Pink Eyed Monster

Poor Lilly, she just got over a cold...but not before passing it to Bryan and I, and now she has pink eye. In both eyes. No biggie though, I called the doctor and he sent in a prescription for eye drops without me even having to bring her to his office. Needless to say she hates getting the eye drops in, but she is very brave and lets us do it anyway. Of course she needs a drink of milk and a cuddle afterward to make her feel better.
After administering the eye drops, drink and cuddle Bryan put the eye drops away (I know, I was as shocked as you are) and this is what he found when he came back into the living room. Lilly was putting eye drops into her baby's eyes.
Then she gave her a drink of her milk and a cuddle.

Then, I asked her to smile and show me her eyes and this is the face I got. As you can see pink eye doesn't bother her a bit.

First Taste of Spring

While sitting on the couch earlier this week I looked out the window at the wind and rain and wondered how cold it actually was. So, I looked up the temperature for that day, but was immediately distracted by the weather forecast for Thursday. It was promising to be 69 and sunny. I wasted no time in planning a park day, the first of the year. After a little discussion my friend Tania and I decided that a picnic at the park with cupcakes at the new pastry shop to follow was just the thing.
Well, as usual, the weather man was wrong. It was not sunny, it was cloudy and windy. And, it was not 69 degrees, it was closer to 50. But, we stuck to the plan, added a couple of sweatshirts and headed to the park.
Lilly and Avery insisted on wearing their sunglasses even though the sun would not make an appearance for another hour or so. They also insisted on holding hands all the way to the playground and then on the walk to the bakery.
Lilly and Avery decided very early in the day that they would both be having a pink cupcake. They didn't care at all what the flavor was, just as long as the frosting was pink. When we walked into the pastry shop they marched right up to the counter, still holding hands of course, and Lilly said to the lady, "I want a pink cupcake, and she does too".
Preparing to enjoy the cupcake. Enjoying the cupcake.

On a side note: The cupcakes were a little different than what the girls expected ad neither Lilly nor Avery finished the icing or took a bite of the actual cupcake. What was meant to be a fun treat after a great day of playing was actually more like a punishment. The girls were excited about ordering pink cupcakes, but that's pretty much where the fun and excitement ended. They each licked a little of the icing off and then declared that they were all done and wanted to get down. But, not before Lilly sneezed all over her cupcake and the table and not before Avery stuck her icing covered tongue in Tania's water and coughed in her face.

The Second Time Around

Being born second means that everything you do has been done before and you need to pull out all the stops to impress your parents, because they've seen it all before. As a second child I have spent my most of my life blaming my parents for this and for failing to remember many of my precious moments like they had most of Wes's. His first steps, first words and many other firsts are all accurately recorded, either on film and paper or simply tucked neatly into my mother's memory. There are pictures of Wes in all stages of childhood. To be fair there are pictures of me doing the same things, but Wes is in most of them too. I have been somewhat bitter about this, swearing that I wouldn't do the same thing when I had kids.
So, when Lilly was born I took pictures, waited patiently for milestones so I could record them and then wrote about most of them in this very blog. I was determined to do the same with my second baby. Then, that second baby was actually born and we became extremely busy. Too busy to take pictures, too busy to make notes, and too busy to record everything. But, I wasn't too busy to notice. And, I'll throw this out there...I wasn't too busy to acknowledge that my mom was right, it is really hard to be involved with my kids and take pictures at the same time.
Jack is flying through milestones. He smiled for the first time right on cue and then recently he added laughing to his resume. We did get some really cute video of that, but we didn't need to because he'll laugh almost on command. (Its a deep raspy little laugh, but its happy and cute). Then, just yesterday he rolled over. And yes, I missed it. I put him on his back on his blanket with a mirrored toy. Then, I went to help Lilly in the potty. When I got back Jack was on his tummy, up on his elbows and grinning from ear to ear. He obviously knew he had done something special and was very proud of himself.