Splish, splash, I was taking a bath

Sierra loves water. She adores her swim class, but since that is only once per week, the rest of the week, she gets her "water fix" in the bath tub. And she has a great time. In fact, I don't know why I never thought of this before, but this past week, someone suggested on an online forum that you can get your bathroom clean by just sticking the little one in the tub and cleaning up the sink and toilet. Shower has to wait until I finish my shower after bedtime. Brilliant!!

Oh no! Vacuum!

A couple of weeks ago, my vacuum was making a weird noise. So I took it to "Mike" of Mike's Vacuum. A couple days and $22 later, it was back and seemed to be working fine. Then all of a sudden, weird noise again. I ignored it. Big mistake. A couple more minutes and the thing completely stopped working. I took it apart and the belt had essentially disintegrated. Booo!! I had another belt on hand, so I replaced it. It was less than a week later and the weird noise was back. This time I didn't ignore it. I took the vacuum apart and this new belt was also being eaten. Oh no! So last Friday, I took it back to Mike. He called on Saturday to tell me that he thought the brush was wearing out and he was going to replace it. Then he thought maybe it was the clutch system and he was going to replace that. Then, early this week, he called to tell me, basically, he couldn't fix it, didn't know what was wrong with it and there was nothing I could do but get a new vacuum. Booo!! (again) Of course, he had one that he sells, that he stands by, offers a 2-year warranty, will give me "a bunch" of bags if I buy it, blah, blah, blah. I do not have $300 to spend on a vacuum right now. Besides, when I tried to research this vacuum he suggested, I couldn't find anything about it online. Weird, right?

Plan B. Consumer Reports. Consumer reports likes the fairly inexpensive Hoover Tempo. Amazon reviews were also mostly good. So I was going to buy one today. Target doesn't carry it. The guy I talked to at Sears seemed ... confused. First, he wanted me to give him the item number. (I was not online; don't they have somewhere they can look it up??) So I got on to the Sears website, told him the number that he needed and he was all "Ummm ... yeah, I can't get that in here." You can't get that in here? Really? Then he tells me I can order it online and have it shipped there. Okay, so I can order it and have it shipped to your store, but you can't get it in your store? Sigh.

I ordered from Amazon. It will hopefully be here in 5 days. But I may be completely insane by then. The crazy is growing in proportion with the amount of fur on my carpet. I may have to stalk a friend to borrow a vacuum before I loose my mind.

Motivation

I was afraid this would happen. Of course after I told you all how well Sierra has been sleeping, the past two nights have been dreadful. Last night was particularly dreadful. It doesn't help that I stayed up watching the Olympics until Jason got home from duty, so it was approaching midnight by the time we got to bed. Then, about 10 after midnight, Sierra woke up. And cried. And jumped up and down. But it was more or less short lived and she went back to sleep. An hour later, she was up again. When she was still crying 20 minutes later, I went into her room, calmed her down, read her a couple of stories, she stood up again, we repeated the process. Finally, she appeared to be asleep, so I headed back to bed. No sooner had my head hit the pillow and she was jumping up and down in her crib again. Sigh. I told Jason it was his turn to go get her. He did (it's now about 2:05am) and brought her back to bed with us. I *think* she slept for a couple hours at this point, but I can't be sure because I'm sleep-deprived. There might have been another waking in there. She woke up again at 4:25, and even though we don't really night nurse anymore, at that point, we did. Because I was tired. And fed-up. And I honestly didn't want to deal with the yelling that would ensue when I told her that milk was "night-night". Sigh (again).

My alarm went off at 6am. I was supposed to go work out with a couple friends. I picked up my phone and composed a text message that said Sierra had slept badly and I wasn't going to make it. I looked at the message. And I thought about it. Then I deleted it and got my ass out of bed. I knew that if I didn't work out this morning that I didn't know when I would do it again. Such is my life. And after my 1/2 marathon in January, I realized that I really do need to be lifting again. Not to mention, as my friend Kate pointed out in the comments of that post, lifting is really the best for an active person to prevent injury. So right now, I'm really glad I went to the gym this morning. Perhaps I will find some time for a nap today. Or maybe actually go to bed early? Maybe ...

