Kid Concerts

Everyone,

Every Monday morning at 10am you will find me hauling Butterfly and Soot out the door to walk the mile to our town's city hall. Butterfly happily sits in her stroller, pointing out birds and that park we walk past every week. ("Look Mommy! A park! I can't go there..." which is code for I'd really like to go there.) Soot runs helter skelter around for about the first half mile. Then she pants next to my side and really gets into the business of walking.

We arrive on the lawn of City Hall, sweaty, panting and in need of water. We skirt around the other moms and their kids and stake out some blanket room under a Japanese maple planted in memory of someone. I tie Soot to the maple and give Butterfly some water because she wants to drink out of mine before I do. I meet up with friends from either my Mom's group or church or both. Today it was both. VaVa and her mom, NayNay (sorry NayNay, if you read this. It was all I could come up with.) Also Butterfly's friend Vinny and his mom, Lelo.

Today on the mics was a group called Almost Recess. They are a male A Capella group and they were pretty good. They did a fun thing at the end where they sang one of the songs in different genres. Blues, opera, rap, techno. My favorite was techno. They are not as good as my favorite male A Capella group called Voice Male, but they are pretty good. They have sound bites on their website if you're interested in it.

Vinny, Butterfly, and Vava ran up and down the small hill behind the maple and got all sweaty. They did dance a little, but they were more interested in that hill. Good way for them to get some energy out.

Only one thing marred the nice day. The butt cracks. To my fellow moms, if you are going to wear low rise jeans, please realize that when you swat down, you look like a plumber. And it's not attractive. I know I have a lot of work to do on my butt to make it look nice, let alone be able to show off my crack. When you are trying to squeeze into your pre-pregnancy jeans, please be mindful of the people behind you as you swat down to talk to your child. It's really, not pretty.

I walked home with Vinny and Lelo (Soot and Butterfly in tow of course) and we went to see our good friend Tena and her kids. Then, off to lunch with everyone. So much fun! I love having friends out here. For so long I felt so lonely. I had so much to do all the time, but I felt like I really didn't have any friends, just people I hung out with. But now I feel like I have friends. And so many of them! I knew if I kept plugging along and went to as many places as I could, I would find someone to hang with. And I have. It's nice. :)

Safire

PS- Hormone levels all back to normal, supposidly my body is back to normal. We shall see...

Butterfly and Boys

Everyone,

I have realized that Butterfly does not have a lot of boys her age to hang around with. Not that it's bad to have basically all girl friends, but a boy around would be good. I paused to think about it and honestly, there are 2 boys that Butterfly hangs out with regularly. One is the neighbor kid down the street, let's call him Vinny. We're good friends with his parents and we switch babysitting a lot. She gives him huge hugs and blows kisses to him and hauls him around by the hand when they hang out. She just loves Vinny.

The other boy she hangs out with is my scrap booking partner's boy. He is just a week younger than Butterfly, and is the youngest of 5 kids. Butterfly prefers to hang out with his older sister (who she is as big as, Park is 4) but will play with Wred if he's playing with his trains. We went there on Tuesday and Wred followed Butterfly around and kept saying, "No! Mine!" whenever she picked up a toy. It's hard to be 2 and learning how to share.

At church on Sunday we sat behind a family with a little boy probably a year or so older than Butterfly. He was hanging over the bench trying to get her attention by flexing his muscles. He kept whispering "Big muscles!" to her and flexing his arms. She looked at him the first time, and decided her magnadoodle was more interesting. As he continued to preen for her attention, she started to glower at him. I actually saw her flounce and turn her back on him. Poor boy's muscles deflated and he turned around. Juice leaned over and asked me how I felt about a boy flexing at my daughter. I replied that I was fine with it because she was handling it herself. Juice nodded and went back to driving Butterfly's car around the bench.

Boys!

Safire

Back to the Gym

Everyone,

I've started going back to the gym. I was put on hiatus once I found out I was pregnant by my doctor, and was told I could start back up once I was well into the 2nd trimester. Well, that didn't work out. My hormone levels are back to normal. So I figured I could go back to the gym now, after giving my body some time to heal. I went to the gym yesterday for a pilates class.

This was my very first pilates class. Wow am I uncoordinated! The class was full of breathing while rolling up and down, and moving right arm and left leg together. I stumbled through. And I felt fine after. This morning I felt fine too. But now, this afternoon, I'm starting to feel my abs. Ouch! And my arms...I did 9 push ups yesterday and boy do I hurt. I think this will be good for me. As a favorite movie line says, "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't kill their husbands." Happy people whose husbands watch the kids so you can go make more endorphins at the gym don't kill them either. :) I do like yoga better because I could take the time to figure out the moves. I must be doing something right because my abs!

