I'm so lucky to have the most wonderful friend in Bridget Shen. She has been such a source of support through a lot of hard times adjusting to this life of parenting and relationships. We tend to go through a lot of the same feelings and emotions in this life and I just want to thank her for being such a great friend! She took these amazing photos of our family and some pregnancy photos of me in trying to build a portfolio for her photography business. We think she did such a great job! Thanks Bridget!
Update on our family...
Through a mass of projects in the new house, we are barely managing to stay sane. We have definitely taken on too much while trying to take care of 2 kids and welcoming another. The master bathroom is still gutted and has been a constant source of grief, but Bryan has been working so hard in all his time off and he is planning on finishing it by himself. The new baby's room is painted and looks beautiful. New furniture has been ordered for Maya (Thanks Nana and Pop pop) so that the new baby will have a dresser for her room. We will be moving around all that stuff in 2 wks or so. I'm going to start doing baby laundry soon. I have finished stripping down all the wallpaper in the laundry room and just finished the 2nd coat last night. Its a beautiful green color. I just need Bryan to move out the washer/dryer so that I can lay the new sticky tiles over the old linoleum. Hopefully we can have that finished in the next week or so. The next item on the list is to get the basement functional for the older girls. Through my maternity leave we are keeping our nanny on her normal 20 hrs a week, so this will be a godsend for me to be able to rest and bond with the new baby. We think that the older girls will do much better if the basement is a fun place for them to be able to do crafts, watch tv, play and be comfortable. So we are on the craigslist search for a new(old) couch and I will begin to move all their toys into the basement.
Maya: Maya is loving school and is learning so much everyday. She constantly talks about the "person of the day"- I guess this is the kid who gets to put up the weather and point with a big stick to the calendar at the beginning of each class. She talks about her friends and sits with the same little girl on the bus-Madison. Maya has become very interested in letters and can identify most of the letters of the alphabet now and when we talk, she always tries to sound out words and figure out what letter comes first. I think she still really misses having her naps everyday and her temper is still very short, along with throwing lots of tantrums if she doesn't get what she wants. Trying to work on it. She has a tough time when Kelly comes over (our nanny's mom comes during the week to help out with childcare when Emily is in school)... she runs away and cries under the dining rm table and tells me she wants to go to school and to bed when she sees Kelly. Its actually a pretty funny little act. She certainly is our little pistol and does not have a problem speaking her mind. the other day Kelly told her that she liked Maya's shirt and Maya said "Leave my shirt alone!" I made her apologize and told her it was rude to speak to Kelly this way but we sort of laughed about it. Maya had a blast this past weekend when Jeff and Michelle came to babysit them
so that Bryan and I could get out for a movie date. They painted pumpkins and made cookies together with spooky sprinkles. We are so lucky to have some family down here!!!! We love Jeff and Michelle.
Lately I've been wondering if Maya is actually going to have a harder time adjusting to having another sister than Claire. When she does her breathing treatments she wants me to sit next to her the whole time
to watch her show and she seems pretty clingy lately, like she knows something big is coming. She is so great at puzzles and does a lot of practicing everyday with doing her puzzles. Its one of our favorite
games to do together. She still loves crafts and I find myself buying a whole lot of glue for this girl.
Claire: Claire is doing such a great job with talking and everyday she says something new! A few new phrases "Have dat!" when she wants something, "I got ya!" when we play chase, "Mommy butter, mommy hep!" whenever I'm buttering something she MUST stand on her chair with her little plastic knife and help butter whatever it is. She also likes to taste the butter I think. She loves using her utensils and when I get out her strawberries and raspberries for a snack she like to "hep" cut it all up and it actually gets her to eat her fruit! "Coco moke" is the thing that comes out of her mouth most often. She loves chocolate milk soooo much. Just goes to show, I never let Maya have chocolate milk till she was like 3 and Claire is not yet 2 and knows what it is!!! She says "Mommy too!" and uses the "too" at the end of her sentences to indicate that whatever we are doing, she wants to do it too! She is very stubborn and does NOT want to sit in her booster chair or highchair anymore. She wants to stand and walk across 2 chairs during her dinners. She has fallen so many times, we have had to put our foot down and we strap her tightly into her highchair even if she's crying. Tonight when I got home from the grocery store, I was bringing bags in and Bryan was with Maya. We walked into the kitchen to find Claire standing on her chair, she found the yo baby yogurt in the bag, pulled off 2 of the lids and had gotten a "poon" out of her drawer and proceeded to stand there and eat the yogurt without any help at all. She is so independent it amazes me everyday. She wants to do everything herself. She loves her "baf" and this is so sad but after she vomits she immediately asks for a "baf" and will run upstairs by herself to get us up there. Tonight she was crying in her crib- had to go in 3 times to calm her down. The 3rd time she had stripped naked and was holding her diaper out to me saying "pee pee mommy" Oh goodness what will I do with this child? haha! She loves "pay do" and we play with play-doh everyday, she makes balls. All in all she is such a happy go lucky little girl, still wakes up with a smile and is so excited to go find her sister in the morning. Her and Maya have matching Tinkerbell nightgowns and Claire is so proud when she wears it and points to it and says "Bell!" She repeats everything we say and does a great job communicating. She can name everything in her alphabet book- I love being able to understand her!
More in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment