Andrea's Pencil

never thought this would happen

2012-01-08T11:57:00.002-06:00

Once again, my blog has been neglected.

Two days after my last post, I got a positive pregnancy test. The pregnancy passed uneventfully for its first half. We discovered a marginal placenta previa at my 20-week ultrasound, and planned on checking it again in six to eight weeks.

That next check never happened.

My membranes ruptured at 23 weeks, and I was placed immediately on hospital bedrest. They were going to keep me pregnant as long as possible, with the ideal goal being 35 weeks, at which point they would induce. But at 25 weeks and 5 days, I went into unstoppable labor and my sweet baby Jonathan Gabriel was born by emergency c-section.

He lived 27 days.

I pumped during his time in the NICU, and he was able to take some of my milk, but then got an infection and had to stop all oral feeds. The effects of the infection were just too much for his little body to handle, and he lost his fight for life on Christmas Eve of 2011. We were heartbroken.

We are back into a new normal now. We will never stop grieving in our hearts, but will continue walking with God and thereby make it through the days, weeks, months and years to come. We will welcome another child if God chooses to bless us that way, but not now. Not this soon. Even if Jonathan had lived, we would not feel that our family was complete at only three children.

Tim is still at Schwan's. His route has been adjusted a few times and he is now only working nine days out of every two weeks instead of ten. We are happy that he now has every Saturday off. His sales are increasing, but very, very slowly. I've been able to grab a few more transcription contracts to help out, and plan on going back to work this week.

I'm also continuing to declutter. I had hoped to get it done before Jonathan got here, but with the surprise hospital bedrest, that didn't happen. But now that I'm not making daily trips up to the NICU, I have a little more time, so I'm trying to do a little bit every day.

I'm also going to declutter my body, too. For the first time in nearly six years, I'm neither pregnant nor nursing. It's hard to remember how to eat for one. A few people have recommended My Fitness Pal online to me, and I like it so far. My six-week follow-up appointment is tomorrow, and I'm going to ask the doctor then about exercise, since I've never had a surgical birth before. I have been feeling fine, though, so I should be good to go.

I'm also going to ask him if there was a reason for my water breaking so early, and if I can do anything in the future to try to reduce my risk of that happening, and what signs I can watch for to see if it would be more likely to happen again. I will no longer have a blissfully innocent pregnancy. And unlike early miscarriages, I won't even have a "safe week" that I can get to where I can feel confident that the rest of the 40 weeks will happen.

They might not.

But I love children and love being pregnant and if we are blessed with another pregnancy, I will be thankful for every day, every hour, that we have with that baby. Every moment is a gift.

losing it and gaining it

2011-06-20T17:03:00.002-05:00

Losing weight and gaining work, I mean.

Tim and I are starting week 7 of the Couch to 5K plan that I mentioned in my last post. We would be on week 8 now, but we each had separate setbacks causing us to re-do a week. We haven't lost any weight yet, but that is dietary, so we're going to try to eat healthier now, like if we want some ice cream, just do the recommended 1/2 cup serving size (it's TINY!) instead of a big bowlful, and try to do more veggies instead of chips, etc. The workouts are hard, but doable. My main problem is that with nearly any type of exercise I do, I get bored. I even try to do my routine while watching TV and even that doesn't help the time go faster, even if it's one of my favorite series.

In regards to gaining work, Tim's pay still is not increasing at the rate we originally hoped it would. He did have his super weeks and had a "bonus" of sorts during those weeks b/c of a few days with some super sales, but now he's back to normal, and normal isn't much more than nothing. It would be nice if a better job for him would fall out of the sky, but I don't think that will happen, so I've accepted that the transcription that I do needs to be a permanent fixture in our lives. I can handle that.

I just need to finish getting my routine in line and the apartment organized so that instead of putting out fires all day, I can actually feel like I'm accomplishing things. It's a long, slow process, but I just need to make time daily to do SOMETHING towards that end goal. It will be so worth it.

spring moves on, some progress on some projects

2011-05-07T16:31:00.002-05:00

Well, so much for my goal of wanting to blog at least every two weeks. Maybe I should write it on the calendar so I'll remember, or coordinate it with the Saturdays that Tim works (every other Saturday) or something.

Benjamin's continuing to add more words to his vocabulary, including "pray" and "amen." We are still doing elimination communication with him, and he's dry for almost every nap and while sleeping at night, now, and even stays dry while I take him to the kitchen for a drink of water first. He wakes up with a greater need to drink than a greater need to go potty, so I let him sip a bit first and then tend to his other needs. :) I don't have any high hopes of him being 100% potty trained early or anything, but it's been nice to have him go in the potty even on occasion, and hopefully when the time DOES come for him to be potty-independent, it will be a relatively smooth transition.

Lydia continues to read pretty much whatever she can get her hands on. Our trips to the library to refresh our supply of books are more and more frequent. Also, when Tim and I watch TV, we usually turn on the closed captioning so we can keep the volume low and don't bother the neighbors (or a sleeping Benjamin). And Lydia will occasionally read the closed captioning, too, or at least give a valiant effort. I got her a "preschool workbook" in her Easter basket this year and she's enjoyed going through that and learning how to follow instructions with a worksheet instead of just drawing whatever. She also had her first cut-and-paste experience and it went well. It didn't take her any time at all to learn how to use the scissors.

I did finally get some more done in decluttering. I still have to do the bathroom, my bedroom and my closet, but the kitchen, dining room and living room are about 95% done. It is a HUGE improvement over what it was before. Here are a couple of before/after pictures.

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

Play area/living room before:

Play area/living room after:

There is also a couch in the living room that was piled so high with yarn and coats and random stuff that you couldn't even really tell that there was a couch there. But now the couch only has pillows on it, and people can actually sit there. :) I don't want to relax too much because the bedroom and closet are going to be HUGE projects, but I feel a little more able to breathe now. I can sit in the living room or dining room and feel peace instead of getting stressed out because of the clutter.

Tim and I have started the Couch to 5K running plan this week. It builds up with gradually-increasing runs until you can run enough to run a 5K race straight through without walking. I was SUPER sore after the first workout, and the soreness lasted for three days, but I stretched properly after the other two workouts and feel better now. I'm looking forward to doing this program. I want to be able to play actively with my kids for longer than 10 minutes at a time before I get out of breath. And if I happen to lose a pound or two, then I won't complain. :)

Tim's sales at his job have not increased noticeably yet, and the backlog in my transcription is gone (so now I have to log in at just the right time to see if there is work available), but we are still making it. Just because I am a spreadsheet nerd, I started tracking Tim's sales, since he is on a 14-day rotation, so we could see if there were any trends on a particular day or not. So far, there haven't been, but he's only been on each new day for about 4-5 times, so it's still too early to really tell. He's been easily making the sales goals that the company has set for him each week, but those goals aren't quite high enough to be our personal sales goals. I believe the sales will still increase. He has a couple of "super weeks" coming up, and hopefully should have some great sales during that time.

march? it's march already?

2011-03-15T09:42:00.003-05:00

I'm still wondering what happened to February. I'm still keeping up on Facebook, but I will try to pop in here twice a month to make an update, maybe with pictures, maybe with videos, since there's really only so much that can be said in the 420-character limit that Facebook imposes on status updates.

Benjamin is walking all over the place now. He started walking slightly later than Lydia did (at 16 months instead of 15), but like her, he took only a very short time to go from 100% crawling to 100% walking. He is also talking quite a bit, saying "words" like amen, cup, diaper, potty, and banana.

He also had surgery a few days ago to remove the cyst under his eyebrow which had been there since birth. He looked great right after surgery (he woke up MAD but calmed down once we were in the car), but then over the following couple of days, his poor eye got bruised and swollen.

The swelling is gone now, but the bruising remains and is working its way out. I had no idea that eye surgery would cause that much bruising and swelling. He was such a trooper though and didn't let it slow him down at all.

The daily Bible devotional that someone passed along to me has been helpful. I have skipped a few days, but try to read every day during naptime, while it's quiet. And since the quarter is new, I've also gotten on the ball with doing Lydia's daily readings as well. I do hers with her at bedtime, in between her prayer and her other story.

She is turning into quite the reader herself, though, and I have to hold the Bible away from her while I read it, or else she will get distracted looking for words on the page that she knows instead of listening to the story. She loves going to the library and getting new books. Here she is reading one of them (and hubby and I had not read this one to her before this video at all - it was completely new to her).

And here she is reading some out of her children's Bible.

She is also into writing. She wrote this note for a friend of hers. It says, "Happy birthday to my friend Aaliyah and Lydia."

Since she's so into reading and writing, I am going to get her a dry-erase writing practice tablet for Easter, along with a fat preschool workbook that I'll do with her. The workbook also includes cutting and pasting, which she hasn't done at all, and coloring specific colors, which she hasn't done (she has colored freely, which is good, but I think it's time for her to also be able to follow instructions).

She continues to amaze me with the way her mind works and the things she says and does. I am part of an e-mail list for Christian ladies, where we take turns sharing some spiritual e-mails that we write. I wrote one when Benjamin was a newborn, outlining how we should be like a newborn, but then since then, I've been stuck on topics. I sent an e-mail to the organizer and she sent back some suggestions, one of which was to take some of the things that Lydia says and find a spiritual application for them. So I am doing that, and less than a week later, already have several ideas to outline.

I have gotten very, very little done on the decluttering front. It's just so hard to do with two little kids running around all day. I am trying to still do some every day, but sometimes a week goes by and I've done nothing, and the clutter grows during that time, which just further demotivates me. The last time we had people in our home was right after Benjamin was born, when people brought us some meals, and since I was newly postpartum, I had a reason for the mess. But before that, I can't remember the last time we had people over. I want to be able to have people over again, but not if walking through our apartment is going to be hazardous.

Hubby has taken it upon himself to lose some weight, and he's been making slow but sure progress in that arena. It helps that I pack his lunch every day now instead of him grabbing some random fast food wherever he's at (and this is also helping our checkbook as well). I, on the other hand, have gained weight and am now at my highest non-pregnant weight that I've ever been. I've been stress-eating and need to stop.

I mentioned some possible changes for hubby's job last time, and those changes have started this past week. And yes, it DOES mean a pay cut for us - and quite a substantial one. The company changed the commission structure and they pay a tiered commission on daily sales now instead of weekly sales. Overall, they pay out more commission now than before, but the base is significantly lower now as well. The pay cut will remain until hubby builds up his route. A couple of days are already built up to a good level, but others lack a good $500 in sales before it will meet our needs. And his new salary, by itself, is now not enough for us to live on.

We've cut our budget where we can, but I am stepping up working now as well. My play food sales are flatlining, but I am still doing transcription. The company that pays me better rates has actually been backed up for weeks. When I log in, there are pages and pages of jobs available, whereas before, sometimes I could log in and there be either nothing or just a job or two. So I've been taking advantage of this backlog (since I don't know how long it will last) and doing what I can to help make up the difference coming from hubby's lost pay.

So that working is part of the reason I've been absent on this blog and absent from doing decluttering, but other stuff keeping me from it is Facebook and other online things and various games and stuff. I just need to cut WAY WAY back on those things and concentrate on what's important - God and family.

a new year full of changes

2011-01-24T09:24:00.002-06:00

Apparently one of the major changes that I'm making this year is to stop writing in this blog, haha. No, really, I didn't intend to do that. But about two years ago, the hubby introduced me to Facebook, so I've been keeping up there more than here, with little one-liners of what's happening. But there's really nothing like a good blog post, so I made some time today to come back with some updates and some new info.

Benjamin turned one in October '10 with no big fanfare. I made the same type of cake for him that I did for Lydia's birthday, but he was not interested in eating it, or even touching it. Poor little guy was a little sleepy by that time, though, so I blame his lack of enthusiasm on being tired. He is very much into solids now, though, eating whatever we eat. He has three molars partway in, and the last one will break the skin any day now.

He is still not walking independently, nor does he really want to. He likes to cruise, though. He has been cruising since late September (although when he started out, it was more like grabbing randomly at the furniture and stomping his feet, and accidentally moving a couple of inches) and his favorite spot to cruise now is on my office chair. He'll hold onto it and walk around and around and around. I've given him a few haircuts, and it's hard to do that because he's very interested in the scissors and wants to turn around and look at them instead of being still, so usually I either have to be very fast, or have to wait until hubby can help me hold his head still.

I've been trying to sign with him and he did "drink" finally, and just in the past couple of days did "more," but those are the only two he's really done. I'm going to keep working with him though because he still doesn't say much, either. His first word was "cup" which he said at about 15 months old, and he can say "hair" as well (but he leaves off the H and the R so it sounds more like "aaah," lol). I'm still nursing him about 3-5 times a day. I'm also still "teaching him to read." In my last entry, I mentioned the YBCR videos, and we do watch those every so often, but I didn't follow the plan as instructed. I found the Doman method, though, and started that around the time of his first birthday. He loves looking at his words. And I put "teaching him to read" in quotes because maybe he'll learn to read with this, or maybe he won't, but the goal isn't to get him to read early - it's just to help build extra brain connections so that later in life, he will have an easier time learning whatever he wants to.

Lydia turned four in December and is great to have around. She's helpful to me and it's nice that she's getting to be so tall, because I can send her to get things for me that she couldn't have reached a year prior (like socks for Benjamin). She talks a ton. I'll share some of the interesting things she'd said later in this post. But speaking of reading, I've put aside the 100 Easy Lessons for her. They stopped being easy. I think she was too young for something so structured and rigid. So I started up the Doman method with her as well (and still show her the YBCR videos occasionally as well, when I want to show some to Benjamin). And I've also gotten better about reading to her. Every couple of months or so, I go out to the library and get a big stack of early reading books, then at bedtime, I have her go pick one out and read it to her (this was a new habit for me to get into, reading to her, because usually I would have just put her to bed). After I read her a book a couple of times, she starts to memorize it and/or recognize the words, and can read it most of the way by herself. She also plays with her foam letters in the bathtub and makes words that way, some real, some not so real, haha.

Re: reading my Bible more. This goal is still in progress (and always will be), but I shared some struggles that I've been having in this area in my current season in life with a friend of mine, and she passed along a daily devotional book to me that I've been finding helpful. It really is just what I need - something daily and directed. So often, I may sit down to read but not have any plan, and not have any idea what to read on that particular day. So having something that already tells me what to read is helpful. I still need to work harder on doing Lydia's Bible lessons with her, though.

Re: saving for a house. The house is not happening this spring. :( We looked into renting a house (just to get out of this tiny apartment), but even that would be more than we can afford right now. I am still doing transcription, but one of my jobs lost their big contract, so that cut down my typing opportunities. I am still making play food (and other items) to sell, though, and finally stocked my Etsy store, and also continually update my Facebook Fan Page.

Re: housework. Since we are going to be in this apartment for a while, I finally lit a fire under myself to do some massive decluttering. I've done a little bit so far, but there is still a ton of work left to do. I try to do something every day, even if it's just something tiny like removing the unneeded items from a single drawer. My end goal to have everything done is May-ish. Hubby is also attempting to get in shape by May as well.

Re: exercising. I took a break from walking outside for the winter, but haven't done any additional exercises. I need to make time to do even the 1-mile walking video that we have, since that would probably be better than nothing. Lydia probably would enjoy doing it with me.

Hubby is still working at Schwan's. Some big changes are coming to it, though, which he'll find out more about on Thursday. It could end up meaning a pay cut for us, though, if he doesn't continue building his route appropriately. But he's gotten a fire lit under him as well and had a decent day on Saturday, doing some route-building. Two weeks ago, he also applied for Safety-Kleen (where my brother-in-law works, but he works up in Utah), but the only thing we've heard from there is that they've received our application. As each day passes with no further contact from them, I keep thinking that that is not the right path for us.

Now, here are just a few of the hilarious things that Lydia has done/said:

8/1/09 - I opened a can of biscuits this morning and arranged them on a baking stone. Then I turned my back briefly to wash off the "essence of biscuit." When I turned back around, I saw that Lydia had made off with one of the raw biscuits and taken a bite out of it. And she liked it.

9/24/09 - Benjamin wasn't due until 10/5, but this was at the "any time now" phase. I asked Lydia if she thought the baby would come in September or October. She said, "October. Just a little bitty October, okay?"

11/19/09 - I was checking Lydia's emerging molars, and she asked me what's in her mouth. I told her "teeth" and then she said, "My teeth are growing up." Meanwhile, Benjamin spit up a tiny bit while he was laying around, and Lydia said that he "spilled."

1/23/10 - Tim (while eating trail mix): "Here, Lydia. Try a Craisin."
Lydia: "Mmm. Can I have another crazy one?"

3/2/10 - You know the song "If You're Happy and You Know It." You also know the song "Oh Be Careful." Lydia combined the two, and was singing, "Oh, be careful little Amen what you do." She then followed that verse up with "Oh be careful little claps what you do" and "Oh be careful little stomps what you do."

4/29/10 - "That's the screamer, see? That's where the sound comes out, right there." We were at the mall and Lydia was talking about a speaker in the ceiling.

5/25/10 - I went to get Lydia out of her room (she had not slept at all) and found that she gained some weight during her naptime. She'd opened up her dresser and donned 4 shirts - 3 long-sleeve and one short-sleeve - all at once.

7/24/10 - Sometimes I bring Lydia on my early-morning walks. She likes to look at the roly polies (or pill bugs) with great interest. But if I suggest that she hold one so it can tickle her hand, she is all "no, thank you." She's afraid of them. On our walk yesterday, she found one and I picked it up and asked her again if she would like to hold it. She said no, and walked a few steps ahead of me. I knew she wouldn't change her mind, so I tossed it into the grass (which Lydia did not see me do). Lydia walked a few more steps and then stopped and looked at me and said, "Can you put it down?" I guess she wanted to make sure I wouldn't sneak up with it and trick her into holding it, lol.

7/28/10 - I've been teaching Lydia to say "excuse me" if someone is blocking her path. Just now, she said, "Excuse me. I have to get in your way." Um, not quite the lesson objective that I had in mind.

8/18/10 - 8/18 - Lydia noticed tonight that my phone shows a picture of my mom (who the grandkids call Rae Rae) when in a call with her. We were coming in after church tonight, and I had a bag of clothes for Benjamin with me. Lydia looked at Rae Rae on the phone, then at the bag of clothes. Then she held the phone over the bag and told Rae Rae to "Look!"

10/5/10 - We were at the store. I was looking at the dry-erase markers and Lydia was looking at the pencils. Then she takes a pack of them off the rack and turns around and says, "Here you go!" and offers them to a random customer who was walking by, lol.

11/8/10 - I was teasing Lydia while filling up her milk cup. First I said that the pitcher of water was milk. She said, "No, that's water." Then I grabbed out a little baggie of coffee grounds. She said, "No, that's ... that's ... that's dirt for coffee." LOL

12/2/10 - Lydia's first Bible reading of the new quarter is Exodus 1. I got about halfway through verse 2 when she suddenly interrupted me and then went on to name the rest of the 12 tribes of Israel by herself, lol.

Here are a few pictures and videos:

What do you MEAN the food is gone already?

Expressive Benjamin

Lydia reads Eddie the Racoon

Lydia crochets some "sausage" balls

sticking to things

2010-09-09T20:48:00.002-05:00

I'm either nine months late or four months early for New Year's resolutions, but now is as good a day as any and there's no time like the present and yadda yadda. I have a lot of things that I need/want to stick to, that I'm having trouble with. So here they are, in no particular order.

1. Reading my Bible. There is always room for improvement here, but right now, there is a LOT of room for improvement for me. I don't know how I slipped out of the habit. I used to read some every day, before breakfast even. I need to get back into it. I am full of turmoil about certain things and need His peace and instruction and wisdom to fill me up to overflowing.

2. Transcribing. Hubby and I talked to a realtor briefly a few days ago, and found out that the "good" news is that it is possible to buy a house with only 3.5% down (plus closing costs). That amount is a doable goal to save between now and next spring/summer. The bad news is that it will take diligence on my part, since most of that savings will be coming from my transcription while we live on just hubby's income. The problem is that I will sit down to do a 10-minute file (which should only take me 30-40 minutes) and I'll do two minutes then check my email. Then I'll do another two minutes and pop on Facebook. Then I'll do another 90 seconds and go grab a snack. And the work easily turns into an hour or more, but if I just sat and did it start to finish, it would take no time at all and I'd be done and could move on to another file or to housework or whatever.

3. Housework. I need to continue getting organized. I have spaces and stuff and stuff that needs to go and stuff that needs a space. I can sometimes think in my head what needs to be done, but then it can't be done when I think about it because it's too big a task or the kids are in bed and it involves leaving the house or this or that or the other. What I really need to do is just take 20 minutes and walk through the house, looking in all the cabinets and closets, and make a list of everything that needs to be done and set up a timeframe in which to do it. Because really, the things need to be done in a certain order, so I need to get to it and figure out in what order the things need to be done, then I can actually DO them.

4. Teaching the children. This is both for their Bible work and the secular work. Lydia has a daily Bible reading for her class, and a memory verse. I usually remember to do her items about an hour after she's in bed for the night. I need to do it earlier, maybe after I do her reading lesson. I am still going through the 100 Easy Lessons book, but only doing a lesson for 15 minutes at a time, then starting the same lesson the next day. She was starting to take up to 45 minutes just to do part of one lesson (leaving off the second story reading, and the writing) and it was stressing me out. So now I just do 15 minutes. And I am teaching Benjamin, too. I'm trying to be observant of him and what he's looking at and thinking, and help expand on his thoughts. I also finally put into use the Your Baby Can Read set that hubby's mom got us shortly after Benjamin was born.

I had tried using that with Lydia when she was about six months old, but it didn't "work" for her. I was excited about it at the time and it might have had results if I had continued the program, but we ended up moving about a month later and then had the start of our long spell of spotty employment four months after that, and doing a baby-reading program just wasn't very high of a priority.

But anyway, earlier this week, I finally took the items out of the package that hubby's mom had got for us. It ended up being the "Deluxe" kit. So not only did we have the five DVDs, but we also had a book for each DVD, a set of sliding cards for each DVD, a big set of flash cards, and a few other things. This kit also included an extensive "Parent's Guide" booklet and DVD. I read the booklet and watched the DVD. There are a LOT of less-than-stellar reviews of this product and a lot of naysayers ("Why would you want your baby to read early?" etc.), but the booklet and the DVD addressed so many of those common concerns.

I don't force Benjamin to sit and watch the DVD. Sometimes he wants to stand, instead. Ha, ha. That was my lame attempt at a joke, there. But seriously, he seems to like it. I sit and watch it with him and do the actions (lift arms, touch nose, things like that). And he loves the extras in the kit, too. This evening when I was showing him the sliding cards (these cards have a word on them, then they "slide open" to reveal a picture illustrating the word), he would start to squeal in anticipation of the picture being revealed.

The recommended schedule would take seven months from start to finish, but the booklet said that an older baby may be able to start recognizing the words before the "scheduled end" of the DVD viewing time. It told me of things to watch for to see if that is happening, and if it does, then I can move on to the next DVD early. I don't anticipate being able to do this with Benjamin, but I can see how it could happen with an older toddler. Lydia can already read most of the words on the first DVD. I'm sure that the 100 Easy Lessons that we've completed have helped her with that, but we haven't even been watching the DVDs for a full week yet, and she can already read the words on there. I can't advance to the next DVD for her, though, until Benjamin is ready, so I think that these DVDs and the 100 Easy Lessons will be a good complement to each other.

