I'm So Glad That She's My Little Girl

This is a video of Charlotte. I thought she was talking to me a little, but I think instead that she's contemplating crying.
This is a video of Cecilia taking a bubble bath. She has so many new words now it's hard to keep up, but it sure is fun when she imitates.

starting her early on sushi

8 Years Ago Today

Look how young and cute we were. I really do think this was the best decision I have made in my life so far. I always pictured marriage to be good, but I could never imagine how full my heart would be. I'm all postpartum and emotional, but I thank God every minute of everyday for bringing John into my life. 8 years, two apartments and a house, 4 cats, and 2 babies later, I couldn't be happier.

Aunt Linda and "the girls"

Back from the Dead

Today is the first day I have felt human since the last time I blogged. I have had a rough couple days. It started on Thursday. I started to get a cold and lose my voice. I had my two week check up with my doctor, and I showed her these bumps on my legs. She said they were blood clots and sent me to the ER. It's not every day your doctor sends you to the ER, so I was a little freaked out. Charlotte in the car seat, and I headed to the ER, John came up from Ste. Gen, and Amanda watched Cecilia. The good news is the clots are superficial, so they can't really move upstream to my heart or lungs. I have to wear compression stockings, and take an aspirin a day and they just dissipate on their own.


Friday I was still sick, and was the first day I watched both girls on my own. We did good until about 3 p.m. Cecilia didn't take a decent nap, and I was in bad need of a nap, and by the time John got there at 5 p.m. I was a mess.


Saturday continued the illness, and exhaustion, and Sunday I went to the Walgreens clinic where the nurse practitioner told me I had an ear, eye, and sinus infection.


Monday I slept all day and Amanda watched Cecilia (God bless her.) Yesterday I had a check up with my doctor who said the blots clots will go away on their own now. Last night Charlotte was awake from about 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. which is fantastic because it meant she slept from 10 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., ate and fell back asleep again until 7 a.m. So, with a decent night's rest and the medicine kicking in, I'm feeling like I have a tiny bit of energy this morning, and that is a superb feeling. I was beginning to feel like I was in slow motion, stuck in some alternate universe where I feel sick all the time, and tired, and all I do is breastfeed.

Enough about me, want an update on the rest of the family?

Charlotte is as cute as ever with all that hair. I thik she is sporting the Adam Lambert look. She's going to be a trendy girl, I can see it already. She is in the 90th percentile for height and weight- she doesn't miss a meal- especially in the middle of the night.

Cecilia is really cute with Charlotte. She likes to give her hugs, and kisses, brings her the blanket, points to her nose. She does still whine on occassion when I'm feeding Charlotte, but she is usually easy to distract. Her new trick is standing up in the high chair. Good times.

John is amazing. Over the weekend he cut the grass, did the dishes, cleaned the living room, picked roses for me and put them in a vase, did laundry, cleaned the kitty litter, grocery shopped, fixed meals, chased Cecilia around the house, gave her lots of zerberts, and even has done his fair share of the middle of the night stuff.

Aunt Linda comes today, so I can't promise more blogging, but I am already grateful for her help and companionship, and I am looking forward to enjoying my days.

Learning

Cecilia is picking up so many words lately. I love this video. We do this routine at least 5 times a day, and have already added fingers, teeth, and foot to the game. Cecilia likes to touch Charlotte's nose too, which is precious. She is really starting to imitate words. Yesterday Christy was here and said "watch," and Cecilia said "atch" back to her, so cute! On that note, I owe a big shout out to Christy, she came over to help me wrangle the two little ones, but she also brought presents, folded clothes, did the dishes, made dinner and dessert, and let me take a shower, and a nap. Thanks Christy!

Mother's Day

This is a picture of mom and I (and Sharon and Heather) on what I think is Thanksgiving 1992. I had the perm and the V-neck sweater in full force. =)

Mother's Day is not the easiest day for me. In fact, from 2001 to 2006 it was one of the worse days of the year for me. But, Cecilia and now Charlotte have made this day much better for me. They make every day much better for me. I never thought being a mom would feel this good; this fulfilling. And while I am very happy to be a mom, there are many times I wish I could talk about my experiences with my own mom. Some of my mom's happiest days were when she had a new grandbaby. She would always be right there at the hospital, eyes shining, mouth grinning, holding that baby like it was pure gold.

Sometimes I think grief is very selfish. I don't do well with self pity parties. But, I do wish that for myself, for my own happiness, for these past few days, that I could have shared all this with my mom.

I am having a good day over here. John got me a nice card and chocolates. =) Cecilia slept until 9 (unheard of) and Charlotte slept until 10(after she was awake from 1- 6.) The Cards are on the tube, and we have a busy day of laundry, vacuuming, a trip to the park and grocery store, and we plan to make sushi rolls for dinner. It's not exciting, but what is exciting is the fact that I have a wonderful husband, and two beautiful girls to do all the normal everyday stuff with. It's like when I was little and used to play house, except this is not pretend.

Here you go, mom

Cecilia offering me a rock; what I always wanted. =)

Sepia Toned Loving

trying to take some artsy pictures, when in reality if you look real close, she has spit up on her lips

She's here!

Introducing Charlotte Elizabeth, born April 30th at 8:11 a.m. weighing 8 pounds 8 ounces, and measuring 20.5 inches. She's as cute as can be with more dark hair than I ever imagined. We came home Monday afternoon, and the both of us are finally getting some rest. There is no rest to be found at the hospital- so many nurses, and residents, doctors, etc checking me out, checking her out, it's exhausting. I'm still in slow motion, and she sleeps a lot, so together we make a pretty good team.

Here's a link to the pictures they took at the hospital.