Three Months

Ansley is three months old!  I can't believe how quickly it is all going by.  Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that I was in the hospital having her.  But it is hard to remember life before her.  Our family of four just makes my heart want to burst!

Yesterday she had her well child visit at the pediatrician's office.  She is between the 25-50th percentile for both height and weight.  Her head (in Hamby tradition) is in the 75th percentile.  Large heads to fit their large brains, I like to say.  She is still sleeping good stretches through the night.  Her pediatrician said that I could add rice cereal to my breast milk before her nighttime feeding to see if that would encourage her to sleep through the night.

She remains such a happy baby.  She loves to watch her big brother and her eyes follow him around the room.  She also likes television, a fact of which I am not proud of nor do I support.  If I am feeding her, I am apt to let Liam watch a few minutes of Calliou on t.v.  She tries to arch her body in the direction of the t.v. to watch the magical glowing box.  If I try to turn her body away from the t.v., she breaks suction and is done with her meal.  She has made her decision on what is more important, and entertainment has won.

She doesn't mind tummy time the way that Liam did.  She is pretty good about raising up on her forearms and lifting her head for short periods of time.  She also likes to sit upright in her bouncy chair or super positioner. She loves to smile and has recently started squealing.  She also "found her hands" a few days ago and spends long stretches of time analyzing her fingers and arms. 

My mom had bought all of these adorable outfits for Ansley, and despite the fact that we have had a few beautiful Dallas days (a few days ago it was 83), it has been a little chilly to put her into many of them.  Now that she is getting ready to grow out of her 3 month wardrobe, I am rushing to make sure that she can wear each outfit at least once!  I remember with Liam we would look in the back of his closet and realize that there were clothes whose tags were never taken off!  However, I have several pregnant friends, so the clothes will always be put to good use.

I love my little Ansley Claire and I feel so blessed to have her!

Family pictures

Recently, my dear friend Amy, took some family photos of us.  I am late in putting them up, but thought that I would take a few minutes while the boys are at Costco!  Here are a few more of the pics she took.

We have been working on a photo wall in our living room.  We hope that we will eventually be able to make it a massive collection of our family and friends.  And with several friends who are amazing photographers, the only difficult decision will be which ones to choose from!

Houston

This past weekend we made a trip down to Houston to visit Eric's grandparents and Aunt Debbie and Uncle Paul.  While Liam has made the trip several times, this was Ansley's first time to meet her Houston family. It also marked our first time traveling with Ansley since she was born.  We comically  loaded up our SUV with a week's worth of goods.  All that was lacking was a rocking chair strapped to the roof!  What is even more embarrassing is that Eric's grandparents have a pack-n-play and bouncy chair and toys, and we still managed to fill our car to the brim. 

Houston is only about 260 miles from Dallas.  However, with the numerous stops we made, what should have been a 3 1/2 - 4 hour trip stretched to over 5 hours.  Fifty minutes into the trip, we had already stopped four times to change two phantom poopy diapers (yay potty training), stop at Starbucks and feed Ansley at a McDonald's.  It was supposed to rain the entire time, but fortunately while the sky was overcast, we never saw a drop. 

 Nevertheless, we made it to Houston safe and sound.  Liam LOVES to visit with his family.  He probably loves the undivided attention he gets from people after being home with me all week and having to share my attention!  While it was a quick trip, we were thrilled that everything seemed to go well. We were a little worried because Liam was going to sleep in a toddler cot, but because he didn't have a nap that afternoon, he actually slept almost the entire night.  And Ansley did great as well.  I forgot what it was like to have her sleep in our room again...babies sure are noisy!  Sunday morning we started our drive back to Dallas in time to watch the Super Bowl.  It was a great weekend and hopefully one of many road trips that we will take as a family.

Hanging out with Papa Hamby on the porch swing

Ansley cuddling with Nonni Mary

Meeting Auntie Debbie

Nonni loved holding Ansley

Watching Cars with Uncle Paul. Paul, by the way, is totally awesome with kids and we LOVE spending time with him.  He is incredibly talented and even has his own kids music CD.

I just love this shot of Ansley looking at her Papa.

Great Grandpa and Ansley

Two Months

As always, I am a little behind in posting Ansley's monthly stats.  At two months she is in the 50th percentile for everything!  She is such a sweet, mellow baby...just the one I signed up for!  She is a great eater and a good sleeper.  She is finally starting to have a sleep schedule and during the night she usually sleeps a 6 or 7 hour stretch followed by a 4 hour stretch.  She takes about three different naps a day.


