Hello, anybody home!? Life has been crazy over here lately. Update:
Me. I marched along the whole month of March until I got mastitis, again. Then I got it in April, May, and June, before I figured out the cause: candida (thrush!). Now I’m on a hefty dose of Diflucan and just laughing at the fact that the problem’s been right in front of me the entire time! So, I didn’t achieve my goal of getting a cute butt, but I did figure out why my boobs were trying to kill me. Can we call that a win? I figure if nothing else, these are all just more lessons in breastfeeding that I can fill my arsenal with and share later.
Nora. The babe turns one this week. ONE! How can this be? Wasn’t I just writing about her birth story?! Mercy. Babies don’t keep! Just this week we had a celebration with some friends and she just crawled over to a chair after her party and sat her fine self right down in it to read a book. Later she stood up in the middle of the floor. Tonight I was rinsing shampoo off her head and she stood in the tub and took a step. RUBBISH. What is with all this growing up? Signing, speaking, walking, adorable, precious little thing. I just can’t even with her. #needmorebabies
Claire. Smart as a whip, this one. Reading and expressing herself left and right. Threenager: I hate to say we’ve turned a corner, because Murphy’s Law comes back to bite me, but the Big Girl Jar approach to behavior monitoring has been helping. If not for her, for me: it helps me be more intentional about parenting with grace and commenting/praising good behavior instead of just disciplining the bad. Now that her baby sister is on the move and into all her stuff though, things are about to get rough. After having a birthday party where people brought gifts, this weekend has been filled with a lot of jealousy over wanting to play with the baby toys “because she’s not using them.” She’s also taken to sucking her thumb, which I’m told is normal for a 3 year old to start. I’m trying to ignore it but Y’ALL: TODDLERS ARE GROSS! They touch stuff all the time, bleh! Anyway thankfully she only does it when she’s tired. For a while it was nonstop, so I just gave her a silicone teething ring on a paci clip, and she picked out a “special” bird one and named them Bitey-Bird and Bitey-Bite, to chew on when she was bored, and that worked. The new rule is she can’t suck on her thumb without washing her hands and only at nap or bedtime. I don’t love it, because future me is afraid of dental work, but at least her naps are back. #praisehands
Us. This summer is BUSY for us. My husband has a big deadline for work the end of June, then moving offices beginning of July, and then we travel. We’re trekking up yonder to the North Country to see family, he’s flying back, I’m continuing on to the shore, trekking up farther north to see more family, trekking back, he’s flying up again, we’re going to a wedding, and then we’re all trekking back down south. Trekking, schlepping, caravanning: not a vacation, but a trip. We’ll call it an adventure, ok? Overstuffed car with two toddlers and half the east coast. Good times are a-comin’! We’re seeing their cousins and my cousins and both sets of grandparents; it’ll all be worth it. I’ll be gone almost 3 weeks, but I’m thankful I’ll have Jason’s company/camaraderie/solidarity for the 2 really long bookends: the 9-hour NC-PA beginning schlep and the 9-hour PA-NC ending schlep. I hope we all still like each other when this summer is over. I hope no one gets sick. I hope our families all still like us. I hope no one gets sunburned. We have another 2 weekend trips planned for August: one is a wedding with no kids (#thanksNana), the other is another (just our) family beach trip.
Life is blog fodder now, so I should have no shortage of things to write about when this summer is over. See you in September, I guess. Don’t forget about me, friends!
Church. This feels like a slightly weird thing to update, but we’ve been a part of our church for 10 years. We’ve got a building! First we met in a country club, then a movie theater for 8 years, and then a middle school for the last 2. Praise God for the new campus, new members, and new opportunities our building and facility will bring! The church became ours on June 10, and the new members of the old church joined ours. We’re finishing out the summer at the middle school while some facelifts and renovations are being done, and then we get to relaunch in late August/September. More here. If you’re in the Raleigh area, come check us out.
That’s it, for now. I’m working on a few posts on Cloth Diapering geared toward someone interested who’s not done it before, so stay with me.
How about you, readers? What are you up to these days?
