{ again }

joining the crowd over at tales of a gypsy mama--it's five minute friday!

   i feel like i can get nothing done today. it's one of those days where, no matter how sweetly i sing, how gently i rock, or how many 20-minute "let's go to sleep" sessions i perform, lainie refuses to nap for more than 30 minutes at a time.

i feel like i'm stuck on a hamster wheel with a tired baby who just can't figure out how to stay asleep. so i get her to sleep...again and again and again. and she wakes up...again and again and again.

i wouldn't be so frustrated if she and i weren't flying to idaho tomorrow and i have yet to pack, or make food for mike to eat while we're gone, or all the other half dozen important things that i can't do once i'm a few hundred miles away.

i know that in the grand scheme of things, this "stuff" isn't really important. one way or another we will make it to the airport tomorrow, even if the kitchen counter is covered in dirty dishes that will probably not be washed 'til i'm back home. *sigh*

so i'm trying to keep the eyes of my heart on Jesus as i rock little one to sleep for what feels like the four billionth time today. reminding myself that i am every bit as stubborn and foolish and demanding as she is...again and again and again. followed by reminding myself that Jesus loves me, died for me, took all God's wrath for me, and gives me His perfect righteousness as my record, because He bore all the punishment my stubbornness and foolishness and sin. again and again and again i have to remind myself.

maybe it's a good thing lainie and i are living in the rocking chair today.

{ Life Lately }

Life right now is really good...rich, and full, and good. I'm learning that life is always "good," because God is always good, regardless of my particular circumstances; but in this season, it's really easy for me to see and acknowledge that goodness.

 

I'm reading Romans--r e a l l y  s l o w l y. The gospel is so beautifully presented in that book. I'm letting it seep into the crevices of my soul, reading all the notes in the ESV Study Bible, and moving at a snail's pace. There is so much about the gospel that I didn't get--still don't get. Jesus is amazing. God's mercy and lovingkindness and forgiveness are amazing. God's pursuit of us, how He did everything to make it possible for us to have relationship with Him, floors me. I'm still reading Give Them Grace, and it ties in beautifully with Romans. All about the gospel and how that transforms parenting. Good stuff.

 

I'm excited to see what God has in store for us when we start house-hunting again, even if it's the decision to stay put longer. This treehouse may be little, but it's pretty sweet.

 

 

 

I am so thankful for coffee, cream, and sugar. Those three things in combination are like magic. More, please.

 

Last night I told Mike that I feel like I'm losing my mind. Every night is flippin' Groundhog Day: Lainie's tired. It's bedtime. Feed her. Change her diaper. Sing/rock her to sleep. 10-45 minutes later, she cries. Burp her. Reinsert pacifier. Lay her down. 5-10 minutes later she cries. Burp her. Reinsert pacifier. Sing/rock her. Lay her down. 5-10 minutes later she cries. And on and on and onnnnnnnn for 1.5- 3 hours. E v e r y  s i n g l e  n i g h t. We've attempted crying it out several times; once I think we let her cry for almost an hour and she was clearly getting more and more hysterical, not calming herself. I'm hesitant to try again, because 90% of the time when she cries at night, she has a legitimate need: burps. {That girl has more and bigger burps than anyone I know!} It's just so frustrating...and mind-numbing...to spend hours doing this every single night. And she goes to sleep just fine any other time of day!

 

I would really prefer that my sanctification take place in ways and at times that are more convenient for me, Lord.

 

Ummmmm....

 

I'm amazed that I am able to keep our house and clothes clean, cook reasonably involved meals, blog, and all those other little normal life things, on top of taking care of a little person. There was a period of some months after Lainie was born when I was really freaked out about, oh, everything. How am I going to do anything again?!! I'm lucky if the baby and I are both fed, dressed, and reasonably clean by 1pm--I'm never going to be able to cook or go to the grocery store by myself ever again! As Mike reminded me last night when I had my little meltdown, "this too shall pass." No matter how overwhelming any season with a baby seems while you're in it, in reality it doesn't last long.

