Tuesday, June 30, 2009

God's timing

I've been lazy these past few weeks...not posting anything of substance. In an effort to remedy that, I've dusted off my neglected timer and am planning on focusing solely on this blog for fifteen minutes.

I've been thinking a lot about babies lately. My brother has a new baby. My other two brothers are expecting new babies. A friend just had her baby today, and a cousin is expecting one any day now. Babies seem to be all around.

This week, my husband and I participated in a vocations panel as the "married couple" representative. But when we speak about our vocation to marriage, we also always bring up our vocation to parenthood and specifically adoption. As we were sharing our story this week, it occurred to me that God was preparing us for Olivia. Every fertility struggle made us more and more open to the possibility of adoption, and as soon as we said "yes" and made the decision to pursue adoption, God opened that door for us. He opened it so fast that He practically smacked us in the face with the door.

As we wait for #2, I often wonder what's taking so long. Yeah, I know, we were spoiled with Olivia, and adoption takes time. But still, I wonder.

And then we'll have a particularly difficult day with Olivia, and I'll think...maybe God's timing is better than ours. I know it is. It was difficult to wait for children during those years of infertility. We couldn't always see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then Olivia came along, and in retrospect we realized that the timing was perfect. God gave us years of "couplehood" that allowed us to do things that we don't have time to do anymore. We were more emotionally and financially stable by the time Olivia came along. It was the right time.

I know that God's timing is perfect. It's just hard for me to let go of my need to control and plan everything out. To let go of these control issues is my constant prayer.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the new babies who are being born to our family and friends. It will be our turn soon enough, I suppose.

Monday, June 29, 2009

My brain is all afloat today

I have a sinus headache today, so I took some pills which are making me drowsy and a bit cloudy, so forgive me if this bounces around.

Olivia and I went to visit her cousins this weekend, and she had a good time. She's completely worn out today, and I'm hoping that means I'll have time to get a little nap in myself.

When we got home from our 4.5 hour drive yesterday, Olivia's diaper was completely dry. That has never happened before. So we sat her on the potty when we got home, and she went! That's the first time that has happened. Well, for us. Grandma claims that she used the potty at her house on Friday. Isn't that always the way it happens?

Come to think of it, Grandma always gets the happy, well-mannered child. My husband says that Olivia only gives us a hard time to test the boundaries, and she doesn't need to do that with Grandma because, well, it's Grandma. There may be something to that...

The temps are more tolerable and the humidity is down today. It may be a good evening for grilling...

I promise to try to be more focused tomorrow.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Seven takes, mostly anecdotes

I feel like I've been complaining a lot about the sleep issues and tantrums that come with having a toddler. But there are some really great things too that make each day a true blessing. Like:

1. Olivia recently unearthed two dolls from her pile of dolls/stuffed animals, and she's been carrying them around everywhere. When she found them, she informed me that "I have two babies!" "Kiss 'em, Mommy." And then she proceeded to "kiss" me with the dolls, making a kissing noise while putting each doll up to my face.

2. Olivia was playing with her babies this morning and doing the kissy thing with them, and she put them up to her feet and made a kissing noise. I said, "Are the babies kissing your toes?" Olivia said, "I lub yoo, toes!"

3. This morning, I was watching something on TV, and I kept pausing and coming back to it (the joys of DVR). Olivia wanted me to play with her, and she was doing her darndest to get me away from the TV. "Mommy get you?" Which means, let's play Mommy's going to get you...our chasing game. So I started playing, but she didn't want to play in the living room. "No, Mommy get you...room?" Meaning her bedroom. She has her way of getting what she wants. Plus, I guess it should have been some sort of hint to me that I should turn the TV off. (Bad Mommy.)

4. The going-to-sleep thing isn't really getting any better except that we don't do rocking anymore. Instead, I sit next to her as she lays in bed and I threaten her (usually with being held and rocked, which she has decided that she hates) for 45 minutes until she finally decides to lay still enough to let sleep overcome her. *Sigh* It's exhausting. She tests my patience a million times by trying to get up and escape. We listen to her "go-to-sleep" music, which she calls "Arise, arise!" because it's the first song on the CD. She always ends up getting me to lay down with her even though I would rather not get into that habit. But I can't resist when she sits up and points to her pillows and says, "Mommy's pillow, Libby's pillow." (She can't do a 'v' sound.) "Mommy hold you? Mommy lay down?" OK already!

5. We are going to visit the wee baby cousin this weekend, along with all of Olivia's other young cousins from my family. The baby is being baptized this weekend. I've been telling Olivia about it, and she talks excitedly about her cousins, using their names. So verbal, this child.

