And we’re off ... almost

We are getting ready for our long trip to the Cincinnati area today. I was packing things up for 6 hours last night. And now the last articles of clothing we need are in the dryer and then we can load up the van. I have everything waiting by our back door to be loaded and Tyler went down there this morning and just said, “Whoa.” Yeah, there is a lot. But with good reason, and not just because I am a chick! Besides being gone for a week and everything that goes along with that for three kids, we are staying at the house on the Museum’s property and need bedding, towels, food, etc. We even need bottled water because the water there is truly undrinkable. (I grew up on well water and this water, well, is plain ol’ awful!) If you want to check out where we will be, visit the Creation Museum’s website.

Hopefully we will get to see a lot of friends and family during our downtime. I will be back blogging upon our return!

Downtown

We had some really great weather this past week, so Tyler took the older kids downtown for one morning to play soccer, ball, etc. That is an interesting thing about this city, at least compared to Chicago. You can decide to go downtown for a few hours and it isn't a big deal. It is like going to the mall or to a restaurant ... with a few more constraints on the available parking. In Chicago, you definitely had to use public transportation from where we lived. (Of course, riding on a train to and from downtown was all part of the fun! But it also meant a large time commitment in order to make the trip.) In Chicago, there always seemed to be a parade or festival or some other function occurring in a part of the city that caused mass congestion everywhere. When you go downtown here, there really isn't that much going on, not too many people around, and really not that much to do. You can drive through the downtown area, get across the bridge into Illinois, and never have to press on your brake. While I don't miss the Chicago traffic, I do miss that there was always something to do! And sadly, we just never had the time to do most of it. When asking about this year's family vacation, E. asked to go to Chicago!

Practice, practice, practice
I have been giving P. every opportunity possible to practice sitting up. She almost has it! She is just about to the stage where she is sitting up but has that forward lean. I sat her down in the chair today for a little photo shoot before the older kids woke up. She absolutely loves affirmation, so when she sits really well I start praising her and clapping and she just smiles so big! Her other new item of interest is that she has officially found her thumb and sucks on it whenever she is tired and trying to fall asleep. E. never had any interest in his thumb (he took a pacifier until 4 mo.) and S. is a two-finger sucker (you have all seen the pics ... and if not, just look back through old posts!). So P. will be my first thumb sucker. And she sure is cute doing it.

Warning! Busy week up ahead!
I have a very busy week coming up and I am really dreading it. I am not dreading the week's activities, just all of the unknowns that come with it. (I am a control freak and not having everything laid out and planned causes me unnecessary anxiety. This is just one of the negative side effects of my perfectionism.) My employer just finalized yesterday that I need to go into the office for four days (Northern KY/Cinci area). Normally I just have to go for a couple of days, but this time there are extra meetings I need to attend and a new online store feature that I need to get launched. (I am the manager for our online bookstore: www.AnswersBookstore.com. We are launching a new "live chat" feature where customers can chat live with our customer service team without having to call in.) The dreadful part is that I am nursing P. and she has only ever taken a bottle once . . . and that was over 3 months ago. Not only that, but if she isn't on site for me to nurse, I will have to spend a significant amount of my day pumping. Not fun, but the real anxiety comes in that our office is so fast-paced that many days go by so busily and quickly that it will be 3 o'clock and I will realize that I never had lunch. So stopping to pump every 3 hours for 45 minutes - 1 hour is a stretch for me, not to mention that I have to then find the time somewhere in the day to make up for all of the missed time pumping. If it wasn't for the physical discomfort of not pumping, I would forget entirely. So now I am debating if I should ask a grandmother to stay on site with the kids so that P. can be "delivered" to me whenever hungry or if I should just pump. I mean, pumping would be a nice lesson to me in drawing boundaries and walking away from loose ends in the heat of the moment, but it would also cause strain on P. by switching her virtually cold turkey as well as on the poor grandmother that had to try and feed her . . . while watching the other two. Wow, am I irrational and a worry wart or just super protective and cautious? I normally call this critical side of myself "realistic," but maybe "pessimistic" would be a bit more accurate! On a postive not (yep, I just have one), we will get to see all of the grandparents while we are in town. My days in the office are a Thursday – Tuesday, so we will get to see Tyler's mom and stepdad while I need to be at the office and then we are going to drive up north to see my mom and dad over the weekend. If anyone is up for it, drop in and see us!

Where is she tonight?

I thought I would post a couple of funny little stories about S.’s new “talents” and what she has been doing with them. As I posted last week, S. is now able to climb out of her crib and also get the frig door open. With both things, we have had to save her from herself. I hope you enjoy these funny stories as much as we did when they happened!

Antics in the kitchen
For a little background as to how this first funny story could even happen, you have to know the layout of our kitchen. It is one of those long and narrow kitchens, with the frig at the end against the wall and the stove directly across from it. The kitchen is so narrow that when you open the frig door, it will bang against the wall and just clear the stove by a few inches. I am not entirely sure how she accomplished this feat, but the other evening Tyler and I heard S. crying and screaming in the kitchen. We look in (it has a giant pass-thru window from our living room) and she has her head totally stuck in between the wall, the frig door, and the stove. To make matters even worse on herself, she is pushing with all of her might on the frig door in order to get her head out. We had to pry her little hand off the frig door in order to pull the door closed and release her. Despite the pain she caused herself, it was quite a funny predicament and I am happy to report that she hasn't found herself in that situation again!

Antics in the bedroom
I am also happy to report that she is going to bed much more easily this week, too. However, not without a few laughs. Just a few nights ago I had to turn our heat back on before going to bed because it was supposed to get really cold that night. After turning the heat on, I went into E. and S.’s room to check on them before going to bed myself. I was a little shocked when S. wasn’t in bed because she had only climbed out a few times that evening before falling asleep . . . or so I thought. I looked all over the room for her, in the dark, until I spotted her. She had stolen a pillow from E.’s bed and was laying on the floor between his bed and the wall ... and right on top of the heat vent. If it hadn’t been for super mommy (wink, wink), she would have singed all of her beautiful hair. And what was E. doing during her relocation project? He was totally, absolutely passed out and wouldn’t have noticed if S. chose to sleep right on top of him.

So, where is she tonight? She is actually in her own bed. Tyler took the front piece off her crib to convert it into a daybed and she hasn't abused her added independence too much at all. She loves her “new” bed and almost likes going to sleep now, too. A happy ending, right? Well, sort of. She has now started climbing in and out of P.’s crib. (Sigh.)

Five minutes of chaos yields a lifetime of (bad) memories

Unfortunately, family pictures didn't go so well on Saturday. Actually it would be more accurate to say that everything went really well until the picture part. For the first time in weeks, we were on time for something—even early! But we should have suspected something amiss when there were about 15 vehicles in the parking lot and we were the last portrait appointment of the day. We walked inside and there were a lot of people still there. We shortly found out that all of those people were also still waiting to get their pictures taken. “Oh no,” I thought. See, I had fed P. just right so that I wouldn't have to nurse her again until after we came home. I was wearing a one piece dress and, leaving out all of the unnecessary details, let’s just say that the outfit would be a nursing nightmare. But I give the kids credit, they did really, really great waiting around for over an hour in their dress clothes with constant instructions to not get dirty or mess up their hair or ... you get the idea. When we had been waiting well over an hour, it was decision time: do I feed P. or hope that we go soon. Before I could make up my mind, they called us. And P. started wailing. Then she wailed through all of the photos. Then she continued wailing until I got into the bathroom and fed her. Tyler had the unfortunate job of choosing which one of our awful pictures would be put in the church directory. I thought there at least had to be one decent one of the bunch, right? Wrong. E. and S. didn't smile at all and looked almost scared of the photographer. P. was wailing. And Tyler and I? We were trying to smile through the disappointment and frustration. (Disappointed because we were looking forward to having a good family picture; frustrated because the whole day led up to these pictures, we ended up having to wait so long, our sweet little baby had to painfully endure an empty tummy while the rest of us tried to ignore the fact that she was screaming, and our evening plans were discarded because we got out of there so late.) Next time, I think we will try not to pace ourselves as much and show up late like normal. Either that or maybe I should just wear a two-piece. Of course, as in almost all things, there is a silver lining in this dark, cloudy story: we get a free 8 x 10 photo of the disastrous event. It just might be a nice conversation starter when people come over to visit. Not too many people probably show off their worst family photo ever!

Kansas City, new achievements, and more!

I think that after today we may finally be coming out of our “busy season”—at least for a week! Tyler is taking a class today at a local community college and we are going to our church right before dinner to get our family photo taken for the directory. If they turn out well, we are going to buy some wallets to hand out. I realize that putting pictures right before dinner is not the best time of day for anyone in our family (hunger pangs abound!), but it was the only workable slot. The only outfit that I have to wear isn't nursing-friendly, so I hope that I can hold P. off for a little while until we get home to feed her.

