Okay, so I’m three days late but it’s Restaurant Week York (which I’m running), so cut me some slack, wouldja?
Holy crap, 11 months.
Weight: I honestly have no idea and I’m not about to wake him up to weigh him. Maybe 21 lbs?
Likes: Eating! open mouth kissing (with tongue!), climbing up the steps, pulling himself up on everything, stealing things from his sister
Dislikes: Not being paid attention to, being scolded (“Don’t bite” is the magic trigger that makes him cry)
Eats: Everything and a lot of it. At this point it seems like he’s over his bottle (thank god for no more formula)–he wants ALLTHEFOOD! I’ve been trying to nurse first thing in the morning and last thing at night, but he’s now disinterested in my boobs
Sleeps: A great sleeper–goes down and stays down no problem. Two naps a day.
Teeth: Five
Accomplishments: Climbing! Pulling up on everything, standing, waving, clapping, high fives, mimicking, screeching, “So big!”
He’ll be walking before too long!
Guess it’s time to start planning a party, eh Big Guy?
In honor of Restaurant Week York‘s triumphant return February 21-28, let’s talk about eating, shall we?
GB’s stance toward food is best described by the classic Hasbro game popular in the 1980′s:
The kid loves to eat. He’s just about to the point where he’s saying, “screw the bottle; gimme the good stuff.” He’s all about the table food, grubbing hungrily and pounding on his highchair tray for more. He screeches at me if I don’t feed him fast enough, so I pretty much just let him feed himself baby-size chunks of food now. Needless to say, mealtimes are somewhat messy.
Holden’s attitude toward food, however, is best described by the new soon-to-be-classic book by the same authors of Go the F*** to Sleep:
It even looks like Holden on the cover.
Holden’s current diet consists of:
Pancakes
Half chocolate/half regular milk
Organic hipster “toaster pastries” that I bought because I figure if all she’ll eat are Pop Tarts, I should at least buy her ones made with “real” ingredients
Toothpaste (she hasn’t quite figured out the whole teeth-brushing business, though she of course insists on doing it herself)
It’s seriously the most frustrating thing. She used to be such a good eater. Now she’s just not that into it… in my presence anyway. Allegedly she eats her lunch at school every day, so at least I know she’s eating a real meal at least three times a week. But otherwise, breakfast foods are about the extent of her palate. It’s brinner most days of the week.
This is just a phase, right?
ps, if you haven’t listened to Bryan Cranston read You Have to F***ing Eat, here’s a preview. Language, obviously.
A photo posted by ohbotherblog (@nomiddlenamemeg) on
And so, I took them both for their first-ever haircuts together: GB at 10 months; Holdy at 31 months.
If you’ll recall, Holdy was essentially bald until she was like 13 months, so she’s a late bloomer in the haircut game, but she was SO EXCITED to get her haircut. She insisted on wearing her Elsa dress to get the full princess treatment.
She was so well behaved and watched intently in the mirror, smiling at herself and randomly giving little thumbs up of approval.
She ended up with an above-the-shoulder bob and some cleaned up bangs. I was so proud of how calm and sweet she was while sitting in that chair.
GB, on the other hand…
While always sweet, GB is in a real fidgety stage, now that he’s army crawling and on the move. He has a really strong grip and is pretty stubborn when it comes to getting what he wants.
He wasn’t so sure about this haircut business.
He didn’t really want to sit still, and kept turning his head, especially when it came time to get the around-the-ears spots.
So, we ended up going a little “George Clooney circa 1996,” but what are ya gonna do? He’s a busy 10-month old.
By the way, I took them to George’s Hair Studio in West York. Not only was everyone super friendly, their first haircuts were free (!) AND they called me today to see if we were happy with the cuts. Super pleased with them. And with my former ragamuffins’ fresh cuts.
It wouldn’t be a Month-iversary post if it wasn’t a few days late…
Sorry, GB.
Weight: 19 pounds, wearing size 3 diapers.
Likes: eating! open mouth kissing, army crawling, dancing to “Uptown Funk,” trying to stand up, rolling, being harassed by his sister, gnawing on Sally’s fur, stealing people’s food, bouncing in his bouncer, lights and noises, being held, his mama.
Dislikes: When I don’t feed him fast enough, when his sister takes toys from him.
