My dear niece had her 3rd birthday party of the weekend. A wonderful mermaid party. It was beautiful and fun.
Here is the cute cousins with the mermaids!
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Dear Sarah,
I cannot believe you are 9 months old! Where has the time gone?
I know you are probably wondering why I have not written any celebration letters to you before now but it is not because you are loved any less or enjoyed any less or that I don’t want to write a letter to you but somehow time has slipped by so fast!
You are a delightful, happy and content baby (unless you are over tired – in which case you arch your back and make it impossible to hold) – but to be fair I am pretty cranky when I am tired too. You laugh so easily and find the simplest thing amusing. You absolutely love to pick EVERYTHING up and figure it out – including tasting it which has lead to more vacuuming than I have ever done in my life.
Just today you started to crawl. I have been so worried that you have not been crawling even though you are super sturdy when you sit, you will stand on your own for a few seconds, you are starting to cruise and you pull yourself up on things. You would just get onto all fours and move your arms forward until you flopped on your belly and then stretch as far as you could for whatever we were tempting you with. But today you crawled for your Kulu – all the way across your bedroom floor. I think you are going to be super happy being mobile! I think I am going to have to get eyes on the back of my head!
I love how much you love to talk to us and babble away that usually ends with a big (toothless) smile at us.
You love, love, love your bath and get mad when I don’t immediately put you in it after starting to run the water. You will kick and splash and have a blast.
You seem to be enjoying your food and I am enjoying making it for you. It is a pleasure to feed you each meal time and you will sit contently in your high chair when we all eat dinner and you munch on a baby mum mum.
We all love you very much and love each day with you with us!
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On Sunday morning Maxine woke up not in the best of moods, she was whining and whimpering over everything. So after about 20 mins I told her it was time to throw the whining out the window and put on a happy face. She responded that her stomach hurt and she needed a love. I gave her a big hug and sat her on the couch with daddy. She snuggled into daddy and started to throw up. Narrowly avoiding a big mess we then decided it might be a quiet day. Unfortunately Dave had to head off to work so the girls and I had a quiet day at home (aka Maxine laid on the couch watching TV while I desperately tried to get Sarah to crawl!).
Maxine just laid on the couch not wanting to eat or drink the whole day and while she did not get sick again she was running a fever (101) and kept on complaining that her stomach hurt.
Late afternoon I called the nurse hotline at CHOA to find out if I could give her anything for the fever as she had not had anything to eat. The nurse ran through all the usual questions and at the end said that she was very concerned. Maxine’s symptoms were not matching any usual illness. She was also very concerned over the fact that Maxine was saying the pain was getting worse and urged us to go to an ER (not just an urgent care) right away.
Of course I am now imagining she has appendicitis or something else horribly wrong so I frantically call Dave to come home. When he arrives Maxine and I set off to the ER. Never having been to an ER with my kids I had no idea where to go! Do we go to the local hospital or do we go all the way to CHOA which specializes in kids. Figuring if this is something that needed an intervention I would head to CHOA (also I work right next door and have been inside and it is amazing – like a Disneyworld hospital).
We arrived just after 5:30 and headed in. We were quickly registered and seen by a nurse and then sent through to a second waiting room. And wait we did – for almost 2 hours. Just then they announce that due to the high volume of extremely sick and injured children that have just come in we are looking at a 2.5 hour wait to see a doctor. Sigh!
Luckily after 10 minutes more we were called back. Maxine was checked and put in a hospital gown (she was disappointed it was not pink).
Doesn’t she look tiny in the gown!
This next part was really quick and we had people in and out the room continuously until we were done – no wait time. Of course by now her fever had gone down with the ibuprofen I had given her at home and she had become miss chatty cathy and wanted a snack!
Turns out Maxine has a virus that causes an upper respiratory infection and gastric pain and (and single case of) vomiting. There is nothing they can do. Although I am pretty sure I think they all thought I was overreacting. So we were quickly discharged and she ate half a sleeve of saltines on the drive home.
Overall I was pleased with our experience there and would recommend it as an ER but I may use more mom-tuition before heading to the ER again.
