Book review, folks are (finally) home, and whats's with the weather?!

For half and hour now I've been trying to write a little summary/update of my week, but the words just aren't flowing this evening. Oh, it figures. I tried to write a bulleted list and now things seem to be flowing, albeit randomly. Sorry :o)

I read Stephanie Meyer's "The Host" this week. Liked it. The book is good but not amazing. I checked out several reviews on Amazon before I started reading and that prepared me for some of the possible shortcomings of the story. As a writer, Meyer is wordy and doesn't skip on the details. Her work is exceptionally dialog heavy, which it tedious at times, but overall not too bad because she writes dialog exceptionally well. (I consider this to be one of my weaker areas as an author, so I admire those who do it well.) I also happen to very much enjoy long stories; I like being able to get to known my characters and then being able to spend some time with them.

Last night I downloaded The Help. I'm about halfway through. I like it, although it's slow sometimes.

My parents are back from vacation, and after quite a bit of craziness, are settling in at home. I went to see them today and took baby girl. (Nate stayed home because he wasn't feeling well; he slept all morning. Seems to be doing much better now.) She played with a couple of toys for most of the ride to grandma's house, but slept the final 15-20 minutes. On the way home she was awake for 15-20 minutes, then zonked out for an hour, until we got to the house. Awesome. My mom loaded us up with a big bag of food -- bread, applesauce, peanut butter, tuna, avocados, strawberries (for Nate), meats, and more. Yum. As they usually do on this annual snowbird vacation, my folks popped over the border to Mexico for a little while. My mom picked up a beautiful, blue dress with hand-embroidered flowers for Darling. Nate said it's a very traditional dress, usually done on a white fabric, and it has a special name... though he couldn't recall the word or the special occasion for which it's typically worn. No worries, it's still cute!

Next week is spring break, so Nate is off work. Monday is also my mother's birthday and she wants to spend the better part of the day with Darling, woot woot! She might come down twice next week to watch the baby. I think it will be a very nice break for Nate -- give him a chance to run some errands or what-have-you.

I had a furlough yesterday (Friday) and though I never thought I would have a reason to be grateful for furloughs, I loved it. Darling and I had the whole day to ourselves, and oh boy, we soaked it up! Lots of playing and cuddles, a little bit of time outside, a couple of errands.... It was a very easy, love-filled day.

Speaking of being outside: The weather this week was NUTS. Today and yesterday, it was lovely, sunny, and it even got warm. Earlier this week, it snowed. In fact, it snowed all day on Wednesday. Late in the day it started to stick, and Thursday morning there was at least three inches on the ground. (I thought there was five or six inches, Nate said just three or four. Whatever... it was a lot!) On Wednesday evening at about 8pm, after Darling went to bed, I threw on my snow gear and went to play in the front yard. I made a little snow family, including a pair of snow cats. It was cute. I hurt my arms rolling and lifting the bottom and middle parts of the snow bodies. Somehow I even managed to bruise my bicep. Ha! Ridic!

Nate was home on Thursday morning for a couple of hours, so we trekked out to the front yard as a family and used our ice-blocker to build a snow fort. The kids next door (ages 4 and 6) were extremely excited -- they thought we were going to build a whole igloo. If we had more time, yes, that would have been awesome. I'll have to post pictures when I'm on my regular computer.

I did not have time this week to finish the new window. (It still needs to be caulked, trimmed, and painted.) Darling has not been sleeping well; she's spend a lot of time in our bed. (Something I swore wouldn't become a habit, yet I feel like I'm losing the battle with myself.)

And.... that's all I have time to write. Now to eat some Greek yogurt with granola, read a bit more of The Help, and go to bed. Tschues!

A teething, learning baby

Today was not the usual productive, chaotic errand-running day that we call Saturday. While we did get several things checked off our list, we didn't get up early, put together a grocery list, and hit the town. We kinda groaned and rolled out of bed and tried to not throttle each other...

Turns out that baby girl -- maybe I'll start calling her Darling? -- broke skin on two new teeth last night! It's exciting and wonderful, but until you know what's happening, it's also totally confusing. I mean, one night your baby is sleeping pretty well, only waking up once or twice and then easily going back down, and the next night she's up four times. And she's up again four times the next night.

Night number three was last night, Friday night. We told ourselves that we would work hard to continuing teaching Darling that she needs to sleep in her own bed. So after changing and feeding the baby, I rocked her to sleep. She wouldn't stay down, so dad rocked her. She still wouldn't stay down! Dad rocked her again. I rocked her again. I fed her again. We changed her again. We even tried letting her cry for a little bit! Finally, utterly exhausted and feeling very sorry for our sweet pea, we let her sleep in our bed. She slept fitfully, but finally she slept.... for a couple of hours.