Eats: Everything and a lot of it. I basically have been eating a lot of mushier foods and just sharing my dinner with him. So far there hasn’t been anything he’s turned down.
Sleeps: Still a great sleeper (thank god).
Teeth: Five!
Accomplishments: Army crawling! Sitting up by himself, waving, high fives, mimicking, screeching.
This kid is on the move!
Happy 10 months, Big Guy!
So yeah, 10 months. Only two months to the big First Birthday, which means it’s time to start planning a party.
Someone on my Facebook timeline recently shared a post with a Tina Fey quote and it got me thinking about a question I’ve been getting a lot lately.
“How do you do it?”
It startles me every time. Not because I don’t think my life is a little ridiculous right now. Trust me, I’m fully aware that raising two kids under the age of three—one of whom is currently potty training—on my own, while working a more-than-full-time job, volunteering for various organizations, running multiple Facebook Pages, managing several events, starting a brand-new business, maintaining a blog (kind of), guest blogging for a magazine and running a house that is under renovation (with each appliance breaking one at a time) is a lot to take on. Fully aware. It’s a lot.
Fortunately, I have the help, love and support of my family and some close friends. My parents are beyond instrumental… to the point where it’s almost embarrassing to be a thirty-ahem-ahem-old woman who relies so heavily on her mom and dad. I know how lucky I am to have them nearby, and how lucky I am that my kids will have such a close relationship with their grandparents.
But to answer the question, I have absolutely no idea how I do it, other than one day at a time. Or, more realistically, one hour at a time. How does anyone do it? We’ve all got our ridiculousness, and we all deal with it in our own ways. I break down on the regular. Sometimes I hide from my own children in my closet just to cry for a minute. And then I stop, wipe my eyes and go back into the fray. Because I have to. Because there’s no other way to do it.
Basically, that Tina Fey quote says it all:
“You go through big chunks of time where you’re just thinking, ‘This is impossible — oh, this is impossible.’ And then you just keep going and keep going, and you sort of do the impossible.”
Hopefully someday soon I’ll come out on the other side and I’ll look back and say… “how in the hell did I do that?”
So GB turned 9 months on December 23. I could barely manage to take this photo a full five days later–I have no idea how parents handle December/early January birthdays.
GB totally judges me.
Weight: 17.8-pounds, wearing size 3 diapers.
Likes: eating! trying to stand up, rolling, being harassed by his sister, gnawing on Sally’s fur, stealing people’s food, bouncing in his bouncer, lights and noises, being held, his mama.
Dislikes: He still loves being held and doesn’t love not being the center of attention, though he is playing a bit more independently with his toys (and by “playing,” I mean putting stuff in his mouth).
Eats: The kid loves to eat. We’ve started on mushy table foods, though watching him figure out his gag reflex is a bit nerve-wracking. He seems very glad to have discovered macaroni & cheese.
Sleeps: Still a great sleeper (thank god).
Accomplishments: Sitting up by himself, waving, high fives. He’s still not crawling–he prefers to roll to his desired destination. He’s really smiley and talkative–even a bit of a screecher.
Teeth: Four! All four of his front teeth came in within a week of each other. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to be pained by this at all (unlike his sister, who let the whole world know when she was cutting a tooth).
I’m loving his crazy mad scientist hair. Isn’t his #babyfees onesie cute? It was a gift from my friend Kristen at by k.ev (it was also the only white shirt I currently have for him).
Here’s this year’s Christmas card–and yes, it made it out by Christmas, thanks to Minted. Get this–they even do free envelope addressing for you. I only took advantage of a few of those because I’m hand-delivering most of these puppies (due to the fact that I only had about 6 stamps and the odds of me getting to the store to buy more aren’t looking good), but that’s seriously an awesome service, right?
I’m actually so in love with this card, I may make it our “thing” from now on. It was easy enough to do (even for me) AND I’ve been told that it has won the Christmas card contest in several houses (woot!).
I feel like it’s a pretty accurate snapshot of what’s going on in our lives. I can’t even imagine what our bubbles will say next year.
Continuing to check off the Holiday-Good-Parent list, I took the kiddos to visit Santa Claus this past weekend. Local folks: for future reference, Brown’s Orchard has a great Santa, it’s free and you can take your own camera.
Holden was surprisingly well-behaved and GB was surprisingly non “strange” (people in this area say your kid is “strange” if they cry when someone who isn’t their mom holds them).