Kansas City
We went to Kansas City this past weekend for Andy Weber’s wedding, one of Tyler’s college buddies. It was a lot of fun. My best friend, Brooke, came into town and stayed with us for a few days too. It was so nice having her around! S. even warmed up to her immediately and then almost planted herself on Brooke’s lap the rest of the weekend. I guess S. knows a great person when she meets one! Since we were going to be driving over lunch, we decided to pack a picnic and eat at a rest stop on the way. The one thing we didn't take into consideration were the strong winds. While feeding P., my drink ended up getting blown onto my lap and spilling all over both of us. That put me in a pretty stinky mood ... and we still had two more hours to drive. Perhaps the most notable part of the day was when we got to the church. We made it with only 10-15 minutes to spare, and we all still had to get our dress clothes on. We parked in a corner of the parking lot and proceeded to get changed inside the van. It wasn't exactly fun, but it was kind of funny. As people continued pulling into the parking lot, we were just waiting for someone to park by us. That would have been a sight! But we made it inside the church just as the bridal party was walking down the hallway to start the procession. Whew!

New achievements
S. had two new skills come to fruition this past week: opening the refrigerator door and climbing out of her crib. Much to my demise, she conquered them both on the same day too. Tyler and the kids went grocery shopping on Wednesday and after packing the frig full with everything, S. decided to show us her new talent. Of all days—when the frig is its fullest and things are almost falling off the shelfs as it is—she gets the door open. Again and again and again. Last night she decided to practice this new skill for 45 minutes. She also discovered new treasures to play with, like the rice vinegar and hoisin sauce. She also decided that she doesn't want to stay in bed anymore. For 45 minutes over naptime, I repeatedly put her back into bed. Then for 1.5 hours last night I had to continue the same process for bedtime. E. was so tired of her antics that he actually went into my bedroom to sleep! Of course, this just gave S. a new destination to go to once she climbed down. Poor E. I have assured him that she would soon learn the rule to stay in bed and he can once again get some sleep.

On a positive note, I am secretly excited about her new crib-climbing feat. We are currently borrowing P.’s crib from our pastor and his wife. As we look forward to moving in May, I am also hoping to scale back to just one crib again and put both girls in the same bedroom. Since S. isn't too crazy about her crib anymore, it seems that she would be ready to make the transition to a big-girl bed and hand off the family crib to P. My little girl is really growing up fast! And what will P. think of getting a new crib and sharing a room with her sister? I think this picture says it all!

House search update
We are entering our last month of house hunting in order to move out before our townhouse’s lease ends. We haven't found anything promising yet. We did have a couple hopefuls, but with second, closer looks they ended up being cast aside with the others. There are a couple more homes that we would like to see yet, too. As the move-out day draws near, two things are becoming increasingly clear: we may not find a house before our deadline and that is ok; and that God is truly the only one to be able to provide for us and meet our needs. I am glad that He is on our side and already knows where we will be living next, so I don't have to worry about it. It is also comforting to know that when a house we are interested in goes under contract with someone else, it is ok. I can easily move on without disappointment knowing that it wasn't for us. Pray for us today that we would rest in the truth that God is for us, will provide for us, and has a plan for us. I am excited to see where we may be next!

Baked Goods

This past weekend I met five friends at a place called Baked Goods Pottery. It is a studio where you can choose a ceramic item, paint it, and then they fire it for you. I don't have any artistic skill whatsoever, but it was really fun. The hardest part was trying to figure out what I should make! I ended up choosing a small bud vase because I broke ours in Chicago. It was interesting to see what everyone else made and secret, hidden talents they each have. The first picture above shows a portion of the wall where you browse to find what you want to paint. In the second picture, P. and I are holding my vase while my friend Angie is holding her super cute tea light holder. The paint is really chalky in color until they are fired, so it is hard to even see what was painted in the picture. We can't pick up our items until the 10th and I can't wait to see how they all turned out!

The nurturer
S. is becoming really nurturing. She is giving kisses and hugs all of the time. She is always looking out for others and bringing them potentially “lost” items. And recently she has been wanting to make sure P. is okay and covered up with blankets, has a stuffed animal, etc. While we have to be careful because she doesn't fully understand not to cover P.'s head, it is really cute to catch her in action. While cleaning up after dinner tonight, S. was doting on P. again. I “caught” her kissing P. and then tucking her in with a dish towel!

State taxes
We finally finished both sets of our state taxes last night. I had been putting it off because our federal taxes had already been filed and I wasn't too excited about tackling the state filings at the same time. They took much longer than I thought they would and to my dismay I uncovered that we also have to file in Kentucky. It appears that I have been filing our Illinois taxes wrong for the past three years and each year I should have filed in both IL and KY because of my employer being in KY. Oops. IL has a special agreement with KY stating that KY won't take taxes from employees residing in IL, and vice versa. It actually worked out to KY's advantage because they should have been paying me my overpayment and not IL. (You, dear reader, don't work for the IL Department of Revenue, do you?) Sigh. Thankfully April 15th is still a decent amount of time away and I can wait for my third wind to kick in!

LOVE

When I went to bed last night, this is what I saw.


I love my sweet little girl. I don't love her because she is sweet, but I sure do love her sweetness.