Natalie's Blog: All about Lola.

Lola starts school next week and I am so excited for her this year. 3 years old seems like a legit school age where she can really go play, make friends, and learn exciting stuff- not that before she couldn't- 3 just seems so much bigger now. At 2 and certainly 1, she still seemed so far off from 5 and being a kindergartener and now I can totally picture her 5, 7 and.... well no older than that. Thank goodness. We met her teachers this morning which seem right up her alley and she was totally stoked that their was a play washer, dryer and ironing board in the classroom! Haha! That's my girl! This year she will also start dance that is held after her school at school which is super nice and exciting. The girl can't wait. She thought today she would get to dance, but I had to break the news that doesn't start for two more weeks today was just so she could meet her teachers. I am already excited to see her preform on stage, and I know she is too. The dance teacher, Mrs. M, has an approach to dance I really like including age-appropriate outfits. I am glad to see Lola excited about school and dance because this summer she kept saying very casually but sure her mind was made up "I am not going back to school." I think she will love it... can't wait. Hopefully this year I will do a tad better about dropping her off. I have cried a touch the last two years on the first day. So weird dropping your babies off for someone else to love on all day. I normally can make it all the way to the car, then the little tears come, that she is growing up. Can you imagine me when it comes time to kindergarten, then middle school and Lord forbid high school? Gulp. Too much to think about.

So Lola is due for some updates... She is 3 years and 4 months old and weigh around 38 pounds and I believe is around 38 inches tall actually. Trying to picture the yardstick up to her since she wants me to check her height every other day.... sounds right. She has two imaginary friends and they always are together "Aubrey and the bear." She first started mentioning them when she was somewhere she wasn't as used to and slowly they started showing up at the house, in the car, and out to eat. The weird thing is I think she is fully aware they are pretend, but she talks about them and includes them as if we all can see them. It's strange but seriously I just totally go a long with and occasionally and casually say "Um, Aubrey and the bear are pretend, right?" Lola: "Yea mom. Pretend." as she proceeds to tell me not to sit on the bear. Now that I think about it, I think I should give her teachers a heads up so they aren't wondering who the hell are Aubrey and the bear! Haha!

The other crazy part of Lola are her voices. Before Oliver was born she started talking in a different voice. To be honest it was around the time she got the tubes. Before tubes she seemed to enunciate her words better and talk clearer than now. He said she had "glue ear" and should hear so much better after getting her tubes and her ears cleaned out, but her hearing seems bad now and her voices drive us insane. It's worse now, because she has also learned to talk silly, like a man, impersonate people, and so on... so she always seems to exaggerate sounds, mouth movements, and talk in a voice that isn't her norm. I did mention this at school so they knew I was encouraging her to use her "big girl" voice at home. At the same time, I do see a theatrical side to Lola and don't want to discourage that so I am hoping to get her involved in a drama type program soon. I think she would dig it. Her ability to memorize words, lines, songs, etc... is incredible. I can't do what she can. Most adults can't do what kids can do though. They are incredible human beings. What happens to us as we get older? Haha...

As far as being a big sis- pretty perfect. I really can't wait for Christmas time and certainly next summer. Lola is only going to enjoy Oliver more and more. She loves when I let him lay and play in her room while she plays... although with the Barbie obsession there are countless Barbie shoes anywhere and everywhere in her room so we are extra careful. She plays in his room a lot while he is playing in his crib... she brings her stool in there so she can reach him in his crib. I love that she does that. I trip over that pink stool all the time not realizing she left it there. Hehe... Makes me so glad they have each other. She really is patient concerning him because he has been very consuming for us... Clay and I feel it the most at night and so glad Lola misses that. She is going to bed around 7:30 p.m. and now that we have such a good routine down, she can go to be later or even earlier when need be. It's great! We were strict on it for awhile during all her sleep training, so now that it seems to be as mastered as it can at the good ole' age of 3, it's nice to have some flexibility of the time. She went down late tonight because we all played together when Clay got home, then fixed a late breakfast-dinner and still needed baths afterwards. Good thing my babies have me or they would go to bed dirty a lot! Haha- Clay and I always have a brief debate on why she needs a bath versus why she doesn't. :)

