23 months!

In one week from today exactly, Claire will turn the big TWO! WOW! She has become such an incredible little person. But along the same line, she has changed me so much. I wasn't the same person. I wasn't a Mommy before. Now I see the world with Mommy eyes. Everything looks more dangerous...AHH!
Claire still loves her car. She loves playing with her little toy cars too. Actually, she loves pretty much all her toys. Well, except for stuffed animals. I even try to play with them with her, and she doesn't dig them. I wonder if she'll get into them more when she's older or if they were invented as Goodwill fodder.

CHEESE! Claire will push her car over to the door and knock on it and say "CAR! OUTSIDE! NOW!"

Last night we went to the local fair. It was interesting. First of all...the fair is really super tiny. There are like 4 food booths...the parking is free...and it's free to get in. So basically these things tell you the fair will be what you pay for it. Crappy! The parking lots are jammed and muddy. There is nobody directing traffic. There is no place to park. Since it's free everyone goes there. We parked in an ultra-muddy spot. Yay for gas-guzzling SUVs...they are good to park in the spot where little cars can't park. So we wanted to go to show Claire the 4-H animals, which she totally loved.

We saw geese, chickens, rabbits, llamas, cows, calves, sheep, pigs, and lots of interesting humans. I think the carnies should count right in with the interesting ones. I also enjoy looking at the 4-H displays. The 4-H hall is really tiny, too. You can't even see half of the stuff because they have it all piled on top of each other.

We walked through the "commercial" area...Claire got a sucker and a free balloon. We walked around the rides as well, but decided Claire would probably freak out on them. We tried to put her on a ride at the store recently. She loved sitting on it until we put the money in to get it moving. Then she freaked out. I even tried to sit on it with her, but she was not having it. So maybe by next summer she will be begging to go on them. She didn't even seem interesting in trying to go on the rides. I was pointed at them and asking her if she wanted to ride them, but she just clung to me tighter.

So we had fun, but didn't spend a dime. Claire let go of her balloon and was sad...I'll have to get her some helium ones for her birthday. I was asking her about the animals today when I was getting her dressed (something I like to talk to her about in the morning...what did we do yesterday?) and all she kept saying was, "Balloon, bye-bye! Up in sky! All gone!"

So speaking of talking about stuff, she is just saying all sorts of location names now...now she is saying bathroom "Bafroom"; office; carpet; driveway; patio; porch; hallway; kitchen "Kitch-en"; "MY ROOM!" She also says "baby gate." Yesterday, she said "I OPEN BABY GATE" behind me...sure enough...she was halfway down the stairs...unaccompanied. YIKES!

She has caught on to not only verbs, but how to use them with the -ing and -ed to a degree.

She might say: "I see boy mow" or "I seeing boy mow" or "I see-ed boy mow." It amazes me how she is picking up on this. I am still trying to do some baby signs with her because everything I've read has told me physically doing the sign helps them reinforce their language skills even more...plus I just think it's fun! She loves to move, especially with all her songs that require motion. Some of her favorite songs are the one involving movements...think "Wheels on the Bus"; "Itsy-bitsy Spider"...etc.

I am always working on manners with her. She is consistently saying "No thank you" and "Please" as well as "Pretty Please". Now I am trying to teach her "Yes please" instead of just "YES!" She is so fun to talk to, and I feel like I can have a real conversation with her.

When Daddy comes home, she tells him immediately the most important things. "I FALL DOWN (by) STOVE!" She wanted to tell him that she got hurt and wanted to make sure that Daddy knew!

She totally has her favorite books...still those involving people or animals! She is very interesting in those portraying sad babies...ESPECIALLY if they have tears. She will kiss the picture then hug the book to her chest and say "BABY HAPPY!" Then she will turn to the next page and smile and pat the happy face. She has such an interest in crying, too. If we are in a store, she will say "Baby crying!" Sometimes it's way off in the distance and I won't even notice it until she tells me.

She is also in love with airplanes, trucks, and cars! She gets excited to see "big trucks" like semis if we are on the highway. She also tells me every day when the mail comes. She has great little ears for the mail truck. She also gets a special kick out of the garbage truck when it comes weekly. One day I left the car door open to go to the end of the driveway to get the mail. Normally she will just get on her little bike or follow me. Well, she climbed into the car, climbed over the seat and sat in the drivers seat.

It was hilarious. She patted the steering wheel and said "I drive Mommy car! I DRIVING!!! I DRIVING" Then she wiggled the steering wheel back and forth. She always wants to go bye-bye. Of course, it's because anywhere we go is usually fun! Well...I can't believe she is going to be 2 next week. TIME IS FLYING!

Oh, and she is cutting another tooth on the bottom! Her teeth have been late at coming in. Last year at this time...she had only 2!!!

PATIO! ALL DONE!

Claire is so excited that she can put on these velcro dress shoes herself. If I let her, she would probably spend all day in the laundry room playing with her shoes. We also call this the pantry, but I don't actually keep any food in here...it's all in the cupboards in the kitchen!
Wrong foot! She doesn't seem to care about getting them on the right foot yet!

She loves to play with this squishy orange ball!

