two is twice as nice

just a couple of random thoughts.  Before we had Birdy, I wondered how it would be to have two children.  Of COURSE we'd love baby number two, but really, there was no way that baby number one wouldn't be our favorite.  After all, how could any one person be asked to live up to all that baby number one is?  I went forward and trusted that there was enough love to go around and that we wouldn't completely ruin  baby number two.

So here's what it's really like for me:  when I'm with Nora alone, I am positive that she is my favorite.  Like, giddily positive and how could anything or anyone in the world compare to my first baby.  And then... when I'm with Birdy alone, I feel almost guilty for how SURE I am that she is, indeed, my favorite and imagine if we hadn't have had her wouldn't life be so empty.  And when I'm with them together?  Well then I'm sure I won the universal lottery to have been given TWO children such as these...  TWO.   Me!  Me - who isn't 'lucky,' me - who has a birth defect and was told by a doctor at the age of 17 to never have children, me - who is adopted and doesn't know much useful genetic information, ME, unbelievably me!  The lottery is not fair, I didn't deserve it, I certainly didn't earn it, but damned if I didn't win it.

remember magic

because staying at home has somehow made me even worse at blogging, here is yet another scattered update post.

Birdy First
Everyone comments on what a happy baby Birdy is. She really is a joy. She gives the most delicious hugs and giggles easily. Most of the time she is smiling and babbling and even when she’s not, you can easily remedy her problem and return her to her happy self quickly. She has almost five teeth that have cut through now – three bottom and two top. Her first tooth came in May 21 – correction, her first TWO teeth came in that day. Before that, she had been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Since then, she has cut one more through and ALMOST has another one. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to capture a picture of her three little bottom teeth, but so far, not so good. Gone is her gummy smile. She still has Physical Therapy once a week because she is not yet sitting up on her own (it actually started when she wasn’t rolling ‘on time’). I’d like to cancel it because I feel that she’s progressing just fine but they act like it’s really something. Truth be told, I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have another set of eyes observing her progress; especially when I’d be happy to keep her an infant forever.  {UPDATE: Birdy sits with the pros now but still doesn't crawl.  They have continued her therapy biweekly until she crawls.  Which will be any day now.}  Since allergy season started strong, she has been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Once the allergies cleared, she was teething, and now? Who knows? All I know is that she was much closer to sleeping through the night at 3 months than she is at 7 months.

Despite her 'need' for therapy, she wiggles and kicks constantly. Her squirmy acrobatics are constant - she even holds her bare foot while she nurses.  I call her my monkey girl because if I move her little hands away from something I don't want her to have, she tries immediately to get it with one of her feet!

And Now Some Nora

Nora started swimming lessons this week {6 weeks ago} at the Y. She absolutely rocked the first lesson – when they asked if any of the preschoolers could already swim, up went her hand (she can’t). Same thing for floating. I love that bravado. She’ll continue to go twice a week for the majority of the summer. I took the opportunity to check the Y out – do any of you belong? The free childcare while working out is appealing, but I’m not sure the cost of family membership will be worth it for us.

Nora has been absolutely amazing lately. Here are some things that she can do: 1)Get the cereal out of one of the top cabinets, get the milk off the top shelf, get a bowl and spoon, pour everything without spilling AND put it all away; 2)Play so kindly with her baby sister. I am regularly awash with love and gratitude when watching them together; 3)Dig in the garden and weed; 4)Tell elaborate and funny stories; 5)Plays with her dollhouse everyday. Elaborate set ups of dollhouse people, Fisher Price people (about 1/3 the size of the others), animals, Matchbox cars, and Happy Meal toys litter the play area. I love it. 6)I’m awash with love for her all the all the all the time. 7)Goes in and out of the house playing so happily. I love looking out the window to see her swinging with a drum hanging around her neck and her pretend phone to her ear. 8)Wears awesome, self-selected outfits. I love seeing the pride in her choices. 9) Expresses such exuberant “THANK you”’s for just about anything. For some reason, she is now saying something like “swank you”. I love it even more. 10)The other day, she caught a caterpillar and had it in her little bug house. I explained to her that she could take it in for a while, but that in the evening, she would need to let it go because it would need to go home and eat and sleep or it might be sick or die. The next thing I heard was her on the porch saying, “I sowwy, caterpiwwar. You not be sick I take you home now.” I think the universe thanked her the next week when her friends caught another one and put him in the bug house. When we went to let him go, we found him building a cocoon. We’re waiting to see what it does next.

