easter

I was really excited about Easter this year. I knew the bunny would come for Emmy and I had a hard time sleeping trying to guess what the bunny would bring and how he would get it out before Emmy went downstairs. Just like parents waiting for Santa, it can be just as exciting as it is for the kids. 

Early in the morning we woke to hear Emmy coughing. I dug up the humidifier out of the closet and set it back up to help her out. Emmy is getting tubes for her constant ear infections in a few weeks  and the doctor specifically mentioned that her lungs need to be strong so I'm keeping a close eye on her coughing. I will definitely do a post about her tubes since that seems to be a really common procedure for kids these days.

But first... the Easter bunny came for Emmy!

The Easter bunny brought Toms shoes, a sweet Jellycat bunny, an Easter bunny cereal bowl and Alice in Wonderland by Jennifer Adams. We didn't buy any candy this year since I knew I would eat it all. 

Emmy with her bunny ears!
Photo Credz: Courtney Truss

I was really excited about her easter bunny breakfast. I made cinnamon toast and cut out bunny ears and let Emmy have some goldfish in the carrot cookie cutter. I'm not going to lie, I was hopeful for a bigger production and Emmy took one look at the toast and tossed it to the dog. So yogurt for breakfast as usual.

After breakfast and a morning nap, we packed up and headed to see Joe's family in Centre...

 I was so excited to start up a movie for Emmy in the car. This was her first trip in the forward-facing carseat so I grabbed "Bambi", hopped in the back with her and started it up. She was more into the remote than the movie so I climbed back into the front seat for a nap. 

When we got to Joe's grandparent's house, I immediately felt cold and tired. I told Joe I didn't feel well and he said that he didn't either. We had a huge lunch with fried chicken, scalloped potatoes, deviled eggs, baked beans, and fried okra. Could you get much more southern than that!? 

Emmy was a little shy at first but then she discovered that there was one step between their living room and covered patio. She has mastered the stairs so up and down she went, exploring every corner and laughing at all the attention she got. 

Joe and I decided not to mention we were sick. We are so over it and just wanted to have a good time and let everyone else enjoy themselves too. On the way home, Joe woke me up as he pulled onto the side of the road to throw up. I hopped to the driver side and took over the rest of the drive. Luckily, Emmy was exhausted and slept the whole way home. When we got back to the house, Joe unloaded the goods and I took Emmy upstairs for a bath. I got her undressed but she started screaming and crying, refusing to get in the bath. She had done this the last 2 baths and even though I couldn't figure out why she was upset, I knew I had to get her comfortable with it again. 

As soon as I touched the water though, I had to pee. I got her to hold on the tub while I went but then she started trying to climb up my legs in fear of abandonment... then she just starting peeing all over me. She looked down with as surprised an expression as me and I just started laughing so she laughed too. I decided to just get in the bath with her, to make her more comfortable and to get myself clean too. Getting in with her worked! We were giggling and playing with toys and I quickly realized I am too big to share a tub.

Then I smelled something funky and decided to get out of the tub. 

As I started to stand up, the moving water exposed the stink: Emmy had pooped in the tub. It was like brown explosion. I yelled out of instinct and she immediately started crying. I scooped her up and yelled for Joe. He couldn't believe she had managed to pee and poop on me in a 10 minute period. I took her into our shower to get cleaned up and Joe was left with the terrifying tub. We were both so achey and he was nauseated but somehow we managed to get everyone and everything clean for another short nap at 5:30. 

By 6:00 we all felt a little better and went downstairs for dinner. I'm not sure that this was the best Easter I have ever had but it sure is a memorable one. Maybe by next year we will all feel a little better and everyone can keep their bowels to themselves. 

As for Joe and I, we decided not to get antibiotics this time. If we get bacterial infections and sore lungs every month then maybe our bodies need to figure out how to fight for themselves. I don't know anything about medicine though so I may just be making myself miserable for nothing!

one moment a day

I realize this bumper looks terrifying. She loves to cuddle up to it and we have watched her very closely over the past year and she is okay!

My favorite time of day is Emmy's bed time. Not the full ritual. The bath time is overly drawn out (how can a kid continue to sit in a cold bath and still have a good time!?) Then there's the struggle to get her in the tight pajamas and suited in a night-time diaper. She gets tired fast and is impatient for bed. But once she is ready, she leaps into my arms.

Then I get to hold her. 

Pure, sweet, holding. She hugs me back and I know that these moments won't last forever as I hold her tightly and kiss her head. One day she won't let me hold and kiss her, she'll be a big girl and she won't need me in this way. But for now, this is the best moment.

