Mila 6 months old!

Happy 6 month birthday, Mila, my love!  These 6 months have flown by and I really appreciate every moment I have had with you.  Sometimes, just holding your little baby body next to mine will bring tears to my eyes - tears of joy and gratitude for getting to meet you, know you and raise you (though I have a feeling you will be teaching me more about life than I could ever teach  you!)

Your sense of joy (continuous, bubbly, contagious, and true joy!) is such a delight to your dad and me.  You remind me of your dad in many ways - your looks, your calm demeanor, your pleasant ways.  But you also remind me of your great-grandmother Louise - in that you always seem to see the good in people and you have a smile to share.

This time has been bittersweet.  I'm very very happy to have you as a baby - I want ten more of you!  Well, at least one more!  But it's also so hard - time with your dad is almost to nothing, time with Avi has been less, and time for myself is almost none.  But still I want to have you as a baby all my life!  It is so great having your little smile, your chubby legs, your soft-as-air skin, your little cooing, your sleeping body against my chest... I would pay anything to keep these for my entire life!  And of course the last six months have flown by - they are right!

What has also been hard is the mortality-awareness that motherhood brings.  This is a note for all my children: When you are young you really don't consider death - or if you do it's a romantic vision or a scary nightmare.  But once you've had a child, once your heart has broken open and birthed a heart as big as the space between you and the one that was once growing inside you, then you see death as a very cold real thing.  Especially after this year 2012 and the tragedies that it brought close to home and close to my children.  In April, my close neighbor and friend gave birth to a baby girl Kaia who died less than 2 days later.  Emma and I were pregnant together and I had hopes of our two kids running around the neighborhood playing together.  Thinking of the mortality of a baby must be one of the worst things in a parent's mind - and the worst thing when you are pregnant.  I feel so much for Emma, her first baby, and her family.  And I also realize how blessed I am that God let me keep Mila for this time being, and God grant me the grace to keep you until I die.  The second tragedy happened in July when one of Aveah's closest friends, Tessa, was diagnosed with bone cancer.  Thankfully, she is still with us, but the cold reality of someone Avi's age possibly having a terminal disease has been very hard for me to imagine and understand.  This has been a bittersweet year.  I see many reasons to have despair and sorrow, but I have so many more reasons to be grateful and love life!

One little example of how you, Mila, light up my everyday life: I carry you almost everywhere - I love having you close and I think you learn more by being with someone, so when I brush my teeth you are right there watching.  Well, you should see your face when I'm brushing my teeth!  It's like I am jumping across Niagara Falls!  You have this look of sheer amazement and wonder, your jaw drops and your mouth gapes open, like How is she doing that?  What is that amazing thing happening right now?!  I am in love and totally hypnotized by this splendid action that my mother is doing right before my lucky eyes!  And all this just because I am brushing my teeth!  Thank you for being this glowing light of love and wonder in my life, little girl!

The day after these pictures were taken you got a fever - your first - 102 degrees.  Mommy was a little scared, but you didn't seem too bad.  I think it was a teething related fever, as you got your first just a week or so later.

At age 6 months and a few days you broke your left femur.  How did this seemingly impossible thing happen?  I, your mother, put you in a position on the couch in our motorhome that I thought would make it impossible for you to fall off while I went to buckle your sister into her carseat which was about 10 feet away.  I guess you were throwing your legs up and down because you inched off the couch toe-wards and fell on your left knee with all your weight causing a "dent" or minor fracture in your left femur.  I about died when the doctor told me you had a broken leg.  My heart sank.  I felt your pain, I felt like I let you down, I realized your mortality, I summoned my guilt for being a horrible mother, I felt the shame of other people's eyes as I carried you around with a cast on!  Oh, it was bad, and I don't wish it on anyone else.  But you barely cried!  You cried for about 5 minutes when it first happened (which was long for you because you normally only cried for 1-2 minutes tops if you got hurt - so I knew something was wrong, but never guessed a broken bone).  Then you would cry when I lifted you out of your car seat until we got it set the next day.  But other than that - you barely could even tell your leg hurt.  

