Park Days

The very best thing about being a SAHM are the park days. Today was an amazingly beautiful day with a breeze that was just right and sun that dappled through the trees. I met with other moms from the GCH group and the kids just played and played and played. At one point it seemed a group of them had gathered sticks and were herding around like a pack looking for things to poke. As for me, I just talked and held Adam. This is the life!! Seriously! For all that I may complain from time to time about how hard it can be (especially times when the kids are sick or it seems like 4 things need to be tended to all at once) really, truly, this is the life. I'm so lucky! Sometimes the weekdays seem better than the weekends only because I have one less mouth to feed during the day on weekdays. Come weekends it seems like I am always cooking a big breakfast that makes a big mess and then a big lunch. Still I like weekends too though. What I really like are these park days!

Capturing babyhood

So what is it with second children that no one seems to capture their babyhood as much as the first? It seemed with Francesca that I just hung on for every new thing she did and deeply cherished her sweet ways. Even now as she does something new my heart sings a little song because she is at the magical age of three and is always doing or saying something that is just precious. She loves to have me play "The Lady" with her where I'll growl and chase her and she screams "The Lady! Oh no!". She also calls me "mother" all of the time, as in "I gotta listen to my mother" or "I love you mother." Mother always comes out like mudder. I even like listening to her as she tries to get out a complicated thought and she is always tripping over her words and saying certain parts over and over until she gets her thought out right.

I spend so much time tending to Frannie, that I don't have much time to just sit face to face with Adam and pay attention to him alone. The other day Fran was asleep and I got 2 uninterupted hours with Adam and it was like I discovered that I have this magical baby who is every bit as cute and darling as his sister. He has two teeth on the bottom and all gums on top. His smile and laughter melt my heart. I have a tendency to think of Adam as sweet, but a nuisance. I tend to think of him as my complainer who calls out DAH! BAH! EH! slams his fists against things and cries whenever I set him down because I am trying to get something done. During those two hours when it was just the two of us I had the opportunity to just tickle him endlessly and pinch his boody and chase him as he tried to crawl away from me laughing. I had the chance to nuzzle his naked belly with my nose and make him laugh. I was helping him walk all over the place. And showing him his refection in the mirror. I got to just really enjoy him.

So then it got me thinking, how is it that I am an at-home mother and I'm not enjoying my baby the way I could? I realized that he is on my hip or I am setting him down somewhere so that I can tend to something else. Frannie is always interrupting me. I've been taking care of him, but haven't been taking the time to stop and really enjoy him. I don't want to miss his babyhood. I don't want him to be 5 years old in the blink of an eye and wonder where these days went. He is so precious and darling and has the sweetest pure belly laugh of a baby and those pudgy cheeks and gummy grin. My little boy is his own special person.

So I'm resolving to stop more and pay more attention to this baby who is in my arms all of the time. He'll only be a baby once. One day he'll be a big hairy man. Oh dear.

JJ Boy

My little JJ Boy is growing up. He is a wonderful ball of cuteness. And did I mention that he is a BOY? He sure acts like one. My poor daughter screams "Adam's touching me!!!" when all he's doing is has his widdle finger on her foot. OY. He does more than that now. He pretty much goes after her. When she's on the potty, Adam goes scooting in to check it out. And Francesca yells "Adam's not giving me my privacy!" OY. These two are funny characters that's for sure. They love each other and it is so sweet to see. Whenever Adam wakes from his nap, Frannie runs into the bedroom to greet him first and he smiles and jumps up and down at the sight of her. Like any baby, Adam loves to be tickled and he is an expert at rolling onto his tummy while I am struggling to put on his diaper. I have learned a new technique which is to pin his right leg down with my thigh to prevent him from doing the roll (I change his diaper on the floor.) My maneuver makes him hopping mad, but it gets the job done quicker. Otherwise I'll struggle with him for a long time.

It is hard for me to believe that he is almost 9 months old. I can't believe that this year is going by so fast.

Frannie Turns 3!

Well last weekend was my dear Frannie's third birthday. We had a little party for her at Heritage Park in La Verne. It turned out to be a beautiful day as it always seems to be on her birthday weekend. At first I was going to do her party here at the house, but then decided a park would be better. We invited her little friends and she had all of her favorite relatives there too. Fortunately I didn't have to cook anything because my dear in-laws took care of it. YAY! One different thing I did was have the kids pot a little flower in a styrofoam cup and then put the cup into a mug to act as the vase. It was cute. I was proud of my little creative idea. Most of the time though the kids just played on the playground equipment and had a good time running around and the adults got the opportunity to eat and talk.

Big Bonk

The other day I went for a walk with Nataki and the kiddos to Bonelli Park. As Frannie and Miriam were jogging ahead of us, Fran took a spill. I didn't think it was a big deal until I got her and blood was dripping down her forehead. It reminded me so much of the time that she fell and bonked her head when she was about 18 months old. She got a big split gash right on her eyebrown that bled and bled and scared me so much that I took her to the ER right away. We ended up leaving the ER after 6 hours of not being seen. In that time my nerves had calmed down and I'd had the chance to really inspect her cut. I also had about 5 hours of sitting there bored in a small room with lots of sick coughing babies to make me think that Jason, Dad, and I could do our own first aide. Anyways, we left and cleaned up her head and put a butterfly bandage on it. It healed really well.

So this time when I saw blood dripping from her head, I was concerned but didn't have that same panicky feeling that I'd had that first time. On inspection, she seemed to have a hole in her head! I have no idea how she got a hole in her head from the fall that she did. It looked like a nail hole pierced straight through her forehead. AH! In the picture it doesn't look too bad. But that black dot was the hole. Very strange looking. At least strange enough to me that I was prompted to take a picture of it!

It's been several days since this happened and it is healing very well. Whatever it was that caused that hole, at least it was clean so I didn't have to dig out any debris. I am proud of myself because I was joking with her about squirting water on her head and how sillly it was, so I was able to clean her up and make her laugh at the same time. I'm glad I've learned to do that. I'm glad she lets me do that. She's always been pretty good like that.

What about links?

Edit: Ok. Let me try again. The big bad wolf tried to eat the three little pigs.

How do I link items? Click here to learn more about VBAC. Ok I think I did it. Note to Lauren Simpson who occasionally reads my blog. You need to click on the icon that is to the right of the text color icon. Do you see it? The icons go Bold, Italicize, Text color, Link, Align Left, etc... Anyways, you highlight the word you want to link then press the icon. Then type in the website you want to link up. Let me know if you figure it out.

Trying to figure out Blogger

This is all new to me. Part of the reason that I haven't posted many pictures is because I've had to load them onto Photobucket then transfer them. This has proved to be very time-consuming so I tend to not want to do it. Well I've finally figured out how to load pics up straight onto Blogger.