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 And now you know why I've been so quiet lately...

A Very Merry Unbirthday

I've been meaning to post Lucas's birth story. It's pretty amusing. At least I think so. But so far I've been resisting. And yesterday I realized why.

I'm mad.

Yes, in retrospect, I can laugh about the whole adventure the day Lucas was born, but deep down I'm mad about it.

I'm mad that I didn't know it was going to happen.

I'm mad I didn't get to enjoy our last few days of being a family of four.

I hate that we didn't adequately prepare the kids, it's been a tough transition for them.

I hate that stress is an emotion I associate with his birth. Stress and fear.

Being separated from Lucas and unable to hold him was awful.  I didn't get to see him (except for very briefly in the OR) until about 5 hours after he was born. It was 1:00 am, and I made the nurse get me out of bed and wheel me to the NICU. I paid for it pain-wise, but it was worth it. I got to hold his hand and marvel over him for 30 minutes, uninterrupted.

I don't like how unprepared we were. And how that is still spilling over into our lives today. Chaos reigns in our house right now and it makes me itchy.

I wish I had been able to mentally prepare for Lucas's birth. Enjoy those last few days feeling him move. Loving that he was still all mine for the moment.

Today was supposed to be Lucas's birthday, and as we cuddled after an early morning feeding I sat and stared at him. It was very close to the time when he would have been born and it was just me and him, sitting in the dark hours of the morning.

I watched as his tiny lips kept drawing up into a smile. I listened as contented little sighs escaped him. I felt his warmth and breathed in his delightful new baby smell. And I realized he was perfect.

And what's more, his arrival into this world was perfect. After all, it's his story and not mine. And I need to be delighted that he's here without dwelling on what should have been.

So a very Merry Unbirthday to you, Lucas. Here's to many more Unbirthdays to come.

Channeling Gollum

Mattias has a rather, ummmmm... unique way of crawling. We call it, "The Gollum".




Can't you just hear him muttering, "myyyy preeeeciousssss!"

9 months

The title of this post is supposed to be said like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day off when he's informing Ferris's mother that her son has missed school 9 times that semester.

It needs to be said slowly. Deliberately. Emphatically. Because, crap-on-a-stick... I cannot believe my baby is 273.93 days (well, more than that now) old.

The moment of his turning 9 months happened somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, as we were flying back from Portugal. I was most likely wrestling with him; trying to keep him from pulling the hair of Spanish Dude, the guy that was sitting in front of us. I really should have let him have a go at it, as it was Spanish Dude and his merry band of idiots that kept waking Mattias up with their misguided notion that our flight was party plane central. But I digress...

This was a big month for Mattias, as he added a plethora of new skills to his repertoire. He now pulls himself up (yikes), crawls (ugh), claps and waves. He can also say; Mama, Papa, hi, olá (he's bilingual!), and Bob.

That last one needs some explaining. Mattias loves to bob up and down as he sits in his high chair. So we started to call him "Bob". And we would say, "Bob, bob, bob, bob" in tandem with his bobbing. So now he just bobs and says it to himself.

He seems to have turned a corner with his issues with eating, which has removed a huge amount of stress from my life. He has his 9 month appointment tomorrow, so we'll know if he's doing better weight-wise then.

I love this boy. So much. I love how Elise is his favourite person in the world. I love how busy he is, how inquisitive. I love his social nature... in Portugal, he was adored everywhere we went; waving and smiling at people from his stroller.

As always, I have uploaded some pictures of his royal cuteness. And a video that shows he can bust a move.

9 months... it just doesn't seem possible.

Going to the beach!

Loving Portugal

Sweet half smile

Love his baby blues!

Conked out

Duuuuuuude

Let's ride

Father and son

Rockin' his hat

Yeah... they're pretty cute

These videos were shot almost three years apart...
(there's sound in both of them, so have your speakers on)

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

'Cause her friends don't dance...

Elise channeling Elaine Benes. The girl's got moves.

Oh, poop

It's potty training time! And what a craptastic, kick-in-the-crotch, sucktacular time it is.

Part 1 of potty training actually went quite well. Elise pretty much learned to pee in the potty in about a day. She's been ready for awhile, but because of her diabetes (and sometimes high blood sugars), it was easier to keep her in diapers.

But after our trip to Vancouver, I decided the diapers needed to go. I was ecstatic at how quickly and happily she took to going on the potty. Until, that is, it came time to drop some kids off at the pool.

Since she's wearing underwear, and knows it's so not cool to drop a load in your pants, she started bringing me diapers and telling me that she needs to go poop. And when I tell her excitedly that she can do it on the potty, she breaks out into an all-out wail.