The program creator's own daughter was on the parent's DVD for part of a Q&A session with some people who were using the program. And I think it's sort of like a weight-loss ad, where such and such a person lost 50 pounds in two weeks and then the fine print says "Results not typical." I don't think that Aleka's results are typical, but if my kids can read a portion of how well she could, then I will be happy. And she didn't just read well over her grade level. She read FAST. It came out in the DVD that she read the entire Harry Potter series -- the whole SERIES -- in ONE day. I consider myself a pretty fast reader, but there's no way I could do THAT. And because she read so fast, she had a ton of time to do other things besides read and study.

5. Exercise. For a few months, I have been meeting up with another babywearing mama three times a week to go walking with her. I need to keep it up. I feel a little better on the days that I do it (but tired, since I get up earlier than normal so I can walk and be home by the time hubby goes to work). But if one or both of us need to cancel for whatever reason, I need to make sure to still get some activity in on my own. We have a set of Walk Away The Pounds DVDs that hubby likes to do sometimes, so I may do that on my "off" days.

august is gone

2010-09-01T16:11:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure what happened to August, but I managed to let it slip by without any blog post at all. I blame Facebook. It's hard to sit down and write a big ol' blog entry, but so easy to do a quick status update.

Anyway. Benjamin's eczema is doing MUCH better. I picked up his fourth homeopathic remedy to try on 7/28, and by 8/11, he was better. It was only a slight improvement, but it was noticeable. He continued to improve over the next several days.

Before:

After (and this is his "bad" side):

His skin didn't clear up totally, though, and started getting worse again, so I gave him a second dose this past Sunday. The remedy he's on is a slow-acting one, so I'm watching it for improvement. I also had been off dairy, but went back on it about 8/1 because of being out of town. I had my doubts that it was dairy causing his eczema anyway, and I'm even more sure that dairy's not a culprit because while on this remedy, his eczema improved, despite me being back ON dairy (after being off for nearly six weeks).

I am still practicing part-time elimination communication with him. He is doing really well with it and on days where I offer the potty enough, he will hold it and wait for me to offer again. I don't expect him to be potty trained early or anything (far from it, given my struggles with Lydia, lol), but I just want to let him keep the idea in his head that a potty is an option. And this one day, I was letting him go potty, and Lydia came in and watched him and then tried to make the sign for "toilet" at him. She stuck her thumb between her fingers, made a fist, then shook it at Benjamin and said, "Potty! Potty! Potty!" It was so cute.

Lydia, on the other hand, had a ton of accidents around the trip, which is understandable. It was kind of ironic, though. I hadn't packed any Pull-ups for her, on purpose, b/c she did so well on the trip to Oklahoma. Well, the first two nights were disasters. So on the third night (and for the rest of her trip) I put her in Pull-ups. And of course, those were dry in the morning, lol. Then when we got back home, I put her back in undies, and was rewarded by a wet bed again for two nights. But now she is back to normal and is doing great.

Speaking of our trip, I do have several pictures from it, but first I'd like to talk about Lydia's reading again. I had dropped off the 100 Easy Lessons because of scheduling conflicts and the trip and everything, and tried to pick it back up again on Saturday. The "easy" lessons (we're in the 60s somewhere) are turning into long and hard ones. So what I'm doing now is setting the timer for 15 minutes and then if she's not done with the lesson, I put the lesson away and we'll do more of it the next day. Then I pick out a book and read her a story. I am a bad mom b/c I haven't been reading to her like I should. She needs that from me.

Anyway, on to the trip pictures. Here's Lydia with my Granny and Grandpa.

Lydia with her new outfit from Rae Rae (my mom) (and the funny thing about this outfit is that the hat and jumper came from two different places... but doesn't it match perfectly?):

Lydia in an Oklahoma wheat field sunset:

Water babies:

I'm still slowly working on getting organized. I moved some small furniture around and threw out some large boxes so far, and can now move on to some small things. A few immediate items are to clean out the bins in the "window" between the kitchen and dining room, organize the pantry, and go through the paperwork box. I hope to get those accomplished this week, amid transcription and a play food order.

Benjamin is crawling. He is now doing a proper hands-and-knees alternating crawl, but this video shows his early attempts. He seemed to just move whatever limb he was thinking about, lol. And even now, when he gets excited, he will forget about his legs and try to crawl just with his arms, which just gets him to a belly flop. :p He is also learning what "don't touch" and "come to mama" mean. I especially figure that the latter is easier to teach him now, when he actually WANTS to be with me. And "don't touch" is taught by a lot of repetition. He gets mad at me, but after about 10-15 tries and being told "no" and being removed from the item, he gives up and finds something else to do. Then 10-20 minutes later, he tries again. haha. But I will persevere and prevail. On the teeth front, he still just has those 6 teeth that he got months ago, with no more looming on the horizon yet. He is finally mostly sleeping through the night again, only waking up once most times (which is MUCH better than the 5-6 times per night he was doing in late July). He can "talk" a little bit. I think he's said "all done" before, when he was on the potty, and after he was, you know, all done. lol. He only did it a couple of times, though, and hasn't really said anything else (not even "mama" or anything). Anyway here is his video. :)

And here is Lydia, enjoying a... "drum" lol:

nine month stats and high school memories

2010-07-24T22:11:00.003-05:00

Phew, I just managed to eke out another entry for July. Go me, haha. I might be able to squeeze another one in next week, depending on how busy things get. I barely find time for all the stuff I "need" to do, and then blogging is just extra.

Anyway. Well, after all that whining about potty training in my last post, I now can't remember the last major accident that she's had. She is really doing great, even for #2s and everything. And last night, she asked if she could wear undies to bed instead of a Pull-up and I asked her if she was going to keep the bed dry, and she said yes, so I gave it a try (she'd already been in undies for naps for quite a while with no incidents). She woke up dry. So we're trying it again tonight, too. I hope I don't jinx myself by saying that it's done, haha.

I'm still doing elimination communication with Benjamin, too, still very part-time. He's still not a whole lot closer to crawling than earlier this month, but he will very rarely get up on his hands and knees, briefly. And he is a GREAT sitter, now. I can set him down, and sometimes he'll stay just like that for an hour or more. But if I lay him down, he will roll all over the place. We had his nine-month appointment this month and he is 27" long (but I think he might be a smidgen longer) and he weighs 15 pounds and 14 ounces. The weight gain is quite a bit from the last time he was in the office. He's still quite the peanut, but it's apparent that I make tiny babies.

Some of the busy-ness that I mentioned earlier is because I am trying to get the apartment cleaned out of random stuff that we just plain don't need anymore. Papers will be the most challenging thing to go through, I think. I am a saver and a hoarder, lol. But there are a few small pieces of furniture that I want to move around to hopefully make the whole place a bit more organized, so we can start having people over again without them feeling like they've walked into clutter city. It's hard, though, because I have all these big ideas but then no time between all the other normal stuff like the kids and the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry and the transcription (and the blogging, haha). I have started getting up early 3 days/week and going walking w/ a friend (and B, but leaving Lydia at home) and those days feel more productive to me overall.

We went to hubby's high school reunion last weekend. It wasn't a huge turnout, but the two people he wanted to come, came, so we got to see them and then a few other people. There was a short meet-and-greet at the school on Friday night, then a BBQ lunch on Saturday and a fancy dinner Saturday night. At the lunch, they had rented a bounce house. Lydia went in there for all of about 30 seconds before getting terrified and wanting out. She's also scared of the roly polies (or pill bugs) on my morning walk that I sometimes take her on. She'll sit and watch one all day long, but if I suggest she hold it, she gets terrified. I don't know how I ended up with such a fearful child. I wonder if she'll grow out of it at some point.

Hubby wants to teach a Bible class up at church at some point, too - but not the adult class. He wants to teach the middle schoolers. The class slots are assigned several quarters in advance, so he's already thinking about who he wants to ask to teach with him.

And here are another couple of videos. This first one is just Lydia being three, lol. It's pretty typical of how she acts all day. ALL day, lol. As a matter of fact, she's actually quite calm in this video.

And here's B laughing at me when I go up and down. It took me a bit to get his attention away from the camera, but the wait is worth it. :p

books and bathrooms

2010-07-06T20:30:00.003-05:00

Hm. I really need to get better at this blogging thing. One post a month does not make a very updated blog, lol. Anyway here is my first -- but hopefully not last -- entry for July.

I've been feeling a little down on myself lately. Fun events have happened, but they were events that I didn't get to go to. My schedule was open. It was an event that I would have greatly enjoyed. But I wasn't invited (and usually the hosts were people who I thought were closer friends than I guess they really are). I only found out about these events later, when the pictures or a mention of it was posted on Facebook or something. It's hard to just suck it up and move on, but that is what I need to do. There ARE people out there who love me for who I am, and I can't be invited to everything. It does still sting a little when I hear of yet another event that went on without me, though.

Lydia is doing well. I've actually started homeschooling her. :) There is a book out there that Tim's sister gave us called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I started it with her a couple of months ago, and she really likes it and caught on pretty fast. It's really a great book and I've heard lots of good things from others who have used it on their children. Here's a little video of it in action:

But as well as she's doing with that, she's still not doing so well with potty training. She still has about 3-4 #2 accidents a week. I don't know what else to do with her. I can't find any pattern as to what causes them. Sometimes it's when she's busy playing, but that's not the case for all of them. I'm really at my wit's end with it. What makes it worse is that she has absolutely no qualms at all about going in the potty. She'll try if I ask her to and will almost always go (and we're still talking #2s here). I feel like I almost need to remind her ever half an hour or so, as if we were in the beginning of potty training instead of near the end.

Benjamin, however, is doing well with his "potty training." I'm able to let him "sit" on the big potty now (without a seat insert), so that definitely makes the cleanup easier, since I don't have to dump out and clean the small potty each time. I still offer just based on timing, but there are some really good days where I only use like 3 diapers all day long. If this continues to go well, I may get him some tiny undies for his first birthday. Having those would definitely make going potty in public a LOT easier than it is with a pinned diaper.

I did go off dairy and have been off it for about 3 weeks now. I had worse cravings this time than I did last time. But I am introducing some goat's milk and some raw cheese, and both of those seem to be tolerable. Benjamin was also extra fussy right after I went off dairy, but that fussiness ended up being caused by his teeth... he was working on numbers 5 and 6. He's really starting to get quite the toothy grin. :)

He's also increasingly mobile. Still not crawling, but he's getting closer. I'm guessing that he'll at least be army crawling by the end of this month. He can almost get up on his hands and knees. He sort of does it w/ a "straight" bottom, like if he is doing girly-style push-ups.

Another book that I've been reading is "Raising Your Spirited Child." I don't think Lydia is "spirited" per se, but she does have some of those characteristics. I'm taking that book and hopefully finding a bit of meat, then I can spit out the bones. But anyway, there was a chapter about introverts and extroverts, and that chapter was helpful to my relationship with Tim of all things. See, he is the poster child for extroverts, and my picture is in the dictionary next to introvert. That chapter explained a lot for both of us, and we kind of know better how to relate to each other now.

off dairy again

2010-06-18T22:25:00.002-05:00

I emailed B's homeopath a few days ago, since she wanted to hear from us about two weeks after I gave him the remedy. His eczema had cleared up some, but it came back, so she had me give him another dose and also suggested that I go off dairy again, this time for six weeks. Tim's high school reunion is in 4 weeks, so that weekend should be pretty interesting as far as meals go. I went through pretty severe withdrawals the first couple of days, but seem to be feeling a little better now. I'm a little nervous about getting all my calories, though, since dairy was a huge part of my diet. A lot of what I ate either was dairy itself or it had dairy in it. I picked up some almond milk and some soy ice cream. So far the almond milk seems fine (not sure if I like the unsweetened one or not, I may try coconut milk next time) but the soy ice cream made me feel a little nauseous afterward. I'm not holding out a ton of hope on dairy being his trigger since I did try it previously. He is showing some improvement, but that could just be the next dose of remedy doing its work, and not the dairy at all.

Not a whole lot else going on. I am finding it hard to keep on top of my chores, especially laundry. I keep saying that I will fold the clothes after "just one more load." But then while that load is washing and drying and being put away, another dirty load seems to just appear out of nowhere. Part of my problem is that I am still doing some transcription and have tried to do a little extra to help with B's medical bills from his recent tests, and for his visit to the homeopath. Plus, we need to gather together a few funds so that we have a small lump some so we can possibly go shopping for a large item next spring.

growing and playing

2010-05-27T21:02:00.002-05:00

Benjamin is gaining weight appropriately. His doctor did end up sending him for some blood tests (slightly elevated liver enzymes) and a liver ultrasound (normal). The on-site lactation consultant also asked me if I was getting enough calories. I was not, and after a week of counting my calories, he gained nearly 6 ounces. He is still gaining and today is right at 15 pounds. I'll be going in for roughly biweekly weight checks until his 9-month appointment later this summer.

I am still practicing elimination communication with him, and it is going well. I still can't tell at all when he needs to go, so I've just been doing it on timing. We went through a couple of phases where our communication seemed to be off, so I took brief breaks here and there. But so far, this week has been pretty good. I've even had my first #2 catch(es) since he was an infant. I'm so glad I kept doing it and didn't just give up altogether.

His eczema, on the other hand, not so great. It's still just as bad as it's always been. And just when I think I've found out which food it was that was causing it, his face gets worse, even before I re-introduce the potentially offending food. We did go ahead and go see a homeopath on the 19th, and she sent us home w/ a remedy that I will give him on Monday, then give it several weeks to see what affect it'll have. Meanwhile, a friend gave us a referral to a pediatric allergist so I may make an appointment to get a blood test for him, just to see if he is allergic to something that I can control.

And now if you made it this far, here are a couple of videos for your enjoyment.

Lydia decided to dress Benjamin up in her princess outfit. He liked it.

Here she is, teaching him a Bible class song until she saw me filming her, lol.

And you know how those sauce packets from a particular fast-food Mexican restaurant have cute and corny sayings on them? Here she is, "reading" them.

trying to heal my baby

2010-04-24T11:31:00.002-05:00

Hm. My "dashboard" on here says that I made a post on March 31, but I can't find it now, so I guess I'll just start from here and give an update.

Lydia is doing so great with her potty training. She's even dry most nights now, too, but does still have the occasional accident. She takes herself to the potty and wipes and everything (but of course still needs help w/ #2s). It'll be interesting to see how she does on a 6.5-hour road trip next week.

Tim's job is going awesome. He had enough sales to "qualify" his own route and finally got his raise. :D He is really doing awesome and totally loves his work.

My work is also going fine. I'm still transcribing and also still making play food every now and then. I had two orders this month, one from someone I did know, and one from a total stranger. I'm still in the middle of the order from the stranger, but between that and transcribing and the children and everything else, I am definitely keeping busy.

B had his 6-month appointment a couple of weeks ago, and he only gained two ounces since his 4-month appointment. I am not concerned about my supply and have sort of been suspicious of reflux all along, so he is now on some reflux medication, and has been for just over a week. It seems to be helping. I also took him to a chiropractor on Thursday, who looked at his head and noticed it was slightly crooked, so she loosened his skull so that he could grow into it evenly. She also showed me a massage for his belly to help pull his stomach down into his abdomen instead of letting it be stuck up under his ribs. I don't know if I'm doing it right, though, b/c I can't find the "gap" that is supposed to be there when his stomach is in the proper spot.

She gave me some probiotics to start taking, and also recommended that I go see a homeopath. She noticed his eczema and so we talked a lot about that, and she thinks that it is food-related, but she also thinks that the homeopath can help me with that. So I am going to call her next week and hopefully be able to see her shortly after I return to town.

Benjamin really is a happy baby overall, though. He can finally roll both ways, though like his sister, he did it from back to front first. He can babble the "B" sound. He is smiley and talkative and usually in a good mood (which is part of what makes me doubt that he has reflux, but he did have several other symptoms, like refusal to eat and sour-smelling spit-up). I just want him to be as healthy as he can be. I have been praying to God to heal his eczema and/or show me how to help Benjamin heal, and right now, I think that a visit to the homeopath is the answer that He is giving us right now. She is also a nutritionist so she might have some words to share with me in that regard as well. I know that I did say in an earlier post that the saga was ending, but the comments that people keep saying to me are painful (even when they say "oh it looks like his skin is clearing up." Because yeah, maybe it's clearing up right at that moment... but maybe an hour later it'll be flared up again). He needs more help than I can give him by myself right now.

the next big thing

2010-02-16T20:40:00.004-06:00

My three big waits are over. Baby has arrived, hubby has a job, and Lydia is potty trained. I don't know what the "next big thing" is now. Just, life. Day-to-day stuff. Chores. There's nothing huge to wait for anymore. I am content.

For Lydia's potty training, I changed my approach at the end. I gave her tiny presents to unwrap if she did #2 in the potty. If she did #2 in her pants, I cleaned her up w/o any words at all (previously, I am embarrassed to say that I would sometimes lose it and yell in frustration). A few days of this, and she decided that #2s went in the potty. Then, one evening, she went to the potty all by herself, w/o me reminding her. And that was that. She's had a couple of accidents since then, but she is daytime trained, for naps and everything. Night-training could happen in a week or it could happen in a year or more. I'm not stressed about that at all.

Benjamin's "potty training" is going well, too. We have our phases that we go through were sometimes we're in tune with each other and other times we're not, but the past few days have been pretty good. It's a little easier overall now that he's bigger, and can sit by himself on the little potty w/ me helping him a little.

Tim's job is still going fine. There is someone up there who is leaving, and starting yesterday, that person took Tim out on his route so that he could introduce Tim to his customers... as his replacement. :) Yes, after over four months of "training," Tim is finally getting his own route. We are pretty excited about this.

My work is going fine, too. I'm still transcribing for two companies and love the flexible schedule. I also make play food and a few other crocheted items every now and then, when people want it, but it's not my "main thing" like I'd hoped it would be when I first started it.

I've gone through a partial purge here, w/ some clothes and toys and stuff. The half of the living room that doubles as Lydia's play area had previously been massively cluttered w/ random books and toys there. Nothing had a place of its own. I think that the purge has affected Lydia's attitude, for the better. She just seems "easier" seemingly overnight. It's hard to put the change into words, but it's there, definitely.

We had Benjamin's 4-month visit yesterday and he is 13 lbs 12 oz and 26" long and his head is 17" around. I did ask his doctor about his facial issues, and she thought it might be eczema. She said that, if I wanted, I could put straight Vaseline on it and also occasional hydrocortisone, but that she wouldn't do any more than that at this time. I also told her that I cut dairy out of my diet, and she said that I could continue that as well. The first time I cut it out, after about 11-12 days, he started to get better. Then I ate some cheese and sour cream, and he got worse again within hours. I'm now on day 10 of stopping dairy again and am seeing a very slight improvement.

Now I'm at the end of this post. I guess the next big thing will be home ownership, but that's too far away to even have a countdown for yet. Soon, though... soon. :)

the newborn acne saga ends here

2010-01-19T13:38:00.003-06:00

No new pictures today. He looks about the same. Just some thoughts, instead. I'm probably a little crazy, but anyway here they are.

So, my peers have babies who have beautiful skin. I don't know a single other in-real-life baby (younger than 6 months old) who has even a little bit of redness. So my baby is red. Maybe it'll go away. Maybe it's eczema. Maybe it's yeast. Maybe the cause will never be known and he'll stay red indefinitely.

And? I'm okay with that. This is MY baby that God saw fit to bless me with. Benjamin is a smiley, happy baby. He doesn't have colic. He is (usually) easy to sooth. He's growing. I wouldn't think that his disposition would be so happy if the rash were bothersome to him.

He's already three months old. Three months! I don't know where the time went. Yes I do. It disappeared while I kept dwelling on his appearance instead of who he is. I don't want to let any more unnecessary time escape, time that I could instead spend watching him grow.

Sure, I'll mention it at his next doctor visit. And maybe he'll outgrow it. Maybe he won't. I'm not going to keep my life on "pause" any more. He and I are getting pictures made on Friday, a gift from Mom. Back when she and I were talking about it, I had the brief thought that his skin would be better come picture time. But I can't hit the "pause" button for life. He will only be three months old once, and then it's gone.

I don't want to miss the important things.

a new year with new challenges... and some old ones

2010-01-12T19:38:00.002-06:00

One of my new challenges is to get in better shape. It's not really a "New Year's Resolution" per se, but since I just happen to be about 3 months postpartum and also still about 16 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight (I haven't lost any additional weight since the first two weeks), it's time to be a little more proactive. Our apartment remodeled the old laundry room into a workout room. I have been there twice so far... once to check it out, and once to actually do a session. I just did the treadmill and will probably stick with that for the forseeable future, unless it's busy, and then I will probably do the stepper. I've never really thought my diet was TOO terrible, but when I keep thinking about exercising, it's also making me think twice about what I eat, too, like for snacks and whatnot. I need to get more fruits and veggies and fewer chips and cookies. Or maybe I can put the fruits and veggies IN the chips and cookies, lol, like make dried veggie chips and then put carrots and zucchini in the cookies.

An always-ongoing challenge is finances, of course. We are very very blessed to have received an answer to our prayers for a good job for hubby, but after nearly four months on the job, he still does not have his own route yet and therefore is still making "training" pay. He tells me that he is next in line to get one, though, so hopefully any day now we will have some changes. Meanwhile, the training pay comes just slightly short of our monthly needs, so I have been continuing to work as well. I have narrowed down all my transcription things to just two companies, and between the two of them, it's a nice supplement to hubby's job. January is also a month where his job gets three checks, so there's that "extra" money, too, which will help keep us afloat.

Benjamin is growing like a weed. I weighed him today and he is 13 lbs 13 oz. Lydia didn't reach that weight until nearly 10 months. He has a double chin and is very smiley and loves to "talk" to people. I've gotten to where I can get him up on my back for grocery store trips, and it's SO much comfier than wearing him on my front. I am trying to branch out to a few different ways to wrap him up there, but am having a few failures intermixed with my successes. But at least I CAN get him there. We are still ECing with him as well, and that is also still having its hits and misses. He still has skin issues on his face. His dr said at his 2 month appointment that it was just acne and sensitive skin, but I'm starting to wonder if it's eczema and if he's sensitive to something in my diet. I tried to keep a food log b/c the redness does come and go (although it's heavier on the "come" side than the "go" side), but I really eat the exact same thing every day so that didn't help me any.

Lydia has entered the terrible threes in full force. Whenever I'm consistent with her discipline, she is a dream child, but if I slack even in the very slightest, she sees that as an opportunity to whine, cry, run away when I call her, etc. It is hard to be consistent w/ Benjamin around, since often times he is nursing or needing a diaper or whatever at the same time that she needs attention, but with prayers and with the grace of God, I will continue to try to be a better mother each day than I was the day before. And tomorrow it will be easy to do that, because today, I did not have a good day, mostly related to her potty training, or lack thereof. I got upset at a situation in the evening, and told her how I really felt. :(

But let me elaborate on the potty training and then you might be able to at least understand my frustrations. Last week, I set up a posterboard in the bathroom. On it, there are pictures of pee and poop in the potty (ok pictures of potties and then I colored some brown and yellow... I wanted it to be real but not TOO real, lol), pictures of wet and dirty diapers being put into the pail, a picture of Lydia "telling" me and hubby that she needs to go potty, and a picture of a dry diaper. She was with me while I was making it, and I talked it up, but it still took a few days or so for her to understand what it was for. But she seemed to like it. Oh and at the very bottom was a picture of her "prize"... some Dora panties.

