"high needs" in vs out

tonight, i was talking to a friend about how brady is about 8.5 months old and he's at the point where he's been out about as long as he was in.  i said something like "the strange thing though is that pregnancy was such a breeze and it just flew by and these last eight and a half months have felt like ffffffffoooorrrreeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr."  don't get me wrong, i love my kid, but holy cow, it's been a really, really long 8.5 months."  my friend has a difficult baby like brady so we can relate.  but tonight i just keep thinking about that.  so i finally did the math.  turns out, today exactly, brady is as old as the number of days i was pregnant (well, kinda... the first two weeks of pregnancy are a freebie because the moment you conceive, you're already considered two weeks along... but whatever).  let's be honest here that being pregnant was way easier than actually taking care of a baby.  and i really loved being pregnant so we can also be honest that being pregnant was also frequently more enjoyable than taking care of a baby.  but, still in complete honesty, i anticipate the next 8.5 months to be way more awesome than the previous 17 months... so there.

brady has not been an easy baby at all.  in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come.  apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby.  i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.

like this...

Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.  

"When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion." 

The child's unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping cart baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?

i mean seriously!  how many times have i called him bipolar?!  that's why!  he only knows the two extremes of emotion.  i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying.  thankfully, this is not the case anymore.  well... not as much.  he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!

but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was.  and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers.  with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers.  brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax.  his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling.  i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him.  and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched.  i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me.  he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more.  sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours.  with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time.  at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten.  even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids.  and he puts down a TON of food.  lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in.  for a kid barely on the charts.  i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently.  thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night.  i think the kid was just hungry.  really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded.  if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child."  he was truly a slave driver.  constantly cracking a bull whip.  and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is.  when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates.  so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place.  but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour.  so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all.  but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept.  awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day.  and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry.  i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS.  all. night. long.  then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes.  but then it was the binky game for a few more hours.  and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day.  i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?!  it can't be this late in the day!  he most recently woke up before noon!  that was four or five hours ago!"  if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days.  i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?!  i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough.  no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change.  the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations."  trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible.  next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him.  brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him.  he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells.  i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him.  just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics.  unpredictable and very sensitive.  the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds.  she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment.  also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming.  you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held.  but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for.  a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer.  and a sling wasn't either.  none of those things can change every ten seconds.  so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down.  although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures.  my mom really got in on it too.  "quick!  he's not crying!  take a picture!"  if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated.  that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms.  though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week.  but ohhh, he was so gorgeous.  he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again.  and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment.  ha.  this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to be happy not miserable.
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way.  if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib.  even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight.  if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time.  it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back.  DUDE!  I ALWAYS COME BACK!

so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today.  he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him.  people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way."  i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special.  he really has come such a long way.  as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?!  and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?!  and needs a binky 24/7?!"  but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us.  and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total.  and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy!  forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby.  it's straight forward and we love it.

i really love this kid.  he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr.  raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age.  i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.

*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience.  like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.

a perfect celebration

we haven't been married that long, but our anniversary seems to always get the shaft.  this year it's that my honey is in LA for the weekend at a stanford thing.  sooo, we celebrated thursday night instead.  and it. was. perfect.

several weeks ago, i curled my hair for the first time in umm a really long time... like ten years probably.  it was because i was insanely bored and i thought it would be fun to try something new for our date night (it was the most recent time we went to the nuggets game) and my doesn't-ever-notice-anything-ever husband kept commenting on how much he liked my hair.  who knew?!

and then i never curled my hair again.  whoops.

so i decided i should curl my hair for our anniversary date.  i am pleased to say that instead of taking a million hours like it did last time, that it took about four or five minutes and no teasing or hairspray or messing with.  just curled six chunks of hair, let it cool, flipped my hair over to shake it out, and called it good.

i won't lie... i felt kinda cool.  like all of the pretty girls at church.  y'know... all the cool moms.

also happy that later in the day, my hair still had some wave to it!  i'm thanking zero humidity colorado for that one.  i couldn't believe it. 

