seven years

(this picture was taken yesterday morning on our architectural boat tour on the Chicago River)

Seven years ago today I became a wife. June 30, 2001 was a very hot and sunny day, and we were married in an un-air conditioned church! But it was a happy day and it's been a happy seven years. Seven years sounds like a long time, and I really have a hard time remembering my life before he came along, but on the other hand our wedding day sometimes seems like yesterday!

Some of the things I remember best about that day (besides the heat) are:
*waking up early and baking breakfast rolls for my husband-to-be. My friend, Faith, delivered them to him at his hotel with a card. We didn't see each other until the wedding, but I did talk to him once that morning. Faith's boyfriend (now husband), Erick, incidentally, had arrived at our house late the night before. He was sleeping down in our basement, while Faith was sharing my room upstairs. My dad hadn't remembered that he was sleeping down there, so he locked the basement door like he always does. In the morning he tried to come upstairs and couldn't get up! He called my parents' phone from his cell phone and said, "Hello, Mrs. B? This is Erick from down in the basement....." It was hilarious. Poor Erick. I'll never forget that.
*having a breakdown at the reception hall a few hours before the wedding because I was so stressed trying to answer everyone's questions who was there trying to help me decorate. My mom calmed me down and everything was happy again.
*getting my hair done with all of my bridesmaids.
*crying while saying my vows and having my almost-husband reach up and gently wipe the tear away with his finger--it was so sweet.
*smiling for pictures until my face hurt
*driving back to my parents' house in between pictures and the reception with my brand new husband, best man, and maid of honor just so we could relax and sit in the air conditioning for a few mintues and get something cold to drink. It was nice to just sit and not smile for a few minutes!! (Oh, and it's probably TMI, but I also remember while I was there trying to use the bathroom in my big poofy wedding dress and having to ask my maid of honor to come help me! We couldn't stop laughing.)
*waltzing with my Dad to "Daddy's Little Girl"
*not getting a piece of my own wedding cake! :(
*being so tired at the end of the reception and just wanting to leave, but my friends had covered our car with opened up oreos and filled it with balloons. I know it was all in fun, but I was so tired that I just started crying because all I wanted to do was leave and we had to clean up the huge mess before we could drive anywhere. In retrospect, I behaved horribly towards my friends, who were just trying to have fun....I wish I could change that.
*stopping on the way to the hotel at the gas station so my husband could further clean the greasy oreo filling off the windshield!

These aren't all the happiest of memories, I've realized, but they are just the unique things that happened that day...... It really was a happy day overall! Mostly I just remember marrying the man I love and being so happy about beginning our new life together.

So we didn't really celebrate our anniversary today--the weekend in Chicago was our celebration which I'll write about tomorrow or the next day. We didn't get back to my parents' from the train until 2 AM this morning (it's a long story), and then I got up at 6 this morning to see my little girl, who I missed like crazy, and then driving back home, so we're both really exhausted. So it doesn't really seem like our anniversary, but we had a fun celebration this weekend, and I can't wait to see what the next seven...seventeen...and seventy years hold for us together.

Happy Anniversary, B! I love you!

freedom and tears

In a strange turn of events, I ended up childless today. Here's what happened: My mom came down yesterday to babysit while I taught my first scrapbook class (more on that later). She spent the night in order to babysit again this morning while I taught my class. So last night my husband and I went out for a little bit since we had the chance for a date. We got ice cream and went to Barnes and Noble, which used to be a favorite inexpensive hangout of ours. Now we hardly ever get to go there, because who wants to go to a bookstore with a two year old trying to pull the books off the shelves?

So while we were out and enjoying our freedom my husband said, jokingly, "Maybe your mom could take R home with her tomorrow!" See, we're headed up to her house tomorrow evening because we're leaving Friday morning on the train for our long weekend in Chicago. She and my dad are keeping R. If she took her up today when she left, she could leave at naptime, a quiet trip int he car, and that would save us from having to drive her up in the late afternoon when she's at her fussiest. But this was said as a joke. We weren't expecting it to happen.

This morning I told my mom what he had said, also jokingly. She answered, "Well, I had already thought about that." The more we talked about it, the more it seemed like a good idea--if she went up today I would have more time to pack and get ready for the trip. It didn't hit me until I put R's suitcase in the car and my mom was putting R's shoes and socks back on to get ready to go. I started tearing up. It's been almost a year since the last time we left her. It was awful then, and it was awful now, saying goodbye.

