A baby no more

In less than three weeks my baby will be a toddler.  How is that possible?  I know everyone says the time goes by fast, but seriously, I blinked and her first birthday is almost upon us.  It's like she is growing up so fast just overnight.

I don't think she is ever going to do the traditional crawl...she is getting around very well with her belly crawl.  Unless at some point she decides she needs to go faster, I think the belly crawl will suffice for her.  The day she turned 11 months she started waving, she did it several times but now has only done it once since then.  She by far prefers clapping.  She will even clap when she hears clapping, like on TV.  To test the theory further, I played an applause track on my comptuer and she looked up and got all excited and started clapping.  Damn I love that little girl.

Unless she is surrounded by my snoogle, she cannot go from sitting up to crawling, so lately she has learned to just scoot her butt across the floor, like when dogs scoot their butts on the carpet, lol.  She gets into everything now!  She has a few bins of toys in the living room and now that she can get to them they are all dumped out all over the floor every day.  She also likes getting into the DVD cabinet, I may have to put a lock on that because the DVDs are all pulled out every day.  She also likes turning on and off the DVD player.  I don't mind that, but she occasionally turns off the cable box while I am watching tv.  The one day I said no no Em, turn it back on and she did!  I think it was just a happy coincidence though.

So now I tell her no every time she goes for the cable box, but I'll say her name and say no and she'll turn around fast and be like who me?  No, I wasn't doing anything....and then she'll go for it again and then I'll tell her no again.  She does it like four times before she finally gives up and realizes I am going to tell her no every time.

My family came over last night for dinner and she was going to bed when they were all leaving.  She gave Grammy and Grandpa a kiss and then they were like do you have a kiss for your uncle so she leaned over and gave my brother the sweetest little kiss on the cheek.  He looked like he was going to cry, it broke my heart.  I know it is because he loves her so much, but also because it is still unknown if they are going to be able to have kids, and I know he wants them so bad. 

She can sit up from a laying down position now if she is on a pillow, or on our bed or in our crib.  I woke up this morning and could only see her foot on the monitor, so I panned over and there she was, sitting up in the corner of her crib.  Her one foot was sort of bent back and stuck in the slats, so she would try to get it out but couldn't, so then she would clap....then she would try something else to get unstuck but failed, so then she clapped again, lol.

Today was a big day for doing new things.  She's loved to stand for a long time now, but today all day long she kept holding out her arms to me, wanting me to stand her up.  Then she'll try to push my hands off her, not knowing that she'll fall down otherwise.  So she was doing a lot of walking around holding on to me, so I went and got her Vtech toy that she can push and use as a walker.  So far she wouldn't walk with it, she would just use it to stand there, and if she pushed it forward at all she wouldn't take steps to catch back up with it, she'd just stand there bent over like oh crap, now what do I do.  But today she walked a lot with it....she wasn't all over the house or anything, but to go from not walking at all to taking several steps, I think she did great.  Then I had her standing up holding the bars of her crib, and she tried to let go and walk to her vtech which was just about three feet away but she fell over and I caught her.  Who knows, she may be walking by her birthday.

So also has more teeth coming in, currently her fourth and fifth ones are on their way in.  Such a little lady.  I've got to get going on her birthday party....I made all these plans months ago but now that we're getting close I am a little stressed that I need to execute them.  But it's really no big deal, the decisions are all made, just got to do it when the time comes.  Invitations are done, just waiting until next weekend to mail them out, we know what we are doing for food...we're still a little iffy on the cake but I think going there and talking to them will help us figure out what to do.  Her Cabbage Patch came the other day.  Since we already gave her the easy chair, we wanted to get her something else to open on her birthday so we got her a Cabbage Patch doll in a ballerina dress and we gave her a custom name and gave her the same birthday as Em.  I think she will really like that when she gets older that they have the same birthday.  We named her Amelia Marie.  When I suggested it Ryan was like are you sure you aren't going to want that for a kid's name someday.  I was like no I don't think so, but now I'm like crap, I kind of like it.  But I don't know, are the names Emily and Amelia too similar?  Eh it doesn't matter.

My MIL has a family friend that takes pictures.  She does charge for them, but I don't think it's like a business, she just does them as a hobby.  So as part of their gift to us she is going to book her to come take pictures for Emily's party.  That's really cool, then we can just relax and enjoy the party and not have to worry about getting pictures of this and that.  I need to hurry up and finish my photography crash course so I can take her one year pictures.  I plan to do them a week or two early so if they don't turn out well we still have time to take her to a studio, so I really only have about a week to do that so I can get going on taking them.  I really hope they turn out well, I am tired of paying hundreds of dollars at a studio. 

