Mama's new digs ...

Well tonight I sleep in my "big girl" room! We all worked very hard today to put it (mostly) together. Lucy's new play room (my old bedroom) is almost done, needs tweaking and toy matching. I think I'm lovin' it. I put some photos of my new room on here and in the next couple days will post photos of Lucy's new room and the playroom. I think that one day she'll have fun looking back to see what her room looked like when she was three. Maybe it was grandpa being back, maybe it was all the moving around but for some reason Lucy was a crazy nut tonight, from the moment we got home until the moment she went to bed she was non-stop movement. Whew ...

some day the Olympics

after 2 hours of this on Sunday night she slept until 8 this morning

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Sunday ... Day 9 ... Lucy Montana

Today, being the weekend and all, we slept in until 7:09 a.m.! I was actually happy to see a 7 in front. We got grandma, went grocery shopping, finished painting my bedroom, had a huge taco lunch, went to family swim, went to dinner and are now home trying to go to bed. I am wiped out!

Saturday

We seem to be having one major meltdown every day. Today's meltdown led to another nap so I am on the fence about whether or not I appreciate the meltdowns. We had swim class and Lucy graduated to the next level. I was not sure if she would pass or not since she has issues following directives and actually playing the part of the student (which would require her to give up some control). After swim class we played at Morgan's until the meltdown. We went home for napping and playing and Mel and Morgan came to join us for dinner (it's nice to have friends to keep us sane!). Lucy is now on her way to sleep and once that snoring starts I'll head into the other bedroom to put the first coat of paint on the last wall! I hope that by next weekend I'll be sleeping in a real bedroom again.

Friday (NaBloPoMo day 7)

This morning Lucy seemed happy. She "wrote notes" in her notebook.

after she was done writing she went to school and I went to work.
after school a 5 minute "time out" from using this (see above) caused a 25 minute tantrum/meltdown

the melt down led to a nice 40 minute pre-dinner nap. After the nap all was well ...

Long day ...

Well Lucy continues to wake up with the early birds but it's becoming less traumatizing for me as her ability to hold it together during preschool has increased. The antibiotics seem to be doing their job as her cough has pretty much disappeared and her snoring/apnea issues are back to their normally bad levels as opposed to completely freaking me out levels.

It actually worked out well that she was up early today. Thursdays I gather Lucy, her lunch, her snack and her breakfast (as well as my coffee) and head to my friends place. My friend takes her to preschool at 9:00. Normally I am on coverage at work and need to be there early, today our agency was closed as we did strategic planning from 8:30 - 4:30. For those of you who know me, you know that one hour meetings cause me hours of dread ... an eight hour meeting almost killed me.

After work Lucy and I cleaned for a bit (for her cleaning means dousing the kiddie table with soap/water from her own spray bottle). Lucy can be entertained literally with hours if provided with soapy water and a rag. I have a feeling that we will not be able to hand down the wood kiddie table to a 3rd generation on account of the repeated soakings, but hey the kid is happy and feels useful and she's so darn cute when she is happy.

I painted another wall in my room tonight. Slowly moving closer.

Wednesday .. NaBloPoMo day 5

Lucy watching Obama's acceptance speech this morning!

It took me three or four days to realize I don't have to track what day of NaBloPoMo I am in as it corresponds with the day of the month. Before you jump to conclusions about my intelligence please remember that 1. I don't and won't home school so don't worry about Lucy and 2. anything to do with numbers automatically enters this "panic" area of my brain and I tend to flee and play dead.

Anyways it was totally a quiet morning and evening here. The morning was excitement and energy and somehow both Lucy and I lacked energy in the evening. I hope she's not getting sick as she totally fell asleep in my arms without me even attempting to put her to sleep. Interesting.