She is still not catching on that she needs to (eventually) initiate her own trips to the potty. But she does things that get my hopes up, and then does other things that just make me really feel like she WILL be wearing diapers to college. On Sunday, she stayed dry (in a Pull-up) ALL DAY, including a #2 in the afternoon. Granted, I was taking her more often than I would have gone myself (and I initiated all the trips), but still, ALL DAY... including eating out after church and being out late like that (she went early at the restaurant and then not again until we got home). But then today, it was diaper after diaper. She did have one instance where I was in the bathroom, and she was in there too, w/ a wet diaper, so I took the old diaper off while I was sitting down and she was standing next to me. Then while her diaper was off and I finished up my business, she sat down UNPROMPTED on her little potty and went #1. Then she thought about it and said she had to go #2, and a few minutes later, she did that as well... also in her potty. We celebrated and got stickers and I started to put a diaper back on her (trying to save the $$$ Pull-ups for church) but she wanted a Pull-up. I told her that she needed to go to the potty on her own and if she peed or pooped in it, then she'd be getting a diaper. Not even FIVE minutes later... she did #2... IN the Pull-up. Yay. Then this evening right before bed, another #2, in her diaper. :( And it was one that was really hard to clean up, too.

So that is where we are with that. I don't want to close on that unhappy note, so I'll share a couple of recent pictures of Benjamin, since it's been a while since I shared.

stuck in the car for twenty-three hours

2009-12-28T13:08:00.003-06:00

It should have just been a 6.5 trip under normal conditions. But the weather + abandoned cars + stuck cars + panicky drivers = a 23-hour long trip instead. With a newborn and a toddler.

It started out somewhat normally on Christmas Eve. Tim had to work that day so we were going to go up to Amarillo (from Dallas) that night, and get to my parents' house sometime shortly after midnight. The very first leg of the trip was very slow, before we even got out of Dallas, but it was because of an accident. After we passed the accident, the traffic picked up a little in speed. It was still snowing at this time (about 7:00 p.m.), but very lightly, and visibility was good.

We continued on our path, going up through Denton to Decatur. Traffic continued plugging along slowly, moving down to one lane b/c of how the weather was. The roads were snowy and icy, but nothing completely undrivable. We had just over half a tank of gas left when we reached Decatur, and decided to go ahead and fill up at that time. We also bought a 16-oz coffee. The cup would come in handy later.

Not even two or three miles up from that gas station, traffic came to an absolute standstill. No movement whatsoever. And it stayed like that for a couple of hours. We literally moved fewer than 20 yards in 2 hours. I tried to sleep a little but it's hard to sleep in a car, especially when you can't move the seat down b/c of passengers in the back. Later on, Tim tried to sleep some as well.

There was a hill shortly up the road, and a DPS worker was letting the cars go by one at a time and saying "drive on that spot on the hill so you can get traction and don't slide back down." He also said that we should be able to make it all the way to Wichita Falls (normally about 70 minutes of traveling time) but that the roads would be like this the whole way (one lane, icy, etc.). We were moving again. The snow had completely stopped by now and visibility was as good as it could be, for being in the middle of the night.

We did NOT make it to Wichita Falls before we were stopped again. This time, we were on a slight curve in the road, and we could see the 50+ cars each in front of and behind us, in the same predicament. We would have loved to pull off the road and go into a hotel somewhere and wait it out, but there was a median with 8-10" drifts in it on one side, and a big ditch on the other. During this stoppage, someone in a Ford Focus tried to drive in the other lane, and they got stuck shortly in front of us and were going nowhere fast. Tim got out to try to help, and also to help another car that had gotten stuck as well.

The coffee was long since gone, as was the water we had brought, and I was getting thirsty. Tim took the empty coffee cup and stepped off the road into some untouched snow and filled it up for me, so it could melt and I could eat it. I couldn't wait for it to melt, though, and so I ate little bits of ice. It helped some, but what I really needed was ounces of water, not mere teaspoons.

We watched the sun rise at one of the stuck spots, and Benjamin finally woke up to eat. I had Tim get out and pass him to me in the front seat, and I fed him while sitting in the car in the line of non-moving traffic. And I changed his diaper on my lap a few times. All of them were #2 diapers. If the traffic were moving at all, even inches at a time, I would not have fed him in the front seat like that. We were completely stopped for all 4-5 of his feeds that he needed while in the line.

We were nearing half a tank of gas again, and pulled off to a 7-11 station. They had no gas at the time, only diesel. It was about 10:00 a.m. at this time. The road briefly had two drivable lanes, and there was someone behind and to the left of us who got Tim's attention right after he buckled Benjamin back up after a feed. It was a family and the mama asked if I had any water, and told Tim that if I'm breastfeeding then I need some water, and she gave him a bottle for me. :)

The next gas station we came to was one at Iowa Park (still normally 30 minutes before Wichita Falls), and this one DID have gas, and a long line for the bathroom, and food. I let Tim run in to the bathroom first and then I took Lydia out so she could stretch her legs. Except for a brief diaper change earlier, she hadn't been out of her car seat at all. Poor thing was such a trooper though. She did not want to walk on the ice, though, and at the very slightest slip, she started crying and needed me to carry her. So I went to the bathroom and got some food and more water while Tim was pumping gas. I came back outside to find several people helping him to get up the icy hill to leave the station. Part of the problem was the ice, definitely, but I think another part of the problem was that the parking brake was still on. We did get out of that station with little ado and were on our way again. This was about 1:15 p.m. We had now been on the road for 19 hours.

Once inside Wichita Falls, the traffic moved along w/ one lane. There were a ton of abandoned vehicles still on the road that we had to weave around. And you know those big signs in large cities that will say what the traffic conditions are, like for rush hours? There was one of those signs in Wichita Falls, and it said that US-287 (the road we were on and needed to stay on) was closed west of the city. We were hoping that it was just an old message and we would be able to continue moving. And we did, slowly. We were averaging about 5 to 10 MPH during this time.

We passed some "encouraging" road signs that said things like "Amarillo... 231 miles." At our current speed, that meant it would take us 23 to 46 hours to get there, lol. And outside of Wichita Falls, we did have one final hour or so of standstill before we were able to get going again. But sometime between Wichita Falls and Vernon, we saw spots of real pavement. The slush got less and less, and we were able to finish the trip in the usual amount of time, and even go the normal speed limit. We finally reached my parents' house at 5:15 p.m., a full 23 hours after we had started out.

I am glad we were able to spend some time with them, but I just wish it had been a little more time. Tim did say that I could probably take a longer trip up there in the spring, though.

when being abnormal is a bad thing

2009-12-11T20:32:00.003-06:00

There were some things in my past that I could classify as abuse. These things caused me to build a little wall. I thought I healed and I thought I tore down the wall, but maybe I didn't. Sometimes being abnormal is OK (like we as Christians are a peculiar people) but sometimes it's not OK. I think that my wall is still there. Sometimes I just feel... not "sad" really, but just emotionless in general, almost like I'm afraid or unable to feel anything very deeply. Like with the birth of my children... I didn't feel a huge adrenaline rush with either one of them. I didn't have thoughts of "OH it's my BABY and you're here and I'm so excited to meet you!" The thoughts were more like "oh, hi baby. You came out. Nice to meet you." When I watch the video of my son's birth, it's evident to me the lack of strong emotions.

Now don't get me wrong, I DO love my kids. But more often than not, it's more of a mental thing than an emotional thing. It's like I am taking care of them and stuff and just going through the motions that I mentally know that I'm "supposed" to, and that's the main driver.

I wouldn't be so concerned, except that from the time I was a child, being a mom was ALL I wanted to do. That was it. I didn't want to have a career when I grew up. Being a mom WAS the career I wanted. Then years later now that I AM a mom, I'm like "this is it? This is all there is?" The excitement and happiness and love that I thought when I was younger that I'd have, just isn't there w/ the expected intensity.

And it's not like I CAN'T feel things intensely. I have before. But just not in the recent past, or even in the short-term past. And I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older or if I really am NOT normal this way, b/c of the wall that I've built. I can't break down this wall myself. But it needs to go. The people around me are suffering and they deserve better. Somewhere on the mess of the dining room/craft table is the book outlining the benefits that Tim gets at his job, and I am going to see if there is some sort of counseling hotline there first. Maybe they can either reassure me or maybe they can refer me for further assistance.

But enough about that. In other news, potty training is actually moving FORWARD with Lydia! Sometime while we were out of town at Thanksgiving, she started being able to reliably go #1 whenever we put her on the potty. And sometimes she could even do #2, too. She totally doesn't feel the urge to go on her OWN yet, and doesn't care or notice if her diaper is wet (like if she's playing or whatever), so I can see this still being a several-months-long process, but I am pleased with some progress, finally.

"potty training" my son

2009-11-19T13:59:00.005-06:00

Yes, my son, and no, I'm not talking about a future event. I hope nobody thinks I've gone completely off my rocker after reading this blog entry, lol. Anyway, it's not really potty training, but elimination communication. There are any number of sites and books out there that go into more detail on it, but the gist of it is that newborns and infants give off signals when they're about to go to the bathroom. Parents can pick up on these signals, even part time, and an infant can start to hold it until being held over the toilet or small potty bowl. Then the parent can start giving "cue sounds" to help the infant make an association between the sound and the going.

Anyway I had heard about this a long time ago, probably when I was pregnant with Lydia or even before that. I tried it with her, but didn't really start until she was 15 months or so, but that was too late already. If a baby's signals aren't being read by the parent, then the baby will eventually stop giving them as they continually "learn" to use their diaper instead. Then when the baby is a few years old, they have to "unlearn" how to use the diaper and how TO use the potty.

So far, I've been pretty much a failure at trying to potty train Lydia. I was also a failure when I tried to potty train our cats, back when we had them. (Don't laugh too hard, there's actually an entire Yahoo group dedicated to helping people learn how to toilet train their cats... TOILET train, not litter box train.) So when I wondered if I could do elimination communication (or EC for short) with Benjamin, I went into the adventure stresslessly, without any expectations. In fact, I was more thinking that I'd fail rather than have any success at it, since I can't seem to get Lydia potty trained properly. But I was pleased and surprised at the early results so far.

It sort of started subconsciously a few weeks ago, because I noticed that when he was nursing, he'd sometimes pop on and off for a few minutes, then do a #2, then be able to relax and nurse. So that was one clear signal that he gave. Another more subtle one is sometimes he will just seem to be staring off into space, and then a #2 comes out of nowhere. But yesterday, I started trying to take him to the potty. I had several "catches" (what EC-ers call it when the #1 and/or #2 goes into the potty) yesterday, including one after Tim got home from work late that night. That catch was about 10 seconds after Tim walked past the bathroom, and he was amused and curious as to why I was holding our baby over the toilet. Then today, I've had more #2 catches in the toilet than have been in the diaper. One of them was after he'd been napping for only about an hour. I heard him stirring in the other room and went to get him, undressed him, and found his diaper was dry and clean. I held him over the toilet, and within less than 2 minutes, the #2 came and he was much relieved. Once he was more comfortable, he nursed back to sleep and I expect the rest of his nap to last about 2.5 hours or so.

In other news, I'm looking forward to going out of town to see my family next week for the holiday. Lydia is finally getting her 2-year molars... all 4 of them at once. Tim is really loving his new job, but is in the middle of working 10 straight days, including Sunday, so that he will be off for Thursday and Friday and can come with me out of town (and that schedule was a company-wide thing rather than his choice to work those particular days).

adjusting slowly but surely

2009-11-12T19:43:00.002-06:00

I'm not back to 100% yet, but getting there slowly. Some days I think that I can handle being a mom of two after all. But there are still those hours here and there where I still just wonder what I got myself into and lament the fact that it's too late to change my mind about being a parent even of one child, never mind two. I'm still sleep-deprived although I have started taking a short nap if both of them happen to be napping at the same time. And he is starting to sleep a little more at night, from about 11-6 with one brief waking, so that seems to help a little, too. But right now with him it's just eat, diaper, cry, diaper, eat, eat, cry, diaper, eat, cry, diaper, cry, sleep, sleep, diaper, eat, cry, sleep, diaper. And some of that crying is from me and not from Benjamin, lol.

Lydia continues to be a challenge and a joy at the same time. She continues to randomly get my hopes up for potty training. Like this evening in her bath, she randomly said that she went in the tub, and that she wanted out. I asked her if she wanted to go in her potty and get new bathwater and she said yes, and she went in her potty right away. But all day long, she never mentioned or noticed her diaper, and also said that there was no #2 in a particular diaper when I asked her, but really there was.

Benjamin is still "suffering" from some newborn acne. (It's just visually unappealing, but doesn't seem to bother him at all.) I am ready for it to go away. It had some improvement earlier this month but hasn't made any additional improvement since then, that I can tell. Other than that, though, he's doing well, growing and gaining. On Saturday he was 10 lbs even and 23.5" long. I had that one "awake" smile when he was about 3 weeks old but am still waiting for any more. In the meantime, though, I sure do love the cooing. I don't remember Lydia starting her cooing this early, but Benjamin's been doing it nearly since birth, it seems. Here's a short clip where he has a sound in the beginning and then a few more near the end.

two is hard, really hard

2009-10-29T13:53:00.002-05:00

Several months ago, I posted about three big things that I was waiting on that were causing me a great deal of stress. Two of those waits (a job for hubby and the arrival of Benjamin) are now finished. I am thankful to God EVERY DAY for how those items ended up. Tim loves his job. It's an awesome fit for him. It's something that he can do for the rest of his life. It meets our needs. And as for Benjamin, we were able to have a successful homebirth which went very smoothly.

The third wait (Lydia's potty training) is once again at a standstill. She doesn't understand the process or notice her internal signals. At all. Her 3-year well-child visit is in about 6 weeks, and since I doubt that anything will change between now and then, I plan on asking her doctor about it. I have had other parents give me tips and stuff that worked for their children, but I don't know... maybe I'll just feel better if I hear from the doctor that she's still normal and not to worry about anything. And maybe she'll even have some suggestions that I haven't heard yet, and I could try those. There are a few things that I haven't tried (like having her run around in regular panties or w/o anything on her bottom at all)... but now that Benjamin's here, it would be hard to chase her around with a bottle of Resolve. We live in a tiny, yardless apartment where the only non-carpeted areas are the kitchen and the bathroom, and the latter might as well be carpeted b/c of all the bathmats that are in it. And the kitchen linoleum gets very slippery when wet, so I don't want her to fall and be afraid of the whole thing. But I am just waiting for now.

But aside from that, getting to the title of my post today... being a mom of two is hard, WAY WAY harder than being a mom of one. People have told me that going from one to two the hardest, harder even than going from two to three (maybe I need to hurry up and have #3 and that'll "cure" me, haha). But I had NO IDEA that it would be this difficult. My nearly 3 year old is becoming increasingly defiant, and I don't know if it's her age or if she's just testing me b/c of the new situation. I'm exhausted all the time and can't "sleep when the baby sleeps" like I could when I just had one, b/c otherwise my toddler would wreak havoc. Benjamin so far seems to be a more difficult baby than Lydia was, or maybe I'm just not remembering her early days very clearly. Stir in a significant helping of postpartum hormones and a mild to moderate case of the baby blues, and it's just not an appetizing mixture at all. I'm hoping to feel better in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I am just taking one day at a time, one hour at a time. As hectic as this time is, I know that it'll pass way too soon, so I need to try to find the enjoyable moments and remember those.

And on that note, here's another few pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Hanging out in the living room.

Benjamin and his daddy.

A bad case of newborn acne... 19 days old is too young to be going through adolescence already.

baby has arrived and it's a....

2009-10-18T16:04:00.002-05:00

boy!

I have a son now. Benjamin Luke was born at home on Saturday, October 10th at 2:08 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 22 inches long... with a 14.25" head! The birth was amazing and I'm so glad we chose to have him at home.

Lydia loves him so far and always wants to help me with him. She was even going to put him in his car seat for me the other day. So far, she doesn't do a lot of talking to him, but she does like to stand there and watch him and touch his hands and feet. Here she is holding him for the first time, when he was one day old.

And here's Benjamin at 7 days old, smiling in his sleep.

Tim's new job is going fine. He's still in training and is enjoying himself. He came home the other day with a HUGE box of uniforms. I am excited about that, because it means that I won't have to wash his work clothes every day like I did back when he was working at places where he only had 2 or so uniforms instead of 5-6.

My work is going fine as well. I got on with the third new transcription company but then had to turn around and request a leave of absence right away. I had Benjamin between the time I sent in my paperwork and when they wanted me to start work, and with the grandmas coming over and staying and just new-baby chaos in general, combined with the schedule they wanted me to work, adding in a few other things that I need to do before the end of the month... there was just no way I could do that transcription right now. I emailed them and asked if I could come back in January instead and they said that would be fine.

Tim's mom came down for a week before the baby was here and stayed for a few days afterwards, then the same day she left, my mom was able to come down and stay for a few days as well. Everyone is gone now, though, so when Tim goes back to work tomorrow, I will need to learn a new normal. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I have a series of chiropractor appointments for the next few weeks, and also need to find some time to make our Halloween costumes. The four of us are dressing up as a theme this year, and I am so excited to see how it will come out.

a toddler's talent and sense of time

2009-10-05T12:08:00.002-05:00

In the past, whenever Lydia gets a pen and paper, she just makes random circles, lines and scribbles. Even her name, when I write it out first, she'll make a few random scribbles and say, "that says Lydia." But yesterday, my mother in law gave her a notepad at church, and I noticed that Lydia was putting eyes and a mouth inside the circle, then adding legs and arms. :) So this morning, I asked her to draw a happy face, and she did. Then I asked for arms and legs, and she did that too. I love it. :)

And she is starting to develop a sense of time. Anything in the past happened "this morning" and anything in the future will happen "tonight." She uses these terms even if the events referred to are several days in the past or future. It is really so cute to see how her mind processes things as she gets older.

The pregnancy is still going. This is the longest that I've been pregnant now. I am due today, but there's absolutely nothing going on. I know that God is putting the finishing touches on my baking baby, though, and it will be born when the time is right. But I'm still hoping that the right time comes sometime this week. Mother in law came down on Saturday and is going to stay for about two weeks, to help me out postpartum. Hopefully most of these two weeks WILL be postpartum instead of pregnant, although I appreciate the help prepartum as well. :)

finding the potty contents

2009-09-30T10:40:00.002-05:00

Sometimes when I change Lydia's #2 diapers, the wiping hurts her a little, and she cries and fights me. But of course if I leave anything on there, it'll be hurting even MORE later, so I just explain to her that I need to clean it all, and that if she could put her poop straight into the potty, then there wouldn't be so much wiping. Other times, I am ready to put a new diaper on and she starts crying saying that she needs to go potty (which I usually am doubtful of since her previous diaper was already full). But I let her sit on the potty and tell me when she's done, and I'll go and give her some "privacy." She usually tells me she's done after just a minute or so, and has had no results in the potty at all, but still goes ahead and wipes and flushes.

But this morning, I left her sitting on her potty while I put a load of diapers in the dryer. A minute later, she ran into the kitchen (our laundry nook is just off the kitchen) and I asked her if she was done yet. She said no and ran back to the bathroom. Then after another minute, she calls to me and said that she "found" some peepee. (I didn't know it was lost, lol.) I said, "You did? Let me see," and started towards the bathroom. But I should have told her that I was going to COME and see. She didn't realize that I was coming, because when I turned the corner to go down the hallway, she had already come out of the bathroom and down the hallway... carrying her half-full potty, to bring it to me so I could see. LOL. I'm amazed that she didn't spill any of it. So I took it back into the bathroom and took care of it and had her wipe and stuff, and gave her a hi-five.

Then I put a diaper back on her. LOL. All of these "random successes" are just that, random, and while this may be the start of something big, I'm not ready to go 100% to underwear yet, especially with the new baby coming any day now which may likely cause her to regress. Or who knows, she may see the diapers on the tiny baby and realize that she is SO much bigger than the baby and can do so much more, including going in the potty, and decide to ditch the diapers herself. But I'm not holding my breath for that, either.

But, yes, this baby is still baking. I'm not due until Monday, but if this pregnancy goes just like Lydia's did, then I'll have this baby tomorrow. But I'm trying to hold out until Friday. Either way, I'm doing fine. I had some swelling in my feet, but it was more concerning to me than to my care provider. My blood pressure is still hovering in the high 70s/low 80s, and I gained 3 lbs since last week. She thinks that it's going to be an 8-lb baby. I'm still having no regular contractions, and baby is still slightly posterior, so I'm working on getting him/her to float around to a better birthing position. But I am remembering Lydia's labor and am pretty sure I'll be able to recognize it in time to get everyone called in time.

Hubby called Schwan's on Thursday to get an update, and they were still waiting on his paperwork. But then Friday morning it finished coming through, so he started on Monday. They have an extensive 4-week training period that is divided up with daily tasks, but his first week has already had to be rearranged because their computers have been down, so he hasn't been able to do those training modules yet. Hopefully they're up so he can do them today. Tomorrow he goes in for an overnight, and then is off for the weekend, then the rest of his training is normal 5-day weeks, about 9 to 9.

a lot of progress

2009-09-22T22:15:00.003-05:00

The Schwan's ride-along went very well, and they called Tim the next day to have him come in this past Thursday to "start the hiring process." Thursday and Friday he filled out paperwork for DMV background checks, took a drug test, went to a physical therapist so they could test him to see if he could physically perform the essential functions of the job, etc. They offered him the position, pending his paperwork coming back fine (waiting on the DMV and drug test). Depending on when it gets processed, he'll either start on Monday or on 10/5. I am so excited and thankful.

And my transcription is going fine as well. I did hear from the training department a week ago on Monday, and had a conference call orientation w/ them on Wednesday. Turned out that I needed only IE7 on my computer instead of IE8, b/c their software doesn't work at all w/ IE8. To downgrade, I had to reset my computer back to its factory settings. That took a couple of days, but everything is back to normal now and I've been able to start work with them (we'll call them ST). After six weeks, they are going to review my work and possibly take off the restrictions, so I may be able to do some longer files. I am also continuing with the other company, MWP, that I started with at the end of August. They communicate with me via YIM, and a few days ago, one of the "head" people there was asking how I was feeling and how much longer I had left and how long I'd need to take off afterwards. I told her, and she said that I was doing very well at the job and that when I came back from maternity leave, I might be able to become a team leader. :) I also did test w/ the last company, we'll call them TP, on Tuesday evening. The "invitation to test" email said that they'd let the testers know in a week how they did, and that week is up tomorrow. That company does both medical and general transcription, and the test had both aspects to it. I feel like I did well on it, but haven't heard anything from them yet.

