Is that a light at the end of this tunnel?

What a week! Maybe I should really say what a "6 weeks"! I'm sure you guys may have started to worry after my silence after the last posting. No, Dave has not committed me yet. We were close though! Just jokes of course. Things are going much better than they were.

Highlights of the week:

• Last Sunday, we had a visit from a few of close friends of ours. Weaz, Steph, Eric and little Maeli brought Maya an early birthday gift. It was a sand and water play table. She loved it!! What a great gift it was! It's really cool to see her with all of these new things. She loves the sand. She tried to eat it and we all tried to tell her no. The following day we were playing with the sand outside and once again she tried to eat it. I finally just said, OK, go ahead. You should have seen her face when she stuck that shovel in her mouth. Too funny. How else is she going to learn?
  

• This is really a low light. Julia got her 1st cold. She took it like a champ for the first few days until her nose became stuffy. That was horrible. She screamed her head off for about 20 minutes at a time off and on until I finally was able to put drops into & suction that little nose of hers. Not fun. Little Julia was very needy this week. The more I held Julia, the more Maya wanted to be held. Those poor girls had a hard week (not as hard as their Mom or their Dad for that matter- he had to hear all about it!)

• Maya loves cats! It was so cute. I swear Maya has been sneaking and watching wrestling in spare time. Her grabbing this cat was reminiscent of the sleeper hold. She loved it! She squeezed it and pet it like no tomorrow. It's a good thing our neighbors' cat likes to be held or we would be dealing with major blood loss! I wanted to take a picture so badly but I knew as I got up to get the camera she would have followed me. You have to realize that the week or two before, our neighbor Kelly "introduced" the cat to Maya and she was curious at first but then panicked when the cat got closer. Once again, major progress Little Maya!

• Major lesson learned for Sam. I have learned to use my "no's" wisely. This girl is stubborn. I know my parents will say," Heh, heh, payback time, baby!" but man, she is STUBBORN! Add a big fat "No, Maya" to it and it's time to put on our gloves, Ding Ding, Round 1! Needless to say, I have to pick my battles. If she wants to put her hat and shoes on to eat breakfast, so be it. Accessories & pancakes it is!

• She likes our dog! This is great news. She's been really afraid of our dog until now. I had both girls outside on the deck while Maya played in the sandbox. Our dog came up on the deck and got into Julia's face. Julia started laughing, giggling, petting and grabbing at our dog. Maya was watching Julia and saw how happy she was to see Cody. Next thing you know, Maya is reaching out for Cody and petting him. They are friends now! This was over one month in the making and to think all it took was for the reaction of a 7 month old. Who knew!
  

• HUGE, HUGE, HUGE, did I say HUGE? Yes, major step here folks, HUGE. Big mama left the nest today and was traveling solo. To say it was much needed would be the understatement of the year. This was the first time that I have left the house alone in 6 weeks. I have to give major kudos to my wonderful husband. Neither of us were sure how Maya would react to my absence but he encouraged me to leave anyway. He wanted me to get some alone time, do some shopping and no time limit enforced! I was gone for about 2 hours and Dave was left with both girls (and both awake!). Maya cried for about 5 minutes straight after I left. After that, she would go to the door, point and say, "Mama" about every 15 minutes. Dave said she never cried after the initial meltdown though just the visits to the door. This was music to my ears. Let me tell you, I love my daughter but you really need a break sometimes to re-energize. It's so hard sometimes. It worked out great today though. Dave gave both girls a bath (and separately, too), fed them snacks, played with them outside and even did the dishes. It was funny though, when I came back, Maya wanted Daddy to hold her. How about them apples!