May28

Grieving

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This Memorial Day weekend was rough for us. We miscarried our third baby. I think at the time the bleeding had actually started, I would’ve been about 5 weeks 1 day, by lmp.

I knew right away we were pregnant as my charting signs aligned right up with the symptoms I had with Amelia and Claire. So I knew by 4 dpo. And all the same symptoms I had started showing up around 5 dpo and got stronger as the days went on.  

I had taken a test last Tuesday – early, I know – but was shocked that a hint of a line appeared. I didn’t tell Fred about the test, but he knew about the symptoms matching up. I spent the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday locked in an intense battle with myself over whether or not to test again.  Which that in itself was a whole weird experience – not the faint positive on Tuesday, but the debate I was having with myself on the drive home.  I got an answer – test today and you will receive your answer – but I didn’t say it. And no one else was in the car with me. And it wasn’t my voice – sounded completely different – and it was in my head.

I’m surprised I didn’t get into an accident on 75N, hahahaha.  I was like “WTF, OMG, who exactly WAS that, I can’t tell if it was male or female, and this peaceful feeling is nice….” I’m such a nut, lol.

I got the stronger (but still faint) positive that afternoon and told Fred.  That was the final positive test.  4 days later I woke up in the middle of the night knowing something was wrong, all pregnancy symptoms were gone, saying something along the lines of “thy will be done”, and the baby had a name. Remington. A name that I had loved for the longest time – ever since I heard a little girl being called that (nickname Remy).

So in a way of speaking, I was prepared for the negative test that I got Sunday morning. But I still grieved. And Monday, when the bleeding started was rough. It felt like some really bad pre-labor contractions going on for half the day, while I passed the remains of what was left of Remy and his little home. 

Monday night was worse, as the really bad physical pain was over (went back to just normal period cramping and blood only) but I got slammed by the emotional pain again. I dont remember what happened – I know it happened after Fred went to sleep – but I know that I cried out for my mommy saints – St. Ann (Mary’s Mom), Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Gianna, and St. Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin who had John the Baptist) – and then I passed out. I woke up feeling peaceful and while the pain is still in my heart, the physical pain is gone.

I am grateful for the few weeks we had to be third time parents. I know Remy enjoyed the frequent Chick-Fil-A stops I made the last week we knew about him. Seriously folks, I was slugging down spicy chicken biscuits like it was nobody’s business! Fred said the last time I ate meat like that was the week we found out about being pregnant with Claire. While we are sad, we know that Remy is in a better place watching over us.

I know a lot of folks probably wont view this as much of a loss since it happened at 5 weeks, but Fred and I view that a baby is a baby at the time of conception. Remy was our third baby and he will always be. Fred put it this way – I have three children, but one is an angel.

I have been reading this prayer all weekend, and it’s been such a help for me and Fred:

My Lord, the baby is dead!

Why, my Lord—dare I ask why? It will not hear the whisper of the wind or see the beauty of its parents’ face—it will not see the beauty of Your creation or the flame of a sunrise. Why, my Lord?

“Why, My child—do you ask ‘why’? Well, I will tell you why.

You see, the child lives. Instead of the wind he hears the sound of angels singing before My throne. Instead of the beauty that passes he sees everlasting Beauty—he sees My face. He was created and lived a short time so the image of his parents imprinted on his face may stand before Me as their personal intercessor. He knows secrets of heaven unknown to men on earth. He laughs with a special joy that only the innocent possess. My ways are not the ways of man. I create for My Kingdom and each creature fills a place in that Kingdom that could not be filled by another. He was created for My joy and his parents’ merits. He has never seen pain or sin. He has never felt hunger or pain. I breathed a soul into a seed, made it grow and called it forth.”

I am humbled before you, my Lord, for questioning Your wisdom, goodness, and love. I speak as a fool—forgive me. I acknowledge Your sovereign rights over life and death. I thank You for the life that began for so short a time to enjoy so long an Eternity.

                                                                     — Mother M. Angelica

May23

What’s Been Going On…

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What’s been going on with us….

