The ONE Rose

Happy Birthday to our sweet little Rose! The big day was yesterday. I can’t believe my SECOND baby is a whole year old. How’d that happen so fast? I get kind of nostalgic and a tad emotional on my kids’ birthdays. I divided this long post into 2 parts: past and present. [By the way, I am not ashamed that there are at least 25 pictures on this post. After all, I never said I could restrain myself with cute faces and a camera...]

Part I: The Past

The happy birthday girl in her birthday clothes. I just love her so much, it makes my heart happy to see her growing and learning but my heart also aches a little when I see how she’s growing up so fast. Parenthood is emotional business.

Birth Day.

One month old, the day she was blessed.

Two months old

Three months old

Four months

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

One year old—she didn’t love the hat I rubber banded around her neck (hence the tears).

It’s kind of the trend to say a few things about the personality and stats of the star baby. I usually get too caught up with the pictures to say a whole lot, but I’ll make an effort. Rose weighs enough for us to turn her car seat frontwards. Her feet are at least 2 inches smaller than Jay’s were at her age. I got her a pair of softy shoes back during a Labor Day sale, based on the size of Jay’s one-year-old shoes. They are HUGE on her. The people Rose loves the most are Jay, Mommy, Daddy, and Aunt Steph. Rose is a comedian. She gets this goofy grin on her face and tries to do something silly to make us laugh. She really wants to walk by herself…but she’s not quite there yet. She often pulls herself up on my legs and tries to follow me around while I’m cooking or cleaning. It’s kind of dangerous for both of us.

Part II: The [birthday] Present

Rose had a calm little birthday. We had homemade birthday hats, cake, and macaroni and cheese. We had a few presents. We had balloons. We sang to the birthday girl. We hugged her to pieces. Here’s the photographic evidence:

Just woke up on her birthday! She loves her fuzzy blanket with a bunny head on it.

When Rose woke up, Jay immediately ran to the bag where her presents were and gave her the one from him: a car (of course). We saved the other gifts till dinner time when Daddy was home.

Rose even had a few phone calls on her birthday!

Possibly one of the all around favorite parts of the day (for the kids) was when I dropped the flour tub while I was cooking. It poofed all over the place…Jay and Rose were directly in the line of fire, since they prefer to sit and play at my ankles while I cook. They had a great time playing in the flour. Jay even pushed it all under the fridge to clean it up for me.

Birthday dinner: real mac n cheese! Both Jay and Rose absolutely adore this stuff. In fact, Rose didn’t really want her cupcake because she was so full of macaroni!

Favorite.

We had some cake too! I made 2 cupcakes and then put the rest of the batter into a pan because I hate making and frosting cupcakes. I made a sour cream pound cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting because plain old cake isn’t very yummy to us (in my opinion, when it comes to dessert, the more butter and cream, the better). Jay’s and Rose’s cupcakes had whipped cream on top because they love it so much and it’s a little  less sugary than chocolate frosting. Not that cake should be healthy, but I thought they’d like it better that way. You know.

Birthday hats!

After dinner (and a bath), Jay opened Rose’s presents for her. He gave her 2 cars, and she also go some clothes and sunglasses. I can’t decide who loves the Hotwheels more—Jay or Rose…

Then the Birthday Girl requested a story. And then she went to bed.

Rose loves her new sunglasses and Hotwheels. I love her new jeggings. A few notes about the video: Jay has been requesting violin music, so that’s the Mozart in the background. And Rose has sort of started saying thank you when we hand her something. You can barely hear her say it at the end of the video.

Happy birthday to my cool daughter!

Dog Status

The way I feel about DOGS is complicated.

When I was little, I adored our faithful hound, Sunny. I fed him and played with him and petted him and brushed him and hugged him. A lot. Without a single thought to his dog-ly odor or doggy hairs. I considered myself a dog lover.

Fast forward 10 or 15 years. I moved to this town where everyone has some sort of canine, and most of them are roaming free. They chase and bark at innocent pedestrians. My parents-in-law here have two big, friendly, hairy, indoor dogs. I have struggled with those creatures. Their hair gets everywhere. They smell doggy. They bark. They lay on the couches. They sniff and nose and lick everywhere.

I have been kind of conflicted for the past 4 years about my dog status: do I like dogs? Am I still a so-called dog lover? If I don’t love dogs does that automatically make me a cat lover? But I’m allergic to cats! My identity is at stake! I can’t figure it out! How could I adore these hairy slobbery creatures as a child and then do a 180 and just be disgusted by them as an adult?

