9 Months of Zoey

4 teeth; 2 bottoms and 2 tops just popped through. 

Says: Dada, Mama, Aga (Ava), Gogga (Doggie), Kitta Ka (Kitty Cat), Bupbupbupbup (Up, up, up, up!) 

Signs: Milk, Bye Bye, All Done, Holds out hands for UP

Crawls FAST, pulls up, cruising the coffee table, pincer grasp is super-efficient! 

Wants more than anything to be just like sissy. 

Weighs 21 lbs and in 18 month clothes. :) 

Eating: Not much other than mama milk. Only interested in whatever someone else has. She cruises from one family member to the next at dinner holding out her little hand for bites and shoving them in. Not much of it stays in for long, but she's interested. She managed to eat a bunch of acorn squash last night. We were impressed!

Mama's Birthday Ergo (and a doll Ergo for Ava) 

9 months with Zoey AND Ava in our lives has been the best yet! Loving life with my kiddos!

6 Months of Zoey!

We've made it! Half a year with my easy, breezy baby... 

She is doted upon by her sweet, helpful big sister.

Her first bites of food, a banana, that she snagged from me a while back, and some avocado (aside from the overly helpful tastes she's had from sissy).

She is usually so content and happy. Her first word was "Mama" a couple of weeks ago. She said it while crying for me after Mike had just gotten her out of the tub. She was very tired. In a few days she was saying "Dada" over and over again. She did that for a few days and now she's started babbling all sorts of sounds. She's the type that learns a new trick and then doesn't do it again. She rolled over both ways and hasn't tried to do it since! Although she is sitting up by herself now. And sometimes she'll fall over when reaching for her toys and get herself to her tummy. She's quite bright! :)

The exploration of food has been going well. With Z we're doing exclusive Baby-Led Weaning. No purees or mush! She is so eager to eat. 

I love this girl.

Zoey is happy to go wherever we go. We all went camping last weekend. Ava's first time too. We had such a blast! And the girls slept all through the night, through a raging lightning storm too. 

We have two of the best kids ever. These girls are so amazing. Kind, sweet, calm, bright, and so adorable. I love these little monkeys. Happy 6 month birthday Zoey! It's been wonderful.

An Ever-So-Ordinary Day In Our Life...

7:45am :: After lying in bed for a few extra minutes, we all get up. Ava goes pee pee by herself. Mommy turns on the TV and Ava turns on Netflix by herself. Lately, her favorite show is My Big Big Friend.  Mommy changes Zoey’s diaper. Then we all eat some breakfast. Today, that is zucchini banana flax muffins.

8:30am :: Ava decides that she wants to watch Dumbo while I get the girls dressed and putz around closing windows since it is getting warm, putting Hammy out to pee, cleaning here and there, and doing some laundry.

9:30am :: The girls eat a popsicle (what else is summer for?!)  Zoey has her first mommy-milksicle and likes it! 

Then they play together for a little while. Meaning…Ava plays (practices writing her name) while Zoey tries to grab any part of her, mostly hair. 

10:00am :: Zoey falls asleep in the wrap. After I ease her out onto the bed still sleeping, Mommy gets a much-needed shower while Ava plays by herself.

10:30am :: Ava and Mommy have a snack together. Leftovers for Mommy and (by request) another muffin for Ava. Zoey is still sleeping.

11:00am :: Pack lunch. Nurse Zoey. Then we head to our friends' house to play.

12:00pm :: Still playing at our friends' house.

1:00pm :: Still playing. Zoey sleeps. Then we eat some lunch outside. I got so hungry I forgot to take a picture. We had turkey and cheese sandwiches, plums, and a cookie each. Ava didn’t eat her bread, or plum. After lunch we play outside for a little while swinging in the hammock and the chair, and running in the grass.

2:00pm :: Discover tiny bird nest with baby birds (can’t see them in the picture… darn!). And then we go back inside to clean up and leave. Ava doesn’t want to leave.

3:10pm :: Go home.  Late nap. Ava falls asleep while softly stroking Zoey’s hair while Zoey nurses. Zoey falls asleep a few minutes later. Mommy gets a nice long nap too.

5:15pm :: Ava wakes up. Mike’s been home for about half an hour now. (Ava goes right for his iPhone.) This isn’t our usual naptime but he’s let us sleep and has been talking to his mom.

5:30pm :: Zoey wakes up. Mommy starts working on dinner while Daddy plays with the girls.

6:30 pm :: Dinner; breakfast hash of sorts. Sausage, rice, peppers, tomatoes, and my last 2 eggs… wrapped up.

7:00pm :: It's Wednesday, so Daddy takes Ava to Young Mens’ weekly meeting at church since Ava really wants to go with him. She poses for a quick picture before running out the door with Daddy. Mommy has alone time with Zoey. Cue fussy time.

