Tricks

I learned this trick this week - french braiding!

My next trick was learning to play Chess with Noah.

My next, next trick was to whip up some homemade meatballs on the spot upon request.  My first ever!

My most impressive trick was wrangling a terrified toddler into multiple breathing treatments a day until she finally wasn't scared of them by the end of the week and even willingly watched me set up the machine and climbed in my lap for it.

And for my last trick, Anna and I completely forgot to put her latest lost tooth out/leave cash and in the morning ... no one cared.  Anna just said I could give her the money instead of trying again the next night. HA!  Big kids rock.

18 Months for Lasa

Our beautiful Lasa is EiGhTeEn MoNtHs old today!  

This is the first milestone birthday of sorts for her that has come since final custody happened in August.  So I took this opportunity to FINALLY share about custody on Facebook today and was met with so much love and support and discreet celebration.  We have the greatest friends for being sensitive to the fact that this custody thing is good, but this custody thing is also rooted in grief and loss.  I shared this quote which describes it best in my post ... "For months and monthsssss, I have identified with and chewed on the following quote from jasonjohnsonblog.com and I just wanted to share this with you now, as it does a really good job communicating the heaviness and the heart involved in this relationship and update:

Very quickly the excitement of having a child placed in your home is tempered by the tragedy that has led them there. We know it's a good thing they are with us, but somehow an equally bad thing that they need to be. Even the victories feel like tragedies, because none of this should be happening in the first place. This is the deep, soul-wrenching tension of foster care, bearing too much brokenness to be ignored and too much beauty to be hidden."

So, with that formal public update out of the way on FB and of course having already kept y'all in the know in real-time way more here than I did the general public ;), I will now move on to our regularly scheduled baby girl details happening these days around her 18 month milestone.

• She is holding steady at 22.5 pounds (47th %ile).  She is 32.5 inches tall (75th %ile) which is why most people assume she is already 2 and are surprised to hear otherwise.
• She is sort of a post-naptime beast which is very reminiscent of toddler Anna. :}
• She naps early afternoon anywhere from 1-3 hours.  She goes to bed between 7:30-8:00 and usually sleeps til 8ish in the morning, though occasionally she is up at 7:30 (which I still wait til almost 8 to go get her) and other sweet times she sleeps til 9 or 9:30ish (which rocks!).
• She usually sleeps with her gloworm/seahorse toy, but we recently left that at Emily's by mistake and she hasn't been too upset about it.  Her other regular sleep habits include a big stuffed puppy, a little silk toddler pillow, a Peppa Pig blanket, and sound machine set as loud as it will go.  At night we also turn on timed ceiling stars via Pillow Pet and turn on soft music. 
• She is a huge fan of her belly button which she calls/sings "Beeeeeee." She is such a fan of it that she now rips open all her footed pjs with zippers when left to herself in the crib.  It is BEYOND frustrating because they break that way if we aren't lucky refitting the zippers back on.  We have since taken to putting her sleep sacks (also zippered, also getting ripped open but our little escape artist) on backwards and that has been a game changer.  HA!
• She is in love with any song that has hand motions to go with - her current repertoire of faves includes Itsy Bitsy Spider, Pat-a-Cake, Rock-a-Bye Baby, Baby Bumblebee, and Ride a Horsey. 
• She can never be read enough books.  Her current faves are pictured here. That Little Sleepyhead one I know by heart, she makes us read it so much.  It's pretty precious.  I will probably give it its own blog post here soon. 

 

• She also has a deep and abiding respect for all things Daniel Tiger, especially the Clean Up, Pick up, Put Away song.  You sing that bad boy and she cleans up like a machine.  It's precious.  She has other tv shows we try to distract her with, but none hold her attention.  Daniel Tiger does for whole episodes, and for that I will always love Daniel Tiger now, too.
• She is obsessed with Daddy lately, so much so that she doesn't call me Momma anymore.  She calls me Daddy, too, when Daddy is not available.  She's done the same to Noah.  The dr's printout of 18 month behaviors even said this would happen ... "may favor father"! Happened right on cue.

