Amelia is Rabbit? Who is that? (And a little HarriEd update)

Hi.  I haven't been writing on my blog because a) life is busy, and b) the internet/computer at my parents' house is slower than a three-toed sloth.  And when life is busy and I have to poke around on the computer for twenty minute before I can get Blogger to load...well, I guess I just get too paranoid about wasting time.

(Charlotte-who-is-looking-over-my-shoulder just told me that she can read everything I'm typing. She has grown up!  Pretty soon that will be Harriet-reading-over-my-shoulder!  Ah!)

So what has made life so busy?  We moved back to Nebraska a little over a month ago. We're living with my folks until we can get back into our house (which involves some shifting about of the relations who are renting).  After a whirlwind trip to California to visit Steve's family and go to an Acts 29 Boot Camp, we drove with Steve's parents for four days through the Southwest and Midwest in order to make it back to Kansas City for Steve to be in a wedding.  If you want a boost in your sanctification, just drive for 1300+ miles with an almost-one-year-old.  Eesh.  It was worth it, however.  The wedding was crazy fun because it was Christ-centered, involved lots of people whom I love, and also had a dance after the ceremony. You can't beat that combination.  Steve started work the following Monday and I tackled the laundry before it tackled me.

Since then, I've babysat Heathen, returned to Jazzercise, was "hired" to do contract work as an alterationist for a local clothing store, launched my cupcakes at the bakery, had dreams of starting a family-integrated Acts 29 church, helped my mom declutter the craft and laundry rooms, and schemed about painting the walls in my house.

HarriEd is growing up...fast.  She will be one in a few weeks and that completely blows my mind.  Totally and utterly and completely.  Her favorite foods are beans and rice, cauliflower, green beans, oatmeal and applesauce, graham crackers (honey-free!), and...ice cream.  Actually, she is a fantastic sport about trying new things and will eat almost anything.  But when she sees ice cream it's like her life has reached its climax of delight.

Her favorite pastime is taking things out of boxes and then climbing into the box.  She is beginning to really play with her toys: hugging her stuffed dog and dragging it around, stacking the rings back onto her stacker toy, and reading interactive books (Where's Spot? is the hit of the moment).  HarriEd is also learning new words. Right now she can say Thank you, Hi, Bye, Mom, Dad, Done, Dog, Moo, Out, Noodle-Noodle (which is actually her word for nursing), and Look.  And she loves to sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

What can I say?  Having a toddler is nothing but awesome. 

(Now Charlotte wants to do a craft project.  Bye!)

Packing again, the trip to Nebraska

Last night was ROUGH with the ol' HarriEd.  Maybe it was the whacked out schedules of the weekend, or maybe it was the chocolate chips in her ten month birthday cookie that she ate, but she woke up TEN times last night.  The goofy part was that she would whine and whine and then nurse and then roll over a few moments later and put herself to sleep.  Even though she wasn't nursing back to sleep, she still woke up and woke up her parents, too.  Thankfully, when Harriet popped awake this morning, her dear daddy was equally eager to get her out of bed so I could sleep (or at least lie there for a few moments without her wearing my skin clean off).  

I know I may live to recant this, but with our next kid we are not co-sleeping the way we have co-slept with Harriet.  End of story.  Do you realize that I have been talking about Harriet's sleeping issues since she was eight weeks old?  Eeps!  These have been eight long months of sleepless nights.  But I should quit talking about it and move on to something else.

Like moving!  I have been packing most of the morning.  We are moving on Friday, which seems like it is coming up rather quickly, but the reality is that Steve's last day of work is today and we don't have that much stuff to move.  We were debating whether or not my parents should bring their SUV down to pull the trailer, but we realized the other night that our car is capable of towing such a small trailer.  We are scheduled to get a hitch tomorrow and the trailer on Thursday, so hopefully we can get everything in boxes by then.  We are trying to keep Uhaul in business, it seems.  

The trip to Nebraska last weekend was quick, but I was so so so glad to be there to meet sweet baby Jemima!  She arrived on May 7th (Jacob's birthday), weighed 7 lbs, 7.5 oz, and has the loveliest crop of dark hair you ever did see.  She is just precious and I'm crazy-excited to be an aunt.  If you haven't already seen the loads of pictures on Facebook, here is a link to her album of birth pictures: Jemima

Being in the delivery room after Jemima's birth brought back a flood of memories about Harriet's delivery.  Kylie was taking pictures and when I walked in she said, "Doesn't it make you want to have another one?"  I responded, "YES!"  So yes, baby fever is rather catching and it's taking over a lot of my thoughts.  Of course I treasure these more grown-up-Harriet moments (i.e. I'm not engorged right now), but having another baby would be so wonderful.  Oh well, we'll wait and see.  In the meantime, H and I will spend many an hour over at the Clevi abode, snuggling that sweet baby up.

