Author: Amy

Oh, the Cuteness

Posted on by Amy
When Miss and I made apple pie a couple of weeks ago, she wore one of my aprons made for me by my aunt. She looked adorable of course. But the other day we got a package from my aunt containing this:

The most adorable Miss-sized apron!! She loved it. The above picture doesn’t show the fit quite right because I didn’t realize at first that the neck strap, and thus the length, is adjustable because it runs through under the pits and can be pulled shorter by just pulling on the waist tie. So I got it fitting right here:
Miss wore it to help me make dinner last night. Here she’s helping wash potatoes. I think she’s making sure they smell okay.

Here’s the link again to my aunt’s Etsy shop where she sells her adorable aprons. Thanks Aunt Mag!!
And in further cuteness, Lass is such a sweet little Snuggle Bear.

She’ll just stare and smile and coo for the longest time. And she loves to snuggle up to her momma.

I went to a local shop with lots of handmade items last week. I found this barrette for Miss that has the same fabric on it as the pants I made her! I was so excited to find it. Unfortunately she’s already almost grown out of the pants.


Check out the amazement on Lass’s face when she watches her Daddy play the guitar.

Watching football today and going to a party tonight. Our first night out since Lass arrived. She doesn’t really take a bottle yet, so she’ll be coming with us, but she’s easily portable. Happy weekend!

Smile, Baby

Posted on by Amy
Today I’m smiling. Ear to ear. I finally joined a book club worth joining. I’ve been trying to find a book club since we moved here. I love reading and crave adult interaction these days, so what better than a book club?? Except that I’ve never managed to find one that either A) met at a time I could make, or B) had enough members to actually be a club/group. This is the 4th book club I’ve tried. The first two never actually met because they didn’t have enough participants and the third one met at a bad time for me and was also very small.
This new one is a women’s book club and today was the first meeting. It was a blast! I don’t know the last time I got to hang out and just chat with other women in a setting that wasn’t a playdate. Now, playdates are great, but the conversation is, by necessity, always pretty fragmented and disjointed. Today Miss stayed home with her Daddy and I took Lass with me. She was a dream, and I was able to have great conversation with great people without constant interruptions to corral my toddler. Heaven!
The first book we’re reading is “The Miracle of Mercy Land.” Each of the group members in attendance go to pick a book for an upcoming meeting, so the reading list is quite interesting and varied. My pick was for December and I chose “The Red Queen” by Philippa Gregory. I just finished reading “The White Queen” and it was quite good, so I’m looking forward to my pick, as well as some of the other choices made by the group members.
And speaking of smiles, I haven’t yet been able to capture the 1000-watt smile of my youngest that can completely light up a room, but here’s a little grin.

I love how she sort of crinkles her nose. Ain’t she cute??

Mother of the Year, Or Not

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When I was a kid my mom used to joke about being “Mother of the Year.” Or rather, the things she did that disqualified her from that lofty status. It was all just for fun. If she didn’t cook dinner or do something “motherly” she would say, “Well, I guess I just lost my bid for Mother of the Year.” And we’d laugh. Don’t get me wrong here. My mom was great. She did all sorts of motherly things and more. But of course no one is perfect, and often she could joke about it when she wasn’t.
Some days feel like “Mother of the Year” days. You know those days when everything clicks? The TV stays off. We take fun trips, go for walks, do crafty things, and have lots of mother-daughter-bonding time. The days when I can still be calm the tenth time I say something like “No Honey, we don’t pull the dog’s tail/put a book on your sister’s face/climb on the counter/insert toddler behavior. Come on over here and let’s read this stimulating and oh-so-educational book instead.” One of those the-house-is-picked-up-delicious-dinner-is-made-kiss-the-hubby-at-the-door-domestic-bliss kind of days. Okay, not quite so Leave It To Beaver, but you know what I mean. If you’re a mom, you have those days when it just flows. It works. You get in your groove.
Yesterday was one of those days. It started with Miss and I making an apple pie in the morning. This was a first for both of us. Prior to yesterday my experience with making pie consisted of putting a pre-made (pre-baked even) pumpkin pie in the oven to warm it up a little bit on Thanksgiving. So yesterday I took the apples we got from the farm last Friday, got Miss all set up in her Tower, and proceeded to make pie. I did not make the crust from scratch, but we did the rest. We started by donning our aprons. I don’t have a little one for Miss yet, so I took my waist-down only apron and adjusted it to fit her.