But after a few tears and then getting busy with all that I have to do, I realized how freeing it is to have this break. I went out and about running errands and so forth and didn't have to worry about a fussy girl needing a diaper, snack, or entertainment. I could stay out as long as I needed to. It's hard to remember when life was always like this! I don't long for those days at all--I adore my girl and being her mom, but every once in awhile it's nice to get a glimpse of the freedom again.

So tomorrow I have another day of freedom and after my husband gets off work we'll drive up to my parents' to see our sweet girl again, just before she's due to go to bed. We'll leave before dawn the next day on the train for Chicago. I'll have my computer there, but don't know how much time I'll take to do any posting. We'll see.

Super Bunny and other oddities

While we were on vacation my daughter saw an episode of Max and Ruby where Max was listening to his favorite radio show called "Super Bunny." (I could expound here about how much I dislike that show, but she loves it, so occasionally we let her watch it, as it's on after dinner when we're all tired and need a little bit of a break--it's not bad, it's just annoying because Max always gets in trouble, Ruby is such a know it all, and besides, where in the world are their parents??). Anyway, he had on a red cape and was running around the house trying to save things while he listened. That night before bed she took her beloved purple blanket (she's so attached to that thing and it's a good thing we only allow her to have it in bed, because on vacation when she was allowed to have it in the car and hotel she hardly touched anything else. She's seriously obsessed) and put it around her shoulders like a cape. She started running through the hotel room yelling, "Super Bunny!"

It's become a daily event now. Every morning she wakes up, stands up in her crib, puts it around her shoulders and declares herself to be Super Bunny. When I come in she says, "Super Bunny, book?" That means she would like me to sit with her in the rocking chair in her room with her blanket wrapped around her and read a book. This has now become a daily routine, too. After naptime it's the same thing. The only reason I've agreed to it is because it gets her out of bed. Prior to "Super Bunny book time" she would lay and play in bed for a half hour or so after her nap was over just because she wanted more time with her precious blanket. Now it's a quick book and then she's ready to put the blanket back in bed and go downstairs to go about our day.

When we put her to bed at night we'll often hear her talking in the monitor for a few minutes before she falls asleep and inevitably we hear at least one, "Super Bunny!" and know exactly what she's doing.

Tonight she took an afghan from off the couch and started being Super Bunny in the living room instead.

Here's another weird fact about my daughter. She takes her socks off during every nap and pushes them to the floor behind her crib. I've started taking her socks off before her nap because if I forget then I have to pull her crib away from the wall after she wakes up and rescue the lost socks (and usually find several other pairs back there as well). I don't even bother putting socks on her after her bath at night for this very reason. She seems to prefer being barefoot. Which is strange to me because both my husband and I really don't like being barefoot. Where did she learn this?

Speaking of where she learned things....she has another very strange behavior that we can't explain. Whenever she gets excited about things she likes to throw herself on the ground or bend over and put her head on the floor, looking backwards between her legs. Where in the world did that come from? Last week we went to story time at the library. We hadn't been in awhile, so it seemed new to her. At the last minute my friend, Allecia and her son, Kaden walked in. I hadn't told her they were coming because I didn' t know for sure if they'd be there, so she was very surprised to see them. Well, she was so thrilled to see them that she proceeded to throw herself on the floor and kick her legs throughout the story time. It was rather embarrassing. I took her in the back of the room once and told her to stop (she could've easily kicked someone because there were a lot of kids there), and then we went up and tried again. She was better, but at the end she got excited about one of the songs they were singing and she did the same thing. This time I got up and left with her, since she had already been told to stop. She cried and carried on quite a bit about that. I was going to try again this morning, but I had too much to do and didn't make it. We'll try again soon and see if she's any better.


