Last week  I pretty much was a broken down tangled mess of emotions… lots of tears, grief and coming to terms with the future.  Our doula, who’s also my yoga teacher and dear friend, beat me up and made me cry in yoga class… in a really good crucial way.  I so needed that release. And she was kind enough to sit with me for an hour on Saturday and just listen and give me a few key perspective shifts that have made an enormous difference in my emotional state and outlook on the future.  Thank you Sada Simran… thank you so so much.

So by today, our next ultrasound appointment, I was feeling pretty good.  The best news we could get was that Emme has grown, that her heart lining isn’t any thicker and that there isn’t any fluid IN her body, just around it.  And that’s exactly the news we got.  I’ve been joking that we love our doctor so much, but she SERIOUSLY has to stop giving us bad news… and today she gave us all good news.  Emme is back up to the 16th percentile on her growth chart, so still measuring small, but growing proportionally. And that’s fine.  Heart is still where it was a month ago – little spurts of blood getting through that left ventricle, but not filling it by any stretch of the imagination. And the lining isn’t thicker.    But her cord looks GREAT – pulsing and full of fluid – and that’s a great sign too.  Overall our doctor was really pleased and that made us feel so much better.  She’s got to keep growing, so keep sending those awesome happy grow baby grow vibes.  I can tell when people are really amping up the love beams to her because she does a crazy happy dance in my tummy!  The doctor was also happy to hear how active she is, so keep shaking baby!  We actually got to talk birth plans for a few minutes, which was amazing to me.  We’ve got another ultrasound in a month and then we’ll tour the NICU.  Seems so surreal and I know that will bring a new wave of emotions for us, but for now, we’re riding the happy waves of ‘growing baby, no more complications.”

One of the things I was struggling with last week/month was feeling conflicted about praying for Emme’s heart condition to completely heal.  Because as her mother, I want her to be 100% healthy from the get go.  I don’t want her to have anything wrong with her.  But then I wonder if it’s my right, my place to pray for that for her, when clearly she has her own path and destiny… and ultimately my role as her mother is to support her on that path, whatever it is, even if it’s uncomfortable and scary and challenging for me.  And as Sada Simran pointed out, Emme doesn’t think anything IS wrong with her.  She already knows she’s perfect, whole and complete.  And she is.  She absolutely is.  She’s beautiful and amazing and I’m so in love with her already.  So I’m just praying for her growth, in all ways and stages.  For her body to grow and for her soul to grow too.  That’s the best thing I feel I can do for her.  We meditate together every night and she just bops around and soaks up all the good Guru Ram Das energy I send her way.  Guru Ram Das, Guru of the heart…

So please keep up the good thoughts – THEY WORK and we so appreciate them!

All this chatter about Emme lately… I realized I haven’t posted about Ruby in ages.

Dudes, she is HUGE.  As usual, she still towers over her friends and is wearing 4T in everything.  She’s not even 3 yet!  She also completely skipped size 8 shoes and zoomed from size 7 to size 9.  Thank GOD for our friends Megan and Cyprienne and their amazing hand-me-downs because this kiddo just blows through clothes.  But seriously between Megan and Cyp and my step-mom, Ruby could wear a different outfit every day from now until her 4th birthday and probably never repeat an outfit!  :D

We are officially done with diapers!   After saying a bunch of times that I was going do to the cold turkey, 3-day method, I just never found the right time.  So we started slow – no pull ups at home, lots of praise and m&ms for all the successes and no freaking out at the accidents (except the day I asked her about 17 times if she had to go potty and she said no every time and then sat on the arm chair and peed… I was kinda mad about that one). And now we are pull-up free, except for nap time and nights!  I’m glad we didn’t push it too hard.  But the last couple weeks of going out in undies has been totally stressful… for ME!  LOL!  But she’s been amazing.  And we’re on day 7 of absolutely NO accidents.  She is getting oodles of praise from us and calls from the grands to re-enforce how proud we are of her.  And we so are.  This is  a big big step and with a baby on the way, she’s had to do a lot of adjusting.

