Archives for June 2014

One of the projects I tackled this past weekend was making some bows for sweet Eliza Jane.

As you recall from Friday’s post I went into planning (panic!) mode with my to-do list so I was energized to get some things done.

First thing’s first – the girl’s gotta have bows!  I can’t handle someone coming up to her (in pink no doubt) to ask me if “it” is a he or she?  Must.Have.Bows.

Our office closes at 4pm on Summer Fridays so promptly at 4 (or shortly thereafter) I busted out to get R from daycare.  Daddy had gone home with a headache so I thought, we’ll give him some time to rest…we’ll run some errands.  So I took out my to-do list and quickly decided that I’d go buy some ribbon and maybe get some other ideas for Eliza Jane’s room.

Hobby Lobby was our destination.  R loves to be out so it was great for him too…he found lots of people to wave and smile at while I was busy gathering ideas for baby sister’s room.  Over on the ribbon aisle, we had some fun.  Reynolds was trying to pull off every spool he could get his hands on while I was being a bit more…picky.  I asked his opinion of some colors, and if it was thrown on the floor, we didn’t get it ;)  R had lots of thoughts of some of the ribbon I picked out…many of which he verbalized but being he’s only 14.5 months old I had no idea what he was saying, so I pretended he was in agreement.

I picked up a few other things (to be posted about at a later date) and within an hour we were done and I felt a little bit of accomplishment!

Once R went down for the night I tackled my bows.  I was so thrilled while walking down the ribbon aisles that Hobby Lobby had great “How-to” pamphlets!  I knew I loved that store.  I’d previously watched some videos on YouTube but this was much better.

First, I started with hot-gluing ribbon around the clips…this was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  But man, watch out for that glue because it is HOT.
Then, I made a few little bows because she’ll have a little head at first and we can’t have her wearing those ginormous cheer-leader-style bows when she’s teeny tiny….

 

Next was to make some mid-sized bows and a couple of bigger ones.  With some ribbon I had from other projects and with the new I’d just purchased from Hobby Lobby, it was go time.

 

In a matter of less than a couple of hours I had these beauties and was feeling really proud and crafty and excited!

Here they are on Eliza Jane’s bow frame that I made last month.  YAY!!!

This is it! The last 10 weeks (Lord willing) of pregnancy!  I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone by!  Time flies when you’re having fun….or running around chasing a toddler!  :-)

I checked my app, The Bump, this morning just to confirm I’d not lost track and sure enough, it read “30 weeks – day 1!” (EEEEEKKK!!)

Immediately I went into plan (or panic?) mode.  Oh, the things that need to be done over the next several weeks.  I shared the update with some friends at work, and one friend commented that I had 10 weekends.  I followed up with, “…running around chasing a toddler”.  {trying not to sound like that old friend, Debbie downer…}  How will I get everything done?

Theres a saying about how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.  Somehow that’s supposed to sound like it’s not as intimidating…but it’s still an elephant!

I guess that’s how I’ll tackle my to-do list for Eliza Jane’s impending arrival…one small task at a time.

First, I needed a master list. Check.  I made that this morning (except for all the things that need to be purchased..which is actually a really big list item…).  Now, to try to determine what can only be done on the weekends and try to start something this weekend.  Then, determine what items I can accomplish during the week, on lunch breaks or even after R has gone down for night-night.  {this is probably unrealistic since I am usually exhausted by then! but I’m shooting for the stars!!}  I can see me in our break room at work making bows for Eliza Jane…ha!

I can do this. I’ve got this.  It’s totally in the bag! {wait, is that the bag that needs to be packed?!}

Anyone else need a pep-talk today? If so, I’m your girl!

When Reynolds was a “wee” baby I read to him every day.  Looking back, I wonder if it was because he was just a blob, laying there on the bed and it was nice to hear someone’s voice in the midst of the quiet.  And being that we lived 45 minutes outside of Columbia then, I was desperate for voices.

I collected Little Golden Books for him – mainly ones that were geared towards boys, like little “Scuffy The Tugboat” (don’t worry, Eliza Jane will get the “girl” books!) and enjoyed reading those stories I’d read as a child.  I also read him The Jesus Storybook Bible, which I thoroughly enjoyed…it’s amazing the stories that you sort of forget or just don’t think about and how a child’s book can put things back into perspective.

