3ish hours of sleep. I think I got more sleep when she was a newborn. We had a bad, bad week last week. Ellie caught a bit of a stomach bug that gave her bad poops for a week. Ended up with a really bad diaper rash that needed prescription cream. For a while she couldn't go to sleep by herself, cried every time she pooped or peed and was in pain anytime someone touch her diaper, even if it was to try to comfort her. We blew through probably 20 diapers a day and an entire pack of diaper wipes and one canister of prescription butt cream. Sunday she finally started showing some significant improvements and is now basically back to her happy self. Except that she still isn't sleeping well.
She is also now pulling to standing. So the moment she wakes up in her crib she pulls up and screams at the top of her lungs till I go in and get her. She had just started to sleep through the night when she got this sickness. This is not the first time her sleep training has been interrupted by sickness. So last night she woke up at 12am, gave her a bottle, fell asleep on my shoulder and woke up immediately when I put her down in the crib. Pick her up again, rocked her back to sleep but her down again, went to bed, baby woke up 30 seconds later. I wake up Eric and tell him to try to get her back to sleep. 5 mins later all I hear from the living room is a happy go-lucky Ellie saying "da da da da da da". Put her back in the crib to cry it out (because I had to wake up at 5:15 for a docs appointment) but she isn't giving up. So I finally lay down with her on the couch and try to sleep with her on me. Nope. Hard to sleep with an almost 18 pound infant on your chest! so once I was confident she was sound asleep enough I moved her to her crib where she slept soundly till 6:45am. She was awake from 12 to 2ish. I got maybe 4 hours. So sleep training has begun once again. I hate sleep training. I hate listening to my baby cry. We had been in a really good place with her sleeping and then this happened. So, so tired and stressed.
But life does not stop for tired mamas. Need to get to the grocery store and to Sam's today and maybe Hobby Lobby. At least its not snowing.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014
Amazon Smile!
Really wish I had known about this about 2 days ago, ugh! Please, if you are going to do any amazon shopping this year (and come on, you know you will) please do so via this amazon link and help Ninos con Valor continue to do their awesome work in Bolivia. Much thanks and Merry Christmas shopping!
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0286017
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0286017
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Living in Limbo
Living life in expectation of 'The Call' is not the easiest thing to do. Eric is about halfway through his lay ministry program that, when completed, will enable him to be placed on the Lutheran 'call' list. This means that any participating Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) can call him to work in their church as a certified lay minister. To work in the church has been my husband's goal for as long as I've known him. Its slow going, but at least he has started the education required to move closer to that goal. We want to do everything we can, as a family, to support him in this goal and that means some sacrifices must be made. The first casualty has been our cable package. Monday and Thursday night football have been lost due to the high cost of maintaining ESPN and NFL channels. Yeah I'm just sooo sad about that ;) But in all fairness, I did lose CNN in the package too. I fortunately watch mostly CBS so I didn't loose much. Now that's just a funny example of things we are giving up to help get Eric to his goal.
On a more serious note and one that is the hands-down hardest one for me to accept, is the realization that we cannot buy a home. We are destined to be renters for the foreseeable future. That wouldn't be so bad really except that renting a place big enough for us is getting harder and harder to do. The rental market has not come back down from its spike during the housing market crisis. Other factors remain as well that make finding a reasonable place to rent more difficult. Like the fact that he works in the city and needs to take the train to work everyday. He already has 45 min commute via train (he walks 1/2 block from our apartment now) a move will more then likely add a driving or bus commute to that as well. We also have lease issues. Now our current landlords are awesome and have let us sign a 10 month lease the last couple of years so we could house hunt during the summer. Eric finishes has course work at the end of 2015. The call could come right away, or it might not come for years. Only God truly knows. Our current apt is well, to put it nicely, aging. We are paying for the convenience for the train commute, not for how great the apt is. We have a good deal of space in this 3 bedroom but we are feeling the need to upgrade.
I'm tired of having a neighbor below us, tired of having to worry that Ellie is going to wake him with her crying, tired of the mold and mildew on the bathroom walls that I cannot remove no matter how much I clean, I'm tired of the dishwasher that is loud and takes over and hour to run a load of dishes, I'm tired of trying to drive down a snow packed alley because the city rarely plows it, I'm tired of living a block away from a bar. I.want.a.house. And I can't have one. Not right now.
