11 Months Old, Ajanja's Birthday, and New Pool

What a busy week. We came back from New Berlin on Monday (see previous post for our trip details). That was the same day Moses turned 11 months old! Wow, I can’t believe he’ll be a year old next month. Even crazier, that his sisters will be 3 years old 10 days from now. Crazy!

On July 4^th, we both had the day off from work for the Independence Day holiday. It was also the day of Ajanja’s birthday party – he turned 1 year old on the 3rd. Really, time is flying by. Last year Tiana was a new mom and I was large and in charge with Moses still cooking away in my belly. I still can’t believe it… it feels like it was yesterday.

In the morning the girls helped me to make some allergy-free cupcakes and frosting. I figured I should bring something for them in case they got sad that they couldn’t partake in the cake eating. We made the trek down to DC after Moses woke up from his nap.

We arrived a bit sooner than most guests. That worked out fine for us because the kids were able to settle in a bit before being thrust into a throng of people. There were lots of kids for them to play with. And they had a lot of fun in Uncle Freddy’s kiddie pool. Moses LOVED the water. Ajanja wasn’t enjoying it at first, but eventually warmed up. Oh we had fun seeing some faces that we hadn’t seen since last year around this time. And some more familiar faces. And everyone in between. We even met another couple with twins about a year younger than the girls.

I didn’t get a lot of pictures because I was too busy with the kiddos but I snapped a few.

 

Ajanja, Grace, Francie, Moses enjoying the pool

We met another set of twins (a year younger than our girls - fraternal boy/girl twins)

The birthday boy and his cake!

Moses enjoyed the other kids, not so much the adults.

On Friday I worked late. The nanny called to tell me Frances woke up from her nap, complained that her belly hurt and began puking. Oh man. When I got home they were eating dinner. Francie looked rather paled. Richard told me he had tried to give her hotdog but she refused. I told him it was better to stick with something blander anyway, and I gave her applesauce and jello instead. She kept it down. I began my mommy detective search for the culprit in her misery. I didn’t know if it was a viral thing, an allergy thing, or what? Well I remembered the nanny told me they had hotdog for lunch. So I asked Richard where the package was, pulled it out of the trash, and saw one of the main ingredients: soy protein. Doh. Richard had bought them thinking they were "turkey" hotdog, nothing else. He felt horrible. Soy really is in everything. Just reaffirmed that we have to read every package. Anyway, that’s why I buy a lot of organic, because they use less chemicals, antibiotics and fillers. It may be more expensive, but the alternative is illness. So yea, she still hasn’t outgrown that soy allergy yet! Poor Francie and poor daddy. She felt better later, and by Saturday, was back to normal.

Saturday, inspired by Uncle Freddy’s kiddie pool, Richard decided we’d upgrade from our plastic Dora pool to something a bit bigger. The kids all enjoyed this new addition!

The girls enjoying their new pool, with daddy.

Moses is a water baby, for sure!

We invited Senora Esther, her granddaughter Claudia, Aunt Signe and Ms. Sharon over for BBQ on Saturday afternoon. The girls had fun running around with Claudia. Moses tried to fend off all the extra love from the 3 girls… he failed.

Playing with Claudia.

Saturday also marked Francie’s first full day sans diaper. I had told her all week that she was going to wear big girl underpants all day starting on the weekend. She, like Grace, had been going since February, sans diaper at night. With only a rare accident (unfortunately one of those was the night before we left grandma’s – sorry grandma!). She refused to go without diaper during the day. She was going super long stretches without peeing in her diaper though. So I knew she was ready. We just have to get her over the mental hurdle. She had 3 pee pee accidents on Saturday. No pee pee accidents yesterday, but 1 poopy accident. I know she’ll get it, Grace did. It took Grace a week with accidents off and on and then an extra week for mommy to feel 100% confident. And now I don’t even have to remind Grace, she just goes when she needs to. It’s so liberating. So once Francie gets it (hopefully soon), we’ll be better off – and financially, we’ll save a lot on diapers! Wish us luck!

And we discovered this morning that Moses has two new teeth on the top. So 6 teeth total so far. Much less than his sisters had at this age. Slow and steady wins the race though, right?