Aware

Ruthie just fell asleep on my shoulder while I was singing her night-night song to her. She and Esther each have a special liturgical song that came to me while I was pregnant with them and really comforted me throughout their pregnancies when I was scared. It's turned into their night-night song and moves me each and every time I sing it to them.

Since she doesn't snuggle too much anymore, I sang and sang and enjoyed the feeling of her increasing weight on my shoulder as she fell deeper into sleep. In that moment, I was and am still, all too aware that her baby days are numbered and consequently, mine are numbered too.

For there will be no more babies at our house - and I am so deeply and profoundly sad over this. I joke with my friends that I would love to be pregnant, give birth, and have a newborn nursing from me for a couple weeks but I don't want to raise three (or more) children. I think about it a lot and David and I have discussed it several times. This - THIS with our 2 girls, feels right to us. We feel complete. I suspect that if my sadness over the end of my baby days was indicative of a true and deeper call to have more children, then I wouldn't feel this completeness.

I've long thought that people are called to different vocations in life, and the priesthood or religious life is just one of those vocations. I believe that God calls some to be single, some to be married without children, some to be married with one child and some to many more. David and I long struggled with the decision of whether to have children - it was never an automatic. After those years of agonozing discernment (much more for me than for David) and the difficulty I went through in trying to decide what to do about working after Esther and Ruthie were born, I now truly feel like I am living God's call for me. And oh my goodness, it feels good.

Let me be clear, neither David or I want to have another child and yet I'm still grieving the loss of this wonderful, magical, so very, very special time of infancy. Even with all of the hard times, I'm still not quite ready to let the baby days go.

Mmmmm, pancakes

One of my accomplishments over the past couple weeks has been cooking dinner several times per week. One night last week, we had breakfast for dinner: bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Ruthie LOVED the bacon and I was happy to have her gnaw away at it.

Esther like the pancakes, but David said they didn't taste right. (This was after he said he didn't like pancakes, only waffles, and I yelled at him until he ate the pancakes). I tasted them and also agreed that not only did they taste "off" but they were also really, really flat.

I made the pancakes with Bisquick - that's how my Mom always made them: 2 cups of Bisquick, 2 eggs, and a cup of milk. One of us whipped out the box of Bisquick and this is what we saw:

The Bisquick expired in 2002! We moved into this house in December 2003, which meant we packed and moved a box of expired Bisquick!

I had started making progress on decluttering with the help of my decluttering guru ... but then fell by the wayside. Clearly, I need to get going again.

Craig's List Karma

I try hard to perpetuate good Craig's List Karma. When I'm selling, I leave my computer on all day and respond immediately to e-mails. After 2-3 e-mails back and forth, I offer my phone number. I have the items clean and ready (actually, David helps me a lot with this) when people show up and I'm flexible when they are running late. If they buy a large amount, I usually round it down to the nearest $10. If they are coming from far away, and if the item they are interested in is transportable, then I offer to meet them at a location that saves them a little bit of time but isn't too inconvenient for me. Ikea is a favored meeting spot of mine, as it has covered parking.

I also try hard to perpetuate good karma as a buyer. I rarely express extreme interest without following through. I call the seller when I am leaving my house and I call again when I'm about 5 minutes away. I rarely ask for an extreme reduction in price - I want both of us to be happy with the sale. I try not to bring the girls with me and if I do have to bring them, I let the seller know.

I've also offered to let a woman return some maternity pants that she was unhappy with. She has never followed through and actually returned them though.

Therefore, it really, really makes me mad then when people do not remove their sold items from Craig's List. Or when they don't reply to my e-mail. Or when we exchange 9 e-mails back and forth and then they never reply to my last e-mail confirming our meeting time and location. It's interesting, the people who are the most reluctant to call me (or give me their phone number) are always the people who seem to fall through. To be sure, I've had some sales done entirely over e-mail, but of the sales that have fallen through at the last minute, they've never been willing to talk on the phone.

But man, oh man, was I the recipient of some kick-ass awesome good karma today. Stay tuned...

Mayhem

It's mayhem around here, I tell you. Mayhem and chaos.

She's a tough cookie - not a single tear was shed during this incident. I suspect she did it on purpose!

Before:

After:

Clarification

A little clarification regarding my goal setting and footprint reduction ticker on the right. I don't give myself credit EVERY time I leave the house and don't get a snack - only when I REALLY want a snack and I resist do I credit myself. Likewise, I only give myself a credit for walking if it's a place I would normally drive to or if it's voluntary exercise. For example, I won't give myself a credit for walking the dogs, because it's certainly not voluntary and it's not something I would normally do while driving.

Happy Mother's Day 2008

What a lovely day thus far.

Mr. Quimby gave me a corsage to wear today. It's an old school tradition, but I love it, and ask him every year to get me one. Beezus and I went to church by ourselves - it's much easier than trying to deal with Ramona who is already overdue for her nap by the time we arrive at church. Our church has lots of children and the priest frequently makes a point to say how glad he is that they are there, but it's just not fair to Ramona to keep her from taking a regular nap. The priest gave mothers a special blessing, and I loved how inclusive he was - he specifically referenced physical mothers, spiritual mothers, people like mothers and then offered a special prayer for people who have had children who died and people who have lost their own mothers. I suspect that if more people went to churches with a priest like this, we would have fewer people leaving the Catholic church.

