Ah, three.

This was going to be a musing post about loving being a mom to a 1 and 3 year old...that is until Elianna hauled off and smacked me in the face.  For no reason.  Three year olds are a challenge; at least ours is.  She's smart and she knows it and she tries to get her way in all things whether it's negotiation or just outright defiance.  Discipline gets hard when she doesn't care about time out and you've already taken away everything you can think of.  She's spending a lot of time in her room lately while we feel like crappy parents who don't know how to outsmart a 3 year old.  Ah me, this too shall pass I'm sure.

Marielle is her own challenge.  She's quite the mama's girl which is very refreshing after Elianna's independence but along with her need for snuggles (which are very nice, I can't lie), she's got a stubborn streak and a voice!  Trying to get things accomplished can be hard while she's hanging on my leg saying, "up, Up, UP!!!!" in increasing volume and tone.

That being said, I do love being their mom.  There are times while Elianna is working her wiles that I just stare at her and marvel at her logic that is surprisingly, well, logical.  And she gets in some snuggles that she didn't used to want and having that head nestled on my shoulder brings this rush of feeling that can't compare to anything.

Marielle changes almost daily.  She used to do this awesome shooting down the stairs on her belly like a Jamaican bobsledder that we never got on video because it only lasted about a week.  She says, "Anna" clear as day now and other words are coming.   And having this little girl want to cuddle me makes me feel like maybe I'm doing okay as a mom.

So, this post started out irritated but is ending, like most days, feeling like I'm the luckiest mom alive because I have 2 absolutely wonderful, smart, funny, beautiful girls.

My sad little blog.

I'm not even going to look and see how long it's been since the last post.  I'm pretty sure it'll be criminal and then I'll feel even worse.  Eh, it (life) happens.  We've been crazy with a move that we're still not unpacked from (and yet, here I am, writing a blog post!), birthday parties, family visits, weddings to plan for (our attendance, that is) and somehow with the use of FaceTime, blogs tend to get pushed to the back of the priority list.

Okay, I lied.  I had to check and see when I last wrote so I wouldn't duplicate anything.  I mean, if you're even still following, the last thing you want to see when a new post pops up is a repeat of information you already knew, right?  So, without further ado, the recap!

We have moved...not far but man have we moved up!  Our old landlords decided to put the house up for sale (good luck with that) so we needed a place to live.  Originally I put my foot down and said I wasn't moving to another rental but it turns out that it was really only a toe and a pinky toe at that.  If I don't want to stay in Spokane, I can't really force us to put down roots so, I had to be content with another rental.  This rental is the bee's knees however.  While it's not perfect, it's closer to what we would want to buy than the other house ever was.  There's an actual backyard, not a splintery deck with rickety stairs to a concrete slab.  There's baseboards, crown molding, actual storage...I'm in heaven.  

The girls have adjusted quite nicely, thank you.  Elianna loves the playroom and the basement.  One of those will mostly likely end up being a workout room unless we use the heated garage (did I mention I'm in heaven?) but for now there are toys galore in pretty much every room of the house.    Even with all this space we still act like we've got the one little family room so we stick to the main room mostly.

More recap later, I better get everyone up to speed on the girls.  Elianna first:  since the last post, she has started preschool in a Spanish immersion school.  She seems to really like it and they rave about her so I think we'll stick with it for awhile.  It's a little concerning that they never have anything but glowing things to say; she's our daughter and while we think she's pretty fabulous, we KNOW she's not perfect.  It kind of makes us wonder if it's a glorified daycare.  We'll see.  It's the only thing like it in Spokane and we really like the exposure to another language.

Elianna loves coloring and is really trying hard to learn how to read.  Sometimes I think she's just got the books memorized but then she'll look at a new book and dang if she doesn't know most of the words and the ones she doesn't are awfully close.  She's also our little negotiator, sometimes to her detriment.  For example, "Elianna we'll read one more story and then it's bedtime."  "What about 2?  Or 3?  Or 10?"  Or another example,  one that says that more is not always better, "Elianna you need to clean up for 5 minutes and then we can do XYZ"  "No, I think I need to clean up for 10 minutes." Okay sweet pea, you got it!

And Marielle.  She's doing so awesome.  She loves Signing Time and has picked up so many signs.   She uses them all the time which is really helpful because she wants to communicate so badly.  She isn't as clear as I remember Elianna being but the signs really help.  She also tries to color and loves 'reading'.  Basically, anything that her big sister does, Marielle wants to do. She climbs all over everything, shaking her hands up and down, asking for help if she needs it.  We're going to start her in a Mommy and me tumbling class and I think she'll love it.  She's still not sleeping through the night but it's better and I have hope that it's in our near future.  She still loves nursing so I think we'll keep on doing it, at least as long as Elianna did (20 months).

