Moving!

My blog is moving! The new address is http://www.alifelessordinary307.blogspot.com Hope to see you all there!

Sweet Dreams

Precious Lord, take my hand
lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home.

I just sung my beautiful baby angel to sleep. Precious Lord, take my hand. It may seem like an odd way to sing a baby to sleep. But it's how my mom sang us to sleep.

Abby is growing to look more and more like Bella. But they fall asleep so differently. Abby goes to sleep very suddenly. One moment she is all wiggling arms and legs, turning her head side to side, sucking on her pacifier as if it holds her last drop of sustenance....the next she is suddenly still...she turns her head to the side and takes a deep breath, her passy falling out of her half-open mouth, and then....sleep. You can almost feel it, that magic little moment when her dreams begin.

Bella is another story altogether! Once she has finally decided to surrender and stay in the bed, she lays on her back and plays with her fingers, or her glow-worm, or whatever toy she drug to bed with her. After a while she will lay it down, and yawn, and toss and turn a little. Then she'll lay very still for several minutes, just letting her eyes wander. Finally, they will close, but she's not there yet. For some reason, just before she falls asleep, she smacks her little lips. (they are shaped exactly like her daddys!) When I hear that sound, I know sleep is very near!

I always feel relief when they are both asleep...I think: "I can get things done!" I do dishes, I pack diaper bags, I tidy up the house. Maybe what I should be doing is watching them as they sleep, listening to each precious breath, remembering what a miracle they are. Thanking God that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.

After all, why should the angels have all the fun?

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. Psalms 91:11

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, I survived my first day back at work! I can't believe it came so quickly.

To be honest, I never dreaded the job itself. I love my office and my co-workers, and 90% of our patients are wonderful. The other 10%...well, that comes with working with the public!

The worst part was just trying to get both of them ready and out the door in the morning. Bella isn't too hard, I give her some chocolate milk and toss her in the car with her pj's on. But she still has gear to take along. And I have to get dressed, which luckily doesn't take long 'cause I am most definately a low maintenance kind of girl. Somewhere in all that Abby wakes up to be fed and changed, then we all load in the car!

Nighttimes are kind of like morning in reverse: haul everything/everyone upstairs, change out of my scrubs, then dinner, baths, pick up the house, pack diaper bags for the next day...etc.

The most challenging night of the week is going to be Wednesday, I can see that already! We go to church at six o'clock for a meal and then fellowship. This week it was after nine o'clock when I got home! And Abby (who gets held a lot a church, of course!) had slept all evening. I finally got her in bed at 12:15. Luckily, Thursday is my last day of work for the week.

That's right, I have every Friday off! Jealous, aren't you? I have to admit it's one of the reasons I chose the profession- most dental practices are closed on Friday. I figured no nights, no holidays, work 8-5, and have a long weekend? Sure, I'll be a dental hygienist!

Most people's reaction when I tell them what I do is ,"Isn't that gross, digging in people's mouths?" Probably not nearly as gross as it was about twenty five years ago, when they didn't wear gloves yet! Actually, I can handle anything from the neck up! Now urology, thats gross...

Wood you look at that!

Last week we accomplished one of the biggies on my "Home Improvement To-Do List". Kenneth (with a little help from Bella!) pulled up our very light colored carpet and padding, then pulled up a million staples. Okay, maybe not a million. But a lot. Kudos to him.

Then we had Darren Shelton come over from Erwin and lay our hardwood floor! I was SO excited! I was especially excited because in order to clear out the living room, we put our kitchen table in Abby's nursery, and moved the couch, loveseat, end table, and coffee table into the kitchen! The computer desk and t.v. went into Bella's room, and we just took our old entertainment center apart and pitched it! So the house was a wreck. Trying to navigate my kitchen reminded me of a show I saw on Discovery Health about people who hoard...

I put Bella in bed with me for a couple of nights because I was afraid she'd get up in the night and run into the extra furniture in her room. So for a couple of days everything was topsy-turvy. It took Darren and his guys one day to lay all the hardwood floor, then they came back the next morning for about an hour for the finishing touches and to lay the shoe molding. The result was fantastic! I am absolutely thrilled!

The only downside is that between ripping out carpet and putting down new floor, my house was covered in dust! Mom came and helped me get rid of some of it, she even swiffered the living room walls! Then she and my friend Jess helped me move most of the furniture back. ~I did invest in felt padding for the bottoms of all my tables, chairs, etc!


