travelling

I am headed away from my family for the weekend with mixed emotions. happy to be heading to celebrate Rosie's graduation, but missing my little babies. as time has gone by my feelings while away from them have evolved from worry (can Zar handle this? what if there's an emergency an I'm not there? what if they miss me and won't stop crying) to contentment and just plain missing them. good thing I have >700 photos on my iPhone to keep me company.

Siblings

I love the way these two play together.  Finn lights up like nothing else when Maeve walks in the room and its quite amazing to see.  Maeve is beginning to be rather mothering of him and it just takes my breath away to witness it.  I saw her teaching him the sign for "More" today before she shared a bit of her snack with him.  It was completely unprompted and I feel lucky to have witnessed it.

Changes

This is a big week in the Toolan house.  I am starting a new job, and we have a nanny starting.  Finn is in the deep throws of the 'separation anxiety stage', and Maeve is quickly turning from my baby girl to a little girl.

Signs of Change:

1. Maeve will not go anywhere without her pearl necklace and her pink fuzzy purse.
2. At a party yesterday Finn would not let anyone hold him except for Daddy...even Mommy.
3. Maeve is wearing big girl underwear today.
4. I dusted off some of my old work items (reference books, desk items, etc.).
5. Zar picked up the clothes from the cleaners and it wasn't all his clothes.
6. I actually packed a purse for work and not a diaper bag.
7. I'm excited and sad, at the same time, to change from one chapter to another.

Milestones

My kids are growing like crazy, changing every day and getting even cuter and funnier (if that's possible). I need to start writing these things down or else I am going to forget! I know what you are thinking , "But Liz's mind is a sharply honed instrument, and is a steel trap of knowledge", but...wait, you weren't thinking that? Me either.

Anywho....here's the bullet list of some milestones we have reached:

• Finn is crawling! He's also in this really clingy, crying phase which means that he is constantly crawling from room to room following me around during the day.  He is so determined to get to me that I can hear him coming with this furious, yet not very productive, little crawl from the other room.  With all the bare wood floors we have in our house, it is quite a challenge (and a funny sight to see) for him get around when he has slick cotton pants on.   I bought him these shoes the other day and I think they are helping him.
• Finn is sleeping through the night! Hallelujah! Ok, not every night. But at least every other night and I'll take it.  Maeve is sleeping really well right now, too so we are catching up on some much needed rest in this house.   Finnie is also taking the bottle really well.  I finally found some bottles that he likes, and he even hold them on his own.  So, the weaning has started and he nurses before bed, in the night if he wakes and then first thing in the morning.  I'll probably stop the morning feed once I get back to work I'm sure that the night feed will turn to a bottle feed shortly as well.  I am READY to be done nursing.  Such a change from when I nursed Maeve, because when she self-weaned I was devastated.  I was really hung up on getting to the one year mark with her, and when I didn't I felt like a failure.  But the reality is that  one year is a generalization and you have to do what is right for your family.  For some families it is longer than a year, and for some it is less.  For me, this timing is perfect.
• Speaking of work, I am headed back to a part time job! I'll write more about that later.  We have a lovely babysitter who will be watching the kids at the house for about a month until my totally bad @ss cousin, Rose, will drive half-way across the country and live with us for the summer  while she awaits grad school. 
• The play-room no longer exists.  With Rosie moving in, we needed to create a quiet space where she can retreat without our kids.  The third-floor makes the most sense and I selfishly opted to keep my craft/sewing table up on one side of the room and take out all the toys from the other side of the room.  Consequently, the kids' rooms are no longer sparse, but are filled (and i mean FILLED) with toys.  It has been really fun to see what they play with now that the toys are all in a different location.  This weekend I plan to pack up about half the toys and either get rid of them or keep them in the basement and start a 'toy rotation' so kids think they are getting new toys all the time.  We'll see if I can get organized enough for the latter.
• Maeve is full-on potty training.  She is out of diapers, only in pull-ups and is starting to ask to go pee and poop on the potty. Yay! I can't wait to stop spending money on diapers. She has also stopped drinking her 'hot milk' before nap and before bed.  This is a BIG deal, because she was super dependent on her hot milk to get to sleep, and it always meant that she had this big honking diaper when she woke up.  It fits well into the potty training that she is not allowed any liquids before bed or nap.  She does have some water in her room if she waked up thirsty, but she doesn't really drink it.
• Maeve is saying some hilarious things, and I'll do another post on that soon.  She keeps me in stitches all the time.  She loves playing outside, digging in the dirt and playing in her sand table.  She has a couple of new favorite 'shows' that I let her watch in the morning on PBS, and other than that she plays in her room with her kitchen, her 'guys' and dressing up in clothes from her treasure chest.  Today she woke up from her nap and I heard her quietly knocking on her door to get out.  Finn was still sleeping, so this was quite a courteous thing for her to do! I went to her door, and I opened it to see her standing there with a tiara on her head, a scarf around her neck, a silk princess skirt on, and a purse filled with 'guys'.  She immediately said 'mommy, I'm awake! Let's go downstairs.'. Too cute.

