Today

last night i tried out a new thing and had brady sleep in his carseat since his night time sleep has been getting worse but his daytime carseat sleep is near perfection.  well... there was improvement and we'll definitely be trying that out again tonight.

brady is not an easy baby and he also follows no patterns.  according to my mother, "he's got a lot of secret combinations!"  but one thing we know is that frequently, a swinging motion helps.  so we checked out this swing at target today and i was planning on asking my honey about it tonight.  well, i'd totally forgotten until brady was crying and my honey had placed him in his carseat and was swinging it back and forth in the kitchen.  slightly out of breath he asked me, "don't we have a swing?!"  and i replied "nope, just that bouncer you're standing next to" and he's like "we need a swing... this kid likes to swing" and so i told him that mother and i just checked that out today and for $70 we could possibly have a slightly happier babe.  we'll see if we break down in the next few days.  ; )

baby girl had sassy girls club joy school today so i dropped her off for that and mother and brady and i ran errands at costco (returned my broken gps), blockbuster (who knew those still existed?!), the post office, target (checked out that baby swing), and bed bath and beyond (i have more creme brulee ramekins now!) before picking her up again.  we got a lot done in an hour and half!  and when we got home, i put my mother to work in the kitchen making me freezer meals and i took my two kids (i gotta throw that in there so i can get used to saying it.  reminds me of how tricky and awkward it was getting used to calling christopher my boyfriend, fiance, and husband) to the playground in our neighborhood.  brady slept in his carseat the whole time and i relished the time with just me and baby girl playing at the park together like old times.  and just for fun memories, i'll make a record here that the whole way home, i pushed brady's stroller, while pulling abigail in her stroller (she'd pushed it there herself... just for fun.  and decided on the way home she didn't want to walk), and listening to the taylor swift channel on pandora.  i couldn't help but laugh at myself.  i'm gonna rock this mom of two thing, i just know it.

ha.  loved this.

brady actually spent a solid hour (most of it he was asleep) in his bouncer tonight.  baby steps... one day he'll hopefully not be so demanding and requiring constant care and attention...

to say that baby girl is outlandishly obsessed with the ipad would be the understatement of the century.  she got so excited when christopher came home and then cried when she saw he didn't have his ipad with him.  and then she tried to go in our garage to get it out of his car.  this is why i don't let her know that my phone can do cool things.  right now the only thing she likes my phone for is to "see the snowman."  which is just a little snowman on the wallpaper of my phone.  but i finally changed that tonight.  so hopefully tomorrow she'll decide that my phone is absolutely good for nothing.

tonight honey said something to baby girl about holding brady and she instantly "assumed the position."  in case you were unaware, this is the proper way to position your hands/arms to hold a baby.

brady had several screaming fits tonight (i swear he doesn't cry all the time but it sure is a lot!) and i finally got him settled enough that he could lay there, not being held, as long as he had a binky in his mouth.  i'm about to use a rubberband to tie it around his head so it doesn't pop out every two seconds but in the mean time, i'm finding that a strategically placed camera will hold it in place okay and give you two free hands to gchat with your friend, lisa.

my dear mother leaves tomorrow and i'm thinking of ways to lure her back and convince her to stop by on her way home from this weekend salt lake trip.  i haven't done dishes since she got here.  she made stuffed peppers for us for dinner tonight and made spaghetti pie freezer meals for us too. she also made an angel food cake (we had to use up all the egg whites left from our creme brulee!), washed out a million juice and soda bottles i've been saving and filled them with water for our food storage.  she's vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned.  she's run errands for me and done my grocery shopping and even cleaned out a good chunk of my basement.  she's helped with my kids and given me some extra nap time.  she's gone on outings with us so i can learn how to take two kids to the library, walmart, etc. and has stayed home with the kids while christopher and i got out for a bit.  and perhaps most helpful of all is that she laughs with me when i have two crying children and i can't stop making my "is it too late to give up this mom thing and start a career instead?" comments and keeps me finding the humor in less than desirable situations.  and i know there's a million more things i'm forgetting right now that she's done while she's been here and still she comes to me and says, "what else can i do?" stating that she doesn't feel like she's being much of a help to me.  

my goal for myself is that someday i can be as nice to my kids as my own mother is to me.  i am so undeserving.