I Like Hellos Not Goodbyes

I love when guests come to visit.  I like seeing someone I haven't seen in a long time and catching up.  I like being with friends and having fun together.  But I don't like goodbyes.  It's not so much that I can't say goodbye, it's that goodbyes are an immediate reminder that our time together is over; it's when we have to face how long it will be until we see each other again.  It's the opposite of the happy event that the hello was.

If the departure is a bigger occasion or for a longer time, it's almost as if we're beginning the mourning process of separation before we're even done being together.  Robert Heinlein said, "When a cat greets you, he makes a big operation of it, bumping, stropping your legs, buzzing like mischief.  But when he leaves, he just walks off and never looks back.  Cats are smart."  That's how I feel about goodbyes. 

So if I ever wander off or don't make a big to-do when it's time to say goodbye, that's why.

The Big Boy Update:  He's getting the wave down now.  He's got the bye bye wave.  He now waves back and forth for "hi."  Although, he's not a reliable on saying hi as he is "bye bye."  He also knows high five and how to blow a kiss.  I got a video of him today picking up the basketball, dunking it and high-fiving daddy afterwards. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Yesterday she ate only three meals.  The last one was a bit drawn out, but she really only ate three times the whole day.  She still slept through the night, but she didn't eat as much as I would have liked.  Today, she's more hungry and has gotten most of her ounces in already in just the first three meals. 

I So Can Not Run

I've been thinking about how to work off the pounds from the pregnancies.  I've never been a runner but I thought maybe I could start.  For those of you not into bodily function-based posts, this is your time to move along--skip to the end as it were.

Our neighbors are joggers, my good friend is a runner.  I thought if I started small, maybe by spring I'd be able to run ... somewhere.   I was wrong.  I realized nursing exacts a certain toll on your breasts.  They're either engorged, extra heavy, and uncomfortable.  Or, their empty, floppy, and unwieldy.  Either way, not conducive to jogging.

When did this revelation come to me?  When I was doing something I've done countless times over the past few months, climbing stairs.  I'm usually in a hurry.  I realized just now that I hold on to my chest as I bound up the stairs (two at a time contributes to extra discomfort.)  Now how am I suppose to look even remotely normal when I have to jog holding my boobs?  I submit to you that it's not gonna happen.  I'm going to have to look through my sports bras and see if I can make it work. But for now, I'm going to have to bench press my son or something to get some exercise.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband's goal was to get him to like his pasta.  He loves to cook pasta multiple times each week.  He wanted my son to not only like the noodles (any kind, but spaghetti for extra, slurping fun) but the sauce too.  I'm glad to report not only does he like pasta, he wants nothing else if he realizes pasta is an option.  He's been known to boycott other options in the hope of pasta appearing on his high chair.  It's also messy.  He loves it.


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The Big Breakfast.  She's been doing well lately with her meals.  This morning she ate seven ounces for breakfast.  It's almost three o'clock now and she doesn't want to wake up.  If we're going to make her daily ounce quota she's going to have to eat soon.  Hrm, signing off to wake her up and offer her lots of milk. 

Language Arts

It seems in school the subjects people hate are divided into two main groups; those who hate math and science and those who hate history and language arts.   I was in the latter category.   I don't know if it's called Language Arts today, but that's what it was called when I was in school.

My mother was a math teacher and my father was a science teacher.  Given my heritage, it follows that I would like math and science.  I didn't hate history, I just found it dull, boring, and a lot of memorization of past events I cared little about.  But English was frustrating.  I didn't enjoy writing papers.  Grammar didn't make sense, and more to the point, I didn't understand why it mattered.  I liked reading stories, but the books assigned were always terribly dull.  I never enjoyed English, no matter how engaging and friendly the teacher was.

Before I get to the point of this post, I'm going to digress and talk about two specific memories I have from English class.  Both were from a very kind teacher I had in high school.  We were assigned Crime and Punishment to read.  What a dark and dreary book.  But the best day of the whole project was when she brought in a record player and played the Russian character names and had us repeat them back.  These characters had long multi-syllabic names that were both exotic and foreign.  To this day, I don't remember the character, but I remember how to pronounce his name--Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov's name.

My other memory was from the same teacher.  I don't know the book, I don't know the context but sex must have come up at some point and she explained that at that time in history, women weren't suppose to enjoy sex.  On their wedding night, a woman was suppose to "close her eyes and think of England."  How awful, how tantalizing, how unexpected to have a teacher speak about sex to her class.  I'll always remember her standing in front of the class trying to help us understand.

Now, where was I?  Ah, how much I disliked Language Arts.  I did.  I hated all things related to language.  And yet now I want to be able to write well.  I am fascinated by the intricacies of  the English language.  I'm intrigued by words; I love grammar.  Some days I even think I would like to be a writer (of course, I come to my senses in short order, but you get the picture.)

It's one of the reasons I've taken on this blog.   It gives me a reason to write, to see if I can type words and have them make sense, to try and be interesting, even if only to myself.  One month later, I think I made the right decision when I pressed the Create button to start this Blog.  I don't think I'll ever be a writer, but at least I'm writing something.

The Big Boy Update: From baby to boy.   He's still a baby.  Definitely a baby.  But in comparison to his sister, he's a full grown boy.  Soon, I expect he'll be climbing out of his crib and demanding the keys to the car.  It's really amazing how quickly they change and how fast they grow.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  So cute in pink.  I don't like pink.  I didn't want pink.   I hoped to dress her in anything but pink.  But damn, she looks good in pink.  I'm a changed person.  Pink creeped up on me and now I'm a fan.   Six months ago, I would have shunned pink right out of this house.   Times and situations can change your perspective.

The World Is Your Oyster

Wait, what??  I'm back on language again.  Specifically, our strange idioms.   The world is your oyster?  Oysters smell, are slimy and usually have grit.  I'm sure if I looked up the phrase online there would be some explanation of how this crazy phrase got started and what the denotation means.  Probably something to do with finding a pearl. 

A friend of mine spoke fluent mandarin.  He taught me how to say the most insulting thing he knew in Chinese.  The translation was something like "your mother is a thousand-year-old egg."  Doesn't sound that insulting to me.  But different languages and cultures have different idioms. 

It still strikes me that learning English as a second language is an entirely different thing than being able to navigate all our particular phrases like "down the hatch" and "under the weather."  I've tried recently to remove idioms from my speech.  It's hard.  They slip in, you don't even realize how many we use on a regular basis.  I don't think to speak well, or speak clearly, we need idioms.  So I'm going to continue to work on it.

The Big Boy Update:  Sometimes he still has bad skin reactions to food or something else.  Today at lunch he got all red and was trying to scratch his forearms on the edge of the table and tear the skin off the bottom of his chin.  He won a bath and a dose of Benadryl when we got back.  He's sleeping soundly now.  Usually, the irritation goes away after the first interaction or two.  His body seems to get used to new things after an exposure or two.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She is hungry, only she doesn't want to eat.   That's her new complaint.  She complains multiple times per day.  But she's sleeping through the night.  So I'm definitely not complaining.  Speaking of, it's time to go feed the little girl--or try to.

Movie Night!

Every Friday we have Movie Night at our house.  It's something we adopted from a friend who wasn't able to host any more due to work schedule.  I look forward to it every week.  We never know who or how many people will show up.  We have no idea what movies we'll watch.  And still, it's good friends and good fun.

Each week, we have the children upstairs watching movies they pick out.  It's Mathilda every week if one of the kids has their way.  Lots of times it's Netflix movies.  Downstairs we talk for a while, eat dinner for those that brought it with them. catch up on the week's events and eventually settle down to a movie.

Netflix has turned out to be a good movie night option.  Several people bring their movies of the week over and we get to share subscriptions and watch jointly.  For months I wasn't able to stay awake for the movies at movie night due to pregnancy and post-deliver recovery.   This week, I'm up for both movies.  It looks like I'm getting some stamina back, hooray.

The Big Boy Update:  Nana and Grandpa came back from vacation today.  He was very happy to see them.  They'd been away for three weeks.  They both agreed he was walking (running) much better now than he was when they left.  He's more stable all around.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's sleeping through the night now, but it's been a challenge to get her to eat the same amount of ounces per day when she doesn't eat at night and has little interest in food just before bed.  We're working on keeping her full as best we can during the day.  In a week or two we're hoping this will work itself out and she'll be more hungry in her waking hours.

Is It Really That Super?

I'm not a sports person.  When I was in high school I made the cheerleading squad.  At our first practice we were going to practice offensive cheers.  I had to have a lesson on what offense was (as well as it's friend defense.)  That's how totally into sports I am.

Coming up on the fifth of February the Super Bowl is happening.  It's also my birthday.  Now, to be clear, we've never made a big event of birthdays in my family.  I'm pretty excited that their is something fun happening on my birthday that will bring friends to the house.  It'll be a fun time and we don't have to focus on any birthday things.  That's just my style.

But back to the title of this post.  Is it really that super?  There are only 32 teams.  That means you only have to win for bracket games to make it to the super bowl.  I'm thinking End Bowl or Final Bowl or even Big Bowl would be a better name.   Then again, you sports fans are likely to disagree with me.  But isn't there an Orange Bowl and a Rose Bowl?  It seems naming the bowls has some strange standards.

The Big Boy Update: Ohdeeohdeeoh.  Another word.  A happy word.   A word that means "hey, look, the dog likes spaghetti" and many other things.  He has a closet in the bonus room he's discovered.  There are several baby-safe things in there we let him play with.  Now, he walks down the hall and stands in front of the closet doors and smiles at you so you'll open it up and play with him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She continues to sleep well through the night.  But she's also finding her thumb (and currently two other fingers) more regularly.  Our son went through this stage for a while.  We were able to redirect him to a pacifier and now he has no interest in his thumb.  Removing the pacifiers at a later date is much easier than thumbs.  Hopefully she'll be the same.

Where's My Winter Storm?

Every winter it's nice to have at least one winter storm.  In the south, we don't get a lot of snow or even really cold weather.  But I like to have one big storm each winter.  So far, we haven't even had the threat of snow.  It's not the end of January so there's still time.  Hopefully the weather will turn foul soon.

I've lived in the south all my life.  I've heard all the stories about how we can't drive in snow and for the most part it's true.  It's mostly because we have so little experience.  But it's also because the snow here is commonly a mix of ice and snow.  Or, it's snow, but it melts partially during the day and then refreezes at night and is doubly dangerous the next day.   People who get into or see accidents who aren't from the south seem to assume the people involved must be from the south, because anyone experienced with snow would never get into an accident.   And yet people not from the south get into accidents in bad weather even here.

The thing that's the most humorous to me is how the threat of snow can cause a panic that cleans out aisles in the grocery store.   We may never see a flake, but if the weather man predicts that it could be a bad storm, the bread and milk will be gone.   Even if we do have a bad blizzard, the plows have never had us stranded more than a few days, commonly one day.   But people like to be prepared.   We also have been known to have schools let out early, even before precipitation has (or might) start. 

People who don't see snow often and like it also get very hyped up when flakes start to fall.  Phone calls were made in the years before Facebook and text messaging to let people know they should look out the window.

So it's quite the spectacle here from both nature and the population when it snows.  For me, I just like the quiet white of a nice snowfall.  Hopefully we'll have one soon.

The Big Boy Update:  Hide and Seek.  He's figured out he can hide in a corner from you.  You might see him, but he's trying to hide and he giggles and smiles when you "find" him.  He's getting good at hiding when you're looking away too so you really have to look for him before you realize he's not run off to climb the stairs again.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Her first real night sleeping through the night was last night.  She ate her nine o'clock meal and went straight to sleep.  She didn't make a sound through the night and at 8:40 this morning I asked my husband to go make sure she was breathing.  Sounds awful, I know.  But it's something you think about when they're so young.  She was sleeping soundly.  I got her out of bed at nine to nurse.   She's not even eleven weeks yet and she's doing so well.  I'm a proud mama.

Every Day's a Saturday, Every Day's a Weekday

Some days I have to remember what day of the week it is.  When I was gainfully employed in a career climbing, high-stress job, knowing what day it was could totally affect my mood.  Hey, it's almost the weekend and it's been a rough week.  Or, ugh, it's only Monday; how will I make it through this week? 

As a mom, every day is the same.  The good news is, you don't have the stress of the weekdays.  But the bad news is, you don't get two days off from being mom on the weekend.  This will change when the children are old enough to go to school.  By then, hopefully I'll be able to get back out there and have a "real" job. 

I still regularly think "what day is it?" The good news is I don't dread any answer that comes back.  So, every day really is like Saturday.  A tiring Saturday with lots of laundry and cleaning up to do.


The Big Boy Update:  The snot continues.  It's been about three weeks and he's still got a lot of nasal congestion.  He doesn't have any other signs of illness but I decided to call the pediatrician to make sure we weren't doing him harm by not taking him in.  She asked if he had fever, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, signs of an ear infection or was generally feeling bad.  He's got none of that so she said not to worry about it.  Hopefully it will clear up soon.  He really hates us wiping his nose.  He got a bonus bath tonight as that helps clear his sinuses.  He liked the bath part.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's doing interactive smiling.  When she know you're looking at her she'll smile.  If you talk to her in a happy voice she'll smile so much she moves her head left and right.  She will look right at you and see if you're paying attention to her.  It's so charming.  It's a fun time to share her with people who love to hold babies.

This Is My Life

A day of freedom...  I didn't realize it was so until last night.  My life is two children, a husband and all that a family entails.  I'm happy with my life.  I knew it was my life, but I got to think about it more when we had an offer from Uncle Jon and his mother, Kathy, to take care of both children all day today.  We got a very appreciated day off.  Sometimes a change for a day can help you reflect on what you have.

While I packed last night for the children I did some thinking.  It's amazing how much stuff two small children need.  My daughter, at ten weeks, is fairly easy.  My son, at thirteen months, needs more stuff.  Uncle Jon is on the way home with them now.   From the text messages and pictures I got through the day, it appears to have gone well.  What a great gift, a day off.  We cleaned out the garage.  We ate out all by ourselves, we relaxed and did nothing. 

I know some of the time that I'm a wife.  Sometimes though, I seem just like the me I was many years ago.  I know also that I'm a mother of two.  Other times, it seems hard to believe I'm any different than the person I was two years ago before I had my son.  Having a day of freedom from the children was a good way to remember what it was like before.  And to appreciate what I have now.

Today is also the one month anniversary of starting this blog.  I said to myself I'd see if I could keep it up.  If I could manage it for a month, I'd let a few people know.  First, my husband, who's already discovered it and has been reading it for a while.  The second is my sister-in-law, who inspired me to get around to finally writing something down.  The third is our best friend, Jon, who is just returning with the children now.    It's been somewhat comforting to know I can write here and no one may ever read it.  I guess those days are over.  I'll try to be non-boring, maybe even somewhat interesting.  Game on.

The Big Boy Update:    Fun at friends.  He likes people.  He's not shy.  We encouraged him to interact with people and not be attached to either my husband or me.  Hopefully he had a great day today in a different home.  I'll get to hear updates soon.  I don't get to see him come home often other than from errands.  I wonder if he'll be excited to see me?


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She waited until morning for her meal last night.  She woke up around seven, but she didn't appear that hungry.  I helped her go back to sleep and she woke up right before her 9AM feeding time.  At that point, I was very ready to nurse her.   That's two nights of twelve hours of sleep.  She's exceeding my expectations.  She's such a good girl.

The Land of Precious

I'm not one of those people who gets overcome with cuteness, sweetness or preciousness.  I don't saw "awww" every time I see a puppy on television.  After having children, it has been interesting to see how people in my life change around the children.  Some friends, who I thought had very little or no interest in children seem to be more interested in holding and interacting with them than I would have expected.

What has surprised me the most is some people who I've known to be reasonable and rational in all things, have completely been taken over to the Land of Precious with the children.  All kids are cute and do cute things.  It's sweet to see someone who you've never seen doing the "ohs and ahs" in your adult life suddenly being so thrilled with everything the baby does.

Regardless of how goofy my children may look in comparison to other babies, I believe we're wired to find them both perfect and more adorable than any other child so that we don't drown them at birth.  That being said, I do think my daughter is absolutely adorable in her latest outfit or as she waggles her arms around on the bed.  But I don't think I've quite made it to the Land of Precious.  Maybe it's because of the late nights.  Maybe it's the dirty diapers.  Either way, it's nice to see other people enjoying the children so much.

The Big Boy Update:  His skin is still really bothering him.  He's had bad skin since he was just a few months old.  We've been putting a prescription cream on him since four months when it got so red and raw we took him to the doctor.  The redness is gone for the most part, but he still itches all over and we have to lotion him up regularly.  Similar to the sock issue where he scratched his ankles raw the other day, he's got on shorts today and he's been scratching his legs.  We filed his fingernails down to prevent him from hurting himself.  Hopefully by the spring it'll have improved enough that we'll be able to trust him with his own skin. 


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's getting more personality by the day.  She likes to be held upright so she can practice balancing with her whole torso.  She likes tummy time and lying on her back looking at the mobile dangly thing on her mat.  She's still a tiny girl who loves to be cuddled, but she's getting more adventurous and wanting to experience more every day.

The Comfort of Tea

I love a good cup of tea.  I like hot chocolate, spiced cider, coffee to some extend, but there's nothing like a good cup of tea.  For decades now, I've had a hot water tap in my kitchen.  It's nice to make a cup of something hot and know the temperature you'll be getting the water at will be the same every time.  It's also even nicer to not have to wait for the microwave or a kettle.

When we had our son, we discovered another great use for the hot water tap.  I think we've had a two-cup measuring cup in the sink for over a year now.  When it comes time to heat up some formula or milk, we stick the bottle in the cup and fill it with hot water from the tap.  Off you go to change the diaper or get the baby up and when you come back, perfectly warmed milk.   It's also a quick way to get a hot cloth (little hot, little cold) for wiping off hands and messy faces without waiting for the hot water to make it through the real faucet.

With my current cold and sore throat, a nice cup of tea is even more appreciated.

The Big Boy Update:  He loves to say "bye bye" and wave to everyone.  He waves at everything too.  Tonight he waved to the stairs, waved at himself and waved and said bye bye to me when I put him to bed just now.  He's said "hi," but he likes most to say bye bye. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  It was a happy day today.  She slept well, has been happy and awake or soundly asleep all day.  She's also eaten very well.  Hopefully the good day will continue through the night.

I Tink I Hab A Cold

I don't get sick often.  In general, I'min quite good health; my spine being the exception.  While people around me get one or more colds each winter, I seem to be able to fight it off with maybe a little bit of a runny nose or sore throat.  I've never had a flu shot.  I know some people who can't imagine going through a winter without getting them, but so far, I've been lucky.  I remember the last time I got the flu.  It was over ten years ago.   It wasn't fun. 

Alas, I am not so lucky this year.  We've had several runny noses in the house and family members who are sick.  At some point I must have gotten more of a dose from my son or someone as my throat is very sore and I have the aches and pains that go along with a low-grade fever.  I forgot how much I dislike the taste of NyQuil. 

So far, I've gotten a little more rest, thanks to my mother and husband helping with the children more yesterday.  Today doesn't seem as bad, so hopefully this won't be a full seven days of yuck.  Fortunately, my daughter hasn't shown signs of the same thing, even though I'm nursing her.  I did some reading online as I wasn't sure if I should nurse or not sick.  The advice I got was that I shouldn't stop nursing as it's the best way to transfer antibodies directly to her.  I was also worried about the cold medicine transferring.  It seems that some does convey, but not as much as you might expect and it is generally considered safe.  I'm not hitting up the cold medicine too hard just in case though.

The Big Boy Update:  While having his clothes changed today, I noticed his stomach has gone from distended and pudgy from eating lots of milk to thin and muscular.  He's growing up.  Literally.  He's got a nice shape to him.  Although, he's still a bulky child.  When you play with him you don't feel like you're going to break him easily because he's so hefty feeling.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Last night she woke up two hours before the scheduled time for the night meal.  Each night we're moving it out a little later and giving her a little less food so that she'll sleep through the night in a few weeks.   After a bit of work, we were able to get her back to sleep without feeding her.  This was a first in the middle of the night, so we were happy she could go back to sleep without eating.  She wasn't acting that hungry, she was just awake.  This is good news for future nights.  It's just no fun standing or leaning over her waiting for the pacifier to fall so you can reinsert it and help her get back to sleep.  Progress is being made though.

Idioms or Idiots

I don't know how non-english or shall I say non-american speakers master our language.  We speak in constant idioms.   I've been on a mission to eliminate idioms from my speech for a while now, but I find the task completely daunting.  NCIS has a great way of pointing out our American-centric speech quirks by having the character Zeva confuse idioms regularly. 