Miss’s apron and mine were both made by my aunt. She has an Etsy shop, which you can check out hereif you’re in the market for an apron.

Miss enjoyed “helping” me wash, peel, core and slice the apples. She pretended to “wash” the cores, and she ate half of one of the apples (that one didn’t go into the pie of course).
I pointed out to her that her apron had some pockets and she stocked them with apple peels.
After I zested the lemon and squeezed the juice onto the apples, Miss wanted to eat the lemon. She actually took quite a few tastes of it and didn’t even make a sour face. In fact, I had to keep her from taking a big old bite of the peel, which I think she would have chowed down on if I had let her.
She kept an eye on the progress of the pie as it was baking and we were very pleased with the finished project, both in terms of how it looked and how it tasted!


The rest of yesterday was kind of more of the same. We went to the grocery store, Miss played outside with her dad, we had a good dinner, Lass was super fussy in the evening and nothing was working to soothe her until I figured out what she needed and then she was happy as a clam, and so on. It was a, “Yeah, I got this” kind of day.
Today was not so much. It wasn’t a bad day. In fact, it was a just-fine day. I just wasn’t on my game. Once again I woke determined to get ready and get to story time at the library. Once again, we did not get ready on time. I planned to go to the library again anyway, but I was rushing to get out the door with enough time to get to the library and browse for books before having to get home for lunch. It was after 11 when I finally got in the car with both girls and started driving to the library. And then I realized I had forgotten my wrap for Lass. I could have pulled her out of the car in the infant car seat and carried her around the library in that. But at the thought of that, I said, “Ah, screw it.” And I headed for the Starbucks drive through. I got myself a decaf, venti, nonfat, no whip, 2 Splenda Mocha and drove. It was really quite nice. My girls tend to like the car and so they chill. And I chill. And it’s nice sometimes to just hit the drive through. So that’s how I rolled through the library too, with the drive-through book drop. So I guess I just lost my bid for Mother of the Year. Oh well. I’ll try again next year 🙂

I have a little problem.

Posted on by Amy
Shoes.
It’s not what you think. I admit, I used to have a bit of a shoe thing. I love shoes and have quite a collection. I so loved to buy and wear cute shoes. I have cute feet, so it worked out perfectly. I rarely ever spent much money on a pair of shoes. No Carrie Bradshaw $400 pair of Manolo Blahniks or anything. Heck, I’ve never even seen a pair of Manolo Blahniks. I don’t usually even buy brand name shoes in a department store. I’m more of a Payless/Target kind of girl. Bargain shopper extraordinaire.
But I was kind of cured of my shoe thing when I started working full time in a federal prison. See, you have to wear sensible shoes to work in prison. They actually have rules about the shoes you have to wear. No open toes, no open heels. Fully enclosed feet only. And the shoes have to be comfortable enough to run in because you never know when you’ll have to run to a body alarm to assist a fellow staff member. So I invested in a few pairs of sensible shoes for work and kind of lost my shoe love.
Well, it’s back baby. Just, different.

It started with this pair of green tennies that I bought Miss back in the spring. They were too big at the time but they were on sale and I had a gift certificate. Plus they were just so stinkin’ cute and I figured they would fit her in the fall. I was right. They do fit her. But as the weather has started to get chilly and she hasn’t been wearing her sandals much anymore, I realized that green tennies just don’t go with everything. So I needed to get her some more versatile play shoes and made a trip to the local Stride Rite outlet. And I got these.
Very practical. Cute enough. Definitely good for playing outside. Then I saw these, and had to get them too.
Hello adorable.
And of course, she needed some shoes that could be dressier or still used for indoor play shoes. What better than some Mary Janes?
Every girl has to have a good pair of black shoes and a good pair of brown.
And then, I found these.
What little girl doesn’t need a pair of ruby slippers?? Miss loves hers!

