... When No One Else is Watching

Little Baby Hadleigh

Little Hadleigh is five months old today! Five months y'all!!! She is sweet and lovable; quiet yet feisty; happy and giggly. She is everything a baby should be and, luckily enough, she's ours.

Life with two children is so much different than with only one. It's twice the fun, twice the work and twice the love... love you never knew existed because when you have your first child you don't think your heart can expand beyond the love you have for just that one. But magically the heart does expand and you really can never imagine that you could love that much. Hadleigh has filled our hearts and our world with so much happiness and hopefully she'll forgive us for not always having every minute of the day just to spend on her like we did with her older sister. But she has Avery, someone to look up to and watch and learn from... a privilege Avery didn't have.

Hadleigh really is a wonderful little person already. She loves to giggle and smile. Watching Avery and our dog, Laila frolic around her is also a favorite past time and she already seems like she gets a joke. She'll regularly laugh if we are and she's hardly ever fussy. Hadleigh is just starting to eat rice cereal and pureed sweet potatoes (you're jealous, admit it) and trying to get down the reflex in which she can use her tongue to push food to the back of her mouth. It's a messy situation. She also loves to stand now although she always needs adult supervision so that the weight of her head doesn't topple her over. One last note, she is still quite posessive about her hair, keeping all of the hair she was born with, just as Avery did. The interesting thing about it is that her hair likes to change color. Every time I bathe her I never know what color her hair will be. It's progressively getting blonder but now she looks like she has brown tips. But boy can she work that mane of hers! She owns it.

So five months have come and gone... I can hardly believe it.

           

New Life

So I got a bit bored with my layout and decided to change it up. The theme is called "New Life" and I think it's fitting for how I'm feeling right now. It's also a reminder of how ready I am for Spring!

I've been incredibly tired lately and the inversion here in the Salt lake valley has not been helping my mood. I feel like I need to pull myself up by the bootstraps and remind myself how amazing my life is. I have a great life with an absolutely wonderful husband and children that are my world, but it is sometimes hard to remember that when we get caught up in day to day life which can, at times, seem mundane. I enjoy seeing all of the new milestones my children reach and rejoice with them and tell them how amazing they are. I just wish I reminded myself about the milestones I reach each day and rejoice in the happiness I try to create for our girls. That last sentence may seem somewhat selfish but if there is one thing I see a lot amonst my friends who stay at home with their children, it is that so much goes into bringing up good human beings that we forget to nourish ourselves.

I know I have somewhat let myself down in how I thought I would be once I had children. I think I thought motherhood would be easier than I now know it is (insert laughter here.) I felt I would be able to do all that mothering entails and still be able to fit in "me" time and enrich myself with books and gardening and lots of laughter on the back porch with cups of tea in the morning... sounds idyllic, doesn't it? What I've learned is that motherhood and being a good wife and daughter and friend  while also remembering who I am at the core is damn hard. It's not that it isn't possible but seriously, didn't you laugh a bit when I said I thought I would get to read and garden in my "spare time?" Yeah, me too. The best part about that sentence is the reference to gardening since I'm the worst greenthumb on the planet, but hey, I figured I could at least learn how to keep plants alive.

So now is the part where I tell you that I'm going to try and figure out how to attain all those things while still keeping my sanity. I am trying to figure out how to attain a good balance between being "Jenny, the dependable wife, mother, sister and friend" and "just Jenny." It's almost like I'm going through the female version of a midlife crisis in a way and realizing I've been trying too hard to be perfect, even though I've failed miserably. I need to create a "new normal" for myself and make it as positive and fulfilling as possible. I'm not saying in the least that life has not been fulfilling, I just sometimes feel like I'm forgetting to enjoy the ride.

In the end, I know if I'm happier with myself and treat myself better, then everyone around me will be better off as well.

A New Year, A New Jenny

Well, at least for a few months. I'll be going lighter as the year goes on... which is also fun!

Help Wanted

It's really bad when you realize you're a stay-at-home mom and could really use a cook and a housekeeper. I'm working on the first one. On the job training!

Personality Plus

My friend Lisa also has a blog and when she thinks something her son, Fischer, says is particularly funny or sweet she calls it a Fischism. I have my own moments with Avery and I've decided to steal Lisa's idea and do my own "Avisms." In the last few weeks Avery has really figured out how to say some funny stuff and I want to put them to print so that I remember them 25 years from now when I have to give a speech at her wedding. Because that's why we have children, right? To embarrass them later on. I fully intend on fulfilling that part of the parent/child bargain. Here are a few zingers Avery has come up with in the last few weeks.

1.) While mommy has the grandparents in town I have taken a few opportunities to catch up on my napping. Avery doesn't understand why I want to do this.

Avery - "Mommy? Mommy? (while she's shaking me awake) you take a night mommy? Taking a night?

Me - "I'm taking a nap sweetie... is that what you mean?"

Avery - "Yes... mommy is taking a night."

2.) Grandma, Grandpa and Avery are playing in her room at the new table set they bought her for Christmas when Avery hears a loud noise.

Avery - " Grandma, did you fart?"

Grandma  - (Turning a bright shade of red) "No Avery, I didn't fart." (Grandpa is laughing loudly at this point.)

Avery - "Oh, okay, you went poop?"

Grandma - "No honey, I didn't go poop either." (Grandpa laughs for five minutes.)

3.) Avery is jumping on our ottoman and falls off of it, landing on one of her toys.

Avery - Climbs up onto the couch where I'm sitting and stick her backside in my face."Mommy, kiss my bum!"

Me - "Ummmm.... no."

Avery - "Mommy!!! Kiss better! Kiss my bum better!"

Me - "Really?"

Avery - "Pleeeeeeease?" And I did.