This week saw some increased sense of normalcy. Foster returned to school after the bank holiday and was happy to see his friends once again. I’ll highlight the most exciting things as they happened per kid.
Foster
Foster started off this week with another doozy of a quote. One that I will be proud of for years to come. A true testament to the fact that he is my son.
“I love butter.”
Other than that, Foster had a pretty run of the mill week that was highlighted with a pretty great weekend. Saturday we went rock climbing as a family for the first time since Maddox was born. It’s been in. cred. i. ble. watching Foster’s confidence grow as he continues climbing. He can go higher, climb for longer, and get himself down from (almost) any height!
Sunday was spent by Foster, Greg, and Nana celebrating U.S. Mother’s Day (celebrated in March here). They took the DART down to Bray to hike the cliff walk from Bray to Greystones. It took them a while but they finished it and came home with some rave reviews!
While it’s not treacherous, it is definitely not a stroller friendly hike due to stairs and rocks. Foster was slow to finish but this hike would probably be more ideal for adults and kids 6+. There are plenty of lovely spots in both Bray and Greystones to stop for food and coffee. A favorite coffee stop for us has become Finnbees. It has both indoor and outdoor space, a restroom, and has coffee, food, and snacks; perfect when stopping with the family!
The Littles
It’s really hard to talk about one of the littles without talking about the other. They are the two getting “left behind” when it comes to cool hiking adventures but they are also getting more than their fair share of the attention (read: patience) that the adults provide. They are the two that you have to keep happy in order to get anything done around the house.
Lately that has meant one adult herding Graham into something that does not seem to make his irrational little heart break and one adult guessing whether Maddox is tired, hungry, dirty, or a combination of the three.
Oh, and also helping Graham to wipe his own bum.
But really, these two had a pretty great week. Maddox has really come into her own, smiling and cooing. Her favorite is chatting with Nana but you know those Maddox women, they’re likely discussing euchre strategies.
What has been really fun is watching Graham grow into his role as a big brother. If you’ve ever met the kid, you know he’s incredibly sweet and a wrecking ball with legs all wrapped into one snot-covered mud man.
He can walk over to Maddox, give her a “hug” (often this entails him laying across her face), kiss her head (leaving behind a wet snot spot as evidence), and gently pat her head before walking away.Other times he slams a fire truck into her side while making the siren noise as loudly as he possibly can.
He still loves to read which is probably the saving grace in this house. It certainly makes up for the toddler tantrums that usually end up somehow involving pants…
Another good week in Dublin and beyond! Nana leaves today and I’m not sure any of us are ready to have her leave. That being said, Maddox is six weeks and three days old and there have only been four days since her birth that we haven’t had guests. So let’s see next week what our new “normal” begins forming into!
I understand that me popping in every few months promising to be more consistent is probably becoming very emotionally exhausting for some of you. Will she post this week? Will she not? Oh, the agony!
Yeah, right. Don’t worry, I don’t think that highly of myself.
To try and make myself be more consistent, I’m not going to plan out these elaborate posts or anything. I’m just going to recap our week and move on.
Our week started off with Maddox turning one month old. She’s a pretty typical month old baby at this point; eats, sleeps, and poops. We all think she’s such a dote and only wish she would have graced us with her presence sooner.
For those that don’t know, Maddox is named after both of her grandmothers. Greg’s mom was born Emily Lois Maddox and when she got married, changed her name to Emily Maddox Liggett. My mom is Michelle Renee Kunze. Alas, Maddox Renee was born.
Monday was also marked by Poppa’s arrival into Dublin and one of my favorite quotes from Foster thus far, “God makes me like steam trains.”
The rest of the week provided us lots of good fun that was funny.
Maddox and Poppa took many cute naps, Foster found some sweet shades at a park, and Graham was a very useful engine.
Greg and I took Thursday morning off of our respective normal duties to drag Maddox over to the U.S. Embassy so she could be registered as an American citizen and get her passport sent our way so we can leave this island when necessary. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly and we should be receiving her birth certificate and passport in just two to three weeks!
Friday morning was exciting as Maddox finally got to meet her Nana that she was named after. I was able to snap a couple of candid pics as they were first meeting.
