EJisms

Where did my little girl go?

Every day EJ gets more verbal and better at pronouncing things. And it breaks my heart. I don't want her to have perfect diction. I desperately want her to always call fish "pish" and school busses "coos busses". But unfortunately she worked those out months ago. So before all of her adorable mis-sayings are gone, I am going to write down as many as I can think of.

sprinkle ----> sprinkler

hooker -----> hanger (this lead to a particularly hysterical conversation that went something like this:

"EJ, what happened to your leg?"

"I scraped it on daddy's hooker"

<awkward pause>

"HANGER! She means hanger")

mines ------> mine

nickles ------> nipples

lello -------> yellow

locker ------> the door knob covers

amimal ------> animal, aka her stuffed animals
mishmatics camp ------> gymnastics camp
drinky -----> thirsty

She has also started using a lot of abstract phrases and sayings that seem very grown up, and yet she uses them totally correctly.  Things like "Well, actually..."  and making declarations about what she will be able to do when she "grows bigger" (this involves important items like being able to ride in the passenger seat of the car rather than her carseat and being able to eat as much bread as she wants with dinner), and "Now, listen Mommy..." (which is typically followed by the opening bid of some negotiation), and one of my favorites, when I ask her to do something for me like throw away a diaper or bring me a toy for Nora and she replies with "I can't, I am very busy."  (which, to be fair, she is)

We just adore this little person. I really hope that the days & years ahead are even more awesome because I am desperately sad for this stage to ever end. This is such a fantastic age: her wonder and joy with the world, her complete innocence and unselfconscienceness in her actions, as well as the fabulous hilarity that both comes out of her mouth and is in her facial expressions and reactions to everything.  

Where is the pause button???

Please never grow up, sweet girl!!!!

Our little Supergirl

Another truth about going from 2 to 1....

I can't believe I forgot this in my first post! One immediate, detrimental item: the new baby makes your old baby not a baby anymore. I mean physically. From the minute we brought Nora home, EJ seemed like a giant. Her previously adorable tiny feet were now neither tiny nor quite as adorable. Changing her diaper was like changing a grown man's diaper (I am only guesstimating here... I hope to never actually know what it is like to change a grown man's diaper). Omar actually said something along the lines of "Nora ruined our baby," for which I totally understood what he meant -----> we had been desperately holding onto EJ's "baby girl" status, and while she will ALWAYS be our baby, she was legitimately a little girl. But it wasn't until we brought Nora home that we truly realized it.

I'm not going to lie.....that was a tiny bit heart breaking. And it took some getting used to. But we did get used to it, and I think we are now more able to really appreciate the amazing stage that EJ is in, with how independent and verbal and truly funny she is. She is definitely a little girl now, a true little person. And I love her even more every single day for it.

New 2nd-parents-to-be: you have been warned. Be prepared. The new baby will "ruin" your old baby. But don't worry, they aren't ruined for long.  =)

The Adventures of Sally and Bum-Bum

It goes without saying that I have the greatest sister of all time.  This has been apparent to me for many years, but as the final proof of the pudding, she volunteered to come live with us after Nora was born to help with the transition.  I mean, what???? How did I luck into that? My own personal live-in nanny during the newborn stage? YES PLEASE.

Having Merrill live with us for the first

few months of Nora's life gave me the chance

to do this, for which I am forever grateful

For those of you who know her, it goes without saying that she is amazing with kids (likely because she is basically just a big kid herself in many ways) and Everett has always adored her. But when she came to live with us, a special new relationship developed between them, and thus I get to the crux of my post ----->  The Adventures of Sally and Bum-Bum

This is Sally

And here's Bum-Bum

People often ask, "Where did the names come from?" to which I answer "The depths of my amazingly crazy, & weird child's mind."  The truth is that we were driving home from the zoo one day shortly after Nora was born and out of the blue EJ declared that her name was Sally and Merrill was Bum-Bum. I have no idea where that came from. I still don't know. All I do know is that from that day forward, EJ would ONLY respond to Sally and she insisted that everyone call Merrill Bum-Bum.  Her teachers even pulled me aside at carpool one day to express their concern about the fact that my 3 year old had officially changed her name. 

