Dear Lucy-

My sweet girl- you are 3 months old today and full of life. This month brought laughter!!! The sweet sound of you chortling with glee stops time and completely mesmerizes me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0MRAEBM2cM

For some reason, you laugh every time your dad appears. It’s adorable.

In addition to laughter, this month brought a whole range of vocal experimentation. You love the sound of your own voice.

You’ve recently decided that if you are awake you’d like someone to be paying attention to you. We can be having a grand ol’ time and the second I stop looking at you (to build legos with your brother) you will start fussing to let me know that I really should be making silly faces at you instead.

And so we’ve begun to “play.” We hang out on our bellies.

We play on our backs

You push off my hands with your feet and scoot on your back across the floor. You’ve rolled over from tummy to back three times. We play peekaboo. You even join Otis for story time.

The only time you “play by yourself” is when you are marveling at that which is your own feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP60brOe1Vo

In fact, you’ve gotten so wiggly in your chair that we’ve had to start strapping you in lest you escape.

Other highlights of this month include:

You becoming a pro at the bottle. Hooray!

You going camping.

And you surviving a trip to Tahoe with a whole gaggle of toddlers

You are no longer living in your own tiny bubble. You are trying to take in everything that is going on around you. It is absolutely amazing to watch your world grow. I have been so lucky to spend all of my time with you these past 3 months. Going back to work in a week will be a shock to my system for sure. I’ll miss our naps together on the couch, but will look forward to cuddling and playing with you every morning and every night. I can’t wait to see what you discover next!

I love you so much!!!

Mom

Dear Otis-

I am so incredibly proud of you! You are now 3 years old and you’ve accomplished so much in the last 6 months. Not only have you ditched the diapers (you even pee standing up thanks to Eli’s tutelage), but you’ve also become an awesome big brother. While you have moments when you are less than sweet to Lucy, the majority of the time you are quite dear to her. When we stopped for lunch on the drive home from Tahoe, Lucy started crying in her car seat while I was ordering our food. Suddenly she stopped and I looked down to see you gently rocking her car seat. You said “Look Mom- I made her smile!” You earn her smiles a lot these days.

At 3 years old you are so many things . . .

You are loving. You still like to sit on my lap from time to time, and when you go to bed you demand a fist bump, hug, kiss, and a boop (tap on the cheek).

You are inquisitive. Car rides are filled with questions- “What’s in that truck Mom?” “Are we on a bridge?” “Is that Walnut Park?” You absolutely love to learn.

You are hilarious. Tia has taught you to dance using your hips. You love to shake your booty and dance around as we yell “Eso! Eso!” If something you say makes us laugh, you will be sure to say it as often as possible.

You are eager and enthusiastic. When you like something- cracking eggs in a bowl while we bake, helping dad screw in a piece to a music pedal, throwing water balloons in the backyard- you exclaim “Woah! This is cool!”

You are passionate. When you set your mind to something, you mean business. If you struggle to accomplish the task you can get pretty upset. We are working on taking a deep breath when frustration hits.

You are a negotiator. When you ask for crackers and I say you can have two you say “how about 3?.” When I say this is the last tv show you say “how about just one more?” The good news is that you’ll take what you can get. Recently we’ll let you watch a show downstairs while we cook dinner upstairs. We tell you that when it’s over you need to turn the tv off and come up the stairs to dinner. You do exactly that!

You are imaginative. You make up your own games, your stuffed animals talk to each other, and occasionally you have an invisible friend hanging out with you.

You are 38.75 inches tall (80th %) and weigh 33.5 pounds (70th %). You love transformers and legos. Swimming is your new favorite activity. You challenge, inspire, and delight us on a daily basis! We love you so much!

Love,

Mom

P. S. You had a super awesome pirate bday party! You and your friends caught fish in the hot tub, threw water balloons at an octopus, and dug for treasure in a pretty sweet box fort. Happy Birthday Oats!

This is the story of three brave women who took to the roads to make the 3rd annual Tykes Take Tahoe trip a reality. The bravest among them drove 11.5 hours each way!!!

The biggest difference in this year's trip was the adult:child ratio. We went from 3:3 to 3:5! This year Amelia and Lucy joined the crew.