And cowboy boots. Definitely a necessity. Did you notice how fabulous these were on the farm yesterday (check the pics if you didn’t notice them)? All dusty and still completely adorable.

And of course it will be getting quite chilly again pretty soon, so these were a must have as well.

And of course I couldn’t forget about these little piggies.
I got Lass’s first pair of shoes too.
Although I’ve gone a bit shoe crazy for my girls recently, I still haven’t lost my thriftiness. Most of these shoes came from Target. The more workhorse shoes that will be worn a lot for playing and will need to last and be super comfortable and supportive came from the Stride Rite outlet, but were still mostly on sale. It’s been even more fun buying shoes for my girls than it used to be to buy them for myself!

Enjoying Autumn

Posted on by Amy
Fall is here and it’s gorgeous.

We have to enjoy every minute of it here, before winter arrives with a vengeance. So today the girls and I went to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch farm called The Little Farmer. It was a beautiful place with lots for Miss to see and do.


We got all ready to go this morning, which took the better part of three hours to do. Miss had pigtails again to start the day. They fell out on the way to the farm, but I had to include some photos of them anyway.

When we got to the farm we found wagons to use for toting pumpkins and apples. And little girls of course. Miss quite enjoyed her first wagon ride.
She saw goats and chickens and kept saying she wanted to touch them, but then chickened out when I tried to help her do so.

She picked out pumpkins.

They didn’t have a big selection of food, so we had pumpkin and apple muffins for lunch and Miss tried apple cider for the first time. She loved it.
Then we went into a huge playground area where she got to run through a big hay bale maze. I guess you’d say she has “straw-colored” hair!!
She wasn’t big enough to climb up the big hay bale fort, but she loved running around it.
Swinging!
Lass just hung out in my Babyette wrap, hence no good photos of her at the farm. But a nice stranger agreed to take this photo of all of us.
Speaking of nice strangers, after we got all our pumpkins in our wagon and a “peck” of apples, there was no more room for Miss in there. So I was heading back to the truck with Lass in her wrap, carrying Miss on my hip and pulling a very heavy wagon of pumpkins and apples when an older woman stopped and asked if she could help me. I thanked her and said I was just heading to my car, thinking she wouldn’t want to walk all the way back to the parking lot, but she promptly took the handle of the wagon and told her family she’d meet them on the playground. Then she walked all the way to my car with me and helped me load the apples and pumpkins in the car!! I kept thanking her profusely, and the last time I said, “Thank you so much, I really appreciate this,” she looked me right in the eye and smiled and said, “I know you do. I’ve been there.” And then she walked away, dragging my wagon behind her to return it to where I had gotten it. Such a random act of kindness, and it really was a great ending to a wonderful outing with my girls.

Fun on the Farm

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We had a nice week at the farm. The girls were fantastic during the road trip, both ways. It’s a seven-hour trip without having to stop for feedings and diaper changes. With those it took us about 9 hours each way. We had a few moments of unhappiness, but overall the travel was great. My girls are road warriors.
We tried to be as prepared as possible, with as many of the comforts of home as we could bring in our huge vehicle (but not quite so huge when you remember we had two dogs in the back). Lass absolutely loves her swing, and it is a lifesaver for getting her to sleep at night. But it would have been very tricky to try to bring it along. Though my husband swore he would fit it in so we could have it, I managed to find a small travel swing at the last minute at our local Babies’R’Us. Literally, I was there last Saturday afternoon picking it up just hours before we hit the road. It wasn’t quite as good as the big swing, but she seemed to enjoy it pretty well.

So Lass spent the week swinging, and growing, and being adorable. She is such a good baby, she made it easy on me.

Miss had fun going outside with her Daddy and Baba. Here she is all ready to head out.

