Rough Week

Dear Amelia,

It has been a rough week. You are getting all four of your canine teeth and sleeping in your own room for the first time, plus you have a bit of a cold. You aren't sleeping very well because of all this. Although I also switched rooms and I'm in the bedroom right next to you, I love you so much that I worry that I won't be able to hear you if you need me. Because of this, I'm having a hard time sleeping too.

Since we are having trouble sleeping, I let you sleep with me last night. I loved waking up to your smiling face this morning and kissing your soft round cheeks as soon as you opened your eyes. You watched Elmo on my phone while I cuddled you.

Even though we haven't been sleeping well, lots of fun things happened this week. We played with the leaves outside:

We went out to lunch, where the owner of the restaurant was totally impressed with your language skills (you said "Highchair! Please?") and thought you were the cutest thing ever. And she's probably right:

And yesterday we watched your cousin Max while Auntie Becca had to work. You loved on him even though he pulled your hair and made you cry. I guess you returned the favor though because ten minutes later you threw your plush ball in his face, scaring the daylights out of him and making him cry too.

I love you very much. I'm glad I get to spend the rest of this Sunday with you. We will probably watch movies and go see Grammy and Papa.

Hugs and Kisses,
Mommy

Change Is Good

It's been over a month since I've posted here. Certainly it is not because I've had a lack of anything to say. We have been adjusting to my husband working a different shift, Amelia sliding into her 'terrible two's', and enjoying the fall season. It provides plenty to write about, but I think that the truth is, at the end of the work day, I just cannot bear to touch my computer. I love my job, and I think I still enjoy writing, but after 8 hours of staring at a screen and having my toddler patiently wait for my attention, I haven't been motivated to post anything. I even briefly entertained the thought of abandoning my blog, but I just can't.

This has brought about a lot of thinking about how I can keep my blog, be consistent with it, and not feel like it is one more chore added to my plate. As with anything to do with mommyhood, this has been a challenge of balance, and I think I've developed a solution. Before I discuss this solution, however, I have a confession:

I am horrible at keeping up with Amelia's baby book.

Perhaps I'm not the only mother with this affliction, but on some level, I feel horribly guilty about it. I recall purchasing Amelia's baby book with a bit of dread, knowing that it would remain mostly blank. And, I was right. I think I filled it out here and there for the first few months. After that, I started shoving the medical updates with her growth written on them into the book, promising myself that I would write it all down during the upcoming weekend. I would have friends say "Oh, what was Amelia's percentiles at her last check-up? I'll have to look at my daughter's baby book to see how they compare!" With that sentence, my stomach would turn slightly queasy with guilt.

This is just not my strength in parenting. Things I'm good at- coloring, watching kids movies, ignoring obnoxiously loud toys. Things I'm not good at- keeping up with the baby book, keeping her thousand's of digital baby pictures sorted and backed up, packing up and storing her clothes as she outgrows them. Clearly I'm not much of an organized person; however, I want Amelia to have some kind of record of her childhood. Maybe she will hardly ever look at it, but I would feel better knowing that she has at least something.

So, my new resolution is to use my blog to write letters to Amelia, like this. I don't have the motivation to set up a new e-mail account, as this mom did, but I think that if I can write a short letter to Amelia here and there, it will be motivation to keep up with my blog and will give Amelia something to look back on. If I'm really motivated, then maybe someday I will print out the letters and bind them into a book. They will be all right here, waiting for me, unlike my scattered memories of when Amelia got new teeth in, or those check-up papers strewn across our house.

After all, my little Bean (yes, I've started calling her Bean instead of Peanut- apparently she is so deliciously cute that I can't stop nicknaming her after foods) deserves to have written accounts of how I love her so.

My Little Dinosaur

It's been over a week since I've posted last. I've been trying to formulate a cohesive theme this morning for a posting, and really, it's been a bit of a struggle. I'm frantically wrapping up a school year at the virtual school I work for, Jon has his new police job, and life just feels like a big blur. I had hoped that this weekend would be a time to relax, but instead it's been no different than the work week-- stress filled and hectic.