These x-rays show your chubby legs!  I love that!  You are so precious and beautiful.

Hiking is getting harder!

With this second baby, my uterus and ab muscles really cramp a LOT.  If I just walk one block at a steady pace I feel like I'm having a mild contraction!  Crazy!  I just walk through them though, figure they are just a reality of the state I'm in now.  I also try to breath into them and focus on relaxing that area.  Geez, it's really crazy cool how the body works, though!

The top of West Cuesta Ridge where you can see from Morro Rock to Point Sal on a clear day!

5 months pregnant

Avi doesn't seem to think that this hiking is too hard!

Every Monday we do stroller class.  Sometimes my stomach is killing me, but I just try to keep up with all the other moms and babies.

My First Throw Up (Ugh!)

Avi got her first stomach flu at age 2 years and 8 months.  This was the first time ever she threw up.  As a mother, I've been dreading this day - thinking of how messy it would be and how scared my child would be.  But in reality, it wasn't that bad!  Avi was a trooper!  She learned very soon - after throwing up on Michael while reading a book on the couch - to vomit in the toilet or into a bowl.  She didn't cry and didn't complain (too much).  She was a good little thing.  The worst part was how long it took to get her back to normal.  She only actively vomitted for about 3 hours, but then she was just out of it for about 10 days!  Finally, I got smart and started giving her high doses of probiotics and Vitamin D and then she was better in about 2 days!  

It was funny, one of those parenting moments you won't forget: Michael and I were preparing dinner in the kitchen and Avi walks in and says, My tummy hurts. Michael said, What's that about? And I said, Oh, I don't know. I'm not going to worry about it.  She probably overheard one of her friends saying it and is just repeating it - you know, playing with language.  I'll begin to worry once she's throwing up or is constipated for 4 days straight...  Well, literally within 10 minutes of my so-confident reply, Avi threw up! So, lesson is I guess sometimes kids really do speak the truth! 

 Avi just laid around for about a week and watched TV - she didn't have much energy for much more.

 I know someday she'll hate that I posted this - but this is how toddler stomach flu spreads!

 Hanging out in bed.  When you're sick, you get to eat oranges in bed.

Sick little girl with her hand on mama's baby belly.  Thankfully, mama didn't get sick.  Daddy did though - but he got sick first and probably gave it to Avi.

Eating with Avi. Or, rather: Not eating with Avi.

Part of the reason I write this blog is for my children someday - should they choose to become parents themselves - to look back on and encourage them during the difficulties of raising my grandchildren.  Well, one of the difficulties I have with Avi is getting her to eat.  She's just not that interested in food.  And if she does sit down at the table, her attention span lasts for about 1 minute.  This is not long enough for her to get any substantial amount of nutrition in her (and nor is it long enough for her parents to come close to finishing their meal).  So, in order to get her to eat, we let her eat in unconventional places (i.e., the car seat, the kitchen floor, mommy or daddy's arms, while walking around...) and we feed her whevener she is hungry (afraid that if we fed her only at set times during the day, she might wither away).  Part of the problem is that Avi is tiny!  She is in the 1 or 2% for weight and 5% for height.  So, we feel pressured to have her eat whenever and wherever she can!  Ahhh, how I miss the months of just breast-feeding and her fat, chunky, healthy baby fat!  Now, feeding her is work - whereas breastmilk was always ready, fresh, complete and loved-by-Avi.

 Since returning from Hawaii, our whole family has become addicted to coconuts.  Avi LOVES drinking the milk and eating the meat.  The other day she wanted to hold the coconut herself while drinking.  Well, this proved difficult, so we had to move the coconut to the floor to accommodate her preferences.

 Another problem with Avi and eating is that Avi thinks of food as a toy more often than not.  Here she takes the food from the bowl, puts it on the table, runs her finger through it on the table (in essence, finger painting with her food), then she finally brings the trace of food on her fingertip to her mouth.  Hence, getting calories in can be a laborious, long process.