Happy Birthday Great Grandma!

My Non Mushy Two Years Montage...

I'm sure you've all had your fill of saccharine ramblings... enjoy!

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Two Years...

So, I actually missed writing about our two year anniversary on our anniversary. Yeah.. bad blogger. It has been two years since we met Meron. I wrote about that first meeting here, and won't repeat it.

I wrote a letter to Meron on our anniversary, though, and I'll share a little piece of it today.

Dear Mimi Tewabech,
It was two years ago when we met you. You were so small and scared. We loved you so much, but we felt pretty small and scared, too. You see, once we met you, we knew what an incredibly important job we were going to have to do. We realized, the minute we looked into your eyes, that it was no ordinary spirit that was being entrusted to us. You literally light up any room you walk into. People walking by you often stop in their tracks when they see you. People who meet you fall in love with you.

I am often worried that you will think that this is because you are beautiful. You are beautiful; you are the most achingly lovely little person I have ever seen, in fact. That is not the reason that people are so drawn to you, even if they think that it is. You have a light inside you that people recognize without knowing why. People see you and they recognize that you are unique in amazing ways. Your eyes are radiant with intelligence, laughter, joy, trust, love and just... you. This brilliance makes you far lovelier than any physical features ever could. When I first saw you, the you that shines like a beacon that attracts most every one you meet, I made it my mission to make sure that nothing dims that light. That is what made me so absolutely terrified, Meron. The thought that I might not be good enough or strong enough or right enough to keep that part of you safe still makes me tremble on a daily basis. That light is still there, so I guess we must be doing all right together. I will keep trying, and hope the resilience that has carried you this far in your life will make up for my many, many mistakes. And I will keep loving you with all of my heart. And I am so grateful that I am your mama.

Motherhood Lessons # 281, 282, and 283 That I Wish I Wouldn't Have Learned First Hand

Number 281: When a bottle of hot pink nail polish is shattered on the bathroom floor and sprays all over the ceramic tile, grout and white wainscoting, it is actually the hardest (read, impossible) to get off of the wainscoting. I was betting it would be more impossible to get it off of the grout, but the grout is only slightly pinkish and shimmery as opposed to really pink on the wood.

Number 282: Cleaning nail polish out of grout is substantially more difficult (not to mention substantially more frustrating) when a 30 pound child is continually jumping on your back, kicking you in the ribs and shouting, "Go horsey! GO!" and pushing your hands out of the way so they can 'lookit' what you're doing.

Number 283: Cleansing breaths, while important in maintaining an even disposition and pleasant tone of voice when being jumped on by a 30 pound child as you're are cleaning up a rather large, destructive, nail polish accident, are not advisable when one is crouched over a large puddle of nail polish and nail polish remover.

That is all.

In Which Stewart Finally Proves to be a Contributing Member of the Household After 5 Years of Eating our Socks and Shedding on Everything

This is Stew.

Stew and I have a rather love/hate relationship. I mean, I love him. Really I do. But he is not the easiest housemate to have. He has some serious mental health problems (I'd diagnose him as having OCD and an anxiety disorder). Stew freaks out when anything is different... chairs moved, fan blades out of the ceiling fan to be cleaned, schedules... pretty much everything in the world makes him anxious. He is absolutely obsessed with birds, rabbits and flies. Guarding our house is great, I guess, but I kind of wish he would differentiate between machines rising up and destroying their human creators and... well...things that might not be worthy of hysterical barking that wakes up the baby at 2am, such as a bird perched on our fence. Sadly, any and all things that deviate from the norm create about the same level. Stew is also a nervous eater. He needs us to see him eat for some reason; he either picks up his bowl and drags it over to us, trailing rock-like chunks of food across the whole floor, or he takes a mouth full of food and comes as close as us as possible before chewing and going back for another bite. His nervous eating is not confined to his food. He has also eaten socks, rugs, toys, books, food (that I explained to him was clearly ours because it is always sitting on the counter and not in his food bowl) and shoes. Oh, yeah, and he sheds. He loses massive quantities of hair when he is stressed out... which is always. The summer we moved, he lost so much hair that his chest and stomach were bald. So, our floor generally looks like a yeti has been rolling around on it around five minutes after I have cleaned the floor. All of these traits... not so endearing... until yesterday.

You see, we decided that Meron needs to be out of diapers before Y and M come home. According to all the books, it is time. She can stay dry for hours at a time, put her own pants on and take them off, has excellent expressive and receptive language skills, and was almost to the point of changing her own diapers. Mer and I picked out some poster board,stickers, and snazzy new underwear. There was much excitement. Day one looked a lot like this (Note the THREE!!! stickers!):

Sadly, Day Two looked a lot like this (Note the three stickers):

And, Day 3 looked a lot like this (Note the THREE stickers):

Now... we were enthusiastic, downplayed accidents and greatly rewarded success. We kept a schedule and made it into a fun game. We tried. But our sweet, wonderful, lovely, much beloved daughter:

has what some might kindly call an... independent spirit.


And we blew it. When you want Mer to do something, it is most effective if you are seemingly indifferent about the results. She is wonderful. She wants to please and to make people happy... unless she feels pushed. You see, she saw the fevered gleam in our eyes when we thought about a future free from diapers. And she dug in. I had almost decided to shelve the issue for a while, because my daughter is not someone who can be out stubborned. I think that if we really made an issue out of using the toilet, she would be attending her high school graduation in diapers.

Enter Stew.
On day four, when I asked Meron to choose whether she wanted Mama or Daddy to help her on the potty (after attempting to get her to sit on the toilet for more than 2 seconds at a time ALL DAY), she said, "No! Not you! I want my Tewie to help me!" So, I told her I thought that was a great idea. I made poor Stew come into the bathroom to help Meron.

And it worked. And we all jumped and danced around cheering, making Stewie jump around and bark in what was a reasonable facsimile of excitement. And now, after a lot of time in the bathroom with Stew and Mimi, the poster looks like this (as of bed time tonight, I think she is up to ELEVEN stickers):


So, there you have it. My dog is potty training my child. Stew, if you can pull this off, I will totally 'accidentally' drop a pound of hamburger in your bowl... and stand next to you while you eat it.

Bath time....the Poser edition

Mer was posing, asking me to take pictures. Not sure where she learned this.... although she does like to look a her pictures as soon as I take them now, so perhaps she was posing for her own amusement.

Meron answers some burning questions

Namely, what exactly does the bus driver say?


and,
Just where is Thumbkin?



She is so fun. I mean, not every day do we have fun...but tonight I kept her up about an hour past her bed time, because we were having so much fun that I didn't want her to go to bed. Ever just go to bed feeling so lucky to be who you are... and to have the people in your life that you have? I am tonight.