sneak peak

Just a sneak peak from our 2009 family Christmas card...



Look at the chub on those arms!!

fiddlin' around

I'm in the midst of several projects...
gift shopping
gift wrapping
online gift browsing
cleaning
laundry
...

In general, just getting ready for the holidays. Today we were in the midst of major laundry folding, and Mia just really wanted to be a part of it. So, Greg plopped her in the laundry basket and she completely distracted herself by pulling things out of the baskets underneath the coffee table and ripping apart an old catalog (good thing I didn't want that anymore). I guess it's like what they say: the best things in life are free (or come in the form of junk mail).


And earlier this week, Greg set Mia down on the bed while getting ready and gave her the contents of his pockets...seems like Mia's already learned a thing or two about which items to grab first...iPhone, credit card...check! Smart girl!

Roly Poly

So, I read somewhere on the internet -- what a great source of accurate information, by the way ;) -- that when babies start rolling around all over their cribs and up on their hands and knees, it means they might be ready for crawling. If that's the case, then I'd expect some crawling action from Mia any day now.

She about scared the willies out of me the other night when she awoke around, who knows, 3 or 4 am?, and I went into her room and she was propped up by her arms just looking (and crying) at me. I'm not used to be eyed like that when I enter her room; it used to just be a squirmy crying baby laying in her crib.

In fact, she just woke up from a nap (a bit early, I might add!!) and is just playing quietly in her room, and I can see on her video monitor some backwards scooting action. What's funny is that if she can't get to where she wants to go, she just rolls back and forth, from tummy to back and vice versa, until she gets to whatever corner of the crib she feels like hanging in for a bit.

Good news in this arena...I have discovered that she will not necessarily scream bloody murder if she just so happens to roll onto her stomach. She has done that occasionally over the last couple of weeks and she might whine a bit but she seems to find a way to go back to sleep *most of the time*. We are still working on regulating sleep patterns, but I'm finding that teething, these amazing developmental milestones, sickness, and traveling are throwing off our games a little bit.

Every now and then I think, whatever, I'll just get over it (the whole sleep deprivation thing), but then one day I'll have a very angry moment where I'm really cranky and sleepy...and somehow, we just keep moving along. It never seems to last that long anymore.

Well, she threw a blanket on her face and hasn't figured out how to get it off herself apparently, so to the rescue I go.

*Sigh* My time is not my own anymore... :-S

Getting used to a new way of life

Since having Mia, my perspective on day to day things has had to change, adapt and evolve quite a bit.

Now that I stay home, I find the littlest things enjoyable, such as:

• walking outside to check the mail


• loading the dishwasher (especially when there's been a backup and all the dishes clouding the sink and countertop are spatially arranged in the dishwasher -- I guess you could say in some small way it exercises the tetris sector of my brain...didn't you know we all have one of those? Trust me, I was a psych major)


• making coffee, sitting down, and then enjoying that cup of coffee


• writing about 4,892 blogs in my head, when about .07% of those are actually published

There are certainly more little things I find enjoyable, but usually, and as illustrated right now, my mind is all over the place and it's hard to collect it all neatly in one place!


---------------------------------
In other news, we traveled for Thanksgiving up to Greg's parents' in north Nashville. I was a bit nervous about traveling to begin with, because we were to drive up the day before Thanksgiving, leaving early afternoon. It's normally a 10-12hr drive, kid or no kid, and the last time we drove up in July, it took so much longer! However, even though Mia woke up with a fever that day and some nasal congestion, she was a great traveler and we probably only stopped 3 times, making it in 11 hrs! Being upright in her carseat helped her nose to drain, and the fever broke over night. We found out Thursday that the fever was probably teething-related, as her first little bottom center tooth cut! What a girl.
Unfortunately, now we're all at some stage of sickness. Mia is still sick, with a croupy sort of cough and still some congestion. Greg already had the sore throat/congestion earlier this week, and guess what lucky person woke up with a sore throat today? Yes, moi. I thought since I hadn't gotten sick this past week I was in the clear. Guess not.

Well, I have a raspy baby rolling around on the floor crying for my attention ("Stop blogging mommy!") so...must get going.
PS: The picture of Greg & Mia is from the Grand Ol' Opry, which we attended Friday night!