And sometimes, when she wakes up at night, I get to steal that moment again.

overnight trip

Last week I got to go on a little trip with my mom. It was my first night away from Emmy solo. As in, Joe's first night doing everything on his own. It was long overdue and I knew he could handle it. As soon as he took her to daycare I started to miss her even if the overnight trip would really only mean missing 4 "awake hours" of Emmy time. 

The only reason I have so many pictures of this trip is because I was keeping Joe and my stepdad, Rich, up-to-date on "their girls". This is something I'm always asking Joe to do when he is out so I can imagine where he is but he never does it. I guess it's a girl thing.

Anyway, so my mom travels for her job quite often. For some reason, I always imagined the fancy hotels we stayed at when on vacation and I envied her. Concierge taking her bags up, beautiful lobbies with fancy fountains and restaurants. Rooms with a view, fully stocked mini fridges and luxurious beds and bathrooms. 

Turns out, the Marriott Courtyard isn't really fancy. It was clean, safe and efficient. I definitely recommend it but man... no glamour!

That was my sneaky attempt at taking a picture of the cheerful lobby without looking obvious. If I were a business traveler, I'd totally grab a coffee from here. But it would be room service every night.  

It was my mom's birthday so we decided to do a girl's night out for dinner. We went to a restaurant that was only a few miles from our hotel in a really cute part of Huntsville. We sat at the bar and talked about husbands, babies and the future. It was really nice to catch up without all the distractions that come with our families. 

Eventually, I convinced my mom to eat and we got a table. 

I let mom pick the appetizer and she picked ESCARGOT. I was terrified but I promised to try it.

But it was AH-MAZE! It was snail inside butter and topped with toasty parmesan cheese. Our server gave us some bread to dip in the butter and cheese and we devoured it. 

Isn't my mom the cutest!?

One thing I love about eating with my mom or sister is when we share food. Most of the time I would rather eat a little appetizer, a little entree, maybe a half salad and some dessert. Joe wants his own entree every time. Sometimes I can convince him to trade bites but that's it. No adventure!

My mom was on a mission for adventure so she picked our entree, a whole red fish. I must admit, this was also delicious although I quickly turned this plate around, I couldn't bare to look at those giant eyes!

Since mom picked out the appetizer and entree, I picked the dessert. It was a chocolate peanut butter truffle mousse thing with ganache and basically just all of my favorite words in one. 

It was perfection.

The next morning, it was back to business...

We actually drove up to Huntsville to participate in a seminar her company produces to teach loan originators, processors and underwriters how to calculate self-employed income per Fannie Mae guidelines. Sounds exciting, huh?! For my job, it is (a little). With so many online shops opening up and people working from home we have seen an increase in self-employed borrowers or, at least, surprise write-offs on tax returns and I wanted to know what it all means so I can be prepared. 

We got coffee, orange juice, a pen with post-its and candy! Could you guess that I really miss school sometimes?

This was my worksheet... lots of crossing through because I tried to skip ahead and got confused. 

I definitely learned a lot about how to analyze tax returns. I also learned more about my mom, talked to her about my goals and how much she and my dad mean to me. I will work everyday of my life to have a good, close (in a healthy way) relationship with Emmy. Maybe one day we'll go out to eat for my birthday and we will laugh and talk about dreams and the people we love and we will both be happy and I will be so proud. 

OH... how did Joe do you ask?

He did great. She was alive, the house was still in order and he didn't have to call me for anything. 

He did, however, put her hot pink dress shoes over thick gray socks with a gray and red sweater. 

He said "What? They're shoes!"...

spring cleaning: check!

So, I was wrong about fighting the crud with water. Not long after I wrote about not feeling well, I was in the doctor's office with Joe finding out we both had severe bacterial infections and possibly strep. We hadn't eaten before we went in and were both freezing cold and miserably tired. We picked up Emmy from daycare and drove home to wait on Joe's mom to take over so we could rest. We moped around the house most of Thursday until Emmy spiked a fever and we spent a few late night hours trying to keep her temperature down and her head elevated so she could breathe. 

Around 2am, when her fever was up to 102.8, she started acting giddy and was laughing at everything. It actually made me want to cry because I was afraid the fever was making her like that. After the baby tylenol kicked in she was ready to sleep and she just wanted to be in her own bed. A girl after my own heart for sure!

The pediatrician said it was a double ear infection. A bad one at that. It was heart-breaking to hold her while she screamed and cried as the doctor checked her ears. She usually loves her doctor so I knew she was in pain and tired. She took a long nap after her antibiotics but it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that she started looking better. We have an appointment for late March to meet with a specialist about getting the tubes in. I'm dreading seeing the doctors take her away but I am so looking forward to a healthy Emmy! She will be so much happier when we get these ears under control. Since she's had basically a constant ear infection for the past 6 months, it will be interesting to see how she will do after the tubes!

