Counting my blessings

Life passes by so quickly sometimes, and unfortunately sometimes it takes something tragic to put things in perspective and remind us to cherish our loved ones and the moments we have with them.

There is a family we know whose daughter is struggling with health issues right now.  I fret over Evie when she gets a cold, but if something more serious were to happen, I don’t know what I’d do.  It is so hard to see your child, no matter what the age, sick and in pain.  You just want to take it away from them and make it better, and you feel helpless when you can’t.  This family has been in my prayers a lot over the past weeks.  I hope that they all have the strength to overcome the obstacles that have been thrown at them.  Hopefully their daughter will be healthy and home soon.

Pat came home this week and said that one of his co-workers had lost his 8 month old nephew in a car accident over the weekend.  I don’t know this person or his family, but my heart is just breaking for them.  Losing a loved one is hard, but to lose a child…. this is something that I don’t even want to imagine.  I look down at my child and my breath catches thinking about not seeing her sweet face and toothy little grin every day.  It’s not something that I can even contemplate.

 These things remind me to be grateful for each day.  So much can change in an instant.  You can’t live your life expecting bad things to happen, but you can slow down sometimes and be thankful for your blessings.   I’ll tell Pat and Evie that I love them when I leave the house and call my grandma on a Wednesday afternoon just to say hi.  I’ll hug Evie a little tighter, ask for one (or ten) more goodnight kisses and tell her I love her a hundred times a day.  I’ll be thankful for the blessing that she, Pat and all of my family and friends are in my life and try not to take any of it for granted.

A little tempermental...

I completely understand that people can have bad days.  It get it.  It’s cool.  I’ve been a moody mess basically this entire pregnancy so I will not judge anyone for having a mood swing or two.  But as bad as my mood swings can be, they are nothing compared to the constant whirlwind that is the toddler.  Evie is the sweetest girl in the world 95% of the time.  The other 5% of the time, it’s like a little crazy person has inhabited her body.  While I know that this is normal to some degree, It can be difficult and frustrating at times.  Recently, while my parents were in town, Evie heard someone say the word ‘Ice Cream”.  She immediately perked up and said “I want that”.  I told her that she could have a little bit after dinner, but not right now.  She said again ‘ I want that” and wandered into the kitchen, frustration mounting.  I again said no and she screeched “I want ice cream! I want ice cream!”.  I knelt down and looked her in the eye and told her no, not right now.  After dinner.  Tears and stomping followed.  She needed it now, but I didn’t relent.  We are trying to make her understand that sometimes she has to be patient and wait.  She was so upset, but I held my ground and then tried to distract her by asking her to build me a tower out of her blocks. After a few more sobs, she suddenly seemed happier and began to build her tower.  I wish I could say such scene only happened that once, but it happens frequently.  Mostly when she wants something RIGHT NOW that we refuse to give to her.  I suppose of this just comes with toddlerhood and learning how to deal with not getting your way.  And I really hope she grows out of this and learns to accept things gracefully in the – probably far off – future.

I know that I have asked my parents more than once how they did it when they were raising kids.  How do you deal with the temper tantrums and the crying fits?  How do you deal with the absolute refusal of your toddler to accept that the current situation is not what they want, but that they will not be getting what they want so they may as well just get over it and move on?  How do deal with the fact that your kid can turn on the pout and the tears like a seasoned pro when she wants, in an effort to get her way?   My parents are very careful not to tell what me I should be doing.  Sometimes they will have some anecdotes of they own children’s childhoods and how they dealt with particular situations, but for the most part, they just try and offer support to us in how we are raising our daughter.  This can be frustrating since I want someone to give me answers, but I definitely appreciate it because it tells me that they respect us as the parents and that maybe, hopefully, we are doing to right thing.  Recently both of my parents have told me that they think we’re doing something right because Evie is a good kid.  I don’t know if that’s true or not – I know that we try our best – but it means so much to hear that someone thinks so. 

