For REAL Parenting

Serious subjects in the Kron household tonight. 

During dinner, Nora in her usual walkabout/talkabout fashion said she was going to marry a man. Sure, Nora, you can! Then she started thinking... well, if there’s a girl who doesn’t get married in town, then I’ll marry her. Can I marry a girl?

Yes, Nora you absolutely can. She has asked about marriage before and we consistently tell her she can marry whomever she wants. I don’t need to explain what Tim and my beliefs are...

Well. Tim just informed me that while reading her Highlights magazine, Nora saw an illustration of a black boy and made some comment about only marrying someone with the same skin color as her. WHAT THE HELL?! I really hope that’s just four-year-old logic in play?? 

Tim did a great job explaining that we all have different skin colors - even within our own family [pink, peach, olive, etc] and that we love and accept everyone even if they aren’t exactly like us. *We can have differing opinions and still respect each other. 

*Are you listening adults?

This kind of rolls into later down the road when Nora realizes her sister isn’t *quite* like everyone else and we have to explain that even people with delays and disabilities are just as loved and accepted as everyone who is typically-abled. 

Heavy subjects for a Thursday ya’ll!

Just Some Photos

Hey. I’m Nora the Baby.

Typical dinner at our house.

Saturday Morning Sisters : )

MA! THE PHONE!

Peek-a-boo with napkins.

Hannah Updates

Hannah wants to move! We had PT at Children’s on Friday. We only go once a month. I don’t know that we’re gaining a whole lot from it... I guess I want to stay on their “roster” in case we need them after Help Me Grow leaves us at age three [sniff!]. 

Our original gal is on maternity leave, then we had a dude who was a filler, now we have another regular whom I really like and pushes Hannah a little harder - I like that. She noticed that after one month, Hannah had improved - she is trying really hard to climb! 

Hannah can maneuver herself enough to climb our ottomans and shorter steps! Although she doesn’t seem to be doing it the “correct” way, she’s popping her legs up and now pushing herself up with her arms to stand supported! She can’t go as far as standing against the couch, but we’re so proud of Hannah! It’s these small milestones that typical kids breeze past that we cherish. Hannah has to work twice as hard, so it’s much more meaningful for our family. 

Nora and I were driving around today and she said something to the effect of, “Mommy, when I turn five, Hannah will be two. Then she’ll crawl and walk and talk and I’ll cry.” Because you’re so happy, Nora? “Yes.” Then she tried to force herself to cry which was adorable. She gave up; “Mom, I can’t get any tears out.” That’s okay, Nora : )

We had a nice quiet weekend, cheering Hannah on as she pushed herself to supported standing. 

Nora played in the dirt and made some homes for bugs. Hey man, I’m all for a little dirt under the fingernails!

Superhumans

If this doesn’t inspire and give you chills, I don’t know what will:

We're The Superhumans

Talk about badass!

First Anniversary

Jillian Daugherty Mavriplis and her husband Ryan celebrated their first anniversary! Congrats to the couple - role models for many of us new to the Ds community.

First Anniversary

Motherhood Around the World

The fourth year of my favorite blogger series is starting again! Motherhood Around the World composed by Joanna Goddard.  I’m sure I’ve posted about this series before. 

The fourth year starts off with Thailand. I find every single one so interesting! My cousin and his wife live in Spain [she is also Moroccan] so it was fun to see the traditions there. 

Enjoy!

Lately

I guess less blogging is a good thing - life is fairly calm right now, just the way we like it.

Nora: just the usual... I’ve been worried about her learning to swim. We halted swim lessons right before Hannah was born. She has used a floaty vest and doesn’t want to get her head wet - afraid of water up her nose.

This past weekend we went to the Blue Ash Rec pool with some friends and I predicted what would happen [which did]: Nora would see her friend without floatation, diving and dunking under water which would influence her - and it did! Nora stripped her floaty vest [the water was under 2' deep] and began dunking under water and going down the kiddie slide by herself! :: fist pump :: So proud of her.

The sitter’s kids are also starting up lessons at the new swim facility down the road - all the kids had to go along and Nora now wants to start again. This is a good thing! After swim season, we’ll look into signing her up again.

Hannah: Signing just took off about two weeks ago! Hannah signs please, more, cracker, dog, sing, bath, sleepy. She tries to say “dog,” “this,” and “that.” Now that she has two front teeth [which we can never quite see under her lip], she’s trying new sounds. She’ll point and say “ths, ths” - good stuff!

We keep working on pulling to stand - it’s work. No crawling even though she gets on all fours. I’m being patient for now.

No update on eyes - follow up the first week of August - hoping these patches do the trick...

Nutrition - last week the sitter chose not to tube feed Hannah two times because she ate so well! We give her full freedom to make the call - she knows Hannah just as well as we do. I also talked to our Speech Therapist about the calories the Nutritionalist wants us to force into Hannah. She basically said stop tube feeding Hannah - ! We know her, how she eats. Hannah has no trouble eating. She may dip down a bit in weight or plateau, then will re-adjust herself and most likely gain weight. Our ST said she has another family who did just this and it played out well.

I’m a little nervous but Tim’s wanted to pull the trigger on this. If Hannah does drop drastically in weight, we can go back on as needed. The only hesitation is her fluid intake - at most she drinks 1c milk and 1c water a day. We still flush Pedialyte through her daily.

Once a kid is independent of their tube, the medical professionals wait at least 3-6 months before removing it to truly make sure they are independent.

Me: Starting up training for my fall half - the Queen Bee. My last larger race was the Heart 15K. I haven’t run past 6 miles since then. I should be okay - I really need to get a bit stricter on my food, sleep and strength training. I’ve slacked on my food a bit with summer indulgences. I need to get to bed earlier on Friday nights so I have a good Saturday long run.

I try to do a little yoga at least twice a week but need to incorporate more strength in my core and legs... I have a bunch of short workouts I just need to DO.

Tim and I also went to see Phish over a week ago with good friends - it was fun and strange to be gone for two nights from the girls! It takes me a few hours to shift my focus from the girls to myself. Two days gone was plenty - so ready to be home!

The regular Phish Crew!

Post storm - rained on us 2/3 of the show!

Our camping neighbors - ! Turns out they were older than us!