i’ve been predicting this feisty, clever and wild spirited little lady’s personality for two years.
and i have to say, she’s becoming all i could have ever imagined. times five thousand infinities.
plus a LOT of gray hairs. i can feel them changing color as i sit here and type. but i will love each and every one of those coarse, curly gray follicles (why is that, anyway?) as much as i love her. maybe.
the past couple of months she’s been baby obsessed. which, i know is totally normal but somehow caught me slightly off guard.
but it’s super duper cute.
just like her, if i do say so myself.
faves are ‘breyonia’ (which started as breanna a friends’ daughter but has started to sound more like beyonce), ‘sally’ (our realtor who we recently visited), ‘dana’ (another friends’ daughter) and ‘tiny’ (welp, she’s just that) and ‘stella’ (a wicked awesome doll with a belly button, cloth diapers and a cute little pouch to store them in)
i feel like i should have a pagrillion more of these but here are a couple photos from the this week
and in tune with our baby theme, j told me today that he wants his own little baby to play baseball with.
i responded with, ‘let’s leave the baby making to the Duggars”. not so sure he got that one, but he agreed. perfect.
happy day and YEAR of the babies. i think there are going to be quite a few special souls, even beyond breyonia and stella and Duggar #20, making their debut.
(ps. because when i just re-read this last sentence it sounded very leading…this does NOT mean that i am pregnant. or expecting to be. just that i know several special woman that are )
i thought after last night’s cry for help a little update is in order.
tonight we agreed to make sure h stayed in her bed. that we would a. bring in paco nemo (number 5) to be her live (heh) sleeping friend b. we wouldn’t get hysterical c. we would continue to quietly reassure her and lead her back into her bed even after four hundred and thirty two dismounts.
the following conversation is from my phone. kneeling on the floor in h’s room – one hand rubbing her back the other texting justin downstairs.
AND after those three minutes she did actually stay asleep. SUCCESS!
AND justin made good on my order.
hey, ingredients were limited.
onward and upward! and thanks to those of you who sent suggestions. keeping her in her room and staying with her might just do the trick.
adios amigos. i’ve got an elmo fruit punch mojito to enjoy.
oh, and in case you’re interested in re-creating your own elmo mojito here’s how:
a few mint leaves muddled with sugar and lime juice
a few glug, glugs of white rum
a few glug, glugs of club soda
and a few more glug, glugs of elmo fruit punch
pour over ice
and it starts with a gonna-be and ends with a GREAT.
on a walk around the block a few nights ago, with a three year old balance biking away ahead of us and a thumb sucking one year old enjoying a sweet stroller ride i turned to justin and said, boy do our kids have a great life.
and do you know how magnificent it feels to be able to say that?
not in a damn, these little brats don’t know how good they have it kind of a way. nor in a honk, honk my own horn kind of a way.
just in a life is good kind of a way.
i have relaxed. and have had the time – the unbelievably sweet time – to dig my feet into the sand, to blast through tube after tube of sunscreen and watermelons and tasty scoops.
to run through sprinklers of the you know you’re in new hampshire when variety (yes, that is an electrical outlet and NO please do NOT try this at home).
to eat yummy treats
and wash up in plastic tubs of water.
to savor the day’s last hour of light in a screen porch on a warm night.
to simply enjoy the view.
and move those happy, sandy summer feet. of course.
actually, i’ve mispoken.
not so much a gonna be great summer. but an already kick ass one.
bring it july and august. and while we’re at it let’s save you, september, best for last.
my eyes are drooping. my belly is full – thanks to the heaping pile of blueberry shortcake (hey, it’s day three of leftovers and we are out of strawberries) justin just plopped in front of me.
and because my cozy bed and tonight’s crisp fall-like air is luring me away from all electronic devices, i’ll make this quick.
when it’s quiet and you have 27 seconds to think quietly to yourself (or get some much needed work done) you may wonder for a moment exactly why it’s so quiet.
