Sick and the Subsequent Super Mom That Rises From Said Sickness

While I've been down and out sick, and by down and out sick I mean the kind that keeps you from work, happiness, food, and smiles of any size, June was out being Super Mom...park trips, shopping, play dates, etc... I could barely manage to make it to the shower.

She snapped these while I stayed home and felt bad for myself.



Someone is getting to be all legs, and any hopes that we might have had that perhaps Zoey might inherit more of her Mom's height instead of her Dad's...gone.



People are always asking how Zoey has managed being a big sister, and like nearly everything else in her life, she's flittered through without so much as a glance at whatever issues she was "supposed" to have. Seriously, she's been a dream.



Gramma was around nearly every day for two of Zoey's first three years, and we've always felt as though it showed enormously -- in her attitude, her intelligence, her demeanor and development -- it mattered a bunch, and we were so, so lucky to have her.  I know that she misses it, and we're hoping that she can be around even just a fraction of that kind of time for Maggie.  We're absolutely convinced that giant parts of why Zoey has always done so well can be attributed to that influence. 100% certain.  June's Mom, Zoey and Maggie's Baachan, is eager to help as much as she can this Fall, and we're beyond excited at the prospect.  It really is one of the biggest reasons why we never left home for parts unknown.  You can't underestimate the role of Grandmothers on these girls, and to land them both for Maggie's early development makes us melt with appreciation and feel at times overwhelmed with our good fortune.  We want whatever recipe it is that makes our girls to be giant, heaping parts of the women that made us.



June is pretty convinced that there are little things that she'd like to do differently with Maggie.  One of them is giving her a little more independence at the dinner table.  We were pretty diligent about not being those parents who just let their kids destroy the kitchen each and every time they sat down to eat...and I'm sure there were benefits to that, and some negatives, but Maggie will grow up enjoying a different kind of freedom at the table.  This could get interesting.




Two girls...sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion of a family comprised almost entirely of females. Thanks Christmas Baby Jesus that Mom likes baseball, and knows the difference between field and box lacrosse, and buys football tickets and can pack appropriately for tailgates...and thank Poseidon or Zeus or someone of such mythic ilk, that Zoey likes to play floor hockey in the living room, and that sometimes she doesn't want to go to bed because the Lakers are playing, but somewhere in that exchange of all too often gender-centric curiosities there must also be gymnastics, and My Little Pony, and Dad learning to braid hair and buy the right sized gym leotard. Who'd have ever imagined? (BTW...that IS a Michigan leotard...just saying.)



It's one of those things that you don't think about until it rears it's occasionally ugly head, but your kids are very likely going to have moments that more closely resemble yourself than you might like...so we watch ourselves, and try to curb certain habits and reactions and whatever else we don't necessarily want to pass on, but some of that crap is genetic.  Let's just say that I wouldn't want to be the boy that crosses one of Daddy's girls...and it might not be Daddy that they'd need to worry about.




I don't like being sick.  I don't like missing a single thing, and every day there's something.  Good thing June often has a camera for a third arm.  I swear I don't know a single family with as many photos as we have.  It's insane...and awesome.  Amazing how a photo can make you forget that you were even sick.  I'll still take NyQuil over Canon, at least this week, but as a general rule, photos trump the flu.