Big Sister

It's official! Chase is a big sister.

Madoc Seabrook Allbritton made her grand entry on 22 December, 2008 at 9:20 a.m.
We came home from the hospital today.

Chase is an amazing big sister.
She is so helpful and happy, and she seems to really love the idea of having a little sister.
I'm pretty tired, but that's to be expected.
Hubs has done an amazing job holding down the fort and taking care of an exhausted family.
Madoc loves being held by him; she just tucks in and falls asleep.

Baby Madoc looks almost exactly like Chase did as an infant.
Except she has a full head of hair (which was styled when she arrived) and has lighter eyelashes.
But her mouth and nose and expressions have thus far been the same.

Last Post?

Unless something big happens, this may be my last post for a while, so I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

We aren't really sending out Christmas cards this year, because we are planning on sending around baby announcements. If you'd like a baby announcement, and you are not immediate family, please email me your address and I will include you.

We will be changing the name of our blog, to include our newest addition, so stay tuned.

All the best to you and yours this holiday season,
Lang, Brian & Chase

Dreams

I remember having very vivid dreams with Chase.

The most notable was the one where I dreamed that after I delivered her, I found I was actually holding my cat - and the midwife told me, "don't worry, babies never look like you think they will when they first appear." And I spent the rest of my dream arguing, "no, this is really my cat."

At this point my dreams have mostly been around the stress of delivery. So I'll keep dreaming in loops - like I can't get away from the labor and just when I think it's over, it starts again. Weird. And not very restful.

Latest Game

Chase has spent the last 6 months building zoos and houses with her blocks. Every day. Now she has switched to building a school house and play ground for her Einsteins. This is probably because she overhears me talking about schools, applications and such with friends.

It's Beautiful

I was listening to classical music the other day while I was making breakfast. As I went to change the radio to NPR, Chase said, "No, mama. This music is beautiful."

One Week, Three Days

Not long to go now!

I've washed all of Chase's old clothes (through 18 months). Extreme? Perhaps. But when am I ever going to have time to wash clothes again, I ask.

We have a new sling, which promises to be more comfortable, versatile and last us for quite a while. I also have places to put the baby - a swing, and a bouncer. VERY different from when I had Chase. Chase moved between me and a Moses basket, until she was no longer small enough for the Moses basket. Then she had a small mat to play around on - none of the big plastic things.

And I have to say, now that I have the bouncer and the swing, I feel pretty good - except I hate how they look in the house. Too bad they don't sell ones that go with Chinese antiques.

I also have a baby tent (hurray!) and Karla has been nice enough to rework our travel cot, so that we may be able to get some use out of it, after all. Chase never used it.

Chase has been a dream throughout. Hardly a surprise. She helped pick out the baby kit for her little sister. She helps me put lotion on my big belly every morning - first she "paints" it with her fingers - usually a face.

Christmas Is Coming

We just enjoyed a marvelous weekend with the Donahues, our neighbors from back in the day, when we lived in Boston. Hubs enjoyed a day of snowboarding; while I took Vickie around to see Denver. No new pictures; our old camera is awful and our new camera is still in the shop. A shame as we're missing loads of good Christmas pictures - not to mention new baby pictures (when she comes).

I can't believe Christmas is next week (unbelievable) - and then it's only a matter of time until littlest babe joins us. And while I am feeling better because an end of my seemingly endless pregnancy is finally near, I now find myself realizing that my life is only going to become more difficult - at least for the next year. At least I'll get my body back.

We have been lucky enough to be invited to dinner for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Dinner, and while I'd love to cook, my taste-buds are totally messed up and I can't seem to cook a darn thing from scratch (poor Hubs). So I'm giving up the dream of cooking our own Christmas dinner this year - someday, someday.

Seasons Greetings To One And All

Chase & Santa

I have to admit that the whole Santa thing sort of freaks me out - come here, little girl, sit on my lap... but we went to a Christmas party and Santa was there, so we had to do it.

Tis The Season

Tis the season for toddler birthday parties. We have four this month, in addition to getting ready for Christmas, and new baby (three weeks to go!) and holiday gatherings.

I really do love toddler birthdays, because parents usually get a little creative. The pictures below are from Reid's birthday, which took place at his local firehouse. Hubs thought it was the best toddler birthday ever - hmmm, I wonder why? (See last picture).

