I'm Sitting Here, I'm Six Months Old!

a la Laurie Berkner's Five Days Old. Emiline must have known Laurie Berkner in a previous life. A dear friend gave us one of her DVDs and she popped it in when were over at her house when Emiline wasn't even 3 months old and it was all smiles! I feel kind of guilty letting her "watch" it, but the fact that it's all music and she loves it so completely does a lot assuage. Actually, Emiline is sick today, some kind of flu? (diarrhea and a fever for the last three days) and she's a sad girl. She wants to play but then wimpers after just a few seconds of any one thing. Except Laurie Berkner. It's the thing keeping her content at the moment so I can type. She particularly loves Victor Vito.

Can I just say how much I love this age? Granted, smelling my sister's newborn makes just a titch sentimental of that stage. But just the smell. That's it. They lose that new baby smell so fast!

Anywho- Emiline is such a fun little baby. It was fun to have my parents here and see her through their eyes. Number one comment, (besides her overwhelming cuteness) is
"She's not easy to hold!" Yes, she leans. She's very grabby and I have a feeling she'll be crawling sooner rather than later. She wants to move. She's very happy and has no stranger anxiety yet. Although, she has exhibited a preference for mommy already. Eric was getting her ready for bed and she was past tired one night when I walked past her room and smiled. Eric said she lit up for a minute and then gave him the biggest pouty lips and bawl the second I was out of eye sight. It's endearing...but also makes me wary. Being needed so much is exhausting!

She has been sitting up pretty steadily for a while now. She stills falls on occasion, usually because she's reaching for something or other. But she cries more about it these days, even when I KNOW it didn't hurt. You can see on her face when she knows she's started to fall and she starts crying about it before she lands. She gets mad about losing her balance. It's pretty funny.

She's a social little bee. If we've been in the house too long, she gets fussy and wants to see a new face. It's a very good thing we make it to the gym most days. She loves new faces to look at it and it's a breeze taking her to the grocery store.



She's got the whole passing from hand to hand thing down really well and can get things in her mouth with incredible ease and accuracy. She really likes taking things out of other things. We have several different baskets of toys and her current favorite thing is to take each on out, turn the basket over, and then cry to tell me she wants to do it again.

It's been interesting to watch her play when Jane is around. She's had substantially less time on her own to figure things out than Jane ever did. When Jane is up, most of the time Emiline is watching her play at least half the time. And the other half (OK, more like fourth) of the time Jane is encroaching or at least interrupting what Emiline is doing. I've been making an effort to make sure Emiline gets time to play with toys on her own before Jane jumps in.



We've started her on solids. Since she was a week late, we started her a week ago. But she has not had any kind of cereal yet and I'm not planning on it any time in the future, you know, unless her doc gives me a talking to and good reasons. I've decided to let her have full control of what she eats, hoping that will result in a kid more in tune with her palate and tummy as well as experimental. Here's yet another promise to talk about this approach in another post, because this one is all about my dear Emiline.

Favorites. Other than Laurie Berkner, Emiline loves her sister, her mommy, strangers, 80s music, (and most other kinds too), her binky (definitely an oral child!), balls, jewelry and watches, stuffed animals, patty cake with daddy (she likes it so much more with him...maybe I do it wrong?), Wash the Ladies Dishes with mom, being a part of meals at the dinner table,


and kicking. You should see this kid in the bathtub! She kicks both legs at the same time and sends water 5 feet in the air. I keep the shower curtain part way closed to minimize the mess and I don't bring my cell phone in the bathroom for fear of water damage. Jane LOVES to bathe with her sister and finds all the splashing alternately hilarious and disconcerting (when it gets in her eyes).

She has been a real joy. I kind of laugh at myself when I remember how nervous I was to have two and the timing of it all. I can't wait to get to know her more and more and watch her grow and develop into the person she already is. Yeah, being a mom kinda rocks.

So Many Things to Post About!

Really, I promise, I'll get to it. As soon as my family leaves town. And as soon as Thanksgiving is over. And as soon as I catch up from everyone being here. And once I've got Christmas all locked together....OK, maybe in January ;-)

But real quick, I wanted to promote two books I am reading that are INCREDIBLE!!!




I won't post summaries here, but link up to Amazon instead. The first book was a chance find while browsing the shelves because the second one hadn't come in (which I discovered while looking on Amazon). See, I'm unsatisfied with the way Jane is unsatisfied with food. And I feel duped again by trusting doctors too much. So I started doing some research for a better way to try with Emiline. I think I may have found it and realized my own mistakes with Jane, which hopefully I can still fix. Like I said, hopefully I'll post more when I catch up from family being in town. I wish I wasn't so easily derailed!

Oh, Right, Halloween

Jane is still talking about Halloween. Anytime she sees anything resembling a costume she starts telling me how she wants to dress up as "bat cat" (a character from Charlie and Lola) and take her pumpkin to the church to get some trick or treats. Anyway, it reminded me that I didn't post about Halloween, just a sneak peak of costumes. LAME! So here you go. We didn't really get any perfect pictures...*sigh* That's really my weak spot, methinks. But we got enough kinda cute pictures to give you the idea.

