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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Little Angel





Here's my little angel (yeah, right).
She has been so sweet and so independent lately. She talks constantly and is very into Elmo, Sally (she named one of her dolls Sally) and her baby. She likes to say "uh, oh baby crying" of course this is after she throws her down the stairs, so I'm not sure how good this is. Oh well.

Monday, July 23, 2007

La La La La...




La La La La... Elmo's World.

We went to Sesame Place last week. It was... interesting. Samantha is a HUGE Elmo fna, but I have to say she wasn't nearly as keen on Elmo in the flesh. We saw an Elmo live show and then met Elmo. Let's just saw she wasn't impressed, we'll stick to the DVD and doll.

Sesame Place really tired Samantha out. Have any of you braved a theme park with your little ones yet? I don't think we're quite ready for it all yet. But last week was nice, I was only there about 4 hours. I'm sure I'm not ready to go with older kids who want to go on everything and never want to leave. Sam and I had some nice mom/daughter time. Saw Elmo, and met up with her cousins for a few hours. It was a very nice relaxing way to ease into the "theme park vacations" that hopefully won't be in my future too much.

We're Back




Back from a bust week away, I'm going to do pics in shifts since we did so much. Here's some from James Ryan's. Hey is the cutest little baby! Sam and James had a bit of a love/hate relationship. Well it was probably only on her part. One minute she loved him and would say baby cute. The next minute she was taking his toys and saying no mine. On James part, I think he was into the older woman.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Only Fair...





Okay, well since you've all been so patient with my new diaper ramblings, I thought I should share some more pics of Samantha. She is doing great. She is a little chatterbox lately and will repeat everything you say. She surprises me on a daily basis with how much she knows. We have a big week coming up. We're going to Philly to visit Sally, New Jersey to visit James Ryan, and then to Sesame Place with Ava and Courtney. We leave Tues morning and come back Fri night. It's a lot of driving and a lot going on so hopefully it will all go smoothly. Sam was so great on our Cape Cod trip that I'm sure she'll be fine.

Here's pics of her laughing... so cute.

New Obsession




I'm now obsessed with cloth diapers. They are so cute, and it's not gross at all. It's so easy to wash them. We even had some very messy diapers since using them and it was easy to clean up and came out of the wash completely white again. I'm only sad I didn't realize how great they were earlier. Check out thanksmama.com for more info on cloth diapers.
We're using a mix of flushables and cloth now.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Yipee!

My gdiapers came yesterday! Yipee! Samantha looks so cute in them!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Summer Days



Wow, it finally really feels like summer. It is so hot out. Unbearably so, if you ask me. Last Wed, on the 4th of July, Samantha was wearing jeans and a sweater. And now it is sweltering hot. How crazy is that? Our vacation was really fun, and Samantha was really well behaved, thank goodness. She loved playing with all the older kids, and has been saying their names and looking at pictures of them since we returned. She didn't say "No" or "mine" once on the vacation. And yet, as soon as we returned she started saying it again. I'm not sure why she's like this. Here's some pics of her eating her first popsicle.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Vacation



We've been in the Cape since Thursday and I just got home. How cute are these girls? More about my vacation later... I'm tired and need to go to sleep.

I went to see my friend Melissa with my friend Danielle. We're friends from college and these are our daughters. From left, Emma Kate, Rhea, Samantha, Madelyn, and Peyton.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

I'll leave you with this...


I'll leave you with this pic of Sam to look at before you read the sad post that you'll see next:

So sad...

I came across this story of a woman writing about her sons death, it is so sad. I don't know how she is able to write about it so eloquently. I promise to post something more uplifting later.

Here it is:

When it was all over, when he was gone, he said to me: Look, mama. Can you see? I’m better now. This sick little boy lying on your lap, this poor boy, he’s not me. Not anymore. Look, and see.

That’s when I knew he was finally safe, whole and calm. Resting.

Liam died this morning, our sweet and miraculous son. It was all just too much, the doctors tell us. Birth asphyxiation, the bleed, hydrocephalus, the shunt, a collapsed lung. During the operation they had a chance to look at his brain, and realized the damage was much worse than even the worst of ultrasounds. He was breaking down.

That’s the doctor’s story. Here’s mine.

