A big help

So Charlotte alternates from being REALLY interested in helping with "her baby" to being rather indifferent, but when she is interested it's awesome.

It started with an interest in holding her:

and when we tried a bottle for the first time she was eager to help out.

She also is the first to make sure there's someone looking for a pacifier the second m starts to fuss - it's pretty cute.

Most of all I'm glad that up to this point she's been willing to share my lap. I'm a lucky mom that's for sure.

1 Month!

Alright I'm a day late, but yesterday when m hit her one month mark we looked around and realized she didn't actually have her very own special stuffed animal yet (equivalent to c's Aardvark). So today we ventured downtown and returned with woodland lemur, yet to be named. M's a fan (and she's HUGE).

5 years

5 years ago today we were here:

Wagner vineyards, about to embark on this crazy think we call a wedding. (look how young we are in that picture)!!! We had a picture perfect dream of a day followed by an unforgettable honeymoon in CA.

In honor of the 5 amazing years today marks I thought i'd dig up some of the fun from each:

2009 - Wedding, following pretty quickly by the first family addition:

2010 - Europe!

2011 - Family Grows again

2012 - Fun with and without the little ones

2013 - Mexico

2014 - Family Grows again 

Thank you for an amazing 5 years love. Let's keep the family at this size for a while thanks :o)

Sisters

At one day old little m and little c finally got to meet face to face. Caroline brought c to the hospital late morning and we had a wonderful visit. Of course, the pot was sweetened with the box of Cheerios I had stashed from the family kitchen.

C started out a little shy but quickly warmed up to the idea of seeing "my baby". She climbed right up on the bed and we went searching for baby feet together.

Really, except for c falling off the bed while she and I were goofing around, I could imagine a better first instance of our whole family together.

Michaela

Thursday May 22nd started like any other day. I had started to feel kind lousy the day before but with no real sign of labor I packed up and headed off to work as usual. After working for a couple of hours I headed off to my scheduled 39 week OB appointment where I was a checked out, fine, but definitely not in labor. Once I got back to work I started to feel something that felt a lot like contractions, but having just come from the doctor's office I didn't think much about it, which started the world's craziest 4 hours...

12:00 - wrapped up my last meeting of the morning and headed out to meet a team member for lunch (who's currently on maternity leave) so I could be sure to chat with her before I went on leave
12:15 - started to time contractions during lunch when I realized they were coming more regularly
12:30 - let my team member know that it was probably time to head home, but politely declined a ride to the hospital. Let Alex know it was time for him to come home too.
12:45-1:30 - Alex and me furiously cleaned out our inboxes and put up out of office responses as fast as we could. Called Caroline to come up from Chicago, called mom to let her know we were heading in.
2:00 - Arrived at Triage
2:45-Roomed
3:18 - Michaela Rose Provan was born (and named).
4:00 - Michaela finished up nursing so we finally got a height/weight - turns out she was born exactly the same size as Charlotte! 7 lbs 15 oz, 21 inches.
4:30 - Michaela and me cleaned up, packed up, and headed up stairs to the postpartum unit

It wasn't until later that night once Alex had gone home to check in on Charlotte that I had a chance to sit back and actually look at this amazing little life that Baby A had transformed into. Turns out she's just as awesome as we thought :o)

The new normal

So, big week here to say the least :o) I'll write up the story later but we're rapidly settling in to life with Michaela, and it's wonderful, including c's new favorite way to pass time in the dinning room while the adults finish up dinner...

the state of c

So it's been a long time, I know. Life is crazy, baby a is due any day, and time is speeding by... But c is pretty darn awesome right now so I want to take a minute to document the state of c.

Warning - I'm composing this from my phone so work of literary magic this will not be.

C at 32 months:
-has opinions about everything and frequently voices them :o)
-sings songs she's made up and loves dancing with daddy
-is impressively independent. She gets in and out of the bath tub and her car seat by herself. She clears her plate after dinner (and often ours too). She can feed Max all by herself.
-totally gets tic tac toe, and will play for a surprisingly long time
-is built like a running back and can run, jump, climb and balance in ways that are totally ridiculous for someone her age
-still loves and clings to baa ( who is now purple/grey), Bessie and booger.  Grrr has been missing for a couple of months now, but she doesn't seem to mind ( don't bring it up!)
-loves bath time and "swimming" in a big bath. Has no concerns about putting her head/face under water.
-went accident free 4 days in a row this week.
-would much rather be walking or running than sitting in the stroller.

And last but the one that made the biggest impact on me this week...

She will occasionally stop what's she's doing and look down with a very sad face. When you ask her what's wrong she says that she's a little bit sad, and when you ask why it's usually because she misses someone. You'll talk about it for a minute and then she'll be fine and will resume whatever she was doing. However, when this happened yesterday while she was jumping around with a stick and "fishing" in a tree and I asked and she said "I'm just a little bit sad because I'm not doing this very well".  It broke my heart because it was such a me thing! My poor baby girl apparently already has crazy expectations for herself.  Guess it's time to be even more careful about being kind to ourselves out loud in addition to being kind to others.

On a lighter note, she is still the master if rocking rain boots.