to my daughter on her 2nd birthday

Dear sweet baby girl Maria,

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that it’s impossible for you to be two years old.  It was just minutes ago, after all, that you came flying into the world, in your own way, in your own time, whether or not anybody was around to catch you.  I’m glad I was laying sideways on a bed, instead of on my back, feet in stirrups, with no bed underneath to support you on your way into the outside.

There is something so different in parenting you, my daughter.  I tend to be a softie with you.  Your sweet little grin and sparkly blue eyes make it awfully hard to be as consistent with you as we should.  But I still think you’re turning out ok.

Potty learning is underway and you seem to be catching on.  The princess unders seem to help a bit – you nearly always insist on wearing them instead of a diaper.  You (and I’ll take the risk of jinxing things here by telling the internets) have begun eating nearly everything with gusto.  We measured your height tonight before bed and you’ve grown an inch and a half since March.

Your speech is becoming clearer and clearer.  It’s way more advanced than your brother’s at this age, but I chalk that up to having him chattering away every minute of every day.  You must make yourself understood so that you can hold your own with him.  Fortunately you still seem to get along with each other well.  Sharing a room still works out ok.

 

Darling Maria, I love you so. 
Love,
Mama

one.

I wanted to write a long letter about how amazing this year has been with Maria on the outside of me.  I just can’t put it into words – does that make sense?  Maria is so close to walking, eats peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, drinks 2% milk, has 4 teeth, laughs a lot, jibber-jabbers constantly, loves her brother, gets into everything, and gives us more joy than she can even understand.  For the rest, I’ll have to let her birthday photos speak to it.

 

(she was born at 1:06 pm)

{Birth day posts here and here, birth story post here.}

i could stare at this girl all day long.

  (she looks a lot like her auntie and namesake here)

6 months/25 weeks, 6 days/182 days

My BABY! She's SIX.MONTHS.OLD. What? When? Further words fail me, so photos will have to do. Like you're upset about that.

a good year

Despite the eye twitch I've had for a couple of days, I am finally starting to feel much better. I realized yesterday that one year ago today, I let you all in on our news. When I think about how differently things could have turned out, how gross I felt all summer, the pain I suffered... and then I look at this.

It's been a good year.

what does my camera have in common with Muhammad Ali?

They both know they're pretty.

Because Maria just sits there, she has been my most frequent photo subject to practice on. I'm sure you all don't mind.




(all of these were taken with my Nikon D60 and a 50mm f1.8 lens.)

5 months/21 weeks, 6 days

This just cannot be. My baby who was born 5 minutes ago has suddenly reached the age of 5 months old. In honor of her 5 month birthday, I bought a really awesome camera and three different lenses. I am THRILLED to start learning more and taking much better photos - I'm sure you'll notice a difference. You might be asking, Hey, Maresi, what about that little tax problem of yours? Well, even if we owe a bit, there's enough left from my oboe sale to pay for my dream camera and my taxes. So there.

But I digress. Maria Katherine at 5 months can:

• ALLLLLmost roll over (see above - once that lower arm moves into position, she'll flip!)
  
• hold her head up for hours on end
• drain 6 ozs in no time flat
• giggle like crazy when you laugh at her or tickle her under her chin
• drool buckets
• screech like a howler monkey if you don't pay her direct attention
• not sleep without being swaddled (YES, STILL)
• grin really big when you greet her in the morning
• almost grab toys and eat them
• make every single person who encounters her fall in love
  
  

She is just so wonderful and perfect. I never thought we'd have another as awesome as Henry was and is - this just proves how great our God is. It has been very challenging trying to work and have her with me all the time (we do have a sitter that comes most Wednesdays in the afternoon); but I'm so glad we're doing it. This time with her will be so very, very short.

K.I.R.

Hey folks, it's that time again - time to Keep It Real. Transparency is good for the soul.

