But hey, if it means seeing my sister-in-law get married, I’ll do it.

Alright, so the hour was a little ridiculous – I had never before heard of a wedding at 8:00 on a Sunday morning. But the weather was lovely, the location was beautiful, and the event could not be beat.

In part to give them something to do during the ceremony (it’s not like we even had chairs to sit in – there were very literally 10 guests, three of whom were my children), the big kids had jobs to do. Rebecca held onto the bride’s bouquet, a practice run for her job as a “helping girl” (flower girl) at my stepsister’s wedding this summer.

And I was so sad when someone corrected Daniel’s pronunciation – I loved that he called himself the “ring barrier” (burier?) instead of ring bearer. I had visions of him running off and hiding the rings behind some kind of obstacle course. But indeed, both kids completed their jobs honorably.

Me? I was the unofficial wedding photographer. I think I did an acceptable job.

It may have been early, but it was a lovely way to spend a morning. And no matter what, I got to hang out with these knuckleheads. Thanks, my goofy ones, for making me your mom.

It feels like yesterday, it feels like forever ago. I remember it entirely too well, and yet I look back on that time with disbelief, wondering how on earth I did it. When she was in the hospital, I swore I’d throw a big party when she came home. That party never happened. There was so much stress, so much uncertainty when she came home. Obviously we were glad, but we still didn’t feel much like celebrating.

Even now, if I start thinking too much about last year, I burst into tears. One of her doctors has recommended that she do a sleep study (she sounds like Darth Vader when she sleeps), and the idea of staying overnight almost sends me into a panic attack. I haven’t returned that phone call yet.

Because, dammit, she is home. She is home where she belongs. And even if it’s not entirely rational, I am still terrified of going to the hospital and someone telling me that she can’t come home.

I didn’t mean for this to be a sad post. For any and all of the additional challenges she can present, Ellie is seriously the most delightful baby on earth. Happy, funny, sweet, easygoing, flexible. My sweetest pea, my munchiest munchkin. I am so glad she is home. Where she belongs.

Just like that, she figured it out. Milestones like these always amaze me – one minute she can’t crawl, the next minute she can. Hell, when she was a newborn in the hospital, a significant part of me wondered if she would ever be able to crawl, period. And now, she can.

Of course, nothing really happens that suddenly. She’d been up on her knees and rocking for the last two months. She’s been pushing herself backwards (and getting stuck under furniture) for a while.

In the last week or two, she had very occasionally begun to do a sort of inchworm/commando crawl. Once or twice a day, she managed to propel herself forward by an inch or two. I thought about trying to get it on video, but it was so infrequent and so short-lived (she would tire out quickly), I never managed it.

Yesterday, her physical therapist was working with her and trying to encourage a real crawl. With just the barest of support, she suddenly took two or three “steps” forward and I almost fainted.

Later that night, she did it again. And again.

This morning, catching it on video was no problem at all.

And then, the realization hits: our house is not even remotely childproofed anymore.

GOTTA GO.

Among the many reasons I love his karate program, one is that the progression to each belt is delightfully clear. Each kid has a paper in his or her folder that lists the skills they need to complete. Once a week, they are allowed to earn a star for the next skill on their sheet.  For the white belt, they were pretty basic stances and blocks. But he also needed to know how to count to 10 in Japanese, as well as know the name of his karate school. On the one hand, it did take a full two months to earn that white belt. On the other, each week it was easy for Daniel to see the progress he was making and how close he was getting.

His next star sheet is even better, if you ask me. There are more stars to earn, so it will take longer to earn the belt. And instead of just martial arts moves, there are four categories of stars to earn. “Basics” and “form” are straightforward karate skills. But he also has to earn stars in “life skills,” with entries like “know what a STRANGER is,” and “know parents’ names and home address.”  The final category is “physical,” for which he has to be able to do push-ups and sit-ups, balance on one foot for 10 seconds, and know his left from his right.

