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I did it! I drove to Sun Prairie, using printed directions to meet a bunch of new people at the Mom’s night out dessert night. I am proud of myself for doing both of these things, but really the driving one gets kudos. That is the farthest I have ever driven anywhere by myself, with only directions in hand. Cool.

They were a group of nice women. It was easy to talk to them after the initial ice was broken, and it was SO much easier than when we all have our kids with us.

I updated the Photo Gallery for August 2008 Photos. There are a LOT of pictures, so enjoy! We are off to Black River Falls tomorrow to visit my Dad.

Morella is fighting her afternoon nap, hence the lateness. BUT I am also updating August 2008 photos for the Gallery, which is a TON of pictures. So that should make up for this skimpy entry. Uh, I am going to have to finish this later.

Just as I settled down my second cup of real coffee and was going to post I hear a little baby voice talking in her bedroom. She just woke up, so I am sure she could use a little more waking time. A minute or two. It’s funny when I go in there sometimes, she’ll be laying down talking to her kitty and then when she hears the door open she sits up and got “uh!” and then looks towards the door. If I close it and then open it again a second later she’ll be standing up waiting for me. SO CUTE!

I woke up with a bad headache this morning, along with rain. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain. Huh. I think it’s a combination of the post cold (stuck in my head) and weather that brought this on. I took some tylenol and tried to take a nap. I dozed for maybe 20 minutes but my throat is dry from recovering and I kept waking up. Finally I just got up and made coffee hoping the caffeine would help — and it is! I even started a load of laundry. Made my list for the day. Wrote some emails. It’s amazing what a little “me” time in the morning can do you for you! I used to live on the amount of sleep I get now…why do I feel like I still need to have extra naps in the morning? Just because I can?

Anyway. Tim has the car today, so we are house and stroller bound. I was thinking of walking to Woodman’s to get something easy for dinner tonight since Tim has his game night. Hey more correspondence — oh oh and tonight I can watch Juno. It’s like a perfect chick night for me!

Okay I should go change Morella diaper. I am sure it’s poopy. She either poops after her morning nap or when she is done with her afternoon nap.

Laima – I actually have one of those kids to fix a lawn chair that I got at a rummage sale last year. I should do it while I am having this year’s sale. Good idea! I do have a favorite chair too. It’s been with me for 13 years. It’s my powwow chair, even though it’s never b…wait it did go to one powwow.

So yeah. I’ve been sick. Last night was just awful. I had snot dripping out of my nose like a faucet — splashing on my arms, the baby, anything that was in front of me if I didn’t have a tissue in hand. In fact, when I went to bed the inside of my nose felt so raw from being runny that I did the classic little kid maneauver of plugging both sides with wads of kleenex. If I wasn’t nursing you can bet your donutnuts that I would have been snuggling a bottle of nyquil. I do feel better today (though not 100 percent). Now I have a sore throat again from mouth breathing and I have enough sense to look around and feel a little squirrely at all the things I should be doing and that I have let slide in the last couple of days. But no. I will not. I shall not. Tonight, I am going to catch up on the internet. Make a post. Write an email. That reminds me I need to write a few real cards too…I wonder if I’ll get to that.

I even made myself a cup of chamoile tea with honey and splurged on some cinnamon toast. Ahh, I remember when I was little, I could eat that stuff nonstop. My younger brother James and I would have cinnamon toast eating contests…we also had the same contst for French Toast. I almost made that for my lunch today, instead I settled for a grilled cheese.

I love bread.

Sometimes I wonder if I should be writing really great prose here…but then I think back on to all my previous years of posts and it’s really just me rambling about crap that goes on my life. Is that interesting? I guess it is to me. Isn’t that what journals for anyway? Besides it’s an easy way for me to keep friends who are interested updated. The drawback to this, of course, is not all of those friends have journals themselves and no one ever feel the need to email because they already know what’s going on my life. Plus, sometimes I think about all the readers out there I don’t know. I wonder what you are like.

Tuesday night…oh wait that was last night. Anyway. Last night Tim had coupon’s for %40 off CD’s at Borders. We decided to take advantage of those and catch up on our Panera treat for Morella’s good appointment. The funny thing about that was I let her play with a butter packet at the end because she was getting fussy. I looked away for a second and when I looked back I she has broken through the package and was squishing butter around in her fingers. I quickly wiped them off the best I could. Then while Tim was using the bathroom I lifted her up to look out the window. She put her hands to the window and then to my horror I saw tiny little butter handprints on the Panera picture window. Whoops! We beat a hasty retreat after that.

