Sunny Days and Seven Months

It's hard for me to believe, but Emma is closer to being one than a newborn now.  We have had a somewhat rocky month with her and sleep.  Any day now we are expecting her bottom two teeth to pop through, and when that happens, I am hoping her good sleep habits return.  Besides showing a stubborn streak with sleep, she remains a fun-loving, wide-eyed girl who is observant of everything.

We have introduced more foods into Emma's diet, some of which include a ham sandwich with the works on it and garlic spinach pizza.  Some might say that I've become lax in my parenting with subsequent children, but the truth of the matter is Emma takes full advantage of whatever is in my hand while I am distracted with Lucy.  And based on how she freaks out when I realize what she is chowing down on, it is no wonder she refuses to eat the baby food that we present to her.  As soon as the spoon laden with our homemade baby food crosses into her personal space (about a two foot radius from her) she squints her eyes shut and purses her mouth tight.  We have found a compromise fortunately, with a little mesh food bag attached to a handle that we put 'real' food in.  Sometimes we put the little mesh bag in the freezer for a little bit so that the food is slightly frozen to help with teething pain.  Meshed contents so far have included steamed carrots and potatoes, fresh apple, pear, banana, and skinned grapes.  Emma will gnaw on this at least long enough for us all to enjoy a meal together.

Emma has also found relief from teething pain in the most unusual objects.  She likes to chew on Lucy's doll's faces until Lucy notices.  Below it looks like she is resuscitating Simone, but she is really just relieving some teething pain.

So far my favorite Emma-invented teething remedy is chewing on Will's big toe.  I'm not sure if it's the special odor or tangy taste that numbs her gums, but either way it works.  Based on this method, we will know the moment her teeth do poke through based on Will's surprise when something sharp pierces through his sock.



Emma loves to stand.  If she is sitting anywhere near something she can use as leverage, she will scoot over to it and pull herself up to a stand.  This is very dangerous, as she doesn't have the balance yet to maintain her upright position and usually will do a half spin topple and hit her head on something hard.  In fact, Emma loves standing so much that she refuses to sit in her special little baby tub we have for bath time.  Because of this, we decided to try her out in the big tub with Lucy.

 As you can see, she still preferred standing.  After a couple of baths though, she finally was convinced to take a seat and relax which has introduced us to a whole new world of bath time fun - or as Will calls it, "Planned Chaos."  Lucy dumps water on Emma's head, Emma cries.  Emma splashes water into Lucy's eyes, Lucy cries.  Emma pees in the tub, Lucy screams.  Lucy takes Emma's bath toy away, Emma screams.  You get the idea.  But, it does save us a lot of time (and water!), as we no longer have to bathe them separately.

Emma generally doesn't like to get undressed and absolutely hates getting her diaper changed.  My sister Jane has classified her as a Never Nude (from the show Arrested Development) and if we weren't a cloth diaper family we would seriously consider getting those disposable diapers made to look like jeans in an attempt to recreate a pair of jean cut off shorts.

Maybe Emma is a Never Nude because she is always cold.  For bedtime I dress her in footed pajamas, a fleece blanket with sleeves that zips up from head to toe and a knit hat.  With this getup she would still wake up in the middle of the night ice cold, so I added a fleece blanket on top, which goes against all of the information the medical field warns parents about to prevent SIDS.  Thankfully, a friend of mine recommended using an afghan as a blanket since it at least has plenty of holes in it to prevent suffocation, but is still heavy and warm.  That is working great, combined with pumping our furnace all night long.  We received our first heat bill for the cold season and were semi shocked about the price.  I had to laugh though when I realized that we have finally found something to spend money on for Emma.  The clothes, cloth diapers, toys and accessories have all been handed down from Lucy.  Up until this past month, Emma hasn't really cost us a dime.  So, while the rest of us are sleeping in shorts and a t-shirt, Emma is finally warm and cozy and a part of the family budget as well.

Here Emma is below greeting Lucy in the morning.  Emma usually wakes up before Lucy, and will look around for her until we go into her room.  As we approach Lucy's door Emma pumps her arms and legs in anticipation and lets out a squeal when she sees Lucy.  Lucy in turn tells Emma, "I missed you when I was sleeping Emma" and when I ask Lucy what she dreamed about that night she always responds, "Emma."

We have had some beautiful fall weather this past month.  Living in Michigan, if the calendar says November and the thermometer reads above 50 degrees we do what we can to go outside and enjoy it like it's the last hurrah for the next six months.  This is part of why I love fall so much - it makes you appreciate every beautiful day.  In the picture below, I decided to capitalize on a sunny day this past week by packing a lunch and having a picnic outside our library which has a beautiful garden and walkways.  After we ate, we sat in the sun and read the books we had checked out earlier that morning.  It was one of those moments in motherhood that was easy and beautiful.  The kind of moment that was exactly how I pictured motherhood to be before I became a mother. 

Now that I am a mother, I understand that the shiny moments are mixed in between a lot of not so shiny moments.  But because of this, I appreciate those picture perfect moments like a sunny day above 50 degrees in November.

Lucy's Two and a Half!