Over the weekend she got to see all of her cousins. Miss has nine boy cousins and two girl cousins in my husband’s family, so the play amongst the boys can sometimes get a bit loud and rowdy. They like to have my hubby be the “monster” and chase them around. This game comes complete with the scary monster noises from my hubby and screams of terror from the kids as they flee from him, so Miss was a bit overwhelmed and freaked out by it at first. She got really upset when the boys all ganged up on the monster and started jumping on and kicking my hubby. I kept telling her “It’s okay,” and she got to the point where she would run away from them while saying over and over “it’s okay, it’s okay” as she high-tailed it towards me to grab my legs and beg to be picked up. But she got over her fear and ended up having a great time.
They went on a few “treasure hunts” where the kids pile on the Ranger and ride around the farm searching for interesting things in nature. I have been on many of these and thoroughly enjoyed them myself, and I was kind of bummed that I didn’t get to go with Miss for her first one. But I know she had a great time. Here is what she found on her first treasure hunt.
I have never seen something like that before. Anyone know what the heck it is???
After she warmed up to them, Miss had lots of fun playing with her cousins of all ages. She had her 11- and 13-year-old boy cousins playing with her baby dolls and dancing with her and spinning her around so she could get dizzy and fall down. She played hide-and-go-seek with them too. She also learned some wrestling moves from one of her younger cousins a bit closer to her size.

She had to be reminded a few times about sharing.
The last night we were there, three of the small boys were taking a bath in one of the bathrooms and she wandered in there to see what was up. My sister-in-law who was bathing them asked her if she wanted to take a bath. Miss loves the bath, so she enthusiastically nodded her head. My sister-in-law started stripping her clothes off to put her in the bath and about the time she got to her diaper, Miss seemed to realize that my SIL intended to put her in the bathtub with the three boys. She quickly turned to me with a panicked look on her face and begged me to pick her up, saying and signing “All done! All done!!” I took her to the other bathroom for a solo bath 🙂
We had a good time, but as always, it’s so good to be home. Time for bed.

What we’ve been up to

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We are at the Farm this week. My hubby has been hunting in the mornings and evenings. Miss has been having a big time with her “Baba” and “Papa,” (my husband’s parents) and is now playing with her cousins. More cousins and aunts and uncles will be arriving through the weekend, so I know she’ll have a blast. Her favorite thing this week so far has been riding around the farm on the Ranger. She has gone exploring with her Baba and Daddy around the farm, picked flowers, watched Papa on the tractor, and taken a nap on it, as loud and jostling as it is. She just went on a “treasure hunt” this morning. Lass and I have joined the ride a few times and she just falls right to sleep wrapped up snugly against my chest while the Ranger rocks and bumps around. She’s just been working on growing. I love watching all the sweet expressions she makes (haven’t yet caught a smile on camera).





Other things we’ve been doing since my last post include taking a trip to story time at the library last week. Well, sort of. We got all ready with every intention of going to story time, but couldn’t quite make it out the door in time. We went to the library anyway.
Miss really enjoys the show “Yo Gabba Gabba” and asks to watch it more than I would like. She calls it “Mo Ga.” I found a “Yo Gabba Gabba” book at the library and was so excited. I figured having a book from her favorite show would be great, so she wouldn’t ask to watch the show so much. Now all she wants to do is read the book and watch the show. “Mo Ga, book??” she says. It’s adorable to hear her recite the first page of the book though, “Oh nooooo! Where’s the sun?” Over and over and over as she flips through the pages.
She also got her first “haircut.” This really just means that I trimmed about five stray hairs that were too long and kept falling in her face so they are now the same length as the rest of her bangs.

Adorable. I’ll try to blog more in October. Can you believe it’s October already?? Fall, crisp weather, good football, Halloween (I already have the girls’ costumes). . . so much to look forward to!

