Piper is ONE

We'll hello there little blog! I've missed you!

I must admit that I was really quite determined to blog all about life with two littles after Piper was born. And here we are, an entire year after she joined this crazy thing we call life, and I've hardly any documentation to show for it. I mean, it's just a really good thing our doctor's office keeps track of her immunizations... and other than the fact that she's growing, I don't know much about her percentiles and all that jazz. I am hardly sure if I'm coming or going someways, let's be for real.

But sitting here in a quiet airport, sans children, I'm suddenly able to reflect a little. Maybe even put together a complete thought or two... {although I was up at 4am and am battling a cold, so don't get your hopes up too much!}

So. Piper.





She turned ONE almost a month ago. How did that even happen? She is so full of motion and life, and she keeps me on my toes... (Oh does she ever.)

She isn't walking yet, but she is a climber. Yesterday I walked around the corner to find her ON TOP OF Emberly's chalk table. Just sitting there. Eating chalk of course. She puts everything in her mouth. Dust, dirt, crumbs, leftovers, feet, the rubber stoppers on the door stops, me... Everything.

She communicates SO well already. She does a lot of the "eh! eh! eh!" thing while pointing, but she also signs all.the.time. She signs milk, eat, more, please, water, drink, outside, shoes, all done, and sleep on a daily basis... Among many others that come out here and there. She also verbally communicates dada, mama, Emmy (sounds like Emma), more, all done, oof oof (puppy), maaah (goat), ooo ooo (monkey), and many others that I'm spacing out at present. Her favorite, however, is "mama" and though it is flattering, it is also difficult to understand what she wants when everything she needs comes through in a nice little whiney "mama!" tone. :)

She isn't much of a snuggler anymore. Too. Dang. Busy. If I try to rock her before nap or bed she leans toward her crib and tells me "in." Yup.

She is still rocking the formula. I just can't seem to transition her. She is totally offended by anything cold, and I originally thought she had a dairy sensitivity... but this week I've mixed 1/3 whole milk 2/3 formula and she hasn't had any issues. So... Maybe it's in my head. Who knows!

Hmmm... What else?! She and Emberly love to giggle and make faces and noises at each other in the car especially. I think this is probably because Emberly cannot be sitting on her or tickling her face or attacking her in some other big sister way. Those moments make me smile, though they do feel few and far between!

A few of her favorite things:
- being outside
- green beans
- pasta
- climbing
- swinging
- Emberly and all things big kids
- sandbox

And so many more.

She hit 20 lbs on the nose fully clothed at the doctor the other day. I *think* that is the 35th percentile or something like that. She's still rocking mostly 9 month clothes.

Now I fear I'm rambling... So I'll quit. If you ever want to borrow her for an hour or two, let me know. :) {keeping her alive is pretty much what I do all day every day...}

Food, mess, clean up, repeat

Dear Life,

My life as a stay-at-home mom is many things. All kinds of awesome and rewarding while alternately being frustrating and draining, exhausting and overwhelming.

But today all I feel like I do all.day.long is feed little people, clean up the mess (and there's always a lot, even with the most basic snack... seriously. How do these children make a 4 foot wide mess with dry crackers?!? And Lord forbid I give Piper avocado or black beans or fruit! Ok I'm off topic...) and then I repeat.

And these little people don't have very big tanks. So to avoid the hangries (hungry/angry)... we eat all day long. Or so it seems. Breakfast. Morning snack. Lunch. Afternoon snack. Dinner. Bedtime snack. Sleep. Repeat.

I'm losing it, people. I'm kind of asking for advice. But I'm realizing there may not be an easier solution... It's just kind of part of the job. But. If I'm wrong and you are thinking to yourself, "I wonder if she's tried..." Or, "she should feed them..." Blah blah blah. Tell me :) please. For the sake of my sanity.

That's all.

8 weeks. Unedited.

I probably shouldn't blog when I'm crabby... but it seems like someone should know how miserable I'm feeling.  And well... the internet seems like a safe someone to complain to a little at the moment.

