predictable four month check-in

mia is four months old, you guys. yet, i know it was just last week that i poked in here to brag about all of her three month tricks. there's got to be a way to bottle the baby months, doesn't there? i'd pay some real good money to be able to swim in these precious times for the rest of my life. i'd even be willing to hang on to the mid-night feedings if it meant i could smooch those million dollar cheeks for the rest of my days. gosh darn it, mommyhood is a heartbreaker.

to celebrate amelia's fourth month on earth, we met her new doctor and impressed him with her no-doubt record breaking verbal skills and physical abilities. amelia's sweet demeanor and impressive neck strength had the new doctor eating out of her tightly clenched fists, which must have made the three shots that followed seem all the more cruel. she handled the pain with a brave face and a few marble-sized tears, and then promptly fell asleep for what seemed like 24 hours. when she woke up this morning, she remembered the agony she'd dealt with the day before and hasn't let us forget about it since. in the hours she's been awake she's cried more than i've ever known to her to cry since birth, so you know we hurt her feelings in a big way, to say nothing of the sad sores she's carrying around under those tweety bird bandaids. poor girl.

a few days ago, i walked in to find amelia several inches from the perch i swore i'd set her in, and she'd pivoted about 45 degrees. the following day, she rolled from her back to her tummy. you don't need to tell me these little moments are important only to her overly proud parents. you also don't need to tell me she's incredible. because i know.

i mentioned last month in passing that our little family moved from virginia recently; but as it played out the move was pretty monumental for us, and really sort of a dream come true. before joey and i got married, we lived together in a cute little house in st. paul, and i think since then i've always imagined raising our family back there some day. in a mix of fate, good luck, and probably a lot of stubborn determination - here we are. it's insane to drive around these cozy little streets in the same car we used to cruise in, just the two of us, but now with two car seats in back and babes to fill them. strange the way life shakes out sometimes, isn't it? and even as i type this, i can't help but feel so grateful for the time we had in virginia - all the growth, all the challenges - and the the enormous blessing that we somehow found ourselves back here.

some day, i'll post a few pictures of our house now that we've settled in a little and finally feel like it's ours. we moved in to what we thought was a completely move-in-ready gem, but it turns out historic homes - for all their charm and beauty - come with fun little projects that aren't at all 'fun' and  are even less 'little'. we've quite literally been working on something in the house since we moved in. there may have even been one night where joey was haunting around at 2:00am trying to get the heat to come on in negative outside temperatures. i told you, not at all fun. but i have to hand it to joey for all of his hard work and handy-man skills. we've only ever rented together, with actually really responsive land-lords willing to fix just about anything in less than 24 hours, so it's been fun for me to see the hidden skills joey's been able to pull out as a home-owner almost every day around here. i think my parents would be thrilled to know that i married someone so able :) i, of course, married him for his good looks and wit, so the extra skills are just a welcomed bonus.

thanks for reading this extra long novel. check back next month for a fifth installment of amelia's bio, and maybe a few pictures of our home - if you're good.

xoxo


amelia at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months.
henry at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, 12 months, and 13 months.

amelia is 2 months!!

today, our sweet mia turned 2 months old. what is it about baby number 2 that turns it all around? maybe that was just my experience, maybe henry was a particularly challenging baby. maybe he was born at a particularly challenging time in my life - our marriage. when everything was new, and babies are different - much different than they could ever warn you of, than you could ever prepare yourself for.

remember this post? i was in the thick of it, newly parenting. i didn't know who i was or what i was doing, and it was the scariest time of my life. i have never felt so ill-prepared or -equipped in my life.

mia is a ray of sunshine. she makes the world feel right, our family feel complete. she wakes needing only to eat and nothing more. she sleeps like a puppy in the window, with her lips suckling and her eye-lids darting every which way through a dream where she is no doubt chasing after her brother, mama's voice, or something i've never imagined.

