Guns and Batman in Hawaii

A couple things worth mentioning about Cecilia....

1) I finally (with Bryan's assistance) was able to twist her hair up for the first time in who knows how long. She's been rocking pigtails, but I really love this look so I'm glad we got her to sit still for it (never mind that because of summertime fun it probably won't last...trying not to think about that).

2) Check out those guns. Seriously. These pictures are 100% unedited, straight out of the camera. Find me another baby who looks like she could win an arm wrestling match! I love it.

 And a couple things about Simon too:

1) He has worn this outfit almost every day since school has let out. I can pretty much promise that if you see him this summer, you will see this batman swim shirt and Hawaiian swim shorts.

2) This first photo was his idea and afterwards he declared it gave him a headache.

Is it possible to miss summer already because I know it won't last?? :)

Sweet Dreams

Last night Bryan was in Pennsylvania for work so I got a little caught up on a show he doesn't watch called Pretty Little Liars. In case you're unfamiliar, it's basically about these very well dressed high school girls who are always in the middle of blackmail and murder dramas. Finally around 10:30 I decided to turn off the ridiculousness and went to bed. When Bryan is gone I usually pull Simon into bed with me because I feel safer with all of us closer together (Cecie's room is connected to ours with a door), so I grabbed him and tried putting the last creepy episode out of my mind before drifting to sleep.

Apparently I failed miserably...at the putting it out of my mind part. Around 11:30 I awoke to screams. They were of course coming from my now raw throat and my body was frantically kicking and thrashing to ward off the intruder. I desperately reached for my phone, but at some point it fell to the floor so this terrified me further (they must have taken it!). I reached for the lamp, fumbled to get it turned on, sat up and finally stopped screaming when I saw nobody was in the room. I sat there breathing heavy with a pulse racing faster than it ever does even when I'm sprinting. No joke. Simon groggily looked over at me and calmly asked "What are you doing?"

I believe I said something on the lines of, "nothing, it's okay, go back to sleep," before going to turn the overhead light on low for the rest of the night. It took quite some time for my pulse to go back to normal so I could drift back off to sleep.

Then Bryan's alarm from the day before went off at 3:30am. And again at 4:00am. Then our darling girl was up at 5:30.

Soooo that was my night. And yes, I can laugh about it.

{In case you're interested, I have had similar night terror experiences a handful of other times in my life. The most memorable was in the midst of reading Harry Potter and someone with an invisibility cloak was in my room. True story.}

Update

It's been about 7 months since I first posted about Simon reading a book to me so I thought it was high time for an update.

When he first started out, he was reading very simple and very short books that consisted of about six sentences in total - this was a challenge for him and about as much focus as he could muster (rightfully so). Today he read a book that had 32 pages, with about three simple sentences on each page.  Quite an improvement if you ask me! A few months ago he would have taken one look at that first page and would have been so overwhelmed that he wouldn't even try. I love that he is getting more confidence and that he wants to read to me as much as he wants to be read to (the summer reading program through his school and the library are definitely helping with this!).

Anyway, here is a short video of him reading a page out of the aforementioned book:

She Speaks!

We are heading into one of the most fun stages to witness as a parent - talking (granted this simultaneously comes with some of the least fun stages to witness as a parent - tantrums - but we're not talking about that today).

It seems like every day Cecie is saying something new and she's getting more and more interested in repeating whatever we ask her to say. I would venture to guess she has somewhere around 25-30 words - the latest being "love you" which has come out as "lah you" or "ahv you." I don't care how she says it, it's going to melt me every single time.

So anyway, I tried to get a video of her saying a few words. She was generally cooperative, but it's kind of quiet. I wish I would have taken more videos like this of Simon; I know I'm going to love it some day!!

Out with 4k....

I just got the boy on the bus for the last time as a 4K kid; in a few hours he'll officially be a kindergartener. What the hell? I don't know how we got to this point, but here we are. It's going to be a big adjustment for all of us next year, but hopefully we'll all manage just fine. I think Cecie is going to miss him a ton, though. Who will she terrorize all day if he's not home? Hopefully the dog and not me. Ha.

Here are some "before and after" pictures...in other words, first and last day of school pictures :) Super Grover was on his shirt on his first day, and Falls was on his shirt today.

