Pretty Random stuff!

*We walked to the duck pond yesterday. I could not believe how much those baby ducklings have grown! Here they are in April:



And here they are now!







This is one of the babies close-up. You can see that he still has some down that is turning into feathers:




They actually stopped traffic crossing the road! Notice the duck crossing sign!



Then we walked to the playground. Mariele LOVES the bucket swing. She was laughing every time I would push her. And it is so funny when she laughs because she snorts! By the time I got my camera phone she was getting over the swing, so this is the only "good" pic I got:



*Today we met our friends for lunch at this restaurant with lots of outdoor patio seating and I big giant sandbox play area for the kiddos. And being an early Thursday lunch, our kids had the entire sandbox to themselves. Analese LOVED this Step 2 roller coaster car track that they had in the sandbox. She did it 50 times if she did it once! Emailed Lee the link and told him we just may have to get one of these things.




*Mariele is grabbing her feet and rolling from side to side now! Here are some pics, and if you wonder what she is looking at, it is Analese singing Wheels on the Bus. And notice the cute pic where she is laughing (and snorting;) at Analese!







*I am a sucker for children's books. I enjoy story time every bit as much as Analese does. I decided to order her this box set of Janette Oke's Animal Friends:



I did not realize until they came that they are actually little chapter books for kids ages 6-10. They are about 60 pages long with large font and color illustrations thrown in here and there, but chapter books nonetheless. I decided to try reading her the first book. The chapters are only a couple of pages apiece. After each chapter I would quiz her on what happened to see if she was paying attention. Well, she WAS paying attention and she always begs for another chapter! I'm so psyched that she has the attention span for small chapter books now! I thought I was going to have to give this book set away to a certain young reader that I know, but I think I will keep them! I will probably still get a set for this certain young reader that I know for her birthday though;)

*Who is that Star Wars thing that inverts the sentences? Yoda or something? You can tell I'm not really a fan. Well, the reason I bring this up is because Analese is doing a lot of sentence inversion lately. It goes something like this:

"Mommy, I want orange juice please. Orange juice I want."

She begins with the traditional sentence structure, then she inverts it. I guess she is just experimenting with grammar a little bit. Now if I can teach her the word "went" instead of "goed." As in "Mommy, I goed to the potty." Or "Mommy, I goed underwater." Oh well, I guess it is kind of cute when they are three!

Random spewings forth . . .

*Curse words - I hate them. I mean I hate the real, vulgar ones. But I am not perfect, and sometimes the frustration of a situation just calls for a little verbage. So I have, over the years, created my own vocabulary of completely non-sensical but relatively clean "dirty words." Here are some of my ugly words: PIG! PIGGLY WIGGLY! Sometimes PIG CRAP! (now I know that one is getting a little vulgar). And if the situation is just overwhelmingly frustrating, I just might drop the f-bomb. The queen mother of all my own little personal expletive vocab: FRICK ON A STICK WITH A BRICK! So I guess it is a good thing that my curse words are a little counter-cultural, because the other day when I must have displayed some frustration on my face out in public (way over-crowded restaurant), Analese looked at me and said, "Piggly Wiggly on a stick with a brick, mommy."

*The other night, Analese and I were out in the kitchen when we heard Mariele start to fuss on the baby monitor. Analese says, "That's your child, mommy."

*Potty training is going awesome. Analese has not even had an accident in about 3 days. She goes to bed dry, wakes up dry, stays dry in her panties all day, and puts all of her body waste into the potty. She is also learning human physiology. (YAY home school, once again). Today she was enjoying a drink in the kitchen after lunch. She told me, "Mommy, this will turn into pee-pee in my body." I asked her if she needs to go to the potty. Her response was, "It is still turning into pee-pee mommy."

*Speaking of homeschooling, I learned that a mommy of one of Analese's fellow dancers is homeschooling! I got to have a nice conversation with her while our daughters were dancing today. She is the third homeschooler I have talked to out here in the past 2 weeks! Turns out that homeschooling does exist and is, in fact, thriving out here. I was glad to know this!

