Random

Realizations from the weekend:

Well, we braved going to lunch/dinner yesterday (at 4:30 p.m.) with Little Bit. My dear husband asked me if I thought it wise and I told him we have to be able to leave the house at some point in her life. LOL I mean, come on, one early evening dinner can't be that bad right? Well, it wasn't horribly ugly, but was by no means nice. We just don't have a content-to-sit-there child. She wants to be all up in the action all the time. I know what everyone says, if you just keep putting them into the situation they will get used to it. Well I will tell you that we have braved the car seat MANY, MANY times and there is no getting used to it. I am the one that comes out conditioned. Conditioned to learn ways to deal with a screaming child wherever we go from the time the engine starts to the time the engine stops the majority of the time.

Realization one: We have to live with her dislike of the car seat. Okay, I get it!

Second, to the stroller. We have tried wheeling it into the restaurant or wherever we are going so that she has her own space, but her space (where she is happy and doesn't feel the need to exercise her lungs in displeasure) is in our laps standing up and climbing on us like a jungle gym.

Realization two: My lot in life, maybe only temporarily is to be Little Bit's jungle gym. I am fine with this. It is the only time she likes to cuddle... if you call that cuddling. I mean I am just glad she wants to be close to me. :)

This brings me to...
Realization three: My daughter only likes her stroller if: you are carrying her and she is pushing it for you OR she is being strolled outside.

I assure each of you that I have not knocked the idea of eventually they will learn to like it before I tried it. It just seems that it takes longer than 6 3/4 mos. to learn to like it. Trust me, we will keep trying. I would LOVE to have her grow to love her car seat and stroller.

Realization four: We only have one more weekend together in this house. We will be learning to make a new location "home" in a week and a half. Please pray for our transition and for Little Bit's journey in the car as she will be spending a lot of time in her car seat and stroller at the end of next week.

I don't remember if I blogged about it or not, but when she and I went up the night before my hubby was to report to his new job we had to wait around after we dropped him off to check him into a different hotel because the rates had not been established and the hotel we were able to stay at the night before had no availability anyways. Well, that next morning we woke her up at 6 a.m. and dropped him off with his superior at 7 a.m. and she and I had to brave it in the car until 3 p.m. Well, you can imagine how that went. By 9 a.m. I had pulled over 5 times, the last time being in a neighborhood where I knew no one. I parked at the sales center and got out the stroller and took her for a walk. We ended up getting in and out of the car an upwards of 10-15 times that day for my sanity. I thought a child would wear themselves out by screaming, but she has my go-getter energy. My friend Carolyn calls me the energizer bunny and BUDDY, SHE JUST KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING. She gets it honest!!!

Love you Little Bit. You are my energizer bunny sunshine! How can I work that into the song?

Realization five: Her favorite song is "You are my sunshine."

I have been singing this to her since she was born and had to use it on Saturday. We were going to a church function and she started wailing on the way so I started singing, at the top of my lungs, "you are my sunshine." Yes, picture it if you have to. Poor Devin, my friend Anna's little boy, thought I was nuts as he was in the car with us. BUT, it made her stop crying. Every time I stopped singing she would start crying again.

Realization six: She understands more than we give her credit for.

She really does understand us most of the time. I have realized over the last few weeks with her crawling and pulling that she is into everything all the time (which is why naptime is especially precious time for me now). Well, you know the "aanh" noise we make to our children? We all know it, the "no ma'am, you can't get into that" noise that is only one syllable instead of a kizzillion. Well, it works with her. She even pays attention when I do it to the dogs to make sure she is not doing something Mommy doesn't approve of. It sometimes takes 3 aanh's to get her to crawl away, but I seldom have to physically remove her myself. She will just go find something else to climb on/play with. Praise God for this! This enables me to travel more than 5 feet from her while she is awake.

Realization seven: Our baby monitor has a cord.

So, we have a video monitor that had been conveniently (for us) propped up on the corner of her crib so we could watch her at night. This Saturday during her "nap" I flipped it on as I went upstairs to get dressed for our church function and thought it was broken... it was just flashing images. Well, I ran into her room to witness her chewing on the antenna. I took it from her and moved it onto the floor until I could come back to mount it on the wall. So, we remounted it, all is well and we can see her (not as well though) again. Problem here. I told this story to my mother last night and she told me a story about a baby who had wrapped the cord around his/her neck and died. So, I have been back and forth about 8 times to "check" even though I had tacked the cord firmly to the wall out of reach (for now) of her little arms.

Realization eight: With this move comes giving up control.

We are having our moving company partially pack us as my husband is gone and aside from nighttime I can't just focus on packing without hiring a sitter of inconveniencing a friend (The same one I inconvenience every time I need help- I hope I make her feel as comfortable as she makes me feel when I have to leave my little one with her- Thank you Anna in advance for watching her next Wednesday and Thursday! We love and treasure you more than we can ever say!). I would usually not allow anyone that I don't know very well to touch my things and definitely not trust them to pack me. I am a bit of a control freak for those of you who don't know me well.

Realization nine: Blogging is a source of stress relief for me for two reasons: it keeps me from receiving emails requesting pictures and updates which frees up my time and it is sort of like a journal for me... a place to get things off my mind so I can be free to move on.

Thank you Shea for getting me started.

Realization ten: When my baby is ready to eat and is hungry, she will.

She has been eating two jars of baby food plus her cereal plus a few 4 oz. bottles a day. This is a drastic improvement from the last month. I think she just wasn't hungry! Now she is. This is like her pigging out! She is just a little baby. I have come to terms with that.

Realization eleven: She is growing up so fast that I am already getting prepared for the days we can bake cookies together and make crafts for daddy.

My idea book is growing weekly. I can't wait... or maybe I can. I love this age so much!