Almost One and a Two Year Old

IVY
My second child is nearly 11 months old and is nearly 19 lbs. In the last few months she started copying some things that we do (clapping, waving, giving kisses, sticking her tongue out), in addition to standing up from sitting, and taking a few steps. She has suddenly burst with cute personality. I love her laugh and how goofy she's becoming. She prefers me when she's cranky, but if she has napped and nursed she will go to just about anyone. She is my tiniest child, but she is the biggest she has ever been. She is simultaneously the smallest she will ever be. I love her chunky legs. Reggie was such a petite infant and Ivy is a long-armed, strong, 50th-80th percentile kind of kid. Ivy can do twice the damage Reggie could do (i.e. demolishing the toilet paper roll, emptying the garbage can, throwing laundry everywhere, etc.), but normally doesn't because the girls can play together. Ivy loves Regina. No one can make her laugh like Regina can. My favorite thing that has ever happened is when Ivy sees Reggie coming and she has these spasm-freak-out laughs of anticipation. It's so cute and I wish I could make anyone laugh like that ever.

She inherited my eyebrows, my pale pink skin, my Raynaud's syndrome, and my need to be the center of my family's attention.

REGINA
She has an angelic face and it has always been easy to make her laugh. Ever since she was 4 months old she smiles when she meets your eye and laughs at most anything people do. Lately, she has shown a strong preference for Todd. Just the other day I went into the bathroom to help her wipe and wash her hands after using the toilet and she said, "HEY! Where's daddy?" while she pushed me away. I was a little offended, but did NOT mind letting Todd do the work. She really loves to watch people before she joins in. She will stand and stare (for an uncomfortable amount of time) at children on the playground before it occurs to her that she can play and do what they're doing. When she sees other kids running, or playing tag she will usually join them right away even though she's too little and doesn't know them. She has no inkling of a thought that she's not invited, or welcome to play their game of chase. When this happens I tense up and pray the kids will be nice to her. It makes me realize how I have no control over her feelings, or others' treatment of her and how terrifying it will be for me to let her go to school. I don't want her to be bullied, to bully, or to stand by while others get bullied.

I love the way she says "pretzel." You can't tell whether she is saying "pencil," or "pretzel" because they both come out "pen-soe." She also says "yoomeeyoom" for "living room" and now she calls bedrooms "yoomeeyooms" too (i.e. mama's yoomeeyoom). I love her so much.

She is delightful and pleasant and interesting. She is so funny and cheerful and a bit mischievous, but not much. I will tell you that I much prefer a tantrum about nothing than one about something because the nothings I can laugh at, not take seriously and it is easy to distract her and change her attitude. When she's upset about something real it's more difficult to get her to let it go.

She loves carrying her purse, or wallet, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, she has memorized  (to my surprise) several Sandra Boynton books, she likes putting on makeup and taking it off, swimming, using tools, and bike rides. She would rather manipulate the remote and change channels/inputs/volume than sit and watch a movie.

She inherited my dislike for people having fun without me (read: going to sleep as a child), and the blonde hair I had as a child.

a lot of different thoughts. parenting.

I haven't blogged since Ivy's birth story...Ivy is 9 months old now. I just haven't had anything huge to share (I guess?), but mostly Ivy was a constant red, screaming, colicky, projectile vomit monster until she was about 5 months old, and then we traveled for Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and then I was busy finding winter activities to do outside of our apartment, and now it's nearly spring, I'm finally feeling like I'm getting the hang of having two kids, and I'm alone on a Friday night while the girls sleep, Todd is at work, and I've already cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. So, here I am on the internet not watching TV.

The TV shows I'm watching these days are iZombie, The Mindy Project, Brooklyn 99, The Last Man on Earth and SNL, in case you read this, care, or haven't seen them - they're good. Also, if you know anything, what happened to Mindy and when is the show airing again??????

Ivy has always been a beautiful, delicate, sensitive baby, but she's only now getting cute. She's finally acting cute. I know this because Todd has only recently begun interacting with her in a non-I'm-being-coerced-because-Hillary-thinks-I-hate-my-baby sort of way. Now she smiles and laughs when you say her name all, "IIIIvyyyyy." She laughs when tickled, or raspberried. She laughs hysterically at whatever Reggie does, or if Reggie laughs near her. She still cries if she sees me leave a room, and her nails draw blood and give me scabs on the regular. I look like I have a zit on my chin, but really I just wanted to give Ivy kisses while she really wanted to take my face off.