*Analese was in a bit of a mood this morning. I was trying to take pictures of both of my girls smiling at the same time. Hmmm, maybe someday? She was pretty much flat out refusing to smile for pictures this morning:




This is the closest I got to pleasant expressions on both girls' faces:



*Analese's mood carried over to Little Gym class. For the first time ever she was clinging to me and not wanting to go into her class. One of her favorite teachers, Miss Allison, came over and got her from me. She was fine then. She adores Miss Allison. Then when it was time for shoe change she did the same thing - started clinging to me. But when Miss Allison came to get her she was on her merry way.

*Miss Shanna, the main dance teacher, told me after class that Analese is so mature for her age and she listens so well and learns so quickly (beaming with pride here).

*A child (23 months old) from Mexico died of swine flu at a medical center in Houston yesterday. This swine flu thing is scary and I am hoping and praying that it will stay sparse in the U.S. Also praying for the other affected areas in the world, of course. Scary that there was a case in the metro area where I live.

Cute video, etc . . .

Here is the reason for my lack of wordiness earlier. I had a killer sinus headache. 800 mg. ibuprofen and a claritin finally killed it. I have not been incapacitated by allergies in several years. I was living in Arkansas the last time I had an allergy attack that bad.

But ANYWAY, here is a video of the girls in dance class yesterday that Yng Yng took with her new cool little camera. Yesterday was bring a friend to dance class day, and Analese wanted to bring Anita naturally. They look pretty cute dancing together. Keep in mind that this video was shot on the other side of a pretty sound-proof glass window. So any background noise is just that - background noise. I wish we could hear what they are doing in there. I know they were doing some kind of chicken dance LOL!



We had a play date with our neighborhood pals in a cool new park today. Well, the park is not really new, just new to me. It is actually a park for disabled children. I did not realize that until I chatted with the mother of a disabled boy there (he had leg braces). I just thought all the ramps leading up to the playground equipment were pretty cool, but they actually serve a purpose!

Lee has gone to a nationwide Dave Ramsey town hall meeting tonight. Oh, how I long to go sit in a nice air conditioned auditorium and hear a nice Dave Ramsey presentation. The peace and quiet of listening to an adult topic without kids climbing on me. Can you tell I'm jealous?

Progress report on Analese's potty training. She has done GREAT! Much better than I even expected. Yesterday it seemed that everything just clicked into place. Before her bath last night I removed the same dry pair of panties that she had worn to bed the night before - definitely a record for her. Now today as I was bragging about her at the park, she proceeded to wet herself. And I THOUGHT I had an extra pair of panties in my bag, but I only had a pull-up. So she got to wear a pull-up for a short time today. Oh well, can't win em all. But I am overall very pleased with her progress. I probably should have done this a year ago.

Analese-isms and other news . . .

Somehow that does not look like a word! Anyway, here are some cute ones:

1) Lee took her out on a errand the other afternoon while I was fixing dinner. He told me she had a great time, and in the car on the way home she said, "Daddy, I LOVE going to town with you. I miss mommy SO much." AWWW!!

2) Lee and I were watching a TV show that showed the beach (Scrubs - funny Bahama wedding episode where Janitor is getting married to the lady). Analese said, "I want to go to the beach. I want to wear my orange goggles so I can see the mermaids underwater."

3) I was combing out her hair last night after her bath. She said, "Mommy, my hair has rectangles!" (TANGLES HA HA!)

Here is my news:

1) Piano is GONE! When the movers were picking it up, Analese kept saying, "That man going to make your piano all better!"

2) Washer is fixed! Turns out it really was not broken. One of my BREAST PADS had gotten caught in the impeller that turns the pump and it was unable to turn. The repairman left it on top of the washer so I could see it. It was all wadded up and I thought it was a big lint ball. So I threw it in the downstairs trash and told Lee it was a big lint ball. Well, Lee got it out of the trash and dissected it and sure enough it was a breast pad (a bit chewed up, but definitely a breast pad - unmistakable shape)!! I wondered where that other one went. I had lost one of the pair (you know, like it happens with socks sometimes).

3) Coming up on my blog as time allows the next few days are Easter egg overload pics. I hid plastic filled eggs in the yard yesterday and Analese had a great time hunting for them. We dyed eggs yesterday afternoon. She is going to an Easter egg hunt this afternoon before the church service we are attending with friends. Yep, I'm getting a lot of pics. Lee is OFF today! So three day weekend YAY!