we had been planning to go out to bonefish grill, but then i happened to glance through a carrabba's menu online and found a number of delicious cheesy dinner options i wanted to try, as well as this little beauty that i promptly took a picture of and texted to my honey with a "actually, i think we should go to carrabba's... and make sure to save room for this dessert" kind of text.  thankfully he was on board.

he walked in the door with a card (my only request for any special occasion) and a long stemmed rose.  it's kind of our thing.  i can't even count how many roses he gave me while we were dating and newly married.  sometimes he'd just walk in the door after a regular day of work... with a rose for me.  and they were always so pretty.  white, yellow, purple, peach, red, pink, and some of those ones that are blended with multiple colors.  sooo, the single rose is pretty significant for me.  he stole my heart all over again when he walked in the door with that rose.

then my awesome mother in law came over to watch our kids.  i like not having to pick up or pay a babysitter but what i really really really love is being able to leave my children and not have to worry about them one single bit.  dinner was great.  the food was excellent (honey got a pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms which was delish and i got the seafood cannelloni which was absolutely superb.  and we got that "chocolate dream" for dessert of course... also a winner) and the company and conversation was perfect.  we talked about what we want our next trip or two to be.  honey really wants to go to alaska but i'm not in a hurry for that so we're thinking peru to see machu picchu with going to the congo on our two or three year plan (we'll have to skillfully work that around nursing and pregnancy).  making big plans for our future (like buying a house and having kids) was always one of my favorite things to plan and talk about while we were dating/engaged/newly married and it turns out, it still is.  but now we get to plan trips!  anyways, it was all perfection.

six years!

we were done with dinner by 8 or something and had time to kill.  i really wanted to look at furniture on our way home (am i the only one that gets giddy walking through furniture stores?!) and after asking me four times if i was really being serious, honey pulled a u-turn (since by that time he'd long passed the furniture store) and humored me with some furniture browsing. 

we decided we needed this office set... until we were too lazy to even add up how many thousands of dollars it would cost.  we'll list it for later.  ; )

we decided we would not like to purchase this table and four chairs for $2105... paying $265 for each additional chair.

but we actually are in the market for a new kitchen table and this one was maybe my favorite option.

and then we were going to go home until i last minute said "noo!!!  turn right!  turn right!  let's go to ross!" because, for some strange reason, shopping at ross also makes me giddy.  i could spend hours in there.  seriously.  i told honey that baby girl needed these shoes (and he was actually not putting up a fight about getting them!  like when we left the store he was all "wait, you're not getting those pink shoes?!") but i couldn't convince myself to get them knowing that baby girl actually already has a pair of hot pink slip on shoes that i got for her on clearance from target for just a few bucks.  buuuuut i still don't know if this was the right decision because i can't stop thinking about these little pink polo toes.

and then when we got home, i opened honey's card and he opened his gift.

i know just what he likes.  it is wonderful that i can buy his happiness for $2 in the form of chocolate twizzlers.

reading the sappy, sentimental note i wrote on the inside of this book.

milk duds, book with love quotes, chocolate twizzlers, and chips.  $5 present to celebrate our five years of marriage (that's an inside joke... last year honey's card wished me a happy fourth anniversary... so now we just subtract a year).

so now, even though i'm missing my honey on our anniversary (it's after midnight!  i need to go to sleep...) i'm  pretty content just replaying our perfect celebration from last night.

these six years have been good to us.  i can't wait for a million more.

pregnant chelsey and fake hosting

i sure do love me some pregnant chelsey.  just for reference, she's my first counselor in young womens.  and i love her to death.  did i say that already?  whoops.

anyways, tonight i fake hosted her baby shower.  if you've never fake hosted something before, let me tell you that this is the way to go.  it will make you feel like a grownup seeing something like this take place in your very own home!  basically i agreed to clean my house (the visible parts at least) and have her mom put my address on the invitations.  all of the food, decorations, etc. were brought over and set up 15 minutes before the shower started and i listened to adoring praises all night because apparently if tissue poms appear in your home, you probably made them.  and if that cupcake holder is on your table, you must have personally selected and purchased it.  and the food?  well go ahead and take credit for that too.  i mean, the water came out of your faucet so you can take credit for everything edible, right?

just kidding... i gave credit where credit was due (everywhere but here) and just enjoyed the party.  happy congratulations to pregnancy chelsey!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

chelsey is on the left... and after she's no longer "pregnant chelsey" you better believe i'll be referring to her as "gorgeous chelsey"  because seriously, how could you not?!

