Letter to Baby

Dear Avonlea,

So, I totally missed your 6-month letter. You know why that is? Because we have been SO BUSY!  You have changed your naps, so you now sleep about an hour in the morning around 9, and then take a longer, 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon around 1 or 1:30.  This means I'm not able to get as much done during the day, but it also means that we have a lot more time together during the day, too.

Your little personality is really starting to come out. You love to smile and giggle. You play independently really well. You have been starting to manipulate smaller objects. If I give you something that has a zipper or a buckle, you'll sit and play with it for 20 minutes or so. This was actually a huge help when we flew to Philadelphia for Girls' Weekend--you played with your diaper changing station for a long time.

We're still working with you on a few things. You go down for naps really well, but your sleep at night isn't going all that well. You sleep 3-4 hours at a time. Occasionally you'll sleep for 5, but not often. You very consistently get up between 10 and 11pm. We're also working on eating solid foods. You do not like to eat off of a spoon!  You will clamp your lips together and refuse to open them! Thankfully, you will eat out of the food pouches, so we've been doing it that way, which helps.  You like apples, pears, carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, mangoes, peaches, plums, and water. You DO NOT like squash, green beans, or peas. We'll keep working on it. :)

You are finally rolling over consistently. You can jet yourself around on the blanket--one day this week, I found you halfway under the couch!  You roll around like crazy in your crib, too. You often end up perpendicular to how I put you in the crib initially. Sometimes I'll hear you in the monitor with a frustrated cry and go in to your room to find you snuggled up against the solid side of your crib, unable to move.

You love to be outside. I have been taking you out for daily walks in your stroller, and you are content to ride along with me for an hour or more. Sometimes I am able to extend your awake time a little bit that way. Daylight Saving Time really messed up your bedtime routine--you used to go to bed at 7, but now we're pretty set at 6:30. Occasionally I can keep you up a little bit later, but usually you're pretty fussy.

Speaking of fussy, you really don't fuss very often anymore. You're growing and maturing so much. You really only fuss when you're ready for bed. Because you don't fuss often anymore, we really can take you just about anywhere. You're able to sit in high chairs, so we will take a few toys in the diaper bag, and you can sit in a restaurant with us and behave so nicely. You also do really well when you're with Daddy. You love him so much!

You're so chatty. You still sing yourself to sleep--usually in the car. You have the short a and short o sounds down pat. You use the consonants m, b, and d when you're talking. I swear you say maamaamaa when I'm around, and daadaadaa when Daddy is around, but he isn't convinced. Sunni thinks so, too!  You love blowing raspberries now, and when I blow them back at you, you giggle. You also sing along to the music that I play in the house or in the car. It's fun to watch you bounce on your butt to the music. There is one song in particular on Daddy's phone that makes you bounce, and it makes us laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nloSwFDPJAY

You are super ticklish on your thighs and on your ribcage. I love making you giggle and bend over with laughter. Your smile and your laugh makes my heart sing. You giggle a few times, and then make an "aak" noise, and then squeal like a little piglet. It's so funny!  http://instagram.com/p/g9YAqmMqnn/  http://instagram.com/p/g-6YFjsqmE/

You love going to Baby Mamas group on Tuesday. Joshua, Ava, Fletcher and Wyatt have become such good friends. You and Joshua tend to tackle each other often.

Everyone talks about how cute you are, everywhere we go. I've got to work on making sure you say thank you, but stay humble about it. Hopefully people will recognize how smart you are, too! :)

You still don't show any signs of getting any teeth. You chew on everything, but you have since you figured out how to put stuff in your mouth, so I don't consider that a sign.

I love you more than you'll ever know, my chunky monkey, my little nugget.
Mommy :)

Rhythm Child

It's fun being part of a Mom's group. It's nothing formal, like a MOPS group or anything--just a bunch of moms from our church that get together once a week to hang out and pray for each other, and watch our kids grow up together.

