Everywhere But The Burpie Cloth! Top 10 Places I Never Expected To Find Baby Barf

1.) Running down my cleavage and pooling in the fabric of my bra waiting to drench my stomach.

2.) Dripping from the seam of my dining room table where it pulls apart for a leaf.

3.) The back of the couch...the part that is not accessible due to it being right up against the wall and windows.

4.) Inside the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.

5.) Completely drenching my husband's watch. As if he marinated it in a bucket of barf.

6.) Dripping down the back of my calves into my socks and shoes.

7.) The foot pedals of the elliptical machine and the innermost workings of the wheels.

8.) Inside a brand new purse....that had just gotten filled with everything I own.

9.) Computer keyboard.

10.) Directly into the mouth from flying baby superman position. Hey, I warned my husband about that one.

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Take it while you can get it.

Well, it's 4 pm and everyone just fell asleep. Birdie fell asleep in her high chair while she was eating her very late lunch and Baby Boy just fell asleep on the nursing pillow, and you know what? I'll take it. Yes it's after 4pm and my 3 yr old toddler who normally wakes up from her nap at this time will probably be a wild maniac at 9pm...but I'll take it because I NEED it. I need a bit of peace and quiet without someone yelling at me for something. It's been one of those days and everyone has been yelling all day long.

Today is the second day it has rained so we're quite crazy around here. Yesterday it rained REALLY bad and I had Bay with me all day at a baby shower an hour away. So Dada was home with Birdie all day long, totally cooped up in the house as it dumped buckets of rain all day long without a single moment of a break and she did not nap all-day-long. That is rough. He was pretty frazzled when I got home and I don't blame him. I've been there. Heck, I live there on a daily basis. I call it Toddlerville and we serve up crazy all day long. So it's good for him to see from time to time what it's like. Even though he totally believes me how hard it can be to have an infant and a toddler. And he always lets me complain. And then he helps...and I don't mean he'll only hold the baby while he's reading motorcycle racing blogs online (which he'll do that too), but he'll like change poopy diapers without me even having to ask him, so he's a total keeper when it comes to baby daddy's. "Did you make a poo poo?...OK, let's go change your diaper" type of thing. God bless him! Not afraid to get up in there.

But getting back to the nap at 4pm thing...I'm not even going as far as moving her from her high chair because I don't want to mess it up. So I'm just letting her take a nap sitting up. Kinda like the naps I take everyday, haha. (While I'm nursing the baby.)

Take it while you can get it.

On that note..the baby just woke up. So I got about 24 minutes. Not bad.

Long time no post...

So it's been a while since I have posted on here. Too long in fact and I need to change that. So I'm now 22 weeks pregnant with our second baby, and Summer is now 26 months old. Where does the time go anyway? We're due October 2nd. (The date changed again..it was the 8th, then it was the 1st, now it's the 2nd.) But baby comes when it wants to come, so I don't pay much attention to due dates. Summer was 5 days late. I'm assuming this baby will be too. Todd's birthday is October 3rd, so he is hoping for a birthday baby. Which is fine with me. I'm just hoping for a smaller baby and an easier labor, and while I'm at it, nice and quick too please? Thanks!

We decided not to find out what we are having. Everyone assumes it's a boy since we already have a girl. We're OK with either. My only preference is healthy and happy, 10 fingers and 10 toes. Oh, and maybe one who will sleep like a champ. That would be a nice change. No offense Summer. Mommy loves you. But mommy loves sleep too!

Summer always says when asked about this baby that it's a "baby boy." She has never once said "baby girl." So who knows, we'll see. Todd keeps referring to the baby as a girl. It's more of a habit I think since we don't know any other way. I'm keeping my gut feelings to myself since my gut was wrong before since I was TOTALLY convinced that Summer was a boy. Either way, we'll know for sure in October 2010!

Let's keep the conversation going over on our facebook page, My Tales From The Crib!

