Remembering June

In June we celebrated my birthday.  Here's a picture of my dance friends helping me grow older (Amy, Kara, pregnant Christine, Sarah, Tascha, and pregnant me - we're missing Karen from the group).  After a few years of getting together, we finally realized all of us have Spring birthdays and we should just do one big birthday celebration for our Ladies Lunch.  Duh.  We'll get on that for next year.

Birthday cake with my family.  Look at all those candles!

Quality Time cuddling with Mama.

Claire being cute in this video.  Looking back I'm always surprised at how little she talks on camera or just how much younger her voice sounds, compared to where she's at a few months later when I'm adding posts to the blog.  Of course, she talks a lot more when she knows she's not being filmed.
Video translation: baba means pacifier.

I helped with a huge yard sale fundraiser and I walked in an American Cancer Society Relay for Life.  I think as a team we raised $6000.  Pretty amazing.  I made luminarias for both my mother and her mother and they lined the stadium track, lit up through the night.  My time slot was 5AM in honor of my mom's final hour of her life here on earth.  The caption on my mom's luminaria says: In Memory of Carla Blake Paul.  Beloved mother of 6.  We miss you.  We love you.  We wish you were here.  It's a BOY.  :)  Love, Richard, William, Robert, John, Kathryn, & Eileen.  

Doesn't Claire look like an angel?  She's my angel.

Also, I found out my friend, Eva, was taking a course to become a doula, and since I've thought of working in that field myself (and had several friends encourage me saying they could picture me as a doula), I decided what the heck, and joined her.  Rich's mom, Laura, came to town to watch Claire and the two of them had a wonderful time together.  I went to 4 days of classes and crammed a ton of information into my head.  By the end of the class, I wondered if my timing is off for working as a doula.  I'm not sure how I'd handle being on-call and feeling tied down so much - after you commit to a client, you need to be able to show up to their house within an hour of their phone call for the 5 weeks around their due date.  Kind of hard when I take long walks around the neighborhood, or we decide to go out of town at the last minute, or just bundling my errands so I get everything done in one trip - grocery shopping alone takes me longer than an hour.  That and how would I handle on-call childcare?  It would be one thing if I had lots of family living near me.  But, seeing as I don't, having toddlers and babies at home seems almost impossible.  It takes me long enough to get out the door when I feel like I planned my day well.  So, it was an inspiring course to take, but I may just need to put it on the back burner for now.  :(

Let's Talk About Our Day

I love this picture!!

One of Claire's favorite things to do is to sit with Daddy on the steps after work to talk about her day.  She likes it so much that it's often the first question she asks in the morning, even though we tell her we haven't done anything yet.  She likes to talk about her day right before bed too.  Shortly after she started talking about her day, she started saying to either Rich or I, "Let's talk about YOUR day."  I am amazed that she knows we do different things and have different experiences in our days.

Aren't I a lucky mama?

More things we did in May:
For Rich & my 10th Anniversary, we feasted on a breakfast of pancakes with lemon curd.  Yum.  I spent my time taking Claire to the park, walking a friend's dogs, getting together with my Ladies Lunch group, singing in my church's Stake Conference Choir, going to my Gluten Intolerance Group, meeting up with my recently formed Money group (we're Dave Ramsey fans encouraging each other to save $ and budget), shopping garage sales, going to my friend Tascha's dance performance, taking Claire to the doctor for her 2 year-old visit, as well as to the dentist for the first time, taking Claire to a little friend's birthday party, and getting short visits from both of Rich's sets of parents.  Here is Rich's grandma, Carol, his dad, Bill and Bill's dog, Tequila.

Claire Turns Two

In May we celebrated Claire's 2nd birthday.  Rich got off of work a little early, so we headed to Target to buy Claire some toys.  Due to several delays in my day, including cleaning house for my in-laws to spend the night, planning a Relief Society meeting lesson on decluttering your house, teaching at the RS meeting that night, Rich going to band practice that night, etc.....we didn't exactly have a typical 2 year-old's birthday party.  Instead, I came home from my meeting to bake the cake and we fed Claire her birthday cake at 10:30 PM.  Ugh.  (I may know a few tricks on decluttering, but I clearly know nothing about time management.)  Claire is so adaptable that she enjoyed her late birthday party and my in-laws arrived to our house just as we were about to clean her up.

Singing Happy Birthday.  :)

   

I have a 2-year-old

Two, but still sweet.  

(I tried probably a dozen times to splice these 2 videos together and it never worked.  Grrr.)

Dinner Table Talk

What Claire likes to talk about at the dinner table.

Hoh Rain Forest

Look at the cool road we found to drive down.

We got drenched on our hike at the Hoh Rain Forest.

Lake Quinault Lodge

We stayed at Lake Quinault Lodge for the weekend and it was beautiful.  The restaurant overlooked the lake and had hummingbirds feeding at the window.  Claire was such a cooperative girl, so we did just fine with her among the fancy diners, even as we were eating dinner at 10pm.

I love these big lodges with leather chairs and large fireplaces.  The lodge was old and had loud heating pipes that banged throughout the night.  One night when the noise kept me awake, I came downstairs and read a book quietly to pass the time.

Ooops, Claire says no more pictures.

Kissing in the gazebo.

Olympic National Park

At the beginning of May we took a weekend trip to Olympic National Park to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  We had a great time - we need to take more weekend trips!!  (I can't remember the names of places we visited, so you don't get any captions on the pictures right now.)

708 days

I breastfed Claire for 708 days. I can't find the words to express my feelings about nourishing her in such a loving, profound way. I have such sweet feelings about nursing her. One of my absolute favorite images is of her nursing vigorously, only to pause, look up at me, and give me the biggest milk-filled smile ever. I will always love those memories.