6. Grammy & Grampy babysat yesterday while I had some meetings, and they were tickled by her because she's recently begun to use polite speak regularly, and in proper context. They told me that any time they gave her anything or did anything for her, she said, "Thank you". She also uses "please" for almost any request she makes, and when she was dancing around and accidently hit Grandma's leg, she quickly said "Sorry!" Yeah, she's pretty remarkable.

7. Olivia follows along with meal prayer now, mumbling the few words she remembers. She always says "night-night" to Jesus and kisses him (crucifix on the wall) when we go to bed. Last weekend, Daddy was getting her dressed for Church, and he told her where we were going and asked her who we were going to see there. She said, "Go to church, see Jesus."

Yep, she's a pretty sharp cookie. Sweet too. Love ya, babe!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Heat wave

We've been experiencing an oppressive heat wave here. To pass the time and wear Olivia out a bit in the evenings, we've made a couple of visits to Grandma's pool. Olivia has had a chance to try out her new life jacket and her new swimming suit, both of which look great on her.

It's unfortunate that my camera takes such awful pictures, because she was having a great time in the water. The pics are all fuzzy, though.

Olivia will be quite the swimmer, I think. She is already trying many things...some more daring than others. She is doing everything from kicking and floating on her back to climbing out of the pool and jumping in on her own. Someone is always there to pull her out right away, but she is doing really well with the head-under-water-don't-breathe thing.

Yesterday was a weird day for Olivia. She was defiant and quick to throw a tantrum all day. It was exhausting. Especially since I was dealing with that while the satellite installer guy was here. Yeah, I don't care how indifferent the guy seemed to be to Olivia's presence...it's still embarrassing to have her throw herself on the floor in a fit of screaming over not being allowed to climb over the baby gate.

It was one of those days where I actually had to relocate some things because she just WOULD. NOT. LEAVE. THEM. ALONE. Like her CD player, which always sits on her chest-of-drawers. It had to be completely removed from the room. Why? Because every time I turned my back she would be CLIMING ON THE DRAWERS to get to it. She turned it on, then off, over and over again. I also had to move her little bookcase because she climbed onto it and was pulling pictures off the wall.

Yeah. It was one of those days.

So far, today has been better. She went down for nap without having to scream herself into a frenzy first (she never does this, but yesterday...). She played nicely with her toys. She got down when I told her to stop climbing. Let's hope the rest of the day is as good.

Monday, June 22, 2009

What's on my mind...

We are all homebound today. My sore throat was sore all weekend and then just disappeared. I'm SO thankful for that, but my husband was not so lucky. His ear infection spread to his soft tissue, and we discovered that he needed a more powerful antibiotic. He's laying low and recovering today, and hoping that the new meds kick in quickly so that he can get back to work tomorrow.

Please say some prayers for Adrienne. For reasons far beyond their control, they have decided to walk away from their adoption plan. It looks like the adoption would be difficult, if not impossible, to successfully complete at this point, and they needed to protect their family from further emotional involvement.

I cannot imagine what she must be going through. Independent adoption is hard, and there are so many things that can go wrong. We were so lucky with Olivia.

I have lots of thoughts on that subject, but my mind is too cluttered today. I have a kitchen to clean and lunch to eat and some housework to do while the child sleeps. Happy Monday!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Seven takes

1. Olivia's sleep disturbances have been creeping into my dreams lately. I wake up thinking she's in bed next to me and that I'm going to wake her. Which is weird, since she has NEVER slept in our bed at night. A few times, she'll come in our room in the morning and we'll lay her between us and she'll fall back asleep for a half hour or so, but she has never slept with us at night.

2. Olivia's cold is getting better. Now, though, my husband has an ear infection and my throat is starting to feel throbby (is that a word?). So I'm afraid we won't escape this unscathed.

3. As I write, the child is standing behind me writing on my t-shirt with a pen (I assume she's writing...I haven't checked). She keeps wiping it with her hand and saying, "Sorry, Mommy." Yeah, right.

4. We went to the zoo today with Grandma. She's off work today and wanted to take us. Olivia had a great time.


5. We are having our cable turned off today and are getting our satellite service hooked up on Tuesday. We should have a weekend of no TV at all. I'm not so worried about that from an entertainment standpoint...we have plenty of other things to do and movies to watch if we are homebound for some reason (like if these cold symptoms turn into a full-blown cold). But I'm a little concerned that we can't get TV weather updates in the midst of storm season. At least there's the internet.

