Stranger Danger

I decided to have a chat with Simon about strangers while we were doing the dishes together....

Me: Do you know what a stranger is?
Simon: Someone who you don't know.

What if they try to hold your hand, what would you do?
-I'd kick his butt!! {Said with confidence, excitement and eager anticipation for the opportunity.}

Well, I you should really try to just run away and find mommy or daddy.
-But I would kick his butt first!! I'd punch him. {Punch said with extra power in his voice.}

If he would try to pick you up what would you do?
-I would super squirm!! {Still, so excited and confident about this.}

If someone you don't know tries to pick you up you do whatever you have to do to get down and run away. This is the only time you can ever bite or punch or kick but you just need to get down so you can run.
-I'd bite so hard and beat him up!! {He ignored the running away part entirely; I'm in full blown anxiety mode now.}

Simon, you just need to remember to run away.
-Well if I'm 8 and it's a woman I'd be bigger than her and then I could kick her butt. {He is less animated now. He's seriously considering the age at which he could overtake the inferior sex.}

Okay {stifling a laugh from his previous comment}, well what if the stranger wants to show you his puppy?
-Well, I doooo like puppies! {He glances and me.} But not stranger puppies. {He's visibly disappointed that he can't play with this stranger's puppy, but seems to get that it's a bad idea.}

Ummmm, I think we need to keep this conversation alive. I'm not quite sure he grasps the reality of his own skill set. Thank you Power Rangers and Spiderman for giving my son a false sense of his own heroic abilities. I will now forbid him to watch you and endure more episodes of Dora, Diego, Blues Clues, etc. to help my son see himself as the 4 year old he is.

In the meantime, strangers, watch out.

4

When it comes to Cecilia, each new age she hits is going to throw me for a loop. That happened with Simon too, but after over three years of trying for a second baby and painfully wondering if our family would ever grow it's just amazing to see her right here in the flesh and already almost 4 months old. That time of pining for baby number 2 seems so very distant now and while it felt like forever, in hindsight that time flew by in a flash.

To say I love this picture really wouldn't say anything at all...maybe an underlined and bolded LOVE would be a closer fit.

As I said, Cecilia will be 4 months old soon and this past month has been a big one in her little life. Really, just this past week; since last Monday she's checked 4 things off the baby milestone list. It's funny because I thought I would be a lot less excited to see a second baby reach new milestones, but I swear I am more excited about them...or at least equally so.

So along with learning to grab toys, she also found her feet and learned to roll to her belly and back again. She's more of an expert at going to her tummy and forgets she can roll over to her back. While she is pondering what to do on her tummy, she yells at the world. It's quite comical and the same crazy noise EVERY time. I took a video but it makes me look like a terrible mom just letting her lay there yelling like that...so you'll just have to see it in person.

 

She fell asleep in the middle of trying to roll over :)

Four month old Cecilia is still happy and playful. She will giggle for you, but she's going to make you work for it. She will nap in the car and in your arms indefinitely, but anywhere else is probably not going to be much longer than 30 minutes or so. I always have the nuk ready to pop back in her mouth if she starts to stir because that buys more time usually. In general, she still sleeps well at night so I can't complain about the lack of naps. All around, she is easy and easy to love!

Thanks for the pic, PW :)

School's Out.

Friday was Simon's last day of preschool. Next year he is onto 4K and a new school with new kids and a new teacher....

Deep breath.

Here he was at the start of the school year, nothing but anticipation and excitement....

And here he is at the end of the year, showing me his butt.

Simon with Mrs. Hansen.

It's been a wonderful experience getting him started with his life as a student. I couldn't have asked for a better school or teacher for him!

My Swirl

Get it? :)

A New Baby

On Sunday night Cecilia went to bed as one baby and woke up as another. It was like a switch was flipped and she suddenly she knew that her hands were her hands and her arms were her arms. She was on the floor under a play gym thing and I looked over and there she was grabbing the toys, batting at them, feeling them and trying to get them in her mouth (unsuccessfully since they were attached to said play gym thing).

I realize that this really isn't all that exciting to anyone else, but to a mom there's not too much in the world that is more exciting than seeing your child reach a new milestone. You are proud of their accomplishment and just plain happy that they are reaching those milestones because it's always a little scary to think they might not (I know I'm not the only one who worries about such things).

The next year will bring many more milestones...rolling, sitting, crawling, walking, maybe a few words? Only time will tell when something will spark in her brain and then there she'll be, a new baby all over again. In the meantime, I'm just trying to soak up and appreciate where she is at today. I must say, she makes that pretty easy; we might pay for it later, but she has got to be about the easiest baby on the planet.

I love you, C. Those rolls, that hair, that gorgeous chocolate skin, those happy shrieks and all those noises you make...oh, how the list could go on. So many people say how lucky you are to have us, but they are so so so wrong. We are the lucky ones.

Baptism

Yesterday our peanut got baptized at St. Mary's. It was probably one of the most comical masses I've been to, which made it quite memorable.

First of all, there was some confusion about where to stand after walking up the aisle at the start of church. We all just stood there looking lost and the deacon kind of frantically waved us up to where we supposed to be. Then the priest starts talking about how everyone being lost was fitting with the gospel...and he says this while we are standing up in front of everyone. I can only imagine how deep the shade of red on my face must have been. I blame Bryan for the confusion, for the record :)

Simon was super excited to be standing up there...as you can see.