4) I can make Mariele GIGGLE now by kissing her belly or her feet when I change her diaper! It is the cutest thing! I will try to get Lee to take a video of it sometimes!

HAPPY EASTER WEEKEND TO ALL!

Random Ramble again . . .

3 . . . the maximum number of days I can go without doing laundry before I am in a world of hurt.

Thing I am thankful for today . . . my dear friend Yng Yng for letting me use her washing machine while mine is broken down.

Fun thing we did today . . . play date with new neighborhood friend at Safari Stop (this cool indoor playground inside this huge Methodist church). I think Kristin and I have more fun than our kids do. It is nice to have adult conversation while the kiddos play. We seem to be in the habit of weekly play dates now.

Realization from tonight . . . Analese loves to be read to. Lee has been doing the bedtime stories lately since I am usually busy with Mariele. But Lee is working tonight and I read Analese her stories after getting Mariele settled down. I miss the bedtime stories with her. She is so sweet and snuggly and quiet during story time.

Realization from right this moment . . . I need to hop in the shower while I can. Gotta go.

Random ramble . . .

Hmmm, Let's see . . . My washing machine is BROKEN! The mechanism that drains the water out is not working and I am still waiting for the warranty people to call back to see who will fix it. This is a hardship for me. I mean, my washer and I are tight. We are like best buds. I run that thing six, sometimes seven days a week. I guess I should not be that mad at it. I work it pretty hard. My baby keeps spitting and pooing all over her clothes. She will eventually run out of clothes and blankets. UGHHH!

I took Analese (and Mariele too of course) to the library for story time this morning. They both seemed to really enjoy it. Analese checked out five books.

Our friends from Kentucky sent Analese and Mariele some gifts. Here are some cute pictures that I took. Analese just loves receiving packages in the mail!





I think I will now sneak into Analese's room where she is napping (THANK GOODNESS) and get the Easter baskets and eggs down. I need to fill her plastic eggs with goodies for her egg hunt later this week. I guess I have more time to do that since I am not doing laundry (Again, UGHHHH!)

Randomness

*Analese peed on our king-sized comforter last night. I was doing "booty camp" with her (panties, basically) and Lee forgot that she does not need to be on the bed while she is doing this phase of potty-training. He was rough-housing with her on the bed when the accident happened. So we took our comforter to the cleaners this morning.

*I was playing baseball with Analese at the park this morning with her big plastic bat and ball that her Meemee got her. She was doing pretty well whacking the ball. But whenever she missed she would say in the sweetest little non-accusatory voice, "That was your fault, mommy." Obviously when my mom was playing with her, she would assume the blame if Analese struck out!

*I am doing pre-school workbooks with Analese. We are doing about 20 minutes per day (roughly 4-6 pages, depending on the page content). She LOVES it and always wants to do more. I am limiting it to about 20 minutes a day because I want to keep it fun and I don't want to burn her out. She is very smart and eager to learn.

*We had a GREAT vacation week. All good things must come to an end, though, and Lee went back to work this week. But we had a lot of family fun together.

*Watched the movie "Fireproof" this weekend. It was excellent. Need the kleenex box, though. It did have a very happy ending.

*Our hairdresser who is from Thailand (does my hair and also gives Lee his haircuts) went to the Asian market yesterday and picked up a bunch of groceries for us. She is so very nice and giving! She knows we are vegetarian Thai food lovers, so she brought us several different types of tofu and some curry pastes and fresh produce and Thai snacks. I will try my hand at making massaman curry later. She instructed me and bought me all the ingredients, except the potatoes which I already have.

I have a mountain of laundry that needs my attention (always happens after a vacation week). So I'd better go now.

"That was fun, mommy!"

This is a quote from Analese that she said several times today after we left the OB office. I am so glad that she thinks it is fun to watch me with my feet in the stirrups getting a gynecological exam!

Headin' out for a few days . . .

*We are leaving for Little Rock early tomorrow morning! Will be back to blogging in a few days.