My "Pregnancy Diet" Journal

My “Pregnancy Diet” Journal-First Entry

22 weeks pregnant (exactly 5 1/2 months) -18 weeks to go

I've decided to blog my journey to give up sugar and junk like I told the ladies on the 22 week page of the pregnancy message board I belong to. Please feel free to follow along. I'm trying to keep a record of my progress for myself and this is the easiest way for me to do that. Pregnant or not, hopefully you'll join me in the fight against junk!

I'm not actually on a “diet” where I'm cutting calories, I've just decided to “eliminate” empty calories by cutting out all the garbage since I'm pregnant. But I don't know what else to call it for blog purposes. I'm open to suggestions!

Here's why: I have read many things and heard from many OBGYN doctors including my OB that sugar in the mother's diet is a big factor when it comes to how big the baby will be at birth. I know there are just some things out of our control, such as genetics, but why take that gamble if you can make better changes to your diet that not only helps the growth of the baby, but also helps you in keeping the excess weight down and gets you on the right track for a healthier life in general. I was 6 lbs and DH was 5 lbs, but my daughter was almost 9lbs. So I know diet and sugar played a role in that because I didn't watch what I ate as much with her. Also, we have a lot of people in my family and DH's side too with Type 2 Diabetes and high blood pressure and heart problems and weight problems, etc., so I'm trying to help prevent a lot of that stuff too, in myself by making better choices now in my early 30's that will hopefully last me throughout life, as well as giving a great start to the baby in the belly as well as the baby who is taking a nap right now. That is also why I was so adamant about breastfeeding with my first born despite how hard it can be in the first 6 weeks or so. Studies show that you can reduce the risks of Type 2 Diabetes, breast cancer, allergies and a million other things by simply breastfeeding.

With my first pregnancy I hardly gained that much in the first and second trimester. I actually lost over 15 lbs in the first trimester due to a weird virus I caught on Kauai which landed me in the hosp for a week at 7 1/2 weeks pregnant and it lasted throughout my 2nd trimester. My doc said he was concerned about me not gaining enough weight at first, I was no where near even gaining back the 15 I had lost, so I just started eating whatever I wanted, and didn't think about it because he gave me the green light, right? So I had junk food, dessert, fast food, late night snacks of Honey Bunches of Oats which is pretty sugary, on top of my regular meals and it actually backfired on me because I developed some really bad habits that were hard to break for a long time after the baby was born even. And then I was used to eating like that and having sweets a lot when I really should have been having healthy meals, but just more volume, and more healthy snacks too. So by the end of the pregnancy I gained more than HE thought I should have, which makes you feel like you did something wrong and he was like, you're gaining too much now, so stop. Well, I already had the bad habits and I was miserable since it was the very end of the pregnancy, which made me eat more. So this time I'm making some changes early. I didn't actually start exercising regularly with my first pregnancy until week 27, but then I was swimming laps almost daily as well as doing the eliptical machine and walking the hills in my neighborhood plenty.

So, Summer was 8 lbs 9.8 oz, and it took forever for me to push her out, (and I'm not a petite person by any means. I'm curvy, have “good birthing hips” as I've been told, haha, and I'm almost 5'9” and when not pregnant, I usually weigh around 155-165ish, so I've never been petite. And still it was work getting that big baby out!) so this time around I'm making a conscious effort to cut out all excess sugar, chemicals, processed foods, etc. That doesn't mean I'm eliminating whole and natural foods that contain sugar naturally, like fruit and stuff. I'm still eating whole grains, good carbs, fruits, nuts, veggies, including the ones that back in the Atkins Diet days were deemed “bad for you” like carrots and potatoes. I've never been one to just eliminate a necessary food group in the spirit of fad dieting, mainly because I'm trying to get people to make better food choices, become more aware of portion control and exercise more as a Pilates Instructor.

