Today marked day 1 of our "new normal" around here. All of my family members are back at their respective homes and Brent was back at work. It was just me and the kids here all day. I admit the day did not pass tear-free. I had high hopes for at least a short nap after a rough night last night, and it was looking promising when I had Eli fed before Lydia went down and she didn't throw a fit about naptime. I was SO close to having Eli asleep in his bouncy chair and could see my nap on the horizon... but fate would not have it. Lydia slept well (got to give her credit there), but Eli continued to fight it. I'd get him so close to being out, or so I would think, and then his eyes would pop open, he'd start to squirm, and we'd be back to square one. Why oh why must kids fight sleep so much?!

This attempted sleep continued until it'd been a couple of hours since he last ate and I decided to give up and just feed him instead of fighting to get him to sleep. Brent was home for lunch by that point anyway, so I took the boy downstairs and fed him... and cried over my failed attempt at getting some rest. Of course, he eventually settled down and slept. Just in time for Lydia to wake up. *sigh* But his long nap did allow me some time with Lydia and a chance to get some laundry done.

All in all I feel we survived the start of our new normal okay. I know each day will come with new ups and downs, but such is the life of a parent. It's definitely feeling a little overwhelming and I still don't know how I will ever get much done, but ultimately I'm glad we are moving forward. It was SO nice to have the help I have had for the past 3 weeks. I can't thank my mom enough for all she did for us! But I think it will be good for us, Lydia especially, to get back to a sense of normalcy. It's got to be hard for a not-yet-two-year-old to adjust when things are still changing on her. Now I feel like we can get back to her routine and she can better adjust to life with her little brother.

At the same time, I do recall how quickly life with a baby changes. When Lydia was this little, I remember that as soon as I felt like we were at a point of calling something "normal" she would change and we'd be adjusting again. Eli will do the same thing to us. Before I know it he will have a completely different schedule and completely different needs than he has right now. I can hardly believe he's going to be a month old this weekend. Wasn't I just pregnant yesterday?? Oh how time flies...

So here's to our new normal... and the next normal after that, and the one after that, and the many more we have to come. I can't say life is boring anymore!

...is when Lydia looks up at me as I put her in her crib and signs "I love you" as we say goodnight.

I know I've probably said it before, but I really really wish sometimes that I had a Pause button for life. I don't want to rewind or stop, but an occasional pause so I can get a solid grip on the moment would be appreciated.

I've been due for a "how's Lydia doing these days" post for quite some time, but I think I just get overwhelmed with just how much she is changing and growing that I'm afraid to write it down. Perhaps for fear that I'll forget 90% of what I should be writing down, or perhaps because writing it makes it all that more real. Sometimes I just want to pretend that my baby ISN'T growing up. She isn't going to stop needing me, she isn't going to change, and she for SURE isn't going to start learning how to disobey!

But alas... I've sat in denial too long. Today Lydia took her very first solo steps. Two very wobbly and unsure little steps, but they were there. She did a few more one-step attempts, and one other two-step try after Daddy came home. If she does the walking thing the same way she did the sitting up and standing things, she'll be confidently walking everywhere in a week or so.

Also today we took another big step together... weaning. Today is the first day that I will not be nursing her at all. For the past week she has been down to just nursing at bedtime, so tonight we put her down without it. She was crying at first, but she had been fussing from the instant we got her undressed to put her PJ's on. We got her ready and I rocked her and sang to her until she had calmed down. I offered her a sippy cup of warm milk but she refused to even take a sip. So once she was quiet and calm, I kissed her on the head like I always do, told her I loved her and that it was time for night night, and gently placed her in her crib. She didn't fuss.

While I have never been one who looooved nursing like some moms do, there's still a part of me that is sad for the transition. I'm so happy to have nursed her for almost a year (cut short by a few days so that she has time to adjust before birthday parties, doctor appointments, pictures, etc). It was a great experience and I feel lucky that we didn't have any difficulties along the way. I loved nursing for the special time of cuddling (those of you who know my sweet girl know that she is a major wiggle worm, so cuddle time is special!), but I am looking forward to a bit more freedom. Since Lydia gave up on bottles very early on, I have been tied to her physically for the past year. Date nights for Brent and I have had to fit around Lydia's bedtime schedule, meaning we either had to be home by 7 or wait until 7 or 8 to leave (in which case whoever watched her didn't get to see her). It will be nice once this transition is over to be able to actually go out for a dinner date and not have to worry about bedtime for the baby! I'm trying to focus on the positives here. :)

