Another Sofia Milestone-She's crawling!

Yesterday-Sunday, March 30, 2008- Sofia crawled! She's been getting so close and has been crawling backwards for a couple of weeks but yesterday she actually moved her knees and her hands forward with her belly off the ground! Yeah Sofia.

Also, today, she's been sitting down and putting herself in the crawling position and then push herself back up to sitting and then repeating. So she's obviously gaining her core strength. Yeah.

Another not so exciting milestone we've reached is seperation anxiety. Oh.my.god. does this suck. I seriously want to shoot myself. I can't even walk around the corner without her SCREAMING. I don't mean whimpering, I mean full on loosing her mind screaming. She's refusing naps because she doesn't want me to leave the room. Gah! When does this part end?

Here are a couple of pictures from this weekend:

Mikka sleeping on Daddy

Ella taking my picture-Notice she's looking through the lens and she's yelling CHEESE

Sofia just wanted to make sure I put her picture in too. Look at all that hair!

It's 8:45 am

and Sofia is already down for her morning nap.

and Ella is still sleeping from last night.

It's crazy how you can do the same exact thing with two different children from the same parents and get totally different results.

Ella, bless her, has never been a morning person. Even as an infant, even when she was going to bed at 7 pm for the night, never woke up before 8 am. Now, she'll ocassionally wake up around 7:30 am but that's early for her.

She definitely takes after me. When I was in elementary school, I had to set my alarm clock to wake up in time to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Yet whenever the alarm clock went off, I would hit snooze 8 million times or just shut it off. I just couldn't drag myself out of bed before 9 am, even at 7 years old. So, the only cartoon I ever got to watch on Saturday mornings was Heathcliff.

Now Ricardo as a child was up at the crack of dawn. He would catch all the Saturday morning cartoons. I'm sure his parents had something to do with it because still to this day sleeping in for them is 7 am-maybe even 6 am? Am I right Maggie? They are major morning people!

Ricardo isn't so much anymore and pre-children we both could sleep until 10-11am on the weekend without a problem. But he's much better about jumping out of bed as soon as his alarm goes off, or getting up to go to the gym, or hanging out with Sofia when she's up for the day at 6:30 am.

I think it's only fair that he gets up with her at 6:30 am. I mean, it his genes that made her a morning person. ;)

Max and Ruby

Anyone with preschoolers, knows Max and Ruby.

For those of you who do not have preschoolers, here is some information about this show:

Max and Ruby...Ruby and Max

Ella is obsessed with this show lately. I have to say, I don't see the appeal. I don't get it. But she loves it and requests it multiple times a day.

Ruby is the older sister, and to put it bluntly, she's one bossy broad. The sad thing is that she reminds me of Ella. Oy!

God lord, Ella is turning in to the typical bossy big sister. All day long we hear, "No baby sister." "Play with this, baby sister."

And today while I was feeding Sofia breakfast and she was chattering in her highchair, Ella walked by and casually said, "Shut up, Baby Sister". WHA WHAT WHAT? Did I hear that correctly?

Ricardo and I looked at each other and at the same time said, "Did she just say what I think she said?"

Oh my! I know where she gets it from...Ricardo, obviously. Ok, probably not Ricardo, but for what it's worth my shut ups are not directed at my children. They are directed at Mikka. Sometimes she just sits there whining and whining and whining so I say, "Ok Mikka, shut up!".

Ooops. I guess I'm going to have to knock that off.

TIMBERRRRRR!

Yesterday we had the tree guys here all day. We had the 7 hemlock trees (basically small pine trees) that bordered our yard and the Upchurches yard removed, the tops of the tall pine trees that line the back fence trimed, and the medium sized dogwood tree (sadly, our tree swing tree) removed. We did this to try to get more sunlight in the yard to help the grass grow better.

The grass looks horrible now because it's winter-well the beginning of Spring, but we have never been able to really get a nice lush yard because of the shade. This will hopefully help.

We also had some deadwood removed from two large oaks in the front yard.

Their cool truck, which upset Ella since I had to move my car. She couldn't stop worrying about my car. "Oh no, Mommy's car! Where did it go? Where's mommy's car?". Poor child, she's only 2.5 and she's already a worry wart.

During
Taking down the dogwood
The guy up high

And, I got a little video right as they were cutting down the trunk of the dogwood. Not super exciting, but kind of cool to watch trees go down in your own yard.

Yesterday afternoon, Ella and I went to Michael's to buy some more art supplies for her. She really loves to do projects so I wanted to find new things to keep her entertained that wouldn't make a giant mess.