Dirty footprints! YIKES! Well we have a big mud ring around the edge now.

She loves the patio already!

Notice my tomato plants? I have 3 and 1 pepper plant!

Next Step!

So it's pretty much done by this step! The extra black powder stuff which was a finisher was washed off with the power washer. Then it dried again...from the washing.

Then it was time for sealant. It then had to dry again between coats. Then it was re-sealed with a second coat. Then that had to dry.

Then there were lines cut into it to prevent cracking. If you see cracks in sidewalks or driveways sometimes the sections were too big.

Step Six: LET IT DRY!

Step Five: Add black powder and STAMP IT!

Step Four: SMOOTH IT!

Step Three: Add Concrete!

Step Two: GRAVEL LAYER!

Step One: DEMOLITION TIME!

We recently got our patio done! I will be posting some more pictures in this process. But step one is here...Bobcat time! First the dirt had to be moved to make way for the concrete!
We have really hard, clay-like soil, as you can see, the Bobcat had to work to get the ground up.

This is one way to get rid of that dang mint that had taken over the back flower-bed. HEHE! :)

Comment Away!

Ok, so I had 3 emails yesterday about having trouble leaving comments. Yargh. Then my Dad called me and he and my mom never can leave comments...so I have changed the settings so ANYONE can comment without ever signing in. However, I am still requiring typing in a code word to prevent spam comments. Also, please do sign your name. It drove me nuts when I was trying to guess who was leaving what comments. I can kind of guess who is saying what (like my brother Richie leaves usually highly entertaining comments) but it is just easier and doesn't leave me wondering about who could leave such a gross spelling mistake. I want to call you up and tell you that YOUR and YOU'RE are NOT THE SAME.

I think that the OPEN ID is hard to use for non-frequent users, but it is possible! Anyways, if you don't put your name in the top box, then sign it in the actual comment.

I don't know...I really don't think that my life is THAT INTERESTING that I need to make my blog private, but I think private blogs settings are annoying because they will not show up in my feedreader. If you don't know what a feedreader is (ahem, Mom and Dad) it is basically an email set-up that checks new blog posts. So 5 seconds after someone posts a new blog posting, it will show up in my feedreader, which uses the same Outlook set-up that I use for my email. I hope I didn't totally butcher that explanation. I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong. HA!

So back to other annoying things. If you have a feedreader, I would really advise you to "follow" your own blog and subscribe to your own updates. This way you can see if there are ever any problems or broken pictures, etc. Also, if you have more than one author (like a spouse) you will be alerted to their post without them having to tell you.

Also a tip...change your settings in your blog layout for a FULL feedreader view. WHY? Well, I subscribe to some more commercially blogs, that sometimes post about stuff that interests me (breastfeeding and other parenting issues like discipline, etc...) but if my attention isn't caught in those first 2 AND ONLY lines...guess what...I'm not going to click on "VIEW ONLINE" -- ever. It will get deleted and never looked at...UNLESS...it becomes a big deal, which will be made clear because some other blogger will post about it, or I might see it on Twitter. Also, if you post a video or slideshow, try to remember to SAY you are posting a video, etc.. because it will show up as a little empty white space in the feedreader, and nobody will know it was ever there.

Also, if you do not have a profile picture, SET ONE...it takes all of 30 seconds! If you do not know how to do this, then leave a comment, and I will have to take 30 seconds to write a post on HOW TO. REALLY...it's under your profile...take 5 minutes to figure it out and stop annoying me with your little grey pictures. :) HEHE. Actually, on some other blogs that I follow, with lots more followers, I've noticed like 10 or more people that haven't set profile pictures. Seriously? You take the time to have a blog and post stuff, but can't set a profile picture. This is like leaving the default answering machine message on. Oh wait? You haven't set a personal voicemail...well ok, then...that explains everything. Hehe. No, I still love you all!!!

If you follow my blog and aren't listed as a follower (check the upper right where all the little blog profile pictures are)...FOLLOW ME! :)

If you have been following my blog as a silent stalker and are waiting for a chance to introduce yourself...do so now...open comments! SAY HI! Leave a link to your blog if you have one and I may start stalking you. Blogs are fun...they are so voyeuristic...as is Facebook...a sneak peek into someones life...what fun!

Ok, that's about it for my rants and complaints then...have a happy Monday! :)

Want your wallet returned?

If you ever are afraid you might lose your wallet, then keep a big picture of a baby in the front: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6681923.ece Then it will be more likely to be returned. Check it out!

Congrats to ALL Mamas!

All Moms deserve lots of trophies and recognition. I just wanted to say congrats to ALL mamas on nursing their babes...whether the nursing relationship was 3 hours, 3 days, 3 months, or 3 years plus...I think parenting is THE HARDEST JOB EVER. NOTHING can prepare anyone on what it is like to be a parent. And mothers in particular, because, let's face it, even working moms do the traditional brunt of the housework, cooking, and childcare. But I think especially, nursing Moms deserve a round of applause because in a bottle-feeding world, we don't know what to expect and sometimes feel a need to defend our choices.

