Ensa

This is Caroline's "best baby doll," her favorite toy for about a year now. Her name is Ensa, which Caroline told us is short for enchilada sauce. More recently, she's told us that Ensa's full name is Ensa Encha Ladasuce. Ensa used to take turns with Piglet, Pooh Bear, Purple Maymay, and other stuffed animals as Caroline's companion, but now she is always chosen first before all other animals and dolls. She rides in the van with Caroline every time we go somewhere, and she sleeps with her at every nap and at night. Caroline sets Ensa up with her own dishes before dinner most nights, she carries her in her doll sling, she nurses her when she's hungry or sad, she checks her up with her doctor kit, and she bucles her safely into her carseat before she "drives" anywhere. Ensa's sisters vary from Gianna (Bath Baby) and Busy Baby to Heart Cat and Amber Maymay, and her age varies from "a baby" to age three. Any time Ensa has to be left alone, she "cries silently." In fact, she's been silent for a while now... she used to make noise when she was squeezed. Her batteries began to die, and she made increasingly disturbing sounds. Under her clothing, there is no way to get to the batteries besides cutting the cloth open and then sewing it back up. I only did that once. Caroline doesn't seem to mind the fact that Ensa no longer laughs or cries when squeezed. She loves her unconditionally, the way all mothers love their babies.

Kissin' Cousins

We went to Huntsville over the weekend for my nephew's baptism. We had a great time hanging out with family. We got to go swimming while we were there, too! After the baptism, we had lunch, and then Caroline posed with Andrew for some pictures. Surprisingly, she didn't mind being licked!

Congratulations on your baptism, Andrew! You are a child of God!

Too funny...

We went to lunch with Daddy at his work today and got home a bit late... so Caroline had "rest time" with books instead of a nap. Apparently she had other plans... fast asleep in a pile of books! When I think back to the days of nursing her to sleep, wondering if she'd ever be able to fall asleep by herself, and then I see this, it makes me smile in a bittersweet way.

La Leche League Area Conference 2008

We attended this year's LLL conference in Helen, Georgia, at Unicoi State Park. This was the second year the conference was held in this beautiful setting. I went to many sessions ang gained lots of helful information. Chris entertained Caroline and took her to a few sessions led by park rangers as well as some of the adult sessions, too. Cecilia hung out with me, of course. We had a picnic dinner one evening, with yummy sandwiches - homemade bread, even! The kids enjoyed looking at the river and playing on the playground. Cecilia enjoyed the picnic in her own way:

After the picnic, we headed back to the lodge for the Bluegrass Jamboree (or Jambaroo, as Caroline called it). Adults enjoyed the music while the kids enjoyed dancing together.

Cecilia just rode around with me to all the sessions, napping when she felt like it. Here she is after one of my Saturday sessions:

Saturday evening, we had a new leader induction ceremony at the lake. I officially became a leader right after Christmas, so I was included in the ceremony. There were several new leaders this year! We all gathered on the shore of the lake. Seven candles on a wreath were lit to represent the seven founders of La Leche League. The wreath was placed on the lake, where it floated out a little ways (some of the older kids had fun retrieving it later!). Then each new leader received her pin and placed a candle in the water at the shore as her sponsoring leader threw a pebble into the lake to illustrate the "ripple effect" of how new leaders are trained by other leaders, and La Leche League has spread across th world in the last 50 years. Marian Tompson, one of the original seven leaders, was there. She handed me my pin, so that was really special... one of the founders who'd begun this organization 50 years previous was now giving me my pin as a new leader!

Afte the ceremony, we gathered in a picnic shelter near the lake and had Girl Scout cookies. Caroline made a friend and had a lot of fun playing with her.


On Sunday, we enjoyed walking around Helen for a bit before heading home. We went to the bakery and bought some pastries as a treat, and we went into several interesting shops, including the toy store. which has unique toys, several wooden ones that are handmade on site. Helen is such a fun little town, and it will be a great place to come when the girls are older and we can take them tubing in the river here!

What a fun and educational weekend!!

Why my babies sleep with me

1. It makes nighttime nursings so much easier. Just laying there, neither of us has to change position... no getting up and sitting in a rocking chair, trying to keep myself from falling asleep while sitting up. This way, we can both sleep while she eats!
2. Baby doesn't wake all the way up, and therefore I can settle her back to sleep quicker. No waiting until she's all the way awake, then going across the hallway into her room. She doesn't have a chance to get fully awakened and upset this way.
3. I'm lazy. I don't like to get up at night. I already have to do that once or twice to go to the bathroom, so I like limiting my up-and-down to that.
4. I believe, from all I have read about it, that babies were biologically designed to sleep next to their mothers. Infants have irregular breathing paterns, and the mature breahing pattern of the mother in close proximity helps to keep the baby breathing normally, thus reducing the risk of SIDS. Mothers have been shown to be so in tune with their babies when sleeping together that they will awaken just before their babies do, and this in-tuneness also ensures that a mother will typically wake if her baby experiences a stop-breathing episode. See more about this from James McKenna.
5. It helps with bonding. I can stay close to my baby all night, giving her warmth and skin-to-skin contact. A newborn doesn't really get it that she is not part of her mother - they have been inseperable for nine months, and it's going to take a while for baby to figure out that they are actually two separate people! Babies have no object permanence in the early months... no understanding of the fact that just because mom isn't visible, she still exists somewhere.
6. We don't have to deal with this mixing up of days andnights business. Baby learns pretty quickly that it's nighttime because mom and dad are laying in bed sleeping.
7. They won't want to sleep with me when they're 14. My three year old asked to sleep in her own room shortly after she turned two. And who wouldn't melt waking up next to this every day?