Today was definitely a "ugh...she's two" kind of day. Constant fussiness, a public scene (crying and carrying on because I put a toy back after she had said "all done car" and handed the car back to me! I put it away and started walking away. She decided she wasn't done with it after all but I wouldn't go back and get it for her. She didn't like that one bit and made sure the whole store knew it. We left. Quickly.), and testing Mommy and Daddy over and over. We did a lot of disciplining today. It was exhausting. And then tonight she was going back and forth between us giving us hugs and kisses--how can she be such a stinker one minute and then be so darn sweet the next???

in the club

Well, after two years of searching here, there, and everywhere for other moms who stay home with their kids (all of my friends with kids work or live far away), I've decided to join the local MOMS club (it's a national organization and they capitalize 'MOMS'...not sure if it's an acronym or what, but I'll copy off of them). I'm not much for clubs, but in order to be included in the activities you have to join, so I decided to give it a try for the year and see if I liked it. I actually looked into it a long time ago, but they couldn't figure out what group I fit in because of where my neighborhood is located (I'm kind of in between suburbs), but since it was such a struggle I gave up. I finally decided it was time to persevere and figure it out so I tried again.



A month or so ago we went to a 'meet and greet' playdate at a local park. I met a woman from my neighborhood and found out the new president lives across the street from me! Who knew...they've lived across the street from us for two years and I didn't even know she stayed home with her kids! That's what happens when everyone spends all of their times playing in their back yards with tall fences. You don't get to know the neighbors very well. Anyway, right after that we went on vacation, so I didn't join until after we got back. So today I went to my first official activity, which was a potluck picnic lunch at the house across the street. They have a great clubhouse/swingset which my little one loved, but the hit for her was the portable Little Tikes bounce house! There were only a few moms and kids there, but that made it better for me to get to know people. I met someone else from our neighborhood (who knew there were several stay at home moms in the neighborhood!?) and a few others who don't live too far away.



We'll see how things progress. It takes me a long time to get to know people, but I'll never get started unless I try it.

my summer job

EDITED--See the end



So I've got this "summer job" of sorts.




I'm going to teach a scrapbook class to kids at a day camp.



My friend used to teach kindergarten at a Jewish school in town (no, she's not Jewish--they had a Hebrew studies teacher and an English studies teacher...she taught the English studies). The parents of one of her students asked her if she would teach a class for the Jewish day camp that they run in the summers. She's likely going to be moving away this summer if their house sells (pause...while I wipe away my tears...I'm very, very sad about this, as she's my dearest friend in the entire world) and didn't want to take the job, but asked me if I would be interested. It pays well plus it's only eight mornings over the course of the next four weeks. It doesn't take a lot of time and I thought it would be fun to get out of the house and do something different and to teach something I love to kids (getting to use my teaching skills, which I really miss).

So tonight I met with the couple who run the camp. It sounds very interesting and I'm looking forward to it, though I'm still unsure about what to teach them. And it starts next week! Each class is only an hour long, but with stragglers and cleaning up at the end I'll really only have 45-50 minutes each time. I can't accomplish much myself when I'm working on my own scrapbook in 45-50 minutes. Kids who have probably never scrapbooked before really won't be able to. So I have to really pare down what I plan to do with them. And I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

So here's my question. If your child (daughter--age 8-12) was in a scrapbook class that you were paying for, what would you hope they would learn/accomplish in a one hour class?

EDIT: I seriously doubt that there will be boys in the class. They told me the boys always choose the sports options, or possibly, in a few instances, cooking, but they really don't think there will be boys. Sorry, Dad, but I doubt that there will be many golf or minor league baseball parks scrapbooked in these books.

home again

It was a loooooooooooooooooooooooong trip home, but we made it--Friday around 4:00 we finally pulled into our driveway. It's good to be home.



Our little one did pretty well in the car, but not as well as on the way down. And if I have to listen to the same two Dora episodes ever again, I think I'll....oh, I don't know....I just really don't want to hear those again! I had two Nick Jr. DVDs from the library and they had different episodes of some of her favorite shows--Dora, Jack's Big Music Show, Max and Ruby, Blue's Clues, etc. I had other videos too--Wiggles, Laurie Berkner, etc....but what did she want to watch over and over and over? Dora. Oh, and Blue's Clues too. The same two episodes of that, too. But I'm not going to complain anymore about it--those four episodes provided us with a lot of peace and quiet!



No pictures today--I'm pictured out for awhile, I think.

our last day

Today was our last full day here. We leave tomorrow morning and will drive a little over halfway and stay again in Virginia (a little further from where we stayed last time).

So here's today's rundown....

Down Time after Breakfast (this is what she's been doing most of the time that we're in our room--taking her shells out of her bucket, counting them, putting them back in, taking them out, and starting all over again--she counted to ten this morning correctly all by herself!)

Jockey's Ridge State Park--the sand dune place we went a few days ago when it was super duper hot. Today it was cooler and much more pleasant. We hiked up and saw hang gliders. Our daughter rode in the backpack on my husband's back for part of the way, but then decided to climb the rest of the way herself. She did great! She hiked part of the way back down, too, and then wanted to ride some more in the backpack.

The North Carolina Aquarium

Here she's looking at sting rays and trying to touch them.

She loved watching the dive show and went right up to the diver! We had to go move her out of the way so the woman giving the talk wouldn't trip over her! That's our fearless girl! (The picture didn't turn out very well but you get the idea....)

Our Beach--Kite Surfers (we were swimming in the pool and got out to watch these surfers)

Dinner--I tried soft shelled crab for the first time. It's fresh from the ocean here and you eat the whole thing, unlike regular crab legs that you pick the meat out--it was strange, but I liked it. I had to ask the waitress how to eat it!

Right outside the window of the restaurant was this osprey nest. You could see babies in the nest and the mother had a fish for them.

I doubt that I'll write for a few days. We'll be driving tomorrow and the next day, so there won't be much to write about. So farewell from the Outer Banks!

day four

Mostly pictures today....I have a huge headache and don't feel like writing. It was a fun day...just frustrating to deal with a headache when I'm trying to have a good time!

So here's what we did today....

Cape Hatteras

Driving on the Beach

Playing at the Beach

Catching some Rays

Playing at the Pool

gnats and heat and sunburn (oh my!)

The day started at 5:15 when little miss sunshine woke up talking up in her loft bedroom (she slept soundly up until then, though, so I'm very thankful). She was talking but I let her go, hoping she'd fall back asleep, which she did. Until 6:00. Woo hoo! But really I can't complain because I was so worried she'd have trouble sleeping and she did great.

We had a gnat infestation in our room this morning. It was horrible--ever take a shower only to find bugs on you?? Nasty! We found out at breakfast that we weren't the only ones. There are forest fires on the main land that are blowing smoke over onto the island. It's really hazy and smells like a campfire at certain parts of the day (like the middle of the night when I woke up last night and thought something was on fire in the room and walked around for quite awhile sniffing, trying to figure out what it was!). Anyway, the smoke is evidently driving the bugs inside. They were especially bad in the bathroom. I called the front desk and they said they had spray, so my husband went to get it and sprayed all over, killing many of them (our bathtub was covered in dead bugs. Gross!). When we came back from our morning excursions they had come to clean our room and the dead bugs (and most of the live ones, too) were gone. I hope tomorrow morning is better.

This is a picture of my daughter's toy, which seemed to attract quite a few for some odd reason.

This morning we headed to Kitty Hawk, to the Wright Brothers Memorial. It was interesting, but it's almost all outside with no shade, and it was close to 100 degrees again today and the sun was just scorching. We were all lathered in sunscreen, but I still managed to get a sunburned face. Ouch. Here's some of what we saw.

This is the monument--it's up on a tall hill, which we walked up...it was hot.

This rock says something about their first flight.

This is a replica of their first plane. I chose this picture because R did a lot of sitting down in the middle of walking today--she was tired and probably hot and she kept getting sand in her shoes! The last time I'll put sandals on her when we're out and about doing sight seeing!

She couldn't wait for her turn to stand behind this--I had to hold her up on my knee so she'd be high enough to peek out above it.

We then went to a state park with huge sand dunes, but didn't go climb them because my husband said it would be like hiking in the Sahara Desert. Too bad it decided to be this hot while we were here. We seem to have that problem a lot--last year's trip to Wyoming was very similar in that respect.

Our little one got fussy around lunch time so we came back to the hotel and put her to bed (you know she's ready when she's asking to go nigh night!) I doubted her ability to go to sleep in that sunny loft, but she did great and slept for two hours! My husband napped and I read the paper. It's strange to have down time in the middle of the day on vacation, because usually it's go-go-go, but a little one forces you to slow down, and it's kind of nice.

When she woke up she was all fired up to go "simmum," because I was putting her bathing suit on her, but we kept telling her we were going to the beach (simmum to her is done in the pool). We couldn't get out of the room fast enough for her. When we passed the pool and kept walking toward the beach she was a little sad. But once we got her settled with her sand toys at the beach she had a good time. She was still scared, though, and had to be held anywhere near the water, and even when she was sitting in the sand she wanted to sit on my lap because the water would occasionally come up and get her feet a little wet, and that was scary too, I guess. She liked counting shells (over and over and over--and there are a lot of shells to count, trust me!)

