Great day to be a mom

Being a mom is hard work, sometimes frustrating but always rewarding.

Today was one of those rewarding days.

It was a day when Afton woke up happy and cheerful.

It was a day when she played happily with her stuffed animals by herself while I got things done around the house.
It was a day when she went down easy for a nap and slept for an hour and a half! (almost unheard of for her)

It was a day when she ate ALL her lunch AND dinner without whining or throwing anything on the floor. (It could have helped that her lunch was chips and salsa and her dinner was grilled cheese and apples.)

It was also a day where she was just uncontrollably cute. She kept giving me hugs and kisses and rubbing by cheek.

It was a day where she obediently got ready for bed. Jammie's, books, teeth brushing and prayers.

It was a day where she repeated every word of the prayer I said and it just melted my heart.

And after all this, it was a night where I rocked my baby and we talked.

What? You don't think you can have an intellectual, back and forth conversation with a two year old? I beg to differ. Here's how ours went:

 

Me: Afton, do you know that I love you?

Afton: ya.

Me: Do you know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love you?

Afton: yes.

Me: Do you remember Heavenly Father.

Afton: *Nods her head yes*

Me: Do you know why Heavenly Father sent you to me and daddy?

Afton: *shrugs her shoulders*

Me: He sent you to us so that you could get a body and so that you could be a part of our family. He wants you to grow up and live a good life.

Do you know what Jesus did for us? He died for us because he loves us so much. He wanted us to live with Heavenly Father again so he gave his own life so we could. Did you know that?

Afton: yes

 

Our conversation continued and I told her about Joseph Smith and Mormon and the Book of Mormon and why we have it and what it teaches us.

Yes, she is young and probably didn't understand half of what I was telling her.

But you know what? She listened to every word with rapture. She was truly interested in what I was saying and was answering every question with some kind of response. This is miracle considering she is a busy two year old who hardly has enough time to sit still while I change her diaper most of the time. And you can forget about her listening to my every word most of the time, unless it's food, then she listens!

After we had our talk I just had this rush of overwhelming love and emotion for this little spirit encase in this beautiful body of my daughter.

I have never loved anyone so fully as I love her. Of course I have a wonderful marriage with a wonderful husband who I love more than anyone else, but your love for a child is different in many ways. They are perfect and in my opinion that allows us to love them perfectly. They may be terrors half the time and destroy our possessions, wardrobe and sanity but it doesn't matter. The minute they kiss us we forget it all. It's like it never happened.

I am so lucky to be this little girls mom and so lucky that my Heavenly Father trusted me enough with such a special spirit. I know everything I told her tonight is true and my greatest hope for her is that she can grow up and gain her own testimony of these truths.

For now though I will love her every day and teach her everything I have learned in my own short life and hope that is enough.

 

I love you Afton!

 

 

Thank you for a wonderful two years.

Loving Lately...

There are a lot of things to love in life. These are just a few of mine:

New TV:

Revolution- your typical end of days plot but intriguing and good acting.

The Mindy Project- Hilarious! That's all I have to say.

 

Nashville- I just really like Hayden Panettiere. She was great in Heroes and this one too. And who couldn't love Connie Britton from Friday Night Lights. Plus good country music :-)

 

New Girl- Not exactly new, it's the second season. But it has easily become my favorite show. Please watch!

Books:

Scream-Free Parenting- the title says it all and most parents realize they need to keep their cool when raising their children but it always helps to be reminded. This is a refreshing take on parenting. 

 

Five Love Languages- again, most people realize marriage is work and we should always be thinking about how to better ourselves and love our spouses but this is a completely new idea to me. We all love differently and express it differently and in order to have the best marriage possible we need to explore these different ways of loving.

 

Rock-A Bye Farm and The Moon in My Room- obviously (I hope) Afton's favorite books lately. They are sweet and great bedtime books. I am so happy Afton loves reading books now.

Food:

Homemade Pizza- Made the dough and sauce and topped with Mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes and olives. Our favorite!

Crunchy cabbage and apple salad- sweet, crunchy and healthy!

Trader Joe's Eggplant Hummus, Multi-Grain Pita Chips and Cinnamon Apple Sticks- Trader Joe's is great for snacks, what can I say?

Banana Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies- Flourless, vegan, almost sugarless cookie. My favorite go to healthy cookie.

Afton's antics:

I Love You's- Is there anything better than your child learning to say I live you? I think not. Oh wait, maybe if they make up their own actions. That's better.

