15 months - all grown up!

May 28, 2018

I only have a few minutes to post because a) we moved my entire department to a new building on campus this week (I *never* want to move an entire lab again, it was horrible and still not finished) and b) husband is about to leave for Peru - the kids are in rare form this morning and it's epic. I feel like I was already in a stress debt from writing a zillion lectures this semester, and then the summer has been equally stressful and sleep deprived, so I have retained the debt long after I thought I would clear it.

We took Annika for another blood draw this weekend to see if her anemia is improving with the supplemental iron, but I have to say, she still eats a ton of non-food items, so I am skeptical. Her WCC appointment went well, though, and she is nice and huge. Developmentally, she still seems right on track - running, climbing, talking. I still can't understand most of what she says (because it literally all sounds the same), but she's *trying* to make tons of words. We're making exciting progress on handling stairs, which is great because we have 3 steps leading down from our outside deck that we have to use multiple times each day and which pose serious hazard any time we are simply outside playing. I can't figure out how we possibly kept Maya alive - and relatively unscathed - at this age, but we somehow did. Annika has also mastered climbing on and off the couch, for better or worse. With Maya, I remember saying that if it wasn't going to require a trip to the hospital, then I was just going to let her fall off of things so that she would learn - but then Maya's split chin a year later was not much of a fall at all and still required a trip to the hospital, so I have recalibrated what will constitute stitches and am generally more anxious than my former naïve self :)

Mostly, Maya and I are spending a bunch of time planning fun adventures and meals for while husband is out of the country. I have said this before, but seriously, having Maya around while solo parenting Annika is such an amazing positive. I am *so* not a baby person, so Maya makes our time fun, interesting, and something to look forward to. We are making lots of macaroni and cheese and mushroom dishes, ordering some new nail polish, making more friendship bracelets, and taking a day where we send Annika to school and then Maya and I are going to the water park!

Here are some photos of current life: