"While you were sleeping...."

 

It's no news flash that most Mommies can get many things accomplished while their little ones sleep. Everything from showers to mopping floors can get done VERY quickly as there are no little "helpers" to help. Sometimes, though, just for comic relief, a Mommy should let her little helpers "help" but those moments are usually only good for photo ops to post on your blog or to post as your Facebook profile photo. ;) At no other time in a woman's life will she think that sticking her hands into the toilet, her naked, bare bottom stuck out and giggling while having her photo taken is a photo opportunity for a blog OR for a Facebook page!

While i usually try to get things done while Emma is sleeping....usually it ends up being more 'me' time than a time to get things done. Yeah, i am selfish like that, lol. I check in with friends, catch up on emails, chat on the phone, text others, eat lunch all by myself without a cute little one trying to hawk my food and do goofy 'quizzes' on facebook so i'll know what my 'Hippie Name" should be. But don't think that i'm totally lax--i do start the dishwasher during nap time and toss in Clorox into the toilets to clean them durimg these 'me' times. After all, you gotta keep on on housework, right? ;) Of course, this means that there are at least two-three days a week when the only thing that i do is housework...it's kinda like punishment for having designated "Mommy-Time".

But i have two other favorite things to do while Emma is sleeping....

....i love to sneak in and watch her sleep. I have to be careful, though, because NO Mommy wants to EVER wake up a sleeping baby...but it is such an awesome, sweet moment to sneak in and watch your child sleep. She is so very peaceful while she sleeps. It takes my breath away as i watch her sleeping on her tummy with her bottom stuck in the air with Pachi the pink elephant under her arm. Emma sleeps with about 10-12 stuffed animals that she will put into the crib before she gets in, telling them all that "It's nap time!". I wonder about things like "What will she grow up to be?" and say short prayers that whatever she does, that God is with her, guiding her in her life and her decisions. And i'm often overwhelmed at the enormous responsibility of raising a daughter...there are so many things that i want to teach her yet i know full well that many lessons will be taught by others. Lessons that many not be kind to her but that are nevertheless a part of her growing up into a young woman.

I also like to tickle her toes while she's asleep because she'll giggle. :D

When i hear Emmma wake up from her nap or in the mornings, i love, love, LOVE to sneak in and listen to her play with her toes and talk to her stuffed animals. I hear her telling her stuffed animals things that i tell her like "Be carefuw on the stwairs!" and "Good mornin', Cupwake!!" and my favoirte "Plway time for Mama n Emmma!". I guess i realize that as she grows into her teenage years, lol, 'sneaking in' as she wakes up will not be greated with a happy "Good mornin' Cupwake!" greeting. My then-greeting will probably be something along the lines of "PLEASE let me sleep a little longer!"

So, for now, i'll continue sneaking into her room to enjoy her and to make memories of my little daughter...i know that this time with Emma as a toddler won't last nearly as long as i want it to and it will be gone quickly. I want to record as many moments for her as i possibly can as a gift to her so maybe one day, if she does have children of her own she will know how very much i love her.

Spring Hill

 

There is a town near where i live that i haven't been able to stop thinking about the past few days. It's a nice town, with new, beautiful neighborhoods and lots of pastures and trees. I've driven through there a few times and have always been amazed at how a town can grow in the mist of a cow pasture....but nevertheless, it was a sort of up and coming little town that seemed to be the place to live.

This town, called Spring Hill (don't you just love the name?!) is more or less built around a GM plant. New businesses have started from having a GM plant. This particular GM plant employees 2900 folks. Two thousand nine hundred folks with families, homes, lives. A few years back, GM invested over a million dollars in this plant...and the plant was currently building the Traverse car.

This GM plant is now in and "idle" state for the next month while GM (or the president) decides if a new, smaller car will be built there or in a town in Michigan. Most folks that i've spoken to feel that Michigan is a slam dunk as it
is a mostly democratic state. I like to think (in my rosy-colored world...) that politics doesn't come into play on decisions such as this...but it is foolish to think that.