I am having to retrain how my brain works. How can I help my family to live in light of a unknown future call? First of all, I have to stop being so selfish. Its my nature. I have dreams for my family. I want to put down roots. I want Ellie to be raised in a house with a yard and not be wisked around year after year to start over some place new. This is a very, very hard thing to do and I am asking for prayers concerning this. What I know I can do is that I can make us a flexible and easily mobile as possible (short of buying a trailer home!). This means cutting out unnecessary material things that take up space but are never used. This means buckling down on our budget and saving as much as possible. This means considering housing that may actually be smaller then what we have but has opportunities for 'creative space'. I am trying to think of other ways and I know there will be more but those have been on the forefront of my mind of late.
Where will we be in 2016? Really and truly, God only knows...
On a more serious note and one that is the hands-down hardest one for me to accept, is the realization that we cannot buy a home. We are destined to be renters for the foreseeable future. That wouldn't be so bad really except that renting a place big enough for us is getting harder and harder to do. The rental market has not come back down from its spike during the housing market crisis. Other factors remain as well that make finding a reasonable place to rent more difficult. Like the fact that he works in the city and needs to take the train to work everyday. He already has 45 min commute via train (he walks 1/2 block from our apartment now) a move will more then likely add a driving or bus commute to that as well. We also have lease issues. Now our current landlords are awesome and have let us sign a 10 month lease the last couple of years so we could house hunt during the summer. Eric finishes has course work at the end of 2015. The call could come right away, or it might not come for years. Only God truly knows. Our current apt is well, to put it nicely, aging. We are paying for the convenience for the train commute, not for how great the apt is. We have a good deal of space in this 3 bedroom but we are feeling the need to upgrade.
I'm tired of having a neighbor below us, tired of having to worry that Ellie is going to wake him with her crying, tired of the mold and mildew on the bathroom walls that I cannot remove no matter how much I clean, I'm tired of the dishwasher that is loud and takes over and hour to run a load of dishes, I'm tired of trying to drive down a snow packed alley because the city rarely plows it, I'm tired of living a block away from a bar. I.want.a.house. And I can't have one. Not right now.
I am having to retrain how my brain works. How can I help my family to live in light of a unknown future call? First of all, I have to stop being so selfish. Its my nature. I have dreams for my family. I want to put down roots. I want Ellie to be raised in a house with a yard and not be wisked around year after year to start over some place new. This is a very, very hard thing to do and I am asking for prayers concerning this. What I know I can do is that I can make us a flexible and easily mobile as possible (short of buying a trailer home!). This means cutting out unnecessary material things that take up space but are never used. This means buckling down on our budget and saving as much as possible. This means considering housing that may actually be smaller then what we have but has opportunities for 'creative space'. I am trying to think of other ways and I know there will be more but those have been on the forefront of my mind of late.
Where will we be in 2016? Really and truly, God only knows...
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
On voting
I don't like politics. I don't try to understand politics. This wonderful US of A is really, really screwed up. I don't think any political party in particular is going to be able to fix it. The problems run too deep, to internationally. If you ask me, I would probably tell you I am republican. Because my family is, because I tend to side with the conservatives. But that may no longer be true. I don't focus a lot on the issues (though I probably should) because I don't have the time or the energy. I don't like arguing a point with something if I don't have a firm research base to stand on. I don't like political ads that make one guy look like the savior of the state/senate/country while simultaneously trashing the opponent in some of the worst ads I've ever seen on TV. I have a stack of political junk mail waiting to go into recycle that I've never even looked at. I am a registered voter and I did receive the notice of where I was to vote. I did not vote. I have voted once in my entire life. And I voted for Obama the first term.
In subsequent years I have learned the concept of the electoral vote (regarding presidential elections) which means my vote for a republican president wouldn't mean crap because Illinois will always vote Democrat. All the lofty promises of the ads strike me as sooo superficial to the point of being unbelievable. One guy will promise to fix the education system but to do so he will increase taxes. One guy will lower taxes but will won't support a higher min wage. You see where I am going here. Everyone of these guys is going to try to do something he promised but something else in our state/country is going to be cut or suffer as a result.
I believe the rich should be taxed higher then the poor or middle class, they can afford it. They can also afford to go without a salary for a year and use that money to hire more people to work for them. The ultra rich are greedy but they get politicians elected so they get special treatment.
An issue that is near and dear to me is woman's rights and insurance coverage. I believe every woman has the right to prevent pregnancy and for that to be covered 100% by insurance. I believe infertility should be covered like any other disease or disorder and be covered 100% by insurance. I believe that no woman has the right to end a pregnancy regardless of the reason. Life is life. I believe that stem cell research from aborted babies is wrong and such research should not be supported by law. Unfortunately, most of this list is not mutually exclusive. Its all or none and that should not be. So how can a support a candidate that is pro contraceptives and infertility treatments and also pro abortion and stem cell research. I can't. So I don't. I don't vote. Because its not fair.