Somewhere along the way…probably when R became really squirmy and energetic (read: wild and crazy), the reading sort of stopped.  Not that I didn’t try to read to him, because I did, but more like he just got mad and yelled at me if I tried to keep his attention (away from his toys…).

Well, I’m happy to say that he’s come back around and wants to have books read to him!  I think it’s because his sweet teachers are reading at daycare and he’s learned that he enjoys the stories (and pictures?).

The last few nights, however, he’s gotten mad at me.  He literally wants to read EVERY book on the bookshelf in his room.  EVERY.BOOK.  Y’all.  There has to be at least 25-30 books on that bookshelf.  MY attention span is not that long!!  And he’s so sweet about it.  He knows how to sign “please” so he makes this sweet “ooh” sound, points at the books and signs please.  How do you resist?!  Well, at first I don’t.  I tell him “ok, three books.  We’ll read three books and then you go night-night.”  You know how this is going to go…. Four books, Five books….and I keep saying “one more, and then it’s night-night.”  Tonight we read six and upon him asking for the seventh book I lovingly told him, “no.  No more books tonight.  It’s time for night-night.”  The kid was exhausted but doesn’t know when to just give up and lie down.  So he had his short fit, but within 5 minutes he was out like a light!

Mommy and Daddy might have trouble reading (remember this post?), but I’m happy to say that R is eager to get his hands on a book! {Never mind that he took a bite out of “Pinocchio”…}

 

This kid.  I’m tell you, he knows when something is about to go down.

Yesterday, Andrew and I were both at work.  I was in a five hour long management meeting (sounds awful, right?!) and there is this rule about not being able to look at your cell phone.  I was communicating with my Supervisor to get some numbers from him so that I had them for what I was going to be talking about during the meeting.  While I was waiting for his response my beloved calls.  I ignored his call and shot a quick text, “mgt mtg”.

This is what I get back:

“Hijacked!”

“R has a fever and won’t stay awake….”

“I’m going to get him and call doc”

That’s enough to send a mom into a frenzy.  Even more so when she’s planned for a get-together at her home that evening and come hell or high water, it was going to happen!!

I said a prayer and hoped that our son was ok but my mind was racing…”won’t stay awake”.  This kid is 90 to nothin’ all day long usually, this is WEIRD, something is not.right.

At a break in our meeting I rushed to call Andrew to find out what was going on.  Apparently mid-morning R had become pretty dazed and confused and was cranky so his teachers put him in his crib, at which point he basically passed out asleep.  They knew this wasn’t normal for our child.

Andrew was on the way to the doc and said that R was pretty out of it, his eyes were really droopy.  What on earth!?  He was completely normal this morning.  I racked my brain to remember if he’d somehow gotten into anything that could have affected him and could come up with nothing.   “Let me know what the doctor says” was my only reply.

Not long after, I received another text, “Double ear infection”.  Bless.  This poor child has had more ear infections this year…and I know he’s just got to be miserable.  He’s got tubes, they were put in in April, and thankfully this is the first ear infection since then, but double?  I felt for him.

BUT, The party will go on!  YAY!!  Thinking that he’s not contagious, just really cranky (which he was for the first part of the party), we’ll get to keep this event on the calendar and not have to cancel like the events before.{Remember these: Hijacked,  Hijacked – Day 2 and the Hijacked Happy Hour}

A friend asked last night, “are you going to blog about tonight?”  At which point I had to think for a moment and then I said, “probably not…it’s been pretty low key.  I mean, no one is doing keg stands!! HA!”  Not that we had a keg on which you could “stand” but you get the picture.  It was low key.  Friends enjoying the company of friends.  Some friends were catching up and new friendships were being made.  It was great and I was blessed.

By the end of the night R had taken a “cat-nap” and was somehow re-energized to mingle with his guests!  He was running around with the Swiffer {my son, the janitor…}, talking, laughing and just being a ham.  Good ol’ Reynolds…he was back!

 

It’s the official First Day of Summer today.  Get out and catch some lightning bugs tonight or just have some friends over and enjoy some summer fare!