We love the park!

I still took the kids to the park today. I had to take them in the morning since we left at 2:45 for Sarah's house (and Nadia was napping until 2:15). I took a towel with me as I figured the equipment would be wet (from dew). It actually worked out perfectly as it was over 90 degrees in the afternoon so it was better to go in the morning! It's been a long but good day. I got home from school about 8pm, and I'll be heading to bed soon.

Nadia also loves her Bible. She carried it around quite a bit yesterday (it has a handle). I didn't mention it to her today, and as I was getting her down from eating  breakfast she said "I need my Bible." She was carrying it around and she said "Time to go to Sunday School and church, Mommy." LOL! Well we don't go to church in our pjs or at 6:30am on a Monday, but I am tickled that she loves her Bible. She definitely can take her Bible with her to church on Sundays. I started working with her today on saying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I think if I find a song it will be easier to teach them to her.

4 P's

I am finally getting around to posting some pics from Paul's trip to Poland. The first pic was taken the morning Paul was giving his presentation. The second is of the city of Krakow (where he was aside from his excursion to Auschwitz). The third (at left) is of a salt mine everyone at the conference toured. They had dinner together at the bottom of the salt mine. The fourth (below) was of a castle he and Shivangi toured in Krakow. The fifth was taken at Auschwitz. Paul said the hardest thing emotionally to see there was a mound of baby and toddler shoes. I toured Dachau with my family in 1997 so I have an idea of what it was like for him to tour this concentration camp. The sixth is of Paul and Shivangi eating dinner in the salt mine. Shivangi is Paul's officemate at PSU. She is the only other doctoral student in Dr. Garrison's group. Shivangi is from India, and she started her doctoral program one year before Paul.

Yesterday I enjoyed a bit of pampering. I got a haircut and manicure. I hadn't had a manicure in a full year. I got both done at a salon only 5 minutes from our house. I am very happy to say that after living here almost 2 years, I have finally found a new hairstylist. YAY! I really like the way she cut my hair, and her prices were reasonable. I also like that she also does manicures and pedicures. I am thinking that every time I go to get my haircut (usually about every 3 months, I will also treat myself to either a manicure or pedicure. It only took a little over an hour for her to give me a manicure plus shampoo, cut, and blowdry my hair. I smile when I look down at my nails. I can't even remember the last time I painted them myself. I want to start taking a little more time each week for "primping" even if that means taking time to blowdry my hair or floss my teeth. I don't think that's asking too much, lol. I never thought that blowdrying my hair would be a luxury, but most of the time I have to just let it air dry these days.

Yesterday morning didn't start out in a pampering manner. I had mowed on Friday (carrying a 19lb baby) so I wouldn't have to mow after my manicure. First of all Ian woke up really early. He's done that several times this week. Once he woke up at 3:50. I let him cry and thankfully he did fall back asleep (and woke back up at 5:45). That morning he took a long nap. His naps are still usually 30 minutes long. Today he took a VERY long afternoon nap. These give me hope that his naps will eventually be longer. Anyhow getting up before 6am on a Saturday isn't a pampering way to start one's day, but what made it worse was cleaning up puke. Nadia wouldn't eat her veggies on Friday night. I wanted her to eat 2 grape tomatoes. She wouldn't even try them. I figured she would probably like tomatoes because she likes pizza, pasta, and salsa. Since she wouldn't eat the tomatoes, she didn't eat dinner or drink any milk. She ate them easily Saturday morning because she wanted some milk, but then she wouldn't eat anything else. I thought that was strange because she hadn't eaten for about 18 hours. She drank LOTS of milk. I won't let her do that again because then she kept vomited a lot. I was planning to take the kids with me to church for a parenting workshop (childcare was being provided). I wasn't sure if I should take her, but after she kept down a few saltine crackers I let her eat yogurt and oatmeal, and she kept those down as well.

This morning was promotion Sunday at church. Everyone met together in the sanctuary for Sunday School. I was so proud of Nadia when they called her name because she walked up to the front and said "thank you" (without any prompting) when they handed her a Bible (her first). She is supposed to bring it to Sunday School each week. She currently earns one "Bible buck" for attending Sunday School. She'll earn two each week if she brings her Bible (and more if she says the first five books of the NT or OT from memory or John 3:16 from memory). I guess we'd better get working on those. Ian loved the puppet show. Nadia was promoted earlier than normal to the 2-5 year old SS class, but today was her first day going to "Wee Worship" - the youngest group of children's church. My girl is too old for the nursery! Ian is still in the nursery of course. He now goes there for SS and church. I miss holding him, but I'll be singing in the choir starting next Sunday so it's best for him to be in the nursery. I missed the first rehearsal (last Wed) because of having company at our house, but I'll start going this week. I'm going to miss the start of each rehearsal as I'm teaching on Wednesday nights. The church is about 25-30 minutes away from work. I'll be going straight from teaching to choir reherasal this semester.

Ian had one leaky diaper today (this morning at church and it went on my shirt),  but in general we haven't had any leaks lately. YAY! Putting solid food in his bottles has changed the color and consistency of his poop, and we've been cutting back on how much we give him by bottle right before putting him down for the night. I had tried a size 4 diaper on Monday night, and he still leaked right through it. We've gone back to size 3 diapers, and his sheets have stayed dry since then since we're not giving him as much right before he goes to bed.

Freezer Cooking Take 2

This morning we headed to the grocery store to buy what I needed for another freezer cooking venture. Thankfully boneless, skinlesss chicken dropped to $1.99/lb at the grocery store today. I had planned to buy Doritoes as they were on sale (50% off), and I was even more encouraged to do so when I saw the bags said "Go Steelers." I knew my dad would approve! :-) Today I made 2 batches of Sassy Sloppy Joe's, 1 batch of almond chicken, and 2 batches of tuna noodle casserole. It wasn't easy since Ian was in a "I want to be held all day" mood, but I know I'll be grateful in the next few weeks. I also made a batch of chicken enchiladas after I put Ian to bed at 7pm. Since I made applesauce and apple crisp on Tuesday and manicotti, egg salad, and lasagna yesterday, I've done a lot of cooking these past 3 days!

Today I mixed sweet potatoes in his bottles this morning and bananas this evening. That worked better than cereal because the cereal kept clogging up the nipple. I am happy to say he stayed in the same outfit all day because the poop stayed in his diaper. It came close to the edge in the back a few times but never got on his clothing. YAY! The poor guy has diaper rash around his tailbone area.  I'm going to try feeding him with a spoon again tomorrow. I'm hoping it will go better now that he's had food flavored milk the last two days.

The pictures in this post were the poses I didn't order any prints of from Ian's photo shoot on Monday.

As for the phone call to the RE's financial counselor, I was relieved to find out that the fact we switched insurance won't be a problem. She thinks Blue Shield will pay for the intitial testing as well as the bloodwork and ultrasounds just like the insurance we've had the past 6 years. I was surprised as 6 1/2 years ago I was on Blue Shield and had trouble with them even paying for bloodwork or ultrasounds after I had an HSG. This was before I ever had even an IUI let alone IVF. The other good news was that the cost went down slightly. The price for most of the procedures stayed the same, but it actually dropped (surprise!) for ICSI (used both times), assisted hatching (did for Nadia not for Ian or the first first transfer), and embyro freeze (did for Nadia not for Ian). We haven't decided yet whether we're going to try ivf again, but we're talking about it. I am praying that the Lord will give us wisdom as to whether we should try for #3 via ivf or not.

A wonderful evening

Tonight was a balm to my soul. Two couples that I've been friends with since 1996 came up to our house for dinner. The last time I saw any of them I was pregnant with Nadia. We had a most delightful 4 hours together. In the past we've played games (which I always love to do), but since we hadn't seen each other in so long, we just talked the whole time. It was wonderful to be able to introduce them to Ian and Nadia. Nadia gave all four of them LOTS of hugs. :-) I worked with Rosalie, and Kay was the principal of the school before me. It was a wonderful night.

My mom suggested putting cereal with bananas in Ian's bottle to try to "constipate" him a bit. His poop has become green and a bit thicker. He only soiled one outfit today. I'm hoping that maybe this will help him get used to the taste/flavor and maybe he'll start eating cereal with a spoon.