I was just watching a TV show in which one of the main characters used the phrase "throw in the towel."  It sounds innocuous enough, but the connotation means completely give up.  When thinking literally about the phrase, the true meaning sounds unrelated and random.  How are non-English speakers ever expected to master our language?   I predict that idioms will be a recurring theme here on this blog.  I find them both fascinating while at the same time baffling. 

The Big Boy Update:  Super Snot.  When will the snot end?  He's had snot issues for two weeks now.  Hopefully he'll conquer the cold demons and get over his congestion issues soon.  He's not thrilled (read ticked off and mad) about any brain suckering activities and will let you know how much he hates it quite loudly. 


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Making new friends.  She keeps trying to make friends with the ceiling fan.  She is smile central when she thinks there is something to smile about.  It's, without a doubt, adorable.

The Mimi Confusion
Or Mom gets a new name

I've called my mother "mom" for most of my life.  I remember calling her "mommy" when I was very young.  I have a distinct memory of being in the hall one day and telling her that I was going to start calling her "mom" because mommy was a name babies called their mother.  Strange that I would remember right where I was when I told her that.  I know it was a sunny day at the time too.  How amazing our memory can be in some respects and how unreliable it can be in others.

Now, my mother has gained a new name.  She decided she wanted to be called "Mimi" by the children.  My son is old enough now to know who Mimi is.  He loves his Mimi.  I can't figure out sometimes who she is.  When I'm talking to my husband is it "mom" or "Mimi?"  It's not uncommon for me to use both names within one discussion.  I have a strong feeling that as the children get older, Mimi as a name will eclipse Mom.  She's a great grandmother.  I fear my son prefers her over me.  But isn't that the way it's suppose to be?

The Big Boy Update:  There must be something in us that makes us want to be social with our peers.  What is it that tells a baby there are other babies around.  They know.  They stare.  They're fascinated.  At a play place earlier this week he saw bigger kids running around and playing.  He wanted to be involved but he was too young.  It didn't stop him from waving his arms in glee and chasing them as they ran around and had fun. 


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Her head is totally differently shaped than my son's.  He had/has a round and wide head.  He slept on the back of his head and it made a flat spot until he could roll over.  She has a dainty, nicely-shaped head.  It's not flat at all on the back because she sleeps looking left and right and now it's nigh impossible for her to sleep without turning her head.

Food Obligated

I've talked about automatic food re-buying before.  This is another, related topic. People like to show how much they care, and sometimes that's done with food.  We bring dishes to people who are ill or for parties, or to welcome someone to a new home.  Over the years, I've been introduced to some foods I wouldn't have tried on my own through kind gifts of food.

Recently, when we had our daughter, our builder came over with some home-made chicken salad.  I've never liked chicken salad.  But because this it was a gift, I felt obligated to not only eat it, but finish it all.  Let me tell you, I'm a changed person because of that chicken salad.  It was fantastic and I was sad when it was gone. I am now a converted chicken salad lover.

However, I have an issue with gifts of food.  They come with an unspoken obligation to use or eat the item.  Have you ever had someone come over to visit and bring seven cucumbers from their garden because they had so many extra?  I look at them and think, "what am I going to go to use up seven cucumbers?  I've never bought more than two cucumbers at a time."  I don't want them to go bad, but I don't think I can eat them that quickly.  In short, I feel obligated to the item because it was a gift.

It's hard to not accept gifts of food, even if it's something you'd normally never use.  Recently, a good friend made a dish and had something like a dozen egg whites left over.  She brought them over in case we could use them because she didn't want to waste them.  If I didn't take them, it feels like I'm saying the food should be wasted and thrown out.  But after accepting the egg whites, I feel obligated to do something with them.   In this case, there's a good ending to this story.  I made some meringue cookies and my in-laws loved them. 

As I was thinking about what I was going to write here as I made a cup of Earl Grey tea, I had to remind myself this is a place for positive thoughts, not negative thinking.  Or so that's my vision and plan. I didn't pick this topic to complain.  It's sometimes trying different things that cause us to grow.  Even if we didn't want to grown in that direction.

In summary, gifts of food can be a kindness, but think twice about the person when deciding if it makes sense with their food and cooking habits to drop off say,two pounds of string beans and your excess mixed nuts from the holidays.  Consider if you'll be food obligating them with an item they may not really want.

The Big Boy Update:  Not so fatty anymore.  Uncle Jon took to calling him "Fatty" when he was about six months old.  He was quite cute in his baby fat and it was a name that was used in kindness, not as an insult.  He's still got that nickname (which we'll have to drop once he understands it,) but he doesn't really meet the name requirements anymore.  I just looked over at the digital frame beside me and realized he's lost a lot of the girth he had months ago due to his more active, toddler lifestyle. 


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  On the topic of size, she's gotten to the bloated belly point.  When they're born, babies have a nice thin tummy area.   As they eat more and more in one setting, their mid-section bloats out like an overweight middle-aged man.  No, you're not putting the diapers on too tight and restricting their hip-growth, it's just part of this age.  Speaking of eating, last night she ate at 9PM and then didn't wake up until 8AM.  She eliminated the one middle-of-the-night meal all by herself.  My husband went up and checked on her three times to make sure she was okay.  At eight this morning she ate very well.  Here's hoping this sleeping through the night trend continues.  GO baby girl!

So Glad To Be Tired

Lately, I've been able to safely lift heavy things and get lots of manual labor-type things done.  I've had "permission" to work hard and as a result, tire myself out.  After being pregnant and being put on restricted activity it was both frustrating and relieving to not be able to do things. Frustrating, because I had so much I wanted to get done, relieving, because I didn't mind not carrying the smelly, heavy baby upstairs to change his diaper.

Now I'm back in action.  And I seem to be trying to make up for time.  If I don't practically collapse into bed at the end of the day, I don't feel like I've gotten enough done.

On the positive side, my terrible, horrible cardiovascular health is improving somewhat.  Just not being pregnant makes stairs doable without being winded.  And we have a lot of stairs.  From the basement to the attic, things that need to be in their right home seem to somehow be as far away stair-wise as they can be.  So I'm getting my stair-climber exercise in without even trying. 

On the energy-level front, I seem to be able to go on less than ten hours sleep now--which is a great relief.  Eight hours should be enough for a healthy, fit person.  So, here's to more tired days.

Update on the uni-use tool topic.  We had friends over Saturday and we talked about silly tools.  Yesterday I saw an infomercial selling the Robostir.   Now we'll never have to stir our pots of food again.  Unbelievable.  (I've ordered three.)

The Big Boy Update: We gave him Benadryl yesterday at a higher dose than he's ever had at nap time.  He woke up with his eyes visibly glazed.  He was moving slowly and even let me hold him in my lap and sat still to watch TV.  He likes baby shows normally, but only for about three minutes and then he wants to go play with something, so this was a completely novel and unexpected experience.  But I'm glad he's better today.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We've moved to one meal per day of formula and the rest breast milk.  She doesn't seem to mind what she eats.  She's eaten over seven ounces in one sitting twice in the past two days.  She's also down to only one feeding between 9PM and 9AM, although there's some work getting her to make it to the 9AM feeding when she wakes up at 7:30AM.  She got new pants today and some white long-sleeve onesies.  Her hands get cold a lot and I wonder if that's what's keeping her from napping well or is waking her up from being chilled.  When she's awake, it's hard to keep her covered up because she waves her hands around so much.

