Too funny not to share **Edited**

UPDATED TO ADD: Hmm. I just read my own post. I really like the quick takes posts, but all my posts read like quick takes, minus the bullet points. Welcome to my stream of consciousness!
******************************************************************************************

I came across this blog post today, and considering the state of sleep around here and the fact that I threw Nicholas' dirty socks in the kitchen garbage today, I just had to post a link to it here. It made me laugh really hard. Sarah's sleeping is getting better. Under the category of "totally obvious" we have the fact that the swamp cooler (yes, we live in a climate dry enough that we add humidity to the air to cool the house--a totally foreign concept to this girl from the humid Midwest) was (a) making a lot of noise, and (b) blowing right on her when it kicked on at night. By turning off the swamp cooler at night, we've reduced the night wakings significantly, but we've also increased the temperature significantly. We're still working that one out. Last night, she fell asleep at 9:00 and slept until 2:00. When she woke up at 2:00, I thought I'd suffocate in the stuffy warmth of the bedroom. So, once she fell back asleep, I moved her into the crib and turned the darn thing on again. As soon as it kicked on, she pushed up to her hands and knees, crawled over, and snuggled up to me. I can live with that.

Mr. X is on a business trip, and our heaven-sent babysitter came to help me for a few hours today, two of which I spent napping. Oh my goodness. I haven't slept without listening for a baby in sooo long. It was wonderful!

The birthday went well. It was low-key. The kids adored the horse show, and Sarah hated the cupcakes. She thought the whole candle thing was interesting, but to a baby who's never eaten anything sweeter than a banana, that's an awfully overpowering amount of sugar.

We went to mass. Here's the story on that. We've been attending another parish pretty frequently. We went there initially because the mass time (10:30) was long enough after the kids wake up that we don't have to rush, but long enough before naptime that they don't (usually) fall asleep in the car on the way home and ruin their naps.

It turned out to be a small parish with an aging congregation, but a great young couple who are friends of ours often go to the 10:30 mass, we know the deacon, and people are just very friendly. I had taken the year off from our regular parish choir because I just couldn't make the rehearsal commitment. But after we'd been attending for a few weeks, the deacon announced that the music director was inviting anyone who would like to sing to just come up to the choir loft and join the (tiny) choir--no rehearsal required.

So, the next week, I went up and sang, and Mr. X had the kids downstairs. I just ran back and forth, and finally took Sarah up with me during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. There were three little (like ages 7-10) girls up in the choir loft, and they rushed over to ooh and ah over the baby right away.

So, I've been going up to sing, bringing Sarah with me, whenever we make it to that mass. A couple of times, the whole family has gone up there and Mr. X has sung, too.

Then, two weeks ago, we went to the Saturday mass, and we sat in front of a really sweet older couple. Nicholas was having a rough time, so Mr. X was in the back with him for most of the mass, and the couple behind me was very sweet to Sarah, who was squirming a whole lot. We came back the next week, and sat in the same spot, but the kids did great that time. And the music director, who is the only cantor for Saturdays, asked if I'd like to cantor the Saturday mass.

In many ways it would be ideal, since I would only have to come down to the ambo for the psalm and would sing the rest from the choir loft. That way, we can bring the kids up to the loft, Mr. X doesn't have to wrestle them both for the whole mass, and they won't distract the congregation since we're behind them (in our regular parish, the choir and cantor are up next to the altar).

So, we tried it on Saturday. I discovered that it's tough to cantor with a 28-pound toddler on your hip, no matter how well-behaved he is, or with a 21-pound squirmer on your hip, for that matter. But it went OK. At one point, I looked down and caught the eye of the wife in that nice couple who sat behind us for the past two weeks, and she smiled and nudged her husband. After the mass was over, she came up to the choir loft and told me that she and her husband had been praying that I would sing for the Saturday mass--and they offered to come sit with us and help us take care of the kids during mass so I can sing!

