"Mom those butterflies are really bothering me"

Abby had her dance recital this past weekend, it went very well and she did wonderfully. For her first experience being on stage in front of a large crowd she was very composed and remembered all her steps well.. but oh those butterflies! Poor thing was so nervous, she tried really hard to contain it and we had numerous discussions about how being nervous was perfectly normal and it happened to everyone. I stuffed her full of as much banana as I could (due to it's perhaps real or perhaps imaginary calming properties that at least made me feel like I had done everything I could.) Then dropped her off at the backstage area with a passel of other kids all in various stages of undress, and hoped and prayed that all would go well.

Abby has undergone a softening of her previously fiercely self assured personality in the past little while. She is feeling more, and acting less, she is growing up and becoming more aware of herself inside her surroundings which can be enlightening and terrifying too. So I wasn't sure whether she would calmly let me leave her to the chaos of the room or hang onto my legs sobbing and fervently request to accompany me to my seat.

Luckily, and I have a beautiful little girl in a sailors suit to thank for this, she made a friend instantly. They spent their time before the performance parading around together introducing each other to their classmates. SO really I had nothing to worry about, my little Abby who so easily makes friends and treats them well always rises to the top, not that I was worried mind you.... really... wasn't worried...

She danced beautifully and when we met her after the performance with two of her very best friends  a bouquet of roses from mom and dad, and a potted gerbera daisy from Papa and Grandma she almost cried from joy. This child amazes me everyday, she is so thoughtful and considerate, intelligent and inquisitive, I see myself, then Seth then something completely amazing and new in her.

I was told about sleepless nights, I was warned about frustration, fear and worry, I was aware I would never have any free time again. But no one mentioned the awe, the elation, the pride and wonderment that having and raising a child brings to your life. The love that almost rips you in two.

And soon to be all grown up

It is Abby's birthday this week, she is turning three and I can hardly believe it. It seems so cliche to say that it was only yesterday that I held her in my arms for the first time, but really it feels like it was. Ultimately Seth got to hold her first as I was being stitched up but after what seemed like 10 mintutes I was avidly saying over and over " can I hold my baby now?" and then there she was. All wrinkled and cone headed and angry, oh boy was she every angry, she cried for almost an hour.

Abby ; I had no idea what to do with you, it all seemed so surreal, one day I was alone, then you were here. I can still remember how hot it was that summer when you were born, we spent a lot of time out on the patio at mom and dad's house. And then after four months with mom and dad we were finally cleared to immigrate to the US and see dad again. Finally our family could begin again and mend itself after being separated for so long. You wore your blue sleepers with your pink sweater and pink shoes to see Daddy at the airport, and we cried and cried and cried.

I had no idea that one little munchkin could completely change my life so much, and that I was missing so much in my life before I had you! Everyday whe I look at your face I remember all the good things I've ever done in my life, all the joys and satisfaction of being your mom. Granted we've had our differences and even though it makes me mad I still laugh on the inside when you use mad mommy voice on me lol. And you are getting so big now, you can get your own water, 'read' your own books, use scissors and glue, use hte bathroom all by yourself. And now we have little Norah, and having her made me realize how big and grown up you are.

Watching you grow up has been the sinlge most amazing thing I've ever witnessed, and here are a few things that i absolutely totally adore about you:

• your undying love of all bugs, snakes, sharks, reptiles, and amphibians
• watching you treat your sister with love and respect
• your love of doing makeup with mommy
• your love of cooking and helping to cook and bake anything
• watching you eat, and eat and eat, and that you are willing to try a bite of anything at least once
• that you can constantly surprise me by making completely astounding connections between spiders and dogs, or water and bugs or anything really
• your love of animals in general, that petting zoos put you into a spasmodic stupor and visiting a zoo will cause loss of sleep for weeks before hand
• that you could eat an entire watermelon if allowed
• you are independant and brave, oh so very brave and fearless my darling
• you love swimming and baths and any kind of anything with water
• you'll try more then once or twice or three times to get it the way you want it
• your love of small and or shiny, beads, coins, bits of shiny paper, nut shells, rocks, leaves
• the toy du jour, always small and most times shiny
• That you can hold your own with boys and girls, that you love tanks and knitting, robots and makeup, dragons and dressup, star wars and shoes
• That I can see myself and your father and then something even more special inside of you, you are yourself, confident and beautiful and amazing

Thank you for being my hunny bunny, my love, my darling, my baby pookie and most importantly my abby dabby, my baby forever.