Lego's- She likes to put these in the funniest places. Exhibit A: Dad's toes.

Hand Holding- I might be encouraging her to hold hands with all her little boy friends. Abram loved it as much as she did!

Friend time- We have a nice play group here established and I just love seeing Afton interact with all her friends. They especially liked the hot tub.

Family Time:

Sunset walks- Santa Rosa never runs out of beautiful places to see. We have been trying to take as many walks as possible, soaking up the end of summer nights.

Conference Cuddling- we had a wonderful two days of cuddling (and sleeping, chad, cough, chad) on the couch and listening to amazing talks from our General Authorities of the Church.

Life is sometimes hard, but mostly lovely. Life is sometimes loud, but mostly filled with love. Life is sometimes filled with things we hate, but mostly filled with things we love.

From worse to bad

I have so many posts to write about Afton, our family, Santa Rosa, healthy eating and exercising, but today is one of those days where I NEED to empty my head of every single thought, misery, bad experience, guilty mommy moment and frustration ASAP or it will explode. Explode I tell you.
It wasn't a bad day I will remember forever and I don't look back and groan or anything but I just wasn't feeling myself today. Poor Chad hurt his back at work on Saturday and has been out of it. And by out of it I mean, on the couch or in bed because that is the only way he isn't in pain. It is slowly getting better with the help of a chiropractor and no work due to a workman's comp claim (yay!). BUT, and this is a big but here, it is always tough when dad doesn't feel good. Or when anyone doesn't feel good. It just gives your house an on edge feeling ya know? It's impossible to avoid some grumpiness (from everyone). So with that said I have been flying solo in the taking care of Afton department the last few days (since Chad can't lift her without putting his sacrum more out of place).
Plus we are still trying to figure out how to survive (financially) with a limited income. I applied to a part time teaching assistant job which means we would have to get some kind of daycare for Afton at least a few days a week. So the stay at home mom of two years is having some issues dealing with that. How have you stay at home moms who had to go back to work deal with the adjustment? It's not that I can't leave Afton, believe me, I think a few hours apart each day would do wonders for my sanity. It's more that I am just so used to being home and having time to cook (healthy), clean, exercise on my own time and always know what is happening with Afton. It will be hard to suddenly have to work during the day and be on call at night and on weekends with my current job and do all the mom/wife duties as well. It's A LOT to consider.
So with the injury/grumpy family/mind filled with too many questions and thoughts I was on the edge of a crying in the shower kind of a night.
Then in the late afternoon I took Oliver to the groomers to get his nails cut, with Afton in tow mind you. When we were about to get out of the car I got a phone call reminding me I forgot to run an errand that afternoon. Not so big of a deal and it was fairly easily corrected, but just another thing to tip my teeter-tottering mood in the wrong direction. On top of that I felt like a fool holding Afton's hand while Oliver is being the WORST dog ever barking insanely at nothing while walking into the groomers. Remind me why I got a dog again?! Then Oliver pees on the floor of the dog groomers. GREAAAAT.
We finally make it out alive but not before I had to go out to the car twice because I forgot my wallet and then I forgot that my debit card was in fact not in the wallet I had just gotten but in the diaper bag in the passenger seat. I'm pretty sure the groomers were glad to see me leave, what with all the peeing and forgetting forms of payment, oh and don't forget the barking.
Back to the teeter-tottering of my mood.
The drive home is helping to mellow me out. (Minus Afton screaming "Mama" in the back seat because she wants more grapes. "Mama" means many things these days: more, I'm mad, I want that, Pick me up, I don't want to go to sleep. That definitely didn't help with the mellowing.) So I'm feeling calmer after I give Afton some grapes. Even Oliver is happily sitting and enjoying the sun.
Then it happened. The thing that tipped the scales in the "Why won't this day end?!" direction.
A woman in front of me cut me off without a blinker or even a hesitation. If I hadn't been paying such good attention and slammed on my brakes I would have hit her. So I did what any other responsible driver would do, I honked at her. Not necessarily a long-drawn-out-I-hate-you honk. More of a did-you-know-that-you-just-cut-me-off? honk. Because honestly I think sometimes people just don't care about driving and would never have known they almost just hit you if you don't let them know. So I gave her a honk and she politely responded with a middle finger out the window.
Wait just a minute...Didn't she just cut me off? Didn't she just almost hit ME? And SHE gives ME the finger?
That was when the left scale hit the floor. My mood plummeted. I wasn't even mad, just sad. Any other day it wouldn't have been a big deal and I would have just forgotten about it two minutes later. But today it made me sad, hurt my feelings and made me disgusted at how easily we humans throw around hate.
My thoughts were as follows:
Sometimes our world sucks.
Sometimes people are just mean.
Wait, sometimes I am that mean person.
Granted I have never flipped someone off, but sometimes I judge people's actions before knowing what they are going through or sometimes I am mean to someone without thinking about what they had gone through that day. It made me realize that I have to be better, nicer, kinder. I need to really think about what I do and say to others because my action could make their scales tip from a sort-of-bad-day to a i-hate-my-life kind of day.
That woman may never know she made me cry or really hurt me. Because let's face it no wants someone to flip them off, especially when they did nothing wrong. And that women may go on flipping people off when she drives (I hope not), but I for one will be more careful about how I treat others. It's been a constant flaw I am working on and it's hard. Being Christlike all the time is impossible.
But I will carry on because I don't want to be the cause of someone's bad day.
So thank you  middle finger lady for making me remember who I am and who I want to be. I hope your driving skills improve real soon!
At least Afton and oliver were getting along today? That is the one bright spot to the day...

