Ages and Stages - Catching Up! (Casey)

Here is the reason I started this blog.  To document memories and milestones and ages and stages.  This is one of my biggest regrets (so far) as a mother - I haven't kept up on writing down memories.  I've got the pictures but no captions of the milestones; the funny sayings, etc.  So before I can document what's happening now, I'm going to need to rewind and catch up some. 

Casey
A funny memory that always stands out of her early days is this: 

My cousin, Jean, had a baby girl the same day as Casey was born.  Casey was my first and Megan was Jean's second child.  The girls were maybe 2 weeks old when Jean and I finally found time to chat over the phone to catch up and compare notes on our babies and motherhood.  I was standing in the kitchen of our old house on Wexford and Casey was hanging out in the adjacent family room in the bouncer seat.  Casey starts to cry and Jean asks me (kind of alarmed), "Is that Casey crying??!"  I answer, yes, and Jean proceeds to tell me she has never heard a baby cry that loud!  Luckily, I found this amusing.  Those of you who know Casey now, might collectively giggle at this story - you kind of get it, right?  It's like I had just been given a heads-up from the start.

Casey had colic from about 5 weeks to 13 weeks old.  It took Tom and I about 4 or 5 days of trying to run the vacuum cleaner, rocking, singing, swaddling, shushing and contemplating calling an exorcist to figure out how to stop the crying.  It wasn't all day- it started somewhere around 5:00 p.m. and lasted until about midnight, but, remember, it was fairly loud crying as far as crying goes.  After reading the highlights of a couple of figuring-out-your-newborn-books, I guessed (literally, guessed) that maybe she was overstimulated by the end of the day.  Sister had worked herself onto a schedule pretty quickly as far as feeding, burping, napping, so I'm not sure what she was getting overstimulated on, but she was scheduling her nightly meltdowns as well.  I remember the first night we tried the the magic combination of putting her in her swing on full speed, and covering the swing with a blanket with the lights in the room turned off.  Tom was in the kitchen making spaghetti and I was sitting in the dark on the floor next to the swing, praying to God that the swing would not run out of batteries.  And we repeated that formula every evening for 2 months.   I remember our newlywed friends, Ted and Melissa, came to visit sometime during her colic phase.  We were all in the kitchen playing cards and we had Casey in her swing with the blanket draped over it in another room with the lights turned off.  I swear they probably thought we were the craziest parents in the universe!  But we were learning early on, that Casey was very vocal, liked her days predictable and was going to leave us scrambling trying to find ways to keep her happy.  :)    (All in a good way!)

After week 13, Casey was a happy baby and kid, although I look back at some pictures of her and can see a worried expression as well - again shedding a light onto her developing personality (she's turned out to inherit some of the useless over-worrying gene passed to me from my mom and to her from grandma).  She started walking just before her first birthday (I think Halloween was the first time she took 4 or 5 steps at a time).  I don't remember exactly when she started saying actual words, (her first was 'mommy')  but I know it was kind of early when she started and she hasn't stopped talking since.  I worked 5 days a week until she was 4-1/2, so Casey went to daycare.  It was a positive experience for both her and I.  Selfishly, I liked working and she was (is) such a social creature, that she loved it as well.  She learned a lot there- including potty training!!  As a mom, I should have really wanted to take charge of that one, but I didn't, so there it is.  Her 'teacher' said she was ready and that I should bring some pull ups in and then she was potty trained.  Ta-Da!  I don't falsely hold claim to this, but am still proud she did it in less than a week.  Casey never called the potty the 'potty,'  she called it the 'poppy' and never once did we (or, by our instruction, her daycare teachers) try to change it.  It was so cute and when she eventually went to pre-school, she finally was corrected.  She was still little so it's not like she was embarrassed about it....

I was at work one morning when Tom called me to say that Casey had fallen down the stairs while he was getting ready for work.  She was our first child, so you know that means we completely over-reacted and I left work in a panic to rush home and find her watching Elmo a drop of blood on Tom's shirt.   I took her to the pediatrician who said we should both go home and take some Advil.  I stayed home the rest of that day.  Mothers carry enough guilt around about formula, the right diapers, and lack of involvement in potty training, so I was super glad to not have the falling down the stairs thing on me.  And how much does that mean to me?  I still mention it to Tom all these years later   :)    see that?  that's a smug smiley face in type

She has always loved to have books read to her, has always loved to dress up, and sister has this imagination that can weave a spell of a story when it comes to pretending.  For years she had an imaginary pet horse named "Macheela' whom we gladly accepted into our family.  I have attended every make-believe tea party, restaurant, princess ball, wrestling match, dance party, and magic and talent show.  And, although I can remember maybe sometimes grumbling about needing to be doing other things, I am honored I have always been invited and able to witness Casey's imagination at work.

Casey has always said some really, really funny stuff.  And I cannot tell you how many times someone has told me to write those things down and I did not.  Ugh!  I sooo wish I had.  A couple of good ones were:

"Mommy, some animals sleep during the day; they are not-turtles." (Never once did we tell her she should be saying 'nocturnal'....  )   She has spontaneously sang the 'Star Spangled Banner'  as the dinner time prayer before and concluded it with 'Amen.'  (Tom always shouted "Play Ball!!" afterwards and she is always confused.) We've been out to dinner where we she stood on her chair and said, "Look, I'm using my corn dogs as maracas."   She calls the Smokey Mountains the Spooky Mountains.    The first time she sold Girl Scout cookies, she went door to door telling people she was going to use their money to buy herself a Barbie Party Cruise set.    She's wanted to know the reason princesses live in a Kingdom and not a Queendom.  She exclaimed very loudly at TJMaxx once while gaping at the lady at the register "Mom! That lady lost her identity!!!!!!"....because she wasn't wearing a name tag.    And during her Dora the Explorer phase, EVERY time we would approach the automatic doors at Target or Wal-Mart she would dramatically throw her hands in the air and summon the doors open by shouting "Abre'!" which means 'open' in Spanish.

Honestly, I know this list could go on forever.  Again, I so wish I would have written all of the Casey-isms over the years down.  But I will now and hope that what ever has been spilling out of my sweet girl's mouth all these years isn't over.  (Yeah, I know I will regret saying this as soon as I am humiliated in public....)

This summary is a brief one as moms can brag on forever on the cute things their kids do.  Maybe as more memories come to me I will see fit to interject them in the future.  For now, though, this will bring me somewhat up to date and I will start my first current Ages and Stages right after I get done catching up on Emily.