After church we picked up Mr. Q and Ramona and went to Starbucks, mmmm!

During mass I was thinking about the other Mother's Days I have experienced. As a child, the excitement of doing something nice for Mom; as an adolescent, trying not to argue with my sisters for the day (my mother's one request); as a teenager the begrudging-ness of having to think about someone else besides myself for a change; and as a young married woman being very, very glad I didn't have kids yet and not even really desiring them.

And then it changed.

The Mother's Day (2004) when my very last high school/college friend was pregnant, and I wondered if David and I would ever be ready. Mother's Day (2005) when I had been pregnant in the past year, had suffered a devastating loss and was now pregnant again (and starting to show) by the time Mother's Day rolled around. I was so happy and so proud. Mother's Day (2006) with an amazing baby girl. I breastfed during Mass (all the nursing mothers in our parish do) and cried with joy over the completeness of it all. Then Mother's Day (2007) with a rambunctious toddler and 7 months pregnant - and I probably cried again.

And this Mother's Day - with a delightful little girl sitting next to me, nursing her doll "Ola-baby" and my 2nd baby girl and husband at home - and crying again over the completeness of it all.

Special shout out to my Mom - oh my goodness, there just are no words. I'm not even going to try. I love you Mom.

Firsts

We've had several "firsts" in the past week around our house - and I think they are a pretty big deal.

Esther licked her first beater while we were making cookies. Prior to this, she's been afraid of the beaters because she is afraid of loud noises (hair dryer, vacuum cleaner, dustbuster, food processor, car wash). But on this day, she licked the beaters. Later that same day, she also tried her first bite of all beef, cooked at home, hot dog (on a whole wheat bun)


.

Esther spontaneously shared a toy with Sissy. She was sitting in front of this green dinosaur, Ruthie crawled up, and Esther said, "I move over for you Sissy." We've asked her in the past to make room for Sissy, but on this day, I hadn't said anything to her about sharing.

Later that same day, she also told her first lie. Ruthie was crying, I asked what was wrong and our conversation went something like this:
"I pull her leg like this" (pantomiming action)
"Did it hurt Sissy and make her cry?"
"Yes, I pull her leg like this."
"Well, when you hurt Sissy and make her cry, then you have to go to the naughty spot."
"I didn't, I didn't!!!"

(Esther is usually pretty willing to walk to the naughty spot without much protest and sit for 30 seconds or so.)

David also thinks he saw Ruthie stand by herself for a second or so, but I'm hoping that's not true!

Beat the Clock - Update

Hair dye is on, both girls cried in the middle of nap. I let them go and they went back to sleep. 35 minutes of guaranteed naptime left - after that it's a crapshoot.

You know, I'd like to use this blog to share little nuggets of wisdom that I learn while on this mothering journey. Today I learned two very valuable lessons for other people that dye their hair at home.

1. You should have paper towels handy BEFORE you start dye-ing your hair. It's very hard to run around frantically looking for paper towels while being quiet and trying to keep hair dye from dripping.
2. Also, if your baby naps best in a portable crib in your bathroom/closet area and hence you cannot go in there during naptime, you may want to get out the rubbing alcohol BEFORE she goes down to nap and BEFORE you dye your hair. Otherwise, you may have to resort to using lysol cleaner on a paper towel to get the hair dye drips off your face.

Just my little bit of sharing for the day.

Beat the Clock

I've got about an hour and a half to dye my hair, shower, write Mother's Day cards, and send e-mail to Home Depot! Here I go!!! This is, of course, assuming that neither child wakes up early from their nap.

Goal Setting

Another blogger I read talked recently of how she is going to start paying herself for some of her chores. I think this is a fantastic idea. For my Lenten sacrifice I successfully eliminated a couple of bad habits and never cheated, even ONCE! After Lent, I have picked back up one of the bad habits, but not the other. Now I want to permanently eliminate them both and give myself some tangible, immediate reward for doing so. Since we finally have nice weater, I've also been trying to walk some of my errands to get exercise, save gas money, and reduce our carbon footprint. Frankly, walking to lose weight is such a long-term thing that it's hard to see the benefits quickly. But I can certainly see the dollars add up $$$ka-ching!!! So from now on, you can see my counter on the right hand side of the page to see my resisting and how my dollars are adding up.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the money. I'm borrowing a friend's awesome Maclaren stroller and am using it to death (hey friend - we got to work out some sort of rental fee!) But after trying out my friend A.'s super fancy running stroller (she is a runner and the stroller was a gift, so it's totally justified in her case) I now want the double version. For all my running, you know. (My sister Sarah is about to pee her pants laughing right now.) But seriously, if I can raise some money by walking errands, then I actually think it could be justified.

P.S. I'm now realizing that a lot of my blog entries (including this one) are based on other people's ideas. I've got to think of some more original posts!

Whine, Bread, Cheerios and Meat

is what we had for lunch one day last week. It was a particularly noisy lunch and neither girl was happy.


Ruthie has mastered cheerios and has moved on to ground beef. With her low iron and spoon hatred, it's a logical choice. She did take several bites of pureed sweet potato off the spoon last week, but it only happened that one day and never again.













Now I know that I can only shoot video landscape, and not portrait. If you just kind of tilt your head to the side it's fine!


Untitled from Ellen T on Vimeo.