• First, the babies are not 20 months old and 6 months old like the sidebar says. Mia is 2.5 years old and Claire is 16.5 months. They’re so much fun.
• Life is no longer AS crazy as it was the first 9 months of Claire’s life.
• Still nursing Claire! We’re down to just 2 times a day during the work week, and about 3-4 times on the weekend.
• Somewhere between being pregnant with Claire, dealing with 2u2, and during my blogging hiatus, I went back to the Church (Catholic – born and raised). I feel a lot better and there’s been some changes going on in our house for good
• Fred and I are open to having more babies (before we started TTC #1, we said we always wanted at least 4). Though not sure how that will work with the unexplained primary infertility. I’m actually not sure how Claire even fits into that category. I’m not even sure how our desire to have a big family fits in with the unexplained IF. But we do know that we wont go back to the RE or even do any more fertility based treatments. All we have is God and my charting (we are not in a position to adopt yet – we want to be debt free with a bunch in savings first).
• First PP cycle happened in October (10 months after giving birth) and that and the second one was about 79 days long, no ovulation. First real PPAF happened in April (15 months PP), with ovulation, but LP was only 7 days
• Looks like we’re back to normal now – currently 11dpo, cd 30. Had a late ovulation, but yay that it’s happening again.
• Next month, our second to last debt will be paid off. That means that we could be debt free by Christmas. If so, then it would’ve taken us 2 years and about 3 weeks to pay off nearly $40,000. I so want to head over to the Financial Peace Plaza in Tennessee to do our debt free scream with Dave Ramsey soon after.
• Wasn’t able to run any of my half marathons. Things kept happening to prevent me from running. Most recent – I realized I had some injury after running 9 miles back in February. I had to wait to get custom orthotic insoles and was told not to run more than 4 miles until my foot stopped hurting and I got my insoles. So there went my half marathons in March and April. Right now the only race I have is the big one here in town – the Peachtree Road Race. But that’s only 6.2 miles. Boo. It’s ok though, right now, I’m having a hard time running this week – anything over ½ a mile is seriously exhausting. It sucks.

We are debating if we want to simplify our lives, as Fred puts it. I say downsizing. We’re in a house that we can afford just fine, but we don’t use the bottom half of our split level house for anything (which is a large bonus room, a full bath, and a 4th bedroom). We’re thinking about possibly selling soon (in the next 2 years) and getting a 3 bedroom house. Especially since the girls already share a room and love it, there’s no need for each kid to have their own room.  My sister and I shared rooms until I was 12, so it’s not a big deal to us.

There’s a lot of ish going on at work right now. Should be interesting…

 

That’s about it right now, gotta get back to what I was doing. Happy Memorial Day!

Aug20

Shutting Down for a While

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Y’all already saw this coming. I hardly blog anymore on any blog. Things are just that crazy.

I miss blogging, but having the energy to blog about what’s going on is just not happening. It’s easier to just follow my word vomit status updates on facebook, lol…twitter too, but those aren’t as frequent as on facebook.

The girls are growing like weeds. Claire is army crawling through the house (quite quickly too I may add), Mia started letting us know 3 weeks ago that she’s ready to be potty trained along with knowing most, if not all, the letters in the alphabet, and Fred is getting ready to try out for a new rescue team in addition to what he does now as a fire-medic (he hates that term, lol). I’ve ran 2 5Ks (36:14 and 34:54), and preparing for a 10k, and a new half marathon happening on Thanksgiving (training for that starts this week!).  I’ve gotten a temporary promotion at work, and am now in the process of getting that temporary into a permanent position (last part of the interview series is this week!), as well as establishing a mentor/protogé relationship, and pretty much just coming out of my shell in just about every aspect.

And in the midst of all this, we’re slowly unpacking our house from when we moved in over 3 years ago, and despite a slipup by me last month, we’re still headed towards our life of being debt free (now we’re halfway done, just about, yay!).

So with life getting in the way, some things just fall to the wayside. Blogging is one of them. But I’ll definitely post an update every once in a while. I just thought I should formally put something up, lol.

Thanks for everyone who has been here from the crazy beginning! I can’t lie and say I’ll keep up with the posts of others, since I dont even have time to read much anymore, but I’m thinking about y’all!

