Our big trip to SUNSHINE!

This time of year in the Pacific NW can be really really rainy. The weather here doesn't really bother me since I like cool-ish weather, but this year has been extra rainy, gloomy and even the natives are complaining. So, we took a get-away-from-the-rain vacay to the Caribbean!! Yeah, I know its far, but last year when we went to Hawaii, it was too cool to swim which defeats the whole purpose of going somewhere sunny. We saw the wonderful-looking commercials for Beaches, the family resort in Turks and Caicos and after talking with some friends who went last year, we bit the bullet!

Bill loves to travel, its his hobby and passion. Before we had kids, we had neither the time nor money to travel big, but we did manage a few amazing trips to Italy, the Mexican Riviera and Taiwan and a bunch of fun domestic travel. Now we have more time and money, but we have the kids and we don't have the luxury of leaving them with grandparents for a grown up vacation, so we just suck it up and travel with them. Which of course means its going to be a different kind of getaway--not bad, just not as relaxing.

Lana has traveled a lot in her young life. When she was under 2, we were THAT family--you know, the one with the screaming kid and the parents passing the kid back and forth, sweating b/c they felt the eyes of judgement from the other passengers. Now, Lana is easy peasy. She colors, she snacks, she plays her Leapster, she lays down if she feels tired. She adapts well to changes in schedule (finally!!), eats whatever and is generally in a happy mood. Lacey, my sweet, easygoing kid hit the 18 month hellion phase days before we left and all I have to say is, "WTH was I thinking taking an 18 month old on such a big, long trip?" The flights were painful with her, her schedule was all over the place, she barely slept 8h/night. Miss Crabby Pants? Oh yeah, that's an understatement. Patient in restaurants? Hell no. After 7 days we were really looking forward to getting her home and back on track--better eating habits, better sleeping.

Despite all of that, we did have a really nice time. I could go all trip advisor on you and lay down the plusses and minuses about Beaches, because while there were some truly amazing things about the place, there were also some things that could have and should have been a lot better (at that price point), but I will just get some photos out there b/c that's what counts. We did have a wonderful time and I would love to go back to the Caribbean (hello, the beautiful, warm water), but I probably wouldn't do an all-inclusive again because with kids this young, we didn't take advantage of most of the things that make the all-inclusive awesome--unless you count the tropical drinks--we definitely made the most of that--lol! So here are the many pics of smiling and sleeping kids because all of that swimming tires you out!

Memory lane

I was recently looking at old posts, more specifically, the first few months of my blog when Lana was about 23 months old. I can almost not remember her being that young. Yes, the memories are intact, but when I look at her face in the photos, it seems almost unreal that she was ever that little, that babyish, that chubby roundface slurping noodles and saying words like "mahna" for cat. My brain cannot access her at that age! She has always been speaking in complete sentences, telling me elaborate stories, asking me ridiculously hard questions , right? Lacey is now 19 months old and it occurred to me that in a few years I am not going to be able to imagine her a toddler-baby. I wonder what she will be like at nearly 5. But I am sure it will seem unreal too that she was once tiny little girl with barely any hair that loved to wash her hands with "bose" (soap) just so she could see the bubbles or walk around the house nekkid, only wearing Lana's shoes. Ahh, it happens so fast--the baby becomes the toddler, the toddler becomes the big kid (I cannot even conceive of what's coming next!). But I am so glad I have this blog to document the details that my brain is sure to forget.

While I was meandering through old posts, I came across the post when I found out dad had cancer and I read the comments. Then I read the comments after the post when dad lost his battle. These comments from friends, some of whom I have met, some I have not, have literally held me up, gotten me through. The support, the friendship, the love and hugs I have felt, whether its a post about frustration in parenting, a silly kid story or a major family or personal crisis is truly an unmeasurable gift and I have so much gratitude for each and every comment. Having this blog is so much more than a baby book.

I haven't been very good at posting lately, but after looking at some of those early stories and photos, I feel inspired to find some time to record the details--of the kids, of my inner-thoughts, of our family life because time passes way too quickly.

I am all done. Really!

As we are getting our shoes on to head out to the park today Lana determines that Lacey's shoes are too small.

She says, "Mom, you better put those shoes away and save them for the new baby."

I am like, "Huh? What new baby?"

She replies--"You know, the one you are going to have next."

Dumbfounded, I say, "Lana, there will not be any more babies. Mommy is all done."

She says (with a bit of attitude), "I don't think so Mom."