Then we go back to our seats and during the homily the priest starts talking about how everyone was probably groaning when they heard there were two baptisms that day because then mass would take extra long. Okay...we all think it, but to announce it while we are sitting there just minutes away from taking the stage? We just had to laugh.

Then we get up there and the priest COULD. NOT. get the babies names right. He called the other baby Cecilia Rose literally at least 4-5 times, then eventually Kathryn Rose and I believe by the end he nailed it with Kathryn Elizabeth. Cecilia was in turn Kathryn Elizabeth several times...I'm not even sure he got it right at all during one portion of the baptism. It was truly hard to keep from laughing, but when he said "I'll get it right when it counts," or something on those lines everyone was given permission to chuckle a little.

Then they couldn't get the baptismal candles lit and had to dismantle the big one so they could reach the flame. It was kind of one thing after another, but like I said, it was certainly memorable!

Cecilia was, as usual, a perfect little angel. She didn't say boo the entire time and just looked around at everything happy as can be. I was worried she would be crabby because her gorgeous, hand sewn (by Grandma Berta) baptismal gown was originally made for a baptism that took place in November and yesterday it was an 85 degree day in May. We wound up doing a costume change immediately after the baptism was complete so she wouldn't be so hot. I wish I would have gotten some more close ups of her in that gown, though!

It's all fuzzy because it's super cropped to get a close up.

Cecie loves the bonnet as much as I do! Mom, it's a beautifully crafted piece of work and if I were a bonnet kind of mom she would have worn it all night! :)

This was post-costume change. Love that she's watching her big brother.

With all of her grandparents.

With her Godparents (Our good friend, Mike and Aunt Bryanna)

With two of her three Great Grandmothers.

Another funny addition to the mass was my sister's kids up in the balcony. They were waving and watching from above. It was so funny to see the oldest run past, then the middle, then the little one trailing behind!

A million

Since my last post, there have been a million things I've wanted to take the time to write about. I started a few posts, but so quickly got distracted with my to-do list a mile long that I aborted the blog mission and simply tended to other things. I do want to document a few things from the past couple of weeks, though...

Run Like a Mother
If you know me, you know that I've been planning my first 5K race since the end of last year. All around, I think it went well. We had beautiful weather, over three hundred runners and and the ambulance crew we hired didn't need to be used - THANK GOODNESS :)

I am still overwhelmed by all the family and friends who gave up their Mother's Day morning to help me. I had small a handful of friends actually run it and the rest let me put them to work! Thank you doesn't seem like quite enough. All I can say is that I owe you and your presence was both noted and will not be forgotten. I am one lucky s.o.b. to have such wonderful people in my life!

Run Like a Mother - One Mile Race

Simon ran in his first race that morning. Seeing him take off literally brought me to tears (thanks Danielle for talking me off the ledge). I think the combination of seeing the race finally come together and seeing his determined little face taking off was just too much for me. So I had a mini-meltdown, took a couple of deep breaths, and refocused. I'm happy to report that my uncle got video of Simon starting and finishing!

In this first video, you can't see him for about 10 seconds but then he comes into full view...

In this second video, he finishes his first one mile race in 15:49. As runner parents, you can imagine how proud we were!

All around, Mother's Day 2012 was a great day. And let's not forget that it was my first Mother's Day as a mom of TWO! :) More on this day another time. Right now, my baby is waking up and it's time to get ready for her baptism!

Blank

Lately my mind has been blank. Well, blank when it comes to blogging. It's been jam packed with everything Run Like a Mother....

Get flyers from sponsors. Get snacks from Sargento. Get tents and tables from Equipment Rentals. Get bread from Breadsmith. Get bananas from Trader Joes. Follow up with photographer, DJ, park, porta-potty people. Finalize master volunteer list. Thank volunteers in my mind A THOUSAND times. Decide where each volunteer needs to be and when. Check registration obsessively. Stuff packets. Assemble signage. Set up for packet pick up. Go to FedEx for the hundreth time. Check shipping list over just one more time. Don't forget a calculator. A scissors. A dolly. A ladder. Send registrants informational email.

Oh how the list could go on.

Right now, though, I am taking a moment to try to ignore all of those things. I will say that listing out my to-do list has provided me with a fresh batch of anxiety, though. Fail.

Anyway, check out this kid's hair...

...it makes me smile. I don't know what the hell we are going to do with it, but I swear it's getting thicker and curlier by the day. Seriously, find me a 3 month old with that much hair! 

In a moment of mom guilt, I decided to buy Simon the game Candy Land (which should now be called Crack Land given how the board has exploded with imagery EVERYWHERE...it used to be so simple to look at back in the day). I don't normally bother with the mom guilt thing, but every once in a while it rears its ugly head and I just can't avoid it. I convinced myself that I wasn't paying enough attention to Simon and it was making him act out at school; I thought Candy Land would solve all of our problems, which just goes to show that a guilty mom is not a clear thinking mom...but I digress :) The game has been played and while it hasn't proved to be magical in the way of improving Simon's behavior, it has proved to be a great tool for evading photos!

As a side note, I'd like it to be known that Simon knows exactly how to break me down and make me laugh. He had me in tears at Target today when I should have been actually parenting him, but sometimes I just cannot help it. Perhaps I should parent him sans hysterical laughter and then Candy Land wouldn't be needed in the first place...

Thanks kids, for being a delightful distraction tonight :) Holy babbling...

Happy Baby Shrieks

Don't mind my annoying mom voice in the background...just enjoy the sounds of a ridiculously excited 3 month old. This video is a minute of what lasted in real life for about 30 :)