when i met mia, i felt a peacefulness settle over me, after a somewhat nervous pregnancy. she was here, she was safe, and we were all going to be okay. throughout the 9 months i carried her, i was terrified of finding the loneliness that came with henry's infancy again, and feeling - knowing - i was doing all the wrong things. i had celebrated each new stage, each new development with henry, because we'd survived them. because maybe with the next stage i would handle things better. it would become more natural to me (it was all SUPPOSED to feel natural. it didn't).

today, i am relieved. i am elated. i am so very in love with amelia, our family, this life.

amelia sleeps 5 hour stretches though the night, allowing her mother to sleep like a human (bless you, baby girl). she started smiling this week - wide mouth, lots of gum, her little eyes deep blue slits of happiness. when she's not smiling, she is incredibly serious. watching, waiting. she's on alert, and always turns for familiar voices - mama, daddy. brother keeps us all a little weary. we watch him cautiously when he nears his sister. what will he do? last night he punched her in the head while i was feeding her. this morning, he showered her with sweet kisses and doted over her as if she were a beloved pet. amelia will learn to rely on her brother's ever changing temperament :) and she will know he loves her deeply, as we all do.

happy 2 months, precious babe. i love with you the whole of my being.

if you care to look back -

amelia at 1 month.
henry at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, 12 months, and 13 months.

amelia elizabeth

amelia (mia) was born september 26 at 12:11am. she was 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 inches long. when they told us she was here, she immediately shouted back at them with blood curdling screams that lasted for well over 10 minutes. she was ours, she knew how to scream :)

my birth experience with amelia resonates with me as a relatively calm, peaceful one. i was scheduled for a c-section on september 26, but my water broke the night before. my mom had just flown in to town to stay with henry, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect. when joey and i arrived at the hospital, they ushered us immediately to labor and delivery, and i felt like we were on a smooth little amusement park ride from there until we came out the other side in a sweet corner hospital room with a baby girl in our arms as our fuzzy prize.

since mia's birth, we've kept our little family of 4 as active as can be. joey went back to work the day we got home from the hospital. henry went back to daycare the following day, and a week after we got home from the hospital we hopped on a plane to minneapolis to spend some time with joey's family.

somehow, through the fog of midnight feedings, caring for a spicy-as-ever henry, and trying like crazy to keep up with the laundry that is now laced with spit-up and pink - so much pink! - we've already found ourselves a month in to this new version of life. last night, the one month anniversary of her birth, mia slept 5 hours. total. which was a not so welcomed surprise for her mother, because generally she's a pretty decent sleeper. last week she decided she'd only nurse a select number of times in a day, and all other nutrients would need to come directly from a bottle - thank you very much. she's relatively tolerant of her brother, and the reciprocal is probably true... sometimes. although, in the first days mia was home henry wished her back into mom's tummy several hundred times, and he can never be trusted for more than a fraction of a second alone in the same room with his beloved baby sis for fear that his "love" will translate into a violent display of non-affection/torture.

in celebration of mia's one month of life, here are some traditional pictures (link: henry at 1 month) in a white onesie for comparison.

pssst... quick update

henry lives for a select number of not.too.guilty (but he should be) pleasures in his life: youtube videos of "halloween", eating lollipops until his face and hands are smeared with 4 shades of sticky sugar, and retrieving boxes from our concierge. his requests for all three fly from his mouth on incessant repeat all the blessed way home from daycare. and lest you get the sinful impression that we tele-parents let him drown in sugar baths and television marathons whenever the prince pleases, i assure you that is not the case. but lately, h has discovered the joys of snapchat - where he is straight mystified by the collection of face and costume modifications he can make within seconds (see video above). and that! that is the kind of real.guilty.pleasure i can get behind any time of day he asks.

h - 'see pictures?'
j - 'certainly, my son. for as long as your paper thin patience/attention span will allow.'

last week, the snow came to dc in a big bad way, and so we were locked snuggled  at home with the rest of the dc crazies for the entire weekend.

not my photo credit, and also this is what e.v.e.r.y street looked like for days!

as i'm sure you heard, dc/northern virginia do not do snow well, and the folks hiking down this main vein in arlington are a testimant to just that. to be fair, the sidewalks are buried in 2 feet of snow here, so the street is where the walking is going to get done.

