Random Thoughts From a Mommy

Dear Mackenzie, A year has come and gone. How could that be? I could've sworn it was just yesterday I was fussing about what to write for your one year birthday . Here I am again. Some things haven't changed. You still light up when you see Po Po with as much enthusiasm as you did a year ago. You did things earlier than I expected you to, just like when you were a baby. You are still our teacher every day. I read a blog post once that you'll remember the firsts, but most of the time, you won't remember the last. Like I don't remember the last time you signed please, the last time you needed me to spoon feed you because you weren't coordinated enough yet, the last time you ate your crayons, the last time you used a sippy cup...there were so many last times I didn't realize were lasts. Every new word or new thing you did came as a surprise each time. When I started singing "I'm A Child of God", I was so surprised that you remembered the w...

I don't know what possessed us to potty train a 22-month old when we have a newborn at home, but you know, we did it. One of my mommy friends has an older kid and suggested the 3-day method a long long time ago. I never forgot it, but never really looked up on it either. All I knew was 3 days of nothing from the waist down. As you can imagine, the thought of doing that with a newborn terrified us. But a couple of months ago, Mackenzie decided to get into the Penaten for the THIRD time, resulting in this: We sucked it up and we picked a weekend with no plans (which if you know us, you know how impossible this is for us!), and off to training we go! Let me tell you - the first day and a half was a nightmare! There was a lot of, "Mack, do you need to go?" and Mack replying, "NO!" And when we did put her on the potty, there was a lot of whining and a lot of "I AM NOT READY!" Even though she only had one accident on day 1 and day 2, we still ...

I've always said that children are amazing teachers, so it comes as no surprise that Mackenzie taught me a great lesson today. It was a cloudy day this morning. So at the first sign of sun, we took both Mack and Bree to the park just down the street. Mack went on the swings first as usual. An older girl with her mom wanted her mom to push her higher because Bryan was pushing Mack so high. You can tell the girl was jealous. I'm sure the mom was cursing us on the inside thinking, "thanks a lot for teaching my kid to swing high. Now she's going to bug me forever!" Then Mack went on to the slides. She first went up the stairs to warm up, then she climbed this 3-foot rock climbing wall, and then she went on the other side to climb this metal bars that were about 3.5 ft high. She's been attempting this for a couple of weeks now. I've always been too nervous to let her go on her own. This time, Bryan was behind her. He gently guided her to go up. With every s...