Seriously, you'd think I had told her that Thomas the Train had run over Belle, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella; and as a punishment had been taken apart and sold to the scrap yard.

We've tried begging, pleading, bribes, veiled and not-so-veiled threats, cash, prizes, different potty seats and a seat that fits right on the toilet. I've tried letting her run around naked, which just led to her trying to escape out our front door naked yelling, "I want to be naked outside!"

I've tried refusing to put on her diaper, but one constipated woman in this house is enough (in case you weren't aware, pregnancy is very constipating).

Nothing works with her. Nothing. The child just will not poop on the potty. She told me that the poo-poo is happy in the diaper.

I talked to her doc today, and she told me to give it a rest for about a month. So no more potty talk for awhile. For a laugh I thought I'd include one of the funniest songs ever from the TV show Scrubs. Because everything DOES come down to poo.

I love my dress!

Uncle Stefan just came back from spending 5 months in India. He and his girlfriend Vanessa bought Elise a whole bunch of beautiful Indian dresses. Here is how Elise feels about her present (she's wearing one of them in the video):




Please ignore the mess you see in the background. That is what you get when three people travel with 10 bags (3 suitcases, the rest were smaller), and stay in about 500 sq. feet of space.

She can read!

Okay, not really... it's just that she's heard this story so many times that she has it memorized. It's still pretty cute.

For the record, I think those "Your Baby Can Read" things are crap.

Enjoy!

My Bilingual Baby

Ever since Elise was about 9 months old, Fred has been speaking to her only in Portuguese. I love that she understands both languages fluently, and even mixes in Portuguese when she speaks. These days, I'd say it's about a 70 to 30 English to Portuguese ratio, but we managed to catch her in a "Portuguese moment" on tape.

Translation:
para baixo = down
para cima = up

Awesomeness at its finest

Garfunkel and Oates on Leno last night. Too funny.

You wish you could dance like this

Team Elise Video

Sorry for the cross-posting (if you read my other blog, I've also posted it there), but this video, put together by my very talented husband, deserves the double-post.

We've put it together in anticipation of the JDRF Walk for a Cure that is coming up on September 26. Team Elise has 20 cool people (so far) that will be sporting cool Team Elise t-shirts while walking in Irving.

We are asking for three things: prayer for Elise and everybody who suffers with type 1 diabetes; if you live in the DFW area, please join us for the walk on September 26, and if you have the means, please consider donating to the JDRF on behalf of Team Elise. No amount is too small, as every dollar brings us that much closer to a cure, and the chance for Elise to be able to say, "I used to have diabetes."

You can sign up to walk or donate here.

For those of you who have already donated, I say thank you. It brings a tear to my eye and a smile to my heart to see how many people love Elise.

She's walking... oh yes indeed!

Amid all the craziness of September, I forgot to post that Elise took her first steps (about 4 of them) on September 17. After that, there was not a whole lot of walking (I guess she figured been there, done that... thank you very much!), but these last few days, you just can't stop her! After many, many attempts to catch it on video (it was so funny, she'd be walking along, and as soon as we would turn on the camera, she'd plop herself down and start crawling), on Monday, we finally were able to record her.

Conversations with Elise

I recorded this one day while I was waiting for Fred to come home from work. Originally, I wanted to capture how excited she gets when she hears the garage door go up as Fred comes home from work. While waiting, I decided to chat with her, never really expecting a response. Imagine my surprise when she actually answered one of my questions!

She was telling the truth, by the way...

Edited to add: Apparently it's not quite clear what I'm asking her. I believe the direct quote is, "did you make the poopies or something?" I don't know why, but this is how we ask her if she's dropped a few kids off in her diaper.

Oh yes she did

The last couple of days have been frustrating to say the least. I won't write how I REALLY feel about it, because swearing is very unladylike. For some reason, Elise has been resisting her afternoon nap. She's been crying so hard that she actually starts to choke. I've tried all the advice that I've read in books and on the Internet, but nothing works.

"Well," you say, "maybe she's just not tired." Not so. How do I know this? Because while trying to let her "cry it out" today, she fell asleep. In her crib. While standing up.

And I have the video to prove it.

Sorry the quality is so bad on this, but that's what happens when you shoot a video in the dark with only a flashlight for illumination.

Well played Elise... well played.

She Can Dance If She Wants To...

You've got to admit... the girl has rhythm!

She Bangs the Drum

I think she gets her talent from her Uncle Stefan