Swing sets & Smiles

Joy is watching my daughter experience the swing all by herself for the first time.  She leaned all the way into the front panel of the swing...

....and swung back and forth.  Back and forth.  No crying.  No laughing.  Just thoughtful concentration.

With a little coaxing, she decided that this set-up was a-o.k.  She whipped out the sweet baby cheeks and it was time to have fun!

 Dang, it!  She is sooo cute!  We even tried out the rest of the  playground, but it wasn't built with wee-ones in mind.  We gave it a go anyways.

Bottom of the slide, anyone?

I love her, "Yup, here I am..." face.  It makes me giggle every time :)


Afterwards we made the long trek back home - it's about a 3 minute walk, so I'm sure you can sympathize.

Lastly, a little blogger quiz!


"Four Things"
Four TV Shows I Watch:

• Mentalist (he's hunky)
• Top Chef
• GLEE!!
• How I Met Your Mother (gut puncher on that last episode)

Four Things I’m Passionate About:

• Rosanna
• My transformation (my family is counting on it!)
• Friends (still actively learning how to be one)
• My body (loving/hating it)

Four Things I Learned In the Past:

• Communication is the key to everything
• Accountability will change your life
• Right now- and now.  Wait, now.  Now- is all there is.
• Pregnancy lasts forever while you're in it, and seems like just a blip now that it's gone.

Four Things I’m Looking Forward To:

• Teaching Rosanna about everything!
• Rosanna's first birthday
• Date night(s) with Ethan
• Making a Tahoe trip happen with my peeps

Four Things I Love About Winter:

• Hot baths
• Down comforter
• The feeling of moving from cold outside to warm inside
• Fireplaces

Blam!!

One! Two?

     Today I am thinking about number 2.  No, not that number 2!  The second child.  Every few days something happens to make me think about it and today is one of those days.
     I may have said this before, I can't remember, so I'm going to go on as if I haven't.  Here goes:  I am scared of having another kid.  It is the same kind of scared I had when deciding to have Ro.  The decision to get pregnant went like this:

We're not ready.

What does "ready" mean?

Do we have enough money?

How much money is enough?

Are we ready to give up our twosome-ness?

What if I resent the baby for taking up all my time?

     That last one was my own, all the rest were shared with Ethan.  Eventually, as I assume you've derived, we decided to go for it.  The thinking was that "ready" might never happen.  We would find ourselves graying and finally saying, "We're ready!".  Oops, too late.
     So here I am, thinking the same exact thoughts about Rosanna's possible sibling.  The difference is that in the previous scenario, I knew I had to have a baby of my own.  Today's scenario finds the previous statement fulfilled.  I don't have to have another baby.  I am supremely happy with my one.  I could live on feeling my motherly urges satisfied.  However, we always said that we at least wanted two.  We always said that siblings were important to us.  Not only that, but we wanted the two of our children to be close in age so that they could be playmates and confidants.  This looked like me getting pregnant when child number one had their first birthday.  A quick look at a calendar confirms that said time line will require a pregnancy in the near, near future.
     So here we are.  It's not that I don't wanna be pregnant, I thought it was quite the magical time in my life (with the exception of early nausea).  The fate of my current miracle is what troubles me.  I love what we have going on here (these are the same words I said to my husband before we conceived) and I don't want to resent the new baby for messing it up (hmm, sounds familiar).  I don't want my relationship with my daughter to suffer because I have to split my time tending a newborn.  And what of my "2nd child" theory?  It goes something like this:  #2 doesn't get the undivided attention like #1 had (and how could he/she?  It wouldn't be possible) so #2 causes 'problems' in their life.  For example, they are difficult, troublemakers and act out as a result of their #2 status.  This is no one's fault, a single child is the recipient of all the parents' attentions, two children can only occupy parents' attention as long as the other one is willing to be still.  It a rough draft of a theory, and I would say that I am full of crap, except I can think of plenty of examples.
     I want to wrap this up with a final thought.  Having another kid also ups my chances for heartache.   It's a subject I can't think about with out tears streaming down my face.  Upon seeing my baby's face for the first time I was overwhelmed with fierce love simultaneous with "what have I done?".  The "what have I done?" part refers to the realization that I couldn't live without her.  That if I hadn't had her in my life, I wouldn't have so much to lose.  More children=more to lose (don't get me wrong, I'm not lost on the fact that they ADD so much).
     So I implore you, what are your thoughts on additional children?  What is your honest experience?  I don't promise to follow your advice, and I would love to hear your perspective (especially if you are the parent of 2+).
In the mean time, here is my #1 girl

Perfect moments

When my daughter was born I thought, "She can never change, she is so perfect in this moment."  Her sweet squished nose,

 her tiny little body,

 and her amazing steel blue eyes.

I would have done anything to keep her in that newborn baby way.  I love, love, loved my tiny Ro.  

Then, weeks later, I was looking through pictures of her from the day she was born.  I was aghast at how she had changed!  Already, my tiny Ro was a bigger Ro, and I didn't want her to change.  She was perfection.  Beautiful, 

exploring, 

zen-like, 

hilarious.

And this realization repeated itself every few weeks, each time I would swear that this is the stage of her life I am loving the most.  I would pray that these moments would last forever, or at least fly by a little slower.  I think this speaks to just how fantastical our little munchkin is.  She is making every moment worth living.  Have you seen her walking?  Well, she is.  She's pretty proud of herself too.  Have you heard her laugh?  It's the purest form of joy that I've encountered.  

So I suppose what I'm trying to say is, I love this stage of her life.  I don't want her to be the big oh-one (less than two months away).  I want this moment to last and last.  I've learned that in her life I'll always be in that special moment, but I can't help but pre-mourn that this time will pass.  I'll settle for being thankful that I get any moments at all.  

New car, I mean, van.

It's done. 
Find the perfect guy?  Check.
Get married?  Check.
Buy a house?  Check.  (Lose a house?  Check.)
Give birth to a gorgeous child?  Check.
Buy a family mobile.....check.
You know it.  We took the plunge.  I'd forgotten how nerve racking executing a large purchase can be.  It's such a commitment!  My brain inundated me with anxieties.  What if we find a more perfect car for the right price next week?  What if we are settling for this car and I hate it?  Etc, etc.  I finally had a good talk with myself and came to the conclusion that this van would do just fine.  It was clean and perfect and had all the things we wanted when we said we needed a new car. 

Here she is, in all her mini van glory!

The DMV

Recently it was my birthday.  Don't worry, I'm still in my twenties.  For now *sob*.  This is the year my license expires.  I've been remembering/forgetting about this fact for a week or so now and today I jumped on it. 

It all started last night when I looked up what our Roseville DMV's hours are.  FYI, it opens on Thursdays at 8 a.m.  So I set my alarm for 7:30.  My goal: be there when they open to minimize the DMV experience.  A noble goal, yes, however at 7:30 a.m. I was not as convinced I need to execute this game plan to it's fullest potential.  My child was still sleeping and I'm sure you've heard the age-old saying, "never wake a sleeping baby".  So I had to sleep in some more.  It was the right thing to do.

She woke up around 8 and we got to the DMV at 8:30.  There was virtually no parking.  I was rethinking my decision to let sleeping babies lie...  Not only that, there were loads of people inside.  Ugh.  I got my number and my form and sat.  Rosanna kept me busy by helping me fill out my form and wriggling around to scope out each person sitting near us.  She's pro at making new friends.  The best part about our trip was the automated voice that called out who was next to be helped.  You know the kind, "Now serving number g-zero-two-nine at window five".  My kid, she is so awesome, she heard that as her cue to show off her moves.  Every time the voice would come on, she would do her head bob, body shake to the 'music' of the lady's voice.  I wish I was able to find the happiness in unexpected moments like she does.  I love her!

I purposefully brushed my hair and did a quick make-up job before I left the house because I knew I would be getting a new picture, what I didn't know was that I would be taking a test.  Yup, a written test.  With a baby.  I had one of those moments, while reading the questions (I could only miss 3 and still pass) where I was sure I knew the answer yet two of the options seemed viable.  I could see myself, arguing my point to the test-corrector person.  I'm sure he would LOVE that.  I was victorious though, only missing 2 and sparing the lovely DMV worker a debate. 

Cross your fingers for me that my picture turns out nice.  I even made sure I was stretching my neck up to create the illusion of only having one chin.  Nice. 

Here are a few holiday pictures for your sweet tooth!

Heaviest.  Popcorn.  Ever.

"Pick me up mommy"

Us!  You don't see many of these lately...

Sweetie

Super holiday pic

10 Months

My baby.  My sweetest love.

 
We brought home a sweet little lump of a baby only 10 months ago tomorrow, and yet we can't seem to remember what our life was like a year ago.  A year ago I thought I knew what it was like to be tired, but a baby on the outside is a new kind of tired versus a baby on the inside.  I knew it would be that way.  When I was pregnant I always told people that I was excited to meet her, but I wasn't in a hurry because it sure was easy caring for her on the inside.  Boy was I right. 

Her birth-day was the most exciting, exhausting and utterly overwhelming day of my life.  My mother and mother-in-law held my legs while I pushed and they both started to cry when they saw her head begin to show.  "She has so much hair!  It's dark!  Oh, my!"  I was so together until then.  Tears.  I was more motivated than ever to see her for myself and yet I couldn't imagine meeting the person that was making me a mom.  I cannot articulate the feeling of going through labor and then meeting the person who is has changed your life forever.  I knew her already, we'd had months of faceless interaction and honest conversations about my fears.  Holding her was a different story.  My body was vibrating with love, bursting with a fierce desire to protect her from everything and everyone. 

Ten months later, nothing has changed.  And everything has changed.  She has gone from a helpless lump to an outrageous character who is threatening to walk any day.  I am endlessly amazed at the transformation she has undergone in less than a year.  What an amazing amount of growing!  Not to mention she has grown a personality that stops people on the street.  And in the store.  And in restaurants.  We are never with out eyes on us, she goes through life making others happy.  And I get to be her mommy. 

We really can't fathom that we ever thought we were busy.  Was there really a time before baby when I felt like I couldn't get housework done?  Was there a time when I felt like I had no time to keep up on the laundry?  I had no idea how much time I had, I had no idea!  And I would never go back.  Children really do kick life up a notch.  I never knew such purity like that of a baby.  I highly recommend them.

HAPPY 10TH MONTH ROSANNA RENEE!!!

Bring it.

     Tonight's night was a good one.  I got the house in enough of an order that I felt ok about having people over to sit in our living room.  Then we got to it.  The Joyful Living Group is really amazing.  I am crazy excited about being involved with this group of women, we are really onto something here.
     I love that people came out tonight, drove from (in my opinion) good distances and I love that I learned something new about people I already "knew".  I also love that I had my balloon popped a few times.  You know the one, the one that forms ideas and opinions about other people based on....well, my own whatevers.  POP!  POP!  I love to hear it pop.  That's the sound of barriers being broken down and people coming closer together.  That's the noise of the wall that I put up breaking away.
     I cannot wait until January 6th.  That is when I will see them all again.  Those lovely women.  I am sure I will see most of them before that, however it's the room that holds the possibility- that is where we will make dreams happen, love reignited and goals realized.
Bring it.