Have 2 years really gone by?

I can't believe it. My baby (who is actually a toddler) is 2 today! Before we had her we knew what the bible said about kids, that they are a blessing and a heritage, but we had no idea what that promise would actually mean. We can't imagine life without our little princess. She adds so much richness and joy to our family. I love looking back through this blog and remembering her life so far. Here's a little recap:





Will take more pictures today for the 24 month page of her scrapbook!

Organizing

This video is a couple months old, but it demonstrates how particular Mary is. She likes things to be a certain way, which I think is pretty typical for toddlers, and she likes to organize, which is typical for me:) Ian will mess with her a lot in her organization because he thinks it's funny...and yes, she lines up all of her animals by herself.

You make it work

We are figuring out life with two kids still. Sometimes you just have to look at things differently and see how to make it work. Like when there's a banana peel on the floor by the garbage because the two year old missed and you're holding a baby. What do you do? It's easy enough to pick up the banana peel with your free hand, but how do you open the garbage can with no hands? Use your feet of course. And when you are downstairs with the baby and need to get the laundry out and up stairs what do you do? Lay baby on the ground and put the laundry in the basket, then put the baby in the basket as well:

I still try to preserve most nap times for my kids. I just think sleep is important. Actually I just read an article that shows just how important sleep is! Anyway, with two kids I also have to decide when getting out of the house is more important than Noah having all 4 naps in a day. Last week we went to the water park at Winton Woods with Mary's BFF and her mommy:) It was lots of fun! Mary got up the courage to run through the rainbow waterfall and then we couldn't keep her out of it!

Sibling love

Mary loves Noah. She wakes up asking for him and falls asleep saying "baby". So the other day we thought we'd try to let her hold him. She did NOT like that. I think she prefers when we let her come to him:)


So we put him next to her and she put her cheek on him. This is what she always does:

And this is her in the morning when we go to get "baby up" in Mary's words:


And here she is cracking herself up by hanging from the crib:

Downstairs

It's well known that Mary loves to play downstairs. She asks to go do there all the time. Since we moved the computer down there she gets the chance more often because me and daddy can play on the computer while she plays with toys. Well today I was on the computer and I saw Mary walking past me a few times with toys. Then I heard some laughing and noise in the bathroom. I walked in to find this:


I guess now she has a new place to play!

Drs appointments

1 down 2 to go. The kids had their check ups this morning and I have two appointments in the next week. One for the surgeon and one with my baby deliverer. I'll just remind myself how glad I am that we have doctors to go to in the first place:) We got our first real lecture about how under weight Mary is. She gave us different ideas about how to fatten her up and I just kept my mouth shut about how much the kid eats because I knew that would just make the lecture longer. She's been in the lower percentiles for over a year now and no one else has said anything...it's just weird how doctors in the same practice can say such different things. Noah, on the other hand, is overweight! Mary was the same way at first so the doctor wasn't very concerned. Actually Mary's weight gain slowed down when I weaned her, so I guess my milk is just super fattening! Both of them are doing well besides that though.

The other day I was reading Psalm 139 to Noah and telling him how his value comes from being made in the image of God and how he will never be able to do anything that will make him more valuable to us. This is something I want both of my kids to know. I don't care if they're smart, athletic, beautiful, or anything else that people generally desire. God loves them, and me and daddy love them, simply because they exist. Psalm 139:13-16 says

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Get that? I hope my kids do. It will be among the first verses Mary memorizes when we start "school" in the spring. Mary and Noah were God's work of art before I even knew they existed. Who am I to wish something upon God's work of art? I hope they never feel pressure from me to be something important. They already are something important:)

1 month ago today

I was giving birth to this little guy. This month has flown by, but at the same time when I think about our time at the hospital with him it seems like forever ago! He's doing pretty well. In his first month we've only had a handful of bad nights with him and only one middle of the night car ride (which Ian thankfully did). I think that's pretty good. He does really well with sleeping and eating that sometimes I have to remind myself he's only a month old. Like when he gets fussy or has a bad night. I find myself getting frustrated, but I have to remember that it is totally normal for newborns to do that! We are loving our little boy:) Here are some more pictures from our little photo shoot on the couch today. He's totally modeling for us:



I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone for all the help we've had. We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives willing to come over and hold Noah while we sleep, or stay here in the middle of the night when I have to go to the emergency room, or make us meals, etc. Wow.

Gall Bladder

About a week ago I went to the emergency room for what I thought was really bad food poisoning. There was so much pain, pressure, and cramping in my stomach and ribs that I figured my chinese food must have contained some questionable meat. They did a CAT scan and found out that I had gall stones. So I was sent home with some strong pain killers and anti-nausea medicine and a referral to a surgeon. After meeting with the surgeon we decided to have surgery this Tuesday. Well my gall bladder had plans of its own. Thursday night (or Friday really early in the morning) I had another attack. They call them gall bladder attacks because that's exactly what it feels like...your gall bladder picking up it's weapon and attacking you. I took my meds and waited for the bliss of them kicking in and knocking me out. Well that didn't happen. In fact, the pain just got worse. So we went into the ER, got admitted into the hospital, and had emergency surgery. The doctor said it was good that we got it out because it was severely infected.

I have to say that I actually enjoyed being at the hospital. I got some awesome pain medicine. Seriously, they put it in your IV then a minute later you feel all warm and the pain goes away then you get drowsy. That stuff is like a miracle. Then I had some of the best sleep I've had in over a month. However, when I woke up from surgery it wasn't quite so warm and fuzzy. But I did get another good nights sleep after that. Anyway, we're home now and I should recover in a week or two.

We came home to a toddler who is teething big time though. She has 4 teeth coming in and she is not a graceful teether. I just gave her some meds too:) Wish I could give her the stuff I'm on! I used to not be a big fan of medicine and would only take it if I was in some serious pain. I really don't feel that way so much anymore. As we were driving to the hospital on Friday and I felt like death I had the thought that we are so blessed that we can drive to a hospital and get nearly immediate pain relief and get the problem fixed. There are many places in the world where that is not an option and someone would die if their gall bladder got infected. I'm glad for the gift of surgeons and hospitals and percocet:)

I'm grateful for...

The miracle blanket! We swaddle Noah because newborns are so darn squirmy and always wake themselves up. Well he can already get his arms out of the other two swaddlers that we have (this one and this one). So I bought the miracle blanket which gets great reviews and I have to say that it is awesome. It's sort of like a straight jacket. He's only gotten his arms out of it once and it's because I put it on wrong...
I'm also grateful that we gave Noah a bottle at two weeks. Last weekend I ended up having to go to the emergency room for what I thought was food poisoning. Turns out I have gall stones...so we'll be meeting with a surgeon soon to find out if I need to have my gall bladder removed. That's really why I made this post, to let people know that. But I thought I'd put a positive spin on it. I'm glad we started a bottle because we left him with a friend for a few hours while I had to go to the emergency room.
Here are some pictures of Noah from last week!