When sisters are sick?

Brothers get to get their wiggles out with Daddy by riding bikes to pick up Mama from work!

Not so well.

Poor little Popps has croup. She is absolutely miserable and barks with a cough that sounds awful and wracks her body violently. In between coughing fits? You guessed it, she's smiling.

This girl...

...is a smiler. Nine out of ten photos she is smiling. And that smile is often an open-mouth, twinkly-eyed smile that stops you dead in your tracks and makes you smile too. I might be biased, but she is hands-down one of the happiest babies I know. 

Daddy and Finn

Pretty in Pink

Poppie has lost her newborn look and is thoroughly an infant now. She can almost sit up on her own and really loves sitting in Finn's highchair watching the goings-on in the kitchen. Pink is definitely her color and although I never thought I would be into pink, I am now. 

Can you blame me?

This little pink sweater outfit was my Christmas outfit when I was her age. I love the fact that my mom saved this stuff through all the moves and clean-outs so that my daughter can wear it today.

Do you see that cheeky smile beneath that ginormous pacifier? Although Poppie looks and acts the part of a perfect angel, she has a really fun, firecracker side, just like her brother. When she is upset that we are putting her down, she shrieks like a girl in a scary movie and then giggles when we come back to fetch her.

Also like her brother, Poppie is super alert and aware of her surroundings (maybe every baby is and I just don't know it). Poppie knows when someone walks in the front door and has a smile ready when they walk into the kitchen. She follows you with her eyes and will coo and babble at you until you engage with her. And by you, I don't mean just me or Nick or Finn. It can be anyone that she takes a liking to. She is a definite extrovert and loves people. 

She has just discovered her hands. They are amazing. She twiddles her fingers and arches her palm and moves her wrist like a ballerina, staring at them the whole while. And if they have nothing better to do, those hands hang out in her mouth.

She also loves grabbing things. Necklaces, hair, shirts, faces. If you get up close and coo at her she puts both hands on your cheeks, grabbing your face ever so gently and smiles and smiles and coos back. It is such a loving little gesture from such a tiny little thing.

Poppie ended up with Nick's eyes and my hair. Which is kind of cute because Finn got my eyes and Nick's hair. Aren't genes fun?

Guess what?

Today is another snow day! Actually, it is an ice storm day with freezing rain and slippery roads. Finn and I had a mommy-and-me date at All City Coffee with a coffee and hot cocoa. It was a treacherous trip walking there, but fun and so good to spend time with my little guy one-on-one.

While Finn takes a nap, Poppie and I are keeping Nick company in his office and getting some work done. Popps is strapped in the Moby as I write, snuggled warm against my chest, on the verge of falling asleep. Finn wasn't such a fan, but Poppie loves the Moby (a Moby is a 12' piece of stretchy jersey material that you wrap around you and baby into a carrier that is snug and comfortable for both babe and wearer). We were at a party last week and it was loud and rambunctious and my friends were so impressed that all I had to do was snug Poppie into the Moby and she was asleep within minutes (Finn and most of my friends' babes had to be paced and walked and rocked and moved into sleep, even in a carrier). Not Poppie. All she needs is a long piece of fabric and a warm body!

This week has been such an unexpected treat! I am not sure that we have ever spent a whole (almost whole) week at home together and it is so nice. There has been a growing movement towards the stay-cation (instead of a vacation) and I totally get it. I want more of these!

Finn is going through an 'I-don't-want-my-picture-taken' phase. Hence all the blurry shots, which are all I can get these days. I blame it on the fact that he has a photographer for a Daddy and has been the subject of more photoshoots than the rest of us combined. Oh, well.

Snowy day!

We had such a fun, snow day today! Seattle pretty much shuts down in any sort of snow and today was no exception. We had to take the littles to the doctor's for their well-baby exams (Poppie is off the charts in height, 36th percentile for weight and developing wonderfully. Finn is off the charts in height, average for weight and also developing wonderfully) but once we got home it was snowmageddon (as this storm was affectionately named by Seattlites) for this family!

We went sledding, built snowmen, played at the park, threw snowballs and took a long walk. We warmed our hands and tummies with hot cocoa when we got home and Finn cheers-ed and said 'this is so FUN!'. And it was!

Due to the weekend, MLK day and then the weather, Finn has been home from preschool for almost a week straight and it is clear that 4 days of preschool per week is too much for him right now. It is also clear that routine is critical (duh) and that while traveling is wonderful, there is nothing like getting into a groove at home.

I hope that this is not the last snow day of the winter, because days like this allow me to slow down and smell the roses snow and realize how much fun I can have with my little family if I don't have a schedule to keep. Hmm. Maybe things need to change in my life or outlook?

Our busy baby

All about Finn

You may have read between the lines of this blog that Finn can be an affectionate little handful sometimes. My favorite distinction is ‘spirited’ but others have coined such personalities as ‘challenging’, ‘strong-willed’ or ‘difficult’. A dear friend of mine reminded me that personalities such as Finn are the world’s presidents, CEO’s and most powerful players, if raised right. And, she so dearly commented, he couldn’t have better parents for the job.

