Brenna, All About you at 4!

Yay!!!  You are 4!!!!  You have officially gone from baby to little girl.  And you started your first day of Pre-K 4 at your new school today...on your birthday!

I am so happy that we have reached this milestone cause let's be honest...your third year has been a little rough.   When asked by a friend how life was this year, I replied "I either love her so much that my heart literally feels like it could explode with love and pride...or I want to throw her out of the window"   It's true.  A lot happened this year.  For starters, Lily was born.  The first 8 weeks or so were filled with the love for a new little baby and a very sleep deprived and low-on-patience mommy.  First let me say how proud I am of you for making it through that adjustment because I know it must have been so hard.  You were our one and only for 3 years and it was quite an adjustment adding a new little sister to the mix.  You have ALWAYS loved your sister and she has ALWAYS loved you from the moment she arrived.  But truth be told, you were kindof a nightmare to mommy and daddy for the first few months.  I want to recount some of our struggles not to make you feel bad, sweety, but so that we can look back and read this and giggle and maybe it will even help you keep a good perspective when you yourself are a mommy and are sleep-deprived and ready to toss your 3 year old out the window.  ;-)

But let's recall 2 of the lows before I tell you about all the highs that your third year brought.  

1)  The Thanksgiving incident:   I'm not sure why I thought hosting Thanksgiving at our house with a 6 week old was a good idea but I swear at the time I thought it was.  It was the week of Thanksgiving and I still didn't have everything together.  You were being awful.  Throwing the biggest fits and I just couldn't handle it.  I lost it.  I called Daddy at work crying and said "You have to come home.  I have to leave and if you don't I'm going to lose it on Brenna.  Seriously, come home.   I need to leave before I lose my mind"  So home he came and out I went.  I think I was gone for probably 5 hours.  I needed it.  As much as I needed a break from you, I missed you once I was gone.  When I got home, I felt like I could breathe easier.  Please take 2 lessons from this...1)  When life gets too crazy, take a breather.  Know when you need to walk away to regain composure.  And 2)  Marry someone who is a true partner and makes your life easier and better in almost all regards.  Marry someone that would come home from work to help you.

2)  The Corneal Abrasion:  One night I was putting you to bed and you were throwing a fit saying you didn't want to go to sleep and you were so overtired that you were entering what Daddy and I refer to as your "Sleep Deprivation Psychosis" where you are not rational and just generally crazy-in-need-of-sleep.  The lights were out and it was very dark and in the midst of your flailing fit you accidentally sucker punched me right in the eyeball.  IT HURT.  A LOT!!!  I tried to go to bed but I woke up at 2am and drove my one-eyed self to the ER where I had to explain how my 3 year old had just punched me in the face.   Low point for sure. 

But just like any good story the lows were superseded by the highs.  You shock me at how smart and sweet you can be.  Your verbal communication soars.  I think because you are so smart and so expressive, I sometimes forgot that you were 3 and expected you to have the rationale of someone much older.  My bad.

You have the absolute cutest helium-sounding voice on the planet.  Seriously, people tell me that you should be the voice of cartoon characters, it is that cute.

Your love for Lily.  You love her so much and she lights up when you are around.  You always want to hold her and kiss her and give her raspberries on her belly.  You make her laugh more than anyone else.  You also protect her.  You make sure she doesn't have something too small to play with and one time you came carrying her out of the laundry room like a dog (holding the back of her PJ's while her arms and legs were dangling above the floor) because she was trying to get shoes.

Your first dance recital.  You were the cutest little Angelfish and you gave the grandest bow and blew a kiss to all of your admirers and even mouthed "I love you Daddy" while on stage.  Don't think I'll ever forget that.

The diving board.  You passed a swim test where you swam the entire length of the pool in order to jump off the diving board.  People kept coming up to me saying "how old is she?"  When I said, "she's 3" they would look at me in disbelief that you could pass the swim test and were brave enough to jump over and over again!

