So is this a warning?

Last night was not unlike any other...except it was the first night in about a week that Olivia has slept in her crib and not her playpen. After a week of Mitch working locally and spending the night at the Benveniste house almost every day. Then the weekend of traveling to LA for Erica and Eric's wedding. That's right Mitchell's cousin Erica married someone named Eric...pretty funny and cute. Olivia was finally back home at Nana's house and sleeping in her crib...not in a carseat, not a playpen and not in between Mitch and I. I made sure she had two solid naps yesterday knowing she was mentally and physically pretty worn out from the weekend celebration and all the hours spent in a carseat. She napped pretty well and after a dinner of baked fish, peas and applesauce she was in bed around 8 pm.

She didn't make a fuss just snuggled up to her Pluto pillow pet, looped her fingers into the tags of her Taggie blanket and after checking to make sure she had her stockpile of pacifiers and Stuffy was nearby...I shut the door and she quietly drifted off to sleep. I went to bed around 11:30. As I laid in bed, not really all that tired I listened to Olivia thrash around in her crib. She can be quite the wild sleeper when she is overstimulated. She wasn't awake, just restless in her bed.

A few hours later I am awoken by a weak whimper...followed by thrashing. I think she is probably just dreaming and will settle down. After some consistent thrashing she begins to cry. Then she starts crying my name....while just plain old regular crying can be kinda ignored when she crys out my name "Mommy, Mommy, Moooooooomeeeeee", that is the worst. Then she says it "No paci Mommy, No paci, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, paci, paci, paci Mommy". At first I am not sure if that is what she is really saying but I get up in the dark and go to her. My fingers fumble around through the sea of blankets, stuffed animals and pillow pets and I can't find her pacifier. She grabs ahold of my arms in the darkness and more calmy whines "Mommy, paci...paci Mommy", sure enough I can't find one. Which seems completely crazy since every night I put her to bed with at least three in her crib, not to mention others she seems to hide in the crevices between the crib bumper and the rails. I finally find one on the floor and give it to her, through her pacifiered mouth she says "dank u Mommy".

And of course she wants to be held after such traumatic events of not being able to find a pacifier. And of course I try three times to lay her down after she has fallen back to sleep and of course everytime she wakes up and starts to cry more dramatically than I have ever heard her cry. Finally after some Motrin and a bottle she goes all limp and twitchy and I know this time she won't protest me laying her down alone in her crib.

I fall back to sleep.

Now here I am wondering if what I heard was really "paci"....oddly enough while she talks non-stop and will attempt usually successfully to say any word you ask she has never referred to her pacifier as anything. She usually just points at it when she wants it. And usually she has been given it during stressful moments without having to ask for it. Hmmmmmmm. So here is what I know.

I know she loves her Pacifier.
I know she rarely ever refuses it.
I know she is cutting teeth pretty aggressively and therefore wants it more.
I know toddlers can become addicted to pacifiers.
I know she has never fallen asleep without it...well that's not true. She used to fall asleep while nursing...but kept her mouth securely latched on. Hmmmm and about the time she stopped breastfeeding was when she gained such an affinity for pacifiers.

So while I have heard my mother's warning about weaning her off of pacifiers because she will become too attached I am still wondering if it is really a problem with my Olivia. I have also heard warnings that pacifiers can contribute to delayed speech...well that is definitely not a problem she never shuts up! Then of course the crooked teeth factor....whatever hers are barely crooked and I think they look cuter this way.

However last night's dramatics was the first time I ever really acknowledged that maybe she has become too reliant on the pacifier.

Selfishly I am not ready for her to be done with the paci. Dare I say I like that she still uses a pacifier? I think she looks like a baby and extra cute with it in her mouth. When I have to, every couple of days, do a pacifier roundup...gather all her pacifiers from their usual hidding spots, I feel a weird sense of happiness and calm to see so many pacifiers in one place. Green, pink, purple soothies all layed out to be washed otherwise they would be covered in hair, crumbs and dust. They look like a bouquet of flowers.

