Spread the Lovey!

I wrote this post after a friend wanted me to test out one of her favorite loveys by Baby Jack & Co, but it didn't work out to get one to me in time for today's focus on military families. Despite the fact that I realized they're a Wisconsin company (I kid, I kid), these things look adorable and come in a variety of colors and themes including an American flag one. Though it didn't work out for me to get one in time to post about it today, Myra loves her lovey so much I wanted to hit Publish on this one anyway.  In an effort to help #SpreadTheLovey (helping get these loveys to littles who may have an extra need for a security item, click link for more info on this campaign), TheBabyGuyNYC is doing a giveaway today!  Click the link to get to his Facebook page for more info and to enter.  Also, Baby Jack & Co. is donating a % of all their proceeds from today through Monday to The Carrying On Project, a favorite non-profit of mine.  They help get baby carriers to military families in need, whether it be a spouse who needs to free up her hands while a service member is deployed, an injured service member needing a way to hold his/her child, or providing a way to nurture the parent/child bond in a world with many periods of separation.

Anyone who has spent 10 minutes with us knows how attached Myra is to "Baby."  While we do have a few boundaries with her (Baby doesn't go to school or the library), Baby pretty much goes everywhere.  The combination of Myra being a thumb sucker and having a lovey has made my life so much easier.  More importantly, Baby is by far the number one way to comfort Myra.  If she wakes up in the middle of the night, no matter the reason, our first instinct is to say "where's Baby? do you need Baby? let's get your Baby!"  I kid you not, we regretted not including Baby in our holiday card photo last year because she is that much a part of our family.  I have a photo of Baby ready to be printed next time I order prints so I can put it in a frame for Myra.  Especially considering the added amount of pain and illness Myra has gone through due to her FPIES, Baby sure has come in handy.  Note: we actually have a rotation of 3 babies so we will hopefully never be without her.

Evidence:

Myra rubs Baby's hair between her fingers while sucking her thumb as she falls asleep

Needless to say, I sure hope Niko finds a lovey to provide him the same amount of comfort.  The most stressful (downright scary!) part of having a lovey like Baby is the fear of losing it and/or the fear that we won't be able to replace it (the reason I bought two extras for Myra).  I actually got a lovey for Niko, a MN Gophers lovey from a friend's shop, but Myra stole it and insists on sleeping with her "Go Gopher," too.

While we haven't had a deployment since becoming parents, we have had to say goodbye to Trevor often for as long as 3+ weeks which is a long time for small kiddos!  Whether the need for comfort comes from simply missing Daddy or the need for Mommy to divide time while solo parenting (surprisingly, I can't do everything all at the same time), I have found comfort knowing Myra has the tools to soothe herself.  To be honest, it gives Trevor something to talk about with Myra while he is away and upon his return.  She's too little to tell him what happened two weeks ago, but she will talk about things she has done with her baby all day long.  I love being able to bring a comforting piece of home with us when we travel (which we do as much as possible with two small children).  Again, I would love for Niko to have all of this, too.  While it does make sense to treat Myra's security object as a part of our family since it's a stuffed person, I think any security object could do the same.  We could just as easily recognize a blanket, pillow, or sensory taggie as Niko's BFF (pet rocks, anyone??).

Minnesota Fall.

Fall in Minnesota.  Half summer, half winter.  Fall is my favorite season, by far, but it seems like we only get a few weeks of that perfect fall weather each year (if we're lucky).  I better get these photos of our warm weather fall activities before it turns into winter.  Last weekend it was 80 degrees and this weekend we are (were??) expecting snow. 

The Army has been/will be needing Trevor a lot lately, so Myra and I have been busy doing our own thing.

 

Our patriotic little Red Bull

Myra and I met Cory and Ashley at one of our favorite semi-local apple orchards.  Myra helped them pick their apples then we went inside to sample some.  This was a big moment for me because I could actually let Myra try all the different apple varieties!. I even found some apple butter to bring home, a new food item made with things she can actually have!

 

 

After lunch and a nap, we just had to enjoy the beautiful weather a little more.  We packed Rowdy up and headed to our local dog park.  I think Myra has more fun there than Rowdy.  She makes lots of friends, people and dogs alike.  And when we're all done, I get to bring home a tired kid and a tired dog.

 

 



Compare all that sunshine and warmth to today, chilly and windy.  Here is Myra, clearly excited to get to school this morning!

 

 

Happy Fall, everyone!

5 years.

Five years ago, I knew a lot of things.  I knew I was about to make a big, life changing decision.  I knew we made the right decision to wait and make sure Michelle could be there.  I knew Trevor would deploy in 12-18 months.  Despite being pretty darn cool, calm, and collected overall, I knew I should have gotten decaf.  I knew I was about to marry the right person and I knew all the great things we had planned for our life together.  As much as I thought I knew it all, there were a few things I didn't know.  (Besides the fact that we figured the five year mark would be a good time to go on a repeat honeymoon to Jamaica...ha!)