Rather than go on and on about how overwhelmed I'm feeling, I will share a humorous story about my sweet little peanut. She is going through the toddler phase of pretending to be various animals. Her favorite to be is a dinosaur. All I have to say is "Amelia, what does a dinosaur say?" To this, she replies "ROAR!!!!" It. Is. Hysterical. After we went to lunch Thursday with her papa for his birthday, we went shopping. She barked like a dog all through the store, and then when we got to the check out, the cashiers tried to talk to her, but she suddenly became bashful. In an attempt to get her to come out of her shell, I asked her to talk like a dinosaur, and she let out her characteristic loud roar. The check-out employees got a huge laugh out of it, and Amelia grinned proudly.

My daughter is so into these prehistoric creatures that it would appear that she is even dreaming of them. Yesterday we went for a walk before the heat of the day hit. I thought she has snoozing in her stroller, but suddenly I heard a sweet, softly spoken "Roar!" I laughed a bit, stopped the stroller, and peaked around the side to smile at my munchkin... she was out cold!

Oh, my silly little girl. She makes me smile when I get too busy to remember that life should be all about laughter and dinosaur sounds.

The Shortest Week Ever

I've been meaning to write this post all week. Where in the world did the last week of May go? I think that last weekend was probably the shortest 'long' weekend ever and this short work week went by in the blink of an eye.

Last weekend we were busy, busy, busy! We went to my friend's wedding. Isn't she beautiful? It's maybe the first wedding I've ever gotten misty eyed at:

Amelia was pretty good during the ceremony and really enjoyed the bubbles that were used to greet the newly wed couple:

We attended the reception, which I was concerned might be a tad tricky, considering that our babysitter for the evening had to cancel. Ever the creative mom, I changed into workout gear, put Amelia in the jogging stroller, and we took the dog for a walk between the ceremony and reception. Worked like a charm! Amelia took a good 30-40 minute snooze and we were at the reception from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. My little party girl never cried or whined once!

I had no plans for Sunday except to clean the house for the birthday party we were hosting for my husband and father on Memorial Day. I did go to church to help my cousin with Mr. Max while she taught Sunday school. I had baby cuddles all to myself for over an hour, which was good because I had little opportunity to steal him away from his grandmothers during the party the next day.

Tuesday brought a short work week and the opportunity to babysit Miss Bela, pictured below with Amelia. Isn't she adorable??? I have a lot of cute little ones in my life! She is the daughter of the lovely married couple above, and her mom, Anna, watches Amelia all the time. For work meetings, appointments, dates, she is always there for us and loves Amelia like she is her own daughter. Therefore, I insisted that she let me watch Bela for the evening so her and her new husband could have a date night. We had a lot of fun, as evidenced by the cheesy grins you see.

Then Wednesday we picked up our first bag of CSA veggies. I was happy to see that our local farmer's market has expanded this year. Amelia and I didn't have time to stroll around because I was late to meet a friend for dinner; however, I couldn't resist waiting in line for fresh strawberries from a local farm. This was our CSA bag before I unloaded it:

Below is after! (the berries weren't included but they were so beautiful that I couldn't resist putting them in the picture):

 We paid our entire CSA payment in the spring, but if you divide it up, each week of vegetables cost $16. For that price, we got a head of lettuce, spinach, green onions, radishes, bok choy, asparagus, snap peas, broccoli and a cucumber! It's all organic and so fresh that it still had dirt from the fields on it. Last night to celebrate my husband's first day of his new job, I made a pasta dish that included broccoli, spinach, green onions, and asparagus. My husband noted that it's the first time he's ever had spinach that actually tastes like spinach! I can't wait to see what's in our bag next week :)

To end for today, I couldn't resist an adorable naptime pic of my little peanut. She is still doing terrific in her crib. It's been 2.5 weeks since we've been laying her down there for naps and bedtime, and she's been sleeping all night for about the past week. Last night was a bit rough when she woke up at 4 a.m. screaming and crying, but I'm pretty sure the next molar is working it's way through. Who can sleep peacefully when you have a sharp object pushing through your gums anyways? Here's hoping she will sleep well tonight because I sure could use the extra rest!

Wrapped Around Her Finger?

I think it's safe to say that life in her house is back to it's semi-sane nature. Jon and I are getting along better, I haven't cried hard enough to make my eyes puffy since this weekend, Amelia slept well last night... I'm sure this will last about two days.

Anyways, last week I had a training for work that required me to be in the office for a couple days. When I have a good babysitter at the ready, I sometimes enjoy the break in routine. Mostly I enjoy being able to eat my lunch without having to feed another little person. Lucky for us, I did have a friend who was happy to entertain my little monkey all day, so off I went to work. And then she started texting me pictures like this:

And this:

I know, right?!? How cute is she??? The next day produced equal cuteness:

Of course, being absolutely adorable can be rather tiresome:

You may notice how her face is all squished up in many of these pictures. This is because my friend tells Amelia, "Say cheese!" and she does with much gusto, and this produces the look that you see above. I think it's hilarious.

