Our (Neurodiverse) Family

Other than her birth story, Livia hasn't had a post dedicated to her. (1) She's three months old now. (2) We call her our little butterfly because she has a birthmark on back of her head (hidden by her hair) that looks like a butterfly. We like to think it's a butterfly kiss from her grandpa in heaven. (3) When Livia was born, the general consensus was that she looked just like Stephan did as a baby. Nowadays, strangers say she looks just like me. Currently, the agreement is that she looks like a brunette Kate. (4) Had I made it to my due date, she would have been just about the exact same weight Stephan was when he was born (on his due date, incidentally). At birth, he was a half-ounce shy of nine pounds. Yeah, I think I'm glad she came early. (5) Whereas her sister was always long and lean, she seems to be going the short and chubby route. (6) Snuggles. She loooves to be snuggled. (7) She has my lips. Take that people who like to say she didn't ge...

We use cloth diapers. As if you didn't already think we're weird, right? If you don't like reading about the bowel movements of small children, I would suggest not reading any further. Still reading? All right, but don't say I didn't warn you! I started cloth diapering when Kate was about eight months old and we had our own washer and dryer. There's a funny story behind how we started cloth diapering. Stephan was completely against cloth diapering, but I wanted to try it. I finally bought a couple to try out, but I didn't tell Stephan. In fact, the night before the cloth diapers were to arrive, Stephan was recounting a conversation he and his co-workers had about cloth diapers that day. "What was the consensus?" I asked, keeping a good poker face. "That they're disgusting and never want to use them," he replied. I just smiled. Two days later, I put Kate in her first cloth diaper, and it made her butt look all cute...

Kate's maternal instincts have been growing recently. She will feed her toys. Chocolate milk, if you were wondering. But remembers to feed herself too Put them in the stroller. Snuggle her baby in bed. Don't strangle Baby, please! Have her dolly on her lap in the swing. Push her kitty in the swing. She'll even push real babies in the swing. Have them in her lap. She BEGGED to hold him.  I suppose she is mimicking me, which is further confirmation that I'm doing right by her. Or maybe she's telling me that she wants me to give her a baby to play with. True story: when my brother was born, I thought my mom had him so he could be MY baby. And Mom was worried that I would be jealous of him. These acts of nurturing are not limited to toys and real babies. They also extend....to tomatoes. Observe: Tucking the tomato in...with an exercise band. She even made sure Tomato was buckled in! Let's take ...

Apparently this is from a Newsweek cover What's the perfect mother? Well, according to the internet, the perfect mother... Has a natural birth because epidurals are EVIL!!! Breastfeeds with no trouble at all. She is not poisoning her baby with formula Her baby sleeps through the night right away. Makes EVERYTHING from scratch, including baby food. Oh, and it's organic because NO CHEMICALS FOR THE BABY!!! Uses cloth diapers exclusively. Disposables EVIL! NO SCREEN TIME!  This is by no means comprehensive, but this is a taste of what you will find in the mommy blogging world. News flash: the perfect mother does not exist. But good mothers exist in all shapes and forms :) I was totally going to have a natural birth, and I did everything "right" to have one. I was like Wendy in What to Expect When You're Expecting , did I look like someone who wanted to drug my baby?! Of course, then I had to be induced early. After a few hours on pitoc...

Stephan and I came up with this parody to the chorus of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music . This is dedicated to exhausted parents everywhere. Enjoy Climb over mommy Spill your sippy Give up afternoon naps Fine! Just watch TV! If you don't remember the tune....

Oh Kate, where do I begin? Will Grandma finally have her pianist? Her intelligence never ceases to amaze me. It seems like she's learning at least one new word a day. Here's some of the things she can do and say: --recognizing letters (A, X, M, V to name a few) --Sing most of the alphabet song --Sings "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" --Recognizes shapes (circle, square, diamond, heart, rectangle) --Colors --She sometimes refers to her ball as "ballon" (French word for ball) --repeats almost everything we say (have to be careful *laughs*) --Pats my cheek and says, "S'okay Mom." --Pretends. One day, she got my folding music stand out, put a blanket over it, and called it a Christmas tree. --Likes tucking stuffed animals/toys in and kissing them good-night --Can say "Good night!" --Requests The Piano Guys when we're in the car --Can pray with assistance from us. --Can't reach it? She'll jus...

I took French all through high school and took a few classes when I got to college, but stopped because of class scheduling and because BYU's foreign language classes are brutal. Great, but brutal. I have studied it on my own off and on, and even volunteered at the Missionary Training Center, letting French-speaking missionaries practice speaking French with me.  My French has gotten pretty rusty, although I still have the accent down, at least according to some francophones I've spoken to. Naturally, I want to expose my daughter to this beautiful language. Not for overachieving reasons, I assure you, though I understand that there are benefits to exposing young children to foreign languages.  Plus, a former beloved baby-sitter from my childhood commented that Kate's lips were so beautiful, they looked like she should be speaking French ;) For Christmas, I got her a French board book that had flaps you lifted to see the French word and it's English transl...