I printed off some calendar pages this morning and started marking down all of the "stuff" we are going to do to occupy ourselves while Jordan is gone Round 2.  He leaves on Monday.  This second round hasn't bothered me as much because I keep reminding myself that he is only gone six weeks instead of eight like last time.  That's 14 whole days shorter.  Piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

I started counting out the days, and it is in fact 8 weeks that he is gone again.  Eight.  Again.  Exactly the same as last time to the day.  How did I miss this before??

Anyway.  I did and I am crabby and I just want this part to be over. 

End Rant.

So Jordan leaves on Monday for 8 weeks.  He'll get home the day before my baby turns 3. :)  Then we will have about 3 weeks to pack up all things we deem necessary for living for 10ish months and drive to Texas.  We will live in a one bedroom {yes, ONE bedroom} apartment until February-ish and then move to New Mexico for some sort of other arrangements... who knows what they'll be.  {This is the military after all, let's not get too ahead of ourselves...}

In this time we will learn flexibility like none other.  We will no doubt be stretched far beyond our regular limits.  We will get to see new things and meet new people.  The girls will learn to share a bedroom.  We will learn to trust the Lord in a way that we wouldn't have to in the comfort of our own home with space and things and supplies and such.  We will start a homeschool preschool curriculum. 

Part of me is really excited.

Part of me is a little terrified.  I just can't quite wrap my head around the whole 22 hour drive to Texas thing with a one-year-old and three-year-old.  I need some help with this one.  The longest "road trip" we've ever taken was to Bismarck.  I kid you not.  That is not even 3 hours away.

And if I can't even wrap my head around the drive down there, how could I possibly envision living there for 5 months? 

OK people.  If you made it this far, I give you a gold star.  Because I've been kind of whiny, even after promising my rant was over.  So you must be a good friend to have read this far, and that means I need your help.  I need some tips, tricks, ideas, etc. for traveling with my two bambinos for a million hours in the car.  Snacks.  Activities.  Movies.  Anything.  Please help.  We own maybe 2 DVDs and Emberly is scared of movies that have any sort of action or plot.  We intend to buy a car DVD player... would love suggestions.  I wish we could check out DVDs from the Library, but alas, the whole returning them thing will be kind of tricky. 

I'm rambling.  You get the picture. 

Feel free to comment or PM me!  :)   
 

Forward Motion

I've been absent. I think I've literally been trying to soak up every possible moment with Jordan home that I can before he has to leave again.

We just spent the weekend at the lake. We got home this afternoon after half-naps in the car and my children started detoxing from the grandparent high. Parents know what I'm talking about. Where your children are so used to being held, talked to, played with, spoiled (in the very best and most sincere of ways)... and then you get home to bedtimes and rules and food that comes in the "take it or leave it" variety... it's harsh.

But it's 7:15 and Emmy has been freshly plunked into bed, and I'm currently rocking a very passed out Piper. It's like medicine to my weary soul. Sometimes being a mom is just plain hard.

You know, I think parenting looks kind of crazy to people on the outside. You choose to have these needy, helpless, crazy kids who do their very best to just suck the life out of you one demand, cry, whine at a time. They don't see the love behind it all. Let's be honest, sometimes I don't even see the love behind it all. I'm thankful for this picture though, it reminds me how I look to Jesus, offering absolutely nothing in return for His love... and yet I have it anyway. It is insanely humbling.

Anywho. Currently Piper crawls at crazy fast speeds and is literally all movement and no brains. She pulls herself up on just about anything and hurts herself getting back down just about half of the time. She sits at my feet with her hands raised in the air, whining for me to pick her up, and then as soon as I do, she digs her feet into my stomach (the one I have from carrying two bambinos for 9 months each, thank you very much), and cries and begs to be put down.

Emberly is just a bundle of emotion, motion, and words. She never stops singing or talking and she is always telling me about why some owie is hurting or why a rule that we are enforcing is making her "so very sad." She bounce-runs wherever she goes, and is day-time potty trained minus #2. Sigh, #2. I have literally never talked so much about bowel movements and urination in my life.