 

and that is how you fake host a baby shower.  i highly recommend it.

flying bunnies and my excellent day

today was wonderful.  i have so much to post but some of it will have to wait until tomorrow and monday and probably tuesday.  because let's get real, my blogging hasn't been too spectacular lately.

so we'll just do everything as bullet points so it's not too overwhelming for me.  i don't forget this glorious day... which don't hold your breath, it's just an ordinary day that i happened to love in an extraordinary way.

- i slept in until 9 30... and probably would have been able to sleep longer except that my honey got bored and woke me up.  for some reason (it's far too bright in my room) i wake up at 6 30 every day and then spend the next 2 hours in that half awake state, attempting to get back to sleep.  so this was pretty epic.

- honey was itching for a walmart trip (but not a family walmart trip because he hates those, and rightfully so because we can never seem to get through one still liking each other) so i told him he had to get a few things on my list (cinnamon rolls, kettle corn, an onion... y'know... the odds and ends i somehow missed this week) and he volunteered to take our baby with him!  i can tell he loves those little outings with just him and baby girl.  anyways, i took the opportunity to pack some fresh fruit (with my little fruit fork, carolyn!) and a book (i just started atlas shrugged today) and headed to the pool to actually LAY OUT.  i loooove laying out and have been obsessed with it since i was like 5 or something... can't remember exactly but i do remember my mom taking me to the pool and asking me why i kept sitting in the chair instead of swimming in the water.  ha.  the difference is that i used to get super tan and black and now i have a baby and am more responsible about life so i cover myself head to toe in 30 spf.  never anticipated that happening.  i will be white forevermore.

- i left the pool because the clouds came rolling in and the thunder started.  i stayed for a while since it was breezy and the sweat it out heat was replaced with perfect pre-storm air but then eventually i missed my honey and baby so i headed home and they were outside on the driveway.  baby girl was riding her bike and honey was planting more little seedlings (i'll have to blog about that sometime... for honey's posterity to know that at one point he loved his little seedlings as if they were his own offspring) or something.  we all hung out like that in perfection for a while and then frantically moved a pile of rocks while the rains started pouring down on us.  it made me laugh while i was running rocks back and forth and it kinda made me feel like it should be part of a movie.  and then we came inside.

- we opened the window so we could listen to the storm and i watched the downpour outside while baby girl ate her lunch.

- then i had the most awkward experience ever.  this will need it's own post.  just thinking about it makes me want to die.  seriously.  and maybe stop going to church too.  so wish me luck tomorrow.

- honey put baby girl down for nap, we watched tv together, and then i got the bug to organize our food storage in the basement.  this may have caused a little disagreement between honey and myself and short story shorter... he needed some alone time and ended out passing out in bed upstairs while i organized our food storage in the basement for an hour or two.  i lost track of time and was brought back to reality when i faintly heard my baby's cry and then glanced at my watch, panicked that it was 7:20.  ran upstairs to realize that honey was asleep and that baby girl was still in her crib from nap!  disclaimer: she didn't go down until 3 and had a super long nap.  i would have heard her earlier if she'd been awake earlier but i think she must have slept for at least 3.5 hours.  we'll never know.

- my organizing bug kept going strong and i cleaned out my car, and did an organizing overhaul on our garage.  combine this with the food storage overhaul, vacuuming for the first time in who knows how long (okay, i can't take credit for that... honey vacuumed the whole house this morning... but it still made me feel accomplished), cleaning out baby's closet, and doing a whole number of smaller tasks... the day was a success.  i've been slacking on the whole domestic housewife thing lately so this helped get me back on track a bit.  oh, and last night i reorganized our freezer (maybe not all of it but the parts i did look awesome!) and the fridge.  i need credit for those too.