06/25 text to Joe:  Nora came out of the bathroom and I asked her if she had washed her hands.  Something about the way she said, "Yes" made me wonder...  So I asked if she was sure.  She said, "Yes!  You wanna feel dem?"  I did and exclaimed that they were dry!  She licked them and said, "Here!  Twy again!"

Copied from Facebook status 06/26: Joe: Nora, your cup is laying on my bed. If you do that, it could spill and I don't want a wet bed. If it happens again, you will have to go into time out. I hope it doesn't happen again.  Nora: I hope you're not home next time.

The other day I called Nora ‘baby.’ She told me to only call her ‘Nora’ or ‘big girl.’ I told her that she was very special to me and would always be my baby in my heart – after all, she had made me a mommy. She looked at me and said, “Siwwy Mama! God made you a mommy! Remember his magic?”

seeing God.

nora:  what we doing today?

me: we're going to visit grandpa's grave.
nora:  that's your dad.  where is he?
me:  in heaven.
nora: yeah and God is always with him, wight?
me:  right.
{pause}

nora (suddenly dancing around the room and saying in a sing songy voice):  I get to see Go-d!  I get to see Go-d!

in a people house

home things i've been meaning to record for no real reason at all.  The recovered pew that we are using as a dining room bench:

One day, I'd like a nicer bench, but this one was free and I just love its functionality.  Especially when we can line up 4-5 kids there for a meal.

Almost free pillow covers to break up the leather on leather look.  I love the print on these -- although, I am apparently alone in this opinion!

And finally and most bestly, our small garden which is carved from the wilderness that is our property.

it's all good

i'm so far 'behind' on this blog and i don't care because you know why?  It's all good.  I am blessed beyond measure and just loving these girls right up.

surely we can do this...

a wonderful woman needs our help  Maybe you know a way to get these drugs and/or testing covered -or- maybe you know of some program that could help -or- maybe you can help in some other way -or- maybe even help directly on your own.  I can personally vouch for the integrity and worthiness of this request.  Let's figure this out, shall we?

a possibly superlicious solution

and i don't use 's' words lightly. I should make a post catching this up on everyone being sick, me trying (yet again) to find my stay at home groove, family, friends, and life. Instead, I am crazy excited about grocery shopping. Grocery shopping is my nemesis. In fact, even though I stay at home now, Joe does a lot of the shopping. This solution is two-fold: 1) Making it a challenge with coupons, and 2) Going late at night ALONE. I've been trying to be really thrifty lately (see [possibly underwhelming] results here), but the second part of it is the part I'm excited about. Nora goes to bed by 8 pm and Joe and Birdy are normally asleep by 9:30 pm; so last night, I went around 9:30 pm to an almost empty grocery store and just took my time. While I walked the store, I listened to This American Life on my headphones/telephone. Pure bliss. I got home around 11:30 and rather than being tired, I felt rejuvenated and accomplished. Those two feelings are a rare occurrence around here and to have them together at the same time? Well that's just something worth blogging about.

family resemblance

it would be so great

i was in my littlest sister's room recently and came upon a handmade book with a photocopy of our dad's picture on a funeral card. The book was titled something like "My Book about My Dad" and I assume that her therapist made it with her. In J's handwriting, it says, "Private! Do Not Open!" Heeding her order could have saved me tons of tears because inside, each day has a place for her to write and draw a picture and it is filled with things like this:


Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please come back. The accompanying drawing is a stairway going to the sky and one person near the top of the stairs and another crying person at the bottom.

Each entry continues with the same sort of heart wrenching theme. The last one says:

Dear Dad, I wish so hard you could come back. Because if you could, it would be so great. I love you.