By the time my training was over, I was quite ready to be back to working from home. It's probably a good thing that I had some separation to make my heart grow fonder of her because she promptly swung into a pre terrible two's stage. Everything is either hysterically funny:

Or makes her absolutely miserable. Yesterday when she was tired, she crawled underneath the dining room table and started sobbing. I didn't take a video of that, so you'll just have to take my word for it. When I was toddlered out last night, she crawled all over me and demanded full attention, to which I replied "When do you think Daddy will be home from work?" This morning she was smacking my leg and begging to be up on my lap within thirty minutes of waking up. To which I replied:

"Don't you want to go play with your daddy?"

To which he replied: "Daddy has to leave for work in fifteen minutes!"

I clarified that it would be perfectly acceptable for her to help him get ready rather than play together. Whatever will get her out of my hair, husband.

At least she still has one of us finding her irresistible:

(Almost) Back in the Groove

This was the post that I started earlier this week:

I've had it. Completely had it.


Little Miss Typhoid Mary, as I am officially now calling her, has given me her rash. I suppose it was inevitable. Luckily we still have some cream that was used to treat her and so now I am anxiously waiting to rinse all this crap off me in eight hours. It isn't as painful or itchy as I imagined, just annoying. And, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking there are worse things that could be happening to us right now.


Despite that, I've had it. I pretty much had a mommy temper tantrum this morning.


My husband listened patiently and promised me sushi as soon as we are well. He apologized profusely for needing to be gone the entire weekend to come due to work. He said all he could think of to get me to calm down and look at the sunny side of life.


Things will be sunny again, right?


Yes. Yes they will. I mean, they have to. Today marks a full week of dealing with fevers, rashes, body aches, doctors appointments, prescriptions, benadryl, tylenol, cancelled plans, whining, and meltdowns. Some have been Amelia's. Some have been my own.

Oh, motherhood. You are indeed a rollercoaster. I will also admit here that I am the mom in my cousin's post who was plotting to create a benadryl induced family nap.

Just admit it. You've thought about (or done!) it too!

We've both recovered from whatever crappy virus that we had and I'm now incredibly behind in housework. Sometime during this week our outfits consisted of maternity pajama pants for me and a red Christmas sweatshirt with rainbow striped pants for her. That was the day that I considered going to a thrift store and just buying us new wardrobes, but alas, I have rallied what's left of my energy after not sleeping for the past three nights (thank you, toddler teething) and done three loads of laundry. It all sits in basement, begging me to fold it.

And yet, here I sit, playing games on Facebook and drinking wine. The healing scabs on my face indicate that I've earned it.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again... Amelia's lucky she's cute, or I'd sell her to gypsies:

Ornery Little Thing

I've been marveling lately at the things toddlers learn that you really don't think about when you imagine how your child will develop. Here are some examples:

• Learning to walk backwards
• Walking on tiptoes and trying to jump
• Predicting what comes next- whenever I grap the diaper bag or put my shoes on now, she says 'Bye bye!'
• Fimding new body parts- yes, well, maybe not so terrific since it led to Poopocalypse 2012.
• Answering questions- any questions you ask her, the answer is 'No.'

I think that for the first year, everyone knows the timeline for standard developments, like sitting up, crawling, walking, but to me these other things just kind of pop up out of the blue. When she started walking backwards last week, she had the most amazed look on her face, like 'Hey, check me out, I can move the other direction without turning around!'

Yesterday, it seemed like everything that Amelia knows how to do converged into one string of ornery events. Let's start at the beginning.

In the morning, I decided that I was going to be lazy. Every time a break rolls around for me, I pack it full of get togethers and things to catch up on, then I end up being more exhausted than I was before I went on break. I spent the beginning of the day on the computer and knitting, while Amelia watched Sesame Street. A half hour later she walked over to me and handed me crumples of a purple crayon. Apparently, Mommy had forgotten she had let her color. I discovered she had eaten half the crayon, and she was sitting not ten feet away from me while doing so. It's a good things crayons are non-toxic.