The visitors, sunshine, and bank holiday provided us with a weekend full of excitement! We took a lovely trip to the zoo on Saturday and an amazing train ride down to Bray on Sunday. The wind was not always the greatest but we had some good food and some good craic.
The final highlight to our long weekend was Foster, Nana, and Poppa getting to take a ride on the Viking Splash Tour! They were able to drive and boat through Dublin picking up some fun facts along the way. None of which Foster has been able to repeat to me.
In general, they had a great time! If you are thinking of visiting and this tour is of interest to you (really, I’ve heard wonderful reviews from tourists and natives), book ahead! You board the amphibious vehicle in the same order in which you made your reservation. And while Foster enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be suitable for children much younger (they don’t allow children under two for safety reasons.)
Once they returned home, Graham fell in love with the Viking hat. The rest of the evening was spent playing with rocks and grilling our first outdoor meal in Dublin.
Playing with rocks
He couldn’t eat dinner without his hat!
Want to follow more of our family adventures in Dublin? I recently updated my Instagram @liggettsgoirish
As much as it pains me to say, my meal planning has taken a hard hit since moving to Ireland. Between being busy with all of the stuff that comes with moving and the significant difference in groceries, it’s been hard!
Some of the most basic ingredients have been difficult or impossible to find. We have about a thirty minute walk to the nearest chocolate chips, spend a fortune on two jalapeños, and weirdly enough have yet to find thyme. Pantry ingredients are really limited and even shopping for produce is different. Every time I try to pick out recipes ahead of time, we end up getting to the store, trying to find the asked for ingredients, looking instead for the most similar ingredients, and then just end up modifying the recipe or deciding to make something else entirely. I’m hoping that I get to know the shopping better and can get back to meal planning but it’s put a huge damper on my meal planning.
I have nothing to blame my lack of pictures on other than a dirty kitchen and scattered brain.
Cookie Day
With everything that’s been going on lately, I feel like I am missing time with Foster and want extra sweets to stress eat! I mean, the baby wants the sweets…
I found a perfect solution: cookie day. Once a week, Foster and I pick a cookie recipe and bake cookies together. It’s something fun for us to do together and the output is usually pretty, darn, good. My favorite is seeing Foster learn more about how to measure and what standard ingredients typically go into cookies. Keep an eye out for some of our favorite recipes and hopefully some pictures!
sweat.
Again, life has gotten a little in the way. After hearing the bad news about baby Lucky (read on for more), I was hesitant to put too much stress on my body. I kept myself limited to walking but didn’t do much else.
This morning, I started easing myself back in (two weeks off while pregnant is a doozy!) with a low impact dancing workout from the Beachbody series called ‘Country Heat.’ It felt amazing to get moving again and while it didn’t feel like much at the time, I’m going to wait and see how I feel tomorrow before deciding if I should add to the suggested workout for the day in the series. I’d love to get back to strength training as I’ve gone a little soft and have to get to prepping this body for labor!
parent.
foster
Foster has recently started preschool and has been loving it! He cries whenever I go to pick him up. It was cute the first time but now it’s old. There’s a nationwide program here that allows for children to go to preschool for one year for free and it’s been an absolute lifesaver for us.
The main excitement in Foster’s life was that sometime during the night before Halloween, he fell out of bed, hit his head on the fireplace, and crawled back into bed to fall asleep! He came out of his room on Halloween morning with his skull showing and his head (and floor) covered in dried blood. I’m not sure how we made it four years without any emergency room visits but it was quite exciting to have our first one be in Ireland! The first hospital we went to didn’t accept kids under the age of 14 so we had to call a new cab, drive back to the other side of Dublin, and go to the specific children’s hospital that was actually closer to our house than the one the letting agent suggested to us.
He did not cry or complain once through this entire process. Holding a cold washcloth to his head wasn’t his favorite but he did like getting to be in a car in his jammies. By the time he was seen, the doctor decided to ask him a couple of questions to see if there was any brain damage and Greg and I were specifically asked to stay quiet and not help him with anything.
Doc: “I see you have a brother, do you also have a sister?”
Fos: “I don’t know!”
Doc: “Ok, and do you go to school?”
Fos: “Yes, I do!”
