Mini Monet // Ice Cream Date // Beach Day // Day Date to Muir Beach // Serious Train Playing Stance // Trapped With Balloons // Getting Some Serious Air // Unamused At The Pizza Shop

But this year…. this was the year that it all came to life.  I’ll also preface this by saying that we have yet to spend a Christmas in our home, so the act of being able to sneak around the house and prepare for my daughter’s surprise in the morning was a total first for me.  And also it was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had.  It felt so real, like, I’m really doing this thing!  I’m someone’s mom!!  I get to do all those sweet beautiful things that my parents did for me when I was little, and I get to do it for my Sadie.

So Devin and I stayed up late stuffing plastic eggs with jellybeans and M&M’s and cutting tags off of all the little toys and books we got for her basket.  That morning when she woke Devin kept her occupied playing in her room while I snuck out to the backyard and tip-toed through the dewy grass to place neon eggs in semi-conspicuous places.  Devin got her dressed in her most Easter-y dress and we told her that the Easter Bunny had come last night and he hid special treats for her outside and it was time for her to find them.

The joy I felt watching her get so excited every time she found an egg was so wonderful.  She would run over to it, pause and say “I think I found my egg!” Then swoop it up into her basket.  With every single egg.

When she came across her last egg I dashed back inside to place her Easter basket on her bed.  Once her and Devin made it back inside she quickly discovered that her eggs were filled with pieces of candy.  And her first ever candy breakfast happened.  We were able to break her away from her jellybeans by telling her that while she had been looking for her eggs the Easter Bunny came inside and left a special gift for her on her bed.

The toys we got for her were simple knick-knacks from the drug store and a few dollar bin items from Target.  But she flipped.  She loved everything and kept raving on about how the Easter Bunny was her friend and he left her toys and candy.

As the excitement began to simmer down I stepped away to get ready and start preparing for a post candy binge breakfast and Devin and Sadie sat down to watch Fantastic Mr Fox with all of Sadie’s new toys.  Unexpectedly we got an invite over to Sadie’s best friend Delphine’s Grandparents home for Easter brunch and yet another egg hunt.  Since we don’t have any family up here, we thought why not?!  So we headed on out and not only got a delicious breakfast, we got to watch Sadie enjoy her 1st ever real Easter all over again, and this time with her little partner in crime at her side.

After our big morning and a nap break we kept the holiday spirit alive by dying eggs.  Sadie is still keeping the spirit alive after dipping her entire hand in the egg dye.  She has had a green hand for two days now

It never ceases to amaze me how much I love this whole mom gig.  I mean, of course we have our bad days just like anyone else… but just like a fine wine it’s getting better with age.

We actually hadn’t seen each other since I moved to the Bay, so the last time she saw Sadie she was a mere 10 months old, and barely even crawling.  It was a very easy invitation to accept when she asked if I would come up to visit.  So I packed up a bag of snacks and diapers, ignored the cold I had been fighting and accepted the fact that Sadie would not be napping today and headed up to Napa for the day.

The day was more than a reunion with just Danielle – I got to see her entire family again which I hadn’t seen in ages (except for her husband and son who were back in Sweden).  And I got to meet her sister Christianna’s fiance and get a tour of his ah-may-zing vineyard.

Safe to say, it might have been the best day of Sadie’s life.  Running free through a spanning vineyard, throwing twigs into a lake, playing with dogs, getting to see farm animals that weren’t at an attraction and of course getting attention (and cupcakes) from the entire family.

I don’t know when the next time Danielle and I will get to see each other again, and I so treasured my time with her.  But I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a bit more of Napa in our near future.

Thanks to the entire Lopreore Family for your hospitality!

I call her my baby, but she is so far from a baby.  I especially realize this when we are at the play ground with REAL babies.  Or toddlers just learning to toddle.  I watch my “baby” climb ladders by herself, go up and down stairs with ease and call to me from the top of the highest tower, “Mommy, watch me go down the big twisty slide!”  This kid is no baby.

Her speech as far as I am concerned is at a 100%.  There is nothing this kid can’t say.  And she has repeatedly reminded me of that when she recites things that I say that could be viewed as a little less than appropriate.. oops.    She has also really developed a love of singing.  She sings constantly and immediately remembers the lyrics and melody of any song I sing to her more than once.  Dare I say, she might even grow up to be a pretty good singer.  And speaking of her voice… oh that sweet little voice.  How I treasure it so.  It is so sweet and little.

One of her favorite new expressions is calling me babe after every question or request.  She obviously has picked that up from Devin and I who use ‘babe’ as our pet name for each other.  But, I can’t tell you how funny it is to hear your toddler say, “Can we paint now babe?”  or “Is the mac and cheese ready babe?”  Kills me every single time.

