DONE

I am done with school... again. Four months of doing homework, reading textbooks and writing papers is behind me... again. Now I can renew that teaching license and figure out what the heck I have the thing for... again. Wow. When I started writing this blog I really was happy.

foreshadowing

Elie just told me I ruined her life. Why? Because I couldn't count the row of bubbles she popped on the packing stuff. I know she learned it from The Parent Trap and that she doesn't know what it means but... Not sure if I think it is kinda funny or if this feeling is an overwhelming sense of dread for the teenage years.

Stories

Elie loves books and stories. She will immediately be calm and quiet the second you say "once upon a time." Every night before bed, Nick or I tell her a story. At first I loved it and then it was so hard to come up with a different story every night. I finally realized that there are many, many more creative people in the world who have already told brilliant stories and so I've started telling her the classics instead (goldilocks, three little pigs, etc.) Nick recently told her a "wizard of oz" in two minutes. So today this is the story she told me...

Once upon a time there were three little pigs, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The three little pigs decided to go for a walk in the woods. Then they found a house where they ate oatmeal and took a nap. After a while they wanted to go home, so they clapped their heels 49 times and flew up to the sky with their wings to be with God. The end.

All in a days work

Today I, baked a loaf of bread, a cake and a cheesecake, washed three loads of laundry (not folded) went grocery shopping, and picked up the house a million and a half times. All that work does not include the two kids, the diapers, the three meals + snack and lack of sleep. Now I am off to do homework. I challenge anyone that says being a stay at home mom is easy.

Life Update

Elie chose her and Lainey's outfits this day. She chose matching velvet purple dresses and red heart tights. Awesome Elie. At one point, they also had matching hats on. I swore I would never have my kids wear matching cutsie outfits...



Elie asked Nick to paint her finger and toenails. Luckily, he has four sisters and can tap into his feminine side. She was thrilled because he painted each nail a different color. I had to fight with her to get her to wash her hands for two days as a result.



We got home one day after being in Corvallis for four hours and I walked into the bathroom to find that Elie had left the sink on in the bathroom and put the plug down. Lucky for us, the sink has one of those drainers in the top and we don't pay for water. That girl is trouble.



Miss Lainey is five months old this week. She is kind of sorta sitting on her own for a few seconds at a time (as long as her hands are propping herself up).



Well, after my oh-so melodramatic post this week I feel a little silly. It is hard not to be melodramatic at three in the morning though so I don't feel too silly. It has been about two weeks since I had more than two hours of sleep at a time. For those two weeks, Lainey has had a miserable cold then a fever for a few days and the morning after melodrama night, she woke up with a rash all over her poor little body. Add all three together and you get a mild case of Roseola. She is feeling much better now and has not been nearly as whiny or grouchy. I still can't put her down though... I am hoping that she will start sleeping better here pretty soon. She had her first bites of cereal today too. She LOVED It! She was shoveling it in her mouth faster than I could get cereal on the spoon.

poor sweet little sick baby

Easter

Easter was very laid back this year. We are still trying to figure out our own family traditions. Easter is different from the other holidays because all of our extended families are involved in their own churches and Dox has stuff going on too. So we are on our own for Easter. I was sad not to get to weed with Dox this year (I love to weed!) it would have been too hard to try and do it with Lainey attached to me. After the service, we had Lamb with the Rileys and I made my first cheesecake -double chocolate cherry and it was amazing! (if I do say so myself.)








We dyed easter eggs with Kool-Aid. Vinegar free!




Aunt Sa (nick's oldest sister) works for a kid's store downtown Albany and her fiance was coerced into dressing like the Easter bunny. Elie would not go near him, but after a while she warmed up enough to dress up herself.

2 am ramblings

It is 2 in the morning. I have had about an hour of sleep so far tonight, and my prospects for the rest of the night don't look much better. This has been the way of it for about a month and a half now. My wonderful little sleeper has betrayed me and is up every two hours and occasionally awake for an hour or so in between. Yet every time I lay my head on my pillow I am prayerful and hopeful that maybe, just maybe I'll get a four hour stretch again. I mentally calculate what time that would make my next eye opening... only to be disappointed by half. I am finding myself being less patient with Elie and more depressed as the days go on, the rain doesn't help that much either. Lainey, unlike Elie, at least is happy when she is awake. I wake up to her wiggling and head shaking, not screaming. I feel guilty for being so down about such an inconsequential thing as two months of no sleep. There are people dying, suffering, facing deplorable conditions with no prospect of relief or hope. I at least have the knowledge that one day, I will again sleep. I have been here before and lived to tell the tale. This is just one more thing I can hold against my child someday in that great ledger of parenthood. So alas, sleep will be an elusive dream I will hold on to during my 2 am, 4 am and 6 am ramblings...