One Year

Posted on by Amy
One year ago, I was arriving at the hospital, in labor with Lass.


I was excited about her impending arrival but scared and nervous at the same time. I had only been in labor with Miss for about four or five hours before I had a c-section, so I had very little experience and naturally I was apprehensive about my plan to have an unmedicated VBAC.


Little did I know how long that night and the next morning would turn out to be. Little did I know that Lass would be 10 and a half pounds of perfect. Little did I know how much joy she would bring to my life and our family. One year ago, when I got to the hospital, ready to get the show on the road and meet our little Lass, I had some idea about the joy part at least. I knew she would be wonderful and we would love her. I knew it would be amazing to have two little girls and a sister for Miss. But that night, one year ago, in my last few (okay, many and agonizing!) hours as a mommy of one little girl, I couldn’t even imagine how much. How wonderful. How big our love. How amazing.

Tonight I’m reflecting on that night, just before Lass came into our lives and made our happy family happier. I’m remembering being a little scared about how Lass’s arrival might affect Miss. I’m smiling at how it did affect her, and at what a fantastic big sister she is. Tonight I’m choking up thinking that my baby will be a year old tomorrow. I’m cringing slightly remembering the pain of getting her here (who the heck says you forget that, by the way?). I’m reminiscing about how great my husband was and what a great team we were that night.
Tomorrow Lass will be one, and I’m all sappy and sentimental thinking about it tonight. It’s amazing the difference one year makes in the life of a family. I remember feeling like Miss grew up practically overnight between the time I put her to bed on this night one year ago and the time she walked into my hospital room to meet her baby sister.
This is Miss, one year ago.


This is her a few weeks ago.


I love to see how much she’s grown.




I mentioned above how it seemed like Miss grew up almost overnight when Lass was born. Today was another day that made her suddenly seem so much more grown up.

Today she went for a visit to her preschool. Preschool. It wasn’t her official first day of school. That will be after Labor Day. Today she just went to check things out and was only there for about an hour and a half. She seemed to be having a blast when I left (she gave me a kiss and ran back to playing with blocks and toy dinosaurs with another little boy) and when I came back (she was happily drawing a picture). Her teacher said she had a little rough patch, but over all did great. When I asked Miss how she liked school she said, “I cwied because my want you.” Stab to the heart. Twist. Gulp. I have to remember how much fun she seemed to be having for the majority of the time she was there. She was very interested in the science area with the birds’ nests, rocks, seeds, and other various objects from nature (she couldn’t stop talking about the birds’ nests and seeds). She got very excited when we talked about trying to find something at the farm next week that she might be able to take to school to add to the collection. She talked about new friends she got to play with. I know she’s going to love school. She’s so confident and inquisitive. It will be great for her to have her own “thing” to do twice a week, without me. Hopefully her first “full day” (three hours) will be a little easier in a couple of weeks.


Lass and I will stay nearby just in case. Today we went two doors down to a bagel shop and met up with the Daddy (who is on nights this week and came from work) for breakfast and coffee. In my last post I mentioned that Lass was feeling under the weather. When she woke up with a fever again on Saturday I took her to the doctor and found out she had strep throat! I suspect she picked it up on the plane home from Florida. She’s been taking her antibiotics and is back to her happy little self now.


My little almost-one-year-old at breakfast with Mommy and Daddy:



Painting, Playing, and Peanut Butter

Posted on by Amy
Oh, I do love the alliterative blog post title. You might remember Burritos, Boobs, and Bundling Up or Morning Meltdown and a Messy Make-up. I don’t know why I enjoy coming up with titles like these, but I do. So I just go with it. Here’s to the letter P today:
Miss sure does love to paint. And I sure do love to watch her. I was really impressed by this face she painted a few days ago.


I mean, she’s two and a half. Amazing, right?


And then it turned into this…


If you look closely you can see that she’s painting with all four of her brushes at the same time. This is her new thing. She does it with crayons too, just grabs as many as she can hold in her hand and colors with all of them at once. It’s all good. But I was a little bummed to lose the face. It is fun though to see how her artwork changes over time. She is growing so quickly and developing new skills so I find myself always a little surprised and awed over what she can do.
Another thing that is so fun for me to watch is how my two girls play. Sometimes they play nicely together.


Sometimes they do their own thing.




