Suzie

Aunt Diana arrived on Monday night and we learned that as polite as we thought we were teaching Payton to be, she hadn't yet been taught that she can't interupt a conversation by screaming "STOP" at everyone in the room. So, we tried to reintroduce "Excuse Me" to her. She is very good at saying it if she toots, but didn't know that it had other uses as well. So, we stopped our conversation on demand, and instead of doing what she wanted explained that if she needed something while the adults were talking that she would need to say excuse me at a normal conversation voice and that we would in fact stop to attend to her needs. WELL, some how in her mind excuse me became Suzie. So, she's spent the last two days running around yelling Suzie at Diana and I every time we try to have a conversation. Diana keeps trying to get her to say ick-suzie, but it usually comes back to Suzie. Aren't kids funny!



Payton's been having all sorts of fun with Aunt Diana this week! They are the best of buddies now, and their favorite game seems to be tickling. Today we took Diana to Ava's birtday party at Kid Zoo and that was lots of fun. Diana helped Payton clumb the rock wall, WAY COOL!!

Parker Talks

Parker is starting to grin and coo at us. It's so much fun to have her interacting! She loves to have her diaper changed, although this video isn't of that. It makes me think of Addy, I remember CC being so proud of Addy grinning and enjoying her diaper being changed, and now Parker seems to love it just as much. Guess I need to get video of that too! (Alright, that line of thought MIGHT have been a bit Montgomery.)



Back to Parker...she's still sleeping a lot, but is certainly spending more time awake during the day. At night she's getting really good about sleeping in her crib without fighting it and can even fall asleep there if she's put in sleepy. The other night she went 8 hours between feedings, but the next night it was only 3, so we still have a way to go. For the most part she eats around 10:30, wakes between 2:30 and 3:30, and then again around 6:30. It's not too terribly bad, but if we could drop that middle of the night thing I'd be thrilled! The tough part of the 6:30 feeding is that she'll eat until 7-7:30 and then Payton wakes up around 7:30, and Mommy never gets to go back to bed!

Pretty Nails

Last weekend was Payton's first experience with the great girly tradition of NAIL POLISH!! I guess that I usually just slap an extra layer on my toes quickly when I'm getting out of the shower and she's not around, because it really was the first time she'd found me doing it and taken an interest. So, I put a little on her toes and went back to my own. Then after a lot of "more, more" I did her fingers as well, and of course went back to my own. "More, more" I heard again. We'd run out of nail beds on her body, but she wanted more. I had to explain that we'd done all of her nails already, and of course she gave me that look, the one that says "I know you're holding out on my you cruel, cruel mother of mine." So to distract her I sent her to show her daddy how pretty she was. He was less than impressed. Daddy apparently doesn't want his little girl to grow up so quickly, and told me that he didn't want me to do that again. Bah humbug, she's a little girl and when she wants her nail painted she will have them! His concern is that since she still sucks her thumb that she'll be poisoned by the paint. To compromise, I won't be painting her thumb until she stops sucking it, so give her a break next time you see her with 9 fingers painted!

Parker's Week In Review

So, I called everyone on Monday to brag that Parker is way ahead of the game and already rolling over, well, no progress beyond that. Bummer, maybe it was a fluke afterall. Which is TOTALLY fine by me, I'm not ready for her to be mobile yet. I fear that if she's ahead of the curve on rolling it could lead to a lifetime of being too mature for her age, and my own dear parents can tell us all what it's like to have a kid who thinks she's older than she is. I think that would be Karma coming back to kick me in the head.

Anyway, she is like her mommy socially, as she's far advanced and loves to smile at me! I was pretty sure she was starting to do it and then confirmed it when Ava and Charly were playing with her in her swing and she kept grinning at them, way way cool to see that. Hope she learns to love those girls as much as Payton does.

One of my fears in having a second child was that I would either miss the milestones, or just not be impressed by them. I was so afraid that I'd never have moments alone with either girl again, life would just turn into a big whirlwind and all of the sudden they'd be moving out and it would be over. Well, this week I've had some great moments with each. Nothing crazy that you'd go on national tv with, just moments of love with my babies. Payton and I snuggling on the sofa or dancing around the living room giggling while I tried to teach her how to do a summersault. Parker grinning and cooing at me for the first time while I changed her diaper. Thanks for these moments girls, you make your mommy feel pretty lucky to have you both.

Payton Shows Off

Alright, gonna try something new, attaching video. Payton wanted to show off her new trick, so let's see if I can do this.

Two...Three...JUMP!!

July 4th Activities

This year we stayed close to home for the 4th and it was GREAT! We loaded the girls up and joined friends at Miromar for fireworks on the 3rd. Payton had fun playing with her friends Ava, Charly, and her newest friend Jacob. She snuggled in with Daddy for the fireworks, but spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to keep up with the big kids without getting trampled or in the way. Poor kid was begging to go night-night the whole ride home. Miromar is only about 1 1/2 miles from home, but it took us about 40 minutes to get out of the parking lot so it was about 11 p.m. by the time we got her home. Miss Parker on the other hand slept and ate right through the whole event. The fireworks didn't phase her a bit, although I really did try to cover her tiny little ears.

Being the cruel mother that I am, I dragged poor little Payton out of bed bright and early Friday morning and made her jump in the car and head to the parade in Bonita while Daddy and Parker took the morning off and hung out at the house. That didn't seem to thrill her nearly as much as I'd expected! She just didn't get it. The floats did nothing for her, nor did the firetrucks or various cars with politicians riding in them (I'm with her on that one). What I find truely shocking is that she didn't even seem to get the whole concept of CANDY being tossed at her!! I collected some for her, I just couldn't let the candy lay on the ground in front of me. Which is really quite silly since I'm the mother who just threw away most of her Easter candy last week that I never gave to her. Anywho, I did break open a piece of Laffy Taffy for her, and she thought that was pretty good, lots of "more, more?!?!" The one thing she did seem to appreciate were the horses. After two groups of horses when by she kept asking me for "horsies, more horsies". Really she was not so much asking as demanding, didn't seem to understand that I had zero control over the parade.

We spent the evening in true 4th style, hanging out with friends in the pool, grilling and watching the neighbors set off fireworks. I was really looking forward to relaxing and doing a lot of nothing. Well, I realized something profound which Jason put best, it really does take 4 adults to take care of 4 kids. We pretty much spent the afternoon and evening waiting on our children hand and foot. Between diapers on both girls, Parker eating, Payton not eating, changing into and out of swimsuits, going in and out of houses, cooking, and keeping all of the kids from drowning I never even had time to finish a glass of wine. Which is fine since Payton and Ava thought the greatest game in life is to fill the wine glass with pool water!

Parker did have a big first, she went swimming! She wasn't so thrilled at first, but warmed up to it. We hope that she'll start to enjoy it more as we get her in the water more often.