The Mother of Sisters

I am about to be 33 weeks pregnant with our second daughter. It is hard to truly understand all that comes along with being the mother of two girls. The day we found out that our next child would be a girl, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I would be the role model for two women. They would look to me as their example for so many things for the rest of their lives. That is an immense amount of pressure and an amazing opportunity at the same time.

I have had the wonderful fortune of being one of three sisters and of having an incredible mother who raised us all to be kind, generous, loving, forgiving and happy women. Aurelia has not known a single day of life without the influence of one or more of us. I am so grateful that she gets to see me live my life with my sisters, and hopefully one day she will understand what an amazing gift it is to have women in your life, so close, so real, so honest.

I hope that we can all provide these little girls with the strength and confidence they will need to face this world. I have to believe that we can inoculate them somewhat from the fears that stand ready to erode their self-esteem, the pressures that will build and chip away at their will power. Surely every day we spend loving them and teaching them is insurance against that world of uncertainty I know they will face one day soon. I know for certain that a sister is one of the most amazing gifts a girl can get and one of the best resources when those uncertain times hit. These girls are going to go far in life. I just hope they realize that they can go farther together than they could ever get on their own. I owe so much of who I am today, and what I am able to do today, to my sisters who I rely on every single day.

Thank you, Whitney, for your constant daily efforts with Aurelia. Without your willingness to be here for Aurelia every day, I could not enjoy the career that I have worked so hard for. I do not worry because I know that Aurelia is in the hands of an amazing, caring woman, who loves her dearly. You cannot comprehend what that means to me or what an impact it will have on my daughters' lives. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeri Lynn, for always sharing the beauty and wisdom of your experiences. You have been the first to experience so many of life's big challenges and I have always had the benefit of your experience. Sharing pregnancy with you has been such a comfort. Watching you birth and then raise Koruna showed the way for me with Reli. There have been countless days since we returned to Austin that I didn't think I would get through until I talked to you. You will always be my touchstone. Thank you.

SIGH.

Now, for some comic relief.

A video of Aurelia at the dinner table tonight. All afternoon she would say rhyming phrases and then say "Koruna says that". It made my heart laugh. This video made my eyes water.

Daddy kisses

Tunnel time

Swimming this afternoon

Kaplan-Ingram-Heald Breakfast: Pre-familial expansion

The other night Reli took her first bubble bath. I can still remember what bubbles feel like on my face and what it feels like to try to blow them away.

Leaps and Bounds

Aurelia's growth is astonishing. Her evolution is constant and her capacity to understand is boundless. Just three weeks ago she said her first two-word phrase. Now she consistently strings together several words that are almost sentences. It is hard to wrap my head around such persistent forward progress.

• Momma book read . . . please
• Big girl milk please - she prefers her milk out of some short juice glasses we bought for her
• Relia room book, read it
• Dirty diaper . . . poo . . . change it - she has started telling us when she has a poopy diaper
• Highchair yogurt sprinkles - her breakfast (which follows at least 2 "snacks" of fruit and/or toast) usually starts with yogurt sprinkled with flax seeds, cereal, cinnamon or all of the above.
• Momma open it please
• Momma water ice please. Hold it, table. - she wants my water glass and she'd like to take it to her table thank you very much
• Messy face, wipe it, paper towel

Some of our favorite Reli "words" have disappeared as she has learned the correct pronunciation. Peas has become pwease. Hih-muhn has become Cih-mon (cinnamon). Die has become Kai (the little monster she sleeps with). Hide has become EyeTside (outside). Hu has become shoe. One mispronunciation she is hanging onto is Mee-duh for music. I love it. It has a hand motion that goes along with it - sort of a conducting motion with her right arm above her head. Her own little chant request that we turn on some music. More has acquired two syllables, southern style - Mow-er.

Two weeks ago she started adding the word "it" to her other words. "Off it", "read it", "hold it", "move it", "eat it", "drink it", "push it", "clean it", "wipe it", "open it", "kiss it". Listening to her, I cannot believe she is only 18 months old.

Aurelia is not much for nicknames. Up until this week she always referred to herself as Relia. If you say "that's Reli's chair" she would say "Relia." While we all call Koruna, Runa, Aurelia calls her Kah-una. I am sure next week it will be the full Koruna.

A very familiar and lovely sight, the girls eating together.

A happy girl after running at the lake with Momma and Dada.

Reli playing dress-up in her Honey's bathroom.