6. I've been following two adoption bloggers who are adding children to their family RIGHT NOW. The first is Adrienne. The baby boy was born this week, and so far the adoption plan is still in place, but she had an adoption plan fall through last fall and is a bit nervous. Go give her some love.

7. The second family is Troy & Amber. Amber was a classmate of mine in high school, and they are bringing their son home from Ethiopia TODAY. I love following adoption stories. So many things need to come together just right for it to work out well, and when it does, it just seems like you are witnessing a little miracle.

More takes here.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Can Olivia come over and play?

We went outside yesterday evening to inspect the first three daylily blooms of the season. You may think that's not all that exciting, but it is for us. That's two more blooms than we saw all year last year. The deer are relentless and seem to delight in picking off our daylily buds before they have a chance to bloom. We moved the plants around this year, and for some reason, the deer haven't bothered them yet. I'm under no illusion that they will stay away forever, so I'm enjoying the blooms while they last.
This beauty (above) is in the backyard flower bed. When we came around to see it, we noticed that our backyard neighbor kids (the ones who just moved in a month ago) were outside playing. The littlest of them is seven, and as soon as he saw us he said, "Can Olivia come over and play?"

Now, it took about two minutes for that invitation to turn into a question..."Is it OK if we play with Olivia on her swingset?" But that's OK. As it turns out, Backyard Neighbor Kids have been outside most nights hoping that we'd come out and play so they could come over and play on Olivia's rockin' awesome playset. They are quite a bit rougher on it than Olivia and her cousin have been, and I think we are going to have to establish some rules in the future about not kicking rocks when they swing, but it was nice to have someone for Olivia to play with.

Olivia was having a ball! She loves kids (even though these are a bit older), and they were including her in their fun. One of them wanted to push her on the swing, and she laughed and laughed (while we panicked a little because she was going pretty high, and this is a regular swing...not a toddler swing). When we pulled her away for bathtime, the kids politely moved back into their own yard (without being told to do so), and Olivia cried and said, "Kids? Play with kids?"

Looks like we'll be spending a little more time in the backyard now. It's so nice to finally have kids in the neighborhood.

Some company is installing some sort of cable (fiber optic or something) throughout our housing development. They are, at this moment, in my front yard making a massive rut in the grass with their backhoe. I'm not happy about it, but apparently there's nothing I can really do. They have dug holes in all the yards in the whole neighborhood, so I guess it was just our turn.

I wish they could be a little quieter in their digging. Olivia is napping, and the "tractor noise" isn't so bad. She's used to mowers and such. But they keep making a noise that sounds like they are dropping a metal pipe onto another piece of metal. It's a sharp, clanging noise, and it's almost sure to wake her before she is completely rested. Great way to extend her cold. Grrr!

I'm off to get something substantial accomplished while the princess sleeps. Happy Thursday!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Sick and hot, and a picture just to keep you interested.

Olivia has been waking up in the middle of the night and having a hard time getting back to sleep the past three nights. It was making me crazy because I couldn't figure out why she was having such trouble sleeping. And then it occurred to me yesterday that she sounded pretty congested and her nose was running a lot.

Yes, folks, she has a cold. A pretty nasty one, it seems. And it took me three days to figure it out because...I'm not sick. In fact, I'm breathing freely for the first time in three weeks now that my sinuses have finally calmed down. It just never occurred to me that she could be sick if I wasn't also sick. That has never happened before.

It seems to be a cruel joke that when kids are most in need of sleep (illness), they are least likely to be able to get a good night's sleep. It's hard to sleep when you can't breathe. But Olivia is already two hours into her nap, and I'm hoping that a good nap and lots of rest and fluids today will help her bounce back quickly. And maybe she'll sleep better tonight. No rest for Olivia means no rest for Mommy, and that doesn't help Mommy stay healthy either.

We had another Santa breakthrough this week. Olivia crawled up into Santa's lap. He's not so scary anymore.

Yeah, I'm sitting on Santa's lap. I don't know why you are all making such a big deal out of this.
I bought a cute new swimsuit for Olivia this week, and today would be the perfect day to try it out if she wasn't sick. It's going to be mid 80s and so humid that it will feel like 90s. On days like this, it's either pool time or indoor time. There is no comfortable activity beyond those two. And tomorrow promises to be way worse.

