Flashback Friday: My first flight

My first flight wasn’t a very long flight but I still found it exciting. I believe that Patrick was about two, which meant that I had reached the ripe old age of six making David around eight. So this would have been the year…1992…maybe. We were heading out to Alberta from British Columbia to visit my grandparents and have a family get-together of sorts. My grandparents had purchased tickets for my mom and the youngest three kids, and while the thought of flying solo with three children seems a little daunting to me, it sure beats a twelve-hour trip with five.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

One week early

I know it’s still a week before Thanksgiving, but here’s a video of Rachel singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, anyway. Merry Christmas.

For some reason she freaked out when I took the camera out and refused to do anything so I had Andrew film her from his desk while she sang to baby Miriam. She’s being a bit of a goof-off so it isn’t her very best performance. Maybe one day she’ll do a more polished version…

It’s been a while

We haven’t been to the playground since before Miriam was born. That’s a long time in the world of a two-year-old. That’s a long time in the world of a mother. And I can’t be sure but I think that’s probably also a long time in the world of a grandmother. For Miriam, it’s been a lifetime.

Needless to say, it was nice to get out into the sunshine today for some quality playtime.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

Should I be worried?

Miriam has been asleep since five-thirty this morning. No joke. It's eight-thirty in the evening now.

She might have been up for, maybe, an hour an a half...total...today. That's a generous guess.

What will this mean for tonight when she's actually supposed to be sleeping?

It’s been 3 weeks…since you looked at me

Last night when I was Skyping with my family, my mom remarked how big Miriam seemed to her. And it’s true—she’s really grown from last week to this. Her cheeks have filled out quite a bit and she’s unfolding more and more which makes her seem so much taller than just a few weeks ago.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

A walk through Maadi

My friend Jeremy asked me to post some pictures of Maadi and today I finally got around to doing it. I left the house, took the camera, took pictures and remembered to blog about it. It’s a postpartum miracle! Now where’d I put the baby…?

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

Jingle all the way, baby!

Grandma remarked over dinner how lean the hamburger was. Obviously it’s not Egyptian hamburger (which is more grisly than anything). Rachel, trying to contribute to the conversation and stay on topic, agreed with her,

“Yeah. It’s kinda mean. They don’t like him nose.”

Lean --> mean = what all of the other reindeer are.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

Flashback Friday: Just go to sleep

Right now I’m so tired that I’m not sure I can even write anything coherent, let alone anything that would be interesting to read. But I guess that’s parenthood for you.

I remember not being very good at sleeping when I was younger. I often slept in my parents bed. Or floor. Or the little couch in their room. And when my dad left for work a o’dark thirty I’d climb in bed with my mom and then I’d ask her questions and things like that and she’d say, “Nancy, just go to sleep.”

And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

You can give a child a bedtime…

We are all sleep deprived, but oddly enough the one suffering the most is Rachel. That girl!

Our goal is to have her be in bed by around 8:30 or 9:00 every night and we really don’t struggle with that goal very often. She’s pretty good about going to bed most of the time. She’s even mostly good about staying in bed. It’s the going to sleep part that she won’t do.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

PKU

The infant PKU test isn’t offered in Egypt, at least, not at birth. Instead you have to have a private pediatrician order a private lab to come to your home and draw some blood from your new born baby and mail it off to Germany to get the results. All this costs around 200 USD (from what I hear).

Rachel got tested in the States and she was fine—most kids are since only 1 in 15,000 babies born inherits the disorder.

We still haven’t gotten Miriam tested.

Part of me wonders if it is worth it—forking out two-hundred dollars to get back what will, in all reality, probably be a negative test result. Two-hundred dollars for peace of mind. That’s a lot.

On the other hand, what if Miriam is the one in 15,000? Suddenly two-hundred dollars doesn’t seem like that much…

I think I’ll have Andrew set up that appointment ASAP.

You have two babies?!

After church on Friday Nic, a 5-year-old in our branch, saw me carrying Miriam.

"Whose baby is that?" she asked.

"It's mine," I said.

She looked at me all confused, "But I thought Rachel was your baby."

"She is," I answered.

"Then whose baby is that?"

"Also mine."

"You have two babies?!"

The irony of this is that Nic comes from a family of seven children so you'd think she'd understand the concept of a parent having more than one child. I explained to her that Rachel is still my baby even though we now have Miriam just like she is still her mommy's baby now that her family has Rex (who is Rachel's age). She seemed to accept that answer but I'm still not sure she believes that both those babies are mine.

I’m a hippie

If you asked my father-in-law to describe me in one word, he’d probably say hippie. Or awesome. But probably hippie.

Truthfully I think it stems from the fact that broccoli doesn’t make me balk. Or it could be our parenting style. Possibly a toss up between the two.

We do some weird parenting things, it’s true, but we don’t adhere strictly to any child-raising techniques. I’ve never read up on attachment parenting or the Ferber method or anything like that. And I know I’m not a granola mom because I still shave my armpits and I’m pretty sure that disqualifies me from ever holding that title.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

My handicap

Miriam, the champion-sleeper, slept from 1:00 AM until around 7:30 AM at which time I forced her awake and begged her to eat before I exploded. My milk supply, though still over abundant, isn’t quite as hyper-active as it was with Rachel which means that I can actually sleep for six hours before I feel like I’m going to explode. It’s kind of nice. Not that I slept for those six hours…

Rachel woke up almost every two hours last night and then came into our room around 8:00 AM. It was nice of her to wait that long because I heard her up and stirring much earlier than that.

I was so tired—I went to take a nap around 11:00 AM and didn’t wake up until 1:30 PM. And then I saw Andrew was online so I started chatting with him.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

Don’t do that again, Miriam!

Late this morning, so late that it was almost early afternoon, Miriam and I ventured out of the bedroom. Rachel was very excited to see us. She’s often telling me how tired I am and how much I sleep and once when I came out of the bedroom after an extraordinarily long nap she exclaimed,

“Happy founding, Mommy!”

A “good morning” was definitely not called for since it was almost dinner time but she had to think of some way to greet me, I guess.

Anyway, when we came out this morning, Rachel wanted to hold Miriam so she got all settled on the couch with the boppy on her lap to help support Miriam and I handed Miriam over.

For a long time they sat peacefully and blissfully together, staring into each others’ little faces and smiling when suddenly…

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)

If you don’t give a 2-year-old a muffin…

“Give me my muffin!” she bellowed again, holding out her hand to further emphasize the demand that I relinquish the muffin, as if using the word “my” somehow automatically shifted ownership from me to her.

Read more » (really, do it. There's more to this post.)