The Kleins: 28 months old, Easter and everything else

Hello there! Again, I apologize for the fact that I haven't posted a blog entry in almost 2 months. I just can't seem to find the time as much as I used to. The kiddos are doing great and keeping us extremely busy. Even though they are so much more independent than they used to be, they are so active and require a lot more attention. We are constantly trying to keep them busy with playing outside, going to the park or the museum, going shopping, going for walks outside, etc that life almost seems more busy now compared to when they were newborns and had to be fed every 3 hours. Well, I guess it's not quite that busy but it's definitely busy now in a different way. The kids are only napping for 1-2 hours during the daytime now after lunch and on some days, getting them to take a nap is almost impossible. Some days they go without a nap and that makes for a cranky dinner/evening time. We've also been having more trouble getting them to sleep at 7pm like we used to so bedtime has slowly been creeping to 8pm on most nights. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate to them sleeping longer in the mornings. Caleb is still the first one up and now that he can climb out of his crib, he often comes out into the living room as early as 6am.

I think I mentioned in the last post that all three kids were climbing out of their cribs multiple times each day at nap time and bedtime. So, were thought we had fixed that problem by buying pea pod tents which fit into their cribs and we're supposed to keep them contained. Well, leave it up to our kids to figure out how to unzip the tents with their little fingers so now our latest battle has been the kids unzipping their tents and still climbing out of their cribs! Seth and I have had several conversations about this and what would be best to solve this problem like transition them to toddler beds and really enforce the fact that they need to stay in bed. Call us crazy, but this just seems so exhausting with the three of them. In general, Madeline listens the best and will often stay in her tent and crib but once Caleb and Mischa climb out, then she's right there with them opening dresser drawers, pulling clothes out, playing with stuffed animals or just giggling and laughing up a storm. One night they climbed out of their cribs and had opened the three drawers on their dresser and were sitting in the dresser drawers. I heard a loud crash and ran into the room and found the dresser had toppled over completely. Fortunately, no one was hurt but that is just one example of the shenanigans these little ones are capable of. So after much thought on this subject, we finally decided that we give each child one warning not to climb out of bed. If they climb out, then we "lock" their tent by using a twist tie or paperclip to keep the zippers closed on their tents. This has actually been successful and the kids have adjusted pretty well to understanding that they have to stay in their tents when it's time to sleep. Once the kids have fallen asleep, Seth and I go in and take the lock off their tents. Sounds crazy, we know, but this is working for us for now.

We recently had our first "sick" child doctor visit a couple of weeks ago. It started with Caleb developing low grade fevers for a few days and then poor appetite, lethargy and wheezes in his lungs. So I took him in to see his pediatrician and he was diagnosed with bronchitis and a pretty bad left ear infection. Poor guy! He ended up taking antibiotics for 10 days and was much better almost immediately after starting the medication. Madeline and Mischa also had fevers but never did get quite as sick and Caleb, so they didn't require a doctor visit. Caleb has always been the one who seems the most susceptible to getting sick. We recently discovered that he has a peanut allergy. He will develop hives on his body even with just coming in contact with peanuts without even actually ingesting them. I was not surprised by this because as a baby he was the only one to have eczema. He also tends to have mild seasonal allergies. Their is something called the "trifecta" which refers to the combination of eczema, peanut allergy and allergies/asthma in kids. So, with him recently wheezing, I'm curious to know if he will develop asthma. Fingers crossed that he doesn't but we will see. I have seasonal allergies but that is the only link that we know of since Seth doesn't have any of these. Overall, we are so fortunate that the kids have been so generally healthy thus far. The doctor couldn't believe that our kids are almost 2 and a half and that one of them just now required a doctor visit other than routine check ups. We are truly, truly blessed

Other than the recent sickness with the kids, everything else has been going well. The weather has started to warm up (on some days) so they've been outside more. They get so restless and wild if they stay cooped up in the house for too long, so letting them play outside has been beneficial in so many ways. Seth has been working from home more which is great in that he can take the kids for walks and to the park while I either clean up the house or lay on the couch and veg out. My mom has still been helping me so much with the kids. She recently got sick from the kids and had a cold which lingered for about 2 weeks. Luckily, Seth and I didn't get sick. We've had our little routine lately of taking the kids to a few places to let them run off some energy such as the children's museum, the play area at the mall, the jump places (huge warehouses filled with air-filled jump houses), the toy store or even the play areas at the casinos. They tend to sleep better when they've had the opportunity to let off some energy and that means more quiet time and rest for me and Seth!

Here are some pictures and videos from the past few weeks! I'll really try to be better about posting blog entries more regularly. :)