And gee, it looks like it might be laundry day! This is evidenced by the outfit Maria is wearing - cloth diaper & cover, Ralph Lauren onesie (thanks, godmother Amy!), Walmart hoodie, leggings and socks. Why not pants or a dress on this chilly Florida day (otherwise known as a balmy, lovely day in the rest of the country)? Because they're all dirty. She spit up on her last clean full ensemble as I was putting it on her this morning.

Also Keepin' It Real: Looks like I'm not the only one going bald around here:

I'm very sad about Maria's hair loss - only slightly due to vanity; I do want my little girl to have cute hair. It's mostly because she grew this hair when she was on the inside of my body, and losing it's just one more step on her way to being independent from me. She's growing up too fast, and I don't have to like it.

twenty five

Sometimes there are just no words.

seventeen

Time is moving too fast with this one. She's pretty much just one nap away from begging me for the keys so she can go to the mall to meet her friends.

thirteen

Hey everybody... she's awake. And flippin' adorable.

five

Hope you've got four minutes and 6 seconds to enjoy one of the two most adorable 2 month old babies ever to exist. If you don't, come on back another time. I promise it's worth it.

everyone wants to meet her

Over Maria's first 2 months, she's had some wonderful visits from family... First up was my parents, who could barely stand the 3 1/2 weeks they had to wait to meet her. We planned these visits in advance, but of course we thought she might be about 1 week old when they got here. Clearly Maria had other plans.

Next up were Mimi & Papa, and Aunties Amy and Courtney...

Then we had a very brief, but special visit from my auntie ML and cousin (sort-of) SL. ML wanted to share her observation that she is Maria's mother's Godmother and also her Godmother's mother. Got that?

And now we've had Auntie Katherine, who was kind enough to bring along Maria's younger cousin. Wasn't that nice of her?


So, visits with family are over until December, when I will trek northward sans husband with two kids for the first time. It's a baby shower for Kat and also Maria would like to actually MEET her Godmother (and maybe Godfather) in person, not to mention her other Auntie and Uncle, cousins, Gram-Gram, and other assorted relatives. We'll leave on Maria's 3 month birthday. Can it be possible that she's nearly 2 months old already?

I know, right?!?

Isn't she the best?


Maria has truly come alive in the last 2 weeks - she is awake a lot more during the day, and has been mostly sleeping very well at night. Henry seems to have calmed down some and is much more fun to be around. I had my 6 week visit last week and have been pronounced totally fine, especially since I am 15 lbs below pre-pregnancy weight. Huzzah!

I've got several posts brewing (concert and fireworks, zoo trip, all the visitors we've been having), but they will have to wait for now. That is because we greet our final visitor tomorrow - my sister! This visit is very exciting - none of our other visitors have adorable 22 week pregnant bellies to rub and ooh and ahh over! Sooo, see you sometime soon.

(And for some bizarro reason Blogger has changed their comment format - I hope you all can figure it out, because I cannot. I guess you all can just leave your names, but people with blogs have to figure out how the sign-in thing works. I tried earlier and it doesn't make sense. Good luck!)

what, you DON'T want to know about Maria's diapers?

I realize this post might have a limited audience - sorry if this is the absolute last topic you would be interested in reading about... So, we're 6 weeks in and have been using cloth diapers with Maria since she was about 2 weeks, right after her belly button was mostly healed. With her umbilical hernia her button stuck out quite a bit, and the cloth diapers come up a bit higher on her tummy than the disposables, which was irritating the spot. But we're using cloth about 99% of the time now. She does just fine in them, and it really isn't that much extra work. We use two different types - prefolds with covers, and pocket diapers. You might have seen her the other day in a prefold/cover. We have 16 bleached Indian prefolds in the infant size. This is what a pile of prefolds looks like:

And like I've mentioned before, this is the cover we mainly use (Thirsties X-Small), although we also have a few newborn size Bummi's Super-Brite (I don't like the way they fit). These are sized and as Maria grows we will have to buy more covers to keep fitting her. The X-Small looks like it will fit for at least another month, if not more. We have two of them, and also two in the next size.