Jul17

Disney Princess Half Marathon

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I’m registered for it.  I’ve been registered for about a week already, just forgot to blog about it. LOL

My excitement over this race is ridiculous. I’m so excited I dont have enough words at my disposal to even describe. I’m starting to troll the Disney forums, I’m part of 2…possibly 3… Princess 1/2 groups on facebook – which is pretty cool in itself that I’ve found a group of gals in Metro Atlanta running it as well as a bunch of other races on my list of things to run this year and next year to meet, as well as meeting gals from all over the country – right now, we’re in the beginning stages of setting up a meeting either pre or post race.

Fred just laughs everytime this race is brought up. I seriously think I’m going to kinda freak him out once we get there and he sees the 5 year old in me that Disney brings out. He last went to Disney when he was 10 or something – so about 22 years ago. I last went to Disney a few years ago with my family and ran around Epcot like a crazy lady with my sister. I’ve already warned Fred that when I see Mickey, I’ll make the excitement that Mia gets when she sees Mickey or Elmo look tame. He pretty much laughed at the *big* decision I had trying to figure out what princess I wanted on my bib – I picked Rapunzel for the first one, because I just love the movie Tangled

Still trying to figure out costumes so I can look for the right colors/fabrics and test out running in it. Not sure if Fred is 100% convinced. Right now, I’m trying to talk him into going as Mr. Incredible and I go as Elasti-girl. Because he looks like Mr. Incredible and that would just be awesome, heehee.  

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Also knocking around the idea as going as one of Tinker Bell’s fairy friends (Iridessa or one of the Storm Fairies – I think her name is Glimmer), but I’m having a huge Tinker Bell obsession right now with Mia and Claire, and they will be faeries for Halloween and their birthdays (hey, why not recycle the costumes), so by February, that would probably be overkill. AND eventually I want to run the Tinker Bell 1/2 marathon in DisneyLand..

Anyway, in running recap. I’m halfway through week 5 of the Couch to 5K (C25K) program, and I’m loving it. Mom is doing it too with Dad, and she’s had to take a week off and is realizing how much she likes getting out and running too. Yay, Mom! My first race is in 2 weeks ::ahhhh!:: and it’s a 5K.

Jul13

Bia Needs Your Help!

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The First GPS Sports Watch for Women: Bia (www.bia-sport.com)

So I dont normally do this, but I’m excited for this watch to actually happen.

No, I dont know the creators or am getting anything from talking about the watch.

I am, however, in love with what this watch will do – hello SOS signal – especially for solo runs if my phone is acting crazy again. Plus I think it looks cooler than the rest of the GPS watches out there – and it’s not the whole “shrink it and pink it” like so many companies do for female products. See the link I posted above to read more. I found it through the Another Mother Runner website.

Anyway, the creaters have to get $400,000 in pledges before 2:59AM tomorrow morning or else the project wont happen. You can pledge as little as $1.00 and your card wont get charged unless the $400K goal is met.

Here’s the kickstarter link to read more and pledge:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/956860865/bia-the-first-gps-sports-watch-for-womenby-women

Jul7

20 Months, 6 Months, and Races

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So the kids are sleeping and Fred’s doing his run, so I have some free time (wow, what is that?) to actually blog again. And let me tell you, I totally miss blogging! I really have to figure out how to swing everything. For those who also read the blogger blog – stuff will be duplicate posts for a while (as if it already hasn’t been for the past 6 months or so).

Anyway, lets start with the kiddos:

Mia is now 20 months old. TWENTY MONTHS. Holy fricken cow. I can’t believe she will be two in four months. She’s acting like a full blown toddler now, and folks are telling me it gets worse during year three. I’m already having a hard time and we’re not even in year two yet.  It’s really crazy how my even keeled baby has gone to Jekyll and Hyde so quickly. She goes through about 2-3 meltdowns a day and anything can set her off – missing Dinosaur Train on PBS before bed, having to get in the car seat, having to leave the park (big one), not being able to get more fruit to snack on. Right now, aside from the park, the biggest one is getting her in the car seat. She loves facing forward – I put her in the front seat while strapping in Claire so I can make sure she doesn’t run off anywhere – but she’ll throw a huge fit and try to twist around when trying to get into her seat. Which is still rear facing. Fred and I decided to keep the girls rear facing as long as possible – which will be once they hit the height max for the rear facing convertible seat. I know for Fred’s car, she will be forward facing sooner, since that car seat is shorter than the one in my car.