26 Months Old!

Over the past month here are 12 ways Nadia has changed:

1. Her sentences continue to get longer. She is almost always able to communicate her thoughts in sentences. For example, this morning I handed her happy meal doll to her, and she said "cut the tag off, please." She's also saying more things accurately. For example she now says "Oh, Daddy where are you" whereas she used to omit the word "where" from that phrase. She's also singing more of the words in many songs. Her use of pronouns is improving although she still says "you" sometimes when she means "me."

2. She now LOVES to count to 11. After 11 she cycles back to 8, 9, 10, and 11 - every time. It's so funny!

3. She's averaging one accident every 1-2 weeks (almost always on Tuesdays). That's a big improvement compared to last month. One bathroom habit I hope she breaks is her love of porta-potties. She has to use it every time we go to the park even if she just went at home 20 minutes earlier, and normally she goes hours in between going at home. I do limit her to using it once per trip to the park. When we get to the park and I ask her what she wants to do first (swing, slide, or seesaw), she says "potty." Oi vey! :-)

4. She's interacting more with Ian. She wants him to join in with what she's doing, and she gives him hugs and kisses - so sweet!

5. She correctly identifies most colors now - pink, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and white.

6. She's learning to eat her veggies. I can't say she's crazy about them, but she usually will eat them before her dinner (rather than for breakfast or lunch the next day).

7. She can correctly identify more flavors. If I giver her oatmeal or yogurt and ask her what kind it is after she's taken a bite, she can usually tell me the correct flavor (peach, blueberry, etc.).

8. She's always loved hugs, but she's really been saying, "I need a big hug" a lot lately.

9. She's really been focused on emotions lately - hers, Ian's, VeggieTales characters', etc. She usually says she's/ they're either happy, sad, not sad, not scared, or scared.

10. She's come a long way with self- feeding. She definitely hasn't "arrived," but she's made great progress.

11. She's just started to play with dolls. She likes to feed them at her kitchen.

12. She got 2 more teeth! Her bottom 2 year molars came in.

8 Month Portraits

I think most people have their children's pictures taken at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months old. I have been doing them every 3 months, but I've taken him at 2, 5, and 8 months. I plan to get our family Christmas photo done in November, and I'll have a couple of poses of Ian and Nadia separately and also together at that time. I plan to take Ian in December for his 1st year photos (without a Christmas background). I am definitely going to take Ian to Sears in December as I want him to pose with the big white number one like Nadia did. Walmart doesn't have those big numbers. The other reason I wanted his pictures taken now was he couldn't sit independently in May, and he can now! I'm assuming he'll be able to stand for his photos in December. I'd like to get our family pictures done at Sears also because it's easier to get a good deal there. I'm really hoping that Karen (who took Ian's pictures in February and May) will be working at the other Sears in November and December. It would be worth the drive in my opinion. Walmart's prices (if you order them at the store) are twice as much as at Sears! The upside to Walmart is their prints are far more reasonable if you buy them online. So I ordered very little at the store today and then came home and ordered more online. Over the past 2 months they've enhanced their website and you can really play with the prints (crop them, enhance them, etc.) on your own (no charge!). Had I known that I would have paid less than $9 total at Walmart today. The one pose (of the 2 of them) I did order 2 sheets of at the store because I thought it looked nice with a red border. Turns out I could have done the red border myself on their website and saved myself a lot of  money. Lesson learned. If I go back to Walmart again, I'll only order the $7.99 package (plus the free 10x13), and then I'll order everything online at home.

I had Ian dressed in the outfit I wanted him to wear in the pose with Nadia. I thought we'd do those first, and then I'd let Nadia eat some crackers and read her Clifford book while Ian had his pictures taken. She did pretty well. The problem was Ian. Go figure. I just assumed we would have no trouble getting him to smile. I guess 3:00pm wasn't a good time to pick. He fell asleep in my arms at 4pm while I was picking which poses to buy. I picked 3pm to work around Nadia's nap. Hopefully I'll pick a better time for our family shoot in November. This was the best we could do since Ian wouldn't smile. Then I changed his shirt. He started crying. I got him settled down but it took forever until we got him smiling. Thankfully she's a really patient photographer (she's the same one who did Nadia's 2 year old shoot in June).

