{"id":32806,"date":"2013-08-25T23:22:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T04:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/?p=32806"},"modified":"2013-08-25T23:22:04","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T04:22:04","slug":"our-perfect-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/25\/our-perfect-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Perfect Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have always jokingly called Anna Kate our perfect child from the day she was born.  We even go on to say she\u2019s the reason we were able to have a third child; because she was just that perfect that we were convinced three would be a piece of cake, ha!  She was our only baby that didn\u2019t have colic (um, right there makes her the winner by default, lol).  I held her in a sling for the first 6 months of her life while I was on the build job of our house (in the summer) without a peep out of her! She has always been a little rag doll to Noelle\u2019s beck and call, and during the terrible 2\u2019s, she would silently sit in her stroller like a perfect angel while other 2 year olds had their Mommies chasing them like they were on a wild goose hunt (looking much like I do today chasing Rose around, funny, but not at all if you are me).  Other parents would even ask me, \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d  And I would just throw my hands up and say, \u201cThat\u2019s just Anna Kate.  She\u2019s our easy one.\u201d  The doctor even said during her birth, if she handles life like she\u2019s handling birth, she\u2019s going to be an easy going gal!  And when it was her turn to become the big sister, she was so sweet and gentle.  Rose didn\u2019t phase her.  Anna Kate knew the perfect combination between loving on Rose but also letting her have space to explore on her own.  Age 3 came and went.  She wore whatever I put on her with risen arms waiting for whatever I picked, ate and slept when we instructed, and pretty much laughed and played the rest of the time; oh and listened to stories and chapter books with her big sissy.  There is no other way to describe Anna Kate, except as the perfect child.  Until this summer.  Now, that tiny little verb has changed to was\u2026 there was no other way to describe Anna Kate\u2026 such a bummer.  We had such a streak going with that one!  We almost had everybody fooled.  Oh well, after all, no one\u2019s perfect.  Although I joke, this summer has been very difficult for her.  She has been growing and learning and changing and with that has come some growing pains, such as general frustrations, not liking what the family eats, screaming, hitting, yelling, not sleeping, and everything else we missed out on during the first four years of her life!  When I reflect on the summer of 2013 with my middle child, this picture will forever be branded in my mind:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1208-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

See her little neck veins\u2026 yeah, I\u2019ve seen them bulge almost every day for the past three months!  I can write all of this, because with the green trees showing tiny tips of orange on their leaves outside, and school bells ringing, I think we have finally reached the end of it.  Or the worst of it.  I joke all the time about Rose being in her terrible 2\u2019s, but 2\u2019s is just destruction.  4\u2019s is more emotionally charged, and I know you veteran moms are thinking, you ain\u2019t seen nothing yet, and you\u2019re right! I can\u2019t even imagine, but I never thought this summer would happen to my perfect child, but it got the best of her!  It shook her up and spit her out\u2026 which means she\u2019s totally normal, and although, up until this point, she\u2019s been way too easy, she\u2019s still such a bargain.  I can\u2019t wait to have a front row ticket to the rest of Anna Kate\u2019s life.  She\u2019s so great!  No one can deny that!  Right now, as I type this, we\u2019re sitting here talking about snakes and her wedding!  So, after every tantrum is conquered comes the irreplaceable blessing of living every day with our fun-loving, hilarious, dancing brown-eyed girl!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1223\"<\/a> \"IMG_1224\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This kid right here is my heart throb, even though she\u2019s not perfect\u2026 she\u2019s perfectly Anna Kate!  <\/p>\n

Anna Katey Watey, I love you to the moon and back!  You make my heart skip a beat every day just being with you!  I\u2019m so glad you get to be my buddy this year!  I can\u2019t wait to read and get into all sorts of crafts while Rose is asleep and Noelle is at school.  As I always say in our house, everyone gets a turn, and this year is your turn to have the most adventurous afternoons with yours truly.  I hope I can be as imaginative as you are.  I\u2019m so excited to have you all to myself three afternoons a week, to love, snuggle, play and do whatever we want to do!  (laundry included)  XOXO, Mommy   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have always jokingly called Anna Kate our perfect child from the day she was born.  We even go on to say she\u2019s the reason we were able to have a third child; because she was just that perfect that we were convinced three would be a piece of cake, ha!  She was our only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pondfam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}