The girls started daycare almost 2 weeks ago. As expected, Mia had a hard time adjusting. Friday was the first drop off day where she didn’t cry when I left. It was great!! And now we all have slight colds, so lol.

She talks a lot now, and parrots everything she hears and sees! So Fred really has to be careful about his language when the girls are up, and we have to be mindful of what’s on the tv while they’re up, even if we’re not watching the tv and it’s there for background noise.

Her list of favorites: 20 Months Old

  1. Claire (LOL)
  2. Duckie – goes EVERYWHERE, and no one can play with him/her except Claire
  3. Running
  4. Books – “The Paperbag Princess” and “the Hungry Caterpillar”
  5. Being outside
  6. Legos
  7. Building/stacking blocks
  8. Bubbles
  9. Puzzles
  10. Dancing
  11. Kicking and throwing balls
  12. Mangos

I’m getting better with figuring out her hair (YAY!) and it’s getting longer. From my research I’ve been doing on transisitioning to natural hair for myself, I’ve read a couple of books on dealing with naturally curly hair, and testing out those products/methods on Mia and myself (and I need to document the methods here). Right now, I find that the best way to do her hair is without brushes or combs and using my fingers to detangle and comb when it’s wet or damp. Then, while still damp, throw a ton of her leave in conditioner (Mixed Chicks line) in her hair and seal in the moisture with 100%  sweet almond oil or coconut oil and let air dry naturally. Her hair loves the almond oil better than the coconut (and olive oil). I will test out the new thing of grapeseed oil this weekend.

Anyway, according to the Curly Girl book and examining her head of hair, Mia has a mix of corkscrew curls, botticelli curls, corkicelli curls, and fractal curls. And then some spots that are straight and dry with no curl…until it gets blasted with moisture and they end up a mix between fractal and corkscrew curls. Yeah, that’s a lot of different types on the same head, which I found out is normal to have different textures on different parts of your head. Who knew.  Anyway, her curls sit up and sing with that treatment.

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ClaireBear is now 6 months old. SIX!!! She will be one in 6 months, good grief! She is such a happy laid back always smiling baby now. A complete 180 from the colicky baby who only laughed and smiled at me and tolerated no one else for so long. I’m starting to forget how hard those three months were.

She’s trying really hard to crawl now. Right now, she can only go around in circles, but she’s starting to figure out if she gets up on her knees, she can scoot a few inches. Though I have no idea how she’s managing to end up at the other end of her crib from where I originally placed her. Yup, you read that right. HER CRIB. She’s sleeping there longer periods now during the night, because 1) I can’t get restful sleep with her in the bassinet next to our bed and 2) neither does she and 3) she’s getting too long for the bassinet. Not to mention she’s beyond the age range for it. I just need to stop being lazy in the middle of the night for her dream feedings and brining her back into our bed until I get ready to go to work.

Her eyes are still that striking clear blue-gray with no change to the hue. So we’re thinking that’s what her permanent color will be. Still not much hair, but the longest strands she does have is starting to curl as well – not like the tight spirals and loops that Mia has, but into Shirley Temple sausage curls. Or at least that’s what it would look like if she had a headful of hair. Still not 100% sure of the color, because some parts are blonde, others are brown, and some are dirty brown.  At her 6 month appointment last week, she weighed in at 16lbs 5oz (65%) and about 28 inches (over 95%). Time to boost up the solid food intake now (I’ve been slack on this compared to Mia), and I’m thinking she’s going to be just as picky with this as she was when I was pregnant with her – remember the no processed food thing I was on the whole pregnancy because processed food made me sick??

