20 months and more

I gave Maggie her 3rd mini haircut. She keeps needing length taken off the top, sides, and bangs. It was a quick cut with my cheapy Sally Beauty Supply scizzors on the bathroom counter, just long enough to keep her distracted. It's cute, with a touch of mullet.

Allergies mild and continuing...dairy, wheat/gluten, wool, or just crazy parents making a big deal out of nothing? I've felt like a really lame detective.

Maggie isn't babbling so much anymore; instead it's lots of mimicking and talking. She can repeat her numbers in Spanish (1-10) after me. Those come out much clearer than her English numbers, but she is in love with "two" and "three". She said "Bye Nana" and "Adios!" as family left on Thanksgiving. It's really cool to hear her repeat most anything now and her pronounciation is getting much clearer. There are still lots of things she says that only a few of us understand.

Her favorite show is "Peep" - trying to keep that one under control :-) She loves to draw and I'm excited to be getting a few toddler play books soon. Activities save us! I scored a bunch of maps from work that are huge and only printed on one side. They will make great art paper for paint and anything else I can come up with.

Thanksgiving was wonderful - loved ones at our house in the chilly sunny weather to enjoy a potluck-style dinner. LOTS of food, happy faces, and great attitudes. I cooked my first turkey - a 25 pounder! Enough to give leftovers to everyone and we used our wedding china (given to us from a family friend that were gently used from her marriage) for the first time in 4 years!

Other Maggie facts at 20 months:
-takes routine long naps and sleeps through the night (it's been pretty good since turning 1)
-well mannered and says "Please" and "Thank you" correctly in her tiny soft voice
-fiery (with me at least) pretty often, a doll with others
-independent, likes to clean and use utensils by herself
-likes to make friends
-great in the car (as opposed to not so great from 0-1 yrs)

Maggie has many people in her life that have fallen in love with her from the minute they've met her and would do anything for her. It's really true. I can't imagine life without Maggie. She inspires me to have more kiddos (husband willing), no matter how hard it can be to be a parent sometimes. Just like hosting Thanksgiving, it's a lot of work but so worth it! he he

Thankful

Maggie went the week without dairy in her diet and by the weekend her allergic reactions were trickling away. So, we've introduced dairy slowly back into her diet and it's not affecting her. Hmm...

Last week was nuts, this week is much more peaceful. Just spent the morning with my sis and niece -a little shopping, storytime, and Indian food. Good times.

We needed helping hands this week with childcare and I was ever so grateful that our new friend who moved nearby started up a small childcare at her home and got licensed last week. We were lucky to get to know her and her daughter, who is 2 weeks older than Maggie, the past few months and now, have her watch Maggie on short notice. It was a relief! We had other childcare set up but this was a better fit. Maggie loved being there, and knowing that makes all the difference when you aren't with your child.

We're prepping for turkey day. It's our first time hosting Thanksgiving at our house and I'm excited to have our families over. Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends near and far!

Allergies

Finishing Day 3 of our home science experiment. After a few rashy weeks of observing Maggie deal with some sort of allergy, we've narrowed it down but are still taking a guess. She's been off dairy this week and it seems to be helping clear up the rash, or at least keep the rash attacks from returning. Back in September, we thought it was mangoes. Whatever it is, she breaks out in an itchy rash and gets puffy red eyes. We're seriously trying to figure this out after taking her to her doctor a couple times and confirming what we already knew...that it's pretty hard to figure allergies out. They come and go. Allergy tests don't always tell the true story. So, it's really up to us to figure this out and we're on the case!

Maggie has never liked drinking milk like I see some toddlers drink it. I'd say we push it much more than she actually drinks it and the little containers of whole milk that I've brought home for her never get used up fast enough. She does like cheese, butter, and yogurt though. I've been pushing full-fat dairy on her a lot lately, thinking it was a good fat source, but I feel like I've been put in my place. Was she trying to tell us something all along?

Michael feels otherwise, but I'd hate to find out that our sweet cat Lily is causing the fuss. It's a possibility, we haven't ruled it out yet, but unlikely since Maggie hasn't always reacted this way and we've had Lily around the whole time. She loves animals too, wouldn't that be so sad?

Wish us luck and leave a comment if you have recommendations!

31

Today is my 31st birthday and I wanted to post this video my brother-in-law took of my niece Eden 1 year ago today. This needs to become a tradition!




Maggie and I have been watching this video over and over. Nerdy me, I actually had it on my list of things to do today. If I didn't get anything else done, I wanted to at least watch this once or twice to put a smile on my face and hers. Turns out Maggie doesn't want to take a nap today, which is very unusual but fine. It's just the two of us with the day free to do whatever we want and we're getting taken out to dinner by my dad!

