Sunday, August 30, 2009

And away we go...

We have spent three miserable days of sick. On Thursday and Friday night, Olivia and I had a hard time sleeping because of the congestion and sore throat. Last night was better and I'm starting to feel like a normal person again, but now the cold has settled into my chest. I'm developing a nasty chest cough that hurts, and Olivia still talks like a smoker took over her lungs. Miraculously, my husband has escaped all cold symptoms so far, and we're praying it stays that way.

And we're leaving for vacation tomorrow.

I'm glad, at least, that the really miserable cold symptoms are over. If we had left on Friday, our whole trip would have been awful. We are definitely on the mend.

Olivia has been pretty rotten these last few days. I blame the cold and also sugar. She has had no appetite because she can't taste or smell anything, so we couldn't get her to eat or drink anything unless it contained lots of sugar. She was on the verge of dehydrating when we discovered that although she refused any other drink, she would gladly gulp down the juice boxes we had stored away for outings and such. So we were giving them to her one after the other. That came back to bite us this afternoon when we attended a wedding reception and she WOULD. NOT. SIT. STILL. Or eat anything. Except candy mints. She was purposely pulling stuff off of tables and shoving other kids. And since she had had a long nap before we went, my only other thought was that she was reacting badly to all the sugar. *Sigh* So we'll be leaving the juice boxes at home this week.

Between wrestling the child and finding a computer, I may be silent this week. If so, the highlights will appear here next week.

Friday, August 28, 2009

The downside to bringing other toddlers into your house

On Wednesday, Addie showed up at our house with a runny nose and cough. I went into full-on prevention mode and made thorough use of the hand sanitizer all day (for me and the kids). But toddlers are toddlers, and they are experts at sharing their germs. So now Olivia and I are both sick. (I blame school...Addie's parents are both teachers and must have carried something home from work...and this is my life for the rest of the school year.)

Thankfully, I took today "off" to do a presentation for seminarians this morning, so Olivia and I got to sleep in (which kind of makes up for the many times she woke us up last night, but not quite). And after the presentation we will come straight home to nap. Unfortunately, we are leaving on our "vacation" on Monday, so the overall timing is crappy. But when is a "good" time to get a cold?

I say "vacation" because this is our annual family visiting trip. We drive ten hours to another state and then stay in a different hotel for four consecutive nights as we travel around the state seeing various family members. Not exactly relaxing. But the focal point of the trip is a visit to my husband's grandpa, who is 94, and we think it's important to keep doing this every year while we still can.

My husband doesn't have a cold...yet. I can imagine how this is going to affect our trip. I can only hope that the worst is over before we leave on Monday.

Olivia did something this morning that she has never done. She woke up and came out of her room to check to make sure that I was up, and then she went back to her room and closed the door. She didn't really go back to sleep...I thought she just got back in bed for awhile, so I sat down to write this post. A few minutes ago, she came back out of her room and asked for "silly snacks" (yogurt-covered raisins), and I heard her CD player going, so maybe she was just playing and wanted to play alone. Weird.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

My project for this week

It's been months since I did a closet overhaul with Olivia's clothes...something I used to do monthly (they grow SO FAST when they are teeny). I haven't been through Olivia's clothes since I put away her winter stuff in May. So yesterday, I trekked up to the attic to see what we had in terms of 3T and 4T for cool weather.

It turns out that there's A LOT! I pack these hand-me-downs away and forget just how many there are. I'm running out of space to put them while we are still using the 2T summer stuff. She can still fit most of it since there are no sleeve lengths to worry about. But the 3T and some of the 4T stuff fits her now, so we'll move into that quickly.

So I'm wondering...what do you do with all of these clothes? We have six huge storage tubs in the attic that are FULL of stuff that she's not wearing now, and five of those are full of stuff she's already grown out of. And that doesn't even include her 0-9 month things, which have been loaned to her baby cousin. We're running out of room! But I don't want to get rid of anything in case we have another girl. Seriously, how to parents of multiple children keep up with all of this stuff?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Let's just focus on a happier subject

I have two sleeping toddlers in my house who went down for nap a full half-hour earlier than usual. I wanted to put them to bed an hour before that. They were NOT good this morning. I don't know if they were both overtired or what, but there was a lot of pushing and hitting and tantrum throwing by both of them. We usually have a little of that, but not ALL MORNING. They had better both get a good long nap.