Sleep rollercoaster

It's been 3 weeks since I posted about Sierra's first time ever sleeping through the whole night. I haven't wanted to say anything since then for fear that I would jinx myself, but now enough time (and enough "good nights") has passed that I'm willing to say, "I think we may have turned a page with Sierra's sleep."

Now, don't get me wrong, not every night since that one has been awesome. In fact, the very next day after I posted that, Sierra had an absolutely horrid night of sleeping, and consequently, so did we. Two night ago, we put her to bed around 8:30 and she woke up at 12:30. I waited to see if she would go back to sleep. Twenty-five minutes later she was still awake, screaming and crying, and jumping up and down in her bed, so I went and got her. Comforted her, read her a story, and finally made it back to bed myself when the clock was closer to 2am than it was to 1am. Sigh.

Then we come to last night. Jason put Sierra to bed around 8, read to her, and she was asleep by 8:30. I went to bed around 11, and shortly thereafter heard her stir/fuss in her room. But she didn't fully wake, she didn't scream and cry, and she wasn't jumping and down in her crib. She settled back into sleep and we didn't hear from her again until about 6:15 this morning when we were both standing in the kitchen (me getting ready to head to the gym, Jason getting ready to start his day).

More and more regularly, we are putting Sierra to sleep around 8-8:30, and she is sleeping through until 5:30am. At that point, Jason or I will go get her, I nurse her and she dozes for another hour to hour-and-a-half. Now if I could just get myself to bed earlier, maybe I wouldn't feel so tired all the time. (or maybe that has something to do with the fact that I'm growing a human)

Extreme sports

Sometimes I put on Sesame Street in the mornings. Sierra is not particularly interested, except to point out "Elmo! Elmo!" (she has an Elmo doll, so she recognizes that character) The point is, she's not much of a TV girl, which is way more than fine with me. She's rather read a book. Or rather, she's rather her dad or I read her a book. And another book. And another book. Until we, as the adults, are all "I can't read anymore!!"

Then, a couple weeks ago, we were watching the X-Games and she was completely captivated by the snowboarders. Mesmerized.

Now, the Olympics are on, and she has been watching downhill skiing and snowboard cross. We were watching the trials of snowboard cross yesterday afternoon and Sierra stood in front of the television yelling, "GOGOGO! GOGOGO!" Jason and I will not be surprised if she becomes an extreme athlete.

Wait! Becomes? She's already an extremely athlete. She participates in the sports of ottoman jumping

And staircase bouldering.
Check out those moves!

Happy Valentine's Day

Saturday morning, Harper invited Sierra and Sophia over to make a Valentine craft and decorate cookies for the holiday.

Sierra and I baked cookies that morning to take with us (Sierra is an extremely helpful cookie baking assistant).

We attemped to make Valentines with the girls. You know, paper cut-out hearts, glue sticks and crayons? Right. So, it turns out, 1-year-olds are still a bit young to be particularly interested in making paper valentines. You should try it. It's an experience I think you should have. Mostly, Sarah, Lorae, and I made some valentines while our respective daughters proceeded to remove all of Harper's toys from their various locations (admittedly, Sierra had a big hand in this. She can be a bit destructive. But we love her anyway.). Witness the carnage:
Don't worry; we all helped clean up. Even Sierra.

Then it was time for cookies! Everyone loves Cookie Time!





Sierra getting over her anger that I won't let her hold the entire plate of cookies. Yikes!
Eating cookies on the floor with friends makes everything better.
Side note: Seriously, how do I have that much of a bump already? Sheesh. I'm going to have to be more cognisant about tucking in those abs. That, or dig the maternity pants out of the attic.
Hope you had a lovely Day of Love!