Our summer is piling up to be a busy one. One big splurge we are doing at the end is going to the Pennsylvania Renn Faire. It's only about 2 hours from here, so we're going to enjoy a different Faire this year. We are also going to the Maryland Renn Faire as we always do. I think it's just because we want to wear our garb. We are going to stay over a hotel near the faire so we can really enjoy it and turn it into a mini-vacation/road trip for us.

Our town has free kid concerts on Monday mornings, Tuesday and Wednesday the local theater is showing free kid movies, Thursdays I have a standing scrap booking date with a lady in my ward and the farmer's market with yummy fresh produce, and Fridays Juice typically gets off early so we can go and do stuff. It's also fun to go swimming with my moms group, and play dates for Butterfly. We are busy!

I saw my first firefly of the season yesterday. I love seeing them flash bright green near our house. Last year along the creek, they were all flashing white. Fireflies are something that I will miss terribly when we move away. (No, no plans until at least 2+ years.) We may have to keep Butterfly up one night and let her catch a few in some jars. Check out THIS LINK for some pictures of the fireflies in our area.

Safire

No no no!

Everyone,

There are 2 phrases I hear every day. I wish it was things like "I love you Mommy!" But it's not. Mostly it's just a string of "No! Don't! I do it!" and "I want something else." That is her equivalent of "I'm bored!" Said in that whiny, sighing tone of voice too. This phrase I hate more than anything else. I try to make sure we get out of the house at least once a day. And it's not my fault she's bored. She has tons of toys to play with, and books galore. But still..."I need something else!" ARG!

We are still using the 2 minute rule but have morphed it into you-have-2-minutes instead of do-you-want-to-now-or-in-2-minutes. And she has caught on to our saying, "2 minutes are up!" by retorting (and yes, it is a retort), "No! 2 minutes DOWN!" Thank you Micky for teaching her opposites. It's really funny to hear.

Also today I couldn't find her new doll's ice cream cone. (You feed the doll the ice cream, it gets all over the dolls face and you have to wipe it up with warm water. Or you could wait until it gets warm enough and it fades away.) So I called Juice at work to see if he knew where it was. She asked to ask him, and couldn't keep her hands off the phone while I called him. I had to dial it 3 times. And then when she got to talk to Juice, she just went off. She told him that she couldn't find the ice cream and she looked all over and it's lost and gone forever and she can't find it in the whole wide world. Then she went off on a tangent about a garbage can which was the only word I could really make out. Luckily, Juice knew where it was and we were able to rescue Chloe's ice cream. (The name came with the doll. And it's not always Chloe. Sometimes it's Cindy.)

Just now she told me that Soot's red bone will make her feel better. And ran and put it on Soot's paw. She is just too cute!

Safire

Funny Girl

Everyone,

Butterfly's vocabulary is increasing and she is saying hilarious things. A few days ago, our friends from Juice's work brought her a birthday present. So when we picked Juice up from work, she was so excited! She talked all about blowing out her candles and how old she was (I two! I two!). So yesterday, when we went to pick up Juice from work, she didn't say hello to him. The only thing she asked was, "Where my birfday present? Where my candles?" Silly girl.

One other thing that amazes me is her ability to tell restaurants what she wants to eat. Either she is not very shy, or we eat at restaurants often. Last week we had friends from Las Vegas visiting and we went out to lunch. The waiter came up to us, and she said, "Hi! I want hot dog please. Thanks!" And smiled. And then she added, "Oh, milk too." The waiter was very good but I think he did a double take. I did a little one myself. Where did my baby go?

She is amazing.

Safire

Thanks

Everyone,

Thank you for all your kind notes and flowers and gifts that you have sent me. It's nice to know that everyone loves and is thinking of us. It's hard to loose this baby so far into the pregnancy. I seriously thought we were past the danger point. That makes it 10 times worse.

However, Juice and I are choosing to focus on the future. I am going to put all of the ultrasounds (3 of them, all with heartbeats) and all the notes and all the belly pictures I took into a safe place. I don't want to forget this pregnancy, but I don't want to dwell on it either. I did feel the baby move first around 11 weeks. I thought the baby was strong. I have no doubt that another strong baby will come into our lives and we will get to see him or her grow up. S/he better not be strong willed though. We already have one of those and I think 2 of them will drive me screaming from the house. :)

I am playing phone tag with both my OB's office and my RE's office (that's the place where we go to GET pregnant) and we're thinking of starting things up again in the fall. That is if my hormone levels are going down appropriately. Don't expect me to talk about the RE here. It makes me moody and cross and I don't like myself while on the hormones. And don't expect me to say anything once I do get pregnant for awhile. The hardest thing this time has been telling other people. Juice and I took turns crying on the phone for a few days telling everyone. Our parents were nice enough to tell family for us.