I didn't know that five years from that day I would be sitting on my couch alone watching Scandal and writing a blog post and not even able to have a beer or glass of wine.  Just hold your horses, this isn't a whiny depressing post, hang in there.  Despite how crummy that might sound, today was a great five year anniversary.

Trevor left for drill yesterday and will be gone until Sunday.  I actually haven't even talked to him today (standard for drill weekends) other than a quick text this morning.  I woke up to the sound of Myra rolling around in her crib and saying "hi!" to her baby and stuffed bunny.  We got ready and went to Toddler & Me class like we do every Friday morning.  The weather was perfect and we spent the last 15 minutes of class playing outside.

I didn't take photos of the other kids, but there were about 8 of them.  I don't know that they signed up for toddler class to be put on some mom's blog.

 



After class, I stopped by Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  Make that a Venti!

 

 

As soon as we got home, it was right back outside to climb, swing, kick (the ball, of course), and play with the leaves!

 

 

Play time was followed by lunch time then nap time.  After nap, we ran a couple errands, came home and read some books.  We ate supper and Myra was rubbing her eyes so she even went to bed 20 minutes early.

 

So, here I sit in the only home we've ever known as a married couple...married to the best man ever who is spending the weekend with his Company...a sweet little girl asleep in her crib...baby number two nudging and poking in my belly...sans beer and wine...and a tired out fur child snoring on his rug.  Since Trevor and I will be celebrating (just us!) on Monday with a Red Lobster dinner courtesy of some gift cards we've been hoarding, I can honestly say this is a fabulous anniversary!

 

However, I think we will need to really focus our efforts on Jamaica for our 10 year anniversary...





Summer 2014.

Well, this is embarrassing: one post about our entire summer.  Once I get out of the blogging groove, it can be hard to get back in it.  So, here goes nothing!  (Also, this will be long so I highly doubt I will go back and look for typos...hope it makes sense!)

If you don't care why I haven't posted all summer, you can skip this paragraph.  If you're nosey, read on.  I went back to find my last real post (not counting my Causes posts, which are definitely real, but you know what I mean) and it seems I was a bit of a blog failure this spring, too.  When I sat down to write this, I didn't intend to start out with this big explanation, but here it is.  I found out the day after Easter that I was pregnant.  I had some weird tests (really light, slightly darker, light again, darker, etc.) for a week and finally went in for blood work a week after my first positive test.  My HCG and progesterone were low (HCG 34 and progesterone almost 0) which was definitely not a good sign for a pregnancy.  I went back 48 hours later for a repeat; ideally, HCG would have at least doubled in that time and HCG was 1.  So, no baby (a very early miscarriage, or might even call it a chemical pregnancy).  Because of the weird tests, neither of us totally got our hopes up and definitely never had a "woo! we're having a baby!" moment.  My body didn't care and I still felt pregnant that whole time (sick, tired, blah).  Luckily, I got pregnant again a few weeks later and I'm now 17 weeks and feeling baby kicks every day.  Because of my history (two losses), my doctor ordered an ultrasound and blood work at my 8 week appointment.  Baby looked good but my progesterone was low.  I never had it checked with Myra and she was totally fine, but my doctor wanted to put me on progesterone just to help support the pregnancy until I hit 12 weeks.  So, I got two rounds of two shots in the butt followed by a month of suppositories and all was well.  ANYWAY, what that all really means is I've been tired and sick then extra tired and extra sick (progesterone side effects) for most of the summer.  It's only been the last few weeks I have been feeling pretty darn good, but I still love naps.  Again, I didn't exactly mean to get into the specifics of all that, but there it is-my legitimate excuse for failing at the blog.  I believe I had a similar lapse when I was pregnant with Myra.

17 weeks with Baby 2, a bit bigger than 17 weeks with Myra! (Also, not in Hawaii this time, sad face)

Trevor just started his final year of undergrad (Biology-Biomedical Science/Pre-Dentistry) and is busy, busy, busy studying for the DAT, filling out dental school applications, shadowing, etc., on top of being a student, husband, dad, First Sergeant...  That all leaves us both pretty busy.  We somehow make time for him to play softball/bowl (depending on season), so we agreed we need to make time for me to go do something on my own, too.  Until I come up with a better idea, I will be spending my Sunday mornings at a coffee shop while blogging and/or wasting time. 

I helped run a booth for my babywearing group at a Baby Expo...and Myra got to meet a couple of the Vikings Cheerleaders.

Myra and I survived without Trevor for two and a half weeks in June while he was at Camp Ripley playing GI Joe (normally these 2-3 weeks are no big deal, but early pregnancy made it suuuuuper fun).  I felt like crap and slept every second I could, but survival was the goal.  Trevor was gone for Father's Day, but Myra and I went to my great-aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary party then to my dad's for a cookout. 

