Personalities

Having two children leads to comparisons. It is as simple as that. You can either deny or embrace it, but it is a fact of life. When you have your first child, everything they do is unique and important and singularly perfect. When they smile for the first time, laugh, eat solid foods, poop in the potty... all the happy moments of parenting come with a flourish of newness and importance. When the second comes along you begin to have the strange sense of appreciation and critical analysis occurring simultaneously. I realized this the other day when I decided Finn was going to start eating purees. 


I wanted to wait until the recommending 6 months, but then I realized I have always let my instincts win out over vaguely terrifying medical articles and so I went about feeding my son. I bought squash and sweet potatoes. I intend on making my own foods for him but wanted to test run a couple before investing the time in steaming, pureeing, freezing, storing a food type he was going to Kidwell* on me. So the comparisons started when I realized that I had started Lily on solids on January 4, 2008. It was the same month and day only 4 years later that I began foods with Finn. 


That was where the similarities ended, friends. Mark used to have to pin Lily's flailing arms down when we fed her. The real possibility of the little princess smacking liquefied carrots all over the floor was something she deemed worthy of her utmost endeavors. Finn on the other hand grabbed the spoon and like a tractor beam pulled it steadily toward his gaping mouth. The weirdest part was the look in his eyes. It was menacing yet calm, like a criminal mastermind watching his plans for world domination coming to fruition. He was intent on getting that food himself because clearly I was either too simple or too mean to get it to him fast enough. I would get the food in his mouth then dip into the bowl for more and he would start whimpering. I was wondering if he didn't like it and was less than thrilled with the whole idea. Then I realized that he was only starting to cry when I was moving the spoon away from him. I had to set the bowl under his two chins and quickly dip then insert. It was more like keeping the food coming at a constant flow rather than bites. I had a flashback during this inhalation of squash of earlier in the day when I saw spoons that held the food inside this canister attached to the handle and laughed at them in the Target aisle. 
"Hahaha! Who would need a rapid delivery system for baby food! They're just babies!" I guffawed pompously. 
Ha. Ha... harrrumph. Me. That's who.




*Kidwell: verb- to reject a food based on appearance and principle based on it's inherent health value to humans. Example if a food is in the vegetable or fruit group the likelihood of being Kidwelled is quite high. 

Lily's first foods/Carrots/1.4.2008

Finn's first foods/Squash and Rice Cereal/1.4.2012

Hiatus

Hello friends!
Sorry for the extended lack of blog posts. I had a baby. Then Lily started 4K. Then we were all sick for the month of November. Then came Christmas and now we are in the new year. 2012. We had a lot to be thankful for in the past twelve months. Chronologically I suppose we could say we celebrated Mark's last birthday in his twenties, my last birthday being pregnant, Lily's fourth birthday, Finn's miraculous entrance into the world, our five year wedding anniversary and Christmas with two beautiful children. Honestly, there is no better feeling than contentment at home. I am so blessed and feel so honored to be a wife and mommy to the loves of my life. 
We had a very perfect Christmas morning this year. Finn slept through it. Mark made coffee at 5am and we waited to hear Lily's footsteps coming down the stairs. She kept us in suspense until around 7am when we heard the familiar thump, thump, thump of a sleepy little girl making her way downstairs. She peeked her head over the banister and Mark and I were standing in the living room staring at her. This NEVER happens so she immediately raised her eyebrows in interest. 
"Dad? Is it Christmas?"
"Yes, honey."
"Mom? Is it??"
"Yes, baby."
...
"DID SANTA COME?!"
The sleepy thumps morphed into swift and precise toe touches on the remaining steps as she made her way to the tree. Presents gleamed in the glow of the tree's lights. She smiled at us and our Christmas wishes were realized.


Truly this story sums up our year. Our family is complete and we are so very blessed.


Here are some snapshots of 2011

It's a Windsday

Windy days are inevitably very funny days or very bad days for us. Our dog, Molly, chases leaves. She chases them with all the vigor of a drug addict chasing that next high. I am not exaggerating. Literally if there are leaves blowing, Molly is on alert. She chases them without regard to cars, people, yard boundaries, walls... you get the picture. Her habit could get her killed, not unlike most dangerous addictive behaviors.


