Hello 2020

2020 seems like the appropriate time to pick this little place back up a bit. As I write this, it is New Year's Day at 8:14 in the morning and my three young children + plus one groggy nephew have been up for much too long by now. Why is it that children always seem to miss the memo about sleeping in on mornings like this? In fact, chances are, they will wake up earlier than normal when given the false hope of you sleeping in a little. Case in point, my 18 month old this morning. The problem is not just the hope deferred of a nice little "lie-in" as the Brits say but also the very real reality of doing it all half comatose with a grumpy toddler in tow who is set on punishing you for the reality that he woke up about an hour and a half earlier than usual but is only tired enough now to make your morning somewhat miserable.

Isaline, Livia, Ruben

Isaline

Livia and Matt

Me and Livia 

Ruben

But I digress. The beginning of a new year is usually occasion for reflection on the previous year, and in this case, the previous decade. For the Sanders family, this has been an important decade for our family. It has seen our family move from a newlywed couple with more time than square footage to the total opposite as parents of three young children (ages 6.5 yrs, 3.5 yrs, 1.5 yrs). The last decade has moved Matt and I from scrambling to appear competent in our career beginnings to leaning in to the voice of hard earned experience. Ten years ago I wasn't sure if I could "hack it" living here in France and God in his goodness has graciously brought me to the final few months before I become a French citizen. We have been living in our beautiful parsonage in downtown Paris for about a year and a half now and it's finally beginning to feel like home.

Isaline and Livia

Ruben and Isaline

Isaline and Livia

Us, pre-kids

Me and Livia

Livia

I'd be lying if I painted a completely rosy picture though. While these have been fruitful years, they have also been full of their share of troubles, set-backs, and pick your butt off the ground already and get going moments. We have walked through miscarriage, cars breaking down and being impounded, stolen bikes, the worst stomach flu I've ever experienced, a hospitalized child, depression, dark moments and questioned faith, and a year full of bed bugs, to name a few. It was a decade of trials and humility. But in the end, the boulders of what truly matter have tipped the scale and outweighed the pebbles that life has thrown at us.

                       

Livia

Isaline

Livia

Matt and Livia

Ruben

Isaline and Ruben

We are looking forward to 2020 and all that it brings, whether good or bad or most likely, somewhere in between. Here's to the adventure of what lies just around the corner!

Matt and Livia

Izzie turns 2

Aaaand then it happened. She stopped being a baby one day. Sigh. Why does this always happen to children? Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely enjoying less diaper changes, better sleep at night, and forgoing onesies but there's something about the blink and you end up with a teenager thing that killls me about parenthood. 

I've at least gotten a bit wiser with birthday celebrations the second time around. It's occurred to me that other than a little sugar and a couple of balloons floating around, the whole birthday concept is lost on the under three crowd. So that's what I did; I kept things reeeeallly simple. Cake, some extra treats, a few reused birthday decorations and, of course, balloons (have you ever seen a 2 year old who isn't crazy about balloons?)... The cakes might look a little tricky but I swear to you that they are as easy as pie....err, cake. I just made a basic chocolate cake, whipped up some butter cream frosting, cut and frosted with a spatula and added some piping that I improvised from a ziploc bag that I had snipped the end off of.  Here's the pin that shows how to make the butterfly shape. 

I love her expression in this candle blowing picture. She could not figure out why the heck we were all looking at her face. In case you didn't know, Izzie gets an old man grumpy face anytime she's perplexed, which was definitely happening here. 

10 things you should know about Isaline: 

1. She has two loves at the moment: cars and babies. About as opposite as you can get on the stereotype spectrum. Maybe she will turn out to be part time nanny, part time race car driver. 

2. Isaline was byyy far the more challenging of our 2 children as a baby. She is sensitive to just about everything. Food, new environments, dairy products, sleeping conditions, temperature, etc. Gotta love a high maintenance child. (don't worry, we do!) 

3. She cannot say Mama, Mom, Mommy, Maman, or any other version of the name for the life of her. I'm not kidding, I'm that cereal commercial in reverse where the dad is trying to get his baby to say 'Dada' and the kid keeps repeating 'Mama'. This drives me crazy most of the time with the exception of early morning wake ups and dirty diapers. 

4. Like any self respecting younger sibling, she secretly thinks the world of her big sister. Big sis likes her quite a lot as well :) 

5. She has a knack for breaking into the kitchen cabinets and spreading dried pasta and chicken bouillon all over the floor as well as shoving as much as she can into her mouth. 