I understand that the “two’s” are supposed to be terrible.  And it’s a very common practice to have a tantrum here and there and there and there.  God knows how I escaped it, but I did.  Somehow.  I have an angel for a child.  She never tantrums.  She has no problem with disappointment… if I tell her she can’t have a lollipop now or she needs to put that toy back on the shelf because we’re not buying it, she obliges and just says, “maybe later.”

She also loves to share.  And will happily give toys away to any wandering nearby children.  She’ll go with the flow if I have to wake her up from a nap early, or if I forgot her favorite toy at home.  Honestly the only thing she gets pretty opinionated about is which pj’s she gets to wear at night.  She’s pretty specific about that.  Who knows why.  And it’s not that I have done some amazing training process on making her an agreeable little person.  She just is who she is.  And that happens to be a kind, caring, gentle, patient and smart little person.

We are by no way perfect over here.  We are still dealing with sleep issues that I really hope will be resolved soon.  We’re still in diapers and are still very much attached to our pacifier.  These are all things that are on my major to do list before we hit three.  But at this rate her third birthday will be here in a blink so I know I have to get on it.  I’m just so scared of the fallout from those things.  Especially the pacifiers!!  If anyone has any helpful tips for that, I’m all ears.

Here’s to you Sadie.  Thank you for making life so easy and so very magical.  xo.

The very last photo of Sadie and Jamie was taken during a very heart-felt 35 minute monologue into which Sadie was explaining to her Aunt that there was a bumble bee and it was nice and it likes to eat grass and has a mommy and daddy.  And somehow it went on like that for 35 minutes.  Sorry Jamie!

Life has been upside down lately.  I haven’t even taken any photographs of Sadie in weeks.  So today I’ll share some photos from about 3 weeks ago that I never got around to sharing…

I’m working on pulling myself together and getting some real photos of Sadie.  I know I’ll end up really regretting it if I let too much time slip by.  So that is my priority #1 for next week.  Take her somewhere special, show her a good time, and get some damned photos of her!

I actually had all the intentions in the world of doing a ‘year in review’ post all about our year together in 2012.  Seeing as to how it’s already scraping end of January, I think it’s safe to say that that is not going to happen.  At least the thought was there.  I swear I will start giving this blog more attention again.  Soon enough I’ll have stories to tell and days to share.  I’m just taking my time getting there.

Sadie – Mommy, you give me a idea!

Me – Oh yeah?  What’s your idea?

Sadie – You a good mommy!

The town I grew up in was a small one horse town in San Diego County.  I lived on several acres of land that was surrounded by even more land completely untouched.  Our “neighbors” were barely even visible.  In most small towns with lots of open space kids get into riding dirt bikes.  I was one of them.  I had my own 4 wheeler quad that I spent much of my free time on.  There was a boy named Ben (name changed) that was somewhat of a neighbor and would often come by on his dirt bike wanting to go riding with me.  Ben wasn’t really popular at school.  I have no clue of what his home life was, but he always wore black and most of his clothes were tattered and frayed.  He was awkward, but not in a nerdy kind of way.  He was awkward in a much darker way.

I didn’t really hang with him in school, except for the occasional quick convo when we passed each other in the halls.  But we did go off road biking together a lot outside of school.  But I can’t say we even really ever talked during that.  We just rode.

We were in 8th grade.  The school day was just beginning.  All the students would get dropped off and we’d gather in the outdoor lunch area until class started.  I had just been dropped off and I was walking down the ramp to gather with my friends when Ben stopped me.  He was already talking to one other kid, a guy who I didn’t really know.  Ben was acting weird and cocky, unlike I had seen him before.  He pulled his jean pant pocket open and told me to look.  (This was the 90′s, jeans were very baggy back then)  I looked down into his deep front pocket and couldn’t believe what I was looking at.  It was a gun.

I immediately felt shocked, scared, threatened, confused… guns have a very powerful way of melting away innocence and even at a young age making you reflect on your life on the ones you love.  That one tool, in a blink of an eye can take away everything you love and change your whole life.

Being the eloquent 12 year old that I was on this specific day I just blurted out, “Is that a gun!?”  Of course he told me to shhh, and be quiet about it.  I had so many other questions.  Why do you have a gun on you? Is it loaded? What if it goes off in your pocket and shoots your foot? Where did you get it?  Where is your backpack? WHY DO YOU HAVE A GUN AT SCHOOL?!

He told me that it was loaded, but the safety was on so it wouldn’t shoot him in the leg.  He didn’t bring his backpack today because he didn’t need it.  He had P.E. first period and then he was going to shoot Mr. Jones (name changed).  And he wanted to see if I would hold the gun for him while he was in P.E.

Wait, what?! You are going to shoot Mr. Jones?? 

