My second child was born right smack in the middle of football season, so she gets a football reference blog title for her first birthday. Figure she (& I) better just get used to it. Be impressed that I’m even able to make a football reference because if I’m watching football, it’s probably due to someone giving me hot cider & whiskey & telling me the half-time show promises to be a really creative performance.

That said – my baby is a whole year old!!

…Happy Birthday Dear Maggie…

We kept it simple & just had a family dinner, similar to what we did on Libby’s first. Mimi cooked broccoli chicken casserole & I disguised zucchini bread as a cake, similar to what I did for Libby’s when I disguised pumpkin bread as her cake. Libby of course was out of her mind jealous, and was all up in Maggie’s bubble all night “helping baby” eat her cake, open her presents, learn to play with her toys. Nana Shirley and close family friend (basically auntie status) Dorinda both even brought Libby “belated birthday” presents of her own to try to distract, but Libby STILL just wanted to snatch all of Maggie’s new toys. So that was challenging. Maggie loved all her toys, she has so few that are really just hers. She got a xylophone, a drum, a chunky wood animal puzzle, stacking/nesting wooden blocks, a teddy bear, and little set of books. But after watching Maggie at Libby’s birthday and Libby at Maggie’s birthday, I’m realizing I’m going to really need a good plan at Christmas to make sure everything is “fair.” And pretty much continue to revise said “fair” plan for the rest of their lives. I hope they don’t end up fighting over some boy one day because what a waste of energy that will be.

Since my last post, the rest of September and October involved fewer trips to the doctor (thank God). They were, nonetheless, eventful.

Brian and I took our child-free trip the last weekend in September. It was amazing. I was such a stress-case leading up to the trip because I was so nervous about leaving both girls in the care of my parents (“You know we raised kids once before once upon a time” – “I know, Mom, I was there, that’s why I’m nervous”) but of course it was fine. The girls love Mimi & Granddaddy and they seemed to have had a great time and my parents didn’t have any heart attacks so win-win. Meanwhile, Brian and I went to Jackson Hole, WY and stayed at the White Buffalo for a friends 40th birthday and had a truly wonderful time with a fun group of old friends.

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I drank as much as wanted and pumped & dumped the whole weekend. Not gonna lie, I’m going to be very very ready to donate that pump & throw away all my nursing bras. Maggie doesn’t realize it yet, but her nursing days are numbered…

The most stressful thing that happened was our trip to Omaha over fall break to move Grandma Karen to her new apartment in an independent living community. That was hard, but more for Karen, Brian and my sister-in-law Jen than for me. But the girls got a good visit with their Grandmas Karen & Olive and several of their Great Aunts & Uncles.

We are going back for the week of Thanksgiving to follow up and keep working on clearing out the house, which she had been living in for  over 40 years.

School is going well, Libby seems to be still loving it.

She has a little best friend in her class who she talks about constantly, so I’m clearly going to have to set up a playdate. We just had our little teacher-parent conference and her teachers said she’s great, doing all the things she should be. They also say she is very quiet unless asked a direct question. Not in a shy way. Just in an assessing and listening and waiting for the relevant moment way. So pretty much Brian. Which means Maggie will prob inherit my foot-in-the-mouth manner of chatting. Poor thing.

We finally made it to a pumpkin farm this year, which is a thing people do around here in the fall. We drove out to Walden Farm in Smyrna & met up with our playgroup. Libby hadn’t seen her little yoga playgroup friends (and I hadn’t seen my mommy friends) in a really long time so that was really nice to get to play with them.

Lastly, we of course did Halloween. Libby first wanted to be a rainbow cat. Then she thought maybe she’d be Katerina Kitty Cat from Daniel Tiger because then she could wear a tutu. Then one day she asked me about tornadoes – a question which probably bubbled up as a result of the natural disaster exhibit at Adventure Science Museum and/or my habit of excitedly pointing out the little water cyclone that happens when you drain the bathtub water – and I decided the best way to answer that question was to let her watch the beginning of the Wizard of OZ. Of course, she wanted to keep watching, so (twist my arm) we settled in and watched the whole thing while Maggie napped one day. And she loved it, witch and all. So the declaration was made that she wanted to dress as Dorothy, and I was to be the Wicked Witch. It was then decided Maggie should be Toto, Daddy would be the Tin Man, and Granddaddy was to dress as the Cowardly Lion. Mimi was supposed to be Glinda, but she ended up not feeling well the day of Halloween & missed the festivities.

I took the girls to music class at Blooma for their little Halloween party where we sang Halloween songs, practiced trick-or-treating, and ate cookies. Then we went to Mimi’s & Granddaddy’s and watched – you guessed it – The Wizard of OZ (for the fourth time this month) & ate lunch. My plan fell apart here, where I remembered I’d forgotten to get a funnel hat for the Tin Man. So I attempted Wal-Mart run, which as far as Wal-Mart runs with two children in tow go, wasn’t that bad. Here’s the thing: they don’t make funnels like they used to. But the delay made me late to meet up with my friends & I had no time to feel organized at all. But despite feeling discombobulated (what else is new) and having a Tin Man costume that looked kinda like it was out of an 80s alt pop music video and forgetting Dorothy’s basket and being a Wicked Witch of the West without green skin, Libby had a really great time with her first trick-or-treating experience. Vandy’s Greek Row put on a trick-or-treat event for kids from 5p-7p and it was perfect because Brian could walk over from work & join us before dark, which would have been tough for him to do if we’d tried to do it closer to home. Plus it had a clear beginning and an end, so it wasn’t overwhelming or confusing for Libby (no meltdowns!), and it was not nearly as crowded as I would have expected. Brian walked with Libby up to each house and each time she came back exclaiming “Mommy, look what treat I got!” It was pretty adorable.

Maggie sat in the stroller and chewed on an apple. This apple was her total obsession. I mean, she was taking everything in and pointing and babble commenting as one-year olds do, but the apple was very important. I tried several times to take the apple away and she was not having it.

And that was Halloween. Sorry for the dearth of photos of what would normally be a shutter-button happy event – my phone ran out of battery. Why did the battery drain so fast? Oh, because I dropped it in a toilet in Omaha & we riced it so it works but the flashlight is stuck permanently on so the battery drains lickedy-split like. Awesome-sauce right? My we-need-new-phones lobby to Brian is louder than ever.

I’m not really ready at all to be barreling at full-speed toward the holiday season, but I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited to be wrapping up 2017. Not that it’s been the worst year ever, good stuff has definitely happened, but it’s certainly been a bumpy year & I could be up for some smoother sailing. Maybe 2018 will accommodate. We shall see.