Scrapbooking with Cricut

Very excited by the newest edition to the Cricut family, the Gypsy. Check it out through another blogspot blog at cuttingabove.blogspot.com. They're giving two away, but likely if I don't win, I'll have to buy it anyway.

I find it hard to believe my blog is still here. After almost 2-1/2 years, here it sits in cyberspace.

The babies in those pictures? Not-so-much anymore. Bear, my "little mommy" started Kindergarten this year. Kindergarten, actual school. She's still a little mommy, but now that baby doesn't figure he's a baby so much anymore and doesn't see how he needs more than one mother. As far as Booboo is concerned, one mother might just be one mother too many on a lot of days. Belle is so ready to be bigger (she did finally get taller, but her hair still refuses to grow much) that she occasionally has crying jags because she "wanted to be born first."

Probably, I'm feeling sentimental and that's why I'm drawn to this blog again. Probably, it's because I have one more belly bean I'm hoping to add to this world. Should all work out as planned, this will be my last pregnancy, my last newborn, my last entrance into new-motherhood. The sickness is making a slow exit, but I really think it's starting to leave me. Sciatica kicked in yesterday, but today isn't too bad. Will you be taking this ride with me? Are you out there at all?

When did you get so BIG?


It never ceases to amaze me how quickly these children of mine are growing. It's easy to see how Boo boo is growing and changing physically and even mentally. He has morphed from a blob, that was a (rather large to begin with) newborn baby, into this 5 month old who can roll over, reach for toys and practically sit up. He has two teeth that made an appearance somewhere in his fourth month, much earlier than I expected. Everyone says what a happy baby he is and really I agree, mostly. The thing is, he has these moments, or hours as the case may be, where he's just so not happy. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for said unhappiness. He just starts fussing and crying and no amount of love or distraction is going to cheer him. When he's like this I spend my time alternately holding him or sitting him in one of the many infant entertainers I have at my disposal. Of course, then I feel guilty that I'm not just constantly holding him. Other than these fairly rare occasions, he's got the biggest, happiest smile. Do you remember those smiles? Where they smile with their whole body? Everything gets in on the act, legs, arms, fingers, head, etc. His mouth opens wide and sometimes he'll even giggle.

I've watched him grow and change, yet every day, I look at him and wonder when he got so big. When did he lose the pinched newborn face? When did he get an opinion about which toys he prefers or which end of the bed he'd rather have his head on (closest to the door)? How did it happen that we had to move everything chokable out of his immediate vicinity? Why do we have to strap him into everything lest he kick his legs and arch his back to get out of it? This is really not my most favorite age. I love the newborn baby who lets me do whatever, whenever. I love the 9 month old to about 18 months stage. They can get around and can entertain themselves for short periods, but they don't yet talk back, nor do they care whether they do it "myself". No, the entertain-me-constantly age is not my favorite and yet I find myself just thoroughly enjoying him. He's a flirt and a charmer. Those eyes look at me and I almost melt. When he can start reaching out to me I'm a goner.

Then there's Belle. Not only is she starting to do everything "me ownself", but she's actually doing it pretty well. She's quite the comedian without trying to be and I wonder when the moment was where she started to be able to make mental connections that were just so far beyond her only a couple of months ago. Physically, she is showing the least change. I think that she may be in size 2T until she goes off to school and now that we've had her hair evened out, we may never need to cut it again. I just can't find any apprecable physical change in the last four to six months or so. She has, however, figured out just the easiest way to get Bear in trouble and she is playing at a higher level. Just recently she has started demanding to choose her own clothes and don't even think about doing her hair unless she deems it appropriate. She's had a language explosion and now speaks in nearly complete sentences. Not that she always remembers to use her words, but we're getting there. One thing that I love is that she has figured out how to help, actually help. She can pick up toys and put them in the right spot, she can get me a towel or a diaper and can follow directions to throw things away and bring her dishes to the sink.