Lydia's potty training had an "event" today. Tim was sitting in the bathroom with her, patiently, and she had some #1 in the potty. He put her in a Pullup. Then later, her Pullup was wet (but she also still went some in the potty, too). He put a new Pullup on, and that one got wet as well, so he put her back in a diaper after that. At bedtime when I was changing her, she asked for underwear. I politely declined her request since apparently she's still not ready. I explained that she could have underwear when she could go in the potty within a few seconds of sitting on it instead of the "hours" that it takes her now. She didn't argue or complain. And since I'm due in under 2 weeks now, the likelihood of having two in diapers is up to nearly 100%.

Speaking of which, WOW, I am due in under two weeks! I have random contractions now and then, but nothing regular. I'll have two that are 10 minutes apart, then another one a few hours later, then nothing until the next day where I'll have a tiny batch of them that are about 7-9 minutes apart, then a few more hours of nothing, etc. I'm ready for this baby to come, but just hope that I can recognize real labor when it happens. With Lydia, my real contractions even felt different than the BH contractions. But with this baby, some of the "fake" contractions feel JUST like real ones. I need to call some people when labor starts, but it just seems like if I wait too long to be sure that it's "started" then it'll be too late in the game to call people. :p

A couple of my friends hosted a tea party for me on Sunday afternoon. It was a time to just hang out w/ a few friends and drink tea and eat chocolate and fruit, and it was great to share those couple of hours with everyone. We played a couple of games: draw-the-baby-on-the-paper-plate-on-your-head, and cut-off-a-piece-of-string-that-will-fit-around-the-mama-belly. Everyone overestimated my belly, even me. Then at the end of the shower, I got a very unexpected blessing. If I wasn't so in shock at the time, I probably would have started bawling right then. In the past, when I have been feeling down about things, people would tell me about their unexpected BIG blessings that had happened to them, and I'd be happy for them, but at the same time, "know" that HUGE stuff just never happened to me and probably wouldn't happen. But now it has. And I'm sitting here bawling now, thinking about it. God knew not only what I needed, but when I needed it. To Him be the glory.

a little progress

2009-09-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it turns out that the Pizza Hut egg was a dud. But no worries, b/c several paths seem to be opening for us. Hubby has a ride-along with Schwan's on Tuesday to see what a normal day like that would be, then afterwards he can call the company and let them know if he wants to move forward w/ the application process. Monday, he calls the manager of On the Border to schedule a third interview with them. Wednesday night, he goes up to UPS for about an hour and a half to get a feel for what that would be, and would go forward w/ the application process after that.

Meanwhile, I've heard back from two more transcription companies. One of them has all my paperwork, and I'm just waiting to hear back from the training department, should be Monday. And another company contacted me yesterday, inviting me to test w/ them. That test isn't due until Wednesday, so depending what I hear on Monday from the other company, I will do my tests on Monday night.

Pregnancy is moving right along. I'm nearly 37 weeks now, and not nearly as "done" with my to-do list as I'd liked to have been by this point. I think I need to RE-do it again, b/c as time keeps marching on, the items that I feel "have" to be done before the baby comes get fewer, and more and more items can just be pushed back a little bit. But my appointments are going OK. My blood pressure is rising a little bit, so I'm hoping that stays low enough through the rest of the time.

Lydia asked to go potty tonight, while at someone else's house, so I took her into the bathroom and took off her dry diaper (that she had been wearing for about 60-75 minutes), and sat her on the potty... where she proceeded to do nothing. :p After a minute or so she said she was done, so I put her diaper back on. Who knows, she may yet train herself after all, and my year of worry will have been for nothing.

sigh

2009-08-29T13:07:00.005-05:00

I wasn't really sure what to title this entry. I thought about "not feeling positive anymore." But I am positive about one thing... stress is eating me up. I've now lost my appetite and am just forcing myself to eat. I still haven't made any additional progress at all on my pre-baby to-do list. And that stuff NEEDS to be done, b/c I'm not a kangaroo who can just put her baby's development on pause until times are better.

And I'm still waiting for times to be better. It's been two weeks since Tim put all his eggs in the Pizza Hut basket, and that egg has not hatched yet. His former boss is under the impression that Tim quit without notice, but when Tim was working cleaning pools, his hours early on were such that he couldn't work at PH as well, and he told PH that he'd need to take some time off until things stabilized. Then when things DID stabilize in the pool business, he called PH to get back on the schedule, and was told that the position was filled.

He is going to meet w/ his former manager on Monday at 2:00 to discuss things. That store is the one that has a current opening. And if it doesn't work out, then the next opening at a different store wouldn't be until mid-September. I am hopeful, but VERY cautiously so, that the face-to-face meeting will clear up any misunderstandings and Tim will be able to work there again.

But even with Pizza Hut, even at the assistant manager level, it will not quite meet our monthly needs. And there have been no leads or searches or anything for a morning/early afternoon job for Tim.

Meanwhile, I've been applying to various transcription companies. The (general, not medical) transcription that I've been doing for over two years is with a company that has peaks and valleys, and even in the peaks, it only yields me $150/month. The valleys yield $0/month. So I'm looking for something that's a little more consistent over time. So far, I've found one that will bring in about $12/day. I am waiting to test and waiting on test results for a couple of other companies, and late next week (depending on how/when I hear from my pendings) I have another several that I can apply to.

And I have decided NOT to try to potty train Lydia. I've finished reading all my books, and decided that she's not ready. There are four areas of "readiness" and she's ready in three of them, but WAY behind in the physical area, so I'm waiting. I'm at the point where I'm going to ask about it at her 3-year visit, unless she "magically" trains herself before then.

an update of nothing

2009-08-15T15:18:00.002-05:00

I haven't done anything on my to-do list yet, but will definitely be starting up on it next week as the transcription winds down. I've also set a date for my attempt to potty train Lydia -- August 31. I'll give it that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then if it doesn't work, she goes back into diapers until sometime this winter, after we've all adjusted to the new baby.

New baby is doing well. On Monday, I'll have just 7 weeks left until my due date. While it's still August, I still "feel" like I have two months left, but those months are getting shorter and shorter.

Hubby has quit his current job. He does not yet have a new one lined up. He quit yesterday, after he spoke with someone at Pizza Hut and they scheduled him for an interview this afternoon. He was THAT confident that he'd get a position. He feels that working at PH, he'll at least be bringing in SOME income, and he'll have more time during the day to job hunt and go to any interviews (of course, to do that, he first has to HAVE interviews) that come up. When he turned in his items at Reliant, they told him he was welcome back at any time.

So the interview came today, and he came home and told me that they would start him off as a driver, and would be a team leader after that, and a minimum of six months before he'd be an assistant manager. He also said that they told him there were several positions in the area, and they would need to look at the different stores to see where his best fit would be and would call him Wednesday. So I asked him if that means that he's definitely hired but they just need to find a spot for them, and he said that he hopes so. That answer did nothing helpful for my stress level. Wednesday seems so far away, especially with nothing going on Monday or Tuesday.

daily to-dos turn into weekly to-dos, and job stuff, and toddler cuteness

2009-08-05T11:04:00.004-05:00

I had been doing a daily to-do list, and found it helpful initially, but now that transcription is picking up quite a bit, I've found that I don't have time to go through each day's whole list. So from here on out, I plan on making a weekly to-do list, including items that don't get crossed off, but instead are "as-needed" such as laundry and dishes. I will include in these weekly to-do lists items from my "big" list. Here's the original list, as a refresher:

- continue hoping and praying for Tim's job situation to get more stable before baby arrives
- pack up Lydia's outgrown clothes
- install infant carseat
- clean out corner of our bedroom where crib will go (includes going through craft stuff)
- move small bathroom cabinet into hallway
- move changing table into bathroom
- sew a bunch of newborn gowns
- dye some infant diapers
- move craft supplies into spot in Lydia's room that used to have the changing table
- move rocking chair into our bedroom
- move crib into our bedroom
- get bunk bed pieces from our friends' house
- assemble bunk bed for Lydia
- wash out chlorine buckets and cover with contact paper

Here's what I've completed:

- pack up Lydia's outgrown clothes
- clean out corner of our bedroom where crib will go (includes going through craft stuff)
- move small bathroom cabinet into hallway
- move changing table into bathroom
- dye some infant diapers
- move craft supplies into spot in Lydia's room that used to have the changing table
- move crib into our bedroom
- get bunk bed pieces from our friends' house
- assemble bunk bed for Lydia

And here's the new list, with a few things added, and sorted in order of priority:

- continue hoping and praying for Tim's job situation to get more stable before baby arrives
- finish working transcription peak season
- install infant carseat
- move rocking chair into our bedroom
- attempt to potty train Lydia
- sew a bunch of newborn gowns
- wash out chlorine buckets
- transfer play food crochet patterns from chicken-scratch notebooks into a nice printout from the computer
- make one of each play food item and take pictures and put on Facebook fan page
- cover chlorine buckets with contact paper

I'm sure there are a few things that I'm forgetting. And I don't know if all of this will be done before the baby arrives, but that is my goal. Everything after "wash out chlorine buckets" is a low-ish priority, and it would be wonderful if it were done before baby comes, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if it wasn't.

Regarding potty training Lydia, I am continuing my research and mentioning things to her. One of the things I'm trying to get her to understand is whether her diaper is dry or wet (we use cloth diapers w/o a cover at home, so it's easy for me to have her check). Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to "get it" yet. I'm hopeful that she will realize the difference between wet and dry sometime before we do the potty training in a couple of weeks. I don't understand what's different about her diaper, b/c she totally knows the difference between many other things that are wet/dry. I am thinking that I will pass on the 3-day method that I mentioned in an earlier entry, and instead use the method outlined in this book instead. The latter method is a little more involved on the parent's part than the 3-day method is. I am still keeping the "three days" though in that that is how much time I will devote to it right now, and if it doesn't work by then, it's back into diapers she goes until sometime this winter, when we'll give it another try.

Hubby has had a few tiny leads for a new job. I'm cautiously hopeful, but interviews haven't even been scheduled yet and it's not even a guarantee that those will happen. But he has made more contact w/ a few places besides just the initial application, so that is encouraging.

Lydia received a bag of hand me down clothes the other day. I hadn't told her what was in the bag, but she explored it anyway and unloaded the contents onto the floor. Then she tried on random pieces. At one point, she stood right in the middle of the pile and looked around and said, "hmmmmm...... I need a..... hmmm... I need a jackiet!" And she grabbed a "jacket" and put it on. (Really it was an airy crocheted shirt that goes over another shirt).

She also ate a raw biscuit the other day. I was baking a can of them, and had lined them up on the baking tray, then turned around to wash my hands before sticking them in the oven. When I turned back around, a biscuit was missing. Lydia had run off with it and taken a bite. And she must have liked it, because when it was swallowed, she asked for another one.

The transition to the big girl bed is going well. I've shortened her nap from 3 hours to 2 hours, and I think that is helping. For the first several days, she would get up early and open her dresser and unload all the clothes, and I scolded her for that. I think it's finally sinking in that I don't want her to do that, though, because of what she said the other night when I put her to bed. I was giving her the bedtime instructions ("Ok climb into bed, pull up your covers, give me a hug and kiss") and she added her own and said, "and do NOT get up and get the clothes out." She was so serious when she said it, too. It's hard to not laugh. :)

work, work, work

2009-07-28T21:25:00.003-05:00

So far, hubby's work has not picked up very much. He is still on the job hunt. He went to an "informational meeting" this morning and if this company is going to call him for an interview, it won't be until Friday at 5:00 pm. Meanwhile, he is still applying at lots of random places, and continuing with Reliant.

My work is starting to pick up, though. I still have the financial transcription that I do quarterly, and last week started four weeks of "peak." I am also attempting to jump-start my play food again by offering several weekly free-for-shipping drawings of up to $12/worth of food. I even made a Facebook fan page for it (a work in progress... eventually I will have on there a picture of everything I offer). And so far, the drawings seem to be working, because I have a "real" order that I'm soon to start. (I also have a few orders that I'm going to trade for things.) I also might be able to be a nanny next month for a family, until their day care spot opens up.

I intended to do attempt an intensive few days of potty training with Lydia last week, but will have to put it off for a few more weeks because of the transcription. Meanwhile, though, I am continuing to read my library books on the matter, and am starting to introduce a few concepts to her here and there, to gradually expose her to what we'll be doing with more effort in a few weeks. I'm picking points from several different methods, and will give the training effort three full days of undivided attention, and if it's not completed by then (or very nearly so) then I have no qualms about putting her back in diapers until well after the baby comes. But, if she is ready and just needs a little push, I want to give her that little push, so that I'm not forever asking myself "what if?"

eleven weeks left

2009-07-20T15:15:00.003-05:00

Or 9, or 13. I'm thinking that it'll be closer to 9 1/2 or 10 or so. I am moving right along and making good progress on my to-do list. I had a bunch of stuff lined up for today and most of it is done. I started early today and visited my second and third Lowe's of the weekend. Hubby and I went late after church yesterday to get some wood pieces to be the cross-beam mattress supports for Lydia's big-girl bunk bed. I looked up the dimensions of a twin mattress online, and it said 39 inches, so that is what we got the wood cut to. But then when we got home and I measured about where it would actually sit, I needed it to only be 38 inches, so this morning, I took the wood back out to a different Lowe's to get an inch trimmed off. But that Lowe's told me their saw was broken, so I went to a third Lowe's. (both the second and third Lowe's were close to the apartment, and the first Lowe's from last night was close to the church building). But finally, I got them trimmed up and sanded and they are ready now. She is going to move into her big girl bed this week sometime! :D We live in a tiny place, so moving furniture is interesting... there are about 6 items that need to be done in a specific order to get the crib into our room and the bed into her room. All in the short time that she is awake. :)

I had my 29 week appointment and everything looks great. I'm measuring right on and am up 24 pounds total. Heartbeat sounds good and was anywhere from the 130s to the 150s during the appointment. Baby was head up w/ his/her back towards my back, so all of that needs to change sometime before the birth. There's still plenty of time for him/her to flip around, though, and he/she has definitely been doing that in the past several days. Here is my 29-week picture. Quite a bit of difference from my picture at 20 weeks.

yay for nesting

2009-07-18T14:19:00.004-05:00

I don't have the "urge" to nest, but with only 65 to 93 days to go, I finally got on it. The most daunting task on the list was, by far, cleaning out the corner of our bedroom where the crib will go. I had a few totes right next to the wall that held mostly fabric and also a few other miscellaneous craft things, then in front of that was just a huge PILE of lost pajamas and hand me down clothes and pillows and a slip that I had been missing forever that I finally found on the Very Bottom of the pile. I did a ton yesterday to clean out that pile and put everything in its appropriate place, and was really happy with my progress. Today, I plan on inventorying my fabric. I want to sew a few more nursing dresses, and it'll be easier to plan my projects if I have a list of what fabrics I have, and if they're knit or woven, and how much of them I have.

I've also been still thinking about potty training. I've heard that a lot of people had success with the 3-day method, and someone shared their copy with me, so I am going to try it out. I originally was going to try it out next week, on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, but forgot that my seasonal transcription job starts up at that time, so I wouldn't be able to give potty training the attention it needs. But sometime after August 20th, I may give it a try. I don't really have very high expectations going into this, since I've also heard that this method did NOT work for a bunch of people, but as I sit here and wait for Lydia to "train herself," I can't help but wonder if she doesn't need a little push-start. If I don't do this, then I will be forever wondering "what if," so I just need to do it and get it out of my system.

Hubby is still on the job hunt, with no real prospects yet. This week has not been a good one for him at his current job. He had 4 days in a row of zero sales (and therefore zero income), and on the 5th day the streak was broken... but with only one sale. And even the sales that he does might not "count" since the people have three business days to cancel, and if they cancel, then he doesn't get credit for it. This wouldn't be so bad, but it adds to the uncertainty, because we don't know if any cancellations happen until his pay statement is run, 3 weeks later. I am really hoping and praying that something stable comes along before this baby does. Stress and the postpartum period just do not get along very well.

the to-do list continues

2009-07-13T14:16:00.003-05:00

Maybe if I write it all down instead of just keeping it in my head, I'll have a better chance of getting at least some of it done before the baby comes. I HAVE been using a daily to-do list, using the night before to write down things to do the next day, and that has been helping some, but there's still usually one item from each day that gets carried over to the next day. Anyway, here's the big items that need to be done before the baby comes, in no particular order.

- continue hoping and praying for Tim's job situation to get more stable before baby arrives
- pack up Lydia's outgrown clothes
- install infant carseat
- clean out corner of our bedroom where crib will go (includes going through craft stuff)
- move small bathroom cabinet into hallway
- move changing table into bathroom
- sew a bunch of newborn gowns
- dye some infant diapers
- move craft supplies into spot in Lydia's room that used to have the changing table
- move rocking chair into our bedroom
- move crib into our bedroom
- get bunk bed pieces from our friends' house
- assemble bunk bed for Lydia
- wash out chlorine buckets and cover with contact paper

It's a daunting list, but nothing insurmountable. I don't have any more out of town trips planned, and my play food business is at a pretty slow time right now. The chlorine buckets will be my diaper pails. Maybe just one of them, I haven't decided yet. We use cloth diapers, and the diaper pail we use now is itty bitty and only fits just over half a days' worth of diapers in it, and that's just not going to work when we have two in diapers, so I'm getting a bigger pail.

And about the two in diapers... it's inevitable. I am continuing to think about potty training, not in a stressful way, but more in a "research" way. I checked out several books from the library the other day and have started reading them. I first opened up most of them to the "readiness" section and realized that Lydia is NOT ready for potty training yet, as much as I was hoping that maybe she'd be ready for at least one of the methods. She never wakes up dry, even if I withhold her fluids. She always says that her diaper is dry, no matter what its actual condition is. She doesn't notice or care that her peers are potty training. She's not dry for hours at a time. She's just plain not ready. So much for the "rules" that girls train sooner/faster/easier than boys, and that cloth diapers make for earlier/faster training. But, when she is ready, I'm hopeful that it will be a quick and easy process.

The pregnancy is still going fine. I'm down to 12 weeks left, and feeling very uncomfortable already. I'm already so big that I have trouble breathing, and Braxton Hicks just will not leave me alone. There are some times where as soon as I do any activity at all, even walking the 10 steps to the bathroom, I will get hit w/ a BH contraction. They're not painful, but they've gotten to the annoying point, mostly b/c of their randomness. I won't be sorry to leave those behind. I WILL be sorry to leave the kicks behind, though. I keep feeling elbows and knees and feet and playing with them already. So much fun. :)

twenty-seven week appointment

2009-07-07T07:14:00.002-05:00

My appointments continue to go well. This time, I gained 7 lbs in 4 weeks, but am still only up 21 lbs overall. I gained 40 w/ Lydia and feel like I'll be in the 35-40 range with this baby as well. I'm measuring right on track and everything just looks great. Since I'm getting scarily close to the third trimester, we've started talking about the birth, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I am so excited and really looking forward to it.

In other news, I was able to score a twin-sized mattress in great shape off of Craigslist for just $18. :D Whenever I get the corner of our room cleaned out so the crib can fit there, then we'll retrieve our bunk bed from where it's stashed at a friend's house, and that will be Lydia's big girl bed. I have a body pillow that I think I will set up on the floor next to her, though, since she still moves quite a bit in her sleep and isn't perceptive of the edge of the bed yet.

three big stressful waits

2009-07-04T18:06:00.003-05:00

I really am surprised that I haven't pulled myself into two pieces from the stress I've been feeling lately. It just seems to keep piling and piling and then when the tiniest bit of relief thinks about being seen, it all of a sudden vanishes and the pile continues to grow anyway. I know I just need to let things go and rely on the Lord to take care of them all. I KNOW this. But it's hard. Nearly impossible. I have always been a planner and "need" to know the whens, whys and hows. I can't just let it sit inside me, though, so every so often I need to write about it. Writing helps me, just a tiny bit, to keep from going to pieces.

I mentioned on Facebook that I have three major "wait for its" right now: the coming baby, potty training for Lydia, and a stable job for hubby. Each item on its own would be stressful enough, but combined, they are a mountain of which I cannot see the top. I pray, I try to be peaceful, I try to be supportive where necessary, I try to think positive... and then I just end up in silent tears at night anyway.

To keep this post from being too much of a downer, I will also do a "count your blessings" thing towards the end. Because really, it could be worse.

Of the three, I think the most stressful to me right now is Tim's job situation. Ever since we moved to Dallas two years ago, it has been inconsistent and unstable and come & go. Right now, he is in a commission-only, independent contractor position. He's been there for about 2 weeks, and it is starting off very VERY slowly. We need about 10 sales/week to just barely make ends meet, and his first two weeks had 6 sales and 4 sales, respectively. He's in the middle of his third week and has only had 5 sales in it, with the two slowest days of the week yet to come. The hours that he currently works make it impossible to get a second job and nearly as hard to have any bit of time at all to look for a different job. I can't work right now since I'd just have to turn around and quit in a few months (besides, Tim doesn't want me to work anyway). It is massively hard to live hopeful and positive day by day not knowing until bedtime if any sales have been made, and then being crushed when the daily total is 1 or even 0.

The second-highest stressor is potty training. This situation could be an entire blog in itself (not an entire post, but an entire blog, lol), so I will try to keep it brief. It started when Mom said that me and my two younger sisters were all potty trained by 18 months. It continued this past week when they were talking about a friend of my nephew's who is nearly 4 and is "not potty trained at all" and the tone of voice they used when discussing that. Then here at home, I read things where this one's child just magically trained themselves overnight one night. That is the most common thing I read. And it is usually with a child who is younger than Lydia. I read tips and signs of readiness and give a half-hearted try, and fail, and just do nothing for a few months. Then I start to think about it again and the stress roller coaster reaches a peak and we try again, and fail again, and I have thoughts of just keeping her in diapers forever since she "obviously" won't be one of those children who just trains themselves overnight. Every time I talk about it to people, they tell me that she's "only" such-and-such an age, and just give it time. So I give it time, and nothing that I can see changes in her development in that time. I talk about it again, and they tell me again that she's "only" such-and-such an age. But then I see or hear of multiple children her same age or even younger than she is who ARE potty trained, and I get discouraged again.

The least stressful of my "big three" is the pregnancy. I wonder if I'll be able to get everything ready in time, or how the baby and Lydia will get along, or what type of personality he/she will have, or if I'll be able to be a good mom to two (since sometimes I wonder if I'm even a good mom to one). I wonder how my labor will be and if my support people will be able to make it here in time to help care for Lydia. I wonder if I'll be early or will go overdue or will deliver at just the right time. All of these things are "normal worries" for pregnancy, and they would be fine on their own, but they are just more dirt on the mountain when combined with the other two.

There, now that my feelings are "out there" I can count my blessings.

1. I have a husband who loves God and me and our daughter and our unborn child.
2. We have an awesome supportive church family who would do anything for us.
3. We have our health.
4. We have a roof over our heads (with a/c even).
5. We're not starving.
6. All of our parents are still alive.
7. I had no trouble getting pregnant either time.
8. My pregnancy is "boringly normal."
9. God loves me and WILL take care of us, in HIS time.

a wedding and a wading, and fun and a falling and a failing

2009-07-02T14:11:00.002-05:00

I wasn't sure what to title this post because it is going to be FULL. I've been out of town for a week, and a bunch of fun and funny stuff happened that I have to share with you. (Too bad that potty training isn't in that list. Oh well... someday, someday.)