However, I am OK with kicking the sugary coffee drink habit, the occasional Saturday morning donut binge, the “quick” run through Taco Bell or In-N-Out Burger because I didn't plan my lunch properly, the nightly peanut butter and fudge ice cream sundae just because “it's time to watch a netflicks”, and lets not forget my absolute favorite; the big fatty restaurant breakfast of an avocado, cheddar cheese and crispy bacon omelette, home fries and sourdough toast with enough butter to choke a horse and plenty of regular coffee with so much cream and sugar you'd think I was just drinking warm milk...a breakfast which more times than not made me feel like talking a long nap the minute I left the restaurant despite having only been awake for about 2+ hours...stuff like that. Let's face it, NO ONE needs any of that stuff, but especially when you are trying to grow a human being from scratch in your body, and the foods you eat play an enormous role in that, you don't need all the artificial chemicals and greasy fat and processed and altered sugar that make food taste yummy. You need lean proteins, whole foods, whole grains, fresh produce, milk, eggs, yogurt, stuff like that. So when I say that I'm giving up sugar, I mean the yummy treats listed above as well as all the junk that people buy pre-packaged with preservatives, chemicals and “made-in-a-lab” ingredients.

So these are some of the things I have totally gone cold turkey on or am trying to go cold turkey on at the moment:

-processed/refined sugar,

-adding additional sugar to foods and drinks (like iced tea, coffee),

-prepackaged food and junk that lists ingredients I can not pronounce nor have in my cupboard,

-any and all fast food/fried food, including fast food salads and fast food salad dressings that are loaded with sugar and chemicals,

-anything that has an artificial sweetener-which is way more harmful than regular sugar since it's all chemicals made in a lab to taste like sugar,

-sugary coffee drinks, all soda drinks and jamba juice type smoothies (that I didn't make at home),

and then of course the typical players in the diet game:

-cakes, cookies, candies, pastries, donuts, muffins, (unless I made it at home with modified ingredients.)

...basically anything you'd find in a Starbucks pastry case, at an AM PM/ Seven-Eleven, or in a vending machine. It's a work in progress. I'm not perfect, but this is my goal. I tend to do better when I have written it out and have some guidelines to follow, so that is why I've decided to keep track on my blog as a journal.

But I'm definitely not talking about an extreme dieters version of “not having a carrot because it's bad for you, but I'll have a diet coke and 8 pieces of bacon to go with my 4 eggs!” Haha! P.S. That was an actual breakfast someone I know had during their Atkin's Diet days, meanwhile I was eating an egg white scramble with diced grilled chicken, spinach, tomatoes, and feta cheese with whole wheat toast and fresh fruit...and MY breakfast was the “unhealthy” one! Gotta love it!

So for the past few weeks I have gone cold turkey on sugar and a ton of junky foods. It was really hard at first; I'd say for the first week for sure, and I had a lot of cravings for my usual junk snacks that were usually on hand and many times I would “almost” fall into old habits like running through Taco Bell for a taco and an 8 layer burrito before or after grocery shopping. Mainly because I wasn't prepared with something healthy in the car, or I didn't eat a balanced enough breakfast that should last me a few hours while running errands, or simply because it was a bad habit to treat myself with a comfort food like Taco Bell because I was having a stressful day because my two year old threw a tantrum in Target because she wanted out so she could push the cart-meanwhile she needs a diaper change cuz she pooped in isle 4 and of course the diaper bag is in the car, it's dangerously close to nap time and I've still got a bunch of things on my list! I tend to eat when stressed, and a day like this can be a very typical one with a toddler...so I find myself stressed A LOT these days. I think a major factor for me is just being more prepared in general, but with quick and healthy snacks especially.

However, like I said, I'm not “perfect” (whatever that means anyway) and I do have my one daily splurge of “manmade sugar and chemicals”, haha. Pretty much every morning my husband makes me about a 12 oz (decaf) latte and I add 2 TBSP of my favorite flavored creamer. So depending on which one I use, it's about 10-12 g of sugar/latte. But it's better than the caramel macchiato I would normally get at Starbuck's. I don't make my own bread or multigrain cheerio's, so those are packaged items, but I do get whole grain bread with nuts and seeds in it. Which has more calories per slice, but all that extra stuff is good for you so I'm OK with the extra calorie count. It's high in fiber, so that helps in the calorie department as you know if you have ever done Weight Watchers.