I took advantage of the spring weather and the unexpected time off from work to get our house really, really clean. As in, clean floors, windows, bathrooms, even the mattress pad, duvet covers and pillows. Our house smelled like laundry all weekend and I loved it! We rearranged some furniture to make our room feel more "airy", ditched the dog's crate and moved the cat outside to his "igloo". 

By Saturday night, my back was killing me and I was afraid I had pushed myself too hard, too soon. Then I woke up Sunday morning with this crazy idea that I needed to paint our bathroom. I had wanted to paint it from the moment we first saw the house. There was little I wanted to change but the paint in our master bedroom and bath was too much of an orange tan to accept. It's funny how you get moved in, you get used to it and after a while, you just accept it. Our ceilings are fantastically tall so while we enjoy the loftiness of our room, we will have to pay someone to paint it! 

I digress, here's the before and after shots of our bedroom:

 BEFORE:

AFTER:

a close up of the two colors with one coat: 

I really liked the color when we first put it on. But as we went around the room the color appeared to be getting lighter and lighter. Joe said "It looks like we're having a boy!" and I immediately wanted to go curl in a ball and quit. It did look more baby boy blue than the gray blue I wanted. The color I chose was Behr's French Light Grey. The word "grey" is in the name! I am warming up to it. Except... our bathroom is SO BRIGHT now. Like, you wake up and blink a few times or just close your eyes entirely on the way to the toilet. 

Speaking of which... after we painted the whole thing (ceilings included - when did people start painting ceilings!? PAIN!!) Joe pointed out that we had forgotten the toilet room. If I get around to painting it, I'm going to try a darker blue that I could carry into the bedroom if I ever wake up that motivated again. 

spring, please hurry

Only a few days ago I went into panic mode and cleaned the whole house. I disinfected everything, swept, vacuumed, mopped - our house looked so clean. It's almost spring and no germs were going to get us now! It was warm, the sun was shining and then winter came back like a bitch. It always sneaks up on me for some reason. I guess I just don't have the attention span for the weather section of the news. 

I just woke up in a hot sweat, my throat parched and all snotty because my husband felt a chill and turned the heat up to 100. I had already put up the humidifiers and at 3am I was sneaking in and out of Emmy's room like a ninja to get her humidifier filled and on. I still can't breathe, but I'm determined to fight it off with water. Sometimes I love the unpredictable nature of weather but I'm really not a fan of highs in the 70s and overnight lows in the 30s. Is it like this everywhere? I think Alabama is just cruel sometimes.  

Winter is usually my favorite time of year but this one has been brutal. Emmy's pediatrician said that he hoped Emmy could make it to the summer without another ear infection or else he would recommend getting tubes. I don't want that for her although I am not really against it either. I am just so over her being sick all the time and carrying everything from the daycare home. 

We are also planning two vacations in the next 4 months and I am so excited about little adventures and a change in scenery. We are going to the beach in April with my side of the family. I have literally purchased a whole summer wardrobe with lots of bright colors and smocking for Emmy to wear and not a single thing for myself. She just looks so cute in everything! 

Check out this cutie: (SEERSUCKER AND RUFFLES. I die.)

In June or July we are going out to California (LA) to visit Joe's sister. She's an actress/model/dancer (jealous!? I am!) and has a free place to stay. I'm really excited about attempting the plane, layover and taxi with a toddler. No sarcasm here, I'm ridiculously optimistic about this stuff. Plus, Emmy loves her Aunt Ash (maybe because they look so much alike) and they never get to see each other so this will be good quality time for them. 

I'm also just excited that we can afford to do it. Joe and I NEED a vacation. Taking off work for colds, flus and stomach bugs are not relaxing. We haven't had a trip together since we returned from our honeymoon in May 2011 so this is definitely past due. Now, all we have to do is get healthy, make some money and save everything so we can have an awesome spring and summer. Only 8 days left of winter! 

not the babysitter anymore

When I babysat I spent my time playing with the kids, laughing, breaking a few rules then busting it to get the house clean before the parents got home. I was always exhausted but I loved it. I figured that's what it would be like when I had kids. Most of the time it is, but now I'm responsible for discipline too. I'm confident we can handle raising a respectful child but my goodness, the challenge for me is surprisingly, myself. I have a great relationship with my mom now but there was a time when we fought a lot. I give credit to our close relationship now to our ability to communicate. She tells me her thoughts, I tell her mine, and we listen to each other.  Sometimes, we disagree, but we respect each other and we try not to hurt each other's feelings.

This is hard to do with a one-year-old but I know what she wants. The other day, I actually hurt her feelings. I bought some organic, whole grain kid-sized chicken nuggets. She is fighting people food so hard and I was excited for her to taste it. I cut it up in small pieces, handed them to her and smiled with excitement until she started throwing them to the dog. WITHOUT TASTING IT FIRST. 