This was the blossoming of one of the most heartwarming, adorable, and endearing relationships I have seen my child make. There is very little that makes EJ more excited - outside of perhaps cake - than hearing that Bum-Bum is coming to visit.  Every morning we drive past Merrill's house on the way to school and every morning EJ gets excited about it, waves, and exclaims with glee "I saw Bum-Bum's car!"  She still insists on being called Sally about 75% of the time (although recently that has decreased as she has increasingly insisted that she is Princess Elsa) and god forbid we try to call Merrill anything other than Bum-Bum. 

The hugest thanks possible to my sister for making such amazing memories with my daughter; for loving her as if she were her own; for acting a fool with her; for showing her such amazing love, support, and compassion; for sharing in her joy and fears and wonder of the world.  Thank you, Bum-Bum, for being the wonderful crazy aunt that we all need in our lives. I love you and the love you have shown my children is perhaps the greatest gift you could have ever given me. 

Long live Sally and Bum-Bum!

Trouble on the move!

It's official! Despite all my best attempts to thwart her, Nora is finally mobile. 

Lord help us all!

Sometimes the days are realllllllllly long

Today was a good day.  EJ went to school, Nora hung with me. I picked EJ up from school and rather than going home for naps, we went to Amy's house for the afternoon since I knew Omar had to work late. This was win-win: EJ got to play with her bestie Elliott, and I got to spend time with my bestie Amy.  Plus Nora naps anywhere and Amy has a new baby so basically we spend our time sitting around nursing our nuggets while making sure our toddlers don't kill each other.

The fine line always is missing the nap. On the one hand, she only actually naps every 3 days or so. On the other hand, at the end of the week adding on a super-awesome 5 hour playdate with her favorite playmate is a recipe for exhaustion. Which leads me to the looooooooooooooong part of the day, and what people without kids probably don't understand: a really great day can become an agonizingly long day so very quickly, and in just the final hour or two before bedtime.

We got home. There were tears on her part just getting out of the car (how dare I ask her to carry in her bookbag, didn't I know how HEAVY it was???)  EJ needed dinner but didn't want to eat anything I made nor actually sit down.  In the final 30 minutes of her day between arriving home and eating dinner, she went to timeout 4 times. At bedtime, getting her upstairs and ready for bed was another massive fight that ended in tears for both of us and makes me worried about the teenage years.  And all I can think is that such a fun day, one that involved laughing, learning, singing, running, jumping, climbing, exploring, and getting dirty (in a good way) could end so badly, so that her last memories of the day were of frustration, anger, and tears. That's not how I want her day to end. That's not what I want her childhood to be filled with, and yet so many days end that way. I hope I am not the only mom who can claim that.

So, after I left her crying, locked in her bedroom, seeing red because she refused to put on her pullup and I couldn't physically force her nor mentally threaten her to do it, I sat and cried at the top of the stairs and realized that I shouldn't have to take either of those approaches, and I didn't want her day to end that way.  And my amazing husband came home (FINALLY) from work right at that moment and said the magic words that all wives want to hear: 'What can I do to help" and I was able to unload on him and rather than crucifying me for my appalling actions he said he understood and we have all been there (which I don't know if I believe but it did make me feel better).

And then I was able to pull it together and go back in there and apologize to my daughter. Because I think it is important to always say you are sorry, to admit when you have behaved badly, to own it. And I held her and hugged her and kissed her all over and let her know how very much I love her, and how she is the most important little person in my life. And I can only hope and pray that her take-away from tonight, what she remembers, is that her mom is a normal person who can make mistakes and act badly, but that at the end of it all, her mom is also someone who can own her mistakes, say she is sorry, and that - NO MATTER WHAT - I love her more than life.

She got lots of extra snuggles from me. And probably the authors of the kid discipline books out there would be horrified by my actions (since, let's be honest, she was a total nightmare and rather than standing my ground I totally folded and wrapped her in hugs and kisses and love), but I'm ok with that.  Sometimes we all need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at the bigger picture and the smaller moments. My big picture here was that no one is more important or loved than my daughter. My smaller moment is that she was shattered, and she needed my love. And she got it. She always will.