A couple hours later, she decided that the crayon was not enough to satisfy her appetite, so she brought me her new economy size box of goldfish. This box is half the size that she is, and here she was, stumbling around after me with it in her arms, proclaiming, "More! More!!!"

Her goldfish are not the only thing she can reach on our lower shelves. She can also get to the dogs treats, which I often let her feed to the dog. While I was in the living room cleaning up a bit, she decided Molly must be hungry and retrieved the entire container of treats, opened it (don't ask me how because it has a latch on it), and sat next to the dog feeding her treat after treat. By the time I caught the gluttonous duo, Molly had consumed at least ten dog biscuits.

SIGH.

Although the above descriptions probably paint the portrait of a mommy with her head up her butt, I can assure you that I do supervise Amelia all day. These toddlers sure are tricky, aren't they?

The icing on the cake was when I had to scold Molly for eating Amelia's peanut butter sandwich from her hands. I felt a little bad for yelling at her since Amelia is just as guilty for feeding her all the time, but I had already told Molly to lay down and stay. Instead, she snuck away while I was preparing my own meal and attempted to devour Amelia's food. I was less than impressed and went on a tirade. When I was done, I huffed off and returned to what I was doing. Not a minute later, I hear Amelia saying "No! No!" I walk back into the dining room to find my daughter wagging her finger at Molly and scolding her. Monkey see, monkey do!

All of this really wears a girl out:

Note how she is still gripping her snack cup. I assume she is concerned that Molly will thief her cheerios while she sleeps :)

Poopocalypse 2012

We were really busy this weekend. From spending time with family, to planning our garden (OK, my husband's garden, I've gladly handed it over to him since I'm so busy working from home and taking care of Amelia), to visiting a close friend in the hospital, it felt like we were constantly on the run. So, Sunday morning I decided to leave Amelia with Jon while I took Molly to the college campus down the road for a walk. The start of the day was gorgeous, and it was nice to take a walk, just Molly and me. She was my constant companion pre-Amelia, running all my errands with me and often accompanying me to the houses of friends and family. These days it is too overwhelming to pack her and Amelia and the stroller, along with leash and diaper bag, so she's often stuck at home.

It was a great walk. I'm a two time alumni of the college, and they had done a lot of construction over the summer, so it was great to see all the new buildings and landscaping. Plus, I really exercised hard this week, so the walk loosened up all my tight and aching muscles.

Molly and I were finishing up our hour long walk when I received a picture message from Jon. Aww, I thought. It must be a cute picture of my little sweetie pie.

Instead, it was a picture of an overly full diaper.

Are you serious?!? My husband did not just text me a picture of a poopy diaper. It was so unexpected that I started giggling. I texted him back, "Uh oh, did we have a poo bomb? Better you than me!", and continued on my way.

Not much later, I received this text: "It's on the her and her clothes, the foot rest, toy box, tub, and Daddy."

Wait, what??? How did she get poo all over so many things? I was giggling so hard at this point that I was rather glad that the campus was fairly deserted.

When I arrived home, Jon was in a fairly worked up state, waving his hands around and describing how he hadn't even known at first that she had pooped, but when he did figure it out, he seemed to find evidence of this biological function all over the house.

You may be asking, how did it get all over so many things? Well, there are two parts of this. First, I try to make sure Amelia gets a fair amount of fiber in her diet. She is a great eater, but not so hot on veggies, so I am always inspecting food packages and trying to buy her treats and breads with a higher fiber content. Any mother knows that a constipated baby is an unhappy baby and therefore, I try to avoid that issue. Apparently, I'm doing a great job at making sure things are moving along for her! The second part of what I am now deeming as the "Poopocalypse of 2012" is that Amelia has discovered her butt crack:

Because she has found this part of her anatomy, she often sticks her fingers back there and pushes her diaper down, or in this case, makes a mess of whatever her diaper happens to contain.

And yes, I am definitely putting this picture in the "Items to show a future boyfriend" pile.

So there you have it. The events of Poopocalypse 2012, successfully managed by my dear husband. It's a good thing that I enjoyed that walk because he may never let me out of the house again!

Post Poopocalypse

**Psst.... did you catch me over on Curvy Girl Guide Friday? Here's the link!

Big Developments

A lot of big things have been happening in our home related to Amelia's development. The first has been her learning to say NO.

Initially, it seemed pretty useful. I attempted to hand her an apple slice, and she shook her head vigorously, saying ‘No, no, no!’ Wow, I thought. How nice is that? Now I’ll know for sure when she’s full.

