Easter 2014

After a year's hiatus, here we are again.  We weren't dead, just very tired.  (Miriam turned out to be an angel by day and a devil by night.  It took her until almost a year old to get with the sleep program.  We love her.  We really do.  But she was nuts.)  I suppose Easter is a fitting time to be feeling like you are coming back to life, even if it's just in the metaphoric sense.

Here's our growing girls and this year's Easter festivities:  an Easter egg hunt with friends on Good Friday, Easter egg dyeing on Saturday, the scavenger hunt to find the baskets the Easter bunny hid on Sunday morning, and finally, church on Sunday afternoon where their dad spoke about the healing power of Christ's Atonement.  

By Way of Comparison

You are probably not supposed to compare your children, but how can you not?  In a spare moment yesterday, I perused some pictures of my three girls, all around the age of five or six months old.  Tony had been telling me that sometimes when he holds Miriam as of late, he has flashbacks to little Afton.  The pictures confirmed what I had been suspecting -- in terms of physical features Miriam is definitely more of a Afton 2.0 than an Ainsley 2.0.   

 (Afton)

 (Ainsley)

(Miriam)

The funny thing is, I can see now how babies have their own temperaments early on because none of these girls have been quite the same in terms of personality.  Afton was an intense little girl from the get-go.  Her pediatrician often reminded me that that would be what gets her through graduate school, and it will.  But as a baby, it meant she not only demanded to be held, but to be looked at and played with ALL THE TIME.  Ainsley was a happy baby, and she could live with out us constantly interacting with her, but she wanted to be held a lot too.  I wore her in a baby bjorn or a wrap for most of the first year of her life.  Then came Miriam.  She is so mellow.  I can lay her on her little play mat on the floor, walk away, forget she's there, come back thirty minutes later and she's just looking around and sucking on her fingers.  I do a mom-tot gymnastics class with Ainsley on Wednesday mornings.  During the class I lay Miriam either in her car seat or on a blanket on the floor.  She just chills at the edge of the room while the two-year-olds bounce around and shriek and the coach gives instructions and the parents constantly redirect the kids who are trying to wander in every which direction... and then she'll fall asleep.  Sometimes I think, "Did I really birth this kid?"  

All I can say is, it's probably a good thing we got these kids in the order we did.  All personalities have their strengths, but Miriam's little mellow self is making the transition from two kids to three much easier.  Now if she could figure out how to sleep through the night in the next month or so, then she could definitely win some awards around here ;).

Happy Easter!

Spring has (mostly) sprung!  We celebrated this year by having another Easter egg hunt with some families in the neighborhood, enjoying a few days with Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Reed, dyeing Easter eggs, following clues to the spot where the Easter bunny hid our Easter baskets, sporting new Easter outfits, and having Easter dinner with Grandma and Grandpa G.  The girls were amply treated by grandparents and the Easter bunny.

I must say, it was one of our best Easters yet.  No snow during the Easter egg hunt for the first time in three years.  Ainsley caught the vision of the Easter egg hunt, which resulted in some aggressive egg collection while the other two-year-olds meandered about. Afton has hit the age where she can remember the traditions from previous years.  She was very excited as she talked about where the Easter bunny might hide the baskets this year, and she woke up early in anticipation of the fun.  Miriam is still a bit of a blob at these events, but she is a cute one.  Tony was, yet again, a great partner in crime with the Easter bunny.  We managed a fairly decent family photo just before church on Easter morning.  And I only had a mild tension headache by Easter afternoon.

Happy Easter!

Everybody Loves Miriam

We are nearing the end of a long winter.  It has felt longer than most partly because it has been colder than most winters and partly because of the newborn factor.  Simply put, we've been cooped up in our house too long because I was too sleep deprived to organize any out-of-the-house excursion, even those of the indoor variety.  But despite our collective angst about cabin fever, we are all in agreement on one thing:  we love little Miriam.

So here's a smattering of pictures from the last couple months of the wee babe.  There's no particular rhyme or reason... we have been rather inconsistent in pulling out the camera.  But I have a sneaking suspicion my grandmother in Oregon (who may be one of the few people still checking my sparsely posted blog) may want to see what the little one is looking like since they met at Christmas.  So here's to the most-kissed person in the house!

Little Miriam

On November 25th, Miriam Deborah was born.  She came four weeks early.  Thus our Christmas baby (due to be born on Christmas eve) turned into a Thanksgiving baby (arriving three days after we feasted on turkey and stuffing).  Miriam was little (5 lbs. 9 oz.), but she was healthy.  No time in the NICU.  She could even nurse.  Her pediatrician remarked, "For a baby born at 36 weeks, she is a dream."  We thought so too.  We came home from the hospital the regular 48 hours later.  

Before we left the hospital, Miriam's grandparents and sisters got to visit.  Afton was very gentle.  Ainsley was... well, some concepts are hard to grasp when you are two.  Ainsley was impressed, however.  Right before they left, Ainsley gushed, "She loves me!"