- i didn't put baby girl to bed until 10:15 tonight. her sleep schedule has kinda shifted back two hours over the course of the past two weeks.  but whatever... having a baby that sleeps til 10am has it's perks and honey and i loooove that playtime with baby girl at night.  she's always so silly and happy.  tonight it was dancing... of which i have videos.  that will also require it's own post.

ps- yesterday i saved a baby bunny's life.  and today i saved another baby bunny's life.  here are pictures.

it fell into the window well for one of our basement windows and had no way of getting out.

 

 

jumping bunny

and in this picture i swear he's allllmost flying.

and here's baby girl.  doing this thing she likes to do lately.  she lays on her stomach and slides herself (forward or backward) all over the kitchen.  i should just dampen her pj's and it could replace that whole "mopping" thing that i never seem to get around to.

 

 

 

and then she asked where daddy was so i told her he was sitting on the sofa and she went crawling away like this.  i called out to her, "baby girl!  are you being stealth?!" to which she promptly and loudly replied, "YEP!"  man, how that kid makes me laugh.

my life is too wonderful i swear.

the quilting continues

as previously stated here and here...  i quilt.  last friday i quilted my third quilt block!  i'm practically a pro!

 

 

 

slowly but surely... one quilt block at a time.

a successful day

after getting sick over the weekend, it felt like my energy and motivation would never come back.  all i wanted to do was lay down for every single second of my life.  my body would inexplicably just gravitate to my bed.  so i prayed for energy and motivation and tried harder to get over it.

i made a pretty good menu plan for this week.  i've been tackling my junk room that has been the catch all for far too long.  and uhh, y'know... stuff like that.  generally, as a rule, i spend nap time in bed.  i can work on emails or whatever but i don't spend my nap time cleaning the house or doing other "work" type stuff.  i pay it forward and it makes me a better wife and mother for the second part of the day.  but somehow (answer to my prayers) i've found the energy and motivation to actually want to do stuff like tackle that junk room and make dinner and do other stuff during nap time that can't be done while reclining in bed.  not sure how long it'll last, but for now, it's pretty amazing.

yesterday, baby slept til after 10 before i finally woke her up, grabbed her a banana and milk and stuck her in a stroller to go walking with jodi and elle.  we all stopped at the playground for a while and didn't call it quits until a little after noon.  lunch then nap then dinner then relief society and then the day was over.  like most days, it just went too quickly.  

but today was a different story.  baby woke up at 7 50!  my christopher and i were actually still asleep when we heard her cry.  i got her and make us all a hot breakfast while honey showered.  baby girl and i got dressed and ready for the day.  we returned a cake pan to a friend on the way to the library for story time.  we went straight to costco and met up with jodi and elle at noon and after taking a quick trip to the mailbox, we didn't sit down for lunch until after 2.  baby girl though wouldn't even sit in her chair (she did have a lot of samples and ate an entire giant biscuit on the way home/mailbox trip) and communicated that she wasn't hungry but just wanted to go upstairs for nap.  well, great.  because it's after your nap time anyways.  while she was asleep i worked on dinner and made these deep south gooey butter bars to take to girls night.  honey got home and we were starting in on dinner when baby woke up after 6.  she's on a serious late nap streak right now.  then the relief society pres called to talk about something.  i put away the food from dinner and then kissed honey and baby goodbye as i left for girls night.  and again, even though i left the kitchen an absolute disaster... waaaayyy way worse than usual even... i came home at midnight to clear counters and clean dishes.  let me tell you, that is the quickest way to my heart for sure.

soooo, that was my super successful day.  i know some people, specifically moms, get frustrated with their days feeling like they don't ever accomplish anything.  but this is a peek into what a successful day looks like for me.  

i got quality time with my husband before work, and even fed him a hot breakfast (never ever eeeever happens).

i got myself and my baby dressed and fed and out of the house before 11am.

i actually remembered to return a cake pan and a library book.  in one outing!

baby girl got to go to story time!

costco trip!  and i got everything on my list that i wanted.  and it was with friends.

baby napped for over 3.5 hours.  that's really good... even for baby.