Cecilia's Baptism

Cecilia was baptized today! We had to wait until Lent was over since our parish does not perform baptisms during that time, and Cecilia was only about a week old when Lent began... not really enough time to get her baptized then. So, we had her baptized at the first opportunity after Lent, which was March 30. Deacon Stu performed the baptism on sleeping Cecilia, while both sets of grandparents and all the uncles and aunt watched. Uncle Tim is the godfather - you can see him standing with us in this photo.

Cecilia didn't mind the water at all!

Here is our whole family after Mass with the newest member of the family of Christ!

Cecilia poses (as much as a two month old can pose) with Uncle Tim.

After the Mass, we headed back to our house for the baptism party! We had help from the grandparents in getting the food together. We had fruit salad, a raw veggie platter with dip, Chick-fil-A chicken salad on croissants, shrimp and grits, and a cake, of course! My mother in law made the veggie and fruit dishes, and my mom made the shrimp and grits (her idea!) and got the cake from Costco. Costco has *amazing* cakes!!

Caroline and I set up the table for the party the day before. We put out the white tablecloth on the table where we'd serve the food buffet-style. Then we made some tissue paper flowers together, also white. The use of white symbolizes purity - thus, white table, flowers, cake, gown... I thought it would be nice to put out both girls' baptismal candles... Caroline's is the one on the right, and we brought Cecilia's home from church and put it in the candle holder on the left. I also hung Cecilia's little cross (which isn't on a bedroom wall since she doesn't have a bedroom yet) on the vase - if you look closely in this photo you can see it. Uncle Tim got it for Cecilia from Mount Saint Mary's in Baltimore and had it blessed by a priest.


Caroline also colored this picture of a baptism and loaned us her pink cross from her bedroom. It added nicely to the decor for the occasion.


We had a wonderful Sunday welcoming Cecilia into the Catholic faith. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate with all our family. Welcome to the Church, Cecilia Clare! I pray that I will have the wisdom to share our beautiful faith with you as you grow.

Arts and Crafts with Caroline

This was my mom's idea, from her many years of working in preschools. She had Caroline help her dye eggs for Easter, and then she gave us the shells in a baggie to bring home. We crushed them up and then used a paintbrush to spread glue on a piece of paper. Then Caroline pressed the eggshells down onto the glue. A little messy, but the end product was very pretty.

Three year old drawings

Caroline drew these yesterday, just a few days after turning three. It is interesting how she's begun to draw things that actually look like something! The two of these look very similar, but as you can see, I labeled them so you can tell the difference. Cats are her favorite thing to draw. She does the face first, then eyes, nose, mouth, and whiskers. Sometimes there are extra lines for ears and sometimes not.

Dutch is my brother Stephen's dog. Apparently, he has whiskers too.

Easter 2008

We went to my parents' house for Easter. We attended Mass with them and then Caroline looked for Easter eggs hidden by Grampa and Daddy. Gramma bought Caroline's dress for her earlier this year. Easter was early again this year, just as it was the year Caroline was born. Supposedly, it will not be this early again for some number of decades!

Aside from hunting for eggs, Caroline's other favorite activity this year was making Resurrection Rolls. We made a basic bread dough recipe to start (I made a whole wheat dough although the recipe says use white - they turned out fine). We then took large marshmallows and dipped them in melted butter, then rolled them in a little cinnamon-sugar mixture. I explained to Caroline that the marshmallow is like Jesus, and the butter and cinnamon-sugar represent the oils and spices they used to anoint his body before they laid him in the tomb. Then we wrapped a piece of dough around each marshmallow, which represents the tomb. We baked them in the oven - we did this on Good Friday, the day before we went to my parents' house - and then we ate them on Easter morning with our breakfast. When we bit into the rolls, they were hollow - the tomb was empty! I thought it was a neat idea, and Caroline really seemed to "get" it.

Grampa hid the eggs in some of his old clever hiding places where he used to hide them for my brothers and me. They did several hunts, one where he hid all the eggs along the bushes in front of the house - all in plain view, one after another. The basket was not only my Easter basket when I was little, but it was also my mom's! I don't know what we'll use for Cecilia's basket...

Happy Easter!!

Caroline's 3rd Birthday

Wow - I can't believe she's already three years old! Caroline is growing up quickly. For her birthday this year, we had a modest family celebration at home with just Mommy, Daddy, and Cecilia. She will get to celebrate a little more next week when all the relatives come for Cecilia's baptism.

First, Caroline opened presents. She got a puzzle and a playsilk (pictured below), which she can use for anything from a baby blanket to a skirt to a cape.

The big gift from us was her new comforter for her bed. Her bedroom walls are blue, and we found this pretty comforter at Target... it is mostly purple with some blue in it. Here she is after going into her room to discover her new gift! Her Gran has made a matching valance and throw pillow for her, which she'll bring next week.

Caroline had been telling me that she wanted a cake with "pink sugar icing." She got this phrase from the Winnie-the-Pooh book. So I made strawberry frosting, using some frozen strawberries to get the pink color. Caroline had asked for a chocolate cake. The frosting ended up tasting really good on chocolate cake!

Wearing the birthday hat and getting ready to blow out her three candles... she was very excited! We all enjoyed eating the birthday cake (well, except for Cecilia).

Happy birthday, Caroline!