Click here for the letter with pictures.

Dear Rosemary,

Today you are 3. When you went to bed last night, you were very excited that you would wake up a whole new number. After you fell asleep, I told your daddy what a big deal 3 seems like.

At 1 and 2 you didn’t really care about your birthday, didn’t care about cake or presents, didn’t care that a loud, boisterous song was being sung to you. At 1 and 2 you were still a terrible sleeper and I was still going through life in a big haze of exhaustion. At 3 presents and cake are huge, and I just got an even 8 hours of sleep.

In the last year, we have experienced so much change and you have been such a good sport through it all. Your daddy and I have both gone through job changes, you and I have lived apart from your daddy, we’ve moved far away from all your friends and family; and through it all you have been a very stable, mature little girl.

These days you and I are together a lot, and we’re having fun. In some ways you are my best friend in this strange new town and strange new house where we know very few other people. We play together, giggle together, shop and drink coffee together (you drink water and pretend it’s coffee) – you are good company, Rosemary. I mean that.

You make good conversation. I have to control my doting parent desires here, but I sincerely believe your verbal skills are advanced. You speak surprisingly complete sentences. At times, your grammar is more correct than my own. You are funny, you tell good jokes, and you make me laugh. You also realize when something stops being funny and generally give up on the matter.

This, I believe, is why your coordination is a little lacking. A kid can only grow in so many ways at one time. You still waste a lot of energy when you run. You enjoy riding your bike, but generally end up turning in circles because you’re so busy looking to your left and your right.

Music is a big deal to you these days. The weather has been warmer and you have been asking for the car windows to be down and the music to be loud, which is so funny to me. I’m happy to oblige, but not really certain how you know to like that sort of thing. I do not blast music, you didn’t learn this from me. You are a big fan of the banjo, violin, trumpet, and drums. Those are the instruments you pretend to play and you can even pick their sounds out of songs.

You are also really learning to play by yourself and with other kids. Your imagination is growing by leaps and bounds. You make trains drive through tunnels, your Little People and Polly Pockets have extensive conversations together, you play hide and seek (if not a little awkwardly and always giving your spot away).

You do all those things that little kids do. And that’s the thing that gets me. Somehow you stopped being a baby. Entirely. Sometimes you ask me to hold you like a baby and I can barely fit you in my arms. You are Rosemary June, 3-years-old, and not turning back. And I’m okay with that. This life we’re living is a good one and I feel incredibly blessed to have you along for the ride.

I love you to the moon and back.
Mommy

To wish jessypie a Happy 30th Birthday!


Consequently, that would mean it's my 1/2 birthday ... so happy day to me, too!

I had a really good 30th birthday. Joel took me out on Saturday night and all I knew was that he had plans, I didn’t know what they were. He decided that since I was turning 30, we should go and be sophisticated. So he got my mom to watch Rosemary and took me to the Walker Art Center. We walked around the outdoor sculpture garden for awhile – it was a gorgeous night, and nice to be outside – and then Adam and Sarah magically met us there (all planned by Joel). We were going to go eat at Buca’s, but had some time, so we continued exploring the sculpture gardens.

At Buca’s Matt and Tara (my brother and sister-in-law) also magically appeared and joined us for a very good dinner. Buca’s is one of my favorite places, and although I’ve had better dinners there, this one was still pretty good. We ate a good meal and had good conversation and then went to walk around Loring Park for a little while with Adam and Sarah. Matt and Tara had to go pick up their oldest son (they brought their 1-month-old with them), whom they had dropped off at my house for my mom to watch.

It was a really good night, and totally what I wanted for my birthday. Just a nice, relaxing night out with Joel and some good friends. Also, I got wonderful presents from all involved. Adam/Sarah made me a really cute Black Apple doll and a tote/purse (well, actually Sarah made them:-) ... both of which have accompanied me to my desk at work, and Matt/Tara gave us a free house-cleaning from the person who cleans their house! I am so excited to use that. Joel gave me some glass tupperware from Crate and Barrel and a mixing bowl set from Crate and Barrel.

Very, very, very nice.

I am happy to be 30.

Tomorrow I turn 30! How on earth did that happen?

I am actually not the least bit sad. I feel like the the third decade will have a lot of peace and joy in it.

I realize this is SUPER late, but here are some birthday pictures (better late than never, right?)

( click here for a lot of pictures )

Rosemary's 2nd birthday is approaching and I would really like to get her some sort of bike. At what age do kids start riding Big Wheels and why the frack can't I find anything resembling a Big Wheel on the internet?

We really like this bike a lot. I wanted to buy it for her at Christmas because we had a coupon for 50% off of any item at the store and it would have made the really expensive price not so expensive. It seems like it has a lot of options, though, and appears to me to be much better than this bike which is almost $100 more!

Actually, I've just spent a few minutes looking at all the tricycles at Target and now I don't think the creative kidstuff bike is so expensive. It really has a lot of options and most of the trikes at Target are $50 - $60. Either that or they are smothered in Dora and Barbie stuff. Rosemary doesn't even know who Dora and Barbie are, and as a principle I try to avoid toys, clothing, etc. that have that stuff all over them.

My mom said that she always felt the big wheels were easier for us to navigate than tricycles. And if Rosemary would do better with a big wheel than a tricycle, I guess I'd rather just try the big wheel.

She has played with the tricycle at creative kidstuff multiple times. Whenever we go to the store, she runs over to it and wants to play with it. She's not the most coordinated person in the world, and I would be surprised to see her cruising around a tricycle this summer. I've never seen her with a Big Wheel, so I don't know.

