Mike is traveling, which generally puts a dark fear in my heart around bedtime these days. Facing a night alone with a newborn and a toddler who hasn't been a great sleeper this week isn't a great situation, especially after an especially long (read: lots of crying from both parties) day. Friend Suzi gave me the best advice last night when I was talking to her about our no-napping afternoon & evening - Go to bed as soon as West falls asleep!! I generally ignore the sleep when the baby sleeps advice, because sleeping just sort of goes against my personality (sigh), but I was spent & climbed into bed shortly after I finally won the battle of getting his sweet little eyes to close.
West gave me a 7 hour stretch of sleep (world record!), woke up to eat for a few minutes, & is still sleeping now, so I've decided I'll keep him.
(I have a favorite verse in Romans about being able to do all things through God, but lately, I feel like I really just need is a half-dozen hours of consecutive sleep.)
Last night, I updated my phone & all of the 7,000+ photos that I've taken with it (oops) over the past 2 years - little casual, honest snapshots of our lives - were just gone. They've since been found & recovered, but CAN SOMEONE PLEASE COME BACK UP MY LIFE? I have serious anxiety about all of the photos & blogs I have in various forms & places, & the thought of losing them makes me shudder - but finding the time to do it all seems absolutely impossible (back up all of my photo files a few different ways, make various photo books, print photos for various walls in my house, figure out the best way to print my Instagram photos, keep up with the boy's blogs, blog & tell stories so that I feel like I'm recording the important things since I don't journal...). I can't seem to stop taking photos (although I'm trying to focus more on quality vs. quantity) which means this list is sort of never ending. I'm not even going to take the photos off of my camera from the past few days until I actually go through the ones I have from the past 2 weeks (including taking photos in the hospital for sweet friend Natalie who had her twins!). Overwhelmed!
What else: I'm on a gluten AND dairy free diet as of last week, thanks to the great mystery that is West's reflux (sad). Let's hope we get it figured out soon, because it's no fun for all involved, although Trader Joe's makes a gluten free + dairy free snickerdoodle that has the potential to counter all weight loss potential of such a diet. Sigh.
We had both sets of parents in town this past weekend for West's blessing. A full house of Grandmas & Grandpas to smother (said in the best way) Quinn with attention. My mom & I cooked up a storm, & I was happy to have a bowl of (gluten free with rice milk) cereal for dinner last night. Anyway - Perhaps due to all of the excitement (?), Quinn woke up in the middle of the night every night while everyone was here, unusual for a boy who is generally a very good sleeper unless he is sick. On night number three, our 2am conversation went sort of like this:
Q: I'm sad, I'm sad!
Mama: Quinn, don't be sad! Tomorrow will be such a fun day! We get to go to church!
Q: Ella!
Mama: Yes, you'll get to see Ella in nursery & you can play!
Q: Park?
Mama: We'll go to the park tomorrow & play, yes.
Q: Choo choo?
Mama: And you can play with your choo choos, too - but we need to go to sleep first.
Q: Night, night (I put him happily back into his crib where he goes to sleep).
Those are the priorities of this little boy right now - Ella, choo choos & the park. Milk is a close #4, but I'm sure he says each of these words at least 100 times a day. I wish I could climb into his little brain, but I'm fairly certain I know what I'd find.
Yesterday, I grabbed lunch for us at Chick Fil A on my way home from a doctor's appointment. Q was playing at a friend's house during my appointment & I picked him up on my way home. When I pulled the bag out of the car when we go home he smiled & said, Chick fil A!
(I don't know what this says about my life, but I promise we don't go that often.)
The other night, in the kitchen with everyone, he started jumping around excitedly & saying Mommy's making cake!! over & over & over again in the most excited & happy voice you've ever heard. See, here's the deal - first, he's never ever ever called me mommy (always mom or mama), & secondly, this was a big fat lie - I was doing no such thing. But still - Mommy's making cake!! Over & over.
And then walking into church on Sunday - he called me Kathryn. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than Dad.
Also, I turned 30. Whoa! Although really, I'm so happy with it. I love my husband, my boys, & my life in general. No complaints.
*This post has nothing to do with the election.
Yesterday, I grabbed lunch for us at Chick Fil A on my way home from a doctor's appointment. Q was playing at a friend's house during my appointment & I picked him up on my way home. When I pulled the bag out of the car when we go home he smiled & said, Chick fil A!
(I don't know what this says about my life, but I promise we don't go that often.)
The other night, in the kitchen with everyone, he started jumping around excitedly & saying Mommy's making cake!! over & over & over again in the most excited & happy voice you've ever heard. See, here's the deal - first, he's never ever ever called me mommy (always mom or mama), & secondly, this was a big fat lie - I was doing no such thing. But still - Mommy's making cake!! Over & over.
And then walking into church on Sunday - he called me Kathryn. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than Dad.
Also, I turned 30. Whoa! Although really, I'm so happy with it. I love my husband, my boys, & my life in general. No complaints.
*This post has nothing to do with the election.
4 comments:
oh my I love the pic of their feet you should have some one take it with your feet in it too! and I am glad you've decided to keep west. If you didn't I would totally take him he is completely adorable.
I applaud you for going to sleep, its not easy, but it makes you feel NEW.
For the past 3 years I have started making a photo book with the goal to be done by Christmas. The same photo book. I have never finished. I think your anxiety is well-founded because you DO journal, your blog is your journal, so getting it in hard copy is going to be amazing.
Does your babysitter know html? :)
it kills me that quinn talks. i know that he does because i've heard it, but i just can't wrap my head around it. he's too little, right?
if i could hire a personal assistant without it sounding completely and totally absurd, it would be a tech guy to clean up my hard drive and organize my projects. does eva do computers?
Your observations about backing up life feels like you crawled in my brain. If life could pause for like one week so I could make all the photo books, frames, notes, catch up blog posts from the last oh... 12 years? That'd be great.
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