but then, as it does, the snow melted and we took off our jackets to play at the park amidst the snow piles and dripping puddles.

in less than nine days, my mom and her husband are shipping us all away on a disney cruise of a lifetime, and we're all just wiggling with excitement. how lovely does this sound right now?

stay warm!

happy post-labor day

joey is out of town this week, which is a bitter/sweet mix of how.the.hell.am.i.going.to.do.this and i.totally.can.do.this. the reality is, i can. we will. but i seriously just googled "how to be happy in a face-paced life", because it will always be my struggle. and also, this happened almost a year ago, when all of this was just a speckle of a nightmare, left over from the last time. and so the emotions are running hot right now.

here, this might help.

or this one.

yep, that kind of helped.

he's always got a lot of work to do.

we went to this place on monday to celebrate the day of no-labor. we had the best time while we were there. it sort of felt like life was completely perfect just right where we were, in the way things fall into place so exquisitely sometimes, completely non-replicable and organic; when the moods are just right. the weather was hot, but just breezy enough to cut the sweat by a fourth or two. we covered all the land - spent a good amount of time in the chicken coop, paid close attention to the goats in lieu of the missing sheep (henry's current favorite), and rolled in any and all available dirt. 

in the end, we walked away with a red smattering of dust covering every square inch of our bare summer skin, caked on just so with salty sweat and hard earned grit. we left just as the mad dash to the roosteraunt carried the crowd in the opposite direction of the exit. within ten minutes into our drive home, henry was asleep. hat down, shielding his smudged face from the demanding summer sun.

when i think back on all of the weekends we've spent huddled up as a family of three, this memory is climbing the charts as one of my favorite. and really, who even knows why? except maybe it was the promise of fall lingering in the shadows and whispering at us in the breeze. or that we were gooshy about apple cider and newly stocked pumpkin butter and jams, henry's halloween costume, and joey's trip home for this on sunday. and probably, it doesn't matter. i'm just grateful we grabbed it while it was there.

i hope your short week is off to a great start!

around here

 

singing. not choking (i swear it). 

once upon a time, i hated the grocery store. all kinds of decisions. all kinds of too high price tags for my measly pennies. when joey and i first moved in together, there were all these negotiations in the produce isle, like - 

"i really don't care, though." 

"no, i know that you care, you just think i won't like what you pick."

"just, tell me what you would have chosen if i wasn't here." 

"ugh! please, j.u.s.t.p.i.c.k?!"

grapes? green or red. maybe that was the decision. either way, what a dreaded waste of time.

and as riveting as those conversations sound, they were terribly irritating. and so, as essential as it is, the grocery store and i had a hard few years.

fast forward a zillion years, to this kraaaayyyyzzzay life, and it's grocery stores to which we are magnetized. because our grocery store has a splash park out front. and henry's barber. and a coffee shop across the street - although i have it on good authority there's a big bad starbucks coming in that's going to wipe our neighborhood coffee joint clean out (bummer!). it also has a cvs. just next door. don't park there - says the girl whose car was recently towed for a lofty price.

the last two weeks have been packed full of house guests. my mom for a week, joey's mom and our nine-year-old niece last week. then, my brother and his wife rolled in to bum around until cody was planned to start treatment yesterday at duke. then, plans changed. they left us on monday evening, and we've been ghosting around the house searching for ah-yee (holli) ever since.

we really hated to see them go! but we had the best time while they were here!

 

there are a lot of things i want to tell you about my brother, cody. he's 2.5 years older than me. when we were growing up he didn't go to bed one single night without first yelling through the wall at me - "good night, jamie. love you!" he got stitches approximately once per summer, because he was a maniac on recreational vehicles. i'm not sure he's any less of a maniac now, except he's banned from driving these days. he and i once spun (i'm talking complete 360) a ford explorer in the middle of a highway while pheasant hunting. that was scary. we did the same thing a few years later in the middle of the busiest street in our hometown because he was trying to pass a car on the way home from school, on ice. like i said, maniac. yet, he hates to get into a car with me if i'm driving. brothers. 