• I believe this is an exhaustive list of the words she now knows and uses regularly:  no-o-o-o, gup (cup), go, Shahsah (Lasa), two, Momma, Daddy, cuh cuh (cracker), coooook (cookie), dut (dirty), ow, uh oh, TD (TV), ot (hot), see, sy (outside), book, hi, ah kee (all clean), shz (shoes), sah (sock), nose, eyes, (dog sounds), (monkey sounds), moe (more), boo boo, baby, puh buh (peekaboo), bye, dow (down), juice, bah (ball), bow, puhpuh (Peppa), suhyee (silly), Day yo (Daniel), shhhhhh, and duh (down/done).
• She is faithful to shut any and all doors, drawers, lids, cabinets, anything.  It must be shut. She is also faithful to find and pick up even the tiniest pieces of paper or whatever in the carpet, especially on the stairs since she crawls up those and her face is much closer to the ground. 
• She has learned to shimmy down the stairs on her belly, which is impressive since she's had so little chance to try because we have gates at the top and bottom. 
• She is always in for a game of Hide and Seek - and she usually wants to do the seeking, but you better hurry because she doesn't close her eyes for longer than 3 seconds tops. She is a good seeker though, standing so still, leaning slightly forward, and surveying the room with a grin before she even takes a step. :)
• Her current favorite method of expressing defiance or disagreement is to spit in her hand and smear it on whoever is closest, even if that is just herself.  HA!  This makes us fondly recall how toddler Noah did a similar spit thing when he got mad.  Josh tells me that when she gets mad while hanging out in Noah's room with them,  she dumps out the Lego sort bin.
• She is being trained in all things Lego little by little.  When she takes minifigs apart, she brings the pieces to Josh and says, "Uh oh."
• She gives the best, best, best baby hugs we have ever gotten, which is saying a lot because Anna gave great hugs.  Lasa climbs up as high on you as she can get and throws her arms around your neck so tights and just holdsssssssssssss on.  Like those little monkey toys with velcro in their hands, she hangs on and presses her face up besides yours.  Nice long precious squishy hugs.
• She is suddenly reallllllly freaked out by her hair that floats around her in the tub water.
• She has finally stopped crying when I drop her off at PDO and the church nursery, so that's nice. She just walks right in - slowly - but in without objection.
• My favorite word she says is "Bye!" because she says it the loudest and most sure of all her words and always with such a joy because she is so excited to be leaving to do whatever she has been told is next.  It is usually paired with earnest waving and followed with blowing kisses.  I melt!!
• She's seen her momma once over the last 6 months, though half of that time is because Angelique was serving some time. : / We tried a visit this last weekend after her release and at her request, but Angelique did not make it in the end.  We are trying again this weekend. 
• She's had two really hard colds/coughs with fever since getting tubes in her ears in November, and we are so happy to report that her ears have held their own for each and not gotten infected as they always have before.  EXCELLENT work, tubes!
• She's been to her first science museum now and was a great sport about being strapped in the stroller again. We haven't used that bad boy much since she's been walking, so I didn't know what to expect.  We have a new toddler harness/leash, which we have decided we kinda hate and feel stupid using, but she cooperated well enough the couple times we tried it.

• Watch out, y'all.  Noses are so intriguing to her.  She will pick hers shaaaamelessly and then try to pick your nose with that same finger.

• She ADORES a nice long runway.  Give her room and let her fly!  Her favorite one is the long hallway at church between the nursery and the worship service.  She parades herself all over the place with such exuberance when I pick her up and let her lead me back to where the people are.  It's, like, my favorite part of  Sunday mornings now, y'all.  Sheer delight!  This pictured runway, however, was at the space museum. ;)

• Counting down the days til these two play hard like their older siblings do together.  Cousins rock!

• As always, she continues to be such a super silly, playful, happy heart!  I leave you with you some recent park shapshots of super silly, playful, happiness.  

And that's the latest for LasaLove!  Next stop, 2 years!!  WOW!

"The Talk"

Just gonna drop this text thread from last Wednesday right here for scrapbooking and memory-keeping sake.  Grown-up Noah and Anna, I am so sorry if you are reading this one day and are embarrassed/annoyed with me for sharing this.  I just.... can't help myself.  Even these milestones are precious to my heart.  And this blog is super private anyway.  And I WUV YOU! 

And for the record, this was not as uncomfortable a conversation as I always thought it might be.  My babies rock!

USSRC on MLK Day

This MLK Day we spent with my sister's crew enjoying a quick overnight visit and joint field trip to the US Space and Rocket Center there in Huntsville.  I was so excited to finally check this off the kids' list and to get to hit up a destination with the cousins.  It was a great day!  

 

And, oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the icing on the cake was that we all got in for free!  It was Teacher Appreciation Weekend; flash your teacher ID and and you and guest got in free.  That covered my whole family and Emily and Lee only had to pay for Jack.  Big win!!  Also helped offset the cost of the overpriced burgers we bought at the Mars Grille there on site for lunch.  HA!! 😂

AG

If you don't know what AG means at first glance, then you are not scoping out clothes and dolls of the American Girl variety these days.  My Anna girl?  She is.  It's delightful.  She saved up $80 plus a 20% off coupon and knew just were she wanted to drop that cash - at the American Girl store, for her first time ever, but not before studying the catalog she got in the mail most recently.

Don't let this pic fool you.  Even though we were there before the store opened, there was a mob of people waiting to get in with us.  Anna, bless it, managed to scramble in quick enough to get 4th in line for the doll salon in back.

She picked out a side fishtail style.

Lila got the works - including fresh new curls and tips for doing her hair back at home.

Such a dreamy destination. So other-world-like, sort of. I joked afterwards that the people/spectacles I observed in there were NOT my people. :} Except for this cutie.  She's definitely my people.

 

After Lila got her hair done and her ears pierced, Anna shopped til we dropped, bringing home two new outfits, a pair of glasses, and an extra vest for layering.  Next, Anna wants to find a labrador for Lila and also a stand. :}  If I can speak reason to the child, we will sub in a tiny puppy stuffed toy instead of the name brand thing and get a reasonably priced stand at Hobby Lobby.  Sheesh, American Girl!  Doll clothes cost more than MY clothes. 🙄