After Sydney visited her mommy and Paityn in the hospital, we were on our way home and Gramma Tammy offered to buy McDonald’s for dinner. Sydney said she wanted ice cream and black milk. I have no idea where the black milk thing came from. She may have had chocolate milk at one time, but maybe only 1 time in her life, and it was probably a long time ago. We asked her what black milk was, but she didn’t describe it – she just kept saying she wanted black milk. We figured she meant chocolate milk, so we got that for her, and she got to drink it on the way home. The whole way home she kept talking about her black milk:

“I love black milk”
“The sky is black, and my milk is black”
“Black milk is not bad for me”
“Do you like black milk too?”

When we got home and she could see her milk, she looked in and said, “Hey! This milk is brown, not black!” Not really sure where she’s seen “black milk” before, or where she ever heard of that, but her heart was sure set on it!

This happened back in the late summer, but I wanted to make sure to remember it. I don’t remember what exactly she did, but we were playing outside and Sydney wasn’t behaving. She had already had a couple of timeouts on the doorstep, but apparently they weren’t doing any good. I thought maybe a timeout inside would be more effective, so I went to bring her inside, and she went limp – classic 2 year old move. I had no choice but to pick her up – the way I picked her up she was laying on her stomach across my arms. As I opened the door to bring her into the house, she shouted out, “Superman!” Of course Emily was laughing which didn’t help me from trying to keep from laughing too. I’m not exactly sure where she picked that one up. The only thing I can think of is that her Uncle Aaron will sometimes fly her around and maybe he tells her she is superman, but it had been a very long time since he had done that with Sydney – they have amazing memories, that’s for sure!

We wanted to bring Sydney to a few of Emily’s doctor visits so that she could hear the baby’s heartbeat. Sydney is pretty healthy so she really doesn’t go to the doctor’s office very often, but apparently she could remember it just fine. I’m not exactly sure if she said it when we went into the waiting room, or into the exam room, but at one point she sniffed the air and said, “It smells like doctors in here!”

Sydney has been very good about being careful on our stairs, but we’re still always a bit nervous when she is on them. We have a long set of stairs, and they are somewhat steep, so we don’t let Sydney play around on them. She has to try to play on them, of course, so a little bit ago, she decided she wanted to crawl down the stairs face first. Emily told her that she couldn’t. The two year old personality in her had to ask “Why?”, so Emily explained that she could fall down the stairs and get hurt. The two year old in her that always has to have a comeback asked, “Well, would you kiss me better?” Pretty sound logic to me! Mommy says I can’t go down the stairs this way because I can get hurt, but if I get hurt, all Mommy has to do is kiss me! We smirked a little bit (no laughing – that only encourages them), and I asked Sydney, “Are you feeling a little rambunctious?” (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what that means…) She thought a second, and said, “Yes, I’m feeling a little rambunctious.”

Never a dull moment!

Paityn Grace Hannah was born on January 5. Everything went pretty quick – Emily started having contractions around 5am, we started getting the grandma’s involved, made it to the hospital at 8am, and Paityn was born at 10am! Sydney was born in the middle of the night – I have to say I prefer a morning birth much more!

She’s such a sweet little baby – she feels so small when I hold her.

Because of H1N1 precautions, Sydney (all children under the age of 5) was not allowed to come into the maternity ward. It was a little sad that she couldn’t come and visit. Luckily, the nursery windows are in the main area outside the maternity ward, so Sydney was able to come up to the window and see Paityn through the windows. When she saw her, she said, “Oh! I love baby Paityn!” Emily was also able to come out and see Sydney. When Sydney saw her mommy, she looked at her hospital gown and said, “I like your dress, Mommy!” Sydney and Mommy got to spend a bit of time together, and we gave Sydney a present – a baby that cries and laughs, with a blanket, bottle, etc. Sydney loved being a “mommy” too.