Amnesia

I forgot that when I'm pregnant I need to eat every two hours. What a pain. I'm running out of cheap, yummy, no prep snacks here at a quick rate. I wish I were still living with my grandparents. They can always pull out a snack from nowhere. Today's my first doctor's appointment. Wish me luck!

A special kind of torture

It's really good that Charlotte and I had such an uplifting week last week.


This week she's sick.


Nobody, but someone who has experienced it, knows the mental, physical, and emotional torture that you go through when your precious little baby gets sick. Sure it's just a cold, and teething at the same time, but the sound that she makes while trying to breathe makes me want to scream. Which I did today, twice. In the back of my mind I think that makes me a bad mom, but I've resolved to do better tomorrow. When I lose my patience, it only makes things worse. I just keep thinking of moms with truly sick children, and wonder how on earth they manage to cultivate such patience, love, and understanding. I guess you learn when you have to.

Last Night

If you want to see photos of what we did last night click here.

All of my photos didn't turn out because if I took them with the night setting they were too fuzzy (my daughter can't hold still that long) and if I took them with the action flash all you saw was her. Anyway, we had tons of fun.

Big News

At times of introspection, my mind has been painting an image of my family. In this image my husband is courageously, excitedly, and joyously leading us over an incredibly large, deep and scary crevasse. He’s done it before in real life so it’s not that difficult an image for my mind to conjure. He knows where he wants our feet to fall and what he desires for our end result. Before we set out on this journey we talked about it and I agreed that I also desired the same things. Now though, as I’ve left the safe and sure ground we were standing on my courage fails me.

I am still excited for our end result. I’m still excited about the strongholds in between. It’s just that now I’m faced with the reality of how difficult the route we’ve made for ourselves might actually be. My husband always thought I could do more difficult climbs than I believed I could.

What’s one of the most important things to remember about situations like this? Don’t look down. So what happened that made me look down to where my feet are? Because our next step is a big one. Huge. I’m not so sure my legs can span the gap from one to two children. I feel like I’ve mentally planted both feet on the safe keep the status quo rock and I’m trying to prepare for the next step. I remember how much work it took to pull ourselves up from zero to one and my mind can only see how it must be all the more difficult to leap from one to two.

When I say that to myself though I remember Daniel telling me that you’re not supposed to get stuck in the middle of a big step. Keep your momentum going from step to step. Never put your feet on the same rock. You’re unstable that way and could easily fall.

So then I try to alter the image in my mind. I give myself a little more courage, a little more faith, and a little more strength. I hold Daniel’s hand tighter and I grasp Charlotte’s hand as I lead her along with us. Together the three of us will courageously, excitedly, and joyously become four.

Whistling a different tune

Dan and I thought about getting a cat for Charlotte for Christmas. Really, she's not yet two, the cat would be for us, but she'd love it. Anyway, after looking at the cost incurred in feeding and cleaning up poop, we decided to wait a while. (I know you all are saying, it doesn't cost a lot, but that was our decision.) Also, I didn't want to have to deal with Charlotte choking it, pulling it's tail, or loving it to death. A few nights ago something happened to make me reconsider.

Dan saw a mouse. If we see another one it might be time to get a cat.

Please don't forget

Dear Self,

I know sometimes you forget things that seem little in the moment. Usually that's not a big deal, but sometimes it is. THIS time it's a big deal. Don't forget this week. Please, don't forget how great this week has been with your daughter. Remember how on Monday she snuggled/napped with you for an hour after her nap time and you just got to lay there, still, playing with her hair and loving her. Remember how in love with her you were that day. How it seemed like nothing and nobody could ever come between your love for her. Remember how on Tuesday she played with the lavender baby wash and then smelled of it all day long. She thought it was great and because of that so did you. Remember how it felt last night to come in after she woke up crying late in the evening (lights on this time). You hugged her and her little body clung to you and you could fix anything right then. Remember how great it is not just to be a mom but to be Charlotte's mom. Please don't forget how wonderfully blessed you are.

Love,
Me

Living in an older home

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our new house? Because I really do. I practically float around my kitchen making dinner and snacks for my family.

One thing has been nagging at me since we moved in though. Well, since we had to remove the lead pipes in the bathroom really. Lead poisoning. I've been seeing billboards for lead safe St. Louis around town and so a few days ago I thought I'd look up the web site. Most of me thinks, this is silly. Our home is fine. I have no reason to worry. Part of me though thinks, we live in an older home. Our bathroom plumbing was lead. Some of the paint on the window sills is cracking. What if it's lead?

Turns out you can get lead testing done for free here in St. Louis because of the high number of lead poisonings that are found in the older homes in this area. So I called to schedule an inspection. At least that will let me stop worrying about our house is slowly killing us.

Resurrection Lilies

Remember that post a while back about the beautiful pink flowers in my back yard? They're all gone now, but I saw them again at the Botanical Gardens. I found out that they're resurrection lilies. Here's a photo (not from my backyard) I found for you.

Mine were just as beautiful, but there weren't as many of them. I'd like to plant more next year.

Twilight Zone

While Daniel's parents were here he and his father hung the fan in Charlotte's room. What a life saver! She no longer wakes up sweaty and cranky from every nap I give her. On the other hand I've found out that our house is haunted.

Here is why:

All the upstairs fixtures in our house are on pull strings. Annoying and not very good for resale. We wanted to replace the fixtures anyway so Daniel was thinking he'd wire switches behind a picture rail that he'd install and then down to a switch level. When we went to go get our new fixtures we decided to go with fans so that there can be more circulation of the air upstairs, cutting down on our heating and cooling bills. (I have a point here so stay with me.) We found out that you can get remote switches for your ceiling fans. You mount them on the wall just like a regular switch, but they run on a 9V battery so you don't have to run wire down the wall. Whoever thought of this idea was a genius and saved our family much time and frustration. We both jumped on this idea and never looked back.

Dan hung our fan in the master bedroom right away because I thought my body might melt while sleeping up there in the August heat. Everything worked great! The wall mounted remote switch works so well I can't even believe it. We didn't run into anything weird until a few days after Charlotte's fan was up.

Now in the middle of the night her light will mysteriously turn on. The fan doesn't switch on or off or change speed, but the light will switch on. It will eventually wake either of us up and we turn it off for her. Luckily it doesn't wake her up. The weird thing though? It only does this at night and only in her room. Both rooms run on the remote wall mounted switch, but only hers turns on. Strange very strange.

Dan says that there must be something else around here on the same frequency as the remote. Or that something is wrong with the wiring of the fan. You know what I say? I say we're haunted.

This is Funny Right?

Tonight my husband decided he had to study. Friday and Saturday (I think) are his first two tests of the term and his parents were in town this weekend so no studying happened. Well, he decided that he needed to take the two hours from 8-10 to study. I tried to help him by kicking him off the couch at 8, but it didn't work. He decided that he needed 10 minutes to just sit before getting off the sofa. He starts studying upstairs about a quarter after. Then at 5 to 9 he comes downstairs to "take a break" because he's been studying for an hour right? I'm ready to believe him until I look on his forehead and see three lines of notes imprinted backwards from where he fell asleep! He had no idea what was on his forehead so he kept trying to convince me that he'd done some good solid studying. I started to get the giggles so he asked why. When he saw his forehead he decided that he should probably go back upstairs to study some more.