I have decided it's time to give you an update on each of us. Nothing too fancy, just a rundown on where we
are right now.
Ella
I can hardly believe that my precious girl starts 2nd
grade in 2 weeks!!! I still marvel at
all of the things we never thought we’d see.
Phooey to all of those doctors who told us she wouldn’t live through the
night…then that she wouldn’t live through the week…then that she wouldn’t live
through the month…then that she wouldn’t live to see 2 years old…and so on.
If I had 1 word to sum up who Ella is right now, I’d say she’s
curious. Ella asks questions all day. She asks questions about everything…what
words mean, why something does what it does, why do we need to do an activity,
why is AJ crying, why is Sabrina excited, why did the air conditioner click on,
why did the air conditioner click off, what is that beeping, who is making that
noise, who is the person on TV, what am I watching on TV, why am I watching
that show, etc. Who, what, when, where,
why and how ALL DAY LONG! One day I
tried to count how many questions she asked, and I couldn’t keep up. I find myself torn between loving her
curiosity and loving that she has such a desire to know things, and getting
annoyed that I am constantly answering questions. In the morning I am at my most patient. She can ask me 100 questions a minute and I
will answer them all calm and direct. By
3:00 my patience is waning. I still
answer her questions, but if I’m in a private place I will sigh before giving
my answer, or sometimes I will tell her that I am in the middle of something else
and will answer her in a minute. By the
end of the day, I’m done. Just about the
time I think I can’t handle one more question, Joe walks in the door and takes
over.
Every day I remind myself that someday I am going to miss
this. When she’s an adult and has moved
out of our house, or when she’s a teenager and still living here but has
decided that it’s not cool to talk to mom and dad, I’m really going to miss
this. I try to answer all of her
questions, if I know the answers or can think about how to explain them (I mean
really, how do you define the word “because?”), but some of her questions
border on being nosey. She wants to know
everything…EVERYTHING. I don’t want to
discourage her curiosity, but there are some things she just doesn’t need to
know.
Ella is at that fragile age where she’s not quite a little
girl, but not quite a tween. She still
loves princess movies (let me count the times I have watched Frozen, or
listened to the CD), but she no longer dresses in her princess clothes every
day, and rarely plays with her princess toys anymore. She’s still very into girl superheroes. She isn’t quite sold on American Girl…or dolls
of any kind really. She loves to read,
is obsessed with cooking shows and wants to be a chef when she grows up, and thinks
that being a big sister is the best thing that has ever happened to her…although
she has made it very clear that she does not want any more kids because, “They
are too much work!”
AJ
AJ is a whopping 8 months old! He went from scooting to crawling in a matter
of 2 days and has been on the go ever since.
Within a day of crawling he started trying to pull himself up. We always knew that having AJ would be a
completely different experience than it was with Ella, so we were sort of
prepared for this. From 6 months on,
Ella was the kid that if you told her not to do something, she wouldn’t do
it. If you told her not to bite, she
never bit again. If you told her not to
touch something, she never laid another finger on it. AJ is definitely not that child. When he bites and I say not to (especially
when nursing…yowza!) he will look at me and give me the biggest smile and start
to giggle. If I tell him not to touch
something, he looks right at me then goes right along grabbing for it. The kid is a mover and a shaker and is into
anything he can get his hands on. I told
Joe that we are actually going to have to buy baby gates and baby proof our
house! We never had to do that with
Ella.
AJ loves to eat! He easily
eats 2 containers of food per meal, and is making a pretty easy transition to
chewable foods. So far he loves carrots,
meatballs and pancakes, but he’s not so excited about baby rice puffs. He has 2 teeth on the bottom and just last
week the top middle 2 started poking through.
Now the 2 sides on top are about to make their debut. No more sweet gummy smile.
All of these teeth have given AJ that awesome perpetual
runny nose. No matter how many times I wipe
his nose, AJ still manages to have snot all over his top lip. This ultimately leads to the dry snot look. Yes, it’s just as disgusting as you think it
is.
Due to his love of food, AJ is quite the chunker. He’s filling out 12 month clothes easily, and
wears some 18 month clothes. We have his
9 month check-up in a few weeks, so we’ll see how much he weighs and how tall
he is.
Joe and Katie
Joe has been gone this week for work travel. There is nothing like work travel to remind
you how valuable your spouse is. Joe
offered to ask someone to come over and help, but I was adamant that I could
handle it on my own. I have now promised
that I won’t make the same mistake a second time. With 2 kids, one who is into everything, I
really need a second set of hands around here.
Joe got home last night around 1 am, and Sabrina and I were so happy to
see him walk through the door.
I’m not sure about Ella, but I am ready for school to start
back up. It has been a great summer full
of wonderful activities, but it’s time to get back into a family routine. AJ needs his routine back. Mommy needs AJ to have his routine back. The poor kid has been shuffled all over
creation this summer and is adjusting as well as can be expected, but it’s time
to get back on schedule. His sleeping
has been pretty erratic, which doesn’t bode well for mommy. I miss my sweet 4 month old that would sleep
10 hours without a hitch. Between
massive growth spurts, 6 new teeth, and horrible naps due to constantly being
in motion, his sleep schedule is a mess.
I am confident that once we are back in a steady routine, he will be
back to his awesome sleeping self.
Sabrina
I can't leave out the greatest dog in America! She is just as sweet as ever! Unfortunately Sabrina hurt one of her hind legs a couple of weeks ago, so Joe had to take her to the vet to get checked out. She spent a week on pain medicine and taking it easy (no dog park for our sweet dog) and she seems to be doing better. She's still a little tentative with her leg, and sometimes when she's going too fast up or down the stairs you can tell that it starts to hurt, but she's doing a lot better.
She has finally accepted AJ as one of our own and has even started trying to play with him. He will crawl toward her, and she will run away, then come back and play, then run away, he will crawl after her and the whole thing starts over. She kisses his face and loves to lick his feet and hair. No, I don't mind him getting dog slobber on him. If dog slobber hurt a kid then I would have been in trouble long ago. Besides, I read an article several months ago about how kids who grow up with dogs are healthier.
There you go. That’s
the update from the Murray house. We’re
all doing well and loving life.
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