I had promised her a trip to McD's if she was a good girl. She definitely earned that as we were in the photo studio for 80 minutes! Next year there won't be as many trips to the photo studio - June for Nadia's 3 year pictures, November for our family photos, and December for Ian's 2 year pictures. We shall see if I end up going to Walmart next year or Sears. If I go back to Walmart, I need to remember that we should go to the McD's that is about 2 minutes from Walmart rather than the one inside the store because the one inside the store doesn't give a small ice cream cone with a happy meal like most McD's do. I let Nadia have some ice cream once we got home (a VERY rare treat).

The 5 photos in this post are the ones I ordered some prints of. I'll share some of the other 8 poses later.

Changes

In the past week or so Ian has shown a huge improvement with his reflux. YAY! I typed that around noon today. I have been leery to write about this in my blog as I thought it might be like washing your car (then it rains). Wouldn't you know that around 7:30 tonight he had a HUGE incident of projectile vomiting milk - soaked himself, my shorts, the couch, and the carpet! So we aren't totally out of the woods yet, but at least these incidents are not happening anywhere near as often as they did for months.

I would have thought this would mean he'd be wearing fewer outfits each day, but as the amount of changes needed due to "chucking" has decreased, the amount of changes needed doing to poop going up his back has increased. Aside from when she was a newborn, Nadia has almost always pooped once a day. I would say Ian probably averages at least 5 times a day and even if his diaper is fairly dry, the poop often doesn't stay in his diaper. It goes up his back. If it weren't for Zout, Oxi-Clean, and stain stick, most of his clothes (and some of mine) would have large yellow stains. I've tried Huggies, Luvs, Pampers, and Parent's Choice. It doesn't make a difference. Any suggestions? I hope he outgrows this problem in the near future, or I'm going to be counting down the months until I can potty train him. Never thought I'd say that, lol! He also sometimes leaks at night. Nadia didn't have that problem either, but she also didn't consume anywhere near as much milk before going to bed as Ian does. On nights when he wakes up and is fed once more (such as at maybe 8:30pm) I change his diaper again and then it doesn't leak. I'm going to try putting him in a size 4 diaper overnight even though he's "only" 19 lbs. If that doesn't work I might need to try overnight diapers, which I've heard are much more expensive, but that would be better than having to launder his sheet so often!

This morning a friend of mine who had lived in VA for the past year (while her hubby did his fellowship) came up to our house with her 3 kiddos. Our youngest boys were born while she was in VA. Melanie is exactly 2 months older than Nadia, and Ryan is 3 months older than Ian. Michael is 5 years old. Nadia did a great job of sharing her toys - much better than when Olivia was here for a playdate last month. She wanted to give the kids hugs when they left, but Melanie was too sure about that. Nadia loves giving and receiving hugs! At some point we'll have to work on the concept that we don't hug everyone.

Little Things

Many times it's little things that make my day. I can think of two things yesterday that were my favorite parts of my day. The first was when I got an email from the Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at Lamar University in Texas. Dr. Pourciau wrote me an email to let me know that he enjoyed one of my articles, and he let me know that he had referenced it in his blog post. In that post he refers to a "terrific article by Ruth Kennedy." That put a huge smile on my face! Yesterday evening after dinner I pushed the kids in the stroller to the park. I have done it every day this week. I'm trying to lose some more weight before school starts, and it's the easiest way for me to fit exercise into my schedule. Ian is not a fan of swings (yet). I am guessing he'll feel differently about them next summer, but I did discover yesterday that he loves the seesaw! I put Nadia on one end and had him in my lap on the other end. Nadia was smiling, and Ian was laughing. I can't really describe in words how much I enjoyed sharing a fun experience with my two precious children. Thank you, Lord for these two adorable blessings and also for seesaws!

My favorite moment thus far today was when the man cleaning the air ducts and dryer vent gave me a compliment on my style of parenting. I think the words he used were "firm but loving." It's so easy to see one's flaws as a parent. His words were very encouraging to me. I think my second favorite thing today will happen this evening. I'm going to a Phillips, Craig & Dean concert tonight with a friend. I haven't been to a concert in over 8 months. We were going to also have dinner together, but she called last night to cancel our dinner plans. I've enjoyed listening to their music for about 18 years but have never heard them in concert before. I am sooooo excited! The concert venue is less than 30 minutes from our home, and my ticket was only $15. I can't wait!