I am in desperate need of a mommy make over.  I blow dried my hair last night and did my make up and it felt so good to look human again.  So I've decided I need a new hair cut.  Most of the ones I want are too short for Ryan's taste.  I don't want short short hair, but maybe something I little shorter than I normally do, but I also don't want Ryan to hate it.  So I have something in mind that I think might work but it will still be on the longish side.  He and I are going out for some sushi with some friends next weekend.  I'm so excited, we're going to my favorite restaurant, and I'm going to see if my stylist can get me in earlier that day.  I always try to get my hair cut on a night that I am going somewhere so I can get some miles out of it looking nice.  My stylist always does it so nice and you can see all of the layers and it looks so good....then the next day I wash it and blow dry it and it looks nothing like how she did it.  So it's nice to go out looking good for one day anyway.  Maybe I'll get a mani pedi too.

Something good

Can I say it, can I say it?  Emily is officially.....army crawling.  So no real crawling yet, but it's a huge step.  Last week she was planking and then lunging herself forward like an out-of-water butterfly stroke, and she would try to get up on her knees but when she couldn't she would push off of them to cover some ground.  Now this week she is pulling herself with her arms and dragging her legs behind, like a zombie, lol.  She'll be 11 months old on Thursday, maybe by then?

Still no waving, but boy does this girl love to clap her hands.  Whenever we try to get her to wave she'll look at us with a confused face, then clap as if, I can do this with my hands, is that good enough?  Today daddy taught her how to take something from him, and then hand it back to him when he asked for it.  Such a simple task, but you'd think she just walked on the moon, I was so proud.

I decided to clean my home office today so I took her in there with me and let her play on the floor while I organized.  I brought some toys in but of course she discovered other things she wanted to play with, like the cats' water dish.  At first she was just splashing in it and I figured eh, there's worse stuff she could be doing, but then she did the worse stuff, she picked it up and dumped all the water out.  Sigh, baby 1, mommy 0.

So like I've said before, I've struggled with my faith a lot since losing Kayla, and I have come to the conclusion that I don't believe God makes bad things happen...I just can't believe that God would MAKE someone beat the life out of a defenseless baby, or kill a single mother of three kids in an auto accident, or allow horrible monsters to conceive a healthy child but not parents who would do anything for their kids.  But I pinned this quote on pinterest today, and it made me happy.  It says, "God promises to make something good out of the storms that bring devastation to your life". 

I love that.  I believe that he doesnt make the bad things happen, and he cannot stop them from happening, but he can help soften the blow a little by helping to make something good come of it.  For instance, after my mom died, my best friend whom I had had a falling out with two years prior came to her funeral and we re-kindled our friendship and it is now stronger than it ever was.  I think of the last ten years since my mom died, and I cannot even count how much of my life has been filled with fun, laughter, support, understanding, and love because I got my best friend back, and for that I am very thankful. 

I also feel like I am a better mommy to Emily, because of Kayla.  I know I would have been a good mom to Kayla too, but because of our loss, I appreciate how fragile life is more.  I think knowing how lucky we are to have her helps us remain more grounded on those tough days, and not take for granted those moments that many parents likely do.  I am human and no doubt cannot possibly soak in every magical moment with my daughter, but so far in the almost year with our little miracle, I feel like I have been able to soak up as much love, happiness, appreciation, and gratitude as I can, and I feel like that is largely because I know how quickly and easily that can all be taken away.  I will never be glad these storms happened to me, but I am very thankful for the something good that I believe God gives us to help make it through them.

No naps, ahhhh, no naps!

We are not slaves to Emily's schedule, but days like today are rough when she gets so far off schedule.   She typically gets up around 8am and goes down for a nap around 11am.  I put her down today for her nap, but my aunt and dad were here, installing our new ceramic tile in the kitchen.  She can sleep though noise pretty well, but grandpa was here, she cannot sleep when grandpa is here to play with her.

Not long after that, my stepmom came and me, her and Emily went shopping.  She dozed in the car each way, but I doubt it was much longer than 5 minutes each way.  I was hoping she would at least go down for her afternoon nap around 4 but no, grandpa was still here.  Her bedtime is around 7:30, so around 6:30 I put her in her pj's and laid her in my snoogle in the living room.  One minute she was fussing and screeching, the next minute she was fast asleep.  Whew....but now I am trying to figure out how long to let her sleep there before moving her to her crib, and whether or not I should try to get another bottle in her.

Tomorrow will likely be much of the same since they will be back to finish the job.  Maybe I can somehow get her down for a nap before they get here so that she will already be asleep once grandpa gets here.  But they're coming at 10, so I am not too hopeful of getting her down before then.  It would be especially great if I can get her to nap so I can go run some errands without her.  I am trying not to be overly paranoid about the measles outbreak, but as there is a confirmed case just one county over and Emily has not had her MMR vaccine yet, I'll leave her at home if I absolutely don't have to take her out to stores.  Plus, it is so much easier to run errands by myself.

So naptime and bedtime has been going better lately, but it will likely be short lived.  I had been putting her down with a bottle, she happily drank it and went to sleep with almost no crying (some nights she did still cry, but nothing like before).  But, I decided to do the research as to why you shouldn't put them down with a bottle.  I know every parent has to decide what works best for them, but I don't want to risk messing up her teeth or giving her earaches from drinking laying down.  She finishes her bottle before going to sleep so I wasn't worried about all night snacking, but the other stuff isn't worth a tear-free bedtime. 

