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 three months!

merry christmas! i hope yours was as good as ours. and i hope your christmas tree photo was coordinated. stripped pajamas - i know you know what i'm talking about. i know  you took your christmas tree photo christmas morning, while your kids were red cheeked and glowing. i know your hair was perfect. ours was taken after the presents were unwrapped and our kids were glassy eyed and exhausted. we do things a little more raw around here. i can't stop looking at that family of mine in our mismatched pajamas. i can't think of anything else in this world that i could have asked for. that little picture is my christmas miracle.

the day after christmas, amelia turned three months old. in the last month, she's grown so much. she holds her head, steady as can be. she watches quietly, sometimes chirping at her brother as he wizzes past.

she loves to eat and spends the hours after a bottle spitting up and smiling. i've never met a more content and happy baby. she prefers to be standing, and if you sit her on your lap she'll stretch her legs out and arch her back so you remember to hold her up tall like the big girl she is. she splashes hard in the bath, soaking the towel and counter top around her. she watches her brother like she's memorizing everything he does, as if she's preparing for a pinnacle moment when she'll be big enough to run as fast as he runs, climb as high as he climbs. her eyes are set, determined.

we moved from virginia to minnesota this month. mia has her own bedroom filled with colorful garland and soft, fluffy carpet. her bedroom is right at the top of the stairs, and i imagine her in there rocking her dolls and hiding from her brother. or maybe standing her dinosaurs side by side, in perfect little rows, the way she watched her brother do it. whatever she does, it will be epic, and we will love her endlessly.

happy three months, baby girl.


amelia at 1 month, 2 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.

what would henry say?

the other day i saw a list on one of the blogs i read obsessively of questions to ask your kids about their parents. although most of the questions were probably better suited for older kids, i thought it would be fun to see what henry could articulate at two-and-a-half. here's what he had to say:

how old is mom? one

is mom big or small? big

is mom a boy or a girl? girl

what color does mom like? pink*

where does mom work? i don't know either

what makes mom happy? me!

what makes mom sad? daddy time-out me

he did surprising well, so i thought i'd get crazy and ask him a few questions about henry -

how old is henry? one

is henry a boy or a girl? boy

what is henry's favorite color? blue... no, red

which park is the best park? the rock one**

what do you want to eat for supper? mac'n cheese

bath or shower? shower

is henry big or small? small

what do you like to watch on tv? um, i don't know either. dinosaur train.

who does henry love? mommy and daddy. and grandma too.

who loves henry? daddy. grandma and mommy.

*not even a little bit
**you didn't see any rocks? look closer, there are "mountains" that lead up to the parking lot in the background of the picture. joey is convinced mountain climbing on those rocks will be henry's demise.

on tuesday, henry had his 2-1/2 year check with his pediatrician. he weighs almost 30 pounds, and slid in right around the 50% mark in height, weight, and bmi. at 2-1/2 he's talking constantly. he's obsessed with dinosaurs and snakes. he's got a pet caterpillar, with which he's surprisingly gentle, but he doesn't understand why the caterpillar can't hang out on the couch with him to watch "tee-b". he still needs mom or dad to read at least 5 books before bed, and nothing on this earth will separate him from a blanket or 5 at night.

this weekend my sweet friend and her husband are coming to dc. she and i lived together in college and spent the better part of our senior year in high school attached at the hip, so she's my girl. i'm excited to spend more than an hour or two with her, which has been the max since we both had kids and i moved away.

have a great one!

i love you really much

the other night as joey and henry nestled in for bedtime books in the wooden rocking chair beside henry's bedroom window, i leaned in past h's blue sippy cup to give him a kiss and to tell him one last time before leaving them alone, "i love you, henry." and in the same way he always does, he continued to drink his milk as if his very life depended on each gulp, focused hard on the page joey was about to start reading, and stole the quickest of breaths to mumble, "wruv ew," before latching back onto his cup and ushering me out of his room with the turn of his head. i smiled as i got up to turn around, and took one more glance at my handsome little boy in his fleece onsie 'jamas, buried beneath his treasured blanket, and stacked on top of my husband - maybe the most precious site. and then, out of nowhere, henry's head arched back up. he unlatched his milk and peered at me with worried, sincere eyes and said, "i wruv ew wriddy much." he extended the last word, "mu-uch," morphing the monosyllabic, simple word into an emotion-soaked, somewhat forlorn two syllables. it reminded me of the way he sounds describing how the little monkey cries when he falls off the bed, "he's wriddy sa-ad."

i stopped, stunned at how his eyes seemed to carry so much meaning in those moments. stunned at how grown up he feels at just two and a half. stunned at how much i can love someone so enormously who seems to take every last ounce of sanity and energy from my days.

there are no words to aptly describe the feeling of being a mom. i think that's why so many people try consistently, almost religiously, across a child's life to put into words the meaning of motherhood or the emotions that swing in an out of a single day spent mothering. each stage of childhood feels like a new phenomenon, waiting to be documented with complex specification. so as not to forget. so an not to lose sight of even a sliver of detail. because even as we live it we know how fleeting and precious the moments are.

for me, the highs and lows of motherhood extend to such extremes it sometimes feels like henry and i are on the most insane roller coaster, and someone (most likely me) irresponsibly gave henry the all-powerful throttle. most nights, it takes all remaining energy that i have to brush my teeth and fall hard into bed - long before most would consider it a reasonable hour for sleeping. i don't take the time these days to reflect on the magic of it all. i forget that the hard days turn into the very days i will always yearn for, and inevitably some day ache for.

in that moment, as i sputtered in place, staring in awe at my little boy, it was all i could do not to pick him up, kiss his gooshy cheeks, and hold on to him in an absurd attempt to capture everything he was in that second with just my arms. instead, i kissed him one last time and brushed his gooshy cheek with my hand and thanked god for the incredible gift of that little boy.

henry, my stinker, i love you really much, too.

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!