Natalie has been so rotten today. She woke up in a great mood, but was so ornery during church that I had to take her out once, and then Nathan took her out for good right after communion. From the time we got home, she knew her Grammy was coming by to see her and bring her presents from her Florida vacation. Grammy couldn't get here soon enough. Natalie tried to escape several times and threw tantrum after tantrum wanting to see her. Finally, Nathan's mother arrived. I honestly don't know that I've ever been so happy to see her. Natalie was so happy while Grammy was here; they played and watched a movie, so Nathan and I made a mad dash to get as much cleaning done as possible. After Nate's mom left, we all laid down for a nap. It took Nathan and me almost two hours of fighting Natalie to get her to sleep. My pillow is now covered with tears, snot, and chocolate milk. The nap lasted a few hours. My plan was to go for a run while Nate and Natty slept, but I was wiped out after wrestling Natalie down for so long that I fell asleep too. When I woke up, it was storming. Thank you, Mother Nature, for ruining my plans. Honestly, as I sit here reflecting on today, the hours of about 6:00pm-8:00pm are such a blur. Natalie must not have been too bad, but we must not have had a terribly enjoyable time either. Natalie usually goes to be between 8 and 8:30pm, but Nathan "made a deal" with her (if there is such a thing with a two-year old) and decided to allow Natalie to stay up a little later to watch Minnie's Bow-Tique if she would "go to bed like a good girl". Around rolls 8:55...Natalie's TWO- she's GOT to go to bed! Needless to say, she didn't hold up her end of the deal. For the first time in a very long time, we had to let Natalie cry it out (yes, I'm one of those moms), and it lasted for a solid hour. Yikes! I went in her room once to try to console her and put her back to bed. It didn't work. But, she's finally asleep now *crosses fingers that she STTN*.
I know I sound like I'm complaining, and maybe I am. Then I read blogs written by mommas who have lost a baby and a mom whose infant is on hospice, and I feel like a terrible mother. Here I am, frustrated by things these mothers will never experience with their boys. I pray for them and their families every.single.day. I cannot even begin to imagine the hurt and other emotions they are experiencing. I am doing my best to enjoy each and every moment with Natalie, the good and the bad, because things could change drastically in an instant. None of us are promised another tomorrow.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
What a Day
It started off by me over-sleeping by 40 minutes. Thankfully, 30 of those minutes are the time that I use to get in a quick workout, so it didn't cut into my "getting ready" time too much; I just didn't get a workout this morning. Natalie slept in, which never happens was a blessing even though we were already running behind this morning. Not to mention, she was a pill when I was trying to get her ready this morning. Normally Natalie rides with her dad in the morning, though we drop her off at daycare together, but this morning she had to ride with me and I dropped her off by myself, because Nathan had a 7:30am case at work. You would've thought I was abusing the child the way she was screaming. She didn't want to get in my car; she wanted to ride wih Nathan, because he takes the portable DVD player every morning. We don't watch movies in my car unless we're going on a long-ish car ride. Once we got to the daycare, Natalie didn't want to stay. I usually don't have trouble dropping her off; she goes right in and starts playing, but not today. Today I had to leave her crying. I hadn't been at work 45 minutes when I got a phone call from the daycare informing me that Natalie had fallen and busted her lip. I left work to put my nursings skills in action go look at her lip to make sure she didn't need stitches. She was sucking on a popsicle and happy as a clam when I got to her (happy until I left, that is), so I went back to work. I spent the rest of the morning in a silly meeting, then was just in a funk the rest of the day. To top it off, we had to deal with a couple of patients' crazy family members, which is nothing new, but one of them really got to me today. I hope I'm never that family member when my parent/husband/sister/child is a patient somewhere. I was so happy when 4:00 rolled around and the weekend began.
Here's Natalie's Marge Simpson lip, picture courtesy of the daycare director. :)
You can't tell here, but one of her bottom teeth went through her top lip. It looks pretty nasty.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Le Bounce
I've totally been a blogging failure this month. The combination of trying to keep my house clean, sort of being in a funk, changing my priorities, and a slow computer = me not doing any more on the computer than necessary. As I it here, Nathan and Natalie are napping after playing so hard today, and I'm looking around at all the straightening up that needs to done, but I wanted to post about our day yesterday.
Nathan and I took Natalie to a new local kiddie attraction called Le Bounce. The old Rust & Martin furniture store turned into the "City Centre", and inside are Le Bounce and a yoga/dance studio. There will be a cafe opening soon, and I don't know what else will be there. Le Bounce is a huge room of inflatable bouncey houses, slides, and obstacle courses. Natalie had a blast, and she went down for a nap like a champ (though that nap was short-lived). It's definitely a place we plan to frequent with Natalie. At $8 for kids 2+ years and supervising adults free all.day.long, it's really not a bad price, even if we go weekly. Nathan and I know to wear athletic clothes and just stuff a diaper and wipes in the camera bag next time, though. Boy, did we get a workout! There's a 400 sq. ft. area for little bitty kids that houses little chairs and bean bag chairs, books, puzzles, and some little tykes things (not to mention a 50-something inch tv and some rocking chairs for parents), a smaller bouncey house for kids 4 and under, and then the rest of the 6100 sq ft building for everyone else. Natalie liked the big-kid inflatables best, so Nathan and I went through those obstacles with her time and time again. We are looking into renting out the building for Natalie's birthday in December.
