Tessa's New Milestone

The weeks and months of little kid dependence seem to drag on and on but every once and a while there is a breakthrough.  The ones that stand out to me at Ben learning to buckle himself into his seat in the car, being able to feel comfortable leaving a baby in a crib with a blanket without fear of them suffocating, and being able to put a kid down in a parking lot and not having to worry that they will run off in all directions.  Recently, Tessa had a big breakthrough.  She started dressing herself.  This include everything, including socks and zippers (zippers!  Yippeee!).  This is one less thing for me to do but it also means that she dresses herself.  She closes her bedroom door and says, "No, I don't need help!" and it's anyone's guess what she will choose from her drawers.  And it is wild...

This was a tough one for me at first since I love her cute little outfits and everything but I have learned to embrace it since getting herself dressed is a major step.  The downside, besides the clown outfits, is now she will disappear into her room at any given time and come out with different clothes on or even pajamas and her room is often strewn with clothes and I can't figure out what's clean or dirty. 

For those of you who know me, you know that my birthday was on the 4th. I'm two days into the big 3-4.  She picked this very special outfit out just for me that day.

Eeeek.  I almost couldn't bring myself to share this picture because it looks like a pile of laundry is in the background.  Just let me explain...I am in the middle of a tshirt quilt for a college friend and those are the cutting scraps, OK?  So chill.  If you couldn't tell, he went to NDSU. 

I had a good birthday which was typical of mid-thirties (ugh, did I just say I'm in my mid-thirties?) birthdays of people with young kids. This means we did nothing exciting and had an early supper at a restaurant (I got a free beer at least!) and then went to the mall to return some shoes.  I had a stressful hunt for gym shoes for Ben on Tuesday because his size is the size when shoes transition from Velcro to laces and we haven't even started talking about shoe tying yet.  Ben and Tessa started a little kids basketball session on Wednesday (more about that later) so I needed to get them that day.

One of my gifts from Justin was a Yeti cup.

This is awesome because all the clichés about moms never getting to finish a hot beverage before it gets cold are true.