19 months and Counting

It's been 5 long months since I last did an update on Afton and of course too much to remember has changed , but I will do my motherly best.

Dear Afton.

You are bright, smart, ahead of the game, whichever you please. And I know every mom says that about their child, we have to. We must instill a sense of self confidence in you at a young age. But I am constantly surprised at just how smart you are. Maybe it is just my sense of awe that a 19 month old can do so much without even being able to fully communicate(talking that is). Your list of pronounceable words is growing by the day but you really aren't a "talker". You will repeat words if I ask you to and you still loves to jabber in baby talk. But I wouldn't say you are talking yet. You scream mama or dada once and a while if you REALLY wants something. And you definitely knows how to ask for more food by either saying "more" or "please". Even though you don't talk a lot yet, our communication is awesome. I can give you simple tasks like "go find your shoes" or "go give Oliver a hug" and you know just what I want. Now if I can only get you to listen to me when I want you to STOP something. That is the real challenge.

The terrible two's have started. You climb on anything and everything. You love to climb on your toybox which is behind the love seat and throw yourself over the back of the love seat onto the seat part. Then you will climb down and repeat at least 10 times. You climb on the coffee table every 5 minutes. Seriously considering putting that in storage. *NOTE TO SELF: in the future when we have another child, just get rid of the coffee table for good. They are good for nothing. They aquire junk and are dangerous for not only small children, but very clumsy adults such as myself. Many a swear words have been uttered when a toe was stubbed or a shin slammed. Believe me. Where was I? Oh yes, climbing. We picked You up from nursery two weeks ago and the first thing the nursery leader said is, "she climbed on everything!" Yeah, tell me about it. So far you have not figured out how to climb out of her crib, thank goodness.

You entered nursery at church a month ago and never looked back. It's probably your favorite two hours of the whole week. I mean other babies to learn from (i.e. biting, hitting), snacks to consume, toys to play with and nursery leaders to terrorize with her climbing and consuming of all the snacks. I have also been told by the same nursery leader that "she eats a lot!". Again, tell me about it. Meanwhile, those two hours of nursery where also my favorite of the week. You mean I get a FREE babysitter, a relaxing class to learn and two whole hours to revive by crazy brain. Then....I was called into primary. Sigh, oh well. The peace was fun while it lasted.

You are still a good eater. I wouldn't say you are getting picky, just realizing that you can refuse food if you don't feel like that particular item that is placed in front of you. You still LOVE to drop food on the ground for Oliver. And Oliver still LOVES to wait patiently until you do. Your current favorite foods would have to be: watermelon, raspberries, rice and beans, ANY kind of noodles(long ones preffered), oatmeal and grapes. You are a fruit connoisseur. . I have to limit it because you tend to get diaper rash if you have too much. You are still one of the healthiest eaters I know. I really take pride in that fact. And you will usually always try at least a little of what I put in front of you before you decides you don't like it. We are working on trying to get you to TELL us when you are hungry instead of SCREAM to us you are hungry. So far not much success. When you are hungry, you are hungry and you want everyone to know.

You seriously have no fear. You will go down the slide, even the really tall ones by yourself. You will jump into the pool(into Chads arms).You will do just about anything, which sometimes terrifies me. You always has a bump or a bruise somewhere on your body from a) being a daredevil or b) being clumsy. I have no idea where you inherited that second one from, certainly not me.