For now we are just dealing with each day as it comes.  We are trying to be consistent in our parenting and our rules.  Pat and I both agree that if we tell her that they will be a consequence if she does something she’s not supposed to be doing, we stick to it.  For example, she was coloring the other day and started to walk away from the table with her crayons.  I told her that the crayons stayed at the table, but she insisted on trying to take them into the family room.  I told her if she didn’t bring the crayons back to table, then it was time to put the crayons away.  She refused, insisting on moving further into the room. So I took the crayons away from her and put them up.  She got them back eventually, but she had to learn the I meant what I said.  It can be hard because I’m not with her everyday so she may follow different rules when she’s at daycare.  But at home, she follows our rules.  I can see that she’s learning.  She may not get it right every time, but she is learning right from wrong. 

Sweet, sensitive girl

Evelyn is such a sensitive little girl sometimes.  A sad song will make her droop a little and her face will scrunch up into a sad frown.  But a happy song will perk her right up and she’ll sing along (making up words) and dance.  I can tell her no 500 times a day with hardly a reaction.  But a small change in my tone will really make a difference.  Usually this happens when she’s about to do something that I’m afraid will hurt her.  She can just tell that my tone is different and it sometimes upsets her.  When we tell her to be gentle and nice, she understands and will usually give us kisses and hugs to show up how sweet she can be.   I love that Evie is sensitive – but it breaks my heart to see her upset.  The other day she was sitting on the couch watching Dumbo.  The part of the movie where Dumbo is being rocked by his mother while the song “Baby Mine” was on and all of the sudden, Evie just burst into tears.  Like hiccupping, sniffling monster tears.  I went right over and scooped her up, holding her tight and asking what was wrong.  She just clung to me and cried.  I finally figured out it was the song and Dumbo crying in the movie that made Evie cry.  Poor sweet girl!  Evie sensitivity also brings so much joy to my heart.  Right in the middle of playing one day, she suddenly looked up at me and said “I love you Mama”.  She always tells me that she loves me when I tell her, but this time said ‘I love you” without prompting from me.  Such simple words that bring me so much joy!

I hope that Evie always stays sensitive, while at the same time being a little tough too.

Getting it all done

I often wonder how other people do it – get everything done in the day and still have time to breathe.  I know that I have it better than some working parents out there.  I work fulltime, M-F, 7-3:30.  No nights, no weekends, no bringing my work home with me.  We’re lucky too because right now Pat is on the same schedule as me.  Given his line of work, this may not always be the case so we are enjoying the time while we have it.  But honestly, even with two good schedules, it’s hard and it’s exhausting.  As Pat put it once, during the week we are mostly in survival mode.  We get through the work day, come home, make dinner, play with Evie, give her a bath, put her to bed and try and get some stuff done around the house.  People tell me that I need to let stuff go and just accept that things will sometimes be messy.

  I try to do this, but it’s not in my nature to be able to relax when there are 101 things that need to be done.  I prefer to dive in, get it all done and then relax.  The problem is that I can never get it all done and I can never seem to get ahead, which leaves little time for relaxing.  I love the weekends when we can go out of town to see my parents because we aren’t home and I don’t have to think about all of the things to get done around the house.  I do the best that I can to keep a clean and tidy house.  It’s something that is important to me and it is something that I’d like to instill in my children.  I want them to know that it’s ok to make a mess sometimes, but it’s also equally important to clean up after oneself.  Evelyn helps me pick up her toys and we sing the Barney Clean Up song.  The other day I caught her singing the song while picking up her tea set without any prompting from me.  I was so proud of her!  Obviously I don’t not expect her to do it all the time at this point, but I hope that I can teach her to be helpful.  Right now, she will put her own dirty clothes in the hamper and if she spills something, she helps to clean it up.  She knows that her shoes belong on the mat by the door and how to put her books back on the bookshelf.  Does she do this all the time?  No.  But she’s learning.  Hopefully by the time that Evie and this new baby are older, they will be great helpers!  But until that happens to falls to me.  And that leads me back to my original question – how do people do it?  I’m tired just thinking about it all…

Spaghetti or not

Since Evie was born, Pat and I have both said that we would feed her what we were having for dinner (within reason of course) when she was old enough.  We didn’t want to cater to our child’s every whim.  You either eat what we make or you don’t eat.  We were so idealistic!  And while we do offer her bites of what we eat, she does have different meals than us sometimes.  But we try and we’re doing our best to make her an adventurous eater.



