Parenthood

Things I love about parenthood right now:

Addie rolled over today for the first time! (Actually Paul said she did it once at 3 weeks, but it was a fluke.) Today may have been a fluke too, but I saw it and it's just as exciting with kid #2! Glad I was watching, cause it happened on the couch and could have easily resulted in an injury. She went from back to tummy. She's been pushing with her feet and leaning to her shoulder a lot, but I didn't think she'd make it all the way over this soon.

Garrett has this new vigorous marching in place, arms swinging, giggling dance thing that he does and it is so darn cute.

Addie watches me wherever I go in the room, and smiles whenever I look at her, which is a lot, because I love looking at her.

Garrett stands by the fridge and holds onto the handle when he's thirsty, if I don't respond fast enough he smiles and points over and over. Not so looking forward to when he can pull the door open.

Addie takes long naps now! Like two 3+ hour naps a day. Yesterday her second nap was 4 hours. Makes for a happy baby and a happy mom. The nights are still the same. Usually one wake up that just requires a binky and she's right back to sleep, and one early morning feeding and she falls back asleep when she's full.

Garrett walks out to the living room when I get him out of bed in the morning and let's out a big dramatic sigh as he looks around. Kind of like a "Ok-I'm-well-rested-and-these-toys-aren't-going-to-play-with-themselves-so-I-better-get-started" kind of a sigh. I love it.

Addie's done with colic. (Knock on wood/she probably was getting over it by the time we made it to the doctor, or never really had it. OR, the medicine works great.) She's a content, happy little girl. She fusses less now than she ever has and the days with her are very peaceful. We still give her medicine, usually once, at the most twice in 24 hours and we could give it to her 6 times, but never have. She's very curious and likes to see what's going on, just like her brother, but she's really become 'chill', just like I (used to) describe her brother.

And the other 'Parenthood'... Do you watch it?? If I had to pick one show to watch and give up everything else, I would absolutely choose 'Parenthood'. Brilliant writing, incredible acting, amazing dialog style. I love everyone in it, and everything about it. It really gets me thinking about real life and makes me want to be a better parent. As I was sobbing while watching last nights episode, I looked at Paul (who was also crying), and said, "I can't believe I have to wait a week for the next episode!" I felt so happy for Jasmine and Crosby, and so heartbroken for Joel and Julia. Like I know them personally and like it's a true story or something! ...That's good TV. Today when Paul came up for lunch he said, "So... have you been thinking about Parenthood?" I said, "Yep, all morning. I even feel like I need to blog about it." I can't even begin to explain the family it's about, each of their stories, and how they all intertwine, (except that it's about a couple, their 4 adult children, and each of their families), but it's worth checking out.(There's a baby, a boyfriend, and (hopefully...we'll find out next week) another baby missing from this picture.)

half of my life

I remember when I was taking the driving test with ol' what's his name who had Narcolepsy and would fall asleep while I was driving so I'd lightly tap the brake to get him to wake up. We were driving north on 1900 and I went through a yellow/red light that I had plenty of time to stop at, but I just didn't. He was pretty cool about it, but made sure I knew that he knew I had plenty of time to slow down instead of speed up. His qualifying statement was, "I know you had time to safely brake, because I've been driving most of my life and have a lot of practice." I was too nervous to make a joke, but a lot came to mind like, "How much of your life have you been awake while driving?" I know I'm not that funny, but I thought I was when I was 15. And he really did have Narcolepsy. You can't make crap like that up. It's a wonder I'm still alive considering I learned to drive from a dude who was asleep most the time, and I got an "A" even though I ran a red light (and slammed into a curb because I was trying to not run over a ball that bounced into the street, but that's a different story for a different time). And, I've only had one minor accident at age 16 in my aunts car that wasn't my fault, and I've never got a ticket...lots of warnings, no tickets. Knock on wood...

Anyway, I've now been driving half of my life. 16 + 16 = 32. (I barely passed math too, but I think my numbers are right.)