Sometimes I believe my friend and can look at my little future CEO with love and patience and feel like a great mother who is doing a great job. And other times I want to cry and scream and feel like an utter failure of a mother. There are moments when he brings me to my metaphorical knees, I am no bigger or better than him and am playing ball when I should be the adult, I should know better.

I almost had one such moment the other morning. Finn came running into the kitchen with gusto, asked what I was doing, wanted to help, wanted to help, wanted to help, tried to grab the knife out of my hand, started screaming when I wouldn’t let him have the knife and then swooped his arms across the counter, knocking everything in his path to the floor. All within 3 seconds. Tops.
I saw red. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit. I wanted to do all those things that wonderful, calm, amazing mothers do NOT do. Instead, I looked up at Finn, his face wobbling with nervous, angry energy (he can read my mind and saw all those things that I wanted but could not do, and was rightfully scared) and I told him to scream. As. Loud. As. He. Could. He looked at me in shock, but let out a short scream. And then I told him louder. Again. Louder. Again. Longer this time. Again.

Within two minutes, we were both cracking up. It was such an unexpected response from me, he obeyed immediately. And it got all that destructive energy out that was the cause of the problem in the first place. Minutes later, he was playing on the living room floor in happy ambivalence. And I learned yet another valuable lesson in parenting. Or at least had another card to pull when the game wasn’t going my way.

I am currently reading Raising Your Spirited Child, which I love because it empowers the parent with information and understanding. It is also a very loving approach, which resonates with me because lord knows I have tried the authoritarian, I-am-the-mother-that’s-why approach and that doesn’t work at all. Not with Finn. He is too clever for that. He can reason out of every reason I give and often out-reasons me at the end. At two years old. I can use some pity about now so feel free to heap it on. Or, save it until he is a teenager, because that is when I will probably really need it.

One of the things that is most fascinating about this process of trying to understand Finn and what makes him tick, is how much I am learning about what makes me tick and what makes Nick tick (say those last two words really fast 10 times). After reading about it in the book, I asked Nick the other day if he felt emotions in his body. Like when he is mad or happy. Yes! He said, and spent several minutes describing what it feels like. And this morning when I was putting Finn’s hat on his protesting head, Nick said, don’t put it over his ears because he can’t hear and because he is so sensory, he needs to be able to hear. That is what he doesn’t like about wearing a hat. Because Nick knows. And of course, Finn kept his hat on when I folded it above his ears. And me? Finn has clearly inherited my strong-willed perserverance (which is the nice way the book taught me to define stubborn).

As always, the process of learning to become a good parent is not one that we can do alone. Nick and I rely heavily on the village around us to help us make sense of our world as parents and, as always, appreciate your advice, feedback and experiences, if you care to share.

In the meantime, we will be happily playing in the snow, building ‘nomen and throwing ‘noballs and the like because it doesn’t always rain in Seattle.

xoxo

Doesn't it look like this snowman is laughing? Love it.

Outakes from a slow Saturday

Daddy reading one of the favs

Mama and babies at the Hat and Boots pea patch

She is still happy even when she's sick

Chocolate at the park

Matching boots

Closing the neighbor's gate (this boy can't walk by an open gate without doing something about it)

Popps and Mama

Serious boy in his winter walking clothes and one of mama's gloves

Sick on a Saturday and hanging out at home

Update from the homefront

We returned from Hawaii late Thursday last week. Nick worked long hours all weekend climbing 315 ft old growth trees for a photo shoot on Saturday and filming birds and boys for a commercial on Sunday. Meanwhile, back on the boring homefront, I worked on getting the children back into a routine and readying myself for official back-to-fulltime-work. Which started yesterday. So far, so good.

We have hired a nanny who comes Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am working from home on Wednesday and Nick is working from home on Fridays. I sneak away at lunch to nurse Poppie on the days that I am at work (we are so lucky to live so close to the office) and Nick is available to help Finn transition to naptime if needed. So far, so good.

Our toughest times of the days are mornings and evenings. Mornings just feel to short and frantic and evenings can affectionately be referred to as Fukushima if we don't tread carefully. On further thought, mornings can also resemble nuclear meltdown too, so let's just say that the hours of 6-9 a.m. OR p.m. are the closest we will get to understanding what Japan went through last year.

My biggest fear about returning to work was above mentioned Fukushima hours and how I was going to be able to be one of the guys in the big white outfit saving everyone and not burning up in the mess myself. Which happens when a mother is sleep deprived and stretched thin and the father is too.

So, Nick and I came up with a plan. We were going to share all morning and evening duties equally, with one filling in when the other needs it. We have written a list of all the little details that make a day smooth and work on checking them off every morning and evening. Which has worked great so far. So good.

The ultimate goal is to get up early enough (ie, get to bed early enough and get enough sleep) to wake up early and work out (at home) and be able to take the dog and children for a walk all before the 8:45 departure for preschool/work. Which is why I am reading Raising Your Spirited Child and paying particular attention to the chapter on Bedtime and Nightwaking. Wish us luck.

xx

Kauai morning