She loves using her sidewalk chalk outside, as well as on her chalkboard easel that Abuela and Papa bought her, she also loves to color and paint-but paint is really messy and hard for me to set up and take down with Sofia in tow. So we bought some little paint pen type things, some dry erase markers for her whiteboard side of the easel and this cool purple lap table. She loves this thing! She just sat and colored for an hour last night and all morning before school she was coloring as well.

Look, she's ambidextrous! I really think she's a righty though. She's just exploring.

Today, before school, tracing her shoes...kind of. (HEY! I just realized-She's flipping me off!LOL)

In other news-I got the proof for Ella's school picture this morning when I dropped her off. It actually turned out pretty cute! I don't know how they got her to sit and face the camera, but they did. You'll have to wait to see it though until we get the actual print and I can scan it in.

Toodles!

El Mal De Ojo!

Shhhh, I don't want to tempt El Mal De Ojo (The Evil Eye) but Sofia slept through the night last night.....from 8:00 pm until 6:45 AM.

The night before she slept from 7:30 pm-3:30 PM and only took 3 oz and then slept until 6:45 AM.

The trick-only offer room temperature formula.

We don't think this is going to last very long. She's been on a formula strike. I don't blame her, really. She's been drinking warm breastmilk from the tap for the past 7 months and now she's having to drink formula from a bottle.

I hate that we have to wean. It's really breaking my heart to the point of tears, but I have to get back on my MS therapy. I know the best thing for her is a healthy mom, but I hate paying $$ for formula when we had such a wonderful and easy breastfeeding relationship.

I miss the closeness. I love when I nurse her and she take the arm that's underneath and rubs my side and then she takes the arm on top and either rubs my face or plays with my necklace. Now the bottle is in the way-though it doesn't stop her from trying to rub my face.

Anyway, we are weaning her so that I can get on Betaseron, and every other day injection. I'll probably be starting it in the next 2 weeks-as soon as a BETA nurse can come out and help me with my first injection.

Poor Sofia is just not loving formula. If I can get 24 oz in her during a day we're lucky and now she's even refusing solids. I know it's just a phase and hopefully soon she'll start taking both again. Luckily for her she's got some extra fat reserves. :)

Well, this post took on a totally different direction than I was planning, but I guess I needed to talk about it. Mothering is hard. Mothering with MS is even harder. It's hard making decisions like this. I know it's the best thing for us all, but since I became a mother I've totally changed the way I think. I do everything for my children. Every decision I make is for their benefit. It feels almost selfish to put myself first. And while logically I know that getting on my MS therapy is the right thing for both me and my family. I feel like I'm short changing Sofia.

Easter Sunday

We had a great time on Easter Sunday. I tried to take pictures but seeing that I had 26 people in our little house at one time, it was quite difficult for me to get around to taking pictures.

It was such a nice group of people. Everyone from one of Ricardo's college buddies and his fiance, to work friends, to our next door neighbors, to my friend Kim and her family (husband Tom, son Thomas, and daughter Ava.)

The food was excellent, the company was great. The kids were all well behaved and we even had a little Easter Egg hunt.

The girls had matching dresses but I didn't have a chance to get a picture of them together...boo.
Sorry for the lackluster pics, but trust me, it was a fun day.

Our next door neighbor, Sarah, and Sofia

Ella and Jessica-I think Sue has a better picture of this.

Kim, being goofy, Tom, Thomas, baby Ava and Shireen on the floor

Big Ava, The Upchurches, Pete and Tyson

The brunch table after it had been attacked by 26 people

Very Confused Ella with her Easter Eggs-She's saying, "Where did it go?"

Riding off with her eggs

Ella took a great 3 hour nap and even fell asleep with a house full of people. It was a fun day!

Hope you all had a nice Easter too.

Soulja Boy

Friday night we went to our friends Sue and Petes' house for dinner again. Ella just loves playing with Jessica, their 7 year old, and Ben, their 3 year old.

Jessica taught Ella how to do the Soulja Boy dance...too bad we didn't have the music on, but it's still funny.

All the kids also played the Wii

And of course, the night ended with the three kids snuggling on the couch...

A Moment of Silence

For Bobby the Betta Fish.

I honestly don't know what happened. He was doing well. He was thriving. He was blowing a ton of bubble nests. Then two nights ago, Ella and I did our weekly water change and then the next morning...dead.