Something I've been meaning to tell you

I meant to post this last week. But I didn't. So here it is. We'll let Sierra tell the news ...

(Did you read her shirt? Do you want to know the secret?)

...


That's right, folks! Baby #2 is in the works! I am currently 13 weeks along in this pregnancy, which I hope will last the full 40 weeks (or maybe a touch longer). Why would I want to stretch it out as long as possible? I'm glad you asked.

Jason is taking some graduate classes this summer. In Montana. We will be living in Bozeman from the middle of June until the end of July. Because this baby is due August 15th, that means that we will be 2200 miles and 4-day drive away from my midwife and local hospital while I am 32-38 weeks pregnant (just for reference, anything after 37 weeks is considered "full term"). Theoretically, then, Baby#2 could be born while we're in Montana. That would not be ideal. But it would be okay. A much better situation would be for #2 to just wait, hang out in the spa until we return to Virginia. I do not know what I will do if #2 decided to make the grand entrance sometime during the 4 days of travel between Montana and Virginia. We will have a nice, long talk (several, probably) where I explain to #2 how wonderful it will be to stay in there until August 15th.

Sierra was born 10 days early. If #2 is 10 days early, that is precisely 1 day after our return home. I was counting on Sierra to be late. First babies are always late, right? I was working on my Masters degree. I had things to do before she was born. I was confident she would be arriving later than her due date. Ha! First lesson of parenthood: things never go according to plan. I didn't have my hospital bag packed yet. This time, I'm packing at 30 weeks!

I've been feeling well. Exhausted, but well. I had some morning late afternoon/evening sickness for several weeks, but thankfully, that seems to have passed. Still tired, though. A problem probably exacerbated by the fact that I spend 12 hours of my day chasing after a toddler and I know I'm not going to bed early enough.

I had my second appointment with my midwife, Donna, early last week. We got to hear #2's heartbeat, which gave me the confidence that Wow! There's really something in there! Also, I'm now into the second trimester. That's why I'm now finally comfortable announcing our impending addition to our family to the blogosphere and Facebook. In the car on the way home from the appointment, Jason said he loved seeing my face when I heard the heartbeat of our second baby. He said it was pure happiness. And it was.

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

Shortly after it started snowing yesterday morning, Sierra and I headed out for a walk with the dogs. It was perfect snow for walking. Softly falling, not blowing, a silent reminder of winter. (contrast that with snow NOT nice for walking: the icy, sharp, wind-blown kind, which I had today!) There is something about walking through snow like that that makes everything seem quieter, muted, even in the middle of the day. We continued our walk up the hill and around campus and stopped to look at the cows, including an ever-increasing number of babies.

The snow continued throughout the day, though it didn't actually start sticking to the ground until the late afternoon. And then it continued to stick all night and through the rest of the day. We were supposed to get 20-28 inches and I don't know how much we actually ended up with at the end of it all. I do know that we ended up with a large branch the size of a small tree that fell close enough to where we parked our car that the very tips of the branch brushed it. If we had parked three fee to the right, there could have been some very serious damage.

I tried to take Sierra outside today to play in the snow, but it just didn't work. She is too short, or the snow was too much, or a little of both. Poor thing couldn't even take a step without falling over. Which frustrated her and led to cold hands and big tears. Too bad. I think she might have more fun with a sled. Which, I thought we didn't have, but this afternoon, my friend Shari reminded me that she had given me a toddler sled this summer. I think it's in the shed, but I haven't been to check yet as there is a snowdrift in front of the door. It's on the short list for tomorrow.

tree branch

Sierra too small for snow

A Day of Natural History

We had hoped to head up to DC this past Sunday so that we could see my friend Rachel who was going to be in town for one-day-only. But, alas, because of the snow, we opted not to brave the roads and head up there. Too bad.

