Long Update, No Pictures....

It will not be news to most of you that our week has been, yes, BUSY! I thought for sure things would be slower this week with Colin and Pryce in church camp but, alas, that has not been the case! Because we have spent so much time on the go this week, I thought I would use this post to talk about our time with Mason-Kate. On June 17th we will celebrate 3 months with her! WOW! She has grown so much physically and emotionally. Her hair has grown probably an inch, her feet have grown a centimeter or two, her little legs have gotten taller and her eyes have remained those beautiful brown eyes! She is trying to speak....she repeats apple (ahhh-pullll or sometimes ahhhh-llll), she says hi and waves bye, she says "ni-ni" for goodnight, she sings in the car and babbles when she is being entertained at home. She is walking all over, no longer afraid to walk across the room to a toy that she may want to play with. She has gotten her first molars (so sad that she can't put them to use yet!) and she has a somewhat repaired palate. She loves to show off her nose, eyes and her little belly as those are the body parts that she knows at this point. She is quite the little shopper as long as I am either holding her or she is free to walk holding my hand....I have also discovered that she loves the buggies that are offered in some stores, she prefers this over her stroller. We purchased our first official pair of pink shoes this week....mary jane style crocs, light pink and just adorable....she marveled at them for a long time....then she decided to see how it would feel to walk with them on. Lets just say that it is somewhat hard for a one year old to walk when bending over and staring down at their feet! She will take anything that remotely looks like a phone, hold it up to her ear and say "hi". She has now decided that we can compromise on the stair climbing issue....she will sit on the first stair with a toy or two and play. As cute as she is, she does have her "dark" side, the side that I don't mention a whole lot and the side that only presents itself under certain circumstances. One example of this is expressed at mealtime. We will give her a bottle, she will inhale it, she will put her hands up beside her face and do a two syllable sound for "all gone", we will tell her "yes, all gone" and she just flips, literally. She goes from this sweet, cuddly little angel to this irate, screaming animal in no time at all. I know, I know, you are saying to fix her more....we do, but the time between bottle one and bottle two is LONG. Then there are the moments when she is told "no"....oh my goodness, that does not go well at all. And then there are the visits to the doctor....those are the worst! In fact, we visited yesterday for an ear check-up. Mason-Kate loves the waiting area....she will walk around and say hi to everyone, she points to the other children and smiles, she just really doesn't mind it at all until they call her name to come back. Horrific describes the next 45 minutes we spend behind closed doors waiting on the doctor. Very frustrating from my end as there isn't a thing that I can do but sit there and let her scream. Yesterday she just kept pointing to the door to leave....she got louder and louder when I repeatedly told her that we could not leave. About 15 minutes into our wait, I called Ryan to vent and he asks, "Did she already have her shots?"....shots, what shots? I had to enlighten him on the fact that there were no shots involved, she was just screaming like that because she was at the doctor. It is amazing, though, how she turns it off and on like no other. No sooner had we gotten into the car did she start singing and talking and pointing to the things we passed in the car. When we arrived home, she walked inside and yelled for Colin and Pryce who of course came running to her....she then gave them each a kiss and proceeded to play happily the rest of the evening. Oh, and on a celebratory note, her ears are both CLEAR. Yippee for that. I think had the doctor said they were still infected after all of that, I would have asked for my own prescription. So, that is our MK 3 months post Gotcha Day. She is proving to be quite a mess, but a sweet mess at that! Meanwhile, the boys have been quite dillusional the past several days. They seem to think that they need a BMX dirtbike. They have woken up each morning to tell me of yet another dream they had of themselves riding on their new dirtbike over mounds of dirt and never falling. Ryan and I sat down to discuss this with them one evening. We basically said there would be no dirtbike due to lack of funds needed to purchase the dirtbike. Problem solved, Santa will bring it. HMMMM, still lack of funds. Also on their minds this week has been swimteam. Their first meet was cancelled due to inclement weather. Very disappointing. On Thursday, though, Ryan and I watched proudly as the boys both stepped up to their diving stands with confidence, took their dives and swam their individual events. To have that courage is awesome! As I was kissing them goodnight later, I, once again, told them how proud I was of them. Colin looked at me and said "I was proud of myself!" That means the world to me.