Growing and going

Here are the stats about our little miss: at 6mos - 1day, Agathe is 22lbs, 11 oz and is 28.5in long. She is developmentally blazing a trail and her growth is arcing perfectly across the graph-y doctor page. However, we’ve discovered that she ain’t so crazy about going to sleep for other people. Steve and I had our date (yes, we had the anticipated Japanese cuisine) and unfortunately we dropped Agathe off kind of tired. Poor Yiayia rocked her for an hour before she fell asleep, then was afraid to move lest the babe wake. For us, she usually falls asleep in the sling or occasionally nursing, then transfers great into the playpen or crib. I don’t have the luxury of elaborate go-to-sleep rituals (considering the havoc Evie could wreak while I was distracted) or letting her scream and cry (assuming our bread was buttered such) because she shares a room with Evie. I have been working on making some sleep associations- a bunny, a satiny blankie, etc.- but that is the only idea I’ve had. Maybe this warrants some research…

UPDATED: I just went back through the brennaandsteve logs and found that Agathe is the exact same size that Evie was at her 9 month checkup. I KNEW this was my biggest baby!

Go, go, Speedracer

They say you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. Thank GOD. That will give us a couple extra weeks before we’re chasing Agathe around.
This kid is mind-blowing! She will be six months this coming week (Oct. 7) and she not only rolls and scoots to get where she wants, but gets up on hands and knees, gets on hands and FEET, kicks her legs out, walks them forward, and gets up to sitting (which she can do unassisted- sit, I mean). This happens about 300 times a day, but still prompts stunned silence followed by “holy CRAP did you SEE that?”. We will find out for real tomorrow what her weight and length are at her six month checkup. I’m guessing she is 5′7”. No, wait, that’s Hannah.
Yes, that means Hannah is taller than me.
Apropos of nothing, Evie has her moments of roughness with Agathe, but more often she says things like “It’s my baby Agathe, Mama! I luuuuf her!” And she wants to bring her toys. Especially if Agathe is playing with one of Evie’s toys- then she REALLY wants to bring her an Agathe-approved one. And it isn’t me who decides if it is Agathe-approved, either. Have we mentioned that Evie is very bossy? No one believes us. She doesn’t speak in front of other people. And they say “how lovely!” and “so well behaved!” and I think “way to fool ‘em, kid.” She is almost as bossy as Hannah was at that age. Or now, for that matter. ha ha.
So tomorrow I will try to post Aga’s stats. Ooh, then Tuesday, I am going on a date with my husband! Woo-hoo! His company was having a little to-do in their new digs- some fancy mansion in Baltimore- but they canceled it. However, we still have Yiayia Rita all set to babysit, so off we go! I think Japanese food, then a drink. Or two. Ooh, and maybe some music. Crap, we probably can’t be out too long. Gees, we could probably just sit in the car outside of Steve’s mom’s house, achieve a full conversation with complete sentences, and then pick the kids back up. It would be worth it.
How do other people get out more? We manage by bringing Agathe everywhere in the wrap or sling and having Hannah hang out with Evie, if we need to get away or have a function to attend. (Does presidential debate drinking game (Main Street? Drink!) with locavore friends count as a function? Anyway.)

So ends my rambling for the moment. I’ll ramble more tomorrow after A’s appt. Oh, and after my appt. I am consulting with a dental surgeon about removing my mouth-banes, I mean wisdom teeth. I’m thirty- I can only put it off for so long…

Dude! New Pictures!

In addition to posting, I have now added New Pictures! It was probably time, considering the last time I did that, I was not even pregnant with Agathe. I suck, but I suck less now. Enjoy!!

Cuteness and luckiness

Sometimes I think my head will crack open from the cuteness. Agathe is a chubby dumpling of happy. Evie is in the thick of language acquisition and putting together new thoughts every day- showing us the hilarious wonderland of the ridiculous inside her head. Hannah is clever and ironic and a smart-arse, just as she has been raised to be.
(A few weeks ago, Hannah and I were explaining to a friend of ours how we feel about Hannah’s impending teenage-hood. I said I could feel it barreling towards me like a freight train. Hannah fixed me with her most serious dramatic stare and said, “And you’re playing chicken on the tracks.” Hilarious and true.)
Anyway, I could gobble them all up, they are so adorable. But what takes it from happy snapshots to a rich life lived is my husband. We both lovelovelove being parents, especially to this unique band of nutbars. We are equally amazed when Evie puts disparate concepts together for the first time, we are both enchanted when Agathe gazes and coos, both exasperated and entertained by Hannah’s ploys to stay up past her bedtime. We help cement these memories of our children for each other.
At the end of next month, my relationship with Steve will be eight years old. That is more than a quarter of my life that I have spent with this man, but it feels like we just got started. Like we are just-now settling in with one another.
Marriage is work just like parenthood is work- but it is the happiest work I know.