Doc: “Great! What’s your teacher’s name?”
Fos: “Ummm…it’s an adult.”
I thought we were doomed. Greg and I understood his answers, he knows he is getting another baby but that we don’t know if it’s a brother or sister and he had been in school for less than a week but I’m sure these weren’t the answers the doctor was looking for! For better or for worse, she decided his answers overall were sufficient and there was no brain damage. She glued his head back together, gave each of the boys a new teddy bear, and sent us home with instructions of “no boisterous play.”
graham
This kid.
He is an absolute goober and either loves or hates his mornings without Foster. We either end up having wonderful little dance parties and get to build towers that can be knocked over or he sits in my laps and points to his stroller just waiting to leave to go get Foster again.
Overall not much new with him, he’s a wrecking ball that gets into everything and I just can’t keep up.
lucky
Two weeks ago at our first scan in Ireland, we were told that Lucky had a bilateral pleural effusion-fluid in the cavities around both of their lungs. The two big things that we needed to look out for were chromosomal abnormalities and the development of hydrops fetalis, neither have good outcomes. Luckily, the chromosomal testing came back about a week later as negative which meant we were waiting to monitor for the development of hydrops. The fact that the effusion was the only thing wrong was something in our favor but the fact that it had progressed to both sides of the chest was not positive.
The effusions circled in red.
The outcome for chromosomal abnormalities ranges all over the board and hydrops has a 60-90% mortality rate but all that we could do was wait to see how the fluid levels progressed after two weeks, anxious and hoping that hydrops would not develop.
It was an incredibly agonizing two weeks of not having many answers and not wanting to share and worry our friends and family before we ourselves knew a lot. We had prepared ourselves for an early delivery (as early as 26 weeks if hydrops developed), extensive NICU time, possible surgeries before and after birth, and even thought about the worst.
We were on the brink of crying out of sheer joy at our follow up scan as the maternal fetal medicine specialist squirted that cold jelly onto my belly, searched around, and found that there was essentially NO fluid in either pleural cavity! I’m not sure we can stress what a relief, and shock, this was. It was the outcome you dare not even hope for. Our idea of a positive scan would have been the fluid levels staying the same and no other symptoms developing. Draining fluid we could handle, possibly losing our baby we could not.
Now, instead of constant monitoring and being considered high-risk, we go back in four weeks to verify that the fluid has resolved itself completely but we should be in the clear! Spontaneous resolution for this is not a common outcome and ‘Lucky’ could not seem like a more fitting name for our little one right now.
Looking down at 21 weeks and 2 days
I can’t begin to encompass the emotions I felt over those two weeks. Guilt, fear, shame, anger. Were we going to have to tell Foster that his baby died? Should I even be looking at double strollers? Staying neutral was hard enough let alone being happy or excited about little Lucky in my belly. I am so thankful for Lucky giving me a swift kick every once in a while to let me know everything was still at least ok and nothing had happened yet.
This is one family that will not be taking health for granted after just two weeks of stress.
A lot has been going on in Liggett-land to say the least. Early in July, we almost simultaneously found out that we were going to be moving to Dublin, Ireland for Greg’s job and that we were expecting our third little due right around St. Patrick’s Day! We are incredibly excited about both!
The Move
Greg is on the professional services team at a tech startup based out of the Bay Area. They have had an office based out of Dublin for a while now but it has been focused on sales and customer success. Recently, the decision was made to grow the professional services team and so Greg will be hiring, training, and managing a team!
Lucky us, daddy’s office is right by Iveagh Gardens and St. Stephen’s Green!
We have now been here in Dublin for almost two weeks and thus far it’s been pretty great! I can’t wait to settle into a routine as we get the keys for our new place this afternoon. Our first week was spent house hunting and registering for immigration. While we have plenty of other paperwork to get done, at least we have a house! Week two has been pretty relaxed, Greg has been in New York and without knowing anybody, it has left us a pretty open schedule. Graham was sick one day, Foster got antsy being inside all day with him, but we made it through! We are very excited to get the keys for house this afternoon and start getting really settled.