Regina takes up a lot of my energy as I muster up my fun self, patience, and semi-consistency. She loves to sing songs, read stories, "make popcorn, make a treat," dance, and climb everything. I think I'll put her in a rock climbing class as soon as possible. She is very talkative at home. When we are around unfamiliar people she watches very closely. She watches what others do, she hears what they say, I know she takes it all in because she'll do what they do, say what they say, or she will tell me all about it when we're alone. This part of her personality is really helpful in ways when she mimics our "adult" behaviors like brushing teeth, cleaning up messes, doing the dishes, getting dressed, hugging, talking...nice things. I wonder how I will teach her about not imitating others' actions.

WARNING
No one warned me about being a parent. Todd and I were talking this evening about how we sometimes hate being parents. It's just that...everyone says having kids is "hard." That's all they say. They tell you it's a lot of work. It's hard and it's work and it's hard work. I'll cut all you parents who failed to prepare Todd and I for parenthood a little slack because it's difficult to describe to someone how hard, and it what ways parenting is hard. Also, no one wants to be Debbie Downer when your friend tells you she's expecting. Nevertheless, people need to know! Having a child means you and your partner are now in a stressful situation a LOT of the time. You know when you have a close call in a car and you are both stressed and freaked out and so you yell at each other because you have no one else to blame and you're high on adrenaline? That's what having a baby is like. There is uncontrollable excrement, vomit, you've been tortured (sleep deprived), and you have to make a million tiny decisions all day and all night to determine what is best for your helpless, thankless, demanding human. It's depressing to have your freedom taken away, but it is even more depressing to see your relationship with your partner change because you have less time for one another, and definitely less quality time. People can't describe the breaking point of being stressed out a lot all day and maybe you've been able to keep your sh*t together and smile through all the babies' screaming so selfishly in your face (it's hard to not take it personally, sometimes), but then once it's dinner time and you've worked through all the garbage your kids threw at you all day long and then they throw dinner on the floor, they don't listen to you, they throw a tantrum and your eye begins to twitch and you fear for someone's life because you are actually going crazy. Todd loves our girls. I love our girls. We stay up late watching videos from the day, or from when they were smaller and I cry and he smiles...sigh...but neither of us expected that we would feel like crappy parents. Todd didn't know he would get so angry when Regina deliberately ignores him. I didn't know I would be so easily overwhelmed, or that I would start swearing so much. I didn't know I would be such a pushover because I will do ANYTHING to get my kids to stop crying. People also can't really describe the physical and mental energy it takes to "be consistent." That's what everyone says about discipline - be consistent. But guys, it's hard! It's so exhausting to tell your toddler what to do all day long. It takes energy to get my a$$ off the couch and put/hold Regina in time out because otherwise she'll run and play and that's not a suitable punishment for throwing your baby sister on the ground. It's difficult when there is no end in sight, and you love your kids, but you want to have more hours in the day and you want to love them more, be more patient, be more consistent, get more chores done, teach them good things, but also want to sleep for 8 uninterrupted hours. I'm not asking for my circumstances to be different, I'm really okay half of the time, I'm just trying to make it clear to any non-baby-havers that you can LOVE your kids like crazy and HATE all of the responsibility that comes with them. People are all like, "I told you so. I told you to wait to have kids." And I'm like, "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME ALL OF THE THINGS!"

I am definitely not finished. My thoughts and this post are unfinished, but I'm done talking about it for now. This is only a piece of my feelings on parenthood. I feel like each of my photos make my life look fun, happy, clean and nice, while all of my journal entries and blog posts make it look frustrating, messy, and unhappy. I am clearly neither extreme, but a normal mix of it all. I am very content, incredibly blessed, but a normal human.

Teaching children that God loves everyone

Addie (7 years old) says, "God even loves Chinese people."
Ella (7 years old) says, "Yeah, God even loves Chinese people who swear."

This was almost as good as the time 3 year old, Sophie, told me that "Jesus wants us to be a human."