So much to update about

I am extremely overdue for an update! My apologies! We visited Devin's Mom at the beach this weekend, it was awesome! For some reason, Devin and I seem to connect better when we're out of town, its like a refresher for our relationship. Perhaps its the lack of dirty dishes and randomly discarded socks? Whatever it is, it was well-needed!

I will attempt to keep our updates short. Okay, ready?

1. Me - I am doing much better this week. My friend Beth pointed out that sometimes Moms just get overtired, stressed, iritable and overwhelmed and maybe its just okay to be where I'm at. After talking to her, I felt a billion times better. Sometimes, I just need permission to feel my feelings, if that makes sense. I think, as a society, women hold themselves and perhaps even eachother to unrealistic standards. We are not all going to be Donna Reed all the time. I think its important for women to tell other women this, often. Also, as an aside, on June 1, I celebrated a 4 year anniversary of a more personal nature. I'm not gonna spell it out on the internet, so you if you don't know, I shall remain mysterious.

2. Lily - Lily continues to keep me on my toes. She is such an emotional child, so loving and caring one minute and the next, hardheaded and cranky. I have no idea where she gets that from...hmmm. She is simply amazing. Her imagination play has really reached a new level lately. She now can "play" more than one character, so when she interacts with her Freddies now, she also adds voices for them. Its awesome!

Her current obsessions are Disney movies. Last week, at my mom's, she must've watched Beauty&TheBeast a hundred times and this weekend at Devin's Mom, she exhausted TheLittleMermaid. It was so bad that while Devin and I were on a secluded island in the inlet, spending some quality time together, looking for shark's teeth among the seashells, i couldn't get the damn Little Mermand music out my mind!

She is still ridiculously independent and her new favorite hobby is riding on the jet ski with her Dad. It makes my stomach curl to think about, but she loves it. We brought the dang thing with us to the beach and took a few joy rides out on the inlet.

She also has the best sense of humor and her misunderstandings tickle me pink. She told me the other day that she has a "stomach egg." She says at least 20 things a day that have me nearly peeing my pants and I can't really remember any of them. Tonight, she told me that "cuv" was Spanish for "Love" (cuv was actually something she made up when she went through her rhyming phase. I would say "Lily, I love you" and she'd say "I cuv you, mommy." Later, she put restrictions on it "Parents cuv kids and kids love parents, mommy." Now I guess its progressed to being a foreign word?)

Sense of humor in action: (please look closely at the photo below...)

3. Colin - We are still fighting the sleep battle, but I do believe I have a firmer grasp on it. Thanks to some good friends, I feel like I know a bit more about sleep stuff than I did with Lily (poor Lily, I was so clueless with her, lol). The majority of the time that Colin cries, its because he is tired. He did get a bit overtired from our beach travel, but did really well, all things considered.

Milestone-wise, this boy is on a roll! His little intonations are really changing. He used to say "ghee" for everything, but his new sound is a shrieky growl when he's angry or tired, he clearly complains and he likes to say "oh oh oh oh eh eh eh." This is deep stuff!

He is at that phase where he can grab stuff now and put it in his mouth. His grabbing skills are kind of hit or miss, but anything in his hand will undoubtedly end up in his mouth. He also pulls his own paci out. Its gotten so bad that at naptime, I let him pull his paci out and before he cries, I throw another one in his mouth and let him keep the other in his hand so its occupied.

He is strong, just like Lily at this age. I can easily pull him into a sitting position and then up to his feet. His position of choice is actually to be standing.

Today, he found his feet. By this point, Lily could bring her feet to her ears and roll around, but Colin's belly is a bit bigger, so his feet can't go all the cool places that Lily's feet go to...yet.

Oh! And he's getting hair! He's still bald, but its growing :)

4. Photography - I am slowly getting better, I think (I hope!). Karen was sweet enough to let her son Will be my guinea pig, these are two of my favorites:

So nothing too exciting going on over here. We are considering another trip to Germany, but not sure if that will ever work out, time or money wise. Fingers crossed!