So some things I love about Lola right now. She is absolutely non-confrontational. She doesn't like fighting, yelling, people being mean, etc... for her to be so bold and outgoing and crazy- she is sooooo sweet. If Clay and I have any kind of disagreement in front of her, she immediately says something to make everyone agree or brings us cookies from her room or dances and wants us to watch her twirl. It's really cute. Clay and I always want to limit disagreeing in front of Lola, but at the same time, I don't want her to think we never disagree or never argue. Real life. It happens and we always work through it and she sees that too. We talk about it a lot because she definitely is a thinker. She will tell one of us to "BE NICE!" Love that. I like that it creates conversations about relationships too. I think she will be a good friend to others throughout her life. She is such a nurturer and caretaker too. Even with her brother, she bounces him, brings him outfits, combs his hair, sings to him constantly, reads to him, gives him bottles in the car when I am not looking... true story.... they sit side-by-side now and she really thinks this is the best thing in the world, but I keep having to threaten to move her because while he sleeps she grabs his hand to hold it. I tell her to leave him alone while he is trying to sleep! But how can you fault her? When he sleeps, I want to hold his hand too! And hers actually. Confession. Now that she is sleeping pretty darn good in her bed- there's nights I am so tired and Oliver has stressed me to the max, that all I want to do is go snuggle with Lola in her bed. My snuggle buddy is sleeping so peacefully in her room and I want to sleep so peacefully and snuggle. I have a few nights, and a few nights she has snuck in bed with me and I get good snuggles and talk time before waking Clay up to move her back to bed.

I thought this summer I would be much more intentional about teaching Lola her numbers better, writing letters, etc... please. Hasn't happened. Then I was driving the other day thinking about how bad that is I haven't done that, feeling more guilty since I have the teacher background, and then thought... who cares. Seriously. She's a smart girl and in due time she will learn everything. We all work with her on perfecting her cutting skills, coloring skills, picking out pretty fabrics skills, baking skills, imagination, science and history (thanks to Clay)... I feel way less guilty now. By the way, I really can't wait for her to be old enough to sew. I am making her third backpack this year and just can't wait to see all 18 lined up when she is 18 years old. It'll be crazy folks.

Her eating habits are only getting worse and Clay and I are trying to fix that desperately. I do NOT want her to be like me and so far it's a pretty close copy cat. Sucks. I am hoping as Oliver tries new foods and if I get Lola to help me make purees, she will have interested in trying them. I just think it might really work or at least help. And it would certainly help if I tried it with her because we can talk about how it makes us feel to try new foods. FREAKED OUT! I understand girl.

Lola is wearing a 4T and 5T and size 9 shoe. She is pretty much only going to wear a dress these days. If I don't want her to wear a dress, I have to prepare her a day or two in advance... like for the airplane I wanted her in pants- so we picked out a cute pair and Target and talked about how on the place we had to wear pants. Clay and my sis asked why did she have to wear pants on the plane anyways?? Of course to keep all the airplane germs off of her! :) (That is my serious, for real answer. I wore pants too.) Stores are in between or something because not a lot of cute stuff out yet, but when more stuff comes out- we must go dress shopping because she wears the same 3-4 and they were cute at first but now they are dingy and worn way too often. I hope we can agree on dresses. She has very set opinions and occasionally thinks she is the boss.

Lola is also so aware of what everyone says, what they are doing, and can reference that later through conversations and play. She was pretending to be an adult the other day and showed me her credit card and said she worked at "blah, blah, blah." I couldn't understand where she was saying and she finally blurted out "Where Uncle Nick works, Common Desk!" (Common Desk is a Deep Ellum coworking community designed to revolutionize the way people work) The she proceeded to tell me it's a really fun place to work, and she e-mails, does money and writes things. She sat up her room to be Common Desk and had me come look while she sat at her little desk and worked. So cute. I gotta' film this so Uncle Nick can check this out.

The other thing that is really a new experience at her age, is she can really think and ponder on things. She has real emotion of anxiety, fear, happiness, shock, etc.. which she has had for a long time, but she can express them into words and we are able to talk about things. When she is sharing something "deeper" there's an obvious difference in her personality and her little body slows way down. I want to start now showing her she can always talk to me and tell me anything without judgement and I will always listen from a place with love. When I see the conversation has gone from silly to serious I always make an extra effort to slow down my self and really listen and talk through something with her.

