How lucky is she?

Oh, to have your very own, live baby doll.

Review, Please!

I’m thinking a little refresher course in appropriate peekaboo play may be in order.

Peek-a…

BOO!

In her three short months on earth, Adalynn has mastered the “holy moly, I’m so scared” look.  Poor thing.

…but she didn’t seem to mind too  much.

Complete and utter chaos

I found out a few weeks ago that one of the city pools was going to the dogs.

Literally.

They were devoting the last few hours that the pool was open for the summer to all the canine friends.  Lots of pools do this here- they figure that since they’re draining the pool anyway, why not, right?

And given Piper’s obsession with the four-legged companions, I thought she’d get a real charge out of watching them in the pool.  We have labs, who also love to swim, so this had to be done, right?

Good heavens.  I’m not sure who’s more exhausted- me, the girls, or the dogs. 

As we were walking toward the pool, Piper decided to have a fit and cry the whole way.  I kept promising that she’d have fun (“Just wait until you see what we’re doing!!!”), but it wasn’t going well.  AND Addy had decided that surely it was time to eat (‘cause it’s always time to eat, right???)  I had Addy in the pack and Piper had to walk.  Luke had the dogs.  I was just about ready to turn around, lol. Maybe this wasn’t as good an idea as I had thought.

We paid to get in, and then there were two gates to go through (to prevent any escapees).  We got through the first gate, and Piper’s unhappiness turned to ecstatic glee as she saw all the dogs- phew.  And the dogs?  The dogs went SPASTIC.  So now we had a crying infant, a screaming toddler, and two hopping, galloping, crazy dogs.  I was sure that we were labeled as “that” family.  Until I looked up, and saw the chaos that was EVERYWHERE.

There was a guy on the intercom that kept saying “Please try to keep you dogs with you at all times”, which was one of those “you’ve GOT to be freakin’ kidding me” kind of comments.  I’m sure it was for liability issues; there’s no way you could.  At all.  It was absolutely hilarious to see bulldogs in the water, Chihuahuas being held with their owners in the water, poodles falling in, labs swimming; long-haired, huge dogs, little tiny dogs…  They all had one thing in common- staying near their owners was not their priority. 

And it was absolutely hilarious.  I HAD to nurse Adalynn, so I attempted to find a spot in the shade on the ground to do so.  Luke took Piper to go and find the dogs.  My attempt to get pictures was futile; I had big hopes of funny pictures, but that quickly turned to hopes of maintaining the security and safety of my little munchkins.  And maintaining dry munchkins (which did NOT happen.)

Luke and I switched kids for a few minutes; I wanted to try and get Piper’s picture in the water.  It’s lovely when your kid RUNS into the water and goes deeper than you had anticipated.  When I grabbed her hand, she sat.  Sooo, this is the only picture I have of that.

Maggie swimming- and loving it. 

Maggie going down the slide (yes, my husband threw the ball down the slide and made the dog chase it.  Dog abuse???)

Where was Duncan?  I have no idea. 

We eventually had enough fun (the dogs, I’m sure, felt otherwise), and decided it was time to go.  But before we went, I wanted to try one more time to get a picture of Piper.

The half second I managed:

…and then she was off running (did I mention we were exhausted???)

…at least Addy stayed put, but she made her dislike of her hat plainly known.

I think she forgave me, though.

FAILING. I’m SO Failing.

Addy’s three months old.

That’s 92 days.

Surely, you’d THINK, that during that period, I’d have been able to capture at least ONE decent picture of both girls together.

But you’d think WRONG.

Without further ado, a catalog of my most recent attempt...

Not terrible, but Addy’s thrilled, can’t you tell???

I get the feeling here that Addy can sense Piper’s about-to-be orneriness.  Maybe it’s a special skill that second kids innately get- you know, to protect them from the whirlwind that is their older sibling.  Call it self preservation?

Piper loves the idea that Addy is scared pants-less???  Maybe.

An unapproving look from Adalynn.

Fish-hooking is a good skill to learn young, right?  I’m sure it’s acceptable in a preschool environment.

This one cracks me up.  Apparently I was holding their attention quite well.  And for the record, Addy is NOT that close to Piper’s size.  I think that’s part of what makes it look so funny!

Piper’s tired of Adalynn getting some attention and not playing along with her as she’d like.  So she pulls her away to, um, enforce submission.

Have no fear; I think that Nana is going to help as photographic reinforcement soon; maybe with two of us, we can get something that’s worthy of the real cuteness we get to experience at our house!