So today is windy. That is an understatement. It is a no fun to be had, blustery, blow you down kind of day. So the only outdoor trip I have taken has been to the mailbox. It was a fortuitous excursion too because our state tax return from Wisconsin came today. I was excited to get my grubby hands on it so I ripped it open while walking back to the house. Now for those of you who don't know, my mailbox is maybe 20 feet from my house. Not a big deal to walk there and walk back with all that I gather from Mr. Mailbox. Today was a different story. My freezing fingers fumbled the check and it blew straight up into the sky and twirled around out of my grasp. It did a plastic bag dance a la American Beauty and I was not in jumping distance. So picture this... Molly is leaf hunting and I think to myself that she will help me since this rectangular piece of paper should spark her interest. NO. Not at all.  She ignores my calls for help and continues to stalk dead blowing leaves. I am jumping up and grabbing for this rather important document and it is swirling out of my grasp. 1) I am wearing cut off sweatpants that are holy and held together by dirt and safety pins. 2) I am wearing slipper boots. 3) I am fat and pregnant and not in good leaping and chasing shape. So I end up trying to dive on this damn check as it blows away from me. I miss. Then I feel like stomping it might stop it's motion easier and I miss several times. Luckily, yes, I did eventually pin the sucker and pick it up. I look at my house and there is Lily standing in the doorway laughing at me. I think Molly was too. And probably most of the neighbors.


Also a funny incident that happened today was on behalf of Lily's new found modesty in front of company. She has been taught that when people come over you should have pants on. Yeah, we are giant prudes. She was watching a show on PBS where they are generally located in a classroom. Well during this episode school was off for the day and all the kids from class were coming over to one boy's house. Lily was flapping her arms and whapping me with something. I was chatting with a girlfriend and was unsure of what the emergency was. I glanced down and noticed the object hitting me was her pants and she was frantically looking at me and then back at the TV. I realized too late that she was trying to get me to put her pants on before the friends came over to the boy's house. She was just sure they would see her without her pants and that was completely unacceptable. She actually bolted upstairs in tears sobbing at me that she was "so embarrassed!" because I didn't get her pants on before they got there. I felt bad but could not stop laughing silently as I apologized for my clear lack of tact and urgency in this delicate situation.


Happy Windsday!

Thawing and Planning

Have you ever noticed that when Spring finally drags itself out from behind Winter you start to notice how run down everything looks? I am sure this is why there are concepts like Spring cleaning and projects. Well, now I know why this season brings on a whole host of new tasks and lists and mini-renovations for us to do. And by us I mean mostly Mark and his dad. I can't "re-drywall the new baby's room" I don't even know where I would begin. I can paint it though. Maybe... more on that later. I tasked myself with taking on the minefield of Molly's poop piles in the front yard. This is to say that I left the much larger and fuller backyard for my strong virile husband and his masculine purple latex gloves.


I must admit the whole baby having a penis thing is really throwing me off. Mark and I are still discussing name options. I cannot decide on a manly-slash-baby color for his bedroom to be. Not to mention that I am still quite unsure what to do with a little thingy in the diaper department. The whole concept is foreign to me. I mean do I make his room stylish and sweet according to what I like? I did this with Lily's room and it came out beautiful. But are my tastes going to turn my little man's room into a metro mess? I love the thought of having a son. A little brother for Lily is going to be amazing. But I am just going to need a crash course in having a boy. I feel like this journey is begun and guided by the decisions I make with his bedroom. So with that in mind, I consulted the father unit. Mark just told me to paint it blue. I argued that if we use the bedding we had for Lily that was brown and green it won't suit to paint it blue. Then he said to paint it brown. When I began hemming and hawing about this idea he stated that he had no further input since all his suggestions were clearly being discarded upon utterance. Which I thought was really rude and that he should stick it out and help me. ;)


What I have now is all girl. All girl. All boss. All me me me. Lily is the princess of the world. She loves to call the shots. Last night she actually told me (while I was explaining to her why she needs to eat all of her dinner because she is not getting a snack afterwards) that I needed to "get this under control". She has decided on several names for her baby brother "Mazin" which is a combination of her two friends' names Mason and Isaac. Lately she has thought "Alex" for the lion from the movie Madagascar. She is just thrilled with feeling the movements of the baby in my belly. She played him some music from one of her little Fisher-Price toys and he kicked her hand. I've never seen a more genuine look of surprised glee. She is already surprising me in what she understands and is looking forward to with the baby on the way. Like she asks which way the baby is positioned so that she can kiss his forehead. She asks how much room he is going to take up... "is he going to take up all of your tummy then move to your back?!" She is already very sweet with little babies that she has been around. Mostly I am just excited for the two of them to meet.


