A LETTER FOR HARLYN

Harlyn,

Tomorrow is your first birthday and as exciting as that milestone is I can't help but feel sad. It's hard to put into words how incredible this past year with you has been. It was your brother who first made me a mommy but it was you who softened my heart. Everything is so much sweeter with a girl and everything with you is just a little bit brighter. You shine my love, oh how you shine. Already I can tell that you will light up rooms and be the cause of so much happiness. You may be our scrawny little thing but your personality is enormous. I beam with pride when I think about all the people who will be affected by your happy spirit. I gave birth to a reason people will smile and nothing makes me prouder. Your sweet grins while you slept and your crazy hair had us smiling from day one, and now I look forward to all the many more ways that you will bring joy into our lives. We are more then blessed to have been given you, and I will never stop thanking God for that gift. You may be a big girl now but my heart will always know you as my baby.  Harlyn, Harly Belle, Missy Mae Mae... I hope you always feel the abundance of my love.

 

Love,

 

Mommy

 

 

 

 

*I don't care if your 12, 25, or 35 when you find this letter buried beneath stories of our family through blog posts, please come find me so on this particular day I will get to hug my baby made of sunshine.

11 MONTHS OLD

A few special facts about our sweet girl:

She has one molar

She can take off her own diaper

She still naps twice a day and refuses to let me eliminate one of them
She got her first freckle on her left knee

She is always trying to share her bottle or feed us food off her plate

She thinks its funny to smack people in the face

She pulls out strands of her own hair and then eats them

She will lean over and kiss her baby dolls goodnight

She uses little moccasin style shoes outdoors and walks in them perfectly

Her drool ruined my phone
She gets frustrated in dresses because she gets all tangled in them when she's moving about and playing

She rarely says Mama and Dada anymore

If you tell her no sternly it hurts her feelings and makes her cry
She walks like a drunk E.T.

She is still wearing some 9 month old clothes
She is such a happy girl... until you tick her off and then she just screams a lot
She loves putting things in containers which makes clean up with this one a breeze
and
I refuse to believe that she is getting any older because she still very much feels like that baby we brought home from the hospital such a short time ago. I don't know if its because we don't want to let her grow up or if its her scrawny size that prevents our minds from looking at her like she's grown at all.... either way this little sweetie will always be our baby. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTOBOMBED

In case you can smell the counterfeit, I will confirm that yes the photo of Harlyn's last monthly pic was in deed tweaked a little. I had to make one slight adjustment thanks to Olaf's photobomb!

If you  don't know who Olaf is by now then you must be blind because he is everywhere, or your deaf because yes he sings too and I wouldn't be at all shocked if his song was on the radio. But I can't confirm that because I don't listen to the radio. And I don't have cable. And I don't read the news. And I practically live under a rock with little access to the modern world and yet I still know who Olaf is. So if YOU don't know the snowman who likes warm hugs then you are hopeless. Completely without hope. He's kinda a big deal. I think by now you can tell that we too have caught the Frozen fever. Hello bandwagon, three seats please with one lap child. We sing the songs, we drop lines from the movie, we tag up our walls with the character's faces, Khage refers to Anna only as Anna the Princess of Arendelle and I have toyed with the idea of buying Harlyn an Elsa doll even though she has absolutely no idea who that girl is.

The point of this post is that I wanted to be real with you so this relationship of ours can remain on the up and up, I wanted you to know that I did photoshop that image but now I fear that I have only scared you. I think now you wanna reconsider being my friend because I went 200 words deep into a post about a Disney character.

Whatever. Conceal, don't feel.

TEN MONTHS

A few special facts about our sweet girl:

She has seven teeth

She is now walking but still prefers to crawl

She isn't talking yet, a few Mama's & Dada's but that's it

If she hears the door to the backyard open, even if she is upstairs, she will head there in a jiff

She screams all of the time, but also hums little tunes

She dances to anything that remotely sounds like music (even if its just the sound made when sanding a piece of wood)

Her dance moves are crazy awkward
She makes sounds with her lips incessantly

When she tries to crawl really quick she adds in a few head bows like she's a pony

She loves to stick her dirty little fingers in mouths

She doesn't care to eat anymore because she cant stand to be confined to her booster seat

She will initiate peekaboo by hiding behind corners or covering her head with a blanket
She loves to love cheese
She poops at least three times a day
She startles to easily
She is beginning to understand the no word no
She will pucker her lips for kisses

and

 really this girl cannot be any cuter. Not even a little bit.

 

 

THEN THERE WAS TODAY

On some mornings my two overly rambunctious little ones are no match for my mommy skills; I can juggle both of their needs all the while keeping volume in my hair and a permasmile plastered on my face. I can prepare a bottle for Harlyn, whip Khage up some pancakes and maintain a complete state of patience while both kids yank on my pant legs and scream for attention.

And then there was today.

Khage was in dire need of my time at the exact moment that I discovered a fresh deposit in Harly's diaper. So I changed her while attempting to distract Khage from realizing that I was tending to her more urgent need first. Somewhere between wake up time and breakfast these two got the best of me.... that patient and unruffled mommy could not be summoned from inside of me.

