3-year-old baby

My sweet little girl turned 3 yesterday. In some ways—temper, simultaneous yet conflicting desires, extreme stubbornness, to give a few examples—she's 3 through-and-through.

In other ways, though, she's still the cuddly little baby who wants Mommy to hold, rock, and sing to her. A little like she was three years ago.

For her birthday, she wanted (what else?) a strawberry cake with a chicken on top. After scouring the web and finding the most unappetizing chicken-shaped cakes you could possibly imagine (really, try a quick google search), I found this adorable one. They were harder a lot more work than I imagined, but luckily my friend Jess came over to help. Voila:

Since Greg's birthday was last week too, we had a combined party on what turned out to be Father's Day (oops—need to check the calendar better next time).

It was a splendid day. Perfect weather, yummy food, and water play for the kids.

Such a fun celebration of my fun, quirky, chicken-loving chatterbox and her handsome, devoted, hilarious, and handy papa. I'm doubly blessed with my wonderful Geminis.

First camping trip 2011

We took our first camping trip of the year last week, and it was lovely. My kids, as you may have noticed, are happiest when outdoors, filthy, and in some state of undress. Camping is the perfect activity for them. Greg is happiest in the mountains, fishing, with his family close by. Camping is the perfect activity for him, which is why we always take a nice fish-centric camping trip around his birthday (which is today—happy birthday, baby!).

So last Wednesday, we headed to the hills with our good friends Pete and Jess and their two girls, Hazel and teensy little Annie. Also in tow (badum-pum) was their brand-new-to-them Airstream. Oh how that lovely tin can changed the camping experience—for the better.

You maybe can't tell it from the photos above, but the first two days of the trip were outrageously windy—so windy that our heavy-duty tent poles look like they've been run over by a truck. And since we were camping on the shores of a lake, the wind kicked up huge amounts of dust, making it impossible to be outside for good portions of the trip.

 

Which allowed for plenty of reading time, another favorite of my kids and Hazel. In fact, we had enough holed-up time to read the first 100 pages of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to Sidamo. It's the first chapter book he's really gotten into, and he's totally enthralled. So am I, actually. Much more so than the first time around.

We also took a lovely hike around Monarch Lake. Sidamo was a rockstar—4+ miles with very little complaining. Actually, he probably went more like 8 miles, since he was running laps around us the whole time. Nora on the other hand demanded to be carried for much of the hike, which made it even more of a workout for her daddy. And Edie continued to act like the crazy beast that she is, making me want to push her into the raging river more than once. (Another story, Edie and I are experiencing some conflict in our relationship.)

The campfire food was delicious, of course. The non-alcoholic beer was entirely fulfilling. I'll keep telling myself that. (Pete, above, is enjoying the leaded variety.)

And I sort of wish there had been something totally calamitous about the trip, because that would make the above "Pete Emerges from the Ashes" photo more meaningful. As it is, it's just a pretty fantastic pic. (Speaking of, all the photo credits go to Gregola, the family photographer.)

We're all looking forward to our next trip—and trying to resist the urge to buy an Airstream.

The week that lasted a year

It must be a year since Sidamo's last day of school, right? It's impossible to think it was just a week ago. Last Friday night, to kick off summer, we had friends over for dinner. The kids stayed up way too late, and one of them in particular handled it with exactly zero grace. While the other kids (and adults) were having fun, this one whined and cried and complained about the no-fairness of everything from food selection to seating to how many times people clapped for one kid's song versus another's. Everything was measured, and nothing came out in this kid's favor.

There's someone else who lost all grace that evening. That would be me. What were designed as encouraging talks to help this kid get it together quickly turned into increasingly frustrated lectures about how we're all in charge of our own happiness, and if we choose to be miserable, no one can make us be anything else. All true, in theory, but probably not age- or event-appropriate.

That point was driven home at 5 the next morning when this kid woke up having vomited in bed from coughing so hard. Poor thing was sick, overtired, and cranky the night before, and mama was anything but supportive. Then the other kid woke, also with an unstoppable cough. We tried to keep them in bed for a few more hours, but no one was feeling any better.

By 11, I deemed Nora's shallow breathing a bit concerning and decided we should take both kids to urgent care rather than waiting through the holiday weekend to see our regular pediatrician. Turns out she was having an asthma attack. The urgent care folks admitted her to the hospital, where we stayed for two nights.

Nora was the ideal patient. She took her nebulizer treatments every two hours around the clock without a single complaint. Even when being awoken in the middle of the night by strange respiratory therapists asking, "Are you ready for your breathing treatment?" she'd sit up, smile, and say, "Yeah! Sure!"

At one point two nurses had to swaddle her, squirt saline in her nose, and suction it out using a crazy mechanized snot-sucking machine. She hated it, but still stayed remarkably civil. The nurses left, and Nora told me, "I don't like that nose water." But when one of the nurses returned, Nora looked at her and said, "You're doing a GREAT job. You really are."

Everyone wanted to keep her, but I snatched her away as soon as her oxygen levels were high enough. Even a non-scary hospital stay with a cooperative kid is exhausting and taxing and stressful and no fun at all. There was little sleep for either of us, we were both stir-crazy, and we were just so ready to be home. We were given an inhaler to keep on hand in case this issue should arise again, but we're hoping this was just a reaction to a virus and will not be an ongoing concern. Fingers crossed.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we had finally taken Nora's pacifier away a few days before. Terrible, awful, no-good timing. The first night in the hospital, she wept and fought and insisted that she's not big, she's little, and little girls can't sleep without pacis. And little girls certainly cannot sleep in hospitals without pacis! I almost ran down to the maternity ward and raided their supply closet. But she eventually did sleep, and, surprisingly, hasn't asked for it since.

We came home Monday. Today is Friday, and even though it feels decades ago, we're still recovering. I can't think it's coincidence that last night, at 13 weeks 2 days of pregnancy, I had my first bout of "morning" sickness, and it's persisting. I think my body must just be worn down and staging a protest. Nora, on the other hand, is going full speed and feeling great. What I'd give for the energy and resilience of a 2-year-old on steroids.

This face

I just want to eat it up. And sometimes I do.

Amends

If, in the past several weeks I have:

• missed your birthday,
• nodded off during a conversation,
• lost my train of thought (repeatedly),
• been crankier than usual, or
• tried to steal your lunch,

I apologize. But I can only take half the blame. The other half goes to the new little being who has taken up residence in my belly. You can take it up with him/her sometime this December.

:-)

Sleeping beauties

My favorite subject: peaceful, quiet, loveable, quiet, sweet, quiet kids. These photos have been taken over the past several months or more. I just figured out how to pull photos off my phone.

Finally

A containment system that works.

(Sorry for the rotation. Trying to fix, but if anyone can give me tips for how to rotate photos on a Droid, it would speed things along.)

Mothers' Day Gratitude

Grateful for:

• My beautiful mother and her boundless love.
• My beautiful children, who opened the door for me to experience that boundless love for myself.
• Sidamo's beautiful first mother, for giving our boy such a loving start.
• All the mothers in my circle, who support me, challenge me, and uplift me every day.

Wasted wardrobe

Every day I dress her, but just about every day I find her like this at some point. This girl was born an eon or so too late; she would love nothing more than to spend her days roving and foraging as nature intended.

Her closet overflows with the most beautiful hand-me-downs, but if given the choice (and really, she has opposable thumbs, so she always has the choice) she'll go naked. If forced to wear something, it's usually a variation on this:

 As someone who faked being too short to reach her own clothes until about 3rd grade for lack of interest in picking out her own outfits, I thought I'd have control over my little one's fashion choices for at least a little while longer. Nope. Every day it's the purple skirt, the well-worn tights, and the raggedy polka-dotted fleece (with a hot pink shirt underneath) or it's a tantrum. And I'm learning to pick my battles. Plus, if I can forget for a moment the gorgeous clothes that are going unworn—and ignore every basic tenet of fashion—it's hard to deny the adorability of a little girl in her all-her-own style.