These ages that both of you are in are now what I would describe as easy, but they are so much fun. There are many many days when I take notice of the fact that we will likely look back on these days with fond memories as well as a question as to how we were juggling it all. One thing is for certain, regardless of the craziness of it all, being your parents is the coolest gig yet.

Growing up, I was a gymnast.  Mary Lou Retton was my idol and each week I spent hours in a stale warehouse turned gym by its fixtures of vault, bars, beam, floor trying to immitate her score of a perfect 10. I am reliving my gymnastics days a lot lately as I take Belén to [...]

Eloise started sleeping through the night somewhere between two and three months of age. Sometimes with teething and colds and such this wonderful milestone can get undone as it did for awhile in October and then again in December. With Andy in China for ten days in December, the last possible thing I wanted, especially [...]

I have a confession to make. Today when you were waiting for me to extract your new “fairy princess” wings out of the bag they came in, I was not moving as quickly as I could have. It is true. As you anxiously willed their liberation, I was taking my time, watching your face lit with excitement and anticipation. It took everything you had to contain your desire to have the new wings in your hands and more importantly secured proudly to your back. Like usual, your face exposed your emotions and it was too cute not to stop and take the time to savor.

Here’s to scooping poop out of a potty training toilet, having your toddler bend over to wipe her bottom, cleaning poop out of your baby’s lady parts, navigating your toddler’s mood swings, fighting over what your toddler is going to wear in the morning, the squeal from your baby when you have left her in the bouncer a smidge too long, the constant attempt to get your toddler to eat the same thing you are eating for dinner, the constant attempt to get your toddler to eat anything for dinner, the constant attempt to get your baby to eat solid foods, pre-nap time meltdowns, pre-bedtime meltdowns, tears in the bathtub, total and complete drama over having caked on food or dirt wiped from your toddler or baby’s face, constant negotiations, refusal to sleep in ANY day of the week including Saturday, the never-ending picking up of toys, mashed food below the dining table, sippy cups with curdled milk, ants in the bedroom feasting on a forgotten toddler snack, blow-outs, endless laundry, spit up, milk splatter all over the house, the annoying whine of the breast pump, carrying a 30-pound baby/carseat combo through the daycare every day, taking five bags to work every morning, taking three bags to daycare every morning, stained clothes and last but not least dealing with every bug that comes through town with the sick days to prove it.

Life is moving so incredibly fast right now, we barely keep the balls in the air on a normal week. The pace is almost not sustainable and I keep telling myself (and Andy) that if we can just make it to Thanksgiving, maybe the end of the year, things have to slow down. I do really believe what I am saying, but it probably won’t slow down to the nice slow pace I have in my mind. Those days of reading Twilight after work, like I did when I was pregnant with Belén and could not muster up energy for anything else, are long gone.

I don’t know if it was the glass of wine or what, but at some point, the evening turned idyllic. I suddenly forgot the jet-lagged children battles we had been fighting all weekend, the lack of sleep and the excessive work required after a long vacation. Instead I found myself slightly zoned out wondering, “Is this that moment?” You know that moment in the movies after many trials and tribulations have transpired when the main character flashes back to some perfect moment of everyday life that happened years earlier? I almost teared up as I thought about how precious everything suddenly seemed.

Eloise had been watching all of this with keen interest and her good mood from recently waking up from a power nap was suddenly ruined by witnessing her sister in such distress. Every time Belén screamed and cried, Eloise contorted her face into the saddest thing you have ever seen complete with a curled lower lip and then began to cry.

We have had a lot of big topics to talk about with Belén this week and I found myself feeling a bit underprepared. What is the best approach to bringing up big heavy topics she does not yet understand? As with most things in parenting, we just winged it and did the best we could and tried not to scar her for life.

On Monday, Andy and I were chatting back and forth on Office Communicator trying to figure out what we should say to Belén about Sassy dying later that afternoon. While we could have just told her Sassy went away and was not coming back I thought it was important to introduce the word death to her vocabulary and use this as a learning opportunity, albeit a hard one.

Andy had already told her on the way home from school that Sassy was going to the doctor in a few minutes and wouldn’t come back. I kind of freaked out when he told me this as I thought it was a really bad idea to take the risk of her associating the doctor with not coming back and her new word, death.

So when I talked to her l I told her Sassy was going to die which meant she was going away and would not come back. Her response in her adorable little two-year-old voice was, “Sassy go to the doctor?”