I would rather not dwell on that, so let's talk about our weekend, shall we?

We had a fun weekend without much on the actual schedule. We opted for a high school football game on Friday night. That was fun for me, particularly because the weather turned suddenly cool late last week and there was a cool breeze that made me think of Fall...ah, Fall! We found a spot on the grass near the track, and Olivia entertained herself by running around and exploring.

On Saturday, we went to Local Theme Park, where Olivia, for the first time, got to ride the big kid rides. Before, she was limited by her height (under 36") to just the kiddie rides and a handful of other 'family' rides that anyone can ride as long as they can sit up and be with an adult. We banned her from the kiddie rides a couple months ago because she learned to unlatch her seatbelt and would do it in the middle of the ride, and that just wasn't acceptable. So we were EXTREMELY limited in what we could do for awhile.

Then, Saturday we thought we'd check...and she hit the mark! There are about 8 more rides she can ride now (all with an adult, but still). Yep, our 21-month-old is now 36 inches tall. How is that possible?

Monday, August 24, 2009

Kid phrases

"Whatcha doin', Mommy?" Olivia says this OFTEN and repeats it until I tell her. Then she asks herself, "Whatcha doin', Libia?"

At the end of snack time, Olivia said, "I wanna go play toys and stop screaming." What?

Yesterday, she was listening as Grampy was trying to talk about something. He started by saying, "This guy..." to which Olivia chimed in, "This guy says blah-blah-blah-blah-blah" and babbled on about some story she made up in her head in a quick and unintelligible way. She can speak in full sentences and clearly, but sometimes she just wants to tell stories to herself in her own little language.

Friday, August 21, 2009

The schedule

When I was little, we never went anywhere. Mom was always busy caring for the little ones and keeping up with the garden and house. It was a rare event when Mom ventured out to go grocery shopping with all five of us in tow. I can only imagine. We did occasionally take off to visit Grandma (my Mom's mom) for the day, but that was about the extent of our outings until we got old enough to participate in sports and school stuff.

We were all active in all kinds of stuff in high school, and then there was college, and then a job that pushed me into the realm of WAY TOO INVOLVED in projects and ministries and social groups. I have spent the last fifteen years running from one event to the next. Even during this past 20 or so months, I've kept up with playgroups and a few volunteer things with Olivia in tow.

Now we are confined to the house five days a week because I'm babysitting. And I thought it would be hard. But you know what? It is SO MUCH EASIER.

Olivia sleeps better. She goes down for naps better and quicker. She's consistently ready for bed at the same time each night and doesn't fight it. She eats more regularly and doesn't throw as many tantrums and is learning all about sharing (in bits and pieces...it's imperfect, but coming along).

So I'm thinking...perhaps the lack of a consistent schedule before was throwing her little system into a tizzy. She is best behaved when she's on a predictable schedule. Go figure.

I guess my Mom knew what she was doing when she kept us all at home most of the time when we were little. While it can be a little isolating (and she didn't even have the internet!), it makes life with a toddler (or, in Mom's case, several small children) much, much easier.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Thinking about the lifebook

I need to start Olivia's lifebook. For those of you outside of the adoption realm, this is a story I will write about my daughter and how she came to be a part of our family. I suppose there's no right or wrong way to do this, but I haven't quite figured out what I want it to be yet and so I haven't started.

I guess part of my issue is that I don't know how to tell Olivia about her adoption because it doesn't seem like a part of our lives any more. I mean, she's just our daughter, and we're just her parents. Except that I know that adoption is still and always will be a part of our lives. And the way Olivia views it will affect the way she sees the rest of the world, and it just seems important that the story is told in a way that will help her understand how precious she is and how she was very much loved and wanted all along. By us. But you see...that's where I'm having trouble. How on earth do you explain to your child, whom you love with all your heart, the circumstances that resulted in her birth when those circumstances are what they are?

I'm not making any sense. Do you get what I'm trying to say? I am discovering where the loss that social workers talk about in adoption seminars is going to become important.

I've been reading some open adoption blogs, and that concept now seems so foreign to me. At one time, I thought it might become us. We were on the road to a greater openness...we had exchanged phone numbers with Olivia's birthmom and talked monthly and shared kid stories. We were even planning a meeting. That was a year ago...and then her life started falling apart and we completely lost contact with her. Not that we didn't try...it just didn't work out the way I had hoped.