She talks so much. Way more than I remember Mia doing. Or maybe she goes on longer than what Mia used to do. After the first 2 days of daycare or so, Fred and I kept hearing from the teachers about how chatty our girls are. And Claire is a loud chatterbox. She has a habit of putting her hands over your mouth as if to say “hush, I’m tired of hearing you talk Mommy. My turn”.

Favorite things: 6 months

  1. Mia (LOL)
  2. breastmilk (still scoffing at the formula until she gets hungry enough to take it)
  3. The “That’s Not My” series
  4. Sleeping in the jogging stroller during a run
  5. Computers, phones, any gadget with buttons
  6. Toys with buttons that light up
  7. Peas
  8. grapes
  9. Talking
  10. Dr Seuss books
  11. Stretching the curls in my hair and letting them bounce back
  12. Sitting up (she just learned how) and standing

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Team JinFred

We’re doing good. Still trying to juggle our schedules now that the girls are back in daycare and I have mandatory overtime again. It’s a lot harder with two, even though we’re doing the same thing as last year.

I think I’ve been running for about 6 or 7 weeks now. I totally love it. It’s a much better antidepressant than the meds I’m on, lol. I’ve signed up for 2 more races – it will be 3 more as of Tuesday, when the Disney Princess Half Marathon registration opens up. Fred and I are running as a team for that one. The other races I’ve signed up for are a local 5K (3.1 miles) at the end of the month – also with Fred – and for the Diva Half Marathon in Myrtle Beach, SC in April. That one is also my birthday present. I’m running that one alone, with Fred cheering me on somewhere along the course. It will be technically my first 13.1 mile race where I plan to run straight through. Because for the Princess Half, I plan to stop for certain photo-ops. Like with all the Disney Princes and the Seargent from Toy Story, just to name a few. Gotta come up with a costume for that one. Anyway, I’m on C25K week 4 and it’s kicking my butt, though I’m not sure if that’s because today I was running it with the jogger. If I still feel like this at the end of day 3, I will repeat the week.

I am completely drawing a blank on what else is going on with me right now and it’s late – about 10pm. And Father of the Bride is on, lol.  I will update more when I get another free moment to just sit.

Jun18

Weekend Recap

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Happy Monday???

I hope this weekend wasn’t too crappy for those still on their IF/adoption journeys. My weekend was awesome – because it was a totally active weekend – something that I really hope Fred and I can keep up with the girls until the weather says otherwise and I’ll have to reconfigure what we do on the weekends.

 Anyway, Saturday was my first run with the Black Girls Run! Atlanta group. They just started a Couch to 5K program for beginner runners, and it was the perfect timing, since I had just learned about the group and had joined their network through the official website and the facebook page. I love the message the group is about and how positive everyone is and how crazy supportive. So on Saturday, I packed up the girls in the Beastmobile (the BOB double stroller), and we headed off to run. The girls, as usual, ended up sleeping through the run. 

 

Once we got home, we gave Fred his father’s day present – a giftcard to a local running store, so he can get fitted for running shoes. So we went to do that, he got some proper shoes for his feet, and then we decided to walk up Kennesaw Mountain. Pretty much 1.1 miles of going up a winding paved trail. At the top we could see the whole  metro area – at least north of Atlanta – from downtown/midtown/Buckhead, to Stone Mountain on the other side of the metro, the Chattahoochee River… it was AWESOME. It was our first there at the top. We’re gonna climb Stone Mountain sometime soon.

 Sunday, we went to my parent’s house for my Dad’s father’s day. Where my sister ended up getting a sprinkler for Mia to run through, and that was a big hit. If you’re friends with me on facebook, check out the video. It’s hilarious. She thought nothing of getting sprayed in the face with cold water. At some point, I’ll take her to run through the Olympic Rings water feature at Centennial Park.

 

I really need to start blogging more – there’s so much random stuff going on that I want to put down and document. A lot of stuff going on with me as I figure myself out and actually carve out time and do things for me. So I think I will try blogging on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for now to see if I can keep up the schedule.

Stay tuned….

Not sure what’s up with the font change once I copied and pasted it from Word. But who knows.

Jun8

Random Updates

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Mia is now 19 months old and Claire is 5 months old. Crazy. Claire loves to stand (being propped up by someone) and she and Mia play together most of the day now. They go back to daycare at the end of the month.

