Turning Two: Sweet, Stubborn, Smart, Silly, Strong Julia Sekina

Julia,

You are two years old.

 You are incredible.

It's hard to keep up with every advance you make, as you have grown and learned so rapidly that we hardly have time to adjust.

You are talking in full sentences and baby paragraphs routinely. "Daddy, I shut it. Please open it!" or "Aidan, no touch my tushy!"

You are mostly potty trained. When you need to go, you enter the bathroom, undress, and get business done. Including wiping. Sometimes, though, when you need to go but don't want to go, you can be quite stubborn about the whole thing, which occassionally causes some inopportune moments. You still sleep in a pull-up (only the "Mermaid" and "Doffin Stuffin" ones...NOT- god forbid- the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" (Minnie Mouse) ones."

You are funny, and love to play jokes, retell funny stories ("Aidan says blerg blergh blergh), and surprise people. You also learned that "poopoo" is funny (thanks to your brother, and your extended family for laughing that one time).

You also love to say "uh-oh daisy" in case of accidents.

You are smart and determined: you know your ABCs, you know to use the potty, you dress yourself most of the time, and try to undress yourself at night. You know "twinkle twinkle," know that you live in "Dallas." You know that Aidan is your brother. You call your Mom and me by first name sometimes...although maybe that should be under "funny," since you know you're being cute when you do it1 And are a quick study when learning new words. You also love to read to yourself, even if you don't know all the words.

You are strong: doing forward rolls in the back yard, and impressing everyone at the little gym with your hanging skills, jumping skills, and rolling.

You can tussle with the big boys and take them down a peg if needed. It seems just like yesterday you were learning to Jump and not getting off the ground...and now, a few months later, you're practically a frog or rabbit!

You are sweet: you have no problem displaying affection. You love kisses, and tickles, and hugs. You tell me, Aidan, and Mommy "I love you SO MUCH" (which never gets old). You say bye bye to inanimate objects "Bye bye TV!" And you LOVE animals, especially your dogs and other people's cats. Just yesterday you walked past Preston and told me "That's my boy! That's my boy Preston!" You, of course, had to stop and give hugs.

You love your brother like no other.

You LOVE dairy foods: yogurt, cottage cheese, chocolate milk, shredded cheddar, shredded parm, shredded mozzarella, and "pirates booty booty." Sometime you'll tolerate meat or vegetables.

You LOVE Frozen, and sing "Let it GO Let it GO Let it GO" around the house, in the car, or wherever. You also LOVE Aladdin. The other day you were saying something repeatedly and we had no clue what it was "Hoenewwhoa Hoenewwhoa!" I asked you what it was. You said "Yaddin Song!" You were singing "A Whole new World!!!" You also love "Wreck it Ralph." And Nemo. God, do you love Nemo.

Your favorite animals are Horses, Zebras, and Giraffes. We "play horsey, daddy! get up horsey!" nearly every day.

You are weigh 26 pounds and are 32 inches tall, and you're in perfect health.

You've grown from this: 

To this:

To this!

And we have loved every moment of trying to keep up with you. Happy Second birthday, dear, sweet, strong, silly, stubborn, super, Julia Sekina!



Cherry Pie, Being Seen, Toddler Beds, Feeling Green

Children,

Your mother's cravings continue to amaze. The other night she took a big breath in and said 'MMM...cherry pie!' I have no clue what she was smelling because I was making noodles. The good news is though, even though the first trimester blues has your Mom feeling a little green, she's feeling a little better.

She actually went to the store to get her own late-night craving. Also, the instructions were too complicated for me to follow: "cherry pie that is like flaky on top but not too thick and is ready instantly."

She found Mrs. Smith.

And Mrs. Smith treated your Mommy very well.
You might be wondering where your Mom is putting all this food...well, it's a lot of effort to build a new little Weinstein, so that's where it's headed.

And I do declare, your Mom is 'showing' already! Check it out: Here is the last picture of her - at week 10.5 - with her long hair.

This is going to be a rough summer. We're already in the high 80s and your Mom just couldn't take the heat anymore. So she chopped her hair off. I couldn't be a posed picture for the "after" view, but you'll notice in the following pictures that her hair is much shorter. I'm working on getting your Mom to pose for the belly pictures we did during Aidan's pregnancy. But every time I ask her to take a picture, she gets a little more green...you'll understand more later. But don't worry: we're starting tonight, with Week 11.



