Eight Months

Little Leah,

You're not so little, actually. You're the littlest Thomason, but you're getting to be so big. You're eight months old - that's 2/3 of a year!!

You are about to walk, Love. You can pull up, cruise on furniture, and this month you figured out how to push a walker, all by yourself! You can cruise across the condo, and it's so funny to see you do it because you're still so small (even though you're big for your age - still hanging out at the 95th percentile for height, wherever that came from)!

You just learned how to wave goodbye, and if we wave and say "bye bye" you'll start saying "buh buh buh" - it's so sweet watching you try to communicate! You babble a lot now - muh muh buh buh dah dah. But your favorite method of communication is still a high pitched squeal!

My favorite thing you do right now is this: when you're being held by someone else and you see me, sometimes you'll start kicking your legs - your whole legs - and your whole body will be shaking, your big gummy smile lighting up your face, your dimples showing. Oh, you're such a Mommy's girl, and I love it.

Speaking of gummy smile, you have a tooth. :) It's slowly coming in, and it's barely visible right now, but you got it. And it didn't seem to bother you at all. Which, really, is typical Leah. You're an easygoing baby!

You continue to sleep really, really well - you sleep from about 7:30 or 8:00 pm to 7:15 am or so. And then you're back down at 9:30 or 10:00 am until 11-11:30, and then again at 1:30 or so to 3-3:30. You rock the sleep routine, too. Read a book, sing a song, put you down with your Lucy, and you're done. You might cry for a second or two, but you're very soon out. Love it!

You continue to be totally awesome, sweet Leah, and your Mommy and Daddy and big sister love you so very, very much!

Love,
Mommy


(yes, this post is back-dated, because I had it mostly drafted and just forgot to publish!)

Tipping the balance

Tuesday: Closing. Foreclosure sale*.

Wednesday: Closing*.

Friday: Closing*.

All week: preparing for (i.e. drafting ridiculously complicated documents in preparation for) potential settlement discussions on a deal I've lived in since six months after I started at The Firm. This would probably keep me almost-fully utilized in itself.

Also, Leah is getting sick (actually, is sick. She's just "getting" to the point at which we will schlep her to the pediatrician, two towns away from our house, which is two towns away from work).

Also, slightly less worrisome (OK much less worrisome): I have two "good" suits and three suitable days this week. Thankfully one suit has three pieces - I'm going to have to count the skirt and the pants as separate suits. I need to buy some work clothes.

Back to it.

*Handling these on my own, and actually attending (this is unusual, at least for closings, given my billing rate)...

Confessions

Taking a quick break before I start working to let you in on a few secrets:

1. You know how sometimes you are around someone a lot but never introduce yourself and then you're both so recognizable to each other and it's been so long it's way too weird to do it? Yeah, there's a woman at work like that. And I secretly envy her sense of style - she's one of those people who can pull off comfortable but polished and totally professional. She dresses way better than me. She's not in my department, not even a lawyer, but I don't know her name and now I feel awkward starting up a conversation. But in my head we could be great friends!

2. I thought I hated my job. I think I actually don't hate it, I just wish some things were different about it. That's not the same thing at all, it turns out, when you really think about it. I have a half-written post about this I might publish later. When I have more time. That one needs to be very carefully drafted.

3. Some of my friends are going to kill me for this, but I think I might be leaning left. As in, turning more liberal. As in, politically. I have a lot of thoughts on this but they're not really coherent enough to put into a post just yet. Stay tuned.

4. A friend of mine just pointed me to this blog. Check it out. Funniest. Blog. Ever. No kidding. This isn't really a secret, but it's pretty awesome and you should be a big fan. Especially if you have kids. Or know kids. Or have heard of kids. :)

5. I really do believe I have the cutest kids ever. Case in point:

(ignore the food all over Eden's face. Just get absorbed in the cuteness...) This is also not a secret, I guess, but I couldn't resist.

OK, off to work. Peace.

Stolen time

On Friday Angela came over to watch the girls, and I worked from home in the morning, and then I ran errands for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was eerie, being out and about on a weekday afternoon, no kids, no worries about work (I'd told everyone weeks ago I was taking the afternoon off to get ready to leave for my brother's wedding). I largely ignored by emails, and I just did what I wanted. I ran to Panera and brought a sick friend some soup, and then delivered it to her (and ate an awesome panini myself. PLUS a cookie, thankyouverymuch). I went to the hardware store and had a key made for Angela (finally). I dropped off my way-overdue drycleaning. I went to Target and went shopping. With NO DEADLINE. People, it was CRAZY. I could TAKE MY TIME. I made an unexpected stop at Best Buy to grab some ink for our printer (it's been out for months).