7:45pm :: Zoey finally eats her dinner and goes to sleep… whew! Mommy settles in to watch “No Impact Man: The Documentary” Daddy and Ava return moments later. Mommy loses the TV. 

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No Impact Man: The Documentary

9:00pm :: Ava chooses to have a shower instead of a bath tonight. Time for her to settle in and watch a show before bed. Usually she’s supposed to be asleep by 9:30 but tonight we’re feeling a bit lenient since naptime was later than usual. No more pictures after this since my camera batteries died. Of course...

9:45pm :: Landlord comes to visit, chatting with Daddy outside. We inform him that we will be moving in about a month (yay!). Mommy goes inside and lies down with Ava to put her to bed, nurses Zoey while she’s at it. Ava is asleep in 15 minutes. Zoey is still sleeping. Mommy and Daddy settle in to watch Law and Order SVU and relax.

11:30pm :: Bedtime for Mommy and Daddy.

12:15am :: Mommy stays up writing this blog post. Oops! :) I hope you've enjoyed seeing what a boring 'ol day looks like around here.

I got this idea from Baby Rabies when she did an ordinary day post a while back.

Sleep With Your Babies...

Some of the best advice I can give to new moms (and dads) is this...

Sleep. Sleep with your babies.

At some point all children fight naps. And it may seem easier to throw in the towel, avoiding arguments, or be more convenient to do chores. But one day you will open your eyes. The cool summer breeze will be blowing back the curtains, an animal will be curled at your feet. Sometimes dog. Sometimes cat. You'll see your three year old, long, skinny arms and legs, tangled in the blankets. You'll free her gently and she'll sigh as you brush her damp hair off of her forehead. You'll wonder when she magically changed from baby to child. Then the baby beside you will stir. Fat, dimpled arms and bowtie lips reaching for mommy. You'll snuggle her closer trying to get those last 15 minutes of the calmest peace. Her eyes will open for just a second. Seeing you, they'll close and she'll easily fall back to sleep. When you see the dreaming smile cross her lips, gone in but a moment, you'll feel so special knowing that that fleeting moment was captured by you alone. You won't be able to sleep because this moment is too perfect. You'll inhale the air, feel the soft rise and fall of their gentle breathing, try as hard as you can to burn this perfect image into your memory.

As your babies sleep, whether you close your eyes and sleep with them, or just slow down and breathe in this moment. Lie with them. Remember that it is gone too soon. Time will take these babies from you. Enjoy naptime. Sleep with your babies. They may not remember it. But you will. Dream. And forget the world.

I have been thinking a lot lately about mindfulness, connectedness, and finding and enjoying the special little moments in the hectic life of parenting small children. I lie down to nap with my kids just about every day. Naptime is sacred here. Sleep is sacred. To read more about finding spirituality in parenting, see Molly's (Talk Birth) article on breastfeeding and parenting as a spiritual practice here. She does an amazing job of describing it in a way that I often can't.

What Are We Up To Lately?

Zoey is 5 months old!

She's perfect and amazing and wonderfully funny.

She's beautiful and smart.

She's just like Ava and not. She's ZOEY!

Zoey is grabbing food from me now. She wants to eat so badly. I have been able to keep the food from her so far, until one night I needed a banana for some leg cramps and she snagged it from me and wouldn't let go! She chowed down on it for a little while until she got tired and wanted to go to bed. She is sleeping well now and doesn't fight it as often. She will often play until her head starts to droop and without a peep, she's asleep! Funny girl. She's easy going. It's a very nice change from having a high needs baby first. I'm glad I had Zoey second so that I was expecting a firecracker like Ava and got a cool breeze in Zoey. :)

Zoey is a very chill baby.

Sister Love

Spending time with Daddy at Tiber Dam

Ava's 3rd birthday/pool party was a hit. Zoey swam for the first time! She loved it! Ava swam for the first time without help.

Since its summer we've been trying to get outside more and play in the water (or mud). On days like this though, rainy-hot-cloudy-wet, cloud dough (8 cups flour to 1 cup baby oil... easy!) will suffice. As I write this, we're going on 2 hours of constant play with/in his bin and she's having SO much fun!

Hammy is 8 months old

And Mommy got a new cut and color. A nice change. When I was coloring it (myself - and messed it up, and had to get it fixed at the hairdresser) Ava came over to me and asked what I was doing. I said, "Coloring my hair." And she cried, "Oh NO! You're not going to be a mommy anymore!" She was really upset. I told her I'll always be her mommy, no matter what color my hair is. We had a nice snuggle and then everything was better. Zoey didn't bat an eyelash. To her, I'm sure, I still smell the same, and that's all that matters to my little nursling.