Lydia is growing and learning so many things these days. She is interested in little puzzles like figuring out how to pull her plastic barrels apart and then put them back together. She definitely has my (lack of) patience though! Lydia will try two or three times to get the barrel halves together, then she will start to cry and flail her arms around throwing the halves across the room. She definitely gets frustrated easily, but I try to help her and encourage her to keep trying again. She continues to be my little mimic. She loves to mimic mouth noises including attempting to whistle... which is hilarious because neither Brent nor I can whistle! She heard my parents whistling when we visited and now I'll see her randomly trying to do it herself. As far as actual words go, she will repeat certain words when you say them to her - mostly mama, dada, and night night - but doesn't do much when it comes to saying things on her own. The only word I'll fully give her credit for is "hi." She says hi a lot in the proper context and without prompting. I cracked up in the grocery store the other day when we were standing at the deli counter and Lydia leaned to the side to look around me and enthusiastically shouted "HI!" to the lady who walked up behind us. My goodness what a friendly little girl I have!

She hasn't picked up a whole lot more sign language, but Lydia did make up her own version of the "I love you" sign. She doesn't have the coordination to bend just the two middle fingers down, so instead she just bends her whole hand down. But it is certainly a specific sign she does for "I love you." She is also learning to blow kisses, however she doesn't understand the second half (the "blowing" part) and instead just smashes her hand onto her lips whenever I mention kisses. Lydia has also learned how to drink from a straw, but still prefers to just chew on it unless she is thirsty.

On to eating... this has been the largest obstacle for me and certainly tries my patience. Especially as of late. Not only does she enjoy dropping food on the floor, but she also feels the need to change foods every 3 bites. It doesn't seem to matter what I feed her. She will take 3 or 4 bites, then refuse to eat any more of that food. I'll then switch to another food for 3 or 4 bites before she won't eat that anymore either. I wouldn't mind so much if I could just cycle through 2 or 3 food and she'd be happy... but no. Once she's had her few bites of something, she is DONE with that. It gets so frustrating! I honestly don't want to have 15 foods prepared to offer her at each meal. The one and only thing that seems to be foolproof to her games is baby food green beans. Yes, she loves them. The other day she ate almost 2 whole packages in one meal. But beyond those, even things that she used to absolutely love like grilled cheese get refused after a few bites. I've been trying to teach her to sign "all done" when she doesn't want anymore of something rather than dropping it on the floor, but it hasn't worked yet. I've tried ignoring the food dropping, and telling her no. Neither as phased her. But regardless, I could deal with the food on the floor if she would at least eat a decent amount before tossing it... then signing for "more" because she is hungry but wants something different now. I'm out of ideas here!

In just 3 short days my baby girl will be one year old. I know it is cliche, but it really does go by so fast. I think back on all that has happened this past year and how much she has changed and it truly is amazing. So much is different now! We will be celebrating her birthday next weekend when my family has a chance to come up to visit. It will certainly be crazy around here... my parents, my oldest brother with his wife and three daughters, and possibly my other brother will all be staying at our house! This will mean 4 little girls (ages 6, 4, 2, and 1) will be running around terrorizing my home. Madness! But I'm sure it will be good fun. I always love having my family around. And in addition to my family, many of Brent's family members will be over next Sunday for the birthday party. We decided to keep it for family only, but even with just family members we will have a ton of people in our house for the evening!

I'm just hoping and praying that Lydia is feeling well. She has been under the weather for the past week and threw up for the first time ever on Monday. Tuesday afternoon and evening she spent hours just cuddling and napping with me on the couch. I can't honestly say I didn't enjoy it because, as mentioned above, cuddle time with Lydia is short and infrequent, but I was so sad that she felt crummy. Things seem to be looking up now, though, and she was mostly back to her normal antics today. The only not normal thing is that she is still being pretty clingy to me, not wanting me to even leave the room. But I'm hoping that is teething related. She was that way when she cut her bottom two teeth and she looks really close to cutting a top one now.

So there ya have it... updated life of Lydia. Long post due to the fact that it's taken me nearly a month to force myself to write it. She'll have her 12 month doctor appointment on Tuesday, so I'll likely post more info on how she's doing after we get her new stats. Is it funny that I am SO excited to find out my baby girl's weight? Don't worry, Lydia... I promise I'll get over it before you reach high school.

Yesterday Lydia turned 11 months old, and while I realize that many moms continue to speak of their childrens' ages in terms of months through the second year, this is the last time that it is more or less necessary. She won't be "zero" years old anymore. The next step is the big ONE YEAR.

I'm excited and anxious at the same time. So much has changed in this past year. Lydia has grown into an adorable, fun, sweet, joyful, and downright entertaining toddler. I can't get enough of her! As will be the case throughout her life, I find myself thinking about all of the stuff that is over, as well as all that is to come.

We continue to move slowly but steadily towards weaning. Now that she is 11 months old, I have backed off to just 2 nursings a day: first thing in the morning & last thing before bed. Pretty soon the morning one will switch to an after-breakfast thing, but we'll keep with 2 nursings for another couple of weeks at least. I've moved gradually from 4 down to 2, but the last 2 will likely both disappear in the week or two before her first birthday. Lydia does pretty well with finger foods, but gets pretty involved playing with it rather than eating it. She doesn't care for milk very much, so she'll probably be getting her dairy needs met with yogurt and cheese. I really wish she would get more teeth so she could do better eating some of the things the rest of us eat. It can stress me out sometimes trying to come up with enough things for Lydia to eat to provide both nutrition and variety... as well as being easy enough for her to pick up to feed herself.

Discipline is another item on my mind a lot. It's so hard to figure out how much she understands! She definitely can throw little tantrums now, and she obeys often enough for me to believe she understands what we mean when we tell her no... but boy is it difficult to decide how to handle things when she disregards our instructions!

The house has undergone a major babyproofing overhaul as of late. It still looks like a house in which civilized adults live (we are not going to be those parents who clear the entire house out so the kid can't touch stuff), but we've added in a few more precautions. Brent installed cabinet locks on the cabinets containing harmful items (though Lydia still has not shown much interest in opening cabinets anyway). We bought a gated playyard (6 connecting gate panels) and have used these to gate off the entertainment center so Lydia can no longer get into all of the cords. And finally (my favorite) we got the playroom set up upstairs! The bonus room above our garage is one of the largest rooms in the house, and now it is cleaned out and full of toys and activities for Lydia. She loves it! She has lots of room to crawl around in there and space to push her walking toys also. I still want to add some things to help organize all the toys, and also a child-sized table, but I'm so pleased to have it be functional for now.

I have a Thanksgiving blog already in progress, but put it on hold so I can take the time to write about my sweet girl's latest developments. Holy cow she is changing fast! In the last few weeks she has really been working hard on a lot of new things.

First my favorite -she's been so cuddly! She has really started to show how to "love on" things. It is the best thing ever when she puts both her arms around my shoulders and snuggles up to me. Lydia has always been such a wiggle worm and wants to look around at everything. She just hasn't been super affectionate because there's always too much other stuff to look at! I've really enjoyed how cuddly she has been lately. She even sat and snuggled with me to watch a TV show yesterday!

Clapping continues to be one of her favorite things to do. She now notices when other people clap, even on TV, and promptly joins in. She doesn't even have to be facing the TV... if she hears clapping, she starts to clap as well. Too funny!

I can tell Lydia is getting more and more frustrated by her inability to crawl/walk. She's trying really really hard to figure it all out and it shows with a lot of crankiness. She is very close to getting into crawl position, but then stretches her legs out to be on her belly. It works well to get her from sitting to lying down, but not so well for movement. I've seen her inch worm a little bit, and she moves backwards pretty well on the hardwood floor (I don't think it's intentional though as much as she just slides around). On the walking front, she walks quite well if you hold both of her hands and she does a little bit of creeping along furniture (mostly when I'm not looking). Lydia has wonderful balance and plays very well standing up against a couch or chair. I'm still unsure about whether I think she'll crawl or walk first. She seems to just want to figure it all out at the same time!

Speaking of things happening at the same time, Lydia now has her first AND second teeth! I first noticed the sharp point of the first tooth on November 30th (halfway through our trip home from Oklahoma), and today I confirmed my suspicions that the second one was coming... sharp point #2 verified! Poor baby must be in terrible pain. On top of the teeth situation, we've all had colds. Runny nose, watery eyes, sore mouth... sounds fun, eh?

