Two

I remember you flying into this world, with intensity that has not faded in your two years around the sun.
I didn't know what it would be like to be a mother of two, or a mother to a girl. But as soon as they hand you to me, I knew that my heart had room, because a heart can grow and grow and grow and be filled with more than we ever knew.

Fifi, you are the silliest little monkey there is.You love to make people laugh and can get out of a fix with a sly little smile that melts your daddy and cracks me up. Your favorite pass time is to pick on your brother or the dog. Seeing who you can get a rise out of first and, if neither of them are willing participants, you are more than happy to make Daddy or I your next victim.

You have a thing for textures and all things tactile (including a few things I wish you wouldn't, I can handle the yogurt finger painting, but the poop-painting phase needs to end...please?)
I love watching you, just to see what your next move will be.
You are so different than O, so different- but I love that you are crazy and wild and full of life. You make me remeber to be silly, to laugh at myslef and to make others laugh, you remind me to stick to my guns and fight for what I want.
I love that you are my teacher.

Smart and feisty and beautiful. Don't ever change.
EVER.

Today, you are two. I (we) love you Fifi-Magee.
Happy Birthday!

224:366, First Cut

Someone got her first hair cut on Sunday.
There may or may not have been a sucker bribe involved.
And some DJ Lance on the iphone. For distraction.

Trimmed by the same person who did my first hair cut...

Thank you D. we love you!

I keep having to do double takes when I look at her now.
 I knew it would change the way she looks, but now she looks like a big girl and not my baby girl so much.

sigh.... it really does go so fast.

Journaling

I think she is going to be my little artist. When it gets quiet with her in the room, you know it is because she is in the zone of creating.

Give her a pen, a crayon, (or anything really), and she is going to write, draw (or make that 'anything' into something it wasn't initially intended).

This evening she chose to write in the book, though she doesn't limit herself to paper. I call her Kat Von-D since her other favorite pallet is her own skin.

She is so beautiful... I am loving to watch her grow and become more and more "Fifi".

Apple of My Eye

 She has been talking up a storm lately.

Mimicking everything that we say and feeling very proud of herself, too.

It sort of takes me by surprise when she spits out an entire sentence,
"I aunnnnt waaa-er." or "One more minute"

She isn't quite as articulate as O was, but she went from grunting to chaining multiple words together.

She is so different than O, but I love that.

Fifi, this instant

Sometimes she is all snuggles.

Sometimes *(most of the time) she is all goof.

Sometimes she surprises me with what she has decides to do, like quietly watching the birds from the bedroom window.

the boy and the girl

my little-big boy.
he watches, he soaks it all in. He takes himself a little to seriously, but can tell a joke and giggle when he realizes what he has done. When he is in a goof-ball kind of mood watch-out, it's wacko-a-doodle time. So much about him is beyond preschool, and so much about him is still baby.
He uses words beyond his years, remembers things that I have long forgotten and makes associations that blow my mind away. Usually, on the car ride home from school in the afternoon he tells me something profound that will snap me out of my drone mode after a long day at work.. He can ride a bike, catch-shoot-kick and hit a ball, and yet he still needs his Binky and white blankie, and we still have to make sure to always have extra dry clothes in the car or at school.
This between place, it is such a strange place to be in at times, for him and for us. We are all learning as we go- I hope he understands that part...

this girl, she is more than I every imagined.
she has a temper like a firecracker, quick and beautiful, with flare.
she has no fear- if she falls, she get right back up again. hardly stopping to dust herself off.
she dances, laughs, sings and let's you know when she is in the room.

1.5

Fifi, Sissy-la-la, Silly girl- today you are one and a half years old. You are such a goofball, full of beans and bananas and sticky fingers and uneven, toothy grins. You make us laugh on a regular basis and keep your brother on his toes.

Your talking more and more every day . Surprising us with words like jacket and bumpy. And if we don't understand what you are trying to tell us you just say it louder. yup, your the best kind of handful there could be.

 

I love when I catch a glimpse of you in the backseat shaking your shoulders to the music on the radio, when a good song ends you always ask for, "mo mo mo" until I get the tunes rocking again.

You love to tease your brother, sticking a finger in his ear, getting in his space, taking off with a beloved matchbox car. But you also are very sweet to him as well. You get him his blankie and binky and always, give him hugs, even after he gets a little too rough with you.

A good stroller ride and to play at the park is enough to keep you smiling all day. Going down the biggest slides and trying to keep up with the big kids. You have to be in the middle of the action. If the cousins are over, you are in the middle of it all, playing and copying them despite being the baby of the crew. 

