To Talia at Three

Dear Talia,

You turned three years old last week. Three years old!

You are officially a little girl. I only get glimpses now and then of the serious little newborn,



the roly-poly one year old,



and the still-babyish two year old you were.

You are growing up so fast! I guess you've had to, since you're the big sister. I love how you love your little brother and sister. You've only recently started to understand that Ruby can be your sister AND Declan's sister at the same time, and you love to remind me every morning that "Diss is my sista Wooby and Deckie's sista Wooby! She be bofe da sista!" You love being the big sister. You give Ruby her sucky and make her smile and giggle. Declan is your partner in crime, it seems you can read each other's minds somtimes! I hope you stay just as close to them for all of your days.

You're such a little Mama. As I'm typing this, you're sitting on the couch with the Boppy, breastfeeding Ted E. Bear and watching Dora. Soon you'll get up and do the "We Did It!" dance. I hope you continue to dance over all your accomplishments, both big and small.

You are bright and curious. You love to play with babies, Play-Doh, and your little kitchen. You love the idea of playing with lots of kids, and everyone you see is "my fwiend." But when the kids are actually around you, you're pretty shy. You can count to 12 or 15, depending on the day. You can say your alphabet but aren't too interested in identifying letters. You love to make crafts, cut with scissors, glue things, paint, and colour. Your favourite thing to draw is happy faces.

You love to play outside and your Daddy broke his hand putting together a playstructure for you, your brother, and your sister this summer. You are getting adventurous in the pool - you like to jump in and you can swim around by yourself in your Puddle Jumper. You like to watch Dora, Diego, and Caillou on TV, but the only movies you're interested in are the Toy Story movies. You love, love, love bugs! And you could spend the entire day playing in the mud - the dirtier, the better.

Your hair is crazy, curly, and out-of-control most days. People say you look like me - when we go to Gilbert Plains, we practically give people heart attacks because they think you are the ghost of me as a little girl. Will you look like me when you grow up? I don't know, when I look at you all I see is your Daddy's big, crooked grin. I love it as much on you as I do on him!

You fill our days with songs, giggles, tantrums, time-outs, hugs, questions, and even the occasional kiss (when I'm lucky!) You challenge us and delight us, surprise us and tease us. You make me happier than I ever thought I could be, and ready to pull my hair out, all at the same time. I can't wait to see what the next year with you will bring. Love you, Ladybug!

Mommy Got Back

Since Ruby was born I've lost 46lbs. That's way more than the small amount of weight I gained during my pregnancy (the upside to being sick for the entire time!) and my Dad even thinks I'm smaller now than I was in highschool. He's wrong, but it's nice that he's noticed the change. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself these days. Well, I was feeling pretty good about myself, until today.

Today we stayed inside to beat the heat. Yes, we have that pool in the backyard, but I can't manage all 3 of my babies in the pool by myself, it's too hot for Ruby to be outside and not in the water, and it's so hot Declan's non-walking legs get burned on the deck, concrete, etc. So.

Declan is pretty good at identifying body parts, but if I ask him "where's your nose?" he finds my nose instead of his. So today I was playing with him and working on body parts, with Talia jumping in here and there when she felt like it. All of a sudden I felt a little tap on my butt and Talia asked "Dat your bum, Mommy?" I said yes, and she said "WOW! Iss weally biiiiiiiiiiig!" Thanks, Tal.

Ha ha ha ha ha boo hoo hoo.

Random Summer Updates

I wrote a lovely, sentimental post about Talia's birthday earlier this week. After several days of Blogger refusing to publish it, (what the hell, Blogger?) it inexplicably disappeared. So since I'm still up waiting for the diapers in the washing machine, this is the best I can come up with right now:

- Talia had a fun birthday party with lots of little friends. There is a group of us here in town that have a little girl Talia's age and a little boy Declan's age, and most of those families came to the party. I love it!! I actually didn't think we'd get many people who were able to come, since it's lake season and all, but it was busy and chaotic and so much fun.

- We're waiting for Auntie Kylie, Uncle Chris and the kids to come this weekend. Can't wait to see them. I'm hoping we can sneak the kids off to Walmart or someplace to get their picture taken while we have all 5 of the grandkids together, it will be a nice gift for Rainer's parents.

- I'm pretty sure I broke my toe on the new playstructure. That is not awesome.

- Rainer just said the other day that it's been months since Declan sounded like a coffee perk when he breathed, and now he's been coughing his head off all night. Jinxed.

- Ruby's announcement/thank you cards finally came! Now to find time to get them written up and sent out before she's out of diapers.

- We have no daycare. It's fun to have lots of days to do summer things with the kiddies, but it's also harder to do things like big grocery trips or days of errands with multiple stops. I also think I should have tried harder to do things like, oh, I don't know... go to the dentist? get an oil change?... when I still had daycare.

- Talia loves my old Smurf collection. She calls them "Spoops" - I don't know why but I've gotta tell you, I'm not correcting her.

- I'm totally obsessed with that show "Oddities." Have you seen it? I love it!!

- I would like to go to bed before midnight one of these days. Yawn.