{10 weeks}

monsieur nash

{translation: "i like some butter of ground nut."}

the last ten days

ten whole days without posting?!?! i know, i know. i was taking a little break. the sad part is i wasn't on a real vacation, but here's what i have been up to:

• rescuing lexi (again and again, once from a tattoo shop)
• andrew bird concert at the gallivan center twilight series
• dental work (fillings)
• trip to the zoo with our little family
• funeral
• rides up emigration; once each with gina and stevie
• organizing family photos
• trying to be a better mom/establishing family rules (no more cleaning or t.v. while kids are awake {stevie too})
• the dark knight at imax
• daily visits with besties laura & diane who now live just down the street!
  
• pre-planning a wedding
• trip to the zoo with james
• wisdom tooth extraction
• swimming at the anderson family pool
• slumber party, parade, and trip to the zoo with chase
• eating lemon cake at biaggi's (exquisite!)

up until i saw nash smile for the first time, i can't think of one instant in my life where i thought to myself "wow. this makes it all worth it." but now i feel like i'm having these experiences on a daily basis:

nash amazes me with the things he knows. i find myself saying aloud: "did he really just do that? did he really just say that?" and then testing him to see if he knew what he did. last night i told nash (as i often do) "i love you." he quickly said something back that sounded quite a bit like he told me the same thing. after a few minutes of testing it was confirmed. he told me he loves me: "i you." my heart skipped a beat.

haven has started smiling at me-and not just because i'm smiling at her. if this doesn't put your heart at ease, i don't know what does. she does this one smile where she smirks one side and scrunches her nose and her left eyebrow arches a little higher than the other one. ooohhhh, it kills me.

and then, to see the two of them together: nothing in the world is sweeter. the way nash worries about her, takes care of her, and gives her kisses. he's so proud of his baby-we went to a bbq and when we got there he pointed and cooed at her and looked around the room to make sure everyone realized that the baby was there. and the way haven watches him as he crawls around her. i think she even gave him a little smile today...

be still, my heart

7.5 weeks
smiling and cooing
super chubby cheeks, tiny little nose, big blue eyes
dada bonded with her yesterday and now he can't put her down
probably because she looks so stinking cute in hoodies (thanks, hol!)
too bad i can't manage my camera and a baby at the same time (they're all a bit out of focus).

nash goes to the zoo

nash's first zoo trip wasn't as exciting as i'd hoped, but hey, at least we got out of the house! we waited until the heat of the day so not only were we dying in the heat, but lots of the animals were hiding. then nash decided he'd rather play with the stroller and eat than look at animals. on top of that, the camera died about a half hour into the visit.






luckily, we've got a year membership to improve on the experience. so while i don't work at a retail store or a restaurant where i can hook you up, at least i can now offer you free zoo admission*!

*"you" refers to one adult and child(children) 2 or under. "you" must actually enter the zoo with me (i know, that part sucks ).

sick babies

haven had been acting sort of "off" for a few days this week-spitting up more, fussing more, sleeping less, and then projectile spitting up (vomiting?). i decided to check her temperature, which turned out to be 100.4-a low grade fever right on the low line of the "call the doctor" warning signs. it was 4:45 and i wasn't about to wait it out in the off-chance things turned ugly in the wee hours (as they usually do) after instacare closed. so i rushed her in. the doctor, suspecting pyloric stenosis sent us to primary children's ER for an ultrasound. hours and hours later haven's labs were all collected: bloodwork, urinalysis, lumbar puncture, and x-rays. her fever dropped and all the labs came back negative for everything, but because she'd had the slight fever and the vomiting their protocol required us to stay a full 24 hours (to await any possible bacterial growth in her spinal fluid culture).

it was not a fun stay: construction outside our room woke haven up every time i finally got her to sleep (which was a huge feat); no window in the room left me feeling in a time warp; and the tv channels were much too kid friendly (disney, nick, etc.). haven slept a whopping four hours and pretty much screamed the rest of the time. i felt my sanity slowly slipping (good time to be in a hospital so i was forced to keep my cool!). and while it all pretty much stunk to high heavens, i do have to say that i was thoroughly impressed with the staff and their aggressiveness. although i started feeling like a paranoid mom (when she quit vomiting and her fever barely manifested by the time we got to the ER), i knew in my gut something was wrong and they believed me. i love when doctors trust a mother's instinct. haven was a little trooper-she had to have way too many temperature checks (rectal-ugh) and monitors on her and had to be down to her diaper. after going through rounds and rounds of screaming cries that i could only manage to calm for a few minutes, i finally laid her down and went to the nurses station in tears begging for the doctor to come in because i couldn't take it anymore. the doctor came and decided to try some malox and tylenol. voila. she fell asleep and has pretty much been sleeping since! most likely she had some sort of virus that was causing her to have acid reflux. (we're keeping our fingers crossed that it was temporary reflux and not GERD, which nash had.)

but while haven seems to be fine and is back home now, poor little sage (haven's three week old cousin) is back in the hospital. they haven't completely isolated the problem, but she's had a fever off and on. poor alison has been practically living in the hospital the past three weeks between this and sage's extra long stay after her birth due to underdeveloped lungs and jaundice. so, if you have a little time, say a little prayer. and if anyone lives in vegas will you please deliver some yummy chocolate cake (a la mode) to alison?

cake bites

made these yummy treats for grandma debbi's birthday dinner today.

{bakerella}

fourth festivities

red, white & blue

first swimmy suit

drinking from sippy

drinking from string (?)

mainstream

it's inevitable. it's unavoidable. it's bound to happen. and it's happened to me. i officially fit into the category of being "mainstream." i'm not a cool mom. i'm not even a cool person.

i used to wear hip clothes. you might see something at a store and think to yourself "that is so liz." and then you wouldn't be able to resist the urge to buy it for me (thank you!). not anymore. now i wear jeans and shade shirts. maybe i'll spice it up with some fun earrings (because my ears don't get fat or saggy or dimply or leak milk). and i used to look into the future and see my kids wearing all the hippest fashions. not so-nash wears polos and dollar-store crocs and haven wears pink nearly every day.

i used to be totally into independent films. foreign films. artsy fartsy films. now if you bring over a movie with subtitles you can expect to find me sleeping within half-a-dozen minutes! it's not that i don't still appreciate that stuff, it's just that i never leave my house. i don't interact with people with vocabularies beyond the neccessary "eat, cracker, and uh-oh" type. so i'm out of the loop.

i used to be even more into music. i knew about every band before you did (unless you are dc). i went to their shows while tickets were still $5 or under at places like kilby court and everyone there was standing within a few feet of the band. and i used to wear super cute clothes when i went. i even promoted some by flyering for free! the last concert i went to was my brother's and now i listen to whatever comes up on the shuffle setting on stevie's ipod (if i listen to anything at all). and while i sure as heck love my stevie, he might be a little out of the loop too. (this might be a good time to express my hatred for the fact that stevie's ipod seems to be in love with neil young. seriously-every other song. whiney, shminey neil young!)

so what's my point here? i just wanted to say that i promise i've had my share of "she's so cool" days, but i'm now fully converted (or resigned) to being utterly boring and mainstream. and because of it, i can't get this song out of my head. dare i say i love it? i'm not quite there yet, but all my efforts to not jump on the bandwagon have been futile. today the song came into my head and while i was rocking haven i started to bust a few of chelsie's moves from last week. oh, man-i have officially crossed over. at this rate i'll be lucky if i'm not wearing "mom jeans" by age 30.