I'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be

-Robert Munsch

That little green eyed monster

Well Abby has started with the sibling rivalry, I mean really begun to realize that mom and dad have two kids not just one. Her acting up this week has been grueling, frustrating me to the point of distraction. Especially since most of it revolves around how much attention over and above 100% I am able to give her. Funny thing is that she is really great in the morning for her dad, even when Norah is awake and playing with them. But as soon as I wake up and my priorities are in this order: bathroom, coffee, nursing, coffee, breakfast, something with Abby, and her priorities are: mommy craft time, mommy play time, mommy swim time, mommy shopping, oh sure have some coffee it's only 3pm. And she turns into a raving lunatic, whining and crying and lashing out, craving any attention at all, even the very worst kind. And as soon as Norah vacates the breakfast cuddle Abby is IN MY LAP like a dirty shirt, I mean this kid never even cuddled when she was nursing and now it is like Gaaaallllluuuuuueeeee. And the little beady jealousy eyes, I mean I guess I wasn't prepared for it, how anyone could shoot daggers at little Norah baby.. but she does. Yikes! and today when we were over at a friend's house dropping off a few helpout meals we were talking and watching the babies ( friend's have one 9 months and one on the way) Abby got a ball point pen and drew on a painting in the house. AARRGGGHHH!!! I have never been so mortified in my life!

And this too shall pass, and I am trying to rearrange morning priorities, I mean who really needs breakfast anyways? :) lol and having lots of Abby mommy time helps but .. geez .. I can't imagine three kids... or five... *sigh* and in ten years I'll be cranking that she doesn't want to be with me... well here is a shot when it was just Abby mommy time:

huh, the dog in the background is Max, mr. jump-the-fence-and-pee-in-the-yard-in-Texas dog

And just for good measure

There is something about Babies eating food that just tickles me :) lol here are some shots of Abby

Buggy Buggy Buggy Bumpers

Okay so I've mentioned about how much Abby loves Bugs, well we had a bit of a bug fest this morning and spent the better part of an hour in front of the computer looking at the most incredible bug pictures I've ever seen. And for a child who routinely expresses an interest in being either a bug doctor, a bug farmer, or and emtoboloist ( entomologist, she has great speech but somethings are still slightly out of reach lol), our computer session was a dream come true. Here are a few of the 'cuter' guys that she was completely enamoured with
I am amazed at how much she loves these bugs, little guys who despite being very beautiful most would find somewhat creepy crawly if they were on an arm of leg. She constantly fascinates me , and makes me so proud that she is anabashedly herself; loving all manner of things unreservedly. I just hope that I can successfully encourage her to always follow her dream even if it is all the way to Thailand in search of a pile of milkweed beetles that are way too cockroahy for me thank you very much. :)
BTW credit goes to Richard Seaman for the amazing photography.

Home again Home again jiggety jig

SO much has been going on this week, we had a lovely trip to Canmore, an 8 hour drive during which Abby went on the little potty three times by the side of the road, one at a gas station and then arrived in Canmore totally dry. This kid I am telling you, once she makes up her mind about something lol, so we went to the zoo in Calgary to celebrate.

I think that the prehistoric park was a pretty big hit, she could barely keep still and just loved running along the paths beside the hoodoos and giant fake turribul leezards, lol.

And only my kid would be patting this super ugly creepy paper mache thing saying "hello friend! so nice to see you, aren't you just a cute little guy" lol

Did I mention it was barely above freezing and rain/snowed all day long? well there weren't many people there that was for sure, but I won't say no to a private zoo visit!

Thought these guys were so cute, they looked warm and definately smelled warm
So all in all it was a great weekend, Abby got her ultimate reward for potty training and hasn't looked back since, we had a great time swimming with the kids and taking it easy. And now I am off to start cooking the anniversary weekend extravaganza meal, mmmmm steak..... lol

Keep Singing!