We've wanted to visited the National Museum of Natural History for some time and since the Woodberry boys have "long winter weekend" right now, Jason has a few days off his teaching responsibilities (whoo hoo!). We opted to drive to one of the metro stations and then take the metro into the city. Good idea, but we totally did not know what we were doing. The first station we pulled into, we only saw buses, no metro, so we got back on the road and kept driving. At the next station, we saw only buses, no metro, but decided just to go for it. We shortly realized that there were both. The metro station was just a bit beyond where we could see. Probably was like that where we first pulled off too. Oh well. Then we stood in front of the little ticket kiosk for I-don't-know-how-long trying to figure out what tickets we need, how much they're going to cost, blah, blah, blah ... finally the little dude came out of his booth and helped us out. Em-barr-assing!

Anyway, after a not terribly long ride on the metro, we arrived at the DC mall and made our way to the Museum of Natural History. Right in the front door, we were greeted by a giant replica of an African elephant, which resulted in Sierra continually making elephant noises from the carrier on my back.
The museum is huge and there was no way that we could have taken it all in during the just over 3 hours that we were there, but we did out best and we saw a lot of really awesome things. We spent over the first hour in a massive exhibit on the first floor that was filled with an amazing amounts of information about the history of earth, fossils, and how evolution happens, including some of its driving forces.



We headed upstairs to see the Hope Diamond, which was certainly impressive, but I was admittedly underwhelmed. Sure, it was shiney and all, but the rest of the geology exhibit was so much cooler!! There was an amazing array of rocks, crystals, in all different colors and forms.




We headed over to the butterflies and plants area where we looked at some super crazy cool creepy-crawlies. There was a staff person out there with several insects that we could hold/touch and Jason and I commented on the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. The woman was surprised we knew what they were. Jason and I both held this huge, beautiful, slow-moving grasshopper that apparently leaves in the Everglades where it is not thought to be so beautiful. There was a display that had buttons you could push and hear different insect and animal sounds (cicada, cricket, tree frog, etc.) and Sierra had a lot of fun with that. There was also a replica of those giant African ant colonies with a tunnel through it. I was totally grossed out by the giant centipede, which Jason thought was funny, but it's fine, I got my payback in the next room, which was full of snakes. Ha!

Before leaving, we wandered through the photography exhibit, the colonial America area, and made a too short trip through the Deep Sea exhibit. There was preserved giant squid that was 11 meters long!! C-razy! Whales hung from the ceiling and we saw the huge jaws of a Great White Shark (yikes!). A fish tank with live ocean fish finished off our trip and we were on our way home.

Pew!

Just as we were getting ready to head out the door, Sierra ran over to me and said "Pew! Pew!"

I checked ... and sure enough! She had a stinky diaper. This is the first time she has actually communicated that to me.

Does that mean that she's ready to potty train?

Let it snow!

Saturday, it snowed. The snow started before we woke up Saturday morning and it snowed all. day. long. It was lovely. Big, beautiful flakes creating an inviting (though chilly) blanket of white. I see that untouched perfect slab of white and I just want to run through it, mess it up, be the first to leave my tracks. I think we must have gotten a total of about 8 inches. This is the second big snowstorm this year for this area (we missed the first as we were already in the midwest to celebrate Christmas with the fam), and Jason and I were both thrilled to be here for a little winter. Last year, there was almost nothing, and I really kind of missed it. There is something about the snow that makes winter a lot more bareable. It changes the brown and gray and dull and dead to a sparkling wonderland. This is particularly applicable if you don't have the immediate need to drive anywhere.

We did get a chance to go outside and play in the snow with our little snowbunny, but we didn't stay out long. It was rather chilly, and she's already outgrown the boots that fit her at the beginning of the season and we never had snowpants (we don't get snow like this in Virginia, remember?) So we did the best we could with legwarmers and running shoes and multiple layers and had a fun time tromping around in the snow until it got too cold.

The dogs got in on the action too. Our dogs love the snow. They love to eat it, the love to tear around at top speed, and it makes our 8-year-old hound dog find the puppy inside.

Good times. Pictures coming soon.