Goodwill for 3 bucks. What a find!

It’s funny to see how different from each other each of my children are.  For her whole life, London has been hovering around the tenth percentile in height and weight.  Today (at her four year appointment) she measured in the twelfth percentile, being 38.15 inches tall and weighing in at 31 lbs, 9.6 oz..  Ashton, on the other hand, is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.  Since he always thinks he’s starving, I’m constantly feeding him.  While London was sleeping 10 hours every night by the time she was his age, he still wakes up every night to eat.  Today he weighs 18 lbs, 4.4 oz, is 27.75 inches tall, and has a head circumference of 18.31 inches.  In case you were wondering, this puts him in the 75th percentile for weight, the 90th for height, and over the 95th for head circumference.  “How is it,” you ask, “that two children from the same two parents can be so completely opposite?”  I have no idea, but I’m glad it’s my daughter who’s petite and my son who’s large instead of the other way around.  I can tell you that after my first child being so small, I definitely wasn’t expecting my second to be so big.

What a cute little guy! He's so happy all the time.

Check out the orange splatter all over me

I think I need a poncho.  Ashton is the messiest eater I have ever seen.  First of all, he won’t really open his mouth for the bite of food.  When it’s a bottle that he sees, he goes crazy to get that thing in his mouth.  But when it’s solid food, he thinks it’s just another thing to play with.  His hands are constantly in the way.  I don’t know what it is about them that they always have to be in his mouth.  Then as soon as the spoon touches his lips, he starts blowing raspberries.  He gets a little food in his mouth and it’s all over him and me.  Needless to say, it’s quite messy.  It’s also quite entertaining.  I can’t help but laugh at the kid every time he eats.  The doctor told me today that I should be feeding him three meals of solid food every day (I’ve been doing one).  I’m not sure how this is going to work out for me.  I can’t see how I’ll be able to bathe the kid three times a day and there’s no other way to get him cleaned up after he eats.  Maybe he’s the one who needs a poncho.

I used to think that house hunting would be a fun activity.  In fact, I have always enjoyed going and looking at model homes.  My parents bought a new house when I was a teenager and I got to go looking with them a little bit.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I don’t feel that way anymore.  In fact, I really hate house hunting.  We have put in a number of offers, probably close to ten.  We have had one offer miraculously accepted, but the house was falling down a hill.  I’m still sad about it.  Our offer has been accepted as the backup offer on two different houses.  It’s starting to get really frustrating and really annoying.  I not so secretly hope that one of these places falls out of escrow so that we can get it.  Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever find something.  The crazy part is, I don’t think we’ve offered below list price on any house we’ve made offers on.  In fact, on one house we offered $70,000 above the asking price (on a house we hadn’t even seen) and we weren’t even one of the top three offers.  I have come to the conclusion that there’s no way we’ll close by the end of November on anything, thus kissing goodbye to the $8000 tax credit.  I’m okay with that.  It’s a bummer, but at this point, I just want a house.  Maybe I should start looking for a rental.  This apartment is so small.  I guess it’s time to de-junk.  I’m sure losing faith in ever finding a house we can buy.  Don’t tell me the housing market’s bad.  At least not in San Diego.

I never thought I would be this way, but I (like every other parent) have done things very differently this time around.  I was very by-the-book with my first child.  This time around, I’ve been much more lax in my parenting style.  I’m not so paranoid about him hitting every milestone at the right time, if not ahead.  If he eats on a different schedule every day, I really don’t care.  Sometimes he gets two naps and other days he gets three.  I couldn’t tell you what time they are.  I just let him sleep when he’s tired, although I’m finally starting to see some type of pattern.  That could possibly be why he’s still not sleeping through the night.  I don’t know.  I’m not super worried about it, except the lack of sleep is starting to set in.  I don’t know if my parenting style is so different because my kids are so different, or if my kids are so different because my parenting style is so different.  London is still very scheduled.  I think that Ashton is just more of a go-with-the-flow type of guy.  He’s happy as long as someone is looking at him.  I think it all works out well for our household and their personalities complement each other very well.  The one thing I wish I was better about this time around, though, is pictures and videos.  For some reason I don’t take as many pictures and videos anymore.  And when I do take pictures, I take them of London.  Or it’s of both of them and not just Ashton.  Maybe because London’s doing all of the new and exciting things and I’ve already seen the things Ashton’s doing.  They’re not so exciting anymore.  Or maybe I’ve just been so used to taking pictures of London, that I take them of her and forget about the little guy.  It’s time for me to change my ways and take more pictures of Ashton, documenting his growth.  He’s getting so big and oh so cute!  I’m starting to think he actually looks like a Henrie!  I couldn’t be happier about that.

I got London’s hair cut on Tuesday.  It has been out of control for the last few months and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  She didn’t get much cut off, maybe just an inch or so, with some layers.  It’s so much better!  It’s much more manageable and it doesn’t look so out of control.  I’m very happy with it.  This is only her third hair cut.  Ever.  It just always looks short because it’s so curly.

Yesterday she decided that she wanted a long ponytail; one that she could feel on the back of her neck.  I put her hair in a ponytail at the base of her neck, but it curled up so much that she couldn’t feel it.  I told her the only way she could have a long ponytail would be for me to straighten her hair.  She thought that was a good idea so I pulled out the Chi.  She really liked the result and was happy with her long ponytail.

Three hours later, the curls were back.  And this morning, it looked like I had never straightened it at all.

She wanted it straight again today and somehow it stayed decently straight all day.  I think it looks really cute, but I like the curls better.  They definitely fit her personality.  Plus, I don’t want to be straightening my four-year-old’s hair every day.