Bella "helping" her Daddy take up the carpet...

Hmmm, the plywood is awfully nice...maybe we should just leave it?

Ahhhhhhhhhh....looks good enough to roller skate on. Just kidding.

Yay! I'm so happy with my new floor!

Our next project will begin in a couple of weeks, we are finishing a 14x14 room in the basement. We will also finish our basement stairs, lay carpet, and take off the door to the stairway so it opens to the rest of the house. This will be Bella and Abby's own personal Toy Land! Fisher Price, Playskool, and Matel have staged a coup and taken over my living room- I can't wait to reclaim it!

School Daze...

Since before Arabella was even born, I dreaded the day she had to start school! I told myself "It'll be a long time, she doesn't start school till she's five!" Well, time has flown by and she will be turning three in a couple of months. I know that before I can turn around, it will be time for kindergarten.

Honestly, the thought of sending her to public school makes my stomach knot up. It's not that I have anything against public schools...the theory is great...kind of like socialism, and we see how that turned out. And I know there are wonderful teachers out there (one of my best friends is one of them!) and wonderful kids. I don't harbor a secret fear that inside every school system employee lurks a gun-toting pedophile. (But they are out there.) I don't want to move to a commune and live like Laura Ingalls Wilder....although shoot, if every problem in life ended like an episode of Little House on the Praire it might not be a bad idea.

But I do want to protect her, and make sure she learns the things that are important, and from a Godly standpoint. And I don't think that happens in public schools.

Now we get to the difficult part: I work full time! Or at least, what's considered full time in the dental profession: four days a week. Monday through Thursday, 8a.m. to 5p.m. For a long time I thought my home-school dream was totally out of reach.

Now I'm not so sure. I believe where there's a will, there's a way!

So since it isn't financially possible for me to stay at home (right now, anyway- but all things are possible!) I'm really considering just working around my work!

Which would leave us Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for school, and then if we worked a couple of hours on Monday and Tuesday evening, I believe we could cover the necessary curriculum. It would be difficult, for sure, and we would have to make a family commitment to make it work.

So right now we are discussing it, and I am going to be praying about it, and ask the Lord to lead me in the right direction and open doors for us!

Change is coming!

So, there are some changes on the horizon for the Edmonds family! First and foremost, I'll soon be returning to work. Next week is my last week of maternity leave. I dread going back- not because of the job itself. I love my job, and I have awesome co-workers. But I do dread leaving my girls, and the general chaos of getting two little ones ready and out the door every morning. My twelve weeks off have flown by!

Another change we are making is to our house. We had hoped to be able to get some land in Erwin, and move over there. It would have been convenient since I work there four days a week, we go to church there, and most of our family is there. Lord knows it would've saved us a fortune in gas money!

But, as is so often the case, it didn't work out as we planned. We were a little disappointed, but just moved on to Plan B! Plan B is to make some changes to the house we currently live in. We live in a raised ranch, and have a full basement with drive-under garage. So we are going to finish a playroom in part of our basement, and relocate Bella's considerable toy collection down there!

We are also getting rid of the carpet in our living room, something I've wanted to do for a long time. When they built the house they put down light colored carpet. And while it's pretty, it only works if a) you don't have kids b)you never eat outside your kitchen, and c) you are the kind of family who take their shoes off every time you walk in the house. None of the above apply to us!

So today Kenneth and I went and picked out wood flooring for our house! I am so excited about getting it put down! We are also (eventually) going to get rid of our big old entertainment center and replace it with a gas (or electric) fireplace with a flat-screen t.v. mounted on the wall above it.

I really excited about our home improvement projects, and will be posting before/after pics at some point!

Tired of Weighting Around...

I have to admit, I've had a little trouble with those last few pregnancy pounds. They really like me and want to stay. I really want them to go. I've told them this several times, in between bites of the Chocolate Chip pie I so recently blogged about.

Then I realized I was talking to my extra pounds. So I said to myself, "Self, you must stop this. You must make a plan of attack." So I sat down to do just that. To aid in my attack-planning I popped a bag of Orville Redenbockers (sp?) Ultimate Butter Popcorn, because anyone who has ever done any decent attack planning knows you must have snacks, and the word "snacks" does not incorporate the healthy, unbuttered, mini bags of popcorn that masquerade as such in the junk food aisle. But I digress...

