Wild, Wild West and More Recent Activities....

It's obviously been awhile since my last post. I'll try to catch the blog up to speed. The first weekend in October was spent out West. Daddy Mouse went antelope hunting (successfully - one with a bow, one with a rifle), and Miss Mouse and I spent the weekend with Auntie Laura and then Grammy, Grandpa, Great Grammy, Great Auntie Linda, Great Auntie Karen, and Great Uncle Bill. We had a great time! We got to meet Auntie Laura's horse, Jewel, who is an absolute sweetheart. Unfortunately, it was too windy for Miss Mouse to spend much time with her. Still, it was great to meet the newest pet addition to the family in person, and to spend time at Laura's and Great Grammy's. I think, however, we're going to need to get ourselves a school bus to pack everything in the future. Ugh! With a kenneled dog in the back, several weapons, two adults, and a toddler that requires carrying a toilet chair, toys for the trip, a suitcase, blankets (in case the motel we stayed at the first night was disgusting, I put in blankets for Miss Mouse to sleep on), etc., we had little room for anything else - like another car seat and baby!! I think in the future, we will learn to pack more intelligently. When we got back, I went to work finishing another towel order. Now that that's done, there is a bit of breathing room for blogging! Other things going on include the inevitable "leaf sweep" which seemed to hold off this year until quite late. Last year, we jumped in leaf piles when Auntie Steph visited the last weekend in September. This year, it is mid-October with the leaf piles just now popping up. Miss Mouse had loads of fun last night playing in our neighbors' pile with their grandkids. I got it on video. She would sit down hard into the soft pile and then throw herself backwards. Pretty funny. They (Jada and Esmae - the neighbors' granddaughters) even got me to jump in the pile once. I think it earned me the title of "silly".

We also enjoyed a visit the other night from a, hm, how to describe her, long-term friend of mine (i.e., friends since age 3!) and her husband and baby daughter. Adorable baby daughter, that is! Miss Mouse was pretty unhappy when the baby left. She now can say the entire word, "baby", and makes sure to use it a lot! Daddy asked her if a baby should come to live at our house. She said, emphatically, "Yes!" (or "Yesh!" as it comes out). And just to clarify, Miss Mouse is patting Baby Addison; Miss Mouse enjoyed giving her toys to Baby Addison because when she would offer a toy, Addison would just dissolve in giggles! Such a sweet baby girl, she is (Addison)! At one point, when Addison began crying, Miss Mouse ran to give her a toy. It actually helped for a moment! It was a really fun visit from friends and their sweet baby!

On the talking front, we now hear the entire words "baby" and "boom". There is also a word for "leaf", though it comes out "weese". She will try to say "red", also. On the color front, I'm fairly positive that she knows, when able to concentrate, the colors red, green, blue, and possibly purple. She will point to the appropriate color in books with me and hand me the appropriate color toys when asked. It seems that she gets it correct way more often than simple chance would allow. Moving to the potty training front, we're making good progress (in my novice opinion, anyway) there, too. She now appears to relish the "big toilet" because it makes noise when she 'goes' in it. We've had several 'poops' and several 'potties' on it. She loves the idea of getting to use toilet paper, and just is really enthralled with the noise on the 'big toilet'. I'm hoping these are steps in a good direction! This is totally child-led so far, but she really does seem to enjoy it, even though she is starting much earlier than I had thought she would (or than anything I read says she even can). I think those are most of the updates on what has been going on in our lives lately. Miss Mouse is ever-helpful, insisting that her jacket be put away immediately when we come in; wanting to shake the rugs every time (every time) we vacuum the kitchen (which is several times a day); making sure toys are put back in places that she wants them, etc. I'm sort of hoping this trend, for one, lasts! I'll end with another picture I took a bit earlier this fall. I think this one was from September.

Tough week for Daddy, Part II!