At Border’s I got Morella three children’s music CD’s. The best of Seasame Street, and two other preschool favorite with all sorts of classic little kids songs. Later on when we played them for her, she went quiet and wide eyed. It was a hit! Since most of them are upbeat, I played one last night and the Seasame street one for her today. She has the attention span for half of the CD. When I try to trick her into sleeping or feeling tired I play a lullaby CD that her grandparents bought her. One of her favorite things to do right now is listen to the folk music that WORT plays in the late morning. She’ll go to the stereo and pull up on it like a little raver.

Today I cancelled my walking date with my neighbor friend because I’m sick. We rescheduled for Friday. My other new friend Angie called me to ask if I was going to go the Mom’s Night out dessert night this Friday. I am still undecided. I think it’s in Sun Prairie and I don’t know how to drive there. I know. It’s a lame excuse. Tim thinks I should go. He’s probably right. I should. But…but…I don’t have a GPS! I’ll get lost. I’ll end up on the side of the road in the middle of Iowa.

Okay okay. I should get over that. Conquer this. Be courageous. Fearless.

I watched this movie Doomsday last night and thought it was like watching a video game, ala mad max. It’d talk about it more but it wasn’t good enough to go through effort. I have Juno up next and breifly thought about watching that tonight but decided I wanted to be a Good Little Writer instead. I can’t spend the quality time on the internet while pumping anymore because Morella is so mobile and is obessed with pulling up on things she shouldn’t pull up on. I have seen her fall and whack her head more times than I would like to this past week. Consequently, pumping now feels like it takes twice as long. I fit in a 15 session when I can, then finish up with another 15 minutes an hour later, and there are countless times when I have to unhook to save her from herself. She is fearless I tell you.

She’s also a crabpot today.

Phil didn’t come back last night or today. I wonder if he is going to stay in Milwaukee for good now. It was nice having a helping hand with Morella around, and a sinkful of dishes being done now and then was a great bonus.

This weekend we are going to my Dad’s for a visit from Saturday to Sunday. I should probably stay more, but … sigh. Sometimes I want a day for ourselves after a big weekend.

Okay. I should go and wash pumping parts so I can pump.

This morning Morella went down for a nap at 8.30! I couldn’t believe it, so I hurried up and made her bottles and went to lay down myself. Today the cold has progressed into the sniffly stage. You know where you sound like you have a cold and it’s all settled at the top of your nose in between your eyes? Yeah right there. The baby has been a pain to feed because her nose is stuffy too and cleaning it out is a huge battle. Even though you know she is grateful for it afterward. She ended up sleeping until 11:00. Oh thank goodness. I needed that extra sleep. I really did. I bet she does too.

I need to do some chores around the house today, one of which includes paying the mortgage and credit card bill (which we pay off in full every month). Sigh. I should also make a list for today and put the few things i have done on it like the Dr.’s appointment, posting here and paying those two bills. Being sick is teh suck.

Morella’s 9 Month Well Baby Appointment:

16 lbs = 7%
28 1.2 inches = 81%
head is something something = 35% (that number hardly ever changes)

The rash in the front and on her lower tummy is recurring because she is a tummy sleeper. She said to put some vaseline on it before bedtime.

Take her randitine medicine now once a day. No change in dosage, we are letting her outgrow it.
Take prevacid once a day.

Try to give her more protein, and let her eat whatever she’ll eat.

Put in a referral/order for the barium swallow study. I’ll make the date once I have the referral in hand. Of course since Morella is sick she has choked twice today on bottles. Sigh. I hope it’s because of snot and difficulty breathing than a real set back. When she isn’t sick she has been doing so well and showing no signs of swallowing difficulty for the past month. Gotta trust in instincts and my instincts tell me she is getting better and the chances of her passing are better than they have ever been.

I didn’t get my “baby check appointment = panera bread” treat because it was really late and I still needed to pump. Stupid pumping.

So Hurray for a good appointment!

Busy couple of days. Thursday night Tim’s gaming night was canceled. Since Phil is staying with us, I asked what his plans were and he replied that he was going to read. Morella was in bed and sleeping so I asked he would baby sit and he agreed! On a whim, I exchanged writing correspondence for walking to Jade Monkey with Tim. It took a little bit of arm twisting but he said okay. It was a great night. We didn’t say much on the way there but after a drink, we were yapping like old times and talked all the way home like two high schoolers. We only talked about Morella a little.

Friday night, Phil was in town unexpectedly and agreed to baby sit again since he had a date with a book. Tim and I rode bike over to the High Noon Saloon and participated a little bit in Reverence. I dressed up as much as one does while riding bike, but I am pleased to report I was able to wear a shirt that hasn’t looked good on me in some time. I paid for it though, because I didn’t get to bed until 2:30 and Morella was up at 6:30 — but I had to pump so I had to be up too.