Her early bedtime gave me time to put the 2nd coat on the accent wall of my bedroom to be. For those of you know don't know and who actually care here's the bedroom story. I have a home with two real bedrooms. My cousin (aka Auntie Jen) has been living here and renting a room. When I started the process to adopt Lucy I decided it would be unfair to charge Jen rent for the cold drafty closetless sun room. I also decided it would be unfair to give said room to the new baby and I knew I didn't want to "room in" with Lucy long term. My bedroom became the nursery, the sun room became my new bedroom and we lived with this for 3 1/2 years. Recently my dad renovated our basement, adding a bedroom, sitting room and 3/4 bathroom. Jen moved to the "suite" downstairs. I repainted Jen's room and moved Lucy into that room (it's so cute, I'll post photos later) and am now in the process of repainting Lucy's old room to become my room again. Lucy's old room was orange and yellow and didn't match my bedspread at all. Lucy's new room is a blue called "healing waters" and it was a feeble attempt to try to induce calm and sleepy behaviors (aka sleep until 7am). So far it's had mixed results.

My new room will be dark chocolate brown on the accent wall with a tannish color on the other walls and dark red curtains. I am most excited to have a closet again.

ok sorry the post is boring, I warned you at day 2 of NaBloPoMo that this might happen!

Feeling Happy

someone on the forum posted this (author unknown):

Rosa sat so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked so that Barack could run.
Barack ran so that my children might fly.

lump in throat ... big lump in throat ...

and HOPE wins and HOPE wins and HOPE wins

vote

And then HOPE ...
we waited exactly ONE hour ... Lucy was a very good girl!

The day before ... (or NaBloPoMo day 3)

It's almost time to make history people. Can you feel it in the air??? The excitement, the anxiety the POSSIBILITIES!!!!!! Tomorrow my daughter and I will be waiting however long it takes to cast our vote (and I believe my vote weighs more because my daughter's future rides on it). I want her to know that Baracking the vote is not a choice, it's a very serious responsibility. More importantly, oh how I hope, that Lucy and I will be doing some serious celebrating in the very near future.

To my homies in district 61 ... we'll see you tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!

NaBloPoMo Day 2

It's my first NaBloPoMo which apparently stands for National Blog Posting Month. The deal is you write a post every day of the month. Awesome for you my dear readers as now for the month of November you can join me for even more boring daily details as I'll be writing even when there's NOTHING to write!!!!!!

So lets start day two .. Today dear readers will forever be known as the longest dang day in the history of the world. It wasn't long bad it was just long long. Perhaps because Lucy's first attempt at waking up occurred at 5:30 (the old 6:30) this morning. I convinced her to lay back down and didn't hear from her again until 7:00 am (the old 8:00). We putz'd around the house having meds, eating breakfast dressing in crazy outfits and going outside. Grandma and grandpa joined us at around 10 am. For some reason this is when the time slowed down. It seemed like hours later when grandma called us into lunch. Upon glancing at the clock after eating I noticed it as like 10:50 am and we were DONE with lunch. Hmmmmm. Around 3:00 pm we wondered how we were ever going to make it to dinner much less bedtime. Somehow we succeeded at pushing dinner way back until 4:50 pm. After dinner and more playing outside I engaged my mom in babysitting Lucy while I did the first coat in the accent color for my new bedroom (after 3 1/2 years I will soon have a closet again). I finished painting, cleaned up, glanced at the clock and it was only 7 pm. What the heck??? So maybe it was a nice way of extending the weekend. Either way, the kid is sleeping and I am ready for bed as well. Soon pillow soon ...

Stacy

Friday and Saturday

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Things that are not as fuzzy-warm as I imagined they would be ...

Well as it turns out, being a mom is not all fairy dust and happy happy joy joy, I think I've started taking some things for granted or I am officially living in the real world, I know that I have written a very long grammatically incorrect sentence, but anyways here is a list of some of the things I thought would be really sweet and fun about being a mom but have since discovered that in reality these things are sort of a drag and in fact are quite tedious so without further adeiu I give you the list:

1. making lunches to send to school (fun for about 3 days)

2. lazy Sunday mornings (haven't had one yet)

3. cuddling in mama's bed (if getting a knee to the face and protecting a small body from flying through a glass window is fun then this is fun)

4. going shopping (fun until she became mobile)

5. teaching independant living skills (i seriously lack patience for this transitional time, but it is still awesome to see her so proud of herself)

on the other hand some unexpected treasures of life with a child:

1. talking talking talking together, it's so fun to be able to have conversations

2. cooking together (we don't do it often but it's pretty fun when we do)

3. playing in the dirt

4. her greeting me when i pick her up from preschool

5. having her brush my hair

6. good night kisses (the first 3 times)

7. seeing unfiltered joy

8. her laugh

Overheard ...

Lucy: Mama, if someone hits us we tell a teacher

Mama: that's right Lucy

Lucy: and if someone says "na na na boo boo" we tell a teacher

Mama; yes, that's exactly right Lucy

Lucy: and if we see a ghost we tell a teacher

Mama: yup

also overheard:

Lucy: McCain is stupid

Mama: we don't say stupid not even for McCain

Lucy: McCain is a bad guy right

Mama: well ... ummmm... if you see a McCain we tell a teacher ok

mis-cuss

To whoever (Jen) taught Lucy how to say: damn it. Thanks for that. My saving grace is that she remembers it sounding more like: "bam it" and well ... I'd rather be bammed then damned.

Little House on the Prairie trip

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a prairie preview

the slide show coming soon ....

Three years ago ...

Dear Lucy,
I can't believe it's been three years since that wonderful, intense, overwhelming, heart numbing day when Tswai pushed back the mosquito netting over your bassinette and I picked you up for the first time.

I'll never forget that moment, I felt like I breathed for the first time and that I was staring at you through a tunnel, no one else existed.

It was odd really watching the videos of that moment, many many months later, listening to all of those babies crying and seeing all of the people who were in that room. I didn't remember any of that.

I remember that it was fasinating and deep to me that you were wearing a sleeper with a pink elephant on it (the same sleeper you already had at home BECAUSE of the pink elephant).

You were sleeping when I picked you up and for a moment you opened your eyes and looked at me and then fell back asleep.

It's been an amazing three years Lucille. You are a dream come true and you amaze me every single day.

Love you,

Mama

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This morning ...

who needs MPR when you have Lucy ... now if she would only follow her own advice

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asthma, nightmares, roosters, successes

last night was very diverse in the number and kinds of sleep interruptions. Once I finally settled down for a very exhausted slumber the coughing started from Lucy's room. I tried to ignore it as my body started melting into the bed all snuggled under my heavy winter quilt, but it came again and again as persistently as a dripping faucet. I knew I had to get up and give her the nebulizar but my body was fighting it for every ounce of it's exhausted worth. Finally, freezing I flipped down the covers and set up the machine. Thankfully Lucy can sort of sleep through getting picked up, nebulized and put back down. Fifteen minutes later I was nestling back down under my cold covers. At 5 in the morning I heard crying from her room .. normally this wouldn't get me too anxious because I could address the problem (nightmare) and she'd go back to bed but at 5 am, her body has NEVER let her go back to sleep and I was not excited about parenting the kid who got up at 5 am in the post work hours. I soothed her and told her to go back to bed, at 6 am she called me back to her room and I more emphatically told her she MUST go back to bed ... I went to my room certain that I was screwed but of all miracles she actually fell back asleep! She slept until 8:20, just as I was passing info to my mom to have Lucy call me the minute she woke up so I could tell her how proud I was of her for going back to sleep. It was perfect, we had a moment to snuggle before I raced off to work.

Weekend wee ones ...

This weekend we had visitors. The amazing D and her three beautiful boys came to play. Lucy was very anxious and excited to see Wendim Irmao and Og. She was asleep before they arrived Friday night but made up for it by waking bright and early on Saturday. We were able to visit, meet a couple families at the EKC event (although it was smaller then normal) and go to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. I am thinkng that Lucy might have lost a few girlfriend points this weekend as she wasn't overly friendly with W a lot of the time and sometimes she was quite irritable (or was that me?). We will have to make up for it when we visit them at their place sometime before the dead of winter. Irmao was as nice as always except that he was as competitive with baby holding as I am although I am not as easy to distract (hey Irmao give me the baby and you can play on the computer). Baby Og was lovely and squish and still newborn enough that I had my fix of baby holding with no sore arms. Mama D was an excellent baby sharer.