I still think about her now and then. When Olivia does something particularly funny or clever, I stop to think...I wonder if her birthmom has some of these quirky traits. For Olivia's sake, I had hoped to maintain some sort of contact. And now I wonder if Olivia will mourn this lack of connection to her birth family.

I need to start buying some adoption-related children's books and start introducing the subject to our very smart little girl. It's time.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I'm not even sure what this is about

I just put Olivia BACK to sleep. She woke up after 50 minutes of nap. Normally, I wouldn't bother, but I couldn't risk her waking up the other toddler in the house, so I rocked her. She fell asleep and I briefly considered holding her, sleeping, in my lap for another hour rather than risk her waking up again when I put her down. Two hours of silence in the afternoon is just that important.

Which got me to thinking...someone should invent a device that can read my thoughts and put them down in print. Like a dictaphone for the brain. Because I write the best blog posts in my head while putting Olivia to sleep, but I have no way of recording them. Good posts about interesting topics. And then they float out of my brain by the time I get to nap hour. Sheesh.

Aaaand...she's up again. Well, at least she got 15 more minutes of sleep than she would have. I'm going to see if she'll sit quietly and watch "Bee Movie" until Addie wakes up.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Slah-sah

I'm getting used to the differences between Olivia and Addie. Where Olivia is loud and explosive, Addie is quiet and soft-spoken. Addie talks as much as Olivia, but she's hard to hear over the shouts of my daughter. When she cries, you have to be paying attention to notice or you'd think it was just whining or pouting. NOT used to that.

Both girls speak a lot, but Addie's words aren't as easy to decipher. She was playing with foam letters and was holding one up saying, "dubba-DOO!" for "W", and she had to actually bring it over for me to see before I realized what she was saying. She's as good at using her polite words as Olivia is, but it sounds like, "Day-doo, Slah-sah!" (Translation: Thank you, Lisa.) And when she refers to Olivia, she calls her "Lee-bah!"

On the other hand, she's MUCH easier to put down for a nap than Olivia is.

We're working on pushing today. Both girls are spending their share of time sitting in their respective corners as we learn that we do NOT push each other. They don't seem to be getting it.

Toddlers can be exhausting, but the transition to babysitting has been much smoother than I expected, overall. Now I'm off to get the most out of nap hour(s) by relaxing with a good book.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Hanging by a thread

We survived the weekend...barely. I swear, if it weren't for my in-laws on Saturday, I would have collapsed in a sobbing heap somewhere around mid-afternoon. They were a HUGE help with Olivia, whose need for constant distraction was hard for me to maintain after the exhausting week I'd had.

Olivia did AMAZINGLY well during the ordination Mass. She lasted in the main church for about an hour, and then we retired to the cry room where she stood on the kneeler and pointed out the window at "da Bishap" and noticed that he was sitting next to "GRAMPY!" She stayed in our pew in the cry room and did not run crazily around the room trying to find a way to cause trouble, and I wondered how I managed to get so lucky with her behavior.

Even so, the combination of a 2.5 hour Mass, reception, and afternoon of parties was enough to run me down. Olivia napped in small car-induced portions, and she got quite slap-happy by the end of the day. But she fell asleep on the way home and slept all night, which is the important thing.

I was so happy to see my husband arrive home yesterday. Aside from the obvious joy at having another adult in the house to help distract the child, I am always relieved to see him home from a car trip. Other events from this weekend drove that point home...

One of the new deacons and his wife relayed some sad information yesterday. A friend of theirs was killed in a tragic car accident on Saturday...on the way to the ordination. My husband made a comment...our lives hang by a thread, and we have no way of knowing how many tomorrows we have. My husband was on the road all day yesterday. He's home safely. I know what a blessing that is.

St. Benedict wrote in his rule that one should "keep death daily before your eyes." I don't think we do that so well. We are always looking forward...especially with little kids. Oh, soon they will walk/talk/run/read. We plan for their schooling, our vacation, where we are going to spend Christmas. For today, at least, I am grateful for the here and now, knowing that it could be gone in a minute. I'm praying today for families who are missing a member. I cannot imagine how difficult that would be.

That's what's on my mind.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Seven babysitting takes

1. This is the first opportunity I've had to turn the computer on since Tuesday. I AM NOT KIDDING. This is due to a combination of babysitting (which has only been mornings until today), afternoons at my parents' house canning beans, and my husband out of town. Taking care of my OWN child alone for five days is rough. Adding another child during the day plus trying to help my Dad get the beans picked, snapped, washed and canned while Olivia napped, played, got into trouble...well, let's just say that I don't have much energy left for typing by the time I get Olivia in bed at night.