There has only been one occasion that I regretted pacifiers. It was at Mitch's brother's wedding. Olivia was sooooo tired and just over all the action that the only way to keep her quiet and calm was to give her the pacifier. So upon looking at pictures of her at the wedding and seeing just how many pictures contain the paci as well....I kinda cringed...."Urghhh I should have taken it away and the pictures would have been so much cuter". Actually I think I was in the presence of Mitchell's mom and felt some sort of moral obligation to express my feigned disgust for her pacifier dependancy, embarrassed to admit that I actually don't see a problem with pacifiers. You see I remembered when she was a newborn and Mitchell and I would try in vain to shove a pacifier in her mouth Sue would always exclaim "Oh get that damn pacifier out of her mouth". To my surprise when I mentioned that the pictures would be better without the paci, Sue just said "Oh it's not a big deal, it's cute actually".

So here we are...a week or so shy of 18 months and the pacifier problem is just becoming more intense...and I say....

Who Cares!!!!!!
C'est La Vie!

Well....

It has been a while. I can't think of anything to "blog" about. But I had noticed that it had been some time since I posted anything new. What's new.....nothing. My life as usual is in chaos and madness. I guess I could write about that.... What else? My hair is driving me insane but again that is nothing new. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this whole "growing it out" stuff. I am so bored of my hair....bored of the length, bored of the color....bored, bored, bored. Which isn't too surprising because usually when my life is about to make some dramatic turn that I feel like I have no control over I change my hair because it seems to be the only thing I can control. Kinda like how an anorexic person feels like their life is so out of control that at least they can control what they eat....you know that compulsion seems a little more productive lol.....awwwww so yeah I still can't seem to accept the fact that any weight loss I will have will be slow and actually require effort. Okay so really what's happening these days Emily...is what you are probably thinking...maybe I could give you a quick rundown.

Well first maybe a review then a rundown....

February 2008 moved to Santa Barbara to be with Mitch at UCSB
June 2008 Mitch graduated and I unexpectedly got pregnant...didn't tell anyone til Oct.
Novemeber 2008 quit my job and moved back to NorCal to live with Mitch's family. The plan was to live there while Mitch tried to find a job and hopefully be out before the baby.
March 2009 Olivia Marie Benveniste was born...best day ever...followed by the 2 day hospital stay which was probably the happiest 2 days of my life.

Things got stressful. We were still living with Mitch's parents and 2 sisters and 2 dogs in a small house and then a bunch of other stuff started to go down with his Dad's health and Grandmother's Health and Mitch lost his job...there was no moving out. The stress of having a new baby in a house full of people got to us and we fought ALOT....this added more stress to everyone else living there with all their other stresses. People were always getting involved in our fights...people took sides...usually mine and it was just a disaster...

Septemeber 2009 Olivia and I moved out and into my parents house. It wasn't my choice really but I didn't blame his parents for needing to eliminate "our problems" from their own mounting problems. I didn't want to go, I didn't want to stay either...didn't know what to do except cry ALOT usually in the shower where no one knew about it. Mitch got a job with his Dad's company but it was contract type thing so he would work and then get laid off...and so on and so on. Things got better. It was good for Olivia to be in a quieter home...less people to interrupt naps and what not. I felt like I could breathe...things got better with Mitchell and I. My parents gave us a deadline to move out in March 2010...that seemed like it could work.

End of January 2010 Mitchell's Grandmother passes away and he gets laid off indefinitely. March is getting closer and it looks like we won't be moving out. Everyone seems to quietly acknowledge it isn't going to happen.

March 2010. Squidey's birthday!!!!! She is one year old and the only thing that makes me happy in life...although she is good at driving me crazy too!

May 2010 Mitch gets a contract to work again for at least 6 months if not longer. Mom and dad give a new move out date of Sept 1 2010

June 2010 the jobs he was contracted to do get canceled. He does work for the state so no money no new computers installed in state facilities.

July 2010 Mitch starts working with his Uncle and is contracted for at least a year....yay we can move out.