Anyway, so this is my goal. To follow this plan for myself in hopes for many things, but mainly I'm hoping to keep the baby around 8 lbs, 7lbs would be great too, but please God, no more than 9!! haha! Because I'd like to have a natural birth (it's now referred to un-medicated I'm finding out) because a natural birth these days just means vaginal. Anyway, so my hope is to continue to stay low risk in the pregnancy so that I can have some other options for birthing like outside of the hospital with a midwife perhaps, and have a water birth in a birthing center or even at home without I.V.s and fetal heart monitoring and all that stuff that IMO just gets in the way of the birthing process. We'll see. Our birthing class starts later this month and runs all through the 3rd trimester, so I'll find out more about other options that are completely typical in other parts of the world, but here in the US it's not considered the norm, so you really have to fight for it. Which is a disservice to women in my opinion.

Happy Baby Baking to my fellow preggo mama's in week 22 on the IAP message board who are following along and who are joining me as well! We can do it! Cutting out one sugar packet at a time! Haha!

xo

Colleen

Let's keep the conversation going over on our facebook page, My Tales From The Crib!

~18 months old~Probably my favorite age so far!

Some random thoughts about being 18 months old:

It seems like everyday Summer is doing or saying something new. Just today she started to "moo" like a cow when we were watching her Baby Einstein DVD and I pointed to a cow and said "moo." She also said "apple"..well it was more like "app!" But she said it each time they showed the apple, so I"ll give it to her! She said "blue" when they showed a blue cup. She has been saying "duck" a lot too and I didn't teach her intentionally. We just happened to be going to the park to feed the ducks, and then the next day she saw a duck on her DVD and said "duck!" Then she pulled out her yellow ducky at bath time and showed Dada and said "duck." He was quite impressed. So it just goes to show us that she is listening to every word we say!!

She is babbling all day long, chatting away saying who knows what! But she sure knows what she is talking about, that's for sure!

Every time we go to Trader Joe's they give her a balloon. She absolutely loves balloons! After they "die" we cut the strings short and she drags them around with her everywhere she goes. We try to name them according to color. So far most of her toys have boys names, so we've been trying to use more girls names. So far, her favorite balloons have been Miss Lavender, Miss Mandarin and Miss Scarlet.

She is very independent, strong willed full of energy and she knows exactly what she wants and doesn't want. However, when other people are around she can be very quiet and she'll just study you until she feels comfortable enough to crack a smile. Which can take a while. She's not easily "won over." Haha!

She is getting to the point where she doesn't want me to feed her with a spoon anymore. She likes to do it herself, and she's pretty good at it too. She can eat yogurt with a spoon and not make too much of a mess. Nana and Papa were pretty impressed with her spoon skills when they were here to visit. She'll even use a napkin to "wipe her face." Whenever I cough and cover my mouth, Summer will do the same.

She still gets scared by loud noises and will come running to us whenever a big plane goes overhead and she hates the vacuum. Of course, so do I...but for different reasons! haha!

She loves to eat whatever you have on your plate (even if she just ate) and she has started drinking from a cup, with a little help from us, but she's still doing it herself. We just make sure it hardly has any water in there. She never really had a bottle, so she's not too familiar with the whole "tilt your head back" way of drinking. After we weaned her she went straight to a sippy cup with a straw.

Whenever she is wearing socks, she'll fling them off any chance she can get, even if it's cold outside. Shoes too. She loves to take off her shoes. She loves to wear sparkly bracelets (especially Grammy's) and we got her a few with "diamonds" in her size and she wears them all the time. She'll even hold her arm up so they won't fall off. She still loves to put on other people's shoes and walk in them.

Her new favorite books are the 2 that Nana and Papa brought her. "What Does Baby Say?" and the "Mommy and Me" book. She loves that one because at the end of it is a mirror. So she loves that part! She also loves her new stuffed blue seal that Nana and Papa bought her at the Long Beach Aquarium. Papa named her "Lucille The Blue Seal", but we also call her the "Gug Seal" since Summer thinks she's a "gug" A.K.A. dog.