One of the activities that we did recently was take our kiddos to see a musical group called Rhythm Child perform at one of our outdoor malls. It takes place once a month--but this month, since they had started decorating for Christmas, it took place indoors. It was a little LOUD and overwhelming, but the kids seemed to have a good time anyway.

We went to Barnes and Noble afterwards to get some coffee and sit and look at books and chat.

Joshua using Avonlea's head as the drum:

A video of the cacophony:

InstaSunday

I haven't posted my Instagram photos for a while. Here's a fun little recap of this week!

Avonlea is rolling around a bunch more. She's making her way around the blanket now:

Cutie Patootie:

Avonlea and Gus filmed roles in Rhett and Link's newest music video this week:

Selfies with my sweet girl:

A picture with Daddy on set with Rhett and Link:

Still going through physical therapy, but seeing some definite improvement:

It's FINALLY getting cold!  My little Yoda bundles up and accompanies me:

Some beautiful sunsets after the rain:

Nick and I got to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire thanks to our neighbor who watched the girl:

Accurate tshirt:

Did The Graffiti Run today with my friend Kerry. Before and After:

We headed to Sonic afterwards for some tots and sweet tea--sadly, it was an overall poor experience. :(

Cedarville Magazine Announcement

Our University publishes an "Alumnotes" section every quarter. I look forward to reading about who has had babies, who gets married, etc.  They pretty much have a standard format for the announcements. Mom and Dad name and graduation year, baby name, birth date, dad job, mom job.  I decided to mix it up a bit with Avonlea's announcement.

Rage Against the Minivan...er, Machine

Want to get everyone on Facebook riled up?

Say you're never going to get a minivan.

Last week, I watched "Parenthood" (are you watching that show? If not, you should. SO good.), and on it, Jasmine was trying to convince Crosby that they needed to get a minivan. Crosby, who I have identified with more often this season than I'd like to admit, was repulsed by the idea, and spent most of the episode vehemently against it.  That is, until the very end of the episode, when he was able to drive an entire band home after a drunken night out, wherein he decided the minivan was a great purchase.

I went onto Facebook and declared Crosby a traitor.

See, in our house, we will NEVER have a minivan. And I am proud to announce that declaration to the public. I will stand on a pedestal, shout it from the rooftops, whatever it takes to show how serious I am about it.

Every time I happen to mention we will never have one, someone says, "oh, just wait" (there's that phrase again).  "Don't go saying things like that until you have 2-3 more kids." or "Ha. We'll see."

What these poor, misguided people don't fully comprehend is who they are talking to.  When I say I will never get one, I really and truly mean I will NEVER. GET. ONE.

I stand by my principles. I do not waver. I do not yield. Especially when my pride is on the line. Let me give you an example.

When we moved into our newly built home in the summer between my 2nd and 3rd grade year, I was so excited to be able to pick out the carpet and wallpaper colors for my room. After going through books upon books of wallpaper samples (does anyone else remember getting to take those home from the store?), my mom basically declared all my choices too juvenile, saying that I would grow out of what I had chosen really quickly. She thought I should go with a more "mature" color palette and pattern for the floor and the walls.  Now, when I was a kid, I was 1000% pure tomboy.  I lived in my knockoff Umbros and my imitation Adidas Sambas. My favorite colors were blue and green. I would rather have been caught dead than wear a dress--which made Sundays pretty much the worst ever in terms of wardrobe when you go to a dresses-on-Sunday kind of church.  So when my mom picked out rose-colored carpet and large variations-of-pink posies wallpaper, I cried and wailed. I'm pretty sure there was gnashing of teeth involved. The wallpaper looked like a hideous Laura Ashley print from the early 90s--or at least something that you would find on a tapestry in some creepy Sister Wives house in Utah. It was pretty much the most awful option that I could have ever been given for a room.  I vowed then and there that I would NEVER forgive my mom for that one.