I had a whole day of activities planned and I had the costumes finished well in advance so that we wouldn't be rushing around in past years. For a brief, glimmering moment I thought Eric might come with us for part of the day. I was wrong. I really, really, hope that next year Eric gets to celebrate holidays with his family, for real, for real. This is the third year Eric has wanted to carve a Trogdor pumpkin. He made a pattern his first year of law school and each year I faithfully buy pumpkins and three years in a row we have thrown out moldy pumpkins in November that never got carved. Wah, wah. Anyway, The Trunk or Treat was in the middle of nap time. Do you think my Jane decided to nap early? Uh, no. Did Emiline cooperate either? Nope. So we missed our town's little celebration but we did make it out the door to our church's Trunk or Treat. But not without tears. I actually bribed her with a sucker to get a smile on her face and her body down the hall and to the elevator. That did the trick as you can see.


You know, bribery works. But only on holidays ;-) Jane got the hang of trick or treating pretty quickly. Amazing how kids lose their shyness when candy is involved.
This is my dear friend Bree.
This is Jane saying "um, this isn't candy!" In fact, any candy that she didn't recognize was not allowed in her pumpkin. She was polite about taking what she was given, but then I had to take it. You should have heard the screech when I put a box of Dots in her bag...not that I minded pocketing those.
Here are the Metzgers trying to get Jane to talk to her...she put up with it and didn't squawk. She's getting better at being "polite."

I took Jane at the very beginning (I think the only thing that Mormons are ever on time for is Trunk or Treat) while Emiline napped and Eric studied at home. Then we went and picked up Emiline. She was pretty happy to sit and watch. Plenty to see!!
Jane consented to a portrait with her mom. She was constantly on the edge of a sugar crash and I would keep her from plunging one smartie at a time. She ran a lot of circles off that rush!
Then we went home and it was an early bed time. But first Dad took a few more pics.



All in all, it went pretty well. I think having Eric a part of next year will be even better!

A Few of Her Favorite Things

Since Jane was a screaming newborn, we've always listened to music in the car. For the longest while it was just the Children's Songbook CDs. Then we switched to the Wiggles for a while. Now we are into The Laurie Berkner Band. Jane is sweetly silent as long as there is music on, or "gewsic" as she calls it. I treasure this silent, meditative time (is it strange that I meditate to "Henry the octopus is a very special friend to me" or "thu-thu-thu-thu-thunderstorms..."), and most of the time I don't mind listening to kid music all the time and sometimes I find myself really enjoying it, some of Laurie Berkner is pretty interesting musically.

But the other day we were driving downtown to pickup Eric from school and we hit some really slow/stopped traffic so I opted to have a conversation with Jane. I started asking about her favorites. Holy cow is she opinionated!! I had no idea about some of these things:
Favorite Color: Orange (I've asked her several times since, and she really does like orange).
Favorite Toy: The Flower
Favorite Food: Cereal
Favorite Uncle: Uncle Jordan
Favorite Cousin: Joey (no surprise there)
Favorite Song: I am a Child of God
Favorite Movie: Charlie and Lola (another no surprise)
Favorite Treat: Stucker (sucker)

Seems like there were more. It's pretty neat to see her understand more and more concepts like favorites, etc.

I'm an Aunt. Again!

My sister, the one I live next to, had her baby last night/this morning. She hasn't carried a baby much past 38 weeks, and half of her four came at 37+. Until now. Meet Gabriella (or at least, that's the working name as far as I know), number five. Sunday is my sister's due date, so she was still "early." We got to go to the hospital this morning and I held the sweetie while her mommy went to the bathroom. Emiline was fussy and my brother was tired of holding her so I grabbed the both of them and he shot some pics. It's amazing what 5 months will do to a baby, eh? It'll be neat for Emiline to have several girl cousins her own age-Mallory, Abigail, Gabriella, and the yet to be baby due early January of my older brother's. That's a lot of girls in one year.

All in A Day's Work

My little brother is in town this week. He's 21 and returned from his mission in Merida, Mexico (on the Yucatan) about 6 months ago. I had a physical therapy at 2:30 (I need to blog about my MRI) during the girls' naps so he was going to stay home with them. Before I left he told me "now don't worry about hurrying home, go have some you-time. Go to a spa. Or sit in the woods. Whatever." I was going to hurry back because it had been a long day and my back had had it.
But then I decided to seize the chance to get a new swimsuit. Note to self, if you where your old-nonmaternity swimsuit while pregnant, it won't fit when you are not pregnant. Holy stretchy! I did go looking, it was, of course, disastrous. Well, not quite. There were no tears, but there were no successes, either.