In his class, the 4-to-7-year-olds, the parents are invited in to watch the kid get his new belt. All of the other children sit attentively to watch, and the lucky kid goes up to the teacher on his own. The teacher presents the new belt with a snap to give it energy, and they bow as they get it. It’s freaking adorable, all of the other kids clap, and the one who has earned his new belt is bursting with pride. This was most definitely the case with Daniel, who was absolutely grinning from ear to ear the entire time.

I love all of this. I love it so much. I love that the teachers as individuals and the school as an organization makes such a concerted effort to help create good people, not just teach punches and kicks. The whole thing gives you the impression that they really believe in this effort, that it’s not just lip service.

Yeah, we’re in the honeymoon phase, I suppose. As time goes by, I may very well find things I don’t like. Daniel may fall out of love with it and move on to something else. But for now, he absolutely loves it and is excited to go every single time. And while it sure ain’t cheap, I feel like we’re getting a lot more than a punch and a kick and a colorful belt. It’s a winner.

The other day, I decided to grab my “big” camera and have some fun with the kids. Who doesn’t love jumping on mom & dad’s bed?

This is the joy of digital photography. I snapped well over 100 photos in less than an hour. The majority of them are blurry, out of focus, or otherwise just no good. But who cares? Just keep snapping, ask the kids to do something silly, or stand over them and make faces. Eventually you’ll get a winner.

Seriously, the kid is getting eight new teeth all at once, and is only occasionally cranky. One nap instead of two? No biggie. Getting dragged around to one errand/doctor’s appointment/big-kid activity after another? Whatevs! Just happy to be here!  Oh sure, she eventually reaches her limit. But she is really so easy-going, I can’t believe how lucky we are.

So, what is she up to these days? She has started playing peek-a-boo and clapping, and now claps for herself when she plays peek-a-boo.  While I wouldn’t say she yet has any discrete words, she’s very vocal and expressive. Lots of variation in tone and pitch and volume, different consonant sounds, different vowel sounds. Seems pretty good to me on the language-development front for a 13-month-old who otherwise has some fairly notable developmental delays.

In the motor skills department, she’s still probably closer to a 6-to-9-month-old than a one-year-old, but she’s making really nice progress on her own schedule. She can support herself standing, either holding on to me or to a bench or something. She isn’t super steady, but getting more so every day.  She has been able to get herself up from belly to sitting for a little while, but it involves this crazy legs-in-the-splits maneuver that her physical therapist HATES. Entirely too flexible in those hips, I guess.  Anyways, we’ve been trying to encourage a more graceful and less-cringe-inducing bent-knee version. She has finally figured it out with the help of her sleep sack (since she can’t get into the splits in the sack), and with this fun new skill, has decided her afternoon nap is for suckers. Great.

She is getting closer and closer to crawling. When on her belly, she can get up on her knees and rock back and forth. She pivots around, she scoots backwards, she reaches and rolls. And just the other day, for the first time, I saw her just barely inch forward. In the meantime, I’m constantly pulling her out from under a bench or a chair.

Ellie is still fed 100% by her G-tube. The leap forward she had made back in January has tapered off and taken a step back. While she no longer gags every time something is near her mouth, she has lost interest in actually trying baby food. Basically, she has decided she’s a toddler and just doesn’t feel like it. Awesome.

There are times when I feel badly for Ellie, being the youngest of three. The older kids determine so much of what we do each day, with school pick-up and drop-off, activities, habits, and opinions. She doesn’t have the classes and baby-centered outings and playdates that her brother and sister did at this age. She just has to fit into the pre-existing machine.

On the other hand, she gets a lot more one-on-one attention than the older kids ever got. It’s just me and her for a few hours every day. The big kids are relatively self-sufficient, while she’s cute and cuddly and needs to be picked up to go anywhere and DOESN’T TALK BACK (yet). Plus, she’s got these two goofballs who will do literally anything to make her laugh. Yeah, it’s not so rough being Ellie.

As far as Rebecca is concerned, anything is better if it’s pink. Or Purple. Or Red. Or Peach. That’s the list of favorite colors she’ll recite to you if you care to ask, or even if you don’t. She loves princesses and fairies and butterflies and dresses and headbands and anything else that screams GIRL! Like these ridiculous Rainbow Fairies books…

She, like Daniel, is crazy about her little sister and will to to great lengths to make her laugh. It usually involves a lot of arm flailing, head shaking, and shrieking in gibberish. What can I say? The baby digs physical comedy.

Rebecca is always doing something crafty, usually drawing a picture or a card. She is big on rainbows and flowers, and always likes to get individual eye colors correct when she’s drawing family portraits. She has also gotten into the joys of tape, so her artwork is decorating nearly every wall in our house. The one above the couch is particularly well-adorned.

She’s been in a rough four-and-a-half-year-old phase recently, a lot more whining and complaining than is her usual, quicker to dissolve into tears. TONS OF FUN, let me tell you. The whining in particular is a real trigger for me. Thankfully, she seems to be coming out of it. However, she’s reverting to her holier-than-thou “look, I’m doing good listening” bit, especially if Daniel is getting in trouble for something. One of these days, he’s gonna get so pissed at her…

Rebecca is incredibly sociable with other kids her age, especially other girls. She doesn’t have to know someone for long before she’s grabbing them by the hand and coming up with some kind of imaginary game to play. She is very sweet with other kids, and especially with kids younger than she is. She is also clever and crafty and seems to know how to be just a little bit manipulative when she needs to be. She’s so socially clued-in, I worry that this skill could morph into a Mean Girl as she gets older, if we aren’t careful to instill a real sense of empathy.

But for now, she’s delightful and sincere. She is affectionate and helpful. She spends much of her time at school doing the same works OVER and OVER again, because she knows she can do them well (ahem, I’m sure that’s NOT AT ALL like her mother), but will try new things without too much cajoling. She reads well, not quite catching up to Daniel’s fluency but still really well for her age. She loves her dance class, and is excited to get back into gymnastics soon. Swimming is a little more complicated, but we’re working on it.

My big girl. While I have no doubt she’ll give us a run for our money as she gets older, I’m going to enjoy this little-girl-ness for as long as it sticks around.

Oh Daniel, My Daniel.

He is the full range of four-and-a-half. He is charming and sweet and loving. He comes up out of nowhere and hugs me and tells me he loves me. He can’t keep himself away from Ellie, always wanting to make her laugh. He compliments total strangers if they have a cool shirt on.

He never, EVER stops talking. I don’t think he knows how. His vocabulary and memory are unbelievable, his use of colloquialisms and facial expressions are hilarious. But his mind sometimes works even faster than his mouth, so he can sometimes stutter and take for-ev-er to get a thought all the way out.

The constant talking can be grating, of course, because it also involves constant questioning and constant negotiating. And while the questions can be tiring, the negotiating starts to make me crazy. He asks a question, I give an answer, he asks again. Oh, it drives me batty. NO I SAID NO AND I WILL NOT CHANGE MY MIND IF YOU KEEP ASKING OVER AND OVER.

Oh, Self Control. Some day you will bestow yourself upon my son, won’t you? Some day? Maybe bring your friend Focus along with you?  I know. All of the other boy moms are just chuckling right now and pouring themselves another glass of wine. I’ve met very few moms of boys who haven’t at least had fleeting thoughts of “maybe he’s ADD?”  Nah. Just a boy. A distractable, flighty boy who takes FIFTEEN FREAKING MINUTES to put his pants on, only to come downstairs and they’re on backwards. Alas.

And yet, once he earns his stars and gets to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii? Look who suddenly can focus! Fancy that!

Daniel is fully obsessed with all things Star Wars. The movies, the Legos, the Wii games… even M’s original Empire Strikes Back storybook and Return of the Jedi glass from Burger King. (It still boggles my mind to remember that we used to get actual glassware as a kids’ meal prize from fast food restaurants.) He talks to anyone and everyone about it – which movies he’s seen, who his favorite characters are, and any number of plot points that are on his mind. Except he pronounces it “Star Wurz,” and it cracks me up, and I hope he stays that way for a while longer.

