One

So little yet so big. Cassidy is turning one tomorrow. The time just seems to fly by. I wanted her for so long and now that she's here it's just surreal sometimes. In fact, there were times I didn't think I'd ever get to have a 3rd baby. Dan was dead set on only two kids but I just knew that there was another little person that was meant to be part of our family. Thankfully my intuition was right and we were blessed with Miss Cassidy Isabelle. She is such a sweet, smiley baby and she fits in just right with the girls. Throughout my pregnancy I prayed for a healthy baby but I always threw in "and make this one my easiest!" And so far it's true. (Even though she's not a consistently good sleeper but I know that'll come) Cassidy is sick right now and at times is pretty miserable but she's a little trooper. She woke up yesterday screaming and I could not get her back to sleep. Since Olivia has an ear infection we figured she had one too. So off Dan and Cassidy went to Children's. They only had to wait 2 hours to be seen. (Our last two trips to the ER at Children's our waits were about 5-6 hours) Turns out that she doesn't have an ear infection and the dr's best guess was her infected eye was bothering her. We even had to cancel Cassidy's first birthday party! Luckily she won't notice and we'll make it up to her.

Twas the eve before going back to work...

and I have nothing clever to say b/c my brain is full of things I must do. I've done a lot of things to make my first week back smooth but I'm most nervous about the kids and parents. Like do I type a letter introducing myself? how do I greet the kids? will I remember names? It's like I"ve never done this before. How on earth will I be able to still be a mom 100% and work 60%. Millions of moms do it but I want to be the BEST at it. I think with my first mat leave I wondered how I still stay bonded to Olivia when I'm not there all the time. But we still stayed as strongly connected apart as we did together. It just happens.

All the girls are still sickly but hopefully getting over all the nastiness. Olivia has an ear infection, Cassidy has an eye infection and Lexie is slightly coughing. Lucky for them Avo is looking after them. No sniffle will go unwiped, all medications will be administered with love and every need will be tended too. Miss Cassidy's feet may not touch the ground all day. (As in she'll be snuggled into Avo's arms all day)

Sick sick sick

Ugh! We can't seem to get over sicknesses. January was coughs. We finally got over that and I was thinking okay, that's it for awhile. But then Olivia got an eye infection plus flu like symptoms. Then a week later Lexie got the eye infection plus a nasty head cold. Poor Cassidy just can't seem to get away from the germs and she's got a runny nose and who knows what else. She's been fussy fussy. Olivia's eye cleared up and she seemed to be back to her old self. But tonight she said her throat was itchy. I want to tear my hair out!!! This is just never ending. And to add salt into our big ol'wound of colds, Olivia's teacher talked to me today and said her listening is "nonexistent"! She didn't mean that Olivia is a bad listener but that her hearing is very poor. I've noticed little things lately too so it meant another call to the dr. Now I have to wait until Tuesday afternoon to get a referral from my dr but then I'm sure I'll have to wait another couple months before she sees the specialist.

And did I tell you I'm going back to work Wednesday? As in this coming Wednesday- just 5 days away!!! I"m in full on planning mode and hoping to have my first couple of weeks planned in advance. Very tricky considering all my stuff is at school.

Other updates:

Took the big girls to the dentist and it was all good news. They were really good, especially Olivia. I had to leave for the x-rays and when I came back (with Lexie) the dental hygienist said "She was alot more still when you weren't here." So we went back out to the waiting area. It's all kinda open so I could still see and hear her. She can be such a big girl sometimes. She had a full head scan and it was the coolest thing to see! You could see all her adult teeth and which will be the first to come through.

More on Miss Cassidy

Lexie loves to have her picture taken. I've been trying to get the perfect picture for Cassidy's birthday invite and Lexie always jumps in to the picture. Both these little girls pose for the camera when it comes out.

So yesterday was another big day for her. She walked more than she crawled! It was so crazy to see her little body walking around. She's still so wobbly but she actually has pretty good balance. She'll stumble but she'll catch herself and keep walking. The craziest (for me) to see was her walking away from me or just walking when she didn''t realize someone was watching.

Check out this little ham!

The camera comes out and this is what Cassidy does!
So today me and the girls head off to Cindrich for a visit. It was really nice to reconnect with my friends out there. I'm feeling a lot better about going back to work. It'll be tough but I'll enjoy the work part.
It's so funny what the girls think about the distance to Surrey. Olivia asks "Is Surrey in another country?" I say "no, but sometimes we pretend it is" No just kidding! Surrey has come a long way since I was younger and Surrey girl jokes were abundant. Then there's the sewage treatment factory next to the Alex Fraser. We call it the Poo Factory and the girls always have to see it. Olivia (the smart little cookie!) commented that since it wasn't a warm day we couldn't smell the poo. Lucky us.
Poor Olivia has an eye infection. She woke up today with a goopy eye and it turns out she has an infection. She got eye drops and hopefully they work quickly. I should have known she was sick when she fell asleep within 15 minutes last night.

5 weeks of birthdays!

First up is Avo aka Madalena. We had lunch today to celebrate her birthday and went to the Boathouse at Kits beach. What a fabulous view! The girls were actually well behaved and we were able to enjoy a nice lunch. So different from when Olivia was little. Cassidy was pretty mellow and munched on food the whole time. I swear, each child has gotten mellower. Next birthdays are Tia Elsa, Uncle Mike, Grandma Knox, Cassidy and Olivia.

I've been cleaning the girls room. It all started when I had Dan bring up all Olivia's old 4T clothes for Lexie. Piles and piles of clothes that had to be organized. I have the girls clothes organized in a certain way- current clothes in drawers, next to wear clothes in baskets and then bigger sizes/next season in rubber maid containers. When the new clothes come up it all has to be rotated. As I started to do this, I ended up having to clean more and more stuff. Lexie's room took 3 days and Olivia's room took about 2 days. Next up is Cassidy. I wanted to take pictures to show how clean the rooms are but they're already looking messy. These girls change about 4-5 times a day!

Big News- I mean HUGE!

Oh, there's so much to update about little Miss Cassidy Isabelle. First there's the giant step in her sleep. All of a sudden she's sleeping through the night! And I'm able to put her in her crib awake and she falls asleep on her own. I put her down around 7pm and then she's up for a quick feed anywhere from 3:30 to 5:30am. She goes back to sleep and will get up around 8-8:30am. I'm loving this! Next big step for Cassidy is weaning.

Second, there's her mobility. She's been cruising around for a few months but recently you could see she was thinking about walking. She'd get to a spot where there was a little distance between two objects and she'd stop. Her little arm would stretch out and she'd shuffle her feet but she'd drop to her knees and crawl. Then she started to take a little step but she'd fall to the ground. This weekend she started to take more steps- 2, 3 & 4!!! The 4 steps were actually 4 little shuffle steps but still they count as 4!

I'm currently trying to clean out the girls bedrooms. Lexie and Cassidy are both outgrowing their current sizes and I had Dan haul up all the boxes in the next sizes. Sorting all the clothes has led me to do alot of reorganization. I always have to make a bigger mess before I totally clean up. Right now up in Lexie's room I've got little piles of clothes everywhere: clothes that are too small, too big, too summery, just right, and dirty. And there's also a huge pile of dresses! I buy a lot of dresses plus other people like getting dresses for the girls too. But it's all organized chaos.