She loves to be cuddled, but is also ok napping or hanging out in her swing or in her bouncy chair while I tend to Liam.  Have I mentioned how much fun it is to potty train a toddler with a newborn?  Ha!  The process has taken a lot longer than I thought it would.  I love when I am feeding Ansley and hear, "Mommy, I made poo poo!"

To add to the mix, since the dogs can't roam outside without a leash during the pool renovation, there have been several accidents in the house.  Let's just say that I wish I were getting paid by the poop in our household.  Liam continues to be incredibly sweet to his sister.  He will sing to her or try to calm her if she cries.  Sometimes he is...a little too much help!  I have caught him trying to feed her food and cover her entire body and face with a blanket because he thought she might be cold!  I have to remind myself to be patient with him at these times because he is trying his best to help out.  In fact, you should see his pleased expression when I "let" him throw away Ansley's dirty diapers.

Ansley is so much more aware these days, laughing, following us with her eyes, etc. She loves to watch her brother and he has learned the sheer delight of playing peek-a-boo with her or trying to make her laugh.  We have been doing our best to "talk" the siblings up to each other (i.e. "Ansley, look at how much your brother loves you, he brought you your pacifier" "Liam, you are such a great big brother to watch out for your little sister", etc.).  We hope that they will grow up to love each other and not feel competitive or resentful of one another.

Liam loves to "hold" his little sister.  I am not sure Ansley loves it quite as much.

The parenting bible study I am taking advises letting Liam start doing chores like feeding the dogs, getting dressed by himself, helping me bring in the mail, open curtains in the morning, etc.  And he really seems to be thriving with his new responsibilities and the feeling that he is making a contribution to our family.

Overall, things are going well here.  Although there are times where I get pretty frazzled, I love our little family!

Lately

Hold your breath...both kids are down for a nap at the same time!  That gives me approximately several minutes to wash and fold several loads of laundry, think of what to make for dinner and balance the checkbook.  And yet, I am here updating the blog. 
At Casa de Pate, we have been settling into our new "schedule."  I say this facetiously because we don't really have a schedule per say, but we are getting closer.  Liam started his child development care program at our church twice a week and really loves it.  The class is very structured and is similar to what he had at Primrose.  And his teachers are awesome!  They have had the same class for three years so I think that it says a lot about their ability to work together.  He is really thriving, and I am constantly amazed by what he is picking up. The other days that he is home, we go on play dates, go to the bounce houses, reading time at the library and to the park.  If he is missing being in school full-time, he has not let me know about it, which is a great relief!

Parenting a toddler is in one word: exhausting.  I am constantly filled with guilt that I can't give each child enough attention.  Some days I get so stressed because every other word out of my mouth seems to be no or disciplining Liam for something he has done.  I sort of felt like I had a "handle" on parenting when I had just one child.  But then the second one comes along and throws you off your game!  It is a constant balancing act, but we are all working on it.  I started taking a parenting class at our church a few weeks back and I feel like I have gained many nuggets of knowledge on how to deal with a strong willed child.  It is difficult to raise children in a pleasure-driven world and Eric and I both want Liam and Ansley to have some perspective as they go into life. 

My brother, David, came to visit a few weeks back.  It was great for him to meet Ansley and to see Liam for the first time in almost a year.  I think he was surprised at how much he had grown up!  We did a few touristy things like going to South Fork Ranch.  We also hit up a few of our favorite restaurants like Kostas and Bread Winners.  It was great to see him and I hope that we get to see each other again soon.

Eric and I also went on our first date in...an embarrassingly long time courtesy of our friend Brenda and her husband, Jerry.  I will now name any future children after them.  Perhaps Brenny or Jendra?   We ate at Gloria's where I had my first post-partum mojito and went to go see a movie.  I was in heaven!  It was so great to reconnect with Eric.  As a side note, I have cut dairy and tomatoes out of my diet as a result of Ansley's great aversion to them.  Do you realize how hard it is to eat without dairy and tomatoes!  Yikes!  At least it is helping me to shed my pregnancy weight. So incredibly grateful to our friends for spending time with our kiddos while we were able to take some time for ourselves. 

Our backyard has been incredibly neglected since we moved in.  We were concentrating on the interiors for the first six months we had lived here.  While we are far from being done and an older home is a constant work in progress, it is time to start tackling the backyard.  When we were looking at the house we knew that the pool needed some work.  But it wasn't enough of a deal breaker to deter us.  So we decided to take advantage of some of the off-season deals and started our pool work this last week.  It is definitely one of those - it is going to look worse before it looks better - scenarios.  We have hired a company to re-plaster, re-tile, and work on portions of the deck that have settled due to poor drainage.  Once the pool is done, we will have to put some elbow grease into pulling out existing shrubs and rock and put down sod.  This winter we have been dreaming of what it will look like when it is all done (a la Clark Griswald in Christmas Vacation - minus the girl in the bathing suit). We look forward to entertaining outside in the spring!