I suppose all of this gives her good reason for being a TERRIBLE napper lately. She's (mostly) still doing well at night, but daytime sleep is a battle. It doesn't happen without a lot of screaming, then only lasts for 30 minutes or less... at which point she wakes up screaming again. She's also been super clingy to me. I put her in her exersaucer and take 4 steps away and she starts pitching a fit. She isn't that bad all day long, but for most of it. Since getting back from our trip I've had a really hard time getting things done around the house because Lydia is either fussy because she's trying to crawl/move and can't, or she's fussy because I'm not within 2 feet of her at all times.

I love it. :) Seriously, this is a tough patch in the mommy life... but I love it all. This too shall pass. Good or bad, it will all go away in time. I want to enjoy the ride. I sure do love watching my lovely little girl grow, learn, and develop. What an amazing gift she is! As I write this she is lying on the floor next to me (after a failed crawling attempt) playing with her feet, blowing raspberries, and yelling "eeeeeeee!" ... her favorite noise haha. She makes my heart smile. :)

Is it normal to feel like my heart is absolutely going to explode with an abundance of love when hanging out with my daughter? I'm not entirely sure I can take much more of this! Lydia is off the charts adorable and sometimes I literally feel like it is too much to bear!

Today my sweet girl is 8 months old. As my gift to her, we spent most of the day out and about. As her gift to me, she didn't fuss. :) The day started with huge doses of giggles as I nibbled her fingers in the morning... and ended with an equally large dose of giggles while she "wrestled" with Daddy and played peek-a-boo before bedtime.

Someday I'm going to have more kids (God willing)... and if the amount of love increases as the amount of kids increases, I'm going to explode. Seriously. I don't think that much cute can be contained without some casualties.

It's late and I'm tired and I want to go to bed, but I have to take a second to just capture this memory before it is lost.

Tonight after dinner I cleaned Lydia up and put her on the living room floor so she could relax/roll/play a little bit before bedtime. She was in such a silly little mood and she kept laughing, so I got down on hands and knees with my face directly above her and we just had the best time smiling and laughing at eachother. Her entire face smiled with her big blue eyes fixed on mine just soaking in all of the fun. Everything I said or did was hilarious and she'd just go crazy laughing and grabbing at my face. I loved it!

I guess what was so special was the fact that she was so fixated on me. Lydia is an incredibly happy baby most of the time. I get the joy of hearing her laugh and squeal with delight a million times a day it seems. But usually she is quite easily distracted. It was awesome to have that moment where we were truly enjoying one another. No toys, no music, just mommy and baby having fun making eachother laugh.

I love my life. :-)

I am in the BEST mood today. Lydia has been an absolute delight all day... smiling, laughing, just being a super happy girl. She was totally cracking up when we were in her room and I kept exclaiming "MMMMMM...MAMA!" She played happily while I ran about doing laundry and packing for our weekend. Another thing that made her giggle: I was counting out diapers for the weekend and asked her if 15 would be enough. "That should be plenty, right baby girl?" She promptly responded by giggling. Should I be worried? ;-)

The weather today is FABULOUS. Lydia and I walked out to get the mail and I decided it was too nice out to waste. So we went in, grabbed a picnic blanket, some toys, and the book I'm reading and set up camp on the porch. Lydia played and watched the kids walking by on their way home from school while I got a chance to finish the chapter I was reading in my book.

Another reason for my good mood: we are going camping tomorrow!! I love camping. It's one of my favorite family activities and fondest childhood memories. My parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, and nieces head north from Cinci... Brent, Lydia, and I head south from Toledo... and we meet roughly in the middle for a camping extravaganza! (Perhaps I exaggerate, but the sentence sounded better that way). The weather for the weekend is also supposed to be FABULOUS, so it should be an awesome time. Just praying that it doesn't get too cold for us at night... mostly for Lydia. Low temps are supposed to get down to lower 50's and we'll be in a tent. I'm bringing multiple layers to bundle up my baby, so she should be set. Assuming she stays warm enough at night, I know Lydia is going to have so much fun. She's such an outdoors girl and a social butterfly. Spending the weekend outside with her cousins is going to be the best!

Lots of great things to look forward to. Camping this weekend, family dinner with the in-laws on Monday, and MOPS starting on Tuesday. Life is grand!

Lydia is currently in her crib crying. I have been running in and out of her room for over an hour now. Every time I comfort her, calm her down, tell her it's time for night-night, and leave. As soon as I am out of sight, the screams begin again. This last time I cuddled her a bunch, then put her in her crib and stood to the side. She smiled and babbled to me, and happily began to suck her thumb (a typical bedtime ritual). But again, as soon as I left it was as if something was ripping her leg off.

