Mornin!

(With apologies to my Instagram followers, who will find this largely regurgitory...camera is going to the shop today, I swear).

Well! A busy August here for us. You? Between buying and renovating a house, packing, being hit by a nasty virus, and keeping up with a now fully toddling little miss while pregnant, we haven't had a lot of down time. Ooh, and I'm going to Colorado next week. I know, life is hard. I am certainly not complaining - it's just been crazy busy around here.

Except for this. Many moons ago I wrote about how I'd envisioned stay at home motherhood as a morning of folding sweet smelling laundry watching Bob Barker on the Price is Right while the baby napped. No doubt a fuzzy memory from my own childhood. Well, last week I found myself enjoying a little Barefoot Contessa during an extra long nap while I folded laundry and the dogs snoozed beside me. A rare moment of quiet, peaceful, productive solitude.



Perhaps the calm before the storm, as the following day Eliza came down with a nasty mystery virus. Her fever hovered around 104 until Friday morning, and she felt just terrible. The rest of the week was spent waking up with her every few hours at night, and the days crept by very slowly with a hot, sweaty baby parked on my chest.


We logged a lot of quality Sesame Street time, with faithful Bun Bun by our side.


By Friday she was on the up and up again, hamming it up in the tub.


I've managed to keep laundry done on schedule and dinner on the table (pats self on back). Here was one of my more successful made up recipes - I had bought some ground lamb but couldn't decide what to do with it. Miller suggested I do something Greek with tzatziki, so I grilled up some seasoned lamb, onions and cherry tomatoes, served on some quinoa and topped with some fat-free tzatziki (didn't use a recipe, just threw dill, lemon juice, diced cucumbers, S&P and Fage 0% together to taste...mint is optional, my husband is not a fan so I omitted it). Threw some poorly chopped seasoned cucumbers on the side for extra color and crunch.


Very good, incredibly easy, and super healthy! One of my favorite timesavers is to make quinoa and pastas in a big batch and just reheat throughout the week.

All done with the help of my other best friend, coffee. Sworn off in pregnancy one, embraced in pregnancy two. Just the one allowed cup of course, but I savor every drop.



Groceries purchased with the help of my stylin sidekick, Liz.



For our social butterfly, every trip to the grocery store is her own personal Miss America parade.

So, right at 14 months, and two days after my ginormous "catching up" post, in which I reported that she was very close to walking, little miss took off and hasn't looked back. She has surprised us by being able to stand on her own from the get-go and toddling around quite adeptly with many things in her hands (usually baby doll) right off the bat. At the beginning she was walking with her arms overhead most of the time - hilarious and so cute - but that's subsided some, much to my dismay.

Eliza fully weaned the day I hit the second tri. I had planned on weaning at exactly one year, but found out I was pregnant one week after her first birthday, so decided to wait until we were in the clear in the first tri. It was time and my roll-with-the-punches babe hardly seemed to mind. Her morning feed has been replaced by a very gratifying, thumb in mouth snuggle session in the bed each morning.



Though I dreaded it for months, once I felt it was the right time, it was easy and I'm glad to close that chapter (for a few months anyway...). I have to say, after all our early struggles and doubts from doctors and lactation consultants on my commitment to sustaining as much of a nursing relationship as I could, it's a bit of a personal achievement for me that we made it to fourteen months. Booya. Shame on anyone who makes an emotionally vulnerable new mother feel less than adequate. Mamas always know best, right from the start, and always do their best for their babies. I am hopeful that we will have a bit of a smoother start on the next go round though!

Our funny girl's new-found independence has been a new adventure. A small piece of me dreaded it, but thus far it's just shown us more of her spunky little personality. I try to give her plenty of freedom within the boundaries we've established. At the moment she's pretty much just on the hunt for things to put on. She is a girl who knows what she wants and is quite confident in her fashion choices. She pulls out my drawers and puts on my clothes:



Pulls bracelets out of my vanity to dress up her pajamas.


Wants sunglasses on at all times. Often upside down and caddywompus, like so:


Can make an accessory out of anything (here I think she was going for an Olympics-themed outfit):


Isn't a slave to the fashions of the season. If it works, it works.


Remains sweet as pie, though of course we get a daily dose of emerging toddler. We're big into throwing things and then looking for the reaction. Here she's considering tossing her sippy on the floor. I'm sure you can guess what happened.


Or like yesterday, when she pulled a glass bottle out of the shopping cart and dropped it on the ground. SO, perhaps sweet as a slightly busted pie...


We're doing just great - those defiant moments are all part of them exerting their new independence and I'm really loving her at this age. I hope Eliza's still enjoying our days together, even though her playdates and pool dates have largely been replaced with trips to flooring stores, front door stores, Benjamin Moore and the like.  A little guilt there, but we'll be back into our routine soon enough. I try to have her "help" me wherever we are, which works most of the time but for some reason she hates Home Depot. I've decided it's because it isn't filled with lots of adoring fans (read: moms and grandmothers) like the grocery store is. Thank you to our mystery friend who came running over with her darling basset hound in the middle of an epic tantrum at Lowe's yesterday evening. Once she saw that puppy dog she forgot why she was mad (she was mad because, after throwing her sunglasses on the floor one too many times, I had banished them to my handbag. I know, I know, so cruel. Report me to CPS. And no way was I giving in just to shut her up, so we were beelining for the door when our savior in basset form appeared). You're messing with the wrong mama, Lizzy.

Our coffee table (and my brain) currently looks like this:


We close on our new house on Thursday, with work beginning Friday morning. Packing has commenced - I've been dismantling my favorite corners of the house -



- with plans to pretty much get all but a skeleton crew of necessities in boxes and at the new house this weekend. We're doing about two weeks' (we hope) worth of remodeling projects and then will move all the furniture in on September 1st - our five-year anniversary.

Our plan is to celebrate by also finding out the gender of baby dos that evening, in our new home. I think it's pretty dead even with finding out on Christmas morning! My slightly hormonal self is having a bit of a hard time leaving our little rent house, which though far from our dream home has been such a happy, cozy place for us. The most perfect place to start our family. But as happy as this chapter has been, I know our new home will be a wonderful place to grow into as a family of four, and for that I am brimming with excited anticipation for September 1st, just as I was five years ago. 



Until next time, friends - xoxo