August 25th 2009

Dear Gwennan,
Tonight you were such an imp. I knew you were tired and not feeling well, and I thought for sure you would drop right off when we put you to bed. But instead, half an hour later, you were up and in your doorway, calling for Daddy to come see the moon. Daddy was downstairs, so I came instead. You brought me in to your room, pulled aside the curtain and blinds and said, "See the moon?" I did see it. It was "beeliful" as you like to say. You said, "I'm sure that moon is gonna come down soon." I coaxed you back into your bed and you told me how the moon was gonna come down in three minutes. And then you told me the sun was gonna come down too. And then you told me on your birthday you were going to get moon and sun toy presents.
I loved listening to you. I did the good mom thing and convinced you to close your eyes and go to sleep, but in truth I wanted to stay up and listen to you. Listen to stories about moons and suns and birthday presents.
You are so precious to me. Three has been a difficult age in some regards - at least from my point of view - but it has also been amazing entering into your world as you learn to express yourself more and more. You see things so wonderfully and you tell us about them in your own amazing way. I love you so much. You're my girl.
Mommy

Ah, parenthood.

So Mark comes home from work feeling a bit grumpy, and I'm here waiting for him, also feeling a bit grumpy from my day. We grumpily go about our routine, getting dinner ready in the kitchen, when Mark stops a minute to hug me and give me a kiss. We stand there, holding each other, kissing each other, enjoying just a moment. Then we feel little hands trying to pry us apart and a little body trying to squeeze in between us. We choose to ignore this. Then we hear, announced with glee, "I have a poopy diaper!"

Tender moment over.

Pictures

Well, I've been horribly neglectful of my blog. I've become addicted to Facebook and if you want to find out what's going on with me more often, that would be the place to go. Altho I do still plan to update here whenever I can get around to it.
I've been uploading a lot of pics to Facebook, and the links below will allow you to go look at them.
Enjoy!!

From two months ago:
Early November
Catri Visit - Firepit in the backyard
Taking Gwennan to the Georgia Aquarium

And
Christmas

I plan to upload Thanksgiving and other pics from November and early December soon, so check back!

Camping with Friends

Last month we went camping at Lake Conasauga in North Georgia with our friends Bevin and Zellyn Hunter and Nathaniel and Shauna Sims (and Gwennan's buddy, their son Ian.) We had fun, although it was cold. The week after we returned Will got diagnosed as having severe Eczema, which probably explains his fussiness while we were there. I think the cold air was drying out his already dry skin and making it itchy, the poor guy.
Anyway, Gwennan had a blast, and although the sinus infection I had just kicked came right back during this trip, I really enjoyed myself too. It was nice just to get away.
Pics below ...

Pics of the Family

Here are a few pictures of the family lately. Make sure to go to the post after this one to see some really cute ones of Will.

Father and son













































Gwennan, after getting into Mommy's makeup bag.



















Gwennan, after getting into her closet and dressing herself.

Will Smiles

Will smiles a lot now. Usually he has this big, open-mouth, squenched-eye smile that looks more like a nice hearty laugh, only there's no sound, but I wasn't able to capture that with my camera - yet. I'll keep trying. Anyway, here's a series of pictures of him smiling and just generally being cute.

Sorry ...

It's just not so easy to blog these days.

Things are going well in the Rothnie household. Will is giving me an overnight feeding schedule that is liveable. I'm only getting up to nurse him twice a night now, instead of three times. And he's gotten quick about it, so I'm usually back in bed in about a half hour. Of course, I can't stay up past 9 for the schedule to work and give me enough sleep, but that's okay. Mark doesn't mind going to bed that early either, since he gets up at 5 every morning.

Gwennan is getting used to having a baby brother around. She gives him a kiss before bed every night and likes to check him out when he's awake. "He's got eyes open!"

Gwennan is in the throes of two-year-old-dom and challenging Mommy and Daddy as often as possible. At the same time, she still does some super cute, funny, and sometimes sweet things.
This morning she was playing with her Elmo doll and her "baby" Elmo doll. (The second one is about 3 inches tall.) She put them in my glider rocker chair and put baby Elmo up to "mama" Elmo and said, "He eating the boob!" She's pretty observant, I guess.

Gwennan is also getting better and better at talking. Lately she's been working on her present progressive verb tense:
"I running!"
"I dancing!"
But my favorite is "having":
"She having a pink shirt on!"
"I no having a pink shirt on!"

And if you hear her say, "I don't watch a movie," what she's actually saying is "I'm going to watch a movie." She hasn't mastered her "g" sound yet. It usually comes out "d", thus if you ask her name, she'll tell you it's "Dennan."

Finally, here's a couple of videos for your viewing pleasure.

The first is a video of Will for those who haven't seen him in person yet. He's pretty cute, if you ask me.



Next is a video of Gwennan and Will. Elmo and Cookie Monster wanted to see him.