First, let me get the "failing" out of the way, which seems to be what hubby's new job is doing so far. It is failing to live up to both its absolute potential and to our monthly needs. It's only July 2nd but already we're having a shortfall for the month. There are people who have done what he did in the past, so hopefully he can talk to some of them to get some tips and encouragement. Meanwhile, I think he's going to be on the list to look for something else, again. It's been two years of instability and uncertainty now. I can't even remember what it's like to be normal anymore.

But enough about that, let's get to the fun stuff. We'll start with the wedding. We took a vacation-within-a-vacation to go see my cousin get married. My almost 4 year old nephew was in her wedding as the ring bearer. My sister and mom had been talking up his job for several days beforehand. Sometime between the rehearsal and the ceremony, he made the comment, "my job isn't that hard. All I have to do is carry a pillow." But the funniest things he did were definitely during the ceremony. He and the flower girl walked up to the front fine and got to their places. Then there was a delay while the music got ready for the bride to come down. As soon as my nephew got to his place, he was looking around, and he saw the unity candle tapers sitting about 5 feet away. From his spot, he took a huge deep breath and leaned over and tried to blow them out. It didn't work, and he gave up and continued holding his pillow. The pillow went all over... in his arms, in his hands, on his head... but he stood in his spot for the whole ceremony. At one point, he gave a "thumbs up" to the flower girl across the way. She returned the signal, then he returned it again, and they went back and forth 6 or 7 times. Towards the end, my aunt (mother of the bride) heard him say, "my feet are tired." But he still stood up there and made it through the rest of the time. I think that now he can hire himself out as a professional ring bearer. :)

Next topic is the falling. Lydia had a few gentle falls and some not-so-gentle falls over the week. At home, she still sleeps in a crib. On previous trips to visit my mom, she had set up the pack'n'play for her to sleep in, but for her first afternoon nap upon arrival, we decided to try her just on the trundle bed by itself. She did very well on it. :) But she did not stay on the bed. Here is how she started out that first night:

And here is where I found her the next morning:

And here are another few interesting sleeping positions in which I found her:

After a few days, she did manage to mostly stay on the bed all night. We stayed in a hotel for two nights for the wedding, and she and I shared a bed w/ my mom in the first night, or tried to. Lydia was too wiggly and kicky and so I ended up putting her on some pillows on the floor (which she wiggled off of as well). The next night, mom got brave and slept on the sofa sleeper, so Lydia and I had the bed to ourselves. I had set her down in the middle, and she was already asleep, so I pulled her over to the side a little to give myself some more room. We all went to bed and then I woke up an hour or so later to a THUMP and to Lydia crying. She'd fallen off of the hotel bed. I screamed b/c it was a BIG fall and I didn't know if she was hurt or not. I think she was more scared than anything, though, because it took less than 2 minutes to calm her back down. I put her on the floor for the rest of the night so she wouldn't fall again, and she went right back to sleep.

As for the wading, my mom has a little plastic wading pool that she fills up from the hose so that my nephews can sometimes go swimming after their naps (she watches them during the day while my sisters work). Lydia didn't want to take a nap one day, so we gave her some pool time by herself before the boys woke up. She was excited to put on her swimsuit, and went out to the pool. She stuck one foot barely into the water, then took it right back out again and ran over to me and said, "that's enough."

Mom took her and encouraged her to go down the slide. She didn't want to at first:

But it didn't take her long at all to get into it and start having fun:

Then, all that playing made her thirsty, so she drank the closest water that was available, right out of the pool:

Eventually, she lost her hat in the pool and I gave her a washcloth instead, to play with while her hat was drying off:

Then the fun was really just another couple of backyard pictures. There were a couple of giant croquet-looking mallets that she tried to play golf with, a T-ball set, the old blow-up "hoppity horse" that my sisters and I had when we were little, and a few other random toys.

drawing for a free sling and swaddling set

2009-06-22T12:07:00.002-05:00

Hi all,

I came across this drawing to enter and win a free Sakura Bloom Linen Ring Sling AND some Aden and Anais Muslin Swaddling Blankets. Go check it out!

hungry for lunch only minutes after breakfast is over

2009-06-13T09:31:00.003-05:00

I think that Lydia would eat every waking hour of the day if I let her. More often than not, we finish breakfast, and then she immediately starts asking for lunch. Her pronunciation of both words is so cute, though. The best way I can think of to write them phonetically is "breh-sis" and "yutch" lol. Video to come shortly so you can hear it for yourself. :)

Ok here's the video now. :)

job hunt is over already

2009-06-10T16:41:00.002-05:00

I don't have a ton of information on it yet, but Tim went out for an interview this afternoon and decided to work for an energy company, doing door to door sales. We are very excited that God has provided this opportunity so soon for us. Thanks to everyone who was keeping us in your prayers.

I'm trying to do the crafting thing again. I found a tutorial online on how to make newborn gowns out of adult-sized T-shirts, and have a stack of T-shirts. I've made a couple of gowns so far and they are turning out SO cute. I'll post a few pictures once I get some more done. I've also been doing some more crocheting. I have a bunch of wool yarn with which to make diaper covers, and am in the middle of making a "patchwork" one for Lydia. Some of her plastic covers are a little too small for her bulky nighttime diaper, so this patchwork one will be for her at night. It's coming along quite nicely. :)

she doesn't know what a screwdriver is for

2009-06-07T14:21:00.004-05:00

For the past couple of months, I have been attending a Bible study on Friday mornings. The teacher of the study has two grown boys and no daughters, and still has quite a few "boy toys" that Lydia and the children of the other students like to play with during the study.

This past Friday, Lydia found a tiny plastic screwdriver. She held that in one hand, by the "metal" part, and held another small plastic something-or-other in her other hand. She'd touch the handle of the screwdriver to the other piece, then put the handle to her eyebrow. She likes to watch when I put on makeup, and in amongst the bins of "boy" toys, she'd managed to find herself an eyeshadow applicator. LOL. It was really cute.

She also was with me for my most recent prenatal appointment, and when we were listening to the heartbeat, I asked her if she heard that. She said, "the baby's talking!" It's really so amazing to see the world through her eyes.

Potty training is still a no-go. She'll sit on it every now and then w/ no results, same as she has for months, but I think she's starting to be aware of when she's just gone. I still don't have any hope for her training before the baby comes, but maybe this winter something will happen.

job hunting begins again, for the third time this year

2009-06-01T22:43:00.003-05:00

I am seriously nearly at the breaking point with the never-ending string of instability since we moved to Dallas two years ago. I don't know what God wants for us or what He has planned for us or when He'll tell us. I DO know that He'll take care of us and provide for our basic needs, and only our basic needs. I need to be content with that. We will likely never be materially rich. Our 800 sq ft apartment with only a concrete patio for a "yard" for the children to play in will have to suffice. It at least is a roof over our head that doesn't leak... at least, it usually doesn't leak. I feel so out of place among my peers sometimes, you know, the ones who regularly get their hair done and live in a neighborhood that has grass and sidewalks and fences and is in a residential area instead of right on a busy street. The odds are not in my favor that I will ever be in that niche.

But do I want to be? Time to change my tune. The "woe is me" part of this entry is OVER! Listen to all the blessings I have. I have a godly husband who sincerely WANTS to be able to support me and the children, and he gets more proactive and motivated to look for a job with each unemployment that happens. He also is a wonderful spiritual leader to our daughter, and prays with her every night before she goes to bed. I do have a place to live, even though it's not my "dream home," it's home, and I can work to make it a dream. I am to keep it (Titus 2:5). I have a daughter who thinks the world of me and wants to be with me and imitate me... am I making sure to show her a good example every day? I have a HUGE loving spiritual family who doesn't care about my outward appearance. I have a second child on the way whom God has sent to bless our family, and he/she is already doing so, as Tim and I enjoy "playing" with him/her and feeling the kicks and movements. I have a crafting business that doesn't yield a ton of income (yet), but I so enjoy making those items that make people happy.

As for Tim's job, when I started this post, I was near tears in wondering what the future would hold and upset at the reasons that he was given for being let go. My tears are dry now. The future holds what it holds. Tim will look for opportunities, and perhaps the very next door that opens, whenever it may be, will be the door that offers exactly what we need. And only God knows what that is. I accept that He will make His plans known to us in His time, not ours. I am at peace.

more growth in the garden

2009-05-28T17:59:00.002-05:00

My hanging garden is growing even more. The cucumber plant is almost to the ground, 4.5 feet long, and the tomato plant is growing in a very defined U-shape. And... BOTH have blossoms, finally. I was wondering if I had really gotten a tomato plant or if it was just going to be a vine. Hopefully by the end of June I'll start having some veggies.

Lydia continues to be entertaining. She's a little particular about how her blanket and her doll are arranged when she goes to sleep, though. In addition to what you can see in the video, I also inadvertently laid down the doll with her hand very slightly under the blanket another time, and when Lydia laid down, she noticed it, and had to correct it before she could go to sleep.

She also is learning how to spell. Well, not really, but she's trying. She brought me one bib today that said "let's do lunch" on it, and I let her know that's what it said. A minute or so later, she brought me a second bib. This one said "puppy love" on it. Lydia pointed to the words and said, "R-E-E-R-E... lunch!" She was so pleased with herself.

i am showing enough that strangers notice now

2009-05-26T13:14:00.002-05:00

Tim's family was in town over the weekend, and we all went out to the zoo for the day. It was hot and crowded, but we had fun. Lydia got so tired that she fell asleep about 5 minutes into the ride home. That is VERY unusual b/c I can't remember the last time she's fallen asleep in the car, especially if she's not alone in the backseat (which she wasn't this time). But anyway, while on one of the bathroom breaks at the zoo, I was standing in line, and the woman right in front of me noticed that I was pregnant and offered to let me go first b/c of that. I didn't need to all that badly, so I declined, but it was still so sweet of her to offer. :)

My pains that I was having a few weeks ago have lessened, and when I asked my care provider about them, she said that it was likely just ligament pain. I am glad that the pain is gone. However, I have already developed a slight waddle because of the loosening ligaments. I don't remembering waddling at ALL with Lydia, even at the very end, so it's a strange feeling to have it so early this time.

I have been having extremely strange pregnancy dreams as well. Last night, I dreamed that I was a young professional, and was sitting in an audience for a presentation. A bunch of my high school classmates were also in the audience. My supervisor had told me that one of my job duties was to ask a relevant question during the presentation (a microphone was being passed around). I kept missing my chance to do so, b/c someone else would ask a question before I got up the nerve to stand up. Then during a lunch break, I was in line behind two guys, and there was a tray with sandwiches w/ lettuce and tomatoes on it, and each guy grabbed two of the last four sandwiches, leaving the tray empty and me w/o a sandwich. I was about to get really upset and ask for them to give me one of their sandwiches, lol, but then I noticed an entire new covered tray full of the same sandwiches. After eating, but still during the break, I overheard one of my barely-showing classmates talking to some people about her pregnancy, and how she found out that it's a boy. This is the second "baby boy" dream that I've had, and I've only had one girl dream this time.

I had my ultrasound appointment on the 20th, and the technician was amazing. So was the equipment. We were able to see incredible detail, a lot MORE detail than we saw with Lydia. Everything looked great with the baby and its environment. It still has a ton of room in there, b/c we saw it moving all over and wiggling but I didn't feel a thing. Here's a few of the pictures we got to take home, followed by my 20-week tummy.

Feet:

Profile:

toddler fun and not so fun

2009-05-11T13:21:00.002-05:00

A brief update on the pregnancy. We had another appointment and it went well. Baby was swimming all over the place so it was hard to grab the heartbeat, and every time we did, it was tiny and faint. Finally we were able to pick it up nice and strong. It's in the 150s. I've gained 11 lbs so far, so if I keep up that rate, I'll gain less than I did w/ Lydia. It makes sense since when I was pregnant with her, I had nobody to chase around and take care of. She is "helping" me burn some extra calories. I must remember to eat more. During the appointment, Tim also got to see the baby kick. There was a big kick, enough to make a little flutter on the outside of my tummy, and he happened to be looking right in that spot. We also scheduled my ultrasound for the 20th, and we are still planning on not finding out.

As for toddler fun, I love love LOVE the cute little ways that Lydia says certain words/phrases. Here are a few of her latest ones.

"nuffin" (muffin)
"butterjelly" (peanut butter and/or jelly... i.e. in the grocery store today, I pointed to just the display of jelly, and she still calls that "butterjelly.")
"shopping groceries" (grocery shopping)
"pooghetti" (spaghetti)
"poojamas" (pajamas)
"princess hat sticker" and "princess hat jammies" (for her 2nd birthday party, one of the activities was making princess hats, so now anything that has a princess on it isn't just a "princess sticker"... it's a "princess hat sticker" even though there are usually no hats in the stickers.)
"nermaid" (mermaid)

Now for the toddler not-so-fun. I've been seriously stressing and worrying about potty training. What if I start too early, what if I start too late, what if she has trouble and it takes years, what if she never gets out of diapers, etc. I've read both Diaper Free before Three and the 3-Day Method E-book, and neither one seems like it would work for us. The methods in the former are geared for MUCH younger children, and for the 3-day method, we can't really do that b/c we don't have three consecutive days in our schedule where nothing is going on. I keep trying to just do a "waiting" method where maybe she will just eventually catch on by example, but months go by w/o her ever showing any further "signs of readiness" (or any at all, really) and the stress cycle starts again.

But anyway. Occasionally when I wake her up from her nap, her diaper is dry-ish. (If she wakes up by herself, then it's already wet 99% of the time when I go and get her.) Yesterday, I woke her up from her nap, and she was dry, so I suggested she go sit on the potty. She got excited and said "Want to go sit on Lydia's little potty??" and I said yes, so I sat her down on the floor and she walked to the bathroom and sat down on it. I sat down on the big potty (closed lid) and waited with her. After less than a minute, I heard some action. I got excited and said "Wow, Lydia, that's peepee! You are putting peepee in the potty!" She stopped briefly and got a bit of a worried look on her face, but I kept being excited for her and cheering her on and she got into it too. Then I asked her if she had any more to put in there, and I heard a little bit more go in and I cheered for that too. Then we went to get daddy and show him what she had done so he could cheer for her and hi-five her as well. I thought it was a good beginning, but then today, every single time I've mentioned her sitting on her potty w/o a diaper, she screams like the world is coming to an end, and insists I put a "new clean fresh diaper" on her. She will sit w/ no problem if she still has her diaper on. I don't know where to go from here and just want to give up on the whole thing forever. Depends aisle, here I come.

my daughter is over two years old and is still rear-facing in the car

2009-05-05T16:13:00.004-05:00

I am by no means a child safety seat expert, but I like to think of myself as an informed consumer. I've spoken online and offline to people who ARE carseat experts, and know that the chest clip needs to be at the chest instead of at the belly (to prevent a child from slipping through the neck space in a crash and exiting the carseat that was meant to protect him). I have also learned that it is safer to have a child in a 5-point harness as long as possible before moving her to a booster seat (even NASCAR cars' seat belts are a 5-point harness).

But I think one of the most important things about a young child in a carseat is to keep them rear-facing for as long as possible. Being rear-facing is 5 times safer for a 12 to 23 month old than being front facing. And the AAP is even now recommending keeping children rear facing until age 2, (not age 1 as was the previous guideline).

A toddler's head is very heavy compared to his body, and if he is front facing in a crash, it could easily cause serious injury to his neck and spinal cord as his head is thrown forward from the force of even a moderate crash. Here is a powerful video where a grandfather tells the story of his 18 month old grandson who suffered a life-threatening neck injury JUST because he was front-facing in his carseat. If the child were rear-facing, the crash would still have happened, but the injury (and the months of therapy and healing) would have been prevented.

Here are some of the types of comments that I've heard from people who want to turn their children front facing ASAP:

"But her legs are all squished up and she doesn't have any room for her feet." A broken leg heals much easier and faster than a broken neck, and a toddler can sit quite comfortably with their legs crossed. (Or they can have fun kicking the seat, like my daughter does. :p)

"My 12 month old is already 30 lbs, what am I supposed to do?" Toddlers grow at a slower rate during their second year than during their first year, and there are several carseats out on the market that have a rear-facing weight limit of 35 lbs.

"I've already turned my child front facing. He's 15 months old and he used to cry non-stop in a car ride, but now he's SO happy. It's nice to be able to drive in peace." All I can say to this one is watch the video, please. Watch the rear-facing versus front-facing crash tests that are within that video. If you'd still like to keep your child front-facing, that is your choice. I'm only posting this to try to make people aware who might not have known there is an alternative to switching their child from rear-facing to front-facing at 12 months.

And again, I am not a carseat expert. But I do feel that this is important information that the general public all too often just doesn't know, and it could make a positive difference for someone out there.

not quite the diaper contents i expected

2009-05-04T13:04:00.003-05:00

I just put Lydia down for a nap, and changed her diaper just beforehand. I opened it up and found.... a little car. I asked her if she put a car in her diaper and she said yes. Thankfully, the diaper was only wet and not dirty so the little car was easy to clean up.

I am 18 weeks today and have a definite belly, but in certain clothes, I can still "hide" the pregnancy a little bit. I've been having some way-down-low cramps for the past couple of weeks, and I'm afraid that it is SPD. I have an appointment later this week, so I'll definitely be asking about it. But the symptoms list in that link really describes what I'm going through right now. It hurts to walk. Sitting down and laying down are fine, but as soon as I get up, it hurts again. It's possible that it could be just round ligament pain, in which case it will go away comparatively soon, but if it's SPD then it's likely to hang around until even after the birth.

my hanging garden is showing signs of life

2009-04-23T12:42:00.004-05:00

About a month ago, I posted about how I bought some of those hanging tomato container things from the infomercial. I've remembered to water them enough and so far they seem to be doing well. We had a light freeze about a week after they were hung, so we put them in our closet on a sturdy hanger for that night. Later on, another freeze was forecasted, but Tim didn't want to bring them in again and said they'd be OK. Turned out that it did not freeze that time. It did get cold enough, though, to make the "seed leaves" (those little round starchy areas that stick out from the stem) on the cucumber plant whither up. Tim saw them a few days later and thought that it looked bad until I told him that those are the leaves that are supposed to eventually dry up and go away.

Anyway, the plants are growing. I got some tomato plant food that I'm feeding them, to hopefully help them grow more tomatoes (or cucumbers) and fewer leaves. The tomato plant is growing more and bigger than the cucumber plant is, but both have definitely grown since I brought them home.

In other news, Tim got laid off for the second time this year last Thursday. He is seriously considering leaving the plumbing world altogether and going back into the pool business, this time cleaning pools. A friend of ours from church already does this, and Tim is out riding with him on his route today. Tim talked to the owner several days ago, and he came home excited and then I got concerned, b/c I had some unanswered questions. But since then, through conversations with various people, I feel better about this change of career. Tim and I were both even able to go talk w/ the owner yesterday and get some of my more pressing questions addressed and clarified. He will probably come home this afternoon ready to make a decision, and I'm now prepared to support him in whatever decision he wants to make.

ouchie

2009-04-18T13:05:00.005-05:00

We were over at some friends' house last night, and on the way home, Lydia tripped on the sidewalk and did a faceplant on the corner of one of the steps, right on the line of the concrete and the grass. Poor little girl looks a lot worse than she feels, and has little scratch spots on her forehead, next to her eye, on her cheek and next to her mouth.

a surprise basket in the kitchen

2009-04-13T15:08:00.004-05:00

So yesterday was Lydia's third actual Easter, but this was the first year we put a basket together for her. No eggs, either hidden or colored, though. Maybe next year we'll hide some for her. I think she'd be more into it then. But we "hid" the basket in plain sight on the kitchen floor, and she loved it. :) Here's the video of her exploring it.

Tim's and my 5-year anniversary is this Friday, and he went out on Saturday and got my present, which he couldn't wait to give to me. It was a new phone. :D (I've never really been the flowers/chocolate/jewelry type.) I'd had my previous phone for about 6 years, lol, so it was definitely time for an upgrade. The only thing "advanced" about my prior phone was that it had a color screen (barely) and the phone I had before THAT did not. But it didn't even have a camera or anything. My new phone is awesome and I have been playing with it all weekend. I also downloaded the 141-page manual so I could skim through it as well (it just came w/ a quick-start guide). Ok, who am I kidding, I am actually going to READ the manual, b/c I'm a little strange like that. :p

I do have to share a few funny things from the quick-start guide though. Whoever wrote it has a bit of a sense of humor. Like here's a few tips for caring for your phone (the boldings are mine, and are what made me laugh):

"Water will damage your phone and accessories - even a small amount such as water droplets from a soda in your car cup-holder, melting snowflakes, tears of joy, squirt-gun crossfire or steam from hot water in the kitchen or bathroom.

Use only batteries and accessories from the original manufacturer of your phone - Non-approved accessories can cause damage to you or your phone and shorten the phone's life. Hint: if it's being sold out of someone's car trunk, walk away."

And then here's a safety tip regarding using your phone while driving:

"Keep your phone closed. If it rings and you discover it's in the back seat, do NOT crawl over the seat to answer it while driving.

The whole manual isn't like that (it IS a manual and not a comic book, after all), but those things and a couple of others made me laugh so hard.

In pregnancy news, it's moving right along. I'm undeniably showing a tiny bit now. I have a pair of capris that I wore when I was postpartum with Lydia, and they are my "way fat" pants, lol. They are still a little too big at this point, but my other bottoms are too small. I was wearing them for our most recent appointment and she commented that I was "still fitting into my pants nicely." I had to confess that they were my fat pants, lol. The rest of the appointment went fine. She said that I felt big, but when she actually measured me, I was measuring right on. We talked about my labwork. On two of the measurements, I was very slightly below the "normal" normal range, but the level I was at was perfectly normal for pregnancy. Hematocrit was slightly low at 35.6, but hemoglobin was still in a good range at 12.5. We heard the heartbeat again and talked about my morning sickness. Hopefully THAT is on its way out. I'm trying to eat as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning, and also eat more protein overall, to help keep it at bay. So far, it seems to be working. We'll schedule our ultrasound at our next appointment. I'm excited b/c we will actually get a DVD of it this time instead of just a few pictures like w/ Lydia. :D Yesterday and today I thought I was feeling the baby move again, but the movements still seem "too big" for the size that the baby actually is right now. Like something so tiny surely can't kick me that hard, right?

a bittersweet end of an era

2009-04-09T13:37:00.002-05:00

I think I can partly-tearfully and partly-joyfully say that Lydia is now weaned. She's 28 months old. I met all my nursing goals, both in absolute timeframes and in "situational" things (like I wanted to have a talking nursling). I have no regrets, either for stopping right now or for going "so long," but I do kind of miss it, and am glad that I'll be able to do it again in about 6 months. I went to my first La Leche League meeting in over a year today, and as soon as I said that "Lydia WAS nursing until about a week ago," I started bawling. But I think part of that bawling just came from the pregnancy in general, because even Reader's Digest articles will make me cry at this point. :)

the incredible shrinking belly, and the feeling is gone

2009-04-04T12:08:00.002-05:00

I've decided that what I felt the other day was just an imagined baby movement, and was just digestion instead. No worries, though. I will feel REAL baby movements in my belly soon, soon, soon.

