Life With Libby

 

Right now the dish washer needs to be empty, Libby is refusing to take a nap...even though she will stay in her crib for at least 2 hours resting despite the desperate cries for help, and I just ate a tomato sandwich, on toast, slathered with mayonnaise.  The Littlest makes me hate everything after I crave it and eat it once.  I hope that this is not the case with tomato sandwiches, with fresh from the vine tomatoes. That my friend would be the saddest thing...so far so good, 3 days in a row and I still like them.

 

I've been meaning to post for, well I suppose since the last time I posted.  My child is hysterical to me, probably like yours is to you.  She is like a one woman wrecking room.

 

I think that she has a button that she pushes when she enters a room and everything just flies off the shelves, and out of cupboards.

 

Then she just twirls and dances through the mess, with her strawberry blond fringe hanging in her eyes.   Lately, when she finds enough treasures in all the cracks and crevices of my house, she packs them away in one of my purses or reusable shopping bags. Here are the contents of three that she packed the other day.... 

She generally walks to the door with her bag on one arm, and her baby doll in the other, then turns around, says "bye,"  grins and runs to the other room. 

Everything to her is some sort of game or make believe I guess, and I just love watching it unfold.  Generally speaking, watching her grow up is a beautifully painful process for me, but these days I have been loving every minute of it.  I think she does something profound everyday...like speaking in sentences.  When did that happen?  I'll tell you when it happened, somewhere between me feeling sick on the couch and growing this bump one trimester too early! 

These next pictures were taken on a hot day last week...All the days are hot, but since we couldn't get to the pool, I turned on the hose, filled the baby pool, and let my wild ones run amok through the yard.

They both got wet and dirty very fast, I was scrubbing up dirty paw prints and muddy baby toes off my kitchen floor for the rest of the day.  When it was all said and done she decided her diaper was too heavy, took it off,  look at me in a distressed manner, said "no-no', then went potty in the corner!   

 

They both had a great time and on this day in particular, took wonderfully long afternoon naps.

That's all I have for now...this post actually took me two days to write and is probably less then creative, with many grammatical errors.

Here's hoping you don't read them too carefully.

Grace and Peace

ox

A Cat Bird and a Street Evangelist

This past Friday, the Little and I decided to to take Gus for a walk.  Libby insisted on walking and taking my Bible?  I let her take the Bible and walk to the end of our road.  You can imagine my surprise when I turned around to find that following close behind us, almost in a perfect line was our cat.

  

The nosy neighbor up the road, looked down her nose at us,
and said  "you know, there is a cat behind you."
I replied, "yes mam, I know, he is our cat, and he normally waits in your perfectly manicured flower beds while we walk to the park, but seeing as you are in his way I suppose he'll just have to come with us."
Then she said, "well I hope he doesn't get hit by a car,"
then I said, "and I hope he doesn't use your daisy border as a litter box"
...oaky, okay, I wasn't quite that direct, I said something much more polite like, "oh thank you mam, hopefully he'll run on home in a minute."

Anyway, he did not go home, and after trying to shove him in the basket of Libby's stroller unsuccessfully, I just let him follow us and told him that it was his own fault if he got hit by a car.
Turns out that cars were the least of his worries.  A nasty bird that lives on top a street lamp down the road, would not allow him passage.  Every time he tried to walk by she would dive bomb him like a fighter jet.
People were staring at us...and pointing out the obvious...like the nosy neighbor saying, "there is a cat behind you did you know? and he's being attacked by a bird"
In the end, we never made it to the park, we never even made it around the block.  We had to walk the traumatized cat home.  We tried to go a second time and he followed us again, and the bird came after him again.  This time we called it a day.  Trouble came inside  and slept the rest of the afternoon. 
I might just do the same today...
Grace and Peace

Bottoms Up

What is your beverage of choice?

I'm normally a pure H2O girl, with the occasional sweet tea mixed in.  The Littlest is creating chaos on my taste buds and making me try a new beverage daily.  I tried to drink water last week, but you really don't want me to tell you what happened afterward!  I moved on to Izzy fizzy juice after that.  This week I've been drink Archer Farms Peach-Pear Italian Soda with a side of crushed ice.

 Do you have any suggestions for a pregnant woman who doesn't like the taste of anything these days?



