Happy Birthday Sarah!

You are such a sweet little thing. So lovey, so cute, and you give the best hugs. I wish I could hold you all day, every day, but I can’t. Your personality has been shining lately. You are a little explorer and you’re curious about things. Just like your sister. You don’t eat much, except for Cheerios, goldfish, and Gerber snacks. You don’t like fruits or veggies, but we’ll keep working on that. You & your sister play well together, except sometimes she just doesn’t want to be bothered with you. Get used to that because it won’t get any better.

You are getting a little better about being left with other people. Not great, but at least you don’t cry the entire time anymore. You went through a pretty cranky phase and I was a little worried that you just weren’t a happy kid. But you were sick for a while and I think you just weren’t so happy. Lately you smile more and laugh, and you are just so, SO cute when you do it! When you are not happy, your thumb is your best friend. You shove that thing in your mouth all the time, and you get upset when I take it out to get you dressed or try to feed you. But you are OK with it if it’s a snack or a bottle that you’re getting.

You love to walk around and put things in your mouth, pick up toys, and follow us. You love to be outside, and you can do that now that it’s been a little warmer. You are a little monkey though. It’s difficult for me to shop with you because even when you’re strapped into the shopping cart, you still manage to work your way out. The other day, you stood up and flipped over the side in a matter of seconds. I grabbed you by your feet and unstrapped the belt so I could readjust you, but I decided that I will just have to keep one hand on you when my eyes are off.

You love to dance whenever there’s music on, and you talk your little baby talk (yell, really) when you’re feeling good. I’m anxious for those to be words I can understand! You are getting to be so much fun, and I am excited about sharing your second year with you!

 

my little one-year-old and the daycare dilemma

Insomnia. Great time for a blog post. We are 3 days away from Sarah’s first birthday. I can’t believe she’s a year old already. I can’t believe she’s only a year old. It’s been a long year. I was reading back over my posts from around the time Jenna turned one, and they are so completely different! Not that I didn’t know that already, but I couldn’t remember exactly how Jenna was at precisely this age. Jenna seemed so much older than Sarah does at this stage. Jenna was a toddler already; Sarah is a baby. She is not the happiest baby. Not that she’s unhappy, necessarily, but she cries. A lot. I get so tired of listening to her cry & whine all the time, and mostly because she just wants to be held. I’d like nothing more than to hold her all day, but we all know that’s not possible. She really doesn’t laugh much either. After reading through Jenna’s stuff, I remember her laughing a lot. She had little games she would play with us. Peek a boo and such. Sarah is not that into any of that stuff. Sometimes we’ll find something that makes her laugh, and we’ll do it over and over and over. But it’s usually followed by crying because she’d rather be held. That’s OK–no reason to rush the baby stage, but I’m kinda ready to move on!

Poor Sarah has been sick for like a month. I guess not quite a month, since it started not too long before Christmas. Now she’s on antibiotics, because her third trip to the doctor for this same illness showed double ear infections. Her first ear infections, so I consider that lucky. The horrible cough just lingers! At least I’m not wiping her nose every 2 seconds anymore. Just every 10. I have my own sinus infection I’ve been battling for a month, too. A month and one day, to be exact. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything linger this long in my life. I thought it was just a cold that needed to run its course, but I started having this horrible tooth pain. Started in the jaw, but ended up settling over one tooth, and every time I took a step or made any sort of jerky movement, it felt like my tooth was being ripped out at the root. Nice. Anyway, I figured it was sinus related, and when I took Sarah to the doctor about her issues, her doctor wrote me an antibiotic prescription. FINALLY it is starting to go away now. Another week, maybe?

Speaking of illness, one thing I was reading in Jenna’s posts was about how we were sick all the time with colds and ear infections for her, and I blamed it on daycare. Sarah hasn’t been in daycare. She has been in the church a lot (she is FINALLY starting to get better about being left for a bit), but I’m thinking that’s why she has been so healthy. Now, I am thinking of putting them in daycare though. Big internal struggle. I have a great opportunity to work again, but part-time, so I would put them in the same daycare Jenna used to be in M/W/F. That’s the plan for now, but it will probably change by the end of the weekend. I’m not psyched about it, but I have had a huge struggle trying to find reliable babysitters. Besides–having them home with me while I’m locked in the office working is not the ideal solution. I can ignore Sarah’s crying when my mom is watching them, but I can’t really do that with a babysitter. She’s still too young to put in Mother’s Day Out, which wouldn’t give me enough time anyway. So from what I can find, it seems to be the best solution. I go to tour it next week and see if they even have the availability now, so I won’t make a decision until I see the rooms they’ll be in and meet the teachers. Ugggh, daycare. We gotta do what we gotta do.

And–2 am and I still can’t sleep. Really?

 

the Christmas post

December was, unfortunately, a pretty busy month. Always is, but I went to New York, and then the day after I got back, Jay went to San Diego for business for a week. He got back the 18th, which didn’t leave a whole lot of time before Christmas. I am not so productive with Jenna and Sarah awake, and they are usually awake.

We had a great time spending Christmas and Christmas Eve together though. Jenna was not that excited about it, but I don’t think she really “got” it. I think she will be more excited next year, if she remembers how many presents she got this year. I am very proud when I ask her why we celebrate Christmas and she says “because it’s Jesus’ birthday!” However–I think that may not happen in future Christmases. It’ll be all about the presents, but I will work to prevent that from happening. Anyway–the girl is all about unwrapping. She would be just as happy unwrapping an empty box. The only thing she really got excited about unwrapping was a box of princess shoes at Mimi’s house.

Sarah’s not even 1 yet, so she didn’t care about opening presents. Lucky Jenna! She got to help open Sarah’s presents…at first. Then, she just opened Sarah’s completely, and gave her whatever was inside.

That shopping cart is probably Sarah’s favorite thing right now, since she can walk around while pushing it. But she sure did love one of Maggie’s toys best before the shopping cart was put together!

Poor, sick Sarah. You can see her red eyes and nose.

I have to say, I was disappointed with Jenna’s lack of excitement about Christmas. Well, that’s not entirely true. She loved going to church. She was excited about getting to go to “big church” with us, since they didn’t have childcare for Christmas. She enjoyed the songs, I think, although I wouldn’t know much because I was trying to wrangle Sarah the whole time. But that’s the most important thing anyway. What disappointed me was her goal to get through the presents as fast as possible. Open, toss aside, get another. And she would look through the presents and ask which one was for her. We had to explain that they’re not ALL for her, and we have to wait for other people to open. I know, she’s 3. What can we expect. I think I just expected her to be more excited about what she was opening, rather that the fact that she was opening. As I mentioned, she would have been just as happy opening an empty box, but she did enjoy playing with her things later in the day, and today. And hopefully she’ll still enjoy them for a long time. She did like emptying her stocking and she was pretty excited about all the things in there.

So, despite the attitude and the 3-year-old ungratefulness, (is that a word), it was a good Christmas and I’m excited about all the years to come. But is it bad that I’m sort of glad it’s over for now?

One last thing….tomorrow is a special day for Jay & I. It’s our 12th anniversary! Every year I wonder why we decided to get married 2 days after Christmas, but it doesn’t matter. Marrying him was the best thing I’ve ever done and I get giddy about the thought of celebrating another year.