Nathan and I took Natalie to a new local kiddie attraction called Le Bounce. The old Rust & Martin furniture store turned into the "City Centre", and inside are Le Bounce and a yoga/dance studio. There will be a cafe opening soon, and I don't know what else will be there. Le Bounce is a huge room of inflatable bouncey houses, slides, and obstacle courses. Natalie had a blast, and she went down for a nap like a champ (though that nap was short-lived). It's definitely a place we plan to frequent with Natalie. At $8 for kids 2+ years and supervising adults free all.day.long, it's really not a bad price, even if we go weekly. Nathan and I know to wear athletic clothes and just stuff a diaper and wipes in the camera bag next time, though. Boy, did we get a workout! There's a 400 sq. ft. area for little bitty kids that houses little chairs and bean bag chairs, books, puzzles, and some little tykes things (not to mention a 50-something inch tv and some rocking chairs for parents), a smaller bouncey house for kids 4 and under, and then the rest of the 6100 sq ft building for everyone else. Natalie liked the big-kid inflatables best, so Nathan and I went through those obstacles with her time and time again. We are looking into renting out the building for Natalie's birthday in December.
This is a kid's dreamworld, right?
Natalie sure had fun, despite the horrified look on her face.
Look at that sweet, sweet smile!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Snippets
Snippets: that's the word I'll be using when I don't really have one subject around which to create a whole post. I think "Snippets" is more catchy than "Random Ramblings" or just "Randoms" or whatever other phrases people use. Here goes:
* The big talk of the weather news is the storm that's hitting the Midwest. We are just below the line of the snow and ice storm, but it's been raining all.day.long and is supposed to continue for the next day or two. The temperature is really supposed to drop tonight and not rise above freezing for the next couple of days, so I suspect that ice is in our near future anyway, and I'm really not looking forward to it. Maybe I willcall in at work ride to work with Nathan.
* Nathan and I recently started The Love Dare from the movie Fireproof. We haven't seen the movie yet, but we will soon...I hope. We are on day 5 of The Love Dare, and it's going well. We've both completed the dares every day. We haven't had as much discussion as I would like, but I think that will come with some later dares. It seems like we've both been happier since starting the book, and I hope that we continue to remember the important lessons from the book once the 40 days are over.
* We've been sleep "retraining" with Natalie at bedtime. Nathan and I were getting tired of sleeping in her floor every night (thus going to bed by 8:30pm), and she's in a toddler bed, so there's only so much we could do to keep her in bed. We felt so guilty shutting/locking her door, so we brought the baby gate up from the storage room, and it's working like a charm. She cried for about 6 minutes the first night, and then only a matter of seconds from then on out. Hopefully soon Natalie will be telling us "night nigh" and putting herself to bed at 8:00pm again, just like she used to.
* We (well, mostly Nathan) built Natalie a wood table and chair set at Christmas. It's still not painted, but hopefully soon. I'm definitely not a cold-weather kind of girl, so the woodworking was primarily up to Nathan (it was done on Christmas Eve), and I will get around to painting it when it warms up a bit. Warm weather means more appropriate weather for me to do some DIY building projects. I'm going to make something for our family reunion auction in June, and I'm going to get started on Natalie's Christmas present for this year. Pictures of both to come later.
* Natalie's daycare class is doing their Valentine's party on Feb 11th. I signed up to do treat bags. I went to Big Lots to get some things and found the cutest little character cups with straws for $0.80 each. I got one for all of her classmates, only to really think about it when I got home and realize they are Easter cups, not Valentine's cups! Doh! I think we have to make Valentine boxes, with a prize going to the most creative one. I have something in mind; just need to see if we can pull it off. AND it's something Natalie do a lot of (since it is her project and all).
* The big talk of the weather news is the storm that's hitting the Midwest. We are just below the line of the snow and ice storm, but it's been raining all.day.long and is supposed to continue for the next day or two. The temperature is really supposed to drop tonight and not rise above freezing for the next couple of days, so I suspect that ice is in our near future anyway, and I'm really not looking forward to it. Maybe I will
* Nathan and I recently started The Love Dare from the movie Fireproof. We haven't seen the movie yet, but we will soon...I hope. We are on day 5 of The Love Dare, and it's going well. We've both completed the dares every day. We haven't had as much discussion as I would like, but I think that will come with some later dares. It seems like we've both been happier since starting the book, and I hope that we continue to remember the important lessons from the book once the 40 days are over.
* We've been sleep "retraining" with Natalie at bedtime. Nathan and I were getting tired of sleeping in her floor every night (thus going to bed by 8:30pm), and she's in a toddler bed, so there's only so much we could do to keep her in bed. We felt so guilty shutting/locking her door, so we brought the baby gate up from the storage room, and it's working like a charm. She cried for about 6 minutes the first night, and then only a matter of seconds from then on out. Hopefully soon Natalie will be telling us "night nigh" and putting herself to bed at 8:00pm again, just like she used to.
* We (well, mostly Nathan) built Natalie a wood table and chair set at Christmas. It's still not painted, but hopefully soon. I'm definitely not a cold-weather kind of girl, so the woodworking was primarily up to Nathan (it was done on Christmas Eve), and I will get around to painting it when it warms up a bit. Warm weather means more appropriate weather for me to do some DIY building projects. I'm going to make something for our family reunion auction in June, and I'm going to get started on Natalie's Christmas present for this year. Pictures of both to come later.
* Natalie's daycare class is doing their Valentine's party on Feb 11th. I signed up to do treat bags. I went to Big Lots to get some things and found the cutest little character cups with straws for $0.80 each. I got one for all of her classmates, only to really think about it when I got home and realize they are Easter cups, not Valentine's cups! Doh! I think we have to make Valentine boxes, with a prize going to the most creative one. I have something in mind; just need to see if we can pull it off. AND it's something Natalie do a lot of (since it is her project and all).
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