Lass loves to climb and explore, while Miss likes to act out dramas with various characters. Miss also sings to herself a lot, and listening to her is joy.


I think playing is one of the best ways for them to learn and I just love to watch them. I can’t wait to see how they play together more and more as they get older.
Miss has never been a big fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In fact, pretty much any time I make a sandwich for her, of any flavor, she promptly takes it apart and eats each part of it separately. But the other day when I gave her “peanut butter and jelly sandwich” as a choice for lunch, that’s what she chose. And then she said, “and honey.” Cool. My mom used to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches for me when I was a kid. As soon as she said it, I thought it sounded pretty tasty and decided to make one for myself too. But first things first, I had to get Miss her peanut butter and honey and jelly sandwich.


My first mistake apparently was mixing the honey with the peanut butter before spreading it on the bread. She did not like that. She nearly had a meltdown when I mixed it up, but I distracted her by getting the jelly to spread on the other piece of bread. I was smart enough to ask her if she wanted me to put the two pieces of bread together or eat them separately. She wanted them separately.


She then proceeded to eat the peanut butter and honey and the jelly right off the top of the bread.


And after she had eaten just the good stuff off the top of the bread, she requested more, and more as the bread got more and more soggy and hole-y.


This is how my girl eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.


Lass on the other hand had her first PBJ and loved it, as much as she could love it with a fever and runny nose.


She’s been a bit under the weather the past two days.


But my little sunshine girl still managed to flash me a smile, right on cue.


All these little moments make such happy memories for me. And for the record, I did eat my first peanut butter and honey sandwich in about 10 years and it was fabulous.

Beautiful Eyes

Posted on by Amy
There is a website I love called I Heart Faces. It has lots of tips and information about photography, and each week they have a themed photo challenge. I have considered entering the challenge several times, but each time either chickened out or didn’t get around to it. This week the challenge is Beautiful Eyes.



With my two gorgeous girls, the hardest part was picking just one photo to enter.




A Photo Tour

Posted on by Amy
We’re home. The trip was tiring, but fun. Here’s a photo tour of the week.
Baby girl – sweaty, but still oh-so-cute.

After attending a few wedding-related events, we went to my in-laws’ to spend most of the rest of our trip with them. My girls loved this little table there. Lass sure thought she was a big deal.

We need to get a little girl sized table, I think.

We traveled all over the state of Florida during the week, from the Gulf coast to the Atlantic and back again.

The girls did a great job.

The crazy traveling was for the purpose of seeing my Grandma and Grandpa.

The girls had a fun visit with their Great-Grandma. She pulled out all sorts of fun stuff for them, from a bin of Easter decorations

to hats and colorful golf balls,

and of course the musical instruments. There’s always music at Grandma’s house.

Somehow I didn’t get any photos when we visited my Grandpa this time, about which I’m quite disappointed. I think it must have been because it was pouring when we got to his place, and we just ran in with the girls, forgetting the camera. I hate forgetting my camera.
Miss really worked on her swimming this week,

and her, eh, use of multiple floatation devices.

She thought this raft was the coolest thing ever, and spent a good bit of time “sleeping” on it,

and sleeping,

and then…

“Tickle me, Daddy!”

Looking for lizards.

No trip to Florida would be complete without a day on the beach

with shelling and playing in the sand.

She loved the sand but longed to try out the water.

It was fun to watch my little one showing her fearlessness in the water,

and my big girl overcoming her initial fear of the crashing waves.

I used a new sunscreen that didn’t absorb into my skin very well and left me looking more pasty white than usual. I had to chuckle when a man and woman walked by Lass and me playing in the sand, and the man said, “From how far North do you come?” That obvious, huh?

The plane rides to and from the sunny state were pretty uneventful. Snacks, coloring books, an Ergo carrier, an iPad, and the magazines and other handouts in the back seat pockets of the plane made for happy little ones.

Tonight I’m snuggled up on the couch with my hubby. He’s watching a really bad movie and I’m writing. It’s chilly here, relative to the sticky heat of Florida. It almost feels like fall is upon us. We’ve got windows open and are wearing jackets in the evenings to play outside. As always, it’s so good to be home.

Flower Girl

Posted on by Amy
We came down to Florida on Saturday so Miss could be a flower girl in my friend’s wedding. I was a little nervous about how she would do, since she wasn’t able to be at the rehearsal, and my friends are not people she sees often. I showed her You Tube videos of flower girls and had been asking her for a few days what a flower girl does, to which she always answered, “She drops the petals on the floor.”


