innocent mind

Camille has started to become pickier about what she eats and has also started the drop game. If she comes across a food on her tray that she does not want to eat she just drops it over the edge. Never to be dealt with again, by her at least. I wish I could do that. How nice would it be if life worked that way? When you came across something you didn’t want to deal with you could just drop it over the edge and it would be gone forever. Such an innocent mind. She doesn’t realize yet that she should be secretive about dropping her food off her tray so mommy thinks she ate it. It just does not matter to her. Right now the whole world revolves around her, at least that is what she thinks. As she should. That is the beauty of being a baby.

Lake Barkley

This weekend we took the Girls to Lake Barkley. John’s Step-mom’s Mom lives there and she has a big beautiful house right on the lake. We love going there. I wish we could go more. Mimi (step-mom’s mom), Shelly (step-mom) Opa (John’s dad, means grandfather in Dutch) Alex, Maddie (Maddie Rose as Av now calls her) and Alex’s girlfriend Katlyn were all there. The Girls had so much fun. Av spent more time playing with Maddie, Alex and Katlyn. An hour would go by since I had seen her last. She loved playing with the big kids. They were so nice to her. John and I even got to take a nap together while Camille was sleeping and Av was playing. By the end she was following Maddie around like a little puppy dog and on the way home she must have said her name a hundred times. We also took our boat with us. Our boat was my grandfather’s boat. He loved the water so much and one of his favorite places was the Land Between the Lakes. He would be so happy his boat was back on those lakes. Av loved being on the boat and swimming in the lake. It was very nice to get to spend more time with John’s family. They are very fun and I have always felt very comfortable with them. Cute story about the ride home. C hates her car seat. She always has so it makes car rides kind of hard. She slept for about 1.5 hours but was awake for the rest. I had a bottle for her, which she quickly drank and then started fussing again. As I was turning around to talk to her I say Av reach her hand out to C. In Av’s hand was a small piece of her bagel that she was eating. She was going to share it with her sister. It about melted my heart. Once we got home things got a little hectic. Unpacking is about as hard as packing is. As I was trying to help unpack the car I didn’t notice that poor Av was trying to get inside the house to go potty and didn’t make it in time. At that point John told me to go inside and take care of the Girls. In the craziness of dealing with the accident I left the their toy bag in front of the Jeep. The toys were promptly run over about 5 minutes later when John moved the Jeep. Oops.

don't blink....

……because if you did you missed the summer. It is already time for Av to go back to school (Friends). I can’t believe it. All the stressing I did about camp (Cornerstone or CS) and it is over. She ended up really liking it and it was good for her so I am glad I made the decision I did. She has one more week and as always I am sad to see it end. She did really well there and seemed really happy. I am partly sad to send her back to Friends but I will because I know how much she loves it there and how good that school was/is for her. CS has been really really convenient. They feed them breakfast, lunch and 2 snacks. So I don’t have to pack any lunches! That is so nice for me plus in the mornings I get her up, get her dressed and off we go. She eats there. It has been so nice not struggling with her to eat every morning. She just does not want to eat first thing when she gets up and she is such a good sleeper that I have to wake her up everyday so I don’t want to get her up any earlier. It has really cut down on my groceries too, but the best part about her eating there is that it is getting her to eat different things that she would never eat for me nor would I ever pack in a lunch. Meatloaf, veggie burgers and fish sticks. Not really the all-natural/organic stuff I try to feed her but they do have to follow the state regulations for nutritional content. I also am really impressed with the education she has received. They have a letter and a theme of each week. They do art, read books, and talk about the letter and theme all week. Like last week the letter was Y and so they glued the letter Y and pieces of yarn to a piece of paper. It was really cute. Another reason it has been more convenient for me is because it is a preschool with day care hours so there is no fall break, winter break, spring break and summer break. It is only closed for holidays. Friends has fall break in Oct and I am going to have to find a sitter for her since I work. I am glad Camille is staying at CS for now. Next year we will reevaluate and see which one we like better and maybe put them both at the same school.

10 months

10 months! I can’t believe it. In 8 short weeks my baby will be one. It is crazy. The time has just flown. It goes by faster with your second child because you just don’t have as much time to stop and smell the roses. Plus you are so busy with your first child the second is just kind of along for the ride. I need to start planning her b-day party. I want to keep it small. Way smaller than Av’s. There’s not really too much new going on with Camille. She is still sleeping all night, takes 2 naps, does not eat any baby food, drinks from a sippy, still nursing, crawling and pulling up. She loves pretty much any food I put in front of her and her favs are green veggies. With a full tray of food in front of her she will pick out all the peas and broccoli first. Boy does that broccoli make her smell like a toxic waste dump. We put shoes on her for the first time in a long time the other day and boy did she hate them. She was so mad and kept trying to pull them off or kick them off. Guess I am going to have to put shoes on her more. She is very ticklish (Av is not very ticklish at all) and likes to be played with kind of rough. Thrown around, put upside down and spun around. Her daddy does it best. She is a bruiser. I keep meaning to ask at day care if she is a bully there. She does not like to be held still. Wants to be down getting into everything. She has certain toys/things that she knows are hers and that she really likes and if she sees them and they are not given to her right away she screams for them. She gets up precisely at 6:45 every morning. Wish I could set her internal alarm clock for later. She still only has 4 teeth but she uses them well. She is a good little water drinker and drinks a lot. (Av is like me she does not really get thirsty and we have to make sure she drinks enough) She loves to be sung to and loves music. She HATES her car seat. No matter what we try she just hates it. This morning she started crying when she saw the car. Then while I was trying to put her in her car seat she was straightening out her body so I could not strap her in. She LOVES her sister! The minute she sees her she squeals and gets a huge smile on her face. Avery walked by Camille’s room at day care and they said she about climbed out of her high chair to get to Av. It is sweet, Camille’s teachers stop Av when she is walking by to say hi to Camille.

PP and his brother and sister-in-laws

Avery and Camille here is a picture of some of your family. This is your great uncle Carl, your great aunt Sara, your great aunt Linda and your PP. These are your PP's brother and sister-in-laws. Such a great and special picture. Fondly remembered and dearly missed are your PP’s other brother Bob and sister Linda.

no more naps

Naps are OVER for Avery. She is so good and when we lay her down for a nap she most of the time will go to sleep but really she just does not need a nap. So on the days that she does take them at night we put her to bed at a reasonable time but since she has napped that day she is not tired. She will play and finally fall asleep so it is not any harder on John and I but it is just not fair to her. Last night sealed the deal though. After napping yesterday she woke up at 2am and didn't want to sleep anymore. She called me in there and wanted to get up. NO. So then she wanted me to get her a few books. Fine. After she read her books in the dark (???) she dropped them on the floor, one by one. Clunk...a few minutes later clunk...few minutes later clunk. No fun. Her last book she tore all the pages out of it. Ugh!

good news and bad news

Well the good news is that Camille is still sleeping through the night! It has been over a week now since I have last fed her at night. She is sleeping until between 6:30-7. I wish we could make that a little later but I will take what I can get….for now. The bad news is I got Mastitis from it. I had no idea that I could get it this late in the ball game but sure enough I did. I was still feeding her twice a night regularly so I guess cutting that out all of the sudden did the trick. Wednesday night my chest (really my boob but that sounds crude and breast sounds too formal, so chest will be code word for boob) kind of started to hurt. I didn’t put Camille to bed so I thought it was because I missed that feeding so I pumped. It didn’t really help. Thursday it hurt worse. I thought it was thrush because it was starting to hurt when she latched. Late Thursday night the fever came on. I woke up on Friday feeling like complete sh*t. I knew what it had to be. Luckily the day care had an open spot for Camille so I was able to drop her off with Av. There was no way I was going to be able to take care of her. My doctor called in some meds for me (thank goodness they didn’t make me come in to be seen) and off to dream land I went. I spent all day sleeping. I had not done that in ages. Mastitis is not fun. I had no idea how not fun it was. Between the fever, aches, chills and burning in your chest it makes it really hard to do just about anything, including sleep. Thankfully my friend Tylenol PM came to my rescue. By Saturday the fever was gone but my chest did continue to hurt all weekend. I guess I was just so excited to sleep all night getting up to pump to wean properly never even cross my mind. I will know for next time (if there is a next time).