Harriet is napping right now, which means that I should try to get some more stuff in boxes.  Whee.

The move, the Harriet, and dark chocolate

We had some really exciting news yesterday regarding our move to Nebraska: Steve was offered a job back at BD, five days a week, 3-11pm.  And our benefits package (which was excellent, by the way) would begin immediately.  This is such a blessing for the obvious reason of not having to find a job upon landing in Nebraska, but also because this is a half-way decent shift.  He'll be able to be at church consistently, and I won't have to be home alone at night.  Eeee!  Of course, there are lots of details to be worked out (he has to be all official and re-apply, do a background check, and finalize a start date) and we're praying that those details will work themselves out smoothly.  Sometimes it's hard for me to get excited about circumstances because I worry that those circumstances will be short-lived.  I don't want to be disappointed again.  But why not be happy instead of stressed?  It's a lot easier and doesn't waste so much energy.

We don't have a moving date set in stone yet.  We thought we were going to Atlanta next weekend, but now that is off, so we may be able to move sooner.  My mom is considering driving the fambly's Suburban out here so that we can tow a small Uhaul trailer.  It seems stupid to rent an entire truck ($$$) when the only large piece of furniture is our bed.  I need to start a moving list and getting things into boxes.  Didn't I just do this?

And then we come to Harriet.  I think her new teeth must be bothering her still because she has been cranky. Because she hasn't been eating as much solid food as usual, she has been nursing more.  That's all fine and dandy (I mean, I want her to keep nursing for as long as she needs to and she needs to keep getting sufficient sustenance with the drop off of solid foods), but she gets so frustrated with who-knows-what that she has been biting so crazy hard.  My initial reaction is to yank her off and say NO in my firmest Mommy voice.  But then she gets a sneaky grin on her face and does it all again.  Grrr.  And OUCH.  My dearly beloveded mother who has breastfed five babies with a variety of temperaments and in an abundance of situations told me to pop Harriet off immediately, sit her down on the floor, and walk away.  Without saying a word.  That is hard for me, since I want to explain away the situation, but it seems to be working.  She wails for a while because her ego has been deflated, but then we reconcile and nursing is better.

Sometimes I worry that we are not eating healthily enough.  I mean, I can't afford organic food, and we don't use coconut oil, and sometimes we eat ice cream or syrup or pizza from Pizza Hut.  But I went grocery shopping yesterday and when I was standing in line I compared the items in my cart to the ones in the cart of the woman behind me.  The thing that struck me was that every single thing in her cart was white: ice cream, white bread, ramen noodles, donuts, chips, frosted flakes etc.  No vegetables or fruit or anything that wasn't processed.  No wonder people have a hard time weaning themselves from processed food to healthier choices!  Even though my food wasn't entirely organic, at least I had a cart full of vegetables and whole grains.    I want to be constantly improving in our food choices, but I guess we are still doing a pretty good job of putting healthy things into our bodies.

And in light of that discussion, I will now talk about chocolate.  Ha.  But really, Clara shared this idea with me and it actually is good for you.  Just melt dark chocolate chips and add whole almonds (or whatever kind of nut you like) plus a bit of crushed toffee (okay, this part isn't good for you - it's just good).  Spread it out on waxed paper and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.  Let it set and voila!  The Most Delicious Thing on the Planet. And as long as you don't gorge yourself on mounds of the stuff, you can feel pretty good about eating it.

Steve is off fixing a roof for an older couple from work and I'm off to St. Louis for a grand day out with Jenna.  We're going to check out some of the free stuff, drive through Forest Park, eat at Whole Foods, and just have a good time.  Yay!

Harriet, decisions, changing mindsets

You know how hard it is to get back in the habit of something once you have stopped doing it?  Like remembering to make the bed, or to clean up the kitchen every night, or to write on a blog.  Sometimes it feels like I'm so behind that it's not worth catching up.  But here I am, nevertheless.  I'm not going to apologize too much...just press on ahead to bigger and better (or at least more consistent) things!  (There's something in the Bible about that, methinks.)

