Hawaii Vacation!!

Someone stop the clock! I literally do not have enough time in the day anymore... 10 extra hours per day would be perfect.

Time to do some catching up with the blog...

We took the family to Hawaii back in mid-April. It was such a great trip and we all had a great time. We stayed at the perfect place for our family right on Waikiki Beach. Our resort had 6 pools, water slides, several kid-friendly poolside restaurants with great food... and of course, Waikiki beach which is super kid-friendly. It was perfect for us because all we did was go to the pool, the beach and eat.

Gabby could not get enough of the pool and the ocean... I think she became part Mermaid on this trip. Rocco was timid in the water at first... but by the end of our trip he was also swimming like a little fish (with his Speedo jacket on, of course) and getting so brave as to jump into the pool and try to swim to the wall himself. Giuliana just loved playing in the pool on the steps with her water toys, she liked me holding her in the water while chasing the big kids and she LOVED playing in the sand on the beach. Rocco's favorite part about the beach was digging in the sand... he wasn't a huge fan of going out in the ocean and preferred to be held when we went out deep. Gabby preferred swimming in the ocean to playing on the beach... and she probably was more brave with going out farther than her daddy would have liked her to be doing.

Gabby and Rocco made their very own lei (flower necklaces) and I made one for Giuliana. Then, the kids wore them around the resort for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Gabby and I also took a hula lesson. Gabby didn't want to do it at first and she ended up telling us later that the only reason she didn't participate at first was because she wasn't wearing a dress! What am I going to do with this girl when she becomes a teenager!? Yikes!

We ate ice cream every day and the kids got to hold real, live parrots... and we told them the guy who owned them was a real live "good" pirate, as he very fittingly had a missing tooth, some tattoos, a bandana on his head, no shirt, ratty shorts and a leather pouch hanging off his side.

We had numerous embarrassing moments. One night at dinner Rocco got bored so he thought it would be a great idea to throw food at another table during dinner one night. Thankfully, they were not offended (they thought it was funny, which was good - but not good). The next day during lunch, Rocco spilled an entire tall glass of chocolate milk all over our table, his chair, himself and the floor... seconds after it was delivered. Not even 8 minutes later, just after the milk was cleaned up, they delivered food to our table and Gabby somehow flipped her entire plate of food off the table... food everywhere, plate shattered.... Dan and I just looked at each other and started pinching each other hoping it was a bad dream. You know... lots of funny moments like this. But, nobody got lost on an elevator (last summer's drama), so it was all good.

We ate off the resort one night with Kevin and his wife. Kevin and Dan have a long history and since Kevin grew up on the island... he knows the great "local" restaurants. So, we met him at a hole in the wall Japanese restaurant one night... and the food was AMAZING. Thank goodness for that... because we met them for dinner when our kids were used to sleeping. So all 3 of our kids literally fell asleep during dinner and Dan and I both had a child in arms, and one in the stroller. The food was soooo good though - it was worth it.

It was a GREAT trip! GREAT memories. Lots of fun. Well worth the money and energy it takes to travel with 3 little people. We sure do miss our little Matteo though. Dan & I couldn't help but comment a million times how we missed him, how he should have been there. And, of course we find ourselves commenting about what we thought he would have liked, or what he would have been doing, and how things SHOULD have been. No matter how much fun there is to be had... there will always be a hole in our hearts.

Giuliana is 15 months old!

Giuliana had her 15 month Well Baby appointment right before we left for Hawaii (mid-April). She hadn’t been to the doctor since her one year appointment in January – and that was a good thing! Prior to that, we were at the doctor every week (sometimes twice a week) to treat her constant ear infections. Poor baby! Getting tubes put in her ears have been such a good thing for this little lady. She has had several colds since January… and not one ear infection! Hooray!

Clearly, not having ear infections is good for a child’s appetite because Giuliana has been eating like a champ since her tubes were put in. On some occasions she’ll eat more for a meal that Gabby or Rocco do. Since she’s been such a great eater – I was convinced she would have gained a lot of weight and impressed Dr. C. [In January, Dr. C was not happy with her low weight percentage (3^rd %ile).]

But, I think this girl is just genetically meant to be long & lean at this point in her life… because even while eating like a champ, she’s still barely on the weight chart and at the top portion of the height chart. Here are Giuliana’s 15 month stats:

Weight: 17lbs 15oz (3^rd %ile)

Height: 30 inches (75^th %ile)

Head: 18.5cm (75^th %ile)

Giuliana is not a big talker yet, but she is starting to show much more interest in speaking up for herself these days (instead of just screaming and pointing). She says “momma”, “mom”, “Hi”, “Hi baby”, “birdy”, and “bubba” (for pretty much any animal that she sees). She will also make sounds when you ask her what a horsey, dinosaur, kitty-cat and birdy say. She seems to also say her version of “thank you” every time you give her something… it sounds something like “tiku”.

The big kids adore Giuliana. And, she adores them. I think she has a special affection for Rocco…in the morning it is beyond adorable to watch the two of them constantly hugging each other and snuggling while they watch their morning cartoons. Rocco really plays the protective big-brother role with her… even telling his grandma recently “Don’t wiggle Junana… she’ll fall over” (and then of course, she fell over)… followed by “See… you DON’T WIGGLE JUNANA!!”