 And not long after we got home from the hospital, Grandma Debbie arrived.  This was a continuation of what turned out to be a two-week party for Afton and Ainsley.

And now, Miriam is a month old.  She is still little.  She likes eating, sleeping on people's chests, and eating.  She does not like her car seat or the three minutes after her bath where she is still wet and naked.  She tolerates being kissed all the time by her older sisters and drowning in her newborn-sized clothes.  (We promise she is gaining weight - it just takes a while to fill them out when you start out at five and a half pounds...)  And she really doesn't cry much.

We are anxious to see her personality unfold in the coming months, but for now we are soaking up our snuggly baby girl.  (And repeatedly explaining that it doesn't matter how softly you kiss her, if you are laying on top of her while you kiss her, she is still going to cry because it hurts.)

More Pink, More Pigtails

Over a week ago, we finally got to an ultrasound and found out that Baby #3 is a girl.  Tony laughed.  I cried.  Afton took it much better than we thought.  Ainsley is still oblivious to the whole thing.

Lest you judge me, I have never doubted I would love baby #3 regardless of his or her gender.  I am simply overwhelmed at the thought of being the mother to three girls.  I grew up with brothers.  I spent most of my 20s in environments where men outnumbered women (an LDS mission, the only law school in the nation that struggles to recruit female applicants, a legal profession where 80% of the members are men).  I'm bad at doing hair.

And, while I may be entirely wrong on this, it has been hard to shake the feeling that as a mother I will have a few more parenting obligations to my daughters than I would to my sons.  I love my dad, and he was always very supportive of me, but let's be honest:  he didn't do my hair, teach me how to cook, guide me through the ordeal of sewing, talk to me about the birds and the bees, instruct me on anything else related to maturation, navigate issues of what is and is not a modest prom dress, or check up on whether I was completing my goals for the Personal Progress program at church.  My mom did all that.

Afton, bless her heart, has done little to help with my feelings of competence in parenting daughters.  The two weeks before the ultrasound were the first two after being in vacation-mode for a month.  Afton was nuts, and this manifested itself in a lot of yelling, "I don't like you!", "I don't want you to be my mom anymore!", "I wish you would just go away!" and "You're not nice!!"  Just yesterday she told me, "Mom, I prayed to Heavenly Father the other day that Grandma Debbie could be my mom and Papa Reed could be my dad, but... it hasn't happened yet."  She was honestly baffled.  Please, my sweet child, could you ponder the mysteries of God, prayer, and divine revelation with some other question besides, "Why are you still my mother?"

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on the upside of this house full of girls.  Whatever lack of female energy I may have felt in the first 30 years of my life will definitely be made up for in the second 30.  And, if I leave this earth earlier than Tony, there will be three girls to take care of him whether he likes it or not.  (Last week he told me, "Now I have to die first.  If you're gone, they'll make me go to the doctor, and they won't be as nice about it as you are!").  And my daughters will have something I never had:  sisters -- someone to fight with for sure, but also someone to give them a valid opinion when asked, "How does this look on me?", someone with whom they can do hair or nails or go shopping, someone to help them pick out their wedding dress, someone to help them with their new baby.   Not too bad of a deal, right?  

(The first picture of me and the three -- Afton, Ainsley, and #3 as growing pooch in my belly.)

Ainsley's Second Birthday

Ainsley turned two about six weeks ago.  (For the record, we didn't forget to celebrate it.  We just have been behind on blogging about it.)  It was a fun time because it was the day before her cousins left for yet another continent, so we got to celebrate with family!  It also happens that her grandpa's birthday was a three days before hers, so we did a double party.  Ainsley got cupcakes and Grandpa got flan.  

I've decided second birthdays are pretty fun.  Ainsley had no idea what was going on -- or that you don't touch the flame on the candle -- but she was game.  It didn't take long for all the older kids to help her along with difficult concepts, such as opening the wrapping paper.  Things only improved when she recognized some of her presents -- the new Pete the Cat book and Toy Story toys.  While her older sister and cousins were busy trying on their new headbands and t-shirts from Grandma Ive, Ainsley was completely engrossed in getting her Jessie to ride Bullseye.  

What to say about Ains?... She loves to laugh.  She declares a number of things "funny" and chuckles to herself.  If anybody else is laughing, she joins right in even if she is oblivious to the source of the humor.  Especially now that she's two, she wants to do things by "self! self!"  Ainsley is currently obsessed with horses, but every night she goes to sleep with a variety of stuffed animals:  a kitty, a penguin, a horse, Elmo, and Nemo.  (And she insists that Tony hug and kiss each one of them before she will tell him goodnight.)  Ainsley is much more physically adventurous than her older sister was at that age -- meaning, when you can't find Ainsley on the playground, she's halfway up some ladder somewhere.  While she's pulling a bit more of the terrible-two hitting and pinching, she is also very loving.  She freely gives hugs and kisses and she is usually quick to pat Afton's back or give Afton a hug if Afton appears sad.  We've decided to keep her :).