ten years ago, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. for the past ten years we've been giving the middle finger to brain tumor diagnoses, because he beat it. he was healed. and then one day, he wasn't anymore.

i've linked to my sister-in-law's blog a time or two before. i'll do it again probably a dozen or million times. they're in a hard fight right now; luckily, they've got a great team backing them.

if you want to help, there are lots of ways. here is a flyer for a fundraiser on september 13th. 

here, you can buy a shirt to show your support and also contribute to their treatment fund. there's also a link on the site to donate, in case you don't like grey shirts.

you can read all about it, here, but this family's story is that they're incredible people, with three incredible kids. and cody's got this terrifying disease with a disgusting prognosis. and they, like everyone on the planet, do not deserve this journey. but they're determined to give it everything they've got. thank you so much for any help and/or prayers you can send them.

h + mom = love, unless grandma's in town

last week, henry remembered how awesome it is to have his grandma in town :) every day he got to sleep really late, wake up and play until his little body was worn plum out, and all the while enjoy the luxury of at least 2 pairs of eyes on him every.single.second. simply heaven.

my mom and her husband drove from south dakota again this year to spend time bumming around in virginia with us and to deliver all million and one pounds of our christmas gifts. henry wasn't spoiled even a little bit the whole time. he was a sad, sad babe when mama came home from work every day to play too, aka ruin henry's life! my sweet, devoted mama's boy wanted not one single thing to do with his silly mother the first few days of grandma's visit. who could really blame him, though? mom's a total snooze.

on saturday we took our visitors to the air and space museum near dulles, va. it's such a cool place to explore, and the weather was crummy all weekend so being inside was the perfect way to pass the time. 

isn't it funny how different 9ish months makes! 

poor h had to say goodbye to his favorites on monday night so they could take off early on tuesday morning. we're excited to have grandma back again in march. thanks for a great visit guys!

o.n.e.

my little boy, he's...

one!

which sincerely makes me stop cold in my tracks, as first birthdays usually do. twelve months. how did that much time pass? because i swore that wouldn't be me, i wouldn't be that mom who let the clock spin so quickly, or let the hours pass without notice. but i was, and it did. and even though through the cold, lonely 3 o'clock feedings, when i was sure the hours didn't pass at all, i knew without a doubt i would be able to control the time, and the passing of it. wrong, wronger, wrongest.



on the day my henry turned one, joey and i tore into his bedroom the second we heard him stir. and with us, we brought gold balloons. scads and scads of gold balloons with which to fill his crib. he swam around in the magic of being a one year old boy with golden balloons in his stark white crib while his crazy parents sang "happy birthday" in goofy voices and smiled and squealed until he was giggling himself, so caught up in the fun of it all.

and then, he swam some more! it was our first day of swimming lessons, and henry was so tired he could hardly keep his weary eyes open. but he was such a good sport, and i am so excited to go back tomorrow for lesson number 2!

we had the most special day with my very special boy. i just couldn't be more proud of this kid.

to round out the tradition, here's my hucka at 12 months - one year old!

and don't forget, henry at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, and 11 months.

as it is

we spend a lot of time cleaning at our house, because everything is made to eventually land in the destructive hands of our (almost) one year old. we've got a lot of ripped pages, stained couch cushions, and barely-together shelving units. most of our spare time is spent chasing after huck as he races towards the nearest cable box to rip it from its television set. it's life with a one year old, and it's sweet. bitter sweet in its purest form.

a few weekends ago, we drove to gaithersburg, md in search of pumpkins at their annual oktoberfest. but although the place was covered in scads of pumpkins, not a one was for sale. so we trucked along, enjoying sausages and pretzels the size of our heads. somewhere along our stroll henry lost a shoe, and then we decided it was time for his first professional hair cut. so when we got back to the car, we had a half inch less hair, approximately one missing shoe, and no pumpkins. those kinds of things are just the way our weekends crumble around here, and if it's not a missing shoe it's a broken garbage disposal, which is what our sunday morning is shaking out to look like this time around.