Then she didn’t go to sleep again. Morning nap strike (day two) continues. I eventually gave up hopes of a nap by 10:30 and made real coffee. She eventually DID go down for a nap at 11ish. During that time, I sat on the couch and put all of Morella’s first six month baby photos into a photo album. I am so pleased that they fit and there was still room for a little more! I was also able to put in decent time documenting the vacation photos from last year before I put them in an album. You see, I like to write the names of the people, the place, month and year on the backs of each one. When my Gaga died several years ago, and I was in charge of cleaning the house, I found stacks of old photos. It was so depressing because hardly any of them had any writing on the back to identify the people. I didn’t want that to happen to any future grandchildren of mine, so why not do the work now? Besides, I might have old timer’s and forget and wouldn’t it be nice to have the information there already?

Tim’s Mom called and said they would be by for a visit later the afternoon. In the meantime, we headed over to Bill and Stephanie’s first anniversary party and spent a glorious day, picnicing at the park. There was awesome food, delicious cake, booze a plenty, drinks, babies, blankets, water, boat rides — it was just so ideal. I felt like we had been transported to one of those movies of rich old victorians eating out in fields of flowers and what not. Morella had a blast too.

However, on the way home she fell asleep and from then to the veggie pickup to home, she slept a total of 20 minutes which she mistook to be a real nap. The rest of the evening was a little cranky. Her grandparents brought her a 9 month old mark present, which is this cool little lady bug spinning top bubble type toy (Parent’s Lady Bug Popup)– it’s made by Parents (I LOVE their stuff….love it) — and while we all thought it as the bees knees, Morella wasn’t that impressed. We think it’s because she needs to be a little older to really make it work.

Nonplussed, the grandparents had another present up their sleeve and busted out this Leap Frog Learning Lion — which Morella couldn’t wait for us to get it out of the packaging for her. She played with the whole rest of the evening. I haven’t seen her this infatuated with a toy in quite a while.

What a lucky little girl!

Though she was a crank, she took a bath, had a walk, and ate a full bottle and actually went to bed with only one rescue (helping her back down from her obsessive pulling up).

We spent the rest of the evening watching the Spiderwick Chronicles and I LOVED it. I even cried at the end…it has been a long time since I’ve done that. Sadly, halfway through the movie I realized why it feels like I can’t quench a thirst — that is really just my mouth being parched. I’m sick. I have a sore throat, overly tired (then why am I still up? Stupid…just plain stupid)….and … sigh. I haven’t been sick in about two years. I hope it’s a quick bug.

Okay off to bed with me. Tomorrow we have a greyhound appreciation day party to attend, I need to catch up on sleep to ward off the cold, and write in Morella’s journal for her 9 month update. There is a lot to put in there!

Playing the piano in her fort.

“Does this outfit make my butt look big?”

I love her look in this picture.

Her Gaga made her two dresses. This one is a creme and light green one with embroidered butterflies on the tulle. The overcast light made it hard for me to catch the color so I turned it into a black and white image because I still think it’s a cute photo. She has a little growing into these dresses to do — but rest assured I have plenty of heavy tights and long sleeved white/various colored turtleneck onsies for that.

I just love homemade, girlie girl, dresses. Morella has so few dresses, the fact that she has two specially made for her just fantastic. You know there is a big difference between clothes that are made carefully by seasoned seamstresses and clothes you get off the rack from a store.

“Uh, Are you gonna get me out of here or what?”
Little Miss Standing up in the Crib

We have seen lots of these faces in the last few days.

As always, clicking on the pictures will get you a big version. Enjoy!

I am often overcome by the urge to plan my life. Not in the goal oriented sort of way like I want to become a police officer by 2010 …. though I do enjoy setting goals for myself as a way to be motivated and keep it interesting. No, what I mean is that I want to plan every day. Something like:

Mondays: Stay at home day. Administrative day. Bill, junk mail sorting and filing.
Tuesday: YMCA, paper crafts – working on photo ablums, baby books, making cards/scrapbooks, etc.
Wednesday: Errand day. Go do errands. Watch a movie later. Go the Y again?
Thursday: Correspondence day. And other stuff.
Friday: eat out.

As you can plainly see, it sort of devolves. Then I get to thinking “Hey, am I sort of person that really wants that much structure?”

The answer, of course is, “Yes. On some level. I am a goal orientated sort of person. If I don’t work on things that interest me, I eventually start to feel like a boring, plain, loser.”