6. She once managed to sneak an entire cup's worth of salt into a muffin batter just as we had finished up making it. 

7.  The kid cannot say Mama but she can sing the tune of 'Let it Go' and 'Peppa Pig' with surprising accuracy and pizzazz... 

8. She is naturally reserved and very good at giving her stalker stare at children at the park. I have yet to birth an outgoing child :) 

9. Her preferred method of dancing is head banging. (she gets that from her father)

10. Through Izzie I have discovered the joy of mothering. The second time around is full of unrealistic expectations let go of, the confidence knowing you did it once, and extra cuddles mixed with the hindsight in knowing just how fast it all goes. 

I'm sick of sick

         Motherhood can hurt. Literally. No, I mean literally--just today Livia has already tried whacking me in the face twice. But let me back up to the Tuesday before last, Nov. 25th. I was dreaming that I felt sick to my stomach when I woke up. You know that huge feeling of relief that it was all just a dream and now you can get on with your life? I love that feeling. Unfortunately, that feeling lasted about the length of time it took me to get my hiney out of bed and stumble into some workout clothes. Once again I felt sick to my stomach. My daughter missed the memo and instead of waking up at her usual time, decided that a half hour early would be a better decision. Nature waiteth not, even for toddlers, and she ended up getting quite the show, first thing in the morning. It turns out that puking up sweet potatoes, just two days before Thanksgiving, is a bad thing. The rest of the morning was a bit of a blur as I did everything I could just to stay up until Matt came back from a meeting to work from home. Thankfully, just as I was contemplating the merits of super gluing my eyelids open, Matt walked in the door. 

        As it turns out, the low point of my day was just the beginning. The fun was just getting started :) Feeding Livia later that evening I got up from my chair to take off her bib, a giant fuzzy blanket wrapped around me (yes, this is the stay at home mom version of a sick day). Forgetting that I'd scooted back the chair, I went to sit back down and of course, missed completely. So there I was on the floor: a tangle of fuzzy blanket, one very dirty bib in me and a smarting elbow (the result of whacking it sharply on where my chair actually was on the way down). Livia, startled from the commotion (I had made quite a bit of noise on the way down), got so scared that she tossed whatever she could find at hand off of the table. 

        The problem was, this was her unfinished dinner plate and her flinging target happened to be my face. Once I'd gotten over the initial shock of it I managed to get her down, reassure her and laid myself out on the carpet to recuperate. She grabbed her sippy cup and headed over, convinced that she now needed to keep a close eye on Mom. Unfortunately, just as she was taking a swig of milk she happened to spot her pacifier. Dropping the sippy cup, she reached for it. What I didn't mention before was that she happened to be just above my head when this happened and that very full sippy cup hit me smack on the jawline. Whenever the going gets tough I try to remember that Momma said 'there'd be days like this' but I have to admit that Momma didn't warn me that there would be a single day where I'd puke my guts up, feel as if I'd been run over by a tractor, topple to the floor, have luke warm peas thrown at my face, and then get punched in the jaw by a sippy cup. So I did what any mature, grown, hormonal woman would do: I rolled over and cried like a baby. 

        Surely, I thought, this was the worst of it. Light started glimmering at the end of the week. It had been a hard week, I was still weak from my stomach flu but life was going to get better and on Saturday we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with good friends. Take that: Life 0 Tal 1. That night Livia had trouble sleeping. Lots of it. When she was no longer comforted by me holding her I started to panic. Matt was gone and at first I couldn't reach my mother in law (a doctor). And then she puked a couple of times. Wait a minute, this is all too familiar, right? We just did this dance earlier this week. The next morning Livia was up at 6 crying. It was too loud to go for a 'selective hearing' approach and since it was my morning to get up with her I slowly complied (I say slowly because we'd been up most of the night with her and my body was feeling it). When I shuffled out to the living room I just stared dumbfounded. In an act of solidarity, the cat had thrown up all over the living room. You have got to been kidding me. Seriously? 