Zeke

It all started the first time Jeff and I lived with the Whites, back when Zeke the dog ruled the roost as the sole canine of the house (since then, Toby has joined the family too). Zeke is no ordinary beast that will slaver you with love if you drop him a crust of bread. In my experience, that’s what dogs do: they wriggle around with irresistible joyous energy at the very sight of a crumb or leftover snack. Well, 4 years ago I thought I’d bond with Zeke by tossing him an old, cold pancake. He caught it deftly enough in his chops, but then with a look of utmost disdain, he laid it down and walked away. I was deeply offended.

A few days later, I learned that Dan normally makes Zeke his own special fresh, hot pancake with BUTTER and SYRUP on it. Apparently I had offended Zeke with my offering as much as he had offended me. Since then, I have had a raging internal battle about my dog status. I haven’t petted Zeke once in 4 years. [Petty and childish, I know, but really, most of my reason for shunning Zeke wasn’t the pancake, it was just the dog dander/hair and my slight dog allergy. I didn’t want to get that stuff on my hand. Honestly]

Where is she going with this?

Tonight I think Zeke and I forgave each other! I was sitting on the floor after dinner, and Zeke walked up to me and looked straight into my eyes with his intelligent brown eyes. His gaze reminded me so much of Sunny that I involuntarily reached out and PETTED him! And I liked it! I was shocked. I thought my doglove days were over. But I guess I had just been denying my internal dog or something.

I still don’t by any means like dog hair or dog dander or dogbreath or dogs indoors, but tonight I did discover that deep, deeeeep down, I am still a dog lover.

Shaina’s Dog Status: closet dog-lover

Normalcy

January is behind us. February is upon us. I noticed that I have a small collection of cute pictures that didn’t get posted in January, so how about now? This post has no subject or story to tell. It’s just full of normal stuff.

I kind of want some striped tights too.

We stopped at the teapot gas station in Zillah for fun one day. Jeff and Rose opted to stay in the car. [tea]Party poopers!

Probably not allowed…

Obviously, the teapot gas station is not currently doing business, but it was fun to stop for pictures anyway, since we do only live 20 minutes away.

Rose randomly decided to flop. HA!

So glad I had my camera in my pocket.

All bundled up to go on a run with Mommy

Me too! Can I just say that I LOVE having that little face peering up at me while I run?

It was SO WINDY that day—my hair was way worse than this picture shows. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with hair in my eyes any more! It still gets messed up and poofed up by wind, but at least it’s too short to get in my eyes.

Jay and Rose love to attack Daddy. Jay puts on these cute blue tickle monster mitts that he got for Christmas and goes for the kill.

There’s something about The Dad that is just so FUN.

These two kids LOVE watching home videos of themselves.

When Jay really wants attention, he gets right up close and talks right into our mouths. It is hilariously endearing. In this video, Jay is asking to “watch a Jay-video.”

Speaking of videos, Jay really got into Sesame Street this month. This is is face during the song at the beginning. Enchanted. I let him watch an episode while I shower after running. It’s kind of like his reward for sitting in the cold jolty stroller for 35 minutes. It’s impressive how much he actually remembers from that show!

All smiles…

…all the time! (ok, all the time except between 3:30pm-5pm. And when Jay clobbers her).

Haaar-Rose had on a huge diaper under her skort one day and it made her look rather…scandalous!

Speaking of scandalous…I have recently acquired some leggings and loose, short dresses/long shirts. They are ultracomfy. Now I can be comfortable around the house in something cuter than sweats and a t-shirt. It’s a nice change. I said it was scandalous only because it feels like cheating to wear leggings with such a short dress. So I’ll call it a tunic instead. Hey, next time I’m with child I can use these for my belly!

Another mamamasterpiece. This model is called Gumby’s Palace. We used every single block in the house (except the ones that are lost and shoved far under the couch/fridge/bed, of course).

Bare kids at lunch. Love.

Steph made some amazing peanut butter-filled cookies this week. She shared some with me. I didn’t manage to share them with Jeff…

And last but not least, I love Amy Grant’s classic album, Heart in Motion. It’s one of the few things that makes cleaning FUN. I think Rose likes it too.

I love all my NORMAL daily treasures.