Some Firsts

Today my mom and I took the kids (hee hee, I have kidS!  As in plural!) to the Nordstrom Cafe for lunch and for a little shopping.  As we were waiting in line for our food a nice couple came up to me and commented on the baby and asked how old she was etc.  They then looked over to The Boy and commented on his hair (that happens ALL the time) and asked who had the red hair in the family (I sometimes loathe this question because, YES damnit, I DID have red hair until I was about 6 years old before it turned brown.  But his donor Daddy had red hair until he was almost 30.  But people look at me and immediately assume the Daddy is where his hair comes from.  Anyway, I digressed...)

But the part that made me stop was their comment as they were walking away.  They smiled at me and said, "You have beautiful children.  Happy Mother's Day."

Children.

As in I have two of them.

And just in case you were worried that all of my hormones had passed...yes, I cried.

It was a small comment, but one that means so much.  I have always wanted "children."  Not just a child.  I was greedy enough to want the "children."  And when I was blessed enough to get The Boy I always knew I wanted him to have a sibling.  And then when things fell apart with The Ex...I just didn't know if I would ever get to see that dream become a reality.  And even after I decided I wanted to go ahead with trying to have another child, I had to find a donor, and make an agreement with him, then actually achieve pregnancy, and then actually live through a pregnancy (not as easy as it seems...), well sometimes it just seemed like it would never happen.  And it did.  I made it.  And my two beautiful children have made it.  They are here and I can't believe how lucky I am to have them both.  It was a great moment to have a stranger confirm my dreams.

The other first for today was that I breast fed out in public.  When The Boy was little, I pumped but only fed him bottles.  So when he was first born I was never "allowed" to be away from my house (and therefore my pump) for more than 3 hours.  This meant that I actually only ever got 2 hours to go anywhere.  I remember being frustrated that I could never do lunch and shop, or do anything that took too long because I needed to get home to pump.

Today I fed The Girl a "topper" off of one boob at about 10:30am.  The Boy had an 11:00am haircut and we left for that at 10:45am.  After his haircut we went straight to Nordstrom and had lunch.  After lunch The Girl was hungry so I went into the fancy "mom room" in the ladies restroom and sat on a swanky chair and fed her.  It was about 12:45pm.  She ate for like 20 minutes (during which my mom took The Boy to the candy store and he got a piece of chocolate), and then we headed out.  We proceeded to continue shopping and buy The Boy some new shoes and me a cute new shirt and finally headed home after that.  We got home at around 2:30pm.  That means I was out of the house from 10:45am until 2:30pm.  That would NEVER have happened with The Boy when I was pumping.  And it was just SO nice to be able to go about my day and stop and give The Girl some boob when needed and keep going.  We came home and all three of us took a nap.  We got up at around 4:00pm when The Girl needed to eat again.  How fabulous is that?

And finally...will my baby's cord EVER fall off?  Dear God, this thing is HUGE and I swear it is going to stay on until she is 3.  Because of that she hasn't had a full on bath yet.  I wipe her down with a wash cloth and wash her hair every third day or so, but she hasn't yet had a real bath.  And it is a shame.  Her cute baby hair looks SO much different when it is clean.  And even after I wash it, it gets greasy SO fast.  Her hair is actually a blondish color, although it looks much darker when it isn't "just out of the bath" clean.  Behold some examples.  Here is her hair on a "normal" day, just chillin'.  Looks pretty dark:

And here it is right after a bath.  Behold the blond cuteness:
She actually has a great head of hair right now.  I am not sure if she will lose it or not, but right now she has quite a bit of it, and like I said, when it is clean, it sure is cute.  It is not the bright red color of her brother's hair (different donor Daddy's), but there is some strawberry blond in there.  It will be interesting to see how it ends up.
Hope all of you Mother's out there have a fabulous Mother's Day.  I will try and do a post on that soon.  But not sure if I should post about MY fabulous mother, or if I should post about being a new-ish mom to my new little girl and my fabulous boy.  We will see where the mood takes me.  :)