We'll be moving soon due to the basement flood. The damage it did is unsalvageable and the landlord will need to do something about it (which likely means moving the house onto a new foundation... which means move for us.) Updates on that soon enough. First we have to find a place. I'm not looking forward to moving again. Do what you have to do, though, I guess.

20 Weeks of Baby and a Flood

Who is this wonderful little person and how did I get so lucky?

Zoey is 20 weeks old now. She's an amazing baby. She sleeps well and often, most of the time without needing to nurse to sleep. She doesn't cry much, but she sure can yell! She's sitting up for a few seconds on her own and rolled from back to front and front to back yesterday for the first time.

We still nurse exclusively and on demand (though she's getting more and more eager to steal my food). We did hit a road block there for a little while when she fought against me while nursing. Whether it was discomfort from overactive letdown, her disliking any position other than lying down, me feeding her too often, or something else I haven't determined. But the fix was to wait a couple of hours (more or less) before I offered and trying something other than feeding to meet her needs first. She eventually learned that nursing could be pleasant and eats with gusto now. It only took a couple of weeks to sort it all out and now we're back to not paying any attention to the clock. Though I still feel that scheduled feedings are for the birds, (not literally, birds like babies should get to eat when they're hungry!) doing this broke the vicious cycle of back-arching, screaming, sputtering, and puking, and made me feel like my baby likes me again.

Ava is still loving her sister and being super helpful. She takes her (self appointed) job of throwing away Zoey's diapers very seriously. This morning, as I was having my morning pee, Ava ran into the bedroom yelling, "Mom, Zoey NEEDS us!!" :) Zoey loves Ava so much. She has a special yell that she does when she wants Ava. It sounds like. "Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!"

I hope they'll be best friends for life.

The girls have been really good lately, even through our major disaster. In 30 minutes, 3 feet of water poured down the walls and through the windows into our basement soaking 1/3 of our belongings and ruining most of it. Even the things we had stored a foot off the ground and stacked were just picked up by the rising water and dumped over. Poor Mike held the deep freezer as it floated and had to just watch everything topple into the water around him. We've salvaged some things (Mike's missionary journal, the deep freezer, some pictures, Mike's basketball cards, hopefully my wedding dress - still at the cleaners, so we'll see) but others were completely lost and had to be thrown away. We've learned a lot and managed to keep our faith and spirits up. We've seen many blessings come from this disaster. It's not only strengthened us, but it's also helped us to let go of a lot of things... not just physical things, but emotional things too. We feel stronger due to our loss. I know 5 years ago this would have broken us. It's amazing what the last 5 years have taught us about coping with loss, dealing with trials, and moving past heartache. I guess when you have something huge happen every 6 months you learn to just deal. All of this was caused by 2 hours of rain backing up in the street and going all the way past the curb up to our house. It would never have happened if the city had cleaned out the drain on that street. Our landlord has been awesome. He feels really bad that this happened and has helped us clean up and has been here a lot to help deal with little problems that arise. He even invited us over to his store the next night for some free ice cream, much to Ava's delight.

Ava was pretty shaken by all the change. She's doesn't like chaos. She was just headed to bed when all this happened Monday night and was really worried about me. I was crying pretty hard not knowing what would be ruined and what we'd do in the following days. My mom talked to Ava for a while while I sorted out calling people to help. She told me that Ava was relieved a bit when she knew people were coming to help. I sent her to a friend's house the next day so she would be safe and well taken care of while we sorted through the mess. That night and the following few days she was super clingy and acting out a lot. She pushed our buttons a lot and was being overly physical, trying to kick or push or poke someone all the time. I think she was trying to let us know that she was internally in turmoil and needed some normalcy. We stayed in the motel for a few days thanks to some very kind friends but as soon as we could go home again and get back in our routine, Ava got back to her normal, sweet self. Thank goodness.

We're still dealing with the aftermath. Boxes and bins still need to be sorted through and put somewhere. There are a lot of things that need to be washed and cleaned. Thankfully, the clothes (about 15 bins full of baby clothes and a lot of our clothes too) were all washed and dried the next day by those very awesome friends of ours. They are being stored at the motel until I can sort through them (again). The basement stinks. I'm afraid that mold and mildew are growing since it has rained every day since. We can't clean up at all since our landlord's insurance adjuster is taking his sweet time to get here. He's supposed to come Thursday. Last night I could smell the basement coming through the hole in the closet in our room. I'm feeling asthmatic. We're going to have to come up with an immediate solution or this house won't be safe for the kids. I hope it gets cleaned up soon. I don't want to move again, but if that's what we have to do to stay healthy we will.