Wednesday, February 15, 2012

11-months

This girl is 11 months old!


She is SO much fun!


And cute! But I'm biased.



She has really started to enjoy playing with friends...she doesn't like to play alone.







She is crawling all over the place!  Girlfriend is quick!  She loves to follow Boof around and try to steal his bone.  It's quite funny. Boofer is very patient with her. She pulls up like a champ and cruises, but no steps or standing on her own.  She does walk behind her tractor though.  

She has finally started eating again.  She took a month off.  I joke that she was being super picky and then finally realized that she had to eat what we were giving her or she would starve.  Not that you would know it from those cheeks.  She is still pretty picky, but she will eat more than goldfish now, so that is good.  She loves yogurt, graham crackers, goldfish, any kind of bread, sweet potatoes, black beans (her favorite) and peas.  Really it was kind of like one day we had a picky baby, the next we didn't.  Crazy girl!  Even though she temporarily stopped eating, she didn't stop growing.  We went to the doctor last week for some gastrointestinal issues and she weighed in at 22 lbs. 10 oz.  She is wearing 12 and 18 month clothes, but still size 2 shoes.  Her feet are tiny!

She talks a lot, very loudly!  And she LOVES to dance.  She has several musical toys and likes to keep them all singing, especially her elephant.  She has a pink elephant that blows balls into the air that she keeps turned on all day long if I'll let her.  She crawls over to push the button, and 45 seconds later when it finishes the song, she goes back to push it again.   That will go on for a VERY long time.  She is very good at figuring out how to make items sing.  Any toy or item that makes a melody or beat is explored until she realized just what makes the noise happen and that action is repeated over and over.  She dances standing, she dances sitting, she dances!  It cracks me up.  She claps and loves to play patty-cake, or any of the finger play games.  She doesn't love to read, but doesn't seem to hate it, so we persevere in hopes of creating a reader.

She is sleeping through the night again. Hallelujah!! (knock on wood)  Mainly because we finally got tired enough to let her cry for a while and learn how to put herself back to sleep.  That was not fun, but worth it.  We are all happier for it!

She is getting her top two teeth.  Today they started to peek through the gums, so she's been cranky and I'm just hoping that they will come through quickly.

She has had a seemingly constant runny nose, but I hear that is just part of winter.  A gross part of winter, but, oh well.  Her hair has gotten so long that people ask when I'm going to cut it.  So, to answer that question, I'm not.  At least not for a while.  I'm sure we will trim it at some point, I have noticed that the ends are looking rough, but I want her hair to grow!  I'm okay with it being long.  In fact I would much rather it be long than shorter that way we can pull it back or braid it or whatever instead of just the fro with bow.

Happy 11 months sweet girl!  You make my days so fun!


Remembering Valentine's past

In the past few years I have definitely mellowed out about Valentines Day.  As a teenager/pre-married person I had great visions of V-day being so romantic and special every year.  Flowers, chocolate, dressed up dinners out, etc.  I must say I'm glad I've let go of those expectations.

The letting go started 6 years ago on the first V-day that Van and I were interested in one another.  He had called me every night for two months, but it wasn't official that we were an item.  We hadn't even seen each other in 2 months, but I assumed that we were kind of dating. I thought it was an acceptable assumption since he called EVERY night at 9:00 (that is when my unlimited minutes kicked in, oh the old days).  The big day, Feb. 14 came and all that arrived was a facebook message that said something like "Happy card company conspiracy day."  To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

This year I woke up to roses (so sweet) and a diet coke (because he knows me).  I made his favorite dinner, and we put K to bed early so that we could actually eat it and have a conversation at the same time.  It was nice.

According to my expectations of old, it would have been a little disappointing, but I wouldn't have traded it for a big to-do.  We have found the comfortable middle ground of Van's altogether avoidance of the day and my over-the-top celebration.  Marriage is sweet that way, the mingling of two very different people to make a family.



Happy Valentine's Day from the Thompsons

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Warning---A Mom Post

I've been watching a lot of HGTV and spending too much time on the Crye Leike website.  It is actually so serious that when driving around town I like to point to houses and tell how much they cost.  Yes I have a problem!

What, you may be asking, is causing this discontent with our current home? There are many things about our house that I would change: lack of storage space (I currently just rid us of excess approximately once a month, not a bad habit), a small, ugly kitchen that at the very least needs a paint job,   old house=no insulation=cold house... I could go on, but I won't because it isn't healthy.

What is about to push me over the edge though, is that the only shower in the house backs up to K's room waking her up whenever anyone showers after 6:00 am.  This usually doesn't affect Van because he showers at 5:30, I think maybe because it is still dark it doesn't bother her, I don't know.   All I know is that it makes it impossible for me to wake up and get myself ready for the day before my child. (Yes it is impossible for me to get up before 6 because I have another problem: being a night owl.  It is physically impossible for me to go to sleep before midnight, most nights its even later than that.)

On the days when I don't shower (yes those days occur) she will sleep until 8:30-9:00.  It is beautiful.  I can wake up, eat breakfast, read, and basically get excited about her getting up all before she does.  On the days I need a shower, I try to get up before her, but inevitably when I'm all shampooed I hear my screaming child, so I shower as quickly as humanly possible, wrap a towel around myself and head to her room dripping and slightly frazzled (due to the screaming).  And since my baby needs to be cuddled for a minimum of 15 minutes upon waking I can either deal with the screaming while I dress and dry my hair or choose to forego the process of getting myself ready and once I do try to make myself look presentable, I have to try and keep her from eating the bathroom trash or other equally important things.

This also presents the nap schedule problem.  If she wakes up at 7, she is ready for a nap at 10 or 10:30, but if she wakes up at 9, she doesn't want a nap until 12.  This has all really only become a problem since she started crawling because I used to just put her in her bumbo on the bathroom floor while I showered.  Now that is for sure not an option.

Help!  Anyone have any suggestions that don't require adding on to our current house or moving?