I posted a status on Facebook that I was excited to be coming up on our 2 year nursing anniversary with the approach of Claire's birthday. I did not mean this as a bragging insult to any other Mommas. Instead, I was just trying to say I am proud of myself for sticking with it. So if being proud of myself is bragging, then I guess I was bragging, but I wasn't trying to be. We had a rough start. I didn't know how people could nurse a whole year...or more! When Claire was born, the doctor used the vacuum extractor as she came out face-up. If I had been a smaller woman with a smaller frame, she would have totally been a C-Section baby. PLUS...my water had been broken more than 30 hours ago, etc...so anyways...why does this matter? Well, because her head freaking hurt and she would not nurse on both sides. She would only nurse on the left side, which is totally understandable because it hurt when the other side of her head (where the suction was). Anyways, we dealt with a sleepy (drugged up?), non-latching newborn baby. And when she did latch, she did not latch well...so she didn't get much milk out...so she NURSED CONSTANTLY for about the first 6 weeks. And she didn't latch right and I had sore nipples, bleeding and scabby...until one day I noticed the scab chunk was gone when Claire pulled off. The joke is always bleeding nipples give the baby some extra iron. Which...ewww...but anyways...she burped up the scab. I was glad she didn't not digest it, but I will stop talking about that grossness.

Another thing I dealt with was her getting too much foremilk as I was obsessed with switching sides. I would do 10 minutes on one side, 10 minutes on the other, then if she wanted more, it was back to the other. WHY? Well, this is what the hospital told me to do. And I wanted to take their "advice." Well their advice sucked. It was wrong. Well, she was never getting the hindmilk which is richer in fat. It took me about 2 months until I figured out I didn't need to time it, and I just went with the flow. In the hospital we were offered a nipple shield as Claire would not latch because she was asleep...DUH! Thankfully, from Cherish's experiences at LLL that I heard about, I refused the nipple shield. We were offered formula. The nurse even went as far as going to get a little bottle of it, and put some formula on my breast to "tempt" her to want to nurse. UGH. It ticks me off that I can't say she "never" had a drop of formula because I think a couple drops got in her mouth of that. She did not wake up that session and I threw that premade bottle of formula in the trash, angry that we'd probably been charged $12 or something unreal for it.

UGH. ANYWAYS...we had other struggles. She went from 7.15 at birth to about 6.9...some weight loss is normal, but even more weight loss is normal after an induction and IV meds like I had (pit, antibiotics, and some other painkillers to bring down my BP because it shot up so high from the pain of the pit/backlabor, etc.) Had I not known better, I might have supplemented because who wants to let their baby lose weight. So we also dealt with biting and bloody nipples at around 12 months, at which point I KNEW why women weaned for biting. But I figured out what worked for her to get her to stop. I didn't have a choice...she would not take solids. At 15 months Dr. W. labeled her at FTT (failure to thrive) which I laugh about now. NOW I think I had an oversupply because she gained weight sooo fast in the beginning. She was up to 19 lbs by 4 months! And 24 lbs by 9 months. Well at that point she grew taller, but her weight stayed the same then dropped. She was 23.5 lbs at 15 months. And Dr. W. did not like that she was not eating. Ha...of course she was eating! Every 2 hours plus. I drove myself crazy about this for awhile, but then decided she was fine. She was biting me when she didn't want to nurse because I was obsessed with trying to make sure she ate more. She finally clicked at about 18 months at Christmas and started eating. By 19 months at Holly's wedding shower, she was snatching candies off the table and cramming her little mouth full. Apparently, I just hadn't been offering anything she liked. :) When we go in for her 2 year check, the doc will probably tell me she is obese or something. LOL!

We've had days where she has only nursed at waking up, nap-time and bed-time, but it is usually more like she is still nursing at least 6 times a day and twice at night (AT LEAST!) and sometimes I wonder if she will ever wean. But then I remember...she is weaning! At any point when any other solids or liquids (water/juice/cow's milk/etc.) are given, weaning has started. Weaning just has to be a REALLY REALLY slow process to help the mom from becoming engorged which can lead to mastitis and/or plugged ducts...and the child needs to be weaned gently with love for obvious reasons. Whenever I have posted or will post about breastfeeding, I don't want anyone who has ever had trouble nursing to feel guilty or like they need to defend themselves. I know sometimes I've been in a situation where I feel like I need to defend my reasons for continuing to nurse for so long. I guess if you think about anything too much it will drive you crazy.

I know lots of ladies have had bad luck with LLL, which breaks my heart. Read this post and the comments here to see what I mean: http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/06/22/lll-is-too/ But we also have to remember, that's like saying, well, I don't like public education, because Mrs. Smith who was my son's 1st grade teacher hit him (or whatever). LLL is a huge INTERNATIONALE organisation, and we have to remember each meeting is different. All the experiences we bring will change conversations at these meetings. And just because one meeting didn't go well for a person, does not mean that the whole organization sucks. I have found great friends there and really enjoy going to the meetings.

Anyway, I think it all goes back to we are all just looking out for ourselves and what works best for our families. Nursing works for ours, so that's what we do. I'm signing off for the moment!