Eating and Sleeping

It seems that when children are really young a mom is very attentive to their sleeping and eating habits (as well as the elimination of what has been consumed). Ian stayed on a four nap a day schedule longer than Nadia did, but Nadia took longer to transition to two naps a day. This week Ian has gone from 3 naps a day to 2 naps. The problem has been that his naps are still usually only 30-45 minutes long. I put him down later for his morning nap (10:10am) even though he had been up since 5:50am, but he still only slept 40 minutes. I put him down at 1:30 for his second nap, and I was really hoping that he'd take a longer afternoon nap. He woke up at 2:00. I gave him some milk, and he fell back asleep! He slept in my arms for quite awhile, and then I put him back in his crib since Nadia woke up. He ended up taking a long nap (for him it was super long). I am hoping that his naps will each be at least one hour long on average. I also wish he's sleep in a little longer. He usually gets up between 5:45-6:00am, and it's not that I put him to bed super early. For example tonight he went to bed at 7:40pm. Last night I fed him around 1am, but usually he's sleeping at least 10 hours straight, which is a big improvement although it's hard not to recall that when Nadia was 8 months old she was sleeping 12 hours straight at night on average.

Nadia likes peas! I was so relieved that we didn't have a battle over eating veggies tonight. I called them French peas (from VeggieTales), and she gobbled them up before eating her spaghetti.  Ian only likes milk. There was a time when he'd eat carrots or sweet potatoes. Not now. If I get some cereal in his mouth (oatmeal or rice cereal), he gags until he throws up. Same goes for Cheerios or puffs. If he sees a spoon coming in his direction, he turns his head away from me and cries. When he's sitting on my lap while I'm eating, I have to work hard to keep everything away from him. He wants to grab it with his hands, but he doesn't want any solid food in his mouth. I use one hand to hold his hands (or he grabs the spoon from me), and I use the other hand to put the spoon in his mouth while holding his face in my direction. It's tricky. I go through a lot of work to get a tiny bit of food in his mouth. This happens with fruit and veggies. I'm going to call his Pediatrician to see if I need to be concerned about this or not. I've been trying to get him to eat solid foods for 3 full months now. Since I'll be teaching 3 nights a week in the near future, I've given up the evening feeding as far as nursing him. We're down to just one feeding a day (first thing in the morning). I'm hoping we can keep that one going for at least 3 more months. We shall see.

Back to School Shopping

 

In the last 2 weeks I bought 3 things, which I've dubbed my "back to school" purchases. The first two were carseats. I've had two in my car, and Paul has had none. One of those I purchased 5.5 years ago, and the other was a hand-me-down from my sister. On Sunday Paul installed the 2 new ones in my car, and sometime over the next 10 days or so he needs to install the 2 old ones in his car. When Sarah watches the kids while I'm at school, I'll drop them off at 3pm on my way to work, and he'll pick them up at 5pm on his way home. Therefore we need 4 carseats for the first day of school, which is August 30 for me. The 3rd item arrived today. I bought an easel for Nadia. It's for two children so Ian will also be able to use it in the future. It has a clip on both sides to hold paper (fingerpainting will be much easier!). One side is a magnetic dry erase whiteboard, and the other side is a chalkboard. I am not going to buy dry erase markers until I'm certain she won't use them on the walls, furniture, etc. It also came with a ton of magnetic numbers and letters. She put some on the refrigerator and some on her easel. Paul took the swing down to the basement since Ian has outrgrown it, and the easel is now where the swing used to be.

I am actually looking forward to the start of school. I didn't think that would be the case since my online class only finished a few days ago, but I haven't actually been on campus for 7 weeks. I do enjoy my job. I've decided what I don't enjoy is teaching online, at least without some help with the children. Teaching online seemed ideal since I could stay home, but it was really crazy trying to take care of a 2 year old and a 7 month old while teaching a class with 32 students. I graded over 900 discussion board messages in addition to the assignments, quizzes, and exams that I would have graded had the course been held face-to-face. Plus I received far more emails than usual. I also missed the face-to-face interaction I have when I teach on campus. I am not sure if I want to keep working FT after this coming semester, but the thought of teaching PT until Paul graduates sounds perfect at the moment.

