Things Leigha says and does

Between working on making toddler chairs for my etsy store and watching Leigha and doing the normal household stuff, I don't have that much time to blog anymore.  Leigha is growing up SO STINKIN FAST! that I just want to document this super fun age of 18 months that she is at now.

She started walking about 2 months ago and she is starting to run and starting to figure out jumping  She LOVES to jump in her crib by holding on the rails, and she tries to when standing in the middle of a room.

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If we leave the child lock off the under the sink cabinet that contains all the cleaning supplies, she will take off one side and bring it to us, or just start fiddling with it if we are in the kitchen to bring it to our attention because she knows its supposed to be locked. 

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She is starting to learn to feed herself with a spoon which I'm super freaked out about because of the inevitable mess, but she is starting to not eat when we feed her, so we kinda don't have a choice in the mater.

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She is starting to have an opinion of what she wants to eat and drink and knows where those items are kept and will point and squeal when she wants them.  We're working on more pointing and less squealing since its SO high pitched and so freakin LOUD!!!

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She has all of a sudden shown a HUGE interest in watching Dora and Team Umizomi.  She loves them which keeps her fairly occupied for an hour or so.  She even likes the backpack song on Dora and will sing "Backpack, backpack" even though its more like Bap-ba Bap-ba

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She LOVES to push her baby doll in the baby stroller she got for Christmas.  Its probably her most favorite activity next to 'talking' on pretend phones.  She doesn't like to talk on real ones with people on the other end.  I think their voice coming through freaks her out. 

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Unfortunately she likes to hit us with things.  We are working on that and whenever she does it we tell her no and brush our faces with our hand and say 'nice' so lately after she hits she will brush our face and say "Niii"

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She says Mmmmm-ah when she gives kisses and ooooh and pats our back when she hugs us.  She says Ahhh-um when she eats,  and shakes her head when she does something that she knows is wrong

THINGS LEIGHA SAYS

This girl has such a big vocabulary I'm shocked. 

Mommy (Mama), Daddy (Daa-d), Bye, Dog, Ruff (arf), Quack (Cack), Hot, No, Yeah, Guys, Allie (Ahhh-be), Espn (Dito) which is a nickname that we always calls him, but she whispers Espn very well), Juice (Ju-sh), Backpack, Uh-oh, Love you (Ub oooh), Hi, Butter babies (Buh-ba) which are buttered macaroni noodles that she loves to eat for lunch, Fish (Ishies), Good Girl (Gooh gah) Lets go (Eh oooo) Stop (Stah), and Hi Baby.  That's all that I can think of at this moment in time LOL. 

Holy cow I wish she wasn't growing up so fast, but I totally wouldn't change it for the world.  I think back to last year when she was just starting to sit up by herself and I just can't believe what a difference a year makes.  

I promise I'm alive

This past month and a half have been a doozy.  Life in general has taken me by the feet and wacked me on the pavement a few times.  Its not pretty.

I started getting sick towards the end of October.  I wouldn't say I was sick  persay, I just felt off.  Well then comes Halloween and I'm finally (after 2 weeks of feeling off) I am sick as a dog.  Literally can't get out of the bathroom calling Richard begging him to come home from work to take care of Leigha, sick.  I can't even take Leigha trick or treating and I still haven't gotten a picture of her in her costume (she was supposed to be an angel)

During all this I still have to get ready for a craft fair that I had entered.  I somehow make it through it, but ended up losing money.  Not a happy camper about this, but it happens.

I end up being sick on and off for the next couple of weeks.  Believe you me, I took SEVERAL pregnancy tests during that time because I just don't get sick like that, but they were ALL negative.

Then comes Thanksgiving.  We decide to take our first road trip to visit family in Memphis.  We get a hotel room and request a crib.  They give us a pack-n-play with no pad.  They just put blankets over the supports rendering it completely useless, so I have to co-sleep with Leigha who has never co-slept before except for maybe a couple hours at a time when she was a newborn and I accidentally fell asleep nursing her.  Turns out she is not my favorite sleeping partner. I truly think Richard got the better end of the deal by sleeping in the other bed while I slept with the wiggly one. 

Come back home and I'm sick again.  Its not fun.  Leigha has an ear infection now and has been battling with a cold for the last month.  She can't sleep well and therefore neither can I, and I truly think that my sickness can be attributed to lack of sleep because my parents came over one day and thankfully watched Leigha for a few hours while I slept and when I woke up I felt MUCH better.  