        And so it continued. Livia, sick and grumpy all day every day--no more throwing up at least, turns out that that had been caused from excessive coughing--sick and grumpy all night as well. One night she was up just about every hour, sometimes multiple times. One day in the haze, her and I were going through the box that contained her new play kitchen for Christmas (more on that later) and had just arrived by special delivery. Trying to be helpful, she turned around to give me a longish wooden rod, only to whack me smack in the forehead with it. Later that day she had a tantrum (one of many when the girl is sick apparently) and tried to scratch anything in a toddler arm radius. This just so happened to be on my neck and sternum area, leaving behind scratches that are horror film worthy. Thankfully it looks like hope might be on the horizon and I'm going to attempt going to work tomorrow. All this to say, however, that one lesson has been imprinted on my mind over the past two weeks: parenting is definitely not for wimps. But it might make one out of ya! ;) :) 

Life With Livia Lately

As I type this post my daughter is currently decked out in the the sweat pants and shirt she slept in, Hello Kitty pink rain boots, her polka dot rain coat and a fur lined Christmas cardigan (which is on top of the rain jacket of course). We won't even talk about what her hair is doing at the moment. What can I say, she got my fabulous fashion sense ;) Yep, parenting is an adventure! (Dommage that my camera is currently at school!)

I'm loving this new stage that Livia is in though. She's all about becoming more and more aware of the world around her and imitating it. If you ever need a good laugh just have a toddler. (Of course it comes with a few good cries--both you and her--so be careful what you wish for) She's also currently discovering the function of the garbage can so I just took a break from writing to rescue some pinched fingers and explain why we can't chuck Papa's bible in the bin.

The best part about this stage is that she loves to be Mama's lil' helper. This form of free slave labor helpfulness comes in many forms: scrubbing the kitchen sink, "folding" clothes with me on laundry days, even cleaning up toys (when she's in the mood of course!). The Montessori teacher in me  just hasn't been able to resist (Montessori is all about encouraging children towards independence and personal responsibility) and I've already gotten Livia her own Livia-sized sponge (I happened to find some small ones but you could just use a normal sized one or cut one in half) and later this year I plan on getting her a pint-sized cleaning set (broom/dustpan) to go with the play kitchen that Matt and I will give her for Christmas.

Washing dishes :)

I figure now is the best time to teach her basic life skills while she's willing and just dying to be included. So what if she's a bit more of a hindrance than a real help at times (okay, let's be honest, just about all the time!). We've all got to start somewhere right? I figure, better now than at 25 :)

For anyone who is interested in Montessori for tots and can read in french, here is a great book that gives you lots of ideas and  pictures about all the things you can do. 

Bday Bash

Apparently, blogging without a computer tends to be challenging. Such is our life for another couple of weeks until we can buy a new un-crashed one. Oh technology, one day your friend, the next your worst enemy... (except for when has technology ever really been my friend?) So forgive the month lateness of Livia's birthday bash (this time with friends of ours and their little kiddos). Actually it's rather fitting considering we couldn't get our act together and did the party a month late-now you get to have the photos a month late as well :)  

I tried to resist Pinterest's beacon and keep this as low key as I possibly could. I figure I'll save my birthday slaving years for when she'll actually remember it. And I was lazy. 

The back of our apartment shares a big ol' lawn/garden with the three other buildings on our lot so we figured big space + cushy grass + playhouse stuffed with toys = the perfect venue for a bunch of crazy sugar-highed babies and toddlers. 

Those are baby biscuits in case you're wondering...we cater for the under 2 crowd around here (no id necessary). Oh and the watermelon turned out to be delicious. Livia thought so both before and after her slice got dropped and then covered in dirt. I'm really banking on the 'dirt don't hurt' theory otherwise we might be in trouble... 

It pretty much consisted of a whole lot hanging out, gorgeous weather, bottle drinking (milk for the babes, beer for the guys),  and chatting while trying to keep our kiddos from doing ridiculous things. Livia apparently missed the memo that she was hostess and could mostly be found 30 ft away picking grass and doing other random shenanigans that basically involved snubbing the other kiddos. 

It didn't take long for the yard to look a little like this:

But hey, they had fun making that mess, so that's what counts, right?

I gave in to Pinterest for the dessert and went the cupcake route. With sparkly party hats of course--what party is complete without them, right? 

Here's a very telling pic where Mom and Dad are doing all the work while Missay Thang looks condescendingly on... Of course I quipped to the group that I wasn't sure how Livia was going to take the whole cake eating thing considering that she's never had processed sugar before. 

Then I got to eat my words while Livia devoured hers. Yes folks, that is massive concentration going on there. She aint holdin' nothin' back. 

Don't believe that look on her face. She loved every minute of it. She takes after someone I know but gosh if I can remember who.... ;) 

Of course after this she proceeded to wipe the rest of that cupcake all over me. Sharing is caring, really.