Are You Listening?: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Perfect Moment Monday: Accidental Stay Home Day

I have been trying really hard lately to just SLOW DOWN whenever I can. Life moves by way too fast all on its own and paired with our ultra-busy lifestyle, I feel like it just wooshes by before I even know it.

We ALWAYS have some place to be every single day. Work, Dance, Soccer, School, Church, needing to run errands or head to a gathering of one kind or another.

And at the same time life is wooshing by, I am typically trying to capture the moment somehow so that I don't forget the little things.

But I realized that I just need to BE a little bit more and capture some moments just in my head, and maybe not with my camera.

When Gianna doesn't have school and when I don't have work we call those Stay Home Days. We talk about when the next stay home day is by how many sleeps there are until the next one. It's fun. It doesn't me we literally STAY HOME, just that wherever we go, we get to go together.

Yesterday I was supposed to meet friends for coffee, head to church with the girls and run a few errands. But coffee got cancelled and the girls seemed extra tired.

So I called it early that morning - it was an official (accidental) Stay Home Day. I can't tell you the last time this happened - where I did not go ANYWHERE. The week Aleesia was born, I think we actually stayed home for 2 days in a row. It has been at least 7.5 months since we had 1 day where we didn't leave the house. (Mike did have to go to work yesterday, which was a little sad)

We fed Aleesia and played with her until it was time for her nap. When she slept Gianna and I cleaned up the house, made some applesauce, painted, had a good lunch together and danced around the living room in our PJs! We FaceTimed with my niece for her birthday (how is she 1?) too! Aleesia woke up from her nap, we played with a new-to-her toy together & she went back to sleep (she wasn't feeling too hot). So G and I played some more, talked, hung out - spent some MUCH MUCH needed time together while her sissy was snoozing away.

At one point, I had just put Aleesia back down for her nap after she fell asleep in my arms and Gianna was sitting in her My Little Pony underwear on the living room floor painting a rainbow with the biggest smile on her face. And I just sat there and smiled with her. Capturing that moment not on my camera, but in my memory. An Accidental Stay Home Day to catch up on home things had turned in to just what we needed to regroup before the start of another busy busy week. It was a perfect Sunday. Filled with perfect moments.

check out the other Perfect Moments here.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wordless Wednesday

my tiny dancer heads back to the studio. she loves it more now than ever before.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

(little) Big Kid Snuggles

We all know that babies can be the sweetest snugglers. Our Aleesia is no exception to that rule and I sometimes just scoop her up for a little extra love and a snuggle.

(such a peaceful sleeper, this one.)

Gianna often asks me, after we have done our bedtime routine (including books, kisses, hugs, answers to 19347 questions, etc.), to just “stay and snuggle wif me mommy”.

Usually I stay in her room for a minute or two and then leave her to do chores around the house, or shower, or sometimes eat dinner myself! And typically even when I stay a minute longer, she begs me to stay “just a little longer” – to which I usually say “mommy has things to get done before she goes to bed, our time is up for the night”.

I realize this is kind of an asshole answer, as a mom, because her time shouldn’t be UP! But there really are still things that HAVE to get done some days. Isn’t there?

Having been extra busy lately and feeling a little disconnected from my oldest beauty at times, I have been making more of an effort to enjoy the extra snuggles she requests. There might come a day when she doesn’t want to snuggle wif me – so I feel like I need to just soak it all up right now as much as I can.

But I have learned something during our extra snuggle time – 1) we both need that time to decompress and reconnect on the simplest level and 2) if I just sit with her for a minute or two extra – she falls asleep SO MUCH FASTER.

Tonight she asked me to snuggle her, so I wrapped my arm around her as she was snugged into her covers, to which she said “not so tight”. I loosed my snuggle a bit and started rubbing her back a little. Each time I stopped, she asked me to keep doing it. I watched her long eyelashes flutter shut and literally saw her fall asleep. It was such a sweet memory for me – one I am sure I will remember for a long long time – I am thankful that I stopped what I was doing and forgot about what I thought needed to get done right.now to enjoy that moment with her.

It’s such a simple request “just snuggle wif me, mommy” – I don’t know why I haven’t always done it – but I do know that I am making every effort to honor her request from now on. What an honor it is to be the mommy to this (little) big kid, who I love with my whole heart.