She was absolutely perfect.






She was all about business as we were getting ready to go to the ceremony.


Very focused.


Getting in her zone.


I was nervous about leaving her at the end of the aisle, but wanted to be up front so I could coax her forward if necessary. I kept telling her that she would walk down the aisle and drop the petals and then Mommy and Daddy and Lass would be waiting for her up front. I was seriously nervous that she would freak out a little bit. In addition to her inexperience with the role of flower girl, I was also a bit worried because I had woken her up before 5 am to catch our flight, and then she napped for only about 30 minutes on the ride from the airport to the hotel. Plus it was crazy hot and humid and buggy at the ceremony, so I was concerned that she would be cranky. I should know better than to underestimate my girl.


She started a little bit slowly.




Then she got going and did a beautiful job.


She dropped her petals just as she was supposed to.


She was absolutely precious and I was in tears watching her.


Though I was squatted down at the end of the row of seats at the end of the aisle, she never did see me until she was right near the front.


She kept going though.




When she got to the front, she seemed to notice that she had a bunch of petals left in her basket.


So out they went! Priceless.


I was incredibly proud of my big brave girl.

I Have a Princess Issue

Posted on by Amy
When I first learned that Miss was a girl, I was so excited. I had all sorts of thoughts about being a mom to a little girl. Things I wanted to teach her and show her. I remember some family members teasing that she would be “such a princess” and having a yucky gut reaction to that statement. I guess I’ve always had a little bit of a negative feeling towards the “Princess Attitude.” That’s how I think of the attitude of some girls and women that they are entitled to things, that the don’t have to work hard, that they’re better than others, that they can’t get dirty or play rough or do things for themselves, that they’re helpless but that others are obligated to help them, that the most important things in life are having fancy things and having others cater to their whims, etc. I’ve known people like this. I do not want my girls to be like this. This is my “Princess Issue” and what I reacted to negatively in my gut when others teased that my daughter would be a princess.
However, somewhere along the line, my dislike of the “Princess Attitude” turned into an aversion to all things “Princess.” Part of this is that I really don’t like how absurdly commercialized the “Disney Princess” brand has become. Everywhere you look the Disney gals are plastered on toys and books, clothing and everything else. So my reaction was to not buy anything for Miss or Lass with these girls on it. I started feeling annoyed with Snow White, who, let’s face it, is pretty vapid and not too smart (what kind of a dummy would take anything to eat from that scary old woman??). I scorned Sleeping Beauty. I admit I don’t remember the whole story, but didn’t she just sleep through it and look pretty until some guy came along and kissed her? Puh-lease. I even avoided Cinderella and Belle, who at least had a little gumption in their stories. But, over time I started realizing I was being a little extreme. I was trying to avoid the annoying overly-commercialized “Disney Princess” junk, but in doing so I lost something.

I was missing out on the fun part of playing princess with my little girls and reading them the stories that the Disney movies were based on. I almost even forgot that the stories didn’t originate with Walt Disney and in fact are very old and rich tales, told by many different authors, probably most notably the Brothers Grimm. The problem is, these days it’s not easy to find an old version of these fairy tales. I’d even settle for the Little Golden Book version of them, which are based on the Disney movie versions of the stories and are what I remember having as a little girl. The last time I looked in the book section of Target they didn’t even have any Little Golden Books and the princess story book they did have was some weird compilation of spin off-tales of each of the characters. Not what I was looking for.
My point is that I have had to remind myself from time to time that “princess” does not equal “Princess Attitude.” My girls are not prissy. They’re not afraid to get dirty or play rough. We try to teach them to be the opposite of the attitude I described above. I’m not worried that they’ll develop the attitude, so I probably ought to lighten up on the anti-princess campaign around here. Okay, I don’t really have a campaign, I just tend to avoid Disney Princess crap, which is mostly what is out there for princess stuff.