Did I Already Write About That?

Every day I sit down here to write something, I think to myself, “I’m sure I already wrote about that.”  Not so much with the topics here, but the updates on the children.  I wonder if I talked about the same issue not last week, but even the prior day.  I realize I can go on and on, but I don’t want to be unreasonably redundant.  

I haven’t gone back and re-read the posts.  I suppose that would give me some level of confidence or caution for the future depending on what I found.  I don’t dedicate too much of my day to blogging and I’d rather spend it on something new instead of reviewing something old.  Or, maybe I'm just lazy.

I think it may be that whatever I write about here is on my mind throughout the day and that can make me think I've already written about it.  I ma have spoken about it on the phone, talked to someone or sent an email and written about the baby update topics.  People ask all the time what’s happening with the babies.  Sometimes, people don’t say anything at all about your babies but you decide to tell them anyway.  That’s a terrible habit I’m trying hard to break.  

Hopefully I’m not too repetitive here.  Hopefully I’m not suffering from Déjà vu either.

The Big Boy Update:  I’ve mentioned before how he’s got bad skin.  We’re hoping he grows out of this baby eczema as neither my husband nor I had it as babies.  Most of his body is better, but he’s got some bad areas.  Apparently his butt itches.  Sometimes, when you take his messy diaper off he tries to scratch before you can clean up butt cheek that's itchy.  That makes for a fun few minutes in the day.  His ankles are very itchy apparently.  We noticed he was trying to rub them on the carpet the scratch when he didn’t have socks on a few months ago.  So now he always wears socks.  Except for the ten minutes I forgot yesterday.  In that short time he rubbed both ankles raw on the carpet and created dime-sized sores that are going to take days to heal.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Down the hatch.   She’s not only eating more each meal, she’s doing so in one session.  Not many days ago, she still would take several sessions to finish a meal–sometimes a half-hour apart.  In the past two days though she’s eating four or even over five ounces out of the faster flow bottles without stopping.  It’s cutting down on the amount of burping and spitting up too.  We’re giving her gas drops as well because apparently my milk makes her innards rumbly--which can wake her up in the middle of a perfectly good nap.

Something Good With Something Bad

Have you ever tried to eat healthy and then the healthy thing you’re integrating into your daily diet gets completely ruined because you pair it with an unhealthy item?  I had a craving for rice cakes recently.  The boring, plain, un-flavorful  disks in a stack.  Yeah, those.  They’re low in calories, don’t have added sodium, and are nice and crunchy. 

Last night, the only thing I could think about before I went to bed was rice cakes with cream cheese.  Not the better-for-you cream cheese bleh stuff, but the real, unadulterated plain cream cheese in the block that’s used for things like cheese cakes and on bagels for non-dieters.   The weight of the layer of cream cheese was probably more than twice the total weight of the rice cakes.  But boy was it good.  

I’m doing okay on weight loss.  Not dropping the pounds like I want to, but I’m not going up.  I’m stabilizing my diet, which means getting a good balance of cravings, caloric intake, healthy food and exercise needs.  It’s a work in progress.  It had better be a work in successful weight-loss progress. 

The Big Boy Update:  Friends came over for dinner.  The wife is someone I trust to give me good, honest baby advice.  She laughed a lot at my son and said he was funny.  I sure hope she means normal, silly baby funny.  She assured me he was doing all sorts of things babies at his age do.   She also gave me good advice on eating habits and how to teach him to feed himself.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tired and hungry day.  She ate three meals today in one setting.  None of the eating a little and then deciding twenty minutes later she’s still hungry.  Five ounces in one go three meals in a row.  But we couldn’t get her to stay awake between meals.  Hopefully she’s not going to be up all night.  Last night she went from 10:00PM to 5:30AM which is a new nighttime sleep record. 

Tips for Labeling Storage Bins

While organizing the storage area that’s off to the side of my son’s room I got to thinking about the way I like to list what’s in a bin so I can find it easily in the future.  I’ve spent a lot of time iterating over ways to organize things.  I even have a friend that I would get together from time to time to do origami, our shared hobby, but we’d spend more time talking about how we’d organized our paper or books or other origami-related things than we did in actual folding.

Years ago I decided I didn’t like cardboard boxes for storage.  They’re useful, they’re commonly free, but they’re not stable when you stack them on top of another and they’re not completely full.  They don’t have handles, and you can’t see into the walls to get an idea of what’s inside if they’re not labeled on the outside.

Over time I’ve moved to plastic see-through bins where possible.  The good thing about the plastic bins is they can be reused again and again, stacked higher than cardboard boxes, you can see into them and they come in many sizes and shapes.  But what do you to do label them?  I’m a fan of stickers.  I used to put stickers on the bins, but over several years in a hot attic the stickers wrinkle and are difficult and time-consuming to remove.  

Now I use pieces of 8.5x11” card stock for big bins, and smaller pieces for smaller bins.  I use a sharpie to write a description of the category and anything specific that’s in the box.   I usually write two up, one for the front and one for the side.  I then slide the card down into the sides of the bin.  It’s an easily readable way to keep track of what’s in the bin. 

The great thing is, if you need to move to a larger or smaller bin, you move the items and take the labels with you. I keep a stack of card stock and a pen in the attic for anything that I bring up in the future or rearrange.  It’s a nice system that’s worked well for me for years. 

The Big Boy Update:  He loves to walk around in circles and back and forth over the same areas.  My mother pulled out the cradle and rocking chair in his room so he could do laps around them.  On the off chance that he gets into the pantry, he grabs two items and then walks back and forth as though he wants to leave, but isn’t sure of the way out. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She’s no longer a newborn.   The tinier they are, the faster they grow proportionally.  I think I’ve retired almost everything that’s labeled NB or Newborn.  It’s fun to go shopping in her closet of baby shower gifts to find a fun new outfit in which to dress her.  No matter what size they are though, it’s hard to believe they were “ever that small” or will “ever be big enough to fit into that.”

Single-use Culinary Tools

We moved into a new house recently.  It has a good-sized kitchen with lots of storage space.  But I have completely run out of room for uni-use kitchen tools.  There’s just no space left.  I don’t have room for shrimp de-veiner, the Shake It & Make It Ice Cream Ball, the Tomato Musher or the Turnip Twaddler.  I’m physically blocking access to all cabinets on the chance that any of these tools were to find their way to the house.  

Every year at the state fair I watch as the hawkers pitch their specialized, can’t live without kitchen gadget that will be used once and then shoved in the back of the cabinet forevermore.  I’ve been to the Tupperware and Pampered Chef parties (and have even hosted some myself,) where great, must-haves like the French-fry microwaveable tray were pitched with far more enthusiasm than the tool merited.

We seem to get swept up in the thought that we could use the item to make something delectable, or save precious time in the preparation process or do something not possible with regular kitchen tools.  Oh yes, and it’s so affordable too.   Sometimes it takes us a long time to realize as much as we like the idea of something, the execution of that something isn’t meant to be.   At this point, I can look at an item and say, “Really?  Do you see yourself using this more than once or twice?”  That makes it easy to pass.

