Baby Love

Marissa, my baby love.

Marissa started crawling right before Christmas and then really took off right after that. While she does try the traditional hands-and-knees crawl now and again, she prefers the commando style, and is quite proficient at it. The director of the school jokes that if she were in a crawling contest, she would win hands down. Marissa makes mad dashes for the classroom door when someone comes or goes, trying to escape. At home, she really just heads straight for Laurens toys, usually the dollhouse or the baby doll crib and stroller. Lauren actually picked her baby's stroller up last night and moved it to the front room where "it would be safe".


She stands too. Marissa is not particular about what she chooses as help in getting upright - it may be a chair, or your arms, or your pajama bottoms. As long as it helps her to stand, anything is fair game.


Yesterday, Marissa found her voice and in a big way: she said "dada" about a thousand times, loudly, and we were beyond excited. My poor little baby has been sick since she turned six months old at the end of October: she's had one ear infection after another, with a couple of other random illnesses thrown in for good measure. She currently has a double ear infection, newly diagnosed this morning, which earns us a visit to the ENT in two weeks and tubes seem inevitable. We are pretty sure she has not been able to hear since this all began and so she has not spoken. There has been no babbling or consonant sounds, which is worrisome, so when she popped out with all of her dada's last night, it was really a big deal to us. She can be as loud as she wants to be at this point, no one in this house is going to complain and quite honestly, she fits right in. We might just be a loud family, which is A-OK by me.

She is trying to get the yogurt melts to her mouth but isn't too concerned that she missed.

Snow Day!

I moved to the South for a reason: blue skies while the temps are in the 30's, random days that hit 70 degrees in February, and most importantly, NO SNOW!!! No de-icing of my car before work, no piles of dirty snow on the side of the road from the plows throughout March and sometimes April, no salt pinging off my car as I drive down the road. I was over the snow and freezing temps almost a decade ago and made the drastic change that brought me where I am today.

Today: SNOW! And for the second time this year, but this time we got more than we've ever gotten as long as I've been living here, almost four inches.

My cell rang at 8:00 am this morning, the girls' school was closing early. As I've experienced over the past nine years, even the chance of snow sends a panic throughout the city. We have been talking about it for two days at work, my boss even said I probably wouldn't be in on Friday, to which I laughed. I got emails from co-workers, randomly taking polls about whether I thought it would snow or not. I thought not.

I picked the girls up after lunch; Lauren was not napping during naptime and Marissa seemed to be waiting for me, already heading towards the door before I even opened it. I had them both asleep within 45 minutes of arriving home, and that's when it began. I had just made a fresh pot of coffee, and since my house was so unusually quiet, I sat on the couch and watched the flakes falling, drinking my coffee. Lauren woke up first and I made her hot cocoa; we played until Marissa woke up and Rob was on his way home by then as well. After getting Lauren all layered up to go out and play with Daddy, I was jealous. Marissa was playing in her play zone, but I was not happy being inside and watching out the windows. Before they could even begin making their snowman, Marissa and I were bundled up too and outside with them. I took some pictures, brought Marissa's jumper out to the garage and taught Lauren how to make and throw a snowball.




It was beautiful and blissful and serene.

Our Magical Christmas

Christmas was, in a word, magical. All beautiful ten days of it that we got to spend together and with family.

On Christmas Eve, Lauren had a cold and an ear infection. We tried to go to the church services in spite of that but found out when we got there that we had the time wrong and they had already begun. I was sure it was sign that the kids should be at home bundled up in pj's and not infecting anyone for the holiday, so we headed home to prepare for Santa.


Santa did indeed come as promised and apparently all of the Sager family members were very good last year. He brought Lauren the Ariel backpack she had been asking for for the past three months, plus the Vidia fairy doll that she added on Christmas Eve in her letter to Santa, previously unmentioned. How did he know?? It was an exciting two hours of opening presents, lots of oh's and ah's and even Marissa got into the fun and opened her presents, if only so she could attempt to eat the paper they were wrapped in.


I got a fancy and much-coveted camera, and as my sister teased, "with a strap". So here is where the pictures start to get good.



After Christmas, we had a day at home to play with new toys and pack: we were heading North. The first stop was to the Sagers, and it was just like Christmas all over again. Lauren's favorite gift here was a princess laptop, and that was all she needed. She grabbed her backpack, put on her Ariel hat and headed "to work to earn monies" for the Ariel bank that Santa had brought her, waiting at home to be filled with "nissels" (aka nickels), which may as well be hundred dollar bills to her.


It was a wonderful couple of days spent relaxing and enjoying their grandparents attention.

Lauren and Riley, deep in conversation.

When we left the Sagers, we drove to my sister's, where my Dad and Sandy were also heading. Once we all arrived, it was Christmas Part 3. Lauren truly was in Heaven at this point: there were even more Ariel gifts, including movies she didn't even know existed and a singing Big Wheel. I was the paparazzi, taking it all in and trying to capture as much on camera as I could.

There were fancy dress-up tea parties.




And just lots of smiles.


This was our Christmas - it was truly the best ever which far exceeded anything I could have wanted or dreamed. We thank you, to all of our family, for all that you did: for the amazing food and drink which we spent a glorious seven days imbibing on; for the mountains of gifts you bestowed upon us all. As always, you did too much, far too much. But most importantly, thank you for the memories, the laughs and the love - we will always cherish the week we spent with you all and look forward to many, many more.