It was a little creepy too. I went to feed him and he was hanging out, looking up, stuck in his tree. So I said, "Bobby, why are you just hanging out in your tree?"...then it hit me that he wasn't moving. EWWWWWWWWWW.

So yesterday we told Ella that Bobby was sleeping and last night when she went to bed, we cleaned out the tank and hid it and wouldn't you know, the first thing Ella asked for this morning was Bobby.

So, right now Ella and Ricardo are on their way to Petco to pick up "Bobby" from the fish Dr.

God bless this age where they don't know any better. Phew.

But poor Bobby. I'm sorry I didn't rinse the soap out enough. I will carry the guilt of your death to my grave...well until tomorrow at the very least.

Are you allowed to eat up your child?

Or at the very least, just nibble on her? Seriously, I'm going to have to eat her up. She's just too cute not too.

This is after her 2nd 30 minute nap of the day...see, she knows she has to be charming and cute.

I still can't believe she's standing so much at 7 months.

We went to the allergist today and she's not allergic to anything ( he tested her for peaches, bananas, apples, carrots, and eggs). Yahoo. She is still having a reaction to the peaches and bananas though which means she does have a sensitivity and we should avoid it for a bit, but it's most likely something she will outgrow very soon. So that's wonderful news.

She was such a trooper too. They did a skin test with 8 different needles (the poke them all at once) but she barely let out a cry. She did do the quivering lip thing though, which I have to say, is pretty darn cute.

I better get her to to try to nap one more time today. A bunch of people from KPMG are going over to Pete's house (Ella's boyfriend Ben and his big sister Jessica) for dinner and hanging out. Should be fun.

Moddy!

Bennifer ain't got nothin' on us. I'd like to introduce you to Moddy. Yes, that would be Mommy and Daddy. When Ella wants both of our attention or wants both of us to do something she has designated us as Moddy. Cause you know it takes too long to say Mommy and Daddy...

Example 1: Me: Ella who would you like to give you your bath tonight?
Ella: Moddy!

Example 2: Today when Ella saw us at her Purim parade she yelled, "Hi Moddy!!"

I love it. I feel like such a superstar.

Oh, Sofia is standing up while holding on to things. She needs a little help getting there but not much. I took this video today of her and Ella in her crib. She can get one leg up but then can't get her other knee out from under her.

This is crazy to me! She's just barely 7 months old. I don't think Ella was doing this until 9 months. Oh, and you get to see a little "sisterly love". Ella was about to give Sofia a little *love tap* but thought better of it at the last minute...phew.

Purim Parade!

Today was Ella's Purim parade at school. It was so cute. All the girls were Queen Esther. It was a little chaotic; what type of recital involving 2 and 3 year olds isn't?

My camera took horrible pictures-for some reason the flash wouldn't go off. But trust me, it was cute.

They warned us that some kids would get overwhelmed and if so, we should come down and sit with them. I'll give you one guess who got overwhelmed and started to cry...it's ok though, another mom from her class had to come down too and it was fun singing with her.

After we all went back to the classroom for snack and then mommy, daddy, and Ella went out to lunch together. It was really fun.

The proud parents

The beginning of Ella's freakout

Not a great video, but I love how she's yelling "Hi Daddy! I Love you Daddy!"

Back in the classroom at snacktime

Giving mommy some loving

Little Miss Chatterbox

Sofia is a chatty Cathy! She can't even stop long enough to poop!

She also took a ride in the swing for the very first time today. Oh, and yes I know that it's in the 70's in California-thank you very much. It's not here. (Sorry, it's so blurry; no flash and movement = blurry)

Today we made hamentaschen for Purim!

Today Ella, Sofia and I made hamentaschen cookies to celebrate Purim.

It was SO MUCH FUN! Seriously, the three of us had so much fun! It was almost as fun as having a root canal. Seriously.

No seriously (can I say seriously enough?). Seriously, WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Some crazy Martha Stewart alien crawled into my brain and decided that it would be a great idea to make cookies from scratch at 5pm on a Monday when my 7 month old had been cranky and clingy all day and my 2 1/2 year old had been yelling, "Daddy's home!" for the past 30 minutes.

It was the PERFECT time to make cookies (can you see me rolling my eyes at myself here?).

So Sofia sat in her lame highchair (her words, not mine) intermittently crying and whining the whole time.

Ella found the packet of ready made Pillsbury cookies that you just put on the tray and cook in the oven and kept begging me to make those instead; "no, these cookies, mommy." While I tried to convince her that we were having SOO much fun getting flour all over the kitchen. She wasn't buying it.