Ramble, ramble. Those of you who have in the area, could you please share it with me?

Thanks.

The weekend was good. Friday after work we went over to my mom's house and walked up to Decoy's (a local restaurant) for dinner. The dinner was really good. Rosemary really wanted to eat the table, so that got a little problematic. All in all, it was fun. After dinner, we walked into the little downtown and showed Rosemary the fountains. She had seen them once before, a couple weeks ago - oh man, she loved them. It is such an incredible honor to watch things through a child's eyes. For me - 'oh neat, it's a fountain.' For her - 'oh man, this is the most amazing thing ever. I didn't even know water could do this kind of thing!' I wish we as adults could experience things with that kind of newness.

Saturday was one of my favorite kinds of days. In the morning Joel was full of ideas of things he wanted to do that day. But we started the day with a 5 mile walk around Phalen and when we got home, he was more of the mindset that he wanted to just hang out around the house. Rosemary slept for 3.5 hours (!!!), after 3.5 hours, I went to wake her up and she was so incredibly groggy that I know she would have slept on her own for much longer. I noticed she had 2 new teeth after that nap (I don't exactly know when they came in), so I sort of wonder if it's the most pain free she has felt in awhile, or what? While she was sleeping, I went to the grocery store and Joel putzed around the house. He painted the bathroom cupboard doors and hung them up (I kid you not those cupboard doors have been on the "to do" list for 2 years, and that means the bathroom cupboards have been cupboard-less for 2 years!). He also did some other good around-the-house stuff. I can't at the moment remember what it was, but I definitely appreciate it. For dinner, he made his famous home-made pizza. Mmmmm. After dinner, we watched Fargo - what a waste!

We went to the early church service on Sunday and then Joel stayed after to do powerpoint for the 2nd service. Rosemary fell asleep on the drive home and during her nap I made some oatmeal fruity bars and a tuna salad for us to eat during the week. Around 1:30 Rosemary woke up and we went to my MIL/FIL's house for lunch. They had spaghetti and meatballs, and it also ended up being a belated birthday party for me, which was nice because I thought they had forgotten ... and Joel pinky-swore me that he did not remind them. Sunday night we went over to Jason and Magdalena's house for our cell group, which we are starting up again, but only every other week and not at our house. So we are leading it, but not hosting it. I miss the fellowship, so I'm hoping this is good. We also decided to have it earlier so that we can all get our kids to bed at the same time (when we started this group, nobody had kids, but there are now 3 kids and 1 on the way). Rosemary went straight to bed and Joel and I watched Meet the Fockers, which was on tv.

In this weekend we watched more movies than we have seen in the last year. Yay! For not being exhausted come 8pm every night! And for Rosemary going to bed quickly and easily.

Wow, it's a double birthday!

First, a very happy half birthday to jessypie. Make the most of it! :-)

Second, Rosemary had her 15 month appointment on Wednesday and I was really pleased with her doctor. I've always thought he was okay, but I really like him on Wednesday. He was really good with Rosemary and he didn't criticize us on all the stuff I anticipated being criticized about. In fact, he said it was totally normal that Rosemary won't feed herself her own bottle or sippy cup (his nurse once made a snarky comment that made me feel stupid). He also referenced a mother who was nursing at 15 months without any criticism.

Her height and weight only confirmed that yes, she is HUGE. She is 34" tall (seriously, that's HALF of my height!) and she weighs 24 lbs. I told him how much milk he drinks and he was not concerned as long as she eats other food, which she does. I've been concerned she is getting calcium overload, but he pointed out how large she is and said she probably needs calcium overload.

Third, this morning Jan Krist made an in-studio appearance on the current. You can listen to it here. I only heard the end of it and will probably listen to it myself. I haven't heard anything about Jan Krist in ages, so it was a shocker to me. She is playing with a band called The Biddies these days and they are actually playing a dinner concert tomorrow night at The Ginkgo Cafe in St. Paul. That would be such a fun thing to do for our anniversary, but I think it requires a little more planning ahead.

Joel would like to eat at the Dock Cafe in Stillwater which would be fun except that if we ate there I would want to eat outside and they don't take reservations, and they're often very crowded ... and we'll have Rosemary in tow. We haven't eaten at 3 Seasons yet this summer and I sure could go for one of their incredibly delicious rootbeer floats. But maybe that's not quite so grand for our anniversary? It would be cheaper than the Dock, though.

Well, we'll figure that out tomorrow. For now? I had better get to work ...

Birthdays, birthdays. Twenty-five was a really difficult birthday for me. It's when I gave up the glitz and excitement of thinking my birthday was an extraordinary day. Birthdays since, with no expectations, have been much, much, better. I don't think that twenty-nine will be hard. It's just one more year. Though, I was just looking at a calendar and realized that in less than three weeks, I will officially begin the last year of my twenties. I distinctly remember somebody asking me how old I was at a Xi Alpha meeting in college, approximately EIGHT years ago, and when I answered "twenty-one," the world started spinning at the realization that I was officially old.

hahahahahaha.

We just spent the afternoon with Joel's family for his grandma's 90th birthday party. Can you imagine live 90 years?? She has done so much in her life. Joel's mom was telling me about how she decorated her living room with black curtains and brightly colored flowers. I just couldn't picture this little old lady being a trendy decorator. Think about how much somebody who was born in 1917 has seen in her lifetime!

What did all of you do for your children's first birthday parties? I'm specifically wondering what kind(s) of cake you did, but other specifics are welcome, too.

Thanks!