Change(s) ~ Theme Thursday

As I tried to figure out what photo to use/shoot for this week’s Theme Thursday, which is change, all I kept thinking of (and singing) was that David Bowie song, Cha-Cha-Changes. I had to go find it on YouTube…man, that is a really good song!

Anyhow, that song didn’t really inspire any great ideas, but as I was getting ready to scrap tonight I (ahem…) changed my calendar to March. (Oh, don’t give me that! Like you have never made it nearly halfway into a month before realizing you haven’t changed the calendar? What? Oh. You never have? Well, then…you clearly have too much time on your hands.) In my defense, I have a huge whiteboard calendar that has been updated and used all month, it was just the girls’ calendar that hadn’t been switched over.

Anyhow, (again) I could not get over the change in the girls from last year to this year. So then I started going through all of the girls’ baby photos. (That is a great way to kill time, but I’m a bit misty-eyed over here. They were soooo tiny! Sooo sweet!)

So check out the changes in our house in the past five years! -

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Go catch some other Change over at Stacy’s today!

Here we go, Here we go, Here we go again…

I can’t believe I am even about to write this because, well…I am tempting fate here. But, while we were on vacation our “baby” decided that she is “a big girl.” Seriously, if you even just call her “baby” affectionately she will stop dead in her tracks and screech “I’m not a baby, Mama! I’m a big girl!”

So, she slept in “big” beds the entire time we were on vacation. These photos were shot after our exhausting first day of travel to Hawaii and a luau. She fell asleep in my arms at the luau, (Sigh. That was so arm-breakingly lovely. It has been a long time since she has done that.) she remained crashed through the entire bus ride back to the hotel where I deposited her on the bed and changed her into her pjs. And then she continued to sleep through until morning. It was crazy…

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…but I loved getting a lot of opportunities to watch both of the girls sleep this past week. So peaceful. Sweet, little, angelic sleeping faces.

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Fast forward to our first night back. Last night.

“I dohwanna sleep in my crib, Mama. I will sleep with Emma? I will sleep with you?”

So I promised her last night that we would make her crib into a big girl bed today, if she slept in the crib last night. It sorta worked. She was up early and ended up sleeping with me, anyhow. But we did move her to the big girl bed tonight.

Again.

But, didn’t we just go through this a few month’s ago? And didn’t it fail miserably?

Yes. And yes.

All day Addie kept saying, “I am so exciting for my kitties and my new bed, Mama.” (I found a really sweet “kitty” quilt a few weeks ago for her big girl bed.) And she kept saying we were “breaking” her crib. “Thank you for breaking my crib, Daddy!”

So how did bedtime go you ask?

All right…again, I know I’m tempting fate…but it went really, really well. It is only 11pm, so we’ll see how the rest of the night goes, but she climbed into bed and was very insistent that I keep the door open and the closet light on (ala what Emma always asks for) and was also adamant that I NOT put the gate up in her doorway. So I told her that if she stayed in bed and went to sleep, I would not put the gate up. I went in to put some clothes away and she was already asleep when I started downstairs.

It is such a bittersweet milestone. But I think this time we are ready.

Fingers crossed.

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Edited for update:

It is 8:10am -  she is still in there sound asleep. Didn’t make a peep all night. This is really too good to be true, right??

We Rocked The Vote!

How very cool is it that our nearly five year old is already excited about voting?

Somebody left some literature on our front gate yesterday and since Em is all about “what does this spell” lately, she asked what the flyer said. So I read it to her and told her that we have to go vote tomorrow over at the school.

E: What does “vote” mean, Mama?
M: Well, you can vote for lots of things, tomorrow we are going to vote for who we want to run for president.
E: What’s a president?
M: He is kind of like the boss. Of the whole country. He helps make rules and laws to keep our country running and safe.
E: Oh.
M: Yeah, it is a pretty big job and so everyone gets to vote, or pick, who they think they will do the best job.
E: Do I get to vote, too?
M: You can go with me and Daddy, but you have to be 18, a grown-up, to vote.
E: But I get to go with you?
M: Yep.

So I figured that was that. Then she wandered downstairs all bleary-eyed this morning looking for Daddy and I told her that he had to leave for work early so he could go to the school and vote.

E: HEY! Mom! (suddenly not sleepy at all anymore) We get to vote today, too! You and me, right? Well, I have to wait til I am 18, but I get to go, right? (First of all…she remembered that she needs to be 18?)
M: Yep. You need to eat some breakfast first, though.

The breakfast was inhaled. She completely cleaned her plate while I was getting ready. AND, she put her clothes on without a peep, had her shoes on and was sitting on the step, ready to go.

Kind of made me wish we got to vote every day.

So we walked over (our voting poll was across the street – handy!) and she watched the whole process with great interest. She asked what I was doing and why I was “voting” more than once.  “I thought you only got to vote for one person, Mama?” And basically chattered the entire time we were in the poll.

And then…they got a sticker! My goodness they give out stickers when you vote! Did you know this? She so proudly wore her “I voted” sticker all day.  And kept asking “Do people know I went to vote today because I have this sticker on, Mama?”

This could be an incredible history-making election, with either a black or woman being elected to President. And as excited as I am to witness that, I am even more excited to witness my little girl, who is years away from being able to vote, realize what a privilege it is to be able to vote.