Genevieve Claire

I've been promising to post some pictures for awhile now. Here are some of our newer ones of Genevieve.

Still here.

I'm still alive. Really. I know it's been forever since I've posted.

The girls are good.

Genevieve is rolling over (front to back only still) and sitting up and working towards crawling. She's a sweet, happy baby who smiles at everybody and has an infectious laugh. She also has her third ear infection. I think tubes are in our near future with her.

Annabella is teaching me what the terrible twos are all about. She must think I'm a slow learner, because she's really drilling in that lesson. She's enough to wear me out, even on a good day. But her hugs brighten my days, her smile makes me smile, and I'm proud of her even when she's difficult.

I know there's more to say. It's been a busy month or so. But at least that's a start.

Hey, at least she's wearing socks.

I'm not sure Annabella understands the concept of favorite yet. If you ask her what her favorite color is, she'll look at you blankly. But I would bet dollars to doughnuts that her favorite color is blue. Whenever we let her choose her plate, she always goes for the blue one if available. And we have to watch her to make sure she doesn't pull the blue one out of the dishwasher when it's dirty. She seems to prefer the blue balls over the others, and she loves her cupcake outfit with the blue pants.

So really, when I saw 2 pairs of dirty socks lying at the bottom of the stairs this morning, I should have stopped what I was doing right then to grab them up and hide them. Especially because she'd already worn the blue snowman ones twice. And because she was wearing green and white. But I didn't. I was busy and I didn't think Annabella had noticed them.

20 minutes later:

Me: Annabella, time to put your shoes and socks on. (Grabbing her clean white socks and trying to put them on).

Annabella: (Trying to rip them out of my hands.) No white socks! Blue socks! NO WHITE SOCKS! BLUE SOCKS!

I could pretend that I stuck to my guns and decided that a third wearing of the blue snowman socks was completely inappropriate. But you know what, it just wasn't worth the battle. Wearing dirty socks isn't going to kill her, even if they seriously clash with her outfit.

Buttered Toast

Toast Story #1:

Annabella loves this song, Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz. She sings it all the time. "Fire truck, fire truck, I want to ride in a fire truck!" So cute.

Well today, she asked for toast for breakfast. After the bread finished toasting, she asked "Butter?". So I assured her that yes, I was putting butter on her toast and bringing her buttered toast. So she started singing "Buttered toast, buttered toast, I want to ride in a buttered toast!".

Besides being all sorts of adorable, I'm really excited to see her starting to play around with songs and mixing up words.

____________________________

Toast Story #2:

About a month ago I was trying to get Annabella to eat a snack. I knew she was hungry, but I couldn't get her to agree to anything. I know that seriously buttered toast is one of her favorites, so I asked her over and over again if she wanted toast.

Mommy: Annabella, do you want some toast?

Annabella: No toast! No toast!

M: You sure?

A: NO TOAST!

M: OK, you don't have to eat toast. What about (any other appropriate option)?

A: No.

5 minutes later:

M: You want some toast sweetie?

A: No toast, no toast!

M: (Still racking my brain, what can I get her to eat).

3 minutes later:

M: How about some toast?

A: No toast, no toast!

M: Well, I'm going to make you some toast anyway. You don't have to eat it though.

A: No toast, no toast!

2 minutes later:

A: (Trying to get Mommy to come do something)

M: Sorry sweetie, Mommy's busy buttering your toast.

A: No toast. No toast. NO TOAST!

M: (Walking toast to Annabella at the table)

A: NO TOAST!

M: (Sets toast in front of Annabella at the table).

A: (Looks at toast, tilts her head to the side, and smiles).

A: TOAST!

And with that, she ate up all her toast.

To add even more insult to injury...

It's bad enough that I turn 29* on Monday.

Over Christmas break I found a white hair.

And today I lost the ability to drive without glasses. Stupid tiny letters on stupid eye tests.

*again

Home Sweet Home

We arrived safely back home after all of our holiday travels in the wee hours of this morning. It is soooo nice to be back. We loved spending time with family and friends, but traveling with 2 little ones was pretty tough.

I'm hoping to blog a little more frequently now that we're back, but the list of stuff to do is huge and never-ending.

So many things have fallen through the cracks, many of which I feel bad about (like not getting out Christmas cards, not responding to all the emails I should have, not getting out thank you cards when I should have, etc.) Some days I just don't know how people do it. I know I'm not the only mother of 2 small children, and I'm sure most of them do a better job keeping in touch with people and such. Again, I just don't know how they do it. So I'm just going to issue a blanket apology here to all the people that I owe a thank you card or an email or a phone call or whatever else. I'm sorry. I appreciate you and the effort you go through to keep in touch. I will try to do better.

I've been thinking a little more recently about why I keep this blog, and I think there are a number of reasons. The first is that I want to keep a record for Annabella and Genevieve. I want them to be able to look back at what I went through and have an honest account of what motherhood was like for their Mommy. I want them to know how much I adore them, but also how hard this can be sometimes.

The second reason I keep this blog is because it helps me work through my feelings. This blog is more like a journal for me than I anticipated. I find myself posting things that I might be embarrassed to say out loud. I know in my head that other people, people I know, actually do read what I write here, but when I'm sitting here writing it, I often don't think about them. I'm not sure how I feel about this though. I know that I still hold back some things, things that I might want my daughters to know one day, feelings that I'd like to work through, because I don't know if I'm ready for the world to know.

The third reason I keep this blog is because I like to update family and friends who aren't right here on how my girls are doing.

Grandpa

I've been meaning to write a post about my girls and how much I love them and how much they love each other. That will have to wait for another day.

I just learned that my Grandpa's cancer is back. He has a spot on his lung and his neck. We felt the spot on his neck at Thanksgiving and just hoped it was an infection.

I guess the chemo is a one-time thing; so he can't do that again. He just finished a round of radiation for a spot near his stomach, and that took so much out of him. But radiation is what they're talking about doing again.

I'm scared. I don't want to lose my Grandpa.

He just called me this past weekend and left a voicemail saying how good he felt, that he hadn't felt this good in 2 years. Hearing that made my heart soar.

And now this. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me.