Let's just say that the amount of wine consumed grew accordingly and we all feel we are ready for our lifeguard certification! We were most definitely outnumbered (in a good way of course)!

The 2017 trip will forever be remembered as the "do you need to go potty?" trip. With 3 newly potty trained toddlers we somehow managed to survive with no pee or poo on the floor. However each mom made the frantic mad dash to the potty from the beach upon hearing that adrenaline summoning phrase "mommy- I need to poo."

Other than that, it was just like old times with laughter and joy up the wazoo! Check out these then and nows . . .

Highlights of this year's trip (aka moments when I was pinching myself) included

"Hikes" around the condo complex

Sunsets on the deck

Bonding with Littles

Dance Parties

Pizza making parties

And oh so much beach time

Can't wait for next year!!!

For the second annual Moore/Hill camping trip, we chose a 2 night stay at Spring Hill Regional Park in the not so wilds of Santa Rosa (30 minutes from our house). With a 2 month old and an 8 month old in tow it seemed wise to stay close to home.

Here are the camping trip stats.

• 4 kids under the age of 3
• 27 pees on the tiny potty (approximate)
• 1 poop in pants (no picture taken)
• So much butt crack
• 3 nap evaders and one champion napper.
• 2 musical instruments (the third went unused due to child wrangling constraints). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_V1tUkBrY
• 1 fellow camper that asked to join the jam on his harmonica.
• 2 Spring Lake swimmers
• Infinite morning cups of coffee and evening glasses of wine.
• A whole lot o’ happy campers

At Otis’ two day old check up, the pediatrician was completely candid with us. She explained what we might expect as far as nursing and sleeping for the next few weeks, and finished by saying “basically as soon as you’ve got it figured out, it will change.” Were truer words ever spoken?! Parenting can be so beautiful one moment and downright ugly the next. One minute you feel like you’re mom of the year and the next minute you are full of doubt. This job is a roller coaster for sure!

This week brought three major parenting wins.

1. We started potty training Otis and he took to it splendidly. We are on day 5. We haven’t had an accident in two days and only had 3 accidents total. We are even out and about with a potty in the back of the car that he willingly uses whenever nature calls.

2. After weeks of protest, Lucy finally succumbed to the bottle. Apparently we needed a more boob-like brand. Thanks to my circle of moms we borrowed an array of bottles and found the one for her. We have had 3 successful bottle feeds in a row.

3. Both kids are asleep by 8:30ish . . . IN THEIR OWN BEDS!!!! We just started putting Lucy down in her bassinet drowsy but awake around 8 or 8:30. She fusses for a few minutes but then sleeps until 1 or 2am (then out again until 5:30). It has been amazing to have a couple of hours where neither Brad or I is holding a baby or entertaining a toddler.

Now, the title of this post is ups and downs right? Well, Last night I sent my mom a kid update via text that concluded with the words “it’s too good to be true.” How wise and all-knowing I am!

We were way up and then we went way down!

Last night Lucy chose to be wide awake from 4-5:30am spitting up on me every so often as we paced around the house.

Then this morning I passed the time in the hallway holding Otis’ door closed while he had the most epic tantrums of his life. Through the door I continually requested that he calm down and sit on his bed. While he eventually gave in and did what I asked, it only occurred after the neighborhood was privy to the screeches, wails, and door pounding of an almost 3 year old tyrant for quite a while. Tantrums brought to you by “I want the book that’s in the car” and “I want to play downstairs not upstairs.” Why did I insist he be upstairs with me you ask? Because he hasn’t pooped in 2.5 days and I want to see it coming so we can make it to the potty. Oy!

We headed off to daycare and he gave me a huge hug goodbye. When I walked down the driveway I heard Tia say “everyone listen up. No more diapers for Otis!!!!” This was followed by the amazing sound of tiny hands clapping for my boy.

I think this photo that my friend Kate sent me kind of sums up my thoughts at the moment.

The good news is that at this stage of the game I’ve come to accept this rollercoaster as normal. So as I take on Otis’ stubborn streak and weather his wrath when I don’t give him everything he wants, I will hold tight to the accomplishments we’ve already made. I will flash back to the moment last night when I was in our tiny bathroom feeding Lucy her bottle while simultaneously reading Otis a book as he sat on his potty.

Life is good 😊