I feel a little bit like the day-to-day is on repeat. Like when you're listening to a good song on a CD so you hit the "repeat song" button and listen to it again and again. And pretty soon that song you loved is getting ordinary. Maybe even kind of frustrating or annoying. And I hate that. Because these little miracles are the farthest thing from ordinary.

Must be time to change the CD and ask the Lord for new perspective. I just plain forget sometimes. But looking at these beautiful faces, how is that even possible?

 

What do you do when you need new perspective?  

Crawling

Piper started slowly army crawling yesterday. She apparently needed daddy home before she'd consider movement. (Praise the Lord!)

Today she is all out correctly crawling. Look out world, I have two movers and shakers!





This morning during church Piper kept taking her pacifier out of her mouth and attempting to throw it on the ground (it was on a clip on her shirt). Then she'd say, "uh oh!" and laugh and laugh. She did this about a million times. She thought she was hilarious.

She also signs "milk" when she wants it, and then once she sees it laughs and giggles with delight. And says, "woooow!" and babbles a million other adorable little sounds.

Friday. Oh Friday.

I'm sitting on the couch, looking at chaos all around me. I *maybe* sometimes exaggerate the state of my house a little because it {feels like} it is a giant garbage pile... even if that just means there is a pile of dishes by the sink or something... but this is really bad. Pile of garage sale items by the front door, dishes stacked by the sink, two loads of (clean) laundry on the laundry counter waiting to be folded (and another load in the dryer), toys not yet picked up from the day, vacuuming definitely needed...

Sigh.

And instead of moving, I'm sitting on the couch... listening to Em sing herself to sleep (maybe more like listening to Em evade sleep)...

So today I took Em to see Uncle Mike and get a little checkup.

Be honest. Cutest dental pictures ever, right?

I might be a little biased. Anywho - she was a champ. Got to have a little ride in the chair, had Uncle Mike "tickle" her teeth, and left with a little Friendly Smiles stuffed animal. Then we hit Scheels. The day before the marathon. Not one of my greatest ideas, but not the worst. We saw fishies, spent some energy, and I bought myself a very discounted North Face jacket. Unfortunately the shopping and fun ended rather quickly when I realized I hadn't fed piper in 4ish hours and had no formula with. But still, it was a great morning.

Home. Lunch. Naps.

Then after naps we went downtown to hit Modern Textiles and swing over to the library. At 3:30pm. On a Friday. The Friday of Fargo Marathon weekend. Seriously, why did this not occur to me? Downtown was an absolute nightmare. The registration tents were in the grassy area beside the library. The library parking lot was 100% full. But people. I was committed. I had already told Emberly what we were doing, and un-doing that seemed worse than battling the crowd.

So we made it inside, played in the Wiggle Room, checked out books, and maybe even survived a {rather harsh) fall off a chair and into the corner of the play kitchen with her temple.

After making it around all of the marathon detours (with two crying children in the back) we decided Culvers was a necessary pit stop.

Dinner. Bath. Bedtime. Couch.

And that is why I am stuck here. It's actually kind of amazing I don't have a glass of wine in my hand.

It's 8:10pm on a Friday night and I am contemplating bed. Thankful for that option. And though this post is dripping in sarcasm and woes, it really was an awesome day with my girls. Learning to embrace the chaos is a lesson I believe I'll need to learn my whole life... thankful this is the way God decided he'd teach me.

Piper's Words

I keep forgetting to blog this, so here's my speed blog:

Piper signs "more" consistently and appropriately. She occasionally also signs "eat" and she'll mimic "milk" but doesn't seem to know when she wants milk to ask for it. When looking at a bottle, however, she will sign milk. I introduced "please" today and she did it once, after LOTS of prompting and help.

She also verbally says "uh-oh!" with all kinds of enthusiasm every time anyone drops anything... and she might just throw something over the edge of her tray so that she can say "uh-oh." She also has the sweetest little, "ooooo!!" that she whips out when you show her something new. She copies other sounds we make too and is pretty spot on with many, but we still hear lots of da-da, ba-ba, etc.

I think she's gonna be a talker (with lots of early verbals) like her big sister.

That's all!

Still no crawling!