I could go on about our sluggish, grumpy morning, but I'll spare you the details. Let's just fast-forward to mid-day, after a mini-nap for Darling, when she opened her mouth at just the right angle and I noticed the two white lines poking through her gums, and everything suddenly made sense. Oh, the poor baby! Lesson learned, mama B: If the baby won't sleep outside your arms, then give her long, tender cuddles. She has a good reason, and she'll go back to her own bed in a few days. (You think I would have learned this during the first round of teething, at Christmastime, but sometimes I'm a bit thick in the head! :o)

We did go back to the pottery store today and made new imprints of Darling's little hands. They aren't perfect -- she tried to grab handfuls of clay when we pressed her fingers into the gooey goodness -- but Nate reminded me it wouldn't be an honest rendering if her hands were perfect. Darling has her own opinions about things, and I think the imperfect prints will be a sweet reminder that she likes to do things her way. (Sounds like she's definitely a Jackson girl, huh? I wouldn't have it any other way.)

Since we're still on the topic of babies, I want to share an article. (Side note: I actually have several articles I want to share, and I'm hoping to find time to write a separate post with a quick summary of each article. There's been some good stuff in TIME lately.) I got the article from my friend Kimmy earlier this week -- it's about how to improve a baby's attention span. It's awesome and succinct. Check out www.janetlansbury.com/2010/04/baby-interrupted-7-ways-to-build-your-childs-focus-and-attention-span.

I was glowing with joy at the second recommendation: No TV o r videos for the first two years. Nate and I feel very strongly about this subject; we work very hard to keep Darling away from "TV" and movies and even stuff on the computer. From his four years of experience in early childhood education, Nate already knew about the debilitating effects TV has on small children. Blessed me, I was able to learn from him.

That said, the article pointed out a lot of areas where I could improve. I read the article probably three times in one day, spend half a day thinking about it, and started making adjustments around our house. For instance, I cleaned up our home office so all the baby "no-no" items were out of her reach. I also re-organized the bookshelf in the office so that all of baby's toys are on the bottom shelf, where she can pull them off for play/study/etc. The added bonus is that I no longer have to chase her or worry when she's in the office and I'm in the kitchen (which adjoins the office). She's safe. And she has plenty of time and room to explore, discover, learn, and practice her focusing muscles. Insert sigh of relief and happiness. Ahhhhhhh.

A random smattering of things

I didn't make enough time to write a blog post last week, sorry! It takes me about an hour to put together a post and I gave away my few, precious hours of free time to other pursuits. Hopefully I can atone with at least a brief post this evening (plus my regular weekly post sometime this weekend). I usually write on a weekend evening, but Friday night we had a stay-in "date" night. Saturday night a couple of the young women from church came over to raid (I use that verb affectionately) my scrap-booking supplies. The time change that night pushed baby's bedtime to 8pm on Sunday, and since my bedtime is just after 9pm, well... it was a squeezed weekend. But we got a lot of things done, so I am not complaining!

Without further ado, here is a random smattering of thoughts, explanations, and updates:

There's a phrase I've been wanting to share for several weeks now. Maybe you're familiar with it? "If you really knew me, you would know..." I can't remember the origins of the phrase, but the point is fairly obvious: When you complete the sentence, you share something that you think people who know you well would know about you. For instance: If you really knew me, you would know that I love flowers, and I am particularly fond of bulbs. Or: If you really knew me, you would know that I don't own a television. It can really be a fun phrase, if you think about it. Sometimes as I am going about my daily routine, something will pop up that makes me think of this phrase. And I often consider sharing those "if you really knew me" moments. So now that I've given it some explanation, I will try to occasionally share those thoughts. (Again, I want to note that it's not a phrase used to air "dirty laundry" or spark competition or whatever -- it's just a fun way to share a bit more about oneself.)

If you've been reading my posts during the last nine months, you might have noticed that I've avoided the use of my daughter's name on my blog. Yes, it's deliberate. I'm a tad paranoid about the weirdos, stalkers, and baby-snatchers lurking in the world. Baby girl gets a lot of attention whenever we go out. If we're at the grocery store, for instance, nearly everyone we encounter likes to stare at the baby. Many people comment to us that she is sweet, happy, and cute/pretty/beautiful. Some people like to get up close to her, even right up in her face. Once in awhile people will touch her or play with her. These people aren't creepy (I avoid those uncomfortable-vibe people), but it does nevertheless make me ill at ease. I mean, understand why it happens -- babies are sweet and lovely (and, to my biased eyes, baby girl is the most beautiful thing in the world) -- but still, it makes me wary when strangers talk to and/or compliment my kid. So imagine how much more it freaks me out to think that people I can't even see or filter might stumble onto my blog and see my child. I want to keep my blog public, but I'm going to be cautious about it. I'm trying to think of a good blog-nickname for baby girl.... No ideas yet.