Speaking of adjusting, she’s definitely been doing some interesting role-playing. Mostly it’s “Mommy, you be the baby and I’m the mommy.  Now cry.” LOL! Or “you be the T-Rex and I’m the brontosaurus…”  Mostly she’s incredibly excited about Emme’s arrival – she talks to her every day: “Hi Emme! It’s me Ruby, your big sister! Are you growing big and strong so you can come play with me?” Seriously I die of cuteness every time.  And now most of her buddies have little brothers and sisters around, so there are babies at most playdates – it’s so amazing to see how gentle and loving she is with them.  She gently touches their heads and kisses them and just wants to look at them.  So sweet.

Her personality has been shining through and through – she’s very head-strong, but also knows when it’s time to back down and listen.  She is a little bossy but in weird places like the grocery store: “I want everyone to be quiet and go home!”  Um, ok… so we have lots of conversations about other people being in charge of their own bodies.  She’s also learning to state her boundaries and to respect other kids’ boundaries.  The other day at lunch she told me “Izzy was pulling that book and pushing me and he wasn’t ‘specting my boundaries!”  (K- don’t worry – he wasn’t pushing just trying to play with the book too)

She loves to play with her little people and toys – setting up elaborate tableaus and making them act out stories will entertain her for hours.  And she’s gotten more into her crafts again. I made a craft station that was more kid-friendly, so she can pull out what she wants to play with and go to town.  Stickers are all of sudden the best thing ever.  Still not that into coloring, but play dough, glue and stickers are her happy place for sure.

Best of all, she’s really loving her books – she will stay up after we put her to bed and just sit quietly in bed and read… sometimes for up to an hour! And yes we’re fine with that and yes, we know how lucky we are in that regard!  She’s starting to sound out words and point out words in books.  I’m LOVING helping her with this – I’ve started reading more slowly and following along with my finger on the shorter board books, so she can follow along.  Today she pointed out the word “apple”.  So cool.

My favorite time of day with her is morning – she wakes up (after sleeping solidly for 12 or so hours – ahhhhhh) and comes running in our room for snuggles.  She’ll doze for another 10 – 20 minutes, snuggling as close as she can to me and then want to chat and giggle in bed for another 20 minutes.  Even if I’m awake I usually stay in bed just to have that time with her.  And thankfully night time has been blessedly easy lately.  She gets books with Daddy, a story and song with me and pretty much stays in bed and goes to sleep.  Naptime has been hit or miss, but that’s not surprising at her age…  And I’m starting to notice that she’s awake longer at bedtime (but thankfully quiet and restful) when she naps too long during the day.  We’re still enforcing at least an hour of ‘quiet time’ because WE need a break, and she’s pretty good about staying in her room and reading or playing quietly.

Foodwise, she’s been a really adventurous eater, at least as far as veggies are concerned.  She’ll eat almost any veggie I put in front of her – except when I make oven fries!  Not a fan of fries unless they are sweet potato!!  And she hasn’t met a fruit yet she doesn’t like.  We’ve started to phase out a lot of between meal snacks – she’ll eat if it’s offered, but often she’s not hungry. So we’re working on reminding her to ask us for a snack if she’s hungry – trying to help her set up healthy eating habits now.

All in all, she’s just awesome.  Really fun to be around and so funny.  We’ve got a book of jokes and she loves telling them whenever she can.  She’s a huge help in the kitchen – loves to bake treats, especially with her PopPop!  All the treat baking was taking a toll on our waistlines though, so now we’re finding low-sugar recipes to make!

Speaking of her PopPop, she adores having her Nana and PopPop so close by.  And we’ve had visits with Grams and with her Grandma and Grand-dad in the last month too.  It’s so awesome to see those relationships really blossom for her – how much she adores each and every grandparent in her own unique way.

So that’s the news with Rubytunes.  She’s awesome.  We’re blessed.  Even through all the stuff we’ve been dealing with with Emme, Ruby has been the greatest gift. She keeps us present and focused and keeps us laughing.