A Birth Story – Lass’s Arrival

Posted on by Amy
I know that I always like to hear about other people’s experiences in the childbirth process. Here is the story of Lass’s birth:On Monday, August 23 I started having strong regular contractions at around 5:30 pm.I began timing them at about 6 while we were eating dinner on the deck.I knew the contractions felt strong and different from those I had had previously (I had to stop and breathe through them as they got stronger) and was pretty sure labor had started.I gave Miss a bath and put her to bed.When the contractions continued to get stronger during this time, I told my hubby to get our things in the car, I called our babysitter and the on-call nurse, and we left for the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, I was monitored for a bit to make sure I was really in labor and we finally got into our room around 9:30 pm. Here I am in the triage room still:

In our room at about 11 pm:

We got a big yoga ball and I sat on that for a little while and then we went out to walk around the hallways. My contractions were definitely stronger and closer together when we walked the halls, but I was more comfortable when I was sitting on the ball, so we alternated these two things for a while. When I had a contraction, I faced my hubby and put my hands around his neck and kind of “danced” with him and breathed through the contraction. After a while I tried lying on my side and trying to get some rest, as it was getting really late and I was very tired. I continued to alternate resting and walking for a few hours. Then I got into the tub for about an hour and a half or so in the very early morning.
The nurse said that the on-call doctor would probably want to break my water around 7 or so in the morning to get things moving, so at that point I decided to try to stay in bed and get as much rest as possible for the last few hours, since I figured I would not get much rest after my water was broken.  Through all of this, my hubby was great, reminding me to breathe slowly through the contractions and relax.
Some time in the wee hours of the morning:

 

The on call doctor came in and broke my water at about 7:30 am (I think). At that point I was only 4 cm dilated. Of course, once my water was broken my contractions became much stronger. My hubby really had to help me get through them at this point. I got back into the tub for a while and sat on the ball some more.

I started to feel a little unsure that I would be able to continue without pain relief.I think I said to my hubby a few times something like, “I don’t think I can do this.” He continually encouraged me and told me that I could do it. It was probably around 10 am when the nurse offered to check my cervix to see how far I had progressed. We agreed, hoping I had made progress and it would help me to feel more certain that I could proceed without medication. When the nurse checked me she said I was almost 7 cm, which really helped me to get my “second wind” and I again felt certain I could do it.

A while later the nurse checked me again and said I was 8, almost 9 cm, with just a bit of cervix left. Around that time I started really feeling the urge to push with each contraction, though I couldn’t push because I wasn’t completely dilated. The nurse suggested I try getting on my hands and knees or lying in the “recovery position” (on my side with top leg forward) to help get my cervix to dilate the rest of the way. The “recovery position” was very uncomfortable and made my contractions more painful, so I spent quite a while on my hands and knees.

I was so tired I almost dozed off and face-planted several times while in that position. The urge to push continued to get stronger, and I would say this was the worst part of my labor, needing to push but not being able to. I think this went on for at least 45 minutes or so. The nurse checked my cervix a couple of times with minimal change.

Finally she said she could check with the doctor about whether she could stretch my cervix enough to allow me to push, and she called the on-call doctor (my doc was on vacation). The on call doc happened to be the doctor I had seen the previous day for my appointment, so I was familiar with her, which was nice. She came in and said that she would be able to stretch my cervix enough that I could start to push, so I did. It took a few tries to get into the right position and push the right way, but I got it pretty quickly and seemed to be making good progress.

I got great feedback from the doctor and from my hubby that I was doing a great job, which really helped. I was so tired I was dozing off in between contractions. I pushed for about an hour and a half, according to my hubby, though it didn’t really seem that long to me (maybe because I was sleeping between contractions??). Finally:

 

As soon as she was born, the doctor placed Lass on my chest, which was amazing. It was the best feeling ever. Unfortunately, she was not breathing very well right away and she wasn’t really crying, so I didn’t get to hold her for long, but the few moments I did were the best.

They had to take her and do lots of suctioning to help improve her color and get her breathing better. She did start to look better pretty quickly and she started crying more, which was good.

Man, she looks huge in these photos.

They ended up needing to take her to the nursery for monitoring for a few hours, but she turned out to be just fine and was back in the room with us after about two hours.

I’ve written a dissertation and earned a PhD. I’ve written a book. I’ve worked in various prisons with dangerous criminals. I have trained for and run two marathons. Going through 20 hours of labor and giving birth to a nearly 10 and a half pound baby without any pain medication was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I could not have done it without the help of my husband. No way. It was an incredible experience to go through with him, and I am so glad I got the opportunity have that and that our girl was healthy and perfect.