She has a sticker chart with right now she is more interested in peeling the stickers off and playing with them. But when she is good she'll get a sticker. She gets stickers for not fussing when we wipe her hands and face after she eats, for letting Mama brush her teeth in the bathtub (and not fussing) and for not fussing when we change her diaper. So far those are the only times she'll but up some resistance, but we've been tackling it pretty good with the sticker chart! She is totally aware that she gets stickers when she is good!

We're trying to keep her on a pretty consistent schedule. Right now it sort of looks like this:

Between 7-7:30 am she wakes up and plays while I fix her breakfast.

Between 7:30-9 she eats and plays. (sometimes she eats for a looong time!)

Between 9-10:30 we'll either go for a walk through the park or we'll play in the house and watch her Baby Einstein DVD-depending on the weather.

Around 10:30 we'll have a little light lunch snack, something with chicken to last her through her nap.

Around 11:30 I try to put her down for her nap. We'll read some books and have some milk.

If I'm lucky she'll sleep from about noon til about 2-2:30ish.

Whenever she wakes up we'll have another little light snack. She doesn't eat much for her lunch snacks. Which is fine since she eats so much during breakfast and dinner. So we try to make the lunch snacks count with lots of protein!

(We don't really run any errands after her nap unless we really need to. She will sometimes wake up fussy and we're gearing up for the night time routine so sometimes we'll sit and snuggle and read more books or we'll color and play with stickers or if she's having a really fussy afternoon we'll sit on the couch with a warm milk and a blanket and snuggle while we watch a calm DVD with classical music. It all depends.)

Around 4pm I "try" to start making dinner , but it's hard with a fussy baby at your feet.

Dada gets home around 5:30ish and he'll play with Summer so I can finish dinner and we'll usually be eating around 6pm. After diner we play and about 6:45 we start the bath.

If all is going well, abut 7:15-7:30 we get her out of the bath and in her jammies. We read a few books, she has some warm milk and Dada dances with her and puts her to bed. Sometimes she'll fall asleep in her bed, but most of the time she fights it and cries for about 5 minutes until she falls asleep. She's just like her Dada! Always fighting sleep!

Hopefully by 8pm, sometimes even 8:30 she is fast asleep. She'll usually cry out a few times starting around 11pm, but won't wake up. She can be a very restless sleeper. On occasion, we'll have to go in her room and help to rock her back to sleep. But she can usually soothe herself back to sleep. Which is the goal!

(Of course, while I finish writing this post, it's 12:08pm and I have been trying to get her to calm down from playing and take her afternoon nap! She was all hyped up and was drinking her milk like it was the last milk on earth then she was jumping and bouncing in her crib, totally nowhere sleep. Then I smelled poop. Ugh! Ar you kidding me? Ok, change your diaper, try to get you calm once again and put down for a nap. She cried in protest when I left her room for about 3 minutes...and so far it's been 2 minutes and I haven't heard another peep....But I have thought that before and I have gone up to her door to check and as I slowly creep up to the crack in her door, trying not to make the hardwood crack and squeak under my feet, gently push the door open hoping to find a sleeping baby, but only to find that she is standing at the edge of her crib staring at me. We make eye contact....I'm hoping she didn't see me, her mouth opens and she says....."up!"

Ugh! Little stinker!

I blame Dada!

Pain in the...back.

I have been blessed with a back that lets me know when I have done too much and when I need to do more. It's quite possibly the bossiest person I know, reminding me on a daily basis of it's existence in my world..."locking" it into my brain. Sending me constant updates and tweets. 

 "Um...I don't care this much about you!" ---"Sorry, I take that back! Don't hurt me."

My back - consuming more of my daily thoughts than should be legal. Taking away days at a time, forcing me to sit (preferably against a bag of ice) and reflect on healthier, stronger days...most of which were yesterday! My back is quite frankly - a pain in my ass. Like an unfaithful boyfriend, going out on you when you least expect it, when all you try to do is treat it nice. Yea, that guy.