Okay, that's totally just the surface scratched but it'll have to do.  Bring on the pictures!


Marielle loves baths and would take one twice a day if we let her.

Cheese!

 Elianna falling asleep despite her best efforts.

Tea party with Miss E.

Marielle trying on her sister's wings.

Enjoying the shopping cart.  She loves the grocery store!

Hey shorties, it's your birthdays...

So both girls had their birthdays this past week (Marielle's was today!) and merriment was had by all at Nammy's house in Los Altos.

A friend's son had his 4th birthday recently and to commemorate it, she wrote him a letter and talked about their life together and how much she loved him.  I love that idea so much, I'm going to steal it.

Without further ado:

Dearest, dearest, Elianna,

Your third birthday came and went with a flash; there was so much going on with our joint cousin birthday party, there was scarcely time to savor the moment of YOUR day.  

We’ve been a team for 3  years now and while it was a little one-sided at first, you’re finally starting to shoulder a little bit of the load.  

Kidding!  But seriously, you are starting to become this little person with your own thoughts, desires, dare I say, agenda and it’s ridiculously entertaining being a part of it.  Everyone tells us you are rather verbal for your age and your ability to wrap your mind around ideas and tell us what you’re thinking is amazing, at least to me.  I love how you can make these leaps in logic that turn our rules into something that works for you.  Example:  Us:  Elianna, you can’t use our phones without us being there, understand?

You:  Okay, mommy!

Upon finding you playing with the phone:Us: Elianna!  We said you can’t play with our phones unless we’re there. You:  But you’re in the house!

There are many, many examples of this and while it’s massively frustrating it’s also quite amusing and sometimes it’s very difficult not to laugh.

You are your father’s daughter when it comes to climbing and while I know all kids this age climb, it’s easy to attach a certain significance to it.  It makes me want to climb again so we can do this as a family.  You are in gymnastics and seem to love it as well.  The coach frequently has to redirect you off the bar, where you have pulled your feet over your head and are swinging upside down, to whatever the rest of the group is doing.  We have a pull up bar at home and you are always asking to 'hang'.

You alternately love and love to torture your sister.   Sometimes you try and calm her down if she’s crying, others, you’ll scream at to make her cry!  Either way, you both enjoy each other immensely and it’s so fun to watch.

Elianna, I love being your mommy.  I hope you never doubt how much you bring to our lives and how much we want wonderful things for you.  Three years old is going to be a wonderful year for you.

Love you forever,

Mommy

And for your baby sister:

Oh, my Marielle.  It’s such a cliche but I can’t believe you’re one year old. I’m so in love with you, it’s hard to remember the first few months of your life when I was so depressed and not in a good place at all.  I hope beyond all hope that that period when I was in survival mode and had nothing extra to give you won’t adversely affect you.  

We really have come out the other side though.  I love being around you and learning the world through your eyes.  As recently as 2 months ago (and yes, I’m ashamed that it took so long), I still thought your cries were just cries with no meaning or intention behind them.  You would think that being a second time around mom, I’d be less dense but no it took you getting extremely upset when I took a toy away for me to finally realize that A) you knew what that toy was and B) you wanted it!  Once that realization took place I started seeing your ‘becoming’ in so many places.

 You’ve been communicating for a long time whether it’s from your piercing screams (any soprano opera singer would be proud) or your insistent grunts when something displeases you but now you have become a talker and although it’s totally unintelligible,  it’s so adorable.  You babble and jabber constantly and some of them are starting to sound like words.  Pretty sure you’ve said mamamama and meant it.  Your only consistent sign is for milk and you use it frequently.  Guess weaning isn’t in our immediate future!

You’re on the move; we’ve blocked the stairs because when we don’t it’s the first place you head to.  You’re very good at them but I’m just not comfortable risking a fall.  Yesterday, however, you figured out the 3 steps into the lower room all by yourself.  So proud!  You’ve started cruising and pulling up so I’m sure walking isn’t far behind.

You’re more of a snuggler than Elianna was at this age but you both still would rather be upright, looking around, than hiding from the world.  You are also one of the happiest babies I’ve seen.  As Nana says, if you’re awake you’re smiling.  Love that about you.

I love the relationship between you and your sister.  She’s always been able to make you laugh or smile, even when you were at your grumpiest and now that you can do more things, Elianna is really starting to have fun with you as a sibling.

Happy Birthday, my love.  I love you, love being your mommy.  

And what you all really came here for...

Milestones...

This is going to be a bit of a bittersweet post.  Our Nikki, who has been a loving friend to our girls for over 2 years is moving on and moving back to Seattle to refresh her cosmetology training.  She has watched them grow up, helped us become a family of 4 and it is so sad to see her go.  We are looking for a replacement but she has left very big shoes to fill.  I almost feel bad for whomever we hire.
So that's one milestone down; the loss of a caregiver.  I hope Elianna does alright.  My guess is she will.  She seems to be very resilient but I predict a lot of, "Is Nikki coming today?"in our future.

In other E news, she's graduated to the next level in gymnastics.  In this level, Mommy and Daddy are banished to the upstairs viewing area while she works with her class and coaches alone.  She's a bit young ( the cut off is 3 years) but so far she seems to be doing well.   She tends to wander off anytime there's a bar she can swing on ( the girl loves to be upside down) but with a bit of redirection, she's back in the game.
Also, this girl is a climber.  Anything with rungs or something similar means she's going to be up it on the quick.  She's very surefooted and keeps her head about her.  She has her father's genes in that department for sure.  We are going to be buying her a full body harness really soon so we can go to the climbing wall..just not sure if she's big enough for one.  I hope so because I think she's going to love it!

And Marielle.  For awhile, she seemed like she was a little to the left of the bell shaped curve; not behind by any stretch of the imagination but not a prodigy either.  She wasn't much of a talker,  took awhile to roll, let alone crawl and generally just seemed content to just hangout.

Man, the past few weeks have effected quite a change in our girl.  She 'talks' all the time, tries to imitate what we say (kkikkk kkiikkk is her word for tickle, I'm just sure of it), makes animal noises and has gone crazy mobile on us.  We cannot leave her alone or she's up the stairs, giggling and going faster when we try and stop her.  She's stood alone for brief seconds, pulls up on everything (and everyone), and hates, HATES sitting still.  Mike and I have a bet as to when she'll start walking.

So yes, bittersweet.  Our girls, our fabulous girls are growing up.  

Like I said, fabulous!

For the love...

Has it really been 3 months since my last post?  Guess the girls are keeping me muy busy!

No way to catch up on everything so I'll just give a snapshot of where we are now.  Elianna is Sassy with a capital S.  Everything is 'why?, why?'  and, 'what are you doing?  Why?"  She keeps us on our toes because she sees and remembers EVERYTHING.  We've started reading sight word books with her and she is really good.
 Marielle is on the move!  She army crawls like a champ and is starting to knee crawl.  She's also pulling up on everything, be it stable or not.  The end result of that is that I'm afraid to leave the house for fear someone is going to call CPS...her head is the very epitome of 'bruises in various stages of healing'.  She's also a babbling fool and I'm pretty sure she signed, "daddy" a couple weeks ago.

Okay, I'll get to what you all really want...pictures!

And I'll try and do better.  If only I was a better writer, you'd have better content.  Oh well, I'll let the pictures of the girls do my talking for me.

Comparisons are odious...

...or so it is said but I'm not sure how to get around it when talking about your children. When Elianna came around, Mike and I, in our naiveté, thought she was a difficult baby, realizing around 10 months or so, that we probably had it easy. Marielle's arrival proved us right, making us feel like we are complete noobs at this parenting thing even though we have a 2 year old under our belt.

It's also so easy to compare because we have digital evidence of almost every milestone. If we want, we can know exactly when Marielle does something new and look back and see when Elianna did it. I just don't want to compare them and maybe find one of them lacking. I love both of them so much and I never, ever want one of them to feel like the other one is my 'favorite'. I want it to be exciting to see where Marielle's strengths are, compared (there's that word!) to Elianna's. That being said, I think it just means being proactive and knowing when we're comparing because we're going to do it; it's inevitable.

And with that, here's the pictures:

Elianna and Daddy reading:

Daddy and little girl:

Snow White and Rose Red:

So solemn, both of them!

Pretty, pretty girls

Vegas peectures!

So as promised, Vegas pictures. I will give the caveat that they are all camera phone pictures and as such, could be better.

Da goils hangin in da crib, aka Vdara:

Elianna feeding a donkey and goat at the saddest petting zoo ever. She was entertained though which was the whole point.

Great-grandma Mary, aka Gigi with the littlest grand baby

Elianna eating a monster pancake at Mozen Bistro in the Mandarin Oriental hotel. She was quite taken with the restaurant and has named one of her stuffed animals, Mozen.

Elianna had a blast riding the trams around City Centre. Trams and escalators were all a big hit with her.

I'm pretty sure there's a joke to be made about a girl swinging on a pole in Vegas. Were one not someone's mother, that is.

Elianna at her aborted park trip. We tried to get her outside for a nice park visit, only to find the park was under construction. Not to be thwarted, Elianna made do with some nice, sandy volleyball courts. Who needs slides when you can make sand angels?

And my favorite picture of all, for obvious reasons: