Little Voice
A couple of weeks ago, we were out and about somewhere, yelling to the heavens to hear our echoes.
Addie says “MOM!!!! Can you hear my Little Voice??” She had discovered her echo and named it. It was adorable and I wanted it to last forever. We can just call it Little Voice until she’s 40, right.
So then, the other day, we were out in our woods – sidebar: we have a logging/forest management company out there clear cutting a pretty massive space to allow sunlight to actually reach our house and keep the property significantly warmer /endsidebar – checking out the newly cleared space, we were yelling and listening to our Little Voices.
I said “Addie, do you hear your Little Voice??”
And she says… with a slight air of condescension:
“Mom. It’s called an Echo.”
In other news, my mom has been here visiting for 2 weeks and she leaves tomorrow. Wahhhhh – I’ve really enjoyed her stay and I don’t want her to go 😦
In other baby-related news, Elsie tried out some avocado for the first time yesterday. She was mostly smashing and wiping it across her little table – actually I’m not sure any of it was actually consumed. But it was fun!
We Halloweened all week and that was great. Elsie was Skeloise, Addie was some sort of dark Fairy Queen, and I was her fairy friend. My mom wore a masquerade mask and Addie said she was a Halloween Stick.
Lastly, Elsie took her first ride in the fancy grocery cart car thing. Like a real kid. Addie was beside herself with joy.
Pics!
Skeloise
Skeloise and the Halloween Stick
Fairy Queen
Fairy Queen and her Woodsprite Friend
OMG
Just two girls on the town, in their car.
Sprite
Fairy Queen, Woodsprite Friend, and some sort of overalled gnome.
My mama and her little grandbabes.
GRATUITOUS NEW RUBY MUGS PHOTO!
Mom and the girls
Me and that one little babe
Addie’s current hobby/obsession: Face Painting
It looks good right? She made me “a butterfly”
I made her spritely again.
First food/avo adventure.
First food fallout.
Blog Revivalism
I’ve made several attempts at reviving blogs. Turns out I’m just bad at it.
But, now that I’m working regularly, I’m going to try to just start off my work days with a little blog post. Mostly to keep track of what my girls are up to.
Last blog post here, there was one kid. Now there are two. Eloise is 5 months old and SUPER RAD.
Here’s her latest:
Sitting.
Sitting herself up from lying on her belly.
Rolling all over the place
Almost crawling.
She’s suddenly ticklish and cackles when I blow on her belly.
Also, she’s the cutest thing ever. And she loooooves her sister.
Which brings me to Addie. She’s 3 now and basically the sweetest kid ever. Lately she:
Cleans house with out being asked (sweeps the floor, wipes the counter, throws garbage away, folds laundry). She loves being a big sister – she helps with diapers, helps Elsie play and sit up and keeps small toys and things away from her. She’s learning the alphabet and numbers, she’s starting to write and draw things that are recognizable. She loves water slides and swimming. She decided to be a Fairy Queen for Halloween and wore a black, gothy fairy dress with black wings and I did her make up: smokey eyes with some designs across her forehead, and she carried a pinwheel as her magic wand.
I’m sick right now with a sinus infection (gross), and she’s been making sure I have a blanket, food, tea, hugs, asking if her efforts are helping me to feel better. ❤ ❤ ❤ She’s super great.
Here’s to more blogging and less facebooking.
d.
NW Citrus
The PNW doesn’t really do citrus. And we’ve been on a local foods bender. We have pretty much bought all of our food locally this year with very few exceptions. Salt. Coffee. Coconut oil/flour. We did a ton of food preserving as well. Products not obtained locally were bought directly from the producers as often as possible. Cheese. Maple syrup. Olives.
We bought some olive oil from a family farm in Nor Cal. Chaffin Family Farm. They also do satsumas. I bought a box and they shipped it up. That’s the best we are going to do with citrus sourcing. They are SO GOOD. Pumped.
I’m back. Again.
I tried to do the Tumblr thing. Hated it. I’m going to make an effort to post on here with some sort of frequency.
In a nutshell:
We moved to Seattle a year ago. It’s awesome. Jared’s job has him traveling the world, and the deal is that when he’s gone I can either go visit family or friends, or have people come here to visit. Two weeks with a toddler, alone, is exhausting.
I’m still working from home. Business is good! I feel very fortunate.
Addie is amazing. I think my desire to post more often sprung out of her crazy development spurt in the last 2 weeks. She climbed a ladder at the children’s museum and put herself down a slide yesterday. Today she said “Please”.
The vocab so far: uh oh. wow. no. please. hi. bye bye. muah (blows kisses). mama.
She is the most awesome and I am crazy crazy in love with her.
More to come.
xo.
Aerosmith <3 Co-sleeping
I was lying awake in the middle of night staring at my sweet, smiling, sleeping babe thinking “I don’t want to close my eyes, I don’t want to miss anything.”
Then, “Damn, that would make a great song.”
Then… “Wait, I think it is a song.”
Looks to me like Aerosmith wrote a sweet, sweet song about mamas co-sleeping with their sweet, sweet babies.
“I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
Far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Well, every moment spent with you
Is a moment I treasure
I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
Lying close to you
Feeling your heart beating
And I’m wondering what you’re dreaming
Wondering if it’s me you’re seeing
Then I kiss your eyes and thank God we’re together
And I just wanna stay with you
In this moment forever, forever and ever
I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing”
Tears. Who knew Aerosmith would sock one to me one day. *sniff*
Farm Baby Blog
I started a blog in November to act as a pregnancy/parenthood journal. I posted in it twice while I was 5 weeks pregnant, then forgot about it. I revived it last night and will be posting all things Adeline on that blog instead of infecting this blog with the baby virus.
