So, it won't be gymnastics in 2012...

My quest for the 2012 Olympics may have been hampered today. I still hadn't determined an event, but I think we cross anything that requires gracefulness off of the list. Honestly, we could have done that years ago, because I'm pretty much notorious for falling flat on my face. Just ask my recently healed elbow and knee from my latest encounter with the ground at Memorial Park. And, I would love to say that was the first time that had happened, but no...my knees bear the marks.

Today, though, it wasn't a trail encounter, it was much less glamorous. The balcony was the culprit. I had cleaned the wood floor out in our enclosed balcony the other day, and apparently the cleaner had left some weird slick residue that I'd watched Kevin almost trip on a couple of times. I, of course, wouldn't fall on such a silly thing. Yep, that's right, I didn't fall. It was much less graceful. As I went out to fill Toby the wonderdog's food dish, my right foot started to slip and my left foot jammed into the metal on the base of the French door into the balcony. I danced around in pain, but didn't really have time to think about it, because it was officially 8:02, and I was supposed to be at work at 8. Laurel's babysitter showed up, I put on the shoes I'd decided to wear, and headed out. As I walked my 500 ft commute to work, I noticed that the middle toe on my left foot was hurting. Actually, throbbing. And the shoe choice for the day wasn't the best...the peek-toe wedges were really cute, but not helping. I thought it would go away, but about an hour into the day, pain only increasing, I decided to take a look. What I found was a bright reddish-black, swollen middle toe. By the end of the day, I'd changed shoes and taped it up. Broken. Well, that's not an official diagnosis, that's  Kevin looking at it, laughing at me, and saying, "yep, that's broken." I refuse to go to the doctor so he can tell me that I shouldn't walk on it or give me some dorky air cast. Maybe my limp will look like some really cool swagger. Doubtful. I guess my Olympic dreams will have to wait until my toe returns to normal size and color.

Laurel's 6 Month Appointment

There is a pre-post to this post...kinda like a pre-party, so be excited...

The pre-post happened on Sunday. I took Laurel to the nursery, and as I did, got stopped by a friend, who has a little boy in Laurel's same room (he, by the way, likes to kiss her, but that's not important right now). As I was talking to my friend, another lady brought her little girl in and dropped her off.  She did what she needed to do and moved aside, and I gave Laurel over to the sweet lady behind the half-door that all church nurseries have. This unknown lady took one look at Laurel and said (and I quote)..."I just LOOOVVE fat babies, look at those thighs." She then looked at me and proceeded to ask me what she was fed, etc. I was so in shock by her assessment of my daughter, that I just dropped Laurel off and walked away, totally disoriented. Every ounce of energy was being taken at keeping my mama bear instinct at bay and keeping my mouth shut. I'm pretty sure I would have been fired from my job at the church had I told this (I'm sure she's sweet) lady what I thought...how I really didn't want the word "fat" ever spoken over my daughter, how one of my greatest fears of raising a daughter is that she will get caught up in our society's struggle with weight (as her mother did), and how, (and this I'm not proud of) I could've made a few comments about her weight. Can I just give Him some praise that I kept my mouth shut???? 

So, as we went into our 6 month check up today, I have to confess there was a little fear that our doctor would agree with our friend from Sunday. Great. Now I wasn't only dreading me ever getting on a scale, I was now fearing for my sweet little 6 month old. This is just wrong and warped. Please, Jesus, take my thoughts captive!

However, just as the book of Isaiah tells me in Isaiah 40:11, He is the one that carries our little ones as He guides us. And, truly, I could tell story after story of how our Father has carried Laurel to save her from us. Her weight was awesome. And, the doctor even made a comment about how her weight was perfect. Yes, perfect. I hadn't even mentioned it. She's weighing in at 17 lbs and 12 oz...which means she's in the 8oth percentile and 26.5 inches long, which is in the 75th percentile. So she's bigger than about 3/4 of the kiddos her age and smaller than about 1/4 of them. It's amazing the dumb things I fear about her. 

The incredibly fun thing about the visit, though, was how great Laurel was the entire time. Sure, she screamed bloody murder right after her shots, but she was a little champ. We ended up having to wait in the exam room for about 30 minutes, and she just played like we were at McDonald's playland with the little lab paper that rolls over the table she sits on. She just laughed and squealed the entire time. When the doctor came in, I thought it could go down hill, but she just hammed it up for him. I personally thought she was trying to talk him out of those shots. Didn't work, but nice try, Laurel. Here are some fun pics that Kev grabbed with his phone....

