Now You Are Two

Dear Amelia,

Last Saturday you turned two years old. I was so excited to celebrate your birthday with you after being away for a two day conference. Your daddy had to work, but we went out to breakfast when he returned home from third shift in the morning. You had a cinnamon roll instead of cake, but were too hungry to wait for us to sing Happy Birthday before you ate it:

Mmm, cinnamon roll!

Opening your maraca- you also opened a Thomas the Train interactive book and a new outfit.

 
We also went to an indoor playland in the evening with our friends. You had a great time and were so excited to see Bela and play with all the new toys:

Vroom, vroom!

Playing with your friend, Bela.

This past year with you has been so very fun. Other parents warned me that toddlerhood could be very difficult due to the possibility of you running all over the place and getting into things. On the contrary, you were so cautious that I never had to worry about that. You are becoming somewhat stubborn and even more determined as you grow older, but you are always loving and give the best hugs.

Random things about you at the age of two:

• You like: Thomas the Train, Sesame Street, Bubble Guppies and pretty much any movie. 
• You tell me "Hit it, Mommy!" when you want me to put a movie in for you.
• Your taste buds are much like your daddy's- you like french fries, chips, and other salty foods, as well as burgers, pasta and popcorn. You aren't  a very big fan of vegetables but like lettuce and peas.
• Music seems to be something you are very interested in. We go to Musikgarten together every Monday, and you have a CD in the car that we listen to all the time. If I try to listen to regular music, you tell me "No, Mommy! Apples and bananas!", which is one of the songs you like the best.
• You are very good at building, stacking, and organizing. 
• We sleep together about 50% of the time, and I love your cuddles.
• You say 'please' and 'thank you' all the time, and I am so proud of you for having good manners. You usually say 'EXCUSE YOU' when you burp, but if you fart, you say "POOP!" and giggle. We have no idea where you got that from, but we find it hysterical and find it hard not to laugh along with you.

There are 500 more funny and loving things that I could say about you, but our family is coming over today to celebrate your second birthday. I love you more than life itself. Today you will open many gifts, but YOU are the greatest gift I've ever been given.

Love,
Mommy

There's No Place Like Home

The last time I posted, I mentioned that I was getting the hell out of here. While I continue to LOVE my job, I am discovering that the first few weeks of school are insanity. Last week I worked about six to eight hours more than I had to (no, I don't get overtime) and had the persistent feeling that I was drowning. Add to that a husband that has just changed shifts at work, leaving me feeling like I'm a single mom with a grumpy, unavailable roommate, and let's just say that things in our house have been stressful. Even Amelia seems to be impacted, as she has been starting some minor aggressive behavior-- towards Mommy only. Good. Times.

So clearly, life has been challenging lately. I know we will get past it and things will improve. My initial coping mechanism was to escape, so as I said, Amelia and I went on a little getaway a couple weeks ago. We went to a local waterpark/hotel with my friend, Anna, and her daughter, Bela. Amelia adores Bela, and will often follow in her footsteps (for better or worse-- let's just hope Bela doesn't rob a liquor store some day. I guarantee Amelia would be her co-conspirator.) I thought that if Bela enjoyed the water areas, Amelia surely would to.

Nope.

Amelia spent most of the time either sitting in my lap in the shallow end, uninterested in playing with any water toys, crying, or sitting next to Anna on the ledge of the pool. Much like an old lady. It was still fun in that we were able to spend time with good friends, but I wish that Amelia had enjoyed the main reason that we were there rather than having to work up courage to get within feet of the water.

Our lovely ladies, ready to head back home.

Last weekend, we packed up and attempted camping a second time. While it was fun overall and less anxiety producing for Amelia, the campground that we chose did not have nice boundaries like the first time we went camping. This led to a lot of me telling Amelia "No, don't go over there. No, don't get close to the road. Come back here, I can't see you when you are over there." Top that with some rain our first day, which made the majority of our site muddy (did I mention that we also have a large dog to watch and minimize the muddiness of?), and it just was not the grand picture of relaxation that I had painted in my head. As a result, we headed home after two days rather than staying the full three days that we had reserved.

Morning cartoons, camping style.

Molly enjoyed the camper-- please note that is MY bed, she was supposed to be sleeping on the lower section.

My little buckeye fan exploring a playground near the park.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the last two weekends, but I definitely have gained an appreciation for relaxing at home, where there are DVR'd cartoons for Amelia and boundaries that she is already familiar with. With working from home, I often think I need to physically get away to diffuse some stress, but clearly there are times where I am more at ease within the confines of our country home.

With that said, I have to say that this has been a nice weekend so far. We have enjoyed spending a lot of time at a local art festival, I made some treats for my husband's police department, and was able to make a nice dinner for him last night before his twelve hour shift. Apparently, all of this down time is making Amelia rather sleepy.

Zonked out at the art festival.

Here's hoping that all of my readers are having an equally relaxing weekend :)

The Great Escape

I don't know what happened to me last weekend, but I was super productive. I cleaned the majority of our house, including the bathroom, kitchen, coffee pot and disgusting area behind the coffee pot, microwave (inside and out), pulled weeds, washed, dried and put away a load of laundry, swept, and wrapped our spare change to put in Amelia's savings account... $37 worth. I also cleaned Amelia's room and then organized the spare room so I can start utilizing it as a craft room/office and complete projects like this more often:

My friend's wedding invitation and program are inside the ornament.

It was terrific that I could get all of this done because on Monday, Amelia started to seem a bit off. Fussy, poor appetite, impatient... something just didn't seem right. By Tuesday, she was throwing her morning milk up on me and sleeping a lot during the day:

We think it was either a little stomach bug or some sinus/allergy issues that were making her nauseous. This lasted all week- the week before students start at the online school I am a 12th grade guidance counselor for. You know what happens when you are a high school guidance counselor the week before classes start? You get several phone calls per day about schedules:

•  Why did you schedule me for this? (You need it to graduate.)
•  Why didn't you ask me what I want to take this year? (You were supposed to complete the scheduling survey in May.) 
• Why am I a junior this year and not a senior? (You keep failing all your classes, we don't just hand out diplomas out, OK?!?)

Did I mention that I had three cavities filled this week too?

Yes. It's been a super week. I have to get the hell out of here. And I am, with these lovely ladies:

Amelia and her BFF Bela at our local county fair.

Let's get this party started...

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!