My two little leprechauns
The Family
In spite of all of the upheaval, the boys have not been…horrible. I feel like we are having to reteach a lot to Foster, in particular. For so long while preparing for the move we asked him to be independent and play on his own. Unfortunately, it has led to an increase in selfishness, too. It’s fine, we are all still adjusting and I have to assume he will go back to his normal, sweet self soon but it has certainly been trying in the meantime.
Our announcement photo about our newest leprechaun
And, of course, the exciting news of baby #3! Not too much to update on here, we are just over 15 weeks along and I’m feeling solidly ok. We have decided that there will be no gender reveal with this one until they reveal themselves to the world so it has been dubbed Lucky Charm for now.
More coming soon about our new house and for me to get back to my normal eating, sweating, and parenting!
Seriously, adding another little boy to the family has been such an incredible and overwhelming adjustment. One of the biggest ways we have had to adjust? Making our existing time and budget go just that little bit further.
When you cook, cook a lot.
Costco, Sam’s Club, bulk anything is your best friend. If you can buy and cook more at one time you go from having to cook for every single meal to making a batch of [x] and use it throughout the week. Part of why this works so well for us is definitely the fact that we are home for lunch every day. Having shredded chicken on hand to throw into a taco or on top of a salad later in the week saves us time and we were able to buy the chicken in bulk at the beginning of the week!
Need a tasty, healthy dinner on the run? Use some of the shredded chicken you made earlier in the week, toss it with some avocado, bacon, and lime juice and you have a quick chicken salad!
Keep cheap, versatile ingredients on hand.
This is another case where CostCo is your friend. Buy eggs, tortillas, salad greens, bread, whatever suits your fancy and then get creative with your leftovers! Remember that four pounds of top round steak you grilled on Monday? Eat it alone with rice and a veggie, put it in a wrap, scramble it with eggs into a hash (picture below, it was BOMB), toss it on a salad, make a pasta; you’ve got an easy meal and most of the prep has already been done.
Meal Plan
Sit down and plan what you are going to eat that week and then you make one trip to the grocery store. We might make a second trip out sometime to get fresh produce but really, we are done outside of that one time per week.
Seriously y’all, it’s so easy to keep your time and budget in check when you have a plan!
Quick post but I should be posting more goodies soon!
Want to keep up with my daily life? Check me out on Instagram @climbing_devil
If you read my post from last week you will remember that I have embarked on a #90daysofyoga journey with a fellow part-time yogi. This journey was initiated by myself for many reasons.
My rock climbing drastically improved last time I was able to practice yoga consistently.
The overall focus that I gained allowed me to be more productive, patient, and aware of what was going on in my body.
Increased flexibility is always a plus, not to mention a low impact, do anywhere, toning workout.
Deciding which yoga workouts I wanted to do ahead of time was very short lived! Coordinating a household of 4.5 means not knowing when or how much time I will get to myself so I started just choosing what sounded good for the length of time I had available.
Only seven days in and I am feeling pretty great! Certain positions make it actually look like I have a bump and that is reward enough, as you can tell by my wonderful headstand. It’s great to have some time to stretch and I’m hoping that the core toning will help once labor starts. For now though, I have been sleeping better (not great), have a much improved downward dog, and have been using my breath again to cope with back pain.
growth in home
Once the next baby arrives, the boys will be sharing a room meaning there will be a massive overhaul happening.
The first big project was to get Booger out of the crib/toddler convertible bed and get him into his own, new, big, boy bed. We decided to order the Kura bed from Ikea and spray painted it navy to go with the colors of the room. He got new dinosaur bedding and next step is to turn the lower portion into a great reading nook and hideout. We have a play area downstairs so luckily mostly just reading and snuggling happen in their room meaning we don’t have to organize too many toys. A massive redo will also be happening in that play area, we just take on projects far ahead of time so we are never in a huge rush to get them finished 🙂
Project number two in our house has been building a rock climbing wall in our garage!
This one is mostly Greg’s project but I just have to show off his handy work 🙂 We are all very excited to have the ability time to climb whenever we want, including Booger! The main problem we have run into at our climbing gyms is that they are obviously geared towards adults, not two-year-olds. Oh well, it’s understandable I guess 😉
growthin family
Our new au pair, Karolina, has now been here for right about a week! For anybody thinking about getting an au pair, we have loved the experience so far and highly suggest it. Karolina and Booger have hit it off splendidly! They took a trip to the neighborhood park this morning (in spite of the 30 degree weather) and it certainly looks like they had fun.
We look forward to watching them continue to grow together over the next year. It’s been a hectic week having to all of a sudden account for another person in the house but soon we will have a second car and she will get her license and other documents finished up so she can be a little more independent when she’s not working.
This year we spent our holidays in Austin, TX! Greg’s brother and his wife are due with their first baby in January. Since they aren’t able to travel, we came to them.
It was my first holiday not going to see my family in Nebraska so there were some bumps, but overall a great holiday! The day after Christmas marked 18 weeks along with boy #2 and having some time to relax has finally kicked my butt back into gear when it comes to running and working out (workout ideas to come!).
Family Christmas hike!
If you can’t already tell, I’m not really showing. At all. I’m sure there are plenty of women that are ‘jealous’ but it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. My body is exhausted all the time and I feel way worse than I did with my first. Not to mention, apparently the path of least resistance for this baby to go is up meaning everything inside is squished! Instead of getting what I have been calling ‘pregnancy love,’ I get nothing. We are SUPER PSYCHED about this baby and people don’t even know! Once we say anything, they then just assume that we are at the very beginning or that it’s our first (if Booger isn’t with us) and proceed to give us very unwanted advice.
I remember all too well what childbirth is like, thank you very much. I also know the exhaustion and nausea are ‘supposed’ to go away after the first trimester; they didn’t. We just want people to ask if it’s a boy or a girl and if Booger is excited and when we are due but I guess it’s just not in the cards for us.
Anyways, other than my complete and utter exhaustion and desire to curl up in bed 24/7 things have been going pretty well! Greg is in line to take on some higher responsibilities at his job (he’s such a rock star) and I have been getting more comfortable with my role as well. Being out of the office has been hard for me since it was only my first month on the job which means I will be extra busy once we get back!
‘Picking’ his own family
The next big thing happening for us is the arrival of our au pair from Ukraine on January 13th! We were able to get her furniture ordered for this week but be sure to stay tuned for our ups and downs with that experience as well.
Snuggling to read before bedtime. We try to read as a whole family every night so that Baby Pirate has a chance to hear daddy reading 🙂
Spent a day at the San Antonio Zoo with Nana and Aunt Lindy
Zilker Park has been fantastic for the family. There is a pool, plenty of areas to walk right down by Barton Springs Creek, a playground with a train, and plenty of trails for exploring. A must-see with kids in Austin!
And of course a family Christmas photo! Greg was trying to put his hand on Baby Pirate to show that there is something in there!
I am back from my hiatus! It’s been a crazy few months with our big European trip and then recovering and finalizing our move to North Carolina. Thinking about moving across the country with a toddler brings tears to my eyes, he is about to turn two but is still technically a ‘lap-child.’
I’m going to need to pull out all of the tricks I know to make this trip go smoothly.
This post is focused on that lovely age between 10-23 months when your child is walking and mobile and getting too big to handle. It’s also probably important to know that we avoid electronics as much as we can, that way they are more of a ‘treat’ during times of travel.
Tip #1: Get everywhere early
Weirdly, 9 times out of 10 I get patted down when going through security. Either ‘hazardous materials’ showed up on my hand wipes or I was traveling with breastmilk or, I don’t know, I look like I’m smuggling weapons in my running tights (my go-to flight clothing) and they feel the need to double check there’s nothing hidden in my bra line. Booger is usually pretty good during these sideline adventures but they certainly add time and occasionally add tears.
Tip #2: Wear comfortable clothes
You are going to get in some weird positions. I have had to put my knee in my armpit while sitting in a tiny airplane seat after Booger gets ‘comfortable,’ crawl under the waiting seats to get toys, and sling toddler, blanket, stuffed animal and two carry on items onto my body in some miraculous way. No way do I want to be worrying about pulling up my jeans at a time like that.
This also doesn’t just apply to me, it applies to the whole family. If hubby and toddler are uncomfortable, I am uncomfortable. You are in close quarters and for men especially, you don’t want a belt buckle digging into your (hopefully sleeping) child.
