Bedtime Lullabies

Carter currently has a routine (with his father, not me, might I add) to listen to a few songs before bed. For the first few, he burns off some energy with his awesome dance moves, and then he settles down and chills for the last one. His current bedtime playlist is:

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO
Numa Numa by whoever the heck that is
Magic by  BOB featuring Rivers from Weezer
In Your Arms, aka The Jelly Bean song, which has this awesome video

This is the same child who, as an infant, loved Getting Jiggy With It. I think we may have a problem, or a future b boy, on our hands.

From the mouth of Carter

Today at Souplantation ,Carter scored a little soft serve. Seth explain that he needed to take little bites, and if he ate ice cream too fast he would get brain freeze.

A few minutes later, Carter asked "Daddy, you ate too much rice and got a brain head?"

Eight Months of Avery

Dear Avery,

Today you are eight months old. Well, technically today you are eight months and one day.  That’s fitting though, because your whole life I have felt like I was prepared for what I anticipated next and then all the sudden I was caught off guard when it actually happened. As you reach more milestones, that continues to be true. I’ll probably still feel this way when you graduate from college.

This has been a very busy month. We had a lot of fun and a lot of celebrations… and a few less pleasant things. In the first seven months of your life, you never got sick. Not once. In the last month, you’ve been sick twice, two colds you probably got from your brother. I got both of them, too. We’ve spent a lot less time sleeping this month. Hopefully next month will hold more sleep and less sickness.

Now on to the fun things! We celebrated your first Christmas. You loved it, and of course got way too many presents. You took it all in and wanted to be a part of every moment. You spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day charming all of your family, especially those who don’t get to see you as much as we do. You seemed to do well with everyone as long as you couldn’t see me. The moment I walked into a room when someone else was holding you, you started fussing. It was a busy Christmas, full of family and festivities, and you kept up with all of us. In fact, you may have had more energy than we did after all of the celebrations. Christmas Night you were so amped up you didn’t fall asleep until hours after your bedtime.

You’re crawling quite efficiently now, earlier and faster than your brother. You are determined to crawl to every bookshelf and attempt to eat every book. Don’t tell Carter, but there’s now a Diego book missing a corner. If we had caught you 30 seconds later it would probably be missing the entire cover. You’ve also continued to find your voice with great exuberance! You make a few odd noises that can really only be described as growling. A few days ago you started clapping. When you first started trying it a few days ago, you looked at your hands like you couldn’t figure out who was moving them for you, almost bewildered. Then, you slowly started moving your right hand with intention, smacking it against your stationary left hand. Now, only a few days later, you’ve got all the timing and coordination almost down. It is so amazing to watch you figure out the world and your place in it.

I usually feed you first thing in the morning, and those still quiet moments with you snuggled in bed are one of the best parts of my day. I spent 10 days at home with you and your brother and I loved being home with you all day. I was sad to go back to work, but thankful for our time together. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with dinner out, where you were determined to grab everything you possibly could (and a lot we thought you couldn’t reach) and chuck it all on the floor. You didn’t make it to midnight, but you were up shortly after. As we took a moment to reflect on the year, we had so much to be thankful for. You are without a doubt the best thing that happened in 2011. I’m excited for 2012, to watch you grow and see where this year takes us. I’m just so continually thankful to be able to experience each new day with you.

Love,

Mama

Don't Tell CPS

Last night, Carter ran over to the drawer in our kitchen hutch and started frantically flinging dish towels out of the drawer and on to the floor. We quickly intervened and asked him what in the world he was doing.

He responded, with a sense of urgency: "I'm looking for my shimmy shimmy cocoa pop!" He proceeded to locate a lint roller, which we're pretty sure is the shimmy shimmy cocoa pop to which he referred.

This is totally normal two year old behavior and vocabulary, right?

Just when things were looking up...