Butterfly for about 3 days wanted to see the baby in my belly. I'm so glad that her memory is short.

I see a big thunderstorm rolling our way so I should go. Thanks again.

Safire

Butterfly 2 year old stats

Everyone,

Our big girl is getting bigger by leaps and bounds! We went to the doctor the other day and got her official 2 year old stats. She is 32 lbs (about the 110%) and 37 inches long (135th%). She still has a nice small head of 19 inches around which is only in the 90th%. She is seriously as big as a 3 year old. They measured her 4 times at the doctor's office because they didn't think it was right. And when the doctor came in, she told her where to sit, where she was going to sit and where I was sitting. The doctor looked at me and said, "She's bright. Do you read chapter books to her? She might like them." I nearly fell off the floor. Chapter books?! I know I like them but she just barely turned 2. I haven't tried any with her yet but I'm interested to see if she would like them. She has about 15 of her books memorized (so do I) and will read them out loud to herself. So maybe...

This is Butterfly and her new bike we got her for her birthday. Okay, I bought it at Christmas time because I got it on a huge sale (normally over $120, I got it for around $60...nice!) but it's been in our attic since then. She loves the thing and begs to go out on it at least 3 times a day. I need to get her a helmet. I wish she could pedal herself because she gets frustrated and then pushes the bike with the handle. And that is SLOW GOING. The bike also adjusts out so as they get longer, you can make sure it fits properly. She is already on the next to the last hole. But I don't think that's going to stop her.

Every day she amazes me with her sweet nature and spunkiness. She was always a sweet and spirited baby, and has not really changed a whole lot. Well, except for the "Do it myself!" and hitting we are dealing with but that's 2 years old for you. She's a love even with that.

Safire

A sad morning

Everyone,

So this morning I was doing the wash and came across some of my maternity shirts that I had just pulled out a few days before the news. It seemed sad that I wore them maybe once this time around, and now I have to put them back in the box. Even sadder seems to be the pants that I bought because I was going to be pregnant in the summer, that I never wore. One still even has the tags on them. I wonder if I can find the receipt and take them back. Another sad thought...

I get my blood test results back tomorrow. From now on, I'll be having weekly blood draws to make sure that my body is doing what it should. I have gotten to be on such good terms with the lab that they know me by sight. They also want to find a new vein in my arm to take the blood from, since the one that they always use is starting to develop scar tissue and is harder to poke. That just strikes me as sad too.

Butterfly has been pretty good during all of this. I think she is picking up on the sadness around here because she's been having more tantrums lately. But I've been trying to keep things normal for her and actually get her out playing with her friends. I think she got used to people around all the time in Utah and is feeling a little lonely now that it's just us.

And that's a little sad too.

Safire

It was supposed to be happy.

Everyone,

Today was the day that I was supposed to share some good news with you. After more struggles to get pregnant, we did! I didn't want to say anything here because I wanted to tell our family in person. And we just came back from our family. So we were all happy and things seemed to be going normally.

Then I went to the doctor for a routine visit. No heartbeat on the doppler. No heartbeat on the ultrasound at the office. No heartbeat at the emergency ultrasound at the hospital. Baby was measuring around 13 weeks, when I should have been around 16 weeks.

We are sad. We are unhappy. I am especially unhappy because this throws us back into the infertility world of shots and timing and the like. I know I don't talk about it much on here because it makes me very dark and moody. But back we go. If I swore, now would be a good time for an oath.

The worst part is loosing what was supposed to be. We were supposed to have a baby around Thanksgiving. We were supposed to fly home in March for my Grandpa's 80th birthday with another cute one. We were supposed to give Butterfly a sibling. It was supposed to work. We were going to be happy. I was getting all excited to pull out all the clothes we would need. I picked out the double stroller I wanted. We have everything but the mattress to move Butterfly into a big girl bed so the new baby could use the crib.

But now, it's just sad. Yes, I can still do some of those things when we get pregnant again. But now Butterfly and the new baby will be that much farther apart in age. And if it takes us awhile to get pregnant, again, like it always does, they will be even farther apart. I now have to worry about loosing baby fat with no baby to cuddle.

It's just plain sad.

Safire