I have so many little matters to tell you of, that I cannot wait any longer before I begin to put them down.
Dec 20th, 2018 by ECM
I just remembered that I’d taken some pictures with my real camera last weekend. The Schaffers hosted Christmas cookie decorating this year, and everyone frosted and decorated to their heart’s content before we sent off care packages to all the first responders who had helped keep our campus and homes safe last month. We have the best neighbors!
Dec 8th, 2018 by ECM
Dec 6th, 2018 by ECM
She was just saying 2 or 3 words when we met her. Now she’s up to 48!
And yesterday as we hung out for hours at Children’s Hospital LA, I taught her to say, “My name is Annie!”
Counts up to 15 and makes animal sounds (moo, baa, oink, ruff, meow, roar)
Fills in blanks on songs like ABCs, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Row Your Boat, If You’re Happy and You Know It, Itsy-Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, My God is so Great, Jesus Loves Me
Nov 21st, 2018 by ECM
Peter and Cammy and Aria came to visit! We’ve been having too much cousin fun to take many pictures, but I pulled out my camera this afternoon when we went to the park.
Janie and Aria decided to be pigtail twins today. There’s been a good bit of monkey see, monkey do with these two goofballs.
Annie walked all over the park with the wagon. She still hates grass, though.
And turns out all-girl photo shoots are really complicated.
Real mom life.
We’ve been doing a fair bit of cooking, too.
The guys working on our Thanksgiving breakfast sausage.
So many helpers making the pies!
Nov 4th, 2018 by ECM
Keith and Bethany brought their crew here for the weekend to run the Malibu 5K with us (and to meet Annie!).
In keeping with their shared obsession with space, K2 and Tommy convinced the dads to play Terraforming Mars with them, at great personal sacrifice. (Not pictured: countless other games with Abraham and the girls. The Miller and Muller kids sure love gaming.)
Triplets? Or just girls whose mom share good taste in swimsuits?
Worth getting up at 5:15 am to run with this company and this backdrop. Bethany and I did it in under half an hour, and Derek and Keith ran it in 24 minutes!
A little post-nap cuddle time with the toddlers while everybody else was at the beach. Bliss.
Nov 2nd, 2018 by ECM
We’re studying mammals in science right now, so today we took a field trip up to the Santa Barbara Zoo to observe some up close! Annie was about as interested as most babies who can’t actually see the animals are, but she did say “pink bird” when we showed her the flamingos, so we’re saying those were her favorites.
Oct 31st, 2018 by ECM
Christopher Robin, Pooh, Roo and Kanga, and Piglet. (NB: Tommy has declared this the final year of coordinating with his little sisters. Tonight was the end of an era.)
Oct 26th, 2018 by ECM
Annie is here! She was officially placed with us on Tuesday night, and life has been nonstop crazy since then. Since she doesn’t eat table food, the traditional birthday celebrations were a bit tricky. We made pancakes and bacon for her birthday breakfast, but she just tossed hers off the tray. We didn’t know until Tuesday afternoon that she would be coming home with us that night, so her birthday present from us hadn’t come in the mail before we had to leave for the day (pediatrician appointment, flu shot, bio family visits, small group in the evening–super busy birthday!). We’re going to have a calmer day tomorrow, so we’ll be stretching the birthday celebrations into the weekend.
Life with this cutey pie is not dull. Her eating issues are challenging, and the driving for all the therapies is going to be intense, but she is WORTH it. She usually sleeps for about 11-12 hours at night and naps 2-3 hours if she’s home in her crib. If she falls asleep in the car (as she did today when we came back from Simi to pick up the rest of the family for our afternoon activities), she will not transfer and will not go down for another nap later. She does have a lot of delays, but she’s starting to babble and repeat words to her. She tells us “out” when she wants to get out of her high chair or when she has pulled a toy out of another toy. She says “Row Row” when she wants us to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” her favorite song. If we sing most of the line and leave off the last word, she will fill in “Boat!” “Seem!” “Deem!” She can repeat our names and pretty much any word we say to her over and over. We started teaching her the “My God is so great, so strong and so mighty!” song when she started visiting us, and now as soon as we start singing it, she starts waving her pointer finger for the “there’s nothing my God cannot do” part. She loves to clap her hands and have us sing songs that involve clapping. She loves music in general. She likes sitting on Tommy’s lap and playing the piano or pulling herself up to hit the keys while the girls are practicing. Music calms her down when she gets too wild and helps her focus.
She is starting to take steps with the walker, and hopefully our birthday present of new shoes that zip around and fit over her orthotics will help make walking even easier. She has even stood on her own for a split second when she’s holding onto something and lets go to grab something else, but she freaks out as soon as she realizes what has happened and sits down at once. She crawls everywhere and cruises along any place where there are people to see. She is definitely an outgoing extrovert. She met a bunch of new people at small group tonight, and she just got right into it, playing at the play kitchen along with the two other two year olds. Karen, her PT, is thrilled with how much progress she’s made since she started staying with us part of the week, and I’m excited to see how well her physical development goes now that she’s with four big siblings all day, every day!
Annie’s Two Year Stats (not adjusted for gestational age–we’ll have to get her measurements in another 15 weeks for another comparison):
Height: 30 1/4 in (1%) (Janie and Susie were 34 1/2 inches, Elizabeth and Tommy were both 35 inches)
Weight: 18.9 lbs (1%) (Janie was 24 lbs 8 oz, Susie was 25 lbs, Elizabeth was 28 lbs 10 oz; Tommy was 33 lbs 6 oz
Oct 22nd, 2018 by ECM
One last field trip before Annie (hopefully) joins us this week.
We’ve gotten to do a lot of field trips with the Cardonas this fall!
Oct 21st, 2018 by ECM
Okay, Hillsdale friends, you might be a little jealous. Guess who brought her crew to Malibu this weekend?!
See? Regina and I were in the same place at the same time! For the first time since Janie was a baby and Dominick was in utero. We finally got to meet all three DeBord kids (though only Constance was up for photo shoots), and Tristan and Derek finally got to meet. (I remembered that I really liked Tristan, but I forgot how much I really liked him. It’s always such a joy when my dear friends marry really quality people who I never would have known otherwise.) It’s crazy that we’ve lived in the same state two different times and yet so rarely get to see each other. We just had time for a quick lunch visit, but any time spent with a Mauck Girl always feels insufficient. Hopefully we won’t go five years between our next visits!