Ahh, life.

So this is the image that I prefer to keep in my head during incidents like the following. Naiya is laying on our bed and Melia leans over to start talking to her. Naiya's hand gets caught in Melia's hair and becomes locked in a death grip. She then proceeds to pull on Melia's hair. Melia starts to scream with a look of hurt and betrayal on her face that seemed to say, "Why is my baby sister hurting me?!" So then Naiya gets scared and begins to scream too. I come over and try to get Naiya to release her Kung Fu grip, but I have no success. Who knew that such a tiny little baby could have such incredibly strong fingers? Anyway, I continue to try to pry her hand open while the two of them continue to scream. It was one of those situations where you can either become totally stressed or laugh. I tried to keep my laughter in though seeing as how my girls were both so distressed. By the time I finally got Naiya to let go, she had a big chunk of Melia's hair stuck between her fingers. It took Melia 10 or 15 minutes to walk around and finally calm down so I could explain to her that Naiya doesn't know how to open her hands on her own and didn't mean to hurt her. Luckily, kids bounce back quickly and a little while later Melia was sitting with Naiya again talking to her about how she doesn't know how to open her hands. :)


This is what happens when two 3 year olds are left in the bathroom by themselves for 5 minutes. Melia and her friend, Holly, found my lipstick and proceeded to smear it all over their faces. By the time we found them, Melia had already soaked the bathroom hand towel and wiped most of hers off. She was about to start wiping Holly's face when she was caught red handed.


After biting Cinderella's head off, Melia "fixed" her.

Ode To Bo

I just want to take a minute and pay tribute to my awesome husband. He does so much for us and I don't think he realizes how great he is. Over the past month since we've had Naiya he has been on overdrive helping with the baby, taking care of Melia, cleaning the house, taking care of me, working, going to school, and on and on. Here is a small list of what he's done lately (in no particular order):
*Took care of Melia full time for the first two weeks after Naiya was born--got her up in the morning, put her to bed at night, read her stories, fed her, played with her, put her down for her naps, took her to the park and various other places, entertained her during the days, dealt with power struggles and fits, brushed her teeth, got her dressed, brushed her hair (even ponytails sometimes), danced with her, and the million other things that taking care of a three year old involves...
*Took care of me after my c-section full time for the first two weeks--lifted me up off of the couch, bed, chair or wherever I was because I couldn't move on my own yet, lifted my legs in and out of the car for me, brought Naiya to me every time she needed to nurse, changed her diaper every time she needed changing, got up at every night feeding with me to help with what I needed, brought countless things to me wherever I was (food, remotes, phone, etc.), made meals for us, took me to my daily doctor's appointments when my incision wasn't healing and watched the kids in the waiting room, loaded and unloaded all three of us in and out of the car countless times, cleaned and packed my incision with gauze twice a day (gross!), stayed up with Naiya when she wouldn't go back to sleep at night...
*Kept the house cleaner than it usually is--vacuumed, did dishes like 20 times a day (if there was a dish in the sink, it was only there for like 5 minutes), did countless loads of laundry, picked up the clutter frequently...
I could go on and on, but I just wanted to say how grateful I am to be married to my best friend who is so giving and loving and who never takes credit for all he does.
Thank you Bo!!! I love you!

What were we thinking?

Well, we're 3 1/2 weeks into this new adventure and we're definitely feeling the lack of sleep setting in. It's funny how you go through all of this before, but somehow you seem to forget how challenging it really is and then you do it all over again and then in the middle of it you remember why you said you didn't want to do this again last time. :) Don't get me wrong--it's definitely all worth it. Too bad they don't come automatically sleeping through the night though. Naiya was a really good eater and sleeper for about the first 3 weeks or so and then she developed this gassy problem that has driven us crazy during the nights for the past 4 nights now. I started having flashbacks to the seemingly endless gassy, fussy, colic filled nights with Melia that lasted the first 4 months of her life and started panicking a little at the thought that this might be the same thing all over again with Naiya. But I'm trying to just relax and go with the flow. It could just be a short phase, right? Anyway, God is really taking care of us and blessing us with all of the help we need. My mom came up and spent a week helping us and Grandma Adeline has been a big help too. On another note, my incision is almost closed now and the nurse was impressed with how fast it is healing now that we started the other way of treating it (leaving it open and packing it with gause twice a day--Bo has been my at home nurse.). "No one ever said that life is fair. Just eventful."--some guy on TV. :)