Tip #3: Bring entertainment, but not too much
We used to overpack INCREDIBLY. Books, toys, clothes – you name it, we packed it. After the sheer amount of stuff we brought caused more headache than relief, we bought Booger a little backpack. This one to be exact, and then that was it. It fit one or two books, some crayons and paper, an animal, a car, and maybe a couple of other random little toys but in all reality, the plane you are one is a cool, new environment. We have had to put the tray table back up more times than we could ever count. Not to mention the safety pamphlet is the most riveting piece of media since Toy Story.
Tip #4: Relax!
I am all about relaxed parenting in general but this especially true when trying to travel. Give yourself plenty of time and just go with the flow! I can get more in depth into the exact toys we bring, the schedule we try to keep him on, etc. but you know your child better than anyone. Don’t stress and let them do what keeps them happy: follow them around, let them play on the floor, open and close the window.
That’s generally all there is to it! Avoid stressing yourself out over travel, it’s not as bad as everyone says it is. I remember reading article after article on how to travel with toddlers and nothing prepared me as much as just following Booger’s lead and not stressing.
For many parents, potty training is the second of a series of hurdles in turning your helpless baby into an autonomous adult (the first of which being teaching them to sleep through the night) and let me tell you, it kinda sucks.
You can read and read all of the information that you want on what to do and what not to do when taking this leap but it’s a lot of information. With so much conflicting information and incredible standards of attentiveness throughout the potty training period, I almost threw in the towel before we even started.
See how excited we all used to be about cloth diapers? Now think about the laundry that ensued for the last year and a half of our lives and understand why we were ready to potty train.
No matter how much you are ready to potty train your child has to be ready as well. We knew Booger was ready for a few reasons.
He could stay dry for 1-2 hours at a time.
He would stay dry through most naps.
He was (unfortunately) VERY interested in Hubby and I going potty.
He had sat and gone pee occasionally on his potty with some lucky timing on our part.
There are other signs that you child might be ready but my top two things to look for would be the ability to ‘hold it in’ (aka being aware of their bodily functions) and showing interest in either their own potty or you going potty. This is just my opinion so if your child is showing other signs and you think they are ready, go for it!
So when I started research on this there were plenty of articles about how to potty train your child in three days. “Just leave them naked for three days, scold them, and they will be potty trained!” This idea is great, don’t get me wrong but it seems very difficult and we just don’t have time to follow all of the rules that go with this apparent full method.
What we did was leave him naked.
That’s basically it. I took an extra day off of work so we would have three solid naked days but we just left him naked, put him on the potty every 20-30 minutes at first, and whenever he would have an accident we would say “We pee on the potty.” We also rewarded him with Craisins but they didn’t really seem to be very motivating.
It was a long three days but it worked pretty well! At least that’s what we though until the nanny came back.
He was having NONE of it once she came back. The first day was full of tears, fits, and bodily fluids on the floor. We really were about to throw in the towel. After the second day when I received an email from our nanny saying that she really didn’t think he was ready, I was so distraught at work that I ate 2 packages of Nutter Butter’s and a bag of Doritos. He was great for us in the evening so what was going on during the day?!
I was stubborn and gave it a couple more days. No diaper, no pants just running to his potty when needed.
And you know what, it worked. We were patient, let him experience his bodily functions, and get used to sitting and going. A lot of people use big kid underwear as a reward but Booger didn’t really care. He didn’t dislike them but they certainly didn’t get the same reaction as bubbles.
The gear we used:
The standard potty from Ikea. This is kept in our bathroom as the standard home potty for Boogs.This potty from Target is not our favorite. Since Booger is a boy, he tends to pee up and out of this one far more often than our one from Ikea. We keep this in the back of our car for when we are at friend/family homes.
The Potette is a genius invention! it can be set up as it’s own potty (top) and comes with a set of bags to catch everything or can be opened fully to go over a normal toilet seat (bottom). This comes everywhere with us since it looks weird to carry around a full toddler potty…
There you have it! We were patient and just presented potty training as if there were no other option. Luckily he’s not old enough to argue about it!
The rest of the week provided us lots of good fun that was funny.
eat sweat parent 