Clearly, Bill has been brainwashing Lana.

A good rubdown

Yeesh, I have a half dozen, started but then abandoned posts. They were once good ideas, but oh well. Hopefully this one will stick!

While Lacey has a delightful personality, full of sweetness and kisses and smiles, there have been some big frustrations with her development. She is a lousy sleeper and a super picky eater. I know I have crabbed about this endlessly in the past, but I wanted to revisit this because things have somewhat improved.

My pediatrician has suggested multiple times to take Lacey to see an occupational therapist who deals with feeding issues. At first, I thought--what, every picky eater now has a "disorder"? Give me a break. But then I noticed that Lacey never ever mouthed toys, even when she was teething, she never chewed on her fingers, she never put anything other than food in her mouth (except for little bits of toilet paper--weird) which I thought was odd for a toddler. So I figured, what the heck, I will take her in and see what they say.

The big issues with Lacey were that she rejected almost all veggies and didn't really like to pick up foods with her hands and feed herself. The only veggie she would eat is peas, BUT they had to be in a soup and spoon fed to her. A spoon of just peas would be spit out, a bowl of peas dumped on the floor. She would not touch pea and put it in her mouth. There were other foods that met a similar reaction--fine if spoon fed, but she would not self-feed. Her list of tolerable foods were limited to 3 different homemade soups (meat or tofu, veggie, starch), which of course is very limiting. So, after a 2 hour interview and watching Lacey eat things she will eat and foods that are more challenging for her, the OT said she had a very mild sensory issue categorized as tactile defensiveness. She explained it to me that certain textures made her feel extremely anxious--fight or flight anxious. It also may contribute to her horrendous sleep patterns--at the time, she was waking 2-5 times per night crying and we let her CIO each time. It never got better, i.e. she never "learned" to stay asleep.

The OT showed me how to give her a very specific massage where you squeeze her arms and legs and do mini compressions on her shoulders, wrists, hips, and knees. She loves it! I am supposed to do it at least 5 times a day and the idea is that it helps desensitize her nervous system so that texture and touching things doesn't feel so scary. Seems kinda goofy to me, but I gave it a try and I can definitely see an improvement. She has expanded her list of acceptable foods and is more open to trying new things, even if it ends up on the floor. As far as her sleep goes, the OT told me to try a thick quilt or weighted blanket, which sometimes helps them feel that squeeze feeling when they sleep. It was amazing--she sleeps through the night probably 50% of the time and wakes once the other 50% of the time! HUGE! I will take it!

I also read that book How to Get Your Kid to Eat, But Not Too Much (Thanks LauraC!), which I think really improved my own response and attitude to feeding a picky eater. I try really hard to leave it up to her to decide how much to eat and whether to eat, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me when she doesn't eat dinner. I take it personally, which is ridiculous! I really try to just put the food in front of her and she eats what she eats, no pressure. I only offer new foods alongside foods I know she likes, this way if she doesn't like the new food, she has something to eat at least. The book was very helpful overall and I am happy to see an improvement.

One other thing that has helped so much is that I taught her how to use a spoon and fork. She will now self-feed cooked carrots, cooked celery, cooked spinach and cooked canned tomatoes, using a fork. This is an amazing feat, considering we have only been doing the therapy for a couple of months. I don't need to take her back to the OT, just keep up the massage.

Oh, and another thing--I have been so frustrated b/c I cannot get her off the boob! She wouldn't take soy milk or rice milk, so I was giving her fortified OJ in a sippy cup, which just felt like a piss poor substitute for breastmilk. So I crossed over to the dark side and gave her chocolate soymilk--she sucked that down no problem! Now she asks for her "mih". I am down to one session of breastfeeding right before bed which is about to go in a few weeks. I really did not want to be breastfeeding for this long, but she is such a cuddle bug, its so hard to give up!

So I will continue to try new foods with her and give her a little squeeze a few times a day--sometimes she will even squeeze me back and say, "Skeeze!" Love that kid!

Getting back to blogging with some photos!

I would really like to get back into blogging more regularly. Sometimes I forget that a post can be a quick story or a few photos instead of an inner-thoughts type of sentimental rambling. So here are some photos--a lot of photos taken over the past several months. We love our new camera, although we are still getting the hang of it, as you can probably tell.