I heart the Olympics

1984. I was 4 years old. The Olympics were hosted by the great U S of A. My only memory involves me begging my mom to buy Wheaties. I'm pretty sure it's the only time in my life that I've ever even had the desire to eat Wheaties. But, this was a special box of Wheaties. They tasted better I'm sure. They had Mary Lou Retton on the box, and it was the only acceptable breakfast for me. As the story goes, my parents were going to put me in gymnastics...but, well, I wasn't exactly built for gymnastics. I was a huge child. I tell people that and they don't really buy it, but that's because I don't share pictures of that chapter in my life. I was probably bigger than most gymnasts at the age of 4. But, back to the original point....I adore watching the Olympics. I've stayed up way too late most nights of the past week. I feel like I know Michael Phelps for crying out loud. I got all teary when our 2 gymnasts won the gold and silver Thursday night/Friday morning (depending on where you were watching). I realize my view is probably pretty naive,  but it seems so pure...people that have trained and worked and sweated and cried to train their bodies to participate. It's not like professional sports as we know them....it's not about ego, it's about doing your best to represent your country and push your body to show off what God gifted them to do (and I realize most of them don't acknowledge it's God-given ability, but I'm acknowledging for them). It's incredible. Man, I'm always so inspired. I could could swim, I could run, I could jump on a trampoline for crying out loud. And, apparently a baby and over-25-year-old body don't disqualify you. Watch out 2016 Olympics...here I come.

I just have to figure out what sport I'm good at.

One thing that has really stood out to me as I've watched, though, is what these games mean to other countries. I was blown away when I watched the opening ceremony. Country after country paraded in. One country has an average yearly income of $130. That's it. We probably spent more than that on the shoes our athletes wore at the ceremony. Some countries only brought 3 or 4 athletes. Can you imagine? Being one of the 3 or 4 chosen to represent your country? Our athletes invest countless hours, dollars, and energy into the games, but at the end of the day, without them, their life is still okay. But it's a big fat hairy deal to the other countries. For some, it's all they've got. They may be the only people from their country to leave their country this year. Inconceivable.

My favorite story of the evening, though, is that of Oksana Chusovitina. Don't ask me to pronounce her name, but you have to hear her story. She's the 33-year-old gymnast from Germany. She didn't start out in Germany, though. This is actually her 5th Olympic Games. She was originally a gymnast for the former Soviet Union, and then one of the Soviet States. However, her son developed leukemia. She couldn't get treatment in the country she was living, so she called in a favor with a friend in Germany. Would Germany help get her son treatment? Well, yes, in exchange for participation in the Olympic games. She agreed, the son received treatment, and is currently in remission. And, on top of that, she medaled tonight. Amazing. This is what the games are all about. Camaraderie. Competition. Hard work. Blood. Sweat. Tears. God-given talent on display in phenomenal ways. Ah, in my heart, I'm an Olympian. I guess I'll live vicariously through these athletes for the next few days. 

That is all for now...my gymnasts are getting ready to come back on.

Kiddie Kandids

I don't really do too many "Mommy Things". It's not that I'm against them, or think they are silly, most of the time they just don't occur to me. I grew up in a house with two older brothers and a single dad, so I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the whole mom bit. I know I had a phenomenal mom, but she passed away when I was 7 years old, and well, I just don't know that I paid a whole lot of attention up to that point on how to be a mom. And, my wonderful stepmother came into my life later, so that just leaves me, well...clueless. I spent the majority of my pregnancy praying for a resilient child. In my mind, this thought was so that I could take my little one on all kinds of adventures. Maybe, though, God put it in my heart to pray this for my child because He, in His sovereignty, knew she would need to be resilient in order to survive! This definitely isn't a pity party, so please don't take it as such...it's just life as I know it. I've spent my whole entire life trying to pretend it hasn't affected me, and the one thing I will say about motherhood, is that it has proven more than anything, that I need my mommy. Perhaps she would've at least put a bug in my ear that it's the "Mommy thing to do" to get professional pictures taken of your child. Hmm...hadn't thought of that. We didn't even get the professional shots from the hospital. We take plenty of pictures of our little bugaboo, as can be seen on our Smugmug site (and trust me, this isn't NEAR all of them).

