and breathe

This week was one that I am happy is almost over. Not that anything bad happened, but it was just one of the craziest weeks that we've had in a while. We had our usual weekend that ended with Greg being at church longer than he had planned and then I was up until a little before midnight to help him pack. (We did stop at my friend Julie's house and picked up Sophia's sunglasses that she had left there months ago, so Sophia wore them all day Sunday...see above photo). Anyway, I think Greg rolled into bed around 3:00 a.m., but I can't be sure. Greg was presenting at a conference in NYC on Monday, so he flew out at the crack of dawn on Monday. Then I was up at 6:00 a.m. getting ready for work, getting the kids up and dressed and fed, packed their lunches, dropped them off a two friends' houses so they can get to school, driving back home to park the car, and running to catch the train downtown--so I can get to my office and get things together for my trial that was scheduled to begin at 12:15 p.m.--only to find out that our judge had plane troubles and the trial was being postponed until 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Argh!

Tuesday started the same, minus Greg and running all over the neighborhood like a madwoman because it turned out that our nanny Teresa was on spring break this week and she was able to come at 7:15 a.m. and hang out with the kids until she took them to school. I {heart} Teresa. She's been really great and helpful. She has pulled me out of a lot of last minute jams and I appreciate her a ton. And she stayed with the kids until 7pm when I finally got home Tuesday night and had fed them dinner and everything.

Wednesday was a little better and I went into work a little later after I dropped the kids off at school. It was mostly a catch up/clean up day for me at the office. And I had lunch with my friend Julie who is always fun to talk to and has good perspective on things. And Greg came home and the world was right again.

So today, I took the day off from work, took Sophia to school, watched Oprah while I ate my bagel and then went to Target. I also took a nap while Sophia took a nap before Nicholas came home from school. And woke up and took a deep breath. Then I hung out on the couch with Sophia and watched the Little People. Yes, all is well with my world today (even though I told Greg that this was not one of my most flattering poses--Sophia looks cute).

it's still not spring

The thing about Chicago is that once in a while, you get a day that is sunny and inching toward the mid-40's and you start thinking, it's warming up. And then, just when you start thinking about pulling out some warm weather clothes, the weather turns on you. And it snows. Again. It was not too terrible earlier this week, but today, it rained and then turned to snow. I don't mind having bad weather when I am busy, but now that my trial is over and have a week or so before I have to write a brief, I am hoping the days will be nice. A girl can hope, anyway.

I talked to my sister tonight who was feeling a bit sad since Mom went back home Wednesday night...after being with her for a month. Emma is growing, but she is still tiny and technically still 3 weeks shy of when she should have been born, so she is still tiny. I'm kind of sad that I won't see her in person while she is all teeny weeny. She'll probably be much bigger when I see her in May. But she got Sophia's package and I was glad to hear that the preemie outfits we sent her fit her perfectly. I wished my sister and I lived closer together. I was going through stuff on our computer tonight and found pictures of us that I had scanned a while back for a picture quilt that I made for her for Christmas a couple of years ago. They are not straight because I guess they weren't scanned in straight. But they are some of my absolute favorite photos of me with my sister. In the pictures with food, I am the one with food, or clearly upset that I have none.

spring has not yet sprung

On the first day of spring this year, Chicago had what one of the news stations called a "heart attack" snowstorm. I'm not quite sure what it technically means, but needless to say, it did not feel all springy. Last weekend, we had a couple of days that seemed almost spring-like, but clearly, it did not last. The kids were pretty happy to have a couple more days of snow this year, although both kids complained about how they were growing out of their snow boots.

As soon as they woke up this morning, Nicholas got Sophia dressed and they both took their snow shovels and shoveled our sidewalks as well as those of our neighbors. Since they are the youngest kids on this block, needless to say, they are doted on by our neighbors, most whose own children have all grown up, and think it's great that our kids, especially Nicholas, are so helpful when it snows.

litigation is not family-friendly

I have been negligent in posting pictures and posting at all since I have been all-consumed with work the last couple of weeks. I have a trial on Monday and despite all my powers of persuasion, it hasn't settled. And it seems that nausea and dizziness have also returned at a not very convenient time. But big things have happened in the past couple of weeks:

First, Sophia is potty-trained. And by "trained," I mean, I put a pair of princess underwear on her two Sundays ago and told her to let me know when she needed to go. She had been telling us when she needed to go to the bathroom for a few weeks while she was still in diapers, but we had just been cautious about starting too soon. Nicholas didn't potty-train until just after his 3rd birthday (and again, when I say potty-train, I mean, he told us one day that he no longer wanted to wear diapers and that was it). Really, my only goal was to have Sophia out of diapers before the baby came. She was a little hesitant at first, but a new potty seat (one that she can just go sit on and not require climbing a stool to get to) and a pack each of Disney princess underwears and My Little Pony underwears--both with enough pink and purple to make one nauseous--was all it took. And an occasional reminder that she needed to keep (insert princess/pony of the day here) dry. Ok, I admit that over the course of two weeks, she did pee twice in her pants and once in her bed and also poop in her sleep (requiring a late-night bath and throwing out an underwear that had Aurora, Jasmine, and Cinderella all on them). But after the late-night poop incident, we are no longer in training mode and are completely out of diapers AND pull-ups {knock on wood}. I think after throwing out the aforementioned underwear, Sophia does not want to diminish her stash of princess underwears. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we did get a 3-wheel princess scooter that we showed her and told her she could have if she pooped on the potty. Apparently, she bought into Greg & Hyeyoung's "poop-to-scoot" school of potty-training. Hey, whatever works.

Second, baby Emma has come home from the hospital! And she is starting to plump up a little bit. I mean, she is still like 4 pounds something, but she is eating well and gaining weight--all things that a parent can appreciate, right? My sister just sent me a link to her new blog (she SO wants to be like me--haha!) and there are some pretty yummy pictures of our new little family munchkin. I'm not sure she's quite got enough meat on her bones to be labeled "juicy" but she is definitely yummy. Emma's mother apparently wants her to be more awake during the day and less awake at night. Sophia and I finally mailed the box of outfits that we got for her right after she was born and the blankets I had made. We figured we should mail them off since we have had them for 3 weeks already and Emma will be out of preemie clothes soon. Sophia picked out the outfits, so as you can guess, they are pink and purple.

And third, Nicholas is getting to be SO good at reading. He sat down after dinner the other night and read one of Sophia's favorite Biscuit books to her. His teacher has commented on how his word recognition has grown tremendously and he is reading more and more. Nicholas has been very diligent about asking what certain words mean when he hears them and asks how to spell other words. Which brings me to something really funny that he said Wednesday morning--since he has been on spring break this week, Greg's dad offered to take him and his cousin Evan to the zoo that day. Before Grandpa arrived and we were all getting ready to leave, Nicholas yells upstairs to me: "Mom, I won't say anything about going to the Z-O-O with Grandpa since we don't want S-O-P-H-I-A to know where we are G-O-I-N-G." He obviously got the spelling thing because we used to do it with him (although not anymore since he knows most of what we spell or asks what we spelled until we tell him) but I just thought it was funny that he spelled these words so Sophia wouldn't get upset (since she was NOT on spring break).

Another funny thing, though, is that Sophia has become very into distinguishing between boy and girl. And you may guess that her first observation is about what body part T (Nicholas) and Daddy have and what body part she and Mommy don't have. She then likes to point out the two symmetrical body parts that Mommy has more of than T and Daddy (and occasionally, herself as well). The other night, I put her light blue pajamas that have sheep and flowers on them. She said, "I am not a boy. I am a girl. These are boy pajamas." I said, "no, they are yours." She said, "no, they are blue. They are for boys." Same when we put on navy blue tights.

And I will leave you with this final mental image: tonight after getting out of the bath tub, Sophia was running around while Greg was looking for some girl pajamas. She was running naked back and forth from her room to our room and Greg called down for me to come take a look at our crazy girl. So I went upstairs and she ran back and forth a few more times. Then she knocks on the bathroom door where Nicholas was still in the tub and says, "T, you wanna see me? Yes or no?" It's good to give people options.

two votes

Perhaps it's all the talk of the presidential elections coming up and all the talk about votes during the primaries, but Nicholas has been keeping tally of his own votes on issues. A few nights ago, after the kids went to bed, Greg and i were sitting downstairs when we heard some thumping. Thinking that it was one of the kids, Greg went upstairs and looked in Nicholas's room. Nicholas was just lying in his bed about to fall asleep. Greg asked him if he was the one making the noise. He said no. So Greg said, maybe it's Sophia. Nicholas looks up and says, "that's two votes for Sophia, Dad."

Last week, Nicholas pointed out his friend David's parent's car, that looked like it had recently been in an accident. A few days later, David apparently filled him in on the details of how the front of their car got all banged up. So on the way to school last week, Nicholas told us that David's mom got into an accident with a taxi. We asked what happened and he said someone was turning and they crashed--it sounded like perhaps the taxi was at fault. We asked him whose fault it was and Nicholas replied, "I don't know, but it's two votes for the taxi." We asked him, well, obviously David's mom thought it was the taxi's fault, but who else voted for the taxi? Nicholas said, "I don't know. But it's two votes for the taxi."

emma virginia

She arrived more than a few weeks early, but she is here! My new niece is here! Little Miss Emma arrived early Saturday morning, weighing in around 3 pounds and 9 ounces (notice her head size compared to the cell phone) and 17 inches long. If she had arrived just a few hours earlier, she could have been a leap year baby. We joked that she then wouldn't be able to date until she was 64! Although the full jury is out, I think she looks a lot like her mama! We were all worried for a while, but we are sure happy that Emma is well and that Hyeson is also on her way to getting better as well.

Sophia is very excited about her new cousin--even more so because it is a little girl. Even though Nicholas announced yesterday that he thought our family now had a LOT of girls (for the Bang Family, we are now at 8 girls, 7 boys with one more girl on the way), he is very excited for a new cousin and says he can't believe he has to wait until May to see her. Tonight, Sophia got on the phone with my mom and after her usual hello, she rattled off everything she had heard about Emma: a new cousin, a baby girl, her name is Emma, she is very small, her head is the size of an apple, and that she changed her diaper (not sure where this one came from).

Anyway, perhaps I will write more later about why Emma got here so early (33 weeks) but for now, I'm happy that the new family is three, happy, and on their way to being well!