I’m positive I’m not ready for this…

I think that Piper may be practicing her runway moves with this little strut of hers…

She’s even working on a little baby six pack…

Yikes.

3 Months

Today our littlest munchkin is three months old. 

Holy moly- How did that happen???

Adalynn:

• is smiling all. the. time- the really big, toothless kind of smile.  Unfortunately, she hates the flash of the camera, so most of the pictures I take end up with big eyes and a sad mouth.  Sometimes the not smiley ones are just as cute, though.
• “Talks” up a storm.  If she feels like she’s getting less than her fair share of attention, she’ll just start up a conversation.  With you, with Piper, or with the little animals featured on her playmat.  Whatever works.
• IS MOBILE.  No joke.  The kid can cover some serious ground when left to her own devices.  It’s all while she’s on her back- she plants her feet, lifts her rump, and pushes off. This is from a few weeks ago- she started on the far side of that blanket, facing toward the left.  She turned herself 180 degrees, made it to the entertainment center, turned around, and pushed off in the other direction.  All during the time it took us to eat dinner.
• Is <<thiiiiiis>> close to rolling from back to belly.  She’s had belly to back mastered since she was just a few days old.  And when you help her get off her back, she just keeps going to get back into that position.  As soon as she gets it figured out, she’s going to be a rolling machine.
• If you set her in sitting on the floor, she’ll either balance front to back or side to side, but not both.
• She screams in horror when I sneeze around her.  Seriously.  If she happens to nurse to sleep, and I happen to have to sneeze, she gets totally startled and incredibly upset.  It’s really heartbreaking.  But what can you do?  There’s only so long you can stifle a sneeze…
• Can grasp the dangling rings.  And really wishes that she could figure out how to pull down the vibrating toy that hangs next to the rings…
• LOVES watching herself in the mirror.  It’s particularly fun when Piper plays along, too, and lays next to her on the floor.

• Really likes to sit in the Bumbo and join in the fun. 
• And is, officially, a thumb sucker.

• Aaaand, following in her sister’s footsteps, she’s still wearing newborn clothes and newborn diapers (although size 1 diapers are coming quickly- just found swaddlers for 13 cents a piece today!  Woohoo!)

It seems like every day, her little personality is maturing just a little bit.  And we are so in love!

She’s learned to sneak

I’m sitting on the couch working, when I hear this <<gulp, breath, gulp, breath, GULP, BIIIIG breath>>

You know that feeling when you KNOW the sound that’s emanating from your non-existent toddler isn’t a good thing, but you can’t quite figure out WHAT that sound is?

So I go searching for my kid hoping that she didn’t find a cup full of old milk and find her hiding (because she thinks she’s getting away with something) with this:

Is it sad that my child thinks it’s a treat to get ice water from a Camelback bottle???

And now I can’t keep track of my bottles.  They are routinely snuck off the table and moved from one part of the house to another.

Nobody tell her that there are better things to sneak, okay?  Because if she thinks she’s getting away with something, I’d rather it be water than, say, cookies. 

…or the dog food.

Opposing Ideals

Addy plays outside:

Piper plays outside:

Not sure who has it better…

Piper being BIG

You’ve heard of “little dog syndrome,” haven’t you?  You know, when little dogs think that they’re big dogs and make it sound that way?

Or what about those little dudes with the BIG trucks?

…I’m pretty sure that Piper’s falling victim to the same delusion…

Her newest “thing” to carry around the house. ALL over the house. Thank God she hasn’t tried when Addy’s using the mat…

(Please kindly ignore the apparent tornado that hit our living room…  If she can carry the BIG things, you can imagine how much fun I have picking up the LITTLE things…)

The laundry basket posed a slight dilemma for a few minutes because she can’t carry it between rooms in this orientation.  Fortunately, she proved her problem solving skills by figuring out how to step in sideways through the door to make it fit.  Unfortunately, it compounds the amount of chaos she’s capable of causing. 

I get hit with this gosh darn baby stroller about 582 times a day.  She can careen through the house with this little thing as fast as fast gets.  But sometimes carrying it is more fun.  Sadly, carrying the stroller often leads to baby casualties- notice the poor dolly fallen to the wayside.  But have no fear- she was promptly picked up and loved on, and then returned to the seat of death…

I hate to think of the things she’ll want to carry as she gets bigger.  Maybe she’s pre-training for her career as a body builder.

…either that, or she’s part carpenter ant.

Why do I let her surprise me???

Sometimes I kick myself because Piper surprises me.  Really surprises me.  And I’m not sure why, because you’d think by now, I’d get used to all the “new” things, but, by golly, sometimes things just come out of the blue.