Poor Daddy Mouse continued his tough week last Friday in an even tougher and more serious way. Miss Mouse and I were all packed up to go to the lake to visit Grandma and Grandpa and get some fall leaf pictures. Daddy Mouse was going on a bike ride, and then we would leave. I thought it was getting a bit late for his ride (i.e., that he should have been back about 10 minutes sooner), but as sometimes he stops to talk to people he knows, I wasn't too worried. He walked in and headed downstairs. Nothing unusual. I asked how the ride was and if he was just going to shower before we went. My heart skipped beats when I heard "I had an accident". Of course, Miss Mouse and I followed him downstairs and then were able to see how he was favoring one shoulder and was bleeding from his eyebrow. Thankfully (notice how often I'm using that word in these posts?) our neighbors (yeah, the same ones as with the sheetrock - boy are they going to wish we hadn't moved in!!!) were home and came and got Miss Mouse. She ran off with Ken as soon as he asked if she wanted to swing in the backyard. I didn't even get a backwards glance from her! After a quick phone call to the lake to change our plans (and hear that, again, thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa would head into our place for the evening), Dadddy Mouse and I headed to the ER. He was in a lot of pain, and his eyebrow looked really awful. He also had cement burns on the inside of his arm, his hip, his ankle, and his knee. We waited an hour, but at least we were able to get some ice packs for his shoulder. He also was able to cheer up two children in the ER. The one, who was apparently cheerfully waiting for stitches on the back of his head, exclaimed to his grandparents, "Look at his owie!!". We got a good chuckle. Though that probably hurt Daddy Mouse's shoulder. Another girl coming out of the ER with a bandaged hand was sniffling until she saw him and exclaimed, "Whoa! Look at his blood!!" Although in each case the parent/grandparent was embarrassed, I think Daddy Mouse was mainly amused, as I know I was. Thankfully we were reassured that nothing was broken and were sent home, after one heck of a stitching process for the eyebrow, with pain medication prescriptions. Miss Mouse has been kissing Daddy's "uh-oh"s all week; he's been terribly sore and still can't lift his arm above his head, but he is very much-improved from last Friday already. We are just really thankful the accident wasn't worse and are hopeful that he will continue to improve (he's getting a little nervous about the bow season ticking away).

Tough week for Daddy!

The past week was a tough one for Daddy Mouse. I'm not sure he'll appreciate me posting this, but, as I stated in the last post, part of my goal is to preserve our life events for Miss Mouse. And this definitely needs preserving! Daddy Mouse was up in the attic (access through our bedroom closet) attempting to install the antenna we will need come February when the brilliant (hear the sarcasm?) idea of going to purely digital signal will take effect. All was going well. Grammy was holding Miss Mouse while we all watched Daddy Mouse and handed him whatever he needed. At one point, we were trying to figure out which end of a coaxial cable to hand up when there was a terrible crash. Dust flew everywhere, and we were suddenly able to see Daddy Mouse....through the hole in the ceiling. Ugh. I was smart enough not to say anything. Grammy, however, couldn't keep her exclamation to herself! She looked up and said, "You came through the ceiling!!". Daddy Mouse responded with a very dry, "I know." What Grammy claims to have actually meant to say was "Oh look, he came through the ceiling" rather than having addressed it to Daddy Mouse. We had quite a lot of good chuckles about it the next days, but that was a rough night. Thankfully Daddy Mouse was not seriously injured, escaping with just two sore legs from where he caught himself on the supports. Now, if you are like Daddy Mouse and can't figure out how anyone could do something such as fall through a ceiling, I should point out that it has happened twice in my family's history that we know of. My grandpa, Papa, fell through when my Dad was younger, and a young man doing some attic work also fell through that same ceiling (different spot, I assume) a few years ago. So, to my family, this was not an unheard of disaster! Daddy Mouse was horrified, though, of course. Thankfully, again, we were able to get sheetrock from our wonderful neighbors (it was a Sunday night near 8:00 that this event took place) to patch the hole. Then Grammy and I went to work getting the clothes cleaned. All of my clothes had been laying on our bed so that there was access to the attic. Hence, all of my clothes were covered in insulation. As was the floor, and the chest of drawers, and everything on the chest of drawers. I'm still not quite done airing out clothing in the dryer. It's an ongoing project. Anyway, we will be figuring out a different way to pick up digital signal as Daddy Mouse has sworn off attic work!!! Understandably!

I resigned!

I've been meaning to post this for some time now, and as readers will see from the post following this one, life has just been too hectic to get it done. My main goal in posting this is to preserve my thought process and reactions for Miss Mouse, should she become a parent herself someday. The whole blog will be going into some sort of book at some point, sort of a "baby book extension".