Earlier this evening I finally looked up the definition of a "foodie" (thanks Wikipedia!). Given our blossoming interests in food, cooking, gardening, and health, I wondered if it was an appropriate label to give myself. It is. I'm a foodie. Apparently the phrase has been around since the early 1980s (hey, me too!) and it indicates someone with an amateur passion for food, cooking, etc. I use to think it was a really silly title and I silently teased people who used the word, but here I am, repenting, and acknowledging that I've become one of those people. What a good reminder to not judge others!

There's a great place here in town where you can paint clay pottery (and then it's fired in a kiln and the paint becomes a beautiful glaze). In mid-January, as a belated Christmas present, Nate took baby girl and I to the store so that we could make an impression of her darling little hands. The store owner carefully assisted us in making the prints, then told us to come back in a week to paint them. I'm embarrassed to say that it took more than a month for us to make time for painting. After painting we had to wait another week before the hand prints would go through the kiln and be ready for pickup. So two weeks later (on Saturday) I went back to the store to FINALLY get the handprints. And wouldn't you know, the piece broke when it was fired. "Perfectly normal heat-expansion crack" the store owner explained, showing me the two pieces. We can go back to the store any time to start over with the process, but oh! It made me very sad to see our lovely creation split down the middle. (I will post a picture later, when I'm on my regular laptop.)

Hmmm. It seems like I had a couple more updates from last week, but they aren't coming to mind and it's 9pm anyway. So that's all for now!

Working hard... at normal stuff.

Oh man, I am SORE!

I'm not really sure what wore me out today, though it was likely a combination of things. The baby spent a lot of time on my hip today because I was deliberately trying to hold and carry her around as much as possible. Our child-care situation is really wacky right now -- the baby spends a couple of days a week at a friend's house when I have to work. She is consequently getting less time with me, and she's been acting like she needs more mommy time. So I tried to give her extra time and attention today.

It helps that she let me sleep a (glorious) seven hour stretch last night. On Friday night she was up and down all night, and finally woke up for the day around 5:30am. Oh boy, I was not in good spirits yesterday. I was cranky, impatient, and unkind. (And I am totally ashamed of my grumpy, childish behavior.) Determined to get more sleep and be a better person today, I went to sleep last night at 9pm. The baby woke me up at 10pm, but went back down easily and slept until about 5:30am. Like yesterday she was up early, but unlike yesterday I was ready for her! It made a huge difference.

Nate got up with us at 6am. After getting dressed we put together a menu for the week and made a grocery list. We were out the door by 6:30am! Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not an early bird and that I don't like to do anything before the sun comes up. But nevertheless, there we were, making our two-stop grocery run. We arrived home just after 8am, unpacked the groceries, and then put the baby down for her morning nap. It was a strange but lovely start to the day.

We did our best to stay busy and productive all day. My awesome husband chopped a big limb off the (hideous) fir tree in our backyard. He used a chainsaw my dad loaned us last year, and it worked like a dream! He had the limb cut down and chopped into carry-able pieces in short order. I thought to take a picture but my camera wasn't handy, so I will have to capture our tree-limb-covered backyard and share it later. Suffice it to say, the backyard is a big mess.
Update (3/3/12): I took a picture today! Here's the backyard:

The tree-chopping occurred after the baby's afternoon nap. When daddy rocked her down and then took a nap himself, I went out in the yard to do some cleanup. We have a lot of ferns and bushes that did not get trimmed back last autumn (we were a little busy :o), so I spend an hour cutting off lots of limbs and branches and cleaning up weeds all over the yard. That is probably the other thing which made my back and shoulders so sore -- it's a lot of work to chop, chop, chop and then haul all that stuff onto the slash pile. At least, it's a lot of work after having been baby-focused for the nine months. It felt really good to be outside the house, by myself, and productively engaged in something physical.

I really wanted to do some pressure-washing (our driveway needs lots of love), but the weather didn't get warm enough until right about the end of naptime, and then Nate wanted to go work on the tree. So baby and I grabbed a front-row seat (from a safe distance) and watched dad with the chainsaw. Baby girl was enraptured by dad's labors. Rightly so.

Nate also mowed the front lawn. He carried the baby in the Bjorn while he mowed so I could make dinner. I have a couple of cute pictures and a video clip of them. (I had to take a break from cooking -- it was too cute.)

I mentioned that yesterday was a cranky day. The one good (no, make that great!) thing about my day was my niece. She took an hour-long train ride on Thursday evening so that she could babysit my daughter yesterday when I was working. How awesome is that? She's such a sweet, generous young lady. I am very grateful for her. We had a very nice time chatting on Thursday night, and then again after I finished work yesterday. Christine will come down again at least two more times (the next two Fridays) to help out. Our childcare craziness should be stabilize again in April, but who knows? Maybe my niece will want to come down once in awhile anyway?

Well, it's almost the magic hour (9pm), so I better wrap up. I have a few more thoughts on food that I would like to share sometime soon, plus a humorous post and an insightful post. With any luck I will have time this week for at least one of those three topics!

So until text time...