Beautiful baby

Tonight was one of my favorite nights of the month...girls dinner. This one was a little bit different. Usually we all go to someone's house and eat and socialize. Instead, Bennett Nackers timed his arrival just in time to make his first girls dinner...sort of. We all went out to dinner and then headed over to the hospital to welcome the newest member of this massive group of friends we have.

Bennett is tiny and perfect. More than that, I love to see this crazy thing called parenthood enter the lives of more and more of my friends. Not only does it bring back a flood of emotion and memories for me, but it just makes my heart happy to know that Jason and Josie are experiencing such a wonderful time. It's like Christmas...warm, cozy, and joyful.

I have to say that I didn't expect to feel so overwhelmed on this visit. When I found out I was pregnant the excitement was immense. Being sick and running after a toddler has made me feel rundown and very frustrated with myself these days. Going to the hospital and remembering so clearly all of those feelings made me so incredibly excited again. I can't wait to experience it all a second time. I can't wait to do all of it...breastfeeding, holding my newborn next to my skin, introducing a new life to the world....so many things. I also gained a renewed excitement about being pregnant...sick the whole time or not! I loved being pregnant with Lila and I need to really enjoy this pregnancy as well. So thank you Jason and Josie. Thank you for reminding me to take my time because it all goes by so fast. Thank you for sharing your little one with me and giving me a renewed sense of strength and excitement. Before I know it this baby will be here and then before I know it he or she will be a toddler acting like a teenager ;-)

Holla

I need to give some major shout outs to....

...Carson. She may be single handedly teaching Lila how to share. I can't say that I totally endorse the notion of physically fighting back when it comes to kids. However, at this age and in this manner it just may be the golden ticket. Carson and Lila couldn't be more different. Seriously, they are night and day. Carson is quick and fearless and Lila is controlled and deliberate. That one difference being noted, I saw it shine yesterday. Lila and Carson tend to get grabby over the same toy. Carson was playing with said toy and Lila headed her way to take control. Carson saw her coming and, no lie, tackled Lila. She stood and leapt and landed on Lila completely pinning her. I was laughing so hard and so loud that they both stopped and stared at me. I was waiting for tears and mayhem. Instead, Carson moved aside and Lila crawled away to do something else. Carson went back to the coveted toy and that was the end of it. I didn't have to say a word. Maybe Carson had had enough. Maybe Lila saw that Carson is probably going to be way better at scrapping no matter what her size. Regardless, I say bravo Carson.

...Seth. I will be the first to admit that this pregnancy has been a struggle for me. Yes, women have the job of growing the baby and all. But in my particular case, the man has the job of hearing about it. Don't get me wrong. I am uber excited about this baby. It's just been a long three months. No one knows that more than my dearest husband. He has been insanely patient and understanding. He still asks why I'm bothered even though I'm sure he knows the answer. He doesn't get irritated with me (at least not outwardly) when I can't be sure that I would handle me so gingerly. Well done Sethy poo.

...Katie. This is going to seem so small if you aren't me. I just need to thank Katie for making a string of executive decisions involving girls dinner this week. In my group of girlfriends there is so much consideration for other's opinions that sometimes it takes FOREVER to get something decided upon. It's a lot of "I'm fine with whatever" or "I will do whatever everyone else wants to do". I am probably one of the worst culprits. You can imagine that because of this there is a lot of back and forth and many last minute decisions. SO, there was some talk thrown around about moving this month's girls dinner to Northside Hospital to welcome Josie's baby to the world. Initially the back and forth began and there was no decision. Then, Katie sent an email to everyone that told us what the plan was including where to be and what time to be there. In fact, she did this in enough time for me to make a solid attempt at finding a sitter. I just can't express how much easier this makes my life.

...Lila. There are a zillion reasons I feel the need to acknowledge how fantastic my child is right now. I have been a waste of space and she puts a smile on my face constantly. I am learning that maybe I needed to back off a little anyway. Lila is becoming very imaginative and independent. I'm wondering if I hovered too much before. When I don't feel good she either plays or lays with me. She is totally ok with a lot of reading and a lot less running around sometimes. Really, I couldn't ask for a more understanding toddler...tantrums and all. Now if she could just explain things to Molly we would be on a roll.

Pearl necklaces, shopping carts, and the world of a self proclaimed ya ya

This post would be way cooler had I taken pictures. I would be way cooler if I didn't want to barf all the time. Such is life.

Lila got another cold but handled it much better this weekend than she did last weekend. However, we felt like we still needed to stay around home for the weekend so she could once and for all get better. Thank goodness we have friends that like to invite themselves over to our house or we would have no life a lot of the time. But let's start at the beginning.

Friday was the first day of the second round of snotfest. We tried to go out to dinner, but Lila wasn't so happy about that. Our fridge is kind of bare due to my serious lack of interest in food. We made it through dinner, came home, and went to bed. Are you trying to live vicariously through us yet?