Last night, we found out that in less than two weeks Avery won't have a daycare provider so we're frantically searching for the perfect place for her, which is an all too familiar and unsettling process. This morning, Carter woke up crying that he didn't want to go to preschool and was so determined to convince us it was a holiday. He fought us the whole morning and whined the entire way to school, at which point he refused to walk in the door and turned to jell-o the second I picked him up. We're in the initial stages of accepting an offer on our house, which is great, but also means that we may be looking for a new home in the near future. This also makes it hard to pick a new daycare, considering we'd like something close to home and we have no idea where that will be. This comes along with the busiest time of year at work, which doesn't afford me much time to ignore my job and spend 24/7 researching alternative.

I was surprising calm about all of this... well, life hitting the fan. I have officially transitioned to mama bear mode. There's a threat to my children, I need to eliminate the threat.  I believe that with great reward/resource/power comes great responsibility, and that applies here, too. As a parent, I have these incredible blessings and a resulting expansive responsibility. I want everyone to be happy and healthy and fulfilled. Doesn't every mother? Priority number one: make it happen. There is no time for wallowing.

The other balancing factor here is we are incredibly blessed. These kids? They are awesome. Yesterday, I was sorting through the kids' clothes, packing up items that were too small and I found Avery's newborn beanie in the back of her drawer. I was shocked at just how small it was. It seems like a week ago she was this tiny little peanut in this sweet hat, and I honestly cannot remember her ever being that small. It was such a good reminder to cherish what we have.

2012 Anti-Resolutions

This year, I have a lot on my plate. A LOT. A two year old, a 7 month old, a dog, a house on the market, a husband, a full time (rather demanding lately) job, and many other things that pull me in various directions every day.

We have to be on. our. game. every morning to avoid disaster. Especially now that our kids are at two different places, that means two drop offs, two sets of stuff, and two parents who have to get to work, ideally on time. On top of that, the house has to be somewhat show ready in case an agent calls for a showing that day.

There are things I want to accomplish this year. I want to be more organized. I’m a very organized person, but I think we have some opportunity to declutter. I really want to move, but that’s mostly out of our control. I’d like to lose a couple inches, and maybe a pound or two. I’m pretty much at my pre-baby weight, but three and half years of pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing have shifted things around a little. I want to be healthier, and I really want Avery to sleep better so Seth and I can sleep more. As I posted about last week, we're in limbo in so many areas of our life, and I really hope that throughout 2012, the pieces fall into place and things settle a bit.

There are a few things that are just not going to make the cut this year.

I am not going to learn anything new. Someday, I’d like to play guitar, and maybe knit, and maybe speak Italian. None of those things will happen this year.

I’m not quitting anything. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink much, and all of my other vices, which are fairly innocuous, are sticking around in 2012.

I am not going to the gym. Sure, I want to be healthier and more active, but the gym is not getting any of my time or effort. I’d like to log more miles on my double stroller, definitely eat healthier, and maybe play a little more Dance Central, but I just can’t rekindle my relationship with the elliptical right now.

I’m also going to try really, really hard not to make new commitments. I’m pretty maxed out right now, so maybe this is a good year to learn how to no. We’ll see how that goes. 

New Year, New Hope.

I love new beginnings. This is a bit counter-intuitive because I don’t particularly like change. However, approaching 2012, I feel ready for something fresh and new.

I never want to forget the blessings of 2011. We are so richly blessed, first and foremost with Avery, but also with so many other things, both material and intangible. Overall, though, 2011 was a hard year. I’m ready to leave some of that pain and anxiety behind. Yet I’m acutely aware that we are so fortunate to be able to do that. I was constantly in remembrance this Christmas of so many people who have lost loved ones, particularly children. The baby at daycare whose parents we will never know, missing their sweet baby boy. A coworker whose dear son died studying abroad. A college roommate whose baby spent his first Christmas celebrating in heaven. My so-called trials and tribulations pale in comparison.

We don’t know what this year will hold for us. We pray that God’s hand will be upon us this year and He will walk with us through the tough times we know will come and we approach 2012 with cautious hope.