I Totally See the Likeness

Niamh had a homework assignment tonight that had her measure something using the length of 2 people’s feet, and then compare the measurements. Then, she had to draw a picture of what she measured. We measured Daddy. Here is her drawing of him.  I think it is spot on. Notice the attention to detail with the size of his ears and his tongue hanging out.

Have You Seen the Sun?!!!!!!

 
The last few days around here have been SO GORGEOUS!!!! I had been complaining that we didn’t get any snow in the city this year. But now, fuhgeddaboudit, I don’t want to see snow in my yard until next winter….though it does actually make my dirt yard look quite lovely.
The sun came just in time for Finn to try out his birthday bike. Took him about 2 1/2 minutes to figure it out, find his balance, and just go for it down our hill. What a blast.
 
This kid, I tell ya….a total nut ball.
 
We are taking care of Lola, the 3 legged dog, while her incredible Mama is in Haiti providing medical care. We needed a little bit of canine companionship back at the ranch.

Oh, side note, the former Hollywood Video down the road is being reincarnated as a state liquor store. I guess I’ll be seeing a bit more of some friends in the near future. I guess my love of rum is going to become a bit of a problem with temptation so close to home. How cool is it that I can really run to the liquor store while my kids are napping! I am totally going to relate with so many of the families that I……nope, not going to complete that thought.
 
 
Niamh could only join us for a quickie bike ride because she was stuck in school all day. School shmool drool.
We also went to the park with who other than Jaya. Duh.
Look, Mom, no winter coat!



Niamh climbed a tree higher than she had ever climbed before.

But, she got stuck, and couldn’t get down.

Because I wasn’t wearing my cute new boots and skinny jeans, I decided that calling Seattle Fire Dept was pointless, so I rescued her myself. I love that Mel took the photo!

4 Years of Finn

I’m not going to lie, when the ultrasonographer told us that you were a boy, I cried. I hope that she thought they were tears of joy, but really they were tears of “I didn’t think it was possible to have anything other than a girl. I hadn’t planned on a boy.” I would see these crazy, wild little boys at the park and fear for our future. I would fear for all the beat downs Niamh had in her future. I vowed to make you in to the kind of boy that the other kids made fun of. I was going to make you a wimpy Mama’s Boy. I haven’t completely succeeded, which is probably good, but you sure do love your Mama. And, Kid, I am wild about you.
Finn, here is your birth story. For anyone not interested, go ahead and skip down to paragraph 4.
We moved to Seattle from Los Angeles 6 weeks before your due date. I was sure you were going to be an early baby. Actually, I thought that it was the law of nature that your second child comes before the time your first child did. Niamh was born one day early, so I was certain you’d be at least a week early. My OB wanted to know what book I read that in. You were FIVE days late. FIVE DAYS is a lot when you are expecting an early baby. No matter, you made up for it with just a wee bit of time in labor. I woke up at 2:30ish AM. We were renting a place in Seattle so we had to wait for Grandma Pat to drive from Issaquah to take care of your sleeping sister before leaving for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital just before 7AM. I know because it was change of shift for the nurses so we had about 6 nurses in 15 minutes because there was confusion about who was going to be assigned to us. I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to be assigned to us, I wasn’t screaming or anything. I am pretty sure I said “Please” when I told them that I would indeed appreciate an epidural. Lucky for me my own OB was the doc on call (until 8am) and she lived right around the corner from the hospital. Which, again, was lucky because I was pretty darn close to delivering you when we got there…not a whole lot of time to spare for someone to get stuck in morning traffic. I’ll skip a lot of the details but I was about half a finger width from being fully dilated when I arrived so I really had to convince them that I refused to deliver you without an epidural. “We have to get a liter of fluid in you before the anesthesiologist will even come bedside,” they said. “Well, better start getting those IVs in and might as well grab some pressure bags from the OR. Why don’t you go ahead and page him and tell him to just start walking on down here,” I replied (politely). I won. You were born half an hour after the epidural, at 7:50AM weighing 8lbs, 5 ounces.
Summary: FIVE DAYS late, less than SIX HOURS of labor, delivered 10 minutes before my OB (who I adored) would have passed me on to the next physician on call. I forgive you for being late.
We really tested your adaptability as a newborn. We lived in 4 different places before you were 6 months old. You weren’t very adaptable. You were very cute though and you were an advanced smiler. You started smiling when you were only 3 weeks old. There is nothing like a baby smiling right at you to make your frustration melt away. Mother Nature is a smart woman. She has genius ways to keep Mothers from eating their annoying, crying, sleepless young.
Eventually, you went from screaming newborn to mellow infant. I’m pretty sure the change coincided with the sudden weight gain and feeling of satiety. (By 9 months old, you outweighed your sister who was 26 months your senior.)
You met all your milestones late. You were just too satisfied with whatever you had in front of you to feel the need to roll over, crawl, or walk. Even if you had nothing to play with, you always had your feet! Because you were happy to lie on your back, motionless, staring at the ray of sunlight on the wall, you had a flat head. What does a Pediatric ICU Nurse/Mom do when her kid has a flat head? She takes him to the Craniofacial Clinic to be fit for a skull shaping helmet. Sorry about that, Finn. We both left humiliated.  Your head is fine now. There was no need for me to go out and buy you all those hats.
Now,Finn, you are the perfect combination of crazy boy energy zipping around the house “flying” airplanes and “racing” cars, mixed with Mama’s Boy sweetness. You are cuddly and sensitive. (That comes from your dad.) Unlike your sister who gets really ticked when she is in trouble (that comes from me), you get so upset and sad that I actually want to apologize to you for feeling angry with you…even when you punch Niamh in the stomach just because the crazy boy energy overwhelms your spirit for a brief moment, you somehow make me feel sorry for your hurt feelings.
This is a very short selection of the very long list of things you do and love that make me smile.