There are other issues that I am on the fence on. Gay marriage, legalization of pot, immigration, and others. In the end, I go with the Bible on these issues but even that can lead to a pretty gray area. So I tend to avoid discussions about them. People get so fired up about this stuff and we forget to love and respect one another. I am super non-confrontational so I avoid arguments like the plague. That said, this is my official opinion piece about the recent election and politics and voting in general. I didn't write it looking for a fight. Just felt like writing it out.
In subsequent years I have learned the concept of the electoral vote (regarding presidential elections) which means my vote for a republican president wouldn't mean crap because Illinois will always vote Democrat. All the lofty promises of the ads strike me as sooo superficial to the point of being unbelievable. One guy will promise to fix the education system but to do so he will increase taxes. One guy will lower taxes but will won't support a higher min wage. You see where I am going here. Everyone of these guys is going to try to do something he promised but something else in our state/country is going to be cut or suffer as a result.
I believe the rich should be taxed higher then the poor or middle class, they can afford it. They can also afford to go without a salary for a year and use that money to hire more people to work for them. The ultra rich are greedy but they get politicians elected so they get special treatment.
An issue that is near and dear to me is woman's rights and insurance coverage. I believe every woman has the right to prevent pregnancy and for that to be covered 100% by insurance. I believe infertility should be covered like any other disease or disorder and be covered 100% by insurance. I believe that no woman has the right to end a pregnancy regardless of the reason. Life is life. I believe that stem cell research from aborted babies is wrong and such research should not be supported by law. Unfortunately, most of this list is not mutually exclusive. Its all or none and that should not be. So how can a support a candidate that is pro contraceptives and infertility treatments and also pro abortion and stem cell research. I can't. So I don't. I don't vote. Because its not fair.
There are other issues that I am on the fence on. Gay marriage, legalization of pot, immigration, and others. In the end, I go with the Bible on these issues but even that can lead to a pretty gray area. So I tend to avoid discussions about them. People get so fired up about this stuff and we forget to love and respect one another. I am super non-confrontational so I avoid arguments like the plague. That said, this is my official opinion piece about the recent election and politics and voting in general. I didn't write it looking for a fight. Just felt like writing it out.
Monday, November 3, 2014
9 months old!
I was just realizing the other day just how grown up my baby girl is already. She is getting so tall! Everyday she is learning something new and she just continues to amaze me. Here is her list of can-do's:
- can get into and out of a sitting position by herself
- is the strongest and fastest little army crawler I've ever seen
- is in motion all the time and likes exploring ours and other peoples houses
- rocks back and forth on her hands and knees
- is starting to stand up (leaning or assisted) at her standing activity table and loving it
- loves reading books with us
- likes to leave her socks all over the house
- make a definite "Da" sound but unsure if she does so to get Eric's attention or if its just a sound she figured out
- can eat bits of banana and avocado without being pureed
- is starting to be shy of strangers and likes to bury her head in my neck (love this!)
- can make all sorts of noises with her tongue and lips. We esp like the kissy noises
- can do the "so big" motion very, very well
- can now get into the kitchen cabinets :( let the childproofing begin)
- can sleep through the night when she chooses too but doesn't happen often
- still working on cutting tooth #3
- my guess is she is now over 17 pounds and maybe 2 1/2 feet tall
- can get into and out of a sitting position by herself
- is the strongest and fastest little army crawler I've ever seen
- is in motion all the time and likes exploring ours and other peoples houses
- rocks back and forth on her hands and knees
- is starting to stand up (leaning or assisted) at her standing activity table and loving it
- loves reading books with us
- likes to leave her socks all over the house
- make a definite "Da" sound but unsure if she does so to get Eric's attention or if its just a sound she figured out
- can eat bits of banana and avocado without being pureed
- is starting to be shy of strangers and likes to bury her head in my neck (love this!)
- can make all sorts of noises with her tongue and lips. We esp like the kissy noises
- can do the "so big" motion very, very well
- can now get into the kitchen cabinets :( let the childproofing begin)
- can sleep through the night when she chooses too but doesn't happen often
- still working on cutting tooth #3
- my guess is she is now over 17 pounds and maybe 2 1/2 feet tall
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| Fun the leaves at grandma and grandpa's house |
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| Meeting her only great grandparent |
.JPG) |
| First bath in the big tub |
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