*sigh*

She just quieted down again. I'm hoping she's finally going to sleep. I've heard that around 6 months it is very common for separation anxiety to kick in and it is also common for this to disrupt nighttimes that are typically without issue. Oy. I had hoped we were past the need to cry it out. If this was a one-time thing I'd think less of it... but she was doing the same thing last night too. If she does it again tomorrow, I'm going to be in trouble. Brent and I are supposed to go on a date to a Mudhens game tomorrow night after Lydia goes to bed. Bad timing, sweet daughter! :-P

Just another day in the life of this mom... dealing with the ever changing phases of my growing girl.

Still hearing silence over the monitor. Maybe victory at last!


Edit:

It's 9:20 now... about 2 hours since bedtime began and Lydia is completely asleep. It really did end up being a sweet night though, despite the struggle. My earlier proclamation of victory was premature and Lydia began crying again not too long after I wrote that. So again I went back up to her room to pick her up and calm her down. This time I decided to sit down with her in the rocker and see if I could manage to get her to sleep.

Lydia has not fallen asleep in my arms in a long time, so I didn't expect much. I just wanted to give her some snuggle time and see if I could at least get her to go back to sucking her thumb and relaxing. We sat there snuggling in the dim, quiet room, just rocking and staring at eachother. Lydia would gaze at me with a look of complete wonder, then she would reach up and touch my mouth and nose. She'd then pull her hand back and suck her thumb for awhile, still staring, before reaching up again and repeating the process. I couldn't get over how amazed she looked. It was as if she was seeing my face for the first time ever and was trying to take in all of the details.

Eventually she went back to sucking her thumb and her eyelids started to get heavier. I watched her as each blink got ever so slightly longer. Her thumb in her mouth and her fingers gently gripping the zipper of my sweatshirt, she finally drifted off to sleep. We stayed snuggled up in the rocker until her little body went completely limp. Ever so gently I stood up and slipped her back into the crib.

What a beautiful night it turned out to be. :)

No, this isn't something I intend to make a habit of. I'm still a firm believer that it is best for the whole family for her to be able to put herself to sleep. But tonight I didn't mind bending the rules. Just for one night. Sometimes it takes just a little bit of rule bending to form the best of memories.

Starting the post off with a few of my favorite pictures from Lydia's 6 month "session"...

(More pics can be found on Facebook... and more still on Shutterfly...)

Isn't she just growing up so beautifully??? I love her! It's hard to believe that we are halfway through her first year already. Halfway through breastfeeding, halfway to her first cake, halfway to her first party, etc. Sometimes it's like she was just born yesterday, but other times like life before her was ages ago. She is at such a fun age right now... and probably the easiest stage (for me) of her little life so far! She sits up so well now that she is content to sit on the floor and play with whatever toys are available around her. I was able to vacuum the entire house the other day while she sat in her room playing (of course I still kept my eye on her). It's nice that she isn't mobile yet. A lot easier for me for sure!

There are certainly a lot of things I'm starting to miss already about the days gone by... and also a lot of things that I'm really really looking forward to in the future (like the words, "Mommy, I love you!")... but I'm mostly trying to focus on how much I enjoy who she is right now. My mom continues to remind me of the phrase "this too shall pass" ... whether good or bad, every bit of it will pass. So I want to enjoy every second before it's too late!

Alright, in my last post I promised I'd post her 6 month stats... so here they are:

Weight: 16lb 9oz (60%ile)
Height: 26" (50%ile)
Head: 17" (75%ile)

Yep... still got a big noggin. ;-) She didn't weigh as much as I'd expected. She's been riding along the 75%ile curve most of her life, so I anticipated her being 17lb by now... but it's nothing at all to worry about. The doctor said she looks fantastic and is doing really well developmentally. We talked a lot about solid foods and I'm feeling a lot less stressed out about them. I went out and bought a bunch more baby food varieties and we are slowly trying them out. Lydia has had prunes and sweet potatoes, and we just tried bananas today. She made a face at the new taste, but got used to it and kept eating. I'm enjoying taking things slowly. We're introducing one new thing every 3 or 4 days and only doing solids once a day. She nurses before the solids so she doesn't eat much. Just enough to practice a little and learn some new flavors & textures. I still think she's more excited about the spoon than she is the food that's on it... it's like a cool new toy to chew on!