All this while I'm still taking orders for and making my toddler chairs and nursing covers and such for my store and friends babies and trying to decorate for Christmas and do the dishes (during all this my dishwasher decided it had enough and went kaput) and feed everyone and visit who needs visiting and call whoever needs calling and all the other countless household chores and I haven't even found time to change out of my PJ's most of the time. 

I think I need a few more me's

Let me know when they perfect the cloning process, I'll be the first one standing in line to clone myself LOL.

I'm off to keep sewing chairs.  Pray for my sanity please, I'm going to need it.  I'll do more updates sooner or later hopefully.

Discussions discussions.

The other night Richard and I were sitting at home trying to relax and play with Leigha for a little bit before she went to bed.  Well I was relaxing, he was playing.  He was across the room she was on her back and he was tickling her.  Just on a whim I asked him if he wanted to try to have another baby.

I said it in that "hey wanna freak my husband out" kinda moment.  Catch him while he's soft and playing with Leigha LOL.  Kinda like Monica did to Chandler when they decided they wanted to try to have a baby while Rachel was having Emma. (Sorry, that episode was on the other day, and I am a Friends FANATIC!) 

Wanna know what his response was? 

"Sure but we aren't trying yet, last time we did that we had Leigha and I don't want to have another kid in July so we'll try in December and then the baby will be born in August." 

UMMMM, WHAT?!?!?!

Last time I talked to him about it he didn't even want to mention it.  I'm kinda freaking out here.  I had thought we were on the same page and were going to wait till Leigha turned 2 before trying for a second.  Wow.

I don't really know how I feel about it.  I'm excited, because I want him to want more children, which clearly he does, but then I think back to the depression and I don't know if I want to try soon.  Clearly I need to talk to him about this LOL.   I have a little, but not much.  I also think I need to talk to my therapist about it too.  (That is going well too by the way.  The medicine is helping me see things a little more clearly and feel more at ease about things and not get frustrated as easily)

So what is the ideal age difference between kids?  2 years, 3 years, more?  I know its different for everyone, but maybe some of your insight will help me to not freak out so much.   I don't know anyone personally who has kids with an age difference.  All of my friends only have 1 kid at the moment. 

Sorry

Umm yeah, I just kinda fell off the face of the earth.

Since I started my Etsy shop things have kinda taken off.  I have sold several chairs, have orders for more and have several orders for blankets and burp cloths.  Between shopping for fabric and making things and taking care of Leigha and trying to find out if I get my unemployment from my other job (yeah, they still haven't decided that yet and its been almost 2 months) getting ready for my brother's wedding in 3 weeks (Yikes!) planning a wedding shower for my soon to be new sister, Leigha getting sick, and just taking care of normal everyday stuff, its been a little crazy. 

I've been asked to paint a painting for their wedding which I am almost finished with it.  How nerve wracking.  Its a painting that they will have forever that everyone will see.  Thankfully I'm not in the wedding or I don't know what I will do with myself, I may just go nuts.

So I'm sorry. 

Leigha is doing well.  She will be 14 months next Monday.  This may be my favorite age.  I wasn't keen on the 1-6 months because well, I just don't like guessing games, and the first month of course I was just so in love and jaded with my little squishy newborn.  7 months she started crawling so it got a little better, but recently she has begun to tell me what she wants.  If she wants cheerios, she brings me her snack trap.  If she wants juice, she brings me her cup.  She will point at the things that she wants so its much easier to figure out what she wants.

She definitely has a temper and will either bite or spit at you if she doesn't get her way.  Thankfully we have almost curbed the biting, and I can handle the spitting for now. 

She still only has the 2 bottom teeth.  Every once in a while she will have a run of super bad sleep or crankiness where she constantly chews on her hands, so we constantly are thinking that she is teething, but nothing shows up.  I'm beginning to wonder if she will only have the bottom teeth forever. 

She has gotten a little cold this past week and an ear infection, which thankfully we caught before it was too bad.  This little sickness doesn't seem to phase her though.  She is still as feisty as ever. 

She has also started to copy us.  If we put our hands in the air, she does too, she will dance when we do, tilt her head, scream, etc.  Its just gotten so fun to watch her little mind work.

She has not started walking yet, but its close I think.  She has taken a couple of steps a couple of times but only after Richard has been playing with her and has her super worked up so she doesn't realize that she is doing it, so I know its not that far off. 

I'm doing good too.  Super busy with my store, and I have been doing good with my PPD as well.  I've gone to see my therapist a couple of times and she is pleased with my progress and my level of motivation.  I do feel like myself more and more every day, and I'm finally setting a goal of losing 70 pounds.  Its something I should have done a long time ago, and this time I have some help in the form of the wife of an old high school friend LOL.  She is a very healthy eater and very in shape and has offered to help me out.  I have never had a problem with weight till now, and didn't really know how to do it effectively, so she has given me some plans to work on.