Okay, I'm going on the record here: I'm thinking that you, little one, are going to be Aidan's little SISTER. I'm officially thinking that you're going to be a girl. The cravings, the nausea, the way she's carrying you are all so much different that with you, Aidan.

Plus the Chinese Gender calculator predictor nonsense says you're a girl, little one. But it also predicted Aidan would be a girl. And he's definitely not. He's a boy.

And in fact, this weekend, Aidan, you got to take another big step toward being a big boy!

We did some re-arranging and bed trading and wound up with a toddler bed. You were super excited by this development and, after you got over being upset that we weren't going to let you just play on the wooden frame and that you couldn't lift the mattress off yourself (and no one was going to help you do it, despite your multiple requests for "halp...halp"), you really liked your bed. You stand on it to look out the window, you crawl up on it to sit. You brought some snacks up on it to eat while relaxing. And you called it "bed."

With this kind of reaction to the toddler bed, we thought we'd give napping in it a try.

So we tucked you in and sang to you as usual, and you were just really excited to be in the toddler bed.

I gotta be honest, I had my doubts that you, such an excited little boy, would fall asleep on the toddler bed. But, low and behold, you took a good, long 1.5 hour nap on your big boy bed.
Your Mom and I were so proud of you. But, of course, not being caged in a crib makes for an eventful time when you woke up. Your Mom was napping while I was outside doing yard work with Pops. Your Mom said she awoke with a start when she heard your familiar loud-stomping through the house. You just got up, crawled out of bed and decided to go to the living room and check out what was going on out the window. I guess you had places to go! You're getting so grown up, Aidan; but it's a good thing you've still go lots of room to grow.

And speaking of growth, little one, you are now 11 weeks along and you're the size of a LIME! (no wonder your Mom's feeling green!) I can hardly remember when it was lime time for you, Aidan!

Your head is the same size as you body, and your fingers and toes are no longer webbed. You're working on growing hair follicles, tooth buds, and nail beds. That sounds like a lot of work indeed. No wonder your Mom's a bit soured on making lime-ade out of these limes. She's feeling better, but sometimes, Pregnant Mommy feels so green that she says hilarious things.

The best line of the pregnancy thus far happened in our kitchen. I'm trying to have a conversation with your Mom, asking her question after question...with no response. Finally I stop and realize I'm talking to myself and say..."hello?"

Your mom looks up at me, lookin' pretty green and says "answering questions makes me sick."

We eventually had a great laugh over that one, and a great weekend playing outside with you Aidan, and watching you grow inside, Little One.

So, a week of hair cuts, cherry pies, new beds, new aversions (questions...who knew?) were just what the doctor ordered.

We've got a big boy and a bitty baby bump on our hands; and we're loving every second of it. As long as pie or strawberries and nutella or mangos or almond milk are readily and as long as no body ends a sentence with a question mark.

Any questions?

She's My...Cherry Pie

I don't know if its the fact that over the past months we watched a series called "Pushing Daisies" in which the main characters own and work in a pie restaurant called "The Pie Hole"...

Or if it's because we also recently watched a movie called "Waitress," in which a pregnant woman channels her emotions into delicious pies...

Or if it's just the fact that your Mom is pregnant and has a voracious appetited, but for the past 2 weeks she's been craving CHERRY PIE!

After every dinner she says stuff like "I sure WISH we had some Cherry Pie!"

Or "Why doesn't Dallas have a "Pie Hole" restaurant?"

Or "Do you know how to make Cherry Pie?"

Ice cream, while still consumed just won't do. Cake, which was purchased and presented for our anniversary, was devoured but forgotten. Cookies, no matter how delicious, just aren't cutting it. Even though most of the leftover Halloween Candy has eaten been, it just isn't satiating that need for pie.

So, on a trip to the grocery store, we recalled this pie purpose and Holly bought her very own frozen cherry pie.

Immediately after dinner on Monday night, your Mom finally got to satiate her craving:

The cherry pie went in the oven, and 55 minutes at 400 degrees later, pure bliss.

I may have even had a little slice too.

There's good news and bad news here: The good news is that there was enough pie left over for her to have some yesterday after dinner too.

The bad news is that it's now all gone. And tonight I'm bringing home a tub of cookie dough I purchased from a co-worker.

Either these White Chocolate Chip Macademia Nut Cookies will fill the void or we're gonna have to go the store and get another Cherry Pie.