Pre-renovation.  It doesn't look so bad from afar, but tiles are falling off, there are cracks and settling in the deck, etc.

The sunbathing patio had sunk probably 6 inches.

Missing and outdated tiles.  The pool is probably about 20 years old.  Hence why it is a diving pool.

After the pool was fully drained and after the new tile has been put on.

Huge chunks of the current plaster had to be removed.

It looks pretty rough now, but hopefully in a week it will look like a brand new pool!

I will do a whole separate post on Ansley at 8 weeks sometime soon...but for now I hear a certain toddler kicking the wall in the next room. 

Food for thought

One of the blogs that I love reading on a daily basis is Kelly's Korner.  She is a gal who lives in Arkansas and is a stay at home mom to two daughters, Harper and Hollis.  Like so many of her other followers, I like reading about the little mundane details of her life: her struggles, joys, etc.  I started reading her blog before we were able to get pregnant with Liam, because her struggles to conceive made me feel a kinship even though our experiences were vastly different. Needless to say, she is now a mother dealing with the same things that every mother deals with - she has just chosen to put it all out there for people to read.

Being the mom to a girl changes everything. As much as you want to treat your kids the same, the fact is that girls are different than boys and to ignore that fact would be an injustice to your children.  Kelly did a blog post called "Princess Diaries" a few days ago that I thought I would share because I felt that it was really poignant and worth a read. 

About a year ago - I started watching my friends' little girls as we would be at play group or one another's houses - immediately run to put on dress up clothes or tutus and crowns the instant they possibly could.  I thought it was so funny that they always wanted to do that.  Harper is around that age now and just in the last week - she has to have some form of dress up or tutu on at all times around our house. I even let her wear it to Wal-Mart one day.  She also is obsessed with Disney princesses and dancing and "twirling around in a skirt".  She likes to put on "make-up" and "jewelry" and to brush her dolls' hair.

I find all of this so interesting because I never really encouraged any of it. We have had a few dress up outfits and tutus in her closet on a high shelf since she was very little but it's just lately that she will pull a stool up and get them down every second of the day. I love that it's so innate in little girls to want to dress up and dance and sing and be "pretty" and to want to wear pink. Harper can not get enough of Sleeping Beauty right now or as she calls her " Simping booty".  Every time Aurora dances in the forest - she wants me or her daddy to get up and dance with her and sing the song. 

I've had people comment or send me e-mails telling me I'm wrong to tell my girls they are pretty. Or that it's wrong for Harper to be excited to run in and show her daddy after she gets dressed each day so he will say "Oh Harper - you look so pretty".  I disagree for SO many reasons. For one - I don't think parents can tell their children enough how beautiful they are. Especially dads. Studies show over and over that when girls get the approval and praise from their dads - they don't go looking for it from the world. They have that security they need.

My heart GRIEVES when I hear women and girls talk about how they were never told by their parents how pretty and valued they are. I think of all the little girls around the world who don't have loving fathers or who are victims of abuse and I PRAY that God gives them somehow someone in their life who speak words of affirmation into them.  

I think it WOULD be wrong if all we talked about was how pretty they were or if we entered the world of Toddlers and Tiaras and started giving Harper spray tans and false teeth and wigs. We do tell her she is pretty - all the time. But probably 100 times more often we talk to her about her character. We talk to her about being sweet and kind and about sharing with others. We tell her how smart she is and how she can do anything. We tell her we are proud of her for every time she shows good character or behavior. We want her to know that beauty comes from the inside first and foremost.

I've known plenty of girls who could be models or Miss America who have so much ugliness in them that the beauty disappears quickly.  And on the other hand I've known some people who probably didn't fit the American standard of gorgeous who were so amazing in their kindness or personality - that I was drawn to them like they were the most beautiful people on earth. My mam-ma told me over and over "Pretty is as pretty does" and there is not a more true statement.

I'm loving this stage of being crazy about princesses and dressing up and dancing and "looking pretty".  I love that most little girls love the fairy tale. I sure did - for years and years growing up - I would ONLY wear dresses. And I remember wanting my friends to call me "Princess Kelly".

The greatest thing is that we as Christian women are ALL princesses. We are daughters of the greatest KING there is! And we ALL need to remember that "the KING is enthralled with your beauty".  Psalm 45:11


Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised   Proverbs 31:30

Wordless Wednesday