Resolutions are meant to be broken, right?

I had the greatest of intentions in January when I resolved to blog more often (three times a week actually) as a form of creative expression.  Well, real life caught up with me and has kept me from doing this.  The kids and I just returned from being snow birds for over a month(!) in Florida and we are returning to normal life as we know it. 

Here are some things that I will cherish about out trip to Florida:

• The time spent with my nieces.  Watching all three girls perform an impromptu talent show in my sister's kitchen.  Dance parties to Queen and Will.i.am. Avery's persistent mothering of Maeve, Violet's sly realization that with Maeve around she could slink off more easily and have uninterrupted play time with all the toys. All three girls eating together at the kitchen counter like sisters.
• Finn's Baptism. This kicked off a very hectic weekend for my family, and I was surprisingly calm and collected for this event. It's hard to explain, but despite all the preparation for the dinner after the baptism, I left all that at the door and was very present for the actual sacrament. Sure I was laughing hysterically when Maeve started to sing 'Happy Birthday' as Pastor Stephen lit the candles, but when it hit me that 31 years ago I was baptized over that same giant clam shell, and I got chills.  Pastor Stephan also added some water from the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized, and then I remembered that Zar was also baptized by water from the River Jordan.  Again I got chills.  Afterwards, my mom told me that once Finn was baptized, Maeve whispered to her "It's a miracle". Once again, I got chills.
• Reuniting with friends.  One of my oldest friends lives in Sarasota and lives a eerily parallel life to mine, only thousands of miles apart.  We met weekly for play dates with the kids and to watch LOST.  We rekindled our old friendship and it was wonderful to talk about things that were important to us other in this life, and laugh about things we did in our past.  She is wonderfully forgiving for times when I was a flat out bad friend and for this I am very thankful.  Also, I was able to escape to Orlando for a weekend to spend with my best girlfriends in the world. As we are now scattered all over the country, we try to get together once a year for a 'girls weekend' of wild and crazy antics like sitting around reading gossip magazines and eating circus peanuts.  This year I was sick (so sorry girls) with a terrible cold and I just didn't feel like myself, but they loved me just the same. I love the company of these women and I feel so at home with them that I was truly able to relax for the first time in FOREVER.  love. love.love.
• Watching my parents be grandparents. This isn't something I get to do very often, being so far away from them.  They are fantastic grandparents and they really appreciate each grandchild for his/her differences.  We were there for a looong time, and this was a first for all of us and I think overall we all did well.  They were very tolerant of my kids (and m) even when we were challenging--sick, cranky, up at all hours of the night, throwing tantrums, etc.
• Bring able to pop over to my sisters and chat.  This seems very silly, but I miss this A LOT by not living near her.  I know if we lived near each other, I'd be over there several days each week after school, just shooting the breeze (likely over a Guinness) while the kids ran wild.  I spent many a winter's day dreaming of this, and I am happy to see that I was able to do it, even if only for a few short weeks.

I posted a lot of pictures to my facebook account, so I won't post them again here.  If you want to see them, just send me an email and I'll send you the link.

Liz