He died in my belly six weeks ago. They brought him back when he was born, aggressively, ten minutes of frantic work to get him to register an apgar score of one. That’s when my old-soul son said to himself:

Well, this is strange. I was there, and now here. Why? I’ll stay then, for a little while. For my mama, my dada, my brother, my twin. To show them how strong I would have been, how inventive, how patient. To give them smiles, to help them to know me. Once I do all that, then I can go. Not in an operating room, cold and surrounded by strangers. On my mama’s heart, surrounded by peace and light and love.

And so it was.

Shhh, lili. You don’t need to try so hard anymore. Please rest, sweets. Go to sleep, go back to that place you already know, and wait for us. Be high in the sky, be the stars and the trees and the loons waking us in the morning, and watch over your brothers, and wait. When I am old and grey, fates willing, I’ll find you and come to you. I promise. Even if I’m a hundred-and-one I’ll use my mama magic to turn back into this Me, right now, and we’ll pick up where we left off and I’ll feed you and hold you and we’ll cuddle forever. I promise. So please lili, please go. Please, for mama and for dada.

We held him, all of us naked, for twelve hours through the night. As it was meant for him, if not in my belly, the way his soul wanted to go.

Now we need to take his last gift, I think: permission to feel relief. Liam gave us peace by finding his own.

This morning on the way home we looked in on Ben, suddenly robust in comparison. As he passed through Liam stopped at Ben’s bedside, curled up beside him and whispered to him of patience and promise and inherited hopes and dreams. Then he was gone, and Ben lies with rosy cheeks, belly full, nasal prongs wrestled free, chest rising and falling in deep contentment, blanket kicked off and toes twitching languorously, ready for life to begin.

Then we left the hospital to recharge, to find our way back to being parents of two, to give our sons everything we have left.

Later today I stood at the ocean wearing two-day-old clothes, clothes I’d put on when my son was still alive. And I felt Liam in the sky, brushing my cheeks with breeze and crashing spray. A sapphire sky peeking out through portholes in the fog. I put my right hand over my belly where his naked, warm rump lay throughout that endless night, and my left hand over my heart, where he let go.

And I stood with him, remembering, just being his mama.

Peace, light, love for Liam, our son.

From: http://ingliseast.typepad.com

Sunday, July 01, 2007

New Gift from Gpa


How cute is this?

And by the way, my daughter almost always goes to bed like a little angel. So why is she crying at 8:24? Send good sleep thoughts to my house please!

G Diapers



I've been thinking of trying these flushable diapers. I wasn't sure and then I watched the video on them. You can watch it here. The put 3 diapers on a compost pile: flushables, chlorine free diapers (which we think would be better) and a regular diaper (Pampers, Huggies etc.) The flushables were reabsorbed back into the earth within 2 months. Both the other diapers weren't absorbed after a year. It takes diapers 500 years to absorb back into the earth because they are made of plastic. Americans throw away 20 billion diapers a year. That's a lot of diapers sitting around in the landfills. I think I'm going to order my flushables today. They aren't more expensive and look at the cute diaper covers you get let your little one wear.
Check out the website: gdiapers.com

Why are gDiapers good for the planet? It is simple. Our flushables are designed using the Cradle to Cradle design principles of Bill McDonough and his firm MBDC. That means everything that goes into one of our flushables gets re-absorbed back into the eco-system in a neutral or beneficial way. So you are turning waste into a resource. At the same time, you are putting poop in the toilet, where it belongs, and avoiding the landfill issue all together.

New Game


Samantha has a new game where she is really into her babies. Elmo is one of the babies. She feeds them, puts them to bed, and her new thing is wrapping them up in blankets and taking them for a walk. She just walked into the other room and I peeked in. She was struggling with swaddling Elmo in the blanket the same way I do. She saw me and said, "Mama help Melmo". It is very cute. Unfortunately only one baby fits in her stroller and she can't decide between Melmo and Baby. I think she needs a double stroller...

We had a nice weekend. We went to help Tim last night with a catering job and then went to a party. Samantha was the hit of the party with her pigtails. I don't think anyone didn't comment on how cute she was. She also was saying "beer" when she saw one so people also thought that was pretty funny. We're working on wine, she's just in a beer phase right now. : )

I'm going with a "this time last year" pic today. My how's she's changed...