Tomorrow is the one-year marker of my Dad dying. I never thought I'd bear one day without him and the passing of a year, rather than being a comfort, feels something like mockery. It makes me want to shout about fairness and how time doesn’t heal all wounds. Life without Dad feels less safe, less grounded, less protected, less guided, less fun, and less loved. I wish that we had some sort of tradition to mark the day -- I've been reading up on different cultures' traditions for marking this day. Having something that everyone recognized would be a comfort. Some kind of cultural 'this is how we do this undoable thing.' It’s funny because prior to this experience, I thought ‘Why mark a date of death? Wouldn’t it be better to celebrate their life on a birthday?’ Only my very body remembers what this weather and time of year brought. The ending blows of winter bring back the hospital, hospice, and loss. Whether I mark it or not, I will always remember. And I will always miss my Dad.

joy

grocery game virgin

no more. I’ve been reading blog after blog after blog about how to save money on groceries and household items. At first, I was like WHAT? No way, not worth it, too confusing, too many catches, not to mention the embarrassment (why is this?) of being the coupon lady in line. But the more I read, the more I thought about it. I certainly have the luxury of time to figure this out (although time without a baby attached to me is currently almost nonexistent). And who wouldn’t want to save money? The savings could be put away for our future, but most likely, it will fund ordering dinner in or little girl clothing! So, here is my first try at matching coupons with sales. I tried Target first. Tomorrow I hope to do Walgreens and Jewel. I sort of totally sucked at it, but I’ll hopefully learn soon. Here’s the breakdown:

Kashi Cereal… on sale for $2.88
used $1.50 mfr coupon
GE Reveal Light bulbs… on sale for $3.59
used $1.00/2 mfr coupon and $1.50 Target coupon
Seventh Generation Disinfecting Spray…..regular price $2.99
used $1.00 Target coupon and $1.00 mfr coupon

Bandaids… regular price $1.82
used $1.00 Target coupon
Glade 3 Wick Soy Candles… regular price $8.29
used $2.00 mfr coupon and will use $5.00 mail-in rebate

Kids Crest Toothpaste…………. regular price $1.97
used $1.00 Target coupon (should have had newspaper coupon $1.00)

Skittles…...regular price $0.69
used BOGO mfr coupon (Nisey got the free pack so just imagine it in the picture)

Clorox Toilet Wand Kit………….. regular price $9.69
used $5.00 mfr coupon and will use $5.00 mail-in rebate

Total Cost of Items: $52.78

What I Paid: $25.09

Total Savings: $27.69

What I did right: I planned the trip pretty well and only purchased things that I would normally purchase.

What I did wrong: I let Nisey have my free pack of Skittles. :P If I had been saving the Sunday Paper coupons, I could have saved an additional $2.00. In two instances, I should have printed one more coupon. I could have saved an additional $2.50. Here’s the biggy --- the Glade deal could have worked on their cheaper items. I could have worked it for free Glad Plug-Ins instead of discounted soy candles. I hate plug-ins and the soy candles smell so nice. For us, this was the best use of the coupons. If I corrected my errors, I could have actually come out $0.28 ahead!

four months

roberta layne
fifteen pounds, 11 ounces
twenty-six inches long

tummy time

first time eating

On the day after her 9th birthday, we visited the police station in the small town from which my mom had recently moved. We had to go because she told Mom that the 12-year-old girl (A) who had hung around that summer "raped" her. She doesn't really know what the word means and Mom didn't question her much beyond confirming that the girl had touched her in her private areas. Mom didn't want to needlessly interrogate her -- not knowing if she would have to be questioned by police officers. More importantly, she didn't seem to be telling so that she could rehash every detail. She wanted to tell the secret and know that Mom was not mad at her.


