1 year and counting!

My big boy at his birthday party.  Happy birthday Chunk!

Whew!  We made it to 10/3/11.  Some days it didn't feel like we would ever get there, but the 4 of us made it and each in one piece.  Liam's first birthday was a several-day celebration of happiness, topped off by his first big boy haircut today.


Liam's birthday party was this past Saturday, with an M&Ms inspired dot theme.  I made garlands to festoon the house by machine-sewing strands of paper dots together.  I also hung some festively colored lanterns over the breakfast table as an impromptu chandelier.  I wrapped 1 gallon boxwood plants in polka-dot wrapping paper and made tiny paper garlands that said "happy birthday liam" to top those as well.  My favorite decoration was the timeline I made with photos of Liam from birth to 1st birthday, hung as a garland as well.  We served pizza, salad, and of course, cake!  White cake with butter cream frosting and Bavarian chocolate filling for the adult cake; white cake with frosting and M&Ms all over it for Liam's cake. Liam ate the cake in true Liam fashion:  taking handfuls of it and wiping them all over his face.

His gifts were very well received by him, and especially well received by Laney.  The two of them have really bonded over playing with the new toys this week.  They especially love the ride-on Lightning McQueen car and their stacking tower with a ball that rolls through it.  The new toys have taken center stage this week, and many a sibling rivalry/fight has ensued.  Laney swoops in any time Liam is playing and either takes his toy from him or "demonstrates" for him how to use it.  The jealousy factor was really amped up as attention was heaped on Liam this past week and I find myself telling Laney to leave her brother alone and to let him play with his toys constantly.  They do have their tender moments though.  Take tonight for example.  We got Liam to push Laney around on his new push toy tonight.  It was peaceful and cute...for about 1 minute.  Then she went too fast and he fell over and they started all over again with the fighting.  Maybe tomorrow will be better...I'm not getting my hopes up.

Liam had his well visit on Tuesday and measures up at the 75th percentile for height and the 84th for weight (26lbs!).  He is a growing and sturdy boy who is now moving onto one nap a day and sippy cups of 2% milk.  The doctor informed me that Liam should be eating only table foods and no more baby food.  I laughed because I can't even remember the last time that Liam ate baby food.  Having teeth early meant that Liam moved onto table food early, and that was just fine with us.  No more expensive jars of pureed grossness :)

Today I took the kids with me to my hair appointment and got Sonny to trim up Liam's hair in the front and around the ears.  I saved his first curl in a bag, and made sure to leave the rest of his gorgeous curly locks in place.  Amazing how much older he looks with just a few little snips.  Maybe it was just his new 24 month duds from GAP Kids, but today I felt like the mother of 2 toddlers for the first time. Make that 1 toddler and 1 preschooler.  Time is going too fast...except when they aren't sleeping through the night.  Then it can't go fast enough.  And I have the circles under my eyes to prove it!

Admiring Sonny's handiwork with the scissors.  Liam held onto his comb for a good half hour styling his do in front of the mirror as Sandy highlighted my hair.  Such a good boy at the salon.

L.P. is turning one

Click on the photo for a much larger and readable image!

Time marches on...

Sometimes I think my iPod has a direct line to God.  I put it into shuffle mode and it truly seems to deliver a message to me via mp3.  Take tonight.  I am feeling a bit melancholy over the fact that I will wake up a year older tomorrow.  34 years old... Somehow it feels remarkably older than 33.

As I was driving my kids home tonight I plugged my iPod into the car stereo and the first song that blared out was "Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)" by the Dixie Chicks.  This is Liam's lullaby.  Each of my kids has their own special lullaby. Hearing this song took me back to the very first time I sang it to Liam in our hospital room on October 4, 2010.  I waited until it was just Liam and I and then I cuddled him up close and sang to him  "Godspeed, little man/ sweet dreams, little man/ oh my love will fly/ to you each night on angel wings/ Godspeed/ sweet dreams."  Then Laney's sleepy voice piped up from the backseat and she wanted to hear her special song.  Laney's song is "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks.  I skipped to "Lullaby" and remembered craddling her in the window seat in our hospital room on June 4, 2008, singing to her in the afternoon sunlight "how long do you want to be loved?/ is forever enough?/ is forever enough?/ how long do you want to be loved?/ is forever enough cuz I'm never ever giving you up."  These two songs combined with the bittersweetness of a looming birthday reduced me to tears by the time that I made it to our driveway.  

It is remarkable how long the days are when you have children, but how quickly the years pass.  How it seems that time can fade away when recalling the memory of singing those songs to each of my children for the first time, and how quickly it seems time has passed since then.  Just last Wednesday I witnessed Liam taking his first independent steps.  Still, the song can take me back in an instant to those first few precious hours when I was getting to know my little babies and singing them a love song that will remain with us always.  At times it seems that I was just introducing the melodies to them yesterday.  

I love that they each have their own song.  I sing them their songs as I put them to bed, or when they need comfort and I find myself wondering as I sing if it is them or I that needs the song.  How long will my babies let me sing their songs to them before they deem it too lame or babyish?  Until then I keep holding onto the precious moments that will fast forward me to 35.  Birthdays serve to remind us that time is precious and to make the most of it.  I am so thankful for all the times I have sung those songs to my kids.  I hope it never ends.

Happy birthday me.

School Daze

Laney goes to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  This is her second week at school, and I have enjoyed each of those mornings because they offer me a precious 3 hours alone with Liam to play.  It is amazing how differently he plays when he is flying solo.  No older sister to tell him what to do, or to steal his toys.  Let's face it, watching Laney attempt to play with Liam is like watching a t-rex sneak up on a herbivore.  I don't know what is going to happen, but I do know that there will be carnage.