Speaking of the belly, I'm at the point now where I "show" differently, depending on what time of day it is. I'm still small enough that if I lay flat on my back, it completely disappears. Also, first thing in the morning, I'm still somewhat smallish. But all that changes as soon as I eat anything, and then throughout the day, the belly seems to get a tiny bit bigger all the way through to bedtime. Then overnight while I'm sleeping, it shrinks again. Even with all these changing sizes, I have gone ahead and made the switch about 90% over to maternity clothes, especially for skirts. I had a few that were a little forgiving, but the forgiveness can only go so far before comfort needs to take over.

an interesting feeling... and a two-year appointment

2009-04-02T11:30:00.005-05:00

So, I've been waking up at night several times. Sometimes I can go back to sleep if I adjust my position, but other times I need to get up and go get a drink or whatever first. During one of my wake-ups last night, at about 2:00 am, I had a strange feeling way down in my lower left middle-ish stomach area. It might have just been digestion, or mmmmaaaayyyyyyyyyybbbbeeee it could possibly have been the baby. It felt like a pea-to-dime-sized bubble that popped, and happened a few times in a row. The area I was feeling it was "correct" to be a baby, as was the size of the feeling (my normal digestive feelings are... much bigger. LOL). But I don't know for sure if I can call it the baby or not. I think I can, but I'm still so early. I didn't feel Lydia until 18 and a half weeks, and I'm 5 weeks away from that right now, but "they" do say that you feel your second baby earlier than your first. So who knows? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But it's nice to imagine that it is. :)

We also finally had Lydia's 2-year well-child appointment this morning, only 4 months late. I mentioned to her doctor that I'd be bringing her a new patient in October, and she said "Oh, ok... OH! Congratulations!" lol. Lydia is the picture of good health, and has maintained her 30% height curve and also gained in her weight curve, from 1% up to 20%. So yay, now she is proportionate. We don't have any issues with her and she wasn't due for any shots today, so her next visit won't be until she's 3. I had Lydia sing her ABCs for the doctor, and then later when she was offering Lydia a sticker, I asked Lydia if she could "ask nicely" for a sticker and she said "May I have a sticker please?" I also taught her the name of her doctor this morning, so that she could say "Hi Dr. ___" and "Bye Dr. ___" today. The doctor recommended moving Lydia from skim milk (what our family is used to) to 2%, but Lydia gets some good fats elsewhere in her diet like from olive oil and whatnot, so I think I will try out 1% instead. Her stats today were a head circumference of 18.5", height of 34" and weight of 25 lbs 8 oz.

Also, I have another "funny word" to add to Lydia's repertoire. Yesterday before church, I had her sitting on a stool in the bathroom so I could curl her hair (and then it fell down about 5 minutes later, lol). She saw Tim's toothbrush by the sink and said "I see a brush-your-teeth!" Then she noticed her toothbrush as well and said "I see Lydia's purple brush-your-teeth too!" I love her cute little words. :)

am i having fun yet?

2009-03-31T13:39:00.002-05:00

I turned 13 weeks yesterday, and the day before yesterday, I was still having "morning" sickness. It was after church at night, and let's just say that I didn't make it home. (I DID make it off the road, though.) Also, in the past couple of weeks, I've had the occasional painful stretching of my round ligaments. It's not very fun. And my "belly" still comes and goes. It is there in the evening, but then when I wake up in the morning, it's disappeared again.

I'm ready to move on from all this into the fun part. I want to feel movements. I didn't feel anything with Lydia until over 18 weeks, and have heard that second and beyond babies are felt earlier, but probably not THIS early yet. Movements would be fun, though. The ligament pain... not so much.

Lydia's been two years old for nearly 4 months now, and I just now called to make her appointment for her 2-year visit. We had some... "issues" with our insurance and changes and stuff, but her appointment is now set for Thursday morning. It's so strange to me to go this far between appointments now b/c they were so close together in her first 18 months. The office staff always loves her when we come in, though, as do the other waiting patients. And Lydia, social butterfly that she is, is of course happy to entertain.

a couple of cute things she says

2009-03-26T10:50:00.002-05:00

Lydia loves to sing, and she loves me to sing to her. (Well, sometimes she loves me to sing. Other times if I'm singing and she's not in the mood to hear me, she'll say "No sing, mommy." LOL) But she doesn't know about song title, so instead, she will ask me to sing a particular song by phrasing some of the lyrics as a question to me. Like: "ABCDEFG?" or "All around the neighborhood?" (for "This Little Light of Mine") or today's newest installment, "Up the water 'pout?" (for "The Itsy Bitsy Spider.") Then, if she wants to have something or to do something, she'll say "How 'bout...." and then state her request. Like just now, she was hungry for a snack, so she said, "How 'bout some bread?"

But yesterday morning was the funniest thing she'd said in a while. I've been teaching her to ask nicely for things, and to say "May I have a ____ please?" instead of just demanding something with a holler and a single word. She's doing pretty well with it. When she wakes up in the morning, she sits in her bed and talks to herself and laughs and is just in a good mood. Occasionally she'll get a little loud and say things to try to get my attention so she can get out and go play (like "Moooooommmmmmmyyyy, where aaaaaaarrrrreeee yooooouuuuu?" from the other day), but most of the time she just chatters to herself. But yesterday she nearly made me laugh out loud. Several times in a row, she said, "May I have a open-the-door please?" LOL

The pregnancy is moving right along. I still have an occasional day of sickness, but most of the time I feel pretty good. I'm starting to get rather thick, and have gradually started to bring out the maternity clothes, tops only for now, since most of my bottoms are still forgiving enough to allow another week or two of wearing.

the hanging garden of my patio

2009-03-24T23:01:00.003-05:00

Not nearly as impressive as I imagine the hanging gardens of Babylon were, I now have a tiny hanging garden on my patio, made of one tomato plant and one cucumber plant. They are hanging upside-down. I succumbed to the sales pitch of this infomercial and hopefully will have some fruits later this summer. The hubby and I hung them up tonight, by wrapping a chain around the support beam of the balcony above ours and then hanging the planters from the chain. They did come with hooks that they could hang from, but after having a hanging kitchen basket full of onions and potatoes fall down out of the ceiling, I'm a little wary of hooks.

I had tried to start my plants from seeds, and all the seeds sprouted, but due to my brown thumb, they all are now lifeless. They grew just enough to use up the energy stored within the seed, but never grew large enough to start producing their own energy. So I bought some slightly larger plants the other day, good-looking ones, that will hopefully remain alive. They have fresh air and sunshine but are sheltered from the rain, so I just need to remember to water them every now and then.

If the plants do well, I will take some pictures later on. If they don't, well then, we shall never speak of this travesty again.

first prenatal appointment

2009-03-16T15:24:00.002-05:00

Well, technically it wasn't my "first" prenatal appointment since I did have several of those with Lydia, but it was the first one for this pregnancy. :) We heard the heartbeat and I got weighed (up 5 lbs so far) and filled out some paperwork. The heartbeat was hard to find since I'm still a little early, but she finally found it hiding behind one of MY pulses. My lab work was on a different day and I'm going to have a little bruise from that, but the good news is that I did NOT get lightheaded w/ the needle this time. Usually I do, so I'm glad I got to avoid that feeling.

In Lydia news, she's started saying "Okay" a lot. The tone she uses when she says it is absolutely adorable. She'll say it after Tim or I ask her to do something, but not all the time, otherwise I'd try to get it on video. You'll just have to take my word as to how cute it is. ;)

a moment of realization

2009-03-05T17:39:00.002-06:00

Wow. I'm pregnant!

It just sort of hit me yesterday. This feeling is new to me, because with Lydia, the pregnancy was never "real" to me, not even when I was in labor. But maybe because I've gone through it before and know what's to come, it sort of all sunk in yesterday. In about 7 months, I will be a mother of TWO! My "inner child" will become an outer child and I'll get to see if he/she will look like me or be another clone of Tim and Lydia. My belly will get big(ger) and movements will be able to be seen and felt from the inside and out. An amazing journey waits for me and I hope I can cherish every day (instead of dwelling on the unpleasant side effects thus far).

her sense of humor in action

2009-03-05T12:27:00.002-06:00

Well, it's a sock instead of a diaper, but putting it in the wrong place got the same reaction as the diaper on the foot would have gotten.

a sense of humor develops

2009-02-28T14:13:00.003-06:00

Lydia is starting to have a sense of humor. If she does something funny and the adults around her start laughing, she starts laughing too and says "That's funny!" She also understands when Mommy is being silly, like when I'm changing her diaper. Sometimes I will take the new diaper and put it on her head or tummy or wrap it around an arm or a foot. She'll giggle and then say in a somewhat deep voice, "Noooo... it goes on the bottom." I tried to get a video of it earlier today but of course once the camera came out, she just stared at it and wouldn't say her funny line. I'll have to get a video at some point though.

The pregnancy is moving right along. I'll be nine weeks on Monday. My all-day sickness comes and goes. I still haven't figure out if any particular thing triggers it, or helps it to go away, so I can only hope that it doesn't last too much longer. I'm also exhausted all the time, probably from trying to do too much, but possibly because I need iron. I'll probably pick some up and add it to my litany of other vitamins that I've been taking, and see if that helps.

getting back into a schedule

2009-02-20T20:38:00.003-06:00

Tim got a call from the union earlier this week, and is now at a new local construction site! It's been hard for him to get back into a schedule after being off for just over a month, but he's making it work. He's very excited and loves this new site so far.

The pregnancy is moving right along. I felt mildly OK today and yesterday, and did not throw up (but was still naseous). Hopefully it'll be all gone by 14 weeks. Only 1.5 months to go until that milestone. I'm also looking forward to not being exhausted all the time. I forgot how tired early pregnancy makes you. Even more so w/ the second one since there's a firstborn to chase around.

sick in more ways than one, potty "not" training, and the continuing wait

2009-02-14T20:21:00.004-06:00

Hubby still does not have a job. Unemployment is coming in, but it's of course not enough. He thought about taking a job that is 7 hours away and decided it wouldn't be the best thing. The brand new people that are walking into the union off the street right now are being told to call back in 3 months. Meanwhile, hubby is being asked to just check in once/week. There was a job about an hour away, but they only took 2 apprentices and he wasn't high enough up on the list to be one of those two slots. He is still working delivering pizza in the meantime, so that is helping. And he finally stood up and requested some more hours, especially since he doesn't have a day job right now, and they gave him some more. I've been busy the last couple of weeks doing transcription, since it's that time of the quarter. One more slightly busy week and then I'll be done with it until late April. We did our taxes and are pleased with the result.

I've had sort of a cough the last few days, just irritation from a runny nose, nothing that's really contagious. But it's making me a lot more tired than I'd normally be in this condition, and is also aggravating my nausea. Just two more months until I'm 14 weeks along and hopefully the nausea and exhaustion will be behind me. (Oh, btw, I'm pregnant. Lydia's going to be a big sister in October.)

Speaking of Lydia, I can't remember if I'd mentioned it on this blog or not, but last year I did try to potty train her off and on. I did so very lightly when she was about 18 months old, and failed, and tried again in a couple of months, and failed again. She just wasn't ready and still isn't ready. She doesn't care if she's wet or dirty. She's fearful of the toilet and screams if I try to have her sit on it. Right after a shower, if she happens to have an accident before I get a new diaper on her, she doesn't even notice or care at all. I really don't know where to go from here, but may do a "potty boot camp" later this summer where we just hang out in the bathroom with books and juice, but for now, I've just given up everything. I barely even talk about it with her anymore, except in obvious cases to point out the benefits (like when she's complaining about being wiped after a #2, I let her know that if she had put it in the potty then she wouldn't need to be wiped as much). But other than instances like that, I don't mention it to her anymore. She'll either randomly "get it" and train herself sometime between now and the summer, or the "potty boot camp" will produce some results, or she'll continue in diapers. I go through phases with this milestone where I worry that she seriously will NEVER EVER potty train, then go through a few months of peaceful waiting b/c I realize that she's developmentally normal and a normal child is very likely to be out of diapers by age 5, but then the cycle resumes and I start to fret again.

So that's my update for today. Hopefully I'll have some other positive news to report before the end of the month.

so, what's next?

2009-01-29T17:44:00.002-06:00

Last time Tim spoke w/ the union was on Monday, when he dropped off his application. He spoke to the person there, and there are still no openings, but the saddest thing from that encounter was that Tim found out that there is not a single other apprentice that is out of work right now. He is a "pre apprentice" right now since he hasn't started classes (if he'd gone to the union just a few weeks earlier last fall, he would be in his first year now instead of in his first year next year). The person told Tim to call again on Monday if he hadn't heard anything by then.

I just don't know what to feel anymore. Monday is approaching again, and the next day will be three weeks of Tim being out of work. We have not yet heard about our unemployment application. I almost got excited a few minutes ago when Tim's phone rang, but it was a random person letting him know of a job fair on Wednesday that Tim is a "perfect match" for. Tim said that on Monday if (when?) there's still no work available, that he is going to make plans to try to do something else. Please pray for there to be a job available for him Monday. After that, the level of stress and uncertainty does nothing but increase, and I'm already so stressed that I'm losing my appetite, which is not good since I'm already small. The next step is baldness from pulling out my hair.

singing a song from bible class

2009-01-26T15:16:00.001-06:00

Here's Lydia singing "Jesus Loves Me."

my little "slave"

2009-01-24T07:50:00.003-06:00

Even just at 2 years old, Lydia is already such a big helper. After she's done eating, she takes her plate to the kitchen and puts it on the cabinet (stretching to reach b/c she's still so short, lol). She also likes to help me fold diapers:

After they're all folded, she helps me put them away in their proper compartments (we have big diapers which I put away, and then she puts away the little diapers, the wipes, the microfiber towels and the fleece liners). It's really so cute to watch her b/c she's so happy doing it (check out her "I'm so proud of myself" grin at about 48 seconds into the video, lol).

As for Tim's job, we are still waiting on a call from the union. Tuesday will have been two weeks of waiting. We did apply for unemployment the day he got laid off, so hopefully we'll be approved for that, but it takes at least 4 weeks to process that application. Then even if we are approved, it'll be tight and skinny while we're on it since what we would get on that isn't what his full salary would be if he were working.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about the Bible class I'm teaching next quarter. It's the 4&5 year old class, and it's going to be a FULL class. I know that it'll end up being OK but it's still so nerve-wracking doing all the preparations and trying to make sure there's enough going on to fill up the time. I really love that age, though, and think it'll be a fun class.

another time of unemployment has begun

2009-01-15T09:21:00.003-06:00

The current project that Tim was working on has been winding down, and they've started laying people off. A few weeks ago, he warned me that he could be laid off, and Monday he came home with his final paycheck. He did file for unemployment, but based on this page, we don't qualify. Hopefully the union will call him today or tomorrow so he can go back to work next week. This month was already so thin that we were going to have to dip into our savings before it's over. Now our savings will be entirely gone. :( I do have a few very VERY small orders on the side, and my transcription is starting up again next week, but that's nowhere near what we need.

ETA later: After receiving the mail today, I have a bit of renewed hope, b/c we may be able to get unemployment benefits after all. I apparently misread the meaning of that page I linked. We will have to wait a week before benefits kick in, though.

thousands of work-at-home crafters will be out of a job next month

2009-01-06T08:52:00.003-06:00

Unless some serious amendments are passed in the new CPSIA, I and thousands of other crafters of children's items (clothing, toys, cloth diapers, etc.) will be unable to legally sell our products after February 10th. The CPSIA was written in reaction to the lead toys that came over from China two Christmases ago. I am all for keeping led out of my daughter's toys, but this law is taking things way too far.

- The testing required is at LEAST $400/pop, and every unique item in every manufacturing run must be tested. I sell a set of ham/cheese cracker stacks made of cotton yarn (the yarn is made here in the USA as well) for about $10. I would need to make one extra cracker, one extra ham, and one extra cheese and send them off for testing for $1200. I can't afford that, therefore I would either operate illegallly and risk a $100,000 fine (which I can't afford either), or just go out of business altogether. Countless other work-at-home moms are in the same boat, making products that are already inherently lead-free.

- Signing this into law (and it IS already a law, we can only hope for amendments at this point) put not only thousands of sole proprietors out of business, but also the resale shops. Do you buy used clothing for your children? I do. But I won't be able to do that after February 10 either, because the law requires that it be the end product that is tested, and there's no way for the resale shops to be able to test all their inventory in each individual store.

- President-elect Obama is already talking up a stimulus package, but how stimulated can the economy BE if 80% of the people are suddenly out of work and unable to sell things?

Please click the link below and VOTE to Save Handmade Toys from the CPSIA. I would also suggest writing your Senators and Representatives. I wrote them and only received back a "canned" reply, if I even received a reply at all, but the more people that write them, the more aware they will start to be about this issue.

Change.org, Save Handmade Toys from the CPSIA

another year gone

2009-01-02T10:56:00.002-06:00

Wow, I started this blog four years ago. Feels like just yesterday. What will this new year bring? Only God knows what He has planned for us.

As for me, I'm in the thick of trying to prepare to teach the 4 and 5 year olds' Bible class next quarter. I don't yet know how I'm going to make it through the next 5 months (2 more months of prep and then 3 months of teaching). But, I made it through the 4th and 5th graders last year, so I will be able to make it through this challenge as well. Then hopefully I can take a short break before teaching again.

Lydia continues to be both a challenge and a joy at the same time. In just a few more days, she'll be 25 months old. Still absolutely NO interest in potty training, but I did finally move her up to the next size of cloth diapers. Her infant-sized ones were just getting too ragged and holey. I still have a big stash of unwashed, undyed, brand new diapers under her crib (from back when I was going to dye them to sell), so I could get some more with little trouble, but it was just "time" to move her up to the next size.

I'm in the middle of doing some decluttering and so far it's going well. I was pretty intense with it earlier this week, so I could finish up the "public areas" of the apartment before DH's family came into town for a few days. Now I have a lot more to do and lots of time in which to do it. I have one remaining play food order and then I need to update my Hyena Cart store, since I've been neglecting it while I sell on a message board instead.

My trip up to see my family last month was great. My nephews (5, 3.5 and 2.5) enjoyed how Lydia has grown. They were surprised that she could talk to them now. lol. I got to try out my sister's Wii Fit, while my family was behind me on the couch, laughing at my futile efforts to hit the soccer balls with my head and to dodge the shoes and the panda bear heads that were being hurtled at me.

It snowed, briefly, our last morning in Amarillo, so I bundled Lydia up and sent her out into the backyard. She still can't say blended consonants (i.e. she says 'nap instead of snap), so she kept calling the snow "sah-now." It was cute to watch her walk around in it.

I also still have to eventually post pictures of her birthday party, but haven't organized those pictures yet. Maybe next week. :p

a memory verse, a boa, a burp and a bite

2008-12-19T14:43:00.002-06:00

Lydia moved up from the infants' Bible class to the 2 yr old class this month, since she is 2 now, and they have memory verses even that young. Her verse this month is Jeremiah 31:33, and I've been working with her on it, by saying 3 or so words and then she'll repeat those words (or just continue on w/ the next 3 or so words, depending what mood she's in, lol). This morning, she got the farthest in her verse that she's ever gotten by herself. I started her off and said, "I will put," and then she said, "I will put... my law... in their minds... and write it... on their hearts." I would get it on video but I have to catch her at just the right mood or she'll either not repeat me at all or just repeat "I will put" and then stop, lol.

But speaking of videos, here's one to enjoy. She got a feather boa for her birthday, but can't quite say it. And yesterday, hubby taught her how to say "bite" in a funny way, so that is on there, too. And in the middle of it all is a big burp, just to show how dainty and feminine she is not. LOL

my first blog award

2008-12-15T14:17:00.004-06:00

Yay, my friend Stephanie has given my blog its first award!

But this prize doesn't come without rules. This time, it's that "When you receive the prize, you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in their content or design. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing that they were prized with 'Honest Weblog'. List [if you can and/or dare] at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!" I don't have a ton of blogging friends, so the 7 became my maximum instead of my minimum. But here they are, in no particular order.

1. Sarah has a blog called Mommy of Faith, where she talks about her various feelings as life happens. My heart goes out to her on the recent loss of her father.

2. Leah is blogging about the ups and downs of going through IVF as she tries for baby #2, in Desperately Seeking Womb Mate,

3. Heather lets you journey into her life in Simply Living Naturally. I love all the pictures in her blog and the crafts.

4. Mariana writes about interesting things in her life in Asi es mi vida! which is a mostly English blog despite the Spanish title.

5. Ashley is newly pregnant with #2 and writes about life with her daughter and life in general in A Perfect World.

6. Margaret and I have known each other in real life (unlike most of my other award recipients, who I only know online so far) for a long time now, before either of us were married. We were pregnant with our daughters at nearly the same time, and now she's gone on ahead of me to have #2 in the early spring. She writes about her life in World of Welch.

7. I met Tishia only once in person, I think, at a babywearing meeting in Missouri. She writes Tishia's Thoughts about being Deaf, and her life in general. I wish I had been able to get to know her in person better when I still lived in MO.

There, those are my award recipients. Even if they're not able to pass it on, I hope they come and comment here. :) Now for my 10 honest things about me. I've been thinking about this for several days, ever since I got the award, and am really not sure what to put here. But we'll try it out with these:

1. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really and truly "bonded" to my daughter. She was planned, I had a drug-free birth, I breastfed, I babywore. All those are supposed to help "enhance" bonding, but even today, I'm still waiting for it to really "sink in" that I'm a mom.

2. I'm a habitual worrier, usually about finances, but the months go on and everything ends up OK anyway despite my worries.

3. I wish I'd taken more pictures of Lydia within her first few days of life, and more videos overall.

4. I am extremely introverted in real life and do best when I'm in a "crowd" of less than 4-5 people.

5. Our current residence isn't in the greatest condition, but we're not really able to move right now. We'll likely be here for at least 3 more years, so I am trying to make the best of it.

6. I grew up as a "cat person", but in the past few years, dogs have started growing on me as well.

7. I don't make New Year's resolutions because they usually end up broken by January 2nd. Instead, if there's an area of my life that needs improving, I try to take steps right then to make changes rather than waiting until January.

8. I can still hula hoop, and even did so once while 7 months pg w/ Lydia.

9. I am a terrible procrastinator.

10. I'm picky about what water I will drink. The flavor of it varies greatly from region to region. Texas water needs heavy filtering when it's drinkable at all. Oklahoma water is delicious. Missouri water was fine as is.

and then she was two

2008-12-05T12:28:00.003-06:00

Last year:

Today:

Another year has come and gone, much more quickly than her first year. She continued with her firsts this year, with her first steps and her first word. Now she's talking in a few sentences and nearly running.

I am still nursing her. I never imagined "not" nursing a toddler and had set 18 months as my minimum goal. I am very happy and blessed to have reached a 2-year milestone. She of course doesn't nurse as often as a newborn, and here and there we skip a day entirely. I think that both of us would be OK if either of us wanted to quit, but it's nice to still have this relationship for now.

I haven't had her 2-year appointment yet but she is about 32 inches tall and 25 lbs. She is still rear-facing in her carseat, and loves to take her shoes off within seconds of being in the car. Then when I go to get her out, I ask her where the shoes went, and she points over the side of her chair.