One method, in helping me through these slumps, is to make lists, and document everything. If I write it down, then it’s proof that I did something, anything towards completing a goal. Even if just wrote down “Write a novel,” and by the end of the day, I didn’t, in fact write a novel…the very fact that I wrote it on my to do list means I made progress towards completing that goal. Are you following me? I was talking with a relatively new friend last night, and somewhere along the way confessed to having six different journals. But see, they all have different purposes, it’s not that I am overly concerned with documenting every aspect of my life…or maybe I am. Is that such a bad thing? Sometimes I think that having several journals is really just a way of spreading the media out. If the internet crashes and burns for whatever reason, then my paper journals will still exist. Morella will be able to see what I did on almost any given day 50 years into the future. Or vice versa.

If I were to be overly analytical, I would suggest to myself that I like control.

“What? Me? Now way. Control freaks are time honored punchline to jokes. No one wants to admit to being a control freak because that is like admitting that you want to become a czar, queen or boss of the world.”

Honestly, when it comes down to it how could I disagree? I can’t, because it’s true. I do like control. I’m bossy. I can’t stand indecision for more than five minutes. Standing around arguing about where to eat dinner or giving directions to the local Dairy Queen in the middle of a sidewalk or parking lot make me want to crawl out of my skin. It doesn’t have to be what I want to do, it just has to be doing something.

Maybe it isn’t control though…perhaps there is another word I am thinking of.

My baby is crying. She has a fever and her 6 hours are up to the tee on her tylenol. She is absolutely miserable and not sleeping today. I think after dosing her, we might go for a long walk. To top it off, I think she has another yeast rash. She has only had an hour nap total today so far.

Two weeks ago at the neighborhood garage sale I met a woman who lives two blocks down, right next to the #1 bachelor, DIY guy who flips houses, has a dog, owns his own house, had a cool jeep, a truck and is super nice of the hood. I impulsively suggested that we hook up to walk or something and she readily agreed. She is also a SAHM and getting used to life with baby. We swapped info and I had all the best intentions of emailing her but didn’t get around to it. Luckily a few days later she emailed me!

We made a date for getting together today at 11:00 to walk around the neighborhood. I went to her house and she invited me in. Her place was ravaged by the great flood this spring/summer too and the whole basement is being renovated. We ended up walking to Woodman’s to get some donuts and then I planned a big circle to East Moorland park and then back. However, half way through it she said she needed to take a break because it was hard keeping up with my fast pace and I was such a hardcore walker.

Ha ha. ME!

It was good because it gave us more of a chance to talk. Morella sat in the grass on a small blanket and we ate donuts while swapping labor stories and talking about people we both knew in college (small world!). I was out longer than I expected, and Morella fell asleep 10 minutes before I got home. I left her in the stroller and decided to get my pumping session in quick. She woke up because Tim called and I still had my cell phone in the stroller. It was funny because the vibrating feature is on and when I heard it go off I looked over to see her slowly wake up with this amazed look on her face. Her stroller was vibrating and singing!

She was good enough to sit there for an extra 10 minutes while I finished pumping. BIL Phil came back at that point and said he was going to take a nap. He had returned from a long weekend in Milwaukee. Since Morella had that 1/2 an hour nap, she was convinced she was ready and raring to go. I put on the Moby, put her in the car and away to the grocery store we went.

I can’t believe how much grocery prices went up. Granted I haven’t gone shopping in like a month and I really should never, ever buy laundry detergent at the grocery store again. Ever. It was 18 dollars….that’s … SO much.

Oh that reminds me, I need to check angie’s list to find a dryer repairman. Our dryer is making this horrible screeching noise everytime we use it. I am afraid of making it worse if we don’t get it fixed. It probably just needs oil. I would figure it out myself, but I have a terrible knack for successfully taking apart things only to not be able to put it back together… except for vacuum cleaners. I can fix those.

As I was saying. I forgot what I was saying. I was writing about the day I think.

Can you believe Morella is standing? I can’t. We lowered her crib mattress tonight after her bath. We skipped the walk because she was super cranky and fussy and needed to danced. I gave her some tylenol before bed and she went down without a peep. I think she is getting a cold. She was sneezing all day and had a small creek of snot coming out of her nose after her late nap.

Well I am done pumping for the day. I need to make a bottle and get to bed. My legs hurt from being on them all day. Tomorrow I have to wash the dishes, renew Morella’s prescription for randitine, check my netflix lineup.

Tim’s gaming night is tomorrow so I guess I have correspondence night then. Expect emails friends!

Uh oh.

Guess who was standing in their crib when Daddy came to get her?

Guess!

It’s like she is going through a developmental explosion! She also likes to climb up underneath the coffee table. What a scamp!