Life is going to continue to be hectic and we are going to need every second we can get to just reconnect and make sure that she knows nothing is more important than that big kid snuggle.

(a night a few weeks ago when she asked for an extra snuggle. I can’t believe how much I love this sweet face.)

Cute Baby Saturday

People tell me all the time they think G and A look alike.

What’s your opinion?

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Quick Changes

Aleesia is 7.5 months old – I swear to you, I don’t know how it happened. But here we are, with this cute little grown up baby living in our house!

A cute little grown up baby who has finally outgrown her colic (thankyousweetjesus) & smiles a LOT, is quite stingy with her giggles and is generally still awfully particular about life. But seriously, she is super smiley and happy and starting to become so much fun!

(she likes me even though I am gone all day!)

Let’s give a recap of Miss Aleesia’s growing-up over the past month or so.

We started trying baby food about 6 months – she really wasn’t that interested, which, was fine. She got the hang of it at about 6.5 months, though it is still hit or miss as to if she wants to eat or not. We are getting more “hits” lately at 7.5 months.

So, she eats food. And can pick up food. (yay, puffs!) Sort of.

(it’s no wonder she doesn’t always want to eat. someone is always creating the best distractions!)

And then after shoving All Of The Things in her mouth allthelivelongday for months

(exhibits A and B of Things in The Mouth)

TEEFERS!

Her 2 bottom middle teeth snuck in. Then 1.4 of the next 2 bottom teeth snuck in. I can’t get a good picture of those little suckers to save my life, but trust me, they have erupted. And they are sharp.

Gianna is so excited that she has teeth, it’s pretty hilarious.

At about the same time she got those little teefers – she decided she could sit up! Alone!

It’s a whole new world when you can SIT and play with toys.

(especially because it means you can play with big sister’s toys, obviously)

But sitting was not enough of a developmental skill for this one, practically in the same day she decided that army crawling backwards was also in her skill set.

Any day now, she is going to be moving forward. Like, crawling for REAL. She gets up on her hands and knees and based on her disrupted sleeping patterns at night she MUST be working on a new skill. (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Now learn to crawl and go to sleep)

(I got this, mom, really….)

She’s still a peanut girl – size 1 diapers, I just moved her into 3-6 month clothes, easily portable, I say!

She also babbles constantly. Waves and gives high fives, when she feels like it. Aleesia’s personality is quickly developing and it is fun to watch – sometimes she is tries to be loud, but mostly she is the smiley, shy one. She gets really sad when I leave the room some days and has all but perfected the pouty lip. Her tiny snuggles are still The.Best.Ever.

It all just happens so quick – it amazes me.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Bubbling to the Surface

I feel like I am starting to bubble to the surface after a CRAZY 6 weeks (maybe.) ((sort of.))

We went on vacation and BAM real life smacked us in the face when we got back. Plus 2 more weekends out of town for super fun stuff. And now we have all of Miss G’s activities beginning. She has soccer 3 days, dance 1 day, and of course preschool 4 days a week!

I am up to my eyeballs in laundry that needs folded. Little girl’s closets that need organized for the next season. House projects that need finished and/or started. Fall cleaning and organizing that desperately needs to take place before All Of The Things overtake our house.

And, naturally, we have the next 3 weekends packed FULL of things that we need and/or want to do – including the 1st birthday of my niece(!!). I mean 2-3 things are on the calendar for each Saturday AND Sunday. I have no idea why I do this to myself…but as we all know, I clearly enjoy chaos.

I am officially scheduling the first weekend in October as a “stay home” weekend. I absolutely cannot let myself make plans so I can get caught up and catch my breath.

I need to do some SERIOUS update posts on each girl – there is so much to say about each of them right now! And a post about road-tripping with kids. And about Mike’s birthday surprise weekend. And a few other things that have been rolling around my head lately (choosing a Kindergarten for G, body image issues, 10k training, to name a few).

But! most importantly, I lost my ENTIRE google reader feed. I thought I switched it to feedly – but I must have screwed something up. So! I have to start over.

What is a good mobile & web-based feed reader? I know I asked this before but I forget the answer. And!! What is your blog URL so I can add it back and hopefully get back to reading what’s new in your lives (I feel like I am missing a lot of friends!)