When Miss’s flower girl dress came a few weeks ago and I took her to have it fitted, I mentioned to her that it was her “princess dress” and she looked just like a beautiful princess, and so on. When we went to pick it up the other day I almost cried it was so adorable on her. She twirled and pranced in front of the gazillion mirrors in the David’s Bridal alterations fitting room. She even ran into one of the mirrors because there were so many they confused her! She didn’t want to take the dress off, and it made me smile that she loved it so much. She doesn’t really have a super interest in being a princess, since I’ve not really gone there with the princess stuff. She hasn’t seen the movies. She only has one toy (a purse) with Snow White on it. She’s played with some stickers of the Disney princesses and she has a plate and bowl with pictures of them, but that’s about it. I really would like to read her the fairy tales though. And yes, eventually we will watch the movies too.

I hope that my girls will be well-rounded. Maybe partly tom-boy and partly girly-girl. Or whatever the heck they want. They can play swords, they can play princess, they can play warrior princess with swords, whatever.

I think my job is just to let them try all sorts of things, from making mud pies to baking real pies, playing kick ball to playing dress up, and everything in between. They’ll let me know what they love and that will make me happy.

Check It Out

Posted on by Amy

I did a guest post on the CSN Stores Blog today. It’s called “Finding a New Use for Old Things,” one of my favorite topics. Check it out here.

Doing the post really made me want to get out and do some good old junking. I used to get up early every Saturday morning in graduate school (and that was in the days when I regularly slept until noon!), pull out my trusty laminated city map, grab the classified section of the paper and go yard sale-ing for hours. I also made regular trips to the architectural salvage store and various antique and junk shops around town, trolling for treasures. I made some fantastic finds in those days. In fact, I pretty much furnished my entire graduate school apartment on yard sale stuff. Most of it was junk when I picked it up, and I managed to turn it into something fun. Everything was mismatched, but it worked.
Nowadays I still love a good yard sale (they call them “rummage sales” here). I still enjoy a good stroll through the architectural salvage store we have here and the antique stores. Unfortunately, my adventures in junking are few and far between these days. In fact they’re mostly limited to driving slowly by a yard sale to see if it looks like it’s worth getting both my girls out of the car (yes, I’m that person, and no, I usually don’t bother to get out) or cruising through the architectural salvage store when I’m already walking downtown for the farmer’s market and looking for a good spot to get out of the heat for a few minutes.
I have been really feeling the junking itch lately though. One day recently I actually went to a website listing all sorts of local yard sales for the following day, printed a list of those I wanted to check out, consulted my map and planned my route, only to find that the website was pretty much bogus and two of the three “big sales” I tried to go to were not where they were supposed to be. The third one was not big, and consisted mostly of crocheted barrettes, old baskets, and a rack of clothes for an elderly woman. I was discouraged after that and gave up on that trip. However, I am not to be deterred. The next two weekends will be taken up with travel, but maybe I’ll get back out there when we get home. I’d love to score some good junk for my house or for my girls. Heck, I’ll even get out of the car this time.

Big Steps

Posted on by Amy
One of the hard things about moving around the country for school and other stages of professional training is that you end up making wonderful friends and then missing them when everyone inevitably moves on to the next stage of life (the real job stage). I’ve lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina, before finally settling here where my husband found a great job. I miss my friends from all the places I’ve lived. I don’t see them often enough. Fortunately this past weekend we had a fantastic visit from some of our closest friends we met in North Carolina. It was so fun to see them. It’s always good for the soul to spend some time visiting and talking in the comfortable way that old friends do. The girls really enjoyed playing with our friends’ kids too. It was a special weekend.

It was special in more ways than one, since Lass took her first steps on Friday!
We tried to get photos and video footage, but naturally as soon as my husband grabbed the camera, she stopped stepping.

She’ll be walking all over before we know it. I’m planning her first birthday party, which is so hard to believe.
Little sister is getting so big.
And big sister is too. She will most likely be starting preschool twice a week this fall. I say most likely because I am not completely sure I’ve managed to fully commit myself to the idea. I found a fabulous preschool. I really like the owner and her vision for the school. I love the way they teach there. I really think Miss would love it, but it makes me a little anxious to think of leaving her somewhere else for three hours twice a week. I think it will be a great experience for her, so I know I will get over myself and enroll her. I’m pretty sure… This is a big step for me.
I’m also thinking of enrolling her in a dance class in the near future. This girl loves to dance, as you might have noticed from my multiple posts about family dance parties and videos of her dancing. This weekend we happened to have the TV on when “Angelina Ballerina” came on PBS. She had never seen the show, but she was fascinated.
Right away she asked me to get her a tutu and she started trying to imitate the dance steps.
Plie
Pirouette
Arabesque
Not bad!
We’re gearing up to go visit some more friends from my graduate school days in Kentucky. Two of my friends are getting married and Miss is going to be their flower girl. We’ve been getting her dress fitted and watching You Tube videos of flower girls so she’ll have some idea what to do, since we won’t make it down in time to go to the rehearsal. I can’t wait to see Miss as a little flower girl! And I can’t wait to see my friends on their big day.