So aided by my popcorn, and a Mason jar of ice-cold Mountain Dew (my inner dental hygeniest cringes at that, I'll admit), I set out to plan my attack.

Before I divulge said plan of attack let me just clarify that my motive for weight loss has less to do with vanity and more to do with being comfortable. The bottom line is, I want to be able to fit into all my old clothes. By "fit" I do not mean suck in until everything is buttoned and zipped and then pray it holds. I long ago came to terms with the hard fact that having babies changes your body and I am probably never going to fit into a size 2 like I did in high school. I'm okay with that. My husband is okay with that.

So my motive is not to look like a supermodel. And let me just add here that the so called super models hold us to completely unrealistic expectations. Kate Moss recently came under fire from some health organizations for revealing that one of her favorite diet mantras is , "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels". She apparently has never had my grandmother's Hundred Dollar Cake. Her loss. (literally).

I keep going off on tangents.

First I thought about doing the Soup Diet. This is a plan where you make a vegetable soup, and pretty much eat it for seven days. With fresh fruit added certain days, salad on certain days, etc. That looked good at first, I like soup. Till I looked at the recipe. It has cabbage in it. I don't like cabbage. Or mushrooms. And where are the potatoes?! No potatoes...

That's stupid.

Then I considered the Atkins diet, which my father had a brief (albeit successful) encounter with some years back. I remembered him eating lots of bacon. I like bacon. I like to fry it and crumble it up on my baked potato...oh, but wait, you can't have potatoes. Or pasta. Or bread. For crying out loud, what are you supposed to eat? Can a girl live without potatoes?!

So finally I decided to simply limit my caloric intake. I decided to measure all my food (for a day) and record the calories in it, and try not to go over a certain number. I decided that number should be 1200.

Why 1200? I really don't know. I just picked it. A friend later informed me that 1200 calories isn't even enough to really keep your basic metabolic functions going properly. I didn't know. I'm an idiot. (nutritionally speaking).

So for breakfast the next day I got out my pen and paper. My granola bar was 160 calories. My coffee was 4. The caramel flavored creamer was 30, but I wasn't giving that up! So far, so good.

Lunch was a can of tuna fish (100) with crackers (105) and diet pepsi (0).

For a snack I had more coffee with creamer (34) and a 100 calorie snack pack of cookies. (100!)

Dinner got a little more challenging. I was running low on groceries, and had decided to go the easy route that day, and have some popcorn shrimp and fix a box of macaroni and cheese. The shrimp wasn't too bad, 210 calories for 15 shrimp. But the macaroni was like 380 calories in 3/4 a cup or something ridiculous like that.

3/4 of a cup is just enough to make me mad.

So I made the mac' n'cheese for Kenneth (who can lose weight with annoying ease thanks to his stupid male metabolism) and Bella, and I made one of those Birdseye Steamfresh bags of rice and vegetables that you cook in the microwave. 190 calories per cup. So I had 10 shrimp, and 2 cups of rice, and drank water. The rice and veggies were actually really yummy!

For a snack before bed, I had a cup of Special K cereal (dry), and ended up with like 27 calories left.

It was very educational. For example, did you know that for 2 calories you can have 8 fluid ounces of coffee (wonderful, marvelous, aromatic, caffeinated coffee!), or one measly tic-tac. Or that there are more calories in two tablespoons of peanut butter than a whole can of tuna? I learned a lot.

I went to bed a little hungry.

Ice-capades

Yesterday I took the girls over to my moms for a visit. Bella got to play with Ashlyn, Abby napped on Nana's couch, and I got to make a baby-free trip to Walmart! A good time was had by all.

Between dropping the girls off, going to Wally world, going back to the car for something I forgot, I probably made about four trips back and forth across the driveway without incident. When it was time to leave, my dad carried Bella to the car, and I had Abby's carseat, with the handle in the crook of my arm.

There was a patch of snow in front of my car, and I knew there was ice underneath it, so I decided to walk around it. My feet hit black ice, and down we went! I fell forward instead of backward, which was probably better. I landed on my knees, and poor Abby hit the ground with a "thunk!". The worst part (besides the fact that she got jarred so badly) was that my elbow went in the carrier.

Of course, Abby immediately started screaming. I got up and we hurried back in the house. I unbuckled Abby, laid her on a blanket, and looked her over. I was afraid my elbow had hit her really hard. But after checking her over, I picked her up and loved on her and she was fine. Thank goodness!