The Big Boy Update:  We found a box in the storage room and were about to break it down for recycling when I realized it was big enough for my son to crawl into.  The box was the one his car seat came in, and the perfect size for a toddler.  He loves crawling in and out of it, being dragged around, covered up and then “found.”  Looks like it’ll be recycled later, after all the fun has been used up.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Last night she slept a long time between each of her meals, and the second night time meal almost pushed out to the 9:00 morning meal.  She’s doing well on her own without much “bridging” to the next meal from us.  She had her two-month checkup yesterday with shots and we watched her temperature and gave her some Tylenol for possible fever.  She did very well yesterday and through the night.

If the Shirt Fits

I talked about post-pregnancy weight loss and how I’m both excited and anxious at the same time.  I’m excited, because it’s okay for me to lose weight at this point.  I’m anxious, because what if it’s more difficult than I anticipate.  What if I don’t want to exercise?  What if I become complacent and I’m okay being twenty pounds more than I was for most of my life prior to having children?  I don’t want that.  

But one thing that is fun is seeing what I can fit into again.  My chest is bigger from back to back pregnancies and the added volume from nursing.  So most shirts with buttons are right out.  But I can fit into more than I would have expected at this weight.  Some of the sizing issues is weight gain in my upper arms.  Chubby arms in tight sleeves—not so attractive.  Shorter shirts ride up too much in the front while I’m on the pound countdown.  

But for the most part, if the shirt fits, I get to wear it.  I’ve missed wearing some of my shirts.  It’s like getting a new wardrobe.  Only it’s an old wardrobe.  But it’s cheaper than a new wardrobe.  I hope I’m not out of fashion.

The Big Boy Update:  Kindermusik was today.  In the past, he’s spent a lot of time in class just looking at everyone—children, adults, his teacher, the room.  In comparison to how he behaves at home, he looks positively mentally challenged.  It seems that he's through his observation phase in class and is now running around like a toddler on cake icing.  Even one of the other mothers commented on it this week. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She needs a sticky sucky device.  She can’t seem to hold on to her pacifier in between feedings when we’re bridging her or in the middle of the night when she wakes up and needs to soothe herself back to sleep, I would sure love a sticky, strapped version of a pacifier.  Hazard galore, I know.  But when you’ve reinserted it seven times at 4AM, these things run through your head.

Why do we like to retell the same stories over and over?

Have you been in a social setting with family or long-time friends and something comes up that reminds your mother or someone to retell a story of when you were little?  It’s a story you’ve heard countless times.  It’s questionable that there’s even anyone in the group that hasn’t heard this story before.  But the teller tells the story with delight, enjoying mentally reliving the experience.

What is that makes the retelling enjoyable?  I too like telling certain stories.   The stories could be something outrageous that happened or something that was terrible at the time but is now funny or even a story that was just an interesting event in a time past.   When a conversation is going on among people, there’s an urge people get to participate by telling a story of something relevant that they’ve either experienced or heard about. 

So I don’t have any answers here, it’s just something I’ve noticed.  I’m sure there are books written by psychologists that explain in detail what it is that drives us to share a memory or contribute with something interesting or compelling.  

The Big Boy Update:  He is doing so well at playing by himself.  You can put him in a room with toys and he’ll spend lots of time entertaining himself.  Lately, I’ve been going through everything in his room to sort and identify what I can give to a friend who’s pregnant.  He’ll play in his room and bring interesting things over to share from time to time.  I’m glad he’s independent enough to not need help in finding fun.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She’s different than her brother in many ways.  One way we’ve noticed recently is that she likes being on her tummy and lifting her head up for much longer than he did.  When you hold her and try to burp her, she’s more interested in holding her head up than lying on your shoulder.  But she has very little interest in standing up or pressing back with her feet when you hold her upright on your lap.  That was my son’s thing, she doesn’t seem to care about standing up, only looking around.

A Place For Everything and Everything In Its Place

I have an organization problem.  The problem isn’t that I need to organize; it’s that I’m too organized, or so I’ve been told.  I’ve been told many times how impressive all the organization is, that I’m invited to come and help the person organize, or that the person was inspired to go home and organize after seeing the house.  I’ve even been told I should become a professional organizer, something I would consider doing.

I should say at this point that my husband is also a very organized person (who even enjoyed alphabetizing the DVDs,) but I’m always credited with being the alpha-organizer.   Maybe it’s obvious I’m the most, shall we say, obsessive, about having everything collected, sorted, and placed in an easily-accessible and findable location.  I do love organizing though.

I’ve got a lot of guidelines I follow that make organizing easy to do, even starting from a completely chaotic environment.  One thing I was taught to do by my mother was to have “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”  If you apply this rule to everything in your home, you won’t ever have a chaotic environment.  But you have to start somewhere and make a place for everything.  Then, when something gets used or moved, it has a home to return to.  This is a continual process as things come into your home regularly.  Every time something comes in, you have to find a place for it and put it there.   Over time, needs change and stuff changes.  If you stay on top of this one rule, I guarantee you’ll have a more organized home where you can find things quickly.

The Big Boy Update:  So, about that oatmeal.  He seemed to like it a lot this morning.  But for some strange reason little pieces of oat kept coming out in his drool.  How do you spit up just three oats flakes?  I have no idea.  He also fit into an outfit his cousin gave him from when she was a year-old.  She’s eleven now.  The outfit still looks good though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She rarely seems to cry for no reason.  The main reason for crying is almost always food.  She doesn’t seem to care if her diaper is wrecked, although she’s not interested in eating as much if she’s sitting in a full diaper.  On occasion though, she cries and we can’t figure out what she wants.  Like any baby, she likes to be held.  But she’s conditioned to not expect to be held just because she’s crying.  Sometimes she’s bored and a change of scenery helps.  Right now, I can’t figure out what’s wrong with her.  I'd better stop writing this and go figure it out.

The Automatic Re-buy Fallacy

Some people love to eat the same thing regularly.  I believe my mother has been eating the same cereal every morning for years now.  I just don’t work that way; I go through food phases.  I got accused of “pregnant cravings” multiple times while I was pregnant because I wanted something that I didn’t regularly eat.  But that’s just the way I normally eat.  I get tired of the same thing every day and want something new, or better yet, something I haven’t had in a while.

A few months ago I got some Golden Grahams.  I loved them as a child.  It took me a while to finish the box because they’re great, but I didn’t have a craving for a full box.  When I’d finally finished the box and freed up the space on the cereal shelf, a new box magically appeared.  My husband was being nice and getting me more.  But my craving had ended about two months before.  So now I’m working on the second box.

I’ve been eating oatmeal recently as I was advised it would help in milk production.  You can never have too much milk.  Last baby, I had too little milk, so I heeded the lactation consultant’s advice on the oatmeal.  But I am so over oatmeal.  Two days ago my husband went to Costco and did what we all are guilty of --got swept up in a large quantity for a great price situation.  He came home with fifty more oatmeal packets.  Ugh.  So now, my son is getting oatmeal for breakfast.  I’ll never make it through that many without help.

