It makes me sad how much times goes by between these posts. 2 months with no documentation. Everyone knows the first year flies by, and how much change happens every day. And Jenna will be 4 next time I blink.

I am resolving to be better about this because facebook can’t be archived. I want the girls to read this one day and know how their young childhood was. And how I was.

Sarah is so awesome. She cracks me up and she is so sweet and cuddly. She’s into a shrieking phase. She has found her voice in a different way than Jenna ever did. She still loves bouncing from the doorway in her bouncy, and playing on the floor. She rolls around, but isn’t crawling yet. She wants to so bad. She will pull herself up on the coffee table though, so I think she’ll follow in her sister’s footsteps and go straight from sitting and rolling to walking. Not for a while though. I am not encouraging this mobility thing the second time around. She loves to eat. As of last week, and I am officially done nursing. She doesn’t drink nearly as much formula as the books say she should, but somehow she is still growing strong. She eats a lot of fruits and veggies. More then she should, according to “them,” but I’m fine with that. I make all her baby food and she inhales it. I feel like I can hardly keep up with her! That’s OK though.

Sarah is still way attached to me, and we’re constantly working on that. She’s getting a little better in some ways, but I still feel so sorry for those people at church and at MOPS who have to deal with her screaming every Friday & Sunday.

Jenna is her father’s daughter. That kid has energy like nobody’s business. Sometimes I don’t think she is capable of walking. I always thought all kids had as much energy, spunk, and will as she does, but a lot of people comment to me about it. Friends with kids her age, her teachers, and acquaintances without kids her age.  To say she is little miss independent would be a severe understatement. Not only does she have to do EVERYTHING herself, but she throw a fit if we try to help her. She can do a lot of things I wouldn’t think she could do at her age though, so it’s not a bad thing. She cracks us up all the time. The things that come out of her mouth are so random sometimes. I am keeping a log of the ones I think to write down, so I’m not that bad. Although she prefers to always be playing, jumping, dancing, running, singing, or climbing, she has definitely moved past her dislike of TV. I’m thrilled about it. I may not lose my sanity (what’s left of it, anyway) afterall. She is currently obsessed with Mickey Mouse. It started out with Dora, then moved to the Backyardigans, and now Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. One thing at a time. I feel very confident that within the next month, she will move on to something else, which makes Christmas shopping difficult at this point.

I am so proud of Jenna. She is so very sweet and has shown a big inprovement in listening. It’s still not her best skill, but she understands now that there are consequences if she ignores me. She is learning things all the time, and enjoying things like coloring, puzzles, and games. She only likes to do those things when one of us does them with her, but it won’t be long before her sister can participate in those things.

That’s the girls in a nutshell. I have been praying for a better appreciation and attitude about staying home with them because I know I am blessed to be able to do it, but sometimes I really would like my life back. I am doing a little part-time work again, and if I can work out babysitting, that should be a big addition to life. But this week has been an eye-opener and has led to a newfound appreciation for staying home with my babies. I have one good example and one bad example of that:

First, the good. I took the girls to the zoo Monday. Just the 3 of us. We had the best time. Jenna cooperated, listened, and enjoyed looking at the animals. I genuinely loved spending that time with her. Sarah rode around in the jogging stroller and never even cried. She liked looking at everything and didn’t demand to be carried. It was super hot, but other than that it could not have been more perfect.

Now, the bad. And it’s bad. Maybe the worst moment of my life. I’m sure there will be more though. I took the girls to Academy yesterday afternoon to try shoes on Jenna. I had Sarah in the cart, in her cloth cart cover thing. We do this in all stores now, and she has never so much as pulled both legs out of the leg holes. Yesterday when I was on the floor trying shoes on Jenna, I looked up at Sarah and she was hanging halfway over the side, about to fall on her head. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but I was one second too late. I watched her fall onto her head on the tile floor. I immediately grabbed her and tried to console her. She let out one cry, but hesitated a long time before taking that breath back in, and then went pale and limp. I panicked and was just trying to get her to respond to me, when an onlooker asked if she should call 911. I said yes, so she did and it was probably 5 minutes that she was talking to them and I was trying to get Sarah to open her eyes or cry. She was trying to open her eyes, but they were kind of rolling back and she wouldn’t cry. It was the scariest thing I can think of because at that moment I really didn’t know if she would be OK. In those minutes that the lady was on the call, Sarah did start crying, though kind of quietly at first. Then she started crying harder, and I was very happy about that. By the time the paramedics got there, her eyes were open enough that I could see her pupils looked normal. She stopped crying and just got quiet and clingy. They checked her out and said she seemed fine, and gave me several signs to look for. When we got home, she seemed very lethargic and just not herself. She had long blinks and wasn’t very responsive to smiling like she normally is. She is normally a very happy baby (as long as I’m around!). Jay was home at that time, and agreed that she was not normal and we decided we should probably take her to the ER. My mom was going to come stay with Jenna while we went, but by the time she got there, Sarah started to act pretty normal. I fed her and she ate  normally. She was smiling again, playing on the floor, and didn’t seem so tired. A pediatrician friend of ours recommended that we take her to get scanned anyway, since it was such a long fall onto such a hard floor. We called Dell Children’s and after an hour, finally got to talk to a nurse. She asked me tons of questions and seemed really surprised there were no bumps or anything. In spite of that, she recommended we take her in. So we did, and we were among hundreds of flu patients. We though this is great–she may be fine, but she may end up getting the flu after this!  After a couple of hours of waiting, we decided to leave. It was still going to be hours before we were seen, and she was not showing any signs that they told us were dangerous. Both the paramedics and the nurse confirmed that it is not dangerous for her to sleep–that’s an old wives’ tale. So we talked to a very helpful nurse at the ER who said chances are that if we did get seen, they would not do anything except tell us what to watch for. We jostled her a couple of times during the night to make sure she was conscious, and then this morning she woke up as her usual, happy, hungry self. Ever since then, she’s been fine. The nurse on the phone told me that sometimes it can take up to 48 hours for symptoms to appear if there is bleeding on the brain, and that still has me freaked out. But since she is so normal, I really think God is just looking out for her and she is fine. That’s what most of my brain says…the other part can’t stop playing that horrible falling moment over & over, and thinking she can’t possibly come away from that without so much as a scratch on her head. BTW, the helpful nurse did tell us that sometimes kids will go into shock when something like that happens, and they’ll get pale & quiet. He said that before we even told him about her initial reaction, so that helps settle my mind tremendously.

Long, LOOOONG story, but both of those things make me appreciate my girls so much. I love getting to spend so much time with them and these things make me not take it for granted.