At some point, I will do a blog makeover.  

Week 3 of running is coming to a close. I’ve changed training plans yet again. Lol. This one I like better than the C25K program due to the fact that it just says to run 2 miles at an 18:40 pace (18 minutes 40 seconds per mile). None of this running for 90 seconds walking for 60 seconds stuff. I found that way was very frustrating to me and it made my legs hurt during the whole ordeal. Now, I just go as long as I can until my body tells me its time to stop and start up. My only problem is that I can’t run at an 18:40 pace. I’m doing about a 13:30 pace and it feels super slow to me (probably because my body remembers sprinting, not long distance). With this new plan, I found I can pretty much run 5-8 minutes at a time before stopping. And it’s a 40 week training program. LOL!!!!

Sometime during week 2 of training (still was on the C25K program), I got knee tendinitis. It blows. But not as much as shin splints.  But under the new plan, my knees don’t bug me as much while running as they did previously. But I’m doing hip and quad strengthening exercises on my off days and will get properly fitted for running shoes this afternoon.

My eating habits suck something awful. Definitely need to fix that asap.  

I’ve decided to stop relaxing my hair (chemically straightening it with relaxers) and let it go natural. This will be quite interesting since I haven’t seen my unprocessed hair in all it’s glory since I was like 11. Plus I haven’t had my hair straightened since the day before Claire arrived (January 2nd) and that’s the longest I’ve gone without a relaxer.  I’ve got a ton of coworkers who have made the transition recently, and they’re helping me along the way. I’m not doing the big chop right now. Totally not ready or wanting to sport a teeny weeny afro. More info on that later.

Apparently the iphone 4 is coming to Virgin Mobile. Which is FABULOUS. Because since cutting ties with AT&T, I’ve missed my iphone, but not miss the crazy bill. So when I saw that later this month I can have my iphone but keep my $35 a month phone bill, I celebrated. So I may not be getting rid of my twitter after all…

Mandatory overtime is back.

We pay off our last credit card next week! The halfway mark of our beating down debt!

May27

21K Training: Week 1

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Ok, so I’ve been walking/running for about 3 days now. I’m following the Couch to 5k program to begin with, but I’m going to have to amend that for a little bit. 

Why? Because we just bought a BOB jogging stroller (Sports Utility model was on sale at REI) to tackle our super hilly neighborhood. Because we live on a mountain. And the graco duo glider we had died on the mountain, lol. Yeah, I know, it’s not made for that. 

Anyway. So far, I had one day of run/walk from the c25k program. And also died on one hill I like to call The Hill of Death. And was like WTF did I get myself into, lol. Because after the Hill of Death, there’s a ridiculous long incline up our street. I was ready to call Fred to come pick me up. But I was probably like a fraction of a mile from the house, and would never hear the end of it. So I completed my first solo 1.3 miles

This morning, we went to the back of the ‘hood with BOB, and avoided Suicide Hill – which is the worst hill in the neighborhood to walk up (which I did 9 months pregnant with Amelia, lol). Seriously, from this hill, you can see three or four skylines in the metro area. We walked down it, and part of the lower sections of the neighborhood. And I forgot when you go down, you must come up. Stupid law of physics. Or whatever law that is. Murphy??

The girls loved the BOB – Claire fell asleep in it almost right away. Mia called out every dog and car and bird that passed our way. My arms and legs are HURTING from pushing that bugger uphill. The handbrake is awesome for our ‘hood. It’s a great workout. We did 1.6 miles. I think for starting, I need to use the BOB on a flat surface to get used to the fixed wheel while walking, so we will hit up a few trails and parks that’s not so hilly to begin with. 

I know it’s only week one, but so far, I’m loving this. Not when I’m contemplating sprawling out in someone’s yard while trying to stop ragged beginning runner’s breathing and remind myself again, why the heck I’m going to run the Princess Half Marathon, am I freaking CRAZY, do I know that that is 13.1 miles?? and eventually I want to do the Iron Girl? What the heck???. But when I make it up our driveway (which is also freaking steep) and collapse inside the doorway, I feel good. Really good. I feel unused muscles starting to wake up and protest and eventually the aches and pains will go away.