Last night we ended up having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  This is not one of Evie’s favorite meals, but we keep trying.  The weird part is, most of the time, she won’t even try it.  She literally will not take one bite.  For most other foods, she will at least put it in her mouth and then spit it out if she doesn’t like it.  But not spaghetti.  Lately she’s been doing better with pasta – she ate macaroni and cheese twice last week!  But she still won’t try most others.  I think it has to do with the consistency & texture of it.  I guess it could be the sauce, but I know that she likes tomatoes – she ate tons of tomatoes over the summer that Pat grew in his garden.  Last night she ate her fruit and some croutons from my salad and a baby food veggie pouch (getting her to eat her vegetables is another struggle for us), but ignored her spaghetti.  When she announced that she was all done, I told her that she could get down if she tired one bite of her spaghetti.  “I don’t want that” she said.  I countered with “I don’t care – one bite and you can get down”.  “I don’t like that” she said.  “Just one bite.  Please”.  No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes.  She finally picked up her fork and shoved a piece of meatball in her mouth and slowly chewed.  First thing you know, she starts to spit it out.  I asked her to please chew it up and swallow… and she promptly burst in to hysterical tears.  Geez what a little drama queen!  I let her spit it out so as not to traumatize the poor child.  Geez.
 Mom fail. :(

She won't eat spaghetti, but she loves chili!

Playful days

These days Evie is spending lots of time playing with her new toys.  We have tea parties daily – sometimes multiple times a day.  She also loves to play with her kitchen.  She likes to continually put her play food into different containers and serve it to us.  Let me tell you – Evie makes a mean banana, egg, garlic, fish, bologna soup!  She likes push her shopping cart around the house and fill it with odds and ends.  I’ve contemplated moving the baby gates so that she can circle the house more easily, but for now they stay.  I need something to slow her down once in a while. I’ve been a lot more tired this pregnancy than the last and sometimes I need to corral her so that I can sit down for a second!  Luckily for me, Evie doesn’t mind much, as long as I keep playing with her.  She got a table and chair set from Grandma Rita this year and she likes to command us to “Sit! Sit!”.  I think she’s getting us confused with Crosby. I often have to remind her how to ask nicely and she always responds ‘please!’  We have spent tons of time coloring at her table.  She’s an avid scribbler and obviously hasn’t yet mastered staying in the lines, but she’s seems to be quite proficient in abstract art :).  Evelyn is starting to have more interest in her baby dolls.  She likes that her Cabbage Patch doll wears a diaper and has a belly button.  She feeds her baby a bottle (or used to until Crosby chewed it up.  Don’t worry Evie – Mama will get you another one!).  And she loves it when I wrap up her doll in a blanket so that she can rock it.  She  can be so gentle sometimes – I can only hope that she continues to be gentle when the new baby gets here!
As for the new baby, things seem to be going fine. I finally got to actually hear the heartbeat yesterday (16 weeks)! What an awesome sound! I'd seen the baby's heart beating on the three ultrasounds I've had, but finally getting to hear it was amazing. :) We are so blessed!

Happy New Year!

It is hard to believe that it is already 2014…where does the time go?!  2013 was a memorable year filled with so many blessings and precious moments with our little girl.  We hope and pray that 2014 is filled with good health, laughter and happiness for our family, as well as for our family and friends.

That said, we are definitely starting the new year out on a high note.  We found in the autumn that we are expecting a new baby!  While we are nervous about everything, we can’t wait to meet our new addition this June.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hi world!