This morning he crawled around gleefully holding toys in the air as though he had just found precious gemstones lying in the sand.  He was thrilled to get the toys to himself and I swear he was playing with all of Laney's favorites just to spite her.  It was interesting to watch him decide what to do with the toys and how to interact with them, something that he doesn't get to do that often.  In fact most play sessions with L&L end with me slipping on my referee jersey and sending my two prize fighters back to their respective corners.  Sure they play together nicely a lot of the time, but mostly they seem to covet what the other has which has now led me to buy 2 of everything (including Rub-a-dub-dub Bathing Doll...it's a long story).

While I know that all kids fight, it sure would be nice to see them sitting side-by-side sharing nicely for once.  Oh well.  A mom can always dream.

Village Nursery School: first day of school 9/13

Heading to the Yellow Class for 3 year olds.  The Lady-Pack-Pack holds a change of clothes and Lovey!

A little shell-shocked over the whole thing, but by today (3rd day of class), school was proclaimed to be "fun" and she is looking forward to going back on Thursday :)

Playing by himself this morning.  If only I had a shot of him with his whole upper body in the cube...he was looking for toys in the bottom of it.  So precious!

Notice that he is wearing Laney's shirt since it was the only clean kid's shirt in the dryer this morning.  

Clean up on aisle 5

Today was a bad day for my clothes, but an excellent day for Method's laundry detergent!  By noon, all 3 of us were in our second outfits of the day and my washing machine was well on it's way to finishing the first of 3 loads.  What takes me hours to sort, pre-treat, soak, wash, dry, fold, iron, and put away can be undone by L & L in a matter of seconds.  Case in point, I was sitting in the waiting area at Hammond Dance Studio this morning as Laney was inside tapping away in her adorable (and brand new) pink ballet outfit.  I am jiggling Liam on my lap and it starts to feel warm.  And wet.  His diaper leaked and he and I were now drenched in pee.  Amazingly he managed not only to soak his overalls, but my cardigan, shirt, pants, and eventually underwear as it leaked through my layers.  As the realization of the enormity of the mess dawns on me, I realized that the zipper pouch of clean clothes was at home on the garage floor, in the mess of emergency items that I failed to stick back in my car after cleaning it out (damn Patrick will do the "told you so dance" tonight when he hears about that!).  So, Liam wore pee soaked overalls and I wore pee soaked pants.  Pants that I had to wash twice to get the stains out of and then carefully ironed last night.  Thanks Liam.  I was looking for something to do this afternoon.  Guess laundry is it...

Fast forward to the end of dance class, and we headed to the Pancake House with Gigi (yes, still wearing pee-soaked clothing.)  Laney ordered her usual: chocolate chip pancakes.  Predictably the chocolate chips ended up from head to toe, covering her sweatshirt and pink tights.  We headed home so I could head up my newest cleaning project.

As we walked in to our house through the laundry room, we made a pit stop at the  clothes hamper.  I stripped us all down and we headed upstairs to start over again.  A do-over day for our outfits I declared.  We gathered up everyone's wash piles and marched back downstairs to the laundry room.  Laney and I sorted the clothes and sprayed down probably 90% of Liam's dirty clothing in Dreft stain remover.  He is a SUPER messy eater.  Miraculously all of Laney's chocolate pancakes missed the leotard and I felt triumphant as I held up the one item that did not have to be washed today.

While we are all clean again, it is only a matter of time before someone spills something and I am off to clean up the mess.  Although I do give props to the dog for the worst mess in the last 24 hours.   Patrick walked into the kitchen this morning to discover that sometime during the night, Toby decided that lifting his leg on our refrigerator would be a great idea.  Honestly, no one has ever peed on my fridge before and still, it isn't the weirdest thing someone in our family has peed on.  That distinction goes to Liam.  While staying at Shesh and Pop Pop's house he was allowed to crawl around nude from the waist down due to diaper rash.  Shesh found him gleefully pounding on the grandfather clock in the front entryway.  Upon closer inspection she discovered that not only was he fascinated by the inner workings of the clock, but that he had somehow claimed it as a future possession because he and the clock had been covered in a waterfall of pee.  Please Lord, let that be the weirdest thing that gets peed on in our house!  And please Lord, let there be no more messes today.  I have real work to get done.

They are my kids.

Just after I arrived home from seeing "the Smurfs" with Laney yesterday, the power went out.  Apparently the power went out all over Southern California due to an operator error in Arizona.  Even though it was a pretty big nuisance, the power outage seemed to be just what our family needed yesterday.  It brought us some quiet time and family togetherness on the couch as we read books by candle and flashlight.  Laney, Patrick, and I walked around with our camping headlamps (much to Liam's enjoyment) and lit all of those old, half-burned candles that were gathering dust in the cupboard.  Lucky for us the kids were tired, and we had a totally quiet house by 7:45pm.  Patrick read by headlamp while I worked on Liam's Christmas stocking (only a year behind!) by my headlamp.  We had red wine and were forced to relax without the usual interruptions of modern living.  In fact, we managed to make an entire dinner for the kids without even opening the refrigerator or freezer (thank God for pasta.)  Just as we were ready to turn in, having blown out all of the candles and tucked the kids in, the power came back on.  In reality we only spent 7 hours without electricity, but the dramatic effect it had on our day was poignant.  We need a lot less face time with technology, and a lot more family together time.  We jokingly remarked that perhaps the power should go out at our house a few times a week, but it isn't a bad idea.  I think we will start declaring "technology free" days as a family and really trying to get back to the basics of togetherness.  Clearly we won't be starting tonight...Patrick and I have too much technology to catch up on after yesterday's vacation from our normal lives.  Still, I can't wait for our next Power-Out-Night at the Miller house.  I feel a wicked round of Candlyland coming on!