We celebrated her birthday thoroughly from morning to night and now today, we went to the police for guidance on how to handle this. Mom explained the situation to the officer. Our interest was twofold: How could we best protect and heal our girl? and How could the other girl be stopped from hurting other children and be given whatever help she needs? J. stopped playing with A. after this happened but she told Mom that A. would "look for her and find her" wherever she would ride her bike. The officer had openly ignored my mom's offer of her hand to shake when we came in, so I shouldn't have been surprised by his first question, "Is your daughter known for telling stories?" followed by "It's been a year and a half!" {Actually six months. Math is hard.} I explained to him that we understood that it was a touchy situation, that we weren't necessarily looking to convict the child, and that we were hoping for guidance on how to handle it correctly. He then told us that we should take J. to a medical doctor for an examination -- not that there would be any evidence but so that we would know whether there had been anything done -- to rest our minds. {Yes, officer. Putting her through further trauma will certainly put our little minds at ease.} After that, we should get her psychological help. {Ya' think?} I assured him that we would be seeking help for her but that our concern with him was how to best protect other children. He told us that this was the first time they had heard anything like this about A. and again expressed doubt about the story saying, "no one else has come in here about her." I told him that if they had perhaps we wouldn't have the story to tell. I asked him what he would do if it were his daughter and he said that he'd take her to a medical doctor for an exam, get psychological help, and go over to A.'s house and speak with her parents. I call bullshit on that. We asked him about the legal process and he explained that J. would be questioned by county officers who have been trained to work with children. He would be in the interview and would determine whether her story was true. He really emphasized that HE and not the other officers or anyone else would determine the truth. If he determines it is true, they will then pursue actions against A. In the end, we decided to go ahead and have the county officers work with her and will, of course, get her proper therapy. We now must wait to find out when the appointment will be scheduled. He indicated that it could be from a week away to a month away. {Does that seem like a strangely wide window to you?}

So now, we wait. And pray. And make our plan. We want the result to be that J. feels supported, loved, protected, and heard. We want her to know that we'd do anything for her and that she should be free from all secrets and shame. How do you make her free and safe when we couldn’t protect her?

bath time

birdy can use the bath ring now!

and so can nora!

thog life

i'm behind on this blog (among other things.) It's a vicious cycle -- I don't blog because I haven't blogged so I can't blog. Part of me thinks I should drop the blog if I'm going to turn it into a stressful thing to do but I really like having all of this information in one place and it's therapeutic sometimes to just put uncensored information out there. I mean, really, is there anything as self indulgent as my diary-all-about-me style of blogging? I love indulging though so I'm just going to brain dump here to feel 'caught up.' To my credit, I often think in blog form (really good blog form, I swear) and that should count for something... The term 'blinking' is already taken, so I'll call it 'thogging.' Goes perfectly with the tattoo I was considering...

{girls} I just am going to copy and paste some little items from Facebook statuses (stati?). I want to write my girls a letter each year of their life and have found the memories recorded here to be so helpful when writing them.

10.31.09 Awake. Looking at me. I swear she just smiled at me. ♥

11.08.09 I love it when Birdy laughs in her sleep ♥

11.12.09 I need time to stop for a bit. I blinked and she's three weeks old.

11.28.09 Playing with Nora. My pretend name is 'Alice.' Hers is 'pwetend refwigewator.'

11.28.09 Nora is for real cleaning for her pretend party

12.16.09 Birdy slept five hours IN A ROW!

12.20.09 Nora just declared 'Christmas in Washington' to be boring.

12.22.09 2 months old and full of gummy smiles ♥

01.06.10 On our first outing without diapers (for Nora, at least)!!!!

01.06.10 Evidently God has repeatedly asked Nora to 'keep an eye on Her cat.' Oh, and Her cat's name is Ellie - in case you were wondering.

01.09 Birdy slept through the night, 10p - 6:30a, and then slept from 8a - 12p. Let's hope she has found a love of sleep matched only by my own. ♥

01.13.10 Nora, Age 3, "I'm going to pee in the shower... because that's what people do."

01.15.10 Nora Quote of the Day: "You're my dude. I love you, dude."

01.20.10 Birdy is teething already! Poor baby.

01.26.10 Nora tells Joe a Knock-Knock joke and then says, "Now you tell me one!" Joe says, "Knock Knock!" and Nora says, "Go Away!"