Role playing.  You love to play any sort of role playing game where you are the grown-up.  We played movie theater a lot where you would take money, give tickets, manage the snack bar, and perform all the other appropriate duties of a movie theater attendant.

Your Students: You have had a class of students that have followed you around almost all year:  Chauncy ("He's the naughty one, he never listens"), Nala, Rainbow, Carley, Jalyn.  You run a tight ship.  You do circle time and story time and do not hesitate to put someone in time out if they step out of line.

High point/Low point.  Whenever we are sitting together for dinner we go around the table and do high point/low point.  You share some of the sweetest things.  A typical example of what you'd say.  "Today my high point was when Mommy picked me up from school and we went to the park with my friends and shared our snacks.  My low point was when I didn't want to leave the park and I threw a fit"  Many times, we have the same low point ;-)  Or sometimes you won't have a low point and say "I don't have a low point, today was a pretty good day!" and you'll shrug your shoulders with a "what are you gonna-do-about-it?" expression on your face.  

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.   I'm sorry for my lack of patience sometimes.  I'm so lucky to be your momma.  

How Brenna got ready for the new baby

We had lots to do to get ready for a second baby.  Two major things that needed to happen was 1) Brenna needed to lose the pacy and 2) transition to a big girl bed I didn't want her to associate the baby with taking either away so pretty soon after we found out we were expecting we started transitioning.    

While napping in her crib one afternoon, the pacy fair came and left her a little story about how she was taking her pacy and giving it to some new babies that needed them and she left her a little koala as a gift for giving her all her pacys.  When she woke up, she was sad...

But it didn't take long for her to come around....

And now for the big girl bed...

So many of Brenna's friends were going to be big sisters right around the same time.  Here is Brenna, Maddy and Audrey graduating from their Big Sister Class at Jupiter Medical Center.  

About my pregnancy

My last pregnancy post was way back in April when we let the world know we were expecting again.  My second pregnancy was very similar to my first but everything was just amplified.  I felt sick with Brenna but never actually threw up.  I threw up a lot with Lilia.  I was tired with Brenna...I was more tired with Lilia (maybe because I couldn't rest like I did the first go-around).  I was very happy to have started this pregnancy 15 pounds lighter than with Brenna and just like that one I gained about 35 pounds.  So getting that 15 pound head start really helped me out once the pregnancy was over.

7 Weeks

12 Weeks

I couldn't wait to find out whether or not we were having a girl or a boy.  I really didn't have a gut-feeling about it and when asked which I was hoping for, I knew that either option would cause mixed emotions.  A girl would be awesome.  I love to do the girly things and I have all the girly baby stuff from Brenna and I just feel like I'm well suited for girls...But if it's a girl, I knew I would be slightly disappointed that Brett didn't get a boy to do all the Daddy-Son bonding stuff with...not that he can't do the same things with girls but I would have felt disappointment if I didn't have a girl to do Mommy-Daughter things with so I would be a little sad about that for him.  Now if it were a boy, while I'd be very happy to have the experience of 1 of each, I'd be sad to not have another girl because I LOVE my girl so much and I would so love for her to have the experience of having a sister, something I always wished for.  And I knew Brenna wanted a baby sister badly (she would cry if we told her it might be a boy).  So truth be told, I was probably 51% wanting a girl and I think Brett was completely 50/50.  

The day of our ultrasound appointment, they do all sorts of measurements and it takes a long time before they actually get to the gender part.  The ultrasound tech seemed to take forever and when it was time for the gender reveal, she said something like "What did you say you have at home again?" And I said a girl and she made a face like "uh oh" so I immediately knew that it was another girl and felt excitement and happiness.  Then she confirmed it and said it was definitely another little girl on the way.  I was looking at Brett's face to try and see how he felt and he was happy too.  I think he acknowledged that it would have been cool to have had a boy but he was 100% excited and on board for another little girl.  Plus we have our nephews, Nick, Alex and soon to be Jaden to fill up any of the male bonding time that might be needed.

I spread the good news via text "Princesses and PMS, here comes another girl!"  

