Babywearing is nice because it allows you to carry your baby in a hands-free fashion and gives you easy access to smother her head in kisses.
The real reason I wore Myla for the first time in a baby carrier was because I was too nervous that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to lock the infant car seat into the grocery basket the right way. I had visions of myself standing in the Kroger parking lot struggling with the basket and looking like a total amateur. (This was before all the online mama hype came out claiming that you should never put the infant bucket seat into the front of a grocery cart since "a running child might knock your cart over making your baby fall." I shop at 8:00am, so it's just the Livingston girls and the senior citizens perusing Kroger at that time. An elderly person has never been running through the store and rammed my cart! I digress).
I liked to keep it simple with either my Balboa ring sling or the mei tai that my mother-in-law made (holla!).
Myla @ 2 months
Piper @ 6 months
They were so little and cute back then!
Myla, on the other hand, takes a different approach. Say you're hanging around the house with no pants and your baby is fussy. Solution-- stick her in your shirt.
I know what you're thinking. "But what if I'm only wearing pants?!" Answer:
Unfortunately, Piper Joy is making her way to the picky eating stage (as evidenced by her picking green peas out of rice, yelling "no!" and placing them on the table). I am hoping it never gets quite as bad as Myla's food aversions, though. One thing is for sure-- she hasn't met a fruit she doesn't like.
Before I had kids, I was a really good mom. I told myself that I would never let my kids wander around the house while snacking. Food is to be eaten at a table. We aren't animals! As it turns out, we actually are animals. Piper can be a little disagreeable at times, and she seems to put a cork in it when we give her some grub. Thus was born the wandering peach-eater:
You just have to get her started with the first bite, and she's good to go for a half hour!
Watching shows, snacking on a peach.
Five second rule!
It's the perfect traveling snack. You know, if you ignore the part about the juices running all over your child and your home.
In case you're wondering, yes, I did trim her bangs shortly after this. Now she's all business in the front, party in the back.
I have never seen a person as passionate about watermelon as my husband until I met my daughter. We have probably been through 15 watermelons this summer. I literally watched my daughter gag up a little piece of watermelon from lunch (30 minutes prior) while we were grocery shopping and proceed to eat it again....
(Does that count as a five-second rule?)
Happy end of watermelon season! Dave is now looking forward to apple pie season, so I guess you'll be seeing my thunder pie-thighs at the gym this fall!
You can probably tell by the Livingston's pasty shade of flesh that we aren't actually frequent beach goers, but we did manage to get down to the gulf a couple of times this summer. Our first trip was just to spend the day in Galveston to gauge how the kids would handle the beach. The verdict: Myla has panic attacks about touching sand, and Piper is down for anything.
Can we just stop and look at this little cutie? He's my friend's baby (obviously, since we don't create male offspring). I would totally steal him, though, if I thought she wouldn't notice.
How do we keep our skin so white, you might ask? Well, we stay under a tent while other children are playing in the ocean. Piper chilled in a kiddie pool since she wasn't walking yet (in June). You can also see how Myla makes a point of resting her feet on the pool so as not to touch the sand.
Not. touching. sand.
Piper's favorite activity was/is eating.
Myla's favorite activity was staying away from the sand.
ROUND 2.
We headed down to Port Aransas with some family and friends in August. In true Myla fashion, she took her own sweet time but ended up enjoying the beach (even the sand!) She would watch Piper and me playing for an hour or so then decide to give it a shot. I'm sure we'll start all over from the beginning next year. :)
Here is some of the crew:
Bunnie is our friend who loves the beach. She's 92 years old, and she'll still kick your butt.
Alan and Kristen won the "Cool Aunt and Uncle Award" by taking Myla on her first fishing trip. They also made a big to do about buying her a special pink fishing pole. They let PawPaw come along for the ride but told him not to touch anything.
I guess they let her drive.
Proof that this happened:
(My child won't even touch a piece of broccoli without hyperventilating and throwing a fit, so this was a big deal).
The guy who takes it seriously:
Beach babes.
We were just relaxing and having a grand ole time at the playa when the ice cream truck practically bombarded us and forced us to buy something! Back in my day, ice cream off the truck was cheap, but these cost 3 or 4 bucks!
Nana came armed with cash to buy the grandkids' love ice cream for everyone after she saw the truck the first day. In an attempt to not take a step backward, I explained to Myla that she may have ice cream, but she needs to eat it in her own chair (i.e. her feet would be touching the ground. the sandy ground). I was firm on this rule. As you can see here, Nana totally undermined my authority and let her eat while sitting on her lap!
Remember how Mother's Day happened a few months ago? Yea, that was one of those posts that I never wrote, probably because I was too busy watching the West Wing or something...
I am not sure if you have met my mother, but there are two important things you should know about her: 1) She's awesome. 2) Buying gifts for her is horrible. She can't help it-- she's the girl who has everything!
So, Kristen and I spent some time trying to figure out what to do for her this Mother's day. We decided that she enjoys experiences more than objects, so we planned the experience of a lifetime an afternoon of fun. We kicked off the day with some bowling, followed by Chinese food....followed by fro-yo. Yes, 66% of our outing centered around food. What of it??
"See that? That's the butt I fell in love with." -- Jon Kemp
Nana and Myla
Mel had to come along to restrain Piper.
Notice my form-- this could be why I received the lowest score of the family...
The restraining is easier when food is available.
Longhorn stud.
Wait, did I say only 66% of our outing involved food? Make that 100%. Bowling is exhausting!