Harriet needs to receive some credit for my blogging absence.  The little miss Inexhaustible has been making valiant attempts to ditch the morning nap (AHH!) thus denying me the hour or so of uninterrupted typing time.  I'm not really sure what to do about the morning nap ditch.  On some days it's easy to go with the flow: she gets up later (8:30am), messes around all morning, and takes an early afternoon nap.  But on other days the lack of nappage is like scraping my fingernails over a chalkboard.  Harriet whines if she doesn't sleep and whines if I try to get her to go to sleep.  And I sit on the bed staring at her theatrics and praying for patience.

In other HarriEd news, she now has four teeth.  Yes indeedy, after a hectic Saturday night and a cranky Easter morning, two more pearly whites emerged on her top gum.  So cute!  And such a relief.  I think I'd rather deal with two teeth at once than the pain and agony happening for one tooth at a time.  She also likes to plan to have her teeth arrive on holidays, which is rather festive and makes it easier for me to remember (since I am an absolute FAIL when it comes to writing things down in a baby book).  With the arrival of the new teeth, HarriEd's appreciation for mushed up food has waned significantly.  It's a bit discouraging to have so many former favourites be denied with such vehemence.  Her poor mommy is left wondering what in the world to do!  Thankfully, Harriet has become a great fan of cheesy Mexican rice casserole and zucchini pizza casserole.  Go figure.

With all of her drama, we love her still!

After a lot of discussion, prayer, more discussion, tears, and more discussion, we have made the decision to move back to Nebraska.  We were waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike and God's booming voice to tell us if we should stay or if we should go, but since that didn't happen we had to weigh our options and just choose.  (Well, there has been a lot of lightning around here recently, but no booming voice.  Just scary tornadoes.)  The reasons for moving are as follows:

1. The lack of money.  God has provided for all of our needs through various and sundry means, I must say.  But (I don't want to say "but," but I don't know what other word to use at this point) the lack of steady stable income has been most stressful for us and we haven't been able to save up any money for next year's classes at Covenant.  If we were to continue with school we would have to get a significant student loan which is what we want to avoid.
2. The lack of purpose.  Over the past few months of talking and having experiences and other things, Steve has come to grips with the fact that being in vocational ministry just isn't for us right now.  Maybe later on down the road of life God will lead us back into it.  But right now that doesn't seem to be the case.  It's really, really hard to have to switch gears like this...for both of us, but especially for Steve.  He knows that it would be foolish to spend time and money on a degree that lands him a job that doesn't meet our family's disposition.  We want to keep working in a church, but not vocationally - at least for right now.
3. The lack of family.  Being away from family has been much harder on me than I anticipated.  Granted, we have received a tremendous outpouring of support and care from the Gs and I'm crazy-grateful for that.  At the same time, it's really lonely to be in a new place with a little baby.  I can't get out and meet people.  We don't have the support of family when things are going rotten with H.  And the bottom line is that we believe that it is very important for Harriet to be around family while she is so little.  There's a reason why God designed the family, and when you don't have a dysfunctional one why not take advantage of the perks?

So we're tentatively planning on making the move back to our old house in the middle of May.  We hate to disappoint people or let people down, but we really have had to make a choice that we feel is best for our family.  And there you have it.

It's challenging to switch gears.  I mean, one of the whole reasons why I wanted to get married to Steve was because we had similar goals to be in ministry.  It was like, Hooray! Now we can be in ministry together!  He can work on sermons all day in his office, eat lunch with me, be off in the evenings, [enter other visions of happy married life], etc.  Now we are understanding that this isn't working out for us right now.  The whole Follow Your Dreams at Whatever Cost may work for Disney movies, but that sure isn't the reality of having to pay bills and keep yourself sane.  We feel confused and disappointed.  What next?  I think the goal for the next little bit will be to move forward with life, seeking God's direction, enjoying being a family and just being content to LIVE for a while.  We both struggle with living each day and not coveting some other greener grass.  Maybe that's the purpose for living a less adventurous lifestyle for a little while.

Sigh.

Harriet is actually asleep right now.  Glory be!  I need to fold and put away the Alpine range of laundry that we washed yesterday, type up a moving list, and clean up the kitchen.  Maybe this evening I'll get to work on my quilt.  That will be fun.

Have a good day, everybody!

This Tuesday Morning

I realized the other day that I haven't written a one-topic post in a while, unless you count the HarriEd updates which frequent this bloggie.  Those are definitely one topic as H would not allow herself to compete with anyone or anything else.  She must be the Only One.  Perhaps this lack of blogging focus is because my own brain feels exceptionally scattered these days.  The dear little child has the attention span of a gnat, and in order to keep up with her, my attention span is curtailed by force.  Thus when I try to focus on one thing for more than a minute, the gray matter starts bugging out.

In any case, HarriEd blows me away with her sweetness on a daily basis.  She is so stinkin' busy: every waking moment (of which there are many) is consumed with scooting around the floor, picking things up, and inserting them into her mouth.  I have to say, though, that she seems to be less prone to immediately sticking things in her mouth before giving them a good look over.  It's almost as if she is allowing herself to play with the item first.  Or at least give me time to discern if it is suitable for consumption.  Lately she has begun to eat chunks of food that I place on her highchair tray.

Aside from learning to clap, H has been pointing to facial features on my face and then pointing to the same facial features on herself.  I'll say "nose" or "mouth" or "eyes (ouch)" as appropriate and she gets this silly little grin on her face.  The other day she lifted up my shirt, pointed to my stomach and laughed.  I didn't really know what was so funny about my stomach (unless you are laughing at its flubbiness) until she put her mouth on it and performed a full-blown raspberry.  Apparently this was a game she had developed with her father.

HarriEd is also infatuated with herself.  She really needs a sibling because if this keeps up she will be the most vain child on earth (how can she help it when she has scores of friends and relations telling her how fantastic she is on a daily, if not moment by moment, basis?)  We have a picture of her hanging on the wall and every morning when she wakes up, she smiles at it and waves.  She also loves to watch movies of herself.  Sometimes when I'm making her lunch and she is whining in the highchair I'll put a short clip from the Flip on the computer.  She then settles down as she becomes overwhelmed with her own amazing-ness.

Okay, moving on from Harriet.

Steve has been working two jobs for the past week or so.  Cabinet Solutions wants him to work whenever he isn't at Wal Mart which equals lots and lots of hours (and an increased checking account!) and no days off.  We're hoping that he can switch to being full-time at CS because the pay is better, the hours are better, and he'll always have weekends off.

What have I been up to?  Taking care of those two people.  Cooking up new recipes from Food Matters.  Sewing in my spare time.  Attempting to make our house livable.  (Ha.)  Keeping in touch with friends and fambly.

I'd elaborate, but the muchkin woke up.  See?  I told you she was vain.

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun bonnet,

     She wore her greenest gown;

She turned to the south wind 

     And curtsied up and down.

She turned to the sunlight

     And shook her yellow head,

And whispered to her neighbor:

     "Winter is dead."

A.A. Milne

(Much thanks to Tessa for the beautiful flowers and the delightful company yesterday.]

The Tale of HarriEd

There once was a girl whose name was HarriEd.  She was a very busy little girl who liked to scoot around on the floor, pick things up, study them for a moment, and then stick them in her mouth.  There were other times of the day when she liked to stick other things in her mouth that were actually appropriate for consumption.

Sometimes HarriEd went outside.  This location afforded even more interesting sights, smells, and textures.  Small sticks, grass, and dried leaves were assailed by her dexterous little fingers.  Only a passing squirrel or robin could distract her from her task of evaluating and eating.

Then at other times, HarriEd's mommy let her play on the kitchen floor with such exciting things as plastic containers.  These were fun to bang on the floor and unload from the cupboard, but they paled in comparison to teensy weensy sweet potato muffin crumbs that were hiding under her highchair.  Her mommy came to remove such minute specimens, and HarriEd happily scooted away to find her next adventure.

When not eating, HarriEd liked to tell stories.  She told stories about kitties, and babies, and daddies.  She also read stories.  She read Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny and Barnyard Dance.  She also read Cat the Cat and all of the other Little Golden books on the revolving rack at Borders.

HarriEd liked to go to church.  At church she got to spend time with people besides her mommy and daddy, which usually resulted in lots of attention directed toward the cuteness of her person.  This she enjoyed very much, along with singing loudly and pulling herself up on the pew to talk loudly to the person behind her during the sermon.  All of this attention was almost as exciting as looking at pictures of herself on the computer - which became a nightly ritual.

And so HarriEd lived a happy life marred only by the occasional diaper rash, the infrequent absence of her mother and the inability to slobber on the xbox controller.

The End.