She’s been taking a step or two since her first birthday or so. She’ll walk several steps from one person to another when you ask her to. Finally last night she decided she’d like to try walking around the house on her own. She’d walk, fall and get right back up to try again! I’d say we’ll have a full out walker on our hands in the next few weeks. She even walked from the front door all the way back to her room at daycare this morning holding just one of my hands. She’s growing up too fast!
Now that my phone takes decent videos, I’ve been taking quite a few more!
Here’s a video dump of the most recent ones I’ve taken over the past few weeks.
Here are the girls dancing! S just loves music. We might actually have two musicians on our hands. M has just starting observing Suzuki violin lessons in preparation to take her own lessons starting next fall.
M was never really a climber. I joked that she didn’t learn to climb up on the couch until she was about two and a half. I think it might be a different story with S. Here she is climbing all over M’s toddler bed.
M was eating her food with her hands the other day and I asked her why she wasn’t using her fork. She said S doesn’t use a fork so she doesn’t want to. Point taken little one. I gave S a fork and was surprised how well she did with it!
We’re still only getting “Uh-Oh” from S in terms of talking. She babbles of course, but doesn’t seem to say Ma-Ma or Da-Da to refer to us. She does however sing “Row Row Row.”
Happy #Moms4moms Day! If you’re not sure what this, read about it here. It’s a day to celebrate a campaign for judgment free motherhood. We’re asking everyone to think about Loving More and Judging Less. We asked people to take photos with their fellow moms and show some support. I hooked up my work gals (plus a few) and then also snapped a photo with my mommy and me group. Can you feel the love?
Want to know when it IS a problem? Head on over to CTWorkingMoms.com to see what I’m writing about today in preparation for Moms for Moms Day tomorrow. Thanks for all of your support!
(And thanks to Colleen for the kind words when I needed to hear them and the inspiration for the blog title/topic for today)
Want to help us spread the message? We hope you’ll consider snapping a photo or blogging about judgment-free motherhood to help celebrate Moms for Moms Day on Tuesday, March 4th with CTWMs and The Bump. We’ve got templates, print your own signs and FREE bumper stickers!
Let’s Love More and Judge (ourselves, other parents and our kids) Less.
This photo was taken on one of our first days with Jasper in 1999.
A week ago we said goodbye to our 15-year-old black cat Jasper. A lot has changed since I first adopted her, but she was still my first baby girl and it was really tough.
I adopted Jasper the summer after my freshmen year at UF. During those college years, she was my buddy – a homework and study companion that kept me company in the car for the five-hour drive to and from college.
After college, she came along with us when we moved to CT. I was 19 years old when I got her and I assumed she’d be long gone by the time I settled down as a real live adult. I didn’t realize how very long cats live. See Jasper was not what you’d call a friendly cat to anyone except for me. She frequently hissed at my husband and we all knew better than to leave something out on the floor unless you wanted to clean cat urine or vomit off of it. I often warned my friends not to touch her, try to pick her up, or even to make eye contact with her. She was prone to attack if you sat on her couch and tried to look her in the eye.
After we got married, we decided to adopt a one-year old black lab. Jasper was less than pleased, but put up with the dog. She only occasionally peed on the dog’s bed. I longed to see the two of them curled up keeping each other warm in the winter, but that just never happened. Jasper merely tolerated the dog, while the dog wished to be the best of friends as only dogs do.
Next came kids – One baby and then another. Jasper took it all in stride. She never once peed in the crib. As she aged, she started to be friendlier, or at least to put up with more. We taught my daughter how to touch her gently and she taught my daughter to observe the signs that indicate an animal needs some space. My daughter has never had another cat, so she doesn’t realize that as cats go, this one wasn’t overly nice to her. She loved her just the same and so did I.
After years of joking about not believing how long cats live, it was finally Jasper’s time. She’d stopped eating and pooping and she’d begun peeing several times a day outside of her box. She was in kidney failure and it was pretty far along. After confirming with a blood test, I made the decision to put her down. I’ve never had to make a decision like this before.
My biggest concern was how to tell my daughter that the cat was not going to make it. I asked co-workers and Facebook moms’ group members for advice. We’ve never discussed Heaven before, and I didn’t want to start now just to make it easier on myself. I decided I could mention Heaven as a possibility, something that some people believe in, but I would be honest that I just don’t know what happens after you die. I decided I’d answer any questions she had as best I could. People recommended two books: The Tenth Good Thing About Barney and When a Pet Diesby Fred Rogers.
On Monday, I picked my three-year-old up at school and tried to talk with her about it. I told her that Jasper is really sick and part of her body is not working anymore. I’m going to take her to the vet again tonight and I think she’s going to pass away tonight so we need to give her a lot of love after school and tell her goodbye. And that’s just what we did. We spent over an hour with her on my bed, petting her and telling her how much we love her. It was a perfect goodbye. We took a few photos and my daughter even asked me to take a video. I thought the video would be weird, but it’s actually nice to have. In the video, you can see the cat is happy being pet and peaceful, but just not herself.
I didn’t think I’d be upset as I was. It was really, really tough. I was sobbing at the vet. I was sobbing all night once I got home. I even said once to my husband, “I killed our cat tonight.” I think my guilt is in not doing more. I’ve suspected for a while that she wasn’t doing well, but truth be told, I haven’t been all in it with the cat for a long time, and I feel really bad that the pets are not top priority as they once were. I know it was her time. I know it’s unrealistic to think we could pull off the treatment required to possibly prolong her life another 6 months or so. I know it was the right decision, but watching another living thing die in my arms because of a decision I made is not something I took lightly.