I'm trying not to feel old. And for the most part I don't, but every once in a while I have a mid-life panic. Like, man if I want more kids we need to hurry. Or, I can't have any more kids cause I'll be like 95 when they graduate high school. (See what I mean about the math?) Most of my feeling old has to do with being a mom and giving birth, but I'm really happy with where I'm at with that right now, so I think 32 will be an ok year.

I had a fun weekend leading up to my birthday. I went to a girls day crafty/brunch party in Pasadena. Forgot to take pictures, but had a great time and this is what I made.Paul watched the kids. When I left I told him, "It's supposed to last 3 hours but I doubt I'll stay the whole time." 6 hours later, I got home. I guess I really needed a day out! I came home to a clean house, clean dishes, laundry done, happy kids, and enchiladas for dinner.

Paul and I also had a date day. We went to see The Vow. Great movie. A couple things I didn't like about it while I was watching it, but by the end I loved it. The last 20 seconds of the movie made the whole story real to me. And all the end is, is a conversation about where to go to dinner, but it makes you realize how long the road ahead is, but how committed and patient the husband is. Good flick.

We also did a little birthday shopping. And we went to dinner. It was yummy, but a little too fancy for me. The restaurant was Cat in a Custard Cup. I told Paul, I thought it would be like burgers and custard and maybe the owners pet cat walking around. But it was leather menu holders, cloth table clothes, drizzly stuff and greenery on all the plates, dim lighting, and music. We happened to be there at Happy Hour and all the appetizers were half price. Paul insisted that I get whatever I wanted, but we were totally that couple that ordered a couple drinks, 4 appetizers and no entrees. It was plenty of food, and half price! And they gave me free creme brulee for my birthday!

And today, (my birthday), I made french toast for all of us. Then Paul went to work. Addie had a great nights sleep and then took an epic nap. Garrett and I baked cookies with my new cookie press. He more smashed cookies, got sprinkles everywhere but on the cookies, and ate dough. I didn't think about the raw egg until after, but the batch made over 100 little cookies and it only had one egg in it. He probably only ate about 4 cookies worth of dough, so I'm sure he'll be fine.For dinner we met up with Paul's family and Poppy at Ruby's Diner. I hate being sung to at restaurants. Some people say they hate it but they really love it. I really hate it. Somehow the restaurant manager found out it was my birthday so he wrote Happy Birthday with a marker on a rubys hat, came to our table with a sundae, then walked to the middle of the dining area and got everyone in the restaurants attention, told them my name and that it was my birthday, came back over and put the hat on my head, and made everyone join him in singing to me. It seemed like the longest. song. ever.We put Addie in a booster seat at dinner. She's getting so big!Chowing down.Garrett rocking my birthday hat. I just love this pretty little girl.

After dinner we went to PetSmart to buy fish food and let Garrett run around and look at all the animals. We were there for probably close to an hour and he was freaking out, pointing at everything, and so excited the whole time. So easy to entertain. Then we stopped for ice cream before we headed home.The older I get the less awesome birthdays are, but I can't complain about this one. It was a good day.

And in the past I've made my new years resolutions on my birthday instead of Jan. 1. This year I made one, but I can't tell you what it is, because some of you may be on the receiving end of my resolution and I don't want to ruin it.

Love day

I want to be a traditiony family. Who knows how well it'll go, but we're starting them young and we're sure gonna try!

I'm sure there may come a year when Paul and I have the time/energy/money to have a nice Valentine's dinner out, but this year, we spent it with the kids. And in the years to come, if Paul and I go out, and if we even let our kids date and THEY happen to have Valentine's dates, I still want to have a fun family dinner sometime near the 14th.

