lizcarey.com

Ashton and Sean

Dear husband,

I like it! Nice “work” trip to San Francisco! We girls are having a great time at home, working our schedule, and loosing and finding binky’s. We miss you!

Love, your wife

Dear Rachel,

Yes baby, you have a black eye. It happened so quickly, just tumbled the corner of a hard box into your eye. No glamorous stunt this time. You need a kiss and hug after your accidents, but you are a real tough girl, barely crying, and ever so fascinated by that swelling eye.

Love, mommy

Dear Rachel,

Today, for the third day in a row, you were playing peekaboo, in the stores, out of my eyesight, and although this is not the first time you have played in the familiar aisles of our Publix, Mall, or Target, this is the first time that I saw you think it was a game, instead of a curiosity. So I told you, the plain truth. That there are bad people, people that can take you, people that can take Hannah when I leave her to run after you. And I am sorry. I apologize that the world is not safe enough for you to run to and from the next aisle of the grocery store that we go to over and over again. And it’s not safe enough to run out of sight even in the food court at the mall where we love to play or run through the endless racks of clothes.

My love, you are growing up and I adore you!

Love, Mommy

Dear Girls,

Today was the first day we all had swim class. The weekend is over and first thing Monday morning we have swim school at La Fleurs at 9:15am! Nana went back to work in the schools so there was no baby sitter for Hannah. Instead of taking a break from lessons, we decided to all dive in head first (so to speak)!

Yay! What a successful first day. We got up with perfect timing for a Hannah cat nap. Both you girls got your suits on and we were out the door and on time without tears! We all dipped into the water and went through the station routine that is so familiar to you Rachel. I remember starting swim lessons with you at 6 months, I was shocked that the teacher wanted to dunk my baby under water! And now look at us! Rachel is swimming, picking up rings from the bottom, jumping off the side! I love it! Rachel, you are ready for the next class, but I know it will be hard to separate from mommy and your little sister. But you are a fish, embrace it! And Hannah, you love the water. You are splashing at least two months earlier than Rachel. I wish for you to love swimming as much as your big sister!

It is not easy taking two girls in the water, but we are a team. Even when Hannah made a huge pooh at the first station, we all went to the bathroom together. We got showered and soaped off together, and all three of us made it into dry clothes!

We celebrated our success with a trip to the mall play area and lunch at Chick-Fil-A. And we were back home and napping in perfect noon fashion.

I even got almost two hours of solice before my little ladies made a peep.

Michael Phelps is an amazing, incredible, unbelievable Olympic phenomena… but I know, he couldn’t do a day like this!

Love, Mommy

Dear Hannah,

We took a nice bath tonight, and Rachel tried not to squirt you in the face with the new squishy basketball toys. And after winding down in the bedroom for some time, once again, Rachel flipped the plastic doll swing, once again, and it screached! and you jumped! and then you just busted out laughing! Rachel and I looked at each other and just laughed and began about 10 more minutes of coaxing you into the giggles! You are precious sweetheart! My little pumpkin pie!

Love, Mommy

Dear Diary, I would like to take a shower and deep condition my hair, shave, exfoliate, and just stand there and let the burning hot water pound the back of my neck… but no, instead, I have a splashing two year old at my feet and/or a grumbling infant chiming away in the bouncy seat next to me. Eventually, I’ll get back to me time… and for the meantime, I am actually clean, just not pampered! me 

It was the 4 visits to the potty in Walmart today that have made me decide to buy and the carry a plastic donut potty in my diaper bag. Glamorous, yes I know you’re all envious!! Rachel has trouble sitting on those HUGE public potties. We are really doing great with the potty training, and she moved it to public when she screamed to go pee while we were driving to Sarasota Friday… I was shocked, new mom and all shocked, and told her to do it in her pull up… she really protested, but we were on the freeway… then she fell asleep… and woke up about 30 mins later freaking out to pee, so we pulled into burger king… and that is the start of my public potty world with Rachel. Man is this a new adventure! So I am trying to reduce night time liquids too, since she has been waking up to pee often. It’s hard to give up the night time bottle/sippy, it’s hard to replace it with something I guess. I do have a regular glass of water she can sip if she wants though. Any suggestions? Anyways, she’s not all the way potty trained though, we are using those pink dora pull ups and she is learning to pull them up and down sort of. Sometimes she makes me do it, and it’s cute. But she only seems to poop on the potty when she is bare butt. the diapers only work on rare occasion… does this come in time? or what can I do to encourage? And how often does a two year old need to pee? And how do I get her to stay on the seat long enough to let all the potty business come out? And now my bedtime is [i]wrecked[/i] because she is constantly asking to go pee after we are 5 minutes from shut eye, and I don’t want to say no, ever, because what if she really has to go… and she just hangs on the potty, sitting there, meandering, then calling out to me, and yada yada… anyways… what is the deal with peeing before you sleep… just a phase, or does this go on forever!!

“broke… Nana… ok… eat”

If you can’t decipher my adorable toddler clearly, let me help… She was eating a bag of baked Dorito chips and Nana sat on the bag, some of the chips broke, but that’s ok, and she will eat them anyways. It’s even cuter because she has exclaimed these facts about 15 minutes after the incident while she sat in her sandbox finishing off the bag…. “all gone!”

Ella does it all at our house! It started out when I told Rachel that Ella gave her the shirt and shorts that she was wearing… then I started telling her that Ella uses the big potty… and Ella brushes her teeth, and Ella obeys…. and Ella goes to bed on time… Ella does everything we do, just better! Now Rachel will ask “is this Ella’s toothbrsh”, or in her words “Ella’s?”, or “is this Ella’s shirt, or when we are getting potty stickers “Ella’s?”

It works like a charm Ella! I hope that you can live up to our expectations!