Here's hoping you're staying hydrated somehow...it's pretty much a thousand degrees outside!

A Full Range Of Happy Emotions

I have a confession...please don't judge me.
I mean, you can if you want to, but I'm just trying to be honest.
Here goes, with out being too explicit... my body has always been on it's own very random schedule, so depending on 28 days to tell me if I should expect anything exciting in the coming months has never really worked for me...Therefore, in the 5 years that I have been married, I have probably spent a good portion of Libby's college fund on pregnacy tests.  When we were wanting to be pregnant with Libby, months went by that I hovered of a plastic stick in hopes that  the lines would cross, or that there would be two lines instead of one, or digitally I would read the words "pregnant" instead of "not pregnant."  ("Not pregnant" always felt like such a slap in the face,  like when I was single and I would check my messages and the voice mail would say "no messages," so harsh, a bitter sting that what I wanted did not happen)  I digress...
Fast forward to some weeks ago...
Picture it, a sunny April morning,  Libby and I wake up to the cat stuck out on the roof, meowing loudly.  We rescue the cat and I say to myself, "self, I will not waste time on the internet today, but I think I will take a pregnancy test."  So there we waited, me and the Little hovered over a plastic stick, waiting for those magic words to appear...pregnant!

I can't really describe the feelings I had at this moment (I know I felt the same way with Libby though..tears, fears, convulsions, nausea, etc.).   I'm pretty sure it felt like flying, like an out of body experience, like it wasn't happening to me...surreal.  I throw on a layer of lip gloss and a pony tail, grabbed the Little, still in her pj's, whistle for the dog, and drive like a crazy woman over to Kev's office.  When I showed him what had unfolded in our morning activities, he stood in disbelief, certain that there was no way a test would register positive in such a short amount of time.  We basically found out when  I was about a minute pregnant... the cells were still dividing, I had no signs of pregnancy, I was about 4 days away from actually needing to even take a test...I just thought it would be a good way to start the day.  Turns out, it really is the best way to begin your morning, even better than a good cup of coffee...which  indecently I can't even stand the thought of now.

And so it is, that God is blessing our little corner of this world again...a tiny hearts beats even now as I type, their little body is hard at work growing, and I have the sickness,  the exhaustion, and the I'm on my second pregnancy bump,  to show for it.

We are happy..and while two babies is something that I really can't wrap my head around, I know that God will give me the grace to love the Little and the Littlest just the same.

Here's hoping that this post made you grin from ear to ear, as promised...it did for me.

The secret's out...my maternity jeans won't let me hide it any longer!

Grace and Peace

It's All In the Goodbye

The first time I had to say goodbye to  Kevin, I felt like I couldn't breath...The next time  we had to say goodbye, after I was sure that I loved him, we were holding on tight in front of the security gate at Heathrow and the only word I could mutter was "no" when he tried to let go of me.
I've never been very good at goodbyes.  When my parents would take me to the airport after Christmas break in college, they would stand outside security waving until they couldn't see me anymore and I would cry the entire walk to my gate.

This weekend after a few, fun days with my sister and her family, we had to say goodbye, which is actually a pretty normal thing for us.  We've lived apart for a while now, so we've always just had a of couple days here and there, but this time felt so different.  They are moving Cali in just a week or two, and I suppose that was that last time we'll see them  until Christmas...maybe. 

 For years I have secretly prayed that one day we would live so close that we could grab lunch together spur of the moment.  If you knew my sister you would want to grab lunch with her too, she's everything I've ever wanted to be, she's almost perfect. 

It was no surprise to me that when her little girls hugged me goodbye, I totally lost it, like couldn't gain my composure lost it, and then my sister cried, which she never does, so I cried some more.
I hate goodbye...parting is such sweet sorrow.
My theory is that, which I've mentioned before, if we lived near those people that we love so much, and saw them every day, the times we spent with them wouldn't be nearly as special. At least that is what I tell myself to make me feel better when I am forced to endure another sad goodbye with the ones I love.

Goodbye dear readers....see saying that was hard for me!  Really I promise a happy post is on it's way and seriously, if pictures of these kiddos don't make you smile, I don't know what will. Who comes to this blog to read anyway?...it's all just ramblings of a lazy house wife!

Grace and peace, here's hoping your goodbyes are few and far between.