As I was leaving the store, about 4:10, my brother calls. Before I can say hello I hear two very familiar voices screaming at the top of their lungs. My brother manages to get out that Emiline has been crying and he doesn't know why, even when he picks her up or puts her down. I ask if he's changed her diaper because even over the phone I can tell it's a pain cry. He says he'll try that and we hang up. He calls back a minute later with reports that it's bright red and he doesn't know what to do...I explain how to wipe it, tell him where the stuff is and say I'll be home in just a minute, let her air out.

As I come up the stairs and into the hall, I strain my ears. No crying. A little relieved, I walk in the front door where immediately kick a couple capless markers. All dozen of them are on the floor, all but two uncapped, and on the floor itself (laminate wood) is Jane's coloring. Then I hear "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy's here! Mommy I need you!" And Jane comes running down the hall in just a shirt. She's colored on herself as well. And she's been pretty thorough about it--foot, ankle, bottom of her foot, back of her calf, outside of her leg, knees and kneepits, her thighs and especially her inner thighs got a lot of it as well as her arms, her elbow pits, her nose, cheek, and forehead. My guess is she was trying to draw a kitty cat face, a nose and whiskers, like we did for Halloween and then just got carried away with the novelty of it.

Before I can properly react, I need to reassess the rest of the situation. I find Emiline and Jordan on the floor of the girls room, Emiline airing out with a very red, blistered bum. They both seem fine so I through a couple of cloth diapers at Jordan so Emiline doesn't pee on the carpet. Then I call Jane in and begin to talk to her about coloring on ourselves. I tell her it makes me and Heavenly Father sad. That our bodies are a gift from Heavenly Father and are very special and not for coloring on (she's heard this before, mind you), and because she's learning about temples and thinks every pretty building is one, I even give her the body is a temple line. Then I tell her she needs a spanking and that we need to clean her up. That seems to communicate the gravity and wrongness of what she's done, before that, she kept waiting for me to smile at her. After a quick spanking and a very long hug, she says sorry and I tell her we need to say sorry to Heavenly Father too. We then get on our knees and I help her say a prayer for forgiveness. And then another hug and it's all smiles. I love how punishment/consequences can make things all better. Whether she has to sit on her bed or a spanking, these things reset her so she can be her normal, happy self. Sometimes I don't do it right away because it's not any fun to discipline, and she just keeps acting worse until I do. Anyway.

Then I go to take her shirt off and then I see the purple belly. Definitely the worst of it--I think she tried to color in her belly button, all of it. I tell her she'll definitely need a bath and she says "No! and takes off running!" She hates baths these days. She slipped in the tub a few weeks ago and was terrified for a week. She still takes some coaxing but the last few times she hasn't cried all the way through. Progress.



I decide to let her hide for a while so I can run the bath and get some medicine for Emiline. I walk in the bathroom and that's when I see the poop. on the potty, on the rug, on the floor and on the pair of panties and pants Jane was wearing when I left...and who knows where else. I holler out to Jordan, "Any other surprises?"

Then I hear Jordan yell and say "she's peeing on the carpet!" Emiline had kicked off the diapers and she started to cry again because pee hurts open sores. So I quickly remove the poo and go back to Emiline and take care of her bum. Then it's bath for Jane, dinner for all of us, and because Jane didn't have a nap (turns out she pooped her pants in bed about 15 minutes after I left) I was going to put her down early at 6:30 when my sister calls. I'd made extra dinner but she'd said they had other plans. But those plans changed so they came over, too.

They stayed for about an hour, but it seemed much longer as I was tiring (nay, exhausting) really fast. I put Emiline down just before they left and Jordan went with them, and then I started getting Jane's jammies on. We went to read stories on my bed and then I couldn't get up for about a half hour. By then it was 8:00 and Eric was supposed to be home in 15 minutes so I gave up and let the calvary come home. Jane wasn't in bed til about 8:30 and had several night wakings/screamings. She's sick again, just in time to have her ears checked from last ear infection, so we'll be heading to the doctor today.

I fell asleep at 8:45 waiting for Eric to finish in the bathroom.

Which brings me back to my favorite quote these days:
"Do not pray for tasks equal to your abilities, but pray for abilities equal to your tasks. Then the performance of your tasks will be no miracle; but you will be the miracle."
Thomas S. Monson, General Conference October 2007

I am thrilled to have so much more function and mobility in my back as well as a lot less pain than I've had in very long time. I'm thrilled that I'm able to do all that is required of me. I was so cool and collected and calm about everything yesterday afternoon. I didn't even sigh in frustration (that I remember, anyway ;-) I was able to take it all in stride and joke about it and see the humor in it. And I was able to DO IT!! I love doing.

Today, well, today is a bit more of a challenge. I'm having to really keep a lid on my sighs of frustration. Jane is particularly emotional and frustrating today. So I wanted to blog about this now to see if I couldn't inspire myself to find and keep my calm and my sense of humor. I'm sure a nap would help ;-)