*This morning Analese undressed herself diaper and all, then peed on the hardwood floor and then slipped in the pee puddle. Her hair was WET with pee. I was upstairs nursing Mariele when I heard Analese screaming and I went downstairs (after ripping Mariele off my breast) and found her naked in the puddle of pee. So of course I had to give her a quick bath and get her dressed to go to my doctor's appointment.

*Had my 6 week post-partum appointment. I am no longer an obstetric patient (sniff and yay at the same time). My uterus is shrunk back down to normal and all is well. My c/s incision is looking very good. Hopefully it will not form a hypertrophic scar like last time. Gave my doc and the office staff a nice thank you note with pictures.

*Can I just say that I am in love with my iphone lately? It is a portable baby soother (Mariele likes her i-tunes). It has toddler games and videos on it. I keep my grocery list on it with the Grocery IQ app. I use it as an alarm clock (well, I never set the alarm since I have a living alarm clock - Mariele) with the Nightstand app. I have the Pandora radio app which is way cool. I have the Bible app and I do my Bible reading in the middle of the night as I am nursing Mariele. And at LONG LAST (I've so been waiting for this one) I have the Kindle for iphone app! I bought a Kindle book from Amazon last night and it was immediately sent wirelessly to my iphone. It is such a cool app! And after I finished my Bible read last night, I was reading my new Kindle book. It makes waking up for the feedings so much more fun when I can grab my iphone and read a good book! I think I will even miss these middle of the night reading sessions if Mariele ever sleeps through the night.

*Got so much more packing to do. I've got the girl's things packed. I need to pack my own stuff now.

*Be back in the blogosphere in a few days!

Mariele's 1 month check-up . . .

Well, she will actually be 6 weeks tomorrow. But we finally got her in for that 1 month visit. The most exciting part of these well baby visits is the weighing and measuring. For comparison's sake, here are her stats at 3 days old:

Weight: 6 pounds; 8th percentile

Height: 19 inches; 20th percentile

Head: 13 1/2 inches; 25th percentile

And (drumroll please) - here are her stats today!

Weight: 10 pounds 2 ounces; 60th percentile

Height: 21 5/8 inches; 50th percentile

Head: 15 inches; 70th percentile

This massive growth makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! And it makes me repeatedly pat myself on the back as her growth was a direct result of my wonder milk produced by my very own body! I was so concerned that I had such a tiny baby and now look at her! Double chin and all! I'm so excited about this!



And here is an interesting mommy stat. I've been working out on the Wii Fit and I like to do the daily body test. At the end of the daily body test the Wii Fit presents you with your Wii Fit age, which is basically a physiological age that it calculates from your actual age and your performance on some body tests. Some days the result can be discouraging because the thing can be rather insulting to you if your Wii Fit age is way above your actual age. Well yesterday I had the best Wii Fit age ever!! So my actual age is 34. Yesterday my Wii Fit age was (drumroll please):

26!!!!

I guess that is as good as I can do without making Analese's Wii Fit age of 2!

Let's go bananas!

Time for some more cute photos!

Here is Mariele in her really cute onesie. Don't mind the baby zit on her face:






Check out these photos of Analese and Mariele together. Usually Analese can get her to crack a smile. Can't you just see the sister love already?







I had my iphoto configured to show me the last 12 months of photos. So after this final photo, it started back over with Feb. 26, 2008. So check out the photo of Analese today and the photo of her one year ago today. Look at how much she has grown! Her hair has really grown a lot too! She has never had a haircut, by the way.




Today I caught Analese swinging Mariele in the swing (instead of just letting the motor do it). She was swinging her pretty hard and saying, "You go real high, Mariele!" Oh dear! Analese loves to go high in the swings at the playground.

We have a 4:00 play date after Analese wakes from her nap. We are going to our neighbor's house (not next door, but in the neighborhood) to jump in their bounce house! We have had several play dates with these people so far. I like the mama a lot, and Analese gets along well with her 3 year old daughter. We even went to dinner with their family last Friday night. It is nice to make friends in our neighborhood.

Makes me happy!

I nursed Mariele to sleep, placed her in her bassinet, then grabbed the baby monitor and joined Lee & Analese outside in the hot tub! And it was so much fun! I love that Mariele sleeps so well and consistently and that allows me to do this kind of fun stuff! I tried to do this just a couple of weeks ago and it was discouraging because Mariele was just not to that point yet. But now she is! And it makes me happy!