Some people love the regularity of the same food items.  I love variety.  To each his own.  After several other re-buy incidents like the ones above I've put my husband on a strict “no re-buy unless it’s on the grocery list” plan.  To be fair, I know he’s thinking of me and getting me something he knows I like.  But when he comes home from the store, I have the hardest time being both excited and grateful when I’m thinking inside “I didn’t want to see that item again for two years.”  He’s the best though and took my no re-buy request without being offended or upset.

The Big Boy Update:  We may have finally found shoes that fit.  He’s got fat, short-ish feet.  Shoes either won’t fit over the thick part of his feet or they’re too long and he can’t walk well.  Or, they’re not rubberized on the bottom and he slips all around as he runs around the house.  Today we found a pair that looked perfect, were the right size, had rubber soles and were reasonable in price.  But they were the demo model.  Fortunately, the demo model was on sale.  They look like little biker shoes, but they have great traction and he seems to like them.  He looks cute toddling around in them too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  It’s hard to know how much she’s eating when she nurses.  To start the nighttime meal reduction/elimination she needs to be eating at least 24 ounces per day.  Yesterday I pumped all day so we could measure her intake and it turns out she was several ounces under.  Today we tried again and she’s over 24 ounces.  As long as we work on her eating a good amount during the day, it looks like we’re a go for Baby Boot Camp.  We also relocated her yesterday and today to her room instead of in the bassinet in our room.  She seems to really like the mobile that glows and plays music in her crib.

Missing Las Vegas

This isn’t meant to be a spot to complain.  A blog in which I rant.  Pity Party central.  I’ve got a lot going for me and really nothing to complain about.  In fact, that was going to be the title of this blog initially, “Nothing to Complain About.”  It’s hard to write a negative post when the title of the blog should negate all opportunities for whining.  

That said, gosh I miss Las Vegas.  We use to go several times a year with a group of friends.  Those that would go would vary each trip, but we’d have a nice crowd each time.  We’d spend time with different friends at gourmet restaurants or gamble together or go to shows or just walk around.  The atmosphere in Las Vegas is just electric (literally) and energizes me. 

 

I’ve been missing it not because I haven’t been in so long; I went while I was pregnant with my son and I got married there the year before.  I’m just not sure when I’ll get a chance to go again, even for a weekend.  Children are great, but they take up lots of time.  So it’s more that I’d like to go and am not sure when I’ll get to go again that makes me miss Las Vegas so keenly.

The Big Boy Update:  He was nice today!  We went to a party for another one-year-old today.  He’s not been around that many babies all at one time and usually he tries to grab at them rather rudely.  He doesn’t mean to be rough, he’s just lacking in fine motor skills at this point.  But he was nice.  Friendly even.  Maybe the walking around helps; he was so interested in seeing everything he spent most of the time walking from room to room and meeting everyone. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We reviewed the plan for night sleeping and realized we’d forgotten several key elements such as trying to keep her awake during the 5-9PM block so she’ll sleep well after her last meal.  We also decided to relocate her to her bedroom upstairs from the master for all naps, and shortly, for nights as well.  She tried out her bed for a nap this afternoon.  She seemed to like it. 

Think Before You Buy

Or, Courtney’s Tips For Buying Baby Clothes as Gifts

This is about baby gifts.  We have been so fortunate to receive many wonderful baby gifts.  But we’ve also gotten some that make you want to ask what the buyer was thinking.  With that said, here are a few baby gift-buying tips based on our experience:

1. Consider the season when buying gifts for a certain age range.  For example, if the child is born in December, don’t buy six-month winter clothes.  Especially for a holiday like Christmas.  If the baby will be nine months at Christmas, don’t get 0-3 month items.
2. What type of mother are you buying for?  Is she a practical dresser, or does she like frilly, fancy, event-specific things?  If she’s more practical, get staple items such as onesies, pants, zipped sleepers, bibs or anything that will be a go-to item on a daily basis.
3. Look at the complexity of the outfit from an putting on/taking off perspective.  Is it a three-piece item that has buttons at the back of the neck that are hard to get to?  Is it more complicated to put on that other items of the same function?  New parents can be worried about the delicacy of their baby.  Having to fight with a three-piece outfit with tiny buttons instead of a single item can make an outfit sit in the closet and never get worn.  One-piece outfits with zippers or snaps are a big favorite in this house.
4. Consider the weather.  We can’t help it, we always think the baby is cold as mothers.  Short sleeve outfits and shorts only seem like the right thing in just the right weather.  I go to long-sleeves and long pants or full one-piece with footies so much of the time, because I know the baby is fully covered.
5. Onesies, onesies, onesies.  Little babies move around a lot when lying down and crawling.  Onesies do something no shirt can do.  They stay down and don’t ride up.  I love cute shirts, but before the baby is walking, onesies are the way to go.

We do love the items we’ve gotten that don’t meet the suggestions above, but for my favorite gifts, it’s not so much about how adorable and cute they are, but how they meet the best needs of the baby's age and activity level.  You can probably guess I’m one of those practical mothers at this point?

The Big Boy Update:  We do not encourage tantrums.  At all.  But I realized tonight we have a problem.  When we sit him down for a meal, he starts to yell until he has food in front of him.  Or if he wants a higher-value food we get that to him too.  We wrote it off that he was just really hungry, but we were mistaken.  When you’re out at a restaurant and he starts to yell, some behavior modification needs to happen.  So, we have some breaking of a bad habit to do starting tomorrow.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Everyone says she has an angelic face, or that she is a “pretty baby.”  Not that our son wasn’t cute.  But she seems to have an ideal baby face.  Hopefully she’ll get even prettier as she grows up. 

To Find a Voice

I’ve done lots of reading and each author has their own style of writing.  There are writing styles that are charming and eclectic, say like C. S. Lewis.  Or there’s matter of fact and racy like Robert Heinlein.  If I want to be a writer, or if I just want to write something other than this conversational blog, I need to come up with a voice.

I’ve always been drawn to books written for the Narnia, Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland age ranges.  How you speak to a child to get them excited about the story is a true skill.  So which comes first, the story or the voicing style?  It appears I have work to do before my next post on this subject.

The Big Boy Update:  He’s starting to show interest in books now.  He’s more interested in manipulating them and moving them around than he is at having them read to him.  When you do try to read to him, good luck making it through the book in any order.  He likes to flip pages.  He’s too rough for paper books yet.  Board books were are such a great thing.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She’s outgrown newborn-sized diapers.  We’re trying to wedge her into the last few so that we can move to size one diapers.  At the rate she messes up her pants, that shouldn’t take more than a day or two.  She'll be two months next week.  I don't have a baby scale, but she's outgrowing clothes and diapers so I know she's growing fast.

I Need a Belt!

I have to say first that I feel I’m getting redundant with my posts about what’s going on in my post-pregnant life.  Yeah yeah, I’m trying to lose weight and dealing with lack of sleep like all new moms.  And I know that’s got to be dull and boring to read about.  So I’m making a resolve to limit my posts on body and baby topic in the future. 

