She walks

He splashes

Chicken noodle soup from the Crock Pot

And a chocolate chip cookie (also homemade!)

Big girl

And so it happened once again that a child in my house turned one.  Emme's first birthday came and went with less fanfare that I would probably have liked, but she's one and won't remember any of it.  (Maybe I should have thought of that before I started documenting every detail of my kids' lives here...).  The big birthday started on Friday with her one-year checkup at the pediatrician's office.  Oliver came with us, both because it was an early appointment and I didn't want to take him to daycare before it, but also because I wanted to have his ears checked.  He so often has ear infections without me knowing it, and if he continues to have them over the next six months, we may have to think about a second set of tubes (since the first has now completely fallen out).  Emme measured in at 18 lbs., 9 oz. (15th percentile), 29 1/4" (55th percentile), and head circumference of 17 1/2" (30th percentile).  She's little compared with Oliver's 23+ pounds at his first birthday (and tiny compared to his current 36 pounds!), but I love it.  The nurse actually measured her twice because she hadn't gained any weight since her last appointment.  I pointed out that her December weight included a 2-3 pound cast, but regardless she did fall in her percentile.  Her surgery, the subsequent infection, and her general business probably account for the slowed growth, but there's no doubt she's overall healthy and developing right on schedule.

It turns out that both the kids had an infection in one ear (opposite the ears that were infected at Oliver's three-year checkup).  They're both on amoxicillin.  It baffles me because neither usually shows any indication that they're in any discomfort.  Dr. Rauth is repeatedly shocked at how bad Oliver's ears can look (and yes, she does know what his ears look like healthy as a comparison) without him running a fever or complaining.

They both went to daycare after the appointment so that I could get some work done.  Emme wore her first birthday onesie that Aunt Laura gifted her at Christmas.  Before I picked them up in the afternoon, I stopped by Harris Teeter and got two helium birthday balloons that I knew they would like.  I also put back up the multi-man tent in the living room, thinking that would be a big hit.  The kids' enjoyed both he balloons and the tent (while Lucy liked neither).

Wes had an evening shift on Friday, so we waited to do cupcakes and such until Saturday.  I did make Emme's mark in the doorway that night -- I thought it was more important that it was "official" than that Wes was there for it.  Consequently, though, I couldn't get any really good pictures of Emme standing next to it.  Oliver somehow helped me get the mark made, but that was about it.  Both kids were in bed a little early, and I wasn't far behind.

Saturday morning the kids and I did a bunch of errands (it becomes a "bunch" when you go to both Target and Wal-Mart and Costco in the same morning).  It ended, as I had repeatedly promised Oliver, with a trip to The Painted Cupcake for Emme's birthday cupcakes.  Emme wore her "1" shirt that day, though it didn't make it all the way until dinner time.  When evening finally came, Emme was fussy, Oliver wouldn't eat any of the dinner, and Wes and I were both in foul moods.  But I didn't want to wait another night to celebrate, so I relented and let Oliver have half a cupcake, even though he didn't have any real dinner.  He and Emme split a strawberry one with pink frosting.  We did the one candle, we sang the song, and I think Emme went to bed thirty minutes later.  We finished the mixed half dozen of cupcakes (some kind of chocolate, peanut butter, pumpkin, and others) over the next few days, and they were the best I've had in Nashville.  Very moist, just enough icing, not sickeningly sweet.

There were no presents this year.  I will be sure in future years, when she's old enough to remember, to have a birthday present for her, even so soon after Christmas.  Wes's birthday (and my sister's) is right around Christmas, so I've heard enough to know that there has to be a distinct celebration for it to feel real.

So the day is done.  I wish there had been something that felt a little more special.  I wish I had better pictures to remember it all.  But regardless, it happened, and I now once again have a one-year-old in my house.  Oliver keeps asking if Emme is still a baby now that she's one and kind of walking.  I don't know that I have an answer for him.

Three things about this picture

1. Yes, he's holding the "3" backwards.

2. Yes, he's wearing beads in the bathtub.
3. Yes, my three-year-old is kind of ripped.

Goldilocks (and the bear)

Howdy, dudey

I failed, in the midst of the Christmas posts, to make mention of the gifts from Grandma Kay.  I was reminded when I downloaded pictures from our camera tonight and found the pictures below.  She brought us an array of fun things, but the best gift for the kids was undoubtedly these cowboy hats.  Oliver was clearly a fan; Emme's still thinking about it.

Hair today (gone tomorrow)

One year old

Dear Husband, Part 56

Take one deluxe iPlay Build a Road from the grandparents,
add a basic one from mom, plus dad's blocks from childhood.

Result: theyPlay

That's silly

Yesterday morning, Oliver found a small block in his room that had some white paint on it.  He told me, "I don't know who put it on there -- maybe daddy* or Emme or Lucy..."

"I don't think it was Lucy, Oliver," I said, hoping he would use some logic to realize that Lucy was an unlikely culprit, lacking opposable thumbs and all.

"Yeah," he said laughing.  "Dogs don't have paint.  That's just silly."

Indeed.

