Man has it been wonderful having family around.  I'm telling you, if you live near family, please don't ever take them for granted.  Don't take for granted the time that you have to enjoy their company, don't take for granted the opportunities to accept help, and definitely don't take for granted the relationship that they will have with your children.

There are few things in this world as heartwarming to me as watching Molli interact with her relatives and so purely enjoy them.  No, she doesn't understand that her Papu, Nanette, Grandma, Grandpa, Grammy and Papa raised her mom and dad.  She doesn't know that all her aunts and uncles are the brothers and sisters that her mom and dad used to argue with.  She doesn't need to know these things yet.  All she knows is that these people love her and she enjoys the attention!

Myles dad and step-mom are in town for the holiday weekend.  It has been such a blessing to have them around.  Talk about a blessing to our family! My goodness.  They have been helpful from the moment they got here.  We love the company and the help and Molli just can't get enough of the attention they offer!

Plus, Myles and I are going on our first date since before Molli was born.  That's ridiculous.

No pictures for now, but soon, I promise.

Growing very mischievous

I was told when I was pregnant to "watch out" because when Molli was inside me, she was constantly moving and as "on the go" as one can be in the womb. Apparently this person believed that prenatal temperament directly corresponds to baby's personality.  And how true this is!  This baby does not know how to sit still, unless she accidentally falls asleep (which is happening NOW!).

Most outrageous case of accidental sleep

Since she's been crawling I've set up a barricade to contain her to the living room.  Unfortunately, Molli has a severe case of the grass is greener syndrome and insists on being on the other side. So, in true Molli style, she learns to climb.  And climb she does.  Only problem is she can climb, but the decent is far less than graceful.  Typically she climbs to the top of the barricade (a strategic pile of baskets, blankets and pillows) and crashes onto her face on the other side.  It's not pretty, but it's effective.  Bless her heart, she received her first forehead egg and bruise from this strategy.  

Exhibit A: Baby confined to the living room

In effort to increase the level of safety and decrease the bruises and forehead eggs, we have replaced the barricade with a semi-legitimate gate.  With gates set up separating every room without a door, I do believe this is the closest I've been to living in a gated community. 

Exhibit B: Dogs confined to the kitchen 

As most babies are, she is prone to putting anything and everything in her mouth.  Under close supervision this is alright, but turn your back for one second and she may or may not have retrieved a dog bone from the other side of the gate to the kitchen and held it conspicuously as though she had just... no, I wont say it. There is no way my daughter put a dog bone in her mouth.  gross. 

Speaking of gross, we acquired a horribly uncomfortable papasan chair when we bought our house.  We kept it around and deemed it the "dog chair" back in the day when they were allowed in the living room.  Since we've lived here the chair has hogged more than it's fair share of space in our small living room, completely blocking the front door. (The goings in and out happen through the back anyway.)  This big chair is never sat upon, and rarely cleaned under (some things are better left ignored).  That is, until the other day.  I left the room briefly and came back to a missing child.  I quickly scanned the house on both sides of the untrustworthy barricade to no avail.  A search with greater detail was in order.  I called her name and heard a grunt over by the front door.  Eew, no, please don't be behind that nasty chair.   Sure enough, I peeked under, and a silly little grin and curious eyes were peeking back at me.  It was as though she was just waiting for me to find her!

(I can't believe I'm showing the most hideously filthy part of my house on the internet.  Don't judge me!)

It's pink, it's delicious, and it's supposed to help!

Here we have an image of a typical shiny chin and a cute shirt.  Nothing special about it, right?  In fact, it looks like an accidental photo in which most of her head is cut off.  Wrong.  This picture was taken to point out the pink drips on her shirt.  What is it?  I’ll give you a hint. Those slobbery pink drips are a delicious memory from childhood. 

Jelly beans?

Cotton candy?

Blow pop? 

No.

The pink medicine.

You remember, don’t you?  The delicious antibiotic in the fridge that just might make the ear infection worth it. YUM!  Strep throat, bring it on!  I remember loving that stuff as a kid and wondering why children’s Tylenol couldn’t just ditch the attempts to match the flavors of a yummy grape or cherry and just go with the flavor of the pink medicine.  To this day, anything grape flavored that is not, in fact, a grape, tastes like medicine to me. 

*Molli is fine.  She just has some sort of bumpiness that I’ve labeled a rash and is lucky enough to have her first round of the pink medicine.”* 

learning to use her voice

The other night I was working to get Molli tired so I dragged her to my bed, and we laid down facing each other.  She started jabbering at me, like she had a story to tell.  I had to laugh, especially when as I repeated her, she continued even more matter-of-factly.  It was a sweet moment and I just love how vocal she is getting. (I’m sure I’ll kick myself for that sentence in a couple years).

Since she is so much more into everything these days, I have been telling her “no” a lot more.  I have been making an effort to rephrase my reprimands to something more positive.  Instead of telling her “no” when I see her going for the cords, I say something like, “please do not touch the cords,” or, “lets play with a toy instead.”  I like to think she’ll still get the point, but won’t obsess on the word “no” and begin repeating it back to me.  I’m dreading the day.