She knows what she wants but doesn't always have the words to express it, and will end up hollering if she doesn't get her way. She also has learned a trick of putting her arms straight up when I pick her up around the ribs, and nearly can slip out of my grasp that way. She also runs away when I say "give mama kiss" or "let's go to bed" lol.

She has a wonderful smile and laugh and says thank you and you're welcome and sometimes shares. She eats everything you put in front of her and takes her plate to the sink by herself. She's still too short to put it up on the counter though so I have to help her do that. She loves phones and will hold them to her ear and say "anybody there?" I wouldn't trade her for anything.

What will happen this next year? Hopefully another first... potty training!

maybe we should have just come back home on saturday morning

2008-11-30T22:14:00.004-06:00

So the hubs and the babe and I went up to Oklahoma to meet up w/ his parents on Wednesday, then Thursday and Friday we were in Kansas. Friday afternoon through today were planned to be in Oklahoma again, to see some old friends at church here and also to visit hubby's grandfather in rural Oklahoma on Saturday, a short trip away. It was a good plan.

Saturday morning came and we got up and had breakfast and hubby and baby and hubby's dad and I all rode out to his grandfather's house. We'll call him (the grandfather who we were going to go visit) C. C has a little dog, tiny little 8-lb so thing, we'll call him P. P is getting old, and even when he was younger, you couldn't touch his tail at all or he'd turn around at you and act all vicious. And if he was sitting up in C's lap, you couldn't touch C at all, or P would start to growl. These habits continue today. We had been at C's house for an hour and a half or so, and Lydia was having fun and walking around and talking to the dog who was just looking at her and being friendly. Hubby's aunt and uncle were there too and we were all visiting, while I tried to keep an eye on Lydia. The dog was over to the side and from what I saw, Lydia sat down right in front of the dog. Then I hear a bark and see a jump and Lydia starts crying. The dog had been right up in her face. We didn't see anything at first, but then after a minute, there was some blood. There was a tiny little wound right between Lydia's eyes, on the bridge of her nose. Even today, we never found the other tooth mark, so we are thinking that the tooth just scraped her while P was barking, rather than P intending to bite. We cleaned the bite right away and C said that P has had all his shots, and Lydia's sore today is just a tiny scab w/ no redness around it or anything.

Then this morning when we were getting ready for church, I was drying Lydia's hair w/ the blow dryer, and hubby was holding her hand so she wouldn't walk out of drying range. She's picked up a bad habit where if she doesn't want to walk w/ me or stand by me and hold my hand, she will do the jelly leg thing and just lay down on the floor. She tried to do this with hubby this morning, and hubby didn't let go fast enough and felt her wrist pop. Lydia cried. She was in a lot of pain. Even when she fell on the sidewalk earlier this month and hit her head, she didn't cry like she did this morning. I have NEVER heard her cry like this before, not even through vaccinations or anything. It was absolutely heartbreaking. She did not want to move her arm or wrist or hand at all b/c it was hurting her so bad. I sent hubby out for some children's motrin, and that helped. She stopped crying and we went on to church, intending to see her doctor tomorrow.

Meanwhile, on the drive TO church, right in the middle of the highway, we suddenly hear the thumpathumpathumpathumpa of a flat tire. The thing is shredded. So much for us leaving to go back to Dallas after church. Now we had to try to find a tire place that was 1) open on Sunday afternoon and 2) had the tire we needed in stock. We finally found that place at Walmart. We dropped the car off and hubby's mom took us to get some lunch and then we were finally on our way after that, and arrived home w/o further incident.

But back to Lydia's arm. I took Lydia to the little 2 and 3 yr olds' class and sat in there w/ her to watch her. She just let her left arm dangle, completely unused and motionless, to her side, and used her right hand to touch the stuff they passed out and took back up, as the teacher talked about creation and other things. After class, we went back out into the auditorium to get ready for the second worship service, and chatted w/ a few people who we didn't get to talk to earlier since we were late b/c of the tire. One of them, not knowing that Lydia's arm was very tender, took her arm and shook hands w/ her. The same tears and painful cry started again, but this time they stopped pretty quickly. And then later on, I noticed that she started using her hand again, a little more, a little more... then at the final song where we stand up, Lydia was holding onto my hand w/ her "bad" arm and to hubby's mom's hand w/ her good arm... and she was PULLING on us with both arms! Then throughout the afternoon w/ the tire drama, it was as if she had never injured it at all. I am so thankful to God that He helped take the pain in her arm away so quickly, because there is no doubt in my mind that His finger was on it.

the glass doesn't have feelings, hon

2008-11-21T20:24:00.002-06:00

I keep a glass of water next to the computer, and sometimes when Lydia walks by it, she wants a drink from it, rather than from her sippy cup. I usually try to direct her to her cup, but sometimes I'll give her a sip. I was taking it down for her earlier tonight, and I bumped the desk with it. Lydia then touched the desk, and with great concern, said "owie?" and then repeatedly touched the glass and said "you hurt? you hurt? you hurt?" It was so cute. She wouldn't even take a drink until I stopped laughing and explained that desks and glasses don't have feelings and can't get hurt like people can. Sometimes when I bump her or when she bumps herself, she'll say owie and hurt, but this is the first time she's said it for something other than herself. It was so cute.

a speech explosion

2008-11-19T22:00:00.002-06:00

I think it's finally happening, a speech explosion. She is finally starting to say "change diaper" to me when I get her up in the morning and from her nap (but not at any other times, so potty training is still WAY far away). And over the weekend, she said a few more new things: "I'm going to get you!" (came out "I ge ge you!" lol), "wash you leg" and "wipe nose and mouth." The "wash you leg" phrase, she said in the shower as she was rubbing a washcloth on my leg, and the "wipe nose and mouth" she said when she was on the changing table, so I handed her a (cloth) wipe, and she used it to wipe her nose and mouth. :) She knows fast and slow now, and we're working on up and down, and she can sometimes count to two.

Speaking of two, it's only a couple of weeks until she turns that age. The week afterwards, a couple of friends of ours are going to host a birthday party for Lydia at their house. I'm so excited for it. :) But before then, I have something to do nearly every Saturday between now and then, including going out of town and watching an OU game at someone's house and going out of town again and a ladies' brunch. I have no time to just watch the calendar days go by, lol.

This Friday our apartment office is having Thanksgiving dinner and inviting all the residents to come by and eat, so Lydia and I will go make an appearance. They're serving all the classics, my favorites: corn on the cob, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and pecan pie, turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and rolls. Yum yum. Then for "real" Thanksgiving we plan on going up to see hubby's family, like usual.

telegraphic speech

2008-10-29T12:09:00.003-05:00

So Lydia said her first "paragraph" the other day. Whenever she says "Go?" that means "Where did it go?" so that will help you translate this. I had her on the changing table, and she had her diaper cover, then tossed it on the floor. I said "Uh oh, did you drop it?" and she replied, "Drop it! Go? All gone." It was the cutest thing, and she's done little paragraphs here and there a few other times since then.

She had an Early Intervention therapy session today, and I mentioned it to her therapist, who told me that's called "telegraphic speech." She also said that most children in therapy services will just skip that phase, so it was really neat to be able to see it.

As for other talking stuff, Lydia will tell herself "Bless you" after she sneezes. During her therapy today, she belched, and told herself "Bless you" after that belch. The therapist and I were cracking up. She'll also say "Thank you" and "You're welcome" appropriately (although "you're welcome" comes out more like "come-come" lol). She "counts" sometimes, like this: 4, 5, 6, 4, 2. She recognizes that letters exist, and will sometimes point out the letter A, but usually just calls anything w/ words on it "A."

In other news, the hubs and I are going out this afternoon to vote when he gets home from work. I'm so ready for all the drama to be over.

grinding some grain, flax seeds to be exact

2008-10-17T10:15:00.000-05:00

I "inherited" a Magic Mill from my grandmother (she's still alive but we've been "claiming" some of her things that she doesn't use anymore w/ her knowledge and permission). I remember her milling flour when I was a child and so I asked mom if grandma still had the mill b/c I wanted it. (Grandma and Grandpa have a wheat farm.) They did and I got to take it home. :) It still works and Mom was even able to find the instruction manual. It was missing a part but I was able to order it online. (The instruction manual is copyright 1980 to give you an idea how old this thing is.)

Anyway. I finally used it today for the first time, but not for flour. I wanted to make some "grainy" banana nut pancakes (like w/ some oatmeal and cornmeal and flax and whatnot in there) and usually, I would grind some flax seeds in the coffee grinder. But the coffee grinder has been used for coffee since the last time I ground a grain in it, and some of the coffee "sticks" in there b/c of the oil content and I didn't want coffee-flavored pancakes. So I decided to try out the mill for my flax.

It turned it into flour. It was very noisy, like a very loud vacuum cleaner. A little bit of "smoke" came out while it was operating, and I thought it was the motor smoking, but it when I sniffed the smoke, I decided it was a little bit of flax dust. Then when I turned it off, I heard it "whine" as the grinding mechanism slowly came to a stop. It took about 10 seconds for the noise to completely stop after I cut the power.

But it was fun and I can't wait to grind another grain sometime. I have a whole bucket of wheat that Grandpa sent me home w/ too.

growing up but staying small

2008-10-10T13:20:00.004-05:00

Lydia has more words now that she says spontaneously.

off - when she wants me to take her shirt/dress/shoes/etc. off
dress - shirt, dress, get dressed, or I'm dressed
juice
milk
weenwee - sandwich, although this word is soon to be replaced by sanwee since she's already started saying the latter here and there
down - put me down, I want to get down
c'mere (accompanied by her reaching out and grabbing w/ her upturned hands) - come here and pick me up and hold me
body there - is anybody there (when talking on the phone, lol)

She also is starting to put two words together on her own, finally:

nana bowl - can I have a banana in a bowl?
juice please

She goes to sleep like a dream most nights. She knows the routine and when I put her in her crib, she lays down and waits for me to cover her up and doesn't make a peep until after her nap or until the next morning. I'm still nursing her an average of once a day. When she's done eating, she will take her plate into the kitchen and put it on the counter by the sink (and it's so cute b/c she has to stand on her tiptoes and can barely reach it).

She is getting taller, but she's still in 12 month play clothes. I have a bag of 18 month winter clothes, so I'm hoping that the change in weather will coincide with her fitting into the next size. It's still too warm in the afternoons to switch her over to those clothes full time yet. She is a whopping 22.4 pounds, and about 31 inches tall. She's going to take after her mama in the size department, definitely.

Both of hubby's jobs are still going fine. My jobs are going fine. It's about to be peak season for transcription again. I was nervous for a little while because the operations were suspended while they worked on renegotiating their major contract, but they were successful so I will start back to that work late next week. I'm also working hard to get caught up on my play food orders, and I still have ideas for a bunch of new foods that aren't even on my "menu" yet. I'm hoping that my small work at home ventures will help us here and there w/ paying down debt and putting into savings and saving up for particular goals and dreams, including a house eventually, for one, but we are accepting that for now we will be in an apartment for the foreseeable future.

feels like fall

2008-10-02T12:01:00.004-05:00

The days are getting cooler. It's nice to be able to open a window in the morning now and not be blown over by the heat and humidity. The afternoons are still pretty toasty, though.

Lydia is getting too tall for her 18-month dresses b/c at church, her little bottom peeks out from beneath the dress when she bends over. I bought a few long-sleeve T-shirts and some coordinating woven material, and used this tutorial to make some fall dresses for her. They turned out cute, I think:

The method can be used for any size, even on up to adult. I'm so excited with how cute they are that I want to make some next fall for her, too. Hopefully she'll grow a little between now and then. :)

Lydia loves shoes, no matter if they're hers or mine or hubby's. Hers are a little too small for her to put on by herself, but she loves to step into mine and hubby's, and even walk around in them:

Hubby's jobs are still going great. He loves both of them and is able to relax at home now instead of stress out wondering what he's going to do with the rest of his life. My "three" jobs are going ok, too, but I'm waiting on an unexpected update for one of them tomorrow. I am an independent contractor for that company, and they posted something the other day about suspending operations, so I hope there will be work this quarter. But if not, I still have the other two things to continue helping w/ debt, etc. Our credit card is finally under 6K again, so we're making progress there.

i feel calm now

2008-09-12T15:39:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, hubby went out to a couple of pizza places to look for his part-time job. The closest pizza place to us wasn't hiring b/c they had JUST hired two drivers, but referred us to one in the next town over. He went out there and the person who could hire him wouldn't be there until today. He went ahead and filled out an application anyway and went back today. He called me what seemed like just a few minutes after he left the house, to tell me that he was hired. :D He has to call on Monday to see exactly what day he starts (they have to process his I-9 to make sure he can legally work in the US, lol), but he does have the job. And he's off on Sunday and Wednesday. :D With that job and w/ the apprenticeship, we should easily be able to make ends meet. Then my little piddly work at home things will be completely extra, to be able to go to debt or to save for a far-in-the-future home birth or whatever. :D

I feel calm, but nervous at the same time. We are moving into a "new" normal, now. I don't know what that normal will be, yet, but it will be nice to be self-sufficient again. I am excited to be moving forward in the next phase of our life and that our unemployment wasn't too long.

forgot to mention

2008-09-11T15:12:00.004-05:00

Hubby DID get the pipefitters apprenticeship. :) It's going to be a long 6 years, but so worth it in the end. He's looking for a part-time night/weekend job now, too, since an apprentice doesn't make enough to support a family on. There may be overtime involved w/ the apprenticeship, but it's not a guarantee. If it were, that would be great. He starts at the job site on Monday, and today and tomorrow he's trying to find that perfect part-time job.

here's the missing videos

2008-09-10T16:05:00.002-05:00

Ok, here's the videos that I promised yesterday. Also, Lydia has started saying "woah!!" whenever she falls down unexpectedly. You can sort of see that in the first video, even though it's just a sit down instead of a fall down. :p

a coop, multiple rejections, a toddler and more

2008-09-08T22:56:00.004-05:00

I did not even realize that it's been nearly a month since I posted. So here's what's been going on since then.

Coop

Right after my last post, I received a shipment of Enwrapture skirts for which I had hosted a coop. A few hundred people paid me for an order for them, then I ordered the skirts in bulk so we could get a wholesale discount on them. It was interesting b/c this company doesn't allow color selection for wholesale orders, but it was a lot of fun. We got them for about a 70-80% discount off of retail. Here's part of the craziness:

And here's what a couple of them look like:

Rejections (and a possible job finally!)

Tim has been having a few interviews here and there, but then a few days later he would invariably receive a rejection email. But even rejection emails after an interview are better than no interview at all. He had tried to be a truck driver, a college bookstore manager, an insurance agent (which we may still do after a couple of years as a secondary job), an IKEA kitchens salesperson, a 911 dispatcher and a number of others that I can't remember right off the bat. He has yet to hear from a company that makes video recording equipment for police cars, but said he would really like that position.

But meanwhile, he is pretty sure that he has found what he wants to do. He is going to be a plumbing apprentice. They pay is not terrific at the start so he will either have to hope for overtime or get a second job, but it's steady, stable, long-term work. He went to an orientation/testing for it today (he finds out tomorrow at around 3:00 if he passed the test, then the rest of it is just a matter of paperwork before he can start), and the instructor said that in 30 years of doing this, the longest he has been without work was 2 months. Tim could also be an HVAC apprentice instead of a plumbing apprentice. There are raises every 6 months that are pretty substantial. The only bad news is that a group of classes started a month ago, so Tim's first raise won't be until 18 months from now, and the whole process will be 6 years instead of 5 since the first year, he will just be working instead of working and going to class. But we are very excited about the long-term situation this will help us be in.

Toddler

Lydia is now 21 months old, and very much a toddler. We continue to train her, and have found that if we train her like it's a game, then she seems to be more receptive. Like the other day, we were playing "stop/go" with her, to teach her to stop right away when we say stop. We would hold her hand or walk right next to her, and say "go go go go go go go go go go go STOP!" and then stop right then. Then we'd go go go some more and stop again. After a while, Lydia started doing this herself. She'd tell herself go go go and stop. It was so cute. She has several more words since the last time I posted, and will try to repeat some 3-syllable words or phrases now, too.

We've given up on potty training for now. The whole idea of it, and especially when I look on a message board and see children younger than Lydia who are completely trained, just makes me cry. I'm trying to just push it to the back of my mind and revisit it when she's 4 or when she shows very VERY clear signs that she is ready to do her business somewhere besides her diaper. I've read Diaper Free Before Three which encourages "early" potty training, and we did try those methods for a while, but they just didn't yield any results for us at all. Lydia is not ready. She doesn't care if her diaper is wet or dirty. I will just continue what I've been doing, which is letting her come w/ me to the bathroom and letting her watch me put her poop in the potty (we cloth diaper) and talking about the whole scenario w/ her in a lighthearted manner (oh, look, your diaper is wet. One day you'll put it in the potty and you'll stay dry).

Here's a few videos of her modeling one of the short wrap skirts which is still way too long for her, lol. But the three videos combined show how she's grown so much since the last time I shared. :)

...

Ok well never mind on the videos... YouTube is doing site maintenance so I'll have to post them later. :p

More

I am still crocheting play food. I'm gearing up for what I hope will be a busy holiday season. My link over on the sidebar is still pointed to my Hyena Cart, but I'm toying with the idea of moving over to Etsy instead. Each site does have its pluses and minuses. In the meantime, I'm making a bunch of in-stock food, especially bread (the bread is what seems to tie me up the longest when I get a custom order, lol). I have about 60 different items now, with more in the works. When I first started making it, I would have never thought that I'd have such variety. I also am attempting to start another work at home thing, just to make a little change here and there. The company seems to be having technical difficulties right now, though, so I'm not able to complete my test. Hopefully I can finish that test by this weekend though.

back from a not-so-relaxing trip home

2008-08-09T21:44:00.002-05:00

I just got back today from an 8-day trip home for a visit. Lydia and I went to my parents' house. A friend of ours who we've known pretty much her whole life had gotten married in their hometown on the 2nd, and I went to the wedding, and since it was a long drive to get there, decided to make a visit out of it, too.

I say the trip was not so relaxing b/c my mom still watches all 3 of my nephews. This week, one of them wasn't there b/c my sister took some vacation time, but the other two are so hard on her. There are a 2 yr old and a 4.5 yr old, and they are brothers. The 2 year old can open doors and climb things, and both were highly resistant to naps all week, even though they both still desperately need a daily nap. They constantly stress my mom out and push limits (limits? what limits? Doesn't something have to be consistently enforced to really be an effective limit?), and then my mom releases the stress on whoever is closest, whether it's one of them or whether it's me.

But before all that, there was the wedding. She was the acting "wedding coordinator" for the weekend, helping to tell everyone where to stand and when to walk in with and who to be escorted by, etc. The wedding overall went OK in that they did end up married in the end, lol, but the cake and the sound system (it was an outdoor wedding and indoor reception) were two major problems that the bride's parents are still trying to get some satisfaction from. But it was beautiful and I know the bride and groom are going to be so happy together. :)

Some brief Lydia highlights from the trip, now. Mom has a little wading pool that she has been letting the boys play in, so we added Lydia to the mix. The water level was just at the height so that when she was on her hands and knees, her head was still above water. She LOVED playing in the water. Then at one point, she was sitting, and somehow she slipped and slid completely under the water. I was nervous about that happening, but when it actually did happen, I was so calm, and I just reached over and lifted her back out. She coughed a bit. I stood up and held her, and she started crying. I thought she was crying b/c the experience had scared her, and I was trying to comfort her, but it turns out that she was crying b/c she wanted back IN the water. I lowered her back down and she stopped crying the very moment that her feet touched the surface. :p

She was also highly entertaining to everyone, including her little cousins. She has a laugh that she does occasionally that sounds like a cackle, and she treated us to that laugh last night. :p She learned better how to climb on things, courtesy of her cousins. My parents have a carpeted staircase, and Lydia has been able to climb UP stairs for a long time, so we worked on going DOWN stairs (backwards, on her tummy) and she got pretty good at that, too. She also learned how to sit just in a regular seat while she ate, instead of a high chair.

Her size 3 diapers were fitting her, but she kept leaking through them, so I had my mom get her some size 4s and they worked out better. At one point, I was changing her, and she had grabbed the clean diaper, and opened it up. Apparently it looked like a flip-phone to her b/c she put it to her head and said "Hello?" lol

And also this week, a bittersweet realization. There were a few times that b/c of the hour or something else, I had to put Lydia down for a nap or for the night w/o nursing her (those are the last two sessions that we still do consistently). I expected her to NOT go to sleep, but she surprised me and went to sleep within about 5 minutes the first time, and w/in about 20 seconds all the other times. :( I guess she doesn't "need" me anymore, and if I had to wean her for one reason or another, she would be OK with it. I still want to try to nurse her at least until she's 2, though. Only 4 months to go until that milestone.

Speaking of nursing, there was one instance this week where I was VERY glad that I was still nursing her. We were visiting my sister's house, and she has a brick area by her fireplace that's about 12 inches tall. Lydia was walking by it, and she tripped over some toys and fell into it, and landed right on the corner of that brick w/ her cheek. :( She was so upset. I nursed her briefly, until she was comforted, and until the initial sharp pain had dulled some. It's times like that when I realize that there's so much more to nursing than just "the milk." I hope that our nursing relationship continues on through more bumps that she will inevitably get.

a video of her not liking the word "ow"

2008-07-28T18:42:00.002-05:00

I talked about this in my previous post, but here is a video of Lydia "not liking" the word "ow." I have no idea why she's made the association that us saying the word "ow" is such an end-of-the-world thing for her.

the cute and strange life of a toddler

2008-07-24T15:35:00.002-05:00

First, the strange. Yesterday, Lydia started doing the weirdest thing. I haven't a clue from where she picked this up. But whenever DH or I say "owww" to her, she will start crying. And it's not just a little whimper, either, it's a full-on yelling cry with real tears and a red face and everything, like SHE is the one who has been hurt somehow.

Now, the cute stuff. The other day, I was checking my email, and she was "helping" me clean out my diaper bag. She took everything out of all the little side pockets, and brought the stuff to me bit by bit. After she gave me each little pile of "treasures," I said "Thank you!" to her. Now, SHE says "thank you" (really "dah koo") whenever she hands us something, anything from the remote control to a dish or cup that one of us has left in her reach.

And I can't leave this post w/o posting an update on hubby's job search. It's going very poorly. The few leads we started out with have only gone to dead-ends, so even though we're a good two weeks into the search, it feels like we're starting over every day.

so much for today's job fair

2008-07-15T20:25:00.003-05:00

Hubby went to a job fair this afternoon. It had several different food service companies there, who were doing on the spot interviews for restaurant management. But, over and over, they kept telling him, "Sorry... we're looking for someone with some restaurant experience." Hubby does have it, but not enough overall and not recent enough.

He also called several HR departments of other jobs that he's applied to online over the past several days, and gets the runaround there, too. "We've received your application, and it's being reviewed, and we'll call you if we need anything else."