I almost felt guilty taking so much time to do this by myself. It felt good, though, to have some time to be the master of my own agenda, and not worry about anything because everything was taken care of. Bryan was teaching, the girls were being well cared for (and actually were napping half the time anyway), and my colleagues were handling things at the office. There were no fires to put out. So satisfying. I must do this more often.

Like now. I'm at the hotel in New York (next door to the venue at which my baby brother is getting married this evening - wow, I'm old). Bryan took Eden to the park to burn some energy, and Leah is napping. I'm just here. I don't have work to do (well, technically, I probably have work I *could* do, but nothing is too pressing right now and it can wait until tomorrow). Nobody needs me right now. So... I read blogs. I blog. I Facebook. And now, as soon as I sign off, I work on the sweet blanket I'm making for little Lafonda Besancon.

I love my family, and I really love being needed, but sometimes it is nice to have nothing pulling on me for an hour. :)

Two years, and where we are now

So. It's been two years since Eden's burns.

I blogged on the anniversary without comment, not because I didn't think of it (often), because I did, but more because it was ... a bit unremarkable. It was a normal crazy Saturday for us. Maybe that, in itself, is remarkable.

The truth is, we've all come a long way in two years. Even last year I was still grieving the incident. Now I think my attitude about it is, yes, it sucked, and yes, it will always suck, but it happened and she is totally fine and we are so thankful for our little family that it almost seems insignificant. Like a broken arm or something. I know it was more than a broken arm, it was scarier than that, and we were much more traumatized than that, but it doesn't feel as big anymore.

On difference between this year and last year is that Eden knows what happened now. Just this morning she was talking about being burned. She said, "Daddy picked me right up. He saved me from the fire." Which is partly true and partly exaggeration, but the point is, she's getting it all straight in her little mind. She will often say when something is hot, "Don't touch that or you might get burned. Like me." and point to the scars on her arms. Sometimes that breaks my heart, but I don't think she's feeling sorry for herself at all - it's just a part of her. It's all she's ever really known.

Bryan is doing SO much better. For a long time he would bring it up at random times when things weren't going well with Eden (and even Leah) as Exhibit A to his failures as a parent. THAT breaks my heart. These things happen. Could it have been avoided? Sure. But we can't avoid every possible injury; we do the best we can and that's all we can do. And we can't live in what-ifs. We just can't. It could have happened a million other ways, and it could have been when I was watching her or any of our friends, or even both of us. I think the guilt will stick for a while, maybe even forever, but I think he's getting that now on a head-level.

When I think about these things, when I think about where we are now, I am just so thankful. Eden is a happy, fully-functioning kid. It could have been so much worse. We saw how bad it could have been while we were at Shriner's. The girl in the room next door was 16 and barely lived through a firey car accident. Her parents were just glad she was alive. The kid down the hall, only a week younger than Eden, had scalding burns over 85% of his body. His mother couldn't even hold him for a month, and when she could, he was still so heavily sedated he was limp. The thought of those kids, the looks on their parents' faces, will forever make me thankful that I have a happy, healthy, boisterous, and beautiful preschooler.

And now, looking at where we are, I can believe that someday, I will wake up on September 11, or 12, or 23, and realize that the anniversary passed and I didn't even notice. God is good, people. GOOD.

Things I'm Not Doing Right Now

The girls and I just got back from watching the first half of Bryan's soccer game. He's still there, obviously, playing the second half. Eden is "resting" upstairs (supposed to be napping, but I told her she didn't have to sleep, just rest in her bed - she's actually in the bathroom right now, but I'm ignoring that because she's fine). Leah fell asleep in the car on the way home and so is sitting in her carseat right next to me, snoozing (I don't dare move her for fear of waking her).

There are a million things I could be doing, but instead I'm going to take a little "me" time and blog. And to catch you up, here's a list of the things I could be doing:

1. Cleaning the house. Our condo rocks. I promise to put up pictures soon - I've been working on assembing them when the pictures get up on the wall and the room is relatively clean... it's a process... We probably never would have considered buying here, but it really is a phenomenal setup. It's a large, well-established complex that is leanly managed by long-time trustees, so the place runs very well. I was worried at first that the space would be too small for us, but actually it works perfectly, and we even have a little room to expand (we want to put a bathroom downstairs in our basement bedroom). We spent a lot of time this summer getting Eden used to the pool in our backyard, which went surprisingly well. Once she got comfortable, she did really great. We're going to have to get her lessons soon, but at least she's not totally foreign to the idea anymore.