Christmas Recap

This year, I traveled to KY with Evie several days before Christmas.  I honestly could not wait to get there.  I was looking forward to seeing my family, visiting with friends and celebrating the season.  But, as often happens when you have small children, all of my plans changed.  Evie got sick.  She started with a runny nose on Saturday morning, but seemed to be doing ok.  We went out to dinner with my parents and Shannon to Red Lobster and Evie did well.  She didn’t eat much, but she was in good spirits.  By late Saturday night, she was running a fever, had a horrible cough and was feeling awful.  I felt so bad for my baby girl!  It’s so hard when your baby is sick – I felt helpless and there are very few medicines that are safe to give kids.  I read online that a spoonful of honey can help a cough in a child over 1 so we tried that.  It just so happened that my parents has just run out of honey so my wonderful Dad ran up to Kroger at 10:00 at night to get honey and popsicles.   It seemed to help a little and I was so grateful.  While it was a little difficult to be away from home with a sick kid, my parents and my siblings were lifesavers because they distracted Evie and made her smile.  I was bummed to have to cancel most of my plans for the weekend it wasn't all bad. I got to snuggle with my girl and watch Christmas movies, we helped Kiki wrap gifts, we hung out with Aunt Sha-Sha, ate buffalo chicken dip and watched the Bengals (between cartoons) and ate yummy Christmas cookies. Not sure if I mentioned yet, but Evie and I love hanging out with my family! My parents did watch Evie for a few hours on Monday night so that I could meet my good friend Julie for dinner and finish up some last minute Christmas shopping.  It was nice to get out of the house after being cooped up for 2.5 days!  Evie’s fever broke Monday night and she was on the mend by Christmas Eve.  Not 100% herself, but so much better that she had been.  Yah!

We went to church on Christmas Eve at St. Ben’s.  Afterwards, Daddy arrived - boy was Evie happy to see him!  We had dinner at Shannon’s apt. and Evie got to open her Christmas present from Aunt Holly – a homemade dress up box!  It is so awesome – it has tutus, dresses, hats, crazy glasses, stick on earrings, necklaces and rings.  It even has a chicken hat and beak!  Evie absolutely loves it!  I wish I could be that creative.

After dinner, we headed over the Klare’s house for a their annual Christmas Eve party.  We always have a great time and this year was no exception!  It’s been far too long since we had seen my aunts, uncles and cousins and I really missed them.  We has so much fun catching up and Evie liked playing with Maria and Joseph.  After an night of laughter and fun, we headed home to bed.  We were exhausted!

We all got a late start on Christmas morning – 10am!  Yikes!  I don’t remember the last time we slept that late – I’m not sure Evelyn ever has – but we needed the rest.  We all gathered in the family room to open gifts – Evie’s pile was bigger than she was – times 5!  Santa Claus left a few of her gifts in Kentucky (or Tucky as Evie likes to call it) and she got spoiled rotten by her Kiki, Pops, Aunt Shannon and Uncle Adam.  I think Evelyn was a little overwhelmed by it all and she couldn’t figure out what to play with first!  Presents were followed by a delicious breakfast and then we all got ready and went to the Dorsey’s house. Evie hadn’t been able to see her GG Mitchell yet since she had been sick so we were excited to go.  Evie lit up when she saw GG!  Again, it was so nice to see family that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.  Evie got spoiled again by her GG – she got doll baby and a tea set.  She loves feeding her baby a bottle.  And the tea set seems to be one of her favorite gifts this Christmas.  I cannot even tell you have may tea parties we have had since Christmas!  She even had tea with Kiki and Pops over Facetime!

After a long day, we headed home.  We were all exhausted and while I wish we could have stayed in KY even longer, I was nice to get home and sleep in my own bed. The days since Christmas have been spent playing with new toys.  Evelyn is cooking up a storm in her kitchen, taking her doll for walks in her shopping cart, playing dress up, having tea parties, coloring, reading, making music and just having fun!

Checking out the Nativity with Pops

Helping wrap gifts with Kiki

Enjoying a popscile

Poor sick girl :(

Dress up time!

Uncle Jerry making the kiddos laugh :)

Enjoying Aunt Sha-Sha's Christmas tree

Presents!

Santa came...

...and brought more presents!

Train time

Good Night!