Myla finally tried her hand at bowling while wearing her princess shoes. Thanks for the hand-me-downs, Lindsay!
I have never seen her more proud of herself.
My brother from another mother.
Mom and dad, cupping a ball. I cut Dad's head off, because I'm a terrible photog. Awkward family photo alert!
(This has nothing to do with the post, but pictures make it less boring, right?)
Some of you faithful readers may or may not remember that there is a traditional one-year photo taken of the Kemp family line starting with my dear, old dad. Seeing as though Piper turned one over a month ago (gah!), I really needed to do something about that. I finally decided to bite the bullet and just go to the JC Penney at the First Colony Mall on a friend's recommendation.
The morning of the photo shoot rolled around, and I miraculously was able to pack everything I needed (including my children) and meet my mom at the mall. Thank goodness for teacher summer breaks! Piper and I had gone through a bit of a fever bug a day or so beforehand, but all seemed well. I slipped the bambina into her hand-made dress and proceeded to do the thing that everyone swears they will never do (and hates that they are doing in the midst of actually doing it): sing and say obnoxious things to try and make my baby smile so we can get a dadgum picture and I can cross it off my to-do list already! And yes, I realize my grammar flew out the window already...
I changed Piper into another little casual outfit while Miss Marva used the time to take a few shots of Myla. Myla generally likes having pictures taken of her, but usually shows it by staring stone-faced into the lens and showing no expression whatsoever. I digress. I held Piper and started to walk over to set her down to join in the fun with Myla when Miss Marva said, "Oh, she's throwing up." God bless her catlike reflexes-- she provided me with a handful of paper towels pretty quickly, but this wasn't just some baby spit up. There was vomit cascading out of my child and down my shirt. Puke was holding the two of us together, and it just. wouldn't. quit.
I had taken off my shoes to help leap around with the picture taking, but in a heat-of-the-moment decision, I walked barefoot next door into the family restroom in JC Penney. Praise God my mom was able to stay with Myla. As I hustled to the bathroom, the kid was still spewing. I had to hold her over the sink to finish. THEN, curse that unspoken rule that says you take care of your kids before yourself-- I took off her little outfit and did what anyone would do at that moment-- threw it in the trash can. And what do you do with your clean(er) baby when you are barefoot in a public restroom and have to clean the puke off of yourself? Well, you set her on the floor. In a public restroom. Thefloor. At least she seemed happier at this point.
I know I typically err on the side of too much information, but y'all: I was scraping regurgitated bananas and pancakes out of my bra. I blame my children for deflating my chest and even allowing for there to be extra room in my bra for barf to slide in, but still! I pretty much had to rinse my entire shirt off in the sink and put it back on again. 357 paper towels later, I headed back to the photo studio in a soaking wet shirt and told my mom, "I need you to go find me a shirt. Any shirt. There must be some American Flag shirt for $5 somewhere in this joint!" That Dottie Kemp, she delivered. She rocks.
You know who else rocks? Miss Marva at JC Penney. She actually stopped and took MORE pictures of my kid because she seemed to feel better and was actually cracking some smiles. She even tried to make me feel better by telling me stories of newborn projectile poop on her studio backdrop. I'll have proof that the pictures don't suck in a few days.
Not that I am ever overly dramatic, I may have mentioned, "This is the worst day of my life." to which Miss Marva replied, "Then girl, you've had some pretty good days!"
The thing I love best about two-year-olds is that they usually give you a good laugh every day! I want to remember the funny little things my kiddos say, so here goes:
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Sometimes I like to tie the kids down give the kids a snack in their highchairs while I race around trying to vacuum up the common areas as quickly as I can. Last time I pulled out the vacuum, Myles asked me, "Mom, are you cleaning my house?"
(Yes, dear. I'm cleaning your house). Good thing she's pretty cute.
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Sometimes, I don't even realize the things I say to her on a regular basis until I hear them coming back at me. For example, this one:
Lately, I have seemed to hear waaaay too much "I need this. I need sumpin." ALL the time. (sumpin = "something"). So, I have tried to teach her to ask for things nicely using this basic format:
"May I have some ______, please?"
These are variations I hear often:
"May I have some get down, please?"
"May I have some I need eat sumpin."
"May I have some watch movie, please?"
"May I have some my jam, please?" (We call her favorite song "her jam.")
P.S. Her favorite song this exact version:
Manners are hard.
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Myla, talking to me in the car: "Mom, Piper tell me these aren't my sunglasses! These are my glasses, Piper tried to tell me no!"
Or: "Mommy, Piper said she don't want to go to Emilia's house! I said we go to Emilia's house, and she said uh-uh!"
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Tonight, I read the story of David and Goliath from her children's bible. Afterward it had a picture of a scared little kid and I pointed to it and asked her, "What should you do if you're scared and don't feel brave?"
Myla: And I run away because I don't want to kill him. And I knocked him over.
Tonight, I asked her to pray for Piper so we could put her to bed. It went a little something like this:
"Dear God, thank you for our food and for our snack. And for Mommy and Daddy and Daddy's tummy hurt. And Daddy's tummy hurt, and feel better. And thank you for our breakfast and......breakfast. And good morning. And good night."
(She must have gotten this idea about tummies hurting because we try to remember to pray when one of us is sick.)
I read her a book about baby animals while she sat on the potty one evening. I read a line about bunny rabbits eating vegetables and asked Myla, "Do you like to eat vegetables?"
Myla: "No."
Me: "Why not? Why don't you like to eat vegetables?"
Myla: "Because... I too sad."