So Abigail has started quoting movies , as well as music from cd's. She knows at least the first thirty lines of Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery ( and listens to it every single night before bed.) She has more that half of the songs on many of her cd's memorized and has now begun singing like Ariel the little mermaid. This all began a few mornings ago when she was in her room wailing , well it sounded like wailing and she was talking about bees in her tent. She had been sleeping in her tent for the past few nights and thought it was great fun, but hearing of bees Seth and I immediately thought of the wasps that sometimes make their way into her room in the spring. But when I sent Seth rushing in there ( as I was previously engaged with Norah.. ahem.) she informed him that she was just fine and the bees in her tent had been angry but she made them happy by singing like Ariel so they went away. lol super funny , and kind of strange, but mostly funny. SO tonight in the bath she was singing like Ariel again and making her mermaid hair swirl in the water when she asked me to sing like Ariel. So here goes... Ahh Ahhhh Ahhhhhh, and so she pipes up "KEEP SINGING" just like Ursula and then moves her hand to my mouth and tries to take my voice away. Soooo what does a mommy do? well I stopped singing , she had stolen my voice of course! This obviously led to a whole evening of repetition which was also super fun and of course just one more time before bed. But if you had told me 20 years ago when I was watching Ariel for the first time and totally deciding to marry an Eric and be red haired and gorgeous that I would be still enjoying it with my daughter this many years later I never would have believe you. Pretty amazing that we are a generation that can actually do that kind of thing.

It also reminds me of just how important this phase of her life is, and how blessed I am to be able to share it with her and really be a kid again. :) lol

"The first guy in my world"

So my daughter has an obsession with small. tiny, miniscule items, be they beads, plastic animals, chips of sparkly sequin, pebbles, and basically anything smaller then a dime. This magpie tendency wouldn't bother me in the least if her toy de jour wasn't so darn hard to keep track of. For example in a brief moment of Norah being asleep and Seth resting trying to rid himself of the cold we've all had Abby and I had an opportunity to take Asia for a nice walk. And it was a great long trek of a walk I let her choose the directions and pick the corners to turn and we circumnavigated our little corner of Spokane over a period of 45 minutes.

I'm thinking Great! 49 degress outside, sunny, no rain, fresh air excercise and she is still clutching her little metal toy froggy in her hand showing him all manner of trees and leaves and sticks and such. This particular froggy is an old necklace charm of mine that was given to me by a friend on my 13 ish birthday, I found him the other day while looking through old boxes and gave him sans necklace chain to Abby. ( mostly because she has a habit of trying to chokle herself with anything resembling a rope, string, chain etc.) . He is a well travelled little metal froggy, and made it around the block and most of the way home.... most.....

So I've finally convinced her to climb the porch steps and head toward the door when the inevitable question arises " but mommy, where's my froggy?".... crap.... seriously? I mean I warned her and told her and tried to put him in my pocket and her pocket and have him 'ride' in my mitten but no... she had to hold him and now I have 4 blocks worth of cement including leaf piles, moldy grass, drains, ditches, mud puddles, and cracks to search for a frog the size of a dime. Not to mention the fact that he is black and green mottled with just the right amount of orange thrown in to look exactly like a leaf on the ground.

Great, okay here I go, down the driveway.. no frog... around to where she picked up a stick.. no frog... mud puddles ( am I really going to put my hand in there? ) well she is following me crying her eyes out bawling " But he was the First guy in my world mommy! that little froggy guy" okay great hand in puddle... no frog.. not by the light pole... not by the mailbox... anywhere on the muddy driveway? fat chance of finding him on the gravel, as he blends right in even on the bright red couch .'okay Abby let's look up here, by the house' ( and not to be fooled, my daughter who is wise to my gently prodding her closer and closer to the house so I can smoothly usher her in the door before she realizes it walks the othe way entirely). SO as she pelts down the driveway calling for "froggy guy! where are you??" and I resign myself to another 20 minutes out here looking for the damn thing I glance at the porch ;

And there by the house, looking as smug as his little froggy face could possibly look is that damn frog on the FRONT PORCH no less, beside the door. Seriously. ANd you should have seen her face, the adoration , the content knowledge that "of course mommy found him ,that is what mommies do". SO am I super mom because I found this stupid frog overs acres of territory? or am I just plain dumb for not looking around my own feet before trekking all the way back to the dirty house around the block with all the toddler luring garbage and mud puddles for a front yard?

No more small shit. only big big big shit. Like maybe I'll buy her a pony.

And when I can pry the little thing out of her grasp I'll take a picture for you all.