01.28.10 Birdy smiles and laughs the second I put the camera down!

01.31.10 Nora upon waking up this morning, "I'm get old like you dad. I'm getting old with all this sleeping."

02.09.10 I just told Nora to clean up her toys. She is reluctantly doing it while singing, "I love my dad! I love my dad!"

02.09.10 Nora told Joe that he is the 'pwoblem' and she is the 'lution' (solution).

Birdy's baptism (on 01.31.2010) went well. Y. and her family jumped through hoops to be there and it meant so much to have them there to celebrate with us. In true form, my worries that morning were all about how I looked, how much weight I haven't lost, and how much my lisp would come into play. (Should the word 'lisp' have an 's' in it?) I'm so glad to report that once we were there with family, friends, and community, all of that flew from my head and it was all about dedicating our sweet baby girl.

Birdy wore the same dress that Nora wore for her baptism (in picture in post below.) It's just a simple, regular dress, but it made me happy to see it worn again. It was just a wonderful day. Unbelievably, we didn't get a family snapshot. Joe took a couple of shots of guests at our home -- I'll have to check them out and see if any have good shots of Birdy or Nora.
I've been helping my mom sort through her basement at the new house. The basement is full of things to be unpacked, organized, sold, or donated. Last week we found my baby Joey doll and my seven dwarfs. Nora has been having a blast with them.

As you can see, Joey was inspired by Archie Bunker's grandson and is anatomically correct. My parents bought it as a joke for one of my older sisters and she hated it. No worries, though, I was right there to scoop him up and love him. And now Nora has taken the torch. I'll have to take a picture of ours because his hair is all matted giving him a major receding hairline to compliment his charming looks.

{homekeeping} This leads me to the question~ what toys will you keep for your children? I will keep an obvious toys (favorite baby dolls, etc.) and I guess I'd keep any toys I deem good to keep around for visiting children. How do you decide? I don't want boxes of unused toys, but I am finding it fun to discover my old toys and share them with Nora.

My quest to find a homekeeping method that fits my insanity is continuing. I'm finding FlyLady to be very helpful. I used her methods after Nora was born and I was dealing with postpartum depression. This time is different as I'm not going back to work and need to find a different sort of groove. I've only gone as far as Day 4 (for weeks now) and am just trying to incorporate those concepts into my everyday -- I'll move on once these are well ensconced into my routine. These are not yer exact steps but my hybrid concepts are: prepare what you can the night before, take care of the little things as they occur, note how things flow best, and start the day off ready for anything (showered, dressed, makeup, whatever you need in order to possibly walk out the door). I especially like her 15 minute assignments. When I'm overwhelmed or unsure where to start, it is shocking how much can be done in just 15 minutes. Setting the timer and GOING always results in awesome stuff.

My goal is to have a kickass routine that flexes without stressing me out. Right now, it seems that Mondays and Fridays are great for getting all the laundry done and getting the house in order either prepping for or recovering from fun, relaxed family weekends. I feel dumb for putting this here because I know that most everyone does much more than I do in a day without the drama or imbalance. But it's my blog, damn it, and I need to get something rolling here.

Monday: Laundry, Bedding, Cleaning, Vacuuming Tuesday: Errands/Playdates/Creative Endeavors Wednesday: Have Mom over so that I can go volunteer or work on special projects at home. Thursday: Library Storytime then lunch and afternoon with Mom Friday: Laundry, Cleaning, Vacuuming, Meal Planning Daily: at least one load of laundry, dishes, litterbox, straightening, bills, picking up -- where does grocery shopping fit?

I'm learning that clean enough really is enough. I have a real love of having EVERYTHING done at the same time. That is just not currently realistic; nor is it balanced. If I ever go back to the work world (after the girls go back to school? what will i do?), I will get a cleaning service so that I can enjoy that everything is clean feeling without giving up time with the girls. But for now I need to remember that Birdy won't always be a tiny little baby who nurses every other minute of the day ~ and because it won't last I should just soak it all up and know that everything else will fall into place in time.

