Well, if this weather would ever decide what it's doing I think that our sinuses could finally settle down. Elsie is having a hard time. There's lots of boogage in her nose. She didn't sleep very well last night because she couldn't breathe through it, only her mouth (and so, guess who else didn't sleep well?), and when we woke up this morning she had schnotskies in her hair! Ugh. At 4 something, after I had been up with her an hour earlier, Eli got up with her. She was not happy--screaming, etc.--which makes the mucous drainage situation worse. So, I got up and we tag-teamed her with the blue ball of nasal doom. And while she didn't like it, she did sleep again. And so did we, for about an hour. Eli got up in time to get ready to go to Bible study, but when I woke up at six-thirty (when the study starts), he was still in the shower, comatose, so he completely missed Bible study this morning. And then I was running way late. And the day continued on just like that.
Tonight was our Women's Christmas Party at church and I had the pleasure of designing card-making activities for the ladies. I think they enjoyed it a lot. It was a cookie swap, but this week has been so hectic that I didn't make cookies for it (the irony is that the cookie swapness of it all was partially my idea). I did, however, get to come home with a baker's dozen of various holiday treats. Yum. I know I had a great time watching everyone be creative. There's just something about card-making that is cathartic. I munched on cookies and sipped on cider and helped people who wanted it (and maybe some who didn't...haha).
So, as promised, I completed the New York stage in Mafia Wars on Monday, Elsie's 7-month dodecaversary*. I sent all my great weapons and loot to friends who asked, and I deleted my account from FB. Not as promised, I still have a CastleAge account. I'll probably drop that by the new year. In the meantime, I have been thinking about what kinds of things I can get accomplished while my family is here the week after Christmas. One task I would love help on is fully transitioning the spare bedroom into Elsie's room. She'll be moving around soon enough, and that's just not a safe place for a mobile baby. I also have about a crudzillion totebags full of randomness that I need to just sit down and sort through, but that will probably require heavy amounts of moral support (I'm addicted to totebags almost as much as I am to piling junk). And time to sew up some summer dresses for the little miss. Get a Hobbly Lobby coupon and go get some cute fabric. I have several patterns from an etsy store called Whimsy Couture. And the front closet, which is supposed to be a coat closet but is really more of a place to pile boxes that contain piles--that needs to be cleaned out.
So, I have six more school days until Christmas. Pray that I don't snap. I haven't complained about work this year because--surprise!--there's almost nothing to complain about. But this week has really tested my patience. On Monday, I thought I might just like a good cry to get it out because that's what I did last year, but then I remembered that last year I was pregnant and hormonal, so maybe it wasn't as bad as I remember...nevermind. It was.
On that note, I'm going to sleep. Thanks for tuning in.
Cheers!
*I made up a lot of words in this post. I feel like I may have accomplished more than Bill Shakespeare in the creation of newfangled things to say. What a night!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
7 Months
Okay, I admit it. I'm backdating this post. Yesterday I was having issues with the computer and couldn't log in.
So, Elsie is now seven months old! No way! Every month I am more and more amazed at how quickly she's growing and how quickly the time flies.
This month, Elsie has become a solid sitter. She also has been getting up on all fours and rocking, but that's about it. She's very mobile in that she can roll and scoot all over the floor. She thinks it's absolutely hilarious when she ends up under the coffee table.
As far as solids, she has tried rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, and prunes. She likes to eat. And she also has been eating way more than I am able to pump. This means that my frozen stores of breastmilk have been diminished severely in the last three weeks. We are down to only three 2.5-oz. bags--three weeks ago I had over 30 bags in the freezer. Part of this is that Elsie had been sleeping through the night with maybe one waking. Then the weather changed, and she has been waking up every 2-3 hours from being cold. I have ordered some wearable blankets to take care of this and am impatiently awaiting their arrival. Because Elsie has been eating more during the night, there has been much less milk available at my first morning pumping. Used to be I could pump 7-8 ounces in the morning. Now I'm lucky if I can get four. It's very depressing. On top of that, Elsie was eating 6-2.5 oz. bottles a day, and then increased to seven. Yesterday J sent a note saying that Elsie ate NINE bottles. I can't keep up.
After the winter break, we're going to set J up with a high chair and a feeding schedule for solid foods. In the meantime, we will probably have to supplement with formula. I know this isn't a big deal in the overall scheme of things. It's just different. Up to this point I have been able to pump enough. Now I'm not.