The truth about going from 1 to 2 kids

My peeps

If you follow my blog then you are familiar with my concerns before Nora was born about having a second child. Will I neglect Everett because I have a second human being to keep alive? Will Everett be upset/jealous/left out/sad to have to share me with her new sister?  But most importantly: Will I be able to love the new baby as much as I love Everett?  

Of course everyone tells you not to worry, that it becomes even better, that it all works itself out. And one part of me said "they can't all be wrong" while the other, secret part of me whispered "they have to say that in order to not feel guilty and look like a bad mom."

So, here's the truth. The I've-had-two-glasses-of-wine-after-too-little-sleep, bare-bones truth. 

My loves

They were right. 100% right. If I am being completely honest, I think I fell in love with Nora much faster than I did with EJ.  And this is why: with your first child (at least for me) you aren't sure what to expect. You are terrified and thrown to the wolves. You have no idea what you are doing or what comes next. For me, it was such an enormous life change that it took me a bit of time to totally get it, to completely fall into a drowning, all-encompassing love with my daughter. Of course I loved her, but I didn't have that huge BOOM moment when she was born like you see in the movies and read about in the books. It was a gradual obsession (that has turned into a full-on, complete over-the-top obsession that perhaps could/should be a Lifetime Movie) and it took a while. It took a while to get to know her, to get to know me as a mom and Omar and I as "parents". It was all such a new experience, a new label, a new way of being. And let's be honest: newborns are basically blobs.

But when Nora was born, there was none of that learning curve. I already understood how awesome she was going to be, the amazing person she would become.  I was also incredibly aware of just how quickly the time would pass and how the stages would fly. And so I was able to appreciate every second from the moment she was born. I was acutely aware of just how quickly that newborn blob stage would go and rather than looking ahead to the next "milestone" she might hit, I was able to just BE in the moment, soak it all in, and appreciate and love her for exactly who and what she was that second. In pondering all of this for this blog post, I have often wondered if the drama and stress we went through when she was born has anything to do with this. I am guessing it does. That experience really drove home how precious a happy, healthy baby is and made me appreciate her even more. 

But regardless, I know this is true: Everett taught me how to love a child. She paved the way for her sister, and I love Nora hugely and all-encompassingly only because EJ showed me how. I can honestly say that I really and truly don't have a favorite, and don't love one more than the other - our parents weren't kidding about that (slightly disappointing, I was SURE I was my parents' favorite). But I do admit to falling in love with Nora faster, and that is only due to the amazing gift that EJ gave me in teaching me to love another being in a way that I never knew until she was born. 

And you know what else is just as awesome as everyone claimed? Seeing the two of them love and enjoy each other. Everett is so much more amazing than I could have ever anticipated with Nora. She adores her baby sister and is as sweet as can be with her (this is a slight change from my relationship with MY little sister growing up - I was not exactly the nicest, most loving big sis when we were little, but to be fair, she was super-annoying). And Nora clearly loves her big sister, she watches everything she does and saves the best belly laughs for her. I can't wait to see them grow together and all the years of fun (and I am sure some fighting too) they have ahead of them. 

BFFs!

It's hard to remember what it was like with only 1 child. I am so thankful for the 3 years Everett and I had together. But I will totally own the cliche and say "I wouldn't change it for the world."  My two girls are the most amazing little people on this planet and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

My life would be so empty without these people.

Nora P is 7 months old!

Where oh where does the time go?  Has it really been SEVEN MONTHS since this little nugget graced our presence? It has been such an amazing, exhausting, enlightening seven months, made all the better by this kid's huge gummy smile every time you look at her.  She is SUCH an easy baby. I feel like everyone says that, we even said it about Everett. But even Everett wasn't this easy.  We have had exactly ONE time when she cried for no (apparent) reason and we weren't able to immediately fix it...and that only lasted maybe 10 minutes.  She is so sweet-natured and easy to read. She is, for the most part, a fantastic sleeper. She likes everyone and is indiscriminate with her smiles and affection.  I have told Omar numerous times that if I could guarantee another baby like her, I would be 100% in for having a 3rd.

Here she is showing off her first tooth.
Don't worry if you can't see it, it has still barely come in.

My super-happy girl.