I told her NO. I shook my head and blocked her hand so she couldn't toss them. She looked me right in the eye and screamed. I was pissed. I took a little one and pushed it into her mouth. BIG mistake. She started crying and held her hands up for me to hold her. I could tell that I had hurt her feelings. I turned away and finished cooking her side dish. I didn't want to console her for bad behavior but I knew what I did was wrong, too. I disrespected her decision not to eat.

Most of the time I am patient with her, allowing her to explore her boundaries (and the fridge), keeping an eye on her to prevent her from getting hurt. She has a sweet and happy heart. Sometimes when she does something I think is bad (like feed the dog), I let it go because she giggles and her laughter makes me and Joe so happy. There is nothing more important than that, so we'll have a fat dog for a while. We still tell her no but we don't get angry.  She has time to learn the rules and if she doesn't we'll just feed her less until she decides she doesn't want to share what she has.

If I am learning anything in my first year of motherhood, it's that everything has a way of working itself out. You don't have to be a perfect mom, you don't have to do anything you don't feel is right, you don't even have to listen to your friend's or parent's advice on how they raised their kid. If you love your child and you trust your instincts, you will be a good mom and your kid will be good too. 

Everything I think I have learned with Emmy might be different the next time around, and I should warn my friends about that. I love to give advice and I cherish any I get from friends. But sometimes I get advice and I think, "nope, not how we do it". I trust my instincts, and Joe and I know Emmy better than anyone. We know how her little heart is so full of joy and her behavior, progress, and health are ours to monitor.

***

Oh, and here's a piece of useful, non-judgmental advice!

This is how I learned to teach Emmy how to use a straw... I thought this was instinctual like bottle sucking. I put a straw in Emmy's mouth and she bit it then laughed. She pulled it out and water went everywhere - more laughing. I kept introducing the straw but she always just chewed on it! One day at my mom's house we gave her a juice box. I squeezed the box while the straw was in her mouth and then she instinctively began to suck. She was so excited I decided to let her hold the box, which she then death-squeezed and the juice went everywhere. 

happiness

The Happy Movie

Joe and I watched a documentary called "Happy" tonight. We were about to turn on Indiana Jones for the 100th time but a coworker had recommended this about a year ago so we gave it a shot. You should definitely watch this movie. It is (not surprising here) about happiness and what really makes people happy. Is it money, success, fame, family? Yes and no. What I got out of this is that it's dopamine. And, to get that dopamine pumping, you have to exercise, be kind and compassionate, love and laugh. 

It's weird how I know that exercise will make me happier yet I never feel like doing it. I think that goes back to doing exercise for the sake of losing weight. I don't like that. In this movie, people weren't "working out" they were surfing, gardening, running, hunting and playing games. I loved walking around London, New York and DC. I enjoyed watching people and being surrounded by the beautiful architecture. I love to ski. Every chance I have ever had to ski I have done it all day, until my arms and legs were jello and then I got up and did it some more. Everyone needs to find something physical that they enjoy doing and make it happen. I'm going to have to find something new since skiing and walking aren't so fun in Alabama.

I've always believed that happiness was mostly perspective. My job isn't particularly glamorous but I find ways to be happy about it. i like my coworkers, I like my freedom and I like getting to know new people all the time. It's hard work. It is stressful and there are many times I have to tell people bad news. But it wouldn't be work if it was all good. The documentary focused on poor people who were found to be very happy with what they had. They put such a large emphasis on their family and the love they shared made them happy. One guy's job was to literally run barefoot on rocky and dusty roads carrying up to 3 people in a cart behind him. He was so happy because this job allowed him to provide for his family and he was proud of that. 

There were also bits about how Japanese people work so hard that they have become the world's unhappiest population. Denmark ranked as the happiest population and the documentary gave credit to free healthcare and education through college as well as a fairly common communal living practice. I would love to visit Denmark and see what else it might be, I'm not buying those reasons. 

When other people have talked about being depressed, it has always been hard for me to relate. The closest I came to being truly depressed was shortly after I had Emmy. It was a case of "baby blues" exasperated by the hormonal ups and downs caused by breast feeding. I made the decision to quit breast feeding so that I would be happier. It worked and I can look back and laugh at myself for being so sensitive. I'm not going to post advice for people who are legitimately depressed for this reason. 

I do think that the movie left one thing out: that the key to happiness is also to look forward. It was a common factor that linked many of the happy individuals. They talked about their future, their goals, who they wanted to be and what they wanted to do. People who focus on the past can't find happiness. If you think about the mistakes you made, the things you did or didn't do, the things you were not given or the love that you didn't have... you will not find happiness there. You can only find it by deciding that your past cannot hurt you now. You can be anything you want to be today and tomorrow is always a fresh start.