Lucy is officially a two and a half year old.  I must say, I really do like this age.  She is the perfect mix of independent and cuddly.  She continues to sleep well and plays on her own ninety percent of the time.  However if Will is home that percentage changes to two percent as she is a daddy's girl and well, her daddy is a lot of fun.  Lucy was super excited this month because we got to celebrate her daddy's birthday!  She told me a couple of weeks ago that she wanted to bring Will lunch for his birthday and meet his students.  We did just that, and she is still talking about it.  Here she is below with Will and Emma, eating her lunch in Will's classroom.

When we got to Will's classroom I was all impressed with myself for remembering such details as plates and napkins to go with our picnic.  Panic started to set in though, when I realized I had brought nothing to disinfect the desks we were about to eat on!  After rummaging through the diaper bag, I found some extra disinfectant wipes from the doctor's office that they give you when they want a urine sample.  That took our picnic lunch to a whole new level of classy, but at least I wasn't worried about catching any germs.

I got a little teary eyed when I realized that one day Lucy will be big enough that her feet will no longer dangle at this desk.  It seems her growing up is already catching me by surprise.  Little things catch me off guard like the steadily rising height of the hand prints on my stainless steel fridge door, or how she can put the straw in her juice box by herself now.  The other day I was on autopilot getting her ready in the morning when she shook off my hand that was attempting to get her dressed.  She asked me to leave her room and close the door and promised that when I came back she would have a surprise for me.  So I went and got Emma ready and when I came back, there was Lucy sitting proudly on her bed completely dressed beaming from ear to ear!  No matter that her pants were on backwards and she was wearing a lime green short sleeve shirt with magenta plaid shorts - the fact that she got dressed all by herself was amazing to me!  She had never done this before.  I was very proud.  Granted, the following morning when I suggested that she get herself dressed she screamed "NO!" and ran away, but still.  The fact remained that she has the ability to dress herself now.  She even goes potty by herself now too, and pushes us out of the bathroom and closes the door behind us so that she can have "privacy."  This always brings a shudder to me when I hear the splash from the contents of her froggy potty being dumped into the big toilet, as she is still too short to get on the big toilet by herself.  I've told her to leave the contents of the froggy potty there and I will clean it up - really, I WANT to clean it up, but she insists on doing it herself.  Keep in mind she really only has to use the potty when I am in the shower or feeding Emma.  One morning I stepped out of the shower and found her cleaning a smear of poop off the bathroom floor with a wet wipe.  Lovely.  It is very hard for me to be angry though, as she is really trying to be independent and I do value that trait in her.

Lucy has learned a lot about cause and effect this month.  Will chopped a tree down in our yard and Lucy watched as he swung the axe.  When the tree finally fell to the ground Lucy clapped and jumped up and down.  Then she asked Will to put it back.  When Will explained that he couldn't put it back she started crying and demanding over and over again - "Put it back!  Put it back!"  Along these same lines there was a house and a restaurant near us that both got knocked down on two separate occasions.  Lucy watched the bulldozer and backhoe level them with fascination.  Now, whenever we go by either of these sites, she demands in a whining voice over and over again - "Put it back!  I don't want it knocked down.  Put it back!"

 

Lucy's imagination is still quite vivid.  This month she has been talking about her brother "Hev-Nah" which is a name she made up.  Upon further questioning to find out exactly who this person is, she has told us it is her brother in heaven.  We think Hevnah's name is a variation on heaven and we are wondering if this is her way of processing the fact that she really does have a brother in heaven.  She calls Hevnah on her play phone and tells us about conversations she has with him.  Fortunately, he is a good amount more friendly and well behaved than the tales she tells us about Simone.  Lucy continues to tell us all of the bad things Simone has done.  The other day I had just finished telling Lucy about how it is hard work for me to have to clean up all of her messes (okay, maybe I was yelling a little bit) when she went and told Will that, “Simone is really messy daddy and I am tired of cleaning up after her.”  That only gave me slightly elevated levels of mom guilt when Will related the story to me.  What really sends my mom guilt levels into overdrive however is lately Lucy has been telling me in a sweet and calm voice right after I finish venting my frustrations to her, “Mom, I love you.  I love you mom.  Mom, I just love you.”  She continues to repeat these various endearment combinations until my face changes and the anger is gone.  I’m not quite sure if she is genuinely being sweet or if she is that smart and has found a way to disarm my anger.  Either way, it works.

Some of my favorite vocabulary from this past month includes:

-Lucy tells me, "Mom, type in Dot-Com" any time she sees me on the computer.  Or even better, I find her at the computer pretending to type saying, "Dot Com."

-She calls a head band a "Rubber band"

-As we were driving home from trick or treating at the Farmer’s Market, Lucy stuck her head in her Halloween bag, inhaled deeply and said, “Mmmmmm, it smells like candy in here.  Want to smell it mom?”  Choking back immense feelings of pride, I took the candy bag and as I inhaled deeply, I thought finally, someone who appreciates the same things I do!

-"Mom, I just got to tell you something ____".  Fill in the blank with whatever randomness you can imagine.

-When Will was driving the other day and exhibiting somewhat hurried behavior Lucy piped up from the backseat “Will, be careful not to tip the car over.”  This almost made me pee my pants, because I was thinking the same thing, just in different words!  To represent Will fairly, Lucy also comments on my driving – “Whoa, Mom!  Slow down!” or just “Whoooaaa!”  Might I add that these comments are always appropriately timed too.

-And the vocab word of the month "Squirt".  She uses this word in all sorts of combinations but my favorite one was when she told us that, "I just squirted a fart in my pants."