I'm trying to accomplish a lot of other stuff during my 2 weeks off of school. The first task completed was the garbage disposal installation. The master bedroom painting was begun on Saturday and hopefully will be finished today. I had planned to do the painting, but Paul said it was better if he did it (since he was a professional painter at one point). The color is a bit darker than we were wanting, but we still like it. I'll post pics when it's done! Today we went to a lawyer and gave him the information so he can draw up our wills, living wills, and power of attorney paperwork. Fun, Fun, Fun! Well actually although the topic is rather morbid, he was a very pleasant fellow, and we were in and out of there in 30 minutes, which is probably good as I imagine his hourly rate isn't cheap! We go back in a couple of weeks to sign the documents. I'm hoping the documents aren't actually needed for at least 40 years. :-) On Friday someone is supposed to come and clean out our air ducts. Usually things are much cheaper up here than where my parents live in MD, but in this instance we'll be paying 10 times more than my parents pay to have their air ducts clean. This is an expensive but productive week! I guess we're doing our part to stimulate the economy, lol.

It's been a full year since I've had a professional manicure so next Saturday (28th) I'm going to have a haircut and manicure at a place right here in our town. I've never been to this salon before. I'm hoping I like it and that can be my regular place to go. I'll paint my own toenails. I think it will be a great way to prepare myself for the new school year. :-)

News

Bad - Nadia had an accident in her crib last night.

Good - She had gone 14 days without an accident = a new record! Hopefully she'll go even longer this next time.

Bad - Ian had a rough night last night. I got less than 6 hours of sleep and woke up with the headache I'd had a reprieve from lately. He's been fussier than usual today. Maybe he's teething? I'm going to give him Tylenol before putting him to bed tonight.

Good - Gabby came over for one hour while Nadia was napping to watch Ian so I could take a nap. If someone had told me 3 years ago that I'd spend $5 so I could take a nap, I would have laughed (as up until when I was pregnant with Nadia I never liked to take naps). I've had a very different attitude toward naps the past 2+ years, especially the past 8 months when naps have been hard to come by.

Good - Yesterday morning Nadia only took a few minutes to decide it was better to eat her 3 carrots than to delay eating breakfast. Last night she ate her 3 carrots at dinner time. Progress!! This means she didn't eat any veggies for breakfast today, lol. The plumber was here while we ate dinner so I gave her a reprieve. She ate chicken, applesauce, and pierogies for dinner.

Good: I got a lot of exercise yesterday. I walked the kids to the park = 40 minutes of pushing a double stroller. Then after they were in bed I mowed most of the lawn. I stopped at 8:35pm because it was getting too dark.

Bad: All that time outside is not good for my allergies. Ugh.

Apples and Veggies

Yesterday I picked more apples. I was correct in my previous estimation as to how few apples were left on the tree with the red apples. I underestimated how many were left on the tree with the green apples. I picked quite a few more off that one, and there are still quite a few left on that tree. Yesterday I tried another apple crisp recipe. I liked it better than the first one I tried mainly because I like oats in my apple crisp. I am planning to make this second recipe again next week when we have company. I bought a apple peeler/slicer/ corer on eBay last week, but it hasn't come yet; so today I asked our neighbors if I could borrow theirs. It does a great job of slicing and coring - if you don't mind thin slices that are connected in such a way that it closely resembles a slinky. As for the peeling, it depends on the apple. This device was made for fairly round apples. I had read somewhere that someone said they could do a bushel in an hour with this device. Not me. I am not exactly sure how many apples are in a bushel, but it still took me quite awhile to make another large batch of applesauce tonight. I also went through the apples and threw away a bunch of them. I decided to be pickier about the ones I kept in part because I wanted to make sure I didn't feel like I had to keep cooking all of them ASAP, and I know if there's a bad apple in there, it could spoil many of them. So between cooking and throwing apples out, I am down to one box (I'd guess about 40 lbs worth). Hopefully when I taste this applesauce I'll be motivated to make some more over the next two weeks. I definitely want the apples out of the house (given away or cooked) by August 29. I am enjoying the apple butter on my English muffins. It has a slightly different flavor than usual since most of the apples I'm using are Granny Smith apples. I don't have any desire to make more apple butter this summer though. Time, energy, and freezer space are all too valuable to me.

