Friday, April 26, 2013

Charlie

My good friends Tiffany and Danielle asked me about a month ago if I would do their baby's newborn pictures. I was quite terrified of screwing this up so I spent some time researching how to both take and edit newborn pictures. My research paid off...if I do say so myself :)

Here are some of my favorites from the ones I've had time to edit so far!








Thanks for the fun day, Charlie! And thanks for not pooping or peeing on any of my blankets :)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Fifteen Months!




Stupid, useless gate.

Until we get the gate lowered, I'm back to following Cecilia around all damn day so I figured I'd pull out the camera and document how she spends her time as a fifteen month old (almost anyway).

A lot of her time is revolved around Brother. She likes to steal his sippy cups, stand in his way, play with him, bring him books, take them away, etc. Most of the time he plays right back with her. Gotta say, I'm pretty much in love with this picture:

And this one, but for an altogether different reason:

Much of her time these days is spent walking around with giant shoes on. Much to my dismay, she WILL. NOT. keep her own shoes on. Drives me nuts. But the big shoe thing is pretty cute:

When she's not stealing shoes, you might find her looking at books. She doesn't have a big attention span for having them read to her quite yet, but she sure loves to have them in her hands and look at the pictures. I did read the entirety of Brown Bear, Brown Bear to her yesterday. We're getting there!

And the rest of her time is mostly spent wandering. She walks from thing to thing, place to place with no apparent rhyme or reason. Hopefully she will be a champ at playing independently like her big brother; so far she seems to be well on her way!

Cecilia started walking as her primary mode of transportation sometime in her twelfth month, but it wasn't until this week that she started standing up on her own. She would always walk on her knees or crawl to something to help her stand up and then walk wherever she needed to go. So I guess now she is really walking, which is great because this means we can play outside a lot easier. 
Love that little butt:

She still mean mugs people all the time, and as a result people ask if she "just woke up" all the time. Almost every day someone asks me this. It's actually kind of funny. I think they ask this because she is NOT going to smile for you just because you're smiling at her. This has been a personality trait of hers forever and it has not changed. I'd be worried about it, but this looks like a happy enough kid to me:

She also still messes with people all the time by picking and choosing who she wants to hold her. She will bat you away and say "NO!" and then snuggle with whoever has her just to twist the knife. Next thing you know, she is in your arms denying the person who just had her. Funny thing is, when it's your turn to get the love you cannot help but instantly melt. She's a little manipulator.

She's all smiles in these pictures, but she's recently developed a witching hour. As soon as 4:00 hits she seems to lose her mind over everything. Bryan cannot get home soon enough, for either of our sake's. All hell breaks loose if she sees him and he has to walk out of the room without her for any reason. Her tantrums are so ridiculous, and they are getting less cute the older she gets. Her tantrums at bath time are particularly note worthy...washing her hair is a slice of pure hell. Simon yelled at me for yelling at her during our last bath battle. I realize that yelling at a 14 month old doesn't make much sense, but there is something about her trying to jump out of the bath mid-rinse that makes me just want to yell. Anyone want to take this job over for me for a while? :)

She is starting to talk a bit and that squeaky little voice just kills me. She has about 10-15 words that she uses sort of regularly and I get excited every single time a little word sneaks out. The ones we hear most are no, uh oh, dada, si (simon), hi (pictured below), hello (ALWAYS with her hand up to her ear), and thank you. Note "mama" still didn't make the list. Punk.

She is a busy little lady, exactly how she should be. 
We are so lucky.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Run. Grandpa. Haircut. Moms. New. Tree. Chair.

Simon was very excited to go on a "group run" last night. We went to a fundraising run for Boston and Simon went about a mile. He ran some, walked some, played some and did a lot of stopping to stretch...


Cecilia and her Grandpa Jimmy playing. There's nothing like a hat to keep a 1 year old happy...

Our GQ man after a haircut...

Cecilia with her mom, her mom's mom and her mom's mom's mom...

Charlie, a brand new one...

Simon reading The Giving Tree. I've always liked this book, but it's quite sad...

C sitting like a big girl. She is doing so many things like a big girl these days....

That's all I've got for today :)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

What a week...

I've read one too many tragic stories this week. The two that have gotten to me most are of course Boston and then the local "mother" who, after several run ins with Child Protective Services in recent months, decided to lock her children in a room while she went to work and meanwhile the house burned to the ground. These sickening, gut wrenching stories have settled deeply into the folds of my brain; I'm just so sad for so many people.

In times like this I can't help but feel extra grateful for all of my loved ones, but also inordinately fearful that at any moment they could be taken away. Mission accomplished I suppose. Events like in Boston are meant to create fear, right? I'm pretty sure.

Not much to do but keep moving forward.

It'd be nice if these two could grow up in a world made up of only love and no fear, but they're just going to have to learn to live with both. It's just part of being human I think. In the meantime, they're only going to know the love part (and maybe a little bit of healthy fear to keep them in line).












Sunday, April 14, 2013

Daddy Time

Our neighbors have this thing called "Daddy Time." If you tell the kids to go home by their daddy, they will stall and do what kids do when they'd rather stay put. If you change the way you say it and tell them, "It's Daddy Time," they will haul ass out the door like they're on fire and won't look back. Daddy Time means something extra fun and exciting is about to happen.

While we didn't call it Daddy Time, Simon had just that on Saturday.

Bryan saw an ad for a dinosaur documentary called Flying Monsters 3D at the Milwaukee Public Museum so he and the boy made a date. Simon did a lot to prepare for this father-son day in the week preceding it: he collected snacks for the movie for the two of them and put them in Bryan's car for safe keeping, he tried to get me to buy two juices for the same reason and he even planned out what they were going to eat for breakfast together that morning (cereal).

It's not like they never do anything together, but usually we're just all together or they are doing something that is already their thing so it's not out of the ordinary (ie swimming at the Y). The very idea of it made Simon stick like glue to Bryan every time he saw him for days...it was pretty cute.

So anyways, I was home with Cecilia slightly jealous that they were off having big kid fun while they were doing their thing. Luckily Bryan took some pictures so I could sort of pretend that I didn't miss out :)










Thursday, April 11, 2013

Hair Day Complete


We decided on simple 5 minute pig tails.

I didn't want to mess too much with it for fear of breaking more off, but I'm starting to wonder if she's just getting new hair growth above her forehead so what looks like it was broken off is maybe just coming in for the first time. That answer makes me have much less mommy guilt so I should probably roll with it....

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Hair Day

Tomorrow is hair day.

And tomorrow is a particularly important hair day to me because we're in a bit of a hair pickle (this is a real thing, trust me). I have to figure some things out. I'm starting to worry that she's going bald by her forehead hairline. And maybe in other spots. I realize that this doesn't exactly look like a balding child....


...but I keep finding chunks of hair around. And the hair right above her forehead is completely (and devastatingly) broken off. Poof. Gone.

So I'm left to wonder. Is she pulling out her hair? Is it just falling out because it's been "free" for a couple of weeks and it's naturally shedding a bit? Is it breaking against her crib sheets? Is it breaking because she loves to rub crap on her head in order to make Simon laugh and Mom cringe (both equally appealing to her)? Is it breaking because I'm handling it too much? Too little? Am I not moisturizing it enough? Have I put too much product in?

And the biggest question of all, what in the hell should I do with her hair tomorrow??

This is what we call a learning experience. Not a crisis like all of my questions might suggest I'm turning this into, but something I need to address nonetheless.


So tomorrow is hair day. One that has me unusually nervous...especially since I just realized we're out of Bunny Crackers. Yikes.