Yes.  I hate that guy.

I don’t like the vice principal either but, do you mean you’re going to kill him?!

Yeah.

Whoa, that’s crazy dude.  No, I’m not gonna hold the gun.  It freaks me out.

And I exited the scene.

I don’t know if I acted cool to Ben about it because I was in shock, or maybe I was terrified or maybe I was 12 and just too immature to understand the reality of what was happening.  But either way, I couldn’t relax.  I was so nervous.  As soon as that bell rang I went straight to class, checked in with my teacher and asked to be excused to go to the office for some excuse or another.

I scurried across campus hoping to not run into Ben.  I made it into the office and asked to see Mr. Jones.  Mr. Jones was busy and didn’t usually just take sit downs with students on a whim, so I asked to talk to the school counselor with whom I already had a relationship with.  She saw me right away.  And I immediately blurted out… ummm, Ben has a gun on him, it’s in his pocket, he showed it to me, he said he was going to kill Mr. Jones after first period.

Things happened pretty quickly after that.  Police were there.  There was a security guard on every corner of the school, but it was all very hush hush.  No one knew what was going on.  But I did.  We didn’t go on “lock-down” this was before school-shootings had really became a thing and I guess there wasn’t a protocol put in place.  I was even sent back to class after telling the news.  Once Ben had been taken into custody and was off campus I was taken in for questioning about how I knew what I knew.

But that was it.  Ben was arrested and never returned to school.  And everything continued on like nothing had ever happened.  Mr. Jones never mentioned it to me, even though I’m sure he must have known it was me who informed the school of his intended assassination.

I don’t really know what could have happened that day if I didn’t tell on Ben.  Maybe he was bluffing and just trying to impress me in some warped way.  Or maybe he would have killed Mr. Jones and possibly a few more than just him.  I’m grateful that no one was hurt.  And I’m grateful that my 12 year old self had the sense to tell an adult.

We actually very truly believed our own hype.  All day long we believed it to be Christmas Day and would be shocked over and over again to see so many stores open on Christmas.  All in all it was a quiet day filled with pajamas, coffee, toys and rain.  It couldn’t have turned out any more lovely if I do say so myself.

The real Christmas wasn’t all pajamas and snuggles though.  We live in Northern California and our family lives in Southern California… a good 10 hour drive during holiday traffic.  We were nervous and stressed about the road trip with Sadie, but even though it was so painfully long she did very well.  Better than could be expected, which was a great relief.  I’m thankful that the ride down was good at least, because the rest wasn’t as smooth sailing.  I’ll be totally honest.  We have a child who is a terrible sleeper.  Always has been.  Sometimes it’s better, and lately it’s been pretty good.  But when you take her out of her home, out of her bed, out of her routine it really all falls apart.  She barely slept at all.  One morning she woke up a bit before 4am and that was it.  She wouldn’t go back to bed.  So we had to get up too.  Some mornings she slept til 5:30, but it never really got better than that.  Most nights she refused going to sleep and it would take us hourssss to get her down.  It certainly didn’t help things that we had to stay at three different places on our five night vacation.  And the way Sadie works… if she doesn’t sleep, she won’t eat.  So there was that as well.  She wouldn’t stay put for a meal.  Had no interest in anything I offered her.  And barely ever finished even a snack.  She also wouldn’t let me bathe her.  So it was a fight to sleep, a fight to eat and a fight to take a bath.  That translates into very exhausted parents.

Luckily, the first night we got back home, after another 10 hour drive that didn’t go as nice as the first, she went right to bed and slept through the night.  And what do you know… she’s been eating like a champ again.

It’s hard to travel with a little.  It throws them off so much.  And Christmas is just added pressure to that, because there are specific times to be at places and there are people depending on you and wanting quality time.  Which is such a beautiful thing, but hard when you’re already fully absorbed in managing a child while you’re sleep deprived.

But at the end of the day, yes of course it was wonderful to see family and spend the time together even as tired and frustrated as I was.  It’s hard, but it is wonderful.

These little Calico Critters we got her for Christmas were a real life saver on the road trip.  She had so much fun with them in the car, and took them with her on every pit stop to show them around.

We were very lucky to have Uncle Jared serenade us all day Christmas.  He even taught Sadie a thing or two.

We got to see all of our family, minus our sisters.  Devin’s lives in Asia.  And mine was on her honeymoon in Costa Rica! But regrettably we didn’t get to spend the time with friends that we had hoped for.  We’ll have to come back to LA on a different day to specifically see and catch up with friends.

Sadie is definitely understanding the “Santa” concept.  She continues to ask if Santa is coming to give her another present.  I’m so excited to see how she reacts to Christmas next year, when she is a full grown THREE year old!

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!