Fabulous Friday - February 26, 2010

Someone I've never met gave me the idea of "Fabulous Fridays". You don't have to do anything super amazing. You just have to do something different than every other day. And with a toddler and newborn I couldn't do anything super amazing, so I opted for a few small fabulous things for my first Fabulous Friday. And, I opted to not worry about cleaning my apartment, and just focus on enjoying today. Cleaning can be for non-fabulous days (in fact, I cleaned last night, just so I could relax and enjoy my fabulous day).

First and foremost, when I got up, I actually put on a clean shirt (that wasn't a t-shirt). I dug out a pair of earrings while I was at it, did my make-up and fixed my hair. A pretty fabulous start for a mom of two little ones, right?

Then, James treated me out to a special present. He got me a sewing machine! The crafting bug bit me awhile ago, and when he found out he insisted. So, now I've got a whole to-do list of sewing projects that are now only awaiting the proper material. So exciting.

Next, to make the day fabulous for a toddler, we got pizza, a special treat for Cadence. She ate an entire slice by herself, loving the pepperoni, sausage, peppers and onion.

Next on our agenda was an activity for myself and Cadence (once I'd finished games of peekaboo, got your belly button, and other games with Megan).
We colored on a big sheet of paper together. She lost interest rather quickly, though and decided to sort through the crayons instead.
While she did that, I enjoyed some one-on-one time with Megan. She is extremely ticklish and loves being held up over my head and brought down for kisses. She laughs like crazy when I do it.

Not sure what else to do to make our today fabulous. I'm thinking of painting all of our toenails the same color, if I can get Cadence to sit still long enough. I'd love to put a picture of our matching toenails up, but again, not sure I can get Cadence to sit still long enough to do so. Or maybe I'll save a salon day for our next Fabulous Friday. Meanwhile tonight, once the girls are happily in bed, I'm curling up with a big bowl of Heath ice cream and "Time Travelers Wife" to finish off my Fabulous Friday.

Introduce the rest of our family

This can't really be a true family blog if we don't discuss the two smallest members of our family. It used to be three, but in our tiny apartment, we were finally forced to downsize to the two that needed us the most, and found our third family member a home where he could sprawl out without taking up the entire walkway.

First, we have Hanna. She was originally Aunt Erin's cat, but couldn't make the move to Utah with her, so she had to stay behind. She wasn't the most social cat. But once we moved her out of the busy family house and into an apartment with just James and myself, she came out of her shell. Now, even with the two little ones making so much noise, she isn't hiding as much. She comes up to anyone that reaches out a hand because she loves to be pet. In fact, she's very demanding when the mood strikes. She was a bit wary of Cadence at first, but now so long as no fur-pulling is going on, she'll put up with a little abuse from our oldest daughter. If it gets too rough, she'll just sneak away.
Taz is my first baby. She'll be 7 this April, so she's not a young cat anymore, and she's calmed down quite a bit to prove it. She adores Cadence, though. Every morning she greets her with a gentle head butting. Every night I have to remember to chase her out of the bedroom or she'd spend the entire night cuddling my girls. She puts up with so much from Cadence. I've seen Cadence grab fistfuls of fur, drag Taz to her, and then lay right on her. All Taz does is meow in protest and wait for her to get up again before walking away, only to return moments later to be affectionate again and get dragged around once more. If the girls are crying and I don't respond right away, Taz comes to tell me that something's wrong. She's a little mini-momma. Too sweet.
James is anxious to add a dog to our little family as well, but we're still waiting on final word for some big life changes before we add to our family any more. Despite having two cats, James is very much a dog person and I'm pretty much just an animal person. Ideally, we'd settle somewhere that I could keep goats as pets. And maybe a pony or two... But, in reality, we'd settle for just a dog or two and as many cats.

Random Pictures

Just showing off some pictures. Yes, in the middle of winter, my daughters are usually down to just their diaper by the time evening rolls around.

Megan sleeping, and looking too big for my taste:

Cadence "posing" for the camera:Cadence decided it was time for Megan to wake up:
How we "swaddle", haha:

Happy Birthday to our #1 Guy!