too much quiet is never a good thing.
today, ever so quietly i tiptoed down the hall. because god forbid you burst into a room expecting your children scribbling on the walls with permanent markers or smearing the contents of their diaper into a rug – only to find them sitting like angels doing puzzles – that is until they see your horror expectant face and decide to cling to your leg and follow you around screaming for the next hour and a half.
too much quiet can sometimes, on rare occasions, be a good thing.
today i tiptoed.
and peeked around the corner.
h & j were busy cooking up some food in their kitchen to go along with the…easter egg candles and tampons they had ready to serve up on the table.
yep. tampons.
freshly bought box – that would explain the paper tearing sound i heard moments earlier.
so far, contents of said tampons seem to be intact.
cooking is underway with minimal qualms, hair pulling or fit throwing.
i slowly back away from the door and commence backward tiptoeing down hallway.
an hour of uninterrupted work time = priceless.
i have little shame and i am absolutely not above letting my kids do something they probably shouldn’t if it means i get a little much needed me time.
TGIF and TGIGMPD. (translation: Thank God I Got My Period Day)
the thought that my daughter would be anything other than a smaller, younger version of myself just never dawned on me.
even during my pregnancy, long before i really knew she was a she i assumed that she would be me. just 28 years later.
and i should have known, right from the start – with her small body, dainty little head and button nose, her long, lean starfish fingers that there was a chance she could be her own person, not her mother at all. (gasp). (for those of you who don’t know me or didn’t when i was small young, i was 10 lbs 6oz at birth and more closely resembled a line backer four month old than a just days old.)
i don’t remember myself as a newborn, a crawling infant or a toddling one year old. but i have pictures and the many memories of friends and family and suffice it to say, this little lady is for sure her own unique individual. and i’m quite sure, from what i can tell, just about the opposite of everything i was. except for the brown eyes. and maybe the nose, hard to tell yet.
she has developed from a smiley, easy-going mama’s babe into a confident, funny, and wildly clever toddler. she is goofy. she is sweet. she is hell on wheels.
if you call her name while she is walking away from you, her lips will form the biggest, slyest grin imaginable and she will run like hell. straight into the road, a neighbor’s pool, a pack of hungry wolves…doesn’t really matter.
last week i gave her my (usually up and out of the way) iphone to play with when an important call came in on the house phone and i couldn’t quite get her and her accompanying hurricane to slow or hush. it was locked. within 12 seconds she had pushed the center button and slid the “slide to unlock” section exactly as intended.
within 30 seconds she had sent an email to a group called “co-workers” which is, ah, funny because i left that job several weeks ago (i’m sure they’re now assuming life as a stay at home mom is going swimmingly) and had purchased the free trial of fruit ninja i had installed. awesome.
which reminds me of the interesting chinese folklore my mom brought back from a trip to asia – after showing her korean business partners a photo of her grand daughter one of them remarked, “ohhhh clever girl”. and to answer my mom’s quizzical expression, “the tops of her ears are higher than her eyebrows. sign of clever girl”. why, yes. yes, she is.
so today, as i guide her away from oncoming traffic, push her “unner dog” in her tree swing and lead her to time out after the longest one…….two…….threeeee i can muster i am reminded of her passion, the zest for life she carries on her sleeve.
to all those parents of wild ones out there, we are lucky. really lucky. and also really, really, on the verge of loosing it; perhaps even more than most.
here’s to embracing the wild spirit within, helping to channel and encourage whenever possible and keeping large quantities of alcohol handy at all times.
oh, and in celebration of surviving 38 of the last 41 days as a solo parent (with the exception of help from my totally rad friends and family) i have to post this video.
it was taken on a random week-day night last week. post bath time. for daddy.
it’s not overly funny, or cute. it’s not my kid dancing to a beyonce video or laughing uncontrollably for some obscure reason. it’s just a very normal day in our lives which to me, takes the cake on anything YouTube’s most viewed can dish out.
) 