And this is the pocket diaper we use, the bumGenius 3.0:

I love these pocket diapers - they are nearly identical to put on to disposables, and will adjust to fit her until she's about 30 pounds, hopefully up to potty-training time. We have 6 of these, and hope to continue building up the stash until it's what we use most of the time. They are expensive, but so far seem to hold up very well. I keep two of them stuffed with the larger insert, and we use those at night. She can go about 10 hours in one, with no leaks, and she has had no rash from staying in it so long.

I wash the diapers about every other day - we store them in a small lidded garbage can from Target with a large Bummis Diaper Tote in it. I've never noticed any odor in the room from the diaper pail. She's still breastfeeding, so the dirty diapers don't need to be rinsed before putting them in the can. I wash once on cold/cold with only a tiny bit of laundry detergent, once on hot/cold with the same amount of soap, and one additional cold rinse. Oh! And I've been telling anyone who will listen how amazed I am that the sun really does bleach out any leftover stains on the diapers. I put them out on the hammock for about 30 minutes, and they are as white as could be! Then I throw everything in the dryer and that's that. The diaper covers, pocket diapers and their inserts only needed to be prewashed once, but the prefolds need to be washed about 5-7 times so they'll be absorbent enough to work for you.

I am surprised that a lazy person like myself is taking what seems like a harder road with the whole diapering thing. I'm not exactly sure what has come over me lately - first natural childbirth, then breastfeeding, then cloth diapers? What could possibly be next?

talk about dramatic

Well, I feel like after that tragic haiku I should clarify some things...

1. I work across the street from my house.
2. My wonderful husband is home this week and was really wanting to take care of Maria instead of me having to juggle her and my first night back with the youth group.
3. I'm not actually back to work full-time - I still have about 60 hours of leave time left, and I'm just trying to spread that out by doing what is manageable at this moment.
4. Being back with the youth group tonight was really nice. (Hi, Amber! Thanks for reading! Now go do your homework.)
5. My job is very flexible - I can bring Maria with me most of the time, at least for now. I really have no right to complain about that situation.
6. Um, my baby is flippin' SIX. WEEKS. OLD.
7. I admit to melting down here in my house when I came home to nurse Maria this afternoon. I haven't had too many post-partum meltdowns, so I figure I was due. 'Cause, seriously, people:


Who would want to leave this? I mean, ever?


Oh, and Uncle Phil? Henry saw Maria wearing this hand-me-down shirt, and wonders where his SECOND Purdue shirt is. You other moms might be interested in the Thirsties cloth diaper cover she's sporting. Cute, eh? We've been doing pretty well with the cloth diapers. I'll post more on that another time.

So, in conclusion: Thanks for your sweet remarks about this afternoon's over-dramatic poetry. I will slowly but surely get back to work, and Maria will be just fine. I guess I will be, too.

sad haiku

sitting here, back to work;
across the street from baby -
i'm not ready yet.

renewable resources

There have been some truly, truly generous people giving plenty of lovely things to us and to Maria lately. Some awesome people have given us great hand-me-downs, a couple of nice ladies have made blankets for her, and a bunch of sweet little girl clothes in bigger sizes have found a home in some plastic bins under her crib, just waiting for the time when this gal grows enough to fill them out.

And so, the other day, we got a mid-sized box on our doorstep, and I eagerly opened it. Here's what was inside:

First was this adorable card (yes, I always open the card first! That's called having good manners, people.). And of course, a very thoughtful note:

And so, our attention goes to the first box!! What could it be?!? Wait, huh? I DO appreciate things that will fit her in the future, but this is taking it a little far! Women's size 10 shoes? Just how long, exactly, am I supposed to hold on to this stuff?!

Oh. It's a really cute giraffe.

Wow! I didn't know J. Jill made baby clothes! Neat!

Oh. But seriously, is that white dress not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Love the pink/brown set, too... but the white one is EXACTLY what I dreamed Maria would be wearing one day. I'm just sorry it has to wait until next spring/summer when she's big enough!

So, A - nicely done. You have gotten off to an excellent start, and Maria is just dying to meet you and her godfather. And the planet thanks you for using recycled materials in your packaging to get it all here.