2. On the other hand, it's a good kind of tired...the kind that comes from working hard. It's not like sleep-deprivation tired. It's more like the kind of tired I experienced when I helped build houses over Spring Breaks in college. The achy muscle, feel-it-in-your-bones kind of tired. Not that childcare and snapping beans are examples of hard physical labor, but the constant movement from one activity to the next until you just collapse at the end of the day makes it feel like it. This must have been what my parents' lives were like, raising five kids and running a farm all at once. And no computer to distract them from reality!

3. I got this thought the other day...on the Martha/Mary scale, I'm pretty sure I lean heavily toward Martha. Having a concrete task...like trying to finish cleaning ALL the beans before moving on to something else...energizes me. I don't know why, but I have this need to get things done before moving on to other things. This may be why childcare is a bit of a challenge for me at first. There is nothing to accomplish other than making sure the kids are fed and get naps. Most of the day is just play. I used to think that if I ever joined a religious order, it would have to be a contemplative one because I just liked the IDEA of that. But in reality, it would probably drive me insane. I need something more active...something where I'd be working in some capacity to accomplish a needed task.

4. I have also realized in the past few days that I do better if I have at least a couple of Mary hours a day too...some down time to just sit and think and pray and reflect. Going without those down-time hours is as exhausting as the work itself.

5. So, babysitting. It's going well, actually. The girls enjoy playing together. Today was rough because Addie is staying all day and needed to nap here, and she's never done that, so she cried for her Daddy (who put her down for her nap the last few days at home). They both finally did go down for a nap, but not until we'd all endured some tears and screaming (Olivia). It will get better when they get used to the routine. It must be hard for Addie since she's had her parents home all day all summer and now they are back in school (teachers). She'll adjust.

6. Today has made me grateful that we have a couple of months to adjust to this babysitting routine before adding the other two kids...another toddler and a baby. They will start in October. I don't have any idea how I'm going to get THREE toddlers to nap with a baby to tote around as well (or maybe two...the adoption possibility is always hanging out there with an indefinite time frame...ack!). But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

7. My husband's birthday is tomorrow, and he's over there near the East Coast for a wedding. While he's at his friend's wedding, Olivia and I will represent our family at a deacon ordination tomorrow. Two of our good friends are being ordained as permanent deacons. Between the 2+ hour ordination Mass and the reception and then individual parties for our two friends, Olivia and I are going to be pretty busy. I don't know when or how she's going to get a nap. I don't know how I'm going to stay sane while caring for an active and prone-to-screaming toddler during a solemn Mass and during the nap-deprived hours after. All I know is that I'll be EXTREMELY happy to see my husband home on Sunday. I hope he doesn't have any plans after work all next week, because I'm pretty sure he's going to be on child duty while I get myself out of the house. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Babysitting

Today was my first day babysitting. I am watching a little girl who is a month older than Olivia (and two inches shorter...sheesh!). They got along really well, and except for a few meltdowns (Olivia) and some pushing (both girls), we made it through the morning well. She'll be here mornings this week and then all day starting next week. And I think naps are going to be easier around here from now on. Olivia just about collapsed when her new little friend left at 11:30. They wore each other out!

My husband is going out of town tomorrow and won't be home until Sunday, so he gave me a little gift tonight and took Olivia to Local Theme Park by himself to give me a little computer time. I have finished all of my "to do" list for today, and I still have a little time to post. Sweet!

Olivia and I have been/will be spending afternoons at my parent's house this week. We are canning beans. During Olivia's nap each day (in which she falls asleep in the car on the way over and sleeps in the guest room there), I am snapping and cleaning beans, then my Dad takes care of the rest of the canning process. We've been picking beans when Olivia is awake. It's a lot of work and exhausting, but we reap the benefits with garden canned beans all winter, so it's the least I can do to help. But it leaves me with very little (no) computer time all week. I think this is good for me. I need to find a way to get away from the computer and be more productive.

More later!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Using your words against you

Olivia's into screaming now. When she doesn't get what she wants, she launches into this ear-splitting supersonic scream. So we have been sitting her down and explaining in stern voices that we DO NOT SCREAM at Mommy.