Clearly his love for being a weirdo in front of the camera has held strong all year :)

The farm

Yesterday Simon and I (and the rest of the 4K kids in all of Menomonee Falls) went to a really fun, hands on farm. He got to - among other things - ride a pony, go on a hay ride, feed goats and llamas, milk a cow, hold a chicken, and pet a duck (and a bunny, a chinchilla, a hedgehog, a gerbil, and probably more...I can't remember everything he pet at this station, I was starting to fade by this point).

It was a really fun day for everyone and we lucked out with beautiful, sunny weather. I left my big camera at home, but whipped out my iPhone plenty!

--

Most of the kids were sitting nicely and reading books before we were all ready to head out. I think this pack of boys was plotting something, I'm not sure:

These sunglasses cracked me up because we got them from the dollar store a few weeks ago and they happened to match the shirt he picked out. He was the only kid with shades so he looked like he was too cool for school, but really they were super practical on a day like yesterday!

He loves pony rides, so this could have been all we did for the day and he probably would have been happy:

Moms and dads got to take turns too :)

Chasing a chicken....

Got one! One of the moms said, "isn't it weird that we eat those things?" and before I could stop myself I said, "Oh well I'm vegetarian." I could practically see her eyes rolling. Haha.

And the little gal who totally reminds me of Cecilia...

"I really thought it looked like it was peeing...didn't it look like it was peeing Mom?!"

At the small animal petting station one of the kids tried to choke this poor duck. Our leader, Miss Amanda was pissed, and scolded the heck out of that kid and rightly so...a minute earlier he tried pulling an ear off a different animal. He won't be going to the same school as Simon next year.

I watched this goat drop a whole mess of pellets before taking this picture. Enjoy the view. 

A lovely mother-son picture. I was even tickling him to try to get him to smile but that tongue prevailed.

Separately, Bryan and I both asked what his favorite part of the day was. 

He said to both of us, "When the pigs farted."

Dear Cecilia

My dearest Cecilia,
4:45am is not an acceptable time to be up for the day. You can cry all you want, but until it's an acceptable time to rise you're going to be looking at the walls of your baby prison (also known as your crib).

With all the love in the world (plus a little anger in my heart for all the interrupted sleep you've provided us with this week),
Mama

My Own

The past month has been quite busy by my standards...I went from the craziness of Run Like a Mother right into this photography thing without taking a minute to regroup, but now that most of my practice sessions are complete things should slow down and go more or less back to normal. And by "normal" I mean that I should be able to get all my laundry done and put away within a couple of days rather than a couple of weeks. The laundry I mentioned in one of my last blog posts is still in baskets upstairs. Seriously. I don't know why I cannot summon the energy to put it away. 

Tomorrow.

Tonight I am going to blog, watch Mad Men and trip over those baskets one more night.

--

I've literally taken well over a thousand photos of other people's kids in the past few weeks, but my own kids have not been in front of my camera much lately. I did manage to get a few shots of them playing on the kitchen floor like the loving siblings they are...

They play so well together most of the time still, but I can see glimpses into our harried future more and more. She wants what he has, and he wants to retaliate for taking what he had. He's getting less and less understanding because she is getting older and older. When she was just a baby he knew she was just a baby, but now he wants justice. Sometimes he takes things from her with no other purpose than to make her cry, just like all the mean big brothers I knew growing up. Oy. 

Mini Obsessions Confessions

Since Simon has been born I have come up with a lot of obsessions hobbies for myself. Once upon a time I was really into decorating cakes, running, vegetarian cooking, real food, cloth diapers, homemade cleaning products, African American hair care, baby making, adoption, etc. I've spent hours of my life intensely focused on each of these things at various times.

What do you suppose that's about, going from one little obsession to the next? I'm sure there is a highly educated psychoanalyst who could shed some light on it, but I don't think it really matters. Most of my obsessions have improved some aspect of my life or my family's life so I'm not going to fight my nature here.

Instead I'm going to take my latest obsession to new heights.

I'm going to put myself out there. Risk failure. Risk a bruised ego. Risk judgement. Risk turning something I've grown to love into something I do for work...and hope that I will still love doing it.

So I'm open for business - thermusphotography.com

Big fat EEEEK. Wish me luck, friends!