Anyway, about a month ago, I noticed a dramatic change in my sweet, even-tempered, easy-going little gal. All of a sudden, she seemed to need holding constantly, demand complete and total attention at all times, and scream a lot. Meanwhile I was in the midst of my "fall work" which I had planned to consist of canning our own spaghetti sauce for the entire winter (at one jar per week, I figured I needed 36 jars to make it from Sept-May; each batch makes four jars, so I needed to make nine batches), freeze our own pizza sauce, again for the entire winter (again, each batch makes four servings, so I figured on nine batches), freeze veggies from the farmers' market to last us through the winter (corn, peppers, peas, beans, beets), and find apples to make our own applesauce (don't even ask how many batches I planned on for that). I planned to get this list done before the pumpkins were ready for me to roast the flesh and seeds. My goal was to have us sustain ourselves completely and totally on farmers' market produce (since my garden was an utter flop, yielding all of two meals of beans). I foresaw myself as the perfect homemaker for my family - certainly we would not be buying any canned or frozen vegetables this year. We would not pay out the nose for high fuel costs, nor would we have any worries about fresh veggies imported from who-knows-where and contaminated with who-knows-what. Afterall, I figured that having the privilege of staying home with my baby obligated me to be the best possible food-preparer, housekeeper, mommy, and wife possible (there's a fair amount of guilt that goes along with having a job that you like as much as I like mine right now!). And in my mind that translated to the best - period.

So, Miss Mouse continued her transition to toddlerhood, and I became more and more frazzled. How was I going to get all this work done with this needy, active little toddler under foot? I had towel orders from my business to fill in addition to all my "fall work". Things were getting crazy, and Mommy was getting crabby, crabby.

Finally one day things clicked. Perhaps just doing the best I can do while still enjoying my little toddler is enough. Perhaps the best thing for her is not to have a frazzled mommy and farmers'-market-fresh veggies. Perhaps she needs a happy, calm, stable mommy and decently-healthy food instead. Yeah, I know. Duh. The thing is, I know there are women who are able to do everything - keep the baby happy; cook salsa, spaghetti sauce, apples, canned veggies, frozen veggies, dried fruit, etc., etc.....But once I finally gave up the ship and realized I'm not one of them, things have gotten a lot happier around here. For everyone. The minute - literally, the day - that I gave up the demands I had put on myself (because thankfully they were not there from Miss Mouse's Daddy or Miss Mouse herself, of course!), Miss Mouse got extraordinarily less clingy and needy. Hmmm...coincidence???? She still loves to be held, a demand which I love to oblige. And we're struggling with "Mommy phone time". But overall, I am a hundred times less exhausted, feel like much less of a failure (could it be that I don't have empty jars staring at me constantly?), and am enjoying the rambunctious, adorable little toddler that is blooming at our house.

Of course I still do my best to keep up the house; we have laundry days, bathroom cleaning days, vacuuming days, and straightening days, and I am freezing some peppers; I'm hosting a Bible study one day a week this fall, and I work out everyday because I think it's important for Miss Mouse to see that. Miss Mouse does her best to help me keep things clean and busy and to mess the house back up again, as well!! At least now I'm free to enjoy this new stage! I should have resigned much sooner!

Toilet Time!

Perhaps I will 'jinx' our toilet training process by posting this so early, but I had to announce that Miss Mouse actually used her toilet chair today for the first time! She's been sitting on it quite often, looking very proud, but nothing ever comes out. We weren't worried, just happy that she seemed to like the chair very well. Well, today, while Grammy was with her, of course, (it wouldn't certainly be for me - same way as she never told me she knew what all the animals said, but she told my mom at 14 months...) while I chatted with Auntie Laura over the phone (she's left out of our family gathering for the weekend but will be visiting in October). Suddenly I heard great commotion from the bathroom. I heard the words "potty" and "on the chair", so I told Auntie Laura we had a bathroom emergency and basically hung up on the poor unsuspecting aunt. I ran to the bathroom, and what do I see but a tiny little girl with a nice yellow substance in her toilet! Thankfully I had planned to use some stickers as a reward, and they were laying right on the counter. So, she got to pick out a duck sticker to put on the cover of her chair, and she got to use hand lotion. She was so excited. I think that perhaps contributed to the fact she could hardly settle for a nap and when she did, only slept for 30 minutes. Regardless, I was nearly bursting with motherly pride of my little girl, using the toilet all of her own volition! Let's hope this continues.....