So today, while I had my hands full in the kitchen, Olivia attempted to get on the computer. I said in my stern voice "No! We don't play with Mommy's computer." When she continued to disobey, I repeated myself louder (also known as yelling). Olivia turned calmly to me and said, "We do NOT scream, Mommy!"

Little stinker.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Seven

1. Although we're ready for baby #2 to show up any time, I have enjoyed just having a toddler this summer. Olivia is at just the right age to enjoy just about any outside activity, and lately we've been spending most of our evenings either at the Local Theme Park or just in our backyard. For the last couple of evenings, we've let Olivia enjoy the garden hose. She has so much fun spraying the grass, the rocks...herself.
2. To answer Stephanie's questions in the comments from yesterday's post: Yes it would be more convenient to do surgery locally, but I only want to have it done once, and there's only a handful of doctors that I would trust with my reproductive health. And this guy is THE BEST. The doctor who did my laparoscopy is FABULOUS, but even he would refer me to this guy if he couldn't ultimately figure out what was wrong. I would guess that any trained NaproTechnology Medical Consultant would do the same. I've heard countless stories through my association with teachers of this method of NFP from around the country, and many of them have seen couples who have gone through various treatments and surgeries just to finally end up with Dr. Hilgers. He usually has had to repeat their surgeries, but in the majority of cases he has been successful in completely removing the disease and restoring fertility. He is THE specialist for the really serious cases. I have met him several times and know him to be a man of deep faith and great skill, and I trust that if we are going to invest in fixing whatever is wrong with me, he's our greatest chance for a return on that investment.

3. I was looking for something in the closet today and found a box of Olivia photos that I'd printed for her scrapbook, which I never got around to starting. I was going through those and thinking that I really should get started on her lifebook. There are so many things I want to make sure I remember and get down on paper so she can learn about how she came to be a part of our family.

4. I've also been thinking a lot about Olivia's birthmom lately. I don't know why...maybe it's the fact that Olivia has been doing so many cute things lately that make me realize how smart she is and how fast she's growing up. I would love the opportunity to let her birthmom know that she's OK and thriving and happy. I'm just so proud of the little person she is becoming...I guess I just want to share some of that Mom joy.

5. Speaking of cute, here are a few "Olivia-isms" that we've heard lately. "Maybe later, Mom!" "Elmo wants to pee-pee on the potty!" (Sitting in the truck) "I'm driving. Going to work!" "Livy's turn, please."

6. Daddy's birthday is next weekend, but he'll be out of town so we are celebrating until he leaves. Olivia has been running around the house singing the song from Disney's "Choo Choo Soul"..."Ce-brate, Ce-brate...it is your birt-day!"

7. Olivia fell asleep tonight in about three minutes because she had no real nap today. I was sitting on her bed watching her sleep on her big pillow and thinking about how she looked like a little angel. So different from the thoughts I was having a couple of nights ago when she WOULD. NOT. GO. TO. SLEEP. Weird how that works.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Something more substantial for your Thursday

Fair warning: This is a lot of specific stuff about my infertility, so it may or may not interest you at all. But this is MY (b)log and pretty much the only place where I keep track of major life stuff, so here it is.

Last week, I saw my former supervisor, who helped me through my training to become a FertilityCare Practitioner so many years ago. And I took her my recent charts. Because, come on, who's not going to take advantage of that expertise?

Yeah, I know...I've said before that I'm pretty much "over" fertility. And that's true. I still think about what it would be like to be pregnant and not have to go through a personal investigation and most of our savings to build our family. But I'm happy with adoption and I truly believe we have been called to become parents in this way.

But...there's always been this nagging fear that the wackiness in my cycles could lead to lingering medical issues. I've pushed it to the back of my mind several times as I try to focus on our little family, but it's still hanging out there.

So, former supervisor took one look at the charts and said, "You need to do something about this." To which I replied, "Even if we are not concerned about wanting to get pregnant?" Yes, even so. She believes that there's some underlying disease factor that could be detrimental to my overall health if it is not addressed at some point. She strongly encouraged me to prepare my treatment history and send my charts to Dr. Thomas Hilgers to ask for his input.