All in all things are good.  Just living life, working hard and hardly working.  I hope I didn't loose what few readers I did have in the last month that I have been gone LOL.

Hope you have a good evening. 

Stephy's Stitches

So I know it was only yesterday that I was considering selling my children's arm chairs on Etsy, but this morning I decided to bite the bullet and just do it! LOL. 

Check out my store Stephy's Stitches

I only have the one chair in there right now, but hopefully I can add more to it soon.  I'm working on some ideas that I can make quickly and post on the page. 

Thanks for checking it out!

New business venture

On Richard and Leigha's birthday a couple of weeks ago I lost my job.  I used to do medical transcription from home.  Long story short, because of a mistake a doctor made, he wanted me gone and so they had to let me go, kinda sucks that I had to get the shaft for him to cover his butt, but its alright, I never really made that much money with that particular account anyway. 

Its kinda nice.  Even my therapist agrees that it was probably for the better because I get to spend more time with Richard and Leigha and essentially re-join the world because I had been working nights and weekends for well over a year.

Anyway, Recently I have learned to sew and have really enjoyed it.  I like making things for children. Clothing, toys, stuff like that.  I made Leigha an arm chair for her birthday and she loves it.  I brought it to her party and everyone there loved it too and told me I should try to sell it.  So I figured that I would make an extra one and give it a shot.

Here's the one that I made. I'm selling it for $50.  Its stuffed with a polyester filling and hand tufted, and has an enclosed wooden base to help prevent the chair from tipping over while a child is sitting in it.

I posted it on facebook and craigslist.  So far I haven't gotten any bites, but I'm still hoping.  I'm even considering opening an Etsy shop to sell them.  

I sure hope that this works out for me because I have a lot of fun making them.  Send up a prayer for me about this please if you don't mind.  Also if you have any advice on selling on Etsy, please let me know, I've never used it before.

Thanks.

Day in the life, 8/11/2012

 I don't have my normal camera this time around and I found it a little difficult to get my husband's camera to cooperate.  Sometimes it took a picture with a flash and sometimes not, with the same picture only seconds apart and sometimes it wouldn't take a picture at all or they were extremely blurry, so I didn't get many good pictures.  And if you go by the time stamp they don't match up.  I took some pics out of sequence because I didn't get a good pic the first time around, so I just took a pic about it a little later in the day ;)

Also a big Thank You to Laura at Navigating the Mothership for hosting the Day in the life project again.  If you want to read my previous days, click here and here.

1:00 am  I wake up because my leg is itching and I'm cold.  We have a door to our deck in our room and we left it open last night because the weather last night and today is supposed to be AWESOME!  It got down to about 60 last night and was a little bit chillier than what I am used to sleeping in during this crazy summer (heat wise LOL)  But because of the antidepressants that I am taking I'm up till about 4. Fun times.

2:00 am  I decide to get up and get a drink of water and turn on the TV to watch the Olympics because I just can't fall asleep even  though I want to so bad.  On my way to the bathroom I see a weird shaped spot on the floor.  Its a little frog that must have gotten in through the open door.  Richard has heard me get up and asked what was wrong and I told him there was a frog in the house.  I poke at it and its dead.  I wonder if I accidentally stepped on it when I got up, and hope that I didn't.

6:30 am Leigha is up.  I figure that its probably about 8 and get ready to get up but when I look at the clock and see 6:30 I bury my head back under the covers and will her to go back to sleep, but unfortunately that doesn't happen, so I go get her and we sit in the living room watching the news.

7:30 am  I can't believe that Leigha has sat quietly and cuddled for the last hour.  But she's up now, and so is everyone else in the house so she gets to eat breakfast.

8:15 am While she eats her puffs I check my facebook and when she is finished I change the channel to Threes Company (Mitt Romney is announcing his running mate BLECH, I hate politics!)  and sort out some too small clothes and next season clothes.  Leigha "helps"

9:00 am, I hop in the shower because we have LOTS to do today.  Surprisingly enough I actually somewhat style my hair and I am pleased with it.  Its a new cut and I like it, but haven't done my hair in so long that I forget how sometimes LOL.Leigha plays while I do this, climbs in her bathtub and into her rocker. 

 

9: 45 am  Out the door.  We have to meet someone who wants all the baby food jars that I had been saving in a half hearted attempt to force myself to make and store my own baby food.  Richard is thrilled to get them out of the house LOL.  60 something jars and lids.