Each year around Valentines Day our neighborhood has a father-daughter dance. Dave was so excited to go with Maxine. I signed them up and then realized we would be out of town for a wedding. So my dad stepped in. This is HUGE! He hates dances and did not want to go but we had already bought the dress and she was so excited. How could he disappoint his little granddaughter. Maxine was also concerned to about going with Gramps as she was not convinced that he knew how to do her ballet! We tried to tell her that she could teach him but did not think he would be able to do it.
Here she is all dressed up (with a corsage!):
She had a blast! They had ice cream and danced and she watched all the other little girls run around. Gramps even had a good time and did the hokey pokey with her. According to him all she wanted to do was twirl. So thank you so much Gramps for giving Maxine a wonderful night and stepping in and being a GRAND Dad!
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Well I wish I was getting my hair professionally done. Truth is that I have not had it cut or styled in a year now. Getting desperate to make that appointment.
Luckily there are lots of little girls that love to play with long, straight hair and when I get together with friends I will spend half the night on the floor with my hair divided into sections – one per little girl and it will get brushed, braided, blow dryed, curled and generally tangled much the pleasure of the little girls.
Almost every second day Maxine will “braid” my hair while Sarah will try and practice her contortionist skills.
Of course – no stylist is ever ready if they don’t wear a backpack.
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Boy do these two love each other! I mean – they really, really love each other.
Sarah will get sooo excited in the morning when its time to get Maxine – she will be jumping about so much she almost jumps out of my arms. When I set her in bed with Maxine she immediately screeches with excitement. Maxine loves to be near her sissy and gets very concerned if we go anywhere without her – even if I am just leaving her with my mom while we go to dance class. Maxine is also the ONLY one allowed to give Sarah her mum mum and she is the only one allowed to make Sarahs food (if I try and run the blender without her – she comes over and tells me “No mommy -I make Sarah’s food” and promptly takes over).
My favorite is when they were playing in the ball pit together and Sarah just reached out and hugged Maxine. Maxine looked up at me and said “Mommy she just gave me a love”. It was one of those moments when your heart as a mommy melts.
I could not love them more.
(Not the best picture of the two of them – but Sarah’s expression cracks me up!)
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On Friday my mommy girlfriends and I were discussing how there seems to be a phenomenon when you have your second child where you suddenly get the “mommy look”. That look that says your kids come first and above all else.
Before having kids (and I emphasis before) I would watch episodes of What Not to Wear (ha – the days of watching TV) and they would do mommy make-overs and I would think that I would never get to the place where those moms “before” videos would come from and that I would make sure I had those easy to wear and piece together simple outfits.
Somehow after 2 kids that has not happened. Instead I am now looking like those women in the before footage. I realized I had hit a new low when I thought how glad I was that it was winter as my jacket hid the fact that I was at the library in the same (white) top I slept in with a black bra underneath (the only one that was clean), with a pair of jeans that I buttoned in the car (because I pulled them on one handed while dealing with an unhappy baby and trying to wrestle a toddler to the car).
I have not done serious shopping for me for winter clothes in 4 years – thanks to two pregnancies and two winters of my body “recovering” from the pregnancies i.e. serious post-pregnancy lumpiness that won’t go away as fast as one wishes.
But even if I did manage to put on a cute outfit – all put together – within 5 minutes Sarah will be chewing on some part of my outfit and I will have baby “love bites” marks on my clothes. Furthermore if my hair is down it will IMMEDIATELY be “braided” by Maxine - imagine giant rats nest, or eaten by Sarah (yes in her mouth as soon as she can). So instead it piled up on my head in a headband where no little one can reach it.
As far as makeup – well Maxine loves to do make overs and so usually within the first hour of our day we are playing dress up and we have makeup (glitter makeup all over) and nailpolish (glitter polish all over). So there is no real point in putting my own on when it will shortly be replaced.
So when you see me looking all worn and shabby with stains, glitter and crazy hair – just know that on that day I was very loved by my darling girls and that we had a wonderful time playing and that I would trade in every cute outfit I had for those days.
Can you believe our little girl is 6 months old? Neither can we!
Here is some of the adorable cuteness from her 6 month Christmas themed pictures (she is lucky that she is always 6 months exactly away from presents!).
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Now this crew looks like trouble!
The girls were having a lot of fun at the Toy Makers Christmas! Maxine loved the show and followed along really well. She has been an angel (walking on tippy toes and flapping wings) ever since!
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