My computer crashed again! What was meant to be a "Mommy will you read me this book?" throw, turned into a book slamming into my computer and crashing my hard drive. Nice! Right now I'm stealing time on Erik's computer while he's at school taking a final (prayers for him!).
This week has been filled with many funny stories about Maida and millions of things that I want to remember about this time in her life. She is such a big girl and I can't believe how fast she is growing. Here are some highlights of our week...
- Maida started wearing big girl panties! She doesn't always like them (because she'd just rather be naked, or wear them on her head!) but has done a great job of not having an accident in them. She's now mastered the poop and potty in the toilet/potty chair.
- Maida started calling me "Mimi Kar-kar" for Mommy Kara. Sometimes she just calls me Kara! It's so funny to us to hear her call me by my first name. I have no idea where she heard it or why she calls me Kara! Just one more thing that makes her seem very grown up!
- Sometimes Maida takes showers with me (well, okay, most of the time - let's face it, I'm married to a medical student and I don't get a whole lot of alone time!). She usually just plays with her toys in the bath while I shower. She also wears a shower visor, which keeps the water and soap from running in her eyes. Sometimes she likes to take the visor off, which is okay, but soon she gets soap in her eyes and screams. Well, this particular morning she was sitting at the bottom of the shower between my legs, visor on, and holding perfectly still. I assumed that she was just enjoying the hot water after a cold night, but after about 10 minutes of her not moving, I started to wonder what was prompting her to hold so still, keeping her visor on and everything! About three minutes after me wondering what was going on, "KLUNK!" she fell over and her head hit the side of the tub! I quickly bent over to see why she had fallen over and found her asleep!!! She had fallen asleep in the shower! I took her out, dried her off, and put her in bed for a nap! So funny!
- We bought Maida a toddler bed mattress! It was my first buy on Craigslist and I was a bit nervous about it (I didn't want to get ripped off or murdered or anything like that), but turns out that we got a great mattress for only $5.00, and I lived through the pickup to tell about it!
- Thursday night was Maida's last night of swimming for a while. She didn't pass to the next level, mostly because she hates male teachers and wouldn't d0 anything for Mycael, her swim teacher. On Tuesday night, he was testing the children to see what they could do and he asked her to do some kicks and scoops for him. She shouted, "NO!" and splashed him in the face! I was so embarrassed!
- One day this week Maida was playing quietly in her room. She had her favorite baby doll with her and I could hear her saying, "Rock rock, rock rock," so I figured that she was rocking her baby in the rocking chair. Then I heard a bunch of grunting and "Mimi Kar-kar! Mimi Kar-kar," so I ran in there. She had climbed up on the rocking chair and flipped herself into her crib. Wow, I was just glad that she didn't flip herself out of her crib!
- Maida started combining two words together this week! She can say phrases like, "Dada sool," for dad's at school or "Boo-boo home," for Boo-boo (her friend) is at home! It's pretty cool that she's communicating more! She can also say, "Barbie" for Barkley!, which we've been working on for a long time, along with many other two syllable words, as she's not very good at speech yet, but getting there slowly but surely.
... it seemed as though I had a lot more to say about Maida this week, but that's probably because I had a ton of pictures and videos that were on my computer who's hard drive crashed. I really hope that there is some way to get that stuff off of my hard drive, so hopefully if we can, I'll post them soon.
This weekend we're back to Park Rapids for some more deer hunting, then we'll be headed to Chicago for a wedding! Then back to Park Rapids for 50's party themed Thanksgiving with the family. Busy busy couple weeks.
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Our Blessings
Erik & Kara
Even though we met as babies and grew up as family friends, we didn't date each other until the end of college. Nine short months after "becoming official" we got married on August 28, 2004. We had a beautiful barefoot wedding on the beach in northern Minnesota, with lots of our friends and family in attendance. Now, after moving almost every year since we got married, we have officially decided that it's not time to settle, yet. After returning from six months of medical mission work in Zimbabwe, at Nhowe Mission, we are living as ski bums in our 45 foot RV motorcoach!