On the way home I called the pediatrician to let them know what happened. They said as long as she was acting normally that everything should be fine, and to call immediatly if she started vomiting or if her pupils became uneven in size.

The moral of this story...well, actually there are two. First, when you are carrying your baby to the car on an icy driveway, wear crampons. (you know, the spiky things that climbers wear on thier feet going up Everest).

And two, there are two phone numbers every mother should have on her cell phone speed dial: the pediatrician, and Poison Control.


Speaking of Poison Control, I'm a big fan. If you've never had to call them, thats great, but if you ever do they are wonderful. The first time I had to call was when Bella was about 1 1/2. We took a trip to Pigeon Forge. We had just checked in our hotel, and I was getting something out of my bag when I looked over and she was chewing on something! I grabbed her up and got her to spit it out- it was a pill, or rather half of one, because she'd already eaten a little of it. Luckily, it was one of those gel-coated tablets and I could still read part of the writing- it was Advil she'd found in the floor. But just to be safe I called the pediatrician and left a message on the answering service, then called Poison Control. They said to give her something to drink, and not give her any pain medications (tylenol, motrin, etc) for eight hours.

The pediatrican called back just after that and seconded this advice.

Needless to say we won't be staying in that hotel again. Ever.

Phone call #2 to poison control was about a month ago. Bella came through the house making a face and spitting stuff out. In her hand she had one of those little packets that come in shipped stuff and new coats, you know the ones that say THROW AWAY, DO NOT EAT in capital letters. Being the obedient consumer that I am, I had never opened one. They are full of tiny clear balls. Kenneth ran over to where she was and found several in the floor, it looked like she had spit most of them out. But I wasn't taking any chances, I called Poison Control.

Apparently the DO NOT EAT warning is because the little balls (which it turns out are silica) are not so much a poison as a choking hazard. The lady said if she was breathing okay that there shouldn't be a problem. Whew.

So, please put this number in your cell phone: Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222

Natural Gas!

I may have discovered the solution to the world's energy crisis: (drumroll please...) Abbigail Edmonds! Yes, it's true. She is a fabulous producer of natural gas!

The nurses put her on soy formula in the hospital due to some digestive issues. Okay, it was more than digestive issues, she had diarrhea and screamed for an entire night in the nursery. Anyway, soy formula is supposed to be a little easier on the digestive system. It even says right on the front of the container "for fussiness and gas". Good grief, I can hardly imagine if she was on regular formula!

Unfortunately, all the gas-production makes her one fussy baby. Like all moms, I wish there was a miracle cure for a gassy baby, but alas... So here is what we do to help:

1) burping. (duh). Unfortunately Abby is hard to burp. Sometimes you can pat her back
for the longest time to no avail. I also try sitting her up with her back and head very straight
up, and sometimes that will do it.

2) Mylicon. Shoot, I just put a dose of it in every bottle!

3) "rolling" her tummy. Hats off to my friend Vicky for telling me about this one, and it really
does seem to help: to do this, lay baby on her back. Bend her legs at the knee and "roll" her
legs clockwise, circling up over her belly. It's hard to do if baby is crying and tensed up. I've
found that if Abby is tensed up, if I take her ankles and just raise her legs up (like when you
change their diaper) she will usually relax them after a minute and I can "roll" them.

4) bottles: I use powdered formula, so mixing them with a spoon or butter knife seems to do
better than shaking them up, which puts so much air in. Also, if she isn't crying, I'll let it sit
5 or 10 minutes so some of the air can dissolve out.

Needless to say, I'm quite ready for her to outgrow this gassy phase!

Comfort Food!

Whenever the weather is cold and snowy, I crave comfort food! So today I'm having two of my favorites, Corn Chowder and Chocolate Chip Pie. Here are the recipes! Enjoy!

Corn Chowder : this recipe is definately not good when you are counting calories, but it sure is delicious. The half and half gives it a sweetness, while the crushed red pepper adds some spice.

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)

5 tsp. chopped garlic

3 tsp salt

5 tsp crushed red pepper

1 bunch green onions

2 lbs peeled shrimp (or salad shrimp) *

48 oz creamed corn

2 quarts half and half

Melt butter. Add garlic and onion, saute. Add shrimp, crushed red pepper, salt, and green onion; cook till warm. Add half and half. Bring to a boil, reduce heat.

* my brother in law, Dave, is allergic to shrimp. So we substitute potatoes. Either way, it's yummy!