When we came up to the hotel we stopped at the pool and she and I went in, briefly. She was still scared of that, too, and much preferred sitting on the edge with her feet in the water.

After an early dinner we set off for one of the lighthouses on the Outer Banks. This one is the Bodie Island Lighthouse. It was just closing as we got there, so we just got to look around on the outside. We're going back tomorrow on our way back from Cape Hatteras, where we're going to see their more famous lighthouse.

pictures after all!

I said there wouldn't be pictures...I was wrong! My husband brought a USB cord so we can download them afterall.

This morning we drove over the Blue Ridge Mountains. We would've really liked to have driven through The Shenandoah Valley and on the Skyline Parkway, but we didn't want to have any extra time than necessary in the car with our little one. She did great again today, but we don't want to push it! There was a pull off on the highway, though, so we were able to see a little bit. It was hazy, but really pretty.

We arrived at our hotel at 2:00 and our room wasn't ready yet. They said we were welcome to use the pool or the beach. We opted for the beach because our suits and everything were packed away and too hard to find, so we just went out to the beach, took off our shoes, and waded. It was around 100 degrees again today and sweat was just dripping off of us, so the cold ocean waves felt great! Our little one was pretty scared of her first ocean experience. Here she is getting her feet wet with Daddy.

She alternated between wanting us to hold her(during which time she was pretty happy to watch the waves and play with shells she was holding) and wanting us to put her down (so she could run away from the water and sit in the sand--but the sand was hot!)

It was finally time to check in and we gladly explored our nice, cool, air conditioned room. Our hotel is right on the ocean and we have a side ocean view room. We have a balcony that looks over the pool and down the ocean. Here's our view!

We chose a room with a loft so our daughter would have a separate place to sleep, so we could put her to bed early and still be able to move around ourselves downstairs. It's nice and convienient, but we didn't know that there's a sky light.

So we had the same problem we had last night about no way to darken the room! The light shines right down onto her. Thankfully she was so worn out that she went right to sleep despite it being so bright.

From our balcony my husband took some pictures of guys surfing. It's fun to watch them. The waves are much higher than I ever remember seeing them in Florida, the other times I've seen the Atlantic. When we get home we can edit this picture to just show the surfer...we have no idea who those other people are!

So that's day two in a nutshell. Oh, our little girl has a nice black eye in formation--she fell in our room and hit her cheek on the couch really hard. I'm sure you'll see plenty of pictures of it to come. Poor little thing. I feel like a horrible parent.

day one...the trip's begun

So we're in the middle of Virginia in a Holiday Inn that, as we just discovered, minutes before nigh night time for our little one, doesn't have room darkening curtains! What kind of hotel doesn't have room darkening curtains?!?! It looked like it did--they're hanging at the sides of the window and look like they close, but when we tried to close them to darken the room, they didn't move--they were just hanging there and didn't stretch any further. So I pulled them so they were touching each other and I tried to think of something to clip them together as far up as they would go. I so wished I had brought a clothes pin! But then I thought of the hangers they provide in the room which have clips on them for hanging pants. It worked....sort of. We were able to clip them about 2/3 of the way up, so it's darker in here...just not as dark as you would like when your child is trying to go to sleep in a new environment. She's in the corner in the pack and play with the soft chair pushed against one side to block her vision of the rest of the room and a towel hung on the other side to block that view. She thought it was great fun to try and stand up and see Mommy, who was across the room. She got in trouble after the second time of trying that, but I then moved to the floor on the other side of the bed so she couldn't see me in case she did try and stand up again (thankfully, she didn't). I laid there and read with a flashlight for awhile. My husband was at the desk on this computer, blocked by the chair so she couldn't see him. We heard her moving around for about 10 minutes or so, but then she gave up and went to sleep. I was able to come out of hiding and now we're free to move about the room (in semi darkness--it's still light outside and it's coming in the top of the windows).

I write all of that just because it's so interesting the things you don't anticipate when you're traveling with a small child.

But until this little issue, the day went GREAT!!! This morning she was so excited to leave, she could hardly stand it. She kept saying, "Tip! (trip), "beach! simmum! (swimming)" We left at 7:55 this morning. She couldn't have been better in the car for the next seven hours. We drove three hours (she played for the first hour and then watched a video) and then stopped for an early lunch. She happily played with the rocks she found near our picnic table and burned off some energy. We got back in the car and I turned on the remainder of the video, but she fell asleep before it was done. I happened to look back and her blanket was over her head and she was passed out. She slept for the next hour and a half. Once she woke up we stopped to fill up with gas (she was in a good mood and didn't even need to get out--it was 100 degrees or we would've gotten her out anyway) and then drove the rest of our way to the hotel. Seven hours exactly after we left, we arrived.

She's had a great time exploring the hotel room and we went swimming in the indoor/outdoor pool (it's connected with these doors that open and close). She wasn't too sure about the pool, though. She hasn't been swimming since last summer, so I'm sure it felt like a whole new concept to her. She clung to us for dear life. She got more relaxed as time went on, but she was still happy to get out and just sit on the step and kick her feet. Hopefully as the week goes on and we're in the pool every day, she'll come to enjoy it more.

I forgot to bring the card reader, so I won't be able to hook it up to the computer and download my pictures while we're gone.

Some tidbits from the day:

-she loved the mountains! We pointed them out to her after she woke up as we were driving through them and from then on she kept saying, "More mintins?" if she couldn't see them.

-we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner (we never go there in real life, but it just seems like a vacation thing to do, doesn't it?). They have that little peg game at the tables. It entertained her the entire time until our meal came to take the pegs out, line them up on the table, have me count them each time she laid a new one down, and then to put them all back again. It took a lot of concentration and dexterity on her part to get them back in the holes, but she did it over and over. I told my husband we need to buy her one of those--I've never seen her concentrate so hard at something!

-she can crawl in and out of the bathtub by herself in this hotel room. It was fine until I gave her a bath, and after the bath (and after I had drained the water, thankfully) she crawled back into the tub with her clean, dry PJs on and got wet from the remains of her bath water! It's amazing the ways she finds to get herself into trouble!

Well, this is much longer than I thought it would be, but I guess when you're stuck in a semi dark hotel room with a sleeping daughter, there's not much else to do! (My husband has even gone to sleep already as I've been typing, and it's only 8:08!) Here's hoping she sleeps well tonight (she was up several times last night....and I thought we were past that!) and has another good car riding day tomorrow. We have to drive almost just as far tomorrow, but not quite.

last minute prep

We're busy doing last minute things for our trip. But I wanted to post before we left. We're leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning.

1) She slept all night last night!

2) It's HOT! (90 degrees) It's going to be hotter here than where we're going way down south next week. That's crazy.

3) We took an impromptu trip to the zoo today to renew our membership. Not in the plans, but I found out that the aquarium down on the outer banks allows zoo members in free, and since ours was expired, I needed to renew quickly (we were going to wait until we got back). I wanted to have the option to go to the aquarium if we had a rainy day or if it was too hot some afternoon to do anything else. Anyway, at the zoo we saw the lions, who, for some reason, I'm never able to see. The male and female were separated and they were both VERY mad about it and roaring up a storm. I don't think I've ever heard a real lion roar in person. Man, he was loud! My daughter loved it and kept asking for more.

4) My husband had his camera cleaned before our trip. He got it back today and was taking some pictures to try it out. Just thought I'd post a couple. You can sort of see my flowers (after you take your eyes off of my adorable little girl....just kidding).

I'll update during our trip if I can. We're supposed to have internet access, so we'll see.

pummeled

In the last 24 hours we've been hit by thunderstorm after thunderstorm. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a big deal. But remember the basement problem? It's still not fixed, so excessive rain means an excessively wet basement. The guys have been out to look at it and we've had them scheduled for a couple of weeks now to come fix it the week after we get back from vacation, but until then, we still have a wet basement.

Last weekend we cleaned out the basement in preparation, so that means almost everything is up off of the floor and either on shelves or in the crawl space, but there's still the washer and dryer to worry about. My husband is so worried that it'll start getting over in that area and do some damage there.

So last night I didn't sleep much, listening to all of these storms. Our daughter slept well, thankfully (and unbelieveably!). She did wake up once, but it wasn't during a storm, strangely enough. I think she had a nightmare because she was squealing in her sleep prior to waking up and crying for Mommy. I just opened the door and talked to her briefly, which calmed her down and she went back to sleep on her own and without any more crying, so that's a good sign that maybe we're through this sleeping issue.

