Letters to our baby girl, part 2

Sara –

You are turning 2 years old today, and have constantly exceeded every expectation I have for you as a daughter. I exude nothing but pride when I talk about you. Thank you for being your mother’s and my shining star.

In the past year, you have learned to walk, talk in small sentences, feed yourself (for the most part!). I love watching you learn new things. We gave you your new tricycle today, and I laughed when you kept wanting to put your new helmet on no matter what you were doing.
Every time you spend the night with your grandparents they have nothing but good things to say about you. You definitely know how to turn on the charm with them. Thank you for being good when you hang out with them.

I hope you know that your mother and I love you very much. You are our greatest accomplishment. Thank you for making our lives better every day.

I love you,

Daddy

Letters to our baby girl, part 1

My sweet baby girl:

You are two today! What a fun, challenging—but mostly fun—year it has been. I can’t tell you how much joy and adventure you brought into our lives this past year. I feel like we got to know you more and more this year, and you are so sweet, so gentle, so beautiful. Of course, I know that who you are right now is not necessarily who you will always be, and I will love you no matter what. Loving you brings me a joy I still can hardly wrap my head around.

This year brought a couple of huge milestones: mobility and communication. You are now a walking, talking, Barney-watching little person. You are still pretty easygoing, but you are asserting your independence more and more. You now say, “I self!” multiple times per day. “I hold it!” and “No!” are also favorites. Fortunately for us, you also say things like “I love you, too,” and “I want Mama/Dada” and “Yes, please.”

When I look back at this past year, there were definitely some points where my patience was tried and my fuse was short. Although I miss the chubbier little baby cheeks and the willingness to be held for longer periods of time, I don’t miss the stage where you whiiiiiiiined a lot in a really high pitch because you couldn’t communicate your needs. I don’t particularly miss when you had no impulse control at all. You still don’t have a whole lot, but now if I say “no” you’re likely at least to pause a little bit. I do miss the longer cuddles, though.

What do I want to say to you on your second birthday? My baby girl, I love you more than words can say. You bring such joy into our lives. I love watching you walk, talk, play, sing, grow. I love your sweet little disposition, and I will love you still if and when you become feisty. As your little baby brother or sister grows inside of me, I worry about what this change will mean for you, but I also know you’ll be a wonderful big sister and that a sibling will be a blessing for the rest of your life. I still thank God for you every night, and I cannot imagine a time will come when I won’t.

From now until the end of time, I will love you, and you will be my baby. I love you, sweet baby girl, and I look forward to another year of watching you grow and change as you become the person you were born to be. I love you, I love you, I love you—now and forever.

Love,

Mommy

When the BFF comes to town...

My best friend Anna came to visit from Maryland recently. She came for her cousin's wedding and stayed an extra week so she'd have plenty of time to visit with her extended family and with yours truly. We had grand plans. We were going to hang out every single day and possibly even throw in a trip to Disneyland!

And then, as it so often does, life happened.

First, Anna's little boy got sick. Then Sara was sick. Then Anna's daughter was sick. Then I was sick. In a cruel turn of events, it seemed like someone was constantly suffering from something. Aside from the discomfort all around (especially for Anna and her kiddos), this threw a major wrench into our plans. We stayed away from each other for several days, and then we only did a few park playdates, where the air could circulate and hopefully minimize the germ transfer.



Despite the challenges, it was so wonderful to see my BFF and her beautiful children. I know Sara enjoyed them all, as she quickly identified them all by name: "Anna. Sophie (pronounced Fo-see). Sammy." I can only hope that our next chance to visit will come quickly and involve healthy parties all around!

Twenty-three months old

In just a few short weeks our little baby girl will be two! She's certainly starting to act it now and then, asserting her independence and occasionally flipping her lid if I dare to help her do something she can do herself: "I SELF!"

Sara's spunk and personality started to shine a bit more this month. She has taken to dancing around the living room while she watches Barney or while "Pop Goes the Weasel" plays on her electronic toy. She likes to "jump" on the "Pop!" part of the song. Her jump is holding at a little stagger-step jump at the moment, which is pretty cute to watch. I have tried to videotape her, but once she hears the camera turn on the dancing and jumping stop.

Her newest favorite sentence is, "What's that, Mommy?" so I spend a lot of time identifying things for her. She has also started to identify some colors with increasing accuracy, especially blue, green, and pink. She likes to count and can count all the way to about fifteen, but a lot of times now she'll say, "One, two, three, six!"

After months of absolutely no interest, Sara is starting to occasionally scribble or play with some of her fine-motor toys a bit more. Maybe her body has finally decided that it's time to develop that part of her brain a bit more.

In any case, all this growing and changing sure is fun to watch!

Baby Blake

On Tuesday, September 22nd, I had the extraordinary opportunity to witness Tanja's induction and the speedy birth of my newest nephew Blake. Tanja elected to be induced because her fast labor with Ryan had her worried that she might not make it to the hospital on time or might miss her chance for the epidural.

At about 9:45 a.m., the pitocin was started. Not quite four hours later, after just a few pushes, Blake made his arrival. What a sweet little baby boy he is.

Baby Leo

On August 27th our good friends the Rosas welcomed their son Leonard William (Leo) into the world. A week-and-a-half later they were gracious enough to allow us to come by for a family visit. We had a wonderful couple of hours. Leo slept blissfully on his mommy's chest and our girls (Sara and Zoey) played beautifully together.



Congratulations to the Rosas! Leo is gorgeous!

Sick days

It has been a frustrating ten-or-so days around here.

On Tuesday, September 22nd, I got to witness the amazing birth of my newest beautiful nephew, Blake Eric Tyner. He is adorable, and he looks like a pink version of his older brother. I will devote another blog post to some pictures and a couple of details about his arrival.



Unfortunately, when Blake was three days old, Sara spiked a 103 fever and has been sick ever since. The doctors have told me it's just an upper respiratory infection, but that doesn't mean I want her snot or her scary-sounding cough anywhere near a precious newborn baby--not to mention Baby Kyle, who is almost two months old, or Baby Leo (the Rosas' newest addition), who is only a month old.

In fact, my best friend Anna has been visiting from Maryland (a post on that will follow, too), and between her sick kids and my sick kid, we didn't see each other at all for several days, and our visits have been limited to outdoors, where at least the germs don't recirculate around the room.

Now I'm sick, and though it's just Sara's cold that she has shared with me, it's no fun. Here's hoping we all feel better soon!