It’s cute to see how her vocalization has shifted over the months.  She is starting to repeat things we say, if she already knows and makes the sound. Like if I tell her to come to Mommy, she’ll look at me and say, “Mah-mah, Mah-mah.”  It’s sweet and makes me excited for when she’ll experiment with making sounds into words.

One other thing that cracks me up is how she is learning to express her opinions.  It usually comes out when she is redirected, or something is taken away from her.  Sometimes she’ll throw a fit but sometimes it’s a simple “Ba!” with a clenched fist or a hand smacking the ground.  No, I don’t think it’s cute when kids throw fits, but I am somewhat fascinated by her growing personality, her ability to have an opinion and express it.

Mother's Day

I keep checking the blogs I subscribe to and end up disappointed at my limited reading material.  The thought occurred to me that I'm at fault for other people's lack of reading material!  So here goes.

Sunday was, of course, Mother's Day.  We had a very nice day as a family.  As we do every Sunday, we trekked an hour to the church where Myles preaches, then after church drove another hour to Bloomington.  We spent the day there and had a great time!  We had Panera for lunch, which I adore. We had packed with us the sunscreen, blanket and bubbles so after lunch we headed out to Miller Park to spend some quality time in the sun.  We very quickly discovered that we were far from the only family who had the idea to spend Mother's Day at this park!

Miller Park has a little zoo, so of course we had to go!  Mommies got in free and kids under three always get in free, so it was a $5 adventure- can't beat that!  We saw all the animals and had a very good time together.  It was adorable watching Molli observe the animals.  She didn't get all excited and wound up about them, but she studied them very hard.

Is she not the cutest little thing in this dress?!  I love it!  

Brian's arch nemesis...the sloth!

It was hard to get her to see the animals sometimes, but once she did, she eyeballed them for a long time

When we were watching the sea lions, I looked at the thermometer on the stroller and it said 106.  Of course it was in the sun, but seriously it was so, so hot!

Baby in the pouch!

All in all, it was a great day! My first Mother's Day with my girl  <3 

To sleep, or not to sleep...

Fight, fight, fight!

I can almost hear Molli chanting to herself in that sleepy yet violently resistant stage.

Don’t give in, stay awake, cry, cry cry!

And just when she accidentally gives in, BAM, in the crib!

NOOOOOOOOO!  Roll over, sit up, grab crib, stand.  They can’t leave me here standing and looking so very sad.  Look, I have tears and I’m not sleepy after all, I have no business being in here. 

At this point I avoid eye contact, swipe her legs to the side and gently lean her back to a laying position, replacing the pacifier and telling her she is OK. 

Lather, rinse and repeat.

Oy Vey. Woe is me.

We had two very successful naps in the crib yesterday.  VERY successful!  We regressed to better days when this girl could have won an “ideal sleeper” award.  I could place her in the crib, turn on the music projector and walk away only to come back for her when I heard happy playing sounds coming from the monitor.  They were good days!

 I digress.

 Yesterday she was sleepy, so I got her all good and drowsy, placed her in her crib and she fussed.  I kept my hand on her until the fussing turned to crying.  Then I picked her up, calmed her down and tried again.  She squirmed a bit and succumbed into sleep.  Beautiful!  Nap number two, same thing!  Again, beautiful!  Then came bed time.  I had high hopes as I watched her eyes roll around as she was eating her cereal bottle before bed.  She went down just as gloriously limp as can be, then when her nap was over, she sprung up with rage. Try and try again, right? I picked up, put down, rocked, wrapped, talked to, sang to, shhhhed, and patted this child to no avail.  After a couple hours Myles and I decided to focus our efforts on naps in the crib. 

Which brings me to today…

Again the wretched fight!  I think we lost our headway with the successful naps by forcing the crib so hard at night time.  All failures aside, two hours later, she is sleeping and not in my arms.  She is on the floor.  It’s no crib, but at least it’s her room.  I’m working to make sure this nap lasts longer than her preferred 15 minutes so I’m staying in the room to lull her back to sleep at first sign of waking.  According to  The No Cry Sleep Solution, getting a full sleep cycle during nap time is vital to continuing the sleep cycle at night time.  So that’s my goal for now. Get substantial naps.  Even if it means I have to sit on the floor and wait. 

Sleeping, or not sleeping, is a big part of our lives these days so stay tuned for more posts regarding the topic.  We have a couple tricks up our sleeves and one in the mail…here’s hoping for something that works!

I have a big little girl!  She crawls all over, she pulls herself up on anything and everything and loves her newfound abilities!  One of her new favorite tricks is clapping.  She does it and I say, "Yaaaay Molli!"and clap back to her.  She gets so excited when she sees that I've noticed her clapping and it makes her do it more and more.  She will do it randomly, or when she is particularly happy.  Like this afternoon, we were walking outside and she was in the Baby Bjorn carrier just clapping away, so happy to be outside.  It was hard to get a video of her doing it though because I needed to use my hands.  So, sorry it's a kind of weird video, but here you go =)