How cool is that? I've been feeling bad about not singing, but I was feeling hard-pressed to figure out how to sing for mass, attend mass as a family, but not leave Mr. X to wrestle the kids on his own. I'm going to start singing at our regular parish, too, but we'll probably all go together on Saturday, and then I'll go on my own on Sunday, too. This way, we can all attend together, and I can sing.

Sarah's First Year

Newborn

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

Happy Birthday!

A Year Ago . . .

One year ago right now, I was in labor, into the fourth hour of pushing. Everyone thought her birthday would be the 23rd--the nurse finally had to call and have her wristbands rewritten just about now. I've frosted the cupcakes, plugged in the camera battery, washed and hung her little birthday outfit to dry, saved a photo post for tomorrow, and it's time for me to get some sleep. Her birthday gift (this doll, but in a red dress) probably won't arrive tomorrow, since I only ordered it on Wednesday night, but that's OK. I just hope her molars give her a break and she has a happy day!

We're going to a horse show in the morning as a surprise for Nick, who is still obsessed with horses. I can't wait to see his face when he sees all those horses in one place! Then I'm going to cantor at a new parish in the afternoon. It will be my first time cantoring since Sarah was born.

My life is so different now than it was a year ago, and I can't imagine a world without my little girl in it!

Seriously?

Oh, holy cow. May 30th? I really haven't posted since May 30th? Sigh.

So, yesterday was the anniversary of Sarah's due date. Her birthday's not till a week from Saturday, but the big due date has me thinking about what last summer was like. That and the fact that I'm finally doing things like getting the maternity clothes out of my dresser.

I think we're finally starting to get our feet back under us. This has been one intense year!

The latest news is that Nicholas is OBSESSED with horses. Seriously. We live in a weird area that is a mix of single-family subdivisions, apartments, and horse properties, so, fortunately, he has many opportunities to see horses. Unfortunately, that also means that every time we get in the car he says "Neigh! Neigh!" It's adorable when he's all excited, but can drive a person crazy once it's been half an hour and it's become a plaintive wail. And seeing horses doesn't seem to diminish his need to see horses. As soon as we drive past some horses, he will immediately say "More! More! Neigh! Neigh!" Mostly, though, it's very cute.

And Sarah, it turns out, is not so much sleeping. She's been cosleeping with us for most of the last year, and for most of that time, she would just wake up, nurse, and fall back asleep. Now, she moves. And she cries. So Mr. X and I both wake up. Since she's almost a year old, we thought we'd start trying the N.o-C.r.y S.leep So.lu.tion. To start with, you keep a log of the baby's nap(s) (just one nap in our case), pre-bedtime routine, and night wakings. The night we did it, she fell asleep at 8:20, woke up for the day at 7:30, and woke up TEN TIMES in between. I really had no idea she was waking up that often. I'd just try to get her settled as quickly as I could so that both of us could go back to sleep, so I really wasn't keeping track. So, we took one side off her crib and attached it to our bed (to give her more room so that my movements at night won't wake her up). And Mr. X has started putting her to bed--she nurses until she's sleepy, and then he walks her around and sings to her. The first night, it took him 15 minutes to put her to sleep, and she only woke up 4 or 5 times. Unfortunately, the last couple of nights, she's started rolling and crawling in her sleep a lot more. She'll nurse, fall mostly asleep, pull off, roll over, stay there for a minute, then roll again till she's in the middle of her crib. Then she'll sleep for a few minutes. Then she'll roll over, push up on her hands, start to crawl back to the bed, and crash for another minute or two. I woke up last night at one point to find that she had turned around in the crib, crawled back to me, and was sleeping with her feet in the crib and her head on my shin. So, there are still some details to work out.

To deal with the sleep disturbance, we (that is, Mr. X and I) have been napping more than usual. I tried this afternoon, but just couldn't fall asleep. So, right now, everyone but me is napping. Still. It's getting awfully close to dinner time. So, much as I hate to wake sleeping children, I fear a bedtime fiasco if everyone doesn't get up soon!