Dads

Feeling so blessed

...for these two magnificent men

...for the beautiful weather

...for promise of more family visits to come (i'm looking at you, mom!)

Happy Father's Day to the men who act as role models, as mentors, as friends.

The work you do every day is beyond words.

{him}: this week

so much excitement, we can barely stand it.

the dentist!!! we went to see the dentist for the first time! we are now enamored with all things dental - floss! new toothbrush (pooh toothbrush no less)! pink mouthwash! (no, not really. i scooted that one out of his goody bag before he saw it. he got a ring that says "look, ma, no cavities", a necklace shaped like a tooth that you can open and actually put your lost tooth in. he got to choose his toothpaste flavor (orange, in case you were wondering), and got his "teeth tickled".

ah, he was such a champ.
the next day, he got to watch mama as she got her teeth cleaned. he had quite the view, too from atop my belly, shoveling blueberries into his mouth and playing commentator.

come to think of it, he got a sticker at my appointment, too. how is that fair?

{she} this week

Happy much?

This little girls is almost 10 months old! How did that happen?

You can't see the top ones here, but she has FOUR teeth now and is just about to get a whole mouthful more. These things are flying into her head, I tell you.

Can you believe this awesome sweater I got at the consignment shop for $5? Someone obviously spend a lot of time (and probably money on that gorgeous yarn!) on it, and I'm so delighted that it's a part of our world. She's been teething on those buttons like a crazy person and just LOVES to take whatever she's wearing off - particularly her hat. I have a feeling I might have two kiddos running naked before too long.

This little girl is a smart one. She's taking it all in, learning, learning, learning every day. She's certainly thinking about crawling, or at least finding her way around, but is pretty content now to sit and play. 

She's becoming a bit more clingy with me, which is fine. I know it's just a stage, and the sweet baby snuggles are just that - so sweet. It's hard to make dinner sometimes when she's howling to be held by me, but I know I'll miss these days when they're gone.

Just this week, she's begun holding her arms and hands up to be picked up. It's the most irresistable thing (except, perhaps, when she's covered in egg salad). 

She's also talk, talk, talking all the time - mostly baby blabbers, but lots of "DA! Dadadadadadadada".

I'm starting what will likely be a long and stressful week, so I'm trying to take a moment to settle in here and think about my baby girl. She's an absolute dream and I just love her to bits. I hope I'm able to keep balance this summer between doing the work that inspires me and spending time with these beautiful babies who grow up so fast.

Deep breath.

{him} this week

Spring is here at last! This boy learned how to do the thing that I've always been so jealous of boys for - he is an outside pee-er. We made sure he knows he can't just "drop trou" and pee wherever he wants to. He's already got a tree he uses, and he finds any opportunity he can to go to his tree. How many times does this kid have to go in a ten minute span, you may ask? You don't want to know.

In addition to that exciting development, Finn has also decided to use the moderately warmer weather to haul out the kiddy pool, strip down, and plonk his bottom down in the 1/2 inch of water I've filled it up with before leaping up, yelling "brrrrr! it's TOLD!!!", and running inside to be dried off, just to do it all over again moments later.


Ah, springtime. How I love you.

kids!

A few weeks ago, we got the opportunity to go to a "goat tea"...I mean, really. Who could resist an invitation like that?

Some friends of ours have a small goat dairy, and two of the ladies had just had babies. There were three in all and we went up to spend some time with them. The owner and cheesemaker wants to get the goats as well-adjusted to humans and human contact as possible, so from day one, they are consistently handled by adults, and these babies were being bottle-fed already, so Finn got to take the opportunity to feed one of the babes.

We probably won't have goats in our world - chickens and pigs are definite possibilities, but goats are a whole different ballgame - longer term, more pet-like. Plus there's the whole milking thing. So it's nice to have friends with such great critters for us to come and hang out with. Lorelei didn't mind sharing my lap at all :)

....and then! More goats!

Another friend has a pair of does who both kidded within about 5 days of one another, and then there were more bouncing, beautiful babies...and this on the most gorgeous "first" sunny, warm spring day. What a treat.

{them} ...this week

Lorelei.

8 months, 13 days.

I don't know where all this hair is coming from, but it's starting to grow down over her perfect little ears now. We often say to each other, "I can't wait until..."

but I can. I can wait. This is all going so, so, so much faster than Finn's babyhood.

Maybe it's knowing she's our last.

She's laughing all the time, smiling all the time, so delighted to see "her" people. She shows it by flapping, like she's going to take off, or by slapping my chest repeatedly. It's hilarious. She's going to have quite the sense of humor. Or I guess she already does.

Finn.

2 years, 8 months, 24 days

Favorite game: Running naked.

At the end of the day, between taking off clothes and putting on jammies (or between bath and jammies, if it's a bath night), Finn runs naked. This is exactly what you're thinking, except that in addition to running around our house naked, he also yells, "I'M RUNNING NAKED!!!!" over. and over. and over. It's pretty much the most hysterical thing ever.

Siblings. 

Their connection grows every day. It's amazing to watch. It changes our whole family dynamic. He runs up the stairs to see her when she wakes up from her nap, yelling, "I'm coming, Lorelei!". When she cries, he sings "Twinkle Twinkle" (tinkle tinkle). He shares with her (so far). He makes her laugh. He tickles her. 

And she sucks it all up. She knows exactly who she is and where she belongs. She knows he's got her back.

zzzzzzzzzz....

It's so funny. I uploaded this picture onto this post a few days ago intending to write a little blurb about it, and I just came on to do that and WOAH! That kid looks like me! It's so funny when it hits me - kind of a moment of "how can that be possible" with "oh yeah, i MADE her (with help)".

So incredible. Miracles, these little critters.

Unfortunately, this little miracle is giving us a bit of a hard time. Luckily, more often than not, this is her general MO:

But a sleeper this girl is NOT. Her brother is a dream sleeper, and has been for a while (not that was always the case). I'm sort of hoping that Lorelei follows in her brother's footsteps, but I'm a bit concerned that she's getting waaaaay too used to sleeping in the bed with us. She's still nursing, so it's easy to just roll over and pop a boob in her mouth if she fusses. We've gotten through lots of nights that way, but now she's just sort of used to nursing to sleep, waking, nursing, waking, nursing...and it gets old. It's hard to move around in bed. I've taken to propping myself up from behind with a pillow so I'm kind of on my side and kind of on my back, but this little bugger just keeps scooting over so I'm practically falling off the bed. I've been trying to make a concerted effort to put her back in her room each time I get her back to sleep, but that requires a lot more waking up than just rolling over, and is more disruptive to the ever-elusive sleep. I'm also really trying to get her down in her bed when she's at least partially asleep, rather than soundly so. I'm hoping that once she learns to fall asleep on her own in her own bed, when she wakes, she'll be better at re-settling.

Hopefully, these two strategies at least begin to start solving our nighttime issues, because if not, we're pulling out the big guns - sleep training - again. I talked with my parents about me and Finn spending the night at their house so his sleep isn't disrupted and he gets used to sleeping in some new digs, something we've been meaning to give him more experience with for a while. We went to Boston a few weeks ago and stayed with some friends just outside of the city, and he woke up in the night each night we were there, so getting him used to new spaces/noises is on our "to-do" list so he's better equipped as he grows up to sleep in new places.

So yeah. I can barely contain myself that my selfless, amazing husband is willing to go through two nights of torture with our daughter so we can all sleep better. The man is a saint.

But I mean, really - this kiddo is a freaking angel and we thank our lucky stars EVERY DAY that she's ours.