August 2010 Mitch who has a congenitive heart defect since birth has pain in his chest and arm...thinks he might be having a heart attack....after a sleepless night decides that even though he has no health insurance he would rather be safe than dead and goes to urgent care to get a EKG....they call 911 and an ambulance rushes him to the ER. He didn't have a heart attack but found out they he has developed a common and fairly benign complication due to his heart condition. A "right bundle branch blockage"...something that he could live the rest of his life with that will occasionally cause weird sensations in his beating heart, but not likely kill him any sooner than usual...but he has a weaker heart anyway from a birth defect that led to open heart surgery at 5 months of age. Sooooooo MASSIVE HOSPITAL AND AMBULANCE BILL....

He takes the following week off of work...works a week and then finds out that there is no work the next week...so August will be a month of just 2 weeks of pay instead of 4. So with car payments, insurance, student loans...etc...there seems to be no money left over to move out with...and since we are both pretty good procrastinators of course we have waited until the absolute deadline of Sept 1 to plan on moving out....well now it looks like it's not happening.

But wait.....there is a solution....thanks to Mitchell of course.

"My parents say you can move back in over here for a couple of months or maybe since they want to move anyway we can find a bigger house and help pay the rent or mortgage and then we would have more space".....

...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What??????

Okay now this isn't the first time Mitchell has suggested this and there was a time when one of his sisters was going to move out and there would be a spare room so Olivia would have her own room and me moving back in was suggested again. She didn't and I didn't want to move back in anyhow. Also the job Mitchell works requires that he travels so he is gone 5 days a week so I am all alone to take care of Olivia 24/5. That's 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now I love the Benvenistes just like they are my own family, well they are my family for all intents and purposes...but I really really don't want to live with someone's parents, be it mine or his....just been doing since I was 6 months pregnant and I am OVER IT.

But now it's like what choice do I have? It has been suggested that I get a job to help out with money and I would get a job and have applied for some but rarely do I get a call back. The ones I do hear from either want me to work overnight or full time. Since it's just me and Olivia because Mitch is out of town during the week it's just problematic with Olivia and childcare and I am not going to be away from her fulltime...so what she never sees her mother or father...yeah no way.

So here I am....on the cusp of reliving my life of a year ago at Mitchell's parents house. Only this time with a crazy deftly mobile investigative child instead of a stationary newborn.....have you been to that house? Not exactly baby-proof and definitely not as big as the one she is used to living in. And don't get me started on all the emotional aspects of this whole thing....

Well since you mentioned it....

It breaks my heart that Olivia got the boot from the only home she ever knew as a newborn...now she is getting the boot from the home she has really become to know as "her home". It breaks my heart that she will be confused. She will come visit "nana and Grandpa Larsen" and run to her room and all her stuff will be gone. She is a smart baby and she will not understand why all this is happening. I mean I was sad about it anyway even when I thought we would be moving into our own place as a family (me, mitch and Olive) but that is what is supposed to be happening. Now it's putting her through all this to just move back. It breaks my heart for her and for me as a first time mother that she never had a nursery and she has never had her own room...depressed, depressed, depressed.

I recently read a book in which a young girl grows up with a struggling single mother. The daughter once says something about always moving and never feeling like she had a home. The mother replies "I am your home". While the mother was a pretty selfish self-centered person and not likable at all in this book....that quote resonated with me, it touched me as a mother, as a daughter....it just felt so true and yet so simple. That as long as you have your mother, maybe that's all the home you need.....in mine and Olivia's case I hope that is true.

The Trouble with Olivia

My heart confirmed yesterday something I had been suspecting all along. Something having to do with my first born, my only born. It had been sneaking up on me like a stalking cat; quiet, slow, methodical.....deadly.


The trouble with my Olivia is that she is growing up....

The trouble with Olivia is that she should look like this...
But she looks like this....
The trouble with Olivia is that when she sleeps she doesn't curl her feet and legs up like this...
Which gives me the sneaking suspicion that somehow she is no longer a newborn baby. How this happened in the last 17 months I am not really sure. How her eyes became unswollen and her nose popped back up from being squashed during the whole being born process befuddles me. Despite all efforts to keep a pacifier in her mouth and feeding her a bottle of warmed milk every morning she seemed to have found the loop hole in my hard work of keeping her a baby.

I was living in a world of denial. So she's smiling now, so she's laughing now, so she's sitting up now, so she's crawling now, so she's pointing at things now, so she's got teeth, so she's walking now, so it's her first birthday, so she is running now, so she is drinking milk instead of formula, so what that she is talking up a storm and following directions now....I still wasn't completely convinced of her grown upness.

Then it happened...

Ashley, Megan, Olivia and I were at Target shopping for such benign things as facewash and body lotion when around the corner came a stroller. And this was no ordinary Graco or Chicco. This was one of the fancy smancy ones that really aren't all that practical but will induce awes from women and mothers everywhere. It's like a bassinet on wheels. Which why in the world you would want to take a baby out of the carseat to transfer baby to this bassinet stroller just to have to move the baby back to the carseat later. I mean it just seems like alot of work unless you were planning to spend the entire day at Target, which seems as good a place as any for a new mother to spend her day. The whole "travel system" seems alot more convenient, but definitely not as cute. They are very charming little devices...a baby bed on wheels

Inside this cute little mobile cocoon lay a little bitty swaddled bundle of newborn baby. Asleep and still....right then and there after Olivia pointed at the little thing and announced "baby", I realized that the little thing in my cart was more of a child than a baby. My heart sank to remember Olivia those many months ago when she too was a helpless caterpillar looking bundle. My only thought was "How could this happen".

What happened next needs some explaining and it didn't really "happen" as much as some little innate switch was flipped inside of me.

Have you heard of the term or phrase "baby hungry". I have heard this phrase uttered many times by family members. I mean the meaning is obvious enough but it always sounded so stupid to me. It sounds desperate and lame and although I have been desperate and lame many times in my life I would never openly admit to it.

But maybe it's something only someone who has already had a baby can truly experience. One look at that newborn and I just felt this pang in my heart....."I have to have another baby". There was no denying that I was feeling "baby hungry" and that is exactly how it felt. I took one look and all of a sudden just felt starved, completely emaciated. My body felt like it was lacking something and longing for something and that "something" was that baby!

Don't get me wrong...Olivia is the cats meow, the bees knees, the cherry on top....I just realized for probably the first time that I have to have another baby. Because I just might die if I don't. I mean that's what happens if you starve right?

And since I am just hungry and not quite starving yet it's safe to say it's not gonna be anytime soon...

Let's just hope there is more Benveniste/Larsen genetic projects on the horizen somewhere!

And as promised more pics from sister visit

So when I wrote the Disneyland post I wanted to add more pics but Blogger was acting crazy or maybe I was just crazy because I couldn't seem to get any more posted. So here are some more pics from 4th of July, Mom's Birthday and then looking snazzy for Church

And so it goes....

It started as most fascinations in my life have....a movie. A movie trailer to be exact. You see a few years back when Mitchell first moved to Santa Barbara to attend UCSB and I had long since lost any common ground among those who I would have called friends I used to go to the movies alot. Like alot alot....it didn't even have to be a movie I was particularly interested in seeing, it got me out of those house and gave me an excuse to eat nachos and soda. I always went alone. Let me be perfectly clear however...I like to go to the movies alone. Call me what you will, I just feel a huge sense of falling out of reality when I go alone...and let's face it reality bites...which is also a good movie I might add.

Okay so it would be a fair assumption to say that I love the experience of going to the movies just as much, if not more than the movies themselves. Where this came from, I am not really certain. I do know that as a kid my Dad worked alot and the only time we really saw him was on the weekends and family vacations. I loved my Dad, I still love my dad. Well on Saturdays, usually every Saturday, my Dad would take us to the movies. He spared no expense on popcorn, soda, candy and treats...I loved going to the movies with my Dad. So as far as I can tell...this is where the love of Movie Theatres began.

Moving on. Now there are some people that will tell you that if a movie starts at 9:30 you can really get there by 9:45 and still be on time for the movie. "It's all the dumb previews and trailers...those last forever these days". Now I would say this is an abomination to movie theatres everywhere. In my opinion going to the movies INCLUDE the trailers. I feel this huge sense of loss if the lights dim and the previews start and I am not comfortably seated, I LIKE THE PREVIEWS!!!