Marcus & Reid













Summer & Joy













Hubs & Chase













And I must admit, this fireman caught my attention.
It was the first time I ever wanted to be rescued :)

Thank You Nana Cris!

A special thanks to Nana Cris, who flew out to spend time with me while Hubs flew down South to attend Grand Daddy Herbert's memorial service.

Nana flew in on Thanksgiving, just in time to wait an additional two hours for our bird to cook -- high altitude makes it a little hard to time meals. For the first time in as long as we've been married, I had a chance to make Thanksgiving dinner and I was really looking forward to it.

We had a brined turkey (which was awesome!), sweet potatoes (with very little in them), stuffing with wild mushrooms (yum!), biscuits, home-made cranberry sauce (double yum), creamed corn (for Hubs), and a home-made apple pie for dessert. Good times. Made lots of notes about what to do better/different next time, too!

Bright and early the next morning, Nana drove Hubs to the airport. From there, she basically spent three days playing with Chase, non-stop. It was totally fabulous. They made play dough at 6:30 a.m., they painted tissue paper, put cloves in clementine oranges, built snowmen, went on walks, and made a gingerbread house (to name just a few activities). When Hubs returned, everyone decorated the tree, hung lights and set up the creche and the advent calendar, so now our house is downright Christmassy! Oooh I love it!

Thank you SOOO much Nana Cris!

Baby Stuff

Today I took care of a friend's little boy (6 mos. old).

I had a bit of a "refresher" course - I have to admit, I didn't remember:
(1) how many diapers you go through in a day
(2) how little/light they are
(3) how I didn't have time to eat

My friend had this entire print out for naps/food/etc. I seem to be schedule-delinquent. Like seriously incapable of following a schedule. I don't know how this happened. Anyone who knows me, knows I - of all people - scheduled myself silly; starting in college (when my day-planner was filled with lists and color-coded).

Anyway, about an hour in to the day, we were about an hour off schedule. This of course, seemed to snowball. The nap at noon became a nap at 3 p.m. And instead of an hour (plus), it was a half hour.

The little boy was great, don't get me wrong, and Chase was AMAZING - helping me the whole day through. But it all made me worry, everso slightly, about the "scheduling" of number 2, and if I should even bother (as we never really did with Chase) and being housebound for naps and such will be really difficult for Chase.

Cars With Ryder

Today Chase played cars with her little pal, Ryder. They are so cute together. Here they are sharing a cupcake after racing cars down the playground slide.

Playing Cars

After Chase told me she "loves cars," I went out and bought her a little, yellow, toy car. Watching her play with it went something like this...

Chase builds a house out of blocks. She lines up her animals and Einsteins. They talk to each other for a little while. Move around in the house. Talk to each other some more. So where's the car? Oh, it's in the garage. An Einstein or an animal might talk to the car briefly, but it mostly stays in the garage.

So today we met Reid for a play date, and I brought along a car for him. And he played with it like boys play with cars - it was the center of his attention - driving through sand, under tunnels, through things, over things and Chase played with him - just like him. After a half hour, she was the dirtiest I have ever seen her - and so happy. I wanted to strip her clothes off before putting her in the car, but I didn't. Her bath water was brown.

And then she fell asleep at the dinner table.

Lady Music

This morning Chase was twirling in the kitchen.

"Music, Mama," she said over and over again and she twirled.

We were, of course, listening to NPR.

"Okay," I eventually gave in - sucker! - (Chase gets to listen to anything she wants in the car. I get to listen to anything I want in the kitchen).

I started flipping through the stations - first stop, classical.

"No, no, no,"' Chase sings out, still twirling. "I want Lady music, Mama."

Can you believe I tried every last station on the radio and there was not one song being sung by a woman? Chase couldn't believe it either. She ended up kicking and screaming on the floor, "Lady music! Lady music!"

Which brings me to the Terrible Twos. Not so bad for the most part, but the drama of tantrums can be so exhausting, especially when you can't see them coming. It's like weathering a tropical storm that rains down hard (as if from nowhere) and clears up just as fast. But when you're in the midst you wonder if and when it will end.

A Few Of Chase's Favorite Things

Chase has started really enjoying bath time. She will spend up to an hour in it, splashing around. This afternoon she started singing, "row, row, row your boat," to her Einsteins, sliding back and forth on her stomach. Then she started calling them "kids."