10: 00 am  Walmart run to pick up 3 things...Dog food, toothpaste, and Thank you notes....$60 later ;) LOL

11:00 am is nap time.  I was running dangerously close to a major meltdown by taking Leigha to Walmart but thankfully we survived that one! :D

11:30 am I bite the bullet and start figuring out thank you notes for Leigha's party.  I forgot to write down what everyone got her so I have to do it from memory.  I'm doing pretty good, but there is one gift that I just can't remember who got it for her.  and one person who I can't remember what she gave, but I really don't think that those 2 match up.  Oh well. 

12:00 Leigha wakes up.  Richard and I have some plans to do some running around town but first the girl needs to be fed, and Richard sneaks a snack himself.

12:45 pm.  Richard mowed the grass this morning but had to go get his parent's lawn mower because he discovered a fuel leak in ours, so we return it now and visit with the in-laws for a while before heading up to deliver some tables for a local consignment sale so that I can get in and shop before everyone else.  We spend the next couple of hours driving all over town.

 

2:30 pm  We head to Best buy because for my birthday present this past week Richard said he wanted me to pick out a nook, then we head home with my new present, and lunch from Hardees.

3:00 pm.  Finally home I rush to put Leigha to bed for her afternoon nap while Richard gets the food ready and I plug in my nook and start playing with it and downloading books while it charges.  I spend pretty much the rest of the afternoon searching for and downloading free books.

4:00 pm Leigha wakes up from her nap so Richard gets her and we play and cuddle for a while.  She has started giving hugs on command and of course she loves giving Richard hugs all the time without asking.  Its so cute. But they don't last long as its now playtime and the first thing she grabs is her camera.

5:00 pm  I put some chicken in a pot to cook so I can make dinner a little later, and feed Leigha dinner.

5:30 pm  Richard starts cleaning out his man cave. While we were remodeling the kitchen all his tools and everything else ended up in there, and never got cleaned up.  It was AWFUL.  I hated that room,but as an agreement when we got the house I told him he could do whatever he wanted to with it, but I was not going to touch it, decorating or cleaning or anything else, it was all his. (Awesome deal if you ask me, he has TONS of collectibles in there that seem to require constant dusting LOL)  Anyway, Leigha tries to help him.  He has found an old keyboard so he gives it to her to play with, and that occupies her time for about 30 minutes or so.

6:00 I start to shred the chicken to make chicken tacos, add the seasonings and start getting the toppings ready.

6:45 pm.  Richard and I want to eat in peace without little hands grabbing at our plates so I quickly give Leigha a bath and get her ready for bed. She's asleep by about 7:15

7:00 pm.  Dinner time...and OH its is SO good!!!  We haven't had this in forever.

8:00 pm We turn on the olympics for the last evening.  I love the olympics.  I really wish that they would come more often.  We were talking earlier in the car during our errands today that I think this is the first year ever where I have watched all or nearly all of the events.  Not necessairly the whole thing, but I would see the highlights and things.

8:15  We go outside and try to see some of the meteor shower.  We didn't see anything

8:30  We come back in and I realize that Leigha is crying.  We had turned down the monitors and didn't turn them back up and forgot to bring one outside with us.  I don't know how long she had been crying, but when I went in I couldn't calm her down.  I end up having to nurse her to get her to calm and she finally went back to sleep about 9.

9:15 No such luck, she's up again.  I am not sure if it is teething or another ear infection so I get her some Tylenol and head to her room.  I rock her and she is asleep again within minutes.  This time till 5 am.  I make a note to call the doctor on Monday morning because she has been doing this for about a week now.  

9:30 Richard is watching TV, I"m not really sure what it is, and I curl up next to him and read some more books on the nook.  I love this thing.

10:00  We head to bed, but I stay up reading till about 11:30 when I finally call it a night.

The cutest video EVER!!!

I took this video the other day.  Richard and I while watching TV sometimes will just randomly pick up a pillow and throw it at each other.  This was one of those days.  I happened to be holding Leigha when I picked up a pillow and threw it at him, he threw it back and Leigha started uncontrollably laughing.  Of course I made Richard grab the camera.  This is the best video I have of her to date and I can't help but laughing every time I watch it.

Oh and I FINALLY have Leigha's pictures back from her birthday party and I am working on a birthday post and 1 year letter and a day in the life post AND general family update.  Looks like August might just be a record posting month for me LOL.

The End

I did it.  I breast fed Leigha for 1 year, 1 week and 6 days.  I accomplished my goal.  I had known that I wanted to wean her for some time, I just thought that the evening feeding before she went to bed would be the hardest, it was the only one we had left.