• I love that you call oatmeal, “etmeal”. 
• I love how you always tell me you are cold right before you request Hot Chocolate, like its a treatment rather than a treat.
• You miss your sister every day when she is in school and you give her huge squeezing hugs when she emerges from the classroom. You two are the very best of friends.
• You have a super human sense of smell. You know when I have eaten a peanut M&M when you are in the next room.
• Your favorite meal is salmon, and you like lettuce on your sandwiches.
• You love when I tickle your feet, scratch your back, or rub your head. I can actually see your pupils shrink as you become sedate with a back scratch.
• You are interested in the minute details of airplanes and cars. Not just vrooming them around the house, but making sure take off is perfect, and landing is safe.
• You try to copy your big sister’s big phrases but sometimes they come out wrong, like, “You get what you get and you don’t throw fish.” (The right way is, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”)
• You love hugs. You really love hugs from me.
• I don’t have to bribe you to share with other kids.
• You wonder what your best buddy, Cameron, is doing when you aren’t with him at school.
• You are funny in a way that I don’t think is normal for kids your age.

I Love You, Finn, with all my heart. Happy Birthday, Little Dude.
 










 











(When we get around to having your party, we will add some party pics.)

Eddy

7 years ago, when my little sister heard that I was pregnant with Niamh, she voiced concern that I might not love the baby as much as I loved my dog, Eddy. She had good reason to be worried. That dog and I had a pretty special bond.

Eddy was the world’s worst guard dog, and the best everything else you want in a dog, friend, and companion. My heart is still broken because he is gone, and I kind of hope it doesn’t ever heal.

It all happened pretty darn fast. Though we now realize there were signs of a brain tumor over the last few months, we don’t think he suffered until his last day, which just happened to be my 35th birthday. Steve and I couldn’t stand to see him in pain and scared. We did what we thought was the brave and selfless thing to do. There will probably always be a little piece of me that wishes I had endless resources to be able to go full throttle with diagnostic tests, surgery, chemo, steroids, and more anti-seizure meds. But, really, that wouldn’t have been fair to a pooch that would never know what the hell was happening to him.

I don’t know if I wish I were 4 years old, like Finn, and not know that this is so painful. Or, if I prefer to cry about him when I remember what a perfect pet he was for me and our family because he deserves all the tears that show how much I appreciate his sweet and goofy personality.

We all miss you, Sweet Pup. We’d give anything to see you run past us, through the dog door, with a stolen dirty diaper in your mouth again.

Play Days and Play Dates

Sometimes our play dates last so long, everyone leaves in jammies.

Sometimes, its about who can be the goofiest.

Sometimes, its just Niamh and Finn, dressed as princesses.

Sometimes, we let Finn have a friend over, too.

Sometimes, Niamh gets to have 2 friends over at the same time.

But, it sure seems like we have a lot of fun around here. It also seems like the Parsons Girls might as well have their own drawer in the spare room and leave extra toothbrushes in the bathroom, because we are falling for them.