Through the eyes of a child . . .

Today as I was getting Analese dressed, she ran her fingers through my hair and said, "Mommy, your hair is BEAUTIFUL!" She was totally sincere in this compliment. Besides, she is a bit young for kissing up because she wants something. So you may wonder about my beautiful hair. The truth? It looks like cr@p and I have not fixed it in days, but the compliment from my 2.75 year old still warmed my heart!

Worth its weight in gold!!!

The swing came yesterday less than 24 hours after I went "click" on the computer. Let's hear it for internet shopping! I put the thing together. Would have taken less than half an hour, but with all my interruptions it took all afternoon. But Mariele loves it! Last night (during her evening fussy time at that) she napped in the swing while Lee and I did our monthly bill paying. The bill paying took over an hour. It would have been impossible for us to do this if it were not for the blessed swing!

This morning I got really really brave and agreed to meet Yng Yng and her kids at the children's museum. So Mariele got some more swing time in as I got myself and Analese ready to go. Here is a progression of swing photos. They are motion shots, so therefore a little blurry. But watch the progression from content to sleepy to asleep! YAY!






So I somehow managed to get everyone out to the Children's museum. They were having critter time this morning. They brought out the milipede, a couple of snakes, a bearded dragon and a turtle and did a little show. The kids got the pet the animals. My child actually touched a snake - YUCK!

My next purchase will be a double stroller. I was not sure if I would need one or not, but now I am pretty sure it would be helpful. Sometimes I need my arms and hands free to simply control my toddler. She did not want to leave the museum, and I had a hard time dragging her out of there while holding Mariele who was out of the New Native at the moment because she was fussy and needing to be fed. I need to find a nice double stroller and go "click" on my computer now. If anyone has any suggestions for me, please comment!

At least I did get Analese out to do something fun today. And the weather is so nice. We went to the playground yesterday and she got to play with her new little friend. We became acquainted with this family at the park recently and they are having us to dinner tomorrow night (they live in our neighborhood). Their little girl is 3 and gets along with Analese very well. They have a very cute son who is 10 months old.

I think I will also feel better once I get more exercise. A double stroller will help with that as well. Maybe we could go on some long afternoon walks during the kids' drowsy times. I am making progress in this maternity leave of mine.

Feel like I'm flunking - Oh, and Happy Birthday to my hubby!

It has been a trying morning. Actually a bit of a repeat of yesterday, but I guess I just am not handling it as well today.

First of all, everyone wakes up happy. Here are my cute girls!




So we are all happy for awhile, then Mariele starts getting tired. But she will not let me put her down! If I think she is good and asleep and I try to put her down, she will only stay asleep 5-10 minutes and then she requires holding with movement or rocking. We had a swing when Analese was a baby. She was never that into movement though. We sold it on Craigslist a couple of years ago and now I am bonking myself in the head over that decision. So today in a moment of sheer desperation I ordered this:



It is the Fisher -Price Papasan cradle swing. I will keep this one until I complete menopause and I know for absolute certain I am not having any more babies! It will be here tomorrow. I can't wait. It is just so frustrating to me when I cannot get things done because my baby won't let me put her down for a second. My toddler has mommy needs too! And sometimes the things I am trying to do are awkward to do carrying baby in the New Native.

Analese and I somehow managed to bake Lee a carrot cake. It is cooling now. We still need to make the frosting.

Lee is 36 today! We celebrated with friends last night at Shogun. The restaurant staff sang happy birthday to Lee and brought him out an artfully carved pineapple and orange with a birthday candle stuck in it. After dinner we had TCBY yogurt cake at our house.