i made part of a copycat recipe for sweet pork salad.  i had the tortillas, lettuce, sweet pork, rice, black beans, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, and ranch dressing all set out for honey when he got home.  i know you can make all the parts but i didn't want to put thaaat much time and effort into it so i just did plain black beans, rice, and guacamole.  and used store bought dressing.  but it was wonderful.  and it was one of the few times that my meal actually came together at the same time that my honey got home.  probably because i didn't wash dishes and clean up as i went along.  maybe that's the secret!

i got in plenty of girl time and socializing with friends.

and of course, coming home to a clean kitchen is priceless.

sooo, i mean, it wasn't perfect.  like how i forgot to each lunch.  fail.  but it was a really really good day.  feeding my family, spending time with my husband, providing great playtime for my baby, and getting in some girl time for me.... all blend together to make a really accomplished day.  i need to make these happen more often.

 

jodi had to interfere to get elle to give baby girl a turn driving.

she got over that real fast though.

so like me, baby is just not a leader.  we're natural followers you know.

but followers are important.  they're like the motor sometimes.

double fisting biscuit while walking to the mailbox

oh happy day!

an important milestone

yesterday morning i caught this little girl destroying my closet and trying on my shoes. trying on my shoes!!! lately baby has been doing an incredible amount of new developmental tricks. she opens lids and puts them back on. she steers her push toy (and boxes). she can walk backwards. she steps into her pant legs and pushes her arms through her shirt sleeves. she attempts to put on her own shoes.

but for her to go in my closet and try on pair after pair of my own shoes?!?! that marked a very special day for me! does there exist a more significant motherly milestone?!?! indeed there does not.

i know she looks like my clone (which, oh my goodness i had another person at church tell me they could see so much of her DAD in her --- that is always a little (a lot) bittersweet for me), my mini-me, myself reincarnated but really? i want her to want to BE like me too.

for me, my mother has always been the person to be. i'm always striving to be as giving, as selfless, as humble, as honest, as hardworking, as patient, as faithful, as serving as my mother. in college i wrote a paper on how my mother was the most perfect example of honesty i'd ever seen. i wrote story after story illustrating how she went above and beyond. and how she inspired me to be honest in all things. i used to have a hard copy and a digital copy of that paper. i have since lost both. i don't think my mother ever even got the chance to read it. but honestly (no pun intended!), what does it matter? because i have her, and every day, i have more examples of her perfect honesty.

y'know that primary song, i'm trying to be like jesus? well, i'm trying to be like jesus. but i'm also trying to be like my mother. lucky for me, she's so christ-like that it's really the same thing.

i just want to be christlike enough that my little daughter will want to be like me too.

i'm a born leader

ha, that's a lie.  i am a born follower.  i'm a born team player.  apparently my ward is doing this thing where they're calling everyone to callings far outside of their comfort zone.  so i was a little nervous about what my calling would be.  a member of the bishopric asked me if i had any music experience.  i told him i used to play piano but haven't since high school.  "no worries, it has no bearing on your calling."  and then "we'd like for you to be the ward music coordinator and chorister."  i think that was my favorite part.  that he straight up told me that even if i had absolutely zero music experience, i would still have been extended the call.  it gave me greater confidence to accept it.  

so today was my first day on the job and i gotta admit it.  i did a really great job.  probably a 98% since i didn't screw up at all but there was still room for improvement.  even though it seemed like a pretty solo calling at first i'm realizing it is totally not with all of the people i coordinate with and practice with.  so it's helping me meet even more people and i'm loving it.

so that's my story and i'm stickin' to it.

i am an accomplished woman

today i...

got a free baby toy and stroller off of craigslist.  i went at 8:30.  the early bird gets the goods.
mowed the lawn.  front and back.
showered.  this is a rare occurrence.
took a million screws out of the stroller to detach the canopy, fabric, and basket.
washed all the stroller stuff with hot water, detergent and bleach.
reassembled the stroller.  this was no easy feat.
went to the grocery store.
made a dessert and salad.
swept out the garage.
reorganized the stuff in the backseat of my car.
had baby take two naps instead of one.  it's amazing how much more i can get done this way!
need another shower.  i should have held off on that for later in the day.

ps- did i mention the dessert was my wonderful cousin marianne's cookie yum yum recipe?