There was a family in front of us whose baby was crying and older son was having none of Santa. I could tell the mom was ready to just give up and call it, but I offered to take a photo of all of them so they could get in with the kids. #solidarity, mama. I know how long it must have taken you to get your kids dressed and out the door–I’m not about to let you leave here without your damn Santa photo.
In my never-ending quest to assuage my working mom guilt and spend some fun time with Holden, I bought us tickets to attend a “Frozen”-themed tea party by a local company called The Enchanted Teapot. If you’ll recall from our “Frozen” On Ice almost-misadventure, my attempts don’t always go according to plan. Remember this?
This time, however, not only did Holden actually wear the Anna dress, she let me do her hair in braided pigtails AND she wore a flower wreath on her head.
(Notice that sweet cowlick? A straight part is never going to be in this girl’s future.)
She did have a brief freak-out once the dress was on, but I soon realized it was because she also wanted to wear her “bug” wings.
(We had just gotten through a weekend of watching “Peter Pan Live” on repeat so she had a slight Tinkerbell obsession.)
Why, yes, that is a fake-braid headband. I’m straight up bald in the front from having GB so my braid situation was not working out.
The dress is one I actually owned from a funny fancy-dress party in grad school. It’s literally 12 sizes too big and I had to pin myself into it.
I think we looked pretty cute, though–ridiculous dress and all.
The tea party was adorable, with precious little “Frozen”-themed treats.
Holden was very well behaved (at the start), and was so excited.
She colored “Frozen” pictures.
She met Anna.
And Elsa. She was so starstruck.
They sang songs.
Holden, of course, had to steal the show. She even threw in a few forward rolls and twirls for good measure.
They read stories.
Notice Holden butted her way right on up to the front. At one point she even stood up, blocking the other kids’ view. Luckily, the rest of them were older and gracious to her being young and self-centered. There’s no real (quiet) way to push through a crowd to get your loud, stubborn two-year-old to sit down in this situation. I tried.
She even helped herself to Elsa’s throne.
She really was good for 95% of the event. She did have a meltdown toward the end when we had to wait in line for the official photo with the princesses. She may or may not have thrown herself on the floor and screamed, but I had already paid the $15 for the photos, so we were getting them, dammit. Her crocodile tears stopped as soon as she approached Anna and Elsa.
And then she hugged and tried to kiss them. They were both very sweet about turning their head for a cheek kiss, even though Holden was clearly going for the mouth.
Overall, we had a (surprisingly?) great time. Even if I was one of the only adults who dressed up.
I mean, look how happy she was:
I’ll make sure to show her these photos when she’s 15 and tells me she hates me on a regular basis.
So… I just realized that it’s getting to be mid-December soon and I haven’t thought about Christmas cards until this very moment.
In our Pinterest-loving, Facebook-best-parent-competition society, non-photo Christmas cards won’t do. And iPhone photos converted into cards printed out at Walgreens won’t do. So not only do I have to design, order, address and stamp my cards, I need to schedule a photo session (and hope both kids cooperate at the same time for at least 30 seconds).
So I was really psyched when Minted reached out to me to ask me to try out their Holiday Cards this year for oh, bother. Minted is a really cool community of independent designers whose work you can choose from to create your own custom stationery. I’m pretty picky when it comes to my invitations/cards/announcements, so Minted is my jam. I mean:
Gorgeous, right? That “Wreck the Halls” one would be perfect for Holden.
But… I’m thinking the odds are not good that my Christmas cards will happen in time for the 25th, so I’m considering doing a New Year’s card this year. That buys me an extra week or two, right? The entire month of January?
The New Year’s design selection is just as fantastic:
Considering that we’ve had a pretty eventful year, I thought this Family Year in Review design was adorable:
But then I remembered that I’m lazy and the thought of having to think about and write out all those milestones gave me a panic attack, so I found this super awesome card instead:
Same idea, less writing. It’s pithy and fun.
Now I just have to capture that perfect photo.
(Also, don’t expect your card in the mail, lol. I pretty much only send them to older family members and people who make me feel guilty by sending me a card first. Stamps are expensive, ya’ll!)
Hi, I'm Meg, working mom in a Pinterest world. I’m a DIYer wannabe and creative design appreciator, but I usually find myself falling a bit short in the execution. You’ll see.
