Sweet dreams

I don't actually have anything to say.

Which is a little bit of a lie... I have a million things to say.

Thoughts are propelling themselves across my mind in a multitude of random directions and patterns. Organizing them could take days, and the end result would likely make excessively tedious reading material.

I think I'm having one of those Moments of Clarity, wherein I realize that I finally understand something that I've always heard of or been exposed to. It isn't that I can't sleep (because I assure you that if I were to put this laptop away and actually lay my head on my pillow, I would sleep juuuuuuuuuust fine). There a few identified reasons I stay up late, and likely several more that are not identified. One is that I am pretty sure it's genetic. My mom  always stayed up very late. Two, this is MY time... a reason that also reflects my mom's reasoning. Three, I am thinking so many thoughts so rapidly, I feel like my  mind is filing through them, trying to decide which one it wants to land on for sleepy pondering. Fun Fact #546 about me: I am very serious about what I think about before going to sleep. I have a long history of daydreaming favorable scenarios about my future and replaying happy memories from my past. I hate to fall asleep thinking of important things (like, how we are going to pay certain bills, for instance. Problems like that won't go away by me fretting over it during my last precious moments of consciousness each day, so I dismiss them in favor of better thoughts). I hate falling asleep thinking of sad things, or scary things, or embarrassing things.

Anyway, I digress.

I can't let myself settle down until my brain selects whatever it is that it is trying to find.

Sweet dreams, friends.

She just keeps on growing!

1. Bedtime has become an ordeal around here, and that does not make me happy. I've resorted to what Darren has been saying all along, and we are letting Emma cry herself to sleep :( ...I don't let her cry forever, but it's still very hard. Not my favorite. I find myself compensating during the day by being extra affectionate and loving. She still loves me in the morning either way, so I've decided to ignore the stats that say cry-it-out babies grow up to kill people and all that.

2. We visited a pumpkin patch today! The weather was beautiful, and Emma was awesome, per the norm. There are a million things I love about all million pictures we took, so I don't know how I will possibly decide which ones to share with the internet. Darren snapped this one of my cute Wonder Baby and me, and gave Em a thought bubble. Her hand was not casually blocking my mouth, by the way. She swung it up and clutched my face. It was a laugh-worthy moment! You'd have to be there ;)

3. I've been hesitant to say anything on here about it, but I figure things are close enough to official that it wouldn't hurt to share the news (I hope I'm not jinxing us...):

We are buying a house! We will be moving in in about 3ish weeks, and we are super stoked! FINALLY Emma will have her own room, and we will have all the lovely perks of living in a house We will also get all the cruddy parts, but heck... I guess that's part of life. I am having so much fun daydreaming about the future now that I know where it will be located. This particular house is very cute, on a very cute street, and only one block away from one of my favorite places in all of the area: a small town downtown street full of antique shops and other such small businesses. I could spend hours. 

4. Tomorrow is the Primary program presentation in Sacrament Meeting. This makes me VERY happy...and a little nervous. It always makes me giggle like crazy, but with every passing year, it also makes me cry easier. I hate crying in public.

5. I am going to love myself tomorrow morning: I made a stack of pancakes tonight for breakfast tomorrow. Therefore, we will both be able to eat breakfast AND make it to church on time/within 5 minutes of it starting. What what!

6. The recent cold fronts have me happier than a hippo in mud. Since getting pregnant and subsequently delivering the child, my thermostat has undergone some major changes: I get so hot so easily. I also got to wear sexy boots today, which makes me feel like I'm a hot girl from a TV show. 

7. Sometimes I think that if I don't pop out as many kids as possible as quick as I can I will either 1) forget the awesome names I have picked out for them, or 2) have to endure the agony of someone I know snatching my names first (though I no longer tell people the names I have picked out...). 

8. I let Wonder Baby gnaw on a chew of beef jerky tonight, and she gave it her stamp of approval. When I was done letting her drool all over it and me, I rinsed it off under the faucet and ate it (yes, I know I'm disgusting, but I never throw beef jerky away...). Let's just say she has her momma in her, because as soon as I popped it in my mouth she burst into tears. I foresee jerky wars in our future.

9. She cut her first two teeth this week! They grow every day, and their sharpness increases as well. She has chomped down on a certain appendage by which she acquires sustenance a couple of times, but it hasn't become a punishable offence yet (as in, they were isolated incidents). It hurts like heck though! I love to see them when she is laughing a lot. 

10. She is growing too quickly, but I love to see it happen! I can't help but celebrate each difference, accomplishment, and milestone. I love to see comprehension in her eyes, and the wonder of each movement. We have a new game where I put her Legos on my head and launch them off by tilting my head. She loves this! Tonight I pulled my knees up and let her sit between my chest and knees, which put her very close to my face and head. I tilted my head so that the Legos would fall in her lap, and she tried to put them back on my head every time. Yesterday, I was amazed when she started handing them back to me so that I could launch them off again--her first time to "hand" anything to anyone. Her leap in understanding between yesterday and today blows my mind. I'm so proud of my little genius. Babies rock the learning curve. 

Baby pee, packing boxes, and other random things

It's been a while.

1. Missionaries are so young. I'm having to remind myself more and more that missionary work is in the hands of the Lord, and if He trusts these young.....imbeciles....then I do too. But MAN. When did they become 8th graders?

2. More importantly, when did I become so...old? They really aren't as bad as I perceive them to be.

3. Emma isn't peeing enough. We find out the results of a urine sample on Monday. In the meantime, I am to give her a little water each day in the hopes that it will help (so far it hasn't). On top of that, she seems to have developed a chest cold of some kind. If that doesn't clear up over the weekend, we'll also be going back to the doctor Monday. She sounds way too hoarse, and has a nasty cough.

4. Sick baby means MOODY baby. Lots of cuddles and sweetness, lots of angry and frustrated cuddles, lots of playing and coughing with her toys, and lots of angry tantrums. Sigh.

5. She's been after my phone all day. Every time I take it from her she cries and kicks and fusses about it. Tonight she got my phone, and I didn't notice.....until she turned to give me a gloating smile, that is. I tried to take it from her, but she held on tight. Obviously, I won, but she demonstrated a nice bout of wailing as a result. If only she'd kept the good news to herself....who knows what kind of damage she could have done.

6. Are other babies obsessed with behind the toilet? There are so many other things she could explore while I'm in the loo, but noooo. She has to make a beeline for the back of the toilet every. time. Suffice it to say that my bathroom experiences are rarely relaxing, as I spend the majority of the time kicking and blocking her from her desired destination.

7. We are moving next month (YAY!). We still don't know where we are going, but I have been on the hunt for boxes. And by "on the hunt" I mean that I've been hoping someone would just offer me a million boxes out of the blue and I wouldn't have to do any kind of hunting. A couple of weeks ago I put a personal ad (i.e. cardstock with sharpie penned on it) on the bulletin board by the mailboxes with my phone number indicating that we would be moving soon, and if any new move-ins would be so kind, we would love their boxes. I received THE call today! A family fresh from Australia (cool beans) moved in last week and finished unpacking today. I got a bajillion large, sturdy, the kind they charge big money for, boxes.

8. The only part I secretly like about moving is the beginning of the packing process. It is very exciting to me for some reason. Tomorrow is the day I begin...I confess I want to start tonight, but it is late, and everyone but me is sleeping. Technically, Emma should be the only one asleep since it is barely past 9:30 on a Friday, but my party animal husband passed out on the couch about a half hour ago.

9. I was supposed to go to the temple tomorrow for a big stake Relief Society temple trip, but with Emma under the weather I just can't make myself do it. She needs me. She was super clingy today, and I want her to nurse as much as possible, especially since she seems to be having a fluid intake/output issue. To be honest, I'm relieved as all get out. I was so nervous about leaving her home and being apart for so many hours.  HOW DO PEOPLE DO IT?

10. We purchased Emma's first Christmas present yesterday. It's one of those adorable tiny pianos for elegant children. We found it at an antique shop. We anticipate her walking by then, but even if she isn't, she pulls up on things quite nicely, and she'll walk eventually. She adores any opportunity to bang on piano keys, be it the real piano, her lovely little four-keyed rainbow piano, or the tiny piano that will be hers on Christmas Day (we let her have a go at it when we were at the shop). Girl loves to make noise.

11. For the record, the sticker on the piano marks it as 30 years old. Darren is 17 months away from being antique. Mwahahahaha.

12. I keep having dreams where my teeth are falling out. According to Google, it means that I am concerned about my appearance. Methinks it is correct. Aside from being appalled at my post-baby body and lack of self-control when it comes to food on a daily basis, I want new hair, and I need new mascara.  The hair needs to be trimmed SO badly, and my bangs need professional doctoring (I hacked them off a few weeks ago...I've lost the touch, apparently, and they turned out terrible). I also keep having harmful thoughts of cutting it into a bob and making it a little less "all over the place", but I know I would regret that intensely. I always do.

13. I'm almost finished with Call the Midwife on Netflix. I love that show too much.

14. I think I've solved the problem of my lack of motivation in regards to keeping house adequately. The solution is simple: I work 9-5, Monday through Friday. After 5 o'clock, anything that isn't baby, basic clutter, or dinner related ceases to matter and is not completed past that time. It will wait for the next day when I "go to work" again. This system serves one main purposes. First, it gives me a small amount of flexible structure to work within, and allows me a deadline that I can view as a symbol of freedom instead of just another deadline in a long line of endless tasks and deadlines. Every job I have ever held had a quitting time: the point at the end of every day when I got to leave "work things" at work and go home for "home things". Thus, I am motivated to be more productive while I am "at work", with the same understanding that, just as with my previous job, things won't always go according to plan, and my to-do list might not be finished. However, the to-do list is still essential, and must be picked up again tomorrow, and if I work like I'm getting paid for it, then things will get done.  When I relax in the evenings, I don't want to feel guilty because there is still so much to be done--THERE IS ALWAYS STUFF TO BE DONE! IT NEVER STOPS! Therefore, I want to be able to enjoy guilt-free relaxation in the evenings. It allows me to feel like I do not have a 'round the clock job, which is splendid for my sanity. So far it seems to be working (3 days now). I expect things to improve.

15. Love y'all. Have a great weekend. Peace out.

Tonight's version of the conversation

Me, talking to Darren after a couple hours of wrestling and nursing our hyperactive and squirming baby who wants so desperately to fall asleep: 

"Here, she's all yours. I've done everything I can. Go make her sleep." 

Darren obediently takes the child to the bedroom where I hear that Emma's crying ceases within just a few minutes. He emerges semi-victorious since he was able to get her to sleep, but laying her in the pack n'play woke her up. We listen to her cry for a few minutes, and then she falls asleep. 

I try to talk again, wanting to tell Darren how sexy it is when he puts her to bed and that I really appreciate his taking the time to do so and give me a little break.  

He grits his teeth at me and speaks low and slow: 

"If.you.wake.her.up.you.are.in.so.much.trouble. She'll.be.yours.to.deal.with. WHISPER."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I like to call role reversal.  May he always remember the agonizing fear that the spouse who doesn't put the baby to sleep will stupidly wake the baby up.