Intake of breath

I had a moment tonight.

We spent Family Home Evening at the Common where we luxuriated in the amazing weather. Tessa has been surprising me, pleasantly, by finding three-year-olds to chase around the park with. I looked up when I heard her laughing and screaming to see her run full speed around the slide with a curly haired girl in hot pursuit. It only took me a second to realize that this little girl (who I'd seen around the past few years with her mother) was at the NEMC NICU at the same time Tessa was.

Two happy beautiful girls playing together.

When I introduced myself to her father he said "Thank goodness for that place." I agreed.

No Fear

We met some friends at the Y for Friday family night...Suddenly two of my family members were missing and this is where I found them.



Cute isn't it...

...but she would never dare climb, would she?

Well, the thing about Tessa is that for all her timidity (which is lessening as she gets older) she will try anything as long and we have never once hinted that it is hard/scary etc.

And so...

Its not me, its you...

Yes, I did in fact turn thirty this January. And with little emotional fanfare as I tend to look forward to my birthdays (although I did freak out a bit when I was turning 27 and had no idea how to take care of my soon to arrive 1st born). I attribute my ability to ease gently into my thirties to the fact that I am in just the perfect spot in life. Not too many kids, not to few, good guy at my side, a cozy little house in a great cit - and - unless you look really closely in the right wrong light, no gray hair.

However.

What is really wigging me out is that all of YOU are turning thirty. I can turn thirty. But when my entire peer group, in a single years time is blogging, facebooking and txt msging about the big 3-0 I suddenly realize - I am friends with old people.

So, I'll continue to age gracefully, thank you very much. But if the rest of you could stop, that'd be great.

Happy Birthday to me, from my my raisons d'etre.

8 Months

This snuggly wiggleworm and with a super soft belly and amazing pooping abilities is eight months old!?

Tessa Says - Update

(Laura, you may not want to read this one.)

Every parent is embarrassed on occasion by something their child mimics. Curse words top the list. Things that sound like one thing but mean something else entirely. The daughter of a friend of mine called her dad - "sexy." You all know what I'm talking about.

Well, I don't curse and only call Aaron "sexy" in private. So this is what I get - and it tells you way too much about me.

Tessa just came in and said "Mom, I saw it* on your blog."

*I'm not sure what "it" was in this case...but apparently it was worth blogging about.

Tessa Says

Oh Tessa.

Every morning I wonder what she'll say that day, and whether it'll make me want to kiss her or send her to her bed. Frankly, its usually kiss her. She gets sent to her bed when she is wordless, but not silent.

Funny (and/or adorable) things as of late -

Aaron: Tessa, lets talk about...

Tessa: Jesus.

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"Mommy. Tell me sumsing about... ... ... CHRISTMAS TREES!"

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She's started calling Aaron...well, Aaron. I think it is Hi. Lar. Ious. Him, not so much.

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Tessa loves Thomas the Tank Engine, but her first love was the engine named Emily. I'll be honest, I was a little jealous that she loved Emily so much and didn't know that I was Emily. Aaron was trying to "get back at me" for calling him by his NAME, which is how Tessa learned it, by calling me by my name.

She is so not convinced.

Yesterday Aaron asked "Hey Emily, can you get us a glass of water." Tessa followed with "Hey choo choo Momma, you bring me some water?"

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And now for a taste of wordlessness -
this one is addressed specifically to future background checkers...

(I only post this because she was doing that on purpose!
She better learn early the power of blogger revenge!)

We've hit that stage...

While I'm doing okay at keep the girls alive, I'm find this "mother of two" business to be...challenging.

Why?

Well, you don't have to ask in "that tone." I know that others manage two just fine. And other-others have 3. Or 4. Or 5. Or 8 - happy, adjusted, dressed children. (Approximately 74% of my blog readers fall in one of those catagories.) But for me, two is kicking my trash.

Why?

Sibling rivalry has reared up in the form of an sweet, loving and uber-whiny/tantrumy pre-schooler and it is exhausting.

Why?

I really want to give Tessa a lot of attention because she is at such a fun age.

Why?

She has just hit the speech breakthrough that happens at this age and talks in complete, if not completely understandable, sentences. She is so sweet and loving towards Meg and is just plain silly!

Why?

Well I could go on about that forever so lets get back to the question at hand. It is exhausting to feel like I am not teaching/playing/challenging Tessa enough while in reality the the happy, content goo-goo-ing second born sits in the bouncy chair being neglected. (We refer to her as the PNSB.)

Why?

Because PNSB stands for Poor Neglected Second Born

Why?

Its an acronym.

Why?

It saves time - unless you have to explain it.

Why?

{exasperated sigh} Moving on.

I thought I'd like to have a big family (somewhere between 2 and 8 we were telling people) but now - - well, you might want to wait a few months before asking if we are going to have any more.

Why?

Because if every single child goes through this stage I don't think I've got enough answers to make it out alive.

Why?

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P.S. Tessa hasn't been sleeping well AT. ALL. and this has contributed to the overall whiny/tantrumy levels here at home (both her and I). Aaron and I turned to "the google" to find out how to help. I searched "2 year old sibling rivalry" and this "article" claims that "As for the advantages of having siblings, I can think of none if the spacing is narrow (less than two and one-half or three years)." I'm completely dumbfounded by this statement. Yes - it is tough going at the moment, but seriously - NO advantages?!!? Thanks for the support.

Jerk.

A little more Tessa cuteness

In this video you'll see how I've pretty much failed as a mother...listen for the "um"... I have no idea where that word came from!

Cinderella

Well Alicia left, so we had to go to the next best option.


She's young, but seems to have a lot of work in her...