 

I'm excited to start attending women's group again. I took a break after Lainie's birth because she was high-risk for whooping cough {especially with her slightly compressed right lung due to the hernia}, and whooping cough is epidemic in Washington. We haven't gone out much, period...and let's face it: I'm pretty much okay with that. I am a homebody. Always have been, probably always will be. I'm perfectly content in my nest. BUT not only will consistent fellowship with other women be great, just getting out of the house regularly will be good for us {and by that I mean me}. Going anywhere with a baby is such a production...I usually convince myself to stay home. It's not hard. And while that has curbed my non-grocery shopping significantly, it's not good for my mental/emotional/relational health. Helloooooo? We were just talking about how I think I'm going crazy every night!

 

Next weekend, Lainie and I are flying to Idaho for a week. I'm really excited to introduce her to family and friends she hasn't met yet, and to catch up with folks I haven't seen in over a year. The whole navigating an airport and flying alone with a seven-month-old? Yeah, I'm a little nervous, but overall I think it will be a fun adventure. I like flying and airports, remember? I will miss Mike dreadfully, and he looks forlorn whenever we talk about it, but I think he is secretly relishing the idea of being a bachelor for a week.

 

Hey, my mug's empty! Is there any coffee left?...

{ What I Think About Food, by Lainie Rae }

Mommy and Daddy eat lots of amazing things that I really, really want to eat, too. For example, barbeque sauce!! Even the bottle looks delicious! But they won't let me touch it. Same goes for lots of other yummy-looking things: pens, books, vaseline, chicken nuggets...

 

 

If I'm in the mood for a light snack, tags and straps are the best. I love my dolly's tag. I chew on it for hours. Same with my Bumbo straps...delish! I think Mommy knows how tasty straps are, because she puts me in my Bumbo every day now. It's gonna make me fat. LOL.

 

 

One day Mommy put me in my high chair, which incidentally is the most uncomfortable place in the world, and put a banana on my tray. I checked it out very carefully. When I chewed on it some of it broke off in my mouth and--oops!--I swallowed it. That was unpleasant. Conclusion: Kinda sticky and overall gross.

 

The next day Mommy put me in the high chair again and gave me something she called "sweet potatoes." They are awful. Super slimy, and they get all over! Me, the high chair, that crinkly bib...I tried and tried to get it off my hands, but sweet potatoes just stick to anything! I got kinda upset. It was really gross to have sticky slimy stuff all over me. By the way, I wonder why they are called "sweet" potatoes...Mommy calls me sweet all the time, and I didn't see anything about those potatoes that seemed like what I thought "sweet" meant. Hmmmmmm...

 

The next day, Mommy put bell peppers on my tray. They are horrible little stick-y things...cold, too.

 

There was more: avocados {which are as scary as sweet potatoes, but slimier! Can you believe it?!}, steamed broccoli, pears, and honeydew. Gross gross gross!

 

And then one time, guess what?? Mommy put some slimy stuff on a spoon and tried to put it in my mouth! No way Jose!! She kept telling me it was tasty, but how would she know? She wasn't eating it! I think she thought I'd be distracted from the soupy stuff because it was on a little pink spoon, but I wasn't. I'm very observant.

 

Recently there has been a pleasant development: the sippy cup. I loves it. It has weird, clear milk inside, but I don't mind because I can suck it and hold it and chew on it!

 

 

Luckily for me, regardless of the crazy stuff Mommy puts on my tray, I can almost always find a strap to chew on. Sometimes it's all that keeps me going in the face of such constant adversity.

 

 

I think Mommy is getting tired of having to clean me and my clothes and my chairs so much, because she hasn't given me yucky-squishy-slimy toys for a few days. It's just me, my toys, my straps, and that sippy cup. Yay!

 

{Edit from Mommy: While Baby Girl's disgust at edible toys is simultaneously amusing and a little discouraging, she's still getting all the nutrition she needs from nursing, as evidenced by her continual chunking up. Her pediatrician says some babies take longer to get used to the idea of eating and the new tastes and textures involved, so we're going to wait a week or two and give it another shot.}

{ Family Resemblance }

In case you haven't noticed, I have a daughter. She's really cute. If you've maybe forgotten what she looks like, take a peek here or here or here....or here...or here...or here...or here!