You love accessories. Mardi Gras beads, sunglasses (sometimes two pairs at once) and shoes. Oh the shoes. We could probably switch out several pairs in the morning if I didn't keep them out of site. When we visit your cousin's house, it's straight to the organizer with all of her 'bling'. Who knew I would have such a girly-girl on my hands. You love to pile and stack things, taking over and claiming even things that aren't as, MINE. I am sure your Jojo would say you are your mother's daughter just because of that very word....

 

We are finally on a roll with sleep and everyone is feeling better because of it.I love getting a full night's rest of uninterrupted sleep.

We have stopped nursing, but have started to insist on holding on to my hair, pulling-tugging-twisting to fall asleep. Part of it melts me, part of it makes me crazy and I often wonder if I will ever be able to cut my hair into that pixie cut I have been considering.
We also figured out that if you sleep too much during the day that we will be up all night and by too much I mean, more than 2 hours. It took us a little while to figure this one out, but I think we are on track now! thank goodness.

 

Thank you for always bringing light and laughter to our home.

We love you, love you, love you! Happy 1.5.

Fifi

She getting so big, this girl of mine. Much more a toddler than a baby these days. Independent, sassy, rowdy and oh-so silly. She loves to keep up with the big kids and can too. But, every now and then I get to have her all to myself.

No brother, no daddy- just us girls. It's really fun to just watch her be her. I was inspired by Keli (Kidnapped by suburbia) the other day when she followed around each of her girls for 30 minutes or so while the other daughter was sleeping or out of the house.

I had a chance this weekend while O napped and Daddy ran errands, to do the same thing with Fifi. It was really fun to let her loose in the backyard and follow her lead. Thanks for the great idea, Keli.

So what is this girl up to these days? She knows just how to push her brother's buttons and get a reaction out of him, 1-2-3.

Telling me about the airplane she heard flying over head.

She is starting to use her words more and more, things like: car car, NO-dit-do (no thank you), peeeeese (with an entusiastic rub of her chest for please), hat, ball, byyyyyeeee, hyeeee (when the phone rings), maw-ka (milk), dast-da (Shasta, who is grandma and grandpa's dog), Ga-gaw (grandpa, which melts him every.single.time, btw) ba-t (bath). I am sure there are others that I am not thinking of right now. I love this stage when communication is just bursting out of them like a volcano.

She loves to be outside, but doesn't always like her hands to be dirty.

She eats really well, often better than her big brother. But when she is done, watch out- food is gonna fly. She thinks it's hysterical to chuck pieces of whatever it was we are eating across the room or to the dogs. That or she is spitting it out, which totally grosses me out, but she finds hystrical.

We are still working on sleep, but have found a nice evening routine that helps not just her, but her big brother sleep better at night. They are sharing a room right now, so if one doesn't sleep, the other one doesn't either.

She is up, down and all around as fast as fast can be. She climbs, tries to jump, and takes the curves with ease.
I can't believe she is almost a year and a half. It really does go by faster the second time around.

342:365, piggy tails.

I love that her teacher puts her hair in pig tails these days.

I smile big enough when I see her after work, but this just puts me over the top.

ham and beans...it's not just for dinner

My posts have been few and far between and perhaps a little more cryptic than I realized as of late. The things that are happening on this side of the screen are hard to share right away. I promise to catch you all up when the dust settles a little bit more, which I am hoping is soon, soon, soon.



I also realized that I haven't posted many photos or about the kids lately.
So here it is your O and Fifi fix.

These two have been so silly and fun lately.
They are our light and our laughter.



They are hard work and sometimes little sleep, but they make up for it in a big way by just being themselves.

 O is either yelling at me to not take his picture with his hand in my face and tears in his eyes or demanding that I point the lens right at him and snap, snap, snap...

Case in point:

and then it starts to get silly...

wait for it...

Let the HAM begin.
Doesn't he look like such a little boy in these shots? I took these over a month ago and it blows me away to realize just how big he is getting.

I have decided that Fifi might grow up to be a hairstylist. She loves to touch, stroke, and even eat my hair. She has started to 'brush' her own locks (all of about one and a half inch of length) when I hand her the comb and loves to have me put a clip in just so she can take it back out again and grunt at me to put it back in.
rinse, lather, repeat.
 

She is also coming up with her own line of hair product, the main ingredient?

Heinz 57 Beans
brilliant, right?

Maybe it's the pretty turquoise can they come in-
Packaging can really sell a product you know?

yep, ham and beans-they aren't just for dinner anymore.