I'm not going to go into the bailout issues, the president's part, how i feel about unions and their part in this, GM's part in all of this, or the pros and cons of the bailout and subsequent bankruptcy of GM. I could debate these things all day long as could many others who has opinions that are different than mine. But what i can not stop thinking about is the 2900 folks who work in this plant. Who have families and children. Who have homes in Spring Hill. Who, for the next month, will be sitting there as GM decides their fate. I imagine that most of these families depend on their paychecks from GM. And i imagine the horror that some of these employees of this plant must have at the thought of loosing their jobs at a time when the economy is less than inviting when you're looking for a new job. Homes in Spring Hill may not have the same value as GM may not be there so selling your house may not be the easiest thing to do.

A few days ago, the Nashville Tennessean had an article about the employees at the Spring Hill plant. How some felt "too old to look for another job" or "weren't sure of what in the world they would do". In this article, there was a photo of a woman who worked at the Spring Hill plant who had a daughter with MS....who was worried about her daughter's future, her daughter's health, and not being able to provide for her. I've not stopped thinking about this woman's face, her features showing her fear.

Through my husband, i've learned a lot about running a business~more than i wanted to know on some days. How you have to be proactive to protect not only your company, but those who work for you. How it's really about the bottom line and how hard it is to remember that when you care so much about your employees. How bad decisions can do you in quickly. How the economy can (and will) hurt you. How you have to run a lean company at times and how you have to not run so lean at times. But the one thing that i've learned from my husband is how valuable the folks are who work for you and how it's your duty as a business owner to protect them and their families. And i wonder if GM did these things....

...but mostly, now, i think about the woman in the photo with fear written in her face. I pray that her and her daughter as well as the other 2900 employees of this GM plant will be okay. That they will all survive this, and so will the others who have been touched by the GM thing. Praying right now seems to be the only thing i can think of to do...and so i do it.

I do the prayer thing a lot lately...

It's not a party.....

 

 

 

 

...till somebody eats dirt.

After a day of visiting Home Depot, hanging our Hummingbird Feeder, i decided to repot a small tree in a pot that i had bought recently. My little assistant, of course, was right on hand to "help". Luckily (or unlikely!) i had my camera close by. As i started working on the new pot, Assistant Let's-Eat-Dirt started to play. But, apparently my assistant was hungry as i watched her stick her head into mt tote of dirt and come up with a mouthful.

I would have posted that photo, but really, friends, it was just too gross.

Assistant-Let's-Eat-Dirt didn't seemed fazed as she chewed. I was about to hurl.

So, here is my little assistant...sigh. :)

Singing....

 

One of the things that i've always wished to have was a beautiful singing voice. Not to be famous or anything like that, but to be able to sing to my child (if i had a child...) lullabies. Too bad for me that my singing voice comes no where near beautiful. No one in any part of my side of the family has a good singing voice (we sound like a bunch of wounded cats when we sing together) but Robert is a wonderful singer-too bad for Emma that he's not fond of singing. So the singing duty has been relegated to me. I often worry that my singing will damage Emma's eardrums as my singing is truly that bad-but lucky for me, the child sings along with me in the same out-of-tone screeching that i do. She loves, loves to sing....and to be sung to.

This morning as she and i were in the shower (btw, i don't sound so bad in the shower....) i started singing Rock-A-Bye-Baby. Emma starts her lalala thing and we started together. For some reason, i've never really paid attention to the words to this song or any other lullabies...i've just sung them. Here are the words...just in case you don't know them:

Rock a bye, baby
On the tree top,
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
If the bow breaks,
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all.

WHAT?!?! This is suppose to be a lullaby?? "If the bowe breaks, the cradle will fall"?? And then, the worst part: "And down will come baby, cradle and all!" Yeah, i'm sure that's real comforting to hear when you're trying to fall asleep. Granted a very young child won't understand the words, but still, couldn't they come up with anything else than what they came up with? So, i moved on to the "Humpty Dumpy" song~and that one is almost as bad:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!
All the king's horses
And all of the king's men
Couldn't put poor Humpty Dumpty
Together again!

So, what they? Did they just make scrambled egg feast out of poor Humpty? I'm sure that there is a child out there somewhere that has questioned about poor Humpty Dumpty...

And so, i've come up with a lullabye for Emma. She can even sing it back to me, which is the sweetest thing in the world to hear...i only wish that she didn't sound like me. Here's Emma's Song:

Sleepy time, night time
Sleepy time for Emma and Paci (her stuffed pink elephant)
Night time, sleepy time
Sleepy time for Emma and Paci.