She's very much a two-year-old still. There is whining and a tantrum here or there. Even though she's getting good at doing things, it still takes forever to get them done. This is where my patience gets a run for it's money. I struggle between her need for independence and my need to get out of the house before evening rush hour traffic starts. Here lies the grass-is- always-greener dilema. Just weeks ago I was praying that she'd figure out how to put on and take off her own shoes and now I wish she'd just let me do it. We potty trained in June, because it was going to be so much easier not to have two sets of diapers to change. It is easier (and cheaper), however, now along with getting up to feed Boo boo twice a night, we (read usually I) get up at least once a night to accompany Belle to the bathroom. She wakes me from sleep, screeming as if someone were pulling her fingernails out one at a time. It seemed like a good idea.

Then there's Bear. She's going through a growth spurt (again). This will be the third one in a year. How do I know there's a growth spurt at our door? She's eating like it's going out of style and her legs hurt. Apparently one of them is hollowing out. Her face is gradually changing from toddler/preschool girl to growing up little girl. A nose and chin and cheeks that are taking on a true shape. Her hair grows daily, I swear. It's the mental changes that really get me, though. I can actually have a conversation with her now. One that not only makes sense, but is truly interesting. We can discuss what happened at daycare and I'm not left wondering how the dog made it onto the roof anyway. She's working hard at figuring out right and wrong and where her place in the family is. There are certain things that are easy. It's okay to jump in the jumper, not okay to jump in the bed. Then there are the murkier areas. Can one jump off the bottom step or how about the fourth step? Is it okay to eat the cereal under the couch? We struggle with tattling and what counts as tattling and when it might actually be okay. It took quite awhile, but she can spell her name, even recognizing the letters out of context and she's almost got Elly's down. The most exciting thing on our horizon is her entrance into preschool in a few weeks. I'm so happy, I could just cry. On the one hand, she's going on a new adventure and will be learning and growing and doing, but on the other hand I feel like I'm sending a baby (I mean a literal baby) to a world I don't get to be fully a part of. It's going to be great.

Sleeping is the topic of the week...

Sleeping like a baby is a classic cliche that doesn't mean what it at first appearance seems to mean.

Have you ever noticed how the people who are getting enough sleep don't worry about sleeping at all while those of us who are sleep deprived will spend a significant portion of our day figuring out how to get more sleep (when the baby goes down, when our spouse comes home, while Dora's on)?

Booboo is my sleepless baby. He has no pattern. The only thing that seems to be even a little consistent is his wakefullness, which generally comes in about 3 hour stretches. Usually. Other than that, he may sleep for 20 minutes or 2 hours. There are no clues I can use to determine which stretch this will be. One might naively believe that if he slept for 20 minutes at his last nap, then he might reasonably sleep for 2 hours at his next one. One would be wrong. Maybe. Conversely, I could assume that his next nap will be a short one since he slept for 3 hours at the last nap, only to have him sleep another 2 hours.

There are days I will try to keep him awake until 7pm or so, afraid that if I don't, then he will be awake at 5am or another equally awful time. He will regretfully fall asleep at 6:30pm when no annoyance will keep him awake and then he'll sleep until almost 9am, waking only once to eat. Or maybe only 5am. Other nights I might go through our bedtime routine three times before he finally falls peacefully asleep at 9pm. The he wakes at 11pm and 1am and 2:30am and 5am. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he sleeps straight through until 7am. Except I wake at 1am and 3am and 5am to make sure he's still breathing.

Bear was a wonderful sleeper. She napped at 10am at 1pm and 5pm, for about an hour at each of the two morning times and a half hour at the evening time. When she went to two naps, they were at 10am and 2pm for about 1-1/2 hours each. However, to this day, she wakes at about 6:30am. Sometimes we can convince her to go back to sleep and sometimes we can't. There was the wall kicking that would commence when she had decided she was ready to get out of her crib. Then there was the wallpaper border fiasco when I realized she needed to go to one nap. Other than waking at the crack of dawn, she's a great sleeper.

Belle is a good sleeper also. She never had the luxury of three naps since she has a busy older sister. The poor baby had to move to a single nap each day at somewhere around 11 months. Trooper that she is, it has never phased her. She is the child that can skip a nap entirely for days on end and I'd still be happy to be around her. I have recently come to suspect that she occasionally wakes up her sister in the morning, but have no proof to support this. Potty training has really thrown her for a loop as she now wakes at least once a night screaming that she has to go potty. Not yelling or calling, but truly screaming in a manner that makes you think someone might be torturing her.

All of this to say that I'm wondering how long one can survive on 4 or so hours of interrupted sleep?