Myra and I went to the Minnesota Zoo with Grandma Christy and my nephews.  I was curious if she would turn into a zoo animal herself without a nap, but she found a way to squeeze one in. 

 

Our niece graduated high school this spring and we got to attend her commencement as well as her open house party.  We also attended a few weddings this summer and they ALL had photo booths.  We've got quite the collection of photo booth strips now. 

Thunder of Drums is an annual Drum Corps International competition Trevor and his family attend every year.  It's actually where I met half his family for the very first time many years ago.  This year was Myra's first time and she did very well!

Most of Trevor's softball games were late games this summer, but we did get to watch him play at least once!

Every summer I/we go visit my aunt/uncle/cousins in Wisconsin.  For the last several years, they have lived in the Madison area, but since our last visit they moved to Green Bay.  It was fun to visit their new home and see some new places with them.  We went to Bay Beach Amusement Park and took Myra on a couple rides.  Trevor got to go on the doozies on behalf of our family.  As he was boarding the scrambler he sent me a text, "I am not looking forward to this." haha, what a good sport! 

A week after our return from Green Bay, we went to the North Shore for a long weekend mini vacation.  I spent a week every summer "up north" with my grandparents and cousins, but I haven't been back in about 14 years.  It was fun to see the area again and share that with Trevor.  He lived in Duluth for a while, but never made it up that far (crazy, I know!).  Myra LOVED the rock beach in Grand Marais; she would have been content to just play there the whole trip.

We spent over 30 hours in the car in July and Myra was a total champ.  Zero crying and less than 5 minutes of whining total.  Before we even got out of town on the first trip, she said, "out! out!" and we were pretty nervous about how it would go, but she was fine.  I probably whined more than she did (I was feeling okay-ish, but not wonderful, in July).

In August, my dad and I saw Paul McCartney live at Target Field.  Never in a million years did I think I'd get to see one of The Beatles live, and wow he still sounds amazing!  He played for three hours straight.  I can cross that off my bucket list now.

Myra and Rowdy have become quite the buddies this summer.  She loves to throw the ball for him, go on walks with him, pat him and say, "buh boyyyyyyy (good boy)!"  We recently got a dog park in town and I can't tell who has the most fun there, Myra or Rowdy.  She loves just running around, petting the dogs, throwing the ball, playing in dirt, all of it.  The first time we went, we saw a Great Dane and she kept pointing at him and saying, "horse!"

Our county fair was great this year.  Trevor was gone for it last year and I was dairy-free, so that was kind of a bust.  Myra really liked checking out the animals, people, and tractors.  We briefly went through the tractors the first time we went.  The next morning I told Myra we were going to the fair again and she kept saying what I thought was "doctor."  When we parked at the fair, I realized she had been saying, "tractor!"

Myra has gotten to be so much fun--lots of talking, walking, running, doing.  This child is OBSESSED with bubbles.  She loves playing with real bubbles and will make anything around the house into "bubbles" (a toy drum stick and a cup is pretend bubbles to her).  Grandpa spoils her with his mission to find the best bubbles on the planet and recently bought a pretty fabulous bubble gun for her to use. 

 

Food trials are going well, we have taken a couple breaks due to me feeling like garbage, Myra being sick (she had Hand, Foot, and Mouth last month), that sort of thing.  We usually take a break any time she has something going on that might cause confusing symptoms.  Our last "pass" was corn which has been huge!  Corn syrup is in so many things, plus she can now have Kix, Corn Chex, Fritos, Quinoa/Corn pasta, corn on the cob...  Sometime in the last month, we dropped her morning nap so she just takes one in the afternoon now.  It's not always super long (always at least an hour), but planning things around just one nap has made life much easier.  She doesn't really have a clue what's going on as far as my pregnancy/future big sister, but the other day she did pat my belly and say, "ball!"  At my 12 week appointment, it took the doctor a little bit to find baby's heartbeat, but as soon as we heard it Myra said, "HI!"  But really, I think she's pretty clueless.

That, in a nutshell, was our summer!  We got to spend time with friends (some we hardly see--two even moved back to town!), lots of trips to the waterpark and different parks in town.  Myra could spend all day playing with sand, swinging, and sliding.  She is also a fan of bike rides.  She climbs into the Burley and puts on her helmet. 

I promise to write a little more regularly now--if for no other reason than for us to read in the future.  Writing it publicly means I have no excuse, right?  Also, the Causes posts have been slacking because July was a tough month (not much for awareness stuff that I could find, and no one to write on the topics I could find) and the two I had for August fell through (life happens, it's all good!).  So, hopefully, no more blog crickets, okay? OK!

And well, who doesn't love a random photo of a sleeping toddler?