We can’t believe Graem is one today! It’s all gone by too fast. To celebrate, we went to the outlet mall in Waterloo and bought Grammy some clothes. It was an all-day affair; there was so much going on that Graem could not fall asleep. In a couple of stores, we saw outfits that we had her wearing a year ago and it made us a little misty-eyed.
Graem got her own bowl of ice cream tonight to celebrate.
As I look at the clock it was just about this exact time last year when Margot was sitting down on our pillows (which btw, we sold at our garage sale this summer) when she got up and her water broke! We went to the hospital and spent the night then at 4:58pm the next day our little girl was born.
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. It seems like just yesterday we were bundling her up in her bucket seat (infant car seat) and taking her to the mall or buying little tiny clothes for her.
Today we went to the mall and have started looking at getting her bigger clothes even 4’s and 5’s! Of course, we still look at the baby clothes and are reminded about how amazing having a little one at home is.
We have tons of pictures to post for the month of December so keep checking back! We’ll also be posting about her second and third birthday parties this week! Tomorrow we have decided that we will give her a big bowl of icecream with a candle and let her open her gifts from family and friends that she has received.
We are slowly emerging from our post-holiday hibernation. Graem got a snotty nose for Christmas, so we’ve been resting up to let her get better.
We had a great visit with Grandpa, Gala and Uncle Dennis. We spread out gift unwrapping (for Graem, of course) over three days, more if you count other gifts from friends. Christmas Eve we opened all the non-Santa gifts, and had the grownup gift exchange. Grammy hadn’t taken a nap all day, so you could imagine her mood. She was actually pretty cheerful, just louder and chattier. Finally, in an attempt to get to the Christmas pageant at Lydia’s church, we put Graem down for a nap. It took 7 minutes for her to fall asleep. We woke her up at a little before 7 o’clock, but she was a wreck and we decided not to go. We repackaged her in some pajamas and put her back to bed.
Us grownups decided that we hadn’t eaten in 3 hours, so we warmed up the roast suckling pig that my dad brought. Shawna was freaked out by the fact that it looked like Bailey in a pan with Maraschino cherries for eyes, and its paws clutching the sides of the pan to escape. My dad had to surgically remove the meat and place it neatly on a serving platter (and dispose of the head and paws) before any of us would touch it! After cleaning ourselves up, we played a few rounds of Jenga. My dad, of course, had to make the running commentary after each of his successful removals about “The skill of a plastic surgeon!” I think his strategy was opponent intimidation.
Christmas morning, we opened the remainder of Grammy’s presents after breakfast. The first thing she saw was the grocery cart, which she quickly ran to and squealed! She proceeded to push it around our tiny living room and pulling out the toy cell phone and holding it to her ear. Just like Mama… There were so many toys that Graem got overstimulated and lost it. She started screaming and crying, so I took her upstairs to nap. Her mood immediately changed in the dark, quiet room, but she had no intentions of falling asleep. We brought her back downstairs and she turned into demon-baby once again.
We decided to do her mini-birthday celebration before the folks left, so we propped her into her chair, passed out the cupcakes, lit the candle, attempted to sing “Happy Birthday” without setting the child on fire, blew out the candle, and let her go at the cupcake. Grammy smeared the chocolate icing all over face and hair, and grabbed handfuls of cake and squeezed! It was so much fun. She left a faint corona of cupcake around the high chair that the dogs lapped up. After the key videos and photos, Shawna whisked our little cupcake into the tub and into some new pajamas. I saw my family off, and Shawna and Graem laid down for a three hour nap. It was bliss–my gift to myself was reading a book and eating leftovers while they napped.
It’s hard to believe that this time last year, Shawna was walking me around the mall, trying to get little Graem to join us! And now she’s walking, talking and being a tantrum-throwing little girl!
Yes, our perfect little angel has made an early arrival into the terrible twos, throwing herself to the floor in the mall when you won’t let her walk without holding her hand, or if you tell her, No, you can’t slap Mommy in the face!
Christmas this year is such a welcome relief from the last two. Two years ago we were reeling from the sad realization that we weren’t pregnant, and spent it alone trying to comfort and console each other. Last year we spent Christmas Eve with our good friends Amy & Christine and their friends at their annual Seven Fishes dinner–it was fabulous and I was huge! Christmas day we ate Chinese food (with lots of chili oil!) hoping it would have an effect and induce labor. I remember what a drag it was to go back to work on Monday the 27th.
Uh oh…I just heard a crash. I hope it wasn’t the tree!
The ongoing antics of two thirty-something *gasp* mamas raising our three-year-old daughter and adding another baby girl to the mix.