Maybe it's a good thing that we have an excuse to stay in and enjoy the air conditioning. We can play with puzzles and watch Lion King for the ten millionth time this week. I don't know why, but Olivia is obsessed with that movie. That, and Nemo. She LOVES Nemo.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

A good Sunday

Olivia has been exceptionally good today. She slept in until 7:45...and on a Sunday, our only real day to sleep in! She was passably well-behaved at Church and wanted to kiss Mary before we headed home.
She fell asleep on the way home and is still sleeping. We'll have to wake her soon...it's been over 3 hours. We had sun and fun and outings with friends on Friday and Saturday, so she must just be exhausted.

I'm more and more surprised at how Olivia is getting to be really good at behaving. She still has her moments...often. But more and more, she's learning how to behave in Church and in public, and she's starting to listen when I tell her what she needs to do. She's turning into such a big girl right before my eyes.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

It's rainy, the cable is out, and I'm sleep-deprived

After days of hearing about the "chances" of thunderstorms, our turn came around last night (after I finally broke down and watered the flowers...of course!).

Sometime after midnight, I was dreaming that I was wrapping Olivia's head with ace bandages so she couldn't hear the thunder that was pounding in my dreams. I woke up to the impressive light and sound show that inspired that dream. Olivia must have been in a deep stage of sleep because she slept through the first wave. The second wave was right on it's heels, though, and as I dozed and worried about her sleeping, the thunder claps increased. All of a sudden, I heard a terrified little squeal and dashed out of bed to find Olivia frozen and screaming in the middle of the living room. She was running in spurts between lightning flashes because they scared the bejeebers out of her. Seriously, with all the blinds open, she must have felt like she was under attack or something.

We talked a bit about thunder and calmed her down, and I went to lay in bed with her until I was sure the storms were gone for the night. Moments after she finally fell asleep, thunderstorm #3 started rolling in, and we were up again. Let's just say that this pattern did not allow me much restful sleep last night.

So our cable is out for something like the third time this month. And I'm done. I'm actively researching our options. "Free" antenna TV is back on the table, but I want to see what satellite has to offer. So I'm looking for input...which company do you use, and why? Are you happy with their service?

I'm going to take a nap now.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Scary

Olivia looked out the back window the other day at dusk, pointed out and said, "Scary!" As far as I could tell, she wasn't looking at anything but the waning light of the back yard.

I wonder if fear of certain things (the dark, spiders) is innate or if we somehow inadvertently transfer that to our children. I've been thinking about this lately because we've been trying to acclimate Olivia to Santa. He has a room at Local Theme Park where you can sit on his lap and have your picture taken with him. Olivia's initial reaction to Santa is always fear, and to battle this (so we MIGHT have a decent Olivia/Santa picture at Christmas), we provide her with a little Santa exposure each time we visit.

For the first several visits, she wanted to see him only from afar. Gradually, she started to wave at him or even come in the door of his photo studio. And then, thanks to a very good and gentle Santa, we had a breakthrough this week.
Santa worked very hard on her, sitting on the floor and doing high fives with her until he could get closer. Then they sang songs and read books until Olivia felt so comfortable that she grabbed the book from Santa and started talking to him about the pictures. She still didn't want Santa to hold her, but she wasn't so scared of him anymore.

We talked later about how Santa isn't so scary. Now Olivia says, "Santa scary? No!"

Today, Olivia and I went to storytime with Santa. She sat on the bench with the other kids and kept saying, "Santa coming!" while waiting for Santa. She sat and sang and talked to Santa with all the other kids. Such a transition from the kid who ran screaming from him the first time we went to story time.

Olivia has decided that other things are "scary". Dark places sometimes are scary, or loud noises. Interestingly, some of the things she recently pronounced to be scary are now some of her favorite things to do...like the old fashioned cars at the park. They run on really loud lawnmower-type engines, and she used to hate them. Now she just laughs and holds the steering wheel when we go on them.

I'm sure there's some natural tendency to be scared of strange men with beards, the dark or loud noises. It's nice to know that we can help curb some of her more irrational fears, though, by holding her hand while she faces those fears and comes to find out that it's OK after all.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Seasons of life

I'm enjoying a rare quiet time here at home. My husband volunteered to take Olivia over to Local Theme Park by himself for a couple of hours. I feel like I should be doing something productive. Oh well.

We packed up the kiddo and headed "to town" today to attend an ordination Mass. Olivia behaved passably well and fell asleep at the end, so all in all, I considered it pretty successful.

After Mass, we ran into a lot of people with whom we spent time BC (before child). It's just so interesting...I can remember those days like yesterday. They exist in a time capsule in my mind where we could all pick up at a moment's notice and meet for drinks or darts or bowling...usually with a healthy dose of theological discussion (we/they are that type of people).

