Motherhood has made me so emotional. I know that's true for many people. Talking about my kids, or even thinking about them, often makes me tear up. I'll probably weep while writing this post. Maybe.
I took the girls to a nearby park the other day. I had Evie in the Baby Bjorn and we followed Olivia around as she navigated the less frequented big-kid side of the park. She decided to take on climbing ropes. As a somewhat cautious kid, any amount of climbing up the ropes is a feat for her. She made it to the second rope and felt maxed out; she looked at me for approval. At that moment, a girl a few years older than her nimbly scrambled up to the top rope to the right of Olivia. She proudly looked down at Olivia and gloated in a [incredibly bratty] sing-song voice, "Look how high I am! You can't touch me!" hoping, I'm sure, to get a reaction from Olivia.
My sweet Pie, totally adorable and unbratty smiled and said back to her, "You're doing great!"
Then she looked again at me. "Mom, am I doing great?"
My heart could have burst. Those are the kinds of things that make me go in to her room 20 minutes after putting her to bed, just to snuggle her and tell her I love her one more time.

Moooo

I breastfeed. I believe in it and am committed to it. I'm not convinced I'll match the 2+ years I breastfed Olivia, but I'll keep it up as long as I can. But it's a pain sometimes.

Olivia watched me pump for the first time the other day. Not surprisingly, she had a lot of questions about what was happening, which I answered honestly. The day after our conversation, she came into the room while I was pumping again. She told me, "I'm going to pretend you are a cow." I said that was fine. She grabbed a book, sat down beside me, and said, "I'll read to you, Cow." 

Thanks for helping me pass the time...uh, Calf.

Special?

As I fed Evie on the couch in the playroom yesterday, I overheard Olivia talking as she played with her toys. She has a karaoke machine that has a picture of a crowd of babies (to perform for, of course). She sat in front of the machine and pointed to each baby as she said (quietly), "You are special, you are special, you are not special, you are special, you are not special, you are not special, you are special," etc. I was unable to see across the room as to who the "not-specials" were so I couldn't find any rhyme or reason, but I'm wondering if I need to be worried...

At lunch the other day-
Me: Olivia, take your feet off the table.  (For the twelfth time)
O: Why?
Me: Because they have germs on them and I don't want them on the table. Also, because I'm the mom and you're the little girl. Your job is to obey me.
O: Why?
Me: Because God said. He said, "Kids, obey your parents."
O: I didn't hear him say that.

Baby!

Welcome, Evangeline Grace! We are so blessed to have another healthy, beautiful baby girl. 

We love you so much!

As you wiiiiiiiiiiish...

Does anyone still check this? I'm sorry to have neglected this for so long. My nesting instinct is in full force, rivaled only by my desire to sleep. Contradictory? Perhaps. All that to say, with my free time divided equally between finishing projects and snoozing, I've had little time (energy? desire?) to post. With that, I give you an extremely random post about my princess...and Princess Bride. 

We are growing out Olivia's bangs. For a long time, I had them trimmed often and I loved the short bangs and the cropped hair which was pretty adorable.

But last summer, something in me felt the need to start growing them out - mostly because I thought with the rest of her hair so short, it would be easiest for her bangs to catch up at this stage. Also, two-year-olds look cuter with their longish-growing-out-bangs clipped back in a barrette than a seven-year-old does, in my opinion (the age I started growing them out).

When Pie wakes up in the morning, her bangs in her eyes make it impossible to see, or do anything, really. That means before we go downstairs to have breakfast or do anything, we throw on a headband or I pull her top half of hair back into a pony so that her bangs don't drag into her food. On a side note, the growing out thing is quite frustrating because all the little baby hairs under her long bangs are becoming thick enough to look like real bangs, which means even with the regular bangs are grown out, we'll be already working on growing out the next layer. Geesh. The other morning at breakfast, I was watching Olivia in her headband, long bangs flopping over it, blueberry syrup casting a mustache-like appearance, when I had the thought that she resembled someone other than herself. Then I realized who she reminded me of: Cary Elwes of Princess Bride! I snapped a few pictures and compared them with googled images of Princess Bride and, what do ya know, my far-out idea was confirmed! What do you think? Wesley?

      

The other day after picking Olivia up from Auntie Nicki's after daycare, Pie and I had our usual chat about what she did that day -- who she played with, what they did, what she ate, if she was kind to others, etc. Then Olivia said, "Mom, I'm going to tell you something." I was anticipating some sort of confession.
"What? I like when you tell me things."
"I'm going to tell you something I did at Auntie Nicki's."
"Okay, you can tell me," as we pulled up to a red light.
"I'll tell you when the light changes green."
Whaaaat? "Okay, but it just turned red so it's going to be a while."
We sat through the entire light cycle. She said not a word. When I finally got the green arrow, she smiled and happily said, "I played downstairs with Anna. We played with dolls."
Wow. I'm glad she waited those three minutes to tell me...