Today I decided that I was going to try not feeding her tonight before she went to sleep.  I had been dreading it for weeks.  I told Richard that it was going to be a rough evening.  I gave her her bath, put her jammies on, she got her good night kisses from Daddy waved goodbye to him and off we went to her room.

During naps I usually hold her and sing a couple songs and she starts to fall asleep in my arms and I put her in her bed.  Tonight I did the same thing.  She never put up a fight.  She cried a little when I put her in her bed but as soon as I shut her door she stopped.

I was crying as I left her room.  I never imagined that it would be this hard.  I knew that I only wanted to do this for a year.  I guess I enjoyed the private time more than I thought that I would.  Now its over.

I told Richard that I never dreamed it was this hard to stop.  He told me to look at the bright side that maybe now we can work on someone else putting her to bed.  That will be hard too.  No one has ever put her to bed but me.  I don't know how that will work.

But for now, its over.  1 year, 1 week, 6 days.  Its a wonderful accomplishment that went WAY too fast.

Postpartum Depression update.

So a while back I decided to go see a doctor for what I believed to be postpartum depression.  I didn't know who to see for it, so I decided to start by calling my OB/GYN to see who he recommended.  I left a message for the doctor, but his nurse called me back.  I told her my problem, that I hadn't felt like myself since Leigha was born blah, blah blah, and that I wanted to see a doctor and who did he recommend.  She said she would talk to him and call me back later in the day.  When she called back she told me that he didn't believe that it was PPD that it usually manifests itself shortly after delivery and I was more than likely suffering from plain ole depression and that he couldn't help me, but the nurse told me that if I sent her a copy of my insurance card that she would look up and find me a PCP who could see me...I never send the copy of the card.

Let me take a minute here and say that I realize that I just asked someone for help who had in the past proved to never really help me in the first place.  He (or his staff) never really took my concerns seriously, that I was treated like a money maker for him and that I felt like I was never that important.  Don't get me wrong I don't expect my doctors to see only me, but when a doctor doesn't give you reasonable explanations for questions other than "because I like them"  or completely blows me off because he is getting ready to walk out the door, that's not a good doctor no matter if he is the chief of the OB/GYN dept at the hospital or not.  I will NOT be going back to him ever.  I have given the office several second chances and they have never met my expectations.

Going back to square 1, I looked up our insurance to see if the visits would be covered, they were.  I looked up a doctor that was covered under our insurance, I found one.  I called and made an appointment....and then I canceled it because as it turned out there was a misunderstanding concerning the start date of the coverage, it didn't start when we were told it would.

Fast forward a month and now we KNOW the insurance is effective.  I look up that doctor and keep her phone number in my pocket for a week because I thought I was getting better.  I felt better, I had a positive outlook on things, I thought the worst was over.  But then the feeling of inadequacy came back.  The dread of naptime and sleeping, the constant frustration and crying...mine and Leigha's...and I knew in that first few days that I really needed to make that appointment.

When I called the receptionist told me it would take 3 weeks to get me in.  That was fine. I still had to get up the guts to actually go anyways.  I was so afraid she would tell me what every other doctor and person I talked to said.  That it was a chronic lack of sleep and that I needed to have someone take Leigha for a day or 2 and do nothing but rest. 

This past week I had my first appointment.  I talked, I cried, I told her that it had gotten easier but I still didn't feel like myself.  I told her how I used to feel back when I was pregnant and how I feel now.  I told her about Leigha and what a sweet girl she is and how I hate not feeling as bonded to her as I want to.  She asked if anything made me happy, and I told her about Leigha's party this past weekend (that post is coming, I am waiting on pictures to come back) and that I was excited for our anniversary dinner later that night. I told her about Richard and how I was nervous at the beginning but he proves time and time again what a wonderful amazing husband he is and father he has become.  She asked me what happened after Leigha was born and I told her about the rash and the colds and the flu and the not sleeping and the doctor telling me I needed more sleep and she listened the whole time.

She then told me that she believed that I do have what is now a mild case of postpartum depression.  That it was probably much worse but that I was able to work my way through it and she has put me on medication.  I go back in 3 weeks for a medication check.  She wants it to get in my system then evaluate me again in a few weeks and make a plan from there.

This is day 3 on the medication and while I can't really tell a huge difference at the moment, I can tell that I feel more at peace.  Leigha had a rough day yesterday and I didn't get upset or cry right along with her.  I am starting to feel more like my old self every day.  Its so nice to have a doctor that listens to me and wants to help me get better. 

I'm getting back on track and THAT makes me REALLY happy!