Should you care to read about Addie’s adventures and milestones, I’ll be posting obsessively here:
Since I’m 6 weeks behind now, I spent the evening starting from the beginning and catching up. I’m about half way there.
Oh and,
She keeps farting really loud and it cracks me up.
Independence
The last few nights, Ads has woken up at 3am and wanted to hang out. For hours. She’s just awake, doing bicycle legs, smiling, chit chatting with the ceiling.
She sleeps in our bed, on my side so her well meaning father, who sleeps like a rolling log, doesn’t smother her or break her arms in his sleep.
I can’t sleep with her wiggling and grunting all night beside me, so I’ve found myself trying to rock her back to sleep on my legs, drug her to sleep with the boob, pat her belly back to sleep (she loves that). All to no avail. Then the sun comes up and I look and feel like an old hag.
I had been using our Arms Reach cosleeper for a few things:
Dumping grounds for clean laundry
Keeping baby blankets and towels hung over the sides for easy access at night
A barricade against the bed in case Ads suddenly rolls over
But she has yet to actually sleep in it. Or even nap in it or spend any time in it at all. So yesterday I cleaned it out, put it up against the bed properly, and got it all ready to be used. At 3am. When baby wants to wiggle around incessantly.
Well, last night 3am came and guess who was bright eyed and ready to wiggle. I put her in the cosleeper thinking that a few minutes in she would get uneasy, because she wants her mommy and she misses being right next to me. Right?
What a sad sap I am.
She loved the damn thing. She was bicycling, cooing, giggling, smiling, chit chatting. Ooh, and the coolest thing that she couldn’t stop looking at: the long tag on the boppy that was hanging over the side of her cosleeper. Fascinating. (Also, my phone just auto corrected “boppy” to “bologna”. Awesome.)
I watched for about 20 minutes as she had the time of her effing life. Then, according to the plan, which was going almost too well for my comfort level, I went to sleep.
I woke up what felt like HOURS later, but was probably 15 minutes, and she was happily drifting into sleep land. Still smiling. So sweet. So not needing to be with me. Little brat is 5 weeks old, just needs a little space sometimes, apparently.
Now really, this is fabulous. I slept, uninterrupted, for 3 hours. I slept completely under the covers for the first time since she was born. (Ha, weeks ago I even cut half way down the front of a sweatshirt so I could stay warm and easily nurse in the night.) J and I snuggled! Magic.
It’s awesome that she can sleep on her own and put herself to sleep. I feel like my friends who have made efforts to achieve this spend days or weeks letting their kid cry it out and practicing sleep training, etc. I had a feeling this one would lean naturally toward independence.
I woke up after 7am. That’s after the sunrise, btw. She was sweetly making her “I’m hungry now” noises. I fed her, and now she is asleep on my chest.
Ha! Sleeping face first on my chest. Her forehead is on my arm.
All is right in MY world again. But she is probably feeling like I’m crowding her space.
Traveling Family
We took the babe to Seattle for a few days. Brave, right?
I had a work thing, and Jared always has work in Seattle – so up we went, with our 5 week old nugget. I got to take her to my work stuff, and she was perfect. She slept a lot, and just hung out quietly a lot.
On Wednesday, she and I went chocolate tasting with my co-workers, then we went to the EMP/Sci-Fi Museum. It was pretty awesome. I’m feeling proud that her first Sci-Fi experience happened at 5 weeks. My dad raised me right on Marvel cartoons and Twilight Zone and other assorted sci-fi flicks. Actually, he took me to see the Fly at the drive-in when I was about 5… in retrospect that was probably a moment of poor judgment, but I’m sure it has helped shape who I am today. I’m hoping I can do the same for Addie (with out scaring the bejeezus out of her).
Addie hits EMP
^ Yes, Addie wore our admission sticker on her back. What a champ.
Clearly, she was alert and enjoying her time at the museum. She got to see the Space Needle too. And by “see” I mean “sleep while I walked by.”
Us and Jake Sully
Our trip was three nights, each night in a different place. She was awesome. I got decent sleep, she maintained her typical night time schedule, and totally didn’t freak out or have some sort of stress induced meltdown. Did I mention that I think she is awesome? We stayed at our friends Louie and Becky’s house, with their 11 month old little dude-let Charlie. I held Charlie and later almost cried about it. He’s a giant. A huge monster baby person… and Addie will get that big some day too. And that is sad for me to think about right now.
The second night we stayed in a hotel and Addie was silent the entire time. I was worried that she would suddenly have a fight of loud crying. Nope.
Third night was in Olympia with our friend Jess and her mom, Claudia, and 4 dogs, a cat and a bird. Addie was fine. Strangers holding her? Cool. Dogs slobbering her? Cool. I was really impressed actually with what a natural mama Jess was. She doesn’t have kids, but I was really excited about how she was with Addie. Plus, she and her mom and Addie had matching outfits.
Three generations of stripes
Then she and I both slept the whole drive home. Meaning that Jared drove all the way like a champ. Love him too ❤
Girl’s Date
Addie and I just had the best date. Love her.
First we took a couples bath. She learned that as I held her floating belly up, with her feet toward my belly, she could kick off of me and I would woosh her through the water and back to me. We did that over and over for about 15 minutes. She was thrilled. I was thrilled.
I even managed to wash her whole body, get her out of the bath, into a new diaper and clothes – all with no crying.
Again, thrilled.
Then we went outside and took a 90 minute nap under the cherry tree with Finn, the eldest greyhound. Perfect!
Ahh, I could have every day be like today and be a perfectly happy mama.
❤
5 week old little gremlin baby
Ranch Life 