But she isn't waking up in the middle of the night as often anymore, so maybe she'll do better at bedtime even without the bottle.  But if not, she thankfully doesn't cry for very long before she falls asleep, so we'll see how it goes. She has actually since woken from her nap while I was writing this, and I put her to bed not long after, once she had her bottle and I brushed her teeth.  I read her a bedtime story and said goodnight, and no tears.  That's not to say other nights will go the same, but it was promising nonetheless.

I swear she is sooooo close to crawling.  I know I know, I've been saying that for months now.  But she's started initiating her own tummy time when she is on the floor playing, and she often sleeps on her belly now too.  The other day she got about halfway up on her knees twice, and once she got on her hands and toes, like she was going to do a push up.  I'm hoping she'll finally do it any day now.  But, that means baby proofing.  Once our floor is done and the house is back together I will be putting the gate up regardless if she is crawling or not.  The opening it is going in does not have equally angled walls, so I need to make sure it will work before we really need it.  Despite not crawling or even doing a belly crawl, she somehow flops herself around enough to get to where she wants to go, and lately it's been to completely annihilate the picture frame display on the bottom shelf of the TV stand.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  I look around our house and we have a LOT of baby proofing to do.  Maybe I should rethink this "teaching her to crawl thing".  

So, being that this is a baby/parenting/loss blog, I feel the need to comment on the Nationwide commercial that aired during the Superbowl.  I 100% agree with the message, I just don't like who delivered it.  There are many things that can take our precious ones from us, some of them are out of our control, but since many of them have a chance at being prevented, why wouldn't someone want to learn what they can do?  Many of us know the basics....sharp objects, poisonous cleaning products, falling hazards, things that can fall on them, etc.  But what about the things you don't think of? 

A while back I read about a little boy that grabbed a container of citronella oil off the patio table while him and his family was enjoying a bbq.  The oil splashed on his face and he ingested some of it, resulting in citronella fuel poisoning.  Apparently the color and the packaging it comes in can resemble apple juice, or just plain prompts curiosity in kids.  I would of course be leary of a lit candle around a child, but I doubt I would have given much thought to a container, or a decorative bottle of citronella oil on a picnic table.

Thankfully the little boy made a full recovery, but only after several agonizing days in the ICU, his parents at his bedside, seeing their tiny boy intubated, sedated and getting round the click chest x-rays, all the while having no idea if their stay in the hospital would end with good news, or their worst nightmare.  Thanks to this article, this will be yet another thing I will either avoid completely, or be much more aware and diligent of if we are someplace that does have these torches and lamps.

Even things I am aware of....for years before we had children, my husband would constantly remind me to turn the pot handles in when cooking, in preparation for little ones someday.  I know this, even now with a little one, granted a non-mobile little one, I am still guilty of not always doing it.  Reminders here and there are NEVER a bad thing.  I even personally know a woman whose daughter was severely burned by a pot of boiling water on the stove top.  Thankfully, she did not sustain lasting injuries, but that does not erase the pain and trauma she experienced, nor the horror her parents went through at the time, and no doubt, since then....aware of how close they came to tragedy. 

For the people that said it was a "buzz kill", or they "didn't want to hear about child mortality", well no, of course nobody wants to.  But that is the point of the message, to try to educate and raise awareness so hopefully some families can avoid it.  As a bereaved parent, I know first hand that even when it is 100% not your fault or preventible, the guilt is still there, the shame and the what if is still there because I couldn't protect my child.  Not to say the parents of these children were at fault, but I cannot even fathom how overwhelming the guilt must be when your child dies as a result of something that could have been prevented.  I cannot imagine, and I hope I never ever have to.

People don't want to think about children dying, but it is unfortunately, a very sad fact of life.  Sometimes children die, and sometimes it could have been preventable.  With all of the ways our precious children could be taken from us, why wouldn't we want to lessen those odds some by learning about and being reminded of ways we can make our home and our children safer?

I am very sorry though for the parents who were punched in the gut with the commercial.  The parents who have lost a child, and were blindsided by this commercial.  Honestly for me, the commercial was not a trigger because it really had nothing to do with stillbirth, but I feel very much for the parents who were unexpectedly upset by it.  As I said, I am not thrilled with who delivered the message.  I don't see how an insurance company can help keep your kids safe, and despite partnering with safekids.org, I still think it came off, and was more for the benefit of their company being seen, and talked about.  Had the commercial came directly from safekids.org, I, and I think many others would have had less of a problem with it.

However, in some cases, the ends justifies the means.  No matter how the message was delivered, it was delivered and people are talking about it, and I for one will be visiting the site safekids.org, especially as we prepare to baby proof our house for our soon to be mobile little one.  I think if the commercial prevents even one fatal accident, then it was completely worth any upset, surprise and "buzz kill".