She said, "Just wait."  She said, "You'll love it one day soon, I promise."  But by George, I had my righteous, holy anger, and there was no way on God's green Earth I was ever going to like that wallpaper and nasty carpet.

It was always funny when friends would come over and ask to see my room, because they were taken aback when they saw all the pink. "*This* is your room?" they would ask, with a sense of wonder. By the time middle school came around, I started taking to covering as much of the walls as possible with various posters (the 1992 US Men's Basketball Team, Steven Curtis Chapman, and a huge soccer poster were 3 that I remember specifically) and as much other stuff as possible. And though I couldn't do anything about the carpet, I rebelled by keeping my floor as covered with crap as possible so that I couldn't see the awful Pepto-Bismol color.

I moved to college still hating that darn wallpaper.  Only when I lived in China after graduation, and my parents decided to convert my old room into a guest room, did the wallpaper come down.  Did you catch that? They only changed the paper after I moved away!  Grr....  Anyways, I hated that wallpaper abomination every single day that it existed in my room, and I never once wavered in my undying detestation of it.

That whole story is a perfect illustration of why I will never get a minivan, and why all those people who tell me that I'll change my mind about it will just have to understand that it will never be so.

So why all the hate?  After all, it's just a car, right?  Yes, it's just a car. But everyone has something like this, right? A stance on an issue that you will not budge from. For some people, they are staunch about their nutrition. For some, it's politics. For some, it's a moral standard, or a conspiracy theory, or scientific truth, or Mac vs. PC. My point is, everyone has something that they have a super-strong opinion about. This is mine. Silly? Probably. But it is what it is.

So without further ado, here is my list. My (non-exhaustive, and in no particular order) list of:

Why I Will Never Get A Minivan

1. I will never have trouble finding which car is mine when picking up my kids at school.
2. My kids will have to learn to consolidate and organize their crap, just like I have to.
3. They rent portable DVD players for the car. I don't need them magically built in for everyday use. Vacations, yes. Zombify those kids for the 18-hour drive to Disney. But other than that, they'll be fine.
4. I survived my whole childhood without a minivan, why can't my kids?
5. I will NOT have a dirty car all the time, with crap spilling out of the doors every time they open. This is my #1 pet peeve of minivans. Have you ever, other than in a showroom, seen a clean minivan??
6. No matter how many swagger wagon videos you make, minivans have never been, nor will they ever be cool to anyone other than other parents.  I have a very short list of requirements for a vehicle. "Cool looking" is one of them.
7. The minivan is just a step down from an RV. An RV is way more cool. So why not just get an RV?
8. In Los Angeles, minivan owners have to park really far away from their destination, because you can't get anyone in or out of the car because the parking spaces are extremely narrow. Our friend Link has to put the nose of the van in the parking space, let his kids out, then pull in the rest of the way, otherwise his kids can't get out of the van.
9. If you have so much extra space in your car that you are able to misplace entire cups filled with milk, which then curdle in the heat and make your entire car smell for months like someone has died in it, then you have too much space.
10. Because I have my principles.

A Lesson from Fashion

NOTE BEFORE READING:  This post is about poop.  In some places, another word for poop might be used, because honestly, sometimes poop evokes a stronger word than "poop". Okay, on to the post.

It was all for the love of one dress.

I have been searching for a good deal on this specific dress from Carter's since I saw it several months ago. Since I've been spoiled by shopping at Old Navy with an employee discount for so long, I couldn't imagine spending $42 (!) on it, so I have been waiting and waiting for a good deal.  I even saw the dress at Macy's once, but as further evidence of my spoilage, I didn't have a coupon, so I wasn't going to buy it, even though it was 40% off.

I get emails from Carter's, and I saw they were having their end-of-season up to 70% off sale, PLUS I had a 20% off coupon. So, after Avonlea's physical therapy appointment, I decided I would head over, coupon in hand.