It wasn’t even two days later that we were leaving the gym, and I said, as I do every day, “Time to go bye-bye, walk with Mama!” Instead, my peanut ran off in the other direction towards the heavy weight area, yelling “NO, NO, NO! BAAAALLLL….” with her arms outstretched towards the exercise balls. My mouth dropped as I said “Don’t you tell me no!” and grabbed her little wrist. You can imagine how enthused she was about this maneuver.

Frankly, in my mind I thought “Who in the hell do you think you are kid?!? You’re about twenty pounds, if I really want to, I’ll just toss you over my shoulder and put you where I want!” Then I thought, "Oh, great, here comes what everyone has been warning me about. The fierce toddler urge to be independent."

I knew it was coming at some point, but Amelia has reached such a nice point in her development and temperment. She can do things by herself, but there are no tantrums when I tell her the opposite of what she wants to hear. A week or two of her being able to disagree with me, and I can say it hasn't yet blown up into a constant NO fest.

The second big development has been this:

My big girl is finally starting to fall asleep on her own. In our house, this is HUGE news. Amelia has always been a cuddler and pretty dependent on Mama to go to sleep. In the early days she nursed to sleep, and she has NEVER been a fan of her crib. Even when she would be solidly out, I would lay her down in her crib and fourty five minutes she would be wailing away. At some point, I surrendered to co-sleeping, much to the disappointment and cringing of many friends and family. I had to make a choice for myself and Amelia. What would get us the most sleep and the least amount of frustration so I could enjoy her early days? Co-sleeping was the answer, but as someone who is not very assertive, it has been hard for me to constantly justify this parenting choice to others. I finally have gotten to the point where I simply say "We are doing what we feel is right for our family."


I'm not going to lie though. There have been times where I have been truly concerned that Amelia would be in school before she would sleep on her own. Frankly, I don't see what difference it makes, as long as we are all getting sleep, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to defend my sleeping choice for that long.


Part of me knew it was coming. She had stopped needing to be rocked a couple months ago and had wanted to just be cuddled in my lap. Then about a week ago she went to our bed and said "UP!", so I put her in and laid with her. Rather than snuggling me back, she thrashed back and forth for ten minutes until she passed out. A few days ago, we were approaching her nap time when I saw her climb into her toddler rocking chair and try to curl up in it. Since it is only big enough to sit in, it didn't work out all too well, and she immediately announced "STUCK!" and started whining. Since it appeared that she was trying to curl up for nap time, I figured that it was worth a shot and laid her down on the couch where she usually naps. Five minutes later, she was asleep.


I'm pretty sure that my family thinks I'm crazy, but this sleep development has been as emotional for me as when she finally learned to walk. It's hard to explain, but I think a lot of it is it just seems like a very 'big girl' thing for her to be doing. For nearly a year and a half, I've been nursing, rocking, or cuddling my peanut to sleep. Now she is going to sleep all on her own. It's really a very big deal in our house and this morning as I cuddled her in the wee hours, I enjoyed every moment, as if I were trying to soak in her snuggly love.


So now, as I dry my eyes due to my crying over this AGAIN, I leave you with a few recent pictures of my big girl:

Drawing at the library

Chillin' in her OSU onesie at my grandparents this weekend-- Go Bucks! :)

Picking dandelions with her Great Uncle Eric

Making a mess!

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Joyful Days

For the last two nights, as Amelia has passed out in my arms, I've looked at Jon and said:

"Can't we just keep her this little forever?"

Both times he has shook his head and told me no. Boys, you can never get them to play along when you need them to.

She has reached this sweet age where she still loves to cuddle me, but can walk across the parking lot while holding my hand and can tell me when she needs many things. She has not yet reached tantrum age, is silly and happy most of the day, and seems to learn new words every day. Yesterday, it was 'more':

This was taken at the park, where we decided to celebrate the warm weather with sandwiches eaten on a picnic bench, followed by play time on the jungle gym equipment and a stroll through the grass:

There is no other way that I would have rather spent my evening. Apparently Amelia was pretty excited about it too, because although I assumed all of the activity would inspire her to fall asleep on the drive home, she stayed awake. When we arrived home, she ran all over the house shrieking.

This is another reason to love parenthood-- you always have reminders that it's the simple things in life that we should get pure joy from. Things like loving on your dog:

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Outsmarted

I'm having a bit of a rough week. Nothing absolutely horrid, just a bit of disorganized, mixed with family health problems and a dash of hormones sprinkled on top. All I can say is TGIF.