I thought I would nurse Claire even after a new baby came along, but I dropped that idea pretty quickly when I became pregnant again and felt sore with nursing. I stopped the before nap nursing first. Within a couple weeks, I was trying to get her attention to come nurse before bedtime. She was running around and didn't seem interested in our nightly ritual. Rich suggested maybe she should skip the bedtime nursing. He called Claire to come brush her teeth, and she went to brush her teeth. I called out to Rich, "Okay, I'll just sit in here and cry." That was the last of the bedtime nursings.

Within a couple weeks I was nursing her in our bed in the morning. She latched on, sucked for 2 sucks, then popped off, and shook her head "No." She had done this a few times before, but I had been able to coax her to latch on again. This time she had made up her mind. I had a sweet conversation with her about Mama's milk. I asked her if Mama's milk was all gone and she shook her head "No". I asked her if she thought Mama's milk tasted good and she said, "Yes." I asked her if she wanted to nurse some more and she said, "No." In the next week, she cried for milk 2 or 3 times, and I offered her my breast, but she didn't nurse anymore. So, I guess she was ready to wean.

I'm grateful that I was able to successfully breastfeed her for so long, that her weaning was gradual, and that it was a combination of both of us being ready to move on. Of course, I'm torn about it (still months later) and I miss that bond I had with her. I just need to remind myself how wonderful and loving it was for those 708 days.

P.S.  The day after I wrote this post, Claire and I were cuddling and she started asking about milk.  I told her that I was sorry and that I didn't have any milk left for her.  She let out a few really sad cries for milk.  Awww.

Pregnant Again

I'm pregnant!

I'm due around November 2nd, 2010. So, Claire will be exactly 2-1/2 years old (her due date was even May 2nd). Funny.

This pregnancy has me exhausted as I'm trying to mother Claire. My belly popped and I started showing super early. At my first prenatal appointment, my midwife wondered if I was having twins (again)! We had to worry a whole day (again) until we had an ultrasound the next day, which showed only 1 baby (and no ovarian cysts, like with Claire's pregnancy). What a relief! I think next time I need to just know that I grow quickly.

A good thing this time around was that I had very little nausea. If I felt nauseous, it would pass in 15 or 30 min., and I never threw up. Yay! My nutritionist said it's a good sign that my body has good nutrient stores.

I quickly became uncomfortable this time and I never had a good 2nd trimester. Instead, I've felt heaviness, ligament pain, sciatica, sacral and hip pain when I shift my weight, etc. from the middle of the first trimester. Basically, it felt like what the last month or two is supposed to feel like. Not fair! With my discomfort and lack of energy, my current (mid-pregnancy) walking pace is up to 40 min. per mile. Wow, I feel like a loser!

Of course, I'm excited. At the same time I've felt a lot of anxiety about having another baby, when I feel like I barely have my crap together enough to handle Claire (and she's honestly such a good girl.) I'm just shocked that my transition to motherhood has been so difficult and I still don't feel like I'm "getting it." I want to be more excited, but I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Grandparent Love

Rich's parents, Don and Laura, here for a visit with their dog, Cinnamon.

Playing

Playing in the laundry basket.

Getting dirty in the sandbox.

Her first Easter Egg Hunt!

One of her favorite games with Daddy: squeezing Daddy's cheeks with her knees. You can see she's squeezing her hands at the same time. Daddy is trapped. Daddy especially loves this game when her diaper needs changing. :)

Getting into it

I couldn't have left her alone for that long.....

Will she be a dancer? 22 mo.

March

My cousin, Dara, from NYC came to visit me with her son Arlo. It seems like it was a full 10 years since I'd seen her last. I've felt a kinship with her despite our rare visits, so it was nice to have time to really talk, to eat, and to sightsee together. As an Art Historian with a specialty in Architecture, she loved seeing the downtown library and the Olympic Sculpture Park, where she was able to rattle off the artist's names at a quick glance of the sculptures. Arlo enjoyed running around the park, but he was also picking up on his mom's "art lessons". Dara loved seeing the Northwest's green trees, water, harbor, and a perfect rainbow all in one drive. I thought I had a picture of her that turned out, but this is it from her visit. Maybe next time, we'll get more than one day together. :)

Claire "shopping".

It must have been a busy day!

Daddy loving his time with Claire.

This is her new thing: Hiding. Even with my friends that she sees every week! She'll even do it while she's walking down the sidewalk and someone is approaching us. It's really cute, but I hope I haven't drawn attention to her, as I'm trying to find the balance between encouraging her to open up and helping her feel safe. Give her a few minutes and she starts peeking through her hands. Haha. I LOVE her hair up in a "pony hair". But, I must have pulled it too much because anytime I suggest giving her a "pony hair", she yells "No!" and runs away.

Other activities in March: lots of walking, bookclub, toddler storytime, my Dancer's Lunch, a Feminist Mormon Housewives snacker, Relief Society birthday dinner, going along to Christine's ultrasound with Karen and feasting on a yummy lunch afterwards, a church potluck, going to a BYU Theatre Ballet concert (brought me some pride from back when I was on that company), a Sunset magazine group that my friend Sara has put together (we read the mag, make a recipe and bring a dish to share, go on outings suggested in the magazine and share what we liked doing - it's fun), a farewell party for Melissa from church, dinner with a friend, and taking Claire to a bounce house where I took her down a big slide a few times - enough to make me feel nauseous. I think she had the most fun throwing a lone ball around the room and getting some attention from her friend, James. :)