It's just so interesting to see everyone now...when a five-minute discussion after an ordination Mass is about all we have time for. Most of those in our group are now married and chasing a couple of kids around. We are involved in different parishes, and different organizations take up what free time we still have left. We would all still enjoy a theological discussion...if someone would magically appear to entertain the wee ones for a couple of hours.

It's interesting, though...even with all the demands on our time in this new stage of life, many of these people manage to show up for an ordination of a new priest. It's just that kind of group.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Update on projects

Last night, Daddy and Grandpa worked hard to finish Olivia's sandbox cover, and we are now pronouncing Project Playground to be COMPLETE! I took this picture at noon, which is just about the time when the sun starts to creep in. We are lucky to have it placed where it is shaded most of the morning and also in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, the tree that shades it in the morning also sheds whirlybirds in the Spring, so we are going to be cursing the tree and the pea gravel come April next year.

Here's a close-up of the sandbox under the set. There are two hinged doors that latch up for sandbox play. The center piece of wood just lifts out.
And when we are not playing in there, the doors stay down to keep out cats and critters.


Complete. Aaahhh.....

And here's my newly reorganized nursery. We were able to get rid of one bookcase, so only one remains. The crib is on the left, changing table on the right. We may be able to remove the elliptical, or it may stay. The jury is out on that. I'm just happy to have a room where everything can have a place and where I can easily walk from the door to the closet without tripping over everything.
In other news, I met with two families this week about babysitting during the school year (they are teachers). Both have toddlers around Olivia's age, and one is expecting a newborn next month. Olivia loves playing with other kids, and I think I can handle this. It would be a way to bring in a little extra cash without leaving Olivia at all, and both families were OK with the possibility of service interruption when baby #2 arrives and the uncertainty of when that will be. It will be a different sort of adventure, for sure. More on that later.

I have a tired toddler who put HERSELF down for nap today, which is new. She was falling asleep at lunch and went straight to bed as soon as she had pacy/blankie. I may get another long nap window today...gotta get to work!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Toddlers shouldn't have their days and nights mixed up.

Last night was bad. I'm afraid that the events of last night have made me a bad Mommy this morning...grumpy and unwilling to compromise with the child. Because last night, just as we were getting in bed, Olivia woke up and came to our room. I went back to lay down with her and did not return to my own bed for four hours. That's right. FOUR. HOURS.

I know you are already bored out of your minds to read another post on sleep issues. She's been sleeping so well all week, but not last night. Let's just say that she did everything she possibly could to keep herself awake. She sang and bounced and cried and kept mumbling something about bees. I negotiated and threatened and cajoled until I was exhausted, at which point I collapsed and sobbed myself to sleep, waking up about ten minutes later to find that Olivia had finally, mercifully drifted off to dreamland.

I am exhausted. The truth is that I have no idea what the best technique is for getting Olivia to sleep. We have tried so many things, but the default position and the one that works most often is rocking. I hope I'm not still required to rock her to sleep when the next baby comes. I guess we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there.

I'm off to nap. See you when I am better rested and more coherent.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The summer of dirt

We put sand in the sandbox tonight...all that is left to do is to create/attach the sandbox cover, and then I'll post pictures of the completed play yard.

Twenty minutes of sandbox and I can already tell that Olivia is going to have to be closely supervised whenever the sandbox is open. And I'm going to need pictures to prove to the world that there once was a separation between sand and gravel. I don't think it will be that way for long.

I don't think I ever realized just how dirty sand is. I have already been surprised by the dust that emanates from the rock as Olivia shovels it into her little buckets. But sand...it sticks. It was in her toes and fingernails and hair...she might have even stuffed a handful in her mouth when I wasn't looking. All I know is that she went straight into the bathtub as soon as we were finished.

I think the bathtub is going to see more than it's fair share of Olivia this summer.

We spent a couple of hours at the waterpark this afternoon. This waterpark...well, it's insanely huge. There is a kiddie pool and a spray park and two wave pools and two jungle gym-style spray/bucket/climbing/slide thingies that are fun for the whole family (unless you happen to be under 3 feet tall...then you can't ride any of the slides and you just get run over by everyone). There are about a million big-people slides and two of those lazy river thingies. Water everywhere.

Olivia loves it, but I think we will limit our future visits to the kiddie pool and the spray park. Those are the places where she's likely to have the most fun without getting bowled over by an overzealous 10-year-old who's not watching where he's going.