Here are some pictures I forgot to post. A few weeks ago my husband was cleaning out the garage, which involved building a movable cart to hold much of his wood and woodworking supplies. R wanted to "help" in the worst way, and yet was terrified of every sound the tools made. If I had to help him hold something while he was drilling, she started screaming in fear of the sounds. If I was holding her when the drill came on, it was okay. So here was one of my solutions to her being in the way of Daddy's work----her outdoor "playpen" to keep her out of the way. She actually loves playing in there and usually asks if we'll put her in there. She finds acorn tops that fall from the tree into the bed of the truck, puts them on the ledge of the truck and says, "Mommy, count?" And we count them together (which sounds like "one, two, fwee, fowr, five, seven, five, seven, five, seven....). Anyway, she has a love-hate relationship with loud noises--here's her reaction to the drill coming on.

And here she is enjoying the final product. I don't think that's what Daddy had in mind for what to store on the cart, but she was happy.

the bad news and the good news

(edited to add pictures at the bottom)

The bad news is that as soon as I wrote the last entry, she had a horrible night. The night before last she was up several times. I went in the first time, but didn't pick her up and rock her like I had been. She kept asking, "chair?" and wanted me to sit with her, but I told her no, that she needed to go back to sleep. The second time I just went to the door and talked to her from there. The third time I let her cry....and cry....and cry. It was awful. Worse than when she was a baby because this time she was crying, "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" I felt like I was abandoning her. She cried for 20 minutes, was quiet for two minutes, then started again. I let her go another 20 minutes, then went in to calm her down, but didn't pick her up, though every inch of me ached to hold her and comfort her and tell her I was sorry for letting her cry. I just reassured her, rubbed her head and cheek and told her it was okay, but it was time for sleeping.

She finally went back to sleep. It took me a long time, though, to get back to sleep, and I was exhausted yesterday.

The good news is that last night, without the help of any medication at all, she slept all night! And she's still sleeping at 7:30 AM, which is well past the time she normally wakes up. I'm rather amazed, since I completely expected a repeat of the previous night.

So hopefully we've turned the corner and are back on track for normal sleeping.

And on another bright note, I've been meaning to take pictures of my flowers. I've never had a green thumb. I manage to kill about every plant that's ever made it's way into my hands. But despite my failures, I've had a few success stories.

1) One summer when I first lived on my own I decided to put some flowers on the patio of my apartment. I was skeptical, but for some reason, they did great!

2) I received a plant as a gift from my school when I was in the hospital after our little one was born. Two years later, it's still alive and well--and it's even grown so that a year or so ago I had to transplant it to a larger pot. And it's still thriving!

3) Last summer I tried my hand at a "garden" (I use the term garden loosely, because really all it was was a few tomato plants that I started from seeds last spring). I didn't know you were supposed to get a little metal cage-like thing for it to grow up, so they grew all over the place on the ground, but we did get plenty of tomatoes to eat! This year I tried it again--I started seeds a month or so ago and just a couple of weeks ago I transplanted them outside. Five of the six look pretty healthy. This year I'll know to put the cage things up and hopefully they won't be sprawled all over the ground. (I probably should also add that I tried planting broccoli, basil, and carrots, too, but those all died! Only the tomatoes have lasted--I told you I don't have a green thumb!)

4) Last but not least, here's my most recent attempt. For mother's day my mom took me to buy some flowers. I didn't trust myself to plant them in the ground, so I opted for a planter and a hanging basket. So far I've remembered to water them. I don't know what will happen when we're gone next week.

And these are our roses! Last summer we did a lot of landscaping and one of the things we got was three small rose bushes. They were pretty pathetic last year and we wondered if we had made a wise choice, but this summer they're turning out to be beautiful! I guess we did something right!

THREE!

Three is the number of nights in a row she has SLEPT ALL NIGHT!!!!! It feels just like when she was four months old and I was ecstatic to get her to sleep all night. It's such a great feeling to wake up at 6:00 AM for the first time and realize that I haven't heard her all night. Oh, how I hope it continues. (And let's hope I'm not speaking too soon by advertising this success!)

We had a great weekend--beautiful weather, lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa, who were here visiting, a movie out with my husband (his belated birthday celebration, since we couldn't go last weekend like we were supposed to--Indiana Jones, which was okay, but not great), and three full nights of good sleep, to boot! It doesn't get much better!