Giuliana’s two favorite rooms in the house are the pantry (with all the food snacks) and Gabby’s bedroom. She LOVES playing with all the dress-up necklaces in Gabby’s room, she loves playing with the doll house and all the doll house furniture, she loves baby dolls, and she likes pulling her clothing out of her dresser drawers and trying to put them on herself. She can flip through book pages for a half hour, talking as if she's reading it to you. She especially loves books with animal pictures. She also plays so well by herself... whether it's the play kitchen, baby dolls, the doll house or sitting at her little table with a snack while watching the big kids. She LOVES going outside to play… she especially loves wagon rides, stroller rides, riding down the slide, jumping and walking on the trampoline, getting pushed in her swing and finding slugs, snails and frogs in the yard. She loves coloring. Her favorite TV show is "The Wonder Pets" and "Batman" (she watches this with Rocco). She LOVES bath time with the big kids. The moment she hears “it’s bath time!”, Giuliana is the first to run screaming and running toward the stairs with overwhelming excitement. Giuls also gets VERY excited whenever we say “let’s go!”… whether we’re going outside or putting her in the car to drive somewhere… she screams and runs around the house with such excitement, it’s hard not to laugh. And, the second you buckle her into the car seat, she screams and laughs and is full of big smiles. Always so excited to be included and go somewhere. It’s truly so cute!

She is very shy with strangers. When people she doesn’t know say hi to her, she will act bashful and hide her face in my shoulder. However, the shyness completely disappears with her family… as she has no problem screaming at the big kids to get what she wants. She’ll push and pull and fight to get what she wants, sometimes really upsetting Gabby. This little monkey is sort of earning the nickname of “the biggest little bully in the house”.

We sure do love this little girl though! And, Dan can often be heard commenting “she is the prettiest little baby I have ever seen”.

Giuliana brings such joy and happiness to our lives. She is truly our little angel. She is gorgeous, funny, and full of personality. So loving and affectionate one minute and showing us her feisty side the next. I just love watching and observing her… it brings me such happiness.

We love you, Giuliana!!

Giuliana is Sleep Trained! HOORAY!

This cute little baby girl is officially sleep trained! YAY!

Now, for both her naps and bedtime... we just put Giuliana in her crib with her purple blanket and tell her it's night time and she puts herself to sleep. No crying. No fussing. Nothing! It's FABULOUS! I love sleep trained children. The bedtime experience is so much easier on everyone when there is no anticipation of a pre-nap or pre-bedtime battle of wills.

The twins were sleep trained at 7 months. They were ready at the time, and it was something we also needed to do for our own sanity and safety reasons. I mention safety becuase Rocco was crawling at six months. We also had a 2.5 year old. So, if there was only one parent home they couldn't be stuck upstairs trying to put one baby to bed several times a day while two other kids were on the loose down stairs waiting for their turn to come. Sleep training has been such a great thing for Rocco (and for us!). To this day, you just put Rocco in his bed at night, give him kisses and his special blanket, and he goes to sleep. No crying. No fights. He just lays in bed and goes to sleep!

From my experience, sleep training a bottle fed baby is MUCH easier than sleep training a breast fed baby. Giuliana is still nursing... but only in the middle of the night now. I'm actually hoping to have her completely off the boob by end of April. Once I weaned her off her pre-nap and pre-bedtime nursing... sleep training was easy breezy. But, it did require me to wean her. Hence the reason she was first sleep trained at 14 months old.

Gabby was never sleep trained. Largely, because she had colic and I made the mistake of bringing her into my bed to nurse her through her first teething pains at 6 months of age. I couldn't handle waking up every hour of the night and then trying to work the next day. And, I admittedly really LOVED snuggling her at night! I still have mixed feelings about not sleep training her. I'm so thankful for all the time I spent snuggling and cuddling her. It's truly such precious time and creates an amazing bond with your child. But, it also came with it's challenges and annoyances. Challenges being she never learned to put herself to sleep as a toddler, which we were made painfully aware of with the arrival of the twins. She was never really comfortable just going to bed "by herself". Someone always had to lay down with her in her bed until she'd fall asleep. While that's easy to do with one child, the second you have more than one child, and a parent that travels frequently... it's a recipe for a nighttime disaster! Also, if she would wake up in the middle of the night, she'd most often end up in our bed. So, for her... instead of sleep training a baby, we had to sleep train a toddler and then a pre-schooler to put herself to sleep every night. Let's just say that it is SO MUCH EASIER TO SLEEP TRAIN A BABY!! Granted... 20 months ago we had a very tragic disruption in her sleep training. Matteo's death obviously had a huge impact on Gabby and she was VERY aware that he died in his sleep. This did not help the sleep training one bit (for both her AND me).

Anyway... I am SO PROUD of our little Giuliana!! She is truly such a great baby. So happy-go-lucky, so curious and confident, such a great eater, so social with her siblings. Our only concern with her right now is that she might be the biggest bully in the house! She truly has a way of bullying both Gabby and Rocco. I'm shocked at times to see her steal candy out of Gabby or Rocco's hands. Or, they'll be holding a book and she'll go up to them and start screaming and pull it out of their hands. Now, she even fights Rocco for the iPad. This little package is full of dynamite! LOVE HER TO BITS!!!