Update on "Next Baby"

We had our second doctor's appointment today. Miss Mouse came with for this one and actually did quite beautifully. She really wanted to be on the scale with me, but I didn't think my weight needed increasing by 21 pounds 9 ounces! Other than that, she was happy to sit either with me or stand with Mike the whole time. We got to hear the heartbeat today really clearly which was nice and quite a relief (since she hadn't been able to find it last time). Though it would have been fun, in a way, to get another 'sneak peak' ultrasound, we were all glad to hear the little one's heart pounding away. My blood pressure was back down to normal for me (at our ridiculous last appointment where we waited for 1.5 hours, it was considerably high for me). It'll be about another six weeks before we get our next view of 'Next Baby', but at that point (hopefully!), we'll be able to tell whether it is a boy or girl. We certainly don't care either way, but it will be so fun to see him/her bouncing around and know whether we are bonding with a him or her! As I said before, Miss Mouse thought the appointment was just fine, though she stayed serious the entire time and when asked by the doctor if she could say something/anything, she shook her head "no, no, no". Surprise, surprise, the doctor didn't believe the Mouse :) To cap off the appointment, Miss Mouse got a sticker on the way out. She's very proud of it and is wearing it on her onesie dress.

Transitions Galore

Playing with a sort of play-doh-type substance at the lake over Labor Day weekend.

She's actually "hiding" the plastic bugs so that she can "hunt" for them to put them in the bug house. All of the bugs were "hidden" under that specific cushion.

Our little 19-month-old.

Our 'little girl' ready for church - September 7, 2008 - 19 months officially.

The past few weeks have been crazy at our house. During the three weeks that we battled colds and pink eye, we also experienced several transitions. The biggest one is that The Mouse transitioned from cage to bed. No more cage for our Mouse! In all seriousness, she had a beautiful crib (gift from my in-laws) that we certainly thought was going to be her sleeping quarters for longer than this. However, being in the 99th percentile for height means she is right about the height of the average 2- or 2.5-year old, we suppose. In light of that, it makes sense that she learned how to crawl/jump/flop her way out of her crib at an early, early age. Transitioning to the bed seemed to be the only safe thing to do. I was sure that I would cry as we made that transition, but thankfully (thankfully?) the day Daddy Mouse set up the bed and took down the crib, I was too sick to even care a whole lot. So, the 18.5 month-old Mouse moved to her bed with very little problem on her part. She even (with Daddy Mouse's coaching) learned fairly immediately how to get in and out of bed without falling. We were so proud!


Another transition is a new look for Mommy Mouse! In the midst of hacking up my lungs, Miss Mouse and I made a quick trip to the beauty shop for me to get a new hair-do. We met a friend from Enderlin there. She was going to play with Miss Mouse during my hair cut, but the Mouse thought that perhaps the beautician was actually a doctor in disguise - she wouldn't leave my lap through the entire haircut (i.e., I had been to the walk-in clinic with her twice that week; once for our pink eye and once for my hacking). We had to blow-dry her off in hopes of getting some of my hair clippings removed from her clothing!


Obviously, we are not transitioning to actual toilet-training quite yet, but as you can see in the picture, we have invested in a toilet chair for Miss Mouse. For several months now she has been fascinated by toilet paper (she gets me mine and clumps it up in a ball now) and the whole 'toilet' process (paper, flushing, etc.). I figured I didn't want to miss any possible training windows by not being prepared, so she's been enjoying her chair lately. If she sits on her chair, which she does fairly often, then she gets to wash her hands in the sink (standing on the stool that came with the chair - very efficient) and use some lotion on her hands. It's a very popular reward right now. Usually she sits just with clothes on, but before and after her bath, she will often sit her little naked self right now and grin proudly. I'm just glad she's getting used to the chair and is not afraid or disinterested in the process at all so far.
*This was just the first day's picture. We've learned since then not to put our feet in the toilet!!

Miss Mouse is very clean. She washes her hands a lot.

Yet another transition around here has been to cooler weather. While I do lament the thought of oncoming snow and cold winds, we are very much enjoying the crisp fall temperatures. In the past week since it has cooled off, we have enjoyed many a stroller and bike ride as well as walks around the block and trips to the park. Miss Mouse will walk on her own holding my hand all the way around the block at a pace of one square block per half hour. We find lots of dandelions that are going to seed, leaves, and sticks. As a special treat, sometimes we see cats to meow and wave at, friendly dogs, kids riding their bikes, kids/teenagers playing basketball, or someone shingling a house (this being her special favorite treat to stop and watch). I believe I speak for our entire household when I say that we sincerely hope this weather will last well into November!!

*In a tunnel at the park.

This one is at home on our swingset. I thought it showed the full set of teeth really well!