Also, this recipe makes a lot of chowder. Unless you have a very large crowd, half a recipe is plenty. I also reduce the crushed red pepper, I use about 1 1/2 tsp. for half a recipe. It just depends on how spicy you like things.

Now on to the best part of the meal, dessert!

Chocolate Chip Pie

1 frozen pie crust (you can make one from scratch if you're really motivated!)

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk chocolate morsels

1/2 cup semi sweet morsels

1/2 cup macadamia nuts, chopped (you can use any nut you prefer)

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, combine sugar, flour, and butter, mix well. Add eggs, vanilla, morsels, and nuts. Pour into pie crust. Bake until firm in the middle, approximately 50 min. (my oven takes longer). Serve warm with ice cream, and coffee of course!

Variation: If you like peanut butter, use 1/2 cup chopped peanuts in place of the macadamia nuts. Also substitute 1/2 cup peanut butter morsels instead of the semi sweet morsels, and add 2 tablespoons of chunky peanut butter. (the peanut butter would go in with the sugar/flour/ butter mixture.)

A day in the life...

I have three weeks left of maternity leave after this week, since I don't go back to work until Feb. 22. My twelve weeks off have flown by. So here is what a typical day is like for us while I'm home from work:

8:00a.m. Kenneth gets home from working third shift and going to the gym. Abby is sleeping in the pack n play beside our bed, Bella is propped up in bed beside me drinking her chocolate milk and watching cartoons. I am trying to pretend I'm still asleep!

8:30a.m. We get up! I move Abby (still sleeping!) to her swing in the living room. I go turn on my coffee maker. Kenneth plays with Bella a few minutes, then goes to bed.

10:30a.m. Snack time! Bella has a banana or yogurt or something healthy for a snack.

12:30 Rest time! Bella doesn't really nap anymore (not consistently anyway) so at 12:30 she has 'rest time'. We put her pillow and blankie on the couch, brush her teeth, turn on a cartoon, and she lays down for about an hour. This gives mommy a chance to eat lunch! - unless Abby is fussy, of course!

1:30 Bella has lunch. (she won't eat a big lunch earlier in the day).

4:30p.m. Start supper! Kenneth usually gets up around 5, and he's usually hungry so we eat around 5:30.

5:30p.m. Eat supper, do dishes.

6:30 I take a shower or bath!

7:00p.m. Bella's bath time! She has her bubble bath and plays with her bath toys. When she gets out,I wrap her in a towel on my lap and we sing a song. Then she has to run around the house naked. This is her new routine: she says, "I wanna show daddy naked!" So she runs into the living room and he says, "Bella, you're naked! Where are your clothes?" Then I get her dressed and comb out her hair.

8:45p.m. Bed time for Bella. We brush teeth, use the bathroom, gather up blankets, and I put her in bed. This is actually a process that lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour before she actually goes to sleep...

10:30p.m. Abby has her last bottle of the day.

11:00 p.m. Abby goes to sleep, Mommy goes to sleep!

3:00a.m. Mommy hears a noise and wakes up- Bella is climbing into bed with me!

5:00 a.m. Abby wakes up for a bottle, eats, and goes back to sleep.

7:00a.m. Bella wakes up for chocolate milk and cartoons!

8:00a.m. Kenneth comes home, and the fun starts all over again!

Of course, all these times and events are subject to change! Our day isn't nearly so orderly in real life. In between all this there are dirty diapers, laundry, "potty" accidents, phone calls, dishes to wash, housework, and any number of unplanned events!

For instance, don't imagine that I've been sitting here at the computer calmly typing for twenty minutes. In the middle of this blog entry, Abby woke up hungry and wet. While I was changing her, Bella hollered that she need help to potty. Then Abby spits out her passy and I'm trying to figure out why there's blood on it while I tell Bella I'll be there in just a second! (Abby was hungry and had shoved her fist in her mouth; one of her nails was sharp and cut her little gums!) So finish changing the baby, help Bella potty, then feed and burp the baby, then finish the blog! Thats pretty much how we get things done around here! Boring, its not!

Cooking up some fun

Today my sister Rachel and her little girl, Ashlyn, spent the afternoon with us. We've been hanging out a lot while I've been on maternity leave. At first it was more of a necessity, since I needed help! But then we discovered that we actually like spending time together!

Just kidding.