To add to it, I'm beginning to think our toddler is smarter than us. Most days, I find it humorous. Other days, I wonder if this is going to be a situation of survival where if we have more children, they will outsmart us and make us live in the root cellar while they take over the house.

Case in point: our television. We decided to finally be all modern like this past summer and get a flat screen TV. We followed this up by getting a satellite dish because OMG I couldn't stand the same episode of Sid the Science Kid one more time! It's fabulous and I would totally pay twice the amount just for the DVR feature.

Satellite TV means a new remote, and this is something that Amelia, like many toddlers, cannot resist. Anything with buttons on it she's likely to swipe and run off with, giggling and pressing away. I'm totally shocked that she hasn't mistakenly ordered porn yet.

What she has figured out how to do is change the configuration of our screen. Within a week of getting satellite, she had changed it to 'normal', 'zoom', and 'stretch'. At random, and with much exasperation from her parents.

It took us three months to figure out how to do this. THREE.

We both tried many times to go through the menu and figure it out, and each attempt would end with us muttering swear words under our breath. Each time, we would have renewed hope that we would have the power to change our screen so people's faces wouldn't be cut off.

Each time we failed.

FINALLY this week, I looked at the remote one more time, deciding that surely she was not getting all the way into the menu and selecting the precise option to change the screen. It had to be a single button on the remote.

After glancing at the remote and pressing three or four random buttons, I saw it, at the bottom. 'Format'. I held my breath and pressed it.

SUCCESS.

I'm so smart.

Just not as smart as a toddler.

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Finally: Holiday Recap

I had briefly informed everyone that they would get to see pic's at some point of our holidays. The downside is that my camera is buried somewhere in the pile of clothes in my bedroom, so alas, you do not get to see 500 pictures of my toddler learning to rip open gifts. On the plus side, I'm sure many of you have grown tired of seeing such pics plastered all over facebook, and also, my phone pic's are much more interesting. So let's begin, shall we?

The Thursday before Christmas was last minute holiday craziness. My first day of 'vacation' from work was filled with list making, shopping, baking, and wrapping. Amelia and I left the house at 11:30 a.m. and didn't return until 4:30 p.m. She did excellent since she took a nice little nap in the car at some point, and it was a good reminder that I should be ever thankful that she is now a fun toddler rather than a colicky baby that has to remain strapped to my body to be happy. Hello, mommy freedom. Here she is kicked back in her stroller when we stopped at our local coffee shop to purchase a few gifts and relax before heading home:

I was crazy enough to try out a Christmas craft/gift that involved paint and baby feet. I imagined that this would be difficult due to the mess it would make. Little did I know that my daughter would be completely freaked out by the prospect of having paint on her feet. How I managed to make three of these pictures for her grandparents and great grandparents while she wailed and kicked her green feet around, I'll never know:

That gold blob at the top is supposed to be a star made with her hand, but she had it balled up in a fist of furry, so it is barely recognizable.

The next day, we headed down to my grandparents that live ninety minutes south of us. We stayed overnight and Miss Amelia got her first haul of toys, with two more yet to come at that point. We made it back to our home by 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, I yanked Amelia's clothes off and threw a beautiful red and black dress over her head, strapped her back in her car seat, and we headed off to Christmas Eve service. She was less than thrilled about being confined yet again, but was very pleasant and snuggly at church.

The next morning my husband prepared to go to his parents early while I took Molly for a Christmas morning walk:

It was a little chilly, but a lovely way to start the day. It was quiet and calm, and a great gift to a dog who is constantly stuck in the house with a rough and over exuberant toddler. I could barely get her to sit still for a picture:

We were supposed to be at my in-laws by 11:00 a.m., however, Amelia was sick and had other ideas:

Finally she woke up around noon and we headed off to my in-laws, then my parents. It was a nice day, but I was certainly ready to be home and kick my feet up to watch Christmas movies at the end of the day.

The rest of the week after Christmas was filled with cleaning and catching up with friends. On Tuesday, my dad and I headed to a local butcher shop about 30 minutes from my house to stock up on meat for our freezers. Amelia seemed not at all interested in this at first:

However, the foodie in her must have sensed something because she woke shortly after I snapped this picture and was ready for her grandpa to show her the ropes of picking out the best cuts of meat while Mommy filled the cart with good stuff:

Who knew a butcher shop could be so interesting?:

Honk your nose, steer!