Lydia continues to be the happiest baby I know. She is so easy to please and will just laugh and laugh and laugh at the smallest things. She thinks trips to the store are the best thing ever and will just squeal with delight the whole time we walk around. Who needs fancy places like the zoo or aquarium when we have Walmart to explore! Hahaha. Now that she is sitting up so well (and getting so heavy!) I bought a shopping cart cover for her and next trip we're going to try letting her sit in the cart. She's also going to move up to sitting in the "big tub" at bath time. During her last bath in the infant tub she discovered she is long enough now to stretch her legs out against the end of the tub and arch her back like she's trying to stand up. She kept doing it over and over and would hurt her back on the edge of the seat every time and start crying. I can't have a baby trying to climb out of her tub and hurting herself, so we bought a no-slip bath mat and will try the big tub for bathtime tomorrow.

The list of items she is outgrowing keeps getting longer and longer! Just this week I've put away clothes, the Bumbo, the infant tub, and her hanging toy bar. Her swing will likely be on that list soon too (she's getting to the point of trying to climb out of it).

Maybe I just need to hurry up and have another one so I don't have to keep putting things away... hahaha!

Alright, so I admit I am a total rookie housewife. I'm in no way a clean freak and the house primarily gets cleaned when it needs to be (ie, when company is coming). When it was just me and Brent, this wasn't a huge deal. We aren't very messy people.

Enter baby.

Things got a whole lot messier when our sweet little bundle came home... and my desire to have things clean also got a whole lot stronger! But alas, I'm still a rookie and feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. So I'm asking for your help! What are some of your favorite cleaning products? What are some good things for cleaning up those baby messes (wiping off highchairs, cleaning spit-up off the carpet/pillows/everything, surface cleaning the cloth toys that baby insists on stuffing in her mouth all the time, etc)? What do you use to disinfect toys that were, for example, thrown in the sand at the beach?

Cleaning products make me so nervous because I want to make sure anything I use on Lydia's toys or eating surfaces are safe.

Then of course there are bathrooms, floors, a kitchen, and more to be cleaned. So any tips you fellow housewives can pass on would be super appreciated!

The other night after I finished feeding Lydia at 10:30, I found myself just holding her close to me and not wanting to let her go. I love the way her chubby chipmunk cheeks look smooshed against my shoulder. I've occasionally contemplated trying to drop that late night feeding (since Lydia goes to bed between 7 & 8, so I have to get her up out of bed to feed her before I go to sleep)... but honestly, I love it too much. I find myself missing her after she's put to bed and I long for 10:30 to arrive so I can spend just a little more time cuddling her before the day ends.

These are the moments that I wish I could capture and re-live whenever I want to. I don't want time to stop, or even necessarily for it to slow down. I LOVE watching Lydia grow. The amount of pride I have in her accomplishments is beyond words. But it sometimes makes me sad to think that these precious moments will go away and even the memories of them will fade. 20 years from now I probably won't remember *exactly* how it felt to rock my sleeping 16-pound lump, heart bursting at the seams with adoration as I stare at that beautiful little face.

So I'm sad. Not that my sweet little girl is growing up so fast... but that there is no way for me to truly capture these moments. Can someone please invent a way to capture time before all of these treasured memories slip away? Please?

Every morning I play a little game called "Guess where Lydia will be in her crib when I walk in there." Lately the answer has been "upside-down & kicking the rails." :) I find it so funny! She really doesn't move enough during the day to change positions when I lay her down, but at night she must get bored and just go to town swiveling around in her crib! She now loves to roll from side to side and typically ends up falling asleep on one side or the other. Thankfully I think her hair is starting to grow back in now that she moves her whole body instead of just her head! Anyway, just wanted to post a reminder to myself of how much I love walking in to get her in the morning to find her all topsy-turvy with a big grin and beautiful bright blue eyes looking up at me. I love my job. :)

A year ago today I knew for sure I was pregnant. Crazy to think about how that day changed every day thereafter. I'm so glad to have my little girl to hold in my arms now. We enjoyed a relaxing day at home today and I even got to snuggle with her while she napped this evening. Not enough words exist to properly express the love a mother has for her child.

