Cousin S turns 4 today! Holy hell how did that happen? 4 years ago today, we met Auntie H at the hospital at 6am in her purple sweatshirt, and at 9:20am we got our first girl! Red haired and rosy cheeked. She was sweet as sugar then, and she hasn’t changed at all! Well…except that she’s a big girl now, a big cousin, a big sister and a big love!
We love you cousin S!!!!!! We hope you have the happiest birthday ever! We will see you later to party like princesses!
We here at the LK house want to wish everyone a very happy New Year! 2012 brought a lot of things…a lot of wonderful things…and then a really terrible thing. So in light of the recent months of 2012, Miss A, her Mommy & her Daddy would like to wish everyone a much improved 2013!
We had a wonderful night out with our amazing friends D&H. Thank you for all the presents!!! Thank you for sharing your New Years Eve with us!
Cheers to washing away all the mud & starting fresh!
Now it is time for bed! See ya next year!!!
How is it only 6 weeks? It feels like a year. I know I’ve aged, I think Miss A has aged, and this situation sure has gotten old!
SLAP
Silver lining…b/c dwelling just isn’t getting us anywhere! I’m renovating my entire house! I am really excited and nervous about it but I think we’ve got a great team so far and I’m feeling better than I thought I would. I’m super far away from my home & from my friends and that is really hard, but I’m trying to make it home at least once a week! Tomorrow will be that day! I’m excited to see the new framing and progress we’ve made since Friday! We’re also meeting a kitchen designer & we’ll plan out the layout!
Debating on high-gloss vs. painted cabinets, flat fronts vs. shaker, marble vs. ceasarstone, drawers vs. cabinets….to name a few! Opinions are welcome…except the ones that say high gloss & marble are high maintenance … I know that already!
On the Miss A front, she started school last week! She had a great week all things considered! The drop off was torture…but the pick up was AWESOME! She only gave me hell 1 day out of 3, and it was more to do with her being hungry and over stimulated than anything else! She had picture day, which I was told she did with her blankie on her lap and they said she smiled! She had pajama day which was exciting because she got to wear her princess tutu OUTSIDE! And to top off her week, her Daddy dropped her off and picked her up on Friday! All great things. Oh – and she’s been going PP on the potty there!!!!!!!
In Mommy news, I’m adjusting to living here in this new place that is more like a foreign country, and I’m settling in slowly but surely. Having some time to explore the area and drive around while Miss A is in school has been helpful.
Now that we have internet and I have a very little bit of downtime, I plan to be back up and running here on LKSquared…hope to have lots more updates soon!
xoxo
This past Sunday we went on our annual family apple & pumpkin pick. Here are some highlights of the pumpkin portion of the day! The P girls and one of their perfect pumpkins!
Miss A was on the hunt for the “littlest” one. She found it!
She saw her Daddy hold one above his head…she had to show him who was stronger!
My 2 favorites & their pumpkin finds!
This year we went to Lewin Farms out in Wading River. The pumpkin patch was really nice & they seem to have the best deal with an “all you can carry” for $25. Here’s my Mister using his abnormally long wingspan for some good!!! We took home 12 pumpkins for $25! Go Mister LK!
We had a great time as always. Miss A’s little pumpkin is now residing next to her crib so she can see it while she sleeps! We’re going to be experimenting with carving or painting the big ones…we are just making the plans now!
Welcome October!!!!
I love my girl. Today is a lazy day recovering from hosting a holiday filled with friends and family. My girl makes me so happy. She’s silly and smart and sassy. I love every inch of her. Happy Thursday.
It is day 2. Day 1 went much better than day 2, but I thought that would happen! My little girl does not like change…especially when it involves Mommy leaving her at school all day!
The teachers say she’s doing great & her daily reports have been glowing! Her separation from me in the mornings are rough, but we expected this. She’s also SUPER attached to me in the evenings…she won’t let Daddy near her without a meltdown, but I’m guessing that this is part of the adjustment and she’ll be back to her Daddy obsessed self in no time!
Today’s big deal was that she got her whole class to have a dance party! They told me when I picked her up that she made everyone take their shoes off and get dancin’! I love my little dancing queen!
I also love being a SAHM to a kid in school! Even if I have a ton of things to get done during the day….doing them without a toddler attached to my tushie is so much easier!
Day 3 is tomorrow. She went to bed tonight saying that she doesn’t want to go to school tomorrow. She’ll be sad when I drop her off, but she’s gonna have a good day! I just know it!
Miss A was born 9 days late. Most people would assume that last week of pregnancy was “the longest week of my life”, they’d be wrong. We moved into our house during the blizzards of 2010-2011, during which time we had an ant infestation that movies are made of…leaving me stuck in the house for a week straight with thousands of ants on every floor surface with an 8 month old. Some people would think THAT was “the longest week of my life”…wrong again.
The Friday before Labor Day we took away Miss A’s bobo…and THIS my friends has been the LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE. This will continue to be the longest month of my life until she hits puberty…I’m sure of it.