Ultimately I took it worse than my daughter. She has yet to cry. We didn’t even pull the book out of my purse. We’ve been trying to spend some time talking about our fun memories of the cat. She did have several questions that stemmed from the cat’s death. She has been throwing tantrums this past week and I wonder how much of this is bouncing around in her brain and maybe making her upset. Her questions tell me she’s thinking about death and how it relates to her.
Will Daddy be sad when I die?
Older people usually die first sweetheart, so daddy will probably die before you, but not for a long, long time.
Can we get a new baby when my sister dies? She’s just a baby, so she should live for many, many more years.
Can we get another cat? No.
We can’t see the kitty anymore because she’s dead and you can’t see dead people anymore. But dead people can see each other.
Mom! Guess What?! Jasper was the FIRST ONE TO DIE! Yes baby girl, yes she was.
(When you’re three and a half it’s all about being first at anything!)
I was able to really laugh about that last one. It’s pretty hard to mope around when you’ve got a kid as entertaining as mine running around.
RIP Jasper Cat.
(Usually I just post a tidbit of my CTWorkingMoms.com post here, but I really wanted to make sure I had this post recorded on the personal blog. I’m sad that this will probably be the last post in the “Jasper” category on this blog. I’m also posting the video here, but it just doesn’t feel right to post it on the other site)
I got a new phone and it takes some awesome quality video and makes it super easy to upload them to youtube, so I’ll probably be posting more video on here!
Here’s a few of S over the last few snowy days.
She’s shaking her head like she’s saying no a lot lately, but I don’t think she really means no. I think she just likes the way it feels. Here she is dancing and shaking her head.
And here’s another one of her feeding Cheerios to the dog.
A few weeks ago someone I was close with in High School passed away suddenly. We were two years apart in school, but spent a lot of time with our group of friends during our years together in Colorguard and Winterguard. Our practices and competitions were intense and the friendships forged were tight. I kept in touch through Facebook, like we all do, mostly watching from afar, so I felt as if I knew her much better than I really did. Truth is we hadn’t spoken since I graduated high school or soon after. I had seen photos of her husband and their quirky text conversations via her screenshot status updates. I knew many of the hilarious things her young daughter had said to her because she shared their conversations on her wall. I followed her quest to run marathons and cheered her through my computer screen. I laughed hysterically as she started adding the hashtag #howtoraiseanerd to the photos of her adorable daughter.
Word spread fast, as it does with Facebook. One person saw that her husband had posted that she was gone and soon the messages and texts started flying around. What happened? Everyone wants to know. Her family has asked for us all to respect their privacy. I don’t know why human nature is to want to know so badly. Do we just need to rationalize that it can’t happen to us, or our children, or our parents? Even though I hadn’t spoken with her in years, I still feel consumed by her loss at times over the last several days. Would I be able to accept it more if I knew how or why? She was an amazing person when I knew her, so bubbly and full of life. She seemed like an amazing mom, friend and wife from everything I’ve seen of her online.
It seems like both yesterday and lifetime ago that I was so close to all these beautiful people.
She’s the second from our group of about 25 to pass away. Both were moms of preschool aged kids. Any loss is overwhelming to imagine, but there’s something about the loss of a mom of a young child that hits me hard. Maybe it’s that I can identify with these two women so much. I can see myself in them, I can see my kids in their kids. I can see my husband in their husbands.
After hearing this terrible news, I vowed to hold my children tight, never lose my cool, and give them the perfectly loving mom that we all deserve – the mom that this poor little girl won’t get to have anymore. I vowed to love my husband and make sure he knows it every minute. And the first week since my old friend’s daughter lost her mother? I totally blew it. I had a day alone with my kids and I was annoyed and frustrated 75% of their waking hours. I’ve done nothing but take all my tiredness and frustration out on my undeserving husband. I’m ashamed that my actions have done the opposite of honor my friend and her family’s loss.
I don’t really know what the point of this post is – perhaps just an outlet for some emotions and questions that I can’t seem to reconcile. I’ve not experienced the loss of anyone close to me, in my day to day life. And while I hope I never do, I know that day will come. I guess I just want to stress to you and to myself that we need to just hold each other up and hold each other tight. Parenting is hard and marriage is hard, but we just don’t know how long we have on this earth with these beautiful little innocent creatures. The days are long, but the years are short. This week I will try harder.
Today on CTWorkingMoms.com I’m posting about Valentine’s Day. This holiday never really stood out for me and then just as I finally started dating someone in high school and had a chance to really celebrate, a classmate passed away unexpectedly on Valentine’s Day. It just didn’t feel right to celebrate anything and we’ve never really done so since. Also, our wedding anniversary is the same week, so we tend to just focus on that. We don’t really make a big deal out of that either. Now that M is getting old enough to understand holidays, it’s been really fun starting to really celebrate. As you’ll see in the other blog post, we’ve done some really fun things.
We made our own Valentines this year with stamps!
I’m putting a heart on their door everyday for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. On each heart I share a positive thing about each girl (thanks again Pinterest!).
We went to a super fun kids’ craft workshop where we painted wooden beads and made Valentine’s necklaces!
The workshop was held at a super cool carousel museum. M didn’t even know what this was, so we had a lot of fun watching videos of carousels before we went. She was really excited to ride one for the first time.
The True Story of What Was 