Admiring herself in Honey's mirror.

A rare family photo from many moons ago.

Aurelia, loving on Momma and the baby.

The mommas and the soon to be new additions.

(This picture was from about 6 weeks ago,

we are marginally, um, more round of belly now).

Two little girls working on cutting their molars. They look so much like sisters.

Berry with Reli and Runa.

Here are a few photos from the Kaplans' last minute grand adventure to Club Med in Florida in June.

Some days Reli asks that we put many bows in her hair.

This was one of those days:

Dancing in the kitchen before work.

Reli Eating Beets:

Our big girl starts school at the end of August at Mariposa Montessori. We are really hoping that she likes it. She will have a few weeks to adjust before her new baby sister arrives. Wow, life is changing quickly around here. We are all growing by leaps and bounds.

Is it really May already?

Just a few pictures of what we have been up to lately. . .

Feeding the swans at Town Lake

Aurelia and Honey on the swing

Can we please call Koruna?

Drawing on the magnetic board from her Aunt Berry, Uncle Ian and Koruna

One of the many uses Aurelia has found for the Easter basket from her Grandma Becky & Papasita

Trying to put on her shirt, or shirt hair as I like to think of it

A family outing to Lowe's required a hard hat

What a marvelous sight. . . . Sigh.

Time Flies

Aurelia is quite the conversationalist these days. She can say so many words and can understand so much of what we say. It is incredible. She has really transformed over this past month and a half. Here is a video from a few weeks ago.

What a happy girl:

Many of you know that Aurelia took a spill 3 weeks ago and broke her right elbow. She is such a tough little girl. After she got her cast on, she barely noticed that her little wing was broken.

Here she is putting on her brave face in the emergency room.

It didn't take Aurelia long to be her happy self, despite her cast.

While we were in the emergency room, I promised her she could get a tattoo on her cast, just like her Uncle Ian and Aunt Berry. Her Uncle Ian came through and drew a beautiful bird on our Reli Bird's broken wing. Whitney captured this gorgeous photo of her in the Ingram's kitchen:

Here are the artists drawing together:

Mama and her Reli Bird

She loves, LOVES to "blow" bubbles. Really she just takes the wand in and out of the bubbles bottle and takes the lid on and off. When we say "blow" she blows through her nose. Poor thing! She will catch on soon enough.

Today was a big event - we got to take off her cast. Her doctor said it would be less traumatic if we did it at home. She was pretty scared as the cast came off. When she first straightened her little arm, we were worried it was too soon because she cried. It turns out she was just surprised and did not understand what was happening. Now she has full use of her right arm again and she is raring to go!

This was taken this morning just before her unveiling.

We spent most of this morning outside swinging, sliding and playing with ping pong balls. She is such an outdoor girl.

Here she getting ready to eat dinner - no cast!

One last bit of news. Team Kaplan is expecting a new member soon! More details to come . . .

For now, a dance party picture can speak for us. This one was from the day we told the Ingrams:

Snow Day and other Adventures

It snowed in Austin last night and we awoke this morning to a fresh blanket of white powder outside. This is Aurelia's first snow. Her first taste of the magical flakes that fall from the sky and transform the world of yesterday into a world shrouded in soft mystery. Snow makes things look so peaceful and quiet. We took her out to enjoy it.

One of the lovely women I work with made a gorgeous hat for Aurelia. She loves it! The night I brought it home she could not stay away from the mirror. I have a feeling she knows how cute she is.

A fun interaction with some of Reli and some of her words.

Two ponytails are Reli's signature hair style these days.

And some days are two bow days.

An 80 degree day last weekend prompted a Kaplan-Ingram walk in the greenbelt.

Birthday cake is a wonderful thing.

She was skeptical at first, but the icing won her over.

I am sorry, but skirt hair is some of the best fun a girl can have.

Thank you, Honey for the awesome skirt!

Said skirt, worn appropriately, with accompanying cuteness.

What cute birthday clothes. Thanks Honey!

Sneaking up on herself in the mirror.

Grandma Becky and Papasita brought the girls rocking chairs with their names on them.

Reli LOVES hers!

They also got her a zebra walker/scooter for her birthday, which she loves to push around.

Some of her words these days are: pease (please), tay-too (thank you), neh-neh (necklace), ying (earring), buda-buda-buda (blueberries), more, heppah (help), hope-ah (open), cheese.

Bye-bye!