A month or so ago, Daniel started taking karate. While it’s a big commitment (twice a week! signed up for six months!), we’re all really happy with it so far. The teachers are wonderful with the kids. In the younger-kids class, they earn new belts by completing steps on a very concrete star chart. So while it may take some time, it’s very easy for the kids to see that they’re making progress towards that next goal. The entire organization also has a huge focus on character development, respect, responsibility, safety, and involving the whole family. It definitely feels like we’ve signed up for more than just another hour-long lesson. Best of all, Daniel absolutely loves it. Hey, anything that encourages him to have a little more control over his mind and body is a good thing in my book.

What else can I say about Daniel at 4 years and almost 8 months? School is going great. He reads incredibly well, pretty much anything you care to throw at him. He’s even started reading silently to himself, which I think is the coolest thing EVER. His handwriting is reasonably legible as long as he’s writing on a lined piece of paper. Give him a totally blank sheet and it looks like the writing of someone in the midst of a psychotic break.  If pressed, he can draw a picture that actually looks like something, but he’s not really that into it. He’s doing well with understanding basic math concepts, even a leeetle bit of really basic multiplication, but M is determined to teach him negative numbers. Whatever.

For as much as he is growing up before my very eyes, he is still my little boy. He bursts into tears if his finger gets pinched in a drawer or someone says something mean. He still wants hugs and kisses. At the karate orientation, he still climbed into my lap. The eight-year-olds in the room would barely sit in a chair next to their moms. I noticed and squeezed my little guy a little tighter, not minding how heavy he was getting. I know it won’t be long…

OK, the cheeks, too. And all those teeth (at least 10, with more on the way). But Ellie’s hair has been worthy of notice since before she was born – even the ultrasound tech noticed it.  There’s so much of it, it’s so soft, it’s so dark. It’s a lot like my sister-in-law’s hair, a brown so dark you think it’s black (but it’s not).

We’re visiting the grandparents in Florida this week, and another characteristic of Ellie’s hair has made itself more well known. CURLS. Oh, hello, humidity!

It’s not super tight little curls, and they aren’t as apparent if her hair isn’t as freshly washed or the humidity is a little lower. But the difference between our (admittedly mild) New England winter and springtime in Florida made for some pretty wild locks.

M asked me, with some concern, what we should DO about Ellie’s crazy hair. For one thing, I think it’s adorable and doesn’t need any DO-ing.  For another, I think it really just needs to keep on growing, with little barrettes as the mood strikes us.

The truth is, though, I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with Ellie’s style of hair.  Big curls that straighten a bit with time and weight. Not coarse, but there is a lot of it. Me? Fine and stick straight. Rebecca pretty much has the same hair as me. With Ellie, I will probably have to consult with my sister-in-law as I try to avoid too many regrettable haircuts.

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

A few stats:

We started out with 28 participants, and ended with 17.

Between everyone, we reported more than 365 hours of exercise.

While some of us stayed the same, and some of us (ahem, me, argh) went up a little, many of you lost a significant amount of weight. The top five competitors lost more than 5% of their body weight in 8 weeks. Which, in the real world with lives and jobs and families, is a great accomplishment.

But our big winner blew almost everyone else out of the water and lost more than TEN PERCENT of her body weight in the last 64 days. And the winner is…

Christina Y! Wahoo, congratulations, Christina! You are our Biggest Loser!

And while Christina came in an impressive second in total minutes of exercise logged, the winner of our “consolation” prize really did move her a** (though I don’t think it’s a particularly “fat” one…).

With over 44 HOURS of exercise to her credit, big congratulations to Heidi O!

Seriously, everyone, huge congrats on whatever steps you made towards healthy behaviors the last two months.

Keep it up!