We have the mini little tykes slide at our house- you know, the one that’s about 2 1/2 feet tall.  Piper loves it.  It was a big deal this spring when she could do ALL of the climbing and ALL of the sliding, all by herself, with no prompting.  I probably don’t have to tell most of you, but the motor planning bit for climbing, situating, sitting, and sliding is pretty big.  And then there’s her whole over-cautious bit thrown in there, too- it was a big deal. 

So imagine my surprise when, after staying the night and Nana and Grandpa’s house, she could do this slide:

It’s the BIG little tykes slide- the steps are more of a ladder and the hand rails are farther apart.  My parents said that she went down it about a thousand times the night before, and about another thousand times that morning before we got there.  She kept going over and over and over again- she was so proud to show us what she could do.  After trip #486 that we witnessed, she was so. gosh. darn. tired that she grunted with each step up the ladder.  It didn’t stop her, though- we literally had to carry her away, narrowly avoiding a tantrum. 

We now, officially, have a child that can do the whole playground at the park.  The stairs, the slides, the high, narrow bridges, the moving bridges (although she’s significantly more cautious about these, but she can still do them)…  The whole nine yards.  She even does the corkscrew slides and big bumpy slides.  AND she’s figured out that she can flip over toward the bottom so that she doesn’t face plant off the edge.  Smart that one.  And it doesn’t matter if she knows the park or not; she figures out the equipment no matter where she is.

We can see her preschool out our back window; I’m really excited that we can “practice” with that equipment so that, come next fall when she starts there, she’ll be a pro at it all and not intimidated with all the other kids. 

I always try to have high, but realistic, expectations for Piper.  And yet, she still manages to catch me off guard sometimes.  Go, Piper, go- I hope you ALWAYS surprise us!

Class Reunion

Last weekend, Piper got to enjoy her first NICU reunion.

It’s actually the second one she got to go to, but at the first, she was less than three months old.  Frankly, she could have cared LESS at the time.

But this year, this year, she could actually enjoy all of the activities they had to do.  Well, almost all of them.  She THOUGHT she wanted to go in the bouncy house, but as soon as we’d walk up and look in, she’d vigorously shake her head “NO!”  So, we stayed clear of that after three or four attempts.

They had lots of treats that she never gets- like ice cream sandwiches and juice boxes (yes, I’m that mom who doesn’t let her kid have juice.  So sue me.)

The REALLY big new thing she got to try was cotton candy.  This is the “small” one that Luke got for Piper to try.  But, alas, it was too big for Piper to have, so Luke had to have the rest.  He’s good at taking one for the team…  (insert rolling eyes here…)

Let’s just say that she was NOT ecstatic about the flossy nature of cotton candy.  Or the fact that it melted when it hit her tongue.  Or the fact that it stuck to her fingers.  And lips.  And face.  Amused?  Not so much.

A little perturbed?  Probably.“Can I have more juice instead???”

Daddy also decided that we should try to get her face painted.  But painting a two-year-old’s face???  Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.  So we opted for the spray-on stencil instead.  And we picked the smallest, single-colored one we could find so that it would require only a 5 second stint of toddler cooperation.

Nervously sitting on the chair- NOT sure what to think…

Wearily watching-

Looks like Daddy was way more enthusiastic than was Piper…

It was really hot; and we’d already spent the whole day in the car because we had our Ds community group, WAY on the other side of town, right before this.  The girls were pretty much SPENT that afternoon, and shared their grumps with synchronized “aaaaaah” faces.

MY favorite part of the day, though, was the photobooth they had set up.  You got to take your pictures, and then it printed two copies.  You kept one, and the other was pasted onto a scrapbook page.  And then we got to write a note for the NICU staff.  How cool is that?

Apparently they email you your photobooth photos now.  Rather convenient, actually.  So here’s our very poor attempt at a strip.

Picture #1- Addy’s falling behind us.  As she slept.  Woops.

Picture #2- Not so bad.  You know, for a photobooth.  Too bad we’re all looking at the monitor below instead of the camera.

Picture #3- I have a completely goofy face as I was trying to convince Piper to give Addy a kiss.  Lovely.

It was really fun getting to see the nurses and doctors that cared for Piper while she was there.  It was also truly amazing to see ALL of these families who watched their babies grow for so long away from home.  There were lots of kids on G-tubes and trachs.  Kids that were doing fabulously well, and kids that were obviously developmentally hindered by their traumatic births.  But everyone there had something in common- everyone was just glad that they had a child to be able to take there! 

See you in two years, St. Joe!