30 Things I Love July 2015

1. Tuesday is 5 dollar movie night at several of the theaters. So we could actually go out on our anniversary! We went and saw Spy, which was hilarious. 2. Long weekends. Took two days off last week and basically just hung out at home and did nothing. It was nice to relax for a few days. 3. Antman. Paul Rudd + Marvel. How could you not? Thanks movie gift passes. 4. Walks. Been going on a lot of those and are currently my only form of consistent exercise. It's been a year since I injured my knee, so maybe I can run again. 5. Good friends moving back 6. Current music favorites: Sylvan Esso, Twenty One Pilots, Of Monsters and Men (new album) 7. British humor 8. New music from Dead Weather and Chvrches coming in September 9. Lots of interesting movies coming soon: Star Wars, Mockingjay, Sisters (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler!) 10. Our cute little gray and black abyssinian guinea pigs 11. Jurassic World! Chris Pratt and dinosaurs, and easily the best of the sequels. I guess most of this post is about movies. I guess there's only 11 things this month. I need to get out more.

Adelaide

I haven't written much as of late, and it occurred to me that I have not posted much about miss Adelaide. So here's a post about her and some of her little quirks, sayings, and traits. - Whenever she says the word hot, she says it in her "gremlin" voice. Usually when I am cooking something and she see's steam rising from the stove. She will come up and put her hand in the air and say hot, in this cute but slightly evil sounding gremlin voice. There's really just no other way to describe it. She'll also do it when we go outside and it's hotter than the indoor environment. I will miss it when she stops saying it that way. -She loves dancing to Macklemore, specifically the song "Can't Hold Us." I will post a link to a video of her and Oliver dancing to that at the end of this post. While Oliver favored the spin move as his first dance move, Addy likes to run by kicking her legs high in the air. -She has a bit of a temper. It's been this way pretty much since she was born. Up until she became more mobile, I really couldn't go anywhere without holding her unless I wanted to hear some serious screaming. I did set her down from time to time and didn't give in to her every cry, but my nerves were very frayed by the end of most days. Now that she's more independent that has subsided a bit, but she still is very vocal in letting us know when she is unhappy about it. I don't necessary view it as a bad thing, just much different from Oliver and the expectations he set being our firstborn. Every kid is different, and I love her no less. Josh has a theory that she wants to be held more now because she spent the first week of her life in the tube under those bili lights. She has a happy side now too to go with the screamy side which is becoming much less dramatic. -She loves when we read to her. If we are sitting down on the floor she will quickly grab one of her board books and run to sit in our lap. Her favorites are Goodnight Moon, Tom & Pippo, and Huggy Kissy. -Her favorite foods (aside from milk and baby food) are pizza, ritz crackers, burritos, avocado, mac n cheese and pretty much whatever we are eating. She is much more adventurous than Oliver, who is five and has learned what is "gross." -Whenever I am blowdrying my hair she'll run in and I will blast her with some cool air, and she get's a huge ginormous smile -She is very interested in animals. Whenever she see's a picture of one she gets very excited and says "Dah???" (Which I interpret as "What's that?") She loves Animal Planet. -Whenever she see's a ball at the store she yells loudly -She waves at everybody and says "bye" It's a very exaggerated wave -She say's no a lot, I am pretty sure she doesn't know how to say yes yet -She loves finding other people's shoes around the house and putting them on her feet I will post more as time goes on, but these are just some of the things she does that make me love her.

30 Things I love March 2013

1. Coffee Coffee Coffee 2. The New Girl 3. Reading 4. Spring Is Coming!!!! 5. Addy is almost walking 6. Also, she has started saying Mama more frequently 7. Writing lists! See, this blog entry. 8. Researching music for Sasquatch music fest. 9. Daydreaming about going and spending a week outside with music, having a few drinks and hopefully sunshine. 10. Coming up with goals for the year, next 5 years, next 10 years, etc. Since my birthday just passed it seems like a good time to do that. 11. Crockpot recipes 12. Recipes on pinterest in general 13. Thinking of plans for the kids when the weather warms up. More walks and trips to the park, less feeling stuck in the house 14. Arrested Development Season 4! 15. Changing up my makeup routine 16. Days when I actually have time to put on makeup and shower! 17. Discovering new music, and new to me music. All of the artists at Sasquatch 2013 are currently on rotation. 18. Learning to be more independent and enjoy my own company 19. Unexpected nights where I get to sleep through the night are a nice treat 20. Archer 21. Redbox dates. A fairly common occurence for parents of two small children. 22. Did I mention, that spring is coming??? 23. Daydreaming under trees on sunny days 24. Taking naps whenever I can. Lunch breaks are great for that. 25. Josh is getting his Bachelor's in 9 months! 26. Continuing my own education through reading and websites like TED, and podcasts 27. The scent of lavender in Addy's hair after she's had a bath 28. Josh hugs 29. Watching the bond that Ollie and Addy have together 30. Hopefully getting a bike trailer and bike tuned up soon so I can take the kids on lots of bike rides this summer. This list is probably very disjointed and random, as it was stitched together over the course of a week, with varying degrees of sleep.

I Can't Even Jump To Your Face!

Here's a little conversation I had with Oliver on the way to daycare this morning. Oliver: When Addy is one, I will be five! Me: Yep, that's right. Oliver: How old are you mommy? Me: *sigh* Twenty-nine Oliver: Oh Wow! I can't even jump to your face!! Me: What does that mean? Oliver: I can't jump to your face to get in your face and give you kisses. I am getting tall though. My legs are pretty big, and my arms are almost as long as Owen's! (his friend from daycare)

Introducing : Adelaide Marie (post initially written a month ago)

Our little girl is two months old today! I am attempting to keep up with this blog again, but I know how that usually starts with the best intentions and then floats to the back of my mind again. And with two kids, the odds are really against it. But here is what I can tell you about little Addy. She came into this world relatively easily. During my last week of work before I was intending to go on maternity leave, I started to have contractions. So I spent a sunny Monday morning timing them with my handy iphone app, tracking so that when they were five minutes apart I could go to the hospital. This pregnancy was kinda unkind to my body so I was anxious to have it over with. I took Oliver for a little walk around the neighborhood. That will go down as one of the best walks ever, getting some last one on one time with my son before his sister arrived. Shortly after we were done walking, Josh came home from school to be there once shit got real. That was about one pm. We spent the rest of the day watching shows on Netflix and lounging while family members came to visit and help. Anyway we went to the hospital at 10:30 and were admitted at 11. We were moved to the delivery room and watched the contractions on the monitor for a few hours. To add extra fun to the childbirth experience, I was sick with a nasty cough, and every time I had a coughing attack the contractions would start up again. It felt like a long time before the anesthesiologist came in for the epidural. The nurse had been building him up as one of the best ones around. Of course, he had to poke my spine with the needle about three times before he found a good spot. I'm pretty sure I've got some nerve damage from it, because I've had several weird headaches and shooting pains ever since. I'm hoping that it will go away, and maybe I'm just sleep deprived and not getting enough exercise. It helped with the contractions somewhat, but I could feel a lot still. The hardest part of the delivery was waiting for the doctor to arrive. I was slightly disappointed to hear that the Dr. we'd been working with wouldn't be able to make it. The nurses that we had this time were very friendly and helpful so overall it was a pretty positive experience. Once the other doctor got there, it only took a few minutes of pushing before Addy was out. Once she was out it was a mix of holding, cutting the umbilical cord, weighing, photographing, and happiness. The first few minutes of both of my kids lives are kind of a blur to me. I wanted to make sure I nursed her right away so that we could begin to establish that. After all the checkups from nurses and the breastfeeding, our family in the waiting room got to come in at about 4 am. My family waited patiently in the waiting room for hours, and all napped at one point or another. All except for Oliver, who was not only up the whole time, but apparently very energetic. He stayed up until 5:30 in the morning and then just crashed. But not before he got to meet his new baby sister. The rest of our stay at the hospital was pretty normal, except that Adelaide had a case of jaundice in which the Dr. noticed that her bilirubin levels were pretty high for her young age. Thankfully he noticed this within the first day so we got her under the lights quickly. Unfortunately, this meant that the only time we could snuggle with her was when she was feeding. The first few days she spent most of her time in the baby nursery. We got lots of naps that way but it sucked not having her in the room with us. Anyway, the hospital lets you stay in the maternity ward for two nights if you wish to stay that long. Addy was going to need more time at the hospital. Our pediatrician suggested that we move down to the pediatrics ward, while my nurse suggested that we stay on the maternity ward. There was a bit of a power struggle between the two of them. We really didn't know who to believe, we just wanted what was best for Addy. So we ended up moving down to the pediatrics ward, where at least Addy could be in the room with us. We still had to leave her in her little bilirubin box all day but at least we could look at her. We ended up staying in that room two nights. Josh had no couch to sleep on anymore so he had to sleep on the hard linoleum floor, while I got the uncomfortable couch. The nurses came in every five hours or so to prick Addy's feet. On Friday morning her bili levels had gone down enough that we were cleared to go home that evening.

Priorities. Organization. And woot.

So I know I said I would post twice a week...that is "ideally." Turns out, life is pretty busy. I am reassessing some of my priorities to make time for some things that are important to me as well. This blog isn't especially high on the list, but I do like to write so I'm keeping it in the runnings. And hopefully my writing will improve if I write on a semi regular basis. Hooray for improved writing skillz.

I have a lot of things that I want to do, so I am probably going to cut back on some things that aren't as necessary or important. I spend more time on facebook than is really necessary, lots of time adding music to itunes and my ipod, time watching tv cause all I want to do after working a long day and taking care of my little guy is just to veg. It's good to have downtime but as a mother and someone who works full-time, time is very precious.

Some things I want to do more of : guitar, paint, draw, write, go on photo shoots, exercise or get outside. I am hoping that Oliver might enjoy doing some of these things with me!

Some things I want to do less of: laundry, vacuuming, dishes. Time to donate some clothes and use less dishes!

Anyway, in the process of finding the right balance, getting organized and making room for the things I used to love doing.