* The blocks were Wes's and his siblings' when they were younger, so it's likely that it actually was Wes, lest you think he was unfairly implicated.  

Drying up

Twenty-two bags.  That's how many bags of frozen breast milk I stored in the deep freezer and used over the past year.  Each Ziploc freezer bag held five bags of milk, with 10-14 ounces in each.  That's 1100-1540 ounces of milk, or around 200 6-ounce bottles of milk.  That doesn't include, of course, the nursing sessions, the pumped milk that went right into bottles, or the (very little) milk that got pumped and dumped because I didn't want to transport it.  Tonight, I took the very last one -- the last little Lansinoh bag marked "Mother's Milk" -- out of Bag 22 to defrost for tomorrow.  I haven't nursed since Friday afternoon, I think.  I got down to just mornings, and I'm just basically stretching it out, nursing if I get too full until my body gets the message.  I did it right this time, weaning slowly, starting last month when I had enough frozen milk to supplement while Emme was at daycare.  Then last week we introduced cow's milk -- a cup or two of that, two bottles of breast milk, and nursing in the morning.

She's sleeping through the night again and for good I think -- with the surgery and four (!) new top teeth behind us.  I know many would argue with me, but I think weaning has helped.  She doesn't wake at night looking for food.  She sleeps about twelve hours, and I'm making a big push to keep the pacifier to only bedtimes.  (It got used a lot more when we were traveling and she was teething.)  I'll try to eliminate it completely in the next month or two, once I know her sleep is set, but our pediatrician said that as long as it's only at bedtimes, it's not a major issue.

Weaning is always a mixed time for me emotionally.  It, more than anything else, seems to signify for me the transition from infancy to toddlerhood.  I like that I don't have to pump anymore -- I do truly loathe it. A time suck, if you'll forgive the phrase.  I like that bottles will soon be done with.  That I don't have to defrost milk ahead for daycare.  Emme has been pretty disinterested in any real nursing sessions for probably more than a month.  She wants to do it herself.  She can't sit still long enough to nurse for very long, especially if we're around other people.  It's a good time for both of us to be done.  But still -- there's a sense of time passing when I wean; it's the end of something.  Emme got absolutely nothing but breast milk, and that's kind of cool.  (Oliver got some, but very little, formula -- and mind you, there's nothing wrong with that.  It's just the absolutism of saying, "I exclusively breastfed for a year" that feels like an accomplishment for me.)  

If I approximate, on the conservative side, how much milk I've made in the past year, it's well over 10,000 ounces of milk.  That over 100 gallons.  But now we're done -- and, I think, that's okay.  The nursing bras have already been put away.  Soon the nursing pads will disappear.  In a few weeks, I can once again sleep without a bra on (another annoyance of nursing, but my letdown is too strong to go without), and I will probably switch back to the bras that I wore before Emme.  

So I'm drying up -- and drying a few tears -- but for the most part I'll celebrate my newfound freedom, pat myself on the back for a second job well done, pour Emme another sippy cup of milk and myself a glass of wine.  Cause baby, we're weaned.  

Steps in the right direction

Emme took her first steps today.  She's been teetering for days, on the brink, but today we saw definitive steps.  Since her last follow-up appointment with the plastic surgeon, we've been able to make the wrap on her foot very thin.  I can get a regular sock over it and even a shoe on, though it doesn't fit very well.  Since then, she's been standing much better.  In the last day, I've seen her stand up in the middle of the floor without pulling up on anything, so I knew she was really close.  Because she's not totally steady on her feet yet, I think we'll have a few weeks of a few steps and then falls before she's really up and walking well, but it's just amazing to see this tiny little girl up on her feet.  I can tell she's excited, too, and ready to take off running!

We've hit a few more milestones recently, too.  She's started signing.  She definitely knows "more," kind of signs for "all done," and it starting to learn "food."  She says "mama" and "dada," usually with meaning, and has a version of "all done" that I hear now and then.  She can drink from a sippy cup, though it's pretty messy.  We'll be phasing out the bottle by the end of the week, offering it for a few more days just until she gets completely used to the cup.  She's also started drinking cow's milk now, and she seems to like it as much if not more than my break milk.  Emme eats "school lunch" now -- they supplement some baby food if she doesn't get enough, and we're basically doing the same thing at home.  She eats whole wheat crackers, goldfish, Cheerios, Cheetos, pieces of cheese, peas, carrots, green beans, small pieces of bread.  Tonight she had some of the white chicken chili that I made for dinner -- jalapeño and all!  It's a very messy process, letting little people learn to feed themselves, but it certainly makes for an easier mealtime.  Besides, Emme has always been so independent, she much prefer to feed herself.

I have only a few more days of time with this "baby" as she will be one, and a true toddler, on Friday.  With the semester starting tomorrow, it's hard not to think back to a year ago, about to start my classes and still pregnant, wondering when the little one would finally come.  I can't help but be nostalgic for those new baby days, but I wouldn't go back if I could -- this past year with her has been so much fun.  She is such a happy little girl, full of energy and spunk, and her presence in our family has brought out new sides of Wes and Oliver.  I can only imagine what more the next year will bring with her in our lives.