You are still a great sleeper. Mama is grateful for this, because mama likes her sleep.You will go down between 7:30-8:30 and sleep until 7-8 the next morning. You are down to one nap a day but have started sleeping longer (sometimes even 1 1/2 hours!) in said nap. I have become used to not having a whole lot of time without you trailing me during the day.

To be honest I have lost track of how many teeth you have. Probably at least 12. And you are weighing in at around 21 lbs or so. Your eyes are becoming a beautiful brown. And your hair is getting so long now. I can almost put it in a ponytail in the back and the front bangs are always in your eyes if they aren't clipped back. You are still a skinny minny and are starting to lose a little of your baby chub. But you still have the cutest Buddha-belly as I like to call it.

You love to go on bike-rides with mom and dad and explore pretty much anywhere you go. You annoy Oliver any chance you get and I am afraid you are in a "not-so-best-friends" phase right now. He promptly trots out of the room whenever he sees you coming. Once and a while you manage to get in a friendly hug or kiss. You like to get into the Tupperware drawer and the hall closet. You like to make a mess of the plants on the balcony  and of our whole house really. You love the park and the grocery store. You are not the biggest fan of car rides lately and must be distracted with snacks, or else!

I am sure there are a million and one things I am missing about your life but for now that is enough. You change every day and I can barely keep up but you are so worth it. My life would be pretty bleak without you. Oliver's would too, even though he won't be caught dead admitting it. I thank Heavenly Father every day that I was so lucky to get to be your mom and raise you. I also thank him for making you just like me (and your dad). The first 19 months have been great and so will the next.

Love you, Mom

Silly Billy

One of the things I love most about having a child and being a mom is there is NEVER a dull moment in our house. Between Chad and Afton someone is always making me laugh.
Chad has recently taken to calling Afton our little Pterodactyl. Mainly because of the screeching sound she makes whenever she's mad or unhappy about something.
So I can't help but laugh when Afton is mad about something because this nickname immediately pops into my head and makes her screeching rather.... cute. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. More like endearing.
The other day Afton was in her high chair making her Pterodactyl noises so Chad was trying to make her laugh instead. So he takes Oliver's rope toy and starts hitting it really hard on our ottoman. Afton thought this was hilarious for some reason. So Chad did it again and again and again and Afton laughed again and again and again. I think you get the picture, no?
The best funny moment in our house by far though happened yesterday. Afton was making mysterious trips back and forth from the living room to the kitchen. I thought Chad was in the kitchen so I wasn't too worried, until I saw Chad coming down from upstairs. Then I realized Afton had a piece of dog food in her hand (dog food is the girls best friend). I was about to take it away and shut the baby gate into the kitchen but before I could Afton marched over to Oliver and feeds him the dog food. She then continues to do this over and over again. Oliver of course is in heaven. You mean I don't even have to leave the couch anymore to eat? Heaven help us before he looks like a fat wiener dog. I think we laughed for a good five minutes straight while she "fed" Oliver. Don't ask me how she got the idea. She's just smart I guess.
Another funny Afton moment: I left a box of thread on the floor which Afton found, of course. She picked it up and dropped it, of course. Spilling it everywhere, of course. She knew she did something bad because she looked at me and then at the thread. Then she proceeded to pick them up and shove them haphazardly back into the box, very hurriedly might I add for a 15 month old. Then she looked at me like, "Mom, don't worry, I got this." But not before she had time to stuff a thread in her mouth. Everything goes in her mouth. Sometimes I am just amazed at how smart and funny she is.
Don't even get me started on her "crinkly nose face." I can't say no to that face. CAN'T.
I've been teaching Afton to wave at people that say she is cute in the stores or just when someone is saying hi. She is catching on quickly. Not only is she waving at the people I tell her to, but also the people I'm NOT telling her to such as the weirdo in the Dollar Tree Store and the complete stranger outside of the grocery store. I think we need to work on the whole waving at stranger's thing.
Afton is definitely watching and listening to EVERYTHING Chad and I do and say the last few weeks. Some examples:
1) I was blow drying my hair and Afton was playing in her room. I go in to check on her and she is taking her CLEAN clothes out of her drawer and putting them in her dirty clothes hamper. She sees me pick up her room of dirty clothes every day and do this, so she was trying to help fill the basket up I guess :-) I put them back and tried to explain not to do that. I go back to blow drying my hair and a few minutes later look in on her again. This time she is taking the DIRTY clothes out of her hamper and putting them back in her drawers. In her defense, I did that very same thine(only with the clean clothes) just minutes earlier. So she was just copying me. I am continually amazed at how she watches and learns.
She also is starting to copy me and say more words every day. I have gotten her to say "More" and "Dog" so far. She also knows that "Night Night" means to lay your head down and sleep. So whenever I say that, no matter where or what she's doing, she lays her head down like she's sleeping. She also grabs her diaper know when she goes to the bathroom or whenever I ask her if she has "Poo Pooed." She knows that word well.
She also is starting to copy our facial expressions, funny noises, etc.
I was playing peek-a-boo with her the other day with a pillow. Before long she was picking up the pillow and doing it to me. Her version was just putting the pillow in front of her face then dropping it and giving me an excited/scared/funny expression. I guess that's what my peek-a-boo face looks like.
My favorite thing that she does lately though is exclaim "da da" whenever we pick Chad up from work. Melts my heart.
She really is a Silly Billy. Just like her mom and dad. A perfect mix.