Like I said. This is just week one. LOL!!!

May22

Half Marathons

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Guess what I’ve been doing for the past week…

Preparing to start training to run a half marathon in February. 

Yeah, you read that right. I’m going to run in the Princess Half Marathon at DisneyWorld in February. Fred is going to run with me and a bunch of my girlfriends. If you’re friends with me on facebook, you’ve probably already seen the status talking about it and the long comments underneath it. Between now and Feb, I will try to do some of the 5k races that are local (Atlanta) that happen in the fall. 

I start training tomorrow. I’m walking to begin with, because yours truly hasn’t been active since before Mia was born. And I haven’t ran in a race since I was about 13. I’m 28. I was on the track team in middle school. 

My reasonings for doing this besides the fact that I freakin love Disney – because I want to be in shape. I’m terribly out of shape when running after my toddler. It’s horrible and she knows mommy can’t keep up. I can only imagine how crazy it will be once Claire starts  walking. I get winded walking up and down my stairs too many times. It’s bad. Folks assume I’m in shape for how small I am (5’6 and 136lbs) but it’s the opposite.  And I probably should stop eating the crap I’ve been eating since Claire’s birth. 

And reason number 2: I need an exercise program I can do with the kids in tow. That way I have no excuse as to why I stopped working out. 

I’ll post more about this and my plans sometime soon.

May13

Amelia: 18 Months

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….And I’m a week late with this post, but it’s getting done, lol!

I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what to put in this, but there’s just so many things, I dont know where to begin. 

I guess I can start with statistics. The girls had their appointment this past Wednesday, and Mia is 34 inches tall. Which, for girls, is the average size of a 27 month old. So her percentile was listed as 795%. She’s weighing about 25 lbs and 3 ounces – finally, we broke the 24 pound mark. Weight has her in the 70th percentile. 

Side note: Claire is about 26.5 inches I believe, which is the size of an average 8 month old. I dont remember her exact height, but it’s somewhere around there. She’s also in the 795% for height.  Weight is right under 15lbs (80th percentile). 

Anyway, back to Mia.  Everything with her is just exploding. She can run quite fast, she recently learned to jump, and has found new ways of climbing onto/in to things by using other things to help, as well as taking things apart or figuring out gadgets (like the remote or a cell phone/cordless phone).  She tries to climb and balance on everything – including people. She can somersault on her own, kick a ball, throw something, and climbing/descending stairs is a work in progress. Along with catching a poop or pee in the  toilet. She will purposely do something funny for laughs (or laughs at something funny), and will get upset at you very quickly if you let Claire cry too long. 

Elmo is requested all the time, and she never goes anywhere without Duckie, a stuffed yellow duck with psychedelic flowers on it. I really need to get back up Duckies.  Her vocab is just crazy; she is literally learning a new word just about every day, and new letters are showing up as well. Like “Elmo” used to be “el”. Now it’s actually “El-Mo”.  Claire is now “Laire” with the “c” showing up every so often.  Mia used to be “Ma-Ma” but now is sounding like “Mah-Uh” and “more” used to be “mmoh” but is now “MMMMMoooooore”. 

She doesn’t say no too much at this stage now…not like how it was a few months ago. She likes the word “yay!” complete with arms up cheering. When describing moods in a book, she can look sad and mad really, really well (probably should make a note of that). Her favorite books right now are “One Duck Stuck” and “The Paper Bag Princess”.  The favorite foods of this month that I can remember – crock-pot minestrone, steel cut oatmeal (so far she likes it with raisins, cranberries, or apples), and lemon-blueberry pancakes.  

She helps out quite a bit, unless something distracts her, like bubbles, birds, or music. She loves those three things and will get all excited about it. She’s gotten pretty good at utensil using…when it doesn’t take too long to get the food in her mouth. 

I don’t even think I’ve scratched the surface trying to remember things that she is doing right now. I probably just need to blog about it closer to when it actually happened, as opposed to waiting until around the 7th of each month to post about it.