Carter's is in the same shopping center as her PT, so I walked. It was another gorgeous day here in SoCal, and Avonlea could use the Vitamin D. I decided not to take her diaper bag, because we were only going to be in the store a few minutes, while I looked for the dress.  It's just too heavy to carry both her in the Bjorn, and the diaper bag full of stuff.

BIG Mistake. Huge.

We get to Carter's, and as usual I start drooling. I absolutely love Carter's clothes. They're a great fit for my long baby, and even though she has big legs, she doesn't really have a big belly at all--so the slimmer fit of Carter's onesies are perfect for her.  I went in search of the dress....and couldn't find it!  There were big selections of all the other dresses in this style, but none of the horse dress!

(If I had wanted any of these dresses, I would have been set!)

Right about this time, I started to notice my sweet little Avonlea was letting some nice, stinky ones rip.  This isn't unusual lately. She has hearty man gas. Sometimes, I think it is the dogs, but no, it is my sweet little girl letting out gas that can clear a room.

This gas was so stinky that I kept checking to make sure she didn't poop.  Two or three times, I checked.  Nothing.

Finally, I was in the clearance section, and there it was! The dress!!  I was leaning over to find one in the next size up, and it happened: Avonlea let one go.  It wasn't just that she pooped. She let it go so loud that I looked around and found a lady smirking at me.  I wanted to say, "No! It wasn't me!" but really, what would be the point?  And what would I look like blaming that loud noise on my little baby?

Since I had found the dress--in her size!--I knew it was time to head out. I figured I had a limited amount of time before she started getting really uncomfortable, and I didn't want to risk any leakage. She has had some "up the back" poops recently, and I hate cleaning her up in the car.

I headed to the checkout, and the smell was getting worse and worse. I was actually embarrassed at the checkout.  The cashier helpfully let me know that they had a restroom and a changing station if I needed it (you know it's bad when they offer this information without asking), but since I had left the diaper bag in the car, it wouldn't be necessary, since I couldn't change her anyway.

I quickly exited the store, and chugged my (now very stinky) baby back to the car. To keep her from getting cranky, I play with her toes on the way back, making her giggle and squirm.

BIG mistake. Huge.

When we're about 10 feet away, I start to feel something on my left leg. Horrified, I look down, and I see a yellow rivulet of creamy poop running down my leg. Not only that, but there's a matching rivulet running down my right leg, too. Rivulets of shit (surely there's a song waiting to be written there).

Not only is this loveliness now on both of my legs, I notice they are all the way down Avonlea's legs, too--so when I was cute-sily playing with her toes, I was getting it all over my hands, too.

Have you ever tried to get your car keys out of the diaper bag with poop all over your hands?

Somehow I manage to get the trunk of our station wagon open without crapping all over my keys (thank God for the automatic lift gate). I carefully maneuver her changing pad into the back of the car, trying not to wiggle the baby around too much, as more and more of the yellow offensiveness keeps smooshing out of her diaper and onto her legs, her socks, the Bjorn, my legs, and my shirt.

The ONLY positive to this story is that I had an empty plastic bag (thankful to have bought the dress from Carter's) and a spare diaper in the diaper bag.  I had to strip Avonlea (carefully) down, remove her diaper, use an entire bag of wipes on her poopy butt, try to get the shit-laden Bjorn off of me without soiling my own shirt any further, stuff it in the bag, and then use the wipes on my own shirt and legs, too (miraculously it missed my shorts entirely).  All while trying not to vomit from the disgustingness.

I felt like some freakish circus performer.

The final straw for this glorious occasion was reaching into her diaper bag to get her change of clothes, only to realize I had just taken it out because it was too small, and hadn't replaced it yet. So, my sweet, stinky girl rode home from Carter's in naught but her skivvies.  I'm sure it won't be the first time.

Avonlea hasn't worn the dress yet--I bought it in a bigger size so she will wear it in a couple of months--but I really hope that the whole experience doesn't sour my feelings about the dress.  I will be really sad.