Maida Raine
Our princess was born on May 3, 2007 by an emergency c-section and has been the center of our universe ever since! She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce, was 21 inches long, and has somehow, over night, turned into a very intelligent ten-year-old. After a life-threatening appendicitis last year, Maida has made a full recovery and we're thankful for God's provision through it all. Her bubbly personality and confidence follows her everywhere and she truly makes every thing better with her presence. Maida enjoys dance, acting, and has already written several books (one that's well on its way to publication)! She has a passion for animals, learning, and song writing, as well.
Skogen Roux
Even though a VBAC was the original plan, our BIG boy Skogie-Bear was born two weeks early on January 14, 2009 by C-section. He weighed a whopping 9 pounds 5.6 ounces and was 20 inches long. Skogen is a sweet, loving boy with a great amount of confidence. Nothing holds him back from having a good time. Skogen spends most of his time dreaming of skiing and when there is snow on the ground, he expects to be skiing 100% of the time! In the meantime, he plays soccer, tennis, t-ball, basketball, and gymnastics. Skogen has a huge heart for Africa and loved his time in Zimbabwe!
Klaasen Burke
Klaasen was born on July 27, 2010 by scheduled c-section after plans of a VBAC were changed when his due date was reached and he was still nice and cozy inside! He outweighed his brother's birth weight at 9 pounds 6.6 ounces and was 21 ½ inches long. One of Klaasen’s earliest achievements in life was being one of the largest babies anyone had ever seen with a weight of 20 pounds at two months and 30 pounds at six months! But as seven years have now passed, he has slimmed down and is now quite average in weight and height for his age. Klaasen was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder a year ago. This was expected and a shock all at the same time. We make sure to tell him every day that autism is his super power and there is nothing he can't do. We're fairly new to navigating this world of having a "special needs" child, but we're enjoying the successes as Klaasen continually amazes us along the way. Klaasen is creative, inventive, and always keeping us laughing. Klaasen enjoyed his time in Zimbabwe, making more friends than he's ever dreamed of having. He would like to go back as soon as he can.
Torsten S
Torsten was born in 2012, on the only day in August Kara didn’t want him to come – our anniversary! A planned fourth c-section was scheduled on August 31st, but God had other plans, and a spontaneous labor on August 28th fulfilled Kara’s dreams of being able to labor one more time. After an afternoon of laboring at home and a successful c-section, more prayers were answered as Kara was able to hold Torsten skin-to-skin and even breastfeed while still in the operating room minutes after birth (two things that she never got to experience with any of the other births). Torsten was our smallest boy, weighing 8 pounds 12 ounces and was 20 ¼ inches long. At five years old now, Torsten is a very feisty little guy, never slowing down for a second! He keeps up with his older siblings quite well and perhaps will eventually be a better skier than them all, as he has been keeping up with the family on skis since he was 18 months old! Torsten loves playing with cars, playdough, enjoys Bible class, and prefers skiing black diamonds more than anything else in the world.
Barkley!
Barkley! joined our family in September of 2005. We never found out what kind of dog he was, but when someone asked, we just simply replied, "He's a rottweiler-pitbull-boxer-lab,"(unless it was a rental application, then he was a "lab mix"). He was everything we could have wished for in a dog. We lost him to cancer in 2016. Our hearts broke as we let him go and we are convinced that we'll never completely fill his role in our family again. He was a playmate, protector, the third parent, and confidant. We will always wish that we had more time with him.
Camber Cameille
We rescued Camber shortly after Barkley passed away. Not knowing what kind of dog she was or what size to expect, we excitedly welcomed her into our home. She took a six month vacation to Nanna's house in Oklahoma while we were in Zimbabwe and it's been fun to have her home. Now fully grown, she is a dainty little lady, the happiest when she's with the kids.
Simba Zino
Among all of our gifts we brought back from Zimbabwe, Simba is probably our favorite. Simba Zino means "strong and powerful fang" in Shona, which will be very appropriate for him since he will eventually weigh around 200 pounds. Simba's breed is a South African Boerboel, which we don't have in the United States, and they are known in Africa for protecting the farms there from cheetahs, lions, and hyenas! Even though he's already very large, he's a gentle giant. He's an amazing companion and we're excited to watch him grow, grow, grow!
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