He has one more job fair (not in restaurants, lol) to go to Thursday. Then Sunday we'll get another paper and go from there. And also make a call on Monday that will hopefully be profitable.

no more job

2008-07-12T10:32:00.003-05:00

Hubby and his employer mutually decided to part ways yesterday. So now, for the second time in 7 months, we are once again 100% unemployed.

camping summary, and a non-update on jobs

2008-07-09T10:14:00.005-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Hubby's family decided several months ago to meet up at a lake in Kansas and go camping, and this would be their only "big" get-together this year (usually it's at Thanksgiving). I am not a camper. Bugs of all kinds think I'm tasty. I used to be able to tan, but I've gotten so pale now that I get a little pink before the tan comes. I was not looking forward to this trip. Hubby wasn't even going to get to go since he had to stay home and "work for free." We did find a plane ticket where he could come out Saturday night, go to church w/ us on Sunday and then fly back home Sunday afternoon, and his parents gave us the $$ for the ticket, but then on that day, his flight got cancelled. But anyway. On the FIRST day of camping, sure enough I did get bitten. I had plenty of mosquito repellent so it wasn't that. Turns out it was spider bites. Lots and lots of them. They itched so badly that it hurt. You can even still see them today, nearly 2 weeks later. And it was HOT. The campground did have showers, but even those weren't very refreshing b/c they ONLY had hot water going to them, so I might as well have sat in a boiling soup and cooked myself that way. But the Babygirl seemed to have fun, and she escaped w/ no bites, so that was good. And it was nice to see everyone. I just wish it could have been at a different location. Most of the extended family only came out here and there instead of actually camping with us, since they all live in the area.

And the non-update on job(s). It's a "non" update since nothing has really changed since I last posted. I have done some looking into being a nanny, but there are a whole lot more nanny wannabes than there are nanny positions available. Sort of the same situation like I had spoken of earlier w/ possibilities for hubby. Today is his day off, and right now he is out driving around to apply in person to anywhere and everywhere. He's trying to "kill the bear and drag it home to the cave." He has been in contact with an old boss of his at a college bookstore. Hubby has 4 years experience there, and has since acquired some management experience, so he is looking into possibly being a bookstore manager. But we have not heard anything back from that yet, either.

In the meantime, we are still praying. I believe our prayers will be answered. I believe the prayers of all the people who are praying FOR us will be answered. I believe that God has an amazing plan for us that I may not even be imagining yet. I believe... I believe... I believe. I need to keep telling myself that, because in times like this, it's way too easy to slip into doubt. When hubby first got this car sales job, we thought it WAS a blessing and an answer to prayers, but it has caused us both nothing but stress and grief for the whole time. I am SO ready for my stress to be lessened.

People have shared some amazing personal stories with me about how their prayers were answered right at the time a catastrophe could have happened, and the prayer-answer prevented the catastrophe. I tried to think of even mild instances like that in my own life, and I couldn't. I know that God loves us and will take care of us, but lately, instead of feeling like the thriving green houseplant that gets plenty of water and sits in the south-facing window... I feel like the sickly, scrawny, somewhat neglected yellowing plant with dropping leaves that's under a fluorescent light in the closet.

i may be working outside the home again

2008-06-24T00:01:00.003-05:00

The car sales business is just not working out for us at all. School is not something in the immediate future, either, since after checking into it, it turns out that some deadlines have already passed and others are too imminent to do anything for this fall. Plus we wouldn't be able to get enough financial aid to live on, or even close to it, so even if I went back to work also, we'd still be sinking.

But Tim is more actively looking for something consistent. The jobs are out there, but I'm sure that there are more applicants than open spots, and Tim hasn't even had so much as an interview yet. It's really depressing. I spent much of Saturday in tears, while he was at work (and not selling anything). I can't sleep. I have little desire to do any chores or to feed myself or anything. I am going camping this week w/ his family, and in early August I'm visiting my family, but if Tim doesn't have a different job (or two) by then, I'll be looking for something that I can do while he's at home, so probably an overnight thing somewhere.

My life is a book. In the past, I felt like I could read ahead a few pages, and imagine what the next day or week or month may bring. But now when I imagine my book, I turn the page, and the rest of the book is completely blank. I simply don't exist after this single moment. The story ends abruptly. As for the part of the story that is already written, I turn back and read over it, and I wonder what I've done so wrong that I ended up here. What am I being punished for? I've tried to be good, I've lived as a Christian example to others, I've honored my husband... and for what? So I can leave my baby and go earn a buck so we don't get thrown out into the street? There has to be more. Something has to come along.

I had even wanted to start trying for a second baby in just a month. That idea is on hold indefinitely now. We apparently can't even meet the needs of the one child we have, so how are we going to be able to handle two? But on the other hand, children ARE a blessing, and I have other thoughts about that. If God chooses to send us another baby, won't he also send us a way to take care of it? And I wonder, by us preventing a conception (by barrier methods... no more hormones for me), if we're also secondarily preventing the blessing of a stable, consistent job for Tim? It's such a quandry to me. I've spent much time in prayer, but still have no answers. Until they come, I suppose all I can do is go one day at a time, one page of my life-book written before the next one comes up.

the "new job" test was today

2008-06-21T10:46:00.003-05:00

Hubby missed the passing score by only 2.5 points, so his application process had to stop there. He came home in a good mood, and highly motivated to go sell some cars. Selling is very much needed this month because he's only sold about 4 so far for the whole month.

As for what to do about the future, since this just isn't providing the security and consistency we need, he doesn't know yet. I put the bug back in his ear about going to school to be a nurse. Back in November when he was suddenly let go, that was a bad bad bad time to try to think about that. We had to get some income coming in and quick, so he took the first available thing that came along. It's kept us treading water since then.

If he goes back to school, I may try get a part-time job just so we don't have to live entirely on student loans, at least for a while anyway. We do want more children one day and while I don't mind working part time while hubby is home at Lydia's age now, it's a lot different for a newborn, I think. But we'll cross that bridge when/if we come to it.

18 month stats

2008-06-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

Had Lydia's 18 month appointment today. 31" and 19 lbs 4 oz. :)

pool fun

2008-06-06T16:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I posted a video, so here's one for your enjoyment. :) Fun at the pool. There is a "ledge" under the water that is shallow enough for Lydia to stand on, so that's what she's doing when she all of a sudden starts walking.

banana drama (aka life as a toddler)

2008-06-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

DD's going to be 18 months on Thursday. And she's entered the phase where if the teeniest little thing doesn't go as she expected, the WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!! Take this, for instance. We usually have bananas in the house, and DD likes me to peel them and then hold them for her while she takes bites. Well we had this last remaining banana today, and it was VERY ripe. I didn't want to have a snafu with it where half of the banana fell completely off b/c it was too soft, so I decided to put it in a bowl and I'd spoon it to her. I told her we were going to do this. She saw me get the banana and got excited, and saw me doing "something" in the bowl with it. Then she saw the peel go into the trash and just completely lost it. She went right to the trash can and looked in and bawled her eyes out. She knows that empty peels go in the trash, so I took the peel out and let her see that it was empty, and at the same time showed her the bowl w/ the banana in it, told her that the peel was empty, and threw the peel away again. After all that, she sat right down, ready for her banana snack.

words, words, words

2008-05-29T17:05:00.004-05:00

Here's the words that Lydia can say. Most of them are just in imitation of me saying them, but she does do a few of them spontaneously. Her cutesy pronunciations are listed where applicable. The others she says pretty clearly already.

cup
diaper
cheerios (she says like yo-ee-yo)
cheese (w/ a soft "s" at the end, rhymes w/ "peace")
mama
dada
bye-bye
hello
hi
shoes (again w/ a soft "s" at the end, rhymes w/ "loose")
toes
belly (but it comes out "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"... not sure why she can't say this, but "hello" comes out clear w/ the L's and everything, lol)
no no (she tells herself this if I redirect her from something off-limits
bite (comes out "baah?")
night-night
doggy (sounds like "dah-dee")
kitty
banana (sounds like "na-nuh")
yogurt (sounds like "gert?")
soup

She may be saying a few more things, but I don't understand them yet. As for understanding stuff, here's what she understands consistently. When I say these things to her, she does them. :D

Go get your blanket.
Don't touch.
Give mama kiss.
Give mama hug.
Come see mama.
Can mama have (it)?

win a free ergo baby carrier

2008-05-15T16:24:00.005-05:00

I want to spread the babywearing love, so here's a contest you can enter to win a free Ergo baby carrier from Along For The Ride. I think babywearing is great for babies and toddlers of all ages, and can't wait to start wearing a newborn again if hubby and I are blessed with another baby sometime.

http://www.alongfortheride.biz/contest-s/49.htm

therapy is moving right along

2008-05-10T13:44:00.003-05:00

Update 5/7/08: We had Lydia's third therapy session today. It wasn't all just singing and games today... we worked on lots of cognitive stuff, too. M (therapist) brought over the DAYC (that was the original tool they used to see where she was at, developmentally) today to see if Lydia has gained any new skills that she could mark on that. M asked us if she gets upset when we leave her, or if she prefers one of us, but she's never done either of those.

Lydia can point to several of her body parts, although she needs to be in the right mood. M wants us to work on throwing with her. (!!!) Good thing we have a small stash of soft balls, lol. M also wants us to work on having Lydia actually say what she wants, instead of just pointing and hollering, lol. Like if she's thirsty, keep the cup just out of reach and encourage her to say "cup." (Lydia CAN say cup, but it comes out "Guh!" lol) Today we also worked on having her do stuff with our help (like squeezing one particular bear's tummy to make it sing the ABCs), and then when she couldn't do the same thing by herself, to give the toy to us to have us do it. She gave her bears stuff to pretend eat and drink. And then this afternoon just now, Lydia had a pretend egg, and I pretended to eat it... then she pretended to eat it. That was a first b/c usually she wants everyone else to eat it. :p We also tried to get her to drink from an open cup, but she mostly just lets it dribble down her shirt. M wants us to work on that some more too.

Updates from 5/8/08: (I posted this exchange on a public message board, asking for help for if I'm doing it right. The replies (in the colored boxes) are from someone who has been on both sides, both as a therapist and as a parent w/ a child who is in therapy. I have posted her replied with her permission.)

Well Lydia and I are both frustrated. See, she knows what to expect when I say yogurt, or cheerios, or cup. If I say cup, she even looks around and tries to find it, and she'll get it and take a drink or give it to me or just hold it or something. But now that I'm trying to encourage words with her by keeping things out of her immediate reach, it's frustrating us both.

Like the cup, for instance. I can tell she's getting thirsty, and I'll get her cup and hold it so she can see it but not touch it. I'll ask her if she wants her cup, cup, cup, cup, cup? She reaches for it and hollers instead of trying to say cup. Same thing with the yogurt this morning. I fixed up her yogurt and tried to get her to say either bite or yogurt, and she wouldn't. She just looked at the spoon and bowl and hollered and cried. I can just see her thought process... "Mom, I KNOW that's yogurt, and I KNOW that's my cup! Why aren't you giving it to me? You don't have to tell me what it is, just feed me/let me have a drink!" I don't know if she's maybe just not used to the "change" yet. But I'm so sad for her.

I "give in" and let her have the cup or food or whatever after only a minute or so, but I don't know if there's something better or something else I should be doing to try to encourage her to verbalize what she wants. She hasn't had to ask for anything her whole life b/c I've always been right there to anticipate her needs, and now that I WANT her to try to learn how to ask for something, at the same time, I don't want to teach her that "enough hollering and Mom will give in anyway" ya know? But on the other hand, if I just sit and wait for her to say words... we'll be sitting and waiting a year from now, I'm sure. lol.

Awww mama, don't be discouraged. This is very normal. Most parents have a hard time with-holding things from their child. I worked in EI doing the therapy and knew exactly what I needed to do to help my son's speech delay and STILL had trouble doing it. I will tell you what I had to tell myself, hubby, and many other parents along the way. You need to do what's best for her even though it will sometimes be frustrating, hard, and sometimes heartbreaking for both of you. We had really good luck with my son using signs. Maybe you could ask M how she thinks that would work for Lydia..... It helped my son learn he had to do something to get something and he was using words in no time. I have seen it work for many many children. Please PM me if you need someone to talk to or ask questions about all this EI stuff. I know it can be tough bc I have been there as a mommy and a therapist!

My reply to her:

That's the thing though... I'm having trouble deciding what the "best thing" is for her... is it for her needs being met and her knowing that I'll take care of her, or is it that she NEEDS to learn to talk? Should I be withholding for longer than a minute? I don't want to hurt her or make her not trust me. I mean, I NEED to feed/water her so obviously I can't withhold stuff for days at a time until she finally says something.

I'll start trying signs again. She did them here and there a few months ago, but stopped when I stopped. She seemed to know what they meant (although she mostly just signed "more" for everything... like I'd lay her down for a diaper change and she'd be laying there signing "more" lol). I want to do something proactive that's not going to end up causing us both to cry several times a day.

I understand the dilemma mama! I do really. When I was going through it I decided it was best to stick it out and with-hold until an attempt was made. I don't think some crying is going to make her not trust you. The way I did it and suggested to other parents to do it to try to get her to repeat the word. ANY ATTEMPT calls for rewarding her with what she is wanting. At this age the words often aren't going to be clear. Articulation normally isn't something to worry about until 3. I would definitely go for longer than a minute. She will learn the point you will give in and push you to that point. What I did was try to get my son to say it and if he didn't even attempt after a few tries then I would put it up and try again after a few minutes. I also always suggested to parents to leave things the child really likes in sight but out of reach. They are more likely to attempt to use words for these highly desirable items.
Just remember that it is going to be hard. I am not going to lie about that. After she gets used to having to verbally communicate to get something, it will be easier. She has to learn that to move forward though.
Children often have to have to do things that are upsetting b/c it is best for them. I can't imagine how hard it is for parents to watch their children get PT or feeding therapy which can be really invasive but must be done bc it is best for them. I have seen mommies cry right along with the child through feeding clinics. They had just made the decision that it was best for their child to get the therapy they need.
Just remember that if you stick it out, you should see improvement and it will get easier. It is something new to her and she just needs to get use to it. Change is always hard. Let me know how it goes mama!

My reply again:

Hm, I just tried it again. I set her up with some peas and cheese just out of reach, and she first tried to reach them, but when I said peas or cheese, she said cheese (or something like cheese, anyway, lol). She LOVES cheese so I figured if she'd talk for anything, it would be for that. lol. Then I took her cup and set it up, and she hollered and reached for it. I said "cup" while doing the sign for it, and she did the sign and said cup! Then I brought out the cheerios again, though, and she tried to revert to her old ways, but did say it after minimal hollering.

Usually when I talk to her, I'm "asking" her if she wants something, so my sentence has that upward tilt in pitch at the end b/c of the question, and DD has picked up on this b/c all of her "words" sound like questions, lol. And her little voice can get SO high and cute, and sometimes it's hard to tell if she's singing a song or if she's trying to talk. I'll have to take a video after a while and share it.

~~~~~~~~~

Ok here's a couple of videos. First one is just her having fun, where you can hear how high her voice gets.

Second one is where I'm trying to get her to talk. You can see her sign "more" and "eat" in the video, and just after I turned off the camera, she signed "all done." She had only had 3 bites, but I went ahead and removed the sandwich from her sight, and she just went off to play. (If I had removed it and she really still wanted some more rather than being all done, she would have hollered, lol).

Wow, that is really good! If you keep doing things the way you are, you will see improvement. Seems like there already is some improvement! IMO, progress is already being made! Keep up the good work!
And BTW, I love reading your postings about this! Since I staying home now, I miss it. You and Lydia seem so great to work with. Y'all are one of the families we would have fought over. Everyone always wants the good families. Lol.

So that's the latest update on that from me.

more miscellaneous updates

2008-05-04T22:32:00.002-05:00

DH's dad may have first-stage kidney disease. I can't remember if he's still in the hospital or if they let him go home, but he's going to have more tests run on Monday. He went in for chest pains, which is the second time in the past few years that he's done this. Last time it ended up being his esophagus. I'm glad it's not his heart, but he needs his kidneys, too. I hope it's something treatable, and more, I hope that he actually makes the necessary lifestyle changes that they tell him to (he hasn't really done that in the past).

DH got Lydia to say "cheese" the other day (with some actual cheese, not like "say cheese" for taking a picture or something, lol), so that now brings her total word count up to.... 2. Ok maybe 4-5 since she does say "daddy" and "nap" and "cup" occasionally too. But cheese is still brand new so it's just in imitation. Diaper, though, she easily uses spontaneously and appropriately. Like usually I'll do diaper laundry while she's taking a nap, and I'll stack them up just outside her bedroom door. When she wakes up, if I open the door but then jump away before she can see me, she'll see all the diapers on the floor and be like "diaper? diaper? diaper?" lol. She can now point to her nose, tummy/belly, teeth and hair. We're still working on eyes, ears and mouth. Oh and the other day, every time the phone rang, she would walk into the kitchen and look up to where the phone was. (We have a phone in the living room too, that actually has the louder ringtone, but only the kitchen one has the caller ID on it, lol). And if I say "kiss" then she'll start making kissy noises. And she's finally working on her 7th tooth... and her 8th, 9th, and I think 10th as well (two molars and the other one/two lower incisors). Poor little girl, no wonder she's been so frustrated lately.

Her therapy's going well. She gets SO excited when M comes over. It was funny this week, b/c Lydia was so excited for a good 10 minutes that I couldn't show M all the stuff she'd learned how to do since last time. I'd ask her to do something, and she'd just grin and giggle and run away. M brought over a flyer w/ a playgroup that's on Monday mornings. It happens to fit into my tight schedule, so I may go check it out.

DH's work continues to go better. April was still a little scary b/c he "lost" a few deals from earlier in the month, and the few others that he sold on the 15th (the last day of the pay period) didn't get booked until the next day, so he didn't get a check at all on the 23rd. But he's sold 6 cars for May already (they call it a "locate" where the customer wants a particular vehicle that's at either a different dealership, or it's something that's not in stock anywhere yet). So that's good news. He's still keeping his eye out for something else... but for now I feel like I can breathe again. I actually slept w/o worry last night for the first time in a long time. Oh and due to a subtraction error, when balancing my checkbook yesterday, I found an "extra" $30, so that's always nice.

Plus my tiny business is "thinking" of picking up, too. I'm getting a few inquiries here and there, which is the first step to sales. But I'm not having a lot of time to devote to it right now what with all my other duties and activities going on. I'm going to try really hard to take a "break" from online this weekend and get caught up on my to-do list. I won't be able to stay entirely off, but hopefully I can limit it and actually get some stuff done. Plus DH will be happy if I'm at least off the computer while he's home.

random updates and a talking video

2008-04-22T14:04:00.003-05:00

First update: Lydia's thumb. It's on the mend now. She's on the last few doses of her third antibiotic, and her thumb is finally looking like a thumb again. To keep her from sucking her thumb, I sewed a big sock into one of her short sleeve shirts, and she wears that at naptime and bedtime now. I can tell that sucking her thumb is just a habit w/ her and she doesn't "need" to suck it, b/c she doesn't try to suck it through the sock or act upset at all. If anything, she goes to sleep EASIER w/o her thumb. Weird little girl.

Second update: Tim's job. He's still at the car dealership, and we were blessed with 5 car deals last week, two of them just in time for tomorrow's payday, so we may be able to pay May rent after all. He is starting to feel like he likes the job again, like he did back when he first started, and not just b/c of the sales either. He's still keeping his eye out for something else, but for now it is suiting our needs again.

Lydia update: She starts her ECI therapy tomorrow morning, and we'll have it weekly. I'm looking forward to it. I've been trying to work with her, using the tips they gave me after the evaluation, but I don't know what to look for to tell if she's "getting it" or not. I did get her a small magnetic drawing thing, and she took the pen and just tapped on the pad with it. It made marks, but I don't think she was trying to make marks b/c of the way she was tapping it. She was just tapping to make noise. lol.

She's getting a lot faster at walking now, and hard to catch if she tries to get away. She's still not running, though, so she's easy to catch that way. She says diaper and daddy, but I can't really recognize anything else. I think she tries to say yogurt and Cheerios, but it could still be just noise at this point. Here's a video of her saying diaper, though.

eci evaluation today

2008-04-15T12:39:00.002-05:00

The OT and the ST just left. During the evaluation, they kept going on and on about how cute Lydia is. I was originally concerned about speech, and she measured 13 months receptive and 14 months expressive on that... and those were her HIGHEST scores out of all the areas. I can't remember her score for the other areas, but it ranged from 7 to 12 months for cognition, social/emotional, physical and adaptive behavior. Lydia doesn't scribble w/ a writing instrument, and that's one of the things that held her back. Another is that she doesn't refuse certain foods (she eats everything, even things that _I_ don't like, lol). She was also held back b/c she doesn't prefer me over other people (i.e. no separation or stranger anxiety). One more is that if one of her toys is turned off (i.e. it won't make noise but usually does), she doesn't care and will just play with it as usual instead of bringing it to me to turn it on.) So because of the way the tool is designed, she may have been able to do some of the tasks further down the line, but b/c of too many zero scores in a row, they have to stop right there. But the OT said that even though Lydia qualifies for services, she can tell that L is smart. And she and the ST heard a ton of words that L was imitating, that I had no idea.

They said that Lydia is the type of child who people would fight each other to be able to come out and do therapy with. :giggle: Lydia kept making them laugh and then laughing herself and she was just her usual charming self. But she did qualify for services and so I went ahead and enrolled her. We're going to do once/week w/ the ST.

give mama kisses

2008-04-12T20:48:00.002-05:00

more job woes and thumb woes and some happy pictures

2008-04-11T16:26:00.005-05:00

This last weekend, a bunch of DH's family were in town, then all this week at church we've had services nightly, and it's been great and uplifting, but tiring keeping poor Lydia out past her bedtime nearly every night. :p Tonight's the last night though. I'm a little sad b/c the guest is such a great speaker and really makes his applications clear, but it'll be nice to get back to a normal routine.

Hubby is now looking for a new job. He's sold one car so far this month, and after insurance is taken out, his next check will be about $0 if he doesn't sell another car between now and the 15th. In addition, if he doesn't sell 10 cars for the whole month (or if anyone doesn't sell 10 cars for that matter), they told everyone that it would be grounds for termination. A few people from church have given him some leads, but nothing is a guaranteed job for him or anything. My store's just limping along and not helping us eat, either. Blasted media saying we're in a recession when we're not.

Lydia news... I think she can say diaper sometimes. lol. It comes out "bah-pwaw" more often than not, but it's a start. Her ECI eval is in just a few more days (Tuesday morning). The latest news with her is her thumb. On Sunday, I think she had been sucking it on the way to church, and we go over a few RR tracks, and one of them must have bumped hard enough to make her bite her thumb and break the skin a little. But I never saw any blood or anything. When we got her out of the car at the church building, her thumb looked like it had a hickey on it. Well by Sunday night, it had swollen up considerably. I took her in on Monday morning and her dr gave me a perscription for some antibiotics and just had me watch the thumb at first and not rush out and fill it. The next day, it wasn't any better, so I went and filled it. It was a 5-day course. Thursday morning, halfway through the course, her thumb was looking even worse, so I called her dr. They called in a stronger antibiotic and want to see her on Monday if it's not showing improvement. It's still hard to tell at this point if it's improving at all yet.

Here's a few recent pictures of her:

Happily walking and pointing, with big purple puffs in her hair:

Sleeping w/ her bootie in the air:

Poor sweetie... look how she got her leg stuck THIS time!

Is this wide enough, mama?

And this is how she smiles most of the time now: