A beautiful day!

So I had a very uncomplicated and very peaceful day with my babies today. But first as an aside, my baby girl turned 5 months old today. What better way to celebrate but a trip to the beach where I sat her with me and Cam at the water's edge where she could kick her feet around in the sand and splashed around in the water with her hands. She also spent some time lying on the blanket on her back taking in the wind and the bright colors of our rainbow beach umbrella looking very amazed and intrigued by it all. I took her to the doctor's office yesterday for a recheck of her ears (at her 4 month well visit they found she had bilateral ear infections, one was actually pretty severe, so of course after a round of antibiotics they wanted to recheck her 4 weeks from then which was yesterday). She weighed in at 15 lb, 15 oz...thats up from 14 lbs 15 oz 4 weeks earlier!! It also bears mentioned that Cameron at just about 3 years old weighs 32 lbs...she, at 5 months old, is over half his weight already. I find it comical just how different they are as babies anyway. She is a great night time sleeper, fortunately for me she started sleeping through the night over 2 weeks ago, he was and still is at times an awful nighttime sleeper but they are completely opposite with napping at least in the infancy stage! Cameron still pretty much is all around a crappy sleeper! LOL She has also started finding her feet and trying very hard to get them in her mouth and babbles constantly now at random times since this time last week. I find it so precious to hear two voices coming from the back seat now. At the doctors office in the waiting room yesterday there was a very active 18 month old there with both his parents and wouldn't you know neither one of them sat for more 60 seconds at a time before they were up and chasing him! Even worse they never sat down at the same time together, one was always up! It just made me think back to that age with Cam...and I am often reminded of it as well when I spend time with my friend Casey and her 14 month old son Tyler...how I dread getting to that stage. Don't get me wrong because I love that age for so many reasons like the exploration and their fascination with everything! Just watching their little minds work is awesome but for me it is so overshadowed by the constant up and moving and no time to turn away for even a second. I always remind me though to not take it for granted because I will miss every precious moment of that stage and age. I look at Cam now and what a little boy he has become...he is not the baby I knew anymore. Which brings me to our great day today. I decided to take on the challenge of taking them out to the beach by myself...it was the perfect day for the beach. My mind raced with anticipation and worry all the way there fearing that it was an insane move what I was doing. But once we got there and before I unfastened his seat buckles I had a talk with Cam telling him how important it was that he listened to me while we were there and stuff and that if he didn't behave we would leave right away. Much to my amazement that little man did not question one thing I asked of him, when I told him to do or not do something he listened immediately. He wore his life vest the whole time we were there without a fight, he even asked my permission before going up to the top of the small beach to play on the small playground set they have there. He sat down to eat lunch and finished his entire sandwich, he played in the sand quietly for while and went back and forth between that and the water's edge. I was just so amazed. I can't wait to take him back again. And for the first time in a long time I had a low stress, low drama, uncomplicated day. I am wondering now if because I was feeling less stressed for those few hours, less bothered by some things that he sensed that and we were able to have such a good day because of that. A good friend advised me recently that I need to start taking the cooped up negative energy I carry around from day to day and throw it in a more positive way into healthier things like cleaning my house, scrapbooking, my children, my family as a whole, all the things I love in this world instead of wasting my time on the things that don't deserve my time and consideration. And she is right. It was a little bit of a reality check for me and though it doesn't solve everything it was what I needed for right now or at least it helped set the scene for the beautiful, in every sense of the word, day I had with my babies.