It took me all of 20 minutes before I realized that during that diaper change I forgot to place a fresh diaper where the dirty diaper once belonged, I just snapped on her onsie and tended to Khage.

Thank you pee spot for making me aware of my massive mommy fail for the day.

Disclaimer: that spot is most definitely not urine. I couldn't possibly stumble upon a pee spot on the carpet and snap pictures of it right in front of the guilty party, and her brother, for fear that they would both assume this form of activity was favorable.

Could you imagine days from now when Khage has an inkling to pee in a corner somewhere in the house, Of course we are allowed to pee on the carpet Harlyn. Remember last time you did? Mom was so proud she ran to grab her camera to take photos of it like it was the first time I successfully went poop on the potty.

(I can't be the only person who took a picture of their kid's first turd on the potty... right?)

So instead I huffed and puffed about it, cursed that perfect mommy for not making an appearance today and cleaned it up... then I did what any normal mommy blogger would do: I poured water on the carpet to stage the original accident once both kids were down for a nap.

A nap in the window seat.

 

 

I have no words.

Lets just soak it up.

Let Her Freak Flag Fly

There are some babies who just eat, sleep and poop.

 

Then there is Harlyn.

 

When she was just a few months old we could already see glimpses of her personality, but now that she's older it refuses to be contained. This ones a hot mess.

 

For starters the girl lacks all manners completely. She shovels food into her mouth like an animal, and those feet comfortably placed on the table during dinner... really child were you raised in a barn?

 

Remember those scary baby faces (mentioned here) well they are only getting worse... or better depending upon if you dig this kinda look.

 

And if you are in the market for a smile... this is really the best its gonna get. No sweet little girl smiles coming from this one. Between the nose scrunch and evil eye its going downhill pretty quick.

 

Then she climbs into things all of the time. Great if she would just stay in them for longer then a few seconds so I could take a break from chasing her around.

 

 And we can slap a bow and some ruffles on her all we want but its not going to change the fact that already she reeks of a tomboy. If given the opportunity she will hightail it to the garage to seek out tools and other potentially dangerous things. After all she is her father's daughter.

 

And she is constantly hanging her fat little diapered butt up in the air. Which seems cute enough, until you realize that the girl's pluming is pretty overactive and this may be her way of letting you know that a changing is in order.

 

 I love her and all her strangeness... but a little class wouldn't hurt.

 



The Price He Pays for Fun

 

Safe to say this new addition to Khage's face happened on Daddy's shift.

 

Its not like these things don't happen on my watch.

Its just that these things don't happen on my watch.

 

Its really not Daddy's fault, the guy just isn't a Mommy and we can't blame him for that.
Trust me I have tried... its a worthless battle.

I am surely not saying that things have NEVER in history happened when I was supervising, because they have. But those accidents were all pretty minor and I blame the eyes on the back of my head.
Not the front ones.
The front ones rarely let me down.
But those rear eyes... those things aren't apart of the original design. They are still working through some kinks. I'm thinking by the third kid they'll be solid.

What it really comes down to is fun. Daddy is a dirty little fun haver and Khage is along for the ride... until he's not anymore because he flew out of the bike trolly.

No seriously Khage flew out of a bike trolly.

Brad says faulty brittled straps but I say it was the fun that flows through Brads veins... darn that fun. Darn it right to heck. I guess I am just too safe... safe and superficial. That face has to be in family portraits and I like it better when its not ridden with road rash.

Good thing this kids a quick healer.


 

Farmer in the dell.

But 'round these here parts we like to say farmer in the side yard... we don't have us a dell.

In fact I am not even sure what a dell is.

Googled it...Because this blog is fun AND educational. A dell is a small valley among a lot of trees.

I told you we didn't have a dell.

But we do have farmers.

And this farmer is mighty proud of his harvest.

 

Then this one just sits on the job and reaps the nutritious benefits.

 

 

In addition to the scrawny carrots, we also have regular sized ones, bushels of romaine, red lettuce, cauliflower, eight tomatoes (yup, only 8), and heaps of spinach.

 

For our first go at farming I am pretty impressed with ourselves. I would have been happy just to see the plants grow in size... its really just an added bonus that some of it was edible.

 

Now excuse us while we go plow the fields.

 

Well, we are not going to do it right this second but that phrase makes for a pretty decent closer on this post. And did I mention we don't even have a plow... we just kinda turn up the dirt with a shovel and a pickaxe.

 

So, in summarization: no dell and no plow. Obviously we are running a pretty scanty operation over here... such is the life of a few farmers in the suburbs.

Nine Months

 

 A few special facts about our sweet girl:

She has become quite the little scaredy cat

She has six teeth now

I cannot emphasis enough how frustrating it is to change her diaper & dress her because she CANNOT sit still

She can successfully climb off furniture and down the stairs

She talks baby babble all day long

She loves playing in the shoe basket and tampering with her nightlight

She will lay down on the floor as if she is exhausted then pop up within seconds fully energized

Hey hair blows every so sweetly in the wind because its so wispy

She has taken a few steps on her own

She says Dada but rambles it off all day long and to no one in particular

She has got a mean case of the crazy legs

Squirrely is the best adjective used to describe her

And

Between that adorable face and the quirky personality she is absolutely the best girl in the world.