Last week, though, as we were in line at Babies 'R' Us, a saleslady approached us as we were in the Exchanges line to get Laurel's picture made. I couldn't really get away, because I was trapped in this line with a whole stack of things to return, so we listened to her little promo and walked away with a ton of coupons. Later in the week, the idea returned like a light bulb flashing over my head. Perhaps this would be a good thing to do with a baby. Get pictures made. What a novel idea. No sitting fee, so what do I have to lose...30 minutes of my life? As my day off approached on Friday, I began to plan it out. On Thursday, however, Laurel woke up with this bright red spot on her lower eyelid. The perfectionist in me reared it's ugly head. On Friday, the spot remained, so I decided I'd give it one more day. I was bummed. I was really looking forward to this mommy moment. By Saturday, her eye was looking better, and I had to get a grip on reality and realize if it wasn't a spot on her eye, it would be a scratch, or a booger, or something. So, we called and made our appointment, and off we went to Babies 'R' Us.

The photographer was amazing! She won Laurel over in a heartbeat, and got these shots. Laurel was so excited during the whole thing her little legs and arms just kicked and waved during the entire sitting!

Ahh...a successful mommy moment. Perhaps we will try more of these as I figure them out.

2 days in a row...aren't y'all proud?

It's that time of day where really all I do is waste time. Kevin leaves for work with the charge from me to "protect the city and uphold justice", and then I sit around and do nothing. I can't motivate myself to go to bed or anything. Every afternoon I have these pipe dreams of actually using this time to clean house, read a book, actually finish those thank you notes I found on Tuesday...but, nothing. I just sit and lose intelligence by watching Ace of Cakes and Letterman. So, tonight, I take a step in the right direction, and Blog.

I actually have had quite a few things run through my mind over the past couple of days that I want to blog about, but there's something incredibly Type A going on in my head that wants to write about each of these things in an individual blog...you know, give each item it's fair share, so those things will have to come later. What I'm going to tell you are a couple of Laurel-isms from the past couple of days....

First of all, our Little Bit turned 6 months old yesterday. I truly cannot believe it. I know it is such a cliche to say it goes by so fast, but well, it does. She has been such a joy to watch grow and change and learn how to interact with the world. I love how everything is new to her. I love how she loves the new sounds she makes each day, and continues to practice making them, especially when she knows she is supposed to be going to sleep. I love her pudgy legs and her two new little teeth that have come in on the bottom, and how these two teeth make little indentions on her spoon when she eats. I love that she wears more food than she actually ingests. And, she's taught me a lot about myself. Mostly, that I'm not in control like I like to think I am, and that truly, she is the Lord's, and I have to daily give her over to Him, the One that can care for her so much better than I can. I could go on and on, but back to the original points...

As many of you know, we didn't find out if we were having a little boy or a little girl when we had Laurel. We first knew when the doctor told me to push that final time and then said, "Take a look at your little girl." We loved the surprise, but I especially appreciated it when I found out what happens when people find out you've had a little girl. Pink exploded onto our house. Dresses, blankets, bibs, toys, pink, pink, pink. We had decorated in teal and brown to be neutral. I look at how much pink we have now, and can't imagine what it would be like if everyone would have had 4 more months to buy pink. Well, when the clothes needed to be put away those first few weeks, I started putting them in the closet in order by size. It made sense in my head, and I figured it would be an easy way to make sure that we didn't overlook any clothes as she grew. Well somewhere along the way, the closet exploded and Laurel took this massive growth spurt, leaving a closet full of unworn clothing. I happened to look through it all last weekend and found this precious pair of jeans, size 6-9 months. Perfect, I thought. Exactly what size we're in now. I washed them and had them ready to wear. This morning, we got ready for Mother's Day Out (where Laurel goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm at work and Kevin sleeps), and I put on the jeans. They looked precious. Embroidered butterflies and flowers on the legs, a velvety pink ribbon that fit around the waist. I sat Laurel on her play blanket on the floor so I could grab the camera and get a picture...

She could hardly sit up! You know that terrible 'I'm wearing too tight of jeans' feeling? Well, she got to experience it today. What's worse is that I thought, "Oh, this isn't that bad," and took her to MDO like this! Needless to say, by the time we picked her up, she was only in her onesie. Apparently, she'd gotten pretty frustrated by the incredibly tight squeeze going on on her little hips (she can thank me later for those), so her teachers had mercy and took them off. They were a one-hit wonder in her wardrobe, I guess. What was I thinking? She will be spending the majority of her life facing the dilemma of finding jeans that actually fit. Why in the world would I introduce this to her at 6 months?