So there I was a few years back, no doubt sneaking In N Out Burger out of my purse at the movie theatre when the trailers started, I don't remember what movie I went to see that day. Sienna Miller's face fills up the screen, her hair is pixie short and blonde with dark roots. Her eyes are heavy with black eyeliner and makeup,

(Sienna Miller as Edie)

there is 60's music playing I think it was "Shaking all Over" by the Guess Who. The trailer tell the tale of this "Edie Sedgwick", one of Andy Warhol's "Superstars", part of the "Silver Sixties". Now I had always kinda had a weird obsession with the sixties and hippies and all that but that was a San Francisco California in the sixties thing. But this was New York and this was about Pop Art and the whole "Mod" movement. Hmmmm is this a real story, is she a real person? Cause I'm a big sucker for biopics. I had obviously heard of Andy Warhol, associated him somewhere in my brain with art I didn't understand. A soup can....how is that art, I didn't get it. So I made a mental note to google and wikipedia this "Edie Sedgwick". So I did and she was a real person and I went to see "Factory Girl" when it came out...and I loved it. This led to reading as much as I could about Edie. I was a bit obsessed for a while....for some reason I really like attractive people, maybe if I stare at them long enough or read enough about them I can somehow absorb some of that beauty?

(Real Edie)

Then I ended up moving to Santa Barbara...and guess who grew up in Santa Barbara? Guess who died and was buried near Santa Barbara. Oh that would be Edie Sedgwick. In the biography I read about her there was a copy of her death certificate...I never paid attention to it before but then after moving somehow I discovered it. The address where she lived, where she was found dead, was just a few blocks down from where I lived. I was living on the same street where she lived with her husband some 40 years earlier. Only a few weeks living in Santa Barbara and I convinced Mitch to take me up to Ballard where she was buried in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Lake Chumash on the drive up.

Mitch mapquesting the Cemetery




Me and Edie...such an unassuming headstone

There she was

The drive up to Ballard California where she is buried next to her mother is beautiful. The whole Santa Barbara area is very picturesque. We pull into this rather dull looking cemetery in this tiny town (Population 1,000) and I of course had no idea where she was. We start looking up and down all the Grave markers and Head Stones and realize that this is probably going to take a while...finding her. We happen to pass by some older looking gentleman who is sweeping dirt, weeds and debris from some of the older looking headstones, we figured he worked there. He did not, just lived nearby and was concerned about the appearance of the cemetery....kinda weird. Anyways he knew where Edie was buried and walked us over to a small granite headstone which if we had paid attention had a little yellow flag indicating it's location. He said that after the movie came out people starting coming out here to see her grave so the cemetery marked it with the yellow flag.

It was rather humbling. I had read all out her glamorous and turbulent life, seen all the photos of how very beautiful and sweet looking she was and yet she ended up at 28 as we will all end up at some point...in the ground, dead. It didn't matter how beautiful she was, it didn't matter how screwed up her life was, how exciting it was...she was dead and gone and all that was left was this small unassuming flat headstone. So after all that I kinda put the Edie obsession to rest.

However a few months later when becoming pregnant part of me when I found out the baby I was carrying was a girl wanted to name her "Edith". But Mitch said no way and then I saw "Grey Gardens" and decided an association with the a "Beale" Edie would have been a disaster! Still maybe I'll get a cat one day and name her Edie...we'll see. But this post isn't all about Edie....it was meant to be about a fascination that was born out of my "Edie days".