{totally random me stuff} On top of the regular February blahs, I have hair falling out by the truckload. I remember this from having Nora, but forgot how MUCH hair. It's just what I need when I'm feeling fat, pale, and depressed. I'm considering going tanning a couple of times just for that feeling of the sun. I swore off being a tanimal after Nora was born, but this is more like therapy for S.A.D. :P

Nursing Birdy has been the most wonderful experience for me. Nora was born at 33 weeks and my milk barely ever came in. She was in NICU and I was pumping every couple of hours day and night. I would only get an ounce or two each pumping session. Couple all of that with PPD and it just became impossible. This time around, it has been easy going and wonderful. I just can't say enough about how much I'm enjoying it all. The bonding, the convenience, the two of us... all of it. That said, my boobs are crizazy huge and I'm getting worried about them post breastfeeding. The are ridiculous and so ugly to me. The biggest nursing bra I could get was and I/J and I'm busting out of that. Before breastfeeding, they were about an F -- which was more than I'd like and now? Blech. Its worth it but I'm seriously considering a reduction once Birdy is done breastfeeding.

{stuff} Winter has brought its normal gift of dry, itchy skin. Here's what I'm loving:

Cetaphil for my face. It cleanses so gently and is so affordable.

Lush Sympathy for the Skin. Best. Cream. Ever.

the obamas welcome her...

remember? I'm pleased silly.

car seat advice - help

needed. I currently have an old Graco infant seat that I used for Nora. It was a hand-me-down from c. and I'm considering buying the Britax Chaperone to replace it. I'm weighing all options and really, just getting nowhere. I need to quiet my brain over it and just make a decision. Recap:

We have this: (only ours looks more.... used) Its an old hand me down Graco model that is not yet expired but will be soon (although not before we'd be done with it.) We never use the stroller with it.

I'm considering this: It's the Britax Chaperone infant car seat and runs about $230. Babies R Us is having their trade-in event which means I could get 25% off if I purchase before 02/20. Not a problem -- if I'm going to get a new car seat then the sooner the better.

Issues

• when I think about replacing it, I feel guilty because if its really not safe enough then why the hell did I have my precious Nora in it? Here's why: I didn't know better and by the time I started to learn more, Nora was in a new seat.
• Birdy is 3 months old, about 15 pounds and 25 inches long. The new seat would go to 30 pounds and 32 inches. How long would she really remain in an infant seat? 3 more months? 6 more months? What amount of time would be worth switching? With Nora, I hated the baby 'bucket', so I changed her quickly to a Britax convertible, and just used a sling to transport her. Nora loved the sling -- Birdy does not. This time around I still think that the baby bucket is a heavy pain in the ass. Only I also think its really useful. I can put it down, if necessary, to manage Nora, I have a 'place' for Birdy to sit in the library or other places, I can bring Birdy in sleeping from the car, and I can get Birdy all ready before we ever have to go outside.
• I have crazy worries of Birdy being hurt. I don't know if this is some sort of hormonal new(ish) mama thing or some sort of universal warning system that I should heed. Irrationally, because I've now considered a new seat, I now torture myself with the thought of what if something happened and I didn't get her the best seat?
• We don't have the money for the seat lying around but it wouldn't kill us and I suppose I'd be able to sell it on Craigslist when we're done....
• Here are the other seats we have. Nora's Britax Frontier: , a Britax Marathon (Joe's car) , and a Britax Boulevard (Joe's car)
  

Help me please. What would you do?

the fastest three months

of my life.

say a little prayer

this week's prayer:

Lord,
Give me the faith, the courage, and the trust to allow myself to be found by Your love and forgiveness this week.
Amen and amen.

first time bowling

we took the girls bowling today and had a blast. I, for one, am always in favor of family activities that include a divey bar in the vicinity. Nora rocked it and I found that I bowl better with a baby in one arm -- seems to balance me out somehow.

Nora's Game Face

Holding Her Ball Like a Pro

Birdy by the Pro Shop