My back has never had my back. Constantly turning on me. Constantly on my case....unless I cater to it every single day and pay all sorts of attention to it regardless of what I have planned....like a high maintenance former friend who refuses to get over 'that one guy who went out on her that one time back in college.'  

"Yea but you didn't like him anyway....?" 
"I know, but I do like to complain a whole lot..." 
Yea, that friend. 

I have been blessed with a back that knows what it wants, lets me know how it feels, and like my children when I'm on the phone, will go to extreme lengths to get me to pay more attention to it. We've been through so much together. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, baby wearing, millions of pre and post-baby hormones turning joints and muscles into "loosey-goosey" mush,....car accidents. Don't get me started on the car accidents.  I've been rear-ended or side-swiped more times (as a passenger) than I can count. Because of this, I don't make a very good passenger ...Right, Babe?  However, I've been rear-ended as a driver too. A guy plowed into the back of us when we were stopped at a light (he on the other hand was looking down at his phone TEXTING and driving instead of paying attention and slowing down for a red light!) and I had a 6 month old baby in the back seat! Another reason why rear facing car seats are best for babies. Baby was fine thank God. Never blinked an eye in fact. 

Anyway...back2U

Remember the good old days when we were in the pilates studio 5 days a week? You hardly made a peep. You were so sweet and kind and unobtrusive and calm. Never spazzed out. Never slipped up. You were the epitome of strength and support. I thought so fondly of you back then. Such a nice back.

Which reminds me! My back also knows just how to humiliate me. "How does a Pilates Instructor have a bad back?!" Exactly.

I am extremely blessed for this very vocal, very bossy, very pushy, very stubborn, total jerk-store of a back. At least that is the positive spin I'm trying to attach to it after all these years. It's either that or start waking up at 5am and hitting the pilates studio for hours and hours a day again. Did I mention I'm an overtired new mom now? Nevermind the fact that she is 18 months old. In the grand-scheme-of-life-looking-at-the-bigger-picture-here...I'm a new mom damnit!

Can we divorce a body part? Just askin'....


**Fast forward a few years to the Re-Cap: Exactly 1 year after I wrote this, I had just given birth to a 10 pound chunk-a-lunk baby via home water birth. So I have more to add to my back pain woes because this chunky monkey is HEEEAVVVVVVY to carry around!!  When you start out a 10 pounder...you just get bigger!  Funny how that works. 

The Life of a 17 month old Toddler

17 months and counting...

Baby Girl's new words are:

*poop

*bubbles

*ball

*row, row, row...(as in the song)

*blue (and she'll point to the blue flower on her wall by her changing table.)

*nose (while she is pointing at it)

*color (which sounds like "GaGa")...but she is using it in the correct context, so I'll give it to her!

*diaper "die-die" (and she'll pat her diaper.)

*balloon

*Yea-Yea! (when you ask her a question, do you want to do....?) or she'll say;

*Nah!

And last but not least, her new word is:

*A-Ga!

-We're not really sure what it means, but she sure says it over and over and with gusto! So it obviously means SOMETHING!! Sometimes it's a question, sometimes it's a statement, sometimes she sings it sweetly pairing it with "Dada" and sometimes it's like she is getting ready to karate chop something. Aside from "Dada," it's her favorite word.

She is still saying:

*I love you

*mama

*dada

*mum mum (which is for the baby cracker "mum mums", but she says it for all manner of yummy/crunchy/sweet/cookie/cracker thing.)

*up! (which also means freedom...as in give me my freedom from whatever situation I want out of!)

*dog a.k.a: "gug"

*Hi-ya!

*hello? (which sounds like He-woa?) She says it whenever any type of "phone noise" is made.

She makes a cute noise when she is eating something yummy, like mmmMMMmmm! It's very sing-songy and cute.

She makes the sign for:

*milk (milkies)

*all done (She also says, "all gone" while she is making the sign, which also means, "all done.")