2. Changing the water in the goldfish bowl. We are no longer cat owners, but we are the proud caretakers of two goldfish as of 6 days ago. Eden "won" them last weekend at a birthday party (it was a setup, I know it). These things are a lot of work! Sheesh! (This is why I'm not a pet person). Eden refused to name them for several days, and now they're apparently both named "Flippy," which is the name of the goldfish Oswald gets in one episode. Incidentally, I'm not sure if I blogged this yet or not, but Mr. Nino had to go to a new family when we moved - the condo association doesn't allow pets, and he was requiring way more attention than we could give anyway - I honestly think he was not super satisfied with us. So the day we moved, we gave him to a woman I found online through the neighboring town's parents listserv. She already has 2 cats and 2 sons who love cats, so he went to a good home. I have to say, I liked him OK, but it is SO NICE to not have to lint roll my pants fifteen times a day!

3. Setting up a spreadsheet for withholding taxes for the new nanny. (Oh this stuff is so complicated!) You know Bryan got a new job (and it's going extremely well, by the way. He LOVES it. But we are noticing that working-mommy-guilt also plagues fathers who used to be SAHDs. He misses them a lot - it's sweet, and at the same time I find myself saying, "YES! NOW you get it!" because all the things he's saying, I've said a million times.) Anyway, through a series of coincidences (you know I don't actually believe in coincidence, right?) we ended up being able to re-hire the woman who watched Eden when she was a baby. She "officially" started yesterday, and she's here 5 days/week, all day, with Leah. She keeps Eden on Mondays and Fridays too. WE LOVE HER. If we can't do it, there is no one we'd rather have with our kids all day!

And, Leah just woke up and needs a new diaper, so I'm off. But here's a little cuteness for now:

August Pictures

Hey - this is what happens when Bryan's new job gives him a computer so I'm free to have ours at night (and yes, I should be working but I think redrafting documents will probably put me to sleep right now and I'd much rather look at these sweet faces):

Best. Cookies. Ever.

A few weeks ago, I was craving something sweet. We had frozen bananas in the fridge, and a ton of peanut butter, and so I was looking for a cookie recipe that would use those two ingredients. My friend Google led me to this recipe, and we have since become obsessed. And made a few of our friends obsessed.

Even better? No butter. No oil. No eggs. No flour. They're gluten-free, vegan cookies, and they last about five seconds in our house. Somehow thinking they're "healthier" makes us feel free to eat five at a time...

I'm putting the recipe up here because I am terrified the website I found it on will delete it. Plus I've tweaked the execution a bit...

Oatmeal Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup peanut butter (sometimes we use crunchy, sometimes creamy. I think I actually like creamy better, because the peanut chunks seem to add a little bit too much texture; there's already plenty from the oatmeal)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 bananas, mashed (or if they're frozen, pop them in the microwave for about 15 seconds, flip, and then 15 seconds, and then just squeeze the banana out of the skin!)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup milk chocolate chips (a generous cup... we like chocolate in these...)

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine all the ingredients in a big mixing bowl. Make golf ball sized rounds and place evenly on a cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before removing from the sheet - they are pretty brownie-like and will fall apart if you don't! Pour a big glass of milk and enjoy, and try to keep some until the next day. Just try...

This makes approximately one dozen generously-sized cookies.

(Give credit where credit is due...)

Some of our favorite Edenisms

Eden's verbal skills are very good. Other people understand her quite well, and she is very talkative and expressive. That said, she's still three, and has some sweet little expressions that are adorably mispronounced. I don't want to forget these, and this blog tends to be my archive for life... so here they are for your enjoyment as well (I may update this post as I remember more):

"baby soup" = bathing suit. She's figured it out now, but this remains my all time favorite.
"handchiladas" = enchiladas (to be fair, she gets this from her father, who for some reason calls them "anchiladas")
"hippo-uh-pah-mus" = hippopotamus
"pwates with strawberries" = Special K red berries ("flakes with strawberries")
"prinstass" = princess (can be any girl in a formal dress)
"eaw-meaw" = oatmeal (it is incredibly hard to figure out how to spell this - it's basically all vowels).