Tofu Chocolate Pudding

Posted on by Amy
We went to PetSmart today to get some dog food and I happened to see some fancy “chocolate” dog treats. I got a package of them for our dog, and Miss immediately started saying, “I want some chocolate treats too!” I explained to her that the treats were only for dogs, but that wasn’t quite going to cut it with my chocolate-loving two year old. I remembered a recipe I have for chocolate pudding with tofu, so I told her we’d make that when we got home. She wasn’t happy about having to wait a while for it to chill after we got it made (though she was pacified a bit by being able to lick the leftover melted chocolate from the bowl), and it was the first thing she asked for when she woke up from her nap. It only took a few minutes to make, and it was fantastic.




I even let Lass try a little bite.
She had to think about it for a second.
She liked it.

Tofu pudding sounds kind of weird, but it really was delicious. I had never used soft tofu before (I’ve only ever used tofu once before, in fact). I ate a portion of it and so did my husband. He called it, “Ridonkulous” which means super-awesome fabulously yummy. Here’s the recipe, which I changed a little bit from a recipe in the July issue of Parenting magazine.
1 12-oz pkg shelf-stable soft silken tofu
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted
1/2 cup ultrafine granulated sugar (the recipe called for powdered sugar, but I didn’t have any)
2 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a blender and mix until creamy. Put it into small cups or bowls and put into the fridge to let it set up. Done.
I was really happy to give Miss a snack with nutritious, protein-packed tofu in it. Of course, this pudding is also sugar-packed, so it is certainly a treat. I’ll make it again, but only once in a while, and next time I’ll probably cut the amount of sugar in half. However, I am now convinced of the wonders of this soft tofu for use in puddings, smoothies, etc. I’m thinking of all sorts of other, less sugary things I can blend with it next time, like bananas, berries, orange juice, honey, and on and on.
And speaking of tofu, my next at home “Chopped” ingredients are plantains, bacon bits, and yes, tofu. It has taken me a while to get going on this one because I’ve not been able to find plantains in a store here, so I just ordered some and will get on it when they arrive. I think I know what I’m going to do. I have to redeem myself after my pickled herring failure. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Homebodies

Posted on by Amy

Today we stayed home. After our weekend away, I just wanted to be here. The weather cooperated enough that we could get outside for the girls to have some fun and new experiences. Like roller skating.

She held on to my hand for about 30 seconds before saying, “I want to do it myself.” And she did.

She fell down several times, but didn’t seem to mind too much.

She just got back up and kept on going. Doesn’t she look so grown up?


And this little one is so close to walking. Today I saw her take one tiny step forward before grabbing on to something. Outside she was most definitely the master of this lion.
She pushed it sideways in circles instead of standing behind it and rolling it.


There is a circle of grass around a big, gorgeous oak tree in our front yard. It’s my favorite place on our property. I used to spread a blanket there and sit outside with Miss during her first summer. I take the girls out there now and we blow bubbles and take our shoes off to feel the grass on our feet. Today, like every other day, we were drawn to the circle. Miss calls it, “The Hole” or “The Rocks” (it’s mostly sunken below the level of our driveway and surrounded by rocks).
The girls decided to take a little rest in the shade from all their hard work.


Under the tree it’s cool and the grass is soft. There are usually treasures to be found like leaves, pieces of bark, sticks, bugs, etc. Miss marvels at them and Lass tries to eat them.
It’s a peaceful spot to sit.
And the view from under the tree is amazing.





After naps we went outside to try out the new sand in the sandbox. Miss enjoyed it, but we had to take a break from it because she kept trying to dump the sand outside the sandbox.
I put the cover back over it and she begged me to let her go in the “baby swing.” I convinced her to try out the big girl swing first (which she has enjoyed greatly but fell from when playing with her cousins on Thursday) and told her she could go on the baby swing after that if she still wanted to.
She didn’t want to.