Enough of this sweet tender moment stuff. I better get back to my endless list making and plan creating for Mark's projects. And any ideas are welcome on this paint color idea... 

A BOY!

We have a clip from the first ultrasound. We have a 90% positive result from the doctor that he is a HE indeed. This ultrasound was a 2D with 3D enhancement clips. The following video is a 40 second clip of the 3D portion. It was such an amazing experience. We had Lily along with us and she did pretty well. She was underwhelmed when she was told that it was a boy though. The doc actually said he didn't want to tell us the gender while she was in the room because he didn't want to make her mad. She started crying in the car and said, "I don't want a boy brother. I want a girl SISTER!"

Unfortunately the umbilical cord kept being in the way of the region we were trying to look at. So we are going back for another looksee in a few months. Sorry this post is short. Enjoy the video!

Ohhhrganization...

Frickin stupid idiot moron worthless useless forgetful wasteful unorganized poser of a human. Mean? Yes. True? Yes. Okay, so I am being dramatic. Today I decided to organize our attic because we have so much stuff that we simply don't use. I have six bins of Lily's outgrown baby clothes stacked ceiling high in the attic. Behind these boxes I found three rumpled and squished white garbage bags with holes in them. Contained in these were some of my favorite outfits of Lily's ranging from NB to 3 month sizes. I almost started crying. I cannot believe I let this sit in the corner of the attic unprotected from bugs and the elements. I should have had these priceless items folded, binned and properly labeled!

This reminded me of how often things fall to the wayside if we don't constantly organize and prioritize. I try to make a lovely home for my family and part of that is keeping our memories safe. Until I complete this task I don't think I am going to feel good about getting our home ready for our newest addition. Maybe my pregnancy hormones are going nuts right now but at least it is motivating me to put away these tiny items as they should have been from jump.

On a lighter note, Mark and I had an amazing dinner at Mama Maria's last night. We celebrated our marriage and had a meal that was so delicious I had a "close your eyes and say 'mmmm' moment" about the risotto. Around the time we were finishing up and discussing dessert, Mark asked if there was anything I couldn't pass up on the menu. When I decided that I was too full to even consider it he said he wanted to grab the bill so that we could go get Lily and celebrate Valentine's Day with her over some ice cream. It was so sweet of him that I had to tell him that I was touched that he wanted to have a special treat with her in addition to our night. He told me he had to have a date with his "tiniest Valentine" as well as with me. Awww.

Alright, back to work.

The Many Hats of Lily Kidwell

Since I have last blogged we have decided that it would be ok to tell Lily about the baby. It has been a constant barrage of cuteness and hilarity since we had that talk. She has already come up with several (unusable) names for the baby. Tillie, Hella, Pummel, Tennie, Poya, Poonie to name a few of the gems we have heard more than once. Lily insists on talking to the baby in my tummy. She presses her mouth into my gut and talks into my chub. It's hilarious because she asks where the baby's ears are to make sure she can hear her. I used a feminine pronoun because Lily has requested a sister. Tonight Lily looked at me with a very concerned face and said,
"I forgot to talk to the baby today!"
So we pulled up my shirt. She inserted her face into my belly and said,
"Hiiiii, Baby. You're so cute. Bein' so kindful to Mommy in her tummy."

Earlier this week we were spending some time at Mark's parents' house. Mark's dad slipped on the deck and had a nasty fall. Mark's brother Michael and I were sitting in the living room so we didn't know that this had happened. Mark had called from the deck to Lily at the door to go get Uncle Mike. Lily comes running into the room and tells us, "Uncle Mike! I need you! I've got a big problem!"

Mike and Mark get their dad in the house and settled into his chair. He had hurt his arm pretty badly. I was looking around in the meantime to see where Lily had gone. She comes into the living room lugging her doctor kit and proceeds to set up shop at Papa's chair. She climbed up in his lap and took his temperature. She checked his eyes and nose. She delicately smashed his shins to check his reflexes. She deemed him to be hurt and gave him a shot, a bandaid and a cast. She then diagnosed him to bedrest. The tiny three year old sent him to bed immediately and with no complaints. Mark's dad is a notorious bad patient. He has a severe dislike for doctors. I think Dr. Lily changed his outlook. She informed the rest of us that she was going to lay down with him and make sure he was ok.

Here is a shot of the doctor taking good care of her patient.