So, that's it for an update. If I were to guess, I would say that she topped 17 pounds this month.
Love her to pieces. She's just so darn adorable.
Cheers.
So, Elsie is now seven months old! No way! Every month I am more and more amazed at how quickly she's growing and how quickly the time flies.
This month, Elsie has become a solid sitter. She also has been getting up on all fours and rocking, but that's about it. She's very mobile in that she can roll and scoot all over the floor. She thinks it's absolutely hilarious when she ends up under the coffee table.
As far as solids, she has tried rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, and prunes. She likes to eat. And she also has been eating way more than I am able to pump. This means that my frozen stores of breastmilk have been diminished severely in the last three weeks. We are down to only three 2.5-oz. bags--three weeks ago I had over 30 bags in the freezer. Part of this is that Elsie had been sleeping through the night with maybe one waking. Then the weather changed, and she has been waking up every 2-3 hours from being cold. I have ordered some wearable blankets to take care of this and am impatiently awaiting their arrival. Because Elsie has been eating more during the night, there has been much less milk available at my first morning pumping. Used to be I could pump 7-8 ounces in the morning. Now I'm lucky if I can get four. It's very depressing. On top of that, Elsie was eating 6-2.5 oz. bottles a day, and then increased to seven. Yesterday J sent a note saying that Elsie ate NINE bottles. I can't keep up.
After the winter break, we're going to set J up with a high chair and a feeding schedule for solid foods. In the meantime, we will probably have to supplement with formula. I know this isn't a big deal in the overall scheme of things. It's just different. Up to this point I have been able to pump enough. Now I'm not.
So, that's it for an update. If I were to guess, I would say that she topped 17 pounds this month.
Love her to pieces. She's just so darn adorable.
Cheers.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Picture Pie
So, I had the camera out to take pictures of Elsie's shoes and ended up taking more pictures. I guess that's easier to do when the supplies are handy and there are batteries all ready.
On Thursday night I went to a retirement party for the librarian at our school, and I thought I would be coming home to a hungry screaming baby, but instead I found this:
Then yesterday, I wanted take a picture of Elsie's new shoes, sure, but more importantly the cute blue jacket she's wearing belonged to my niece...about eleven years ago. I remember when Elsie was born I thought that she would never be big enough to wear it. Ha! Now I can't remember when she was ever small enough not to. So, the picture below, she looks like a little boy, but she was looking at the camera without making a silly face.
Then, when we came home yesterday, we had a package from Julie that was full of good stuff. At first Elsie was just interested in chewing on the box, until I unpacked it. We played on the floor with the blocks for a while. You'll notice Timmy in the background wondering what this stuff is.
Uh-oh!
And in the box was a beautiful winter dress that was perfect for Elsie to wear to our first middle school dance last night. We put a bow in her hair and some patent leather shoes on her feet and went dancing!
On Thursday night I went to a retirement party for the librarian at our school, and I thought I would be coming home to a hungry screaming baby, but instead I found this:
Then yesterday, I wanted take a picture of Elsie's new shoes, sure, but more importantly the cute blue jacket she's wearing belonged to my niece...about eleven years ago. I remember when Elsie was born I thought that she would never be big enough to wear it. Ha! Now I can't remember when she was ever small enough not to. So, the picture below, she looks like a little boy, but she was looking at the camera without making a silly face.
Then, when we came home yesterday, we had a package from Julie that was full of good stuff. At first Elsie was just interested in chewing on the box, until I unpacked it. We played on the floor with the blocks for a while. You'll notice Timmy in the background wondering what this stuff is.
Uh-oh!
And in the box was a beautiful winter dress that was perfect for Elsie to wear to our first middle school dance last night. We put a bow in her hair and some patent leather shoes on her feet and went dancing!
Whoops. Left the pacifier in the car.
And finally, the in-laws came through last night on their way to Atlanta for the SEC championship game today, and we went out to dinner. By this point, it was way past Elsie's bedtime. Haha. Look how mesmerized she is with her paci clip. Stuck awake.
I'll probably have more pictures for you for tomorrow. We're putting up a Christmas tree today at some point and inviting people over to watch the game. Should be lots of fun.
Cheers.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Obsessive what?