The disappearance of these little F*ers has, in 1 week, reversed so many of the forward steps we’ve been making with Miss A over the last 2 months! She has been angry…and sleepless…and that is a lethal combination! For posterity…here’s how the last week went down.
We removed all bobos from the crib, house, car (that I could find) on Friday morning after she woke up. We boxed them up & “sent them to the babies in the hospital”. I started psyching her up for her trip to Toys R Us later that day where she was going to get a big reward for being so generous to babies in need…she could get ANYTHING she wanted in the store. And we’d get her a donut too! We then got the hell out of the house! Distraction is key. We walked around the block, ran some errands, went out to lunch…and somewhere on that afternoon drive, she fell asleep. (She hasn’t napped in her crib since) When she woke up, we went out for a donut to hold her off until Daddy got home and we went to the toy store…and took another 12 walks around the block to collect rocks and smell the flowers and look for more puppies!
When Daddy got home we went to the toy store…where she had the choice of anything in the store. We pushed a bike, we pushed a hot wheels….she chose a bed. A TODDLER BED! A Minnie Mouse, made Mommy get hives from the plastic toddler bed. After the 20th “are you sure you want THAT one?!” she finally told us to shut up. And we did. And home we went to take down the crib & put up the bed. Thank you Mister LK. Thank you & I’m sorry.
Stupidest decision ever. In our defense, we thought it might make more sense to her that there were no bobo’s allowed in big girl beds….and so….we went to bed Friday night like this…
Can you spot the sneaky dog
She slept that night from 9pm to 7am. Pretty darn good Miss A. If only it would have lasted! Her routine for the following 2 nights was to wake up at 2-3am, turn on her lights, walk out of her room to check that Mommy & Daddy weren’t having some secret party she wasn’t invited to. She’d walk back into her room & play…loudly…until 5am…when she’d hop back into bed for an hour & come out to get us at 6am. 6AM?????? NOT A CHANCE!
Monday…the crib was back up & she was back in it. Through trial and error we realized that she needs to learn how to self soothe herself back to sleep, but that won’t happen if she can get up and turn on her lights! She’s been doing really great in her crib & although she’s been crying herself to sleep for longer than she used to, it’s been about 2 days since she’s mentioned the bobo & I am so proud of her!
This has been a really difficult change for Miss A & for Mommy. I am glad we stuck with it & we’re working hard to get over this habit & help her to soothe herself from within!
This has definitely been the longest week of my life so far, but there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. Miss A starts school tomorrow! While I’m sad to see summer leave…I can’t wait for the fall & all the wonderful things coming our way … especially 3 days a week of school 9-3. That sounds awesome to me 🙂
To say that I am proud of the progress Miss A, Mister LK & I have made in behavior modifications is a gross understatement. We’ve been working hard on our communication, reading her signals and responding to her needs without indulging her unwanted behavior. Mister LK and I aren’t perfect parents, but what we are is determined to be the best parents we can be. Consistency and follow through have been key…our positive attitudes are the most important factor & keeping ourselves in check is physically exhausting…but she’s worth it!
Miss A got to spend a lovely afternoon with her cousins, who she has seriously missed over the summer. There was lots of laughing, dancing, swimming & love. It was beautiful. Until it wasn’t …. Then Miss A came down with a little fever…so we had to leave…thankfully the fever was gone in the morning.
Here are some highlights of their cousin day…
It was 3 months since I’d gotten my hair done…and considering my genetic predisposition for grey hair, this was simply unacceptable. So we loaded up the car with Miss A & Mr T & headed to Joseph & Co to do something about the situation on top of my head!
The whole way there Miss A was quizzing me on what we were going to do, and who was going to do it, and where this place was, and she was also insisting that not just Mommy gets her hair done, but Miss A should get her hair cut too. If you’ve seen my photos you know that she’s rockin’ the pixie cut…without the cut! There was a snowball’s chance in hell I was cutting her hair…but I promised we would see what we could do with her!
I don’t know why I don’t spend more time with Joseph & Co….they love my dog, they love my baby and they watch them, feed them, entertain them…all while taking care of me! It’s the best! This time, Miss A was very vocal about what she wanted…and they obliged!
“Mommy…I want my hair WASHED”
“Mommy…I want my nails done”
“Mommy…I want my hair DONE”
Miss A’s reward for being the best behaved girl for almost 2 weeks straight….her day of pampering. In my book…it was a very fair trade!!!
Vampires that is…
Now I’m all caught up…5 seasons in 4 days. Miss A is probably very happy that I’m done with this since I might have been ignoring her a little too much! Good thing this week was a fairly good one and she let me have much more down time than usual with an exceptionally low number of tantrums!
Sookie is nice but we have our own little fairy princess…and I love her!
I hope to get more blogging done this week since I won’t tie up all of my free time with Vamps… Thanks AG for getting me hooked…
LK squared's Blog 