My Maternity Leave

I know I know . . . . I am a stay-at-home mom. But I am giving myself a 12 week maternity leave to get used to having this baby around, especially since I already have a sometimes demanding little toddler. I get frustrated when I cannot just do simple tasks. For example, I think to myself that if I just had 10 minutes I could clean the kitchen, or start the laundry. Or If I just had 20 minutes I could fold and put away the laundry. But my baby is crying and won't let me put her down (sometimes the New Native does help) and my toddler is whining about something or other. And then there is the whole issue of leaving the house. This one is very daunting to me. I think I have only done this once so far with both of my kids. It takes a fantastic amount of energy that I just don't have because I am chronically sleep-deprived. The thought of even going to Wal-Mart just makes me want to collapse on the spot. And before the baby (and definitely before the end of pregnancy) I was not really a STAY AT HOME stay-at-home mom. I took Analese places, enrolled her in classes, went shopping, went to library story time, went to the children's museum. I want to work up to doing all of this again. That is why I am granting myself 12 weeks of FMLA! It will be 4 weeks tomorrow. Surely by the end of 12 weeks I will have worked up to all of this. I'm trying not to be hard on myself and feel like a loser. I did, after all, just have a baby not too long ago. It was different after having Analese because I was able to just enjoy a fabulous baby-moon with her. She was the sun that my world revolved around. I was able to more or less put life on hold and just enjoy her. And getting out was easy because it was just her. But this time it seems that life is marching on with or without me and I need to keep up or fall off the wagon. So 8 more weeks it is. My goal is to get Analese back into a Little Gym class and to be able to do the shopping for our family and perhaps to even make it to a MOPS meeting or two.

A.I.S Time . . . . .

Remember the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where Ray set the A.I.S time (a$$ in seat) so he and Debra will be on time to some function? Then he ends up leaving without Debra because she got the curling iron stuck in her hair. Anyway, I decided the only way I will be on time with my two kids is to set an A.I.S time. No, I will not leave without either one of them. But here is how it worked for us this morning. My doctor's appointment was at 10:30. Normally 10:00 would be the latest I could leave. But with newborn Mariele I declared 9:45 as the A.I.S time. So we were in the car at 9:45. Mariele was not happy. She did not want to sit in her car seat just yet, so I took her out and nursed her for a few minutes. It was 9:56 by the time we rolled out of the driveway. So if I had not built in that time buffer, we would have been late.

Doc's appt was pretty uneventful. My c-section incision is healing very nicely. I don't have any post-partum issues. I just chatted it up with my doc for awhile and made sure she realized how happy we are with the c-section video and how much we appreciated her for letting us do that.

So here is something that I HATE to admit, but I can say that this will never ever happen again because it will be on my checklist of things to check before the car goes into gear. When we were half a mile from home at a red light I glanced back and realized that Analese was not buckled in her car seat! She was sitting there in her car seat completely unbuckled. I'm surprised she did not say anything to me. I told her she needs to say something if mommy forgets to buckle her because it is not safe to drive like that. OH MY WORD - I still cannot believe that I drove all the way home with my precious child not buckled in her car seat. Our guardian angels were working overtime today. Never again.

The "Buddyettes" and more..........

Last night we went back to our friends' house for dinner (Yes, we were just there Friday night - we are food moochers). The entertainment for the evening was my c-section video on their high def big screen plasma TV!

Here is Analese with her little "Buddyette" Tee-ta (Anita):




Here are some more pics from the evening:







Mariele has been sleeping marginally better since I have started swaddling her every night. If I get at least a 2 hour stretch of sleep in between her wakefulness I find it much more tolerable. I've been craving oatmeal a lot, so I've been baking a lot of oatmeal goodies. This morning I made some seriously good oatmeal muffins. Oatmeal is a lactogenic food and will boost my breast milk production. Not that I probably need a boost, but that could explain why I am craving it. I got Mariele's birth announcements ready to put in the mail today. And I made another batch of granola since we were getting low. Tomorrow is my 3 week post-partum OB visit and I am kind of dreading getting out with my girls for this. Yng Yng has offered to watch Analese, but I think I will attempt to just take her along. She was always so good for my OB visits, and I need the practice run of getting out and about with both of my girls. I feel more rested today, but on days that I am wiped out I am restricting my own driving. If I feel like my head is in the fog then I will not get behind the wheel. I am well aware of how dangerous that is.

One more random thought: I can't wait to get back in my jeans! I am currently 4 pounds above pre-pregnancy weight, but I am not back in the jeans yet. I think it took a month or so after having Analese. My belly is slowly but surely shrinking away. I will feel so alive and vibrant whenever I can get back into those pre-preggo jeans!!