What We've Been Up To

Once again a little behind in the blogging. Good thing keeping the blog current wasn't the top of the list of my New Year's Resolutions! I'd be failing miserably! But things have been a little busy here for the last couple weeks including a trip to Indy, Nick's Birthday, a new job at the library for me, and life in general. This next week is going to be a crazy one- so I thought I'd put some pictures up to tide you all over for a week or so until I have a chance to play catch-up again!! So without further yammering- here's a picture update on the goings-on in the Held House!

Doing dishes for Mama.

She is oh-so-grateful for the help.

A little reading before bedtime. I was getting her bedtime milk ready and came in to find her reading to herself. I love that she is really starting to love reading.

BIG SMILE!! We missed Elmo on tv so Mama opened the DVD from Great-Granny and Great-Grandpa.

She LOVES the Elmo DVD. We have since watched in about 1000 more times. I am beginning to know the lines...

Rachel likes to unravel the TP while I shower. She knows this is a no-no. One morning this week, I got out of the shower to find that she had tried to clean up after her fun. Gotta give her credit for trying....

I really need to do a whole post about the church, but long story short, it's on it's way to a new home and this week it was lifted off it's foundation and turned 180 degrees in preparations for the big move. The workers were kind enough to share with me they are waiting on highway permits before they can move it to the new location about 1/4 mile away. More to come on this one, PROMISE!

And something no one tells you about Motherhood- you are not allowed to go pee. If you do, you will come out to find your 19 month old standing on top of the kitchen table.

 I promise to be back to blogging and post more frequently than every two weeks!! If you're wondering what we're up to, watching Elmo is a pretty good guess these days!

Full Moon

This was too good not to share with the masses. Rachel will find it mortifying later in life...but it's just too good!!

Since she didn't eat any dinner to speak of, she woke up at 4:30am crying. I knew she was hungry, so I went ahead and fixed her a small bottle to tide her over until breakfast. I changed her diaper so she'd be nice and dry, made sure she had her coveted blankie, and wished her good-night. I didn't hear a peep from her again. At 8:30am (feeling rather refreshed from a nice long slumber), I peeked in her door to check on her. Not wearing my glasses it took me a moment to realize what was amiss with the scene I saw there. Then I had to go get my camera.

It's not too often you start the day with a full moon.

Since our A/C was out yesterday and it was stil in the 80's when I put her to bed, I thought a cute little nightgown would be more comfortable. Apparently, she figured out how to take her diaper off. I also had to wash her sheet and blankets since the diaper was not there to do its job. (I realize this could have been much, much worse).

Oh, Rachel. My life is never dull and boring with you in it. Love and Hugs, Mama

Knock, knock...Who's there?

Saturday morning, I attended Zumba class. If you've not heard of Zumba, it's a cardio dance workout and it's FUN! It starts at 8am, which in my life before Rachel would have been a stretch to get to, but now, well, I'm pretty much always up. I left Rachel and Nick to enjoy their breakfast together and went to shake my groove thing for an hour or so. As I walked in the door, Pepper, of course, mistook me for a burglar and started barking, waking the napping Rachel. After keeping Nick from killing Pepper (something I've had to refrain from doing as well in recent weeks for the same reason), I took over Rachel duty hoping that some snuggles from Mommy would send her to dreamland. 45 minutes later...Rachel was beyond tired but refused to be lulled to sleep. No matter what I did- held her, rocked her, put her down to play- she was having none of it. Finally, I decided that it was time to just let her cry. I put her in her crib, closed the door, and went to take a much needed shower. When I got out of the shower, all was quiet. "Ahhh...she's asleep!", I thought as I dried off. I turned off the fan in the bathroom just to make sure there was indeed no Rachel noises. (Our fan is about as loud as a jet engine taking off at O'Hare International Airport.) As I was revelling in the silence thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could put some lotion on too... I hear "BANG, BANG, BANG... SQUEAL" on the other side of the wall. Rachel was just banging on the wall to let me know that, no she was not asleep, and you can't make me, but nice try Mom!
So, no morning nap for Rachel on Saturday morning. Why do I think the teenage years are going to be a real treat with her?

