Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Girl!

Woohooo! You turned one today, Miss Koala. A year ago, you were a little more than two hours old and I have no idea what I was doing. I don't think we'd gone to bed yet...we were probably calling people with our excellent news.

This is how we celebrated your big day. You got up around 5:30, got bday hugs and kisses, went downstairs with your pops to have some milk and Cheerios. When your big sis got up around 30 mins later, she pointed out the Happy Birthday banner, noticed the presents, and the excellent balloon on your high chair. Actually, I think you noticed the balloon on your own. The Bean got Belle and Snow White figures for being such a good big sis for a whole year. You got a new baby doll (because we don't have enough already) and band in a box so you can form a band now that you're the big 0-1!

After that it was bagels with cream cheese for breakfast!

I am so happy your sis had school this morning. She was a bit of a nutter. When she left, you went down for a good long nap. When you got up, we took you to look at this house we think maybe we should buy. Then we got your sister and had a picnic with some friends at the playground.

The sun finally shone for the first time in a week!

You ate a whole cupcake although I think a lot of the icing ended up on your jeans.

You wore your super cute 1 shirt.

Everyone got tired so we came home and had overlapping naps!

You were cranky when you woke so we gave you milk in a bottle, which is your most favorite thing ever.

When your sister got up we played outside. You went off a tear pushing the little red wagon all over the yard. Dinner was early and pretty good. You were able to eat spinach, which made me happy because I think maybe you don't get enough leafy greens. You loved eating tomatoes, too. You also had chicken and yam. And some more fruit salad (strawberries!) because you only turn one once.

After dinner you played a bit, had a bath, got goofy on your bottle and went to bed. All in all a pretty good day.

You are very mobile now. I find you sitting or standing or lying on your belly in the big kid crib. You talk a lot! You smile a lot! You are still pulling on your ears a lot even though last week Dr. Doug said your ears looked good. I can't believe you got another cold , but I'm hoping it's not that bad. We'll see how you're doing at your well-baby on Monday.

I think you're doing fantastic! You are the most amazing, sweetest, most edible, happy, wonderful baby in all the land.

I feel so lucky to have had you. I can't wait for next year's adventures! Happy Birthday, my little love!
Love,
Mama

My Life Just Got Harder (And Easier)

So, at like the exact same time The Bean decided she was all 100% confident getting out of her crib and opening her door and coming down the hall into our room or walking downstairs (if the gate wasn't locked) AND Miss Koala decided to enter the horrible period of transitioning from 2 naps to 1 or maybe 2, but it's going to be a fight to get that 2nd one mama, you'll have to drive me to Claremont and back or stroller me all over town and if you do get nap number 2 it's going to be short and I'm going to be wanting a brawl when I wake up and see just what you've done.

2011 might be the summer of car/stroller naps.

Because The Bean no longer has to stay in bed, she no longer stays in bed. The girl hasn't had a decent nap since Sunday and man she was just deliriously tired tonight. The only people who should have dark bags under their eyes like that are frat boys snorting Ritalin all night to write their term papers. I took the crib mattress out of the crib this afternoon and was all like "here's your big girl bed" but she still wouldn't nap. It probably didn't help that her sister was up and hanging out in my room. It's hard to explain to an almost 3 year old, that the baby already took one nap and since she's transitioning she might be up till 4. They did have a good 15 mins of sisterly love cracking each other up. Every time, MB would get out of her bed, she'd come running into my room, saying "what's going on guys?" and her sister would just bust a gut.

Anyway. The Bean is sleeping on the mattress sans crib now. It took some stories from papa and a few lullabies from mama, but she was out. She already woke herself up once by rolling off the mattress and onto the pad we have next to her. Who knows where she'll end up, but please could whoever is up there let the girl sleep in tomorrow. She's been up at 5ish for weeks now and it's making everyone so tired. How sad is it that 6:30 would feel late?

Even though the girls haven't been really overlapping naps for a while, occasionally I might get 20-30 mins and man, was that good. Or just having one of them is so much easier. But having both of them? From like 7:30 (when N left for work) till 5:00 (when he came home early)? It's killing me. Just thinking about makes me need a drink. I can't believe I didn't have a cocktail this evening. I'm trying to only drink on weekends and holidays...not that I drank too much, but because I'd really like to lose the last ten pounds of baby weight left over from baby #1 and also because drinking and women and breast cancer blah blah. And it makes it more special, you know.

Anyway.

So this is The Bean's first night out of a crib and N and I feel kind of sad. Kind of like we want to swaddle her in her old miracle wrap and put her back in the bassinet with a binky. But not really.

Miss K loves her morning nap still. Would probably take a nap at 8 if I let her, but we really need to push it back back back. I bet once that finally happens, her sister will probably have dropped her nap entirely. I think we might have to move the occasional milk and Sesame on the couch at 4:30 to the early afternoon. I'd really her to stay in her room quietly reading Proust from her quiet time, but the reality might involve a little more Elmo time. I don't know why I feel bad about it. She watches far less TV that all the other kids we know. She rarely watches more than 45 mins at a time. I don't know. I know everything will settle eventually....

But in wonderful, fantastic, my life got so much easier news, tomorrow is N's last day at school!! Woohooo!! 3 months of daddy-day care!

On Little Girls and The Pain of Shopping at Xmart*

Tomorrow I'm taking Miss Bean (and her sister because N is working) to a doll and tea party at our local rec center. I'm a little nervous because Miss Bean is on the young end and it more or less starts at her nap time and it might be a huge American Girl fest. The Bean is not yet hip to AG, but apparently I want to keep her away from it as long as possible. I guess they're expensive, but honestly they seem a little better than Barbie and Bean is definitely hip to that.

Today I was shopping and I felt like stores like Xmart and the grocery stores would soon become battle grounds with my kids. Everything is princess pink crap this and Dora crap that and SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR. I can imagine having to say no a million times as we walk down the aisles and really who can blame the kids? The crap is pretty and pink and sweet. And I have to battle myself too. Like, Bean loves princesses and I wanted to get her some new summer pj's and they had a set of horrible Disney princess ones and I bought them because I knew how much she would like them. For a while I considered buying her the "boy" ones, which were a much cooler orange with a tractor, but in end I went for the princesses because it was more bang for the buck and I thought it was a cheap way to make her happy.

But am I feeding into this? Should I have bought the tractor set in defense against the princess thing?

Shopping today made me feel worried about having girls and the issues ahead of them. I feel like it's them against these ginormous corporations that want them to buy all the princess stuff and then buy all the sweet stuff and then worry about being too fat and not princessy enough and then drink nothing but Diet Coke and fat-free pretzels when they're 19.

Maybe I'm projecting.

But shit. I'm a 35 year old woman and I still feel like I have to deal with body issues and materialism. And now I have to deal with what stuff I should and shouldn't buy for my girls too.

I don't know. There's no real ending for this post. Cuz it aint no fairy tale.
*Not Walmart.