Parenting fail

One of our very worst habits as parents is that Bill and I curse. A lot. In front of the kids. I know, not good. I always try to switch out a bad word for a less bad word or spelling out the curse word, but then I drive somewhere and somebody cuts me off or pulls some crazy move and there I am, dropping the F-bomb with my kids in the back. Bill curses 100 times more than me--sometimes multiple curses in a sentence. Its like he is in college! Boys curse in the operating room, but he is one of the worst offenders. I wonder what those nurses think--hmm. Anyway, we know its a bad habit and Lana is aware of the cursing and that its not good. She even made a curse jar for us, but Bill never pays up. I have told her that there are some words that adults are allowed to say in certain situations, but kids are never allowed to say and its unfair, but too bad. Luckily, she has experimented very little with the bad words and she has never embarrassed me with them in public.

So the other night I am in the shower with Lana and she is always drawing on the walls of the shower door when it gets all steamy. And then she writes out (in very nice handwriting): S-H-I-T. Nice. Four years old and she writes shit on the shower door. Oops. I guess the whole spelling out the curse word backfired on me.

Still here and a bit of randomness/updating

Geez, February just blew past me and here we are in March! How did that happen? I can't say I have anything profound to report, other than just life and me being too tired and lazy to blog in the evenings. February did kind of suck because of the plague we all had that sucked 3 weeks away from us. I seriously hope next year's flu vaccine gets it right because I never want to have influenza again. Even after we were all well again, it took another week for us to regain our energy, appetite and not to have bags under our eyes. But we recovered just in time for a little travel, winter break with a little winter weather and BOOM--its March.

Our life for the past 6 weeks or so in a nutshell:

Lacey started Little Gym and she loves it, especially the singing and the balls and bubbles. I was worried she might be clingy, but she is actually very social, well, as social as 17 month olds can be.

Lana went on her very first ski weekend with Bill. Lacey and I stayed home b/c I didn't think Lacey could handle a long car ride. I started a lengthy post about this, but who am I kidding, I may never get to it. Lana took a ski lesson and she rocked it! She is not really into physical pursuits, but with her, new experiences are mostly mental and if she decides she is going to have fun, then she will. She did great and apparently was very confident for her first time and even though she fell a bunch, she didn't get discouraged. Bill took a video of her skiing with the instructor and I had to laugh b/c you see her skiing and then you hear her talking incessantly to the teacher--constant chatter about who knows what! Totally Lana.

Lana has been super duper high energy lately. What I mean is that she is bouncing off the walls. Literally. Maybe she has winter doldrums. I am constantly telling her to calm down. She also does this thing where she will ask a question and before you even inhale to answer it, she is asking it again and again and again. Holy crap kid, you have to be quiet for like 2 seconds so I can answer. I think its b/c she is wrangling for attention with her sister, but it drives me nuts. She is such a great kid and I enjoy her so much, but I often feel like I am constantly telling her to reign it in.

Lacey is doing so many cute things. She is obsessed with Curious George and has a stuffy she sleeps with (she rubs his ears). When she sees George on TV or in a book she yells, "EEORGE, eeorgie, eeorgie!" Its hilarious. She also is talking a ton and is so very affectionate, giving kisses and hugs and snuggles. Oh yeah, I love it. On the down side, she is really clingy and does not want me in the kitchen at all, not even for a minute. She cries and fusses and pushes me away from the counter or sink. She cries, "UP!" anytime another adult is in the room b/c she is afraid that I may bolt if I am not holding her. I can't wait for that phase to pass. I have such a strong right arm from carrying her on my hip.

We had a lovely weekend getaway (Bill had a conference) and we all had a great time. The kids were both remarkably well-behaved and happy. Bill and I both got to visit with friends and colleagues from our past. It was very satisfying and it got me thinking, not only about the past, but about the future. I know that I am being kind of vague, but suffice it to say that I was feeling more than a little introspective about my career--where I have been, where I want to go (maybe). A topic for another time for sure.

Things have been good. We spend a lot of time with our parents on the weekends. We have Sunday dinners with Bill's parents and my mom. We go to birthday parties, Costco, out to lunch. Nothing truly earth-shattering, but I like things this way--stable, happy, safe. Bill and I even went on a few dates recently, which were really fun. Its been good. The only thing I would like to change is that I would like to have a little bit of time to myself. I haven't figured out how to make this happen, but I think it would be afford me a little extra patience and would recharge my batteries. I would also love to socialize with friends and tackle To Do lists and organize cabinets, hang photos on the walls, but really these things are just the icing on the cake and we are busy enjoying the cake right now.