This Past Weekend

Hello Lovelies :)

How have you been? What have you been up to? 

Sunday night, after finishing the weekend with some delicious chicken & dumplings and home made lemon meringue pie at my mother-in-law's house, we moved Adalynn from the cradle to her big girl crib! Although, that entailed taking the crib apart, bringing it downstairs and putting it back together in our bedroom :) 

I made the excuse that she still wakes up twice a night to eat - which is a valid excuse! - but we didn't want to put her upstairs all by herself yet. Thankfully, she made the transition like a champ.

Even better, I feel like we had a little breakthrough with her napping. I've tried all sorts of ways to get her to nap either in her cradle, in her crib or even laying in our bed. Nothing. Nada. The only way she would nap is on our someone's chest or in her bouncy seat.

So Monday, I, feeling positive from switcharoo the night before, was bound and determined to get her to nap in that crib. No matter what. And we did it! Mind you, it didn't happen until 4pm, but it happened. And I'm crossing my fingers that it happens today and tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next...

Also, I went to a conference on Saturday and the Cheff Center that taught about explosive behaviors and how to stop the meltdowns. It was a great conference and I learned a bunch that I can't wait to apply during lessons and everyday life. 

My favorite part that was something that I'd never heard before. 

'Kids do well if they can' not 'Kids do well if they wanna'

It made so much sense to me. As a child, I don't remember ever not wanting to do well. 

I took it to mean that if a child isn't doing well, we need to change up the plan. Figure out why. Maybe I'm explaining it in a way they can't understand. Maybe they're not ready for this step and we need to back it up. Maybe they won't be ready for it and we need to go in a different direction. 

I love that it focuses on figuring out what skill the child is lacking and not simply saying that 'she just won't do it'. Why won't she do it. What does she need in order to be able to do it? This belief turns the negative 'She just won't do it, she doesn't get what I'm saying, she's not cooperating' into something positive by asking yourself why won't she do it- is it the way I'm teaching or is there another roadblock we need to uncover? 

Conferences like that really get me motivated. Can you tell? Ramble ramble ramble...I'll end it here before going on and on :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

New Momness, Amazing. New Dreams...Not So Much

*Picture is totally unrelated to the story, but can we celebrate that she neither pooped or peed on me this bathtime?! :) 

Okay, so when I was pregnant I would occasionally have dreams that we had the baby. Those dreams were good, they were exciting and fun. One would think that, since she is finally here, I would be having happy dreams about family adventures and whatnot. Well, it's not happening. 

Instead, I wake up in bed during the nights with these horrible feelings that I fell asleep with our little girl. That she's laying in between us, under all of our covers...suffocating. It's absolutely the worst feeling and it happens about every other night. 

What makes it worse is my stinking teddy bear that I always sleep with...when I wake up in the middle of the night, you have no idea how much that teddy bear feels like a newborn baby when you're half asleep.

Then last night I had a dream that my old babysitter took me, Adalynn and a bunch of my friends (as adults, yes...dreams are weird) to Applebees. After paying the bill, I took a little bit more time to get all my stuff around then everyone else- purse, diaper bag, baby, doggy bag, etc. - so they said they'd meet us at the car. 

I'm walking out of the restaurant and I realize, I don't have the car seat or the baby. I run back in to our table and she's nowhere to be found. No one in the restaurant has seen her, no one can find her and we realize that as I was getting my stuff around, another diner in the restaurant grabbed her car seat and snuck out. 

I had let my little girl get kidnapped. 

You know how sometimes in your dream you realize that it's just that, a dream? Well of course for this one I didn't, it went on and on and on and I only snapped out of it when I woke up because she was crying. 

It was horrible! 

So now I'm just thinking can I get a good dream or something? Like, how about we all go to Disney World in a few years, or camping, or hiking or we fly on a damn unicorn over a rainbow...something that doesn't involve me either suffocating our child or getting her kidnapped. Is that too much to ask?! 

She's Already Teaching Me A Thing Or Two

As we wait day after day for our daughter to make her way into this big, wide world, she is already teaching us one of the most important things about being a parent. Patience.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been hiking up and down our hill, climbing our stairs again and again, eating spicy food, filling up on pineapple, washing the floors on hands and knees...pretty much any safe thing that's been suggested hoping to get her out and not go past my due date (why are due dates necessary?!). 

This past weekend, I finally came to terms with the fact that she is going to come whenever her sweet heart desires. There is nothing I'm able to do about it. Sure, I might try to 'help' things along, but ultimately it will happen when it happens. 

This is one of the things that I want to keep at the top of my list of 'parental priorities', if you will. As much as I want and like to control things in my life, she will now be a part of my life, a part that I cannot control. 

Sure, we can try to help as much as possible, giving her nudges in the right direction, but in the end we have to remember that she is her own person and will ultimately have to get there on her own. 

As much as I might want to push her to crawl, talk, walk, learn to read, make new friends, play a sport...all of these things will come in time. Or they may not come at all. It's going to be our job to be there for her, having her back and guiding her while she is testing, learning, and figuring out these new things for herself. 

No matter how caught up we get in day-today- life, I hope to always remember this very important first lesson my unborn daughter has taught me. 

"Patience is not the ability to wait, 

but the ability to keep a good attitude while you are waiting."

-Joyce Meyer