I don't have a picture of James with all his girls at once, but I'll tell you, we all love him pretty fiercely over here. He's 25 years old today, and like every other day, he's toiling away, working hard to provide for his girls. We're a lucky bunch of females to have him. He takes good care of us.

So Happy Birthday to the #1 man in all of our lives!

"No" and "Meow" are the same thing

Cadence has successfully learned the word "no". So far she hasn't gotten nasty with it. But if I try to spoon feed her or get at her boogers (she's getting over a cold so she has a lot of them!) she turns her head and says "no". And because her "no" has the same cadence to it as her "meow" she'll start meowing as well. I think "meow" is going to be her fallback word for when she doesn't have a word to use. After all, the cats can carry on a conversation and have all their needs met with that one word, why not her?

She also has the word "ow" down as well. She'll hit herself and say "ow". And if you touch her and she doesn't want you touching her she'll say "ow", even though it doesn't hurt. Just to prove it to others, I touched her cheek. When I didn't stop touching her cheek right away, she told me "ow" and moved her face away. We all had a good laugh at that one.

She's struggling with "mouth" and "Megan", they get easily mixed up with "meow", for obvious reasons. She now points to her mouth or her sister's mouth and says "mouth", but sometimes she'll see a cat and do the same thing. Other times I'll point to my mouth or Megan's mouth and she'll start meowing at me. And Megan's just a hard word for her. She's trying so hard. It comes out more like "Meh-kee" or "Meh-bee" or sometimes she gets the g down and calls her "Meh-gee". But never consistently. I think she knows it's not being said right and she's not going to use it too much until she has it down pat.

She's relapsing a bit with words, I've noticed. She's using the words she knows less and less and using fussing more. I think it's just her being frustrated that she doesn't have enough words to convey what she wants as much, even though she knows the words are out there. I imagine it's a pretty normal stage, and that in a few weeks or so she'll start talking more. She does so desperately want to communicate.

Megan's still not quite as interesting. She's growing into a pretty baby just like Cadence was. There are times she looks at me and I feel such a deja vu remembering Cadence at that same age. My daughters will never be able to convince people they're not related.

Anyway, Megan's really close to hitting some milestones, I think. Now that she's 3 months old, she's got decent head control, loves to look around and push herself up when she's on her belly. She's almost ready to put the baby swing away and pull out the jumperoo. Actually, we've already broken "the rules" and put her in it a few times. She loves standing herself up in it and she grins ear to ear when I bounce her a bit. Of course, her head control isn't perfect yet and she gets tired easily, especially trying to hold it steady with the bouncing, so we only do it for a few minutes. As soon as the smiles stop we take her out and go right back to talking to her, which has her all smiles again.

I thought Cadence was a social baby, but Megan is much more of a people-lover. She doesn't even care about toys. If I leave her at her gym for long, she'll get bored enough to fall asleep. She wants people not toys. At least her sister entertains her enough, when she's not poking out her eyes and saying "Meh-bee" that is.

Megan's Blessing

Megan's baby blessing was today. We only went to Church long enough for her blessing because James got a phone call the night before asking him to come in to work on his day off. It's a part of his job, just not one we had to deal with much. But since we had planned to have Megan blessed and James had been asked to be in another blessing circle, he arranged to go after.

Anyway, Megan looked beautiful in the dress Aunt Erin made for her, and the blanket Nana crocheted was beautiful as well (though James forgot to take it up with him for the blessing itself, no biggie, Megan hates blankets anyway recently). It was hard for us in the back to hear James's low voice giving the blessing, but James told me what was said, and I wrote it down in my personal journal so that I can tell Megan when she's older.

On a downer note, Cadence seems to have caught her dad's cold and is not feeling too well today. All stuffed up and a sore throat, poor girl.