I do have a lot I want to talk about; lots of things that were main reasons for me to start this blog.  Things like punctuation, and how I’m not even sure if I correctly used a semicolon in the last sentence.  And writing.  I’ve wanted to write something for a long time.  Not a big Dan Brown-type novel, but a book, maybe for children.  And I’d love to write about the idiosyncrasies of the English language and how we speak it.  So, in the future, I’m going to focus more of my posts on the less physical, and the more mental. 

But for now… I need a belt!  I was heading out today and realized the hip hugger pants I’ve been wearing weren’t going to stay up on their own.  I was running late but I ran to the drawer, the one I thought used to have belts in it but that I hadn’t looked in for several years, and I grabbed my trusty leather belt.  I had to suck in to get to the first hole.  Devastated.  But wait… that was a belt designed for non-hip height jeans.  There is hope!  And indeed, when I found the correct belt, it did the job as expected.  I’m also just barely under my pre-second pregnancy weight.  Soon I’m going to start some exercising so I can keep up the weight loss momentum until I get to my goal (by spring, darn it.)

The Big Boy Update:  He really doesn’t like the word “no.”  He dislikes the word “NO!” even more.  But then again, what baby does.  We’re trying to redirect him to something else when he gets into something he shouldn’t, but it’s hard to redirect when he just pulled your hair and then laughed.  Or bit your knee with all his might.  But in this house, babies don’t get to win when it comes to “no” and their safety.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I’ve had to bridge her to the next feeding in the middle of the night twice now by bringing her into the bed with me.  I am not a proponent of sleeping with babies.  It’s fine for those that want to do it, but I prefer the children to have good sleeping habits in their own beds.  So hopefully this is a very short term thing to get her into her full night sleep.  Good news, she’s gotten into the four-hour meals even better today.  I think we’re going to make it.

Happy Knees

There was that Happy Feet movie, although I haven’t seen it.  Something about penguins dancing.  With children in the house though, I’m certain I’ll have see it many times eventually.  But I digress.   Can you digress when you haven’t even gotten to the point yet?  Do I pregress?  I think I do that a lot.  

Moving on to the knees.  I’ve not done much thinking about my knees or even given them the proper appreciation they deserve.  Pregnant this time, weighing more than I ever have, I would bend down and my knees would seem to be saying, “I don’t think you want to be down here for long.  This is over our load limit.”  They weren’t happy.  

I was really hoping it was the extra weight, but I was also concerned.  I have some strange extra cartridge in my knees that cause them to lock if I get in the wrong position.  At my age I should really know the name of this condition, but I’ve been diligent in avoiding the position all my adult life, so I haven’t needed to worry about it.  However, over the past two years they’ve locked several times.  It’s quite annoying.  More to the point, it’s almost very painful.  I can’t move in any direction without being in frightful pain, but I have to do something to get it to unlock.  Sometimes it just gives way slowly and releases, other times I can move it just right and it’ll make a pop that sounds sickening.  The pop scares me, what if the pop turns into a rip one day?   So I’m careful.

But now I have happy knees.  They’re thrilled I’ve lost weight and my center of gravity is back to normal.  Hopefully as I continue to lose weight I’ll stay on their good side.

The Big Boy Update:  Shoes are a tough fit for him.  His feet are so thick, he doesn’t fit into the shoes for his age range.  But his feet aren’t long enough for the next size up.   He’s old enough now and walking well enough that he needs to be able to comfortably wear shoes when we go out.  We found another pair today that we’re trying.  Hopefully he’ll get the hang of shoes soon.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Nine-One-Five-Nine-One-Five.  That’s what we’re working on for the remainder of this week.  If we can get her into a four house cycle starting at nine-o-clock that’s regular, I believe we’ll do well through the baby boot camp nighttime meal reduction weeks.  She’s still not the fastest eater in the house, sometimes taking an hour of the four hour blocks to get through the meal, but she’s making progress. 

I Can’t Find My Stuff

(and that’s annoying)

I like to know where all my things are. Last year, wait, two years ago.  Well, two December’s ago, we moved a week after having my son.  It was so busy moving in and adjusting to life with a baby that I didn’t get a chance to do the complete unpacking and organizing that I would have liked to do.  Then, I got pregnant again and was put on limited activity on account of a somewhat shortened cervix.  That ruled out moving boxes around in the attic for a while.  

Now I’m not pregnant, and stairs don’t completely wind me.  So I’m back on the attic.  I’m back on lots of things that need to get organized.  It perturbs me when I can’t find something I know I have somewhere in the house.  When my mother-in-law asked if I had something for her trip to India and I said I did and I’d be right back with it and then twenty minutes later I realized I had no idea where it was, I resolved to start back on the attic.

I’ve spent a good amount of time unpacking over the past two days.  I’ve found a lot of things, including what my mother-in-law needed -- now that she’s in India and my finding it is totally unhelpful.  The more I unpack, the more room I have in the attic.  I’ve been finding things I can get rid of as well.  It's always a good feeling when you can purge some unneeded stuff in your life.  

There is a lot more to do, but it’s going to be fun getting it done.  I do like to organize, but that's a topic for another post.  Today we went to and got some new bins we’ll use to combine some things into or replace broken or wrong-sized containers.  Tomorrow -- Christmas stuff organization (contingent on the children napping at the same time.)

The Big Boy Update:  He bit me.  Three times.  Hard.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have kept trying to brush his teeth with the little rubber finger thing after the first two bites.   His teeth are growing in in such a strange order.  He’s missing a front tooth in the bottom, but he’s got two sub-molars completely in.  Those are painful when used to bite down on your fingernail.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Stretch that stomach.  This week is stretching/bridging week.  We’re trying to get her to eat, eat, eat so that she can go four hours between meals and have six meals each day.  Next week, we start to slowly eliminate two of the meals at night.  I’m anxious about making progress, because you can’t get her to finish a meal in one short setting.  She'll grow uninterested or fall asleep.  Changing her and doing wake up-type things doesn’t seem to change her mind.  But fifteen minutes later she’s crying “where did the food go"? 

The Chip and the Dip

We inherited a new years party last night.  The original hosts became ill and couldn't have the party at their house.  We drove over, got their food, redirected guests to our house and blammo, had a ready-made new-years party at our house.  Good friends, good fun, good times. 

I made a discovery.  I completely forgot how incredibly delicious any dip made with sour cream is.  Chips + sour cream dip = taste sensation.  I made sure the remainders weren't thrown out and then had three extra helpings today in lieu of actual meals.   It's a pity my husband doesn't like most things made with dairy.   So good. 

The Big Boy Update:  He went to the park today.  Wore his new shoes.   And he walked.  He walks in them at home, but he falls down a lot.  Bonked his head good last night, and produced a purple welt on his head.  Someone at the party suggested he might night a CT scan.  We declined.  He was fine in the morning.  Go clumsy baby.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Sleepy sleepy.  She's had several days of wide awake.  Now, she's asleep all day long and acting like food is an option, only if she's got the time between naps.  But she's eating when she does wake.  Maybe she's sleeping through a growth spurt and she'll wake up an inch longer in two days.