Of sleeping and infants

This morning I was thinking, it is amazing how much of a king sized bed a 9 month old baby can take up if she puts her mind to it. She took over all of my half of the bed this morning after her morning feeding. I moved to my husbands side after he got up for work, and then heard my toddler chattering and realized I needed to check on her. Snoozing away, the baby seemed unlikely to wake up too soon.

A little bit later, in the middle of some morning toddler crazies (worse than usual, Christmas seems to have upset her routine some) I heard Ivy cry from the bedroom. She sounded mad, so I ran back there thinking -- oh my God, I forgot about her and she fell off the bed (after crawling over the pillow fort I set up around her I guess).

Once in the bedroom I stared at the bed (no baby) looked down at the floor (no baby) just to realize she was ON the nightstand, and was only crying and angry because she had knocked over my water glass and was now soaking wet. Plus she had no more room to maneuver and was stuck there. No more unattended parent bed slumber for her!

If only I had a camera at that moment...

dreaming of chicken...

It's been a rough day around here. The baby has been really fussy between teething her first top tooth and a bit of a snot fest that may be a cold and may be teething. The toddler has been throwing tantrums at a drop of a hat, and had just thrown a tantrum and then fallen asleep on a chair in the baby's room.

She woke up and came out of the baby's room rubbing her eyes and I beckoned her over.

Lorelei sat on my lap next to Ivy and I gave her a hug
"I love you Lorelei," I told her.

"I Love..." said Lorelei and then paused...

"Chicken!" she said

"Chicken?" I queried

"Chicken and honey and rice and ketchup" she replied with a huge grin on her face, unaware that she just broke my heart.

Teething horrors

At barely over nine months old, my little Ivy is miserable. She got her first two bottom teeth in quick succession last month, and now she seems to be working on a top tooth. There's a lump in her gum and she has woken up screaming over and over for 3 nights running now, and her nose is super congested from the tooth coming in so she has trouble nursing. Poor little girl, she's happy when she's awake but she gets soooo tired and then it's hellish.

On top of that, the cats keep managing to open Lorelei's door somehow at night and getting into her room, they get in bed with her and wake her up early. It's a sleepy, cranky clan around here.

Growth Spurt!

This is probably about day 7 of cranky baby nursing every 3 hours around the clock. Mind you, she's not a newborn, she's almost 9 months old.

I'm exhausted , cranky, snappy, and craving silence.

I don't particularly want to eat, but know I need to be eating.

I'm going to sleep when the baby does in the evening, and waking up when the toddler does in the morning-- way more sleep than an adult usually needs.

I had forgotten how rough on the body nursing baby growth spurts can be. Add that to my usual seasonal bit of depression and I feel sort of bad for my toddler.

We'll all get through it, but I sure hope it's soon!

Toddler Narration

Nothing like having every little thing you do narrated.

Today, we will explore

Scooping the litter box

Lorelei sits behind me and watches

"Whatcha doin mamma? Scooping kitty litter?...

...Stinky rocks. Stinky kitty rocks. Lots of kitty rocks"

"There's a big rooock! I don't wanna eat kitty poo mommy"

(well, that's good Lorelei, kitty poo is not for eating)

"No. No. I don't wanna eat kitty poo rocks"

A Beautiful Bug!

‎"mom mom.. a bug! Come see it"


"see! A bug! It's a spider"


(no, honey, that's not a spider...)


"... It's Beautiful ... It's not a spider! It's a beauuuuutiful Doodlebug"


(no sweetie, I think that's a stinkbug)


"No! It's Beautiful! A beautiful Doodlebug!"

The Toddler has spoken.

one of those days

When the toddler doesn't want to do anything that wasn't expressly her own idea

When the baby won't nap unless she is actively nursing

When my back isn't working right, God only knows what I did to it

When I didn't sleep well last night

When the baby woke up hours earlier than usual

When the gas light was on in the car when leaving the house

When 3 mommies are supposed to come over for a craft night

When I have 2 different custom Etsy orders to complete

When I am afraid moving my photo set up in the living room will injure my back worse

When I can barely keep my eyes open despite coffee

When I can't discover the source of the bad smell

... but I wouldn't give up this life, despite it all.

Toddlers are... interesting...

Lorelei has been a handful.

Every time it is time to do something with Ivy she tries to interject that it is "her turn" The biggest temptation being the high chair... where she is currently sitting eating apple sauce.

She has started talking back to the point I have NO clue what to do about it.... in fact yesterday we had a standoff moment across the kitchen where I halfway expected a tumbleweed to blow through the scene.

And for the really strange, she has started using "green" as an adjective. Not a color adjective, just an adjective.
"I want the green pants"-- then you find the green pants and hold them up and she says "NO the GREEN ones." And then pulls a pair out of the drawer with no green whatsoever on them. Repeat this for just about any situation. Strange, frustrating, and sometimes very cute. Though I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't have some red/green color blindness.