*diamond (as in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...like a diamond in the sky...blah, blah, blah)

*more

and she does these little "pincher fingers" which translates into "gimmie...."

She'll also make "diamond" when I ask her to say please. Very cute! Like a little present she is giving me.

She'll pat her diaper when you ask her where her diaper is.

She pull up her shirt when you ask her where her belly button is and she'll point to it.

She'll point to her toes and her hair whenever we sing this one song at Gymboree that mentions "toes" and "hair".

She'll eat her whole meal, drop food on the floor (because she's done) and wouldn't take money if you offered it to her to finish her meal. However, the minute you put her down, finding the food on the floor is like striking gold and you sitting down to eat your breakfast has suddenly made her starving to death and she MUST HAVE whatever you are eating. Even if you literally just took her out of her high chair because she was "all gone."

She loves to push buttons, turn on and off the fan and her music in her crib. She likes to send daddy a "text" on the blackberry and listen to music and babble to her monkey and dance and sing songs with mama. She is always walking around singing a little song that only she knows the words and the tune.

She now puts her toys away when we sing the "Gymboree Clean Up-Clean Up Song"...we've learned to love that song as it has come in handy, but it took a while.

She loves to sit in her little chair and watch Baby Einstein DVD's and eat mum mums.

She loves stickers and has a sticker chart and is TOTALLY aware when mama says, "Don't fuss while I'm wiping off your face/changing your diaper/wiping your nose and you'll get a sticker." And she makes sure that a sticker is produced when you promise said sticker! Her favorite thing is to pull the stickers off her "Good Girl Sticker Chart" and stick and re-stick them on anything and everything until there is no stick left in the sticker.

She loves to walk in other people's shoes. Literally.

She laughs whenever I say, "Dada" or, "say hi to dada."

Whenever I say "no" to something her response is, "Dada!"

She'll give you a hug or a kiss or do the same to her monkey or baby doll and she always says "Awwwwww!" (Like, "awww, how sweet!")

And the best of all, she'll come running into my arms when I scrunch down and hold my arms open to her. I love it! She's my little sweetheart who is almost 18 months old! Where did the time go??

I guess I better get her 1 year pictures taken soon, huh??

My first attempt at writing and publishing a blog in the time it takes Summer to eat lunch!

Saw Elizabeth Gilbert last night, author of Eat, Pray, Love. She told me to write everyday and not to judge it too harshly...so here I am...writing and not judging. Heck, I'm not even going to proof read before I hit "Publish Post." ...OK, that's a lie, but I'm not going to save it to post for later and end up getting it deleted like the last 2 posts I never got to post. (Insert sad face.)

So write everyday. I told myself that same thing not too long ago, then life gets in the way. Or rather, Facebook, I Am Pregnant (message board) and e-mails get in the way. I'd like to say that dishes and floor scrubbing and laundry folding gets in the way of writing, but alas, I'd be lying. However, lately, my chiropractic appointments have gotten in the way. My search for a painless life is still underway...

According to Ketut in the book, Eat, Pray, Love, I need to meditate on the pain...or the disappearance of pain I should say. But I'm afraid I have been born into the wrong culture. As a Westerner even a chiropractor is considered "out of the box". So to meditate away my back pain that has anatomically caused my pelvis to shift and tilt on it's axis is sort of...well, quackery. However, I'm at the end of my rope in a sense with this back pain, that I think I'll try anything. I've told myself for years that I would never to go a chiropractor, yet here I am, 10 sessions into it and I feel that aside from doing regular pilates and swimming laps, it is the only thing that seems to be helping.

Join me next month when I dare to try....acupuncture!

Please comment with your thoughts on chiro or acupuncture!

Status Update:

Strike a pose!

Now that Todd is back from his work travels (insert extreme happy face!) I will get back to my regularly scheduled program of blogging. Please join me and I hope you enjoy!

A Summertime Photo Shoot!