It's a week's worth of celebrations when I didn't feel like celebrating my 31st this year. Go figure. Life is funny that way.

Thank you to all the people in my life that have left me a facebook post, sent a text, called me, mailed me a package or card, or treated me to something special already. You've all made my 31st pretty kick ass so far!

Appreciation for life



Tired eyes on the climb!

 This is a hard post to share because of the nature of the situation but I can't let it pass because it has affected me.

Yesterday hubby and I got back on our mountain bikes together, back to the same trail where we used to spend our early days falling in love with eachother and me with bikes (Michael was already in love with bikes way before I met him :-). We had family watch Maggie for the better part of the day so we set out to get a ride in after lunch. We were headed to one trail and then at the last minute opted for another that I knew would be a little easier on me, as I calculated it out afterwards but knew it in my mind all along - it'd been about 30 months since I did my last mountain bike ride. My last ride had been Downieville, first time I'd ever done that ride after hearing so much about it, and it was awesome. I fell kind of hard in a technical section, which pissed me off because I'd just seen a woman get through it, but all in all, it was a great ride with friends who we'd been camping with over the holiday weekend. I was a mess of hormones, as the following Monday I found out I was pregnant with Maggie. At that point, I was thankful to have done that ride as it looked like my life was about th change change:-)

Back to yesterday's ride - we parked, suited up, and headed out on the Clementine Loop, starting from the confluence. Michael knew something was off when we passed through the gate and it was open. I didn't notice. I did notice however the 4 or so police/State Parks vehicles parked up ahead on the trail with no one around. Michael scooted ahead of me and came across two packaged body bags (white with black zippers) on the trail. He moved them to the side and we proceeded slowly. It was then ahead that we saw a couple of the policemen and a few more down the embankment near the river. I remember at that moment looking up at the Foresthill Bridge, maybe Michael said something about it, and seeing groups of people staring down the 730 feet drop to where we stood. We were informed that someone had just jumped, committing suicide, landed right in front of where we stood, leaving a torso-sized imprint in the damp earth just to the side of the trail, and then tumbled down the embankment to the water from the force of the impact.

We think we rode up just after the police got there, so probably not too long after the incident actually happened. Michael tells me that it took about 20 seconds to happen, start to finish. 20 seconds to go from life to death. I gazed down by the water trying to make sense of the situation and saw the body of the young man that killed himself. I've never seen anything like this before and I felt calm, just taking it in and trying to get out of the way. Michael was ready to leave the scene and continue on the ride, saddened by the situation, and he eventually convinced me to move on...but I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

What is really wierd is that this happened about 2 minutes into our ride and so, for the rest of our ride, things felt surreal from what I'd just witnessed but I also felt grounded in what I was doing. I haven't given myself the chance to get in a good workout in ages and so I was doing something I used to do all the time and it felt so good to be alive and be doing this with someone I really cared about, knowing that our child was being well cared for at the same time. As I rode, I felt every rock and the damp firm soil under my knobby tires. I felt the resistence it created but also how easily I could maneveur around. It felt really natural.

What I had witnessed though put things in perspective right away and made me think about the value of life, what goes into nuturing life, and at the same time, wondering what that man who did this was thinking or living leading up to that choice. It boggles my mind. I am so grateful for what I have in my life and I am deeply saddened that there are people out there suffering so much that they end up making these choices.

By the time we finished our ride, the officials were cleaning up and leaving the scene. It began and ended during the time that our ride began and ended, at least from my point of view. I'm not sure what the meaning of this was, that we happened upon it like we did, but I am thankful for the time we had yesterday to get out and do something we loved together. I felt so alive, more so than I've felt in a long time, and I see this as an experience to show me how fragile life is and to not take it for granted ever.

Back to back

What October fun! Pumpkin patch (above) and Halloween nights. Went to Boo at the Zoo, where Maggie enjoyed a costume dance party and carousel ride (twice-once on the tiger with momma and once on the giraffe with daddy). 

Halloween day was spent visiting with family and trick-or-treating with neighbors. We had a great time. I had a ball getting into the kid-side of Halloween again.

Maggie totally picked up on t-o-t'ing right away and said the words to boot. She would stand for awhile in the doorway waiting for more candy to be dumped in her little plastic pumpkin and sometimes she would check out the inside of the houses, sometimes with dressed up dogs behind the owner which would really catch her attention. Michael found a few nawed pieces of candy on her lap and in her bucket through the night. She was the queen of lollipops and then "poof" - all of the candy disappeared after bedtime!