Nadia had a reprieve for a few days as far as eating carrots or green beans because we had pizza and then corn on the cob. She liked the corn on the cob and salsa (that was for the enchiladas but she also put some on her corn, lol). Yesterday I served her 3 green beans, and she refused to eat them so she didn't get dinner even though she really wanted the pierogies we were having with cranberry chicken. I also only let her drink water since she loves milk. This morning she refused at first, but after she had been up about an hour she came to me and said "eat beans." I was thrilled that she ate her beans and could have breakfast and LOTS of milk before heading to church. Unfortunately we experienced deja vu this evening over 3 small carrots. I let her pick carrots or green beans, and she picked carrots but didn't eat or drink anything at dinner. Hopefully in the near future she'll figure out it's better to eat them for dinner rather than for breakfast the next day. She can be pretty stubborn, but I can be even more stubborn if need be!

It amazes me every day how much longer her sentences keep getting as well as the words she knows that I didn't know she knew - such as "manatee." I love that her favorite song to sing is "Jesus Loves Me." Of course her second favorite is the VeggieTale theme song. I wish her love of watching veggies would spill over into a love of eating them, ha ha! Although sometimes she says things I wish she wouldn't say (like a really defiant "no I won't"), she also says some REALLY endearing things like "I love you." I love it when she says that of her own initiative!!! I also love it when she asks for a hug. She even asks for hugs from some of the ladies at church. They love it too. I love how she is so encouraging. When Paul was blowing up the new swimming pool, she said "Good job, Daddy. You made the pool!" This morning when I came down after I had gotten dressed for church, she told me "you look so pretty, Mommy." That made my day! I was wearing a dress for the first time in over a year. It hit me that since I am not nursing many times a day, I could wear a dress to church again. I've been sticking with skirts in light of nursing (and I didn't have any maternity dresses either). She can be a sweetheart! :-)

Stickers on Mommy

Nadia likes putting stickers on me - my nose, my forehead, my cheeks, my clothes, etc. I don't care how ridiculous I look since usually Nadia and Ian are the only ones who see me. Well today I accidently went to the grocery store and hardware store sporting two VeggieTales stickers. I was wearing Jimmy (the gourd) on the front of my Steelers t-shirt and Junior (asparagus) on the back of my t-shirt. OOPS! Paul pointed this out to me when I got home. I guess the people who saw me figured out that I'm a mom, LOL.

Out of the past five days, four of them Ian has had one long nap each day (averaging about 70 minutes long). Some days it was his first nap, and other days it was his second nap. I am thrilled! He's also continuing to make progress at night with sleeping longer. Way to go, Ian!

I'm done grading papers for the summer! I am glad to have the next two weeks off from doing school work aside from a little more preparation for the fall semester. YAHOO!

I can't do it all!

I had a bit of a meltdown on Tuesday. Every spare minute had been consumed with my online classes - holding office hours via Wimba while taking care of a 25 and 7 month old isn't easy. I kept trying to keep the kids entertained with as little interaction from me so that I could grade, grade, and grade some more. By the time I went to bed at 9:30pm I felt like I had spent more time grading than with my kids. Periodically I tell Paul I just want to stay at home with the kids. I was at home with them (aside from my trips to the doctor's offices) the past 6 weeks. What I mean is I want to quit my job. I would never quit without a reasonable amount of notice, so I was trying to figure out if I could become a SAHM in January. I looked over the budget to figure out how much we typically spend in a year (not counting expenses like trading in my car this year). I was trying to see if Paul's $20K annual stipend plus our savings would be enough to carry us through until he graduates. I came to the conclusion that we'd have enough for me to stay home for 2 years. The problem is that we wouldn't have any savings for things like trading in Paul's car or possibly doing ivf again (I still toy with the idea of doing it once more). The bigger problem is that we don't have a guarantee that he'll finish in 2 years. Then we'd really be in a pickle. I haven't put in any requests for leave for spring 2011 or beyond yet. I had been given 50% off for the fall, but I'm actually going to be working full-time (three nights plus one online class from home). I don't need to continue to work FT. We can definitely survive with me just working PT. Anyhow, I finished most of the grading last night and also made a lot of progress for getting everything ready to go for the fall courses. I woke up this morning not feeling overwhelmed.