Okay, okay. Here are a couple pictures of Elsie. The first one shows off her awesome shoes made by my friend Misty at Misty's Blessings. Tomorrow E's going to wear the red ones to show J. The second one is my hungry caterpillar chewing on The Hungry Caterpillar rattle/teether. So, my blog header went from one caterpillar to another. Check out her mint green velour jogging suit.
Two funnies for today:
My students were talking about obsessive compulsive disorder amonst themselves, you know, as if they're experts on the topic (which some may be, and it wouldn't surprise me). They enjoy telling each other that they're OCD about various things. So, yesterday, as some of my students were putting up stickers on our Team Peyton reading chart for Scholastic, someone skipped one of the numbered spaces. The next person went and put her sticker in the empty space to make it all look right again. The boy behind her said, "Man, you're ODD." She asked, "What's ODD stand for?" His reply? "Odd."
I overheard this exchange as we were getting ready to line up for lunch and it really made me laugh. :) But not nearly as much as the kid who bent over the water fountain today to get a drink, but misjudged where the water would squirt and got his eyebrows all wet. An advanced student, I might add. This, my friends, is why I still have a job. :) (FYI -- You should turn the water on and then lean into it and not the other way around, in case you didn't know. Just sayin'.)
Surprisingly, that wasn't my second funny for today. The second one came from a news story on NPR about troop reduction in Afghanistan, talking about how if they reduce troops and then the commander turns around and immediately asks for more manpower, that President Obama will have a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment. Took me a minute, but I had to laugh.
Surprisingly, that wasn't my second funny for today. The second one came from a news story on NPR about troop reduction in Afghanistan, talking about how if they reduce troops and then the commander turns around and immediately asks for more manpower, that President Obama will have a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment. Took me a minute, but I had to laugh.
Okay, enough of that. Time for bed.
Cheers.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Cleaning out my time
I mentioned in a previous post about my addictive gaming personality. I've been playing Mafia Wars on FB since this summer. The game really has no objective and no way to win. So, if you can't win, why play? I don't know. It just seemed like a challenge or something, but it's getting old and it's getting in the way. So, I decided that once I master New York, that I'm done.
Lucky for me, a few weeks ago, the makers of the game that are always adding new content decided to have a Big Apple Week where you could earn twice the experience and twice the loot. As a result of this adventure, I am about a week away from mastering NY, when before I was about two months away. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is me publicly exercising a little accountability. Even though I've been working on it for months, when I meet this goal, I will be deleting my MW account, as well as my CastleAge account (another game that is also futile), and I will be paring down my friends list by deleting MW- and CA-only friends. And while I'm in the mood for profile cleaning, I think I'm going to delete students from the past and high school/college people who I didn't even really know all that well anyhow but were wanting to see my profile.
And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to unpack more of my children's books and read to Elsie more often. There are days when I feel like even though she's only seven months old (almost!!) that I'm already missing out. When she was a helpless babe (lump) and needed/wanted holding, I could think about 100 other things I wanted to be doing, which is why I enjoyed other people holding her. When she was asleep, I wanted to either sleep (or play around on Facebook), now I wish that I had paid more attention to her and held her more at that age, watched her sleep and "treasured all these things in [my] heart."
It's just something that's been on my mind recently.
Cheers.
Lucky for me, a few weeks ago, the makers of the game that are always adding new content decided to have a Big Apple Week where you could earn twice the experience and twice the loot. As a result of this adventure, I am about a week away from mastering NY, when before I was about two months away. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is me publicly exercising a little accountability. Even though I've been working on it for months, when I meet this goal, I will be deleting my MW account, as well as my CastleAge account (another game that is also futile), and I will be paring down my friends list by deleting MW- and CA-only friends. And while I'm in the mood for profile cleaning, I think I'm going to delete students from the past and high school/college people who I didn't even really know all that well anyhow but were wanting to see my profile.
And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to unpack more of my children's books and read to Elsie more often. There are days when I feel like even though she's only seven months old (almost!!) that I'm already missing out. When she was a helpless babe (lump) and needed/wanted holding, I could think about 100 other things I wanted to be doing, which is why I enjoyed other people holding her. When she was asleep, I wanted to either sleep (or play around on Facebook), now I wish that I had paid more attention to her and held her more at that age, watched her sleep and "treasured all these things in [my] heart."
It's just something that's been on my mind recently.
Cheers.
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