My second item of bloggage for this evening is a tip for all of you who are around little ones that are still in diapers. You can take it for what it worth, think we're ridiculous parents or whatever, but all I've got to say is it worked for us, and we're going to keep it up...So, here's what happened...when we were in Missouri last week, Laurel was teething like crazy, absolutely miserable, and got a terrible cold in the process. Poor little thing couldn't hardly breath, and her nose was a little faucet. She was drooling so much and so congested, she kept coughing, which would wake her up at night. And then, she was in a strange bed in a strange place. There were a couple of nights that she woke up 4-5 times. She didn't even do that when we first came home from the hospital with her! So, we decided to sleep her on her stomach one night in the middle of the night in a moment of desperation. It worked wonders. In fact, she's slept on her stomach ever since, and has slept like a little champ. The only problem is, that this new position makes her wake up with a wet belly from a leaky diaper every morning. I can only wash so many sheets and sheet savers. It doesn't seem to bother her...she still sleeps from 7-7, but I guess I'm not crazy about the idea of her sleeping in urine-soaked pj's all night. So, we started experimenting. Maybe if we put her diapers on backwards...maybe they're more absorbent in the back. Nope. Maybe buy the next size bigger diaper, and they'll be more absorbent. Nope. The last straw was the morning when I got her out of bed and she was soaked from her little armpits to her knees.

I had read about this idea that we finally had to resort to in one of those semi-cheesy mommy magazines. I was pretty hesitant because well, it sounded kinda silly. After she woke up that soaked, though, I was desperate. So, I took the advice of the magazine and stuck a maxi pad on the front of her diaper (horizontally across the band to soak up anything that would leak). And, it worked. Amazing. Dry two days in a row now. Last night, Kev and I went to Target to buy our little girl her first package of maxi pads at 6 months old. Oh, Laurel, I'm so sorry to have to introduce this to you when most of your life will be filled with the concerns of such things anyway. But, hey, you're dry, and I'm not doing laundry every day of my life.

You guys can store that little tip away for a leaky day. You're welcome.

my day with Edouard

When I started this blog, I was very aware of a few things...1) as a huge procrastinator, I would put off blogging, and then would finally just give up, figuring everyone else had given up on me ever blogging again; 2) I lead a pretty boring life, to be quite honest, and didn't really know what I'd write about; and 3) I'm a pretty private person. Not for privacy's sake, but for insecurity's sake. There's something about putting myself out for all to read about that brings out all of the insecurities of a middle school girl; and lastly, I had been warned about "Blog Guilt", that comes when you don't blog for a while, and well, I just don't need any more reasons to feel guilty. However, in spite of being a procrastinating, boring, middle-school-girl-on-the-inside, I hereby promise to do better. So, without further ado, my next blog post....

Yesterday, we got a snow day from work. Well, technically, not a "snow day", but that's what we Missourians in our office called it. It was better than a snow day, though, because we don't have to make it up like we did in school. It was a day to welcome Edouard. "Who is Edouard?" you may ask. Shortly followed by "Why didn't his parents spell his name correctly?". Edouard is our all bark and no bite tropical storm that came to town yesterday. Not that I really wanted lots of flooding...but he was pretty unimpressive. I'm just glad he barked loud enough to cause HFBC to close its doors for the day so I could get a day at home to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. The mayor said not to go out unless we needed to. So, I submitted and stayed home. I didn't even get out of my comfy pj pants or put on makeup. It was so great. I decided that since it was Tuesday and I wouldn't have been able to clean house under normal circumstances, I wouldn't do it. It was the perfect rainy do-nothing day. I curled up and took 2 naps when Laurel took naps, ate what I wanted when I wanted, played, and watched Ellen and about 275 news-blurbs showing it raining in Galveston (which, as a side note, I had to feel pretty sorry for the poor girl that had to cover that story and stand in the rain for 4 hours). One semi-productive thing that I did, however, was find a stack of thank you cards that I hadn't written from when Laurel was born...6 months ago. Dang it!! I think I wrote 2 of the 15. So, if you get a way overdue thank you note from me, you can thank Edouard.
And, if you sent a gift, but have yet to get a thank you, I'm terribly sorry, but it is coming:)

You would think that this would have been energizing, but apparently it was pretty hard work, because I racked out on the couch about 8:30. Pretty rough day with that Edouard. And now, I'm trying to get motivated to have a normal day. And, start thinking about my next post, because I am going to do better... if for no other reason than to prove to Kevin that I will keep up with it.