Littlest Big Girl

Auntie took this picture, I'm pretty sure Tessa was inviting Alicia to " 'M on" (come on).

If I'd never met these two people before this picture would make me instantly fall in love with them.

Sweet girl. Happy Mom. Big Belly.
(Also, who knew Tessa was such a blondie? We have no where near the same hair color!)

It was a great day to be a dog at the beach. And a great day for a little girl who loves "dods" to be at the beach.

Tessa has just learned how to whisper "secrets" in our ears. She may have learned to whisper during the infamous pea-cupcake incident when Auntie and I were conspiring while Daddy was in the bathroom. When he came out we went silent but Tessa turned to him and said "Pss, sssppp, sp. Ssssppp, ppppsss, ssssppp," in exact replica of what we must have sounded like to her.

She feeds the kitty every day. The only thing I have to do is open the fridge so she can get the half a envelope of food out. Then she takes the clip off, opens the package, picks up Quincy's bowl, dumps the food in very thoroughly, puts the bowl on his tray, centers it with the bowl of dry food, picks up the stray kibble that has fallen out of that bowl...and usually dips her hands in his water to wash them off.

Tessa knows some complicated words. Applesauce, orange, purple (but not pink or blue, too easy), octopus, jacket, cocka doodle doo.

She "gets" webcaming in a scary way. She used it to get Grandma and Grandpa U** to rub their bellies and pat their heads over 2,500 miles away. And if you talk to her on speaker phone its a guarentee she'll try to show you her baby through the handset. Speaking of that, if she gets a hold of the cell phone she holds it with both hands and types with her thumbs saying (what sounds like) txt txt txt txt txt. Perhaps this is because someone who sent over 9,000 txt msgs a month lived here for a while.

I can do it myself

I just got back from putting my baby and my baby sister on a train headed into one of the major metropolitan areas of the country (actually I think our house sits within the metro area so perhaps I'm being over dramatic...) to meet up with Aaron for some fun. I was a bit nervous (gave Alicia unnecessary directions, repeatedly - waited in the parking lot until the train picked them up safely, etc.)

But to be honest, dropping Tessa off for her second day of preschool was harder. I was so afraid she'd remember how we heartlessly left her for 2.5 hours last week and cling desperately to my leg, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Yes, I am that mom who thinks their child is a precious flower that needs to be coddled and protected. What are you going to do about it?

Well if you are Tessa you'll cry just a bit the first time I tried to leave to make me feel better, then get all caught up in a farm puzzle and made a friend and not glance up at all when I said good bye. Humpf! It really didn't make it any easier to leave but I did, knowing we could come to pick her up a little early and watch her through the 2-way mirror. Did I mention I love 2-way mirrors! That there is a good way to teach a hovering parent that their child can do it themselves!

(These pictures, as well as the amazing pictures at the top and bottom of this blog were taken by Alicia)

Words

Right around Tessa's birthday we listed all the words Tessa knows. The total at that time was about 60. Which is right on track according to the internet.

Right on her birthday she learned PURPLE and it is definitely her favorite word and color.



She also showed off one of her animal sounds...

Tessa's Update

Just before we left town to go to Idaho Tessa had a NICU follow-up evaluation scheduled. Very unfortunately our trip into Boston involved some throwing up, followed by an incredibly long trek to a gas station in order to clean up. Luckily for me (very very luckily indeed) Aaron was a passenger so he handled most of the gross-ness. I'm not going to get to details but suffice it to say, my pregnant stomach would not have handled it well.

The point of the vomit story is to tell you that we postponed the follow-up appointment until we got back from Idaho. This time we used our "key to a throw-up free trip" = pack an extra set of clothes...if you are prepared for a disaster it will not happen. Anyone want to scientifically test that statement for me?

Tessa did really well at her evaluation. Of course she started out shy, but eventually warmed up and had a fun time playing. The bottom line = she was 22 months and tested at 21 months. This is in keeping with the idea that a preemie catches up to her adjusted age by 24 months. I figure that she does more stuff with me at home so that puts her right on target and I couldn't be happier. She tested just a little lower on her expressive language, we are working on that and I keep feeling like she is just about to start talking up a storm. Actually she already talks up a storm, unfortunatly we can't understand what she so expressively tells us.

Hello...Hello...?

Thrilled. To. Death. To be wearing Momma's shoes.

Here is our big little girl helping Momma make taco soup.

Too Big for her Britches

Tessa is turning into such a toddler! I'd like to pleasure you with some anecdotes...

The other day I was deep in a phone conversation for work, pacing the length of the condo as I talked. After dodging Tessa a number of times I realized that she was following me, with her hand to her ear babbling to herself.

She's started pretending. Over the weekend she feed Aaron with a fork a whole serving of who knows what from the empty lid of a Pam cooking spray container.

Because the cat dishes were empty I let her play with them (I know, not enforcing positive behavior!) and found her kneeling over them, biting the side as if eating from them.

Same thing happened with Quincy's water fountain (if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask), except it wasn't empty and she was wearing Daddy's knit hat. She ended up with a stripe of water from the crown of her head to her belly button.

While I was eager looking forward to so many milestones, rolling over, crawling, walking. I was NOT looking forward to climbing. I know it makes me seem selfish to hear that I would not help her learn to climb, if she started trying to pull up on a chair I would pick her up and set her there. NO DEVELOPMENT OF BICEPS FOR ME PLEASE! But alas, you can't stand in the way of progress and now she can climb up and sit on a chair, as smug as you please. So now a lot of my day is spent saying "Sit down...sit. Sit down...Tessa, on your bum...sit." She has yet to try climbing on the counter - and I am counting my lucky stars as long as that lasts.

Who is that little kid!

...and where did my baby go?!