*Big Heavy Sigh* OK. Although it's a lot of work to get my charting and treatment history together, I know I can accomplish that in fairly short order. What I'm a little apprehensive about is what may come of that...surgery. While I'm sure that Dr. Hilgers will suggest a few other things to address some of the cycle issues I have, I'm almost POSITIVE that he'll want to do a laparotomy, hysteroscopy and D&C to address the hiding endometriosis that couldn't safely be reached by laparoscopy in 2006 and to address the chronic spotting I have.

*HUGE Heavy Sigh* It's not that I'm AFRAID of surgery, it's just that it's freaking expensive and time consuming and he'll absolutely insist it be done by him in Omaha (he's the best, after all), and while I'd WANT it done by him, all these other factors make it seem like a HUGE burden.

Something happened this week to make me think much more seriously about this possibility. Someone very close to us had a total hysterectomy. She went in to have her uterus removed due to hemmoraging, but then the doctor decided to remove her tubes and ovaries as well because of all the endometriosis he found. She's in her mid 40s and will have to deal with hormone therapy now because of this. And while it will probably make her feel much better overall, I would like to avoid being in her shoes some day.

I know I'm jumping the gun a bit. I haven't even sent my charting yet. But I'm mentally preparing myself for this, just in case. I'd really like to make my cycles behave like normal cycles should, and if we have the happy side-effect of restored fertility...well, we'd be ecstatic! But I'm not counting on it.

Random thoughts

Olivia has been asleep for an hour, but I'm expecting a long nap today. Heck, after the last two days, I'm due for a decent nap window. Plus, my husband is leaving work early today after finishing his event duties this morning, and having a well-rested child will mean a better afternoon for all of us.

My husband called at lunch, and I got all excited. I guess I didn't realize that I really haven't talked to him in the last three days. Sure, he's home to sleep, but last night it was after midnight and I just muttered a sleepy "Hi" before falling back asleep. I know Olivia will be excited to see him too.

I've noticed that when it's quiet, there's almost always a song running through my head. In high school and college, I can remember that popular songs would always pop into my head when I woke up in the middle of the night or as I was driving in the car. Now, my head is full of nothing but Silly Songs, which we listen to in the car. At the moment, it's "fiddle-dee-dee, the fly has married the bumble bee." Talk about having an annoying song stuck in your head...

Oh, I noticed this morning that Olivia knows all the words to "Bee Movie". As in, she recites key phrases as the characters are reciting them. I'm thinking maybe we've seen it a few too many times...

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Missing Daddy

This week, my husband is involved in his biggest work event of the year, which involves three consecutive days where he leaves before we wake up and comes home after we've gone to bed. Next week, he'll leave on Wednesday for some work business and to attend a friend's wedding in a town 12 hours away, and he won't be home until Sunday. In between, we have several days of "normal" when he should be home at normal times, but I'm already feeling the effect of the Daddy absence.

As always happens when Daddy's not around, Olivia has been more irritable these past couple of days. She's less willing to nap and much harder to get to bed at night. It's exhausting.

It was especially exhausting tonight because she was OVERLY tired at bedtime and fighting it AND there was thunder to complicate the whole situation. I used to enjoy thunderstorms. Now they terrify me. I wake up in the middle of the night to the smallest rumble of thunder, and I have a hard time sleeping until I'm sure it hasn't bothered Olivia at all. She often doesn't even notice it, but there were a couple of times when she ran screaming from her room in a fit of terror, and the thought of that just rips my heart out.

Unfortunately, we've had a rather thunder-heavy summer, so thunder-related sleep deprivation is a rather common occurrence.

The combination of nap stubbornness and necessary errands have kept me away from my computer for the last two days. I'm sure next week will be rough too as we start adjusting to the babysitting schedule and having TWO toddlers in the house. Or maybe they'll wear each other out and leave me with a couple of hours to myself in the middle of the day. We'll see.

I don't have the brain power for any more coherent thoughts tonight.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Family overdose

My oldest younger brother and his family came to visit this weekend. We had three days of cousin-palooza, starting with a swim party on Friday and topped off with a family hayride this morning after church. Olivia is tired (and so is Mommy).

See how she's just zoning out...?

Olivia had a lot of fun on Grandpa's farm with her cousins, and she'll be asking about them for days now. (She actually climbed into their van this afternoon and said, "Go home with Unka Brad?") Whatever we do this week will pale in comparison to this.

Olivia and Mommy riding on the haywagon. She's not sure how she feels about this.

Walking to the barn with Aunt Lori and Cousin Molly.

Trekking out into the tall grass of the field to chase the cat.