A New Form of Mommy Torture

We've been very lucky these first six months. For the most part, Rachel has been a good sleeper. I've been content to rock her to sleep despite what the books recommended because once asleep, she'd stay asleep. Since her discovery of the world in the form of crawling, we've tossed that out the window and after some very rough nights the past two weeks, I decided it was time to let her cry it out. Nick has been doing this on his own some for awhile, but I can't stand to hear her cry. There will be so many things in life to cry about - I didn't really think bedtime should be one. But, I also know that teaching her to fall asleep on her own is also a valuable skill. So...that's what we've been doing. Rachel is smart though. She knows Mommy is the weak link and she pours it on THICK. The first night was 45 minutes of sobbing hysterically. Last night was only 30 minutes (maybe a little less). We didn't leave her in there to sob for all that time. (We did go in to give her the paci and tell her we loved her...) I'm confident that it'll continue to decrease. I also know that if ever in a situation where someone wanted me to crack and confess to something, putting me in a room and making me listen to Rachel cry for more than 5 minutes would do the trick.

Mommy Hair

Earlier this week, while working on the neverending task that is our laundry pile, I came across one of Rachel's hairbows in the washer. Most likely, Rachel had ripped it out of her hair and I stuck it in my pocket for safekeeping until I could put it away. Since, obviously, the pocket plan didn't work out so well before, I decided to clip it in my hair until I could put it away.
This was a great plan, until I decided to run my errands.
Let me just add that in order to guarantee myself as long a shower as I want, I've been taking them in the evening after Rachel goes to bed, so I pretty much only have nice hair on Sundays. This particular day, my errands included a run to the bank to deposit my hard earned paycheck. I noticed the teller giving me a bit of a look, but didn't really think too much of it until I got home and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and noticed that I still had Rachel's cute little hairbow clipped in my hair. (sigh). While it looks adorable on her hair, it looks a bit ridiculous in mine. All well- I'm sure it went well with the spit-up that was also probably on my shirt.

Mommyhood Chronicles

So the thing about being a Mommy that is the most frustrating to me is that all I want is to take care of this little person so she feels loved and can be her happy little self. The problem is, when God gives you this perfect little human, the manual is not included. I do not like the feeling of not knowing what I'm doing. If I'm doing something new, I want a step by step guide for how it should be done. I guess that's why Grandma's are included- to make sure you can't foul up too badly.
My worst mommy moments started pretty much from the get-go. Breastfeeding was a total bust. I'm sure the excess of hormones flowing didn't help the situation, but when I found out the reason that Rachel was so fussy those first few days was because she was hungry, I literally cried for about a month. Even a couple weeks after we switched to just formula, the thought of my hungry newborn made me tear up. I wanted so badly to provide her with that and it broke my heart that nature wasn't working with me. To add salt to the wound, mine was free and Enfamil is definitely not free. Then there was the bombastic poopy pants that we later determined was a milk allergy, so a soy baby she is. It would be so much easier if there was a manual that said- Congratulations...this is your beautiful baby girl. Don't give her milk. She won't like it.
Anyways, once we got over the 2 month hump, things sailed along pretty smoothly.
Until last week... during bath time. Rachel has recently started to really enjoy her bath. She even knows the routine. First we wash her face, then we soap her up and rinse, followed by the shampoo and rinse. Once the shampoo is rinsed, she gets to sit up and play and splash. It's pretty hilarious because when I start to shampoo her hair she starts doing her little crunches trying to sit up. She's all about the splashing. This particular evening I sat her up and put her little rubber ducky in the water. She's a thinker. She doesn't immediately act on something new, she's got to watch and think about it for a minute. She watched the duck float by...and watched the duck float by...and when it floated close enough she leaned over to see if it was an edible duck. This went on for a few minutes. Since she'd done this the night before, I was armed with my camera and snapped a few pictures. She looks like she's bobbing for apples. If you can't tell- Rachel's not the only one that gets a kick out of bath time. All of sudden, she lunged for the duck with both hands and despite the fact I had my hand on her at all times, her slippery little body got away from me and under she went. It was for just a split second...I scooped her out immediately but she'd had enough chance to swallow some water and get it up her already stuffed nose. To say that I felt bad is an understatement. She cried and I did my best to soothe her. So not only have I tried to starve my child, but now I've tried to drown her too. After she calmed down a bit, she then was talking to me in a tone that seriously sounded like she was yelling at me. She still loves bath time. And she still likes to splash- I'm considering a rain poncho for me at bath time. But now, when the ducky goes floating by, rather than try to eat it, she splashes it and tries to swat it...as if to get it back for getting water up her nose and to say "how do you like it, Ducky?"
There is no manual to parenthood. So I'll just keep muddling on through!