14 months

Afton-

Where to start? Where to start? You have such a personality now I can't begin to explain all the cute and funny things you do. But I will try.
Your favorite word is No. You repeat it back to me every time I say it. I highly doubt you actually know what it means which is good. You can also say mama and dadda when you feel like it, which isn't that ofton. So "No" is pretty much your only word now.
If you want to communicate however, you have gotten VERY good at screaming. You want food? SCREAM. You have a poopy diaper? SCREAM. You are tired? SCREAM. Can't drink your smoothie because a piece of something is stuck in your straw? SCREAM. I think you catch my drift...
You love to crawl in Oliver's bed when he's laying in it because it annoys him and he jumps out. Then you crawl out and he thinks it's safe again, but no, here you come again. Repeat 10 times.
If you could you would eat oranges, bananas or fruit smoothies every morning for breakfast. Oh wait. That's right. You can, so you do. Spoiled rotten you are.
You still eat almost everything we put in front of you, even vegetables. I am VERY grateful for this. You have a special fondness for teddy grahams and healthy fruit snacks though. Thank you Target for those.
You sleep great now. Usually 12 hours a night. But when you are ready to be out of your crib the whole house, no wait the whole neighborhood knows it. Remember the screaming I mentioned earlier?
You know have 6 teeth and weigh around 19 lbs probably. Still a little peanut though.
You can wave bye-bye and give high fives. You raise you hands high in the hair when you want someone to hold you. Even complete strangers. Let's work on that...
You still work with me every week. The one week I didn't take you with me everyone kept asking where you were and were very sad I didn't bring you.
You just got a bigger car seat and can enjoy sitting forward in the car for a change.
I don't think you can any longer be considered a crawler. You are pretty much walking everywhere now. And you don't even have to have your hands above your head to balance anymore. Now you can safely have them by your side. You are still pretty slow though and get easily distracted by dirt or well just about anything on the ground or eye level.
You are definitely a social butterfly. You get that from your dad. You love being around people, especially your grandparents and aunts and uncles. As long as there are 3 or more people you are good. But you also love your alone time with mom during the day.
Mornings are the best because we get up and you watch some T.V. while mom makes you a smoothie. Then we drink our smoothies together and cuddle on the couch. Then you proceed to take apart your toy chest and scatter toys around the living room. Then you get sleepy and it's nap time.
I honestly would be happy every day of my life doing just that. Although your tantrums and screaming wear on my nerves at times your silly smile or sweet laugh make it all better. Your cute little baby Buddha belly and your pierced ears make my heart melt. And the fact that you LOVE to rub food in your hair or throw carrots on the floor for Oliver to eat make you endearing.
Thank you for always reminding me that I can be better tomorrow and that I can continue to improve myself so that I can be a better mom and example to you. Heavenly Father definitely knew what he was doing when he decided to send us you. You have my determination and stubbornness and your dad's silliness.
We love you so much Afton from an oyster farm(as your dad would say)! Don't ask.

We're Baaaack

....and as cute as ever. Don't worry about that. Cuter, if possible. Yep, it's possible (See above).

So we got a lovely virus on our poor computer and due to limited funds were not able to fix it for about, oh, three months. So I have some catching up to do. And catch up I will. I've missed my creative outlet and my place to brag shamelessly about my baby.

Hope you have as much fun reading as I do writing three month's worth of Afton. Can't wait :-)