Blood Root Tattoos

One of my favorite memories from childhood is skipping through Hixon forest in the spring, picking blood root and making bright orange streaks on my hand. M had her first ritual "marking" today at Perrot State Park on the Brady's Bluff trail from Mimi. Along with her new word "oriole", her worn path through the garden trail, and her new habit of hugging and kissing trees, I think little M is turning out just like her Mimi :-)

Spent a great weekend in The Dells at an indoor waterpark...crowded? check. noisy? check. overstimulating? check. The kids loved it! ...and so I did too :-) M loved playing with her cousins and her pawpaw K. To top it off, M and K hunted for Easter eggs with about 50 other toddlers at MagiQuest, an indoor interactive video game environment.. this will be an Easter to remember- dragons, fairies and giant trees, oh my!

M is mastering the stairs- up, down, up, down, up, down. Scares me half to death!

Milena woke up this morning with the giggles. After bringing her to bed with me around 6:30 am she proceeded to sit up in bed and start doing... the chicken dance! How cute is that?! She, of course, insisted that I join in :-)

I'm Baaaack!!

I'm baaaaack!! I decided to start blogging to document M's super cute fun little things she does everyday. 19 months is sooo cute!!

Good week so far:
1) M started her new bilingual daycare, loves her teachers, and said her first Spanish words "aqua" (water) and "negro" (black)- yeah!

2) M's new favorite word is "soup" and this week she helped daddy make and slurp up potato leak soup and.. much to our wide-eyed surprise tonight... red curry soup with edamame. With every bite she says "soup, soup, yum, yum"











3) She's talking alot and says mama, dada, baby, bye-bye, hi, thank you, wow, soup, cheese, ice, milk, more, this, eat, eye, ear, hair, beep-beep (to get me out of the way), ewwwww (for diapers and gross stuff in general), uh-oh, nuh-uh, puppy, woof-woof, moo, mimi, yah-yah, much more, I can't remember and of course the ever popular.. MINE! She said her first phrase "Bye-Bye Baby."

4) M started pointing to herself and saying her own name but instead of M she says, Nina, which W and I kind of like as a nickname!

12 Hours in the Life

12 Hours in the Life of a Working Mom...

Midnight: I finally fall asleep after staying up working on laptop.
12:15 M wakes up for feeding.
12:45 M falls back to sleep.
1:00 I finally fall back asleep in bed.
3:15 M wakes up cranky with wet diaper. I change her, feed her and burp her.
3:45 Both of us fall back to sleep on futon in nursery.
5:00 M wakes up smiling and ready for the day.
5:15 I finally get up, feed her, change apoopy diaper, sing a few songs, and read her a book.
6:00 Decide to wake up W to take shift while I sleep for extra hour.
7:30 W wakes me up to feed her before leaving for work. I try to feed her, she's not interested.
8:00 Need to pump so I have enough for daycare. While pumping, W tells me he needs to leave- argument begins about insensitivity.. and house-cleaning.
8:15 W leaves to take M to daycare. I shower, do dishes, pick up house, make my lunch, get ready for meeting with funder, wash bottles and pump accessories and pack up laptop bag, pump bag, and back-up drive from work- carry all bags to car....back aching. Reminder myself to make massage appointment.
9:00 Drive to St Paul for meeting with funder.
10:30 Drive back to office for rest of 5 meetings of the day.
11:00 Pump
11:30 Meet with new accountant about coding records for new software.
12:00 Quickly eat dry cheese sandwich while running between meetings and checking email
1:00 Online training for new software- eat banana while on speaker phone and try not to make banana noises. Talk about kids and ski conditions to trainer in Utah.
2:00 Pump
3:00 Lead staff meeting.
4:15 Head out door to pick up M at daycare, sit in traffic.
4:35 Home from daycare and sit in traffic.
5:00 Arrive home, carry M's carseat, my laptop bag, the back-up drive, and bottle cooler in from car..back really aching now.
5:00 Try to get computer set up to print out documents for board meeting with M on my lap. Computer dies, unplug light under desk, digging around under the desk while M pukes on my work clothes.
5:30 Sis shows up to babysit. Both change clothes, M starts to cry. I make a bottle while E tries to calm her down. We trade off feeding her, calming her while I print board notes.
6:00 Grab ice cream out of freezer for potluck and finally leave house to drive to board meeting.. 30 minutes late.
6:15 Arrive and lead board meeting.
8:30 Leave board meeting for home. Arrive home, talk to E about work and kids. Wash bottles and pump accessories for tomorrow.
9:00 Watch TV show while eating snack and answering emails.
10:45 Head to bed after long day
11:15 Wake up to feed M.
12:00 Back to bed thinking about the last 12 hours.... 5 hours of sleep, an hour and a half in the car, 12 hours of work and meetings, 1 hour washing bottles and accessories, 30 minutes eating, 2 hours feeding, changing diapers or pumping, and only 2 waking hours with my 4 month-old beautiful little daughter today.

Milestone! I spent my first night away from M and W took on the full-time daddy duty.. the whole night! I was incredibly nervous when I took off on the 30 minute drive to my friend's new digs in exurban Minnesota. With music blaring and foot tapping, I resisted calling W every three minutes to see how things were going. When I arrived, I poored a glass of wine and wolfed down some pizza with my girlfriends, we watched a cheesy horror movie and I slept my first night alone and baby-free in four months. Ahhhhh... sleep (actually I didn't sleep well but probably to be expected). I woke up in the morning, called W and everything was A-OK. What a relief! Now I know I can get away, get some time to myself and all the world won't fall apart :-).

I attached a photo from the "game" that I was in charge of for my friend's baby shower this weekend. I bought plain white onesie's of different sizes, fabric markers and we had a decorating contest for the new baby. My friend J will be able to keep all the new one-of-a-kind creations and think about us each time she dresses her little one this spring. I think it went over well and would recommend it for anyone looking for a unique shower game.