Now, pictures (if they'll upload, my computer's on the fritz):

The full shot of the dress (with blanket background)

Adorable close-up:

Sisters (not cooperating):

Daddy and daughter:

With mom (though mom hates the pic, lol):

Got that head thing down pat

Megan is right on schedule with her head control. She ought to be, she's been lifting her head since day 1. Seriously, the first time I held her, I was leaning back in the bed and she tried to lift her little head to look at me. Did pretty well for being so little. Of course, that may be just proud mommy bragging, lol. But now she's got the so called "mini push-up" down pretty well. Supposedly, it's the predecessor to rolling over. Cadence is too obsessed with taking the camera from me to get any nice photos of her recently, which is why 90% of my most recent photos are from the much easier to photograph: Megan. I did get one picture of Cadence, though it's kind of blurry. And I hate how old she looks in it.

Getting along & Toothbrushes

Quick, pop quiz. Which one's Cadence and which one's Megan? Both pictures are January pictures, just one's a 2010 January picture and the other is a 2009 January picture. ;-) These two little girls look so much alike, and yet they look completely different at the same time. Cadence has grown into such a pretty little toddler. I'm eager to see how Megan's looks evolve as time goes by.

(Oh, and pop answers to the pop quiz: Megan is on the left, Cadence is on the right).

Megan and Cadence are slowly put surely hammering out a relationship between themselves. I'm actually surprised. I expected no attachment on Megan's part for a few more months and I didn't expect Cadence to get out of her ego-centrist toddler phase for awhile. But, they're both have their moments where they seem genuinely happy to be together. Cadence loves to talk to Megan and Megan will sit there and smile at her almost the whole time Cadence is playing with her. Cadence's favorite thing to do is smother her sister's head in kisses, which can be a bit messy if she's eating something at the same time.

The girls take their bath together, since it's usually just me and them. The first time Megan got in the bath with Cadence, Cadence grinned ear to ear the whole time. I got in the habit of laying a wash cloth over Megan's belly to keep her warmer. Cadence has now insisted on doing it for me. If I dare do it myself, Cadence stubbornly takes it off and replaces it herself.

Megan's still too young to be reaching any major milestones, though. She's getting pretty good at holding her head up still. And she's starting to work on those leg muscles, so I try to make sure she gets practice standing every day. She's talking like crazy, laughing a bit, and exploring some of her vocal abilities. It's not uncommon to suddenly hear a strange sound coming from her while she's sitting in her chair staring at her toys.

She prefers being upright where she can look around, and her favorite perch is laying against someone's chest, but only if she's high enough that she can look over their shoulder. If she can't look around, she'll grudgingly settle down against your shoulder and promptly go to sleep. If she's not tired, she'll suck on her fist and sulk. Now that Cadence has mastered running, it's safe for Megan to be on the floor again, so we're letting her have more floor time in hopes she'll learn tricks, like rolling over, on time.

Cadence is learning new tricks every day. Her new word is "Done!". It took us awhile, but now she tells me she's done eating by proudly announcing "Dah!" and holding her arms out instead of throwing her food off of her high chair tray until I notice. She uses the same word at bathtime, normally when she sees me putting the tooth cleanser on her toothbrush (it sings while she brushes, she loves it). By the way, the toothbrush is awesome. If you hold it and it plays the music it sounds kind of fuzzy. But if you actually put it in your mouth against your teeth/gums it's crystal clear. The song is timed to be exactly 2 minutes, which doesn't count in this household, since Cadence turns it on and off as she pleases.

Tonight, she saw the toothbrush as I put her in the tub. As soon as I let her go she was holding up her hands and telling me "Dah!" She wanted that toothbrush more than the bath. I distracted her with toys and got her washed off, but as soon as she saw the toothbrush again she was all "dah" and wanted out. I let her wander around brushing her teeth while I get Megan dressed after bath time, and then I'll trade her a bottle of milk for the toothbrush. She got bored with brushing her teeth this time and started knocking it against my shoulder and telling me she was done. Once Megan was in her dressed I traded Cadence, but she was "dah" with her bottle before I was "dah" getting her dressed, so she kept waving the bottle at me singing "dah! dah!"

Speaking of singing, the singing puppy that Nana got her for Christmas is still a favorite toy. I know every song by heart, naturally. I caught myself singing along with one of the original songs and when I stopped I heard a bit of in-tune babbling singing and was surprised: it was Cadence. She only "sang" a few notes of the song, but it's a new thing, so I thought it was cool. Every new thing she learns is amazing to me.