i hope your weekend's been full of sunshine the way ours has. last night, joey and i entrusted the sleeping life our our hucka to a stranger named janesse who we met off care.com, and stole away for a fancy georgetown dinner. we walked the busy sidewalks without a stroller or a henry in our arms and relished in the company of just the one we married, which was a refreshing change of events and certainly worth every college savings account we depleated along the way (childcare is e.x.p.e.n.s.i.v.e!)

happy halloween week!

happy fall to you

this weekend was filled to the brim with orange melons, seasonal photos, and beautiful weather. we were in fall heaven all weekend long.

henry wasn't quite sure what he was expected to do with the odd shaped balls that we kept propping him in front of. he couldn't get over the strange arms sticking out the top of all of them that really tasted like nothing at all (he tried and tried to suck out the flavor, as he does with everythingelseontheplanet). and the straw all over the ground was maybe the most annoying thing he's had to deal with yet, because it stuck on hard to his klepto fingers and tasted even worse than the strange wooden arms.

 he found out later that the white balls were for painting....

mom and dad opted to forego the paint for good ol' fashioned carving.

joey hopes you'll notice the perfect placement of that pumpkin scar just between the eyes of his
masterpiece. i'll tell him you did.

henry already has his halloween costume hanging in wait in his closet. he can't wait to slip squeeze into it later this month so his mother can take an unhealthy amount of pictures and plaster them here for y'all to see. hurry back!

dear huck // 8

the other day i turned around to see what it was that you were so loudly screeching about, with your hands out and your wrists waving like you could just take off and fly for all the excitement shooting out of your little body. i realized in that second that you'd become a toddler somehow over night, and just like that my wiggly little baby was gone. i'm not as sad about that as i'd expected to be. these versions of you are all so perfect and the one we're in now, where you have two big bottom teeth and f.o.u.r slivers of top teeth coming in, all in itty bitty increments, and you're learning to make big splashy messes in the bathtub at night, and how to be sneaky about the way you grab on to the slippery side of the tub and pull yourself straight up so you're standing tall and proud in the two seconds it takes me to turn my head to talk to daddy, is so very sweet. i want you to know this stage of your life is busy, but you like busy much more than mommy does. you relish in our after daycare dashes to the grocery store and if it means a really short car ride you'd spend all weekend long running around the city from one place to the next. the more movement the better, and if we can run into as many puppies and other toddlers your age you're happy to ride along and shout out to the world how very great this life of ours is.

you're teaching me to be strong, honey. and along with your daddy, you're showing me how incredibly lucky i've been in my life. we've got so very much to be grateful for. there's nothing in the world i would trade this in for! nothing in the world.

love you, my hucka!
mommy

a nine month check-in

hi friends! henry's been doing a lot of exploring these days, because his parents are obsessed with their new neighborhood and finally see fit to wander around the streets in the carefree way they used to wander around their neighborhood in st. paul. it feels so good to be able to take h out on the sidewalk without fearing for his life as the speeding cars race past a mere 2 inches from our faces. our old house in alexandria was just off the busiest of highways, and unless we wanted to remain locked in our town-home complex, we had to brave the traffic to hop over to the not-nice-at-all neighborhoods around us.

i think joey and i echo the same sentiment about our adoration for our new apartment about 10 times a day, we just can't say it enough! our old place was fine, but this place! this is where we belong! at least for the next year or so ;)

oh, and henry wants to show you his new room! he loves that his floor is now covered in plush carpet - perfect for all kinds of rolling about. 

last wednesday, henry had his nine month well-baby check-in. we rounded out the appointment with a single shot in the leg that henry took like a true gentleman. he looked over at me in utter disappointment, let out a single cry, and turned his full attention toward sophie, because sometimes there's really nothing else to be said. his weight and height have remained safely in the 70ish percentile, but like a true larson he's got the melon of a giant - 91%. with a gourd like that we'll be wheeling him to pre-school, because never will he ever stand unsupported. and as i say that he's anchoring himself to the side of the coffee table with one hand grasping a red ball and two feet planted semi-firmly in place. my sense is that his inability to keep his nose out of the business of everyone else's will drive him to walking much early than i'll ever be ready for.

enjoy your week!