Toddler Life

I'm not exactly sure when our lives with a baby ended and life with a toddler started but we most certainly are in the midst of toddlerhood. Some things are more challenging (the timeouts, the tantrums, the constant "no no no") but in my opinion, this season of parenting is so great. We laugh every day and watching Gabriella learn new things and figure things out is simply fun. 

She climbs everywhere and we are crossing our fingers that she stays in her crib for as long as possible. She is a little daredevil with many things and gives me a small heart attack at least once a day. She can be cautious as well though and will study some situations and places before diving in. 

Today she decided to put on a fairy princess costume and kept it on all morning. The neighbors got a kick out of seeing her run around the yard :) 

She's a silly one for sure!! 

Happy Wednesday :)

xo,

Mary

Say cheese

My camera used to be overflowing with adorable pictures of our smiling baby. And now it's full of pictures like this...

Or this...

Or sometimes this...

I laugh when I look through our pictures now because of a stranger were to find my phone, they would definitely assume we have a miserable toddler. Which we do not! She's actually very happy and silly (minus the few off moments haha) but she is not into the camera these days. 

For my fellow Modern Family fans, taking pictures now reminds me of an episode where Mitch and Cam's daughter had a weird smile in every photo. It was a hilarious episode where they would whisper, "what's wrong with her face?", and talk about Photoshopping normal smiles in. That's our life :) Tell her to smile and you get this smirk...

We've tried, "show us your teeth" , and end up with this...

Eventually I'll get some perfect photos but for the time being, we will all share a few laughs over our perfectly imperfect ones! 

xo,

Mary

 

Happy Father's Day!

I have to take a minute to wish Gianni, my Dad, my father-in-law, and my grandfather a very happy Father's Day. Both Gianni and I are so incredibly blessed to each have the dads that we do. They are strong, funny, caring, and supportive. Gabriella is crazy about her Grampy and her Nonno (as are we!!). 

On top of awesome grandfathers, Gabriella has one fantastic Dad :) I have always known Gianni would be a superb dad, but watching him with Gabriella is so beautiful. She adores him. She follows him around like his shadow, laughs the hardest with him, and wakes in the morning saying Daddy. She is a Daddy's girl if I have ever seen one! Happy Father's Day to the best dad and husband! We love you!! 

To all the dads out there, happy Father's Day! Enjoy your day- I hope it is filled with everything you love (golf, family, grilling, etc!!) You deserve it :) 

xo,

Mary

Eye appointment

Happy Friday! We had a busy week filled with Gianni's birthday and play dates but the biggest thing was Gabriella's eye appointment mid-week. 

Gabriella has been followed by a pediatric ophthalmologist since birth and after seeing him last year, the plan was that we would come back when she turned 3, unless we noticed any changes. Over the past few months, we started to notice that her eye would drift a little, especially when she's tired. We also noticed that she squints on occasion . So our pediatrician recommended that we go sooner than later just to be safe. 

Gabriella did so well at her appointment. She was happy, let them dilate her eyes, and was so cooperative. They looked for a bunch of things and at the end of the appointment decided that she does not need glasses right now but definitely uses her right eye more than her left. We are going back in 4 months and if her left eye muscles are still weaker, they'll have us use an eye patch a couple of times a day to push those muscles to strengthen.  

As always, we are so thankful that she is doing well and that these little things that come up are just that, little. Everything on the news this week has been heartbreaking and certainly makes us hug our girl a little tighter. 

Have a great weekend and happy Father's Day to all you great dads out there :) 

xo,

Mary

Five on Friday!

Happy Friday! June is always a busy but fun month with us- lots of birthday celebrations, Father's Day, and our weekends are filled up! 

1. Look who's standing 

I have to start with this big guy because he is so stinking cute! Gabriella is obsessed with her cousin Ben and loves face timing him, looking at photos of him, and watching videos of him. And this week we got this photo of him looking so grown up!! 

2. Sweet tooth

We decided to go out to dinner last night to kick off Gianni's birthday weekend. It was a last minute decision and we decided to go to Friendlys. We hadn't been there in years but it was good! Perfect for a dinner out with Gabriella:) It was great to go somewhere that is beyond kid-friendly and she did better than we ever expected. She sat in her chair, colored, ate her whole dinner and was wide-eyed with excitement when she saw her first ice cream sundae! Although it was a huge sundae for a complimentary kid's size so we all shared:)

3. Little lady

She is just looking and acting so grown up recently! From her vocabulary to watching her interact with other kids, it's exciting and crazy to see how much she's growing up. 

This week she said "I love you " for the first time, says "okay" for yes, and will choose her breakfast and outfit when given a couple of choices. 

4. Go baby go

Many of you (especially if you visited us in the NICU) may remember Gabriella's "neighbor", Ethan. I could go on forever about how strong he and his family are. They are some of the kindest, most selfless people I have ever met. Ethan has gone through more than anyone should ever have to go through and through it all, his parents remain positive, happy, and truly are inspirational. 

This past week Ethan received a gift from a program developed at the University of Delaware called Go Baby Go. This program takes donated power wheel style cars and makes them accessible for children that are not able to walk. Toddlers that are non ambulatory are often not strong enough or able to use an electric wheelchair but a small car allows them to strengthen their upper muscles, work on fine motor skills, all while letting them be kids. They can be at toddler-level, have a bit of independence, and some fun. We are so happy for them! They were featured on the news, the link is here: 

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Students-Outfit-Ride-on-Cars-for-Students-With-Special-Needs-381802421.html

To read more on this program, read here: 

http://www1.udel.edu/gobabygo/

5. Birthday boy

This weekend we get to spoil and celebrate Gianni! He works so hard for our family and puts us first every single day. Gabriella is over the moon in love with her Daddy and I don't know what I would do without him! Happy birthday to my best friend and love of my life!!! 

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

xo,

Mary 

First Time-out

I suppose I should add today's date to Gabriella's baby book- it officially marks her first time-out. She loves her water table and recently thinks it's funny to pour water all over her head. No big deal, especially when she's playing outside because that's what the table is for. Well today we were outside playing at the table, and she took a small boat and started to drink from it. Gross. I had filled the table in the morning so by mid afternoon it was pollen covered and just not good for drinking. I said no, offered her a cup of drinking water and thought we were done. Two minutes later, she looks at me, says "Mama", and drinks the nasty water again and starts laughing. Again, I said no and hoped we were done. She looked right at me and said , "no, no, no" and took another drink. 

Now keep in mind that at this moment I realized that I have no clue what I'm doing. I knew some sort of punishment was needed but also realized that I had stopped reading the toddler book in order to watch The Bachelorette (don't judge me :)) So I made the decision that our precious little girl was getting her first time out. I picked her up, sat her in a chair and told her we don't drink water from the pool or the toys. I only kept her there for a minute and was feeling very accomplished. 

And then we went back to the water table, she picked up the small pail, and said, "Mamaaaaaaaa" with a SMIRK on her face and tried to drink it again. I fully panicked because I had no clue how to handle the situation and said we are all done with the table. And we relocated inside but she didn't seem to mind at all. So at the end of the day I am fairly certain that Gabriella learned nothing and I need to read the toddler book. Cheers to getting close to the "terrible twos"!!! 

xo,

Mary