I am ready.

(Photo taken on Father's Day at the Botanical Gardens.

It was so damn hot I thought I was going to give birth on the sidewalk.)

We are prepared as we are going to get for Baby2.

The room is ready, the smell of Dreft has saturated her pre-loved clothes. Riley is anxiously awaiting her baby sister, practicing the fine art of baby holding and bottle feeding with her baby dolls. House is cleaned, courtesy of Rockstar Roxanne and I am now officially a minivan Mom thanks to my fabulous husband. I am ready to feed our sweet little girl and drink in her baby smell as I kiss her neck and sing silly songs like I did with Riley. I am ready to get my body back to (semi) normal and to have our two girls love and care for each other while sharing inside jokes and giggling into the night about boys and bras. I can't wait.

See you soon.

There is a new Mommy and Daddy in town.

Riley loves her little animals. I think if I took out all of the toys in her playroom, she wouldn't care as long as her little buddies remained.

Case in point.

She has begun assigning the animals roles during play. Before nap yesterday, she was frantically searching for "Mommy and Daddy." I was confused until she triumphantly pulled from the couch cushion, two of her beloved animals.

I asked her which one was Mommy and which one was Daddy.

Mommy is the deer with a missing foot and a chewed ear, courtesy of Barkley, Kyle's dog.

And who, you may ask, was Daddy?

Daddy is the ass...I mean, the donkey.

She clutched "Mommy and Daddy" during nap time.

A Grand Tour

Riley and yours truly invite you on a grand tour of Riley's big girl room and little sister's new room. Enjoy!

PS. A big shout out to Uncle Kyle for painting the tree in Riley's room as well as perfectly positioning the little birds!

Catching up

I have lots of things to catch up on, like the unveiling of the girls' new rooms or how Riley sweetly swings her baby doll in the newly recovered baby swing from the attic. Or, how she is bound and determined to hang out in the baby's Moses basket or accumulate all of the scrabble letter cards into a haphazard pile and move them around sporadically around the house.

But instead, I want to remember the crazy things that come out of this, often crazier, two year old's mouth.

For example...

Yesterday, Riley informed the Truly Nolen man, "Grasshoppers are a menace...Daddy hits them." I have informed Daddy that maybe we shouldn't slaughter the grasshoppers in front of Riley so we now use a relocation program --- to the pond.

Murphy was barking (again) at a a car coming down or street. Riley stopped dead in her tracks and said," Uh oh, Baby Reese is here." I guess she thinks her baby sister will be arriving via car transport.

She also informed Dan the other night at dinner that "Baby kicks Mommy. Baby hurts Mommy."

We have been stuck inside lately and in an effort to break our cabin fever, we jumped in the car and grabbed a milkshake a 4 in the afternoon. She says, "Riley likes milkshakes." The third person thing cracks me up. "Riley likes cookies....Riley likes pancakes..."

That's another thing, she wants breakfast food at all times. For lunch, she almost always requests french toast.

We have been working on the letter, number, and color thing. Her favorites, the letter Q, the number 2, and the color blue. These are her usual answers when we ask her to identify something.

Potty training is going well. She is also mastering the fine art of pulling up her underwear over her baby booty. It's pretty cute actually.

Our days are numbered as a little family of three and I have been busy soaking up time with my special girl... and still trying to conquer the nap-time beast.