This year we had pink alfredo with steak and spinach. I put a little food coloring in the sauce and in the water that I cooked the noodles in so everything turned pink. I made raspberry jello and we had salad, bread and pink lemonade, too. It was an easy dinner, and I'm learning that if I want to keep up the fun times around here, things need to be easy.For dessert we had chocolate fondue. We had strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, rice crispy treats, pretzels, and sponge cake. Also easy because I even bought the cake and rice crispy treats already made. (I'll probably make stuff like that if we do this again. But I baked, frosted, decorated and boxed over 325 mini cupcakes for work on Valentine's day too, so I had to keep some things simple.)Garrett's favorites were jello and strawberries, but he ate more pasta than I expected, so that was good.I felt spoiled this year. I kind of always make jokes about wanting a lot for Valentine's day because my birthday is just a few days later and I like to tease about making 2 separate wish lists. But really I don't expect much, for either. But Paul got up an hour early and made me a breakfast burrito. On his lunch break he brought me a dozen red roses. And after dinner he gave me a Hobby Lobby gift card, AND he wrote me a poem!All I got him was this stuffed lobster...that Garrett picked out...that Garrett thinks is his...that probably is his... But you know that episode of 'Friends'? "He's her lobster!" (Youtube it) See? I'm kind of thoughtful...Anyway, we had a nice day. I love Paul and I love my kids...more and more everyday. And that night while bathing Garrett, he blew me a kiss. And when I tucked him in bed, he reached up for a lip kiss. Both without me asking! Priceless.And here are some fun little collages of pictures I took of the kids a couple days before to send to the grandparents. (The ones of Garrett kissing Addison are my favorite.)

visitors from utah and alaska

My brother and his wife came to California to spend a couple days at Disneyland with her family, but they stayed with us and we got to spend a couple days with them too. It happened to be the week before Garrett's surgery and my parents were planning to come out during that time anyway, so we had a full house but it worked out perfectly.

Garrett is my little helper boy. He wants to assist with everything from laundry, to garbage, to sweeping and dusting. He really slows me down, but I try and be patient because he's always so proud of himself when I say "Thank you for helping!" He smiles and bounds around so happy looking for the next thing to do.We met up with Tay and Sam at Disneyland one evening for a couple of hours.We went on a picnic with Grammy and Grandpa.We had a pizza party and everyone got to make their own. Garrett loved being able to do whatever he wanted with his pizza. Playing with food was finally allowed and he loved it.Yep, he must be my kid. :)He was so happy when Grammy helped him put the baby carrier on with his puppy inside. He couldn't quite figure it out on his own.His favorite book that I got at a library sale for a quarter. We read it over, and over, and over... Even Garrett has it memorized and he's made up little actions for different parts of the story.We went to the Santa Monica Pier. Watching Garrett torment these pigeons was the highlight of the day. He was fearless, walking through them, grabbing their tails, scaring them away. Even getting flapped in the face didn't stop him.We had a Super Bowl party. I dressed the kids as footballs. And as you can see, Garrett was so thrilled about it that he was overcome with emotion.Garrett had his surgery (that I already wrote about) on Monday the 6th. Tay, Sam and my dad all left that day. My mom had a ticket to leave that Wednesday, but because of Garrett's strict schedule of soaking in the tub several times a day, ointments, medicine, etc, she decided to stay til Saturday night. I'm SO thankful she did. Thankfully the kid loves the tub, but it was very time consuming. I only gave him one bath that week and he had about 20 over those 4 or 5 days. Thank you Grammy!And just a few things I maybe never mentioned. I had mastitis again a few weeks ago and had to take an antibiotic again. I also took a milk thinner to help push the infection through, and a milk producer to help with a low supply on one side because of a damaged milk duct when I had a lump removed after Garrett was born. Addie had a clogged tear duct and had drops for a few days because it was slightly infected. She also is taking her tummy drops, just twice a day, not 6 times, and she's had a great couple of days. We also tried gripe water with her too. And then Garrett... Pain meds, pro-biotics, laxatives, ointments... Glad Paul is healthy! Actually we are all very healthy, but looking at my counter top at the moment, you'd think otherwise.