 

Now that you've refreshed your memory, I present to you: Baby Nikki, circa the summer of '83. Turns out Lainie looks an awful lot like I did many, many moons ago--with the addition of Mike's dazzling blue eyes.

 

Crazy, huh!

{ this + that }

When I saw Lainie's pediatrician last week, we came to the conclusion that Lainie's dairy intolerance symptoms are so incredibly mild that the only reason for me to continue abstaining from dairy is if I want to "prove" to myself that I can make her symptoms go away by not eating dairy for 4-6 weeks. I have no such desire to prove myself. Many babies start having difficulty digesting the proteins in dairy around this age, and over 90% of them outgrow it by 9 months of age, and it's not related to dairy allergies developing later in life {that's an inability to digest the sugars in dairy...different problem}.

In other news, there is nothing, NOTHING, like good old from-the-cow half 'n' half in my coffee. It is delicious.

I'm reading Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus and it is kicking my butt. I've said this before, but once again I feel like I'm understanding the gospel for the first time. I'm learning it in a completely new way, in my head and my heart, and it is so powerful, freeing, refreshing, sobering, lavish. Soooooo thankful that I'm learning about gospel-based parenting at the beginning of my motherhood journey.

I've been listening to these audio recordings of some of Elyse Fitzpatrick's presentations on repeat. Like literally, I'm on my third time through the first set of lectures. Love her way of presenting the gospel...Jesus is really speaking to me through her work.

I've spent the last couple weeks tweaking our furniture arrangement, and unfortunately I know want to buy an area rug, ottomans, and another lamp.{I already bought one lamp to replace the torchiere that died in October.} I shall not give in to these desires because a} we are probably moving this year, so I don't want to spend more $$ than I already have on decorating this home, and b} Mike just finished our budget for 2013 and I can't afford all that stuff. Which makes me sad and happy at the same time. Ahhhhh....budgets!

The hot glue has given way on two of my cork coasters, but I'm still having no luck getting crazy glue to work. How on earth do all these people do wine cork crafts?! I'm mystified!

Mike is going all Paleo/Whole30 this month, and as the family chef, I'm along for the ride. It's not too much more "extreme" than the Paleo-ish way of cooking I've been doing for the past few months. I've found some really tasty recipes, the only drawback being that we appear to eat larger quantities of food when it's all veggies, meat, and fruit.

It seems that all my posts lately end with me saying that Lainie's waking up from her nap and I've gotta run...maybe that should be my new tagline!

{ Resolutions }

It appears that in order to be trendy and "in" with the rest of the world's bloggers, I need to choose a word that defines what I hope to be/do/embrace more fully in 2013. Though I've always wanted to be trendy, I've never quite hit the mark--really, when you were homeschooled in Idaho, you are so far removed from "trendy" that I don't think you can ever catch up in a normal lifetime. ;-) Then I think I ought to set some goals, but how to choose? How can I even try to predict what I can realistically accomplish in the coming year?

But intentional growth and change are good things. Goals are good, when they don't become gods. I've been mulling this over, and here's what I've come up with. My hopes for 2013.

I want to enjoy the life God has gifted to me: Enjoy my husband. Enjoy my baby. Enjoy being a homemaker and stay-at-home wife. Enjoy the juggling of cooking and cleaning and errands and friendships and grocery stores with a tiny, wiggly baby girl in tow. Enjoy middle-of-the-night nursing and snuggles, hours on the floor playing with rattles and taggies, because she is already growing up way.too.fast. Enjoy our small home, with its minimal upkeep and the fact that I can clean our whole abode in minutes and re-decorate the whole place in an afternoon.

I want to read more--not just anything, good stuff that will nourish my soul and stretch my mind. I've already started Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, and I really want to read this and this, too. Any suggestions on what I should tackle next? Crazy Love? Something by John Piper? Re-read Anne of Green Gables?

Speaking of enjoying the life I have--rather than wishing for some nonexistent reality where I have time to blog in leisure--Little Miss is awake!