L;s 1st Birthday

It's a question we as parents will ask (when we have the moment to sit down and think about it) 'Where does the time go?!' I know where it goes. It goes with the worry of naps and sleeping, of teething and eating, of tummy troubles and diaper rashes. It comes in the rush of trying to bathe one child while the baby cries in her chair... But then, it morphs into both taking a bath together. We also see it in the rolling over, the sitting, the crawling and standing. The babbling and waving and first words. Today our little L turns 1! This year truly seems like more of a blur than it had with her big sister! I can probably contribute a lot of that to her sleep issues and thus my lack of sleep and worry over it.

But my how she has grown! She's so spunky! I have since dubbed her my trouble child! After her infamous roll down the stairs at 6 months she started learning how to crawl and from then on she has gotten into everything! With M, we never really had to "baby-proof" the house just with the basics, but with L... give her an inch... I find her with something in her mouth or climbing a chair and onto the table (the toddler table), pulling things off of tables and chairs, trying to climb into the bathtub to play in the water, or scoot under a baby gate and today climbing up the stairs! Oh yeah... we're going to have our hands full with her! I have to watch her like a hawk! And all that and she still has yet to walk! But I think that's not too far off and then we're really in trouble!

She may not be much of a talker yet, but boy she can tell you what she wants with a point and a grunt! But she's also quite the cuddler under the right circumstances. She'll give hugs and kisses and she loves her big sister so much that she gets excited when we go into her room to wake her up. My favorite thing is to hear them laughing together. They are so alike but they are also so different. I'm so excited to see them grow together. 

Saturday we will have her birthday party. I know they'll both have fun because daddy has been working so hard to get the back yard ready. We are putting turf in because we had grubs destroy our lawn over the past two years. At least now the girls will have a place to play outside (in decent whether). So it will be doubly celebratory!

Happy Birthday little sunshine. 

An Historic day

As my readers know, my blog is mainly a narrative of my family life. Kind of like a journal to the world and for me to keep track of life sometimes as it goes so fast.

But today, I would like to take a moment to say congratulations to the LGBTQ community and to all Americans for the history making decision made by the SCOTUS yesterday, June 26, 2015. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states! BRAVO! It's about time! It is the type of day that makes my heart fill with joy and hope for people everywhere. How can it not?

This was not about the "definition" of marriage according to the people who oppose this ruling. As Justice Kennedy pointed out "The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times." The definition of words change as humanity changes (see this story and this one that includes an amusing note on the meaning of the word left.) There are so many examples just in the Bible itself!

I think it was George Takei that tweeted yesterday that "Gay used to mean happy, now all gay people are happy!" #Lovewins was the hashtag floating all over social media yesterday and it's perfect. Because, who are we to tell other people who to love? I was raised Catholic and just because I don't practice through the Catholic church doesn't mean I don't believe in God. The God that I believe in doesn't hate. As a Facebook friend of mine pointed out, because "God is not an asshat" :) Thanks Melissa for the quote and the cartoon.

(Image by David Hayward at www.nakedpastor.com)

First Family Road Trip - Little Miss M's Tale

Little M is becoming quite the smarty pants, and it is for this reason she thinks she is also the boss. (Hence the nickname Little Miss M) This doesn't bode well for a long drive. It just so happened that Little Miss M thought she could tell daddy what to do while we were near completing the drive up to our vacation spot. And, this is what led to the first time we had to pull over to discipline our oldest. This was the least favorite part of everyone in our car (maybe except Little L because she didn't like being in the car anyway). 

Throughout most of the drive, Little Miss M had been so good! She didn't keep asking "are we there yet", she kept her little self busy either coloring, playing games on the iPad or playing with the new little lego car we bought her. But just as we were getting close to our destination, she pulled out the "NO!" and wouldn't back down (in defiant preschooler fashion). After the disciplinary event, she was quite solemn as we were stuck in some road repair work right before reaching our destination. Finally, she came out of her self induced grump and tried to cheer up Little L who, by this time was screaming for release from her carseat bondage. 

Thankfully, that was our biggest bad behavior incident the whole trip. Little Miss loved "the cabins" as she called them. She was quite happy being able to walk to Nama and Papa's cabin everyday to see what they were doing. She loved playing in the hot springs and did such a great job practicing her back float that she was finally able to do it all by herself for a few seconds! She went fishing and caught a fish within the second try of casting (even with all her wiggling about!) She played with her cousins (arguing with little Noah was one of her pastimes). Even though she tired herself out daily with all of these activities, she went to bed late each night because she was sleeping with me and wanted to talk the whole time. I didn't mind most of the time, especially the night we had spectacular thunderstorms. She's such a big girl and is not afraid of the thunder! Even as loud and crazy as it was! We just laid on our uncomfortable pull out bed watching the lightning illuminate the room and listening to the thunder crash and echo off of the surrounding mountains. 

She makes me smile because she's growing so much and she's so smart! But of course there are her moments like on the ride up where she reminds us she's only 3 and 1/2 and still has a lot of growing and learning to do. But I'm so blessed that I'm able to be here at home with her and her sister, at least for the present, to watch them grow each day. I know it will still go by fast, my goodness, this first year of L's has gone by SO fast. But when we get to have family trips like this, it makes it all the more sweet. I hope there are many many many more to come. She has so much fun with daddy and it's so great to see them together. 

At the end of our trip when I told her we were heading home she said "but I don't want to leave the cabins!" and I said "neither do I! But we'll come back again". Hopefully we'll be able to do something like that every year. With Nama and Papa and aunty too, because that just makes it more fun!