However today was a busy day. I was asked (on Tuesday) to attend a 5 hour meeting at another university (about 50 minutes away) today. I was gone for 6.5 hours including driving time. It was the longest I've ever been separated from Ian (not counting while he sleeps at night). It was hard, especially when they asked me about him. I had brought Ian to a similar meeting in May, so several told me they were expecting to see Ian today. He's too active now to sit quietly in a meeting for 5 hours. When I got home I decided to take advantage of the MUCH cooler temps and take the kids to the playground. The carseats weren't in my car (so Beth could take them with her to the mall) so I took them via the stroller. If the stroller could go over train tracks, the trip would be much shorter. It's still not too bad (about 20 minutes each way). In fact on days it's not raining or super hot, I'd like to make this a regular part of our daily routine as it's a great way for me to get 40 minutes of exercise. They were both content on the way down, and Ian took a short, late 3rd nap on the way back.

The meeting hadn't been on my calendar for long. What had been on my calendar for MONTHS for today was to attend a FFH concert at Knoebels this evening. I was going to meet my friend, Cheri. I was going to leave at 6pm. When Paul still wasn't home at 6:15, I called my friend to cancel. I was disappointed as I haven't done dinner or a concert or lunch with a friend for more than 8 months (aside from Paul). Part of the reason I cancelled was because Cheri and I do also have plans for next Friday night. Tonight's concert was free. I bought our tickets for next week. I'm not going to cancel those plans unless I really can't go. The other reason I cancelled was because I was tired. I had left at 8am this morning and wouldn't have gotten home until after 10pm this evening if I had gone to the concert. I also would have spent over 3 hours on the road. Right now I wish I was at the concert, but I'm going to be able to go to bed earlier than I would have if I went. Deep in my heart I know I made the right decision. I can't do it all!

I am trying to think of ways to make life manageable over the next few months. I am definitely going to do another freezer cooking day sometime over the next 2 weeks and continue to do that once a month. Yesterday I had Nadia play in her room during Ian's morning nap while I was in Paul's office (right across from her bedroom). It was a win-win situation. She had fun, and I was able to just focus on schoolwork. Yes, I am capable of multitasking, but I'd like to do less of it. I'd like to have more time that's devoted JUST to my kids. I feel like I'm physically here but many times am working on my laptop rather than finger painting or playing with PlayDoh. I spent a lot of time with them Wednesday and Thursday, and it felt great. I had planned to try to add aerobics into my schedule. I am delighted with the idea of walking to the park several times a week instead. That plan won't work in the winter, but it should work in the other three seasons.

I need to keep brainstorming ways to make my to do list manageable. Sometimes it means saying "no." I just recently added one thing to my plate in that I agreed to teach (on a quarterly rotating basis) the 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class at church. I'm definitely not ready to have any other fruits or veggies growing on our property. I made apple butter yesterday. It's very tasty, but these apple projects are time consuming. I still have a LOT of apples sitting in my kitchen waiting to be given away, made in applesauce, made into apple crisp, etc. I've always been one to buy shredded cheese. I know it would be cheaper to shred it myself, but I don't care. Saving money is not always most important. Sometimes saving time is more important. Plus I'm not the greatest with knives anyhow. I often manage to cut myself. We are going to pay someone to install the garbage disposal. Paul has done that before, but he can't do it all either. I also have been trying to schedule someone to come clean our ducts. I'm hoping this might help my allergies. I've also (for over 2 months) been seriously considering paying people to come clean the house. That totally goes against my penny pinching tendencies. I also have this sense that I shouldn't need that help. That I should be able to juggle all these balls, but we can afford it (I think - I don't know what it costs). If I was a SAHM I wouldn't even consider it. If I tell myself that doing this will enable me to have more time with my kids, then it totally seems worth it, and it's true. Lots of things to consider, but my kids are one of my highest priorities - not my job or the cleanliness of my house or flowerbeds.