BamamaPancakes

Let me be honest. I’ve always hated the stereotypes. Boys wear blue; girls wear pink. Boys play with trucks. Girls play with dolls. My husband and I currently have two girls. They wear tutus. They like singing Frozen. They carry around baby dolls and love glitter crafts. We also painted their nursery blue and dress them in dinosaur pajamas. They also get muddy and make giant messes and pick their nose. They also love basketball and playing monsters. Adalyn’s favorite activity for about a year was going to watch construction trucks; I loved that she wanted to spend hours naming a flatbed, a dump truck, a fork lift, a mixer. That doesn’t mean she is any less wonderful when she’s prancing around the house in her fifth dress up of the hour, wearing high heels and singing Hard Knock Life at the top of her lungs. I love (mostly) that her little sister is always dirty, always climbing things, always getting into something, always moving. That doesn’t mean Bria won’t like sparkly things...

October 8, 2016  Dear Adalyn, You are four today. Four years old. The chubbiness of toddler days is gone; you are small for your age, but your legs and arms and torso have stretched out into that of a spry little kid. You’re officially growing up. This year was a year of dress-ups and wardrobe changes, of taped up paintings from preschool, of songs playing from your c.d. player in your room nearly every hour of the day. It’s the year you grasped Christmas, met Santa Claus, and picked out gifts for your family. It’s been the year of Shang, Mulan, Annie and now Muppet Treasure Island. It’s been the year of check-ups, singing the Doc McStuffins theme song daily so one of the first toys Bria played with was a stethoscope. This year you learned to ride a bike, you learned to be a kind big sister (with a healthy shove here or there just to keep it real), you rocked gymnastics and got your first basketball jersey, even if it was Carolina Blue. You swam at the pool in the summ...