Today we had the inaugural meeting of our new Friday Cooking and Coffee Club! We decided a few days ago to fix lunch and had so much fun doing it we decided to make it a monthly event. So while Ashlyn and Bella ran around the house playing (...playing just isn't a strong enough word...their combined force is about an F4 on the Fujita scale) we cooked!

After I made a quick run to the store for necessary ingredients (and Goldfish crackers for the girls) we made a pot of Zippy Potato Soup. It's kind of like loaded potato soup, you put in bacon, and cheese, and grate some carrots in for color. It also has some wierder ingredients like nutmeg and Worcestershire sauce. But it is fantastic! It's one of our family faves.

We tried a new dessert: Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Pie. Served warm with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. And a cup of coffee. Need I say more?

Anyhoo, a good time was had by all. Abby even contributed by keeping Aunt Rachel company while she cooked:


We are currently searching for a yummy dessert recipe to try next month (preferably made with chocolate!) so if you have a good one, let me know!

Six week check-up and shopping!

Today I went for my 6 week postpartum check-up with Dr. Tally-Horne. Oh, the joys of waiting in a cold room wearing nothing but paper... Anyway, she said everything looks fine and I am free to "resume normal activity".

Afterward I took advantage of the fact that my mom could watch the girls for a while, and went to do a little shopping! I stopped at Starbucks for a new coffee go-cup, since mine broke. And of course after purchasing it I had it filled with a double tall non-fat extra-hot caramel latte! It was yummy. (my coffee drinking has totally gotten out of hand lately. I just can't stop.)

Then to the mall. I went in Maurices and was thrilled to find three long skirts, two denim and one khaki! So I happily bought them all. And if you are wondering why I'm so excited about it, I have a challenge for you, girls: next time you are shopping, try to find skirts that are a)below the knee b)not skin tight, and c) not split up to mid-thigh. And there's one more catch- they have to be cute, too! I'm telling you, it isn't easy! So you can understand why I was so excited to find three all at once. And if you are wondering, yes, I wear skirts all the time, and no, I don't mind explaining why if you ask me. :-)

After my find at the mall, I headed to moms to get my little treasures.

Settling In

A lot of my patients who have three (or more!) kids have always told me it's harder to adjust to the second kid than the third. I was always doubtful of that, but now I believe it. Because Abby was a big adjustment! Of course, actually caring for her has been a breeze, because this time around I know what I'm doing! I can tell just by the way she cries whether she is hungry or her belly is hurting, etc. So that part is easier.

The challenge is trying to feed, change, rock her, etc. while chasing Arabella! And Bella takes a lot of chasing most days! She's not one of these kids who will sit in their room and play quietly. She is in to everything! And, of course, she's still little and needs help doing most things. So in the middle of giving Abby a bottle, I often have to stop and help Bella go to the potty or something like that.

In addition, Bella has gotten very attached to me since Abby arrived. I'm sure she feels a little insecure. So I've been trying to give her lots of attention and praise. We seem to have finally left 'the uglies' behind us for the most part, which is wonderful!

I'm continually amazed by the fact that these two beautiful little people were actually inside me! And yes, sometimes when Bella is being a handful, I wish I could shrink her down and put her back! Being a mom is the hardest, most wonderful, scariest, most amazing thing I have ever done. And I really hope I'm doing a good job.

The Other Sister

I know a lot of my recent posts have mostly focused on Arabella, and all the joys and frustrations that come with being her mom. If Abby could read she'd probably be a little jealous. And it's not that I love her any less. It's just that compared to an almost-three-year-old, well, a newborn is pretty easy.

So I've decided to devote this post to my Abby. The other sister.

She has dark eyes, I believe they will end up brown like her daddy's. And her hair is jet black. She still sleeps a lot, even during the day, and when she is awake she tends to be a little fussy. Even with the soy formula, she tends to get gas on her belly and fuss. She's sleeping five or six hours at a time now at night some nights, which is nice.

Right now, love her heart, she looks a little homely. (Don't you love how it's okay to say anything about someone as long as you preface it with 'love their heart'). Her hair is coming out on the sides and she has 'baby acne', so her little face is all broken out. I call her my little ugly duckling.

Today I found her 'happy place' in our house. Its in the kitchen, in front of the laundry room. (see picture above!) I don't know if it's the color or the noise, but she was happy there for the longest time today. And I got a lot of laundry done!

It's both a relief and a tiny bit of sadness to know that (Lord willing) she will be my last. And with another child to care for it's a lot harder to cuddle as much as you did with the first one. But she is just as precious.