Dear Daycare...

I recently received the results of an evaluation that indicated that Lorelai is struggling with communication and problem solving based on some information I filled out when she was 8 weeks old. 

First off, allow me to apologize. Had I known that this was an actual evaluation, I would not have filled it out at a red light one morning as I was running late to work on my 2nd day back from maternity leave.  I would have taken my time to think about the questions and my responses and probably would have lied anyway to make sure she got off on the right foot with the people who are blessed enough get to spend more time with her than I do.

I want to say how glad I am that I am not a first time mother. If I would have been a first time mom and received information stating my child has 2 areas of concerns and would be receiving additonal help at daycare, I might have been crazy enough in my anxious post-partum state to go right to Sylvan Learning Centers and requested newborn tutoring for the small price of 1K a month.  I am nervous and bad with money like that.

Luckily, I have lots of kids; one of which sat very still like a lump of cute baby doing little more than very loud mouth-breathing for the first 6 months of his life.  

 Spoiler Alert: He turned out just fine...mostly fine.

I hear you loud and clear educators of newborn babies. I did not realize she was attending daycare with the love children of Stephen Hawking and Oprah.  To advance her to the appropriate level of newborn intelligence, I have decided to put Lorelai on a very tight schedule of activities to expand her mind.  This Tiger mom is going to earn her stripes.

Lorelai on a conference call with marketing.

Lorelai writing her memoirs.

Lorelai preparing for end times.

Not pictured: Lorelai being cultured.

(I was going to have her Dad photoshop her in a balcony at the Metropolitan Opera House but he thinks I am being "a little dramatic" about the whole thing. He didn't come out and say that, but I can tell he is thinking it.)

As for specifics, I agree that her communication skills need work. She doesn't conjugate her verbs correctly AT ALL. Her vocabularly is... circumscribed.  She mainly just screeches like a pissed off pterodactyl. She can be a real crybaby, frankly.  We will continue to work on that at home.  We are still deciding on our second language. Would you recommend Mandarin or Spanish? I am not sure who is taking over first. The Bank of China or the cartels down south?  We just want her to be prepared.

Problem solving? Yeah. That needs some work.  Between you and me, I have seen her, on more than one occasion, pull her own hair...and then CRY over it.  It is like her cute and tiny brain sees zero correlation between cause and effect. Does Toys R Us stock reasoning? What isle can I find some logic, am I right?!  Honestly, this one is a little more than I care to tackle right now.  I am a busy, working mother and we are going to focus on that whole 'poopin' in your pants' thing first.

I guess some blame lies with us.  We were prepared for her to lack any aptitude for mathematics. Her father and I both count with our fingers still.  I am embarrassed to say that she has seen Sharknado way more times than any 2 month old should have thanks to quality time with her three older brothers. I will be sure to speak with them.  Despite some difficult taste in cinema, they are quite intelligent which is why I am confident Lorelai will catch up to the more advanced newborns under your care. 

Thank you for your time and understanding,

Lorelai's Mom. 

I did a thing...

Blogger, I have sinned. It's been eleven months since my last confess- er, blog.

I can't believe it has been that long.  To be fair, I am coming out of quite the year long haze.

You see, I did a thing:

In October of last year, I found out that we were going to have a Baby (Yay!) And since no one seems to have issues with asking such a rude and personal question, I will just tell you that YES it was on purpose.  Baby was hoped and prayed for and 6 weeks later, digital confirmation.

So we are pregnant, then what?

Then we went to bed at 8pm every night.  I was exhausted and Matt didn't mind the extra sleep.  I didn't write or even update social media much because creativity level was almost null.  I just sat there eating a lot and wondering if I did the right thing with the twins turning 9 this year.

I secretly suspected that Baby was stealing all my awesome for herself and later, this theory proved correct.

It turns out, we did the right thing.  We did it all differently than we thought.

The plan was:
-Get pregnant and take 6 months to a year to do so.
-Eat super healthy and have zero caffeine for 9 months.
-Not find out the sex
-Not tell anyone the chosen name
-Have a VBAC calmly while listening to classic rock

What had happened was:
-Got pregnant immediately
-1st trimester: eat hamburgers.
2nd trimester: eat the steaks.
3rd trimester: eat ALL the things.
Have caffeine every day because I will die without coffee.

-We lasted longer than I thought with not finding out the sex.  But we caved and I am so glad we did!  If I had done a gender neutral nursery beforehand and then had my girl not realizing that I was carrying my first  girl, we would have stopped on the way home from the hospital to buy a whole new wardrobe and nursery. 

-The moment we found out and announced that baby was a She (Spoiler Alert, Baby was a "She") we told everyone our name because I loved it.  And it made her seem real. And it was wonderful.  And there was never a discussion. The moment her name came out of my mouth, Matt and I both loved it.  Another name was not discussed after.

-I had a repeat c-section. I lived in fear of preterm labor the whole pregnancy. I had it twice  including a 10 day NICU experience with the twins in 2007.  Well at 39 weeks with not enough progress and 5 weeks of prodromal labor, it was time to relent.  The c-section went beautifully.  My doctor is amazing. 

And thus you have our 6th child. Our tiny human. 

Lorelai Marie. 

She was 6 weeks old yesterday and she is perfect. A wonderful and well-tempered baby who loves to sleep and is literally fuzzyheaded loveliness in human format.  

Her siblings adore her and the amount of help they have given me is nothing short of amazing.  We are madly in love with life right now.

I did a thing.

A wonderfully perfect thing.