A Letter to my Daughter on her Fourth Birthday

To my Aviendha,

Today, you turned four. Four years of life. You started out stubborn as all get out and things have not changed. There are a handful of things that you will stand solid on and not budge, no matter what the motivation for otherwise.

Our most recent battle has been with food. You have always been extremely picky with what you do and don’t want. In order to take you away from your strict diet of pepperoni (whether on pizza or otherwise), fruits, peanut butter and yogurt, we have had to put some restrictions at dinner time. If you don’t eat one bite of something from our plates and chew for 10 seconds, you won’t get tv for the next full 24 hours. Since we put this into place, you have yet to miss a day of tv. It’s amazing what we can do when finding the right motivation.

This spirit is amazing. It’s something I love because even when you are angry, you are still one of the sweetest little girls in the world. You do not hit. You may scream or shout, but if asked, you will take a deep breath and a break. You know that daddy gets headaches and if your fit has him around, you will stop almost instantaneously.

Your greatest joy comes when you are around babies. At least once a week, you say that you wish you could be a big sister. It hurts me just a little bit when I tell you no. When I say never, you reply with maybe someday. The eternal optimist.

Our new kitty Pumpkin has been such a great gift to our family. You are so happy with him! He loves sitting on your lap to snuggle with you. He puts up with you picking him up, brushing him, feeding him….he also keeps your bed warm and helps keep you in your bed at night.

We have been so blessed to have Suzanne in our house to help keep you in line. She has introduced us to BJs and their Tea Party fun:

We moved to a new house this past spring which allowed us to have Suzanne move in. It’s the fourth move you’ve had in your short life, but this is where we will most likely stay for a while. Letting you have your own bedroom and room for Suzanne and an office means we’ll be here for time. Plus, the pretty door handles make for some fun.

This year, we’ve also progressed to you sleeping in your own bed. Thanks to a “Brave Buddy”, you became strong and powerful to sleep in your bed in your own room. Most nights, you still end up in our bed, but you start out every evening in your own!

Your excitement for performing makes me happy. You do one thing and if we giggle or laugh, you will do it again and again and again.

Funny faces? Check. Great costumes? Double check.

I love you, my sweet baby girl. You are so amazing and make our lives better in every single way.

Run like the wind, my True Fairy Princess. Your entire life is ahead of you and it will be glorious!

Happy 4th Birthday, sweet Aviendha. I love you!

Mother’s Day

We had a very busy week last week.

Avi fell off a couch while we were playing at the hospital for Ryan’s therapy on the 29th of April. After a couple days of it still hurting her, we made an appointment last Wednesday. Three x-rays later (first one was blurry and one of the left side to compare) we discover that she has a cracked collar bone. No wonder she would whimper when it had pressure placed in the right spot. She did NOT like getting her picture taken by the x-ray machine. Two lolli pops, a nursing session and 3 stickers later, she was exhausted. We got home and slept through the whole night.

Then Friday, she went to the day care at the hospital while Ryan did his therapy and I went to get her half an hour early so we could go get her tested. Ryan has Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency which may have been the reason for his carotid artery dissections (that caused his stroke). (And if you want to get really depressed, following links from that and Google searches to all the things that can occur…)  So we had to draw blood from a 2 year old. Anyone that has had to go through this (or worse) with your child, I feel for you. The pain and fear and just overwhelming everything is heartbreaking. She yelled “scawy!” when she saw the needle. She screamed during the prep and really did not like the rubber band around her arm. The worst part for me? When they had the needle in and she just kept going “OW! OW! OW!” and looking at like I had betrayed her.

She did so good though. Got a sucker after that (thank goodness for Dum Dums!) and as we walked out, kept showing everyone her arm and the sucker. She is a trooper for sure!  They’ll be testing her for all types of the alpha-1 deficiency, so we can have a better idea of what to look for. I am trying not to think about it….

She still has a bruise on her arm, but is fine if you don’t mention it. The cracked collar bone seems to be healing well too, only have had a couple pain moments.

Saturday was busy busy! Got a call on Friday to see if I could attend a hiring seminar for Apple on Saturday, so got up early to go do that. I should hear sometime this week…would be nice to have something steady already lined up when I get “let go” from my current job. I’ve also been busy with The Photog’s Helper, meeting some AMAZING women photographers that are so talented and helping them grow their businesses. It’s been such a wonderful outlet for me. Hoping too to be able to announce my biggest news soon.

We went over to my MIL’s house for a birthday party for Ryan. A long trip but delicious BBQ chicken was had by all!  Avi had a blast too and it was nice to spend time with family, even if Ryan was exhausted at the end of the day. He was so tired that he thought about staying home instead of going to my parent’s for a Mother’s Day feast.

The next morning we all woke up lazily, stretching and snuggling in bed, listening to the rain outside. Ryan stayed in bed, playing his Pokemon game for several hours while Avi watched Aladdin and I got some work done. It was so nice to be able to work without a distraction and even took some time to play mindless Facebook games without feeling guilty.

Ryan called me into the room at one point to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. He had forgotten until then, but remembered on his own. It was so wonderful.  We walked over to my brother’s apartment to all troop to my parent’s house. Delicious hamburgers, deviled eggs and two glasses of Oak Knoll Niagra wine equals a lovely afternoon. We hung out under the heater watching the rain fall while the burgers cooked.

So now, the week has started again. Who knows what this week has in store for us….

iHeart Faces – Soft and Sweet

Soft focus but such a sweet shot. I love how sweet my daughter is!

Reminder for Me

I am awesome.

I am strong.

I am powerful.

I am amazing.

I have worth.

If I say it often enough, it’ll come true, right?

Disgruntled

I hate not feeling wanted. And today, even though I have some wonderful and exciting news that I can’t share quite yet, two things happened today that crushed the happiness. I knew they were both coming. And I can’t really go into the details….but it’s disappointing. Draining. Soul crushing even.

But instead of dwelling on that, I want to focus on the happy.

The beautiful weather we had this weekend. Including on Friday when we managed to get home right before this happened:

Snuggling with a 3 month old baby and being content with having a single child.

The AMAZING 70 degree day on Saturday and playing at the park after enjoying the Alpenrose Dairy Easter Egg hunt aftermath (we parked the car after the gun went off to start….probably about 10 minutes later it was over. If that.

Putting makeup on to celebrate Easter:

The Easter celebration I spent with family yesterday, Ryan included. It was so wonderful seeing him interacting with the conversation. Chasing Avi around with an egg. *sigh* It was very happy.

How was your Easter?