Close your eyes, close your eyes,
Close your eyes and sleep tight
Little Emma and Paci.
Close your eyes sweet and sleep tight, Emma and Paci.

Sleepy time, sleepy time
Time to sleep, time to dream
Time to sleep and have sweet dreams
Sweet Emma and Paci.

Night time, sleepy time
Night time dreams for Emma and Paci
Dream sweet dreams
My sweet little Emma and Paci.

I know, not the most imaginative song in the world, but when she's tired, Emma will start singing the song by herself. It makes me smile, hearing her sing the song to her gaggle of stuffed animals after i've left the room. Of course, she forgets words, lol, but it's even cuter when she sings it that way.

Maybe one day, she'll forget how horrible i sing and just remember our song.

A Graduation Party!

 

 

 

My friend, Marci had a small graduation party for her son Blake tonight. He's now a first grader! Lots of fun and the food? It was terrific~nothing like a bar-b-que on a nice evening. Emma, of course, was all about the water...and i mean all about the water. There was another two year old there and she was so dang cute! She was also all into the water.

Lots of fun tonight...i'm so glad we were invited!

Kissin' rocks....

 

 

....because she can.

I guess it's time to realize that my little girl is a tomboy. She loves to play in dirt, loves to play with rocks and bugs, loves to be outside to run, loves to walk (run!) through the grass with bare feet. I am going to have to let those daydreams of a graceful ballerina die, lol, and just keep her in gymnastics. Letting her be who she wants to be and enjoy the things that she likes (instead of what i think she should be, lol, and what i think she should like....) is the key to a happy child. And she is a happy child....i've never seen a little girl love to giggle like she does. Emma reminds me of a parrot right now; she mimics everything (and i mean everything!) that is said around her. I sometimes feel like i have a mini-me running around next to me...

I often wonder if she's lonely--you know, lonely for a sibling. I've heard lots of pro's and con's to being an only child and the most disturbing one would be wanting a sibling and not having one (being lonely). She loves school and knows her little friend's names and is so happy to be there. Robert often points out to me that just because you have a siblings, that doesn't guarentee that you'll be close to to them. I suppose he's right...

It's been a quiet and rainy weekend thus far....today is suppose to be sunny, but so far, well, no sun. Maybe we'll get lucky later!

On being a Mommy....

 

I just knew that i would be the BEST Mommy in the history of mankind. There would be no other Mommy like me ever again. I would be as close to a perfect Mommy as any could find. I would be the Queen of Mommyhood Land and all would hail me as such. In fact, i would be looked at and awwwed at constantly on how well my child acted and behaved, how she was dressed, how her manners were impeccable, and how sweet and loving a child i had. I would even start writing a book on how wonderful i was at being a Mommy.

Not only that, friends, i would NEVER (and i mean NEVER, EVER!) do some of the things that i saw those 'other' Mothers do....after all, 'those' Mothers obviously didn't have a clue on the 'right' way to do things. I, in my fantasy world of greatness, was a 'natural' mother and didn't need anyone to teach me anything. I had read ALL of the books on how to raise a child, what to do and what not to do, how to deal with cases of whining, crying, tantrums, potty training, safety issues, the so-called terrible two's (which i thought was nonsense, btw...) and how to teach responsibility to a little child. I would be the Mother Teresa of Mothers. I would never (there's that word again...) be one of those Mothers who screamed at their child, one of those Mothers who directed their child's every move, one of those Mothers who put those harnesses on their child to keep track of them, one of those Mothers who fed their child Mac 'N Cheese for lunch and dinner (because that's what the child wanted...) or one of those Mothers known as 'helicopter Mothers' who hoover over their child's every mood because they wanted no harm to come to their child. And i would certainly never bribe my child to get her to do what i wanted her to do. NEVER. EVER.

Yeah, you see where this is going, don't you?

