The Magic of Maia and Cecily!: Parenting 101

Generally speaking, Daddy and I feel pretty good about our parenting. Maia is a very happy, thriving kid. We've always been very attentive... making sure she's well fed, well rested (as much as possible!), well socialized, etc. We've followed her as she runs after the big kids in our neighborhood, wiped away tears and soothed scraped knees. And then... we had another baby, Daddy went back to work, and Maia decided she was big enough to play sans parental escort. Yep... it's time for a lesson in Parenting 101.

Last week was hot, hot, hot. We're talking 95 degrees with full humidity hot. We filled up our splashy pool, bought some lemonade and popsicles, and had lots of play dates with our little friends. Maia was delighted. Then, on Wednesday, our neighbors (Campbell - 7 year old boy, Oliver - 5 year old boy, Peter - 4 month old boy) finished school for the year... Let the fun times roll!

We set up the splashy pool in the little common area between our houses, and the kids had a blast. Oliver's classmate Holly (4 year old girl) was over, and she and Maia had a great time swimming, coloring, and playing together. Meanwhile, the Mommies sat in our comfy adirondack chairs with the babies, chatting, nursing, and just enjoying happy kids all around. The kids moved into the yard, playing in Oliver and Campbell's awesome fort (slide, rock climbing wall, trap door - kid heaven). At some point, we realized it had been oh, a good half hour or hour since any of the kids had required any of our attention. We could hear them chatting, and knew no harm had become them. And then... Holly walked around the corner. Here's the first lesson in Parenting 101: when a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a 5 year old are happily playing quietly for that long, something is amiss.

Unbeknownst to us, they had discovered a cache of paint and proceeded to paint... everything! Seriously, everything: the floor of the fort, the slide, rocks, and themselves. Maia was the least covered in paint:

Oliver and Holly, being more versed in such projects, completely covered themselves in black paint. There wasn't even a hint of their natural skin color showing through the paint. It was impressive- and they had a blast. The fun was a little marred by the 5 changes of bathwater and serious scrubbing required to remove the paint from the skin. But it was the memory of the fun that lasts, as Maia keeps asking to do some more painting.

Yesterday brought another important lesson in Parenting 101... It was an incredibly packed Saturday for us. After breakfast, we headed to Little Gym. Daddy decided to let Mommy and Cecily come so we could check out all the progress Maia's made this semester. We had a great time watching her do forward rolls, swing from the bars, and land surf (hard to describe but wicked fun for wee ones!). After class we headed to our mall for the Lucky store half off sale! Daddy and the girls got some great duds. Watch out world, we've got some fashionistas in the making! Besides the Lucky store, we hit up Starbucks for some much needed coffee! (Mommy has gotten herself addicted to Decaf, how pathetic is that?!) Maia was hungry, so we got her some apple juice and pumpkin loaf... And then we headed home for our first birthday party of the day.

Oliver and Campbell had a baseball themed party, complete with a rented snow cone machine. Maia inhaled two snow cones, and then had a blast running around with the big kids. We did everything in our power to convince her to eat something nutritious for lunch. Sigh... we were fairly unsuccessful. Of course, she had no trouble wolfing down a ridiculously large piece of baseball cake shortly after said unsuccessful attempts. Mommy was a little concerned about all this sugar intake... and then I looked over to see her with her third snow cone... Not only was it her third, she had drained the flavored syrups into her cone, ensuring a sugar rush that would last, and last, and last. I'm sure everyone can imagine how well nap time went! And so we have our second lesson in Parenting 101: sugar is evil and should be avoided as much as possible! (The rest of the day was spent at our wonderful friend Colin's birthday party, complete with another birthday cake. If you ask Maia, it was the best day ever!)

Our apologies for going so long between posts. It's been tough getting near the computer for longer than 30 seconds. That said, it's been an amazing first 5 weeks with Cecily. Maia has made the transition to being a big sister much easier than we could have hoped. We had the wonderful support of lots of visiting family members during Cec's first two weeks, ensuring both kids got lots of special attention (thanks everyone!). And we had Daddy's four weeks of paternity leave to delight and amuse us. (He keeps promising he'll write a life-as-a-stay-at-home-Daddy post, but I'll believe it when I see it.) And then, of course, we've had the wonderful kiddoes themselves. Maia loves Cecily- she wants to hold and cuddle her all the time, and loves to be helpful-- assisting with diaper changes, retrieving warm blankets when it's cool and cute sun hats when it's sunny. And when Cecily is nursing, Maia will often find one of her babies and nurse too. Cecily is a wonderful baby- she's very calm, and relaxed. She eats really well, and sleeps as well as we can hope. And she's smiling!!! (We haven't managed to catch in on the camera yet, but we'll keep working on it.) It's amazing how quickly she's growing, and we're trying to soak up every moment.

Here are some great photos:

Maia meets a worm...

Maia's first Moon Cookie: (Mommy grew up in a lovely city with the most awesome grocery store EVER! This grocery store makes the most incredible black and white cookies ever baked. We call them Moon Cookies, and we LOVE them. Whenever Nonni and Papa come to visit, they bring lots of them- usually 20 or so. It makes Mommy and Daddy very happy, and we decided a big sister was old enough to try one... the cookie was a hit! Like Mother, like Daughter...)