Andy Warhol. You see Andy and Edie were BFF for a while

So to be continued....more on Andy later

The Magic Kingdom

Sooooooo 2 weeks ago my sister flew into Sacramento all the way from Minneapolis Minnesota. It was sort of a last minute thing, we booked the flight just a few days before. Katie and her nine month old son Liam made a 7 hour plane ride out to good ole California...better mother than I, I would just assume avoid the hassle of a baby on a plane ride no matter what the reward on the other side. I recently came to the conclusion that there are 2 kinds of mothers out there. Those that can put up with all the hassle, fuss and inconvenience of pushing their kids to miss naps and sleep schedules in order to actually "do things" and not be bored at home and those that can accept the boredom in order to ensure their kids aren't crazy lunatics when they miss their naps or go to bed way too late. I would be the latter. I would much rather have my own sanity and not feel scatterbrained and crazy to keep an overly tired, over stimulated baby entertained out in public...I would chose to be bored at home, in my eyes the lesser of two evils. Anyway back to the story at hand...We went to Disneyland!!!!!

Now a bit of background info to get you up to speed. Every year Dad has a Podiatric Conference at the Disneyland Hotel. And every year for quite a few years that meant someone if not everyone joined him on the trip and went to Disneyland. There was a time in High School that my BFF Rachel and I went down there with him and got to feel like hot shot big kids going to Disneyland alone ALL DAY LONG!!!! And then mostly the rest of the times it was family vacations with Mom, Dad, Eric and Chelle and their kids (which there was just Rob and then Kam later) Katie and I. There are no words to describe how much I love Disneyland. I realize that alot of people love Disneyland but in my eyes no one can love it more than me and my sister Katie.

There is just something about the smell of popcorn and churros that permeate the roads of Main Street. There is the indescribable smell that you can never forget in Pirates of the Caribbean. A smell of damp wetness, no doubt the smell of the water that has been swirling around down there for who knows how long. There is the way you never seem to forget where every ride is, in every land. How you could tell your sister "meet me at that that one clam chowder stand outside of Pirates and inside of New Orleans Square" and she would know the exact location of which you were speaking. The way the water mist sprays up and covers your face during Fantasmic, how you can feel the heat of the water on fire when Mickey slays the evil Maleficent in her dragon form. Disneyland is a place unlike no other... and while I don't consider myself to be religious these days, I am a devout Disneyland enthusiast. If church could be as awesome as Disneyland I would never complain again about having to wear some dumb dress and waking up early to go. I could go there everyday.

However....this was the first time going to Disneyland as a parent. And while I loved taking Olivia on little rides and seeing her face during parades and shows...there is no way she could possibly understand or fathom what was going on. Here are a few realizations of Disneyland since becoming a parent....

1. That place in crazy crowded...like insanely claustrophobic! You can hardly move anywhere without someone coming towards you in every possible direction.

2. Strollers are plain and simply a pain in the ass. While dodging people and strollers seems inconvenient as a childless person....it just becomes a huge hassle once you have to be one of the parent drones mindlessly just trying to survive from one location to the next with your stroller. Not to mention trying to judge just how close your front wheels are to the heels of the person in front of you. Thankfully everyone just seems to accept the fact that at Disneyland you are bound to be a victim of a stroller bump at one point or another, so they pay it no mind.

3. There is no way to explain to a 16 month old that you have to wait in line in the heat to go on a fun ride. No you can't get down because if I lost you in this crowd I'd never see you again. The constant misunderstanding of a baby of why we have to be so bored and why I have to hold you and why we are in direct sunlight....well it falls upon deaf ears....but she did enjoy the rides once we went on them.

*I think it would be a great idea for parents with kids under the age of two to be able to jump to the front of the line...however that is problematic because everyone in line for the fantasyland rides seems to be a parent with a child under the age of 2!

4. While Disneyland is obviously the main attraction...California Adventure is like Disneyland's younger, cooler, hipper, little sister.....hmmmmm sounds familiar, ha ha. That place is CUH-razy!!!! I mean they have this "glow-fest" thing going on at night....you'd swear it was some giant rave with the the oddly dressed neon clad teenagers dancing around on pedastools and platforms! Its really funny to me that people can come from the Midwest and see "Californialand" and think that this is what California must be about! Help perpetuate the stereotype of the "California lifestyle".