Evie 2.0

Evie is turning 2 tomorrow! Can you believe it? Well, I can because she was acting like a two year old all day yesterday. She is usually a sweet, inquisitive, and fairly compliant child, but yesterday she was a pip. It makes sense if you consider all of the changes she is adjusting to. And I don’t just mean Agathe the Usurper. Evie has been sleeping in her toddler bed full time (she loves her crib like the fish love the ocean), she is potty-training herself so she is in cloth diapers full time and using the potty, Hannah the Beloved is home from school but that changes the rhythm of the day (especially since she insists on talking with Mama so much, the nerve). Poor little Peanut, a lot is going on for her.
However, this Sunday is All About Evie. We have an exciting little shindig planned for her at Quiet Waters Park. We rented a pavilion that day and are cooking out and she can run amok and be the princess.
Now Mama and Baba need to pull all those party details together…

Checking in…

Wow. Our lives have been busy and it shows in how often we post on our blog!

Agathe just turned 2 months today. Shes already 24.5″ and 15lbs 6oz! Yes, that’s a big baby.

We’ll get back with more pictures soon(ish).

I Am a Prophet

On Friday, I spent the night at Gigi’s after watching three movies and eating homemade pizzas. That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was changing a very poopy diaper of Evie’s and I told my mother she needed to be potty trained. On Saturday evening, (see prior post) Evie potty trained herself! I AM A PROPHET!!!

Now that I’ve explained my magical powers, I can talk about other things. I’m going to school tomorrow after a week off (Spring Break, woohoo!). I’ve been working on a project for French class about a country in Africa named Djibouti (I picked it because of the name). That’s pretty much it. My life is now pretty boring. I shouldn’t even post this. But I’m going to because otherwise there is no record of my prophetness.

Potty-Breaking News!

Evie potty trained herself last night!

With a rapt audience cheering her on, she successfully urinated in her pretty plastic potty bowl. As far as I know, this is the first case of a self-taught sub-two-year old peeing in a bucket.

In related news,

Evie’s little sister, Agathe, has now mastered the Art of Voiding & Evacuation.
Read the rest of this entry »

New Baby - New Website!

Here we go again with another round of updates!

New baby! Agathe Helena

New website! You’re looking at it. It’s under construction : |

Baby pictures will be posted soon-ish. I’m so busy!

Weekend special

I was going to title this post ‘Nothing Special’ because it is my intention to update you on the haps over here, nothing major. Then I thought about said haps and said to myself ‘how wonderful and special.’

I am 22 or 23 weeks pregnant with the next installment of girliness. All is going well (assuming I kick my cold and get some sleep). Seriously, this pregnancy thing goes pretty well for me. I know I have dodged some major bullets on that front; ranging from morning sickness to scary baby or mama illness. And as long as I have my trusty husband to make cookie runs to the grocery store at nine o’clock at night, I should breeze right through.

Evie will be 18 months on Christmas day, is finally totally weaned, talks a streak, and is such a funny-beautiful-weird little thing. She does that early linguistic thing where everything becomes categorized. For example, all fruit is called ‘apple.’ She says it clear-as-day, but applies the word to bananas, pumpkins, mangoes, and tomatoes as well as apples. And all numbers are two or nine. You get the gist. She dances and sings, reads books A LOT, and says things like ‘hand, mama, hand’ when she wants to lead me around the room. Her cuteness, like, blows our minds.

Hannah is adjusting smashingly to seventh grade at her new school. She is having a sleepover with some (literally) old-school friends as we speak. Her only complaint is about the increased levels of workload and responsibility, but that is why we decided to send her there to begin with.

The business is picking up a little and Steve is working hard. He is looking forward to the day that I stop working part time so he won’t have to interrupt his workday to be stay-at-home-dad. At least that is what he says. I think he will be a little heartbroken when he doesn’t have scheduled Evie alone time every school day. He’s sorta partial to her, see?

Thems the basics, I guess. Lots of hustling and bustling and goings on. I am adamant that we will have all house stuff accomplished before I am seven months. (No replays of the Evie birth drama.) I just wanted to cover the general stuff.

Hope all is well with all of you!