About 20 minutes into the adventure, after she realized I wasn't going to just make the darn ready made cookies, she gave up, walked over to Sofia and pulled off her socks and just smelled her feet and yelled "pee you, baby sister!" while I continued to roll out dough and try to shape little triangles for Haman's hat.

But look how beautifully they turned out...it was well worth the struggle.

Ok, seriously, these are the ugliest hamentaschen I've ever seen.

I contemplated blaming Ella. I was going to write that I let her shape them herself but then I thought better of it. There's a special place in Mommy Hell for mommies who blame their children for their poor baking skills.

The worst part?

When they were out of the oven, Ella was so excited to eat one. So I sent her to her snack table with a cookie and a cup of milk. She was so quiet over there enjoying her hamentaschen...or so I thought. 5 minutes later she comes back to the kitchen with such a deflated face with her plate in hand-with the cookie still on it-and just says, "ewww mommy".

I wound up making the ready made cookies, which she inhaled. hmmph.

After the great hamentaschen debacle, we waited for daddy to get home from work. I think Ella's non response to my cookie question sums it up. (by the way, listen to Sofia just chatter away....oy, are we in trouble or what?)

Here's more of them waiting for daddy

Fun Weekend

What a fun weekend.

First, Ella and Sofia took a bath together, but this time Baby Sister got to be in the big tub without the bath chair! They both loved it!

Then on Saturday we had a pre-Easter lunch and Easter Egg Hunt with a bunch of our friends over at Ava's house (Shireen and Andrew are her parents). It was a great time.

Ella was so excited to hunt for eggs she could barely eat lunch and just stood at the front door with her basket waiting for us to let her out.

She had decided she was going to find all the BLUE eggs and when she first started that's exactly what she did-look for the blue eggs. But she quickly realized she was missing a lot of eggs and wasting valuable time looking for only blue. She caught on quickly and started loading all eggs in to her basket.

She got so many that when she wasn't looking Ricardo and I had to reach in and throw some back out so that the other kids could get them.

She's off!

Ella and her buddy, Ben-partners in crime

Look at all those eggs!!!Sofia and Daddy enjoying the festivities

This is Ella on the car ride home. Anyone who knows Ella knows she doesn't fall asleep easily. She was tuckered out even after all the sugar she consumed!

That evening, our good friend from San Diego, who also works for KPMG, and is now working out of the Manhattan office, and his fiance, Jenny, came over for dinner.Ella was so excited to have them over and kept yelling, "They're here!" everytime a car drove by our house while we were waiting for them.



This is a crazy picture of Ella because she's doing her fake cheese smile, but she loved Kevin.

She stayed up until 9:15 pm because she was having too much fun. Kevin and Jenny were nice enough to humor Ella and sing Happy Birthday to her, when it was dessert time, complete with the lights turned down and hanukkah candles (that's all we had) lit. Luckily, Jenny is a preschool teacher, so she was extra understanding. :)

Today, both girls slept in for us until 8:45 am!!! They seriously both woke up at the exact same time. How cool is that?

We spent the day just hanging out and strolling the Palisades Mall in NY.


Next week is a busy week for us.

Monday-Ella has school pictures! I can't wait to see how these turn out.
Wednesday-Ella has the Purim parade at school
Thursday-We're having over our friends' Thomas and Ava and their momma, Kim as well as our friend, Noa, who's due with her first baby in May.
Friday-Sofia has her appointment with the allergist to see what's going on and why peaches, bananas and apples make her break out in a giant rash.
Sunday-We're having about 24 people over to our house for Easter brunch.

Where do they learn these things?

Ella has learned something new. Something I'm not so proud of, but at the same time, a little bit amused by it.

She's learned to STEAL! Ok, maybe steal is to strong of a word. She's learned to casually misplace items that belong to other people that she would like to keep for herself.

Seriously, how do they learn this?

So, baby sister has a pair of purple pajamas that Ella loves (remember, we've already established that Ella is obsessed with purple). She always comments on Baby Sister's purple pajamas but yesterday while I was changing Sofia's diaper, Ella went in to her pajama drawer, took out the purple pajamas and then quietly and casually left the room.

I wasn't paying full attention and forgot that she left the room with them. So later in the day, when I went to put Ella down for a nap, I noticed that her pajama drawer was open a bit and there was Sofia's purple pajamas stuffed in to her pajama drawer!

What a little stinker! I had to stifle my smile and laughter. I mean, I love seeing her little mind at work. I love that she thought that if she just stuffed them into her pajama drawer that I wouldn't notice and they would just magically become hers.

Of course, I took them out and told Ella that she can't just take things that aren't hers, etc...

but it was pretty funny.

Chomp Chomp Chomp

This is an oldie but a goodie. My mom reminded me of a funny thing that Ella used to do when she was eating pureed food. She would chomp like her dentures were about to fall out!

She had just turned 8 months old in this video.

Ramblings...

First of all, look at this! A picture that I'm actually in! Last Friday, Sofia and I met my friend, Noa, at Mara's Bakery for tea and breakfast. Noa is awesome and is pregnant and due with her first child (a girl!) in May. We try to get together every couple of weeks while Ella is in school. She snapped this picture of Sofia and me.

There's nothing very exciting to report. We're all just chugging along.

Remember that tooth of Sofia's that was at the surface at 4 months? Yea, well that tooth still hasn't popped up. It's just sitting there taunting us. Then, she had a molar, yes a molar, popping through the side of her gum at her 6 month well baby visit. Her pediatrician even recommended we go to a pediatric dentist to have it looked at. Well, not only has that tooth not popped up, it's gone back into the gum and is no longer poking through the side.

So, here we are at almost 7 months old and still no teeth. Oh well, it was pretty exciting to think she was getting them.

Saturday night, Ricardo and I went to dinner with our friends, Michelle and Rob. We went to this amazing restaurant, Fascino in Montclair . We had a great time. The food was amazing and it was BYO (I love this about NJ) so we both brought a nice bottle of wine. A wonderful night out...of course when we got home at midnight, we were greated by Tiffany (our awesome sitter) AND Sofia. She decided to party with Tiffany from 10:30pm until we got home. Sorry Tiffany!

I'll just leave you with some random pictures from the past week.

Sofia got a new booster highchair. She was all excited about it, until she checked out her Cousin Kianna's blog and saw that her mom and dad bought her the Cadillac of high chairs and we got her the compact. To be fair, she does have a full size highchair (Ella's hand-me-down Chicco) but it doesn't have all the cool toys that Kianna's does. I told her to get over it. As you can see in the picture...she's trying to muster a smile.


Have I mentioned that besides purple cupcakes, Ella is also obsessed with play-doh? She loves it.


She's also learning to take off her clothes all by her self! What a big girl...but sometimes, it's not as easy as it looks.


When I went to get her up from her nap the other day, I was greated with this:
Well, one out of two arms isn't that bad.

Lately, Ella and Sofia have been interacting with each other a lot more and it's adorable! I just love to watch them play together.

Why yes, that is a baby doll stroller, but Ella wouldn't leave Sofia alone until I put her in it and let her push her around a bit.

Ella also enjoys playing in the diaper boxes for a couple of days after we make a diaper run. This time she asked Baby Sister to come in.

Sofia is looking at me like, What the heck was she just doing to my hair?

(side note: Poor Mikka in the background. Doesn't she remind you of that girl with the back and neck brace in 16 Candles?)

I love this picture, because Ella is smelling Sofia's feet and saying, "Pee you, stinky feet baby sister!" It cracked me up because that's what I always do to both of them and they both crack up whenever I do it. Ella is such a cute little copycat.

Well, that's it. Wish I had something really exciting to share, but we're just living life and I'm just trying to document it so I can look back when the girls are grown and remember the everyday things, not just the big moments.

Oh, Poor Mikka!

Oh, poor Mikka had a rough day on Wednesday. She spent the day at the "doggy doctor" and Ella cried for her all day long.

Two things are going on with Mikka; 1) She had a cyst/tumor growing on her right leg that we were worried about, so she had to have it removed and sent for a biopsy. We're pretty positive that it's benign; the biopsy is really for peace of mind. But now her little leg is shaved and she has stiches and she's supposed to wear her cone or according to Ella, her hat, for two weeks. Poor girl is not happy about it. Would you?

Luckily, we can afford a live in nurse. She's expensive, but she hasn't left her side all morning, so it's money well spent.


2) She tore a ligament in her left knee. They think it's her meniscus . She's having a hard time putting any weight on it at all. So, now we have to see a specialist to find out what kind of surgery she needs. Ca-ching, ca-ching.

We can't even think about the $ or else will go crazy (already $1K down). I mean it's not like we won't do the surgery, so we just have to close our eyes and ears when they tell us the total and know it's for a very valued member of the family.

Can you believe Mikka is almost 8 1/2 years old?? Where did the time go.

She's a great dog and so good to the girls and they just adore her.