Favorites right now:
Color: purple and pink
Shows: Dora, Caillou, Sid the Science Kid, The Bereanstain Bears, Word World, Super Why...
Movies: She is exploring princess movies and wants them all- but her favorites to watch seem to be Princess Sing Alongs or short clips referencing her favorite Princesses.
Toys: Barbies, blocks, Little People, and babies!
iPad Apps: Anything princess, Minnie Mouse, Barbie... she only has like 100! We have to delete apps in order to get new ones at this point. She has her own iPad- it was ours at some point, but that didn't last too long. Haha.
Ice Cream: She always wants pinks, then gets it and doesn't like and says "maybe just white."
Foods: CFA, rice, 98% fat free hot dogs, 4 cheese hot pockets, cinnamon pop tarts, oranges, fruit snacks, pretzels, bananas, applesauce, and yogurt? That might be all of her diet... not much more in the mix...

Well I wrote all of this last night and was too tired to finish it up a bit. I am sure I could go on and on and on about her still- but I'll save some stuff! Not near enough time to reread these things and check for all my sloppy mistakes, so please forgive them each posts! Now here are some pictures!

I love how free Lola looked on the beach with her Barbie. Made me feel relaxed and blessed.

She is becoming a girly girl, but seems to still embrace athleticism, rough-housing, and bug-hunting.

But not as much as she embraces tutus, twirls, and pretty hair dos.

I still can't get over the love between these two. The doctor was asking several questions about Oliver and wanted to know some of his reactions and I told her "If you want to see him react happily, lovingly, interested- watch him watch his sister. He adores her." And to add, she adores him.

Love that she is good about trying new things, minus food. She has the perfect amount of courage versus hesitation. I believe it will allow her to be a go-getter in life without getting in a lot of trouble. A great balance to have. Wished I had more of it at times. She teaches me everyday how to enjoy life more.

Of course, getting sandy was her favorite part of the beach and I still enjoy seeing her beach pictures so much.

Look at the love on Lola's face.

Dresses are the rave around here and she wanted a long, flowing dress like Aunt Kebby's so I turned one of my dresses into a dress like she wanted. She loves it.

When we are in a hurry and Lola is still wanting some bub time at the end of the day, we combine baths like this. Works- but it's actually easier to do it separate. But the both seem so happy.

Lola at dance camp. I know we have talked about this, but I don't think I shared this picture. I do love it. She just loved it and didn't even care she was the youngest.

Getting Lola to slow down for pictures is no easy tasks anymore!

A new thing has been falling asleep in the car. :) Since no naps has been a thing for a long time, it's impossible to incorporate them, but that means she needs her 12 hours of sleep at night- so we have to be intentional about getting her in bed at a good hour most of the time. She doesn't sleep in too often.

Do you wonder why I prayer Oliver would be laid-back? Probably not.

They seem to balance each other in so many ways. Can't wait to see them in another year.

Barbie house from Nonna for staying in her bed for 7 nights! Helped a lot because she does get out of bed still, but not too often.

If I leave O and Lola alone for two seconds, I always walk in to find her like this...

Or like THIS!

And this! Which this one scares me the worst because I am scared she doesn't realize how much weight she may be putting on him or covering his face too much...

And this one is only a little bit scary because she gets distracted easily and doesn't always remember to lay him back down easily. Oops.

But the love is there.

And here. She's my baby. I tell her that and she quickly reminds me she is a big girl, but I quickly remind her she will always be my baby. She is my little girl.

My multi-tasking little girl. Always up to several things!

Always ready for bed and quality time with her daddy at bedtime.

Cutie pies.

Family picture before baths!

Her own self photo shoot while I was talking to the doctor.

Making new friends.

Loves our Chick-fil-A breaks as much as I do!

And apparently loves babies as much as I do! She wanted to snuggle and kiss on Livi non-stop. You think she'd be over babies having Oliver all the time. Aren't they cute!

Lisa came by and 5 kids between the two of us is crazy. We know understand why our moms always left us at home to fend for ourselves while they shopped!

Aunt Kebs!

And Ba! We checked on Maw-Maw for her foot surgery!

Daddy and Lola... love the cereal boxes on top of the fridge. Real life. :)

Paw-Paw!

After our hair trim. She is growing it out like Aurora.

Lola loved the pillows we made. Hope she shares this passion with me, but if she doesn't- no worries. Her brother really likes these pillows too, so maybe he will ;)