*Sidenote: every summer my family used to make a trip out to Utah to visit our cousins and I was always the "California Cousin" to my cousins' friends. "Why aren't you tan if you live in California, Do you know any movie stars, do they teach surfing in PE at school, Do you go to the beach everyday". This was my big chance to be cool and I don't think I have ever been considered cool in my life...however I was young and these questions were often met with confusion. Why would I be tan, it's just as hot here as it is at home and I hate the heat. Why would I know Movie Stars, I live in the suburbs. How would they possibly teach surfing at school...there's no ocean within 100 miles....and to be honest that water in the closest ocean's beach is freezing I would never go in that water! I also remember having my Idaho cousins come visit us in CA and we would usually always go to San Francisco. Those crazy Idaho cousins of mine would dive like headfirst into that chilling water at the Pacifica beaches, while I wouldn't be caught dead having anything but my ankles get hit by those waves.

5. I love Disneyland and I had a great time...but I cannot wait for Olivia to be a few years older to where she can really enjoy what's going on....and maybe ditch the stroller!

So anyways it was just Dad, Mom, Katie, Liam, Olivia and I at the Magic Kingdom. Dad was in meetings and conferences all day so it was really just us girls and well Liam. The weather was pretty warm but not crazy hot and we seemed to be able to trade off to go on rides when one of the babies were sleeping...since it seemed they never slept at the same time! We were there Wednesday night to Sunday morning with the 3 day hopper pass for Thurs, Fri and Sat. Well as you may or may not know Mitchell travels 5 days a week for his job. This week we were in Anaheim Mitch just happened to be in San Diego for his work. With fourth of July being the next weekend his work crew decided not to come home like they usually do over the weekend and just stay over the weekend so they can finish stuff up early the following week and have a 4 day weekend for the fourth of July.

So Mitch was pretty nearby and had nothing to do for the weekend...he called me and said "Hey what do you think of me coming to Anaheim". I told him that it would not be a great idea since my Mom wanted this trip to be about mother daughter baby bonding. But he had not seen Olivia and I in a week and it would be another week before he could see her since they were staying over, I can't blame him for wanting to see his baby. So as per usual Mitch didn't listen to me and called Friday night and announced "Guess who just got off the train 2 blocks away from Disneyland". Great...leave me to break the news to Mother...she was annoyed but played a good sport. Mitch got his own Hotel room which proved to be helpful since we were all jam packed into one room with four adults and two babies. Then Mitch joined us for our last day in Disneyland on Saturday. I may have been the only one really happy that he ended up coming...but oh well what can I do?

Sunday Mitch took the train back to San Diego and we all piled into the car to drive far far away from the happiest place on earth. I drove the Lexus and Dad drove his Corvette and through many fits from Olivia in the carseat and Katie baby wrangling we made it home....HALLELUJAH!!!!! Sheer hell to be stuck in the car with two babies for 7-8 hours!

Katie then stayed another week before going back to Minnesota. We took Mom to a movie and lunch for her birthday (Jul 2) and Katie also cooked dinner that night and we had cake. We spent the 4th together and the babies had a good time hanging out together. Olivia proved to be something of a gentle giant towards little Liam. While Liam had no qualms about stealing her toys, pulling her hair, biting her, and mowing her over if she was ever in the way of a toy he might have wanted. She would just cry...not even try to fight back or take the toy back....just cry and say "no, no, no bebe bebe bebe". It was both hilarious and heart breaking! I never knew I had such a sensitive little soul. Dramatic...well that went without saying, but not a mean bone in her body when it came to all the bullying she withstood from her 7 month younger cousin! I guess boys will be boys...and in Liam's defense...he didn't know he was being mean and seemed to always want to be near Olivia. She liked him but seemed a bit nervous when she saw him barrelling his way towards her on all fours "Oh no what does he want now".

So Katie and Liam left on Wednesday and it feels quiet once again at the Larsen abode. Olivia has seemed to wonder where the baby went and runs up the hall yelling "Kagey, Kagey, Kagey"....which of course means Katie. So Olivia's first name recognition besides mom, dad, nana, and boppa.....was "Kagey"....it was cute! And aunt "kagey" of course loved it!

And that...that is enough for now!

And for some reason stupid blogger isn't letting me post any more pics...so tommorrow I will post more pics of Disneyland and then 4th of July