"C'mon kids, let's sing!" she said. Not sure where she got that...

Another thing Chase loves is mixing colored water. We go outside and I set up three large pitchers of colored water, as well as a clear Pyrex plate and she spends the next half hour creating her own colors.

She's started to really love finger painting - creating animals and such from her hand-prints. Fabulous. We've been doing a lot of color wheel configurations.

And puzzles. She just can't get enough puzzles and mazes. She also enjoys measuring her stuffed animals.

She also has three favorite pairs of PJs. She loves the top/bottom separates and has three - one with Dora, one with a "fairy" painted on the top and another that has castles all over it.

We're still not into fairies or princesses. Tonight she told me she "loves trucks." Even though we don't own any and I've never seen her play with them. She went on to tell me that Ryder and Reid have trucks (two little guys she plays with), so I think trucks may be this year's princess crown.

Chase's "School" Experience

This morning I dropped Chase off at "school." I know one of the other moms, who asked me if I wanted to get coffee. With three hours to myself (one of maybe three times in the last three years), I felt like it would be silly not to. I had this plan of how I wanted to spend the time, but it went so quickly I didn't get much done.

Anyway, my friend said she was going to swing back by and check on her son, who she found in tears. Chase, meanwhile, was trying to comfort him. She was still playing with kids happily when my friend left (she reported back).

I arrived to pick up Chase about 25 minutes early, with a plan to sit in the lobby for her. I went to the bathroom and heard a child crying, so I looked in the room - the lights were out - for some kind of quiet time or something. Chase saw me and ran outside, giving me this look like, "where have you been mom?"

The lady at the front desk tried to lock me in for a month, but I told her I needed to chat with Chase first. So I asked Chase how it went and she said, "okay." I asked her what they did and she said, "I don't know," which is not a normal response for her. The "art" I received when I picked up Chase consisted of three stickers stuck to a piece of green construction paper - and for anyone who knows Chase, they would know that this is highly unusual (she is either drawing faces or putting more stickers on a page then the page can hold). When I asked her to describe the art, she didn't say a word and just pointed (also highly uncharacteristic).

And then tonight she told me, out of the blue, that she didn't want to go back to baby power because they made her sit in the dark, and she didn't like sitting in the dark. (Broke my heart!) Can't say I blame her - sounds pretty scary to me! They didn't mention anything about that in the overview.

So she's not going back. Luckily mom sent me some info about a couple schools I haven't heard of before, so maybe there's still a happy, good place for her to spend a little time this year.

Potty Blooper

Yesterday, Chase fell into the toilet.

She was going "all by herself," but forgot to put the small, Dora potty seat on first. Her knees hit her chin and she was seriously stuck. I saw the whole thing happen, because I was at the door of the bathroom - it was one of the funniest moments of all time.

As an aside, no pics for a while - Taggart, our dog, who fancies himself a photographer, was apparently trying to take pictures of our cat while we were gone and broke our camera lens. Now we're debating if we should "save money" and get the same lens we had, or spend more and get an even better lens.

"School"

So there is this little place called "Baby Power," that offers Mother's Day Out sessions for kiddos from 9-12 a.m.

I just found out one of Chase's friends goes on Fridays, so we're going to test it out this Friday. It will be the first time I have left her in alone in an environment like this -- and while I'm kind of freaking out about it, I think it will be really good for her to have a chance to interact with other kids without me standing over her running interference (controlling? who, me?) And if she likes it, I might be able to accomplish something (like completing a thought) for the first time in almost three years.

The weird part is that I am totally overcome with guilt about wanting the time to myself. I feel like a very_bad_mom (and it's just three hours). It just seems so selfish. I mean, that's time I'll never get back. But then again, when you haven't slept in a very, long, time, space and time take on a different meaning. I've found it to be almost zen-like at times.

Anyway, Baby Power is totally play-based. They change activities every 15 minutes. There is nothing Montessori or language-based about it. It's just playing with other kids (gym, music, dance, snack, etc.) for three hours. We'll see how it goes...

Chase has started saying no to me. And then giving me a little smile, as if to say, "so what are you going to do about it?"

Well today we didn't go to dance class and we didn't go to the library, because she said no to both. In fact, we didn't leave the house because she kept saying no and rolling around on the floor.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?