I am so amazed at how quickly my little girl is growing up!! Today I decided we'd test out some things to see if she was ready for them. First on the list was the umbrella stroller. I brought it in from the garage, set it up, adjusted the buckles, and fastened Lydia in. Yep... definitely works! She is stable enough now to sit in it without flopping all over the place, so we can bring it with us when we travel (MUCH smaller than the big stroller that the carseat fits into).

Next thing to try was the baby tub without the hammock in it. Again, she's totally ready to take that step, I just didn't think about it until now! So this afternoon we gave her her bath sitting a bit more upright in her tub inside the big tub upstairs. I think she liked being more submerged in the water. :-)

And lastly... my baby girl LOVES to STAND! We went out to dinner tonight and Lydia woke up halfway through. I got her out of her carseat and she refused to sit on my lap... she wanted to be standing! And she is so strong. She already practically stands on her own. She just needs us to keep her stabilized, but she definitely holds all of her weight. An older couple sitting near us ooo'd and aww'd at Lydia and asked how old she was. She seemed shocked when I said 3 months and commented that she looks like she'll be walking in another few months!

Lydia grows and learns more and more every day... I'm sooooo glad I get to be with her all the time to see it! Occasionally I look back at newborn pictures of my baby and get sad at how quickly the time is passing, but mostly I'm trying to focus on all of the joy it brings me to watch her growing. I get to be her biggest fan as she goes through all the milestones! I love it!

There's a lot of housework that needs to get done still, but I've decided to blog instead. Hey, I've put a yummy stew in the crock pot for dinner, washed dishes, done laundry, and kept a cute little kid fed, changed, and well rested all day... I deserve a break, right? :-)

I love being a mom. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a mother and have the chance to stay home and raise my kids. Finally being able to do so is fantastic! Now, I'll be honest, the first few weeks were HARD. I cried a lot in Lydia's first few weeks of life. I cried because I didn't know what she needed... I cried because I felt like a failure when nothing was getting done around the house... I cried because I felt like I was neglecting my husband and therefore must be a terrible wife... and I cried because I was not getting nearly enough sleep. There were times when I looked at Lydia and wondered why I didn't feel happy that she was here. Why don't I feel totally in love like I'm "supposed" to feel as a new mom? It was really really rough on me.

I think things started to turn around some for me when Lydia started smiling. Finally getting some feedback that said to me, "Hey Mom, I like you and you're doing a great job!" was much needed assurance. It also helped me when I loosened up on trying so hard to get her on a schedule. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a huge fan of schedules... but I needed to step back a little and learn to work with my child to do things that fit her as an individual, not try to mold her into what the books tell me she should be. That was a huge step for me. I live by guidelines and instructions... I think that's why I always liked Math more than English. With math there was always a right way to do things... always a right answer... everything was very cut and dry. So parenting has been an adjustment for me. Suddenly no one can tell me what the right way to do things is (though there are those that try!). I can't always know if what I'm doing is the best... I just have to go with my gut and hope it all works out. I'm so glad I've got Christ by my side to give me strength to get through each day. Knowing that He is ultimately the one in control is a huge weight off my shoulders!

So now here I am... the stay-at-home mother of a beautiful 2 month old daughter... and I truly, honestly can say that I absolutely love it. (I think the fact that she finally sleeps through the night most of the time helps with that haha!) It is so much fun to look back and see how much I have learned in just 2 short months. I certainly know a lot more about Lydia than I did when we first brought her home. I know when she is sleepy or just tired of being held. I know how to make her smile and laugh, and also some things that make her really mad! And while a part of me feels a little sad seeing her grow up so quickly right before my eyes, I take great pride in knowing that I can provide for her needs and have contributed to her outstanding growth and development. She is by far the best job I've ever had!

I know that as a mother the learning will never end. Just as soon as I think I've got her figured out, Lydia will change and I'll have to adjust. But that just means I get to live in constant awe as I continuously discover who this beautiful child of God is becoming. I can't thank God enough for entrusting her to my care and for all that He is teaching me as I get to watch her grow.

So I was wondering the other day as I read a friend's blog about how much she was getting accomplished during the day while at home with her newborn son... why is it that I haven't seemed to be able to do that? Lydia is over 2 months old now and there are still several places in the house that haven't seen a housekeeper's touch since before she was born. Now granted, I've never been a clean-freak and put off cleaning stuff long before I had a child, but after bringing Lydia home I often found it difficult to even get to the simple stuff like washing dishes or picking up the piles of baby stuff that kept accumulating everywhere.