My good friend Susan (Suse), whom I've known since I was 13 going on 14....(actually, I think we were 14 going on 15.) We met at church camp, which cracks us both up...considering...well...whatever. We met at church camp, or as everyone liked to call it, "Camp Surf", because it's waaaaaaaaay cooler as a teenager going into 10th grade to say you have gone to "Camp Surf" on the border of San Diego and Mexico and slept in a tent on the beach under the stars, enjoyed camp fires, making HUGE messy smores, singing to acoustic guitar with adult supervision that still remains forgettable, than to say that you went to "church camp" with a bunch of dorks (you being the ring leader) where we all forgot to wear sunscreen and got fried to a crisp because we're not yet mature enough to do anything without our parents...OBVIOUSLY!

Ahhh...the good ol days! No bills, no mortgage, the only life we were responsible for was our own, (and that's stretching it! Hense the Great Sunburn Disaster of the Summer of 9th grade-going-into-10th-grade.).....the life of a teenager. We all thought we had it soooo baaaaaad, but looking back we had it soooooo_darn_good! (Thanks Mom & Dad!!)

Well, that is where I met Suse and that summer of Surf Camp/Camp Surf (I never really knew the exact name), sleeping 4+ in a 2 man tent, jumping out of trees with a trash bag as a parachute (another blog for another time, haha), Taco Bell, roller-skates, bike rides, babysitting, spending cash on candy, horror movies and talking about boys, boys, boys; we were absolutely inseparable creating memories that still make us laugh to this day with the mention of one or two words.

Fast forward.....a "few"...ahem....years, and Suse and I are both happily married and deep in the trenches of new babies, toddlers and preschoolers, careers, say-at-home-mommy-life, playdates, minivans and "practical" SUV's, deciding that a clean house isn't more important than playing with your only-so-small-for-so-long babies and trying to balance quality time with the kids, meaningful conversations with your husband that don't involve "teething", "shopping lists" or "poop stories", finding the time to reconnect with the friends who've been there from the beginning, navigating life in the work force after baby and of course the all important-but-MUCH-too-neglected ME TIME! We both agree that there is nothing sweeter than a little time by yourself to roam the isles of Target!

(I'm a big believer -HUGE believer- in me time. I feel you come back to your "life" feeling recharged and ready to tackle it once again and I make no apologies for the fact that I absolutely need and require and schedule Me Time!)

I read a friends facebook status the other day, Michele, and she wrote something like this: "I told the kids I'm taking a break and not to talk to me until my break is over!" OMG Mish!!! LOVE IT!!! It's priceless and absolutely necessary! A woman with four children is gonna have things figured out way better than a woman with just a 16 month old. (I don't know how you do it Mish! And on top of it all, her kids are absolute sweethearts! You are a goddess!!)

And as usual...I digress.

This blog is "supposed" to be about the photoshoot Summer and I had with Suse a few weeks ago at the beach. But I'm finding it's more fun to talk about old friends and nostalgic stories! I'll have to do this more often. Afterall, this blog can't be TOTALLY about life with a baby. I did in fact have a life "pre-baby"...I just can't for the life of me figure out what exactly that consisted of at this moment. haha! Aside from Surf Camp, of course.

So my friend Suse has decided to take off on a new adventure and dabble in photography, a great idea in my opinion, and we went to one of her open shoots a few weeks ago at the beach. We were the last group to arrive because Summer napped right through our original scheduled time, but it ended up working our perfectly because we were there right at "golden hour", my absolute favorite time of day, and she was able to capture some really great shots of Summer and I. (Todd was out of town on business. Insert sad face.) So I wanted to post some of these pics to share. I love them and will cherish them always. Thanks Suse!

Enjoy! It didn't give me enough room for all of them...so here are some of my favies!

Summer watching the waves crashing against the rocks.

My sweet little angel baby all snuggled up after going in the water.

I love what she did with this photo! The colors are so fun!

This is an unusual smile for me, but I really like how this one came out. It just looks very relaxed. A perfect day-at-the-beach shot. Summer looks so cute here!

Nothing is more precious than a baby laughing!

Building a sand castle for a princess!