I didn't do maternity pictures the first time around and I've been so lucky to have met friends who happen to also be wonderful photographers so my friend Lauren, of Lauren Donovan Photography took these pictures of us right before we welcomed our little girl.

I'm back!!!!

Well I'm back.  It's been 9 months since my last post and I'm so sad I haven't posted more.  I really could care less if anyone reads this but I want to look back and remember this precious time while our little ones are young so I am going to try my very best and update this on the happenings of our last 9 months.  There are oh so many...thus why I haven't had time to update in the first place!!!!  So apologies for anyone who actually subscribes to this blog as an rss feed because I will probably clog up your feed in the next week or so with tons of posts and pictures about the family!

Brenna, All About You At 3!!

Happy Birthday, Brenna!  You are 3 years old today!!!  What a year it's been.  You have definitely grown up so much this year.  And we have hit so many milestones.  I'm so proud of you how well you've done in so many different areas. 

For starters, the Pacy Fairy came and you completely said goodbye to your pacies that you loved so much.  By 2 1/2 you were Pacy Free and you really handled it so well.  Only a few tears at the very beginning.  I thought this transition would be much tougher than it was.  The Pacy Fairy left you a letter and a little bear and you still talk about them and know who gave them to you.  The dentist could really tell a difference too.

Then you found out you were going to be a big sister.  You insisted from the very beginning that you would be getting a little sister and if we even mentioned the possibility that it could be a baby brother, you would break down in tears.  Well you were right, you are getting a baby sister and she will be here soon!  I know you will be a big helper once she arrives...just as long as she doesn't take your stuff because you will tell me "Mommy, I don't want to share."  This could be a problem....

Our next big step was getting your big girl bed.  Bye-Bye Crib.  You loved your crib and slept really well in it...never once did you climb out, couldn't quite figure out how some of your friends could climb in and out...you needed a little boost.  You've done beautifully in your bed. It took about a week where we had to reverse the lock so you couldn't run out when you wanted to, and you were not happy about that but it wasn't long before you slept in your bed all night by yourself.

Lastly, you are 100% potty trained!  Yay!!!  This was a lot easier than I anticipated (for once something was easier)...you did a great job.  We introduced the idea around 2 and you weren't quite ready but a few months in and you pee pee'd on the potty like a champ.  It took another 2 months to conquer #2 but overall you caught on so fast and you rarely have any accidents.  Even at night, you will call for mommy if you have to go.  We really lucked out here, thanks for throwing us a bone in this department, boo boo!

You still go to Holy Spirit Lutheran Preschool and just started in the 3 year old class.  Now you go to school on Tues,Wed, and Thursday.  Mommy works while you are at school so we can play together during the times you are home. On Monday we have dance class and on Fridays we go to storytime at the library.  Our days are filled with fun activities with some TV time and book time sprinkled in there too. 

Your favorite shows right now are Dora the Explorer and anything Princess related.  You like many different books (we are at the library a lot swapping our books and DVD's).  Mommy has to read the princess ones because "you're a girl" and Daddy reads the other ones.  You like to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  You have such a cute high and squeaky voice. 

You are a really big helper in the kitchen. You like to make smoothies with Daddy and bake cookies with Grandma Joann. 

You like to talk like a grown-up.  You get in this moods where you are the mommy or the teacher and talk to daddy and me like we are the kids.  You might say "Mommy, did you drop that toy on the floor (even if I didn't), you can't do that mommy, you're making a mess, you need to clean it up.  And tell my baby you're sorry, you stepped on her foot (even if I didn't) and you hurt her. Tell her you are sorry, Mommy, alwight?  Alwight, Mommy?  Did you hear me?  I'm talking to you"

As you can tell, you talk A LOT!  You can have a conversation about anything and it's fun teaching you things and watching you learn and retain.

Personal space:  This is big for you with your friends.  You don't like running hugs from friends and you don't want anyone to grab your hand without asking first.  You are affectionate but you just don't like to be caught off guard.  You need to feel like you have control in the situation.

We love you sooooo much!!!!  I can't wait to see what year 3 brings!