Even so, she got blindsided at the kiddie pool today. This area consists of an upper pool and a lower pool with two extremely slow and kid-friendly slides that connect the two. One is just a big ramp with water sliding down it. It's probably about 12 feet wide, so lots of kids can go down at once. I let Olivia get on by herself at the top, and I go to the bottom to catch her. She was having a blast until a 12-year-old girl got a little too crazy and took her out toward the bottom of the slide. She just came up behind her going too fast and slid right into her. Olivia went flying into the pool and was under for what seemed like an eternity (2 seconds). I scooped her up and she was fine, but MAD. She cried and bemoaned the injustice. And then she decided to go again.

Kids.

I'm quite pleased that it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. A perfect excuse to stay inside...and clean. It's good that we have all these opportunities for outdoor fun for the summer, but there is only so much dirt and sweat and chlorine I can take in one week.

On Hair

I spent most of naptime yesterday (which ended up being almost three hours long...thank you nap fairies!) working on the baby's room, and I was quite impressed with how it turned out. I eliminated the need for one of the bookshelves and rearranged the furniture. With any luck, that room will be ready for a baby when one comes along.

It has developed into summer all of a sudden, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I am not a fan of 90+ degrees of heat, but Olivia adores being outside, so I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it. I have promised her a trip to Local Theme Park after nap, and you can bet that our entire visit will be spent in the water park.

So let's talk hair. Olivia's is getting long, although you wouldn't know it because of the curls. I know that it needs special care and lotions and products and such, and we've been doing a good job with this so far. But with summer approaching, we've been spending a lot of time outside. Whether we are at the waterpark or just playing in the back yard, there seems to be no way to avoid getting her hair dirty enough to warrant washing it almost every day.

The problem is that her hair type doesn't respond well to daily washing. It gets so tangled and matted on the ends, and we have to deal with a lot of tears on a daily basis as we work out the tangles and reapply the hair products. She has also decided that she hates having her hair washed. So, yeah, it's not fun.

Anyone out there have any recommendations?

In an effort to do something different with her hair, we put it in a single ponytail on top of her head for Church this past Sunday. It was cute, and she forgot it was up there (which is the key to having the ponytail survive longer than a few minutes). I'm looking for new and creative ways to do her hair, but easy too...she hates having her hair done. I hope that changes soon, because wrestling her to do her hair (when it NEEDS to be fixed daily) is not so fun.



I really think her hair is going to turn out to be fabulous. She has a four-year-old second cousin with similar hair (and similar ethnicity) whose hair is BEAUTIFUL. Long and dark with beautiful ringlets that hang past her shoulders...she can do so many cute things with it. But for now, we have to deal with the short-ish tight curls and hope that I don't cause it all to break off before it has a chance to grow.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Fifteen Minutes

Since Olivia hasn't had a decent nap in at least five days, I'm hoping for great things today. It is the first time in almost a week that we've been home and she can nap in her bed. Perhaps 3 hours? Dare I dream?

I'm taking a cue from Jen. I'm going to plan to write for 15 minutes each day. I'm hoping that this will help me be disciplined enough to write while not getting bogged down on what to write so that I don't waste all of naptime at the computer when there are things to do.

And let me tell you, there are things to do.

My dear, sweet husband took Olivia "to town" yesterday to visit Grammy and Grampy and get some shopping done...by himself. This afforded me four hours to get started on the Great Nursery Clean-Up Project of 2009. That is, I am working on making this room look like a baby might someday live here...instead of looking like it is a storage unit with a nice window.

Yeah, I know...it's a fuzzy picture with bad lighting and you can't even see how badly messed up this room is. You don't think that's intentional? It's embarrassing how bad it has become.

I made great strides yesterday, but I won't take another picture until I'm finished. I'm in the process of transferring most of our books to a new bookcase/entertainment center that we bought at a church social. It is secondhand and totally outdated (it has racks and racks of videotape storage...they don't make them like that anymore), but it is beautiful and in great shape, and it looks super fabulous in our living room. It has the added benefit of allowing me to store all of our tapes and DVDs as well as most of our books and albums behind doors and away from toddler hands.

So, once all of that stuff is out of the baby's room, I will rearrange and make it a workable baby's room. Lots to do, but I'm making progress.

We were super busy this weekend filling Olivia's play yard with pea gravel. That part is finished (and she loves it), and I'll post a pic as soon as we get the sand box in. A project for next weekend.

Geez, you'd think all we do around here is tackle big projects. I think we need a vacation.

And there's the timer. More tomorrow!