This Best Mommy in the history of mankind obviously didn't have a child while all of these fantasies played out in her head. No one told me that little girls could (and would...) poop in the tub. No one told me that if you said the word 'no' to a child at least a trillion times that the said child wouldn't listen. No one told me that a little girl would run out (in front of my ONLY new neighbor who came to visit me, btw) slap, butt-naked, waving a diaper over her head, giggling. No one told me that a little girl would try to eat worms or dirt. No one told me that a little girl would poop so much that i thought that something surely must be wrong with her. No one told me that EVERY child throws a tantrum in a grocery store just as you are trying to get a few things; and scream so loudly that others would think i had run over her with a store buggy. No one ever told me that i would have to read the same book over, and over and over (and OVER...) again in those funny voices for each character in the book. No one ever told me that little girls insisted on drinking their own bath water after taking a bath in it. No one told me that i would sing in my ungodly, off-key, cat scratch, horrible voice, nursery rhyme songs that i made up because i forgot the real words to the song and my daughter would sing back to me in the same voice.

And of course, no one could prepare me for how much i love this child.

Outside in the Sunshine!

 

 

 

It has finally stopped raining here long enough for the sun to peak out and for me to grab my camera. I did get some really nice shots but taking photos of a toddler is a lot different than taking photos of a baby that can't walk! Emma has been fighting off the worst cold but today seemed to feel much better. She is coughing up a storm, though-i hope that the cough will clear up very soon.

I received flowers today for Mother's Day and a hand mixer that i've been too cheap to buy for myself. Nothing like presents that show up at the door! :) But the best gift has just been being Emma's Mommy....i remember actually hating Mother's Day. It was one of those holidays that i would buy presents for my Mother and then do my best to forget about the day because i wasn't a Mother. Not exactly the type of attitude to have, is it? ;) And while gift are nice, and the flowers are beautiful they don't quite measure up to when Emma will come up to me and kiss me suddenly or when she'll call out "Mama, where areee youuuu?" through the house.

I've also noticed little tiny hand prints all over my windows in the kitchen/eating area....i would clean them immediately the first few times i saw those little hand prints smeared on the windows but now, well, i've learned to just look and then and smile because before long, Emma won't be that little. And i'm sure that i'll wish for the day when she did leave those tiny hand prints everywhere....

Tim Hawkins....

...things you don't say to your wife.

This is just too funny.... :)

Conversations....

 

...from a two year old at 3am this morning.

Emma: WWEEEEEE!! DOGGIE?? DOGGIE?? WOOF, WOOF, WWWOOOOOLLLLFFF!
Me: (i'm pretending not to hear any of this....)
Emma: Pachi? Pachi? WHERE'S EMMMAAA? WHERE'S EMMA?? MEOW, MEOWWWW!! KITTY!
Me: (thinking to myself) I don't hear this, i don't hear this...if i'll just lay here, she'll stop.
Emma: UMP ON BED!!! UMP ON BEDDD!! WEEEEE!!! (she's jumping up and down in her crib...)
Me: (STILL trying to convince myself that she'll stop having a party in her crib and go to sleep....)
Emma: POOPY?? POOPY? MAMAMA, I POOP!! YUCKY, YUCKY!! MAMAMAMAM....I POOPY! INKY, INKY, INKY!! DIAWPER???
Me: God, if you make her fall back to sleep, i promise that i'll do my best to be a better Mom...
Emma: RIBBIT!! RIBBBIT!! FWOGIE? FWROGIE?? BBAAA, BAAAA!! SHEEEEP! MOOOO!! MOOOOO!! COW! COW!!
Me: ....and i promise to go to church EVERY Sunday for the rest of my life.
Emma: BOOO!! I SEEE YOUUUU!! WHERE'S PACHI?? PACHI?? WWWWAAAAAAA!!!!!! WHERE'S PACHI??? PACHI??
Me: sigh...God must be asleep, too...

I walk upstairs, open Emma's bedroom door and she immediately yells out:

HI MAMA!! WHAT DOING? TEA?? NANANA?? EAT, EAT, EAT!! wuf uuuu!

Me: Emma, it's sleepy time. See, it's dark outside. Doggie is asleep, Pachi is asleep and Mommy was asleep...
Emma: yes? up?? up?? pwease?? I POOPY!! YUCKY, YUCKY!! (jumping in the crib again....)
Me: Sweetie, you are going to break your crib if you keep jumping like that...
Emma: MAMA GO PEEE-PEEE? EMMA PEE-PEEEEE. hold you? hold you? yes?

So i do the one thing i'm not suppose to do: i pick her up, grab a cuddly blanket, take Emma to our big recliner and we fall asleep together.

Yeah, i'm easy like that....sigh.