Yes, I really stuck her into a cart of meat in order to get a cute picture.

You may be saying to yourself, yes, that's lovely, pictures of your baby by a meat case, but what did Amanda do for New Year's Eve? Well, I'll tell you. My husband made me Chinese food so I could sit on the couch and enjoy a drink. Then we played some video games together and cuddled on the couch watching TV while Amelia slept. We passed out by 10:30 p.m. and were woke up promptly at 12:30 a.m., bright and early in 2012 by our daughter's hacking cough. Such is the glamorous life of parents. Although when I reflected upon this the next morning, I actually stopped going out for NYE before I was even pregnant with Amelia. I like to throw back a few drinks, but staying up late has never really been my thing, nor is getting all dressed up. I'll take sweatpants and an early bedtime any day.

And so, this concludes the belated retelling of the holidays in our household. Stay tuned for my resolutions later this week!

Multiple Toddler Survival

This weekend, this happened at my house:

TWO toddlers in my house. That is my friend's son, Luke. He is six weeks younger than Amelia, and I managed to survive both of them for a whole 90 minutes. His parents have not been on a childless date since he was born, and I decided that this was insanity in the making. I can't have my mommy friends going insane, I need them around and with it so they keep me sane. You are probably asking yourself how it worked out.

Actually? I enjoyed it.

Don't get any ideas, Mom and Dad. It did not inspire any baby making at our house.

I did not admit the true weight of my anxiety about watching Luke to his mom because I didn't want it to add to her nervousness about leaving him. It wasn't because I didn't think I could handle him. Instead, I wanted him to have a tearless and fuss free time so his mom could feel comfortable with me babysitting him on a regular basis. Every mom needs a standby babysitter, and I am blessed enough to have mine. This mommy needs one too, and I wanted to keep Luke happy so that could happen.

You might be saying, well, couldn't you just lie if he had a hard time?

NO I couldn't. It's against the mommy honor code in my book.

I didn't need to worry about that, though, because he did great. I did learn that when he's adjusting, it's best to leave him alone. It never ceases to amaze me how different babies are from each other. If I leave Amelia with someone, they'd better cuddle and love her until she's decided that they are trustworthy, otherwise they are ousted from her loveable adults list. With Luke, the more attention I gave him, the more he stared at me like I was an oddball, which led to some brief tears five minutes later. I scooched up to the couch and left him alone, he found some toys to play with, and he was a happy boy. As long as I didn't sing 'Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes', that is. I knew I couldn't carry a tune, but I had no idea that it could make kids cry.

There goes my dreams of a singing career.

It took he and Amelia about an hour to really pay attention to each other. They are really cute when they play and his mother and I always joke that maybe they'll get married some day and we will have pic's of their lifetime together.

The other thing I learned was that it's almost impossible to get good pictures of two toddlers. These are the best that I could manage:

Amelia showing Luke how to best torture dog-dog.

Luke giving me the "What are YOU looking at?!" look.

Amelia too busy to cooperate for a good picture.

This one is my favorite. Luke kept trying to hold Amelia's hand and she was having none of it! Poor Luke.

Adorable! Looking forward to babysitting him again soon :)

Cruisin'

Some mornings, I am totally on fire with energy and ideas. Other mornings, not so much.

This is one of those not so much mornings.

However, it's been almost a week (GASP) since I've posted, and I'm super excited about this:

My little girl is finally pulling up by herself and cruising along the table and couch. For the past few weeks, she has only done this when she REALLY wants mommy and I won't bend over to pick her up right away, or she will pull herself up using us as her mountain when we are on the floor. She's a good mix of cautious and smart. She understands letting herself down on her butt, which she seemed determined to figure out with us as her security net before she would independently pull up.

Jon and I are pretty darned proud of her, as if she is the first human that ever learned to use her legs. We roll our eyes at each other when people say "You just wait, you're in trouble now!". As if we don't know that. A little bit of my eye roll includes the fact that, you people can say what you want, but nothing so far has been as bad as colic mixed with baby blues, and I doubt anything will be. Toddlerhood, teenage years, bring it on, as long as I don't have to hear her cry and scream inconsolably for three hours straight. Last year for Christmas I had to wear her in a carrier to wrap gifts and couldn't bake cookies because I had to hold her all the time. This year, I will have this:

My big girl <3