Saturday mornings for a long time have involved a family trip to Chick-Fil-A. I have made a massive effort to go organic and really be conscious of what I am putting in my body. But, Chick-Fil-A is one of those things I haven't been able to give up...that is until my recent, turbulent relationship with food. We still went, but I think I am going to have to just pass from now on. For the past couple of weeks I have been a yard sale maniac after Chick-Fil-A. This weekend I made some good finds. Lila has taken a major interest in play jewelry and you can almost always find that at yard sales. I also purchased a mini grocery shopping cart and a fantastic rug for $2! Needless to say, Lila spent most of the day on Saturday ramming the shopping cart into walls and furniture while sporting a "pearl" necklace and lots of snot.

Saturday night we had a cookout with said friends that like to invite themselves over. It was FANTASTIC. Seriously, there is nothing better than being able to stay at your own house and put your child to bed and hang out with your friends. We are so lucky to have the kind of close friends that will invite themselves over because they know it's helpful for us! We grilled, we talked, and we made smores over a fire pit. It was a perfect fall night.

At some point over the weekend (can't remember when) Lila saw a big picture of herself on Seth's laptop and she started pointing and say "ya ya, ya ya, ya ya". It was the cutest thing EVER. It has happened a few more times over the weekend and I just love to watch her morph into a kid...I'm trying not to get upset that she is slowly becoming less and less of a baby.

So that was our weekend. In case you didn't pick up on it, I am not feeling so hot. If I am being honest, I wrote an entire post about it and then deleted it. I am trying SO hard not to whine and whine and whine about this even though I have felt this way for three months straight. I can't promise you won't hear about it again, but I am making an effort to keep it to a minimum.

Happy Monday ya'll!

The Seven P's

(SIDE NOTE - I typed this post on September 2nd)
(SIDE NOTE #2 - I am doing a lot of playing around with what the blog looks like...sorry if it's overkill)

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Seth and I decided in early spring to not take precautions against becoming pregnant. We knew we wanted our kids to be close in age and we knew we were ready for another baby, but we also kind of felt like there was no need to rush or make a valiant effort. As the saying goes, we were not, NOT trying. A couple months went by as it did when we did this with Lila, and I started to get antsy. Not that antsy though. I kept saying, if it doesn't happen this month I will start peeing on sticks. But, I still don't really believe the sticks work. They are also crazy expensive so I just didn't do it. I did go on babycenter.com and have text messages sent to myself telling me when I would be most fertile. That is hysterical that they do that by the way. What do they call it?....ah, I just looked it up...booty caller alerts. Priceless.

Anyway, I started getting the texts and I got one in the month of August that said something to the effect of "if you were to conceive during this timeframe your due date would be May 7th". I chuckled because that was my due date with Lila and then went on about my business. I think I had resolved myself to believe that it was going to take a while longer.

It appears that August might be my most fertile month :-) That's right folks...baby Burrow #2 is a cookin' and will make his or her appearance somewhere around his or her sister's second birthday. We are beyond THRILLED to add to our family, but I do feel a twinge of guilt or whatever you want to call it that my children's birthdays will be VERY close together. Don't get me wrong. I am completely aware of how lucky we are that getting pregnant hasn't been a hard road for us. I just think birthdays are so special. That means I am going to have to be WAY on top of things in the birthday department and make each one feel like their day is as important as possible.

I posted my status today on Facebook that I am having serious deja vu. My friend Sonja "liked" my status and said "I don't know why I like this but I have a feeling that I should". She then took it off because I just took the test today and we were afraid it would be given away!  It's quite strange. Football starts this weekend and I took a test today and got all jittery and excited just like I did the morning of the first football game of 2008 when I took the test that told me Lila was on the way. This time I will not be pretending to just be the DD at the tailgate. We are actually headed to the beach with Meg and Skip for the long weekend. What a great way to celebrate!

All of this being said, we will again not be finding out the gender. However, I am already convinced that we are having a girl. Hopefully this time we will have a name picked out before he or she enters the world.

Weekend in Review

Unfortunately, our weekend started with a very snotty, sick little girl. We had grand plans of tailgating and enjoying the great outdoors. We decided to skip the tailgating for fear of getting there and and being miserable. Friday was a tough day for Lila. She felt really bad and that caused her recent discovery of the tantrum to be heightened to all new levels. She took the shortest nap ever and woke up to spend the next thirty minutes screaming here:

Yes, this is my beautiful child almost under the couch screaming. She wouldn't let me touch her or pick her up until she suddenly decided she was done. She then crawled into my lap for the only thirty minutes of the day where she wasn't upset. That's when I knew tailgating was not an option.

As mentioned before, I use Facebook as my very own Wikipedia type source. I get more suggestions and firsthand information there than I could ever get anywhere else. When I began thinking about taking Lila to a pumpkin patch and realized I had never even been to one myself, I knew where to find an answer. I got multiple recommendations, but one was recommended much more than others.

About halfway through the day on Saturday things started looking up for Lila. She was her super happy self again and I regained hope of a decent weekend. We got up early today and headed to Burt's Farm...

I'm not going to say don't ever go there. I'm not going to say that it wasn't fun to some degree. I am going to say that we won't be going back. Maybe we are the idiots for going on a Sunday. Maybe it's become so commercialized that it's just not worth the trouble. I'm not really sure. All I know is that we left calling it BurtMart because we felt like we had just spent half the day at Walmart. It was very far away and was complete MAYHEM to say the least. The pumpkins were cool because there were so many different kinds to choose from. But, I could have found the same setup in a church parking lot. The line for the hayride was at least an hour, if not two. It amazed me how many moms and dads were standing in line in the heat with very young children screaming.  Trying to take pictures was like playing a game of dodge the crazy kid whose mom isn't watching him. Lila "picked" a pumpkin, we paid, and left. On our way out the line of cars coming in was so long you would have thought this place was Disney World. Craziness. Here are a few pictures...

We may try pumpkin viewing again at Stone Mountain since that is right down the street! 

Stuck

So, I didn't get nearly as many comments on the vaccine post as I had hoped (secretly Katie was hoping too because we are in the same boat). Therefore, if you wanted to say something and just didn't, please go back and comment. Even if you want to say I am overreacting and irrational...I can take it.

Anyway, to those who have been anxiously waiting on pins and needles, Lila's most recent word is STUCK. I may have started this. I mean, of course I started it. She also randomly walks into a room and says "So...." with nothing following it. Wonder where she got that one. At any rate, stuck is so STUCK on my child that everything is stuck. Even things that are permanently situated in a certain way in Lila's world are in fact STUCK.

She also seemingly overnight turned into a very dramatic thirteen year old. The only thing reminiscent of toddlerhood is the laying on the floor face down part. The screaming and whining and fake crying leapt us forward a decade and may cause me to reconsider future children (just kidding). I am trying to cut her some slack today because she is completely covered in snot.

Stick the new way of dealing with life with the word stuck and Lila's world is DRAMA. If something is stuck that she can't unstick she loses her mind. If something is stuck that I can unstick she comes at me full force to get the problem solved, whining and all. We are really working on the words please or help instead of the whining. For some reason those aren't catching on as fast. When she does say please with that sweet face looking at me like I can solve all of her problems it melts my heart. When she doesn't and I ask her to say please and she stubbornly refuses, I see glimpses of my future flash before my eyes.

Hopefully the next new word that is said eight million times a day will be something like chocolate...soothing and can easily be provided. Who am I to deny a girl some chocolate?

A post from the abyss that is my bed

seth is dealing with the drama that is his job. its cold and the sheets were just washed so even though im not really tired i got in the bed just to be cozy. excuse the lack of capitalization and punctuation...my phone and blogger dont seem to like one another. today i was overwhelmed by fall. that nagging voice in my head that makes me think i can accomplish more than i really can made me want to start doing a lot of fallish things...

i want to....
...make the divine pumpkin cupcakes
...put away all things reminiscent of summer....especially bathing suits
...make chili in the crockpot so my entire house smells like chili for days
...carve lots of pumpkins and cook the seeds
...fall clean...like spring cleaning only more decorative
...cuddle on the couch under a gigantic blanket with my cute little family even though i am the only one who would actually stay cuddled for very long
...and the list goes on

i hope you are enjoying the beginning of fall as much as i am



 s

Lamely heavy

My sincerest apologies to those of you who count on me to provide you with mindless entertainment for five minutes a day. I could give you excuses, but I respect you too much. I'm just lame is all. I am also nixing the lyric post titles. I may do one randomly here and there because I like them. If you happen to know it feel free to comment!

Now on to the heavy part. I feel the need to broach a subject even though it's a massive can of worms that I don't really have any interest in opening. I just need to express my confusion for lack of a better word. I don't need violent arguments one way or the other (because there are so many violently argumentative readers of this blog and all). I also don't need to be told what is right and wrong. If I have learned anything in my year and a half of parenting it's that there are different kinds of right and wrong and lines get blurry sometimes.

Alright, out with it right? Here goes.....vaccines. There. I said it. Again, I'm not interested in should I or shouldn't I vaccinate my child. I already know that answer for myself and my family. My confusion and concern comes after the vaccines have or have not been administered. I don't know if past generations dealt with this, but I would guess they didn't. Therefore, I feel like there is some uncharted territory. This isn't like should I breast or bottle feed or should I stay home or do daycare. One person's personal choice could directly effect my child. Lila is fully vaccinated and I honestly do not feel comfortable with her being around a child that has not been vaccinated. However, people don't go around advertising if they did or didn't. I am starting to realize that she could be (and probably will be) around a child that has not been vaccinated at some point, and I would probably have no idea. I guess I was naive to think that almost everyone still vaccinates.

I know in the end I have to do what I feel is right when choosing who I am around and who Lila is around. But what do you do when more and more people are making choices you aren't comfortable with? I can't go around asking moms if they vaccinated their child. I mean, I guess I could. It just saddens me that I feel like that even has to happen.  I am in complete support of parents doing what they feel is right...but when what they feel is right doesn't only concern their child and their family how do you process that for yourself?