One of those days....

It is one of those days today. Preston is out of town, so there wasn’t a lot of sleeping last night. Corbie won’t stop crying. Nobody wants to eat anything I make for them. Dax isn’t feeling very good today because he got about 27 immunization shots yesterday (Okay, he got four, but it seemed to me like it was 27). He wants me to hold him and so I try to put the baby down which makes her cry more. So I put Daxton down to pick up the baby and he cries more. Repeat that a few million times. Arden has thankfully been pretty good, besides one incident involving the dumping of the formula container from my diaper bag out onto the carpet. There goes like $10 into the vacuum cleaner. My house is a mess. My yard is a bigger mess. Did I mention that the baby won’t stop crying? I knew there were going to be days like this, but it doesn’t make them any easier. I can’t help feeling a little overwhelmed and discouraged. How do all you wonderful moms out there get through days like this? So far today I am using Vanilla Coke Zero and chocolate cupcakes (yes, plural) as coping mechanisms, but it doesn't seem like a long-term solution.

On a happier note, I think I am falling in bag love again. Preston got me a new diaper bag for Mothers’ Day (with a little guidance from me). What a good husband I have!!


Well, there is no rest for the weary, Corbie wants a bottle again!

The Best Year Ever

To my little Dax!

365 days ago, you were born. You were born a week and a half earlier than expected, and I didn't even find out that you had been born until the next day. I remember that I felt kind of weird and detatched when I got that phone call..."your son was born yesterday." I remember thinking how you had been alive for an entire night and I had no idea what you even looked like. It didn't seem real to me yet. I was so excited when your birth mom sent us some pictures of you later that morning. As soon as I saw your picture, everything instantly became so very real. I know that it is kind of silly to say that you fell in love with a picture, but that is what happened to me. You were and are such a beautiful, beautiful boy.

I am sure that neither of us expected to be celebrating your first birthday as a family of five. I know that there are times when it is hard for you to see your new little sister in my arms when you want to be there too. It is hard to have to share a lap when you are still a baby yourself. You are such a patient little guy, and you have such a sweet heart. I hope you know that I love you more than I could ever tell you, and I hope you know that I am trying my best. You got thrown into the "big brother" role pretty early in life, but I know that you are going to be a great one (once you learn to stop trying to pull your little sister's nose off).

I was in a grocery store with you a week or so ago (daddy was home watching the girls), and a old song from the 70's that my mom used to listen to was playing in the background. I always thought it was a cheesy old song, but I found myself singing it to you and thinking that it described you perfectly:

On the day that you were born, the angels got together;
And decided to create a dream come true;
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold,
And starlight in your eyes of blue.

You have learned so much in this year, and this year since I met you has as been the best year of my life. Not the easiest, but the best. You really are a dream come true (yes, it is cheesy, but it is the truth!!) When I am having a hard day you can always make me smile. I have loved watching you grow this past year, and I am looking forward to seeing how much smarter, stronger and bigger you get this next year. I am so very proud of you, and I am truly blessed to be your mother.

Happy Birthday, my little man.

I think we may be in trouble...

I have a little piece of sunshine who lives at my house. His name is Daxton. He is theeeeee sweetest, most beautiful and snuggliest little man there ever was. (I realize all you moms out there who have little boys of your own will probably disagree with me...you are of course entitled to your own opinions. But I am sorry, you are wrong and I am right :). Dax has the most adorable peach fuzzy little head and he has to-die-for fat little feet. Everything else in between is so soft and squishy and marshmallowy-squeezable that I know sometimes he probably gets tired of all of the squeezing he gets from me.

.

He is getting to that stage where he is always trying to help. He helps me empty the dishwasher by handing me silverware. He helps me wipe off the table. He helps me pick up toys. However, along with all of this helpfulness Dax is also starting to add a little bit of mischievousness to the mix, which I am a little less excited about.
.

Here is one example of what I am talking about. Dax LOVES to take baths and splash around in the water. He thinks it is the funnest thing ever. One day he snuck into the bathroom and discovered that WOW! The big white thing that they call a potty is really just a fun bowl full of water, perfect for splashing!

GACK!

If anyone (usually named Arden) leaves a bathroom door open and Dax notices, his eyes light right up and he starts crawling 100 miles an hour towards the bathroom while making excited little happy noises. Unfortunately for him, (and soooo fortunately for me), these little noises almost always give him away and I drop whatever I am doing and sprint like an Olympian to try to reach the toilet before he does. However, he has snuck through my lines of defense a couple of times, and I have found him standing at the potty, both hands inside, splashing away as happy as can be. He looks up at me with a biiig smile on his face. It is almost like he expects me to say something like, "Wow, Dax! I never knew there was water in there! How fun! I want to splash too!!"

.

Instead, I pick him up (holding him as far away from myself as I possibly can, of course), put on my best serious face and in my most authoritative mommy-is-not-kidding voice I say "DAXTON JOSHUA. DON'T. TOUCH. THE. POTTY." Instead of looking appropriately contrite and repentant, he thinks my serious face and authoritative voice are hil-a-ri-ous, and immediately starts laughing at me. After the last time I found the little splasher (after I had scrubbed and scrubbed his hands, arms, face, etc.) I even tried to put him in his first "time-out," but of course he thought that was great fun too.

At least I am not alone in my not-at-all-scaryness.

.

The other day, Dax had a dirty diaper and Preston got to change him because I beat him at rock-paper-scissors (side note: I have beaten Preston at dirty-diaper-rock-paper-scissors the last 27 times we have played. I am sooooooo in his head! Anyway, back to the story!). I was downstairs and could hear them up in Daxton's room over the baby monitor. Dax was apparently squirming around quite a bit and Preston was having a really hard time wiping him off. I could tell from Preston's voice that he was getting more and more frustrated. Finally, Preston had had enough and and yelled, "DAXTON! HOOOOLD STILLLLL!" I was worried because I know that yelling like that would make Arden burst into tears. I was about to run up the stairs to make sure everyone was ok when I heard Dax giggling hysterically at his funny, funny dad. It made me smile, but I also realized that we may be in trouble. Daxton thinks he is running the show, and he is probably right. We will have to set him straight!

.

When he isn't helping empty the dishwasher or trying to splash in the toilet, he loves to talk on the phone. He says "HI!" really well! Here he is, mid-"hi":

Dax has also mastered sippy cups, and this week he discovered he could drink out of them without using any hands at all! He just holds the spout in his teeth, and tips his head back when he wants a drink:

And finally, I can't go a whole entire post without putting in a picture of Corbie. She is changing so fast. She is starting to lose her newborn baby look and starting to look more like herself. Here is a picture I took of her in her crib a few days ago at five weeks:

Her eyes are staying blue and I think she is starting to look a little more like Arden. Here is a picture of Arden when she was two months old:

What do you guys think, do they look the same? Or do they just both look like babies? It is hard for me to tell.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend!!! We of course are not going anywhere out of town, but are looking forward to celebrating Daxton's first birthday on Monday!

Short and sweet

This is what I want to be doing:

Since this blog is the closest thing I have to a journal, I have been trying to do a post at least once a week, but I guess I didn't quite make it this time. I always seem to be running around like crazy, but at the end of the day it doesn't seem like I actually got much of anything done. And, I can't seem to think of anything interesting to write about, so this is going to be short and sweet so I can go to bed!

I did manage to take a few pictures of Cora a few days ago, but she wouldn't open her eyes. She is pretty cute asleep, so I didn't mind too much.

Yesterday was her one-month old birthday already, so we took some more pictures with her lamb...she is already getting bigger!

Those seem to be the only pictures I have taken...I was trying to get one of Dax today. He is thisclose to walking, but hasn't quite done it. He can stand up by himself for as long as he wants, but whenever we try to get him to take that first step, he just gets down and crawls to wherever he wants to go and then stands back up. Sometimes if he wants to carry something when he crawls he puts it in his mouth like a puppy dog...adorable! Unfortunately I never seem to have the camera around when he does it and I couldn't get him to do it for me today when I was thinking about it...oh well.

.

We are just plugging along day by day...I am hanging in there. Things at work have slowed down a little now that we filed our quarterly report, and little by little Corbie is sleeping a bit longer at night (sometimes she goes three and a HALF hours between feedings now!). Hopefully the worst of the sleep deprivation is over and I will be able to think of something more interesting to blog about next week.

.

But don't hold your breath. :)

Seriously sleep deprived but lovin' it

My brain does not function on less than 6 hours of sleep. The longer the days go on, the more problems I have. Preston says I am "sleep-depraved." Here are just a few examples (because I can't remember any more) of the problems my brain is having lately because of the ongoing and cumulative sleep deprivation.

• I swept up the floor up after breakfast today and swept all of the dirt, food, etc. into a little pile. On the way to get the dustpan I got distracted and completely lost my train of thought. I left the pile of dirt sitting there all morning and didn't remember anything about it until I stepped on it around lunchtime.
• Two nights ago I turned on some lullaby music when I was giving Cora one of her middle-of-the-night bottles. I was listening to the music and just resting my eyes for a second while feeding her. I woke up who-knows-how-much later. The music was over and Cora was fast asleep with the bottle in her neck. Oops.
• On more than one occasion I have dialed a number on the phone and then while waiting for an answer I forgot completely who I was calling and why I was calling them.
• Today I went downstairs to get the fax machine so I could fax a report I had proofed to my boss. I walked down the stairs and went over to the printer, which we also keep in the basement. I stared at the printer for about 20 seconds wondering why nothing was printing. Then I stood there for 10 more seconds before I realized that nothing was printing because I hadn't printed anything, I just came down for the fax machine. Duh.
• I cry for no reason. Or for any reason. Either one. Earlier today Arden was wanted to watch Tarzan during breakfast. We were only about 5 minutes into it when I started to cry (now really...it is SAD when the baby gorilla gets eaten by the panther! And then his mom is walking along so slowly and sadly behind the other gorillas...*sniff* *sniff* Ok, I better stop thinking about it now or I will start crying again)!
• And, last but not least I am juuuust a little bit grouchy. Well, maybe more than a little bit. maybe a lot.

But, it is all worth it, I have three of the cutest kids ever. EVER. So, I will deal with the sleep deprivation/depravity and hang in there as best I can. I apologize AND apologize in advance for any forgetfulness, grouchiness, etc. that already has or that may land on you in the next few weeks!

Here is Cora, we took her to the park for the first time today:



Doesn't Dax look so grown up? He loves to play ball!


And, here is Arden. Please notice the "church shoes" she had to wear to the park, and also notice they are on the wrong feet. She HAS to choose her own shoes and put them on herself. She doesn't care if they are backwards, she just wants to do it herself! Still adorable though!