Dear Emma and Henry,

To my dear Emma and my dear Henry. My dearest little ones.

You are just little souls right now, with spirit and fire. You are pure energy. You are pure love. You giggle and yell and run and crawl and scream and cry and laugh and jump and clap and hug and kiss.

I am writing this letter to you, as siblings. As sister and as brother. As a little three year-old and ten month-old.

You are siblings. This is a special relationship, one that is to be cultivated and honored.

My wish for the two of you is a simple one. Love each other.

Be friends. Be kind. Listen. Laugh. 

That means lifting the other one up. That means celebrating each other. That means supporting each other.

Share joy. Share food. Share toys. Share memories. Share time.

That means being there in the hard times. That means calling the other out when it's needed. That means praying, always praying, with and for each other. 

Be the one the other calls when there is good news or when there is bad. Cry together. Be there. 

And above all, love each other, always. 

Henry at ten months

Well, well, well...look what we have here. A blog post?! On time?! Am I feeling alright?

Henry is ten months today! And what a coincidence, I have ten new grey hairs.

Henry shark finally cut a tooth (and considering how much his bites could hurt sans teeth, I'm looking at some good chomps in my future). He loves food. Especially bread. More specifically, pizza crust. Not like we have a lot of that around or anything...

He is more into savory foods than sweet at this point, which is the exact opposite to Emma. He prefers the pureed meat/veggie combos but he does like when I just hand him a hunk of fruit for him to gnaw at. Out of all the parenting things/precautions/what have you, I am extremely fearful about choking so I watch him like a hawk when we give him new foods to try.

Henry is a cruising machine. If he needs to get from A to B quickly, he usually crawls. But his new idée fixe is attempting to pull everything off the tables, shelves, and anything within reach.

He is incredibly vocal. He likes to look at himself in the mirror and just yell. It's the funniest thing. He also yells for food. For diaper changes. For attention. For no reason at all other than to hear himself yell. 

WELP, we have another early riser on our hands. He only sleeps past 6:30 (maybe) twice per week, but usually he's up and at 'em at 6 which means I am too, up and at the caffeine.

He prefers to spend time running free, either outside or in. He loves to explore his environment and already has some fairly impressive problem-solving skills. 

Henry's eyes are a serious attention-grabber. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, we take him people comment on his eyes. And I can see why. They are soul-piercing.

He's just beautiful. #proudmama #obsessed 

He loves books, baths, and any time spent chasing his big sister around. 

And I think I need to start planning his first birthday shindig. Must remember. 

Emma at three years

We are only a monthish late, but Emma turned three! 

THREE! 

Or as Emma says, FREEEEEEE! 

Sometimes I have to pinch myself because I am not convinced I have a three year-old. And sometimes I wonder how I've been doing this mothering thing for three years already. And sometimes I wonder why Starbucks has not figured out how to deliver by now. 

Emma is the personification, the embodiment, the concentrated form, the dictionary definition of spunk. She is passionate, opinionated, independent, and a boss lady. 

Over the past year she has grown taller and slimmer with less of a baby shape (WAHH) and is potty trained! She was fully trained by December of last year which is just the best. She is the tallest in her class and still hangs out above the 90th percentile in height. 

Her speech is advanced and she can articulate herself and argue/negotiate with us. It can be the most frustrating and most endearing thing when she gets on one of her determined modes. 

Highs of the past year: 

She upgraded to her own big girl room (which presents its own challenges).
Potty training.
Started pre-school.
Became a big sister.

Challenges of having a threenager:
Stubbornness.
Not easily distractible.
Trouble staying in her own bed at night. 

But what can you do, eh? 

She loves watching Disney movies and is obsessed with dresses, tutus, and anything sparkly. She can be quite helpful around the house and is getting more effective with cleaning and organizing. She absolutely loves her little bro but sometimes beats up on him when she's frustrated with us. 

She is purest joy. 

She is love. 

We are so blessed to have this precious one in our lives. 

For her birthday, we celebrated with a nice dinner out and the day after her birthday we had a party celebrating both her third birthday and Henry's Baptism. 

Happy Birthday, precious girl. 

For a throwback, check out Emma at two, one, and birth. 

I'm tired

Guys. 

I'm tired. 

I'm not talking about that physical tired from general parenting or working or existing. I'm talking about that fed up with that nonsense kind of tired. 

I'm tired of needing to defend myself or explain myself or justify this or clarify that.

I should not have to justify every action or choice Paul and I make when it comes to our family or our life styles or our priorities or schedules.

Why am I so tired? Well I guess it's one too many prying questions with a judgmental undertone (or quite frequently, a plainly judgmental tone). 

So who watches your kids while you're working?
So you're still breastfeeding? 
Oh, you co-sleep? 
So how much screen time does she get?
Oh, you buy baby food instead of making it?

Most of the time, these questions are asked quite innocently or due to genuine curiosity. But sometimes, the judgment just drips off their tongues a drooling puppy. 

I have gotten so used to laughing it off and responded in some kind of defensively sarcastic way that I don't even think about it anymore. 

Oh no one, they fend for themselves.
Yup, he's addicted to the boob.
Yeah we still haven't cut the umbilical cord so co-sleeping is our only option at this point.
We have glued the iPad to her face so, a lot I'd say.
Yeah I have stock in non-GMO, pesticide-rich Gerber products so I might as well. 

It's because I'm tired. My defense and sarcasm are exponentially related to the amount of tired I have. 

But let's try this folks. Instead of prying, try connecting. Instead of judging, try relating. 

Because at the end of the day, we are all doing the best we can aren't we? I may forget to bathe the baby but he is so loved. I may offer one too many bribes in the form of ice cream, but she is so happy. I may bark at my family when I've had a long day at work, but sometimes I get emotionally invested in my patients and am tapped out come dinner time. I may forget to answer that text message, but sometimes I just have to throw my phone at the bottom of my bag and forget about it for a few hours. 

Let's lift one another up, shall we? 

Henry at nine months

On those rare moments I have the time/wherewithal/brain capacity to type out a blog post, I am usually whisked away by my little buzzing bees. And you know what? That's a-okay. This is a blog-light phase of my life and that's okay too. I don't need to apologize (to whom? I don't even know) for taking time away from this space.

But when I do pop in, I want to say thank you for reading when you do. Thank you for allowing me to show you this life of mine. And a big thank you for following me on the other avenues I spend a bit more time on. 

--

King Henry is nine months already and my oh, I'm postpartum excuse for eating whatever I want is getting a wee bit out of hand.  But eh, I'm breastfeeding so give me all the foods.

Speaking of food, this boy loves to eat. He's still on the fence about chunkier foods but absolutely loves purees and (what do you know) pizza crust. 

We happen to have a lot of pizza crust available. I won't say how. 

He is a standing and cruising machine. He's days away from walking, I'm convinced. 

Also, he's teething something fierce. If those suckers don't pop through soon, I think I'll have to get a subscription wine service to survive it. Poor thing wails all night long.

He finally loves baths. He was never a fan of sink baths but we trust him (and Emma) enough now to plop them both in the bathtub and throw some bubbles their way. 

We welcomed him into the church at his Holy Baptism and my own Godfather, Richard (I call him Papa) and my sister are Henry's Godparents. We did a combo Emma's third birthday and Henry's Baptism party a couple of weekends ago and